Sin in the Camp

Broken Faith, v. 1

 And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent. 18 But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. 19 But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.”

Right off the bat, we are told the underlying issue in this chapter. What follows is how Israel discovered it, and their response.

The Israelites broke faith The Hebrew word used here, ma'al, elsewhere describes adultery (; see note on ). Achan’s violation exceeded theft—it was akin to spiritual adultery against Yahweh for breaking the cherem principle.

 And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent. 18 But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. 19 But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.”

There was one transgressor against the cherem, or ban, on Jericho, and his transgression brought the guilt and disgrace of sin upon the whole nation.

Matthew Henry - And yet, though it was a single person that sinned, the children of Israel are said to commit the trespass, because one of their body did it, and he was not as yet separated from them, nor disowned by them. They did it, that is, by what Achan did guilt was brought upon the whole society of which he was a member. This should be a warning to us to take heed of sin ourselves, lest by it many be defiled or disquieted (), and to take heed of having fellowship with sinners, and of being in league with them, lest we share in their guilt. Many a careful tradesman has been broken by a careless partner. And it concerns us to watch over one another for the preventing of sin, because others’ sins may redound to our damage.

The Defeat at Ai, vv. 2-5

Easy, Peasy? vv. 2-3

(Map Slide)

Ai is about 8 km from Jericho. It appeared to the reconnaissance team sent there that would be fairly easy to undertake its conquest. They recommend only 2-3 thousand men for the operation. Only three thousand are sent over to Ai.

Ai is about 8 km from Jericho. It appeared to the reconnaissance team sent there that would be fairly easy to undertake its conquest. They recommend only 2-3 thousand men for the operation. Only three thousand are sent over to Ai.

Some commentators make much about presumption on the part of the Israelites, or about not seeking the Lord’s counsel regarding the whole operation. But Scripture makes no mention of this, and the focus is on the matter of violation of God’s command to not take of the devoted things from Jericho.

Disaster, vv. 4-5

Israel is put to flight; thirty-six are killed in this fiasco. It was a shock to those who had no reason to expect any other in any attack than clear, cheap, and certain victory.

The phrase that their hearts “melted and became as water,” is the same language used of the Jerichoites in their response to hearing of the power of God against Egypt. The shoe is now on the other foot.

Everything seems to be going wrong. What we must realize is that the sequence of events is the outcome of the Lord’s anger burning against them. This is what Israel will be like if God is no longer with them—very human and very vulnerable. There are many parallels with what happens nowadays to the Church, when God’s truth is compromised by human rebellion against his divine word. If our message is progressively disregarded or trashed by the prevailing cultural ethos, so that the church becomes known for its ineffectiveness and its capitulation to the enemies of truth, should we not ask ourselves whether this represents a withdrawal of God’s presence in blessing because of our compromise and sometimes outright rejection of his word?

Now it is Israel’s turn to feel the helplessness and then the panic bred by defeat. There is not a Christian who has not been there, when our disobedience or unfaithfulness to God’s word has brought about a total lack of confidence and coherence in our spiritual lives, and our hearts melted with fear. But that is where we will always be as sinful people living in a fallen world if God’s gospel smile is turned away because of our unconfessed sin. Then even our prayer mocks us because, as the psalmist testifies, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (). The only way through such despair is the guilty person’s cry for grace, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (). The only way to be justified is to turn from our sin and failure and cast ourselves upon God’s mercy.

The Perplexity of the People, vv. 6-9

Joshua’s prayer sounds as if he is whinging, like the generation in the wilderness did, ABOUT God and His ways. Actually, it is whinging, if it indeed can be called that, TO God.

Joshua and the elders of Israel don’t know yet the WHY of the defeat; they are not aware of anything that would lead to this. The prayer runs along these lines:

(1) Why have you let this happen? (2) We would be better off where we were. (3) Now we are disgraced. (4) Our enemies will build on this to destroy us completely. (5) And then what will happen to your great name and reputation?

Some preachers and commentators dish out a fair amount of grief over this prayer. Joshua’s prayer sounds as if he is whinging, like the generation in the wilderness did, ABOUT God and His ways. Actually, it is whinging, if it indeed can be called that, TO God. Much of the Psalms are this way. And it is never wrong to pour out one’s soul to the Lord in this way. Joshua hadn’t a clue as to the what and why of this. But he did know Who did. The best way forward in any circumstance, any situation, is to begin by being flat on our face before God. It is when we lay our matters before the Lord that He begins to put things right.

God spoke of his angel back in Exodus 23:22, in whom is his name, who would go before his people to bring them into the land: “If you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries” (). But what is happening is because they have not carefully obeyed God’s word. God graciously informs them as to what the issue is.

Be Sure, Your Sins Will Find You Out, vv. 10-26

God’s Revelation, vv. 7-13

Tracing out the fault, vv. 10-21

We had technicians come to check out the church’s photo-voltaic system recently — whenever it would rain, the system wouldn’t generate power until the system dried out. They technicians new from the control panel that it was an insulation error, that is, the system was shorting out, going to earth, and they went up to trace where the fault was and to isolate the problem.

God here identifies what the issue is, and how to trace the fault. Until this is found out and fixed, Israel is doomed. The Lord graciously gives clear, concise, and instructive directions as to what the issue is and how to go about correcting it.

The issue is sin, and particularly, covenant transgression, unfaithfulness to the Lord, in the taking of things devoted to the Lord in Jericho. “They have taken, they have stolen, they have lied.” They have turned from the trust and obedience that our covenant relationship with God demands. Because they have turned in rejection of that relationship with God, that they have become unclean by taking what was holy, dedicated to God, they cannot stand before their enemies, as v. 12 tells us. That is why they were defeated and disgraced at Ai.

By this act, they now have made themselves devoted to destruction. God says He will no longer be with them, unless this is dealt with (v. 12).

Would it be going too far to say that the apparent absence of God in various segments of the church may be due to our unwillingness to purge evil from our midst by the costly exercise of church discipline? I realise that some churches are too vigorous, punitive, and insensitive in the application of discipline. But, generally, the contemporary church errs on the side of laxity. Somehow we find it convenient to forget the patient threats of Jesus (letters to the churches []), the destructive power of the Spirit (), and the direct commands of the apostles (; ). True, the church does not exist in a theocratic form; hence, it does not execute death penalties. The necessity of discipline, however, does not cease because the form of exercising it has altered. Our problem is that we prefer the tolerance of men to the praise of God.

Unless. What a word of hope! “unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.” There is a way forward. It involves the renunciation of the sin, which is the essence of repentance, and an act of reconsecration to the service of the covenant Lord.

Q. 87. What is repentance unto life?

A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.

Once again the stress is put upon holiness as the prerequisite for the enjoyment of the covenant relationship. Again the books of Moses teach the principle: “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (). So the restoration process is beginning. The “get up” is repeated (, ). There is work to be done. The nation has to be assembled and purified ritually in order to be able to appear before the Lord, and he will then deal with the sin that is polluting his people.

God has known all along the perpetrator of this crime. So why all this process of winnowing down to the culprit? Because of this one man’s sin, the who nation is implicated. The whole nation is the object of His wrath. All are corrupted by this sin. And by the process of the lot, the perpetrator and his accomplices are sorted. The casing of lots is controlled by God. The sovereign God will single out the criminal.

What is sad is that Achan doesn’t own up to his sin until it has directly pointed to him. He admits his guilt, but that is it. Joshua speaks with him, exhorting him to give glory and praise to God.

Is this perhaps an appeal, even at this last moment, not only to confess his sin rather than deny it but also to cast himself on God’s mercy? The public confession is important so that God’s justice is glorified, but also so that the whole nation is aware of what the sin was and why it was heinous, for the whole nation had been infected by it, and thirty-six men had lost their lives as a result.

Here is exactly the same anatomy of temptation and sin that we witnessed in mankind’s first great disobedience in the fall. “When the woman saw that the tree … was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate … and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God” (). John puts the same insight into New Testament terms in his first letter. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is of the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” ().

Covetousness is the root of the problem. The eighth commandment was broken by Achan because he had already broken the tenth. We constantly face the same pressures. What happens when God’s command says “no” and my heart says “but I want it”? Such desires are in direct conflict with God’s Law. No wonder that Paul uses this commandment as the great example of the tyranny of sin in our lives. “I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness” (, ). This is where the battle is joined against the world, the flesh, and the devil every day. It is what I see and desire that will determine what I do, and where that is contrary to God’s revealed will in Scripture the Achan issue becomes our issue. Are we prepared to let God be God at this precise point in our lives? For Achan the answer was no. A Babylonian robe, silver, and gold mattered more to him than the word of God and the glory of God. These were the objects of his desire, the idols of his heart—personal grandeur and wealth—and these are the things that he buried in his tent. What idol shrines would God find buried deep within us? We cannot point the finger of righteous superiority at Achan if we know the struggles of our own hearts and the various God-substitutes to which we bow in worship in our tents. If it is true that no one has less of God than he truly desires, then what is it that we still cling to as a rival to his rule deep within our hearts? When we think that something else can take God’s place, can earn our trust and devotion, the consequences will always spell disaster.

Correcting the Fault, vv. 22-26

the Fault, vv. 22-26

We dare not make God in our own image or downplay his holiness. Achan was not a poor man—he had oxen, donkeys, and sheep. But he was a greedy man, and that poison was his undoing. It had to be ruthlessly exterminated from Israel. Yet that is true of all human sin, for the wage it pays is always death. If we are troubled by Achan’s death and the destruction of all that he had, we need to remember what our sin did to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” ().

For us, the story of Achan should end with the glory of the gospel. We travel back to Calvary and see the spotless, sinless Son of God nailed to a Roman cross because of our iniquities, dying in our place as our representative and substitute so that we might not have to suffer the destruction Achan knew, but instead be forgiven and restored. If it depends on our record, we deserve to be under a pile of stones in the Valley of Achor, or even more terrifying, to be in the eternal punishment that the Scriptures call Hell. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (). Hallelujah! What a great Savior! This is the true grace of God, freely given to all who turn to him and trust him, and it is greater than our greatest offenses. But let us not forget that God is ruthless about sin, and let us worship in awe and holy reverence as we see his wrath falling on his own beloved Son to secure our soul’s redemption. And let us seek his continuing grace and the power of the indwelling Spirit to enable us to fight the good fight of faith. We need to be ruthless with our greed and envy, our complacency and self-indulgence, our deceit and disobedience. The Lord Jesus paid the price through his death on the cross, and God has buried our sins in the depth of the sea; so let us be done with them and get rid of them and not bury them in our tents. Rather, with Charles Wesley let us praise our rescuing God.

Plenteous grace with thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing stream abound;

Make and keep me pure within.

Just and holy is thy name,

I am all unrighteousness;

False and full of sin I am;

Thou art full of truth and grace.3