I please God to bless us together
this morning as we consider his word Let's turn to the book of
Joshua Chapter 7 and reading verses 20 and 21 the book of
Joshua chapter 7 and reading verses 20 and 21 and I can answer
Joshua and said indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of
Israel and And thus and thus have I done. When I saw among
the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver
and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight, then 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. this was a very sad day in the
history of Israel and what had happened was that Achan had indeed
as he confessed he had sinned against God and why was that? Well Israel had been told to
besiege Jericho and to take the city, but they were given instructions
that they were not to touch the accursed thing. And we read in the previous chapter
that statement when Joshua told them, and ye in any wise keep
yourselves from the accursed thing, lest You make yourselves
accursed when you take the accursed thing and make the camp of Israel
a curse and trouble it. But all the silver and gold and
vessels of brass and iron are consecrated unto the Lord. They shall come into the treasury
of the Lord. So Israel had been told very
clearly what they were to do when they besieged this city. They were not to take the silver
and the gold and the brass and the iron. They were to bring
it into the house of God or into the camp of Israel, into treasury. They were not to take it themselves. We know that generally Israel
kept that command. But Achan disobeyed. Achan disobeyed the command of
God. And because of that one act of
disobedience, the Lord went out against Israel. And therefore
we must recognize that we cannot and we must not sin in a light
way and think that the rules and the commands and the encouragements
we have from God are to be taken on board and not to be cast aside. Because here was the cursive
thing that Achan had done. And the problem was that the
Lord was not now with them. And sadly, Israel of course did
not realize that God was now against them and God would not
prosper them. Having conquered Jericho so very
easily, They now thought, well, the next town was Ai, and this
will be an easy conquest. There's only a few people there.
We just send up 2,000 or 3,000 people to take the city. And as we read together, they
fled before the men of Ai. And what was the result? The hearts of the people melted
and became as water. God had promised to be with them. God had said that they would
conquer, but now the reverse had happened. They had one victory
over the town of Jericho, and now this town of Ai had not been
taken, and they were afraid, and they'd run. And we see the
effect it had. Joshua, he rent his clothes. He couldn't understand it. He
fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord under
the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon
their heads. They were perplexed. They were
mystified. But Joshua knew what to do, and
it's good when we know what to do. He prayed to the Lord and
said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this
people over Jordan to deliver us? into the hand of the Amorites
to destroy us? Would to God we had been content
and dwelt on the other side Jordan. It seemed quite a reasonable
statement, wasn't it? He was making to God. Oh Lord,
what should I say when Israel turneth their backs before the
enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land
shall hear of it and shall envy us round and cut off our name
from the earth. And what wilt thou do unto thy
great name? Well, that was his confession
and statement to the Lord God. Well, the Lord told Joshua very
straight, and he said, Get thee up, wherefore liest thou thus
upon thy face? Israel have sinned, and they
have also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded them. For they
have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and
disassembled also and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel
could not stand before their enemies but turned their backs
before their enemies because they were accursed. neither will
I be with you anymore except you destroy the accursed from
among you so that was a very clear statement from God wasn't
it to Joshua to tell him the position and now he very clearly
understood that there was something a sin which had been done by
Israel and he was commanded to find it and to destroy the curse
from among you. So he then addressed the people.
He addressed the people. 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 you take away the
accursed thing from among you. So Israel heard the position. They knew what was the cause
of the defeat when they attacked Ai. And so they got up the next
morning and they came before the Lord and they came first
of all by tribes and we know that the tribe of Judah was taken
and then they came by families and the Zahites were taken And
then Zabdiah was taken, and he brought his household, man by
man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdiah, the son of
Zerar, and the tribe of Judah was taken. The truth is that
we tend to forget that God looks and sees everything that occurs,
and knows everything that occurs, and we might foolishly think
that we can hide some action from Almighty God and think perhaps
that God didn't really notice, or if he did notice, well, he'll
perhaps just pass over it. We must never forget that we
are dealing with Almighty God. And God does not trifle. What
God says comes to pass. And we must never think that
we can treat God lightly, Or consider, well, we can do what
we want to do. No, we can't. We are to follow
the word of our God. And so, Joshua comes and speaks
to Achan. He'd been taken. There he was,
standing by himself, before Israel, and particularly before Joshua.
And Joshua addresses him and says, my son, give, I pray, the
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." Now,
Achan had had every opportunity prior to this statement from
Joshua to confess his sin. It was very clear from the words
of Joshua that the problem of that defeat at Ai was because
someone had disobeyed God. And Akan would have known very
clearly that he was the man and that he had the opportunity to
have put up his hand, as it were, and come forward and said, well,
I'm the person. But no, Akan still hid and still
hoped that he would not be found out. The Bible tells us, be sure
your sins will find you out. We should never think that we
can hide sins. And so Joshua now comes and addresses
him in this way and he really had no alternative to make a
confession because it was clear that he was the person and Joshua
told him to make confession and tell me now what thou hast done,
hide it not from me." You see, faced with all that opposition,
Achan now comes, and on the face of it, we would think he was
contrite, and he was truly sorry for his sin, because he speaks
in this way, and he says, indeed, I have sinned against the Lord
God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done, when I saw among
the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, 200 shekels of silver
and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight then I coveted them and
took them and behold They are in the earth in the midst of
my tent and the silver under it. So we might say well surely
now this man he confessed his sin and he told Joshua and the
people that it was because he coveted the things that his eyes
had seen and that was a situation he'd taken it and it was hid
in his tent and there it was. Well again we might be tempted
to think well That was a good honest answer. Well the fact
was that he really had no alternative but to answer in that way because
through that taking of the tribes and families it had come right
down to him and he would have been very aware that he was the
man and therefore as Joshua had spoken to him he must make a
confession and he did make a confession. And so we must think this morning
and this is really a very solemn consideration that we might perhaps
be pushed, as it were, in our lives to come and make a confession. When all the evidence is weighted
against us, and we then know we don't have any alternative
but to confess our sin, we might be then brought to that position
that we do make a confession. But the reality is that this
man Achan had passed over the real opportunity when he should
have come and confessed his sin. But it wasn't until he had no
alternative that he came to this place and made this confession. The important thing then is for
us to realize that when we have sinned, We should make confession
to our God, not to try and keep pushing it aside and think, well,
I needn't make any confession yet because I don't think the
people will find out. I don't think anybody will really
know. And it wasn't until he was taken as an individual and
challenged by Joshua that he was willing to make this confession. we recognize that God was to
deal justly with this man, Achan. We might think, well, he was
very rigorous in that judgment. Well, the Lord did that which
was right. We cannot argue with God's judgments. And as we know, he was taken
and with all his family and all his herds and cattle in his tent
and they were all stoned and we may think well that was very
unjust. Why were they taken? Well you
only got to go back to the previous days when Jericho was taken and
there were lots of children no doubt in that place. Yet you
see the Lord judged the whole town. They all died, they were
all killed. Because they, of course, were
heathen, walking contrary to God. Well, in effect, this man
was operating in a heathen way, because he was disregarding the
commands of God. Disregarding the very clear commands
that God had given. It wasn't anything which was
abstract. It wasn't anything which was not necessary to observe. The Lord had itemized it very
clearly and therefore all Israel were very aware before they came
and defeated Jericho the things they were allowed to take and
the things that they were not allowed to take. There was no
doubt about it at all. And therefore God's judgments
were right and just and of course it may well be We're not told
the ages of his children, but it may well be that they all
observed their father digging this trench in his tent and taking
this Babylonish garment, which would have been quite a valuable
asset, and the silver and the gold and have hidden it. They
may have stood around and watched their father do this. And they
might have all therefore been part of this action. not physically
taking it, but nonetheless were part in agreement because they
saw how valuable it was. Therefore we must never misjudge
God because God always does that which is just. And so this family
was taken and they were stoned and then they were burnt. Well
it was a very solemn end, was it not, to the life of this man
Achan. And it is recorded here for our
instruction today, that we must not think, well, the Lord is
different today. The Lord is still a great and
holy God, and he does give instructions, and he does give directions,
and we are not to ignore that which God has said. Achan ignored
it. If we think of what Achan did,
what did he do? Well, he was covetous. Why was he covetous? Because
his eyes looked and his eyes saw something rather attractive. And he may well have thought,
well, we're to burn everything. What a shame to burn that garment.
What a shame to get rid of that. It's very beautiful and it's
very valuable. I think I'll take it. We understand, can't we? His natural thoughts. Really
it was his lustful thoughts. He wanted to have it for himself.
He didn't want to see it destroyed. And therefore he took it. Well,
we today, you see, we see things, don't we? Sometimes we think,
well, I think I'll have that. I think I'll buy that. It may
be something which is not right. It may be something which is
really forbidden. It may come under the category
of something which is accursed by God. And yet, you see, we
give in to our own lustful desires. And what is the truth? We're
no better than Achan. We just give in to what we think
would be good to have. Akan could have imagined himself
dressed up in this posh garment, strutting about, and the envy
of his neighbours probably, seeing how the natural mind can absorb
things like this. My friends today, we're no better
than Akan. We can easily fall into a temptation
and take to us the accursed thing, and think perhaps, God will just
pass over it. God won't see it. God will ignore
it. Well, I can just do this. It's
not a big problem. We need to be very aware that
God is holy and what God says we should follow out. If it is
something which is accursed, then we should not follow it.
We should not purchase it. We should not take it. We should
leave it. Sometimes it might be a wonderful
bargain. presented with and think, well that's a wonderful bargain.
If it's not good, if it's an accursive thing, we should leave
it aside and not give in to our covetous nature, which is what
Achan confessed it was his covetous nature. And of course it wasn't
only the garment. He saw the silver and he saw
the gold, which had been so clearly spoken against that they were
not to take that for themselves, they were to take it into the
treasury. Noda Achen thought, well, I could
do with that, that would be very useful, a lump of gold like that,
valuable as it was, and the silver, and perhaps he thought, well,
I'll hide it, and in due time I'll perhaps just use a bit of
it to perhaps buy other things, perhaps make some idyllic thing
that perhaps he could wear to show how wealthy he was? You see the Lord knows our hearts
today and he looked upon Achan and Achan could not escape and
my friends we will not be able to escape the eye of God if we
have been in a similar situation and perhaps the detail has not
been itemised in quite the same way as it was to Israel. But nonetheless, I'm sure we
all know those things which are good and right and honest, and
those things which are not. Those things which are accursed
in the eyes of God. And therefore, if there are those
things which are accursed in the eyes of God, we should not
be found taking them to ourselves in order to consume them upon
our lusts. And so we have this position
here of Achan and this example before us today. The Word of
God is very true and very powerful, and we should never pass over
an account like this and think, well, now that only applies to
people who sinned in that way. Because this account, in all
honesty, applies to every one of us. We cannot claim to be
different. We cannot claim that we're not
covetous and that we do not go after things which we should
not. The devil today is very active
and is very active in trying to make us more worldly minded. That's his great aim, to make
us more worldly minded, because when we are worldly minded, we're
not worshipping God. If Achan had been allowed to
put this lovely garment on, he wouldn't have been worshipping
God, would he? He would have been proud of himself. And he
would have strutted about like that. It wouldn't have been God
glorifying. It would have only been Achan
glorifying. So we see here the evidence that
we have before us today to observe such an account like this. Indeed,
the many accounts in God's Word, we should never say, well, it
doesn't apply to me. We should always look at it and
say, well, now, how does that apply to me? Me personally? Not to point fingers at other
people and say, well, I can see that applies to that person.
I can see that applies to that man or that woman or that child.
No, you see, we want to read the Word of God and take it to
ourselves Do you see whether it applies to our life today
in a personal way? And it's good then if we can
read the Word of God and the Word of God speaks to our heart
and brings us and corrects us in things in our lives so that
we are more desirous then to honour and glorify our God in
our lives rather than to glorify ourselves. And now, to come to
that position is not easy. And you and I will need to ask
for grace to examine ourselves. We don't like to examine ourselves,
do we? We don't really like to go through our lives and put
crosses or ticks about the various things in our lives, do we? No,
we like to assume everything is okay. But, you know, it's
good if God enables us to do just that, to examine ourselves
carefully before Almighty God. Now, we might say, well, that's
all right. I see here the condemnation,
and I see what happened to Achan, and really I'm worried about
myself. What's going to happen to me?
Because I've done things which other people don't know about.
And I'm guilty. What am I going to do? What am
I going to do about a situation like that? Well, we can bless
God today for the Word of God and are thankful that we have
truths which are encouraging to us in our life today. And we should bless God for it. And we meet a very encouraging
word in Job. As you know, we preached upon
Job last week, but the blessing here is, if we turn to chapter
33, and we can read the words in verse 24, which is recorded,
and it's these, then is he gracious unto him, and saith, deliver
him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom." So we
really are condemned before God, are we not? And deserve to be
condemned to the pit, to deserve to be condemned to hell. And if our examination brings
us to that consideration, we won't feel very proud of our
own abilities, and we wonder how we can be delivered from
this situation. Well, here we have the wonderful
statement in Job. As we said last week, there's
some wonderful statements in Job which are so encouraging. And here we have this statement
here. We're told, yes, if there be a messenger with him, an interpreter,
one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness. Then
is he gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit. I have found a ransom." Well,
the blessing for us today is that the Holy Spirit will show
to us, and may it be so in our lives, He shows to us the ransom. And who is the ransom? Who pays
the ransom? None other than the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we can be thankful today that
we live in a gospel day. We are not exempt from passing
in characteristics like Achan, but we should bless God today
that there is a place of deliverance, that we can come to the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see, here we have this man,
Achan. He was confessing that which
he'd done And he said, indeed I have sinned against the Lord
God of Israel. He confessed that he sinned against
the Lord God of Israel. And thus and thus have I done.
He was put in a corner and he wasn't able to get out of it.
Well my friends, it's a blessed thing if God sometimes puts you
and me in a corner and points to us and shows us that we have
been guilty, that we have disobeyed God. that we have pleased ourselves,
we have done that which we wanted to do. And then when the Lord
has come and spoken to us, like he did to David through Nathan
the prophet, and what did Nathan tell him? He said, thou art the
man. You see, it was personal. David
was committed. David was guilty. He was the
man. And yet he thought he'd hidden
his sin. can't hide your sin from God. And you see David then
had to come to that place and he had to come and he had to
make that confession before his God. He looked to the Lord, he
looked to the Lord against thee, thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight. David was guilty before a holy
God. We don't see here in the account
of Achan, any true repentance. You might say, well, what do
you mean by that? This is what I mean. There wasn't
any true sorrow for his sin. He just made a statement. It
was true. But there wasn't sorrow for his
sin. You see, we cannot just speak in mere words, because
we need to have the effect of it in our hearts. And so, you
see, Achan just made the statement. He wasn't really sorry for his
sin. Not like David. David was really sorry for his
sin. And he came and he said, Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according
unto the multitude of thy transgression, thy mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from my sin.
and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgression,
and my sin is ever before thee. Against thee only have I sinned,
and done this even in thy sight. Thou mightest be justified when
thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." Now, the great
difference of course is here, that David was given true contrition. David was given true sorrow for
his sin. And that is the vast difference
And it is a vast difference. And it's the difference between
a soul being saved and a soul being lost. And how necessary
it is then, in our lives today, that we are not left to be just
like Achan. There are many people who will
say, yes, I have sinned, yes, I've done that. But they're not
really sorry for it. They don't really repent for
it. No, they just carry on. They
make an acknowledgement. Especially like Achan, when they're
pressed to the corner, and they have to plead where they are
guilty, yes, there's no way out. But again, there's no sorrow.
And that's the great difference. And so we see here, David then,
and he says, against thee, the only have I sinned. He realized
he'd sinned against a holy God. And he goes on as we know, behold,
I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts." Yes, you
see, this is the real point, isn't it? In his heart, inside,
not just an outward confession. It's good to make an outward
confession, but he also needed to be cleansed in his inward
parts, as it were, to be clean inside. Thou desirest truth in
the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. and I shall be clean, wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." He wanted
to hear the good news of forgiveness. He didn't want to just stop and
confess his sin. He wanted to know that his sins
had been forgiven. He wanted to know that His prayer
for forgiveness was real and true and had been received. It
entered into the holy place. Creating me a clean heart, O
God. Oh, you see, he comes down, doesn't
he? A clean heart. He was looking inside now, David
was. It wasn't just his outward scene. Achan's was just an outward
scene. David's was an inward scene. Make me to hear joy and gladness.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy
Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Well, we can
go on. You can go on. You can go home
and read the 51st Psalm and see the blessedness, just one last
verse, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken
and a contrite heart, O God thou would not despise. That is the
difference, isn't it? It's the work of God in the heart
which produces this true spirit of Contrition and it is then
a right sacrifice as we offer that up to God Seeking then that
he will forgive us the sacrifice of God are a broken spirit a
broken and contrite heart Because we've sinned against God what
he was coming who was coming David He was looking to the Savior
what a blessing is today my friends that you and I can come to the
Savior with true sorrow for our sin and truly confessing our
sin and pleading and admitting that we have sinned against the
Holy God. Pray of His mercy. Pray that He will look upon us.
We can't justify ourselves. You see, this man Achan was really
justifying himself. He said, well I saw this and
I coveted them. He wasn't sorry for that coveted spirit. He didn't
say, well I've coveted them and I've just made a big mistake.
And I just shouldn't have allowed that to happen. He just said
he hid them in his tent. He buried them there. What a
blessing it is, my friends, if you and I therefore confess we've
had a covetous spirit, which we all have, every one of us,
without any doubt. I've had a covetous spirit and wanted this and wanted
that. What a blessing it is, then, if God gives us true sorrow
for sin. And we look to the only way of
being relieved, being delivered from that sin, by looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Saviour. Saviour from sin, isn't it? Lovely
word, isn't it? The Saviour of sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ. saves us from our sin. If we
confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And you'll come confessing your
sin in that way, not like Achan, but like David. There's a difference,
you see. It's a big difference. We might
say it's an eternal difference. It's a separating difference.
It's not just words, my friends. It's the effect of the work of
God in the heart to consider ourselves as we're viewed by
God and to look then out of ourselves, realising that we cannot save
ourselves, we cannot deliver ourselves from the wrath to come. It's only through what Christ
has done. There's our hope, there's our confidence in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to then view him taking our
sins, bearing the punishment due to us, bearing the punishment
instead. Yes, the greatness of the plan
of salvation, to think that we, guilty sinners, have been given
that grace to come and confess our sins and to then look out
of ourselves to seek that mercy through Christ, that he will
come, that he will look upon us He will say, we will need
him to say, I am thy salvation. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Because true acknowledgement
of sin brings us to that personal requirement that we want God
to say to ourselves, I am thy salvation. It won't be any good
to just have a theory in the mind. just an historical appreciation
of the truth of the word of God. We will need God to speak to
our own hearts and to assure us that we have an interest in
his redeeming love and his atoning death to know that he has died
on our behalf. Now you see that will bring blessing
and that will bring joy. David wanted that joy and you
and I want that joy. When we've sinned When we're
condemned, when we're in a corner, God may put you in a corner,
and God may put his finger at you and point his finger at you,
and you have to say and have to bow down when he says, thou
art the man. Yes, I'm the man, I've sinned.
Then to come and confess that sin with weeping and tears before
the Lord, and to say, Lord, have mercy upon me. Oh, wash me, and
I shall be whiter than snow, as David said, and so true it
is. The Lord comes then to us and says, yes, I love thee with
everlasting love. And if we're among those who
love with everlasting love, it's because He's died for us. He's
taken away all our sins. And what are we? Redeemed with
the precious blood of Christ. We're clean. We're clean. All our sins, bad as they are,
covered as they are, evil as they are, we might say, also
almost against light and knowledge. See, Akan knew what was right
and wrong. My friends, you and I know what's right and wrong.
And we need God to have mercy upon us and to forgive us for
those things we've done wrong. And we knew we were doing wrong.
Our conscience was telling us. It was nagging us. We pushed
it aside. We didn't want it to involve
us. It didn't want us to come and stop us. absorbing some lustful
thing. The blessing is that we have
a gracious God today, a God who is merciful, a God who is full
of compassion, a God who does not deal with us as our sins
deserve, and may we therefore today look into our hearts and
have the wonderful evidence that God has given us that true spirit
of repentance, sorrow for sin, and that we've been able to come
to the Saviour just as we are, lay all our case before Him,
pour out our heart before Him. He looked upon us and told us,
yes, I have loved Thee, I've died for Thee, I've redeemed
Thee, Thou art mine. Amen.