Kill sin - NOW

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you open in your Bibles with me now to Joshua chapter seven. Please remain standing to honor the Lord as we read his word. Joshua chapter seven. If you're using your Pew Bible, you can find that on page 198. Hear now God's holy and perfect word.

But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things. For Achan, the son of Kamri, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things. So the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth-Avon. and on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them saying, go up and spy out the country. So the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, do not let all the people go up, but let 2,000 or 3,000 men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people, for the people of Ai are few. So about 3,000 men went up there from the people But they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gates as far as Shebarim, and struck them on the descent. Therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all?

To deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content to dwell on the other side of the Jordan. Oh, Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back from before its enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it and surround us and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name? So Lord said to Joshua, get up. Why do you lie thus on your face?

Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them, for they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived, and they have also put it among their own stuff. 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.

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.

In the morning, therefore, you shall be brought according to your tribes. And it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes shall come according to families, and the family which the Lord takes shall come by household, and the household which the Lord takes shall come man by man. Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel.

So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken. He brought the clan of Judah and the family of the Zarahites, and he brought the family of the Zarahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken. Then he brought his household man by man, and Achan the son of Kamri, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah was taken.

Now Joshua said to Achan, my son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession to him and tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done.

When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 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. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent and there it was hidden in the tent with the silver under it. And they took them from the midst of the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the children of Israel and laid them out before the Lord. Then Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent and all that he had and brought them to the valley of Achor.

And Joshua said, why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. So all Israel stoned him with stones and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. Then they raised over him a great heap of stones still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore, the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would use your word now, not just words on a page, but Father, we pray that you would inscribe them upon our hearts and press them into our minds. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. We come to our passage today and We expect great things. We come to the passage today and you have to imagine how the people are feeling.

Sermon

I mean, they've taken, on the Transjordan, on the east side of the Jordan, they've taken all of the land there. God brought them to the Acacia Grove and just as the priest's feet touched the water, the waters of the Jordan were rolled back and all of them walked through.

They had built two memorial stones to show that this is what God had done. They bore the mark of the covenant in their own bodies. They had celebrated the Passover. The commander of the army of the Lord had said he was going before them to defeat their enemies. And they had conquered Jericho. It's a pretty good day. It's been a pretty good couple of weeks, hasn't it? But there's something they don't know. They're gonna find out, but they don't realize that someone hadn't listened to Joshua.

Joshua chapter six, verse 18, Joshua had said, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take the accursed things and make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it. But all the silver and gold and vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated to the Lord. They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. Everything from AI, the first fruits of Canaan, were meant to be the Lord's.

But someone's done something wicked in the camp. And people don't know it. And what's the first thing that happens in verses two through five? Look with me at verses two through five, will you, real quick. Verses two through five, what happens in these passages, they have confidence, they are planning to go into Ai.

Jericho's kind of in one area of the highlands, but just a little bit higher than that is a smaller place, Ai, and there, you don't need to send all the people. He sends out spies to see, okay, how should we approach this? And they say, oh, we don't need to send everyone. Just 2,000 or 3,000 will do. They're confident. We saw what God did with Jericho. We know what we can do with Ai. We know we can take the town. It's not too big. And so that's what they do. And they fully expect to have victory. That is the whole tenor of what's going on here.

But as they go and they're fighting against the town, as they go and they're ready to attack. the tides of war turn against them. Instead of doing what God had promised where he was going to chase out his enemies in front of them, now they're the ones turning tail. Now they're the ones running down the mountain trying to escape from the men of Ai. And Joshua, When we come to verse six through nine, we're able to see that this is exactly why Joshua is confused. What's going on? What's going on here? God, how can this happen?

How are we gonna answer all the Canaanites? They're gonna hear about what happened to I. We couldn't even fight this small little town. We ran away and 36 of our own men are dead. And Joshua and the elders, they come before the Lord and they fall prostate before the Ark of the Covenant. They're there and they're, we don't understand this, Lord.

Are you gonna forget your covenant? Are you really going to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content to dwell on the other side of the Jordan. Why'd you even make us cross the Jordan if this was going to happen, Lord?

See, Joshua doesn't know what's going on. In Joshua's experience and his mind, maybe God's not the God who keeps his promises. They're only at their second battle. He knows there's a lot more fighting to come. How's he ever going to rally the troops? And God is, as Francis Schaeffer said, commenting on verse 10, God's a little bit brusque with Joshua here. What does he say to Joshua in verse 10?

Get up. Get off your face. It is not me that's the problem. You got a problem in your own camp. The first fruits are mine. Everything from Jericho is mine. You need to find this man. I'm going to bring you to this man and we're going to need to take care of what's happening. And so the Lord says they're not going to go on an inquisition. They're not going to go and interview each family. They're not going to go and dig around. No, the Lord's going to bring it to mind.

And so this whittling down narrower and narrower and narrower and narrower, tribe by tribe. Of the 12 tribes, they look at all the 12 tribes. Everyone there is in military rings. They have all the 12 tribes and the tribe of Judah is pulled out. So, okay, we know it has to be within this one tribe. So 11 twelfths of the people are clear. They're free of this guilt. Okay, well, let's start going clan by clan within the tribe of Judah. Now from clan to clan, we only have one clan, so let's go family to family.

Could you imagine how hot under the collar Achen must have been getting? At what point could this man have confessed his sin? Did it really have to get? narrower and narrower and narrower until Joshua with his piercing eyes. This is one of, besides Nathan's interaction with David, I think this is one of the most piercing parts of conviction in all of scripture. Verse 19, now Joshua said to Achan, my son, I beg you, give glory to the God of Israel and make confession to him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. Joshua, the old man, looks at the middle-aged man.

You know the way an old man can do that? Have you ever been that kid before? When an older fellow comes along and he just really pointedly puts the pressure on you, what did you do? Maybe you've been on a sports team before and it's been a coach who's done that. Or maybe it's been an elder in the church who's been able to just say, I know what's going on. Maybe it's an older sibling. Maybe it was one of your parents.

But what I want to spend our time in today is specifically this sin in the camp and the nature of temptation and the devastation that comes from it and what this shows us in our lives. See what Achan found out in this passage. was nothing new at all. But this is a microcosm. This is of what had happened in Genesis chapter three. This is a reflection of what had happened in Genesis chapter three. James chapter 1 verse 14 and 15 tells us, When Eve was in that garden of Eden, It went from, yes, being tricked, but what does Genesis chapter three say? She looked at the fruit and it was pleasing to the eyes and good for food.

No, it wasn't. No, instead of trusting the Lord that he had said, any of the buffet you want to eat, go for it. But of this one tree, no. It's not good for food. It's not for you to eat. It's not yours. The day you eat of it, dying you will die. Surely you will die.

And instead of trusting the Lord, she desires this thing instead. This object instead, and that desire when it's full born. That temptation turns to sin and sin leads to death. And this is what we find Achan. And we can understand Achan to a certain extent. I want you to step into Achan's shoes just for a moment. You go into Jericho and you're there.

You've been wandering in the wilderness since you were a wee lad, little boy, just at your dad's ankles or at your dad's knees. And you've never worn a different pair of clothing than the one you have on your back. Clothes have never worn out. You've never bought your wife new clothes. You've never had to buy new shoes.

You just had this infinite pass-me-down where everybody always, you grew a different size, so your older brother gave you his old clothes. But unlike some hand-me-downs where you're like, oh, I don't want to wear my brother's jeans because they have so many holes in them, they never had holes.

And so here's this Babylonian garment. The man has just stopped. He knows the clothes are going to wear out. Maybe I'll just keep this one by myself. And then it doesn't say whether it's a woman's garment or a man's garment. Maybe he thought, well, my wife will like this. I'll just take it home for my wife. Or as he's standing there and he's looking at the 200 shekels of silver and the 50 shekel weighing wedge of gold, he might think, you know, the man is done.

I'm going to have to buy food for my kids now. and be really helpful. This could really help in life as we get a new farmstead and as we start up a new venture here. This would be really helpful to my family. We've been wandering around and now there's all this uncertainty. This stuff would be really helpful. Let's see. With temptation and sin comes a guilty heart. With temptation and sin comes a guilty heart.

How did he get this stuff home? Seven and a half pounds of silver, a pound and a half of gold, a Babylonian garment. You can imagine, did he put it in his backpack? Did he put that gold in his pocket? Did he stuff the garment under his cloak? What did he do?

See, every step that the people had made around Jericho was one done in faith. But every step that Akin took walking back to the camp at Gilgal, he could have repented at any point. A little bit of speculation we might ask ourselves. Did he fool people? They were all taking the accursed things and taking them to lay out before the Lord as the first fruit.

Did he make it look like he was taking it all to the tabernacle, but then just kind of make a little detour and stop at his house and just throw it real quick underneath the rug? You can imagine how his life went for the next couple weeks. as he had stolen these things from the Lord.

He can't tell his mom. He can't tell his neighbor in the next tent. He can't let his wife walk out into the community wearing that Babylonian garment, because everybody is going to know where she got it. He can't spend any of that gold or any of that silver, because people are going to start asking questions. And so these objects that seem to have offered him so much pleasure, so much advantage, end up actually becoming a guilt to him, end up becoming a weight to him, a burden to him. And what is the only thing he can actually do with these?

He's got to dig a hole and bury it. And you can imagine as he sits in his tent, every time the kids leave the flap of the tent door open a little bit too long, him worried, is somebody going to see that the dirt's been moved? Every time he walked by Joshua, did he have to put his eyes down out of shame because he knew that he was hiding something? And now he finds out that 36 of his own countrymen have died. The blood is on his hands.

What had promised him so much pleasure had now filled him with guilt. I don't often quote secular writers, but Edgar Allan Poe, in a poem he wrote about a man who had murdered another man, talked about this type of guilt. In his poem, The Tale Tale Heart, he wrote, I smiled for what had I to fear. He had let the police into his apartment who were investigating whether or not someone had foul play. And he had hidden a body underneath the floor of this house. And he said, I bade the gentleman, the policeman, welcome. The shriek I said, it was my own dream. The old man I mentioned was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house.

I bade them search, search well. I led them at length to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room. desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat while I answered cheerfully.

They chatted of familiar things, but ere long I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached and I fancied a ringing in my ears, but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct. It continued and became more distinct. I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling, but it continued and gained definitiveness. Until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I now grew very pale, but I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice, yet the sound increased. And what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound. Much such a sound as watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not.

I talked more quickly, more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles and high key with a violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides. as if excited to fury the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. Oh God, what could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore, I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over and was all constantly increased. It grew louder, Louder, louder, and still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard it not? Almighty God, no, no, they heard. They suspected. They knew. They were making a mockery of my horror.

This I thought as this I think. But anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I could bear those hypocrite smiles no longer. I felt that I must scream or die. And now again, hark, louder, louder, louder. Villains, I shrieked. Dissemble no more. I admit the deed. Tear up the planks. Here, here, here is a bleeding, hideous heart. Tell me now. I beg you, give glory to God. What have you done?

Was there ringing loud in Achan's ears? Every time he walked over the spot, he had stolen the accursed things. As they went from family to family, Was the screaming of those 36 dead men deafening in his ears? Did he know that he was guilty of these men's murder?

See, this is what hiding sin does. When you try to hide sin in your heart, it will become deafening to your soul where you won't be able to see anything else. Maybe you've been under that type of conviction before. This summer I was. We went on vacation to Tennessee or this fall and I was driving a big huge ugly bus and as we were driving that bus I was nervous and I was backing out of a parking spot and I backed into a light post. an electrical line, and I got freaked out about it, and my dad was there, and he looked and he said, I think it's fine, don't worry about it, and so we parked the bus, and for days, for days, every time we walked by a light post, I said, look, Olivia, that one's leaning. But look, you see that one? That one's leaning like that.

And I thought, man, I really should call the electric company and tell them that I hit it. But what about my insurance? What's going to happen? What about the financial ramifications? You know how expensive that's going to be if I have to replace that pole?

And it was like every single moment was, I'm dead serious as we drove through Tennessee and we were trying to go on vacation, I would seriously look at every single electrical line to figure out, is that one leaning? Is that one leaning like the other one? Until guess what? Do you know when the only relief came? When I picked up the phone and called the telephone company or the electrical company and said, I hit a line. Can someone come and look at it? Where can we go to escape from God?

Achan couldn't hide in his home. Psalm 32 says, when I kept silent, my bones grew old through the groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I don't know what's going on in your home. I don't know what's going on in your own household.

I don't know if we have Aikens in our own church. I was just talking to one of my former pastors, and this is a church that had a really faithful shepherding ministry. A church that visited all the family's households. A church where the elders were deeply involved in people's lives and then one of the key families disintegrated. Divorce, leaving, accusations. The thing that struck with me that Pastor Snap said, he said, Brian, the elders don't know what's going on in people's houses unless they're actually truthful before the Lord. Who are you? when no one else is looking. In the Navy, that's what they taught us the word integrity meant, who you are when no one else is looking. No one saw Aiken do this, but the Lord had.

What do you do with your sin? And there's a reality here that there was both individual and corporate guilt for this sin. Verse 1 tells us that the children of Israel committed a trespass. It was Achan who stole this and yet the whole assembly is punished for it. It's no different than the New Testament. When the man who is sleeping with his husband's wife is in the congregation and they won't do anything about it.

We need to be a congregation who's serious about sin. Sin is not just individual, but it is also corporate. Yes, it is both. Your sin is your sin and you need to deal with your sin. I have sin. I gotta deal with my anger. I gotta deal with my gluttony. I gotta deal with lack of self-control. I gotta deal with my sins, with my slothfulness.

What are the sins you as an individual have to deal with? But there is, The consequences of our sin are far-reaching. This is what Romans chapter 5 teaches us about Adam. Our first father fell, so we all suffer the consequences. You might say, well, that doesn't seem quite fair. Well, I'm just going to ask you some real-life examples. Husband gets addicted to gambling. Does it just affect him? as he squanders his family's savings? Does it just affect him or does it affect his whole family as he leads his family down bankruptcy? No, it affects the whole family. When the president makes a decision, and if it is a bogus decision, and I don't care what president it is, I don't care what lawmaker it is, if a leader in our country makes a decision Do we not all suffer if they make the wrong decision? Yeah.

And when the head of a household makes a decision, decides to walk in a way of sin, you know, one of the hardest things I ever did in my life was right there. We'd only been here for about three weeks, and I had to tell you all what had happened with my stepfather. My stepfather's sin has torn apart my entire family, caused some of my siblings to want to commit suicide, has torn rifts in relationships that I'm not sure will ever be mended. Sin destroys families. Sin destroys congregations. going about the things which God says do not take these things would jeopardize everything that the people of God would be standing for. And so Achan had to be made a public spectacle. The judgment of the public spectacle is Achan's death in front of everyone.

When I was on deployment, I don't remember which deployment it was, 2006 or 2007, We had this horrible wave of theft. On the ship, people were just stealing right and left. Man, it was really annoying. The only thing that seemed like it was safe is if you had a place where you could lock it up.

And eventually it got so bad that the captain came over the intercom system and over the TV and he said, hey, look, this is going to stop today. And the next person who gets caught stealing, you're going to face the full wrath. I promise you, you won't be in the Navy anymore, and you're going to regret it. That next day, some dude went down to the ship's door just to test the captain and stole a can of Pringles. It's not worth that much, a can of Pringles. But he was caught. I mean, it wasn't even a couple hours later.

And the next morning, we get the news. Everyone needs to be up in the hangar bay, all 5,000 sailors, everyone in your dress uniforms, every single one of us in our dress blues, division by division by division by division. And as 5,000 men and women are standing in this hangar bay in our dress blues, all in formation, all flight ops have stopped. The war doesn't matter. We're dealing with one issue. The master at arms, the police on the ship, bring one man from the very back of the hangar bay and march him through the middle of our ranks, all the way to the front, up the stairs and onto the balcony. And there the admiral and the captain and the executive officer are.

And judgment was pronounced in front of all of us. 45 days restriction, three days in the brig, bread and water, half months pay times two, and after you've served all that, you will be kicked out of the Navy. And every single one of us knew there was someone in charge, and that this was the ethic of our ship, and we were not going to steal from one another. The ethic of this day was the Lord is sovereign, and you will not steal from the Lord or disgrace him.

See, judgment's going to come for all of us. This is a public display, what happened to Achan. But the reality is, for every single one of us, the judgment day is coming. For it is appointed for every man to die once, and after this, the judgment. And if you are without Jesus Christ, there will be no mercy for your soul. The reality is, each one of us are Achan. The reality is every single one of us have broken the commands of God. If you've broken even just the smallest of the commandment, you are categorically a lawbreaker. Every single one of us deserves the punishment that Achan got.

But it was Christ It was Christ, the just one who died for the unjust. It was Jesus Christ who they would make a monument of. It is Jesus Christ who died for our sins. It is Jesus Christ We deserve death and judgment and the fires of hell, but Jesus Christ, what does 1 Peter 3.18 says? For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. It was Jesus Christ, our spotless Lamb, who was slain, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

So confess your sin. Confess your sin. We just read in Psalm 32 where it says his vitality was sapped from him. It follows that in verse five and it says, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave my iniquity. Psalm 51 says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. blot out my transgression, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge.

Don't wait until the judgment day. Confess your sins today. For 1 John tells us if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness.

But that's not the end of the story. Chapter eight comes after chapter seven. There's victory. And so I don't want to just leave you today. It would be unwise as a pastor, as one who cares for your soul, to just leave you with a sense of dreadedness of sin. I want you to know that there's victory over sin. That Jesus Christ conquered death in the grave. That Jesus Christ took the punishment that you deserve, that I deserve. And that he has given us his spirit.

And Romans chapter six says that you are not a slave to sin, but a slave to righteousness. You don't have to steal the Babylonian garment. You don't have to go for the gold and the silver. But you can abide in Christ. Yeah, you're always gonna struggle with sin.

But there is victory in Christ. It was not just for Paul to say, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. But that can be you too. It must be us too, who are able to say, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

So put away with your sin. Deal with it honestly. Deal with it forthrightly. Put away your sinful desires, but now live in the newness of the life that God has given you. If you love Jesus Christ, if you believe that he was put to death for your sins, now abide in him and follow his commandments. Walk in his ways. Sin must become utterly sinful to us, and God must become amazingly holy. And when we find ourselves there, knowing that God is light and in Him there is no darkness whatsoever, and that we want to abide in that light and walk in that light, then we shall know the freedom that God has given us by the Spirit in His Son. So deal honestly with sin. the walk and the triumph that God has given you in Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you. We thank you that you don't give us a sanitized Bible, but you give us a real word. And Father, I pray that you would let us be those who hate sin. Lord, I pray that we indeed would put off anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of our mouths, and we wouldn't lie to one another. But Father, I pray that you would put us walking in your ways. Lord, please do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lord, please let us walk in your light. In Jesus's name, amen. Again, I have to apologize. It's not Rosalie's fault. It's 100% mine. I changed it this morning. We're gonna sing Psalm 51D. Psalm 51, selection D. Please stand if you're able and we'll sing together Psalm 51, selection D. La, la, la, la, la. From my sins how high your face, my iniquities erase. From my God renew my heart, and a spirit bright impart. Cut me not from you, I pray, nor your Holy Spirit take.

Give salvation's joy again, and a willing mind sustain, Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.