A man told this story at his first AA meeting: He’d gone to a party and had too much to drink.
His friends pled with him to let them drive him home but he said no, he only lived a mile away.
About 5 blocks from the party, the police pulled him over for weaving and asked him to get out of the car and walk the line. Just as he started, the police radio blared out a notice of a robbery in a house just a block away. The police told him to stay put, they’d be right back… and they hopped a fence and ran down the street to the robbery.
The guy waited and waited and he waited… and finally decided to drive home.
When he got there, he told his wife he was going to bed and to tell anyone who might come looking for him that he had the flu and had been in bed all day.
A few hours later the police knocked on the door. They ask if the man lived there and his wife said yes. They asked to see him and she replied that he was in bed with the flu all day.
The police had his driver’s license.
Then they asked to see his car… and she asks why. They insist on seeing his car, so she takes them to the garage and opens the door… and there sat their police car, with lights still flashing. ("Pastor Tim"
* He thought he’d covered his tracks.
* He’d escaped from the police… made it home safely.
* He’d carefully hidden the fruit of his sins.
* He even had an alibi.
Now, if it just weren’t for that pesky, police car out in the garage he might have been home free.
Numbers 32:23 warns us “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Or as Psalm 139:11-12 so aptly puts it
“If I say, ’Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
You might be able to hide your sins from the police.
You might be able to hide your sins from your folks.
You might be able to hide your sins from the people you love.
But you can’t hide your sin from God.
This morning we’re looking at another in our list of “biggest losers” in Scripture.
Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah took something that didn’t belong to him.
· He thought he’d covered his tracks
· He thought he was home free
· He thought he’d carefully hidden the fruit of his sins
· He might have even had an alibi
o BUT he couldn’t hide his sin from God.
o And because of his sin, He lost his reputation, his family & his life
Before we get to the heart of the sermon, let’s do a little retelling of the story
Just a few days earlier, God had led Israel in a triumphant battle against one of the most heavily fortified cities in the land of Palestine. Jericho was thought to have been impregnable. It was a city with thick walls and determined defenders.
Now, granted, Israel had several hundred thousand warriors, but Jericho should have held out for several months at least
But it didn’t. It fell in 7 short days
And (as far as we can tell) God’s army never lost a single man in that battle.
Before Israel even went into battle God made a few very specific demands:
· The city is Mine.
· All that lies within its walls are Mine.
· “All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury." Joshua 6:19
· Everything else was to be burned.
You touch NOTHING!!!!
And God warned Israel: “… keep away from the devoted things, so 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.” Joshua 6:18
When Joshua chapter 6 ends, the people are excited.
God had been faithful
Jericho had fallen,
Victory was theirs
And all of Palestine lay before them like a field ripe for harvest.
Everything seems to have gone according to plan.
But once we start reading Joshua chapter 7 something is obviously wrong.
A man named Achan had stolen part of the plunder from Jericho… and God was furious.
Not realizing this, Joshua determines to send a small force against a minor walled city named Ai. It should have been easy pickings.
After Jericho, a small outpost like Ai was nothing more than an annoyance to be dealt with.
All Israel had to do was roll over them and march on to the next easy target.
Instead, they got their lunch handed to them.
It was a complete rout.
36 men died on the battlefield.
And the hearts of the people melted and became like water.
Shocked into action, Joshua and all the Elders of Israel fall to their faces before the Ark of the Covenant and they ask God – “What happened?” And God reveals the sin of Achan…
Now, there’s a few things here that caught my attention in this story.
Last week we talked about Nadab and Abihu.
They were the sons of Aaron and they died because they offered a “unauthorized fire” in worship of God. When God destroyed them, it was clear their sin was their own.
Nadab and Abihu died because THEY sinned – no one else was blamed.
But here in Joshua 7 God declared:
“ISRAEL has sinned; THEY have violated my covenant” Joshua 7:11
But wait a minute – I thought Achan had sinned.
I thought Achan had taken these items quietly into his tent and buried them.
HOW did Israel end up getting blamed for this????
One thing I’ve learned from Scripture is that when God says someone is guilty… they usually are. If Israel got blamed for this, it was because Israel was guilty. And I suspect Israel was guilty because they had become an accomplice “after the fact”
And I suspect this because I’ve seen it happen before.
ILLUS: Years ago, I served in a small congregation of about 30. I worked hard, God was good, and the church grew to about 120 in attendance. But then one day, I found out that one of the Deacons (we’ll call him Fred) was into adultery - regularly. When I tried to address the issue, the Elders and the board overruled me… and eventually suggested I find another place to work.
Sometime later I was talking to one of the sweet ladies of the congregation and when I mentioned that the Deacon was still unrepentant her discussion drifted over to whom he’d probably been sleeping with. Matter-of-factly she pointed out that Fred owned one of the factories outside of town… a factory that primarily employed women. And she said “people often referred to it as ‘Fred’s Little Whorehouse.’” (I didn’t use this term from the pulpit)
I nearly dropped my tea!
Not only had Fred been into adultery. Everybody in town knew about
And if the whole town knew about… guess who else did???
That’s right! Everybody in the Eldership and church board knew as well.
Now - was that church guilty of adultery???
Well… not directly.
But because they knew of his sin and chose to look the other way they became accomplices after the fact. They shared in that Deacon’s evil behavior. And because they shared in his behavior… they dragged God’s reputation down into the gutter… and left it there.
There was no excuse for that… and God punished that church leadership for that.
Now, here in Joshua 7 – we probably have the same situation.
Achan stole what didn’t belong to him… and people knew about it!
Now, to be fair, they may have warned him:
“Achan don’t pick that up!”
“Achan, you don’t want to do that!”
“Achan, God said ‘no!’”
They might have quietly tried to discourage him… but in the end, they looked the other way.
There was “Sin in the Camp” but they overlooked it because:
It wasn’t their business.
“It wasn’t theirs to judge,” they’d say.
Even today, there are churches that refuse to confront sin in their camp for the very same reasons. They’ll quote Jesus saying “Judge not lest you be judged” (talking about tendency to point fingers without caring whether or not people changed) totally ignoring the other Scriptures that say we need to confront sin and then they’ll smugly sit back while their friends go to hell and the God’s reputation is drug through the mud.
But let’s clearly understand this: because the congregation of Israel looked the other way when Achan sinned
36 men died!
36 families lost their dad
36 women lost their husbands
36 mothers lost their sons
All because somebody couldn’t be bothered to confront sin.!
Nobody bothered to tell Joshua.
Nobody bothered to tell the Eldership.
Nobody bothered to do anything.
Had somebody in Israel stepped up to confront Achan’s sin those 36 men who probably still have lived. And maybe Achan and his family would have as well.
The 2nd thing that caught my attention was – Achan didn’t die alone
His entire family was stoned to death.
But that hardly seems fair … Achan committed the sin.
(PAUSE)
Yeah, Achan committed the sin, but his family apparently was in on it.
In our society was have a term for that… it’s called enablers.
Everybody in the family knows about the dad’s sin/ mom’s sin… or even Junior’s. But when it comes to that family member facing the music for their sinful actions… everybody steps up and makes excuses. As a result that family member never really changes and their sin continues to bring shame and damage upon the rest.
All it would have taken for that family to be saved was for the momma to say:
“Achan, I love you, but YOU ARE NOT burying that sinful stuff in this tent”
OR one of his sons saying:
“Dad, I love you, but I can’t sleep in this tent, knowing you’ve brought that sinful material into our home.”
But nobody in the tent said “no”… so they all died.
Only a fool believes they can live their lives the way they want and it won’t effect their family
ILLUS: In the first congregation I served I met a man whose wife had left him and 3 sons just weeks before. In his grief he turned to God and we baptized him into Christ.
But then one day we found out he had a live-in girlfriend.
I went to visit with him, and eventually pointed out that this was wrong bring if he continued living in sin, he would bring himself under God’s judgment.
He explained that he needed her for his emotional strength and to have someone to look after his kids.
When I explained to him that this was still wrong and that he could lose his salvation if he continued to live like this. And he looked at me and said:
“I don’t care what happens to me, as long as my children are ok”
I tried explained to him that was a false dream.
In the 10 Commandments God declared:
“….I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:5b-6
I explained: If you continue living like this, you are showing hatred to God and what you’re doing will bring disaster – not just on you – but on your kids!!!
PAUSE
CLOSE: The story of Achan is a cautionary tale to God’s people.
Israel let sin in the camp… and the suffered death and defeat because of it.
I’m NOT preaching this sermon this morning because this congregation needs to hear it. This church does not have this problem because you have an Eldership who refuses to look the other way when sin is in the camp. If someone is caught in a sin the Eldership confronts them gently, explaining the consequences of sin and the need for repentance. We even offer counseling and other assistance to help a sister or brother in Christ deal with their sin.
But this church would never look the other way.
This is TOO important for us to believe we can ignore sin and still be blessed by God
But I’m preaching this sermon because one day this Eldership might not be here.
One day, you might even have to move to another community and be part of another church that has a problem like this.
ILLUS: This issue is an important one to me, because this is what happened to my home church. The problem had apparently occurred when I was still a young boy, but this is the story as my mother related it to me:
It was a great church. Large sanctuary. 600 members. Everybody who was anybody was part of that church. They had doctors and lawyers and politicians in the pews. And they hired the best preachers money could buy. And they were good Godly preachers.
Then one day, one of those preachers discovered that the leading Elder in the church had a couple of girlfriends on the side. He confronted the Elder, and fired him. But a few years later that preacher moved on… and the church put that (apparently still unrepentant) Elder back into his position. Part of the reason they did this was because that Elder was a very wealthy man. If financial problems arose he was the go-to man to find the solution.
But God is not mocked.
One day that large powerful church found itself in financial difficulties. Even with several hundred wealthy members they were in the red and they couldn’t figure out why.
Then they discovered that the deacon in charge of the financial books… was keeping two sets of books.
So, the Elder who’d been fired and reinstated went out to that Deacon’s home… and he burned the books!!! He wasn’t going to allow even a hint of scandal to haunt HIS church.
Well, it wasn’t long after that that church split. And the new congregation refused to have Elders for the NEXT 20 YEARS.
After my mom told me that story, I swore that would never happen on my watch. Now that probably contributed to the fact that I’ve been fired from two churches in my career. But that doesn’t matter. I will never allow hidden sin to be overlooked as long as I live.
Churches bigger, better and bolder than ours have been brought low because they thought they could ignore sin in the camp and God wouldn’t care.
But God warned his people in Isaiah 59:2 “…your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
The Bible warns us that Hidden Sin has the power to destroy
· individuals
· families
· cities
· entire nations
And that’s the bad news
But the Good News is this: God has a solution to hidden sins
It’s us.
“For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person— such a man is an idolater— has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Therefore do not be partners with them.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.
But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Ephesians 5:5-14
This is why we have church.
Church does not exist to stand as a tribunal of judgment on one another.
Church exists so that we’ll look out for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ
Church is a place where we challenge one another to love and good works
And church is a place where – sometimes – we need to confront sin in the camp and pull each other from the actions that would bring God’s wrath upon those struggling in their lives.
We’re not called to be “enablers” of sinners.
We’re called to be rescuers of the lost and protectors of the Kingdom.
