Joshua 7
Bible Passage: Joshua 7
This Chapter starts with the coordinating conjunction ‘but‘, right after the preceding chapter painting such an overwhelming victory at Jericho. Shalom shared how God has helped the Israelites conquered the battle, given that the people were obedient to His commands. The little but ominous word ‘but‘ warns something otherwise took place, and indeed so, as something that this man named Achan did has cost Israelites their next battle and 36 lives at Ai.
What did Achan do resulting in the absence of God’s abidance and His glory amongst the Israelites?
Cause and effect of sin
Achan coveted items that should have been consecrated and kept in the treasury of the Lord, i.e. things that belonged to God (Joshua 6:18-19). The process to Achan’s sin is nothing new – he saw / gave away to the lust of the eyes, coveted, took and hid (v21). Does this sound all too familiar to what we have read of Eve (Gen 3:6) and King David (II Sam 11:2-4)?
Elder James warned of the dangers of giving ways to desires and temptation, which will lead to sin and death (James 1:14-15). While we may not be stoned to death like Achan in our sinning, however, the death sentence will be the everlasting destruction when the day judgment comes (Eph 5:3-5; I Thes 1:8-9).
In pursuing his own selfish and sinful desires, Achan has caused the downfall of the whole congregation. Each one of us are individual members but all of us belongs to the same body of Christ (I Cor 12:27; Eph 5:30).
On a larger scale, the individual agenda or pursuit for personal and ungodly motives may cause negative consequences not only for individual members but the whole congregation (I Cor 12:14-26). We thus are constantly reminded how we ought to examine ourselves and let no leaven resides in us during the partaking of the Holy Communion.
God is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent
These attributes of God are totally evidenced from the day before the foundation of the world to the very current day. In fact, we experience it ourselves in daily life. While we read of God’s omnipotence in Chapter 6, we are seeing His omniscience in the current chapter.
What was Achan thinking exactly -that his deed would be buried deep in the earth, just like how he hid the stolen goods? Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of Lord God (Gen 3:8), Jonah flee from the presence of the Lord (Jon 1:3).
I remember how as a young kid I would get myself hidden if I managed to make some havoc when mum and dad weren’t at home. Instead of feeling remorseful how I shouldn’t have exercised my active imagination too much in causing the regrettable event, I thought of go RUN and HIDE when they got home later (and found out the unfortunate menace)!
Knowing God’s absolute attributes helps us to put things better perspective in life. For example, total trust in God’s omniscience would have us acknowledge that God knows and searches our hearts (Ps 139:23).
He knows me and my thoughts, my paths and my words. We may be able to get away from our hide-and-seek pals, but there is NO way we can hide and flee from God, not to heaven, hell or the uttermost parts of the sea (Ps 139:1-12). Note: He doesn’t even need a GPS to locate us!
Thus, all that we do or say or think (either in light or darkness) will be judged according to God’s standards (Jer 17:10). Therefore, walk in the light and present the fruits of light – goodness, righteousness and truth to our heavenly Father (Eph 5:8-9).
Did I rob God?
Covetousness is caused by greed and a strong desire to obtain things that do not rightly belong to us. While we may not covet the physical things or monies belonged to God, have we ‘robbed’ God in some other way?
When confronted with such question, the people were totally ignorant of their sins where they did not fulfill the obligation on matters concerning giving tithes and offerings.
God, through prophet Malachi, commanded the people to offer tithes so that they are food in the house of God (Malachi 3:8-10). This is also the only place in the recording of Bible where God allows us to ‘try’ Him (Mal 3:10).
Other things that we ought to be careful not to ‘rob’ God include our gifts and talents blessed by God. Sing to God all that we have is given by Him and all is for Him.
…. Unless you destroy the accursed from among you
My latest word count has exceeded the informal thumb rule. I thus invite you to share / blog on verses 12 -13. God told Joshua that He will not be with the people any more, unless they destroy the accursed from among them. What is the significance of this to us today?
4 Comments
biblereadingcompanion
This morning Sabbath service, Pr CAQ spoke about Understanding God in that “God is Holy”. And in the sermon, he raised an interesting point….
“Holy, holy, holy!” Both the Old and New Testament has verses that says God is Holy, Holy, Holy!
God is Love. But no where does it say God is Love, Love, Love. Or….
God is Righteous. But no where does it say God is Righteous, Righteous, Righteous.
This shows that there are so many depths to the Holiness of God that we cannot even begin to fathom.
And he went on to say that Holiness is the most important attribute of God and without it, love, power, authority, wisdom etc can be abused and misused.
Where am I going with this?
LittleDust asked the significance about Joshua 7:12-13 in that God told Joshua that He will not be with the people any more, unless they destroy the accursed from among them.
The sermon left quite an impression on me and on reading today’s passage as well, it does tell me that I should re-evaluate my life properly and consider how it really is in the light of God’s awesome Holiness.
Look at the Achan incident. Just one guy sinned. But it affected the whole people of God.
Just one spot… just one bit of leaven…a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal 5:9).
In Luke 12:1-3, Jesus “… began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.”
We are all familiar with the teachings conerning leaven in that even if a little leaven is put into the dough, it affects the whole loaf. And Jesus compares this to our lives.
We cannot include a little sin in our life without affecting our whole soul.
The example He gave was on hypocrisy (not practicing what they preached) and this would make us unreliable and sinful.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that the church had to rid itself of unrepentant sinners, because the sin would spread and affect the whole church.
James 2:10 emphasises that “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”.
We know that sin is breaking God’s law and separates us from Him. If we break one law, we are a sinner. We don’t have to break all of it. Just one.
We can’t accept some sin in our life and expect God to overlook it. We can’t allow “white lies” because we think they do no harm. God said that lying is a sin. We must be truthful in all things.
Jesus in Luke 16:10 says “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”.
A little sin will spread until it takes over our lives. If we lie about little things, we will lie about important ones. We must always try to do what’s right.
And if we allow sin to remain – everyone else would be affected.
Can you imagine if Achan was not removed because of his sin? His neighbour may find out what he did and realize that nothing bad had happened to Achan. Then he might be tempted to do the same in the next battle. These things can quickly escalate and it will be disastorous if it did.
Therefore, it was necessary for God to reveal Achan’s sin and made a show of it so that the people can recognize the grave sin of being unholy towards the HOLY ONE.
It is an important lesson here today. One that we must remember everyday.
May God help us.
PS
When i first learn about tithing, one of the tithes i resolve to give to God is the 24 hours i receive everyday. Read a poem many years back that says time is a gift from God. This little resolution helps me to bend my kneels for prayers especially when i m “too tired” to pray. Frankly speaking, i have not been successful in fulfilling the tithing of time to God all these while. Whenever hymns about presenting our life as living sacrifice are sung, i m reminded of my childish resolution. Lord Jesus gives me every second. He abides in my heart. He gives me life in eternal. How to pay tithes on 24 hours my time + 24 hours His time + eternal?
Why was Achan not among the 36 Israelites killed in the battle?
May be bec this will not completely remove the leaven from the Israelite camp. The leaven is the covetousness. The leaven is also the beautiful Babylonian garment, silver and gold (Joshua 7:24-25).
We are quick to remove sins from our life. However sometimes we overlook objects of sins bec they are so pleasing to our eyes, soothing to our ears and “edifying” to our hearts.
Times and times when the sermons over the pulpit says, “My son, I beg you, give glory to the LORD God of Israel…” (Joshua 7:19) … do i hear it?
treasureinearthernvessel
wow…. I have never thought about the tithing of time.
In a way, I pride myself that I have been faithfully offering tithes especially ever since I started working. I feel reassured by the fact that I am not robbing God, and have given him the least of what should be given to Him.
But right now, PS, you made me reconsider myself, whether I have been robbing God of the time He has given me.
24 hrs a day.
One-tenth would be 2.4hrs a day.
Have I even given God 2 hours of my time everyday?
…. something that I must really reflect upon.
LittleDust
Thanks biblereadingcompanion for sharing an insightful view of the verses 12-13 and how we ought to pursue total holiness, in line with God’s requirement of us. At times, we tend to ‘persuade’ our hearts / justify our action, thinking God wouldn’t mind of our ‘small’ mistake or disobedience, but little did we realise (either due to ignorance or denial) that one little (or so we thought) uncleanliness in our thoughts, words or actions can leaven our ‘whole-self’. That’s why Jesus warned / likened how we even have to pluck out our eye if it causes us to sin (Matt 5:29-30).
Therefore, we shall be perfect, just as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matt 5:48).
On PS’s query on why Achan was not amongst the 36 killed at Ai – maybe he wasn’t amongst the 3,000 men selected to battle (Joshua 7:4).