Joshua 7
Have you ever seen videos of athletes celebrating too early? It happens all over the sports world. Runners who think they have it in the bag, so they throw their hands up and slow down just enough so that the 2nd place racer puts their head down and crosses the line first. Or maybe you’ve seen the football players who begin to celebrate at the one yard line, and drop the ball before entering the end zone. Perhaps one of the most famous in the sports world was in 1982, Cal vs. Stanford football.
Stanford was down by 2 with 53 seconds left, 4th and 17 on their own 13 yard line. John Elway was the quarterback, and he converts the 4th and 17, and leads Stanford down the field for a field goal with 4 seconds left. Stanford up 1, kicks off to Cal, and the impossible happens. We’ve seen it before, a team scoring on the final kickoff to win, but that’s not what makes this story. Stanford was penalized with a 15 yard penalty for excessive celebration. The announcers had all but handed Stanford the win. So they kick it off, and Cal starts to pitch it back, and after 5 pitches, Kevin Moen ends up with the ball and breaks free. He gets to the 20 yard line and the Stanford band is out on the field celebrating. As they try and get out of the way, Moen runs into the end zone, and emphatically jumps up and crushes a trombone player.
Celebrating too early can lead to an embarrassing downfall. In our story this morning, couple that arrogance with a hidden sin, and we find devastating consequences.
Big Idea: Sin leads to destruction
1. Sin in the Camp (1) (Read vs. 1)
The first word of our chapter is the most important word that we will find this morning. “But.” This is a word of transition, so we must take our minds back to chapter 6, and the victory that Israel had over the city of Jericho. The Israelites were obedient to the Lord. They followed His instructions almost perfectly. They marched silently around the city, following the Ark of the Covenant for 6 days.. The Ark symbolized the presence of the Lord, so Israel was literally following the Lord. Because of their obedience to the Lord’s instruction, Jericho fell, Israel did not lose a single person in the process, and their first step to conquest was complete.
“But,” one of the commands of the Lord that we found in that story was this: “But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.” Everything on that list was to be devoted to the Lord for He was the One responsible for the victory.
“But…Achan, the son of Carni, took some of the devoted things.” And this bold act of disobedience angered the Lord. The sad reality of this situation is that no one else knew about the sin. He had kept it hidden, quite literally in the ground under his tent. And it’s important to note right up front, and we’ll expound on this in our application, that our personal and private sin can have devastating effects on those around us.
While Achan was guilty of bringing consequences on the nation of Israel, they also made a pretty big mistake themselves.
2. Pride Comes Before the Fall (2-5)
How quickly we forget! Less than 2 weeks after Joshua had an encounter with the Lord near the city of Jericho, remember that? That meeting in which the Lord told Joshua that this wasn’t Israel’s fight, but it was a fight on a much larger scale? This was the Lord’s battle, a battle between the forces of evil, and the forces of righteousness. Unfortunately for Joshua and his spies, an incredible victory in their lives made them feel almost invincible. I believe we see 2 mistakes here:
A. Arrogance
We can see how they got here. They had just experienced an incredible victory over one of the most fortified cities in Canaan. They were high on adrenaline. “Alright Joshua, what’s next?!” He sends them over to AI, and when they get there, they’re like, “pfft, piece of cake! We’ve got 600,000 able bodied fighting men, these people don’t stand a chance! There’s no use in sending the whole army up, what a waste of resources. I think we’ll be fine with maybe 2 or 3 thousand.”
Based on historical records and excavation, the city would have been about 12 acres total, with about 12,000 residents. They also found what’s called a “twin-gate system” at the western entrance, which was essentially 2 gates in sequence with a small corridor between them. This was a defensive strategy that would allow an invading army through the first gate, only to be stuck in between and ambushed by the defending army. This is what they believe happened to Israel, as the men of Ai waited in the hilly terrain for the approaching army.
B. Trusting in Self
This arrogance led to a lack of trust in the Lord. I wonder if Joshua would have sought the Lord before invading Ai, if He would have revealed the sin that was in their camp. I wonder if death would have been avoided if Joshua would not have acted so quickly. Again, just weeks earlier Joshua met with the Lord, and almost immediately trusts in human wisdom and strength to fight a battle that seems like an easy win.
And this can happen to us! We can become over-confident in our lives when things are going really well, and we let our guard down for just a moment, and we begin to trust in ourselves, and it can have devastating consequences.
Joshua starts freaking out, and falls on his face before the Lord. He pours out his heart to Him. “Why didn’t you just let us stay on the other side of the Jordan? Did you bring us here just to kill us? We are in trouble! The people are scared, and the Canaanites are going to hear about how vulnerable we are!”
One commentator points out that the Lord uses 6 verbs here in vs. 11: Sinned, transgressed, taken, stolen, lied, and put (hidden). “Get up Joshua, there is sin in the camp! Until you take care of this, you will not be able to move forward.”
3. The Effect of Sin (10-25) (Read Vs. 13-25)
A. Defeat
“You cannot stand before your enemies.”
Until the sin was taken care of, Israel would face constant defeat. They would not be able to stand against the Canaanites with sin present in the camp. This should take our minds back to the beginning of this book, when the Israelites had to consecrate themselves, purify themselves before they entered the land. They would not be ready for battle until their sin was rooted out. It should also take our minds back to the covenant, and the conditions we find in the Pentateuch, specifically Leviticus 26:17. If Israel disobeys, “I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.” It had been promised, and now it was being fulfilled.
B. Death
“He shall be burned with fire.”
We don’t need to expound on this one too much. It’s pretty obvious what happened. Achan sinned, and he paid the ultimate price for it. He admitted his wrongdoing, interestingly though that it wasn’t until he was found out that he offered up his confession. He was brought out before the nation, he and everything associated with him, and he was stoned to death, and then his body and possessions burned. It was a complete eradication of the sin and the guilty party. But we can’t just skip the most difficult part of this passage. Why does it seem that his whole family had to die alongside him? At an English reading of the text, it seems as though this is the case. (Re-read 24-25)
(Theology Pause)
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the sin of one affect the masses. The worst case happened in the Garden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, resulting in a curse that would infect all of humanity. The case with Achan is especially difficult, because we have no other hints as to why his whole family was killed. We can speculate, as others have. Perhaps it was an object lesson, a warning from the Lord to the people of Israel. One of the more widely accepted theories is that Achan’s children actually helped him smuggle and hide the forbidden treasure. Another theory is that his children were not killed, but were only their to witness the stoning of their father.
Issue #1: In Deuteronomy 24:16, we find this Law: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” So if the Lord punished Achan’s children for HIS sin, God would be in direct violation of His own Law. If the Scriptures do implicate that Achan’s children were killed alongside him, we can deduce that they were complicit in his sin. Most likely his children were not young kids, but were grown, and therefore able to understand their wrongdoing.
Issue #2: There is a bit of a back and forth between singular and plural pronouns. In verse 24 we see that everyone and everything belonging to Achan was brought up to the Valley of Achor. And here’s where it gets tricky. In verse 25 we see “all Israel stoned HIM with stones. They burned THEM with fire and stoned THEM with stones.” And then in verse 26, “they raised over HIM a great heap of stones.” The belief here would be that the “them” in verse 25 were the possessions and animals, but not his children. His children were brought up to witness his public execution for stealing from the Lord. Elsewhere in the chapter the sin of Achan is talked about in a singular sense, that he is the one who sinned, with no allusion to anyone else participating.
Even if we go back into the original Hebrew it doesn’t become clear, because there are different versions of the Hebrew text. I bring this to our attention not to confuse, but to illustrate for us the necessity of a deep study of the Scriptures. This text provides some major difficulties for the skeptic. “Why would God kill innocent people?” At surface level, it would appear that God mercilessly killed an entire family for the sins of their father. However, taking into account the 2 issues that I just presented, we can say for certain that nobody innocent was killed. If Achan’s children were in fact killed, it’s because they were complicit to some extent, knowing and helping to keep the sin hidden.
C. Interpersonal
Achan’s sin had far-reaching consequences. Because of his sin, the Lord allowed Israel to be defeated by a much smaller army, with 36 of his kinsmen being killed. The fulfillment of the covenant was on hold because of his sin. His disobedience literally impacted nearly 2 million people! What he had done in secret had devastating effects. BUT…
4. The Mercy of the Lord (26) (Read vs. 26)
The Lord turned from His burning anger. The Lord relented. The Lord was merciful. Punishment and judgment had been lifted because the sin had been eradicated. This is the gospel!
Application
Our sin is destructive. Our sin destroys us. Our sin leads us to death. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul says. Death, eternal separation from God. We deserve the stones, we deserve the fire, but instead, Jesus took our sin upon Himself. He bore the weight of our sin. He bore the punishment for our sin. He bore the wrath of God, and as a result, listen to this, as a result “the Lord turned from His burning anger.” The Lord looks upon sin, and it makes Him angry, but then He looks upon Jesus, the sacrifice for our sin, and He relents!
1. Do you feel like God may not be using you right now because there is sin in the camp?
2. Has your sin affected other people? Damaged relationships?
