THE SIN OF ACHAN DISCLOSED AND CONFESSED
Joshua 7:16-23 “Early the next morning Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was taken. The clans of Judah came forward, and he took the Zerahites. He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by families, and Zimri was taken. Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.’ Achan replied, ‘It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’ So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the LORD.”
God knew of Achan’s theft of the silver, the gold and the robe. The man’s covetousness had brought deaths, defeat and demoralization to the people of God. Joshua humbled himself before God, lying face down before the ark for hours with his elders. If God had abandoned them what other people were there in all the world to glorify God? “What then will you do for your own great name?” (v.9). So the Lord responded to Joshua’s prayer and told him in great detail what was to be done. The whole assembly was to be searched and the guilty man found. So the command went forth to the people; “In the morning, present yourselves” (v. 14).
1. JOSHUA GAVE ORDERS TO THE WHOLE PEOPLE.
There were no activities that never-to-be-forgotten day, no farming, no herding, no play for the children, no washing for the women. The elders didn’t sit at the entrance to the camp hearing disputes and accusations. All the people were to congregate according to their tribes, and then one by one, the twelve tribes came forward and stood at the centre of the camp before the door of the Tent of Meeting where Joshua and his elders sat. How solemnly they gathered there, and then moved on, to stand at one side as the next group of thousands moved forward. There they paused for a minute or so and then moved on, another tribe taking their place. At the end of the tribes appearing before Joshua God said one word to him, “Judah,” the royal tribe, the top tribe. The eleven tribes which had not been taken breathed a sigh of relief and then they stood aside and the whole process was repeated but now with the clans of Judah summoned to appear before Joshua, one by one a clan coming and standing for a time before Joshua and the elders and then dismissed, until all the clans had stood there. Finally God spoke one word to Joshua; “The Zerahites.”
Then the other clans breathed deeply and moved to the edges of the ever shrinking circle, and then one by one it was the turn of the families of Zerah to come forward, a man, his children, his grandchildren and all their wives. These family groups walked up to Joshua and the elders, paused for a time and then moved on. Finally when all the families of the Zerahites had moved forward God said to Joshua, “Zimri!” All the other families moved to the edges of the shrinking circle, the tension growing palpably higher. Then man by man walked forward, the heads of the family of Zimri. That did not take long, just a dozen or so men, and God said to Joshua, “Achan!” That was it. Did a great collective sigh move through the vast assembly as the people at the back craned their ears to pick up the whisper that the culprit was Achan? He was the one who had taken the devoted thing from God, the wedge of gold and the pieces of silver and the Babylonian garment. He had stolen them and lied about them hiding them under the floor of his tent, but his sin had been found out by God. O Achan you can’t avoid God, ever, anywhere. “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” Nowhere. You can run, but you can’t hide. Can you jump out of the space surrounding yourself? Can you jump out of yourself? Can you jump over yourself? No. Space keeps surrounding you. So does God. What queer antics people hiding from God get up to, taking a boat across the Mediterranean, changing the drift of the conversation as though that will change reality, avoiding people and places as though God could be avoided so easily.
There is a famous phrase most of you know by heart; “Be sure that your sin will find you out.” Is it in the Bible? Or is it one of those phrases people think are in the Bible but are not, like “Honesty is the best policy.” That phrase is indeed found in the Bible, in the book of Numbers 32:23, “Be sure that your sin will find you out.” The context is during the year before this event; the Israelites were about to cross over Jordan and enter into the Promised Land, but there was a snag. The tribes of Rueben and Gad came to Moses and requested that they could stay on the east side of the Jordan where the land was fertile. It was very suitable for the cattle and sheep that these two tribes had. They were content to stay out of the land of promise, saying, “Bring us not over Jordan.” But Moses knew the people of God were one people, one body, and that tribes couldn’t opt out of the task given them by God of driving the enemy from Canaan. They weren’t allowed that schismatic option. Moses said. “No. Shall your brethren go to war and you sit here?” He wouldn’t let them dodge the battles with Jericho and Ai, or avoid the whole bloody campaign to take the land. Moses, the spokesman of God, wouldn’t let them stay out of the fight, enjoying their ‘space’ on the west aside of the Jordan, the luxury of the fertile land on the east side of the Jordan.
So the tribes of Reuben and Gad dragged their feet reluctantly agreeing to cross over Jordan and fight, but they wanted one thing to be made very clear that they intended to build sheepfolds for their cattle, and cities for their families there on the other side of the Jordan. Their wives, children and cattle would remain there when the men crossed the Jordan to war. The agreement was that when the battle was over the men would return to their families and cattle. Moses reluctantly accepted this plan but warned them that if they didn’t cross the Jordan and fight with them, God would judge them. Moses said to them those famous words, “Be sure that your sin will find you out.”
What were these awkward uncooperative tribes saying? “We are your brothers, of course. We are the children of Abraham too, but we’re not going with you any further. We’ve decided to do things our way.” You meet the same kind of spirit today among those who reject the way of the Cross. A man will say, “I don't want to become a ‘super-Christian,” though the Son of God became incarnate. Jehovah Jesus died crucified to a cross to atone for our sins but this man says “I don’t want to be extreme.” The Lord Jesus loved God with all his heart and lived a sinless life to become a Lamb without spot or blemish for me, but religious men say, “I don’t want to become narrow. That’s not going to be my life. I'm just as earnest in my own way. I may not show it, or act it, but I've got my own ideas about the Christian life.”
The descendants of the tribes of Gad and Rueben still live on today. The professing churches are full of people who like the easy life, who say, “We are weary of this ‘contending for the faith once given to the saints.’ We have found a peaceful place where we aren’t reminded all the time about putting on the whole armour of God, and fighting against principalities and powers, where we’re not told to pluck out the right eye if it offends us, where we are not exhorted to put to death the sinful deeds of the body, where we’re not warned that our enemy the devil is like a roaring lion walking about seeking to devour us. The place where we’ve settled is seeker sensitive. It’s not somewhere where people are challenged to confess their sins to God, the stolen Babylonish garment, the wedge of gold, and the silver. Who needs that sort of preaching? It’s not for us. Peace! Peace!”
To them God says, “Be sure that your sin will find you out.” The truth is no Christian has a right to be at ease when there’s a war on. We fight against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. It’s a real war. Heaven is the place of eternal rest for the people of God, but this is not heaven. This is the sphere where the god of this world rules the children of disobedience, where daily the name of Christ is defamed, where many are walking on the broad road that leads to hell, and where we believers are the only salt and light of the whole world. No Christian has a right to stay in a place which guarantees him peace and prosperity while the rest of us are facing up to the demands of being good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Remember Isaac Watts’ words;
Should I be carried to the skies,
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fight to win the prize,
And sail through bloody seas?
No, I must fight if I would gain;
Increase my courage, Lord!
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain
Supported by Thy Word.
Am I to go on receiving and never giving? Am I eating and never feeding! Am I to be wearing and never clothing? Am I to drink and never offer a cup? Am I to be served and never serve? Am I to be saved and never share my salvation with another? Am I to enjoy the fruits of the labours of all the rest and never labour myself? Be sure that your sin will find you out. Men and women, there’s a war on! On which side of the Jordan do you dwell? We’ve got to fight as much as they did, cross the Jordan and fight each battle until the war is over. Only then may we lift our heads to meet the Lamb of God bearing the marks of our redemption. Will he say to us, “Show me your scars. Where are the marks of your taking up your cross and following after me?” There is no escape from the fight. Be sure that your sin will find you out.
Achan loved gold and silver and soft silk clothes. He thought he could steal them and hide them, let the coins trickle through his fingers, put on his gorgeous robes and parade around his tent before his wife and family. No one outside his family knew anything about his theft. No one was there when he had taken them and hidden them in an inside pocket. No one was there when he transferred them later to a cavity under his tent floor, but God knew, and then one tribe was taken, one clan was taken, one family was taken, one father was taken, Achan was taken. God knew. Doesn’t that scene remind us of the word of the Lord Jesus, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt.25:31&32). Isn’t it a vivid picture of the words of Paul, “the day when God shall judge the secrets of man by Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (Roms. 2:16). The adulterer may hide his sin until judgment day. The thief may cover up his crimes and escape detection in this life. The man who abducted a wee girl from her hotel bed in Portugal a few months ago is unknown still. It is an unsolved crime, one of millions. Wicked hearts, evil thoughts, vile imaginations may remain unexposed before men.
When we had central heating installed in the Manse the builders took out all the grates from the fire places in every room. In the study a builder cemented across the floor where the bed of the grate lay and I told our three daughters to be careful of the wet cement. A few hours later I went into the study and there was a footprint in the middle of the cement. I went to the girls and said, “Which of you trod in the cement?” “Not me,” they all said very earnestly shaking their heads. “Come to the study,” I said and we first measured little Fflur’s foot by the footprint. It wasn’t Fflur’s, it was much bigger. Then I measured Eleri’s foot by the footprint in the cement. It wasn’t Eleri’s, it was bigger. Then I measured Catrin’s and it was a perfect fit. Be sure that your sin will find you out. Then she was ‘exhorted’ about telling lies. That incident is her favourite children’s story, told every year to the class of those kindergarten children whom she teaches as they listen to her intently. “I knew I couldn’t get away with it; I knew only my foot would fit that footprint, but I still was saying to my father, ‘No. I haven’t trod on the cement.’” She tells the children as I am now telling all of you that every one of us has left footprints going to trees that bear forbidden fruit, that we have left sinful footprints going everywhere, but God has a record of them, as God had a record of Achan’s.
Hypocrisy may be hidden for years under a pretense of piety. But God will judge the secrets of men, and then what of the sin of half-heartedness, of doing just enough to get by and remain a member of the congregation? God records our half-heartedness. Everyone knows that you’re not the one who has taken the alabaster jar of precious oil and poured it all over the feet of Jesus Christ and wept before him. Everyone knows you that you’re not renowned for your extravagant devotion to the Saviour. None will take you aside and suggest that your time and energy and money could be put to wiser ends than this utter abandonment to the unconditional service and love of Jesus Christ. Not you. No one has to warn you, “Steady on! A little less ardour . . . less devotion . . .” You are living a decent, safe, moral, religious life. And the day will reveal that coolness too. “Where are your scars?” Christ will ask and many will be silent. Be sure that your sin will find you out.
2. JOSHUA SPEAKS TO ACHAN.
Do you see the scene? One man very much on his own; Achan was left standing alone as everyone else backed away from him. Suppose we knew that there was one person in this congregation and that soon he would be in hell under the judgment of God, never to leave that place of woe, wouldn’t we look at him and move involuntarily away in horror? Why had Achan been so stubborn when on that day all of Israel began to gather and one by one the various groups were separated? Why didn’t he run to Joshua before the whole proceedings started, throw himself on the ground and confess, “It’s me. I was the one who stole gold and silver and a garment. I did it.” Why was Achan so reluctant to confess his crime? It’s not a good sign is it? Even when the tribe of Judah was targetted and the noose grew tighter then that didn’t break Achan’s spirit. When the clan of the Zerahites was chosen, he still didn’t crack under the pressure. When his own family of Zimri was isolated still Achan remained nonchalant, shrugging and looking around him. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Did he think he could get away with it as he and that small group of fathers, all of them sons of Zimri, one by one came and stood before Joshua? Achan went all the way to the wire, lining up with his brothers, acting the innocent until finally the Lord said. “Achan!” He imagined his crime would never be known. No one was there when he took the goods and hid them inside his clothes. No one saw him do it. The city was being plundered; there was a maddened crowd and feverish excitement. There was no inventory of the possessions of Jericho listing the bars of gold and the garments from Babylon. Everyone would judge that all the rest had perished in the conflagration. No one could accuse Achan of what he’d done because no one had seen him do it, and many today think just like him. They forget that word, “Thou Lord seest me!”
Why do men act like that? I suppose that one thing that keeps them from acknowledging their sin is this, they excuse themselves because they know of other men, some of them church members, who are acting just as badly or worse than they have. That may be true, but they too will answer to God. What is their sin to you? What does it matter if others are better or worse than you? I think there are others who also keep putting off acknowledging their sin even though they are sitting in the electric chair, and being strapped in, and the chaplain is reading some verses from the Bible and praying and all the witnesses are seated looking through the glass at the macabre scene. Still the condemned man is hoping that the door is going to burst open and an official is going to enter announcing a stay of execution or even a pardon. They still hope that at the eleventh hour they can escape, even though they are guilty. They keep refusing to confess their sin.
But with all his insolent silence Achan has to hear his judge speak; “Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me’” (Joshua 7:19). Joshua is not a man in whom there’s any vindictiveness. He’s a man of prayer and repentance. He knows his own heart, and he speaks the good law of God without partiality or corruption. He delights in mercy as much as he delights in righteousness. He doesn’t snarl at Achan, “Come here fool . . . Bring the thief forward . . . on your knees before me villain.” There’s none of that. “My son!” he says to Achan. He pleads with him to confess; he doesn’t send for the thumbscrews to make him tremble. There are no threats of torture. There was no Inquisition in those days. Joshua says to the prisoner, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.” Joshua doesn’t promise him pardon. He doesn’t tell him that his life will be spared if he confesses. He doesn’t say, “Turn state’s evidence and you can go free.” Joshua sits in meekness, and sincerity, and pity judging Achan; his concern is that justice should be done, that all the mitigating circumstances should be known. If a son of Joshua’s or of a close friend had been killed in the flight from Ai he mustn’t allow that fact to colour his administration of justice. There must be no partiality. I read that the great court of justice on the Areopagus on Mars Hill in Athens held many of its deliberations in darkness that they might not be moved by the sight of the accused man, weeping, pleading, surrounded by his tearful fearful family. The judges would allow no appeal to their feelings to wreck the fair and just response to the evidence.
What will bring a man to repentance? Nothing will do it as effectively as love. The prodigal son carried his memories of his father’s kindness to the distant city, and when he had spent all his father’s inheritance and was left penniless and alone it was the knowledge of his father’s mercy that drew him home with words of confession on his lips. “I will arise and go back to my wonderfully kind and loving father.” W.A. Scott says, “Some men are as strong as a mountain of granite when facing a world up in arms against them, but those same men are as weak as water when addressed with words full of love.” But in the gospel it is not simply words of love that overpower us, but love that comes written indelibly in the blood of Christ. As the old hymn says,
No, not the love without the blood –
That were to me no love at all;
It could not reach my sinful soul,
Nor hush the fears which me appal.
I need the love, I need the blood,
I need the grace, the cross, the grave;
I need the resurrection power,
A soul like mine to purge and save.
The love I need is righteous love,
Inscribed on the sin-bearing tree;
Love that exacts the sinner’s debt,
Yet in exacting, sets him free. (found in the Gospel Magazine 1897)
So here we behold Joshua stooping to conquer; “My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel.” Since we live in a moral universe this is our ultimate concern, is God glorified by what we’ve done? The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It does not say that they’ve come short of the law of God, but his glory. Joshua doesn’t say, “Answer to the law,’ but “Where is the glory in your life? Where is God’s glory? Man’s chief end is to glorify God.” It is to God that we answer for our lives isn’t it? Not to Joshua, and not to the assembly of God’s people, but to the Lord. So Joshua tells him to keep back nothing. Speak with judgment day honesty. Confess the whole truth. Vindicate the omniscience and the presence of the God with whom we have to do. “Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me,” (v.19) says Joshua.
There are those greatly comforting but also searching words of John the apostle, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (I Jn. 1:8-2:2). Men and women this is the heart of the gospel, that God’s grace abounds to the chief of sinners who will acknowledge his sin. The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus shall pardon receive. You think, “But not for my sin, not for my hypocrisy, my secret sins, my violence and my deceit. I have behaved like an angel in public and like a devil in private. No mercy for such a wretch like me.” Yes, mercy for you; mercy for lying Abraham, and mercy for drunken Noah, and mercy for adulterous, murderous David, and mercy for blaspheming Peter, but not without tears, and not without confession. Mercy is for the very worst sinner even for every one who confesses their sin to God.
3. JOSHUA HEARS ACHAN’S CONFESSION.
“Achan replied, ‘It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath” (vv. 20&21). It had been so desirable; so beautiful; so much to be coveted, and yet once you stole it then it was like the theft of a famous Old Master known by millions of people, you couldn’t display it to anyone. Achan couldn’t show any of his friends the gold and the silver and the garment. No one could see the sumptuous dress; you couldn’t flash your new wealth around or people would start asking questions. You’d got it illegally and you had to hide it. How wonderful those things had seemed when Achan first touched them, but now, since guilt and punishment have accompanied them, they are just metal and material. Thirty six men had died for these bits of metal and material. Sorrow and heartache had come into thirty-six families for some metal and cloth. Israel’s reputation had suffered and all for metal and a dress. Israel’s great Jehovah had been shrunk in the eyes of all the Canaanites for some money and a garment. Some sins are so sweet when you first grab them, but they are so bitter on reflection.
Now Achan is finally open to Joshua, and open to the people and open to the Lord. “It is true,” this deceiver says. He speaks of the truth after living a lie for so long. “I have sinned,” he says, and not sinned against his own better judgment, or the law of the theocracy, but he has sinned against Jehovah, the God of Israel. Pharaoh said “I have sinned” but once a plague stopped it was the same old, lying, proud Egyptian who took back those fine words. King Saul said, “I have sinned,” but just to get his own way. How the world makes fun of the phrase, “I have sinned”; the comedians make it part of their routine with trembling voices, and exaggerated emotion, and that leer. Anything for a laugh . . . “you gotta laugh” . . . but what solemn words they are, on the lips of the returning prodigal, “Father I have sinned”; on the lips of David, “My sins are ever before me;” on the lips of the publican in the temple, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Achan holds nothing back. “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord.” Achan is not selective in what he confesses. He doesn’t attempt to play down his crime or say, “Just some money and a dress,” and try to excuse what he’s done. He confesses everything; “I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them.” “I did it.” He doesn’t plead that he’s a victim, that as a child they had nothing at all, that he was surrounded with poverty. Achan doesn’t make excuses that they happened to be going through a tough time as a family, that he did it because the children were hungry and his wife was buckling under the strain and he did it to help them. He doesn’t say that he was intending to put the money in the treasury later that very day and take the garment to the holocaust next Sabbath. He doesn’t say, “Ah, there were men of Jericho who pressed it into his hands to buy their lives,” or “There were fellow countrymen who were later killed in the fighting who asked him to keep it for them.” Achan didn’t blame anyone else. He didn’t blame Satan; he didn’t say, “The devil made me do it.” No! “I saw them,” he says, “I coveted and I took them.” He doesn’t blame God for taking him into that room and the cupboard door flying open to reveal those treasures: “God put me there and how could I resist? It was all the providence of God.” No, there was no attempt to shift the blame from himself. “I have sinned; I took them and I’ll tell you where they are right now,” and Joshua sent messengers who ran and found them all just where Achan said they would be, and they brought them and spread them before the Lord.
It was a full confession, so much so that the commentator John Gill believes that it was a saving confession, that though he forfeited his life his soul was saved, just like the men to be hung at Tyburn hearing Wesley preach to them, and some might believe on Christ, but that wouldn’t prevent the punishment going ahead for their crimes. So it was with Achan, so Gill believes, for the confession was such a comprehensive one, and Spurgeon himself says, “If I might be allowed to judge I should say, ‘I hope to meet Achan the sinner, before the throne of God.’” But Matthew Henry does not believe that this was a saving confession, but both body and soul were condemned, so he and others believe. They look in vain for some words that show Achan is resting on the mercy of the God he has offended.
Here is a case of doubtful repentance, and don’t we meet many such cases? All our lives we have looked for a friend, or a relative, or a member of the congregation freely and personally to make a confession of his trust in Jesus Christ saying, “He is my only hope in life and death, that faithful Saviour who lived and died for me;” that is what we are looking for, but we rarely get it. And yet at the end quite unexpectedly there will be a phrase, a little prayer, an expression of hope in Jesus, “Christ is good; I trust in him,” – suddenly words like that come out and they mean so much to you. You say to your best friend, “I think we shall see him in heaven.”
But we all know that the words at the end are flimsy, and trivial grounds of hope. Live for Christ now! Confess him in the midst of his people now! While it is day acknowledge him, not when the sun is going down and the lights are flickering and there is nothing you can do for him. Die with full assurance! Die with an abundant entrance! Die with the hope that Jesus is a wonderful Saviour. Don’t hover between two worlds. Head for heaven saved by grace alone through faith alone in the Saviour Jesus Christ alone.
29th July 2007 GEOFF THOMAS