{"id":13915,"date":"2021-01-24T21:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/joshua_22_10-20-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-01-24T15:56:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-24T22:56:27","slug":"joshua_22_21-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/joshua_22_21-30\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sign Across the River"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua 22:21-30 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Joshua 22:21-30.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Joshua 22:21-30 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh replied to the heads of the clans of Israel:
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“The Mighty One, God, the\u00a0LORD! The Mighty One, God, the\u00a0LORD! He knows! And let Israel know! If this has been in rebellion or disobedience to theLORD, do not spare us this day.
\n23\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0If we have built our own altar to turn away from the\u00a0LORD\u00a0and to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, or to sacrifice fellowship offerings on it, may theLORD\u00a0himself call us to account.
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“No! We did it for fear that some day your descendants might say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the\u00a0LORD, the God of Israel?
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you–you Reubenites and Gadites! You have no share in the\u00a0LORD.’ So your descendants might cause ours to stop fearing the\u00a0LORD.
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“That is why we said, ‘Let us get ready and build an altar–but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices.’
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0On the contrary, it is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow, that we will worship the\u00a0LORD\u00a0at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices and fellowship offerings. Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to ours, ‘You have no share in the\u00a0LORD.’
\n28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“And we said, ‘If they ever say this to us, or to our descendants, we will answer: Look at the replica of the\u00a0LORD’s altar, which our fathers built, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices, but as a witness between us and you.’
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Far be it from us to rebel against the\u00a0LORD\u00a0and turn away from him today by building an altar for burnt offerings, grain offerings and sacrifices, other than the altar of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0our God that stands before his tabernacle.”
\n30\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When Phinehas the priest and the leaders of the community–the heads of the clans of the Israelites–heard what Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had to say, they were pleased.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 21-30:\u00a0\u00a0Here the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh explain to the other tribes of Israel the reason why they built this huge altar.\u00a0It wasn\u2019t because they were worshiping another god as the other tribes of Israel had feared.\u00a0\u00a0Much the opposite, it was to reaffirm their commitment to worshiping the same Lord as the rest of the Israelites, despite living on the other side of the Jordan River.\u00a0\u00a0Their hope was that the altar would serve as a sign to all the Israelites on both sides of the river (\u201cas a witness between us and you and the generations that follow\u201d (v27)) that they were all one nation worshiping the same God.\u00a0\u00a0The delegation representing the other Israelite tribes is pleased with this response (v30).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0This huge altar was to serve as a sign that united tribes who were separated by a river.\u00a0\u00a0It reminds me of this truth: when we were separated from God not by a rushing river, but by an ocean called our sin, God erected a sign on our side of that ocean to unite us and Him.\u00a0\u00a0That sign is the cross where Jesus died.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like an altar, the cross was where a lamb \u2013 Jesus Christ the lamb of God \u2013 was sacrificed to atone for our sin.\u00a0\u00a0Just as the altar by the Jordan River was a sign from those on the other side saying \u201cwe\u2019re together in this\u201d, so the cross is the sign God placed on this side of heaven to let us know that we are not alone, that God loves us and is with us.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for erecting a sign on this side of heaven to unite us with You, that is the cross.\u00a0\u00a0Thank You for the cross, where all my sins were paid for, where forgiveness is made possible, and where sinners like us can be united with You.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Joshua 22:21-30.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Joshua 22:21-30 (NIV)\u00a0
\n21\u00a0\u00a0Then Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh replied to the heads of the clans of Israel:\u00a0
\n22\u00a0\u00a0“The Mighty One, God, the\u00a0LORD! The Mighty One, God, the\u00a0LORD! He knows! And let Israel know! If this has been in rebellion or disobedience to theLORD, do not spare us this day.\u00a0
\n23\u00a0\u00a0If we have built our own altar to turn away from the\u00a0LORD\u00a0and to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, or to sacrifice fellowship offerings on it, may theLORD\u00a0himself call us to account.\u00a0……<\/p>\n

On verses 21-30:\u00a0\u00a0Here the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh explain to the other tribes of Israel the reason why they built this huge altar.\u00a0It wasn\u2019t because they were worshiping another god as the other tribes of Israel had feared.\u00a0\u00a0Much the opposite, it was to reaffirm their commitment to worshiping the same Lord as the rest of the Israelites, despite living on the other side of the Jordan River.\u00a0\u00a0Their hope was that the altar would serve as a sign to all the Israelites on both sides of the river (\u201cas a witness between us and you and the generations that follow\u201d (v27)) that they were all one nation worshiping the same God.\u00a0\u00a0The delegation representing the other Israelite tribes is pleased with this response (v30).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13916,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13915\/revisions\/13916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}