Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
All right, we're going to be in the book of Joshua this evening.
If you have your Bibles, that's right there with me.
Joshua, chapter seven.
Tonight, we're going to be talking about AI, Artificial intelligence.
No, I'm just kidding.
We're not talking about artificial intelligence.
We're talking about AI, but not artificial intelligence.
That's another sermon for another day.
But here in Joshua, chapter seven, we're going to be talking
about the sin that is in the camp in Israel and really the loss,
the defeat at AI or depends on who's pronouncing it.
I've heard some people pronounce it I or AI, but you guys
know what I'm talking about.
When you get to this passage, you're going to see a word there.
It's the letters AI.
And obviously, AI is a buzzword in our culture today.
But this is a place, and we're going to study this tonight.
We're going to be looking at the issue at hand.
And the issue at hand is sin in the camp.
And we're going to look at, yes, the literal story here in Joshua,
chapter seven, which obviously has a huge impact in the life of
the Israelites in their conquest of the land of Canaan.
But also, we take by way of application what this means for us
in our own walk.
When it comes to God pushing forward with his plans in our life.
As many of you know, as we've been studying the book of Joshua,
that God had a plan and a purpose for his people.
And the plan and the purpose was for them to be taken out of the
land of Egypt, obviously, for many years, travel in the wilderness.
Now, it wasn't God's ultimate plan for them to be in the wilderness.
Many of the wanderings that happened there were because of the
people's disobedience.
But ultimately, the end of that plan was that God would usher
in his people into the land that he promised.
Now, because of rebellion, because of sin, certain individuals
were not able to make it in.
But God brings them over the Jordan river.
And that was a miracle in itself, that God would bring his
people across the river and lead them into the promised land.
And then they had Their first victory there at Jericho.
And Jericho was a fortified city.
Jericho was a city that had a high population, a lot of warriors,
and from the looks of it, it looked like it would be a difficult
battle.
But God's promise to his people is that he would be there
with them through it all.
And so when they get to Jericho, you remember what happens.
God gives the plan to Joshua, and Joshua tells the plans of the
people.
And the plan was essentially this, to march around the city for
those seven days, and then the last days march around those seven
times to blow.
The trumpets shout and the walls came down.
And we know that God gave them the victory.
But if you remember back in Joshua chapter six, we're going to
need to know a few verses in Joshua chapter 6 to understand what's
happening in Joshua chapter 7.
Look back with me to Joshua 6, 18 and 19.
Because in the midst of their battle and in the midst of their
victory, God gives them some orders.
He gives them some direction.
He gives them an opportunity for obedience.
And as they're winning the battle, God tells them in verse 18,
and ye in any wise, keep yourselves from the accursed thing.
Now in this case, he says, stay away from the things that the
people there in Jericho were worshiping.
The idolatry, the evil pagan worship.
He says, stay away from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves
accursed when you take of the accursed thing and make the camp
of Israel a curse and trouble it.
So anytime God holds us accountable to something, he gives
us the warning, he gives us the teaching, he gives us the admonition.
And the admonition for the people of Israel was, when you're
conquering the land of Jericho, don't partake in the accursed
thing.
Don't.
Don't join in with them.
Don't take anything of theirs and personalize it.
Why?
Because you will take that sin and put it into the camp of Israel
and it'll be troubled.
Verse 19.
But all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron are
consecrated unto the Lord.
Meaning this.
In that victory, everything was to be given over to God.
It was not to be taken for themselves.
It was not to be taken for personal gain.
And it says ultimately that they shall come into the treasury
of the Lord.
So God gives them very clear instructions in this battle, in this
victory.
And on the front side of the battle, they obey.
On the front side of the battle, they do everything that they're
supposed to do by marching around the city, as silly that might
be.
And they do that, and ultimately God works through them
to show them that it's not their strength that's going to give
them the victory, it's God's strength.
But we're going to see here in Joshua, chapter seven that one individual
and his family essentially don't listen to this and allow themselves
to hinder the people of Israel in their next battle.
And what we're going to see in Joshua, chapter seven is that this
is a picture of harbored sin in our lives.
That, that a.
That a personal harbored sin in our life can affect our life because
we're in disobedience to God, but ultimately it can affect others
as well, when we are living in open rebellion to God or even secret
rebellion to God.
And so we're going to see here that God sees everything.
And that even though this fellow named Achan thought he could
hide from God, thought that he could take these things and have
them for himself, that God ultimately reveals his sin.
And we know a New Testament principle is be sure your sin will
find you out.
And that Achan certainly realized that here in this passage.
So let's look at Joshua, chapter seven.
It says, but the children of Israel committed a trespass in the
accursed thing.
And so right off the bat, we see that as God commanded it, as
ultimately Joshua told the people of Israel that they were not
supposed to be touching the cursed thing, that they should not
take any of the accursed things for themselves, that those
things were associated with evil, sinful worship, and that ultimately
that is the sin here, is that they don't obey God.
And then it goes to say, for Aan, the son of Carmi, the son of
Zabdi, the son of Zerah, and the tribe of Judah took of the accursed
thing, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children
of Israel.
And so they fight this battle.
There's this victory, but through this victory they were told
not to take of the accursed thing.
So what happens?
Achan does.
Achan takes it, and he now is going to cause God's wrath to be
kindled against all the people.
Now what we're going to see here is that, yes, the Israelite
people had this great victory against the people of Jericho.
It seems like there's a lot of power on their side, but Israel could
not be defeated by the enemy, but they could be defeated by their
own sin.
And ultimately God is going to judge them for that until they come
to a place of repentance.
Verse 2.
Let's see what happens here.
They're scouting for the next battle.
And Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is beside Beth
Haven on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying,
go up and view the country.
And the men went up and viewed AI.
So these individuals, these spies, are going to basically survey
the land and they're going to say, okay, this is what we need for
the victory, verse three.
And they returned to Joshua and said unto him, let not all the
people go up.
Basically this.
We don't need everybody like we needed with Jericho.
Why?
But let about 2 or 3,000 men go up and smite AI and make not all
the people to labor thither, for they are but few.
So the idea that they're sharing with Joshua is this.
We don't need that many people.
We've got it under control.
We just defeated Jericho, which had a lot more people, which
is a lot more fortified.
We can handle this with just 2 or 3,000.
And we're going to see that Joshua does listen to that, but he
goes on the higher side.
He doesn't go to 2000.
We see that he's going to send 3000 people up to AI.
And.
And so what we're going to see here in this passage of scripture
is that Israel's success is not depending on the amount of people
that they have or the amount of swords that they have, or their
plan or their tactics, but ultimately through their submission
to God.
And so we're going to see that they try to go ahead of God and do
their own plan here without seeking God's wisdom, without seeking
God in prayer, without coming to him and ultimately following his
path for their life.
And so Israel is going to be defeated.
So verse 4.
So there went up thither of the people, about three thousand
men, and they fled before the men of AI.
And the men of AI smote of them about thirty and.
And six men.
For they chased them from before the gate, even unto cherubim,
and smote them in the going down.
Wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
So Joshua hears from his spies, and they say, you need only
about 2 or 3,000.
That should be plenty.
Instead of seeking the Lord's wisdom on this, instead of seeking
the Lord's guidance like before with Jericho going around
the city, Joshua, even though he is a wise military leader, allowed
for these men to go up to AI.
And what we see here is that it doesn't matter how many people
were sent.
They were walking in rebellion to God.
Therefore they would not have the victory and so there is, we would
say, only 36 men.
But 36 men killed is a lot more than what was killed at Jericho,
which was zero.
And, and we know here that this victory for the people against
Israel wasn't a victory in their wisdom or their strength.
It was a victory and a lack of seeking after the Lord's guidance
in their life.
And so the defeated AI showed what mattered wasn't the strength
of the opponent or the wisdom of the people, but really ultimately
the power and the presence and the provisions of God.
And so without God's help, they're lost, Israel's lost.
Without God's help, we're lost.
Now let's stop there and let's think about that in our own personal
lives when we come to what we would consider a battle in our life.
And we know that the New Testament tells us that we're fighting
spiritual battles.
And some battles that we might face might feel like a physical battle
and we might go through physical battles, but all of the
battles that we face in our life ultimately stem back to where
we stand in our spiritual life with God.
So what I would say is this, when we're going into the battle,
instead of looking at something like, well, that's nothing,
I've accomplished that before, I've overcome this temptation before,
I've fought this battle before and I've won many times.
I don't need to be as stringent on my prayer life, or maybe
I don't need to go to the Lord in prayer.
Maybe I don't need to even study the word of God.
Maybe I can just do this on my own without seeking his wisdom.
Many times we set ourselves up for failure in our pride, in our
ego, in our self righteousness.
And so what we can see here in this is a lesson that I think all
of us need to learn is no matter what victories we've had in
our past, we need to remember that all those victories in the past
came because of God's presence in our life, came because of us seeking
God's will and obedience to God's will.
And we can never get complacent in that spiritual fight
that we're facing.
And so they get complacent here and what happens?
They lose, they are driven back and there's going to be grieving
in this.
Obviously Joshua is going to be confused because he just sees
this major victory in Jericho and now they're defeated by such
a lesser people.
And how could this be?
And Joshua, as it says here in verse six, rent his clothes and this
is a picture of.
Of being brokenhearted, maybe even in a sense, confused, maybe.
Maybe to tear our clothes meant to be in a place of mourning
for many people at that time frame.
He's mourning the loss of these individuals, and he's going
to go before the Lord and ask him why.
Now, if you go back just at the end of verse five, I think it's
a very picturesque way to describe the outcome of this.
It says that after they lose this battle, that says that their
hearts of the people were melted, the people of Israel.
And when anytime you see that phrase hearts melted, usually that
means fear.
That means to be petrified in fear, to be overcome with fear.
And I think all of us maybe could identify at some point in our
life, fear taking us over, where we almost feel like we're melting.
We almost feel as if we can't do anything in our lives.
And that's exactly the way the people feel.
And that's sometimes how we feel in a spiritual battle and in
a spiritual.
What we would consider loss, a defeat because we are broken and
because we can't look to anything else in our life to give
us hope.
And so their panic was in.
In many ways understandable.
But it's because they weren't letting God fight for them.
They were trying to fight their own battles on their own, their
own wisdom, their own strength, their own flesh.
And so it says there that they became as water.
And so Joshua grieves, Joshua mourns, and it says here and fell
to the earth upon his face before the Ark.
And the Lord until the evening tide.
So he goes, lord, I think this is a proper response to a difficulty
in our life.
This is a proper response to sin in our life.
This is a humbled response.
It's a prayerful response.
And I think this is sometimes where we need to be when we come
to places in our life where we feel overcome, overwhelmed, and even
in some cases, defeated.
We come to him and we go before the Lord.
And that's really the picture there is that he comes to the Ark,
and that's the presence of God at that time.
And he falls before the Lord, and he asked the Lord to give him
wisdom.
Why did this happen?
And we see that he spends time with him and he grieves there before
the Ark.
And it says that he put dust.
He and the.
And the elders of Israel put dust upon their heads.
And that's a picture of mourning.
And that's their way of basically telling the Lord that they
are broken before him and that they don't know where to go.
So verse seven.
And Joshua said, alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought
this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the
Amorites, to destroy us.
And so Joshua's question is this, or you brought us all this
way for us to lose.
You brought us all this way.
You've brought us through the.
The bondage in Egypt.
You brought us all the way through the wilderness.
You brought us across the Jordan river to just get to this
place.
And now you're going to leave us.
Now you're going to take your hand off of us.
He says, would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other
side of Jordan.
And so Joshua knew that God had a plan for them, and he knew
that God had been blessing them and had been guiding them.
And.
And he says, would it.
Would it be better if we hadn't even come here at all?
And we should have just not come, because now we need you.
We need you more and more.
And so this shows that Joshua does have concern for his people,
but he also has concern for the glory of God.
In verse 8, O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs
before their enemies?
The way that I see this is that he's a leader concerned and
confused about where to turn.
He says, what if our people turn our backs against you?
We don't want that.
We want to be for you.
I want to be for you.
And so he's concerned about the testimony of the Lord.
He's concerned about the people and their reliance to the
Lord.
And we know that sometimes we're going to stumble, sometimes
we're going to get to a place in our life where we do turn away
from the Lord and his Word.
And the prayer for all of us, as Christians should be that we get
back on that path, that we realign ourselves with God's plan
in our life.
And obviously at this point in time, Joshua does not understand
why this victory or this defeat happened.
But we're going to see that he finds out here soon.
So verse nine, he says, for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants
of the land shall hear of it and shall environ us around and cut
off our name from the earth.
And what will thou do unto thy great name?
He says, if this gets out that we lost, people are going to not
praise you.
People are going to actually, on the other side around, come around
us and defeat us, and you're not going to be glorified.
Verse 10.
And the Lord said unto Joshua And I think that this is so indicative
of the relationship that Joshua had with God.
But ultimately, the way that God sometimes needs to be stern with
his people, he says, get thee up.
Wherefore lies thou thus upon thy face?
And so he says, get up.
What are you doing?
There's something to be dealt with right now.
Instead of asking why you need to be dealing with sin inside of
the camp, he says in verse number 11, Israel hath sinned.
So it would be like this.
It would be like our churches is broken, our church is struggling,
and I go before the Lord saying, lord, why have you turned
your backs on us?
What's going on?
And the Lord says, it's not me that has turned my back against you.
It's you that have turned your back against me.
He says, you need to deal with the sin in the camp.
You need to deal with this issue at hand.
You need to address this face on and allow the people to turn back
to me.
And so he says, Verse 11, Israel hath sinned.
And they also have also transgressed my covenant which I
commanded them for.
They have even taken of the accursed thing and have also stolen
and dissembled also.
And they have put it even among their own stuff.
And so he says, get up.
He says, you need to move.
God says his teaching for Joshua is this.
You need to fix your efforts, not just on prayer here in this case,
but dealing with this sin in the camp.
And so the idea is, is that God had not forgotten, forgotten
about the people.
So, you know, this morning I said, you know, there's good news
and bad news.
The good news is, is that God did not turn his back against the
people.
The bad news is, is that they're living in sin.
And that needs to be addressed.
And so Joshua doesn't need to fear that God has turned his back.
Joshua can look to the fact that God is still there with him.
And that's what we see in, in first John chapter time.
For if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
You know, as a Christian, sometimes we think that because we're
going through a hard time in our life and because we've made bad
decisions, maybe God has turned his back on us.
But really what has happened is that we have turned our backs
against him and we have broken that fellowship.
Now, we haven't lost the relationship.
And I've used this analogy before with my children, but my children
can be living in open sin against their Father, that doesn't
mean that they're no longer my children.
I can't deny that.
And God does not deny his own children.
But there can be things that my children do because of sin that
could cause a break in the fellowship.
You know, my.
My children could say, you know what?
I'm not talking to my dad because I'm living in a way that
he doesn't agree with.
I'm living in rebellion to him.
I don't want him to tell me anything.
And so I'm going to break fellowship with him.
And so there is that aspect of our Christian life that we as people
that are walking in sin, can break that fellowship with God.
And we need to come back to him in humility and in brokenness
and honesty and coming to him and.
And as the Bible says, to confess, to say the same thing together
with him about our sin.
And so he tells Joshua to get up.
He says, you need to deal with this.
You need to have not just an intellectual change, but a heart
change.
And so God says that Israel had sinned.
And he doesn't just say one man, even though we know that initially
it's Achan.
But he says it's not just one man.
He says it's Israel.
And so it's amazing to think that the whole nation is guilty by.
By way of association, and 36 people died, all because of the sin
of one man and his family.
But what we see is, is we're going to get to a New Testament principle
that a little sin that's un.
It's not dealt with.
It's.
It's relinquished.
Maybe, uh, maybe.
Maybe for.
I don't know, maybe sometimes we overlook sin or we wink at sin,
or we just overlook it or don't think about it too much.
But what we see is that unrepentant sin in the camp can cause
major issues, not just for that family, but for everybody around.
And so Paul speaks of that in First Corinthians, chapter 5, verse
6, when he teaches of the.
Of the principle of know ye not that a little leaven.
Leaven if the whole lump.
And in the New Testament, we see that leaven.
And speaking of sin, it's a picture of sin.
And he says that little leaven is going to eventually affect the
whole group.
So.
So, for example, if we have someone in our church who is walking
in unrepentant sin and they're walking and rebelling to God, even
though I might not know particularly what that person is
dealing with, whether we know it or not.
Unrepentant sin in our camp can affect the overall goals of the
church, whether.
Whether we know it or not.
The Bible says in the New Testament that our marriages can
be hindered and our prayer lives can be hindered because of
unrepentant sin that's in First Peter.
And so I want you to see that just because you might think, or
I might think, or anyone might think that I've got this private
sin that nobody knows about is certainly, even though it might be
private for a time, with the eyes of the people around me, the
Bible says, be sure your sin will find you out.
And also God already knows your sin, and therefore it is affecting
people around us.
There's a lot of people that I've heard that have said this basically,
well, my sin's not hurting anybody, so why does it matter?
Because to them, it might not be that their sin is hurting somebody,
but we know that that sin is not just poison for the individual
who's committing it, but we know that that could be a poison
for people all around.
And so that's exactly what he's explaining here in this passage
that Joshua needs to deal with it.
Verse 11, he says, Israel has sinned.
And he says that they even have this accursed thing with their
own selves.
It's in their camp.
And verse 12, Therefore the children of Israel could not stand
back before their enemies.
He tells them why they lose, but turn their backs before their
enemies because they were accursed.
Neither will I be with you anymore except you destroy that accursed
thing from among you.
And these are some strong words, but essentially what the Lord
tells Joshua is like, if you don't get this right, you're not
going to have victory, you're not going to have spiritual growth,
you're not going to have the promises of God fulfilled in your
life.
And so it's.
It's really sobering to think about this principle that if we just
keep living in sin and then expecting God to just keep blessing
us, we're missing the point.
And so God's power can come into our lives and that fellowship
can be restored.
But if we're walking in that rebellion to God again, we don't
lose our salvation, but what we can lose is the joy of our salvation.
We can lose the fruitfulness of our salvation.
We can lose the effectiveness in our service for the Lord because
of unrepentant sin.
We can have human relationships broken.
We can have major pain and loss in our lives because we're walking
in unrepentant sin.
And I would warn all of us to the place of saying this.
If you know of something in your life that you're harboring against
the word of God, then in that case, make sure you handle it now.
Because sometimes we don't think it's a problem until it's too,
too far gone, and we need to get it right right now.
And.
And when God deals with a particular area of sin in our lives,
he's calling us to change, he's calling us to repent.
And that comes through conviction, that comes through discomfort.
I would.
I would say that there's times in our life where God does make us
come to a place of discomfort because we should not be comfortable
with our sin as a Christian.
We should not be comfortable feeling comfortable with the sin
in our life.
It should be so foreign to us.
I. I was talking to a pastor one time, and he put it really in
a good, clear way for me, especially because I like the fish.
He was like, when you catch a fish and you pull it out of the water,
does it die right away?
I said, no, you know, the fish is still alive and flopping around
and let you throw the fish in the water again.
He's not going to live for very long, but he's going to live
for a little bit.
He says, okay, that's the way it's supposed to be for a Christian.
Like, we might be able to survive in sin for a while, but it
should not be something that we're comfortable with.
It should not be the character and the lifestyle of a Christian.
And.
And so that's what we're seeing here in this case.
God says, get this right before you go anywhere else.
Get this right before you expect to have any more battles in
your life.
And get this right before you expect the Lord to be working and
giving fruit.
And so he says, verse 13, up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify
yourselves against tomorrow.
For thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel.
Thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye may, until
you take away the accursed thing from among you.
What is he saying here?
Well, verse 13, he's saying, this says, if you expect to have
the victory of the Lord in your life, if you're expecting to
have fruit, if you're expecting to win the battle with
using spiritual tools, you have to make sure that you deal with
the sin in the camp.
And so if I'm a Christian and I'M expecting all these wonderful
things to happen.
God's word being, speaking to me and, and the conviction of the
Spirit moving me and the guidance and the, and the will of
God and all these different things.
And then I have sin in the camp.
The Bible says that, hey, we, we need to stand up for our.
To our enemies, but we're not going to be able to stand against
our enemies if we are allowing the accursed thing to be in our midst.
And so we need to be careful about that.
Verse 14.
He gives clear instructions to how to deal with sin.
He gives clear instructions of how to deal with this sin in the
camp.
Verse 14.
In the morning, therefore you shall be brought according to your
tribes.
And it shall be that the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come
according to the families thereof.
And the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households,
and the household of the Lord shall take, shall take, shall come
man by man.
And it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed things
shall be burnt fire.
And he and all that he hath, because he hath transgressed the
covenant of the Lord and because he hath wrought folly in
Israel.
So essentially this God is going to reveal who the person is
that has the sin.
And this speaks to the power of God.
This speaks to God exposing sin, private sin.
And this is conviction, but also more than that, it's judgment.
Obviously, the Bible teaches the law of sowing and reaping, the
principle of sowing and reaping in the book of Galatians
and and so this is Achan and his family reaping what they have
sown.
Verse 16.
So Joshua rose up early in the morning and brought Israel by their
tribes.
And the tribe of Judah was taken.
And he brought the family of Judah.
And he took the family of the Zerites.
And he brought the family of the Zerites man by man.
And Zabdi was taken.
And he brought his household man by man.
And Achan the son of Carmi, and and the son of Zabdi, and the
son of Zerah.
And the tribe of Judah was taken.
And Joshua said unto Aan, my son, give, I pray thee, glory to
the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him.
And tell me now what thou hast done.
Hide it not from me.
And Aan answered Joshua and said, indeed, I have sinned against
the Lord God of Israel.
And thus, and thus have I done so.
He essentially here confesses his sin.
He gets to a place in his life after, after this confirmation where
he confesses what he has Done.
He's tried to cover it up.
We're going to see that here in a few moments.
But he is challenged to come forward and come clean, if you will.
And so what we're seeing here is that this hidden sin that he has
has power over him.
And what I will tell us is that hidden sin in our life will
control our lives whether we know it or not.
And so he addresses this, and he does confess.
He says, this is what I have done, verse 20.
And Achan answered.
And he says, this is.
This is what I've done.
I've sinned against the Lord God of Israel, verse 21.
When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment.
So.
So he saw something.
It tempted him.
His.
His flesh was kindled.
And he saw what he wanted and he took it.
A Babylonish garment, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of
gold of 50 shekels weights.
And then he says, right here, then I coveted them.
So we see the sin.
Sin isn't necessarily that he took it, even though that is the
outcome of that sin.
The sin of the heart was covetousness.
The sin of his heart was that he wanted.
He wanted what someone else had.
We know that that is a sin that can cause us to fall into many
different avenues of despair.
And so he says, I coveted them and took them.
And behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent
and the silver under it.
And so he.
He admits that he wanted these things.
And.
And we know that you could go to a lot of passages of Scripture,
but one that I would point to is in First Timothy, chapter 6, verse
10.
For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some
coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves
through with many sorrows.
The Bible says that that covetousness, that love of money,
can cause many people to fall into pain and suffering.
And that's where Achan finds himself.
Achan finds himself in a place where his covetousness overcame him.
He desired it, he took it.
And now he is really dealing with the judgment of God.
And so Starting in verse 22, we see that the confession is confirmed
and we see that Achan is judged.
So Joshua sent messengers and they ran unto the tent.
And behold, it was hid in his tent and the silver under it.
So what he said came to pass.
It was true.
And they took them out of the midst of the tent and brought them
unto Joshua and to all the children of Israel, and laid them
out before the Lord and Joshua and all of Israel.
With him took Achan and the son of Zara, and the silver and the
garments and the wedge of gold, and his sons and his daughters,
and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that
he had, and they brought them unto the valley of Acre.
And so we see that Joshua and the people of Israel are taking very
seriously this sin.
Achan and his sons and his daughters.
The reason why I believe that his sons and daughters are lumped
into this is because they knew they had knowledge of the sin.
They weren't necessarily maybe the ones that directly committed
it, but they did know the sin and they were harboring the sin.
And what we're going to see here in this case is that God is
going to extremely judge them.
And this is a difficult passage for us to understand, but
I think that we'll be able to tie it all together here in a few
moments.
And so they take him out to the Valley.
Verse 25.
And Joshua said, why hast thou troubled us?
And the Lord shall trouble thee this day.
And all Israel stone him with stones and burned them with fire
after they had stoned them with stones.
Now, obviously, we live in a different system in a different society.
I don't encourage all of us to find someone in our church who is
in open sin and do this very thing, okay?
We're.
We're living under a new covenant.
And New Testament says, vengeance is mine.
I overpay, saith the Lord.
We know that God is the ultimate judge, but in this case
we do see God is very serious about the sin in the camp.
Verse 26.
And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day.
So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger wherefore
the name of the place was called the Valley of Acor unto this
day.
And.
And so the Israelites here know that God definitely is enacting
a justice and judgment.
And then this type of sin when.
When it's dealt with can bring us back to a place of victory.
And now Israel was in a position in which God could now lead
them.
And so, yes, this does seem like a very serious judgment, but
we see how serious God is in that case, and God's leading and
guidance in how to deal with that sin, and that is to get rid
of it, to not just accept it, to.
To not just get to a place where we say, okay, but next time
we're really going to make sure that we need to deal with this
sin.
Because what happens is that when we put off sin, it could be
like a disease, it can be like a sickness, and it can spread.
And even if we cut it back just a little bit, it'll come back.
The Bible very clearly teaches us to get that sin out of our life,
to completely deal with this.
And so this kind of victory only comes through a.
A death.
And we know that in the Old Testament, in this case, it was the
death of Achan.
But we know also that in the New Testament, it was someone's else's
death that was able to pay the price for our sin, and that was the
death of Jesus Christ.
So now we get to have forgiveness.
We.
We might have dealt with covetousness in our life, we might
have dealt with certain elements of sin in our life.
But the beautiful thing about being a Christian and walking in
the grace of Jesus Christ is that even though we do have sin,
Jesus paid the price for us.
And that God has dealt with that sin and that the price has been
paid, and we can walk in that.
But that doesn't give us an excuse to continue to walk in sin
and to live in that rebellion.
We need to deal with that in our own lives.
And so it is the power of the victory of Jesus that gives us the
opportunity and hope that, you know, what the truth is, is that
we, many of us are Achan.
Many of us have fallen into the trap of covetousness.
And so what do we all deserve?
We all deserve what Achan face.
We all deserve punishment and death.
But again, the grace that God extends to us is that we know that
even in sin, God will allow us to find forgiveness when we come
and trust in him.
And so we know that the victory is found in Jesus, not in
our own strength.
But here at the end of Joshua chapter 7, sin is dealt with.
And we're going to see that because of them getting that sin
right in the camp, that chapter 8 AI will be conquered, there
will be victory, and they will follow the plan of God, and hopefully
a lesson will be learned.
And I think all of us can learn lessons through our failures.
We can learn lessons through the other people's failures.
But the best lesson to learn is just simply following the word
of God, following his will for our life.
I've used this analogy before, and I'll probably keep using it because
it's one that I can understand and hopefully you understand when.
When we grew up in Florida, there were certain, you know, beasts
that would hurt us, right?
So you have, like, snakes, rattlesnakes were there, we had copperheads
you guys have copperheads up here.
We had different types of rattlesnakes.
We had coral snakes.
We have water moccasins.
And so, you know, I didn't have to go get bitten by one of these
venomous snakes to know the dangers of it.
Like, I could take someone else's word for it.
I should learn from someone that knows better than me that, stay
away from those animals.
They'll hurt you.
It being an inquisitive child, I just.
Some people say, well, just don't grab any snakes, okay?
I. I just wanted to find animals.
I would pull, you know, turn over a rock.
I would turn over stones and try to find snakes and different
things and grab them.
And so I had to learn a lesson.
But.
But I didn't have to learn the lesson from being bitten by the snake.
I could learn the lesson by saying, okay, I know that there's
higher wisdom than me that I can apply to my life, that I can
avoid pain and suffering.
And that's the same thing with us as Christians.
There's a lot of people that come from the school of thought that
you have to just always keep messing up and finding your path.
You don't have to.
You can take the word of God, you can take the failures of others
and use that as a cautionary tale against the sins of this world.
And so we don't have to be like Achan.
We don't have to be like some of the other folks at face the pain
and suffering of sin.
We can say, lord, give me wisdom and allow me to learn.
But the again, the grace of God is that even when we do sin,
he gives us a pathway out.
He gives us forgiveness, he gives us hope.
But we cannot live in that open rebellion.
So really, the big lesson in Joshua, chapter seven is this.
Don't condone sin, don't tolerate sin, don't harbor sin, don't
celebrate sin.
There's all these different things that we can think about when
it comes to sin, but really what we have to do is we have to
reject it, we have to remove it, we have to kill it in our lives.
The New Testament says, mortify our members, die to that
old way of doing things.
And so in Joshua, chapter seven, it's a lesson on knowing that
the victory will never come.
If we're harboring sin, if we're focused on the accursed thing,
if we're living for ourselves, the victory can only come through
submitting to the Lord and getting it right with God and walking
in obedience to Him.
Because if you Remember, back in Joshua chapter one, we'll end
with this Joshua chapter one.
He goes all the way back to verse eight.
And he says, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate there in day and night, that thou mayest
observe to do according to all that is written therein.
For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt
have good success.
So the success and the prosperity is not a material prosperity.
It's not a material success.
It's a spiritual success only found when it says there what that
we speak about the Word of God.
We meditate upon the Word of God, we observe to do all that is
written therein.
And so really, spiritual success comes from knowing the Word
of God, speaking the Word of God, believing the Word of God, dwelling
on the Word of God, and applying the Word of God.
And so we can't expect to ever be successful in ministry, in the
personal realm, in our business life.
And when it comes, spiritually speaking, to doing things our own
way, we must do it the way that God has ordained for us to live
out in our lives.
And so Joshua chapter seven is a cautionary tale of sin in the camp
and a warning against harboring those things that cause
us to have covetousness and ultimately disobedience to God.
So we should just follow God when he says to do things, get rid
of that.
Don't associate with that.
The Bible speaks of not having friendship with the world.
We're in the world.
The reality is that all of us have to live in this world.
We can't live in a bubble and refuse to be affected by the things
around us.
But what we do have to understand is that there's a phrase
that many of you heard, we're in the world, but we're not of the
world.
And being of the world means trying to follow all the things that
the world brings our way.
But what we can say at the end of the day is this, Yes, I have to
go to work.
Yes, I have to go to the grocery store.
Yes, I have to deal with all these different things coming my
way.
But I don't have to be like that.
That doesn't have to characterize me.
I want to be different.
I want to be unique.
You know, one of the things that we're trying to teach our kids
and I'm trying to learn in my own life is that biblical Christian
character is not just what we do in public when everyone's watching.
Right?
Because that's, you know, it's A shame that some Christians even
publicly live open rebellion to God.
But what we're going to say here is this, Most of us know how
to act and behave and make other people think that we're pretty
good people, okay?
But that's not true.
Complete Christian character, true integrity, true Christian character
is that I'm going to obey God even when no one else on this world
knows what I'm doing.
You know, there's opportunities for us to do something
that no one will ever know, but we can maybe think that we can
get away with it.
But what the Bible says that even Achan, maybe he thought he could
get away with this, but God still sees it.
What I would say is that growing in true Christian character
means this.
It's not just doing good in front of people to make them think
that I'm a good person.
It's not just avoiding the bad things so that I can be healthy.
It's about doing what God has asked us to do.
You know, it's about obeying him.
It's about glorifying him.
It's about loving him.
And so I would encourage you to think about this.
And one of the things that helped me in my life when it came
to overcoming certain temptations that come.
And I'm going to tell you, I don't think any of us will get to
that place where we completely overcome every temptation in our
life.
But what I will say is that one of the things that I was challenged
with at a young age was think about this sin in the eyes of God.
That, you know, what does God think about what you're about to
do?
What does God think about this response?
What does God think about this thought?
What does God think about this action?
And, and if I could do it before him and show him and have
him be a part of it, then, hey, go forward with it.
Because that's, that's the, that's living in, in no conviction.
But what I will say is that many of the things that we do thinking
that we can justify it, we would not be pleased if God was watching.
But I'm going to tell you a little secret here.
God is watching.
He can see everything we're doing.
We can't hide anything from him.
And so what I would encourage you to do is to think about it from
the perspective of this very sin that I get fleshly pleasure out
of is what nailed my Savior to the cross.
It's what caused me to deserve death.
But ultimately my Savior, Jesus Christ loved me enough to go
to the cross for me.
To pay that price for me.
How could I do that?
And that's what Romans chapter six is about.
There are Christians who say, well, aren't I saved?
Like, I'm saved and God's forgiven me.
Why can't I just do what I want to do?
And Paul says, God forbid, how could you understand grace and continue
on that way?
It's just a misrepresentation of grace.
It's an abuse of grace.
And ultimately it is disrespectful to our Lord and Savior.
And we don't want to be that way.
So I want you to pray about that.
I want you to think about that.
I've heard this message preached a lot at a Christian school.
We heard this message preached a lot when things went missing at
the school.
Right.
Okay, who's aching in the house?
Okay, we're gonna bring everyone up.
And there was a lot of that guilt.
And.
And I understand, like, I'm not trying to guilt you in.
I've been part of services that a preacher got up and said,
we're not leaving the service till someone confesses their pub,
their private sin.
Right now.
We're gonna stay.
And, you know, it was like trying to squeeze everyone dry.
That's not my goal.
My goal is not to come here and try to make you feel.
Feel guilty and put a guilt trip on you.
Really what my goal is is for us to all inspect our own lives.
As David says, search me, oh, God, know my heart, try me, and know
my thoughts.
See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
That should be all.
That should be our prayer.
Just Lord, seek, seek in my life.
Look into me.
Reveal to me where I need to change.
Reveal in me what is causing me to live that life of covetousness
and sinfulness and brokenness.
And.
And then when we do that, we're able to be refined.
I love the principle of being refined.
You know, God takes us and he puts us to the fire of trials of
life.
And what it really is is, as many of you know, there's that process.
And let's say, for example, we put gold in the fire, and as it gets
to this place of being heated up, there's an ability to remove
the dross, the.
The trash, the.
The.
The terrible stuff that makes it impure.
But that's what God's doing through our trials in our life.
He's refining us.
He's putting us to the trials of life, temptations of this world,
the struggles that we might face so that we can have that dross
removed so that we can be purified and sanctified and to be
more like him.
And so what I would encourage you to do is think about that process
in your own life.
What are some things in my life that God is working on me to
remove?
I'm not.
This should be our testimony.
I'm not the same person that I was 10 years ago.
I'm not the same person that I was even a year ago when it comes
to my spiritual walk.
If we've learned all the lessons in our life and we think
that we've reached the pinnacle of our spirituality, that
we're never struggling anymore, then I think all of us have
fallen into the sin of pride.
What we have to do is we have to say, I'm learning every day.
And God might speak to me somewhere that my convictions are
changing, that I might need to be more strict in this area.
Or maybe, I mean, maybe I need to have more grace in this area.
Maybe I'm just not seeing this from the right perspective.
And so I would encourage you to think about that process as Joshua
did.
He comes before the Lord and the Lord says, get up and deal with
that sin.
And so I would encourage you to pray about that here this evening.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
You would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro at middletownbaptistchurch.
Com.
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.