HIGHLIGHTS IN JOSHUA
Number 7
OUR DESPERATE NEED OF CHRIST
Joshua 7
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THE ACCOUNT of Achan's sin and its consequences is awful and solemn. I can't help but be deeply moved and troubled that one man's sin brought such fateful consequences. Because of Aachan's sin God viewed Israel as having sinned, and withdrew his favour and blessing from the nation. They became self confident, and then they were defeated in battle. The punishment visited for the offence is fearsome. Aachan is stoned to death, but not only him but his family as well, his sons and daughters. I suppose that they must have been privy to the keeping for themselves that which had been devoted to the Lord, but even so to our minds today, the penalty was so very severe, specially after confession of sin. Perhaps Aachan was not really repentant, and perhaps would not have confessed if he had not been forced to by his sin being exposed by the Lord.

All these thoughts bring out the truth that our thinking and feeling, even after being justified and redeemed, falls far short of the wisdom and holiness and beauty of the Lord. I find the severity shown towards Aachan hard to stomach, and I have to humble myself before the Lord in submission and plead for more light, understanding and grace. However there are some very serious and far reaching truths that we learn from this event of Aachan's sin and its consequences.

LESSONS CONCERNING SIN

Firstly. sin is a much more serious thing than we in our fallen state here on earth often imagine. For us it is easy to overlook sin, but for God it is impossible. For us sin is not too offensive, unless it is something we feel is very bad, but for God the least sin offends deeply, and causes deep pain to his holiness.

Secondly, sin is not easily forgiven. We feel that it must be an easy thing for God to forgive sin. After all, we think, it just means that he makes up his mind to do so. This is not so. God cannot forgive sin unless justice with regard to every sin has been met. Aachan's sin could not go unpunished. If God did not punish sin, then he would cease to be God, and he would deny his holiness and his justice. We sinful human beings say often that all we want is justice. Strict justice from God upon us would mean that all of us would be condemned.

Thirdly, all sin is sin against God. When we sin we are not just breaking human law, or offending against another person, we are in fact sinning against God. We have been created by God. We are God's creatures and owe to him the obedience and purity which is due from the creature to the creator. The serious thing about Aachan's sin was the fact that what he kept to himself had been devoted to God. He was directly steeling from God, and directly defying God, who told all Israel not to take any plunder from Jericho. It is because all sin is against God that it is so serious.

Fourthly, no sin is entirely private. We sometimes imagine that what we do only concerns ourselves. This is not true because we can't live apart from our friends, family and community. What we do does effect them as well. Further all we do concerns God, and effects his overall creation. Sin is defiance of God. Being created by God we are not free do as we please, even if we have choice. In Aachan's case, his action brought blight on the whole nation of Israel, and particularly on his family. The consequences of wrong doing is like the ripples which spread out on the surface of water when a stone if thrown into a pool. Wrong spreads out from the doer of it and touches ever widening circle of people and events.

Fifthly, it is clearly shown here that sin can't be hidden from God. Aachan must have thought he had got away with his theft. Nobody had seen him, and all was safely hidden under ground in his tent. Though no human being had seen his wrong, God had seen, and though Aachan thought he had done no other person harm, God was offended. In our present world there is so much crime that goes undetected, and apparently goes unpunished. The fact is that God notes every crime, and like the justice that caught up with Aachan, so justice will catch up with all crime, whether in this life or the next. In Aachan's case, God stepped in to expose Aachan before the whole nation. Aachan could not hide. All things are open before him with whom we ultimately have to give an account.

In the last analysis all sin is unfaithfulness to God and this is what makes it so heinous.

THE BLESSING OF CHRIST

Aachan's sin and its consequences represents the awful state of us all without our Saviour Jesus Christ. It is absolute folly to imagine that in any way we can make ourselves right with God. All of us have fallen short of God's glory, so all of us are under condemnation. Because perfection is our due to God, there is no way that we can make ourselves just before God, or gain forgiveness. All the good we do is already our duty to God, and so there is no means which we have of atoning for the sins of the past. Because we are fallen creatures, and have a bias towards disobedience, we find it impossible to live perfectly as God requires us to live. In every way we fall short. On our own we must be condemned.

There is no salvation in our works in any way whatsoever. The hymn "Rock of ages" puts it so well -

"Not the labour of my hands,
can fulfil thy laws demands.
Could my zeal no respite no,
could my tears for ever flow,
all for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and thou alone."

In spite of this we still tend to think in terms of saving ourselves from the holy justice of God. We bolster up our belief in self effort by lowering the standard, and believing that if good out-balances evil, then we are safe, and God will accept us. This is failure to understand the nature of God, and of heaven. Nothing that defiles, we are told in Revelation, can enter into heaven or come into the presence of God. It is only when we come into the presence of God like Isaiah did as a young man in the temple (Isaiah 6) that all pretence falls away.

Aachan had no Saviour to turn to and so he had to suffer for his own sin. How blessed is the love and grace of God that he sent Christ to be the Saviour of the world. Christ is the only answer to the justice of God against sin. Christ is our Saviour because God made him sin for us, though he was sinless, and then punished our sin in him, and visited his justice upon the Saviour in our place. It is because Jesus went to Hell, and made an all-sufficient atonement for our sin, that God accounts us righteous, and we are raised as new people. The wonder of this salvation is that because Jesus has already paid the price of our sin, we can never fall from the state of grace of being just in the eyes of God, because all the sins we have committed and will commit have already been justly condemned and punished in the Body of our Lord on the cross.

This is the wonder of the grace of God. Without Christ we must die as did Aachan, but such is God's grace, in Christ we can have nothing but life and favour. Though justice is severe and inescapable, those in Christ fully escape its condemnation because justice has already been met by our Saviour. We enjoy God's favour, therefore, not because we are worthy, but simply because Christ has borne our sin. This is what Paul triumphantly states in Romans 8:1 where he says "There is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus." This is deeply humbling, but also it brings deep security and assurance. If any part of our acceptance before God was left in our hands and our doing, we would fail. Because God has placed it all in the Saviour sure hands, we are safe.

THE PLACE OF CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE

It is most solemn thing that even though Aachan confessed his sin, and confessed it openly, so humbling himself before the whole company of Israel as well as God, yet there was no salvation for him. It does not help to speculate as to the nature of Aachan's confession, and as to whether it was genuine repentance, or just forced out of him by God exposing his sin openly. The Bible makes no assessment of Aachan's repentance, and I believe this is because we must not get carried away with the wrong ideas.

Some could speculate and say that Aachan's confession was not with real deep contrition and repentance in his heart, and that is why he still had to die. What follows from this speculation is the idea that confession, repentance and contrition has some meritorious or atoning value, and that God forgives sin on the ground of genuine repentance. This is not so, and brings in the awful error, which is always surfacing in some way because of our human pride, that we have some work we can contribute, even if it is only repentance, which gains favour with the Lord.

The fact is that, though repentance is necessary and essential, it can't bring salvation. John the baptist baptised unto repentance, but he could not give the baptism of the Spirit which is salvation. Only Jesus could baptise with the Spirit, because he made atonement for sin. Jesus could cleanse away all sin, and so give the blessing of the indwelling Spirit which is fellowship with God. He alone could do this because he alone meets all God's justice on behalf of the sinner.

The hymn "Rock of ages" again expresses the necessary truth -

"Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling;
naked, look to thee for dress,
helpless, look to the for grace;
foul, I too the fountain fly,
wash me, Saviour, or I die.

Repentance is necessary because it brings the sinner to that place of helpless hopelessness which alone can be overcome by the work of the Saviour for us. True repentance makes the soul look for help outside himself, and so makes the soul to see the greatness and perfection of the Saviour, and cause the soul to throw himself on the Saviour's mercy.

LESSON FOR THE BELIEVER

Because of Aachan's sin we read in verse 12 that the Israelites lost the favour and protection of the Lord, and they were unable to defeat their enemies or make advance in the possession of the promised land.

There is a very important lesson here to be learnt by all believers. Though it is true that we can never lose our salvation because it is founded on the perfect work of Christ, if we sin wilfully and do not quickly come in true repentance to God and return to obedience, then we are in danger of losing the protecting grace of God, and losing his gracious blessings in our lives. I am not talking here about the fact that because of the failure of our sinful nature we are always falling short of God's glory. These are a grief to the saint, and are the subject of continual humility before the Lord, and resting under the blood of Jesus. God understands this, and his grace assists us to go on mortifying our flesh, and to grow more holy.

What I am talking about is some action of disobedience or deliberate sin, which we know to be wrong, but temptation is too strong for us, and we sin against the Lord. If we remain in defiance of the Lord, we shall not fall from saving grace, but we are in danger, until we humble ourselves before the Lord, of shutting ourselves off from the blessing of God, and putting ourselves under God's chastisement. This action of God is not punishment or judgement, but the discipline of our heavenly Father. We will remain where we are spiritually or even regress until we repent and come in contrition to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus again.

This chastisement will not only effect our own private Christian life, but if we have any ministry, this also will be blighted, and thus the work of God will suffer.

We have an example of this in the case of Jonah who was disobedient to God, and refused to carry the word of the Lord to Niniveh. He not only brought suffering on himself but on the sailors of the ship in which he sought to flee from God. There was no blessing for Jonah until he returned to the Lord and did his will. Jonah did not lose his position as a saved prophet of the Lord, but he temporarily lost the blessing and the sense of the love of the Lord.

CONCLUSION

How blest we are that God in grace and love has provided the Saviour for us. There would have been no remedy for our sin without this transcendent gift of grace. The fate of Aachan would be ours. Now in Christ, there is just forgiveness and perfect forgiveness for us. Let us thank God for his inestimable gift of Jesus Christ.

Let us always revive the liveliest sense of the love of God for us in Christ, so that our love for the Lord is ever fresh and vital. It is only in the experience of God's love for us that we will be kept from failing like Aachan did, and causing God to hide his face from us, and so bring a blight of our Christian lives.