Disclaimer: Please forgive any typographical, grammatical, and/or content errors in the following notes. They are not meant to be an exact transcription, but rather a helpful guide for those who appreciate the written word along with the spoken word. If you have any questions on what was taught, feel free to reach out on our ‘Contact Us’ page.
Chapters 6 and 7 deal with a very heavy topic—sin. God hates sin and He deals with it with justice and mercy—praise God. Today in our text, we see the justice of God on full display. Sin is a serious subject and in chapter 6 we saw how God dealt with the sin and people of Jericho. In the midst of dealing with the sin of Jericho, it revealed sin in the camp of Israel, specifically manifested through Achan. How subtle and insidious sin can be as it draws us into ineffective Christian lives. Don’t hear “unsaved,” but hear “ineffective. God has grace and mercy for us in our ineffectiveness and He will draw us out of that in His way.
In the first half of this chapter, we saw how easy it was for presumptive self-confidence can draw us into complacency, prayerlessness, and a forgetting of God’s promises because we are not rooted in His word. These passive things will result in active, willful rebellion and disobedience against Him. In Hebrew, sin literally means to “miss the mark.” All sin is rooted in pride, in self. Therefore, what we can say is that all sin is idolatry, it is self-worship. You are not submitting to God and His standard, but making your own standard. You’re not missing the mark, you’re making your own mark. That’s what sin is and we throw that word around a lot in church settings, but why we feel it’s impotantWhy God comes down so harshly on sin especially when it manifests in a new work is because it is the spirit of idolatry and the spirit of self—setting yourself on the throne.
God loves us too much to allow us to stay there. Thankfully he often will start by gently rousing us out of our sin. How many of you are light sleepers? Someone might give a gentle nudge, grab a cup of coffee, and you are your natural self. Some of us are the opposite. Try as one might, you just cannot be roused. Sin can be like that. The longer we go in those passive types of sins, the more likely it is that we are not just taking a little siesta, but we are hibernating and it requires us to be doused with the proverbial bucket of water to wake us up. That’s what we see today—God using a bucket of water and shaking Israel at its roots as their sin passively, ultimately culminated in the act of disobedience in the sin of Achan. We praise God that His mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness is great. But in the midst of grace and mercy, especially the longer we walk in that way, the easier they are to take it for granted and we begin to do what Scripture calls “quenching the Spirit.” The gentle nudges are coming, but we’re not paying attention to them anymore and we simply go on doing what we want to do. Praise God when we respond to those gentle nudges and wake up, when we confess our sin, when we repent in response by turning from sin and to God in worship.
We can’t talk about sin without talking about repentance. When we talk about the process—there are three steps— and you’ll hear it over and over today because I hope that by God’s grace this can root into our hearts. First, is confession. You need to acknowledge the sin, the self-worship that the Lord is revealing to you, and it doesn’t end there, confession is the beginning. Next, it should evolve into repentance, turning your back from the sin and moving to God. Finally, it should move us to a heart of worship, that He still loves us through our sin. 1. Confess 2. Repent 3. Return to the Lord in worship. Do not quench the Spirit. That will lead to hibernation which leads to a dowsing which you don’t want to experience. The Lord loves us enough to allow that to reveal what’s going on in your heart.
So God had identified sin in the camp. In Joshua 7:13 God says, “Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the Lord, God of Israel, “There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.” The Lord wants to do work in our lives. He wants to bless us with His presence chiefly, with His power, His truth, His Word and it will not happen insofar as there is sin reigning in our lives. Now we all sin. We all struggle with sin, that’s the reality of the Galatians 5 war between the Spirit within us and our flesh/self/pride. When we allow that flesh/pride/sin to take front seat in our lives, to take control where we’re following that rather than seeking to fight against it, that’s when the Lord says, “I’ve got to do something about this.” There needs to be an act of consecration. For the individual that means repentance of course, and hopefully He moves us there. We talked about what the Lord brought Joshua through and how to lead the people collectively, but now in the second half of the chapter He gets down to dealing with the individual. So that’s what we’re going to look at today—how we look at our own individual hearts as we are in sin.
The text continues in verses 14-18: In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near by clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man. 15 And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.’” 16 So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken. 17 And he brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken. And he brought near the clan of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken. 18 And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
Point number 1 that I want to draw out today is that sin will always be brought into the light. It will always be illuminated and it will not be able to stay in the dark. Lest you think you may have gotten away with something in this life or kept something hidden, we all know that we will stand before the throne of God and it will be exposed for all to see. Scripture says very clearly in Ecclesiastes 12:14, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” There are no secrets is basically what it’s saying. In Numbers 32 when Moses is talking to the tribes who wanted to remain on the east side of the Jordan who pledged themselves to continue to fight in the Promised Land, he says, “Okay, you can do that, but if you break your covenant, you can be sure that your sin will find you out.” That is a principle—your sin will find you out. It will be brought to light. It will be brought to bear. We can see this in Hebrews 4:13 as well. There is no such thing as being outside of God’s view. “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Sin will always be brought into the light. It will not remain hidden or left in the dark.
The text continues in verses 19 and 20: Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.” [Note: This was an oath. Much like our ‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?’] 20 And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel…
Now after a quick reading we would think that Achan had just repented of his sin, right? He most certainly did not. There is a major difference between simply acknowledging your sin (i.e. confessing it) and again not turning to the Lord in repentance. There are lots of people who will say, “Ya, I did that,” and have zero remorse for it, what scripture calls “godly grief” over it. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” And then verses 11 and 12 give a description of what godly grief looks like. We’re not going to go into that today, but I would encourage you to study it. There is a major difference between saying, “Oh, you caught me. I did that”—worldly grief and godly sorrow, the sorrow that leads to repentance.
How do I know that Achan wasn’t truly repentant? Achan had five opportunities to come out, acknowledge, and repent of his sin. Did you catch that in the text? God gave a very clear outline of how He was going to ferret it out. How many of you have ever been in trouble as a kid and you’re just hoping that mom and dad don’t figure it out and all of a sudden mom comes along or dad comes along and starts asking questions. “Hey, where were you on Friday night? Who were you with? What did you talk about? How long were you there?” Going down the levels… “Oh, so you actually were with her then.” You can almost feel Achan in this scenario as the noose tightened around his neck. Achan, why did you not, if you were truly repentant, the first time it was announced to all of Israel, admit, “It was me. I messed up. Would you forgive me?” There’s no request for forgiveness recorded in Scripture. Five steps he had. Fun fact for the day, in biblical numerology, which counts for very little but is fun—five is the number of God’s grace. Five chances for sincere repentance that Achan had and didn’t take any of them until it ultimately got down to him.
Why? Well, what did Acahn do? He took a beautiful cloak of Babylon and what many people account as a lifetime’s worth of money for the average worker. So, how much money are you going to make in your lifetime? Think about that. All of sudden, it’s right there in front of you. And the Lord says, no one touch it—that’s Mine, it goes in My treasury as an act of worship. But, wow, it’s right there, and sadly that’s what Acahn did—he took it and buried it in his tent. His heart and devotion was far from God. It was solely placed on himself. There was absolutely no way that he could ever, ever, ever have worn that cloak in Israel. It wasn’t possible. What does that mean? Now we’re inferring into the Word of God here; let me be perfectly clear that the text does not say this, but the very strong inference is that Achan had no plans on staying in Israel. He was going to bounce the first chance he had. He had a lifetime’s worth of money and a beautiful cloak to walk around in and show everyone he was a big shot. The Lord knew his heart.
So, Achan continues without repentance and let me just underline this point. There is no salvation without repentance. Faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. There is no genuine and sincere faith without repentance. There is no genuine and sincere repentance without faith in Jesus, the one who can actually save us from our sin. Amen?
Joshua 7:20-21 records Achan’s response: And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: 21 when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.” Deliberate sin will always, always, always follow the same pattern. We have here the anatomy of sin: See, Want, Take, Hide.
Where was the first time sin was recorded in the Word of God? Genesis 3:6-8 says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
I recently just took a work trip to Las Vegas for the Ford conference and to meet with some folks for the investment business. And I have to tell you, Las Vegas knows that first part really well! It knows that sin always starts through the eyes. Anyone here a marketer, in marketing. Yes. Ok, marketing is just another word for “enticing to sin” so, thank you (laughter). That’s all marketing is. 100%. It’s how to get your heart to want what I’m offering. Satan is the greatest marketer there is and Sin City puts that on full display doesn’t it? I don’t even need to describe it, you know. Appealing to every one of the basest desires, those things in your heart that you want.
Then I went to New Orleans this past week! That place is a dump, but they have really good food and in the hotel that we stayed at they were just handing out beignets. Gained 5 pounds in 2 days. Lord, I confess my gluttony. I fell right for it. They enticed me. But, that’s how it works, doesn’t it. You see it—it’s a delight to your eyes. It appeals to something within you and now you want it. And the enemy is smart. It doesn’t have to be the first time. The first time! Then that wasn’t even a test. The devil is playing the long game—the 10th, 28th, 50th time—when you just can’t take it anymore and you want, desire, and covet it. This culture is all about getting you to covet and it’s constantly getting you to look at what others have. We can rationalize that some good could come from it and rationalize that poison could give you an immunity to some things over time. Or it could kill you. Right?
We see how the enemy can use that. We see beautiful babies, and houses, and cars and we start thinking, “Why don’t I have that?” That’s how the enemy works and we know it, but how many of us are aware of it when it’s happening. This is why we’re told to wake up in the morning and put on the full armor of God so we can walk in wisdom and discernment and rooted in His truth so we can be aware of what is going on in our heart as we’re going through the marketing campaign of sin all around us. I saw it. I coveted it. I took it. James 4:2-3 in the NLT says, “You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
Taking is all about making your way. Remember, that’s sin, missing the mark. Please do not allow the enemy to twist and create an ability to rationalize and justify this. There is no such thing as the ‘crime of passion’ or ‘in the heat of the moment.’That’s a lie. There is something that has been brewing in your heart that has been undealt with, unconfessed, and the enemy finally gets to that 28th time of temptation and BOOM it comes out, however that looks, it can come out in explosive rage or indulgence. You may want to say, “I was just caught up in the heat of the moment.” Sure you were, because you had allowed your heart to be and you had already fallen time after time because you didn’t address it the first time you saw and coveted it. It is easier to overcome and not getting to the point of taking if we confess our want right away. It’s like Jesus said in Matthew 5:28, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Your eyes are wanting and when you finally go and take in the heat of the moment and think ‘I’ve finally messed up.’ Nope. That happened a long time ago. So the quicker we can recognize, by God’s grace and the Spirit who convicts us in His love, the quicker we can confess and repent and return to the Lord in worship.
After seeing and wanting and taking is hiding. Proverbs 28:13 says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” First, the enemy makes that thing so enticing and when we take it the lies start pouring in…you are despicable. How can you call yourself a follower of God? He will never use you! You’re a dirty, rotten, liar. The best thing you can do is crawl into a hole and die. Every one of those things is a lie. But, we can believe them so easily once we’ve done something that we know is wrong. There are a few things that can happen. Either I listen to the lies and I spiral down. Or I listen to the Spirit and repent. Let’s take that option, church. Amen? Or I just say, “I don’t even care anymore, but I have it all”, and I try to numb my pain, not by spiraling into depression, but by spiraling into indulgence. I let myself get so far down the path that I justify and rationalize and I say, “There is no God because I don’t like how I feel when I actually think about it.”
This is where we need to let the Spirit break through. God will not convict because we are bad, but because He loves us and wants us to experience love and hope and true life. He’s not trying to take something away, but give you the best you could ever have. That’s what the enemy is trying to twist and trying to get us to be deaf to so we keep hiding it which could be literal as is in this text or figurative or metaphorical when we hide it in our hearts.
So the text continues in Joshua 7:22-25: “So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. 23 And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord.24 And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.”
Fun fact #2 for the day. The name Achan means “Troubler.” So Joshua said Troubler, why did you trouble us now you will have trouble. And the Valley of Achor sounds a lot like the word for ‘trouble’. So the Lord is making it very clear here in the Hebrew (which is a language that depends highly upon sound in expressing connotation and meaning) that trouble abounds. Sin always, always affects those around you. It always has a far broader impact than just little old you. The problem is we’re already so used to thinking about ourselves, worshiping ourselves and viewing ourselves through our own selfish lenses so we rationalize and justify that we’re not hurting anyone around us so I can make my own choices for me. Please, hear the lies in that thinking. That is not the way of wisdom, that is not the way of truth, that is the way of the fool. Ecclesiastes 9:16 says, “Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.” We’re all sinners, we’ve all destroyed things, but note the tense here is one who is on-going and defiantly sinning.
Eventually, we will get others to sin with us. Scripture uses the example of leaven for sin all the time. It spreads. In Romans 1 in Paul’s description of how God gives people over to the depravity of sin when they have turned from Him, the chapter concludes, “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Talk about a description of our culture. Sin will always have an impact and a draw. It never just remains with you.
So Joshua dealt with the sin as the Lord instructed in Joshua 7:25-26: “And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. 26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.”
Much like Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, the Lord deals very swiftly and strongly with sin that threatens to defile this fresh, new work that He’s doing. Now, some of us may be very troubled by the reality, though technically unclear, of what happened to Achan’s family. Well, first of all, let me say and remind us of where the booty was hidden. Where did ‘x’ mark the spot? His tent. They all knew and any one of them could have come forth five times. Technically it is unclear whether his family was killed because the “them” in verse 25 could refer back to the devoted things. It only specifically says that Achan himself was stoned and Achan himself had the heap of stones put over him and nowhere does it mention Achan’s wife. We don’t know. But we do know that if it did in fact include his whole family then God was just and righteous and holy and appropriate for their own sin. God is the judge. We don’t know what happened clearly from the text, but even if his family survived, there were 36 other men who didn’t because of Achan’s sin and God is going to be just and holy and there are always going to be consequences to sin which are negative to the person at the time, but ultimately positive for God’s glory.
God loves us and He loves us enough to illuminate that sin and bring it out of hiding. He loves us enough to feel the consequence of our sin so that we can learn and grow and hopefully, by God’s grace, truly and genuinely and sincerely repent of it and return to Him in worship.
Here are a couple of practical takeaways from this text:
- Do not be taken aback by the earthly consequences of sin. It would be a mistake to say, “Wow, the Lord dealt really harshly with Achan.” But be reminded how terrible sin is and how terrible it is to be separated from God. We will not be walking with God when we are walking in our own design, plan, or sin. When we see the consequence of sin playing out, please do not focus on the consequence of sin, focus on the heart. How many of you have ever had a sick child? It’s the worst thing because you feel so helpless. I mean, you can pray, but it’s hard. At that moment, your child may think, “I can’t play in my football game!” But the parent knows not to care about that short-term game. He knows the focus should be on the injury or sickness to heal because that’s the root of it. That’s the way God sees it. He doesn’t concern Himself with the analogy of what’s not going to be able to happen because I can’t do this anymore because this has been taken from me. He loves us enough to allow things to happen to address the deep hurt and truly heal the problem that there. He does that through His son and His Holy Spirit. So don’t get trapped in the consequences of sin, but get wrapped up in the grace of the Father who forgives and cleanses and heals and set us up to flourish moving forward.
- Confess your sin as soon as possible! Not just confess, but repent and return to the Lord in worship. It is better to deal with it now than to have the Lord rip back the curtain when you least expect it or want it. He will make a way when we come to Him. Someone once said, “Every sin that you cover, God will uncover; but every sin that you uncover, God will cover.” Amen? That is the grace of the gospel-what Jesus has done for us. He is the healer of our body and soul and makes us a useful and purposeful instrument in His hands.
- Great victory is a prime time for temptation. We see this pattern in all of Scripture. This even happens with Christ. Directly from his baptism, Jesus was tempted in the desert. After a victory, there is often pride. Have wisdom and recognize it. This is why humility is so important and we need to deflect all success to the Lord. It is all God working in you and through you. Stay rooted in that so when the temptation comes we can answer with the Word of God in wisdom. Know and see the pattern of temptation. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Then we have understanding and knowledge and that has to go to our heart, not our head. How do we take this pattern of wisdom and knowledge and rightly applying it. We need to be aware and pray to recognize lies. Don’t delude yourself and ask what you’re allowing your eyes to see or making plans to have, or what am I hiding? It is far better to be Rahab than Acahan. Would that we be all prostitutes who are willing to humble themselves before the Lord and live, rather than self-righteous soldiers who think they’ve got it all figured out, but dead in their sins despite growing up in the people of God.
- Do not allow God’s just dealings with sin to discourage you. If your heart is beating a million miles an hour or if your mind is trying to deflect this message because you’re hiding something. You are loved and all those around you love you and want you to confess. If there are those who will cast stones and condemn in their own pride, then shame on that because there is no room for that. Have the hope that correction brings. He gives us a fresh start. In biblical prophecy the Valley of Trouble will become a Field of Peace for the shepherd’s flock. Isaiah 65:10 says, “Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, for my people who have sought me.” Hosea 2:15 says, “And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.”
Church, hope, joy and peace is intended to come out of our trouble. Respond to the Lord as He moves. Confess, repent, return to the Lord in worship. And as scripture says, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. That’s what we should do as a family. So we love one another and pursue the Lord as one body. Amen.