Last time, we saw that God gave His people this great first victory at [Jericho]. In 6.16, Joshua says, the Lord has given you the city! But before they take the city [17], Joshua says the city will be “[cherem]”. It’s a special word in the Hebrew. The root idea means something exclusively surrendered and set apart to God. Those are His. They’re banned, excluded from being used by man in any way.
[18] "Only": this is the only, the one thing you need to do. Guard yourselves away from the cherem - so that you do not [charam] yourselves, you do not take from the cherem and make Israel cherem. Cuz if you do that, there will be trouble. So all the non-living cherem, the spoils, are put into the temple (God's) treasury, and all living things they actually do charam, with swords. Those are set apart to God, literally sent to meet their Maker. All except for Rahab. Rahab alone put her trust in the God of Israel, and she gets mercy. All who trust in Christ are under mercy. All our sins are covered by the precious blood of Jesus. And in mercy God is going to repurpose Rahab’s life! But make no mistake, He always takes sin very seriously.
Next up we see [Ai]. Literally, “The Ruins”. Maybe it was named after it was destroyed? And how interesting that "Beth-Aven" (house of wickedness) should be so close to "Beth-El" (house of God). But on the heels of the great successes of Jordan and Jericho, not one problem but several rear their ugly heads. Problems sometimes do follow great success. Trouble. First, [2] Joshua, full of confidence, fails to inquire of the Lord. And [3] he sends out some guys to spy out Ai, and the spies, full of confidence, think Ai only warrants a few thousand troops (out of their 500k). [8.25 tells us that 12k people lived in Ai - so, it's no small potatoes]. The people think, this is easy peasy. A piece of cake. And they commit one of the classic Blessing Blunders. They flesh it. They look with human eyes, trust in their success, and leave the Lord out of the equation. They’re right on one thing: it IS easy peasy - for the Lord. But apart from Him there is NOTHING we can do. We saw last time: the battle belongs to the Lord, always. Unless He builds house...
So Israel goes up to Ai, and they get trounced. Now their hearts melt. And look at Joshua’s response [6-7] - Alas, Lord, why did YOU do this? Really? Blaming the Lord? Joshua was trusting in the Lord, in His plan, and now the plan’s gone sideways, and Joshua points a finger at God. We should have stayed on the other side of the Jordan. Isn’t that what we do? We own the success (we touch God’s glory), but we blame HIM for the trouble. Look how the Lord responds [10-11]: Get.Up. There’s nothing wrong with My plan. The trouble is invariably with the people who are trying to implement God’s plan. People like me. In fact, the trouble here IS with just one person. Just 1/500k is pretty good! But it only takes one person, as we’ll see. His name is Achan [sounds like achar/trouble].
[11] The Lord says, ISRAEL has sinned. [In God’s family, me = we. 1Cor 12.24] ISRAEL has stolen and deceived. First, they’ve stolen - from whom? From the Lord: [Mal. 3:8-10 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”] The whole tithe. It ALL comes from Him. He opens His hand, provides us with everything we need for life and godliness [2Pet. 1:3 His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.]. Will we rob God? We do. Why do we? We either doubt His provision, or we are being selfish. [More for me]. Tithing/giving back to God reminds our heart Whose this is. But note: the entire nation is implicated, when it was only one person. Our sin always affects those around us - our family, the church.
Secondly, Israel has deceived. Now, who deceived who? Nobody was deceiving the Lord. He sees all. No, it was Achan, who deceived his people. The whole nation was impacted. AND he deceived his family, they suffer worse: God holds his entire family accountable.
[16-18] They go thru this exercise of “taking” to determine who did it. Why doesn’t the Lord just tell Joshua who did it? 1) everybody has a stake in this. And 2) the Lord is showing Achan grace, giving him the chance to confess. What is he thinking, as the lot keeps falling closer and closer to him? Is he thinking he still might escape getting in trouble? Escape notice, escape consequences? There are always consequences. The best course of action is always to confess, to agree with God about our sin.
Achan does “admit” to his sin [20] - but only AFTER Joshua calls him out [19]. His coerced confession falls short of a contrite apology. There is no remorse. But this is a reminder to each of us [1John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.]. Confess means to agree with God, to sincerely agree with Him about our sin. Remember the three calls: call it sin, call it forgiven, call on God to change you.
[7.21] “Spoil” - one of the big upsides of war was/is the prospect of plunder. To the winner goes the what? [Like in the War card game] - winner takes all. The trouble here is Joshua specifically told the people that everything in Jericho was cherem. Devoted, set apart for God. But Achan calls it “shalal”: plunder. I saw the plunder, I desired the plunder, and I took the plunder. He says/does exactly the same as [Eve] - I saw the fruit, I desired the fruit, I took the fruit. The exact same verbs. Sometimes we can’t help first look… But we ARE wise to guard our eyes. Sadly Achan’s problem began before his eyes saw those things. And it’s not a hearing problem. He heard Joshua say, all this is God’s. But he doesn’t receive that. He has a heart problem. To Achan, it’s all about him. Me first. What I want is more important. He sees a beautiful robe. That would look so good on me. And why shouldn’t I be able to have what I want?
Well, for this first battle, ALL plunder is cherem, devoted to the Lord. We see the principle of first fruits, that first things are devoted, or given (back) to the Lord. Everything we have comes from Him, and giving back first fruits to Him is one way we reinforce that truth in our lives. [Ex. 22:29 “You will not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. The firstborn of your sons you will give to Me.” Ezek. 44:30 “The first of all the first fruits of every kind and every contribution of every kind, from all your contributions, will be for the priests; you will also give to the priest the first of your dough to cause a blessing to rest on your house.”].
Ai/The Ruins/Trouble. AND mercy. In our case, God put our sin - and the death penalty we deserved - on His beloved only begotten Son. In Ai, the consequences fall on Achan’s whole family. It does seem harsh. But remember, we falsely accuse the Lord of being too harsh cause we underestimate God’s holiness and our sin, AND we overexaggerate the relative importance of [this life]. This life, more than anything else, is about getting ready for eternity. It doesn’t negate what we do and enjoy in this life every day - it just keeps it in proper perspective [1Cor 10.31][Psa. 39:5 “Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; surely every man at his best is a mere breath.]. Achan didn’t do that. He put himself first. His wants. The passing pleasures of sin. Achan vs Rahab. God spotlights two minor players in this broader narrative of learning to trust in the God of promise. Achan trusted in himself. Rahab trusted in the God Who saves. Yeshua. The promise of God. Never fails.
<other verses>
1Cor. 12:24-25 God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another
1Cor. 10:31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment