"Achan's Sin: A Cautionary Tale of Covetousness and Its Consequences"Joshua Part 6 - Justin Wadel

I know it's been a long time, but we are back in Joshua, and this is part six in my series. We're going to be looking at chapters seven and eight, and this is not the chapter that I've been looking forward to.

So, just to review, Joshua and the nation of Israel have been given the responsibility of crossing into Canaan and conquering the nations there so that they can receive their inheritance. That might not sound like a big undertaking, but it's actually a very big undertaking because this is a small group compared to the nations and the amount of people that they're up against. Joshua is a type of Jesus, our Messiah, who leads the faithful into heaven and tramples down sin, death, and the devil. Spies are sent into the city of Jericho, where they meet Rahab, who seeks deliverance for herself and her family and is promised salvation on the condition of staying inside her house when Jericho is attacked.

That's a key, important key there. This is a beautiful picture of the church who procures salvation for all who stay within her walls through faith and obedience. And as Cyprian once said, there is no salvation outside of the church. Before entering the promised land, Joshua and the people must cross the Jordan River so God stops the flow of water so everyone can pass over, which is a type of the mysteries of the church, as in baptism and communion, where the laws of nature are overcome to allow us to partake of the Lord's salvation. Joshua then reinstates the law of circumcision, and God removes the disgrace of Egypt from the people, which is a type of our baptism and a cutting off of sinful desires and separating ourselves from an unholy way of life to live unto God.

And then, last time, we looked at the defeat of Jericho and how God worked together with the people's cooperation to bring about total destruction of this formidable city. I want us to remember that too, as this kind of whole series is focused on that, how we cooperate with God in God's plan, in a sense, to conquer the earth, to bring His kingdom to earth. We cooperate with that. God could have just decided to do it all Himself. He could have done this Himself. He could have took out Jericho Himself. He could have wiped out the inhabitants of Canaan Himself and just let the people come in, but He chose to cooperate with them. And so the conquest of Canaan had begun with a major victory, and Joshua and the nation of Israel are now poised to go and conquer the rest of the land.

So at the end of our last sermon, I said that we would try to answer the question of why God called for this total destruction of everyone and everything in Jericho. Even the animals were to be destroyed. The clothes, everything, God didn't want a trace of anything, although He did allow the silver and the gold to be brought into the treasury, but not for the people. Everything else was to be completely destroyed. But before we look at that question, I want to read a couple of verses in chapter six, just refresh ourselves a little bit on that. For the city shall be accursed by the Lord, it and whatever is in it, speaking of Jericho.

However, preserve Rahab, the harlot, and whatever is in her house. But be very careful to keep yourself from what is accursed, lest you yourself consider to take from it what is accursed. And then you shall make the camp of the children of Israel a curse and destroy us. But all the silver, the gold, and the bronze, or the iron, shall be holy to the Lord and brought into the treasury of the Lord. This was Joshua telling the people this just right before the walls came down and they came into Jericho. So this was something fresh on their minds that, I mean, they weren't to touch anything. Do your job, kill everyone, burn it all down, and get out.

Why the total destruction? What was it about Jericho and the other nations in Canaan that brought them to the point where God is calling for everyone and everything to be destroyed? Is this unfair judgment on God's part? Does it qualify as genocide? How can this be the same God who now commands us to love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us?

This particular issue has caused many people to shun the Old Testament and maybe even to doubt God's character. So I think it is important that we understand at least to a certain degree what's going on here. Now, like we already heard this morning in Sunday school, it's probably impossible to totally understand everything, and I don't, especially as you work through the Old Testament. But I think we can get a little bit of a grasp of this. Number one, extreme wickedness. By the time the Israelites showed up here in Canaan, wickedness had reached levels that none of us here could ever comprehend. This was pre-flood kind of wickedness, maybe worse. This is why God judged the earth, you know, so many years before this and covered it all with water and started over.

This was a society that had totally forsaken God in any sense of morality. Later on, we get glimpses of this in the Israelites' history. I mean, it doesn't take long. We're already heading there here in First Kingdoms.

When the Israelites adopt some of the gods and the practices of the Canaanites because of their failure to totally destroy them. And so we have things like child sacrifice and mutilation, destructive sexual behavior, injustice, harmful ritual worship, violence, and abuse. These things were all commonplace in Canaan. Awful behaviors like are as described in Leviticus 18 and 20, which God condemned as punishable by death.

All right, and I'm not going to read those passages. So in Leviticus 18 and 20 are some very graphic examples of what God was telling the Israelites. Do not do these things, or you will defile the land. These are the things that they practiced. These are the things that the Canaanites practiced.

And that brings defilement on the land. They were punishable by death for the Israelites. But these were practices. These were regular practices for Canaan. These were things that had just become commonplace. And as we see here in Joshua, even their clothes and their animals were defiled. And if you think about the kind of sins that they were involved in, that makes sense. So everything had become defiled. It had reached the point of no return. And the only really sensible thing for God to do was to get rid of it. Number two, divine patience leading to divine judgment. We tend to forget how long God had waited in His long-suffering and mercy. Like God just didn't come in and wipe them out, you know, after a few years when He realized, okay, they're wicked.

They rejected me. I'm done with them. This goes all the way back, pretty much not long after the, till probably not long after the flood. But this goes all the way back to when Abraham was first in the land of Canaan and were told that even then, okay, the Canaanites were already morally corrupt and unjust and that God was being patient with them and telling Abraham that someday his descendants would come back here. And you can find that in Genesis 15, that Abraham was kind of given that prophecy that he's leaving, but there would be a full circle someday and his descendants would come back. I forget, God calls it like the fourth generation and basically for judgment on these nations because even at that point, this is hundreds of years before.

And the reason was that this for the sin of the Amrites or the Canaanites has not yet reached its full measure. God was being patient. God was waiting. He was given an opportunity. So what we're seeing here in Joshua was God's judgment after hundreds of years of patience and mercy. Number three, not Israel versus Canaan, but God versus human evil. We remember in chapter six how the captain of the Lord's army showed up there to Joshua.

And it's a very interesting moment. It's right before the battle of Jericho. And he essentially tells Joshua, this is God's battle. And the real question is, are you on God's side or not? Are you against him? Like, because Joshua was like, well, whose side are you on? What are you doing here? He said, no, it's not about that. It's about whose side are you on? Are you going to fight with me or not? The fact is that God often executes swifter judgment on His own people than He does on the other nations. He's not impartial. And we see that in our story today. We're going to see that very firsthand. Obviously, God could have wiped out these nations without Israel's help, like I said before.

But I think one reason He chose to use them was so that they could see firsthand the end result of disobedience. And they got to participate in God's mission to bring the world back under His rule. And, you know, again, with this, I want to highlight God's mercy. We have the story of Rahab, who obviously had been infected by the wickedness of these nations and had participated in that at some level. But she had faith. She had a little bit of faith. She recognized who God was, and God noticed her faith and allowed her and her family to escape. I think that's amazing, considering what we just talked about, considering the level of wickedness. And really, God probably had every right to say, well, look, you're, you're, it's too late.

But He was still there. His mercy was still there. If anyone wanted to get out and escape, the opportunity was there. I think that's amazing. And I mean, it's at the last minute that she gets out. That's a little bit of an explanation. Take it for what it is. God did not want a trace of this wickedness and this evil. He did not want it to be a stumbling block to the children of Israel, which, of course, we see later on, it becomes that the very thing that, that reason why God wanted them to destroy all this when they didn't. And we see how it became a stumbling block to them. Let's get back to the story, Joshua chapter seven.

And I'm going to go ahead and read through chapter seven and eight. But the children of Israel committed a great offense, for they kept back for themselves something from what was accursed. Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took something from what was accursed, and the Lord was very angry with the sons of Israel. Then Joshua sent men into AI. Now, this is not artificial intelligence. This is a city in biblical times that was actually pronounced I, like the letter I. I think I'll just say AI.

Then Joshua sent men into AI, which is near Bethel saying, spy out AI. So the men went up and spied it out. After this, they returned to Joshua and said to him, let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and force the city to surrender. Do not lead all the people there, for they are few in number. Thus, about three thousand men went up, but they fled from the face of the men of AI.

The men of AI killed thirty-six of them and pursued them from the gate, and they crushed them on the steep slope. So the hearts of the people were terrified and became as water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the ground before the face of the Lord until evening, both he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, I beseech you, O Lord, why did your servant lead this people over Jordan to deliver them to the Amrite to destroy us? If only we had remained and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan. What shall I say? Since Israel turned his back before his enemy, when the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land hear this, they will surround us and destroy us from off the land.

Then what will you do for your great name? So the Lord said to Joshua, rise up. Why have you fallen upon your face? The people sinned and transgressed the covenant I made with them, for they stole something from what was accursed and put it among their goods. So the sons of Israel will be unable to stand against the face of their enemies. They will turn their backs before their enemies because they are accursed. And I will not be with you until you remove the accursed thing from among you. Rise up and sanctify the people and tell them to be sanctified for tomorrow. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, the accursed thing is among you.

You shall not be able to stand against your enemies until you remove the accursed thing from among you. In the morning, you shall be gathered together by your tribes, and it shall come to pass that the tribe the Lord points out, you shall bring forward family by family. Then the family the Lord points out, you shall bring household by household. After this, the household the Lord points out, you shall bring man by man. So whoever is pointed out, he shall be burned with fire along with whatever he has because he transgressed the covenant of the Lord and brought lawlessness in Israel. Now Joshua rose early in the morning. You think he slept that night and gathered the people tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was pointed out.

Then he brought family by family, and the family of Zerah was pointed out. After this, he brought man by man, and Achan, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, was pointed out. Then Joshua said to Achan, give glory to the Lord God of Israel today. Make confession. Tell me what you did and hide nothing from me. So Achan answered Joshua and said, truly, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. Thus and thus I did. I saw a beautiful multicolored garment in the spoil and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of fifty shekels of gold. I desired them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the ground in my tent, and the silver is concealed under them.

Then Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent in the camp. These things were hidden in the tent with the silver under them. They carried them from the tent, and they brought them to Joshua and the elders of Israel and placed them before the Lord. After this, Joshua took Achan, the son of Zerah, and led him up to the valley of Acor, along with his sons and daughters and his calves and all his donkeys and sheep and his tent and all his belongings. Thus he led them all to the valley of Acor. And Joshua said to Achan, why did you destroy us? May the Lord destroy you this very day. Then all Israel stoned him with stones, and they put over him a great heap of stones, and the Lord ceased from the wrath of his anger.

Therefore, and to this day, the place is named the valley of Acor. Chapter 8. The Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid. How do you think Joshua is feeling after all this? Probably a little hesitant. Do not be afraid, nor be cowardly. Take all the men of war with you and arise, go up to AI. Behold, I've given the king of AI and his land into your hands. You shall do to AI as you did to Jericho and its king. And you will plunder for yourself the spoil of its cattle. Prepare for yourself an ambush from behind the city. So Joshua arose along with all the people of war to go up to AI.

Then Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men and sent them by night. He commanded them, saying, you shall lie in ambush behind the city. Do not be far from the city, and all of you be ready. But I and everyone with me will approach the city, and it shall come to pass that as the inhabitants of AI come out to meet us, we at first shall flee from their face. Then as they come out after us, we will draw them away from the city. They will say, they are fleeing from us as before. Then you shall rise up from the ambush and go into the city. You shall do according to this word. Behold, I have commanded you.

Okay, we got the cooperation going on again. So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the ambush site and waited between Bethel and AI, westward of AI. It's interesting, this thing of between Bethel, Bethel, and AI. Okay, there's a time in the history of Abraham where Abraham pitched his tent between Bethel and AI. So I think that's that's just interesting. Maybe it was a great about the same spot.

Then Joshua rose early in the morning and visited the people, and he and the elders went up before the people to AI. All the men of war also went up with him, and they proceeded and came opposite the city eastward. But the ambush was on the west side of the city. Then it came to pass that when the king of AI saw it, he hurried out and immediately went to meet them in battle. He and all the people with him, but he did not know that an ambush was set against him behind the city. So Joshua and Israel saw and retreated from before them. They pursued after the sons of Israel, but were drawn further away from the city.

There was no one left in AI who did not pursue after Israel. They left the city open and pursued after them. Then the Lord said to Joshua, stretch out your hand with the spear in your hand toward the city, for I have given it into your hands, and the ambush will rise up quickly from their place. So Joshua stretched out his hand with the spear toward the city, and when he stretched out his hand, those in ambush rose up quickly from their place and went into the city. They seized it and quickly set the city on fire. This is an uh-oh moment. Then the inhabitants of AI turned to look behind them and saw smoke rising from the city toward heaven.

They no longer had any place to flee this way or that way. Then Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush took the city and that smoke from the city went up toward heaven, and they turned and struck down the men of AI.

These came out from the city to meet them, and they were in the midst of this army, some on one side and some on that side. The army struck them down until there was not one of them left who survived and escaped. But they took the king of AI alive and brought him to Joshua. Thus, when the sons of Israel ceased killing all those in AI who were in the plains and in the mountains on the slope where they pursued them to the end, then Joshua returned to AI and struck it with the edge of the sword. Those who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, all the inhabitants of AI. But the cattle and the spoils in the city, everything which the son of Israel, sons of Israel took as spoils, they did according to the ordinance of the Lord and the manner the Lord commanded Joshua.

Then Joshua burned the city with fire. He made it an uninhabited heap of forever and even to this day. The king of AI was hanged on a forked tree, and he remained on the tree until evening. When the sun went down, Joshua gave orders, and they took down the body from the tree and cast it into a pit. Then they heaped the palestines over him that remains to this day.

Wow, what a story. How much damage can one one person do to a community? How much damage can one person do to a nation? You know, when you finish chapter six and you start chapter seven, it's like a slap in the face. I mean, from the beginning of the book of Joshua up until now, it's been nothing but success and victory and miracles and obedience and confidence and just good, good, good. Like we're making headway. We've crossed the Jordan. God did a miracle. We took out Jericho. God did a miracle. And then you read the very first sentence of chapter seven, and the only thing left to say is why. Verse one in this chapter gives us a kind of a special insight into the narrative that we wouldn't have if we started out at verse two.

And we already know before it happens what the cause of it is. So we already, at the, you know, at chapter one, we're told exactly what happened and who did it. Whereas if we started out verse two, we wouldn't, we, you know, if we started out where Joshua starts out, we wouldn't know it.

So we already know before it happens what the cause of it is. And we kind of have that now that we're able to look at it and read about it. We have that privilege. Joshua and the people have to go through an agonizing process before they can piece it all together and correct the problem. And, you know, it's probably a rhetorical question, but why didn't God reveal to Joshua what we see in verse one before they had to find out the hard way? Was he expecting Joshua to ask, you know, find out, to make sure no one had touched anything just like they had just been told not to do out of Jericho? Did Joshua rush into this next battle too quickly without making sure that everything was good?

Those and so many more questions come to mind when looking at this story, which is why we just have this big why. At least I do. All right, first of all, I want us to notice the language used in this first verse, like this verse that kind of slaps us in the face and the very things that Joshua had no idea of, okay, or the rest of the people. The only person that knew was Achan and God. But I want us to notice the language. Um, I, you know, I think we're all familiar enough with the story to know that that one person committed a crime here, right? One person, we're even told who it was.

Achan, Achan is the one who committed the crime. But look at the, look at, well, I was going to say, look at the highlighted words, but they're not highlighted. But the children of Israel committed a great offense for they kept back for themselves something from what was a curse. And then back down at the end, and the Lord was very angry with the sons of Israel. One man's sin affected the whole nation, the whole community. And it's like God is is looking at this. He knows who did it. He knows what Achan did. He's angry with everyone. And he is calling this a great offense by all the people. And like we already noted, Joshua is oblivious to this.

And, you know, he's he's starting to plan this next mission to go to the next city and and conquer the next city. He has no reason not to, in his mind, the next step. What about this city? Little is known about this city except for the role that it plays in this story here, although it is mentioned, like I said, in the story of Abraham, um, but just as a city that he pitched his tent close to. So we do know at least that much that it was around since then and probably long before. Definitely another old city like Jericho. We find out at the end of chapter eight that there was a total of 12,000 inhabitants of this city, um, which I know last time I told you that Jericho probably only had about 2,500 people in it.

So I'm wondering now if that's actually correct. I would have thought Jericho was the bigger city, but it could be that that AI was actually bigger. And the other reason is because, you know, the spies go up there and in their minds they're like, oh, it's not very big. We can easily take it. We don't need to send the whole army. Why would we send the whole army up? That'd be a waste of resources. Just send about two or three thousand men up. We can easily take them. So I'm looking at that and the fact that the city had 12,000 people in it. And then we go back to Jericho and it didn't seem like the spies ever had that idea about Jericho.

So maybe Jericho was a lot bigger than what I originally told you guys. So I'm just back, back checking myself. Whatever the case, Joshua and the people envisioned an easy victory. So when the opposite happened and they not only fled before the men of AI, but, you know, at least 36 of them were killed initially. And it looks like maybe more were crushed on the way back down the mountain. Seems like the city was up on a hill. The hearts, we read that the hearts of the people became like water. I mean, just everything turned upside down. We go from confidence and victory, man, everything's going great to it's over. Like I think Joshua thought it was over.

Defeat. Nobody had expected this. And I'm guessing, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I'm guessing that we've all had the experience of being on some sort of spiritual high, if you want to call it that. Maybe winning an important victory in our life. Maybe having a great weekend at KFW or something like that. You know, you're feeling good. You've just had a lot of fellowship. You've been inspired. You've been encouraged.

You're on top of life. And then bam, something hits you from out of nowhere and down you go. Maybe sin or failure on your part or maybe it's just a situation that's outside of your control comes into play. I know I've been there. I'm guessing most of us or all of us have. In fact, I've I found myself, you know, I tend to like when I'm in those really good situations and things are going great and I'm having a great weekend at KFW, like, man, I'm ready for Monday morning. Like what's what's going to happen? Something's going to something's going to hit me. You kind of brace yourself. Probably not that bad, but I I I don't think, you know, and I'm not going to be hard on Joshua and the people because I can't imagine this feeling that he was having when, you know, when he sees this happening that we've been defeated.

It didn't work. God wasn't with us. Joshua's response. So Joshua responds as probably any of us would have done in this situation. He tears his clothes, falls on his face before the Lord, puts dust on his head, and basically his prayer is kind of like, why did I ever bring this people over here just to be destroyed? When the rest of the kingdom is here about this, they will come and wipe us out. And then what will you do for your great name? He's telling God. I don't think he's blaming God, but he's he's definitely wanting to to figure out what is going on. Was this a wrong response? Should he have recognized that someone had committed a great crime against God?

And you know, even though God seems to rebuke him for being on his face, I think that Joshua's response was very appropriate. In the beginning of the way back to victory, humility is a powerful invitation to God's grace. But now, along with humility, Joshua is expected to get to work and remove the accursed thing from among the people. God's like, get up off your face. There's sin. We've got to deal with it. There's a time to be on our face, and then there's a time to get up and deal with the problem. God makes it clear that the people will not have any success until this is taken care of. I think he drove that home to Joshua pretty clear that your your success is over until this is taken care of.

You will have no victory. You will flee before your enemy, and I won't be with you. And I think that was a pretty powerful incentive for Joshua to take care of this. So we have the path back to victory. Anytime there's a big sin or failure, either in our personal lives or in a community, we look for a path back to wholeness. We look for reconciliation. And for that to take place, there needs to be confession and repentance and forgiveness and possibly restitution or whatever, whatever it takes to get on that path and come back. It's a process of being restored. In this case, instead of telling Joshua who the guilty party is, God lets this painful process play out.

And he had his reasons for that. I don't totally understand. Maybe he wanted to give Achan a chance to repent and clear himself before it kind of became very apparent that it was him. I think he had, he could have done that. He had this opportunity. He could have jumped up before anything ever happened and said, wait, guys, I did something I shouldn't have done. But he keeps this hidden. So they go through this process of finding the culprit, starting with the tribes. You know, they get all the tribes lined up. They narrow it down, you know, to family within the tribes or families. Apparently, like there's families within a tribe. They pull out, you know, this group of families.

Then they narrow it down to households within those families, and they pull out one household. And then from the household, you know, it's just men now representing these households. From that, they they God points out Achan.

They narrow it down until finally Achan is pointed out. And now, finally, after being found out, Achan confesses to taking the garment and the silver and the gold from Jericho and hiding them under his tent. And in his confession, Achan describes his sin this way. I think it's very interesting how Achan describes this process of how he did what he did. He said, I saw, I desired, and I took. Sounds like something that happened back in Genesis, right? Achan used his eyes, he used his mind, and he used his hands. In other words, he was very conscious of what he was doing. It was a he he even described the process. It's not like it was just bam and, you know, it was done.

No, he saw it. He probably, you know, kind of glanced, saw it, glanced back, and then he desired it. He wanted it. And then he took it. And then to make matters worse, he said he hid everything in his tent as if that was going to help. But you know what? Nothing is hid from God. A very simple truth that some, um, but something that we tend to forget, right? We tell it to our children because we want our children to know that you can't hide it from God. You know, God sees everything you do, but how many things do we try to get away with? And we forget that, man, we can hide it from everyone around us, but God sees it.

The punishment. Achan's punishment was death by stoning. And it seemed like God had talked about a burning, so there might have been burning involved. And it appears that everything that belonged to Achan was also destroyed, including possibly his family. Although, um, I put a question mark there because in chapter 22 of Joshua, we read this. Behold, this is Joshua speaking to the people kind of toward the end of the book. Behold, did not Achan, the son of Zerah, commit a trespass in regard to the accursed thing and bring wrath upon all the congregation of Israel? But he was only one man, and he alone died in his sin. I take from this verse just a little bit of hope that maybe his family didn't perish with him after all, but it's possible that they did because of just the way that it had infected them.

Just the fact that he had this stuff in his tent. They even had to burn the tent, the animals, everything that belonged to him. It's a very sober reminder that sin leads to death. We might not experience the same death that Achan did. I doubt we will, but sin does lead to death. All right, we got that taken care of. The sins dealt with. We're ready to start over. Victory at last. So now with the sin taken care of, God tells Joshua to go back to AI and to expect different results. And this time God gets involved. I think the way it was supposed to be in the beginning. He gives Joshua a plan. Joshua carries it out, you know, and kind of along the way, God gives him directives.

Joshua does it. The army does what they're supposed to do, and it works wonderfully. And again, they were supposed to destroy everyone, but this time they could keep the cattle for themselves. For whatever reason, God made that gave them that privilege. So Joshua splits up the army, sets an ambush with some of the men, and then the rest of the men went up to the city and drew out their army after them. And then Joshua stretches out his hand with the spear in it, and the hidden ambush attacked the city, basically trapping the men from AI between two armies, and they just crushed him. And again, we see this cooperation, you know, like I said, this is what God wanted in the beginning.

God working together with the people to bring about victory. All right, let's look at, let's see if we can draw out some lessons from this story. I think there's a lot of lessons. I'm not going to, I probably won't cover all of them. I think there's some really good types and shadows in this. Um, maybe when we think of Adam's sin, you know, and how that infected everyone, and then it took the death of someone else to reverse that curse. Um, that's maybe one type. So what are some quick lessons that we can learn from from the story of Achan? Number one, God's commands are to be taken seriously. You know, when God gave this command to not, um, take anything from from this, from Jericho, he meant it.

When God gives a command, he means it. The Son of God himself came down to earth and gave us commands. He meant every word he said. Number two, my choices affect the community. I think that's a big one. That's probably the biggest one that that that I learned from this. The choices that I make, they affect me a lot, but they affect everyone else. And sometimes it's hard to see that. It's hard to really think that way. We teach a lot here at CCF on the importance of self-examination, you know, looking looking at myself and having, you know, a time set aside daily or weekly where where I check in with myself and make sure that I'm taking care of sin, taking care of anything between me and a brother, you know, doing whatever necessary to take care of it.

That's very important. But I think along with that, we've we've got to have this, um, this thought of that not only does my sin and failures affect myself, they affect everyone else. That kind of brings a a higher, um, importance to to taking care of it. As a connected body, what I do and how I live does affect the rest of the body, either for good or for bad. And so while you may not be responsible for my sin, you may not be responsible for it. You are affected by it. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And along with that, we also are responsible to watch out for one another and to deal with sin when necessary.

So there is that responsibility that we have, you know, and I look back, you know, and Joshua did that. Once he knew what it was and what he had to do, he did it. He took care of it. He dealt with it. Um, it's not a fun thing.

It can be a very unpleasant thing. But we are called to not only watch out for ourselves, but to watch out for one another. So remember that your choices affect your community. They affect your family. They affect, they might go beyond your community. All right, covetousness is a deadly sin. I don't think we can stress the importance of this enough. Achan's sin reminds us of the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Just like Eve, he saw, he desired, and he took. The same thing that Eve experienced. Jesus told us to take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Okay, it's the opposite of contentment.

I think we just had a good sermon on this not long ago. And later in the New Testament, we see covetousness listed alongside these awful sins, these things like murder and fornication and lawlessness, all these things that we would definitely not want to be associated with. But what about covetousness? Just that thing of wanting something that's that that I don't need, taking something that's not mine to have. Okay, remember, remember that process. You see, you desire, and you take. That's usually in the context of something you're not supposed to have. Better to fall on the stone and be broken than to let it fall on us and grind us to powder. Jesus said these words in Matthew 21, verse 44, and according to Chrysostom, this illustrates the two ways of destruction.

Those falling on the stone are those who suffer the consequences of their sins while yet in this life. And I think that's because they choose to humble themselves and repent. In other words, they've chosen to fall on that stone while in this life. Whereas those on whom the stone falls are unrepentant people suffering utter destruction in the final judgment.

And Achan literally went through this. The stones fell on him. And finally, victory comes through faith and obedience and repentance. Sometimes the path to victory requires some hard lessons and repentance and reconciliation. But thankfully, because of God's mercy, there is a way back. There is a path back, at least in this life. So I wanted to end on a positive note, like our story did. There is a way back to victory. It can be obtained even after a failure, after a sin. We can get back to victory.