Good morning. Great to be together the
psalmist, David. He wrote in Psalm 122.
He said, I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the
house of the Lord, and I trust that you have the same
excitement, the same Joy of being here, as we are here to
worship him. Our God, he's done great things.
He has blessed us in so many ways, and we're here to just
give him back. What is due unto him this
morning? What I want to do this morning
is take a look at what is written in the Book of Joshua.
There's an account of a man that did something very wrong.
He did something in secret and later on it, it cost him a lot.
And as we see here in Joshua chapter, 7, beginning at verse
number 1, it says, but the children of Israel committed a
trespass. Guarding the accursed things for
Aiken, took of the accursed things, so the anger of the Lord
burned against the children of Israel.
So, usually, when we think about Sin, we think about it in a
personal sense. We see it as something that that
I messed up. And so it's between me and God.
And so in that sense, I guess we would tend to think that most of
the sins that we commit that nobody ever knows except for me
and my father, God, But the reality is, no matter if anyone
might know about what we commit, no matter how big, or how small
the sin, that might be that we do sin, sin is still sin.
And so we transgress God's commands when we sin.
But not only that but also our relationship and our fellowship
with Christ are with God and Christ suffers too.
It's kind of like what John wrote here in John.
Chapter 1 and verse. Number one is we begin a verse.
Number 4, chapter one, Verse number 5 says this is the
message we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is
light. And in him is no Darkness at
all. If we say that we have
fellowship with him and walk in darkness, there's a result to
that. He says we lie.
I do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light as he is
in the light, there's a result of that saying, we have
fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his
son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that, we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
And his word is not in. Its you read this, in this
passage with John. And he describes sin as a
personal problem between us and God.
But sometimes our personal or some, maybe sometimes our silent
soon's might turn into something more than just that they might
turn into something. That is much bigger and could
potentially affect those around us.
And that's what I want to focus on.
As we talked about the account of Aiken and how sin that he had
committed just didn't affect him.
It affected his family. It affected an entire nation.
I want to talk about the dangers of our own personal sin and the
potential of consequences that it could bring.
You go back a little bit before the context of Joshua chapter 7,
you're going to find that Israel had wandered in the wilderness
for those 40 years. And God had promised them over
and over again, I'm going to give you a land, the promised
land, the land of Canaan. I want to give you this land and
eventually that promise came true.
So God, finally gave him that Promised Land.
The people of Israel, they came over, they crossed the Jordan
and they came to the first city, the city of Jericho, we all know
what happened there in the city of Jericho about how they
marched around that that City for a whole week.
One time around that City for those first six days and then on
the seventh day they marched around that City for those 47
days. One being quiet, nobody's saying
anything, and then the Horn of the ram was was blown and then
the trumpets were blown and then the big shouts from the people
of Israel as they surrounded. That City and the scriptures,
tell us that the walls fell in the pit.
The people of Israel invaded. They captured the city, they
burned the city. It was a great victory for God's
people. In an effort to obtain the land
of Canaan as God had Promise them on this particular
occasion, you can see the power of God on display.
How about how God had had helped them in their battle and how God
was was in with them, the whole way and perhaps, they thought
the people of Israel thinking, well, we have the Lord on our
side. No one is able to defeat us
after all, he's promised this land to us.
We're invincible. And so, this was a great victory
for the children of God, but their next battle was not going
to be so easy. and so you look at verse 1 again, as we read and
verse one starts with the word buds, And that word changes
quite a bit with the tone and what is about to happen in
Israel. So, what's changed?
Well, as we see in verse 1, he rake and had done something that
he was not supposed to do. He committed the sin of taking
some of the spoils from their battle there in Jericho and he
kept it for himself and he hid it in secret and from this
secrets in it changed, how God would help his people in the
next battle. And so they go and they they
take assessment of land, little did Joshua and the others know
that they could have done this until they felt the results of
it a little bit later on because they learn the hard way and they
learn this when they plan their next town to conquer.
And so, Oh, in their Pursuit, their pursuit to conquer some
more, the land of Canaan. They're looking to a I now and
so Joshua he sent out some guys to spend spy out, that City or
that town, see what we're up against and so they come and
they make observations, they come back and tell Joshua oh
man, this is going to be easy. There's not as many people
there, it's going to be an easy Battle For Us.
In fact, I think we only need about two to three thousand
people to go and fight these people there.
At AI, the amorites, And so that's exactly what they do.
The Bible says, they sent about 3,000 troops over there to
conquer in an attempt to conquer AI.
Well, little did Joshua, and the soldiers know that the Lord was
going to teach them a lesson about the consequences of sin
and Disobedience. Because when they went up there
to AI man, they were in for surprised it even though they
had counted them as small a number.
And thought this is going to be a piece of cake that was not.
the case, when they got up there to AI to fight these these
amorites, in fact they ran away during battle with their tails
between their legs, back to Camp because they got whooped That it
was so devastating to the people of Israel.
Thinking this was going to be easy and about the 3,000 troops
that we sent over there. 36 of our men died.
And if you ask me, you send about 3,000 men and 36, don't
come back. in my mind that this kind of good odds, I mean that's
minimal loss if you ask me, but not to the people of Israel.
They're thanking God. If you're on our side, nobody
should have died. We should have won that battle.
So they were mad back. Joshua's, Matt, some of the
leaders were mad, they tore their clothes because they were
just besides themselves and how did this happen?
Why did this happen? And so they start complaining
and so Joshua. He cries out to God, in verse
number seven here in Joshua chapter 7, the last Lord.
God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all?
To deliver us into the hand of the amorites to destroy us?
Old that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of the
Jordan. Oh, Lord.
What shall I say? When Israel turns its back
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? And so we have Josh was
complaining to God. It'll end them believe that they
were, they were actually better off on the other side, Jordan
outside of the promised land when they were inside.
Because word was now going to get around about how the mighty
Army of Israel who had defeated Jericho, had been The Underdogs
to the rest of the habitats of cave Kanan, especially there, in
AI words, going to get around and those people of Canada.
Going to think we got these guys.
Whenever they come to our town, we're going to get them.
And Joshua is saying, if they think that they could beat us
and they already did beat us. What does that say about you?
God who said you're going to protect us?
What does that say about you? And about their foreign Gods
against you. And you can see why he was so
upset. And from all this complaining
about all this worry, Joshua asked God, why did this happen?
Why did you deliver us into the hands of the amorites?
You know, what happened next? God answered him.
He answered him. Beginning at verse number 10,
I'm not going to read this. Our going to paraphrase this
beginning in verse number 10 because it appears to me God is
not pleased with them due to his response.
In fact, God told Joshua, Joshua, you get up.
You get up because I'm going to tell you why the amorites
defeated you, it's because Israel sinned.
And they sinned by breaking their Covenant with me by
bringing in some of the spoils about her battle that I
specifically told you not to do. That God went on to tell Joshua
that he was not going to be with with Israel, protect them until
they've solved, this problem and taking care of the sin.
Now Israel, they weren't they weren't ignorance of what rules
or regulations. There were one what they could
and could not do and take from battle.
In fact Joshua had provided them instruction before they actually
went into battle against the people of Jericho, it says this
and Joshua 6 verse 18 and You by all means.
Stain from the accursed things, lest you become a cursed, when
you take of the accursed things and make the camp of Israel, a
curse and trouble it. They knew exactly not to take
from the spoils from their Victory.
There in Jericho. So, the Lord did not want his
people to take anything from the battle, except for valuable
items like gold and silver. But when they were to take those
items, he specifically said that's for the treasury.
That's for the treasury. But taking the spoils exactly
what happened at the Battle of Jericho and white Israel had
lost the battle against the amorites.
Is because someone broke the rule.
So the Lord told Joshua, I want you to start, sanctifying the
people for the removal of sin among them.
And I want us to notice this was a beat, this was to be an
immediate action. I'm going to kind of expand upon
that little bit later this morning, but sin was to be
discovered and sin was to be taken care of immediately.
So God commanded Joshua, prepare the people for sanctification.
Start the process in the morning.
And that's exactly what happened.
This process given to find out who was guilty, invar involved
in narrowing it down to the tribe and to the family and to
the household and then to the man.
And so all the tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel were brought
before the leaders in Joshua in order to find out who is guilty
of the crime of taking the spoils.
Now, you've got a whole lot of people in the nation of Israel.
Some are saying there could be a few million.
Within that Nation. And so, how will the world are
you going to determine who is guilty?
Well, I don't know the process but they narrowed it down as
they brought all the tribes before the leaders of the 12
tribes. They selected, the tribe of
Judah and among the Twilight tribe of Judah, they narrowed it
down to the family of the Czar Heights and within the family of
the Czar, Heights, they narrowed it down to the household of
Zebedee, and then from the household of Zebedee, they found
him. Aiken was guilty.
He was guilty. And I don't think this is by
just pure chance like they just drew the Short Straw out of the
whole bunch. I do believe that God had a part
in choosing who was guilty of the crime.
And imagine being Aiken. Imagine thinking, I'm in the
clear what are the chances of them finding out that it was me.
One in several million or a few million.
But as it narrow down more and closer and closer to him to the
tribe and to the family in the household.
The heart racing, and the guilt building.
Thinking oh man they could they could find me out and they did.
And we felt that guilt before when we've done something that
we thought no one would ever find out.
But someone did find out. Imagine the guilt.
Think back to your childhood, something you did wrong and you
think I meant. I hope.
Mom and Dad don't find out. Mom and dad always found out.
You think, man? I'm busted But he's taking a
Joshua. Joshua asked him to tell him
what he had done and why Israel is in such dismay so we find
here as we continue on, in the book of in the chapter 78,
getting he lays it out, he spills the beans, And so he says
an ache and answered Joshua and said indeed, I have sinned
against the Lord, God of Israel. And this is what I've done.
When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment two
hundred shekels of silver and a weight, a wedge of gold,
weighing 50 shekels. He said I coveted them.
And took them. And there they are hidden in the
earth and mist of my tent with the silver under it.
So upon him telling the true Joshua he sent some of his
troops over there to a consistent.
Sure enough they found what he had described there in the midst
of his Trent tent and so they brought them back to Joshua and
if he asked me, what happens next is a horrible thing yet but
I believe it was a necessary thing. they took Aiken, they
took his family, they took over the spoils, they took his
whatever he had for his livestock and then went just
outside of Jericho and they stoned him and his children, and
his livestock, all the death. And they burned the remains and
they threw a bunch of rocks upon the remains.
And from that day forward, they called it, the valley of achor,
which is just outside Jericho and those rocks are there to
serve as a reminder to Grindr reminder, to the people of
Israel. It's wrong to sin against God.
And these are the consequences. For disobeying the Lord God.
And so ends, the account of Akin a man who sinned and secret, yet
the consequences of that secrets in in just affecting, not just
his family. Not just him.
But an entire nation. So what are some of the things
we can learn from this passage and about the sin that we commit
Even in our own life? Well, first of all this morning
when sin and wrong are uncovered, God calls immediate
action upon the wrong that we've done in our life.
You see when the Lord responded to Joshua after Joshua had
complained to him about why they lost the battle of the Lord told
Joshua, begin the process of sanctifying the people right
away, for the process of fighting the sin to begin in the
next morning and there was no hesitation on gods.
And to take care of the problem. God did not tell Joshua what,
we're just going to let. We're just going to fill this
out for a while. We're going to see if there's
anyone who's guilty enough that maybe it's going to burn on
their conscience. Then finally they're going to
confess. We'll just let this one just
kind of simmer for a little while and we'll see what
happens. That is not what happened.
They found out immediately. And God called immediate action.
And that's a theme. Whenever you read about
repentance or sin throughout scriptures, there is always the
call from God take care of it now.
Take care of it immediately and there's always that sense of
urgency in that call. And the reason there are, there
are reasons for that are urgency.
One reason is that we don't get too involved in the wrong that
we're committing. And when we respond urgently to
our sins and keep us from going further in that wrong action,
And digging a deeper hole for ourselves.
But not only that, another reason is that we don't have to
suffer the consequences or maybe not as much from the that comes
from that sin. And one of the reasons why God
wants us to stay away from sin is that we don't have to reap
the consequences of it. God wants us to have the best
life possible. He wants that for me, he wants
that for you. He wants that for everybody.
It is worth living a life of Holiness and righteousness for
the Lord, And he keeps us from having to endure consequences
that are simply unnecessary from decisions that we make.
And so this idea is stated over and over in the Book of Proverbs
of how Solomon as a father is telling his son about the
lessons of life. And he's saying, son, you need
to be wise and if you are wise, you will not have to endure the
sufferings of the consequences that come from bad decisions in
your life and sin in your life either.
Now, sometimes a confession is too late to avoid discipline.
But the primary purpose of a confession is not to get out of
trouble. The purpose of the confession is
to re-establish fellowship, and turn our lives back over to God.
Now, when we do, give confession, what we reap
consequences of our sins after we confess them.
Yeah, sometimes sometimes the damage is already done.
But with confession, there was always the need to repent of
what we've done. And so the best things that we
can do for ourselves is take care of our sins right away and
tell others that we will never ever do that.
Do that again, maybe create a buddy system and accountability
system. If there's something that keeps
popping up in your life, And work on that.
After all, we are called to repent and that's what the lord
requires of all of us. But another thing we see from
this event number two is that we were reminded how nothing is
escapes the omniscience of God, when Aiken took, what he was not
supposed to take from Jericho. He might have been able to do it
without anyone seeing him with that ever, ever being caught.
But even through his actions, even if nobody saw him.
Someone was watching. You know who was watching?
God, God was watching. He wasn't able to fool God.
And it's because of God's omniscient nature nature.
He was able to know exactly what Aiken had done.
You know, we used to sing. It's not in this song books that
we sing from right right now in the pews.
But we used to sing. There's an eye watching you And
the song reminds us that sin never escapes the watchful eye
of Our Lord. We can fool ourselves and we can
fool others, but will never ever be able to fool the Lord.
And God sees the sin in our lives and he desires us to deal
with it. He doesn't want us to hide it
and put it away. Hiding, it only hinders our
progress in, God's Will and plan.
You know, Solomon wrote this, he said in Proverbs 28 verse 13.
He said, he who covers his sins. Will not prosper. but on the
contrary, whoever confesses and forsakes them, He says, we'll
have mercy. And we see the contrast between
the two. Don't we?
Numbers 32, and verse 23 reminds us, he says be sure your sins
will find you out. And it's similar to the idea of
reaping, what we sow. Because of the natural
consequences of God, spiritual moral laws.
And because of what, God, how, he how he, interacts with us, if
you will through his word However, here in this passage,
it does not just teach that sin will be discovered, but that the
consequences of our sin can be active agents in discovering us
and finding us out. It's like what Paul wrote in
Galatians, chapter 6, verses 7 and 8 do not be deceived I think
the reason why, there's a reason why Paul wrote that because
sometimes we can deceive ourselves, he says God is Not
mocked for whatever manso's that he will also reap for.
He Who sows to his flesh, shall of the flesh.
Reap corruption. But he use those to the spirit
will of the spirit reap everlasting life.
So we have a choice to what we reap to do art, what we so too.
Repeating a depending on our choices and what we do.
What are we going to reap good or bad?
We can all try to cover our sins and we could try to lie about it
but eventually our sin is going to find itself because of the
guilt that can way with in us, maybe people would, maybe if
there's so much guilt in our lives.
There could be people that are close to us.
That think there's something that might be troubling us,
maybe we're just not the same person, maybe we're not as happy
as we usually are. But that's what sin will do to
us if we just try to hide it from other people.
But another thing that we can see is we take a look at this
event. Is that the words that are found
in verse? Number one, the anger of the
Lord burned against the children of Israel.
Well, that dramatically calls our attention to the Holiness of
God. And the reason why is because
sin is no small matter with God. Again, it doesn't matter how
secret our sin might be, it doesn't matter how little we
might think the Sin is Sin, is rebellion.
And even though Christ, died for our sins and stands up God's
right hand as our advocate in our intercessor.
God does not and he cannot treat sin in our lives lightly.
There is absolutely no compromise about Sin.
Because it's against his nature. It's against his character.
It's against his Holiness, it's against his righteousness, it's
against his love. and it's against his purposes for us
because it hinders What he is able to do for us and how we can
progress in our lives in the spiritual manner for him?
If we hold on to it. We can never ever.
Be justified by the sin that is in our life.
And all its going to do is lead to Eternity and torment, because
that is how serious sin is to God.
So we see the Holiness of God. And how he wants us to get rid
of it, whenever it is in our lives.
So the we've seen this morning. that if we choose to keep sin
hidden, Eventually, our sins are going to find this out.
In sin is never secret before the Lord and God will judge us.
According to what he knows, and not according to what man knows
According to second Corinthians 5 and verse number 10.
So, we've already read this at the beginning.
What is it called to us? And I have failures.
I make mistakes. I sinned, we all sin.
But God's promised us something. And this is the wonderful
promise he says, if we confess our sins, if I mess up and I
confess them He is faithful. What is he faithful to do?
He is faithful and just to forgive us, our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
You know what that tells me? Tells me I have a second chance.
It tells me he's willing to look beyond my failures.
And say, I forgive you, I love you.
And I want what's best for you as long as I repent and confess
of what I've done. And he makes that same promise
to you. If there is sin in your life.
You can repent of that and you can confess and God is faithful
and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you of all
unrighteousness, what a wonderful father we have, don't
we? We do.
He is better to us than we deserve.
He all he wants every one of us to succeed, he wants every one
of us to make it to heaven. We have to do our part in
keeping sin out of our lives. But if we do mess up, he's there
to help. Isn't that a great promise it
is? and so, We want to never close
without offering the Lord's invitation to you.
If you've never become a child of God, you can't become a child
of God, understanding the great thing.
What the Lord has done for you sending Jesus to this world and
living living. The life that he did a sinless
life. Being the example, he was dying
upon the cross for your sins, burying your sins upon that
cross. He died.
He was buried. Praise be to God.
He was resurrected. So that we can have new life in
him. The scriptures tell us, you have
to believe that you have to have faith, that Jesus did that for
you. And then the scriptures tell us
to repent of the life that we're living and to live a life
devoted to God, confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
as we find in Acts chapter 8 and then be baptized for the
remission of your sins. As we see those people did in
Acts chapter 2 and when those people did that, the scriptures
tell us that the Lord added them to his church.
It wasn't something saying that the church just decided who was
going to be saved or not saved. The Lord adds the people to the
church based upon The Obedience of people to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. If you haven't done that, you
can do that today. The Lord wants you in the
Kingdom. If you haven't done that today,
but if you have again, if there are Senior Life, take care of
it. Now, leave the guilt here.
Leave. Leave with new purpose and leave
forgiven. Consider your life and consider
this moment. And the goodness of God.
We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the
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