Achan’s Sin
Joshua 7:1-11
Linden Heights Baptist Church
September 7th, 2014
7 But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things[a]; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri,[b] the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the LORD’s anger burned against Israel.
2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel,and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.
3 When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.” 4 So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, 5 who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, “Alas, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! 8 Pardon your servant, Lord. What can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? 9 The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?”
10 The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? 11 Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.
INTRODUCTION
It 4:07 according to the general consensus that the flood arrived in Johnstown, PA. In just a few minutes the town was radically changed. Most of the homes were destroyed. Over 2,000 of the residents of the small town would perish most in the next fifteen minutes. Survivors offered different accounts of what it was like in those moments when this destruction came upon the city. The noise was the first thing that most of the survivors remembered. The noise was as loud as a thunder clap that just went on and on. What the survivors remembered seeing was something that no one could have imagined. They saw descending upon their small town a wall of mud, trees, and debris rushing at them 60 feet high. Reconstruction of this event estimate the wall of destruction entered the town at about 40 miles per hour. It snapped houses and buildings down like twigs as it decimated the town. Lake Conemaugh had a perimeter of 7miles. It is estimated that the lake held twenty tons of water. But on May 31st, 1889 the dam broke and in 45 minutes the entire 20 tons of water spilled down into the valley below. The failure of the dam was due to a very obvious design flaw. The consequences were horrendous from a terrible oversight. One can imagine how such a failure would become an important lesson for future construction. Only the great foolishness would ignore lessons from the failure of this dam.
Over the next several weeks I am going to begin a sermon series looking at several different Characters from the Bible. Some of these characters will be people that you may be very familiar with, and others perhaps not so much so. Some of these will be examples to imitate, and others examples to learn from. Today we are looking at a figure who is likely not very well known. His name was Achan. We know very little about Achan. In fact all that we know comes from just a few verses. And yet what we see in his life offer us something that can be of great benefit, if we have ears to hear.
THE SIN OF ACHAN
You may even have noticed if you read carefully that the name Achan did not exactly emerge in the passage I read from. The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books. Sometimes when one reads from a certain passage it can be confusing to know exactly what is going on in the wider history of the people. Genesis which means beginnings is the first book of the Bible. It includes not only the first eleven chapters that introduce to the creator of heaven and earth, but we are introduced to the main underlying problem…God’s good creation has been corrupted by human disobedience. The rest of the book of Genesis introduces the family through whom God is going to bring healing. The family begins with Abraham..father Abraham through whom God makes a promise to create a nation. By the end of the book of Genesis the family has grown…but it is just a big family. It is in Exodus after four hundred years of silence that the narrative resumes. This family is now a nation, but a nation that has been formed in the midst of oppression. They are slaves in Egypt. The creator of heaven and earth calls a man Moses as a special messenger to set this people free they are going to be brought back to the land promised to Abraham now as a nation. A nation that will be constituted…formed by the law. This people go right up to the border and send spies to check out the land, but they are afraid. The people of the land are too strong for them, and so the spies discourage the people from following God’s instruction. This generation that had seen God deliver them from slavery is punished none (with the exception of Caleb and Joshua) from this initial group will enter the Promised Land including Moses.
In the book of Joshua we come to the generation that will enter the Promised Land. They still face the people who live in the land. The first battle that they come to when the cross the Jordan River into this Promised Land is the fortified walled city of Jericho. An angelic messenger came to Joshua in the night to direct him in exactly how victory will be won. There is a children song that tells this story. The victory came in a most unusual mode. The armies of the people of Israel are directed to march around the city for seven days. And then on the seventh day they again march around the city until finally at the timed signal they blow their trumpets and break the jars that had been placed over their torches. At this moment the walls miraculously come crashing down. Now what is sometimes excluded in the telling of this miraculous victory, it is not included in the song for example is the very specific direction the armies are given. They are told to destroy everything. There are certain battles recorded in the Bible where there is a ban placed on the battle. This ban is a kind of requirement. Everything is to be destroyed the only exception to this is that there is to be gold and silver collected and placed in the treasury of the tabernacle the tent of meeting for use in the worship of the Lord.
This is where Achan’s part in our story emerges. Achan was one of the warriors who marched around Jericho. He was one who witnessed first-hand the miraculous event when the walls came crashing down. He was one of the men who fought with the people of Jericho that day emerging triumphant. And as they burned the city, he noticed a cloak that looked pretty nice. He also decided to keep just a few things some silver. We are not told how this decision process went for Achan. We don’t really know if he struggled at all. Did he without thinking very much just see something that caught his eye? The passage I read today is what happened after this. You see the work is not done for the people of Israel. There are more enemies before them. And there next battle is against a much weaker foe than Jericho the city of Ai. But when they go to engage Ai in battle the people of Israel are completely defeated. And Joshua along with others cry out to God. There are those who even ask if they should have ever crossed the Jordan. They do not realize that the problem comes from the actions of Achan. He doesn’t volunteer what he did. But it comes out. It is revealed by God. And when it does the consequence for Achan is severe. He is killed. His family is killed. His livestock is killed. And all of his possessions are burned. Now when you arrive at this point in the story I can imagine that some of you may be thinking to yourself this is why I don’t spend much time reading the Old Testament. How am I to make sense of this very violent story for my life today?
VIOLATING THE BAN
This passage is difficult for a variety of reasons. There are some passages in scripture that are difficult because the language is confusing. When one reads the book of Ezekiel there are images that can be really hard to make sense of what idea is being conveyed. But here in the book of Joshua the idea is clear. What is difficult is the image of God that seems to accompany this idea. Specifically the violence that happens both to the people of Jericho and to Achan’s family…and perhaps even to Achan himself seems to be at odds with the way we typically think of God’s attitude toward people. You know when someone has salad stuck in their teeth it can be hard to listen to what they are saying. One is distracted. I think these underlying concerns can be very troubling and make the reading of these passages very difficult.
There are a variety of ways people deal with such difficulty. One way is to simply not accept this passage as being something that is really from God. I want to make clear this is not the approach that I am going to encourage. However there are many who will specifically see in this passage something that cannot be attributed to a good God. I have heard people dismiss such passages perhaps with less direct attack but by simply suggesting this is the Old Testament and that God has changed in dealing in the New. This approach tends to see the Old Testament to be somewhat crude and barbaric perhaps in response to the cultural needs of the day. Again I do not want you to think I am going to encourage this approach either. One need not look very far on the pages of news magazines to see that the world of Joshua’s day is not very different in many places than it is today. There is one other way that I want to bring to your attention that people sometimes deal with the difficulty raised by the violence of the stories in the book of Joshua and this is to just not read them. Out of sight out of mind. I think of a person who does not think that they have anything against anyone. They love everybody. They just don’t spend time with people who annoy them. This doesn’t mean that they really love people at all. It just means they do not know themselves. And similarly not reading these texts doesn’t mean your really are recognizing scripture to be God’s word it just means you are not actually being confronted with the situation that will expose your lack of confidence.
I want to suggest for a moment that you set aside the problems you might feel about the violence. I don’t mean that you ignore problems for ever or that you do not genuinely raise issues that are troubling. But for a moment think about some of the elements of this account. God’s people are being led to into place where they will be formed into a nation. But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are enemies of God’s people who will not live in peaceful coexistence. Just being in the camp of Israel does not necessarily mean that one is on the side of the Lord. In fact we see that Rahab who lived in the city of Jericho will be saved and her entire household because she has placed her future on the side of the people of Israel. We see in the story of Achan that our response to God has consequences for those around us. Sometimes we like to imagine that we live in a world where our failures do not negatively affect others. But when one thinks about the engineer who neglected to include relief safety valves on the dam above the city of Johnstown there was a result that affect the people down-stream. In our relationships with our families our decisions affect others. Achan’s sin brought suffering and death not only to his family but to those who died when God withdrew his favor from the people of Israel in the battle against Ai. We see in the story of Achan the idea that sin even though it be buried underneath one’s tent cannot be hidden from God. It can be revealed.
GIVING GOD THE GLORY
When God the Son became flesh he was given a name. You recall this name was not the selection of Joseph or Mary. In the very visitation that told of His coming birth they were told the name they would give to this child the name Jesus. When God the Son comes it is not to the one through whom the law was given Moses who is called to mind. It is not the name of the pious king David. It is not to the mighty prophets Elijah or Elisha. It is to Joshua the conqueror. The name means The Lord Saves. We are confronted with in the story of the conquest that is the presence of hostility to the healing community that God is establishing. While the stories of violence and war in the Bible are very troubling to our concept of war especially the kind of wars we might watch depicted in the movies. The actually brutality described in the Bible is quite consistent with the actual lived experience of people in war. The open hostilities of aggression unconstrained by custom or mercy hostilities for which losing is a real possibility are conducted with great violence. And when in the counsel of God is was determined that the healing of nations would come through the saving work of the Son there came the necessity of engaging these hostile forces.
We might imagine that Achan’s sin could have been addressed in some other less final way. Maybe a warning bell could have gone off. Maybe he could have turned some different odd color. Before we are too quick to assume that we have a better alternative to the way in which God has interacted with his creation let us remember that we do not know how the finality of this action. Moses died outside of the Promised Land, until Jesus when he appeared with him on the mount of transfiguration. But what is revealed to us by the severity of Achan’s punishment. It might be that one incorrectly forms the impression that the violation of the ban…taking what is meant for the worship of the Lord seems almost like the child with many toys who will not share. Why be so demanding? It is helpful perhaps at this point to remember all the silver and gold is already the Lords’. What makes something valuable in our economic exchange is scarcity. Achan did not have access to silver. But here he saw his chance. These precious metals were not and are not scarce to God. What is scarce and valuable to God is the recognition of His creation of their need for healing that only can come from God. This victory over Jericho was not achieved because of the people it was from God. And the ban was to remind them of this fact.
Is it possible that in the church we can find ourselves in a similar situation? Can we like the people of Joshua’s army cry out to God in confusion and anger feeling like we are not being treated fairly like things would be better if we had never been called into this place of service in the church only to learn that our suffering is because of disobedience? Is it possible that our disobedience like Achan can come from a place where we fail to recognize our dependence upon God rather thinking that our victory rests in our own power and ability to use the grip of our hands to hold on to what we take to be valuable? I ask these questions in a rhetorical way to which I hope you will see there is only one answer. The answer is yes this is possible. Yes this is always a danger for God’s people. And there is only one response when confronted with the disobedience of the spirit of Achan. When confronted with conviction for sin the only response that can bring life is repentance.
CELEBRATION
When the waters came rushing into Johnstown those who survived were the ones who went to higher ground. They recognized their need for safety. Think about that day as the water came rushing down the valley to the unsuspecting people below. The people that day had no idea of their need to be on higher ground. If they did and they persisted to remain below not thinking that such warnings were in fact a wise response to a real danger we would determine their judgment to be flawed. And no doubt so would they in hindsight. Achan provides one of many models for us of the very real danger that simply being in the right camp does not mean we have place our hope in the God revealed to us through the covenant.
The Son of man did not come to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him. When we recognize from scripture the reality of the rushing waters of God’s judgment before which no one can stand we also are offered rescue. Today perhaps you are painfully aware that you failings have affected others. There are others who struggle because of your unfaithfulness. There is a way forward. In fact there is only one way forward. It is in turning to one who can bring life where there is only barrenness. The one who claims our total allegiance, claims it totally because this where we find the ability to be healed. A healing that does not stop with us but flows to our families…our community…and even to our enemies.
Reflections 