Joshua chapter 7. Let's continue
our study in the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 7. One of the main reasons that
men and women have no interest in the Lord Jesus Christ is that
they do not see themselves as sinners. There are many who profess
to being sinners. They're quick to tell you that
they're not perfect, but what they mean is, is that they're
basically good. Not perfect, but is good or better
than most. But God has never, ever accepted
good. You see, it's got to be perfect
to be accepted. And you tell someone that they're
a depraved sinner, nothing but wretched worms and maggots, and
you'll find out what they really think about themselves. As one
preacher told me, he said, I told a man that he was a depraved
maggot one time, and he said the vein in his neck looked like
a garden hose, he got so mad. And even when you do find someone
who has some inclination of who and what they are, you'll find
that when it really comes down to it, they don't really believe
that God will punish them. But God is holy. And He will
by no means clear the guilty. He's too holy to do so. Such a small word, such a big
problem. Look at verse one here in chapter
seven. But the children of Israel committed
a trespass in the accursed thing. For Achan, the son of Carmi,
the son of Zabdi, and the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah,
took of the accursed thing, and the anger of the Lord was kindled
against the children of Israel. Now look back, if you would,
to chapter 6, verse 18, and it tells us here what this
is talking about. It says, God speaking, in any
wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest you make
yourselves accursed. When you take of the accursed
thing and make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it. He said
you will make the whole camp of Israel accursed. and you'll
trouble the whole camp. Verse 19, 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. And what he's talking about here
is the spoils of Jericho. He said, don't you take anything
for yourself, nothing. You bring the silver and the
gold and the vessels of brass and iron, you put them into the
treasury of the Lord. Nothing was to be kept from this
accursed city, but those things consecrated unto the Lord. The
silver, the gold, the vessels of brass and iron. Now, did you
notice in verse one of Joshua 7 that the chapter begins with
the word but. As I've said many times, we need
to pay attention to these little words, these little conjunctions.
That little conjunction means that what takes place after is
the direct opposite of what took place before. The last verse
of chapter six is about the fame and the glory of Joshua, picturing
the fame and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in whom Joshua
typifies. But, Sin is precisely the opposite. Sin is against the fame of Christ. Sin and disobedience do not glorify
the Lord. Sin is committed in the light
of His glory, especially true when it's done by a child of
God. Believer, Christ's glory is that He died for your sin. That's God's glory. Christ's
glory is that He underwent the wrath of God in your place. He was despised and rejected
of men because you were. He was a man of sorrows acquainted
with grief because you should have been. And He took your sin
and your sorrow, making them His. And it's called substitution,
and it's the most glorious thing ever spoken of in this world.
Christ was forsaken of God for your sake. God's judgment and
wrath due you fell on him. For us to disobey him is to oppose
his glory. Now in this chapter, we have
a series of sad failures and they are all caused by sin. Sin's the reason and the result
of every problem mankind has. And we may not see that, because
right now we see through a glass darkly, but one day we're gonna
see that plain and clear. Sin was the cause of all trouble,
all sickness, all death, all wars. Sin was the cause of it. And I pray that tonight that
God may enable us to see that this chapter is about the elect
of God, Akin does not picture and typify some unholy vowed,
depraved sinner who's lost. And let me say that I don't know
Akin's heart here. I want to say this up front.
Just as I don't know your heart and you don't know mine. But
God knows every heart. If the picture and type hold
true of this passage, and I believe with all my heart it does, consider
with me the state of this man named Achan. I was looking before
Teresa and I left the house tonight, and most sermons preached concerning
Achan are titled Secret Sins. That's what most people see in
this passage. Achan had a secret sin and God
found him out. And I suppose in some way we
all have secret sins. Personally, I don't like that
term because they're not secret from God. We all have things
about ourselves that we don't want others to know. We'd be
embarrassed. I couldn't stand before you and
preach tonight if you knew some of the things that have gone
through my mind, even today. but thank God for his mercy and
his grace. Achan, I want you to consider,
he's part of the family of God. He was one who was redeemed by
the blood of the Passover lamb. He was one who was delivered
from bondage. He was one who God cared for
and provided for in the wilderness, just as he did all the people
of Israel. He was one who received the instruction
of God. He's the one who crossed over
Jordan on dry ground with all the rest. He was one who possessed
and entered the promised land. The sin in the camp is not committed
by an infidel, but by a child of God acting in disobedience
to God by one sinning against the light of truth. And before
we're too quick to condemn him, We've all done the same thing. And God recorded this for us
as a warning. The sin that ruined Achan is
in every one of us. We're not exempt from falling
in the same manner he did. With every breath that our lungs
take. In every beat that our hearts make, we can do nothing
that is free from the taint of sin. Nothing. Everything we do
is tainted with sin. Our best prayer, our best sermon. And because of our sin, when
we would do good, we find that evil is present with us. Is that
your experience? Now if the picture hold true,
and it does, Achan was a man of Israel, one of God's chosen
people. And he sinned in an act of disobedience
against the glory of God. And it's in every one of us to
do so. And we all have done it. And
I hope that you and I can find comfort in this. When Achan sinned
and disobeyed God, he did not cease to be one of God's elect
people. He did not become unredeemed. And some are gonna be quick to
say, well, there you go with that once saved, always saved
stuff. I suppose that you're right,
because that's what I believe. If Christ saved you, you are
forever saved. John Calvin didn't say that,
God did. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. Do you believe on Christ? Are
you trusting in Him? Are you trusting Him to put all
your sin away? Then you have everlasting life,
not temporary life, everlasting life. You cannot be lost. If we become lost every time
we sin or disobey God, who or what could ever be saved? I could
never find peace, I could never find rest, I could never find
comfort or assurance if my salvation was based on my righteousness
and my faithfulness or my ability to abstain from sin. Sin is not
only what I do, but what I am. And let's don't make that just
a cliche statement. It's true. Sinning does not make
me a sinner. Being a sinner is why I sin. It comes forth from the heart.
The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Deceitful above all things. Desperately wicked. Who can know
it but God? If Christ shed His precious blood
for you and you can be lost, then what efficacy does Christ's
blood have? And if that's so, Christ's blood
has no effectual saving power. Yet when you preach eternal justification
by the finished work of Christ and tell folks that Christ put
away all your future sin, the same as He did your past and
present, The first thing people will say, they give sinners a
license to sin. Men and women don't need a license
to sin. With no difficulty, they will sin without a license. Men
and women by nature drink iniquity like a cold glass of water. But if Christ put away my sin,
He put it all away. Past, present, and future. All of it. And I say without
reservation that if I didn't do anything to save myself, then
I can do absolutely nothing to lose my salvation. And again,
people are going to say, you can't say that. You can't say
that. Yeah, I can. My redemption is
secured by the finished work that Christ did. My salvation
is eternal because of Christ's perfect righteousness, not mine.
My righteousness filthy rags. I dare not bring it before God
and try to offer it to Him as acceptance before God. And neither would you, if you've
seen what you are. But I will the perfect righteousness
of Christ. I can never provide what God
required, and that is perfection. But Christ did, and He's the
only one who could. I want you to hold your place
here in Joshua. We'll come back to it, but I
want you to turn with me now to Romans 6. I read Romans 8. I did a little counting today,
and in the 23 verses of Romans chapter 6, the word sin is mentioned
17 times. Paul knew something about sin
and what it was to be free from sin, and that's what I want us
to see. The Apostle Paul, by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit of God responds to
the subject of sin with his own question here. Verse 1, Romans
6. He said, what shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? The answer
is always the same, friends. Verse 2, God forbid. And here's
why. How shall one who is dead to
sin live any longer therein? Before God saved us, we were
dead in sin. But after God saves us, after
Christ died for us, the child of God is dead to sin. Big difference. Verse four, know
ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ? Now that's not talking about
water baptism. Water baptism pictures that. but we were baptized into Jesus
Christ, we're baptized into His death. Therefore, because we
were baptized into His death, we are buried with Him by baptism
into death, that like as Christ who raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life. That means we arose with Him.
Verse five, for if we have been planted together in the likeness
of his death, we shall also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, and that the body of sin, now look at
this, might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin. For he that is dead Is what? Freed from sin. Now, let me ask
you a question. Can a dead man sin? You might say, well, don't be
ridiculous. No, a dead man cannot sin. A dead man cannot do nothing.
Then can a dead man break the law? Can a dead man get a speeding
ticket? Can a dead man be arrested for
robbing a bank? Can a dead man be convicted of
murder? Of course not, they're dead.
They're dead to sin. Again, verse seven, for he that
is dead is freed from sin. Now, if he be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Now
notice that next word, likewise. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now what's that saying? Just
what it says. We died in Christ, we were buried in Him, we arose
with Him, we're seated with Him in heavenly places, dead under
sin and alive under God. Now I could close my Bible and
we could leave right now and be blessed, couldn't we? Before
God saved us, we could not not sin. Did you hear me? We could
not not sin. But after God saved us, we cannot
sin. Christ has paid for all our sin,
all of it. He's put all our sin away, all
of it, past, present, and future. And some's gonna say, but that
will promote sin in a person. No, sir, it won't. It will not. Not if Christ lives within that
person. Job said, I abhor. He said, I
am disgusted and I hate myself. Why? Why did Job say that? Because
of his sin. But that's not all Job said.
What else did he say? He said, I repent in dust and
ashes. Christ put away my sin. David
said, for I acknowledge my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. But
David took sides with God against himself, and he followed those
words up with these, against thee, and thee only have I sinned
and done this evil in your sight, that you might be justified. You might be right when you speak,
when you speak against me. There's nothing God says about
us that's not true. And that you might be clear when
you judge us. God, you are just when you speak
against me. You're clear of any wrongdoing
when you judge me. Every believer knows that. Paul
did. He said, oh, wretched man that I am. But Paul also knew
who would deliver him from the body of death. Only the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can. And if he did, your sins are
put away, all of them. Again, past, present, and future. So do these things give us a
license to sin? No, look at verse 12 there in
Romans 6. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive
from the dead. And that's out of love for Christ.
and you're members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For
sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the
law, but under grace. And what then, shall we sin because
we're not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Same
answer. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you
obey? whether of sin unto death or
of obedience unto righteousness. Verse 17, but God bethinked that
ye were, you were the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, being
then made free from sin. You became the servants of righteousness. Now, does that mean that we're
not gonna sin? No. But we are dead to sin. Christ
has put away our sin. And you cannot be held accountable
for your sin because Christ has been held accountable of it for
you. He can't demand justice twice
from Christ and from you both. And that's exactly why John said,
if any man sin, and man in his natural fallen state will sin. He said, but we have an advocate.
We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous,
and I'm righteous in Him. And you can't take that from
me. You can't take it from me. My salvation doesn't depend upon
my faithfulness to God, but upon his faithfulness to me in Christ. Achan confessed his sin back
in Joshua chapter seven, verse 20. We'll look at that more in
detail next time, Lord willing. Achan took sides with Joshua
against himself. He said, I've sinned. He acknowledged
his sin. And that's what every believer
does. But Achan paid a great price
for his disobedience. But he didn't lose his salvation. He lost his integrity, he lost
his honor, and he even lost his life. But he didn't lose his
redemption. Be not deceived, God's not mocked,
for whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap. And
we can look at Achan's end, his punishment, because he was living
under the restrictions of the old covenant and under the strict
justice of Mount Sinai's law. But in Emmanuel's land, you're
in Emmanuel's land. In Emmanuel's land, there's no
forfeit of redemption because Christ, as His people's substitute,
paid the debt of sin in His own body on the tree. And He paid
it in full. In full. No balance left. Can't call me tomorrow and say,
hey, there's a little bit of a balance left on this. No, it's
paid in full. And it's stamped in red with
His blood. Don't you love it when you pay
off a debt and you get that in the mail and it's stamped there
in that red, paid in full? You just sit there and look at
it and kind of smile funny, don't you? Paid in full, my, my. But God has ordered the matter
of sin and disobedience to always affect the life of the believer
in a negative and painful way. Your sin will find you out. God
chastens those that He loves. Chastening for your sin and disobedience
to God may even wind up in physical death. It did with Achan and
it did with Ananias and Sapphira. It did with those who took the
Lord's table unworthily. And you cannot take those things
which are designated for the glory of God and use them for
yourselves. Well, what are you talking about,
Brother David? Well, that's why we cannot, by a free will work
of righteousness, take credit for our salvation. That's robbing
God of His glory. That's robbing God of His honor.
Salvation's of the Lord. And I say it all the time, and
I'll say it again. You know what follows that? A period. That's
the end of the matter. No discussion needed to be made. Salvations of the Lord, period.
And the Lord gets all the glory, and He gets all the credit for
it. We don't get any. And to try to take any credit
or glory for it is to try to rob God. Disobedience to what
God has directly prohibited will not go without consequence. It's
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Sin is never without consequence. Men and women who take the sovereignty
of God and make it an excuse for disobeying by saying things
like, well, if God is sovereign and His will is always accomplished,
then why does God yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?
You know what that is? That's blaming God for your sin.
Who art thou, O man, to reply against God? Shall the clay question
the potter? So the clay dispute and say,
why did you make me this way? Because he's the sovereign potter. And in the same lump, one lump
of clay was marred in his hand. And yet he took that lump and
he made another vessel under honor. It's God's prerogative. He's the sovereign potter. He
can do what he will with his own. The clay belongs to him. You know, Peter's tears flowed
not only because he denied the Lord, but more so because he
denied the one who freely loved him and chose him and did everything
for him. You know, when I was younger,
I can remember shedding tears after greatly disappointing my
parents many times. But our tears flow even more
with more pain and sorrow when we disappoint our loving Savior.
Achan sinned against redemption. He sinned against love and mercy
and grace. And there was great consequence.
You see, confession of sin doesn't bring about forgiveness and exoneration
of sin. People say, confess your sin.
Go before a man called a priest and confess your sin and he'll
exonerate you. I'm sorry, he can't do that.
He can't do it. Sins are forgiven alone on Calvary
when Christ purged them by the shedding of His own blood. That's
where sin's forgiven. Not by our confession of them
and not by somebody's exoneration of them. God alone can forgive
sin. When David sinned against God
in his adultery with Bathsheba, and when he put her husband on
the front lines of a war, in the battles of war to be killed,
David confessed his sin, and the prophet Nathan said, the
Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. But there was
a great consequence for his actions. He suffered greatly for his sin.
Nathan said, the sword shall never depart from your house.
pain and sorrow all the days of your life. The sword never
departed from his house. He lost the child that he bore
with Bathsheba. His own son tried to murder him
and take his throne. God took his wives and gave them
to his neighbors. And God said, you did what you
did secretly. I'm going to do it openly. Yes,
there is consequence for sin. Achan sinned, confessed his sin,
and yet he was stoned to death, burned, and they erected a memorial
in warning of the consequence of disobedience. And every time
somebody saw that, they thought, oh, Achan. Achan shouldn't have
done that. Achan shouldn't have done that. And the truth of the matter is,
most of them would have done it themselves if they'd had the
courage and nerve to do so. This chapter teaches us of an
unchangeable principle concerning sin. When we disobey, we suffer
loss. None so great as the shame and
the disgrace that attends us when the heavens are as brass.
And we pray unto God and we don't hear from Him. We don't feel
His presence. We're overwhelmed and shamed
and something in us dies. I've been there. You know, we carry with us a
lot of wood, hay and stubble. Like aching, it'll be manifest
and burned up. And when it's burned up, we'll
suffer loss, but the scripture says he himself will be saved. Isn't that such a comfort? That
God saves me in spite of me? Christ died for me in spite of
me. Why, in my heart I said, crucify Him with all the rest. In my heart I said, I will not
have this man to rule over me. God broke my heart. In the day
of His power, He made me willing You can't take the efficacy of
Christ's blood too far. Every sinner Christ died for
will be saved, no exceptions. Not gonna argue about it, not
gonna debate with you on it. I'm gonna declare it as the gospel
truth because that's what it is. Now I need to hurry, but did you
notice also in verse one that we're told that the children
of God committed this trespass? And it also says at the end of
verse one that the anger of the Lord was kindled against the
children of Israel. Well, how can that be since it
was Achan alone that sinned? I've heard folks say, how is
it fair that I'm a condemned sinner when it was Adam that
sinned? Well, you have to take that up
with God. But how can it be that all Israel was guilty and the
Lord's anger was kindled against all of Israel because every believer
is a member of the same body. And when one member of the body
suffers, all members of the body suffer with them. Aching sin
cost the lives of 36 men. Look at verse two, and Joshua
sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethhaven 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. And they returned to Joshua and they said unto him, let not
all the people go up, but let about two or 3,000 men go up
and smite Ai, and make not all the people labor thither, for
they are but few." They're no competition. So there went up thither of the
people about 3,000 men. And what happened? They fled
before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them
about 36 men. 36 men lost their lives. Let's never be fooled into thinking
that when we sin and disobey that it won't in some way affect
the whole church body. coming off such a great victory
as they had in Jericho. Well, they didn't even have to
lift a sword till after God had handed the whole city to them. Israel seems to here be lifted
up with pride and feeling somewhat indestructible. Even Joshua,
instead of seeking counsel from the Lord as he always had before,
acted upon the carnal advice of his spies. And there's no
perfect type of Christ, not even Joshua. And upon return of the
spies, this carnal advice was given to Joshua as how the city
of Ai was no match for Israel. Well, let's don't send, let's
don't even bother to send all the men, just send two or three
thousand down there and wipe them out, and we'll go on to
the next. And what happened? They took
off running with their tails stuck between their legs, and
36 men died. And friends, it was all because
of the sin of Achan. May we always remember that pride
goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
All these things were a direct result of Achan's sin, and God's
punishment affected all of Israel. We are never in greater danger
of yielding to the pride of our hearts than when the Lord's power
is most graciously displayed on our behalf. Lord, never allow
us to be puffed up with pride. What do we have to be proud about?
Never let us to think too highly of ourselves. Who are we that
we would do so? It's always the Lord who divinely
intervenes, just like he did at Jericho. He intervenes in
our lives with grace and mercy to give us victory over all our
enemies. He gets all the honor and all the glory. It's none
of ours. If we are to enjoy continuation
of God's watch care over us, we must remain steadfast and
in subjection to His holy will. All that God commands us to do
is for our good. As a child, I never understood
that, but as a parent, I did. My parents gave me rules to teach
me. They were looking out for my
best interests because they loved me. They didn't want me to get
hurt by doing something stupid, yet I often did stupid things
and got hurt. How much more so is that true
with the Lord who loved us and gave himself for us? and how
this passage of Scripture should remind us that nothing can be
concealed from God Almighty. I don't even know if Achan's
wife and children knew that he had taken those things and hid
them in his tent, but God did. All things are naked and open
unto the God with whom we have to do, Hebrews 4.13. The eyes
of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good,
Proverbs 15.3. So we see something of our sin
in this chapter. First there was sin and then
defeat. What a valuable lesson for us
to learn. But there's still a remedy for
sin and defeat. Verse six, and Joshua rent his
clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark
of the Lord until the even tide, he and the elders of Israel and
put dust upon their heads." You see, there's a remedy for our
sin and defeat. And Joshua does as every child
of God must do in humility, in sadness, and in repentance. He
fell to the earth on his face before God. Where did he fall? He fell before the Ark of the
Covenant. We've seen so many times that that Ark pictures
Christ. He fell before Christ. That's
the only place that we'll find comfort, peace, and deliverance.
When you fall into sin, temptation, pride, or anything defiling,
fall at the feet of the glorious Savior in humility and sorrow.
There's forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. Psalm
30, 130 verse four. Well, may God be pleased to enable
us to be on guard against the sin that so easily besets us.
May God be pleased to enable us and give us grace to always
consider the glory of God in everything that we do. A child
of God never wants to displease or bring reproach to the God
and to their God and their Savior or the gospel that they love.
May be said of us as it was of the church at Philippi, Paul
wrote to them and said, wherefore my beloved, as ye have always
obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And
then he said this, salvation is not of works. He said this,
for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do his
good pleasure. Every believer knows that we
can only work out what God has worked in. May God be pleased
to make it so for his glory and our good and for Christ's sake.