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October, 2025 (Vol.59-No.10) |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on October 15, 1989 Israel hath 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… Joshua 7:11 If one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. 2nd Corinthians 5:14-15 TODAY’S MESSAGE WILL NOT MAKE anyone happy except God. But in the long run, it will be a blessing to the church, because it will reestablish certain foundational principles. In Joshua 6, the children of Israel were preparing to conquer the city of Jericho in the Promised Land. We read, beginning in verse 1, “Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho…” Notice that God stated this in the past tense: “I have given.” Once God declares something, it is forever settled in heaven. God then proceeded to give Joshua specific instructions regarding how he was to take the city. The people were to march around Jericho for seven days, circling it seven times on the seventh day. Then the priests were to blow trumpets of ram’s horns, all the people were to shout, and the walls of the city would fall down flat. God had Joshua specifically warn His people not to keep any of the spoils of the city. We read in verses 17-19, “The city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD…And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from 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.” Then we read in Joshua 7, “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing…” It is interesting that Achan was from the line of Judah, the line of promise. Judah was given the right to rule. He had two sons, Pharez and Zerah. Pharez produced the line from which the Savior of the world would come, the hope of all mankind, but Zerah also had an important destiny to fulfill. Achan had thus been blessed with a great privilege and opportunity. We have been given an even greater privilege and opportunity today. If you were given the choice, would you rather be rich in the goods of this world or be a faithful part of God’s redemptive plan? Would you rather have immediate gain for yourself or be a part of bringing forth God’s kingdom of grace in eternity? Jesus said, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” God used the lives of His chosen people to play out a drama on the stage of history in order to teach eternal truths. What Achan did would have been just as evil if he had not been from the line of Judah, but the consequences of his actions were more significant because of his special position in God’s kingdom. This position also made him a greater target of the enemy. Satan knew all about the promises of God. God’s promises to Abraham were passed down to his descendants by the law of primogeniture: the firstborn would inherit the promises, unless God elected otherwise. The promises passed on to Abraham’s son Isaac and then to Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons: Reuben was his firstborn. So Satan wanted to destroy Reuben more than all the other sons of Jacob. Reuben would have been the recipient of the birthright promises, but all Reuben saw was a chance to fulfill his own lusts. He committed an incestuous act that violated his father’s bed, and he lost the birthright as a result. He had a shortsighted attitude and must have thought, “I can get away with this today. I can gain something for myself today, and God will be long-suffering and forgive me. I can have my cake and eat it too.” Now, Achan was like any of us, and he made a mistake that any one of us could make: he could not maintain the upward look. In the hurly-burly of the daily grind, he focused on his own wants and his own satisfaction. In his self-centeredness and shortsightedness, he ceased to be ruled by the passion of his calling. He could only see what served the self in the here and now. The importance of being part of the tribe of Judah became merely an abstract idea to him. He no longer saw the reality that God’s promises were being passed on through him. He might have thought to himself, “I know that God said He has a calling and a destiny for the tribe of Judah, but there are plenty of other Judahites. What I do won’t make any difference. Out of all the tribes of Judah, God can’t really mean He expects something from me!” This is like the attitude of certain people who used to give faithfully, but then stopped. I am sure they are able to rationalize abandoning their commitment to God. They might even convince themselves they will start giving again someday, but that day never comes. Like Achan, they think it makes no difference whether or not they do their part, and that God’s plan cannot possibly be dependent on their participation. Yes, it can! God has laid a calling both on the church and on each one of us individually, which makes each of us a necessary link in the chain. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Sometimes, it is necessary to remove the weak link and then reassemble the chain, connecting one strong link to another. Before we go into the details of what Achan did, I want to set the stage. In the immediateness of serving self, he failed to comprehend the importance of his calling. There are many Christians today who, in their day-to-day activities, are as unaware of the opportunities God has provided them as Achan was. Most Christians fail to recognize that we are at war. Paul said in Ephesians 6, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers…” There are powerful demonic forces at work, and we need to put on the whole armor of God to resist them. You are called by God to be saints, and I am called to be one of God’s gift ministers to the church. I am sure that some people came to church today dominated by their own pressing needs, not realizing they have been called and chosen by God for His purpose. Out of all the vast multitudes of people in this world, you have been chosen by God to be a part of the body of Christ! The church stands alone in these last days, shining a light to a darkened world. The Bible says that Achan “took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.” Concomitant with the call of God is our horizontal responsibility: what we do as individuals affects the entire body of Christ. After Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, his sister Miriam sinned by challenging his leadership. Because of what she did, the whole camp of Israel could not move forward until God had dealt with her. It is remarkable that God did not deal directly with Achan as He did with Miriam. God could have struck him dead with a bolt of lightning. But what exactly did Achan do wrong? Everywhere you turn in the Bible, there is a message about giving. God had given the entire Promised Land to the children of Israel, but He instructed them not to keep even one thing from Jericho, the first city. Achan might have reasoned, “What nonsense! What does it matter if I take some money and a few little trinkets? In fact, I am quite sure that when we get to the next city, I can give all those things to God.” The real meaning behind tithes, firstfruits, and offerings as taught properly in the Bible is the recognition of a principle. Deuteronomy 10:14 says, “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.” You are a rebel at the core until you recognize that you are not your own; you are bought with a price. Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 5:15 that Christ “died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Jericho was the firstfruits of the Promised Land. According to God’s plan, the Israelites would go on to conquer city after city; God would bless His people and they could keep it all, save the tithes. But the firstfruits are the Lord’s. That is why He prohibited the people from touching anything in Jericho, no matter what their rationale. The tithes are also the Lord’s. You may not use the tithes for any other purpose, not even to pay a vow. In Leviticus 27, God gave laws concerning vows. He allowed His people to enter into a covenant relationship with Him, in which they could ask Him for something and promise to do something for Him in return. But the law forbade borrowing from the tithe to pay a vow, no matter how spiritual the vow was. We read in Leviticus 27:30, “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD’S: it is holy unto the LORD.” You do not have the right to “designate” the tithe, because God has already designated it. But Achan did not take God seriously, so he took some of the spoils from Jericho and buried them in his tent. God did not strike him dead for doing that. Instead, He punished all of Israel, because He expected Joshua, His appointed leader, to deal with Achan. And as long as Achan was not dealt with, all of Israel suffered. That is a mystery of God’s dealing with His people: when there are “Achans” in the church, the whole body of Christ suffers. This is a warning to pastors who might allow their love for their congregation to cripple their capacity to discipline people and to deal with evil when it occurs. All my life, I have wondered why Samson stupidly kept going back to Delilah until he finally revealed to her the secret of his strength and was captured by the Philistines. Why did David put up with his son Absalom’s treachery, and why did David cry and lament when Joab killed Absalom? David was still called “a man after God’s own heart,” but he did not deal with his traitorous son when he had the chance. After many years of ministry, I recognize this tendency, even if I do not fully understand it. It can be hard to admit that someone close to you has turned bad. On some level, you still hope there is some good left in them and they can change. I am reminded of the love of a mother who will keep visiting her son in prison, even if he is on death row. I owe a great debt to the late Bond Bowman, who was the pastor of Brightmoor Tabernacle in Detroit, Michigan, and a man of great integrity. He began preaching at 17 years old, starting with a little storefront church of about 35 people. His congregation would eventually grow to around 1,400 people. He once lamented to me about certain associates whom he loved deeply, for they had stood by side with him throughout the years; but they would not grow and they would not change. They had locked themselves into their positions through seniority and had become comfortable. Bond Bowman taught that complacency and pride must be broken for God’s work to move forward. Any God-called leader must have the courage to deal with problems in the church. And since having courage is 90 percent of faith, lacking courage is a good way to lose your place in the kingdom. Because of one man’s deed, the Lord’s anger was kindled against all the children of Israel. Maybe the Lord’s anger is kindled against the children of faith today who casually make a commitment to God’s work but then lose the upward look and turn their focus on themselves. The faithful ones pour their souls into their commitment, but because of the unfaithful ones, the whole church struggles to gain ground. It is the pastor’s responsibility to deal with the faithless ones in order for the church to move forward again. After the Israelites’ great victory at Jericho, Joshua sent men to the next city, AI, to spy out the country. When the men returned, they told Joshua, “Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite AI; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but few.” They assumed that taking Ai would be easy. So Joshua only sent up about three thousand men to attack Ai. But when they arrived, “They fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.” God’s people were utterly defeated and disheartened. “And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face…And Joshua 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!” Joshua sounds like he was as complaining to God, “I wish I had never practiced faith or followed You!” Joshua cried out, “O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?” In other words, “God, what will our enemies say about Your reputation?!” “And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath 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 dissembled also,” that is, they lied, “and they have put it even among their own stuff.” God commanded Joshua to get off his face and deal with the problem! God told Joshua that the children of Israel had stolen and lied and kept the spoils of Jericho for themselves, “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 any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.” Then God gave Josua instructions on what to do about it, saying, “Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: 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 ye take away the accursed thing from among you. In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come according to the families thereof; the family which the LORD shall take shall come man by man. And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath: because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel.” Joshua did as the Lord commanded him, and Achan was discovered to be the culprit. Achan confessed his sin, saying, “Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done…” Joshua said to Achan, “Why hast thou troubled us? The LORD shall trouble thee this day.” Under the harsh laws of the Old Testament dispensation, the children of Israel stoned Achan and his family with stones and burned them with fire. We read at the close of Joshua 7, “And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day.” Once Joshua dealt with Achan’s sin, God put the children of Israel back on the path to victory. Understand that when I talk about Achan’s sin, I am not talking about Christians who have occasional lapses in dedication. Such lapses will come, but the important thing is to keep leaning more toward God than away from Him. I am not talking about people who make mistakes; mistakes are forgivable. I am talking about the perverted, lying evil that hides the sin of serving self. Proverbs 28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.” Jesus said in Luke 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” There are people who have completely lost the upward look. They will not die daily and recognize the price that comes with the call of God. When the church has people with that spirit in their midst, the entire body suffers until the accursed thing is dealt with. I end with a message of hope. The place where Achan was stoned was called “the valley of Achor,” which means, “the valley of trouble.” Years later, God will give a promise about this place through Hosea, who was a prophet of restoration. God said He will make “the valley of Achor” become a “door of hope.” The Bible records many places where valleys and defeats became an entrance into great blessing. We can move forward with confidence in the knowledge that there is hope for the future. May God give us a people who will keep eternity in view, keep their eyes on the prize, and recommit to keeping Him first in all that they do. That is my prayer today. Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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