Jump Start # 1683

Joshua 7:21 “When I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it.”

  Our verse comes from the early days of Israel in the new promise land. Things were going well. Suddenly, it seemed like everything crashed. The promises were fading away. The nation, following God’s instructions to drive out the inhabitants, were defeated at Ai. After such a stunning victory at Jericho, Ai, should have been an easy victory. They didn’t send a full force. It wasn’t needed. But something terrible happened. The men of Ai struck back very hard. Thirty-six Israelites were killed. The ran in defeat and were chased by the men of Ai. Joshua was stunned. What happened? Then God revealed that Israel had sinned. Achan had taken some prized items from Jericho. There was a command not to take anything.

In our verse, Achan is discovered. He confesses the details of what he took. He didn’t say that I took a few things, he itemized the list of stolen property. Two hundred shekels of silver, a gold bar weighing fifty shekels…how did he carry all of this stuff? Did he have help?

The consequences were devastating. Achan, his stolen property, his life stock, and even his tent were destroyed in punishment by Israel. Included in this was Achan’s children. They were put to death along with their dad. God was removing Achan’s family line from Israel. There would be no more descendants from this wicked, covetous man. Nothing that belonged to him would survive.

There are some things for us here:

1. Achan knew what he did was wrong. First, the command had been stated not to take bring anything back. He knew that. Temptation got the best of him. But when he brought items back, he not only put them in his tent, but hid them in the ground in his tent. He was hiding what he had. Guilt will do that. He knew it was wrong. If it wasn’t wrong, he would have proudly paraded his items around and bragged about it. No one seemed to know about this, but God. Guilt will make you look left and then right to see if anyone is watching, but we forget to look up. God’s there. He’s always watching. There is no hiding from God what we have done.

2. Achan’s actions affected the nation. When Joshua collapses in fear, God reveals that “Israel had sinned.” We’d say today, Achan sinned. We would put some distance between Achan and the nation. God didn’t. The sin of one affected all. The nation was guilty. Boy, we could hear folks complaining today, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t me.” God didn’t see it that way. He was part of the nation. One sinned, they are all guilty.

Only a few men when to fight at Ai. We wonder if Achan was one or did he stay behind. If he went, why didn’t God just kill Achan in battle? Why allow others to die? This was part of the consequences of Achan’s sin. Too many times, the innocent get hurt by the sins of others.

3. Achan’s family suffered because of his choices. This is really hard to understand. Everything and everyone belonging to Achan was destroyed. Executed by the nation. Forever known as a disobedient thief who was greedy. His foolishness caused his kids to die. One can only imagine the screams of terror and fear that came from his children as they faced death. So tragic.

The choices of dads today are still killing their kids. The choice to raise their kids to be bullies, selfish, materialistic, ungodly, is destroying the souls of children nationwide. Dads decision to not follow Christ kills the family. Dads choice to be arrogant, greedy and steal from his company is not much different than the actions of Achan. The children are not stoned to death by the nation today, but they die spiritually. They grow up and live a lifetime away from God. They drop deeper and deeper into selfishness and sinfulness. A generation follows them and they continue the downward spiral of living without any moral direction. Just look around us today. College campuses are producing hundreds if not thousands of future alcoholics. Binge drinking is out of control and these foolish students do not realize that this is addictive and setting them on a course of a life long misery. Look at the idiotic movies being produced that glamorize fornication and sinful conduct. Right is now wrong and wrong is right. Deeper and deeper we sink as a nation. Why? Bibles are closed. Prayers are not uttered. Church buildings are empty. And inside our tents are the spoils of greedy and covetous hearts. Achan’s choices affected the nation and they affected his family.

Our choices affect our congregation and our families. We can never be strong as a church, as long as we are hiding sin in our tents. We will never have families that are what they should be as long as we continue to ignore God’s commands. We must think that God put this story, true as it is, in our Bibles, not only for historical reference and accuracy, but to teach us a lesson as well. What we do touches others. What we do affects our family. There is no such thing as, “It’s my life and I can do what I want.” Wrong. Your choices affect others.

It must have been hard for Israel to execute one of their own. It must have been extremely hard for them to execute the children of Achan. This is one page of the Bible that I would not like to witnessed. One man’s sin, sure put many people in misery.

4. We can’t leave this without saying something about the cause of Achan’s sin. He coveted. He admitted that. He confessed that to Joshua. Even without this command to leave the spoil, Achan should have known. The last of the 10 Commandments was about coveting. Thou shalt not covet. Why didn’t he get that? Why did he think that he could get a pass on that? Why did he think this one time I will do it? How many times does it take to be wrong? How many bites of the forbidden fruit did Eve have to take before it was wrong? Coveting and greed will consume a person. It did Achan. It fills our eyes and our hearts with things that we think will make us happy. If I could only get this, we think. Coveting can get ahold of a person so deep, that he will break the rules to get what he wants. There has been people in the church who embezzled the Sunday contribution. Stealing from God! Greed can make us not see straight.

This disastrous story was the result of stuff that Achan stole. His children died because of stuff. He died because of stuff. How many will lose their souls eternally because of stuff?

Everyday we make choices. Our choices affects others, they always do.

Roger