Pastor Mike Impact Ministries Michael L Grooms

In Joshua 6, Israel had experienced a great victory over
the city of Jericho. But in Joshua 7, they suffered a humiliating defeat in
their battle with the little city of Ai because of unconfessed sin in their camp.
They made the mistake of becoming proud and thinking they could enjoy victory
in the battles of life without praying or seeking the Lord’s instructions
first. Paul said it this way; “Let a man who thinks he stands take heed lest
he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

 

We are also warned in Galatians 6:1-3, “Brethren, if a
man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a
spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one
another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks
himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” We can’t
afford to be careless in our daily spiritual walk, especially after
experiencing a spiritual victory of lifting a brother or sister out of a sinful
situation.

 

But we must also realize that we are still human, and life
is a series of mistakes! If you don’t want to make any mistakes, don’t do
anything or go anywhere! It was Henry Ford who defined a mistake as "an
opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." Joshua would also have
agreed, because he is about to "begin again, more intelligently" and
organize a victory out of his mistakes. Today we should be encouraged knowing
that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).

 

In Joshua 8, God gave Joshua and the people of Israel an
opportunity for a new beginning. Once the nation of Israel had judged the sin
that had defiled their camp, God was free to speak to them in mercy and direct
them in their conquest of the land. "The steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand" (Ps.
37:23-24). No matter what mistakes we may make, the worst mistake of all is not
to try again; for "the victorious Christian life is a series of new
beginnings" (Alexander Whyte).

 

I’ll never forget a message I heard in my earlier years
entitled, “Failure plus failure, plus failure, plus failure, plus failure,
equals success!” Proverbs 24:16 reminds us that “Though a righteous man
falls seven times, he will rise again.”  I
love how the Living Bible translates 2 Corinthians 4:8-9; “We are pressed on
every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we
don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit. We are
hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up
again and keep going.”

 

In Joshua 8:1 we find that a new beginning always starts with
the Word of God. It was a word of encouragement. Today we don't hear God's
audible voice as people often did in Bible times, but we have the Word of God
before us and the Spirit of God within us; and God will direct us if we wait
patiently before Him. Discouragement over the past and fear of the future are
the two reactions that often accompany failure. We look back and remember the
mistakes that we made, and then we look ahead and wonder whether there's any
future for people who fail so foolishly.

 

The answer to our discouragement and fear is in hearing and
believing God's Word: "Fear not, neither be thou dismayed" (v.
1). Take time to study the "fear not" statements of the Bible. Note
that God spoke these words to different kinds of people in various
circumstances, and His Word always met the need. God never discourages His
people from making progress. As long as we obey His commandments, we have the
privilege of claiming His promises.

 

Remember that today is the first day of the rest of your
life! Arise and fix your eyes on Jesus!

 

God bless!

We live in a day and in a culture that appears to think,
“Good God, good devil, good everybody”. Everyone is a victim and deserves a
pass. There is no accountability or consequences for our selfish and criminal
behavior. We have forgotten that God is not only a God of mercy and grace, but
that He is also a Holy God of justice and must execute punishment on sin. These
last few verses of Joshua 7 are a good reminder that one day it will be too
late!

 

Achan had violated God’s instructions concerning all the
treasure of Jericho that was to be given to the Lord, and he secretly had taken
some for himself. After the humiliating defeat at Ai, where 36 soldiers were
killed and God revealed to Joshua that a sin had been committed that needed to
be dealt with, Achan had ample time to run to his tent, take the goods and
bring them to Joshua and repent and confess his sin. But he didn’t! And when he
finally confessed, it was too late. He was one day too late.

 

Joshua 7:22-26 reveals God’s judgment on Achan’s sin. Since
a law in Israel prohibited innocent family members from being punished for the
sins of their relatives (Deut. 24:16), Achan's family must have been guilty of
assisting him in his sin. His household was judged the same way Israel would
deal with a Jewish city that had turned to idols (Josh. 13:12-18). Achan and
his family had turned from the true and living God and had given their hearts
to that which God had said was accursed—silver, gold, and an expensive garment.
It wasn't worth it!

 

At the beginning of a new period in Bible history, God
sometimes revealed His wrath against sin in some dramatic way. After the
tabernacle had been set up, Nadab and Abihu invaded its holy precincts contrary
to God's law; and God killed them. This was a warning to the priests not to
treat God's sanctuary carelessly (Lev. 10). When David sought to restore the
Ark to its place of honor, and Uzzah touched the Ark to steady it, God killed
Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:1-11); another warning from God not to treat sacred things
carelessly. At the beginning of the Church Age, when Ananias and Sapphira lied
to God and God's people, the Lord killed them (Acts 5:1-11).

 

The death of Achan and his family was certainly a dramatic
warning to the nation not to take the Word of God lightly. The people and the
animals were stoned, and their bodies burned along with all that the family
possessed. The troubler of Israel was completely removed from the scene, the
people were sanctified, and now God could march with His people and give them
victory. The name Achor means "trouble." The Valley of Achor is
mentioned in Isaiah 65:10 and Hosea 2:15 as a place where the Jews will one day
have a new beginning and no longer be associated with shame and defeat. The
Valley of Achor will become for them "a door of hope" when they
return to their land and share in the blessings of the messianic kingdom. How
wonderful the Lord is to take Achor, a place of sorrow and defeat, and make it
into a place of hope and joy.

 

The heap of stones in the valley would be a reminder that
God expects His people to obey His Word, and if they don't, He must judge them.
The heap of stones at Gilgal (Josh. 4:1-8) reminded them that God keeps His
Word and leads His obedient people to the place of blessing. Both memorials are
needed in the walk of faith. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and longs to bless
His people; but God is also light (1 John 1:5) and must judge His people's
sins.

 

It had been a trying two days for Joshua and his leaders,
but the situation was about to change. God would take charge of the army and
lead His people to victory. When you surrender to the Lord, no defeat is permanent,
and no mistake is beyond remedy. Even the "Valley of Trouble" can
become a "door of hope."

 

Don’t wait till it is too late to repent! One day it will
be too late! (Revelation 20:11-15)

 

God bless!

Yesterday we discussed how the underlying cause of the
humiliating defeat and failure of Israel at Ai was pride. Pride which led to
carelessness, that led to prayerlessness, that led to presumptuousness. Israel
thought they could defeat little Ai without getting specific instructions from
the Lord! It seems we can conquer the mountains, but we stumble over the
molehills! We can’t afford to take a spiritual vacation from our time with the
Lord each morning, seeking His face and Word for our strength and wisdom for
the day, any more than our hearts can take a vacation from beating and pumping
blood through our veins, or our lungs can take a vacation from breathing!

 

Carelessness was the national sin of Israel, but what about
the personal sin of Achan, what was the cause of his sin? It was not looking,
it was coveting! Achan confessed this in Joshua 7:21; why did he covet these things? What is covetousness? Covetousness is an
inordinate desire for things that are not rightfully ours, things that we have
no right to. God wants to supply and give to us everything that we need and
everything that we have a right to, but the tenth commandment in Exodus 20:17
says, "Thou shalt not covet...".

 

Covetousness is like an octopus that just wraps itself
around the human soul and cannot be satisfied and cannot be shaken off apart
from the Lord our God. Another word for covetousness is worldliness. Achan was in
love with the world. He coveted the “beautiful Babylonian garment” so he
could look like the world. He coveted the silver and the gold so he could live
like the world. We need to remember what the Bible says in 1 John 2:15 in the
New Living Translation; “Do not love this world nor the things it offers
you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in
you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for
everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not
from the Father, but are from this world.”

 

But, Achan's real problem wasn't the love of the world, his
real, deeper problem was that "... the love of the Father is not in
him" (1 John 2:15). Now, you see, the love of the world is symptomatic
of the fact that the love of the Father is not in you. It wasn't that he loved
the world too much. He didn't love God enough. Think about that! It wasn't that
he loved the world enough. He didn't love God enough.
John 2:15). The love of the world is a symptom that the love of God is not in
you.

 

Suppose you're driving your automobile down the road and
the red light comes on the dashboard, which means there's no oil in the
crankcase. Well, now, would you take a hammer and break that light and say,
"Well, I've fixed that"? You haven't really fixed it. The red light
on the dashboard is simply a warning, an indicator, a symptom there's no oil in
the crankcase. "... If any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him", the love of the world is the red light that tells us
that the love of the Father is not in us (1 John 2:15).

 

The way to handle the covetousness and the lack of
satisfaction, and happiness and the worldliness and sin in our life is to get
the love of God in our hearts. If you're sinning, if there's secret sin in your
life and covetousness that is warping, and ruining your life, rather than
trying to fight that sin, why don't you just load up on Jesus Christ? Why don't
you just let the love of God flow in your heart, and fill your heart, and soul
until you're satisfied with Jesus?

 

Remember when Jesus was restoring Peter in John 21:15-17,
He asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me.” Jesus says to all of
us in John 14:21; “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who
loves Me…”. Our real issue is our love relationship with Jesus!

 

Today, like the old hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon
Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light

The people had experienced a great victory by faith over Jericho. It was a
victory that really only God could be given credit for. Joshua sought the LORD,
and the LORD gave him the instructions, and as strange as they were, Joshua and
the people obeyed them. God miraculously made the great walls fall flat and all
the people had to do was claim what God had promised as they marched forward
into the city.

How often we might experience a great spiritual victory in
our lives and churches only to be overtaken with a great defeat shortly
afterwards! It is so easy for pride to sneak into our hearts, and we take
credit for the victory. What was Israel's sin? The sin of Israel was the sin of
carelessness, marked first of all by pride (v. 3).  They thought they could defeat little Ai,
because they had defeated Jericho. You see, they forgot that Jericho wasn't
their victory, Jericho was God's victory, God's victory. But somehow in their
mind they had the idea that they had done it.

 

Pride is the mother of all sins. Pride gives birth to every
sin in our lives, and in the human race for that matter.

Pride leads us to become careless. Carelessness leads to
prayerlessness! You know why we don’t pray? Because we don’t think we need to
pray! We can do it ourselves without the Lord’s help! Maybe if Joshua had
prayed before he sent the spies out, God would have told him then about the
“sin in the camp”. Pride always leads to presumption and that is we think we
can do it without God’s help.

 

We first should be encouraged to know that there is no
stronghold of Satan, there is no power of sin that the child of God cannot
overcome in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Isn't that wonderful? No power of
Satan is so great that can stand against you. There is no Jericho of sin that
can withstand you when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. That's
encouragement. There is no power or sin so great you cannot overcome it. (1
Corinthians 10:13). But, there is no power of Satan so small that you can
overcome it in the strength of your flesh. And, that's exactly where God has
put you. Nothing can stand before you in the power of the Holy Spirit, but
there's nothing that you can overcome in the strength of your flesh. Israel
overcame Jericho in the power of the Lord, but they failed at little Ai in the
strength of their flesh. They presumed that God would be with them.

 

It's not the Jericho’s that defeat the average Christian,
it's the Ai’s. It's not the big things, it's the little foxes that spoil the
vine. It's the things we think, "We can handle that, to take care of Ai,
we can handle that. Oh, don't send everybody up to take care of Ai, after all,
aren't we known as the great military warriors and victors?"

The sin of pride, and the child of pride is presumption,
and the grandchild of pride is prayerlessness because once we presume we can do
it then we don't pray any more. Pride, presumption, prayerlessness, Joshua
wasn't praying.

 

Do you know what we do? We wait until we make a mess of
things and then we come to God in prayer. Prayer needs to be our first thought,
not our last resort. We need to wake up in the morning and put on the whole
armor of God through prayer. All of our failures are really prayer failures
that root in our presumption that roots in our pride. We can’t afford to get
careless in our prayer life and our Bible study, or any spiritual discipline.

 

Today we should not forget these verses in Proverbs
16:18-20, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a
fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil
with the proud. He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts
in the LORD, happy is he.”

 

God bless!

20 And Achan answered Joshua and said, "Indeed I have
sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I have done:

21 "When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian
garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty
shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth
in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it."

22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and
there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver under it.

 

The path of sin will always take you further than you want
to go. Jesus called the path of sin “the broad way” (Matthew 7:13), and because
it appears to be the easy way, many chose it. In Joshua 7, Achan chose this
path and caused great defeat and even death for others and his family. The
first step in the wrong direction will always lead to the second step!

 

Achan heard his commander give the order that all the
spoils in Jericho were to be devoted to the Lord and were to go into His
treasury (6:17-21, 24). Since Jericho was Israel's first victory in Canaan, the
firstfruits of the spoils belonged to the Lord (Prov. 3:9). But Achan disobeyed
and took the hazardous steps that lead to sin and death (James 1:13-15): "I
saw...I coveted...and I took" (Josh. 7:21). Eve did the same thing
when she listened to the devil (Gen. 3:5), and so did David when he yielded to
the flesh (2 Sam. 11:1-4). Since Achan also coveted the things of the world, he
brought defeat to Israel and death to himself and his family.

 

Achan's first mistake was to look at these spoils a second
time. He probably couldn't help seeing them the first time, but he should never
have looked again and considered taking them. A man's first glance at a woman
may say to him, "She's attractive!" But it's that second glance that
gets the imagination working and leads to sin (Matt. 6:27-30). If we keep God's
Word before our eyes, we won't start looking in the wrong direction and doing
the wrong things (Prov. 4:20-25).

 

His second mistake was to reclassify those treasures and
call them "the spoils" (Josh. 7:21). They were not "the
spoils"; they were a part of the Lord's treasury and wholly dedicated to
Him. They didn't belong to Achan, or even to Israel; they belonged to God. When
God identifies something in a special way, we have no right to change it. In
our world today, including the religious world, people are rewriting God's
dictionary! "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20). If God says something is wrong, then
it's wrong; and that's the end of the debate.

 

Achan's third mistake was to covet. "But each one
is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed" (James
1:14). Instead of singing praises in his heart for the great victory God had
given, Achan was imagining in his heart what it would be like to own all that
treasure. The imagination is the "womb" in which desire is conceived
and from which sin and death are eventually born.

 

Achan’s fourth mistake was to think that he could get away
with his sin by hiding the loot. Adam and Eve tried to cover their sin and run
away and hide, but the Lord discovered them (Gen. 3:7). "Be sure your
sin will find you out" was originally said to the people of God, not
to the lost (Num. 32:23); and so was "The Lord shall judge His
people" (Deut. 32:36; Heb. 10:30). How foolish of Achan to think that
God couldn't see what he was doing, when "all things are naked and open
to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account" (Heb. 4:13).

 

Today, may the Lord by His grace give us wisdom and strength
to take the path of righteousness instead of the path of sin! And if you are on
the path of sin today, thank the Lord for Romans 5:8, John 3:16, and 1 John
1:9!

 

God bless!

12 Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before
their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have
become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you
destroy the accursed from among you.

13 Get up, sanctify the people, and say, 'Sanctify
yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the LORD God of Israel: "There
is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your
enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you."

 

As I have been studying Joshua 7, I couldn’t help but think
that an appropriate title for this chapter would be, “The Terrible Consequences
of Sin”. Or even, “Our Choices Have Consequences”. Sin is a word that you don’t
hear much about today in our culture and even in our churches. When was the
last time you heard a media commentator or anchor say the word “sin”. Just
because we deny it, or try to hide it, doesn't mean it is any less terrible. It
was sin that got Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise and brought all the pain,
suffering, chaos, and death into our world.

 

The Bible tells us that “sin is the transgression of the
Law” (1 John 3:4). Sin is also called, missing the mark, (Romans 3:23), badness,
rebellion, iniquity, going astray, wickedness, wandering, ungodliness, crime,
lawlessness, transgression, ignorance, and a falling away. No matter how you
define it or what you call it, we should never forget how terrible sin is in
the sight of a holy God. Habakkuk said it succinctly: “Thine eyes are too
pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor” (Hab.
1:13). And sin is so damaging that only the death of God’s Son can take it away
(John 1:29).

 

Sin is also deceitful! It always hides its true character.
The devil always makes sure of this. Sin first blinds us, then it binds us. Sin
thrills us, then it kills us. Sin fascinates us, then it assassinate us. James
put it this way in James 1:14-16, “But every man is tempted, when he is
drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it
brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. Do not be
deceived, my beloved brethren.”

 

In Joshua 7, Achan is a man who basically had everything a
man should want! A wife, children, a home, a people, a country, and a covenant
with a personal God. But he thought he wanted more. And he thought he could get
it by violating the instructions of the Lord concerning the silver and gold in
the city of Jericho that had been dedicated or set aside for the Lord. What was
meant to be a blessing to all of God’s people becomes an “accursed” thing if
you take it for yourself.

 

There are so many applications to this great truth, room
would fail me to list them here. But here is one that we should never forget!
Jesus said it this way in Mark 8:34-37, "Whoever desires to come after
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever
desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake
and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the
whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for
his soul?”

 

We can either be a blessing or we can be a curse to others
and even to ourselves. When we yield our lives and our possessions to the Lord
and His kingdom, God is honored and glorified and our family and others are blessed.
When we save them for ourselves, we become the loser, and usually cause great
pain and suffering and loss for others around us.

 

Our choices today have consequences for tomorrow and
eternity! What is your choice today? Jesus or self?

 

God bless!