Study 10
Achan’s Sin (3)
Introduction
The poet wrote
Sin, like a bee, into the hive will bring
A little honey, but expect a sting
He was expressing in verse a truth which is re-iterated time and time again in the Bible both in statement and by example, the truth that whilst sin might bring with it pleasures of a sort, you can be sure that it will also always bring pain.
The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil may well have tasted beautiful and brought a measure of pleasure and satisfaction to Adam & Eve as its juices fell upon their palate, but the sweet taste of that fruit but oh how bitter was the after taste as they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, separated from that wonderful fellowship with God that they had enjoyed and became subject to death.
The friends and the feasting and the fornicating and the fun that the prodigal son enjoyed as he lived life to the full in the ways of sin, were but a distant fading memory which rather than easing the pain of his subsequent misery in the pig-sty only served to intensify it.
Whilst many a man has found sensual pleasure in the adulterous embrace of his mistress the pleasure is considerably if not totally forgotten in the painful repercussions that follows its discovery.
Solomon wrote “my son…the lips of an adulteress drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is as bitter as gall, sharp as a double edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to the grave…can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned…”
Many an alcoholic has enjoyed the taste of the booze he has consumed but oh the pain and misery such sin brings in its wake
“Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper…”
Sin, like a bee, into the hive will bring
A little honey, but expect a sting
The battle of Jericho is over, the enemy have been overthrown, the victory has been gained, Israel has triumphed. The spoils of war are being gathered to be taken into the treasury of the Lord as He had directed, but look there is a man running unnoticed back to his tent with something hidden under his outer garments. When he reaches his tent and goes inside he pulls out from beneath his tunic some of the spoils of the battle which he is going to keep for himself. A little investment for the future. He swears his family to secrecy, digs a hole and buries the treasure. Little did he realise it at the time but along with the treasure he also brought trouble. The wealth of Jericho was hidden in his tent, but the wrath of God was hanging over his tent.
Sin, like a bee, into the hive will bring
A little honey, but expect a sting
Last week we spent our time looking at The Successive Steps of Achan’s Sin. We saw how it began with his Gaze- The Look of the Eyes; It then proceeded to his Greed – the Lust of the Heart, Then Came the Grasp – The Consent of the Will; and this was followed by His Guile – the Deceitfulness of His life.
This evening we want to bring our study on this seventh chapter to a close by considering three other aspects of Achan’s sin. And the first thing we want to notice this evening is
2) The Aggravated Guilt of Achan’s Sin
Those of you who are familiar with or have read through the Westminster Shorter Catechism will have come across question 83 which reads “Are all transgressions of the Law equally heinous?” To which the answer is given “some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.” And if we take time to think about Achan’s sin and the circumstances surrounding it we will see that there were a number of things which aggravated his guilt. What were these things? Well in the first place their was
(i) The Occasion of It:
When did Achan commit this sin? He committed it at a time when He together with the nation had just begun to enter into a new era of their life as the people of God, a time when the faithlessness and failures of the past were being put behind them and they were seeking to go forward in obedience to God. Only just over a week or so earlier Achan together with the rest of the people had publicly rededicated themselves to God when having experienced that miraculous crossing of the Jordan on dry ground and set foot in the land of promise they renewed their covenant with God as the men submitted to the rite of circumcision. Achan was one of that company. He went forward and received the mark of the Covenant on his body. And yet within a matter of days of that public identification of himself as a child of God, and of his rededication of his life submit to, obey and glorify God, he commits this terrible sin.
But then as well as that, this sin was also committed at a time when he together with the rest of the people had just been the recipients of God’s blessing. They had seen the Lord work mightily on their behalf at Jericho. The strongly fortified city which from the human perspective seemed virtually unconquerable had fallen to pieces around them. The walls had come tumbling down, the people inside were panic-stricken by the unexpected disintegration of their defences and victory was ever so easy, far easier than Israel could have imagined. God had been gracious to them. God had wonderfully blessed them. And yet despite the fact that he had witnessed the power of God being exercised on his behalf and the blessing of God being bestowed upon him, Achan went ahead and committed this sin.
The occasion of his sin aggravated its guilt.
But then too it was aggravated also by
(ii) The Nature of it
And there are two things about the nature of his sin that make it particularly heinous. First of all there was the fact that it was a sin that was committed in the light of knowledge. And what I mean by that is quite simply this- Achan knew that God had said that the people were not allowed to take any of the spoils of victory for themselves. When he stuffed the Babylonian garment up his tunic and filled his pockets with the 200 pieces of silver and grabbed the wedge of gold, he knew fine rightly that he was breaking a clear command of God. In other words he wasn’t acting in ignorance. He couldn’t turn round and say ‘I didn’t know we weren’t allowed to take them.’ It was a sin against the light of the knowledge of the clearly revealed will of God.
And then secondly it was a sin against God. Now I know that ultimately all sin that we commit is against God, but what I mean when I say that Achan’s sin here was a sin against God was this, he was stealing something which belonged to God. God had said that the booty had to be dedicated to HIM. So when Achan took this treasure he was stealing something that had been dedicated to God himself. It is a sin to steal money say from the open till of a shop, but it is a more serious sin to steal money from the collection plate of the Church. It is a sin to break a window in a house, it is more serious to break a window in the house of God. In each of the latter cases the sin is if you like more directly against God. Thus with Achan’s sin. He was stealing from God.
So the guilt of his sin was aggravated then, first of all by the occasion of it (when he sinned) and secondly by the Nature of it (how and against whom he sinned). It was aggravated thirdly by
(iii) The Accomplices in It
The narrative doesn’t state it explicitly but it is certainly implied that Achan having committed the actual sin of theft himself then involved his family in his sinful conduct. As we are going to see, when punishment was being meted out for this sin, not only was Achan punished, so too was his family. And as the law of God stated that innocent family members were not to be punished for the sins of their relatives, the specific reference for this is in Deut 24/16 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.” – it is evident that Achan’s family were not innocent relatives but rather accomplices in his sinful deceit. In all likelihood they were there when he dug that hole and hid the loot. In all likelihood he swore them to silence about this. Instead of trying to persuade him of the folly of his ways and urge him to return the treasure, they, it seems, went along with his thievery. And the fact that Achan was instrumental in leading others into sin greatly aggravated his guilt before God. We read in Proverbs 15/27 “A greedy man brings trouble to his family…”
Friends, all sin is serious and brings guilt upon the sinner. But in certain situations the guilt of ones sin can be more aggravated, more serious than at other times.
To take God’s name in vain renders a person guilty of a breach of the fourth commandment, even if that person has never heard of and knows nothing of the content of that commandment. Their ignorance does not excuse their conduct it does not nullify the sinfulness of the deed. However to take God’s name in vain, to blaspheme, when one knows that it is a sin to do so, when one knows the substance of the fourth commandment renders the person committing such a sin even more guilty in God’s sight.
And of course I am only using blasphemy here as one example of sin, the same principle applies to all forms of sin. To sin against knowledge is a far greater sin than to sin in ignorance. Both are sin, but the guilt of the former is much more aggravated than that of the latter. Speaking of the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, in which Jesus had performed many mighty miraculous works which testified to his messiahship and yet which in spite of such evidence rejected Him, Jesus declares “woe unto you Chorazin, unto you Bethsaida, if the miracles that had been performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon (that is in Pagan, non-Israelite towns) they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and in ashes. But I tell you it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of Judgement than for you…and You Capernaum…if the miracles that had been performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgement than for you.” The guilt of sin is greatly aggravated when it is sin committed in the light of knowledge. To know that something is a sin and yet to go ahead with it heightens the degree of guilt in the sight of God. To know, for example, as all of you in this congregation do know, that it is a sin for a Christian to marry an unbeliever and yet to go ahead with it; to know that it is a sin to slander someone’s character and yet to speak those character assassinating words, to know that it is a sin to tell lies and yet to go ahead and do so, to know that it is a sin to steal from God and yet to refuse to give to him the tithe of our income, to know it is a sin to disobey your parents and yet to refuse to honour and obey them, to know that it is a sin to engage in any form of sexual relationship outside the bonds of marriage and yet to gratify such desires, brethren to do such things and many others that I could have named, is to sin against knowledge and such sins are more guilty in God’s sight and will be treated with a greater degree of seriousness than sin committed in ignorance.
And what of those sins that we commit at those times when we are being particularly blessed by God. Times when God is truly blessing us as individuals. Blessing us with good health, with secure jobs, with regular income, blessing us with good relationships with our friends and our family, blessing us materially, spiritually, emotionally, Physically and so on; Times when he is blessing us as families, the children are doing well at school, or at University, the relationships within the family circle are good, the comforts and enjoyment of home life have never been better, and so on; times when he is blessing us as a congregation, when we are seeing and enjoying the fruit of spiritual growth in the lives of many of our members, when we are seeing our numbers increase each year as other individuals and other families have joined us, when there is a real spirit of prayer and of praise, when things are going really well; Oh to be the Achan in the camp at such a time! Oh to deliberately commit sin in such a context, is to fly in the face of the evident goodness and manifest blessing of God and to do so is to heighten the guilt factor of our sin.
And what of those sins we commit in which we encourage and involve others in our sin, making them as it were accomplices in our sinful conduct. What about those many fathers, heads of the home who regularly choose to neglect the place of worship, especially so on the evening of the Lord’s day and who in so doing not only show a disregard for those clear Biblical injunctions which exhort us to attend the place of worship but also encourage their spouse and their children to develop sinful patterns of conduct in relation to this matter. Oh the guilt of that Father is aggravated before God because he has involved others in his sin.
“some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.”
But not only do these verses teach us something of The Aggravated Guilt of Achan’s Sin they also show us do they not
2) The Utter Folly Of Achan’s Sin:
The sin that Achan committed was the height of folly. The foolishness of Achan’s conduct here is seen in a number of ways. First of all he was a fool to think that
(i) He would benefit from his sin:
In taking the items that he took Achan obviously thought that he was going to be better off for doing so. Maybe not immediately, but later on when it was safe to take the money and spend it and trade in the gold and maybe wear that beautiful designer robe. The fact that he was, as he saw it, going to actually benefit by taking the items that he took, evidently significantly influenced him in his decision to commit this sin. Yes he knew it was wrong, but the thought what he would GAIN, the thought of the financial security these things would bring him, the thought of the good things he could buy when he was able to cash in his little treasure-trove, such thoughts strongly influenced him in his decision.
What a fool Achan was to think that there was any real benefit to be secured in the ways of sin. These riches seemed to promise him so much. In fact they brought him nothing but trouble. He never got to enjoy spending a single shekle of his ill-gotten gain. He was never able to wear that beautiful designer robe he had stolen. He wasn’t one bit better off after he had committed his sin, in fact he was worse off. Achan foolishly listened to the siren-like voice of sin – Think of how well off you will be, think of all the things you will be able to buy, think of how enjoyable life will be for you with such riches – empty promises that would never be fulfilled.
Friends there is no ultimate benefit to be had in pursuing the ways of sin. If you think for one minute that you will be better off, that you will enjoy what seem to be the rewards that a particular course of sin seems to offer, you are as much a fool as Achan. The prodigal son thought life would be wonderful when he headed to the far country, when he went along the pathway of sin. Little did he realise the sorrow and misery he was letting himself in for.
Sin, like a bee, into the hive will bring
A little honey, but expect a sting
But not only was Achan a fool because he thought he would benefit from this sin, he was also a fool because he thought that
(ii) No-one knew about his Sin and he wouldn’t be found out.
He thought that the only ones who knew about his sin were himself and those members of his family who collaborated with him in his evil deed. He was careful to ensure that nobody saw him carrying the booty. He was careful not to tell anyone about what he had done. His conversation with others was guarded. He never let his secret slip. Nobody knew.
OH NO!!! OH NO ACHAN!!! - GOD KNEW!!! When Achan thought no-one was looking the eyes of God were staring right at him. When he stuffed the loot under his cloak God was standing beside him. When he made his way hastily to his tent - God was there beside him. When he bug that hole and buried that stolen treasure – God was in that tent watching every single move. When he swore his family to secrecy God heard every word.
And not only did God know about his sin, he was going to expose his sin, and expose it in a way that Achan could never have imagined possible.
Friends it is the height of sheer folly to think that no-one knows about your sin when you commit it. To think that you alone, or you together with your accomplices in sin are the only ones who know about it. The fact of the matter is God knows about it. He is right there beside you watching and listening when you commit that sin. The adulterer thinks that the only ones in the room in which that sinful relationship is indulged are himself and his mistress, when in fact there is another one present; The deceiver thinks that no-one has seen him deliberately putting those false figures onto his tax return form and that no-one will ever find out; The murderer who takes the life of another thinking that no-one saw him do it and his wicked deed will never be discovered fails to realise that God was standing watching when he pulled that trigger, when he detonated that bomb, when he knocked down that pedestrian on a lonely country road and drove on. Your Harold Shipman’s who think that their sinful actions, in his case the murder of trusting patients who were under his care, who think that no-one knows about it and their sin will never be discovered. Oh the folly of the sinner. GOD IS THERE: GOD IS WATCHING> GOD IS LISTENING:
Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah in ch23/24 says “can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him.”
And again in 16/17 “My eyes are on all their ways, they are not hidden from me. Nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.”
The writer to the Hebrews tells in 4/13 “nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”
Friends we cannot hide our sin from God and in the providence of God more often than not that sin is brought to light. Num 32/29 – “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Jesus himself said – there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.” I
As William Hendriksen says “the truth will come out, perhaps in this life but if not then certainly on the day of judgement…the Revealer of the secrets of mens hearts will experience no difficulty in bringing out into the open whatever men…have done or said in secret.”
The book of Eccles closes with this solemn thought – “God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing…”
Achan was a fool because he thought he would benefit from his sinful deed; He was a fool because he thought no-one knew about it and no-one would find out about it; Then finally he was a fool because
(iii) Thought nothing would be done about it.
Achan obviously didn’t take the threat of punishment, the threat of destruction, for taking that which had been devoted to the Lord, seriously. He thought he could sin and not suffer the consequences of sin. He possibly thought that in the unlikely event of him ever being found out the threatened punishment probably wouldn’t actually be carried out.
What a fool he was because as we know from the rest of the narrative. Something was done about his sin. His sin having been discovered and his guilt having been established, he was punished for his sin. See vs 24ff
And you know folks there are many people today, many who are in membership in the Church who commit sin thinking, ‘well even if I am found out nothing much will be done about it.’ And do you know brethren what the sad thing is, that more often than not they are right. The Church when it is made aware of sin among its members, sin that brings shame and dishonour upon the name of Christ and disgrace and ridicule upon the name of the Church, the Church, instead of dealing with that sin in a biblical way by means of the exercise of Church discipline more often than not turns a blind eye to it. And so you find for example, people who are members in the Church, technically in good standing in the Church because they are under no form of Church discipline, who are living in a sinful adulterous relationship, or who are what is colloquially called ‘living with’ their girlfriend or boyfriend, but which the Bible calls fornicating. Or you have Church members who week after week are regular contributors to the Camelot fund as they gamble away the money God has given them in the covetous hope of a big win on the National Lottery, and no action is taken against them by their Church. Or you have people in membership in the Church who frequent the pub more often than they frequent their supposed place of worship, and again nothing is done by the Church about it. And whilst the Church may not be able to stop them sinning it should not be seen to be condoning the sin by failing to take action against them.
What the Church ought to do is to follow the principle that we find here in this chapter, namely that when sin is found among the members of the people of God, discipline must be exercised. The nature of the discipline will of course vary according to the gravity of the offence and any such discipline which is exercised must be carried out according to the principles and guidelines that we find in scripture, but the Church has a responsibility before God to deal with such issues.
It was only after Joshua had dealt with Achan, in the way that God had appointed, that the presence and power of God were restored to His people and defeat was as we shall see in chapter 8 turned into victory.
I believe that one of the things that is hindering the blessing of God from coming upon the Church in these days is the Church’s unwillingness to treat sin among its members seriously and to deal Biblically with the Achan’s in her midst. It’s not the sole barrier to blessing but it is I believe a significant one.
May God write the lessons of our study this evening upon each of our hearts.
