Joshua 7 Bible Study (Israel Defeated at Ai/The Sin of Achan) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Meet me in Joshua chapter seven. And as you're turning there, we're gonna pray and ask the lord to help us tonight. Joshua chapter seven. Lord, we thank you for the wonderful news that, Sunday morning, we're we're here together again. And, Lord, we ask that between now and then, we would be prepared to celebrate your grace throughout these past three months and to also ask you what you want of us as we hopefully are coming back to what we knew before this whole lockdown.

Lord, in this moment, we ask for your presence and your power to fill every room through every stream, Lord, changed as a result of this study. And although it's a teaching, Lord, we pray that it wouldn't be information only. Let it change us. Let it convict us. Let it comfort us.

Give us the ability to receive everything and say yes and amen to that. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen and amen. Joshua chapter six is where we were last week, and it was an exciting chapter. It was a glorious chapter.

It was filled with faith and testimony of the goodness of God. And now we come to Joshua chapter seven, and unfortunately, sometimes the chapter breaks do us a disservice. They help for memorization. But when we look at the first verse, we're gonna see something that continues from the last verse. And it demands us to look through the big number seven there and to see it as a continuous thought.

Now, what we're about to experience here with the Israelites is a heavy truth. This chapter is very much in contrast to chapter six. Again, chapter six was filled with light and hope and faith and miracles and the glory of God. And now we're gonna see the depravity of man, rebellion, covenant breaking, grief because of sin. And it's it's a really heavy chapter.

And in fact, there's nothing light about it from beginning to end. Israel, up to this point, has looked nothing like their parents. Whatever God commanded them, they obeyed. Whatever was dished out to them, they said in their hearts, we are not going to be like our parents, and they walked out in faithful obedience, and they made it to the promised land. And as they came in, they saw victory.

They they saw what faithfulness to Jesus can do. But what we're gonna learn in chapter seven is that even when you're in the promised land, even if you're in the center of God's will, listen carefully, sin is still possible. Brokenness is still possible. Things can change drastically even when you are where God wants you to be, and it's not because God changes. It's because we change.

And so as we read this, we're about to see something that happened, you can say, for the first time in a serious way with the second generation. And it's something that we've seen continually throughout the Exodus and the book of Numbers, and it is pure rebellion. Pure rebellion from this people. And it goes to show that it doesn't matter what generation you're from, this is a sickness that every generation deals with. Humanity has not gotten better throughout time.

In fact, Jesus promises it's only gonna get worse. And so let's read from verse one in Joshua chapter seven. Here's what the Holy Spirit says to us. But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. For Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zebdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.

Now the word there is but, the first word. So it connects us to the last verse, at least, in chapter six. So go to chapter six, and let's see the last verse. What was the last thing that we were left with in our bible study? Verse 27 of chapter six.

So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land. But chapter seven verse one. What does that tell us? Well, it at least tells us this one thing, that things can happen even at the height of spiritual success. Great crashes, turning points for the worst often happen, in fact, at the height of great advancement and blessing from God and through us for God's glory.

It's not that Joshua himself sinned. It wasn't just that Joshua was lifted up. The whole nation was. They had seen an amazing thing. But not just in Israel case, in many cases, for individuals and corporate churches and ministries, there is a lot of buts, so to speak, in the narrative of their walk with the Lord and in their ministry for the Lord.

What that tells us is that even though we are seeing blessing from God, even though we are being used to be blessings to others, even though we are seeing great advancement in our knowledge of the word, in our ministries, in in our prayer lives, in our personal holiness, we are still, if not, we are more open to receiving a mindset that makes us almost thinking we are invincible to sin and to failure, when in fact, we are greater targets for it. And so this is just a nudge that even when things go well, especially when things go well for your life, for the church's life, we must be extra vigilant for things that can come in, because the attack that's about to come upon Israel was not from the outside. It was from the inside. This is not the enemy coming into the camp. This is something within the camp that is coming out.

And the same thing with Israel is true with us. We have enemies outside of us, but our greatest enemy is us, and they failed to see that. So what happens is we are told in verse one not only that Israel sinned, but that Achan is the culprit who has been caught by the Lord for taking the devoted things from Jericho. Why is that important? Well, we learn in chapter six that when when they were about to enter into Jericho, God spoke to Joshua to speak to the people.

Listen. Here's one of my instructions. You're gonna get victory. You're gonna take over, but you cannot take one thing that is devoted to destruction. You cannot take one thing that belongs to me.

You do what you need to do, and you honor this commandment. Now you know who was there when Joshua said that loud and clear? Achan. And what we learned from this, I mean, this is this is right after that happened. Achan heard what Joshua had to say.

It went in one ear, and it went out the other. He had no regard for it. He did not feel the weightiness of the implications. And maybe he did in the moment, but it did not carry through when it really needed to carry through. Achan was the person that was found guilty.

But notice that even though it was an individual sin, we are told what? Israel broke faith in regard to devoted things. Well, hold on. Achan broke the law. Why is Israel being condemned with him?

Is God unfair? Is God unjust? I think there's a very simple answer to this, And the simple answer is when God laid out the command, he also laid out the consequences. He he's not doing something here that he did not warn them of before. And so this was what he said in paraphrase.

Even if one of you take this, the whole camp is going to pay for it. Now why would God do that? Again, we might think that, well, that's unfair. Well, God in his wisdom, wanting to promote the fear of the Lord, wanting to grant a sense of greater deterrent towards sin, lays out a more severe consequence that goes beyond the individual. It's as though to say, this is greater than you.

Even if you are tempted to think this is my sin, it's staying with me, God blows that out of the water, and he says, even if one of you, it's gonna count for the whole camp. And so as they understood that, they would face these temptations, and they would they would filter it through that consequence. This is not just gonna affect me even if I'm willing to do this if it just affects me. This is gonna affect my brothers, my sisters, my neighbors. And so God is not being unfair here when he laid out the terms beforehand.

It was so that he could provide a greater weightiness to the implications of this sin being committed with the hopes that it would shield their hearts from even entertaining the possibility of breaking this command. And it goes to show that even with something so serious and so profound, a man didn't care. He did not take God's word seriously. He continued in his own way, and and we're gonna see how he's gonna pay for that and how the nation's gonna pay for that. You know what else we take from verse one?

We read verse one as readers, and we go, we know what this is all gonna be about. We're gonna see that Achan clearly broke God's law, and we're gonna see the consequences of that sin. But in verse two down, we're gonna realize that we are aware, but Joshua is not aware. The the elders are not aware. The the other soldiers are oblivious.

But you know what verse one tells us? God knows. You know what that tells you and me? That even though your leaders don't know, even though your fellow brothers and sisters in your local church don't know, God knows your address. God knows what you do and what I do in our own tents.

And not only does god know what we've done, where we did it, when we did it. You know what's amazing? Just so the lord can show the depths of his knowledge, he knows your ancestry line. Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zebedee, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah. Not only does he know what you do in the moment, he knows where you came from.

He knows who your grandpa, your great grandfather, your great grandmother is. There's nothing that you can hide from God. You can hide it from your pastor. Your pastor is not God. He doesn't have all knowledge.

He has limited understanding. But you know what? There is somebody who always sees and is always recording, who has a book of remembrance, and it's God almighty. If Achan would have known that and really believed that, he would have played the fool in thinking that he can bury his sin, which he literally does, as we're about to find out. Again, brace yourselves.

This is a heavy chapter. So what happens? In verse two, we are told, Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, do not have all the people go up, but let about two or 3,000 men go up and attack Ai.

Do not make the whole people toil there, for they are few. So about 3,000 men went up there from the people, and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai killed about 36 of their men, and chased them before the gate as far as Cherubim, descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water. What's going on here?

Joshua realizes that although there was a successful first mission with Jericho, there is much more to be done, and so he wastes no time. He does what he did with Jericho. He gets spies. He says, go and spy out the land. Come back with a report so that we can know how to strategize, and do this the best way possible.

The men come back and they say, listen, Joshua, this is no big deal. AI is a small town. Nothing in comparison to Jericho. We don't even need to send out all the troops. Just send out two or 3,000.

Let them take care of it, and let's move on. Now when you and I read that, we're almost a little, challenged with the attitude of this people. Because you read it, and you're almost debating, is this a matter of self confidence, or is this a display of bold faith? Is this them just thinking, yeah, you know, we got this. We we can handle this.

Or is this them coming with the knowledge that they are being used by God and God is gonna move on their behalf, but they are they are acting in faith? You can debate it. You can debate it. We can debate it, but I don't think that's the main focus here. Because as we're gonna discover, the consequence is not based on their strategy towards AI.

It is what we learn in verse one. And so this is what they're gonna discover, and the feeling that they get when these 36 men are killed is exactly what their enemies felt when they heard that Israel was coming their way. What was it? Their hearts melted, and they became like water. There was no stability.

There's no concrete assurance. It was loose. It was fluid. It was terrifying, and it would be terrifying. Put yourself in their shoes.

God has promised you over and over again, not one of you is gonna be destroyed. If you just obey me, everything's gonna go well. You're gonna have every inch of the promised land. Everything is in your hand if you just walk in my ways, and here you are on your second mission, the second day on the job, so to speak, and you have a much smaller town chasing your people to the gate and killing 36 of your men. Talk about confusion.

Talk about frustration. Talk about being terrified. Talk about trying to make sense of this. We took care of Jericho, and now we come to this small little town, and we're being chased like animals. How does this work?

And here's the thing. You and I know why this is happening. Joshua and the elders do not know why. But what Joshua is about to do is worthy of our study, because there are things that he's about to do that we should take from and learn from, and I think it's a wonderful, wonderful example for us to consider for our own lives. What is this man about to do?

He hears this clearly, and then we come to verse six. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. This was a tragedy. This was almost chaotic. This was a, an invasion of confusion for Joshua as a leader of this people.

And you know what his reflex is? To get on his face before God. Now I want you to think about this, because if we're honest with ourselves, perhaps this would not be our reflex in face of a dilemma like this. If we're really honest with ourselves, we know what we are we we have the potential to do, and it can look ugly. It's amazing what disappointment, pressure, and traumatic experiences can reveal about ourselves, even to the point that when things are exposed in those moments, we ourselves are even embarrassed of our own attitudes.

You know, it's possible for people who have served God to, at one moment, glory and worship God because of his faithfulness. And because something goes wrong, they raise their fist towards heaven, and are on the border of cursing God. There are others who also that because they see the apparent lack of God's intervention, what do they do? They they are willing to walk out on God completely. It's sad to hear stories of people who have once walked with the Lord and say, you know, I used to be like that, or I used to walk with the Lord, but then this and this happened, and I just don't understand how God can be God if this happened.

But that's not what Joshua does. His reflex is, I don't understand what's happening. I can't make sense of it. And so instead of raising my fist to heaven, I'm gonna put my face in the dust. Imagine that.

Imagine coming to such a point in your walk with the Lord that your reflex in not knowing something is to actually seek God instead of questioning him. Now he is gonna question him, but in in the place of humility and brokenness, not in the place of pride and rebellion. And so this is an example for us to consider that when we face things that are, perhaps we can say failures unknown to us, why did this happen, or even tragedies that we are unaware of, God is worthy of such a response like this. Do you think Joshua was the only man of God that did something like this? No.

Think of Job, where everything was stripped from everything was stripped from I mean, down to his bones. And before his body was afflicted, when he received the news of one servant coming after the other, he did very much what Joshua did to a certain extent, and instead he worshiped on top of it. He tore his clothes. He put himself in the dust, and it says he worshiped. He worshiped.

Now, I don't know about you. I read something like this. I read something like Job, and I think to myself, Lord, I wanna come to the place where that's what I'm able to do as I face failure or tragedy or trauma. I want that to be what I do when I don't understand, to come to the one who understands all things. I wanna be able to run to you.

I know I can run to a million other people. I can run to I can run to so many other solutions, but, Lord, may I be one who first is able to come to you? That is a deep work of the Holy Spirit, but it's possible. It is a possibility if we believe it. And as he humbles himself, that's the first thing he does.

Now we see what he's going to do on top of that. Says here in verse seven, and Joshua said, alas, oh lord god, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? With that we have been content to dwell beyond the Jordan. Oh, Lord, what can I say? When Israel has turned their backs before their enemies.

Now let's just stop there. What what is Joshua doing? Joshua is honestly but reverentially seeking God, And so he puts the dust on his head. He tears his clothes, and it wasn't a momentary thing. It says that he was there until the evening with the elders.

This was something that deeply, deeply broke them. And as they're there, they are before the ark of the covenant symbolizing the presence of God. They are in his presence. They're not running to any other place to calculate how this happened. They're not looking to their strategist.

They're not looking to anything. They are coming before God, and as he does, he opens his mouth, and he's about to pour out what is in there. And there's reverence mingled with honesty. Where's the reverence? Alas, oh lord god.

He's addressing god and and recognizing for who he is. Where's the honesty? The questioning, the raw questioning to the point of, you can say, accusation, which is where we gotta be careful. But as he comes, I would argue that it is better to come to God with our honest emotions and questions than not to come to God at all. We might be quick to condemn Joshua for his attitude here, and we would be right to say, though we can come to God honestly, we should not think that we have the right to shoot off words to this holy king.

But we have to understand that it is much better to come before the Lord the way we are than to run away from him and harbor things in our own hearts and allow other voices to influence us instead of the voice of God. Because as you and I come into the presence of God the way we are, as we are exposed to something that jars us, listen, in due time, God is merciful enough to give us answers. God is still gracious enough to see us in that kind of a state, and he's not waiting for the right recipe of words, so to speak. But that act of faith of coming broken before God, shattered before him is enough for God to consider and to mercifully move upon us, to give us what we need to move forward in faithfulness. That is how wonderful the Lord is.

He's a father. He's a father that, yes, demands reverence, but also accepts our honesty. Listen. I think it's possible that what Joshua is doing here is admirable, but to learn from in this sense, that you realize up to this point all he's doing is accusing God, and I think we can fall into that same trap. And we have to be careful that whenever we look at things that don't make sense, that as much as it should be our reflex to come before God, we should be careful to blaming him for everything.

Do you know what's sad about Joshua's whole, wording here? He doesn't consider him or Israel as a possible suspect to why this is happening. It's all about God. Right? And we can fall into that same trap where we look at events in life, and because we can't make sense of it, we realize God knows all things, so we put all the blame on him.

No. We we can't do that. We come before him. We can ask him. We can wonder.

We can we can be honest, but we have to be careful of saying this is your fault. You let this happen. Honesty is important in prayer. God honors that, but reverence needs to be mingled with that. And what's beautiful is as though Joshua in this state of prayer, as he's exercising this faith, his mind begins to clear up a little bit.

Because you see that he's questioning and and accusing, but then look at verse nine. It says, for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. It's all about me, me. And then he says this at the end, and what will you do for your great name? Oh, what a what a breath of fresh air in the middle of this.

You can't help but think that Joshua, in this moment, is wrestling with thoughts within, with emotions within. He understands that God is faithful. He understands that he just did a miracle with a fortress called Jericho, and now he's coming to this, and he doesn't it doesn't make sense as he's trying to equate it, and he's wrestling within. And up to this point, he's considered he's he's concerned about what? His well-being and the reputation of his people and how the news is gonna spread, and and now greater threats are gonna come on the horizon because of this failure.

And then he talks about me, and he and he looks to God, and he's blaming, And then all for a sudden, things clear up, and he goes, in your name. Your name. Lord, in the end, this is all about you and your glory. And that's where Joshua ends. That's what he comes to.

The the concern at the punctuation is the glory of God. We represent you, Lord. I represent you. I'm a Christian. I follow Jesus, and, Lord, this looks really bad.

And, lord, I don't want to I don't wanna endure this in the wrong way. I don't wanna handle this in the wrong way because in the end, my name is attached to your name. And so, lord, what about you? And I love this. You know why?

Because Joshua was a good student. Joshua did not allow his time as an assistant of his late leader Moses go in vain. Because you and I remember in Exodus 32, right, when Moses was in the presence of God, and he gets news from God himself. Look at this rebellious people. Here you are receiving what I'm going to give to them as their next step, and they make a golden calf.

And then God is telling Moses that he's gonna destroy this people. Now listen to this proposal. And through Moses, he's gonna birth a new nation. That sounds really good. You're saying I'm gonna be the father of a whole people group, and God was willing to do it.

You think God was lying? And what does Moses do? He says in Exodus thirty two twelve, why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? As much as that proposal might have been tempting to even us, there's something else that was consuming Moses, and it was the glory of God. Or what about your reputation?

Never mind my reputation. What are people gonna say about you? And here's what you and I can take from this, Joshua's life and Moses' life. You have two men here, though they were flesh and blood just like us, who were so convinced that their lives were gonna be for the glory of God, that their ministries, that their reputation, that their whatever was all set apart for the name of the Lord to be exalted. And here's the wonderful thing.

If you are a person that internally knows my life is for God to be pleased and to be blessed and to be praised, this is your inheritance. God will delight to provide, to assist, to guide, to lead, to protect, and to give you answers as he did for Moses and as he's about to do for Joshua. When your life is set apart for these things, God will do what he needs to do in your life to make sure that you are in the center of his will and that you avoid the things that other people are being victim to. But only for a man, only for a woman who in their hearts throb for God's reputation. They have holy jealousy for God's name.

You can get there. Paul was there. These men were there. Surely, it's something that you and I can receive. Now what happens when god answers?

He gives clarity. And before he explains, though, he gives two strong words that seem kind of strange in light of this man who is broken before him. Verse 10. The Lord said to Joshua, get up. Get up.

Get up. And then you go to verse 13, he says it again. Get up. Think, Lord, what are you trying to say here? Here's this man who's confused, who's broken, and he's trying to find answers.

He doesn't know why, and we can say, well, maybe he's giving this strong rebuke because of the accusations that are being said, and and we can argue for that. But look what he says, get up. Why have you fallen on your face? And I think there's a principle here, and here here's the principle, at least one, that as faithful followers of the Lord, there are times when we need to pray and there are other times when we need to act. And we can't mix those two actions.

We need to be able to discern when it is time to seek God and when it is time to actually move practically in life and do things. See, there are people who pray and pray and pray, but never wanna act. But prayer is not something you do with the hopes that God will do everything for you. Oftentimes, what prayer is is you seeking the Lord for the strength and the wisdom and the grace to tackle issues in life with his enablement. And there are some people who pray and pray and pray for things and matters that the scripture already gives us clear answers for and requires no prayer for.

Let me give you an example. Here's a person that's perhaps dating a non believer and has no interest in the gospel. For them to come up to anybody, spiritual leaders or friends, and say, can you pray if this is God's will? I don't need to pray for it for it to be God's will. You don't need to pray if it's God's will.

Look what the scripture says. Do not be unequally yoked with the non believer. And so there are people who just pray, pray, pray, pray. They wanna pray, and they don't wanna do anything else, and they're they're they're hoping that by praying, God will do everything, and God can do miracles, and there are some circumstances where he must intervene, and it's beyond us. But there are things that we need to do and require our participation, and this is where we need to find balance in our service to the Lord.

Now let's flip it. There are some people who know how to act and love to act, but they don't pray. They think that they figured it all out. They think that the answers are always there. They think that they can just conjure it up, and they can think and meditate long enough for something to come about, and they seek no assistance from God.

They don't think that God can perhaps highlight something that they don't know, and so they just act. They act. They get up and go and move. And and here's the thing. Both are dangerous.

And not just having both, but knowing what to do when. And so I think when god is saying get up, what he's really saying is this is not the time to stay in this posture of prayer and brokenness. It's time to move and make some moves. Get up. There's some things that need to be dealt with.

And this is just a simple nudge for you and I to consider as we walk with the Lord as well, to know when it is time to act and when it is time to seek God. So what does God do? He tells now why this is happening in verse 11. He says here rather in verse 10, why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned.

They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them. They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Now God gives answers to why this is happening, but listen, this is how rich this scripture is. God, in his answer, gives us insights about what sin does, and what sin is capable of doing when it is tolerated in our lives. And so I would say in the next few verses, there are at least three things we can pull regarding sin and its nature and its dangerous potential if we let it stay in our own tents, in our own lives.

First thing is this, sin, though it is in your own tent, is able to affect the whole camp. We already heard why Israel as a whole was being indicted, but God is rehearsing it, and he is he is now explaining that it is, in fact, a corporate problem. And we've dealt with why it was already in the contract, this was something that they already realized, but again, the practicality of this is very simple. You and I know it very well, that what we do in private doesn't stay private. It's gonna affect somebody else, always will.

And we can't manage who it affects. It it can spread as much as it wants. In fact, it always has the potential to touch every person that we know in life. Always. Consider that.

Never think that it is limited to just, oh, it'll just touch this no, it has the ability to touch every person that you know, just like it affected the entire camp of Israel. And there are different ways that it can affect the camp. And this is important as a local church to understand, because we see it in the New Testament. Right? There was a different camp.

It wasn't the camp of Israel. It was the camp, so to speak, of the Corinthian church. And what happened? Well, let me just read it. In first Corinthians five, what do we read in verse one?

Paul heard, Paul got some news, Paul got a letter of some sort, and this is what he had heard. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans. Thinking, the world doesn't even do what I'm hearing. So what Paul is saying, and what was it? For a man has his father's wife.

You have a man who has sexual relations with his father's wife. And Paul's like, the world doesn't even entertain such things. Now this is one man's sin. Right? This is an individual sin, and we know later on where he says a little leaven affects the whole lump, but that's not what he says right away.

Consider what he says next in verse two, and you, he's talking to the church now, and you, you are arrogant. Hold on, Paul. You're dealing with one man's sin here. Yeah, but there's a connection. The man committed the sin, but the people's response to that sin was sin in itself.

And you are arrogant, ought you not rather to mourn? So apparently, not only did he hear that this man committed this sin, he also heard that the people responded in the wrong way. There was no sense of grief. There was no sense of sorrow. There was no sense of holy disruption.

The people heard about this in the congregation, and they moved on as a church as though it was nothing. See, the man's sin revealed a lot about the man, but the church's response to that sin revealed a lot about the church. There was no sense of corporate grief to say somebody in our congregation has come to this point and they are unrepentant. They don't care. They're indulging in this sin.

There is no sense of being stricken. And this was a concern to Paul. This is how corporately they were being affected, that no nobody in the congregation thought to themselves, maybe we should maybe we should desire to restore or maybe we should desire to remove. And this was a concern to Paul just as much as the brother himself who had committed this sin. And so you and I can see how an individual's own problems is not just left to the individuals.

There is a responsibility amongst a local assembly. And this was certainly true about Israel to a certain extent, because they're gonna be tested to know what what they're gonna do with this man's sin. But before we get there, we learn something else about sin. Number two, sin forfeits God's favor, and we see that, what, in verse 12, in the second part. He says, I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.

This is the ultimate consequence of unrepentant sin, that when we choose to hold on to things that God says should be destroyed, we destroy our relationship with God. Not that we sever it completely, but the fellowship, the favor, the blessing is removed as God's way of saying, you can't hold on to things that I don't want and have me at the same time. Now what happens when God says, I will I will not be with you anymore? Well, we just read what happened. Chaos, failure, confusion, frustration.

Now it might happen as blatantly as it did with them with 36 men dying, but it always begins internal. There's a sense of of not knowing. There's a sense of hollowness and a wondering and a and a darkness that creeps in, and people who know this as Christians can testify to what I'm saying. You know what it's like when you're in a season of sin, what it does to the soul, it shrivels up. There's no sense of peace.

There's no sense of warmth. There's no sense of fellowship with God or even God's people. And what happens internally begins to manifest outwardly. Things begin to go out of divine order, and this is God's consequence to sin that is being held on to. He goes, you can't have me and your sin, so I'm gonna remove myself, and let's see how long you can last in this state before you give it up so that you can have me again.

That should be, again, you've heard it a thousand times from this pulpit. That should be the greatest motivation for holiness. And if you don't have a sincere relationship with God, you have lost one of the greatest motivations to remain pure and holy because you have nothing to fight for. But it's not just that. Number three, sin not only forfeits God's favor, sin also weakens our ability to fight.

Look at verse 13. 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, oh Israel, you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you. So not only are you gonna forfeit my favor, my fellowship, you can't even stand before your enemies. There is a weakening. Now you can almost translate to say this because this is the implications.

You will not get another inch of the promised land because you harboring your sin. You're not gonna move forward. In fact, not only are you not gonna advance, you're gonna be destroyed in that kind of a state if you stay there long enough. See, the only reason these 36 men died was because sin was in the camp. It was God's will that not one of them should die throughout the whole campaign.

And what God is saying is this, because you are holding on to this, and the longer you hold on to this, the more the enemy is going to take over your life. What a serious warning. And what sin does, listen, for anybody, nobody is outside of this rule, it drains you of power. It drains you of influence. It drains you of being effective in your ministry, in your witness.

How? Because you grieve the Holy Spirit, and he can no longer bless something that is grieving him. I remember hearing the story of a of a pastor's wife who knew even as a wife that her husband was a man of God, that he was a soldier, that every time he came up on the pulpit, there was power, there was conviction, there was a word from the Lord. It was something that was blessed of the Holy Spirit. But as the closest person to him, she would begin to hear his messages, and and they were changing.

There was a differentiation between what she knew when she married him and where he's at now, and and not just from the pulpit, but the way he handled ministry and his attitude and even who he was at home. Something was different. There wasn't a god factor to it anymore. She didn't know what it was. Just like Achan sinned, it was hidden.

Until one day, in his office, the door was closed, but she she opens it because it wasn't locked this time, and he and he was found watching pornography. And he admitted that he'd been watching and been bound to it for so long, and it robbed him. It robbed him of his influence. It robbed him of the blessing of God because he held on to his sin. And the story is so sad.

He ended up telling her, if you don't watch it with me, then we're gonna get a divorce. It so warped his mind, it so deformed him that he ultimately destroyed his life and his ministry. You can't stand before the task that God has for you if you and I choose to hold on to our sin. It can't happen. We always forfeit something when we choose to receive and accept and hold on to things that are devoted to destruction.

Now what's wonderful is that God gave a warning the same way that he might be giving you a warning, that things can change now. It didn't have to stay like this. There didn't have to be more casualties. See, Joshua did right by seeking God, and God gave the answer. Now it's up to Joshua to respond so that they would no longer remain in that state, and so does with anybody else.

No matter how far you are in it, no matter how much death is in the camp, things can change, and that's what revival is all about, to hear God's word, to hear a strong message like this. And listen, it's strong messages like this that are not afraid to say it as it is that brings back life and hope again. So what happens? God gives instructions, and unfortunately, in Achan's case, there was gonna be punishment and judgment upon him. God tells this leader, line up the tribes, narrow it down from tribe down to clan, from clan down to family, and I will show you who is the culprit.

And whoever that culprit is, you have to burn them. What's Joshua gonna do? He does just that. He calls a meeting, calls an assembly to come, and he lays out the charges by identifying this man. God highlights the man, and Achan with the spotlight on him in front of this entire nation confesses.

And we see it down here in verse 20, and Achan answered Joshua, truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. And this is what I did. Now look at this. Now before you move on to verse 21, we just learn at least three things from God's mouth about what sin can do. Now what you and I are gonna learn from Achan is how you and I can be brought into sin.

What does he say? When I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shanar, 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. The man literally took this stuff and buried it underground. Nobody else saw it. Nobody else knew, even Joshua, but God saw it.

God has X-ray vision. But notice, we learn from God what sin can bring you to and the consequences of it when it is not dealt with. But now we're gonna see what brings a person into sin, and notice a very important word out of Achan's own mouth in verse 21, and I saw. I saw. It all began with a look.

This is a very important point in this bible study. It all came down from where his eyes were wandering towards. And you think, really? Is it that serious? I want you to think, and if we were all here together, I would ask, think about how many grave sins with catastrophic consequences all came down from a look.

In fact, the original sin, what happened in the garden, the very thing that infected the whole human race, what was a big part in that happening? Well, listen to this in Genesis three six. So when the woman saw. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, she looked at it, she analyzed it, and she says, this is good, and it's able to make me wise. Her eyes.

And what happened? From a look, you and I are paying for it here, and we will until Jesus Christ comes back and redeems us totally from a look. Think about king David. What happened to King David? We know that sin that he had committed with Bathsheba.

And how did it all start? Let me just read it for us to remember. Second Samuel eleven two. It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw that he saw from the roof, a woman bathing. And from one look, a long look See, I've heard it put it this way, it's not about the first look, it's about what you do with the first look.

With that look, his family would never be the same, the rest of his reign would never be the same, just from a look. Eve, she saw. David, he saw. Achan, he saw. What does that mean?

It means that we we better deal with these very carefully, whether it's fruit, a woman, or possessions. The look is the hook, so to speak. Look long enough, and you are hooking yourself to being reeled into sin. So so what do we learn? Well, here's the thing, that we have to we have to discipline ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit to not linger our eyes on things that are forbidden.

Because if you linger long enough, you arouse the flesh, and when you arouse the flesh, you make that look become a hook, and then you allow yourself to be reeled into something that you never planned on being reeled into. What we get from this is that these, these windows to the soul, have to know how to bounce and have to know how to keep it in truth, lest we find ourselves looking until it becomes a desire and desire becoming action. This is the root cause. If you can deal with this on an initial level, if you can deal with this, then you will know victory, brother and sister. You will know victory.

If you're undisciplined here, and it's not easy, because you gotta coach yourself and you gotta get truth in you to be able to motivate you to bounce and to not read long enough and to not check out long enough and to not analyze long enough. Who knows what Aiken thought? That cloak will look really good on me. I'll wear it to this, I'll wear it to that. And people ask, I don't have to tell him where I got it.

I'll just say that my mother inherited it. I don't know. Who knows what that look was? We're talking about a cloak, and he coveted it. Instead of looking at those things and being like, no.

This is against God's will. I'm keeping my eyes on his glory and his pleasure more than anything. I saw. What a what a simple but profound truth. I saw.

Believers need to know that the best thing that you can do to not receive sin in your life is to not put forbidden things before you in the first place, and to think it's harmless just because I'm looking at it. Keep that forbidden thing before you long enough, and you'll know yourself biting into that fruit, bearing things in your house, taking somebody else's wife or husband that doesn't belong to you, just because you allow your eyes to stay glued on it when it shouldn't have had. Now what happens? We're coming to a close here. Achan confesses.

And as he confesses, his fate is already sealed. In verse 25, it says, and Joshua said, why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today. Think this is this is severe, this is so heavy. Well, God had already brought the warning.

He says if you sin, you're gonna bring trouble to the camp, and if you bring devoted things into your house, you are going to be devoted for destruction. It means so plain and clear. This is not a shock. There's no way to point the finger at God and say, you're unjust. God rules his universe.

God rules his people. God makes the rules. And so when God says, this is what happens if you do it, and then we do it and it happens, we should not point the finger and say, oh, I wouldn't do that if I was God. When you have your own universe, you can make your own rules. What happens?

And all Israel stoned him with stones. Now, we have to understand that it wasn't just Achan. What happens? Look at verse 24. It says, 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.

This is where people have much trouble with the story of Achan, because we see that his sons and his daughters and his own wife are held accountable with him. There's much debate to why that is, but it's not really a debate. Why? Because we learn something in verse 21. Achan says, I coveted them and took them and see they are hidden in the earth where?

Not at his personal storage, in his house, in his tent. Who else is in that tent? His family. Meaning what? The only logical conclusion is that they were in compliance with it.

They were with him on it. They knew very well what their father was doing, what her husband was doing, and they went along with it. And so there was a participation with the immediate family on this, whether they knew it immediately, whether it was a pre planned thing, or whether it was something that the father came in after Jericho and says, look what I have. Look, look, nothing's gonna happen. We're just gonna bury this and nobody's gonna know about it.

And here's his wife and here's children saying, okay, we'll join you in on it. And so they bury it, and God knows very well that they were in on it. And because of it, they all paid the price for it. But isn't it sad to see what a father did to his own household? Instead of being example, instead of being a model, see, this is the influence of a father in a family.

He leads them all astray. And I could tell you that much of the chaos that we're seeing today, much of the chaos, and you're saying how, and I'm not gonna give a psychological analysis of it, is fatherlessness. Could tell you that a lot of the trouble in young people's lives is fatherlessness, or the lack of a model of a father. And Achan is an example of that in a negative sense. But it doesn't end there.

They're stoned, then they're burned. It's ugly. It's severe. And then what happens is they take stones and they create what? What do we see here?

Verse 26, and they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. So the author highlights something, that there is this pile, almost a hill of stones that have buried this family under it, and this should catch our attention. Remember, we have to think as we read our bibles. We always have to have rearview mirrors. I've seen this somewhere before.

Not this exact same incident, but I I see a repetition of a certain theme. Were you with us in Joshua chapter five? What was the instruction there? This was the instruction. That as they crossed the Jordan River, the 12 tribes of Israel, at least the leaders of those tribes, were supposed to come and grab 12 stones and bring them across the promised land.

Why? So that they would plant them as memorials, so that for the rest of their days, the generations that would follow would always have a reminder that God is faithful. God is good. God can do miracles. That even when the Jordan is over flooding, he can make a way.

He is able to do it, and they would always have that before them, statutes of his goodness. And now there's something else added to their museum, so to speak, and it's a pile of rocks, pile of stones that would give him another reminder. There's consequence to sin. So think of remember, it's there to this day, the author wrote that it it's there. There there is a permanence about it.

So we talked about how a father might take his children down to see these 12 stones, but you know what else he might have taken them to? Down the road, he might have taken them and there is this pile of stones, and he would have told his children if he feared God. There's a family underneath that pile of stones, kids. And God is serious about sin. And, yes, look.

Look at those stones. You see those stones? God is faithful. God is good. He's merciful.

He will lead you. He is steadfast in his faithfulness. But I want you to look over there. God is serious about sin. Don't play the fool with God.

Don't think that you can bury things and hide them from God. God will find out. Train your eyes to never linger upon things that are forbidden. You will convince yourself eventually. Keep your eyes on him.

Walk in the presence of God. Set the Lord always before you. And so up to this point, you and I have a wonderful thing to adopt in our own lives, our own mental memorial, so to speak. That, yes, we should have stones in our own hearts to say God can bring me through anything, and god allows things to happen so that when I go through them, I have something to look back to, say, he will pull me through. But we can't neglect this pile of stones.

We must have both in view. And as we look at this, we must fully, And even though he is one who is able to lead me for the rest of my life, he can cut off my life if he so chooses. And you don't have to sin in order to have those pile of stones in your own life. You can learn like Israel would learn from the sin of another person and see as a case study, you can't hide anything from God. Sin does lead to consequences.

You can't hold on to your pride. You can't hold on to jealousy. You can't love money and ministry and God not do something about it. I could tell you personally that there are a bunch of pile of stones in my mind, knowing what God is able to do because he's alive and well, and he can see things what man does not see. And man, he is creative in finding ways to pull it out.

You're saying you're scaring me. Yes. In a holy way, yes. Because the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. Many people think that if you just erect these stones, that it's enough.

Wrong. You need this one equally. And many people want these stones and think that they can control a people and keep them holy and righteous and pure. Well, yeah, it's not gonna last very long because you need to understand how God is love, and he wants a relationship, and he wants to work in your life and do things in your life. Brothers and sisters, we need balance.

We need balance the same way this book, Joshua, is showing us balance. And when we do, we will stay on that path and we will know maximum pleasure for the glory of God. And that's where we're at today. Let's pray and seek the Lord together. Lord, we thank you that even though this is such a strong contrast to Joshua chapter six, that in Joshua six, we might have felt our spirits lifted up and we're we might have looked at our own circumstances, oh, God is able to do wonderful things.

And then we come to this chapter and we feel the weightiness of it. We almost sense the darkness all over it. Lord, you have placed it for our good and we receive it even though it might be hard to swallow. And we ask that, Lord, in our own hearts and our own minds, we can see these things, Lord, and set them before us as you did for the nation of Israel, and that we may walk with these things in mind so that we would not fail to experience your perfect will. Lord, as we prepare to meet this Sunday, let it be nothing short of a celebration, praying between now and then that from this moment on, we would never take your church for granted.

We would never take meeting together for granted. And, Lord, help us realize that the same way in Israel, we were they were all connected to one another. Help us feel that for one another as the new covenant church. Lord, we love you and we worship you and we bask in your revelation of truth, and we say apply it to my heart, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Amen. In Jesus' name, we hope to see you this Sunday morning. Until then, be safe and be blessed.

Amen.