Joshua 22:10-12 | Episode #1252

August 4, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 22:10-12

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today. Word of God, please speak to the hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. Running, running ragged this morning. Actually I did the Bible study yesterday, but for some reason it didn't download and so I had to be in Chambers county to handle a case that had been assigned to me because a judge had to recuse himself. And so I was over in chambers county at 8:30, so I had to leave and I couldn't, I couldn't figure out what happened. I couldn't figure out how it got messed up. And so, so now I'm going to do the Bible study again that I did yesterday and then I'm going to try to do maybe two more Bible studies. We'll see what we'll see. I'm trying to get, get ahead but, but mainly trying not to be behind. And so this is an interesting story. And when I say it's an interesting story, it's an important spiritual. It is a insight for us as believers into making sure that we don't attack other people, that we don't go to. Well, as it says here in verse 12, that they gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them, that we don't go to war against someone based off of a misconstruing of intentions or why somebody is doing something. And oftentimes we do that. Not physical war, but we go into battle mode about somebody because of their perceived intentions. And let me say this, there are perceived intentions and their real intentions and sometimes you can't figure out both, but oftentimes you need to make sure that before you assign to somebody, judge somebody with the wrong intentions yourself. You make sure you at least try to in some way surmise the intentions of the other party. And that's what happens here. Remember, we got the two and a half tribes of Manasseh. We talked about it last Bible study. They went across the river. There was great concern by the people, by the tribes that were inside the River Jordan, meaning between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, with the Dead Sea at the south and the Sea of Galilee at the north. Those tribes were worried when the two and a half tribes went back across the river. They were strong tribes. They were strong militarily. They were worried that they would wander away, that they would eventually begin to worship other gods and that they would be separated from them. The tribes on the other side were concerned because they had a real concern because they were across the river from the other tribes and they would have to cross that river in order to come to the meeting place, the place where God would assign, which would ultimately be Jerusalem, where they would build the temple. They were worried that they would have to go over there to that side of the river and that they would have to go over and over again and that their people would grow weary of crossing that river. Because of the dangers of crossing a river. Historically, we have bridges and things like that. They did not. And so crossing rivers was dangerous. And especially crossing rivers with children and elderly, it was more and more dangerous the more you had to cross that river. And so there was a natural geographical barrier that would keep them apart. And so they were worried about that. Both of them were worried about that. And so in verse 10, it says, and when they came to the region of the Jordan which is in the land of Canaan, these are the soldiers who are going back home across the Jordan after having fought to subdue the promised land for the rest of the tribes of Israel and the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan, a great and impressive altar. So they build this giant altar, this giant place across the Jordan, and they built it. And it's just sitting there on the other side of the Jordan River. And it's not mistakeable. It's an altar. They've taken stones and they built a giant altar. There's. And if you wanted to get to assign them negative intentions, what you would say is, they're going to worship God on their side of the river and they're never going to come over here, and they're never ever going to be a part of what God had planned, for all of us to be united. And they're going to eventually fade away from us. And as they fade away from us, they're going to worship other gods. That's the negative intention that would be assigned to that. And so the children of Israel heard someone say, and notice that's the. As it were. That's the infamous. They said something, you know, someone said, they said, there's a lot of people talking about. There's a bunch of people that are worried about here. It gets very specific. Some one person said, but, you know, oftentimes we assign bad intentions. In fact, we're very negative about people because someone said something. Because someone said, and I'm going to say this to you right now, that is highly negative. That's something that is not a good idea. That is something that is a pitfall. It's a trap for leadership. It's a trap for you and your relationship with others. I don't ever listen to someone who comes to me and says, there's a lot of people, or they said, or this amorphous group of people said, because most of the time that's just that person and maybe one other person that have talked about it. Most of the time it's just this person and this person. Unless you name names, I don't care, I don't want to hear it. If you name names, I'm going to go talk to them about it and you know that. I'm going to go talk to them about it. And so you don't want to name their name because the truth is they were not all that bought into what you were saying and in the first place. And so they may have given you a tacit reply. They may have said, you know, tacitly, I understand they may have given you a little bit of credence in what you were saying, but the truth is, is that what you were saying was wrong and it shouldn't be. It should be ignored. And so when you come with me with some, some people have been talking, they said, I don't want to hear it. And the reason I don't want to hear it is, is because if, if there's a problem, there's a biblical solution to that problem. If you have an issue with your brother, the Bible teaches that you go to that brother, not. Not you meet in a group and send some, send a delegation. That's not how it works and it's not biblical. And so if there's an issue, you go meet with them. If there's not an issue, then don't, don't come to me with, with a amorphous group of people that I don't know their names. If there's an issue, let's sit down and talk. If there's not an issue, let's move forward. And so that's how that should work. But you always are going to have those who are stirring the pot. You're always going to have those who are the bitter backbiters, as the scripture calls them, the people who are bitter about whatever. And they back bite. They attack others. And notice they bite them in the back. They don't bite them in the front because they don't want anybody to know who they are. So someone said, behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan. What he's saying is they built an altar over there. Now he's. The intention is to say they're separating themselves, but that's not the intention of the people. And we're going to find that out in later Bible studies and Bible study tomorrow. It says in the region of the Jordan on the children of Israel side. So they didn't build it on their side, they built it on the children of Israel side, which ought to give you some understanding of what's going on. Okay. They didn't build it on the other side of the river. They built it on the children of Israel side of the river. Okay. You know, when, when, when, when you first hear it, you go, oh, no, they built an altar on the other side of the river. Oh no, they're going to go there and worship other gods. Now. They built it on this side of the river. That was the geographical problem. Why would you build an altar on this side of the river? If you're going to have to cross to this side of the river to worship there, you might as well come on and worship with the rest of the tribes of Israel. And so at the start of the Bible study, you noticed I kind of, kind of alluded that it might be on the other side of the river. The truth is it's not on the other side of the river. We find out it's on this side of the river. And that's how. And the truth is, that's how. That's how issues develop. That's how problems develop. When people don't have all their facts straight, when people don't know exactly what's going on, and when people start quoting other people without quoting their names. One of the worst things I think, that our media does, the thing that undermines their credibility with people, is they have unnamed sources. Well, unnamed sources are of no value. And what they have to say shouldn't be listened to. I want you to hear me. If. If a news article names an unnamed source, you should not listen to it. You should not listen to it at all. If you are going to. If you were going to handle a problem and deal with something and come out and say there's a problem here, then you ought to put your name with it. And if you're not willing to put your name with it, I don't really care what some reporter says, an unnamed source says, because I don't even know if that reporter has an. Has a name, has an actual source. Nobody even knows. Who knows. Who cares? And that's the point. Who cares? And so. And so now we know that they built an altar, but they built it on our side of the river. That ought to give them a clue. But it didn't. Why? Because we've already built this up to be something worse than it is that we've already built it up to be something that shouldn't be. And so he says, and when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them. Hmm. See, all of a sudden, you've got some. You've got a big fight that. That shouldn't have been a fight. You've got a big problem that shouldn't been a problem. You got. You got a big issue that really was ever an issue. And so the children of Israel are now getting ready to go to war against the two tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh over something that's not even real. It's not even a real problem, not even a real issue. You're going to waste the resources of accumulating an army, of moving an army to the Jordan river, of preparing for war, by the way, that's logistically very expensive. It's a big problem. It also gathers your army together on the western side of the country when there's not a problem on the other side of the river and on the eastern side of the country, where you do have problems, where you do have the Philistines, where you do have the Phoenicians, where you do have the Canaanites that they have not subdued, you have them over on the other side, and there's no army over there to Keep them in check. It's a big problem. And see, it's a big problem because someone said something. Someone said something. Who are they? I don't know. And then you're really messing yourself over and everybody else because you're running off to handle a problem that really doesn't exist. I trust that you'll learn not to do that. I trust that you'll learn not to listen to unnamed sources. People who put their name behind something really usually have something to say. If they put their name with it, with they have a reason for it. Those people ought to be listened to. Doesn't mean they're right. Doesn't mean they're doing it right. Doesn't mean they're saying the right thing. They should be listened to. Why? Because they're putting their name behind it, put their character behind it. And they can be talked to because you know who they are. You know, you can go and actually discuss it with them. There's actually some resolution that can be found. But if you, if you have an unnamed source, you. There's. There, there's. There's a boogeyman who has been. Who has been identified by even a worse boogeyman. So quit. Quit worrying about the monsters you don't know. Quit worried about the monsters that are unnamed and definitely don't listen to the monsters that won't give their name. As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.