I know with the kids home from school and, and a lot of us have
days off in here with, with not having to go to work and
everything else. I've really enjoyed it.
And sometimes some years I'm just, I'm over Christmas and not
in a bad way, but just the holiday.
I'm ready to get back to the normal routine.
But I've I've really enjoyed myself this year.
And maybe it's maybe it's the age I was at or I don't know,
but we've had a really good time.
Not like this tree. This tree is over it.
This tree is it's struggling. It's got lights out at the top,
lights out at the bottom. We may have to do something
different for next year, but I've enjoyed this season.
Joshua Chapter 7 is where we'll be.
And I want to just give us a tiny little bit of review
because it's been a few weeks since we've been in Sunday
school. But if you remember, we're in
the series on mountains and valleys in the Bible.
And if you remember the mountains, we're, we're finished
with them, but we had seven different mountains that we
looked at. And the whole purpose of the
mountains was to inspire us to, to things that we know to do, to
do them better and to look at them in the Bible and see what
God commands us to do and be encouraged by them.
But then we, we jumped over to some valleys and we've got six
of those and we only got into one of them so far.
And this is going to stretch your memory.
Does anybody remember what valley we looked at 3 weeks ago?
The valley of it wasn't an actual place.
It was a it was a something we talked about the valley of
something that we all get into at times.
Anybody remember Miss Yes. What do we call it?
Discouragement. There we go, the valley of
discouragement. And I think the key take away
there was, you know, we, we do get discouraged and, and
remember the valleys are for instruction, right?
The the mountains that we talked about were meant to inspire us
to go on serving God. The valleys here we're talking
about are meant to instruct us. And so naturally they have more
of a preaching than a teaching tone because we need this
instruction. But we talked about the valley
of discouragement and how that we all get discouraged.
But just a reminder that our discouragement is can it can
infect others or can be transferred to others.
We need to be careful about letting that discouragement
really take take root and, and drag us down.
And so we talked about that this morning.
We're going to talk about the valley of disobedience.
Another, another lesson of instruction.
And you'll notice I'm going to read a few verses here and then
we'll pray and get into the lesson.
But Joshua Chapter 7, you'll know immediately what we're
going to talk about. But in verse one, But the
children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing.
For Aiken the son of Karmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zara of
the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of
Israel. Verse 2.
And Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is besides Beth
Haven on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them,
saying, Go up and view the country.
And the men went up and viewed AI.
And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the
people go up, let about two or three thousand men go up and
smite AI, and make not all the people to labor, labor thither,
for they are but a few. So there went up thither of the
people about 3000 men, and they fled before the men of AI.
The men of AI smote of them about 30 and six men, for they
chased them from before the gate, even to Shibaram, and
smote them in the going down. Wherefore the hearts of the
people melted and became as water.
And Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face
before the ark of the Lord until the eventide he and the elders
of Israel and put dust upon their heads.
And Joshua said, alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all
brought this people over Jordan to to deliver us into the hand
of the Amorites to destroy us would to God we had been content
and dwelt on the other side of Jordan talk about this
disobedience have an effect on even the leader of Israel at
this point. Maybe we should, maybe we were
wrong. Maybe we should have just stayed
on the other side of Jordan. Verse 8 O Lord God, what shall I
say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies?
For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall
hear of it, and shall environ us around, and cut off our name
from the earth. And what wilt thou do unto thy
great name? And the Lord said unto Joshua,
Get thee up, Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face Israel
hath sinned. And they have also transgressed
my covenant, which I commanded them.
For they have even taken of the accursed thing and have also
stolen and dissembled also. And they have put it even among
their own stuff. And we'll stop right there.
But the whole, the whole passage, the whole chapter,
Chapter 7 talks about this story of Aiken and what happened.
And so we're going to look at a few things this morning about
the valley of disobedience and the effect it has on our lives
and what we can do about it. Some instructions on this topic
of disobedience. So let's pray and then we'll get
into it. Father, I thank you for this day
you've given us. Thank you for this Christmas
season that we've had to celebrate the birth of your son
and what it means to us. And God, I just thank you for
our salvation. Thank you for how it's changed
our lives. God, I thank you for the joy and
the peace that we can have knowing that you are Savior and
that no matter what happens in the world around us, that we
have one constant in our lives and that's you.
And we can depend on you. We can trust in you.
And I pray as we look at this lesson on disobedience, God,
that we would understand that even as adults, this applies to
us. We have commandments of from you
that we are to obey. And I pray that you just help us
this morning as we look at this topic in Jesus name, I pray,
Amen. Amen.
Now, the first thing I'll say is, you know, often when a
pastor gets up and talks about obedience, the first thing we
think of is good, my kids need to hear that.
And, and they do. And, but obedience is not just
for children. Obedience is for adults as well.
And I think often we give ourselves a pass on certain
things because we're the head of the, we're the head of our
houses or we're that we are the authority in our homes.
But there are many commands that God gives us in the Bible that
we disobey. And, and I think like I said,
we're, we're not harsh on ourselves.
We're harsh on our kids. It's obvious when they disobey.
And we'll get into this in just a little bit.
But we do the same thing. And I think I pray often that
God will give me patience and dealing with my own child and
our own children. Some of the things we see them
do, we should we should reflect on and look at ourselves.
We do the same thing to God and he is merciful.
He is gracious in dealing with us, and I'm not saying we don't
teach them and deal with the sin, but I think we need to have
some patience in doing that because we act the same way.
The word acor which we see here in Joshua Chapter 7 verse 26.
If you just turn the page. And they raised over him a great
heap of stone unto this day. So the Lord turned from the
fierceness of His anger. Wherefore the name of that place
was called the valley of Acor unto this day.
The word acor means trouble. And I think it's that's that's
aptly named. Look at the trouble it brought
on, not just Aiken and not just his family, the entire, the
entire nation of Israel, the trouble that it brought on them.
And we'll look at that in just a few minutes as well.
But you know, disobedience always has consequences.
If it's children, they have its consequences with their parents.
If a citizen disobeys, they have consequences with the law.
And if a Christian disobeys, we have a consequence with God.
Pastor says this all the time. We don't.
We can choose our sin, but we don't get to choose the
consequences that come from that sin.
Aiken chose his sin. He disobeyed.
He did exactly what God told him not to do, Disobeyed, but he
didn't get to choose the consequence.
And the consequence was pretty dire for his whole family, not
just for him. And you know, we look at this
story, He took a little bit of gold, a little bit of silver and
a Babylonish garment. It doesn't seem like that big a
deal, but it is to God because what he took wasn't the problem.
The sin of disobedience was the problem.
And so let's get right into this lesson.
Look at a few characteristics of this disobedience.
The first that I want to show you is in actually go to Joshua
chapter 6. It might even be on the same
page, but verse 17. The first characteristic of this
sin of disobedience was it was a simple thing in in verse 17 of
chapter 6. It says in the city shall be
accursed. Even it and all that are therein
to the Lord only Rahab the harlot shall live.
She and all that are with her in her in the house because she hid
the messengers that we sent. So the city of Jericho is an
accursed place, and that's why God says, don't touch it in
verse 18. And ye in any wise keep
yourselves from the accursed thing, lest you make yourselves
accursed. When you take of the accursed
thing and make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it.
But all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron are
consecrated unto the Lord, they shall come into the treasury of
the Lord. So don't take them.
That's a simple command, very simple.
And we see with this simple command, Aiken disobeys, don't
take it. And what does he do?
He takes it. And we see that in verse one.
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the
accursed thing for Aiken, the son of Karma, the son of Zabi,
the son of Zara of the tribe of Judah took of the accursed thing
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of
Israel. You know, I think we could
understand if if if Aiken was trying to do a sacrifice to the
Lord out of Leviticus. And some of those really may be
complicated that we at least think are complicated
sacrifices. We looked at these when we
looked at the different types of Christ with maybe the two birds
that you kill the one and dip it in the blood of, dip the live
one in the blood of the dead 1 and then let it fly to the
heaven. Remember all that, OK, He could
understand if Akin maybe missed a step.
It's not disobedience. This is a simple command.
Don't take it. He walks in and he takes it very
simple thing, but secondly, it was a sinful thing.
Joshua Chapter 7 and verse 20 we'll be jumping around but
pretty much staying in Joshua Chapter 7 here verse 20 and a
good answered Joshua and said I have sinned.
Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and thus and
thus have I done. He did not need to be re
explained that what he did was wrong.
He knew what he did was wrong. He knew when he was doing it.
It was wrong. Why do you think he hit it?
It's it's a pretty telltale sign for even things we're doing in
our own lives. If you're hiding them, they're
probably wrong unless you're trying to surprise somebody.
But if you're hiding it, it's probably wrong.
That's what Aiken does. He he takes it.
He hides, goes, hides it under his tent.
And and when he's confronted in verse 20, he says, indeed, I
have sinned. I knew what I was doing.
It was a sinful thing. And you know, I think it's it's
this is where I was talking about at the very beginning.
I think we give ourselves a pass often.
Anyway. We have a joke, a running inside
joke in the family. We were on vacation and
something came up and a couple of the kids did exactly what
they were not supposed to do. And when they were confronted,
it was so funny. One of the kids was like, so now
it's our running joke anytime there's something going on.
But I think we do that for ourselves.
Well, God, I mean, it's so tiny or it's justified because I had
to do it because of but I think we need to recognize that often,
almost always, our disobedience is not a mistake.
It's something that we that we intentionally go out.
It's an intentional choice that we make to disobey the commands
of God. That's exactly what Aiken did
here. He would, he was not mistaken in
Oh, I, I, I thought it was just the gold and silver.
I didn't realize we couldn't take anything.
He knew exactly what he did. He knew it was sin and he knew
it was a sin against God exactly what God told him not to do.
Our outward actions, especially with disobedience are are a
result or a manifestation of a sinful heart.
That's that's what it is. And and so just just as if you
go keep your finger in Joshua Chapter 7, but go to first
Samuel chapter 15, very familiar story to us.
But in in first Samuel chapter 15 and verse 23.
And I won't even give you the whole the whole background to
this. But this is this is when Saul
was supposed to utterly destroy the Amalekites.
And he didn't was it an accident?
He purposely didn't do it when he is confronted by Samuel, he
says, well I kept the the best sheep and the and the best of of
these animals and things for sacrifices.
And Samuel says I didn't tell you to keep the best for
sacrifices. I said God told you to utterly
destroy them. And he says in verse 23 for
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is
as iniquity and idolatry because thou has rejected the word of
the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
But he says rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
And I got to thinking about that rebellion, disobedience against
the command of God or against your parents or against whatever
authority in your life. But rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft. I don't know if in the history
of mankind anybody has accidentally gotten into
witchcraft. And I and I think it's, it's
interesting to think about it that way.
It's purposeful. You purposely seek out think
about when Saul went to the witch of Endor didn't
accidentally happen upon a place he went to the witch of Endor
for a very specific purpose. Let me talk to Samuel again.
I know he's dead. Bring him back.
I need to talk to him. I don't think anybody ever has
fallen into witchcraft on accident, getting with the wrong
crowd and and ending up there. Sure, but it's a purposeful
thing and I think that's the point Samuel was making.
Their rebellion is purposeful, it's against God.
It is something that we purposely, from, from our
hearts, from a sinful heart, we purposely do, we purposely go
after. Think about this when you tell
your kids and I, I, I have seen it in my own child.
So I'm not, I'm not picking on anybody's kids.
But think about when you with your own kids, or maybe you see
somebody else's kids, they're told to do something.
And I mean, 30 seconds later, they're doing the exact
opposite. That's not an accident.
While you were telling them to do that, they were thinking in
their minds. Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to do this. It's purposeful from a sinful
heart, which is why we are commanded as parents to, to, to
discipline that and to, to correct that.
But we do the same thing. God tells us something and maybe
through a message or through what we're reading in the Bible.
And we know in our minds that's not happening.
That's that's rebellion, that's disobedience.
And it is a simple thing, but it's also a very sinful thing in
the eyes of God, not a mistake. It's a purposeful act from a
sinful heart. And and I think that's why the
Bible tells us that we need to guard our hearts because every
one of us is capable, capable of that kind of of action from a
sinful heart. But but thirdly, the third
characteristic, it was a serious thing says that in Joshua
chapter 1 seven and verse one and the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Joshua Aiken. Now the children of Israel, all
of them. It was a serious thing that
happened here to the point where Joshua goes to God and says, did
we make a mistake in coming across Jordan?
They knew they didn't make a mistake.
Jericho was given to them by the hand of God and but it was it
was the wrath of God was kindled so much that they were Joshua
was even concerned that they were not doing what God wanted
them to do at this point and God says no, no, you're doing what I
want you to do, but they're sin in the camp and you got to go
fix it before we go on. So it was a serious thing.
But what was the cause of Akins disobedience?
There had to be a reason surely. Remember when they left Egypt,
the Egyptians gave them all this gold and and thing the Bible
says they were really were blessed by the Egyptian people
in giving them all these things. Did he really need a wedge of
gold? What was he going to do with it?
You can't eat it, right? I mean, you're camping.
What are you going to do with this?
I thought about this too while I was studying.
He's got a Babylonish garment. If he ever wore it, everybody
else is going to go. Hey, I know where he got that.
He got that from Jericho. Did he really think he was going
to get away with it? I don't know.
I don't know if it even crossed his mind that he was going to
get away with it. He just had to have it.
So what was the cause of his disobedience?
Look at verse 21 of Chapter 7. First thing was uncontrolled
eyes. Verse 21 and when I saw among
the spoils A goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of
silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels wait when I saw these
things, you know, all through the Bible we we see sins
committed by people that start by looking think about Eve, she
sees the fruit. She hadn't seen that before.
But all of a sudden when Satan tempts her, she sees it maybe
through a different lens, through a different set of eyes
and goes, I have to have it. I've got to have this fruit.
I mean, think about the Garden of Eden.
Think about the fruit and the things that the food that was
available to them. She didn't need that, but she
saw it through a different through, through a set of maybe
sinful eyes, we could say, and she had to have it.
Same thing with Akin here. When I saw it, I knew exactly
what God said to do. I mean, think about how long ago
God had told them not to touch this stuff.
Days, hours. I mean, he just told them don't
touch it, don't take it. That is holy to God.
It's to be consecrated to to to the temple and he's got to have
it. He sees with that.
Think about David sees Bathsheba and has to have it.
David had anybody he wanted available to him, but he's got
he, he saw with his eyes and he had to go get it.
And I say, you know, I said it's at the beginning that
disobedience is not just for our children.
So is this not just for our children?
The song, Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
That's for us. Be careful what your eyes see.
And so I will say this to you and to myself.
Be careful what your eyes see on social media.
You know, if you have to, if you have to delete an app because
you can't control what you're seeing, delete the app.
Bible says that it's better to pluck your eye out than to go
that then to die and have sin because of your eyes.
Delete that stuff. And I'm not saying social media
is all bad. We use it for our church.
We we use it to get our name out there.
We use it for for different things.
But if you cannot control your eyes in those things, get rid of
it. It's not worth it defiling your
heart because of what your eyes are seeing.
So he, he, the first part of what happened, why this
disobedience happened, was uncontrolled eyes on Akin's
part, but the second was an unsubmitted heart.
In Exodus chapter 2020, verse 17, we have the 10 commandments.
And one of the 10 commandments is thou shalt not covet, right?
I mean, it's very simple in practice.
A little harder to do, sure, but a very simple command.
Don't covet. And what does Akin say in verse
21? When I saw all these things, the
very next thing then I coveted them.
I had to have them at all cost, really at the cost of your own
life, at the cost of your own family, at the cost of 36 men
dying. The these fathers, these sons,
these husbands, you had to have them at that cost.
Yep, he did. He coveted unsubmitted heart.
And that's what I'm saying is this disobedience is not, we
can't couch it. We can't pass it off as oops, I
made a mistake. Yeah, it's a mistake.
But it's not a, it's not a it's not a, an accident.
This was a purposeful taking of these things because he saw
them. He coveted them.
And then thirdly, unrestrained hands.
Still again in verse 21, when I saw among the spoils these
things, then I coveted them and I took them and behold, they are
hid in the midst of my tent and the silver under it.
You know as you read through this passage, when God tells
Joshua, OK, go to these, go to the tribes, separate the tribes
and then separate the families and then separate the families
within these families and go man by man and figure out who did
it. Aiken knew what was happening
and he waits till they get all the way down to him and he says
listen I mean imagine the turmoil it inside of him when
this is going on. Just such a foolish thing for
him to have done in the 1st place.
But that's This is why uncontrolled eyes and
unsubmitted heart to God and unrestrained hands.
Just I already mentioned this first, but in Proverbs chapter 4
verse 23. Keep thy heart with all
diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
So did his disobedience start with an accident?
No, it started with his heart. When it when when Joshua was
telling them these are the commands.
Don't take this stuff. He knew in his mind, I'll take
it. He he, he was maybe greed, but
he was covetous and he couldn't he could not hold back because
he had not kept his heart with diligence.
You know, I, I wrote these things down.
But I want, I want to, I want to mention this, that disobedience
is ultimately the fruit of an unsurrendered life or an
unsurrendered heart. And, and what are we
surrendering to? We're surrendering for sure to
the word of God. We're surrendering to God
himself, but we're surrendering to the authority that God has
placed in our life. For kids, that's parents for us,
that's our pastor. You know, I think it's a
dangerous thing. And I say the I say what I'm
about to say, not because I'm the pastor, because I'm not the
pastor, and not because my brother's the pastor, because I
grew up with him and I know his flaws.
He's not perfect. And so I'm not saying this
because, well, I got to get some backing for the pastor.
I'm saying this for our own good.
All right. And here's here's what I want to
say. God has put you under the
authority of your pastor in this church.
We need to be careful not to disregard that authority because
I know better. And I and I think, you know, I
have there's it's a good thing to to have men who are not yes
men, they are thoughtful and and, and purposeful.
That's good. But the but the danger in that
is to think I know better than him.
Who is he? Well, he is just a man, but he
is the authority God has placed in your life.
And that's what happens as far as this disobedience is aching.
I know better. I don't know what was going
through his mind other than I saw it, I took it, I I had to
have it. But I know better than what
Joshua was telling me. This authority in my life.
And and I'll say this so that so your pastor is not just your
friend, even though he he can be.
He's not just a fellow Christian, even though he is and
he's not one of the boys, even though he goes does a lot of
stuff with, with, with the men in our church camping and all
that. But he's not just one of the
boys. He is the authority God has
placed in your life. And you know, when we were when
we were moving to come help start this church, one of the
things that my pastor asked me, he said, Are you sure you can
let your, your pastor, your brother can pastor you?
And I don't think that's the pastor's problem.
I think that's my problem. If I can't let him pastor me.
And the same thing with men that are older than him, that have
been Christians for decades longer than him.
If you put yourself in this church, this is that's the
authority of God has placed in our lives.
It's, it's really that simple. Joshua was not the oldest one in
in Israel. He was probably not the most
spiritual one in Israel, but he was the leader God had chosen.
And when when God gave the command through Joshua, it was
to be followed and I'm not, and so I'll continue on.
He is the God-given authority, your pastor in your life, not to
rule over you, but to help you. And we cross a dangerous line
when we rebel against that authority.
We see that all the way through the Bible.
They rebel against Moses and what does God do?
The earth swallows them up. Not because it's Moses.
It's because that's the leader God placed and and he he will
protect that man. And the last thing I'll say
about that, that doesn't mean he's a king, just that he's the
God appointed authority in this church, not to be worshipped,
but to be respected as the authority in this church.
And and I, I say that I'm glad he was is not in here.
But you know, sometimes that's what we get in our minds.
Well, who does he think he is telling me that?
Well, he's just the authority God put in your life for this
church and and so we need to keep our hearts with all
diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
Now we got a few minutes left, but I want to look at two more
points the cost of this disobedience.
Look at Joshua Chapter 7 and verse 25 and Joshua said why
hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this
day. And all Israel stoned him with
stones and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them
with stones. Aiken brought trouble to himself
through this disobedience that was the cost his very life over
a garment and A and a little bit of silver and a little bit of
gold that he had to have brought trouble on himself.
It also brought trouble to his family.
Look at verse 24. And Joshua and all Israel with
him took Aiken, the son of Zara, and the silver and the garment
and the wedge of gold and his sons and his daughters and his
oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that he
had, and brought them under the valley of Akor, the valley of
trouble. And they stoned them and burned,
burned them after they stoned them.
That's what happens, happened to his family.
Now, I think some of the reason we dismiss our our disobedience
and we pass it off as a mistake or a I'll get that right here in
a little bit is because we don't see the consequences like this
to our families. But those consequences, I
believe are there. You know, sometimes we, we
wonder man, what happened to what happened to to this kid or,
or what I think sometimes they see the unsurrendered heart of
their parents and they are the consequence.
They they leave the church or they they walk away from from
God. But his family paid the
consequences. But but thirdly, he brought
trouble to the nation of Israel to the fellowship God had given
him. And you know, it kind of goes
without out saying. We already mentioned it with the
with AI36 men died 36 husbands, 36 fathers, 36 sons.
They're gone. That brought trouble to the
nation of Israel. But I think there's something we
don't think about. Aiken was a fellow warrior.
Surely he had friends that were, you know, the other soldiers.
Surely in, in within his tribe, if not within the nation of
Israel. You know, they did what we would
have done. Hey, we're just sitting here
camping. We're doing nothing for for 40
years they wandered in the wilderness, remember?
And so surely Aiken would have had people over to his tent to
eat with him and they would have gotten to know his family.
Think about the trouble that he brought on those people that had
to go stone him. They knew him.
They knew his kids. Maybe their kids played with the
others kids. I don't think we think about
that as much because we just see this little this little blurb
here in the Bible where they're destroyed and that's the end of
Akin. But he brought trouble to these
to these men that he forced to have to stone him and then burn
his family. You know, there's a, there's a,
a famous story, Wyatt Earp, you know, you know Wyatt Earp, the
famous lawman. And he had four deputies in
Wichita, KS. And at one point anyways, and
I'm sure he had more than that. But at one point one of his
deputies takes a bribe. One of his very, very trusted
deputies takes a bribe from one of the saloon owners or whatever
for the gambling that they had to do.
He takes a bribe to kind of overlook what's going on in the,
in the salons. And it's brought to Wyatt Earp's
attention. He says there's no way.
There's no way. This guy's name was Sam Renfro.
There's no way it's him. I'd, I would trust him with my
life. It's not him.
And anyway, come to find out this guy Sam Renfro was the one
that had taken this bribe, ends up shooting one of the other
deputies that found out about it and was going to tell Wyatt Earp
about it and and then shoots the guy that bribed him because he
knows about it. He can't talk and he's on his
way to kill one other person that knew about it when Wyatt
Earp intercepts him and ends up basically disabling him.
And he drags him before the court and he and he tells them,
normally I would let the court, you know, bring justice to this
man, but I am asking for the death penalty by hanging to one
of his very, very good friends. And that's what I'm saying is
this man, you know, this is this is just a story in history, it
is true. But this man because of his
selfishness, his his selfish acts, makes his own really close
friend have to ask for his his death by hanging.
Same thing here with Aiken. He forces these men to have to
stone him and burn his family because of his selfishness, his
disobedience to what God had commanded them to do.
You know, when there's any kind of church discipline or anything
like that in the church, I think what goes, what gets looked over
is the fact that that hurts the people in the church that have
to vote that way. Yeah, vote him out of the church
because of their selfishness. It hurts other people in the
fellowship of Christ. And lastly, Akins sin brought
trouble for the future. First Chronicles chapter 2,
verse 7. I'll just read it, but this is
the this is chronicling the nation of Israel and all the
tribes and this is what it says about Akin and the sons of Karmi
Achor Akin, the troubler of Israel who transgressed in the
thing that cursed all the way in the Chronicles of the kings of
what's happening. That's what they mentioned about
Aiken, the troubler of Israel. Nothing else.
I'm sure he was a great warrior. Who knows what else he had done.
He was he was probably, you know, a great man in Israel in
his tribe, but that's what's noted about him in the
Chronicles. Aiken, the troubler of Israel
who transgressed in the accursed thing.
It brought trouble even for his future.
But then lastly, what is the cure then for disobedience?
We just got 3 or 4 minutes. What is the cure for
disobedience? Go to Romans chapter 6 and we're
done in Joshua Chapter 7, so you don't have to hold your finger
there anymore. But go to Romans chapter 6.
What is the cure for disobedience?
Well, for sure get it right, but Akin got it right in this, in
this instance, and the punishment was still there.
When it finally comes down to it, he says I have sinned.
I saw it, I coveted it, I took it and the consequence was still
there for akin. But what is the cure for
disobedience in in our lives? And we see this in Joshua
Chapter 7 verse 25. The solution was death.
It has to be killed, put out of the put out of the out of the
camp so that the that Israel can go forward now and conquer AI
and the and the and the rest of Canaan.
But Romans chapter 6 verses 6 and seven says this, Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.
That is the only answer to the that is the cure for
disobedience. Crucify the flesh, crucify the
old man. First Corinthians 15 and verse
31, Paul says that I die daily. What is he talking about?
He's talking about this. I die to what myself wants to
do. I die to those uncontrolled
eyes. I die to that unsubmitted heart.
I die to that there's that's the only remedy.
It's first sin in general, but specifically for an
unsurrendered heart, you've got to die to self.
Put that sin to death. I think at the heart, and we
talk about this often, but at the heart of disobedience, at
the heart of an unsurrended life or an unsurrended heart is what
Solomon talked about often. Pride.
I know better than what I'm being told to do.
I, I know what you're saying the consequence is going to be, but
I don't think that's going to happen.
I know better. I'm going to try it.
And then we get the consequence, probably worse than we thought
it was going to be. And then, you know, not always,
but sometimes we get this consequence and then we come to
the to the pastor. Pray for me.
I need help. No, you do need help.
But it's your fault. You did it.
And and if we would die to ourself, die to that to to what
our heart wants to do, give that to God, we would, we would save
ourselves so much trouble. Who knows what what Aiken had
left to do in his life? Who knows?
We don't hear anything else about him except that he was the
troubler of Israel. That's it.
So the valley of disobedience, I think some good, some good
thoughts here that we can apply to our own our own lives.
Surrender that pride. And you know, I don't think
we'll ever conquer pride. I think pride is in is in the
crevices of every little part of our lives.
And we can pluck it out. We can we can clean it up when
we see it and when we find it, but it always pops its head up.
It's, it's like fighting Satan. You can fight and you can win
and we can have victory. But as soon as he gets a chance,
he's right back. He's back, back at it.
Pride is the same way. And I think that's the, that's
what disobedience is an unsurrended heart.
And we can surrender our heart at times and, and get victory
over it. And soon as it gets a chance,
it'll be back. That's why Paul said I die
daily. I surrender my heart daily to
what God wants me to do. It's not an easy thing, but it's
purposeful and and we must do it.
All right, Valley of disobedience.
Let's pray and then we'll be dismissed.
Father, I thank you for this story we have in the Bible just
to understand that none of us are immune to the consequences
of the sin that we allow into our lives, especially this of
disobedience. God, I pray that you would help
us as we sit under this pastor that you've given us in our
lives that we would just submit to that authority.
Got it. We're submitting to you is is
what we're doing when we submit to that authority.
I pray that you'd help each one of us to do it and got this this
idea of disobedience in our hearts.
I pray that we would root it out surrender our hearts to you
daily and God lets you and and see the blessings that you can
give us in our lives when we do that.
Pray that you bless this next hour.
Be with our pastor as he preaches that you give him
wisdom and power and that you'd feed us from your word.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen or dismissed.