JOSHUA 7
Read Joshua 7:1-26
After the success of Jericho where the Lord gave the Israelites victory, we see that they are confident when they come up against the next town, Ai. But they are defeated. That wasn’t in the plan? What went wrong?
We are told at the beginning of the chapter – God’s instructions regarding the loot in Jericho had been disobeyed. One person, Achan, did not turn over what he found to God but kept it to himself. Joshua didn’t find out until Verse 10 when he and his elders came before the Lord in humility and grief at the outcome. And the problem was made clear – it was disobedience to God – sin!
One thing that is made clear in this passage is that sin has consequences, and not just for the individual concerned. Achan sinned, but the whole community suffered. And I think this illustrates the nature of sin. All sin impacts upon others, and quite often those others are innocent, but that is what sin is like. The Ten Commandments set out what sin is. And when there is theft, adultery, murder or anything like that then the impact of that sin can affect the lives of many people, we see this time and again in our society, in our own lives even. The consequences of sin go far beyond the individual sinner.
And sin damages the relationship between God and his people; we see that whereas he was with Israel in the Battle of Jericho, while there was unconfessed sin he was absent, distant from them. It was only when the sin was dealt with that the relationship was restored that God was with his people. And the result can be seen in Chapter 8, God is with tem once more.
It is worth noting that God himself came down to deal with this situation. It is only God that can defeat sin. And here we have a little foretaste of the New Testament where we see that God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, defeated sin once and for all on the cross. However, until Jesus returns, we are still sinners, ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ said Paul (Romans 8:23), so we need to confess our sins and allow the Lord to deal with them by our faith in Christ.
This chapter tells us that God hates sin, he cannot tolerate it; it drives us away from him. But it also tells us that restoration is possible. Not through anything we can do ourselves, but through what God himself does – and isn’t that exactly the hope that we have in Jesus Christ that the New Testament tells us about?