If you'll turn with me this morning once again to the book of Joshua, once again to the book of Joshua, if you're joining us or visiting us today, we've been considering a series through the book of Joshua, we've arrived at chapter 7, and we come to a dark page in Israel's history, we've had a series of blessedness in the land, a series of victories by the Israelites, and now we have a dark picture. So reading from Joshua 7, we're going to read the whole chapter, and let's pay careful attention. This is the very word of God. But the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things. Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord's anger burned against Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-Avon, to the east of Bethel, and told them, go up and spy out the region. So the men went up and spied out Ai. When they returned to Joshua, they said, not all the people will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it, and do not weary all the people, for only a few men are there. So about three thousand men went up, but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about 36 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 and became like water. And Joshua tore his clothes and fell face down 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. And Joshua said, Ah, 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. O Lord, what can I say now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? 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? The Lord said to Joshua, stand up what are you doing down on your face 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 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. Go consecrate the people. Tell them, consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. That which is devoted is among you, O Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it. In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the Lord takes shall come forward clan by clan. The clan that the Lord takes shall come forward family by family. And the family that the Lord takes shall come forward man by man. He who is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done a disgraceful thing in Israel. Early the next morning, Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes and Judah was taken. The clans of Judah came forward and he took the Zerites. He had the clan of the Zerites come forward by families and Zimri was taken. Joshua had his family come forward man by man And Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me. Achan replied, It is true, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done. When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and took them. They were hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver underneath. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent and there it was, hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the Lord. Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan, son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent, and all that he had to the valley of Achor. Joshua said, Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today. Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord returned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor, the Valley of Trouble, ever since. Thus far the reading of God's word. May he bless it to us. This is a rather dark and dismal story, a dark picture in Israel's history. It's the first crime that the people commit in the land. I've always been a fan of crime stories I've always enjoyed reading about crime stories I've often enjoyed them But usually I prefer watching them on TV rather than reading them Because I want to know who did it I'm not very patient, so I like to know who did it And so I really liked the TV show Columbo He was a homicide detective And what I appreciated about the show is You knew who did it right from the beginning of the show They would show the killer, commit the crime, and then the rest of the show would be Columbo trying to figure out who did it and how. But I liked it because I knew I didn't have to wait. I got to see it unfold. Now why do I bring this up, just to let you know what I like? No, that's kind of how this story unfolds, right? We're told from the very beginning what's happened here. We're told from the very beginning that a crime has been committed against the Lord's people. The narrator tells us that as he sets up this story, but the people involved don't have any idea. Only Achan, the one who's committed the crime, knows. And so the story unfolds with everyone being ignorant of this crime that's been committed. Now we're told what the crime is. We're told that some of the devoted things of Jericho have been taken. If we look back at chapter 6, verse 18, Joshua warned the people about the things that were to be destroyed in Jericho. In chapter 6, verse 18, Joshua says, But keep away from the devoted things, that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. Now, there's a lot of talk in these chapters about the devoted things. And if we're thinking about the crime being taken, taking these devoted things, We have to ask the question, what do these devoted things mean? What does this mean, devoted things? What are they devoted to? The Lord makes it clear they're devoted to destruction. They're going to be given up as an offering to me. They're detestable things. They're things that are attached to this detestable people. And when you come into the land, not only are you to wipe out the people, you're to wipe out all the detestable things to which they're attached. The gold and silver gets taken to me. It comes to my treasury. But everything else is to be destroyed and burned. These are the things that are to be devoted to destruction. That's what it means when we're told Achan has taken some of these devoted things to himself. And we're identified very clearly who the criminal is. There's no mistaking which Achan this is, right? We're given generation after generation of who he is. So there's no mistake. It also becomes important later in the story, doesn't it, to see how it unfolds. and how he's identified. So we know what the crime is, we know who the criminal is, and we know how God responds to it. We're told that his anger burns against Israel. Now maybe we don't understand that. We say, well, Achan sinned, right? It was Achan who took the things, and apparently he's the only one. He's the only one in the whole camp of Israel who took anything that he wasn't supposed to. Why does the Lord's anger burn against Israel? But remember, that was the warning that Joshua gave the people. You'll make the entire camp liable to destruction if you take any of this. So that's why the Lord's anger is burning against Israel. And so God punishes Israel for its sin. And how is Israel punished for its sin? In the first place, God routes their army. God routes their army. In the second place, God rebukes their leader. He rebukes their leader. And in the final place, he roots out their sin. So he routes their army, he rebukes their leader, and he roots out their sin. Let's consider in the first place the army being routed. The battle sort of has a dubious beginning. It starts well, it starts just like Jericho, right? Spies are sent. They're told to go look at AI and bring back a report. And look at the report they bring back in verse 3. Not all the people will have to go up against AI. Send 2 or 3,000 men to take it and do not weary all the people for only a few men are there. And I can remember being at seminary once and my brother was quite a good ping pong player and I'm not. And so we both happened to be out of class and I said, how about you play a game of ping pong? And he looked at me and he said, you'd be a waste of my time. Now, there was a certain amount of truth to that. But there was also a certain amount of arrogance. And he knew he was saying it as a joke, you know, to an older brother who beats him at everything else. But, right, there's a certain amount of arrogance to that. Now, he meant it as a joke, but there seems to be a certain amount of arrogance to this spy's report, too, doesn't it? Now, it may be confidence. They may be, you know, giving a cold military assessment of what's going to happen. But I think I lean more towards a little bit of arrogance in this report. There's a little bit of arrogance here. You know, don't, you know, we have to go up the hill to AI. We don't need to take everybody up there. Two or three thousand people should do the job. And I would take that as a little bit of arrogance, judging by how different a report it is from the report that the spies that went to Jericho give. Because when they come back they say, truly the Lord has delivered Jericho into our hands. The people are melting in fear because of us. That's why I lean towards arrogance in this report from the spies of Ai. There's no mention of God in there, is there? Don't tire out the people. There's not a lot of them. There's a lot more of us and two or three thousand should do the job. It's a dubious beginning. Now, knowing what we know, we know that it doesn't matter how many people you send up. They're going to turn around and flee because the Lord is not with them. But there's a certain amount of arrogance as this battle begins, so it has a sort of dubious beginning. But as dubious as the beginning is, the battle itself is disastrous. And we're told in no uncertain terms what happened. It's a short story. In verse 4, So about 3,000 men went up, but they were routed by the men of Ai. Just straight to the point, they were routed. Now what does it mean to be routed? I looked it up in the dictionary just to be sure. One definition I liked is it said, to defeat an army completely and to force it to make a swift and disorderly retreat. Boy, that sums up what happens here. Because we're told they march up to the city gate, and we need to know where Ai is situated, its geographic importance. Because what the Israelites are doing is they're making a move into the northern part of the land. They've come across the Jordan, they've come into Jericho, which is in the flats, which is why it needed higher walls, and now they're going up the hill. Ai was probably a small fortress city that was supposed to protect Bethel further up. And as you moved up, then you would get on top of the central Benjaminite plain. And once you were on top, the land became a lot more easy to conquer. But this is during the climb. So you had to go up to Ai and then up to Bethel. So it's not just elevation. You're coming north into the land. And so that's why Ai is small and less important. It's sort of an outpost. It's sort of an outpost fortress that they've got to go up a hill to get to. What happens? We're told they march up to the city gate. And they turn around and come running back down the hill. Now, kids, have you ever run at full pace down a hill? It's everything you can do not to just go tumbling down the hill. And you can imagine a force of 3,000 guys in their armor and with their weapons trying to run down this hill headlong wasn't a pretty sight. And as they went, the men of Ai chased them, we're told they were cut down on the slopes as they ran. The battle had a disastrous result. They chase them all the way down the hill, all the way to the flat, almost all the way back into the camp of Israel. And this battle also has a devastating effect, because what happens, this routed army comes running back into their own camp, terrified, defeated, exhausted, and it's infectious. The people start asking, what's happened here? And we're told that their hearts melted and became like water. That's the description that's been given over and over to the Canaanites after the power of God has been revealed in the crossing of the Jordan and the destruction of Jericho. We've been told all along, this people's terrified. Their hearts are like water because of us. And now what's happened? This force has been routed. 36 men have been killed. And the people are terrified. And Joshua is frightened. He doesn't know what to make of this. He tears his robes and falls down before the ark of the Lord. And we're not told that his heart was like water, but we sure get that impression. Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan just to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites and destroy us? If only we'd been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan. What can I say now that we've been routed? See, Joshua's looking, what is this going to mean? Now that we've been routed, it's going to give the Canaanites the courage to come after us. They're going to band together. They're going to come after us. They're going to destroy us and wipe our name from the face of the earth. And he says to God, what then will you do for your great name if your people are destroyed? That's a thing we hear from Moses over and over again. So, you know, Lord, if you bring the people into the desert and then destroy them, won't people say he wasn't able to deliver them? Joshua is expressing his own fear, but he's also expressing concern for the name of the Lord. What are people going to say about the Lord our God if we're wiped out? What are you going to do for your great name is the question that comes. So the people are frightened. The detachment that went out is certainly frightened. And even Joshua is frightened. The elders are doing the same thing, bowing down before the ark of the Lord, sprinkling dust on their heads, showing their mourning. so what does the lord do after he's rebuked after he's routed their army he rebukes their leader doesn't he it's kind of a harsh thing it seems that the lord says to joshua in chapter 10 stand up what are you doing down on your face when i say that's a bit harsh you know we have the advantage of knowing why all this is happening right we know that somebody sinned we know that that's why the army's been turned back you might say well isn't it a little harsh then for the lord to to sort of shout at joshua like this and joshua doesn't know what's going on joshua doesn't know that anything like this has happened why is the lord now turning on him why is the lord making this expression you know get up what are you doing on your face why is this happening i think i think it's a harsh command because the Lord's first admonition to Joshua in the beginning of the book in chapter 1 was be strong and courageous for I am with you and meditate on the law of God. That was the other command he was given. Meditate on it. May it be on your lips. And I think part of the reason that this rebuke is so harsh is because it says remember my law. What does my law say? What have I promised to you? I promised I would be with you. But you should know why these things happen. I mean, we looked back at chapter 6, one chapter before where Joshua had given the instruction, right? Leave the devoted things alone, or we'll be liable to destruction as a body. He gave that law to the people, but now he seems to have forgotten it. Moses gave a similar law to the people in Deuteronomy 7, 26, where he writes, do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you like it will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor it and detest it for it is set apart for destruction. If we look back to Deuteronomy 30, we have a summary of what's being done with this law. What is the law set before the people? And when Moses is done giving his entire law to the people and he's explained, what is God's rule for your life? What does God want from you? He says, see, I've set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. If you obey God's law, you have prosperity. If you disobey God's law, you have destruction. And so he holds that out to the people. He says there's life and prosperity, there's death and destruction. And you have to choose. You have to choose whether you obey the law of God and be given prosperity in the land or whether you're going to choose to disobey God's law and bring destruction on your head. And either you'll live long in the land the Lord your God has given you or you'll live a short time. So choose today. Choose life, is what Moses has said. Joshua ought to know this. This ought to be going through his mind. When the people of God are routed like this, he should think there must be some kind of sin among us. Because God's promises are sure. They've been sure all through the land. Every time the Lord has spoken, every time he's reached out his hand, his people have prospered. And now we're destroyed. And Joshua not only should know God's law, but he's experienced this very thing once before. In Numbers 14, Joshua was one of the original spies that went into the land. You remember that, kids? Twelve spies went into the land. Ten came out and said, there's no way we can take the land. Only Joshua and Caleb says, surely we can take the land if the Lord is for us. And so the Lord says, I'm so sick of this people's grumbling. The spies were in the land for 40 days. They'll wander in the desert for every day the spies were in the land. That's going to be the judgment. I'll cut off this generation of grumblers, and they won't see my promised land. And we're told in Numbers 14 that the people mourn bitterly, and early the next morning they get up and say, we're going to go in and take it anyway. This is what Moses says. Why are you disobeying the Lord's command? This will not be successful. Do not go up because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies because you have turned away from the Lord. He will not be with you and you will fall by the sword. And a very similar thing happens. They don't listen to Moses. They go marching up the hill anyway. They get to the gate. They turn around and they run down the hill and get cut down as they run. Joshua was alive for this. Joshua can remember this. He knows not only the law, but he's seen the law's consequences played out in battle much the same way this has. And so the Lord rebukes him. He says, I don't forget my promises. I haven't forsaken you. You have forsaken me. And in verse 11 of Joshua 7, the Lord catalogs what's been done. And we lose a little bit of the force of it in English. Each phrase is meant to really build on the one that came before it. You have a series of, and another thing, and another thing, and another thing, and it's meant to build this up more and more. So if you read with me verse 11 of chapter 7, it's almost as if God is saying, Israel has sinned. What's worse, they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. What's worse, they have taken some of the devoted things. What's worse is they have stolen from me, They have lied to me, and they have taken what is mine and put it with their own possessions. So it's not just that they've sinned. They've broken the covenant that God commanded them. They took the things that were to be devoted to him. They stole from God. They lied about stealing from God. And they took their stuff, and they put it right with their own things, like it was theirs. That which was the Lord's, they took. And the Lord says, that's what's been done here. That's why this judgment has been harsh, because the crime is egregious. This was mine, and you stole it from me. And as long as what you've stolen from me remains among you, I will not be with you. And every time you go out to face your enemies, no matter how many of you go, you'll turn around and flee before them. Unless what's among you is eradicated from among you. So what does he tell Joshua to do? Tells him we're going to have to find out who this is. So tomorrow, so tell the people, get ready. Because tomorrow this is what's going to happen. Now we're not told what Achan thought of this. But I can only imagine his skin must have crawled when he heard this. Get yourselves ready, for tomorrow the Lord's going to point out to me. Imagine I said that. There's someone in here that did something wrong. Tomorrow we're going to come and the Lord's just going to go row by row until he finds a person, until that person's identified. If you'd done something wrong, you'd be squirming. I would be. So get ready, because I'm going to call you out tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, and I'm going to find the person that did this. And when I find the person that did this, I'm going to have him taken off and I'm going to have him stoned. Then I'm going to have everything he owns burned. Everyone is with him. I can't imagine Achan got a good night's sleep that night. But he doesn't come forward either, does he? He's determined to hide out. So we hear about God's final response to Israel's sin. He roots out the sinner, doesn't he? Because he tells them to prepare themselves for what will happen, and the next day it happens just as he commanded. They're called out by a lot, and they're whittled down. Twelve tribes, Judah's chosen. Of the sons of Judah, Zerah's chosen. And on down the line until you just have the one guy, Achan. And Joshua says, all right, confess what you've done, don't lie. What's happened here? Achan's response is really interesting. Verse 20, It is true, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done. When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and took them. It's very interesting because this is the exact formula we have in Genesis 3 when Eve looks at the fruit and is going to take it. It says, When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took it. It's the same formula in Hebrew. It's the same verbs that appear again and again. And that's how sin works. He saw it was good. He saw this beautiful Babylonian robe. Babylon was kind of the center of culture. So this was a beautiful robe, fine craftsmanship, beautiful design. You know, if he'd worn it, people would say, hey, you're looking pretty good. It's a beautiful thing. And so he says, you know, I saw it was good. And he sees about, in what would today's terms be about $18,000 worth of gold and silver. I says, boy, that looks good. You know, I'll take it and I'll bury it in my tent. No one will really ever know. Who will find out? There's a whole city full of things, and probably other people are doing this too. But he saw it, he saw that it was pleasing to the eye, he wanted it, and he took it. Just like Eve did, and just like Adam did. Saw it, they wanted it, and they took it. And that's a reminder to us, isn't it, of how human beings often operate. We often will take things that are meaningless when compared with the promises of God. will disobey the glorious things that he set before us for the promise of something that ultimately isn't worthwhile. The promise that had been set before Achan was, you'll have long life in this beautiful promised land with a choice portion as being a member of the tribe of Judah. You'll have this wonderful inheritance in the land. You'll live long, you'll prosper, you'll see your children's children. What does he do? He throws that all away for a robe and some cash. just the way Adam and Eve enjoyed eternal bliss, prosperity, blessedness. What did they do? They threw it away for a piece of fruit. Moses threw away his inheritance in the promised land by striking a rock instead of speaking to it. Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Judas sold our Lord and Savior for 30 pieces of silver. This is how we behave. This is what we do. We're perfectly willing to throw away the glorious promises of God for the trash of the world. And it doesn't look like Achan's hurting for money. It doesn't look like he's starving. So what happens when he's taken out to the valley? He's taken out with his wife, his sons, his daughters, cattle, sheep, donkeys, tent, all that is his. He didn't need this stuff. The Lord's blessed him with a lot. And he's let out, and everything he has is taken away from him, even his life. And just as the first stone memorial in the Promised Land was a wonderful promise, a wonderful reminder of God's deliverance over the Jordan River, this stone memorial is a reminder of God's terrible punishment on sin. And Achan and his family are cut off, they're stoned, they're burned, and everything he has is made devoted to destruction because he put in his lot with the world. It's interesting, this valley of Achor, this valley of Achor that means trouble because Achan had brought trouble on the people of Israel. It's also interesting that Achan's name means serpent. So the serpent had brought trouble on God's people once again. and the seed of the serpent had been crushed. But the Bible doesn't just leave us with this valley of Achor as a warning, as a picture of judgment. Just as Adam was not left under a pile of stones and said, here lies Adam, he troubled the Lord and now the Lord has troubled him. What does the Lord say? I will raise up from among you someone who will crush the serpent's head. I'll raise up a redeemer for you so that your ultimate destination is not a valley of trouble and a reminder in a grave. And it's interesting because we see this in the Old Testament itself. Twice prophets used the Valley of Achor to talk about God's redemption, to talk about hope that comes, this valley that was where Achan died. Look at Isaiah 65, 8-10. This is what the Lord says. As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes, and men say, don't destroy it, there is yet some good in it, so I will do in behalf of my servants. I will not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob and from Judah, those who will possess my mountains. My chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the valley of Achor, a resting place for herds for my people who seek me. That's what the wonderful promise that's held forth to us is. That there is sin, and sin has horrible consequences. Everything that's wrong with this world, all the sickness and death is caused by sin. It ushered all that in because our first parents, Adam and Eve, threw away the promise of eternal blessedness for a piece of fruit and a false promise. And every day we show ourselves to be children of Adam and Eve because we still try to throw away the good things of God and pick up the world's trash. But the Lord says, I won't let the Valley of Achor be that kind of place that's just about sin and death and judgment. But I'll make places of sin and death and judgment places of hope. In Hosea 2.15, God speaks of calling his people back to himself and he says, Therefore I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope. I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show my love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people, and they will say, you are my God. What allows God to make a valley of Achor a door of hope? It's Jesus Christ, isn't it? And God was willing to take his most glorious eternal possession and to give that away to redeem the world's trash, to redeem us as sinners, to bring us back into fellowship with him so that Adam's sin does not cling to us and leave us buried in a grave, but it becomes a door of hope. We're told that once this anger had been visited on Achan, the Lord's anger turned from Israel. When Christ came and died on the cross and took our sins for us, That turned away the Lord's anger. He became Adam for us. He became Achan for us. He became destroyed and buried so that we would not be destroyed, so that God would hold the people to himself. That's our only hope. Because just like Adam's one sin condemned the whole human race, God's glorious sacrifice of his own son to redeem his people is our only hope. It's the only hope for us not to end in a valley of trouble. It's the only way a valley of trouble is made, a door of hope. So if you do not know Jesus Christ, turn to him. He's your only comfort. He's your only hope. And in him you will be blessed for all time. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we come to your word today seeing in it a stern warning. A stern warning of the seriousness of sin and its consequences. A reminder of what we're like as human beings that we're so eager to throw off the good things you've given us for that which ultimately cannot satisfy. Help us more and more by your spirit, Lord, to say no to ungodliness and unholiness. Help us more and more not to be like Achan who sees a good thing as of this world and would rather have those than your blessing. bless us we pray help us to be reminded every day that we would end up just like him without Jesus Christ if he had not come to take your anger Lord you would always be against us and you wouldn't go with us anymore but we thank you that he has come thank you for his sacrifice we thank you that we can be partakers of his grace if we believe in him help our faith more and more Lord and in gratitude for what you've done for us, help us more and more to live a life that is pleasing to you. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.