Joshua 6:17-19 ~ “And the city and all that
is within it shall be devoted
to the Lord for destruction. Only
Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because
she hid the messengers whom we sent. But you, keep yourselves from the things
devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the
devoted things and make the camp of Israel a
thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and every vessel of
bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”
The things of Jericho were to be left alone and destroyed
and at the time it appeared they were…
Joshua
6:21 ~ “Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and
women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.”
Joshua
6:24 ~ “And they burned the city with fire, and everything in it. Only the
silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the
treasury of the house of the Lord.”
First fruits were/are more or less a tithe. In the Feast
of First Fruits the Israelites were to bring the first sheaves of the barley harvest and wave them before the Lord.
At the beginning of the day representative leaders of the people would cut
certain barley sheaves that had been set aside specifically for this purpose
and bring them to the priest. The priest would then present them to the Lord by
waving them back and forth.
Leviticus
23:9-12 The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them:
"When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest,
bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the
sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to
wave it on the day after the Sabbath. On the day you wave the sheaf, you must
sacrifice as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb a year old without
defect..."
The purpose of this was to consecrate the harvest to
the Lord. The first fruits were representative of the entire harvest. This act
reminded Israelite people that the land and all its harvest rightfully belonged to God.
The people are just stewards of the land and God's merchandise. Jesus fulfilled this feast when He
became the first fruits resurrected from the dead. His new beginning in resurrected form marked the
beginning of the harvest of souls who have been set apart for God through the
Lord Jesus Christ.
So in effect the walking back and forth our around
the city walls and then subsequent destruction and burning of Jericho mimics or
shadows this feast. Furthermore, the conquest of Jericho would be the first of many conquests (harvests) in the land of Canaan for the Israelites. The saving of the metal vessels for the Lord's treasury adds a further
exclamation point to the fact that all was the Lord’s.
By the time we reach Joshua 7 we see that things were not as they
seemed. Man did not see what was going on beneath the surface but God had and
it is reflected in Joshua’s and the people’s defeat at Ai.
Joshua
7:1 ~ “But the people of Israel
broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the
tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned
against the people of Israel.”
We see that through the
sin of one man, all in the covenant were going to be punished by the loss at
Ai. Achan had stolen from God. This is often like us today. We think that no
one knows of our sin, but God knows. We must not fail to take into account God’s
omnipresence and omniscience into our lives. God is everywhere so He is most
certainly at the exact location where we sin. We should be ashamed and it is
only our sinful reprobate nature if we chose to ignore this fact and sin
anyway. We see in this story that Achan thought first and then acted. He
coveted and then he took or stole from God in a premeditated manner. No one can steal from God as all is
God’s and even when it is yours, it is in reality His. It isn’t so much about the possessing
and taking…it is the rebellious heart intent that concerns God. We put
something other than God in God’s place. We make material items our idol.
What does Joshua 7 say about
Achan in particular?
Joshua
7:20-21 ~ “And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God
of Israel, and this is what I did: When I saw among the spoil a beautiful
cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50
shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in
the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”
The words rendered, “a
beautiful cloak from Shinar,” should be understood as a substantial or ample
garment of Shinar or more properly a really nice Babylonian coat. We must
understand that anything Babylonian was considered "cream-of-the-crop" or “high society”
at the time of this incident. To have this robe or garment was to be hip and
trendy. If Achan would’ve worn this garment in public, it would’ve been
considered “swag” or "bling" today. To wear it would’ve been to flaunt one's material wealth or to live a flashy lifestyle. Achan would’ve been someone of the “in”
crowd.
We see a man driven by
all the wrong motives that are against God and his statutes. What’s worse is
they are all sins common to all humanity and at times, they don’t seem like sin when
we are in the act of committing them. Desirous of things that are culturally acceptable and
ungodly…do we see this in society? Do we see this in the church? I suspect we
do. Like Achan we desire attention to ourselves and not to God. We want the
glory God most certainly deserves. In this way we are contemptuous of God and dare to walk a path only He rightfully deserves to be. We not only make possessions covetous
idols, we make ourselves the worst form of idol. We make ourselves sentient
self-conscious idols in rebellion against God because of our willful manifold sins.
No one should aspire to
leadership per se. No one should covet prestige of high position or even the
image or "airs" of it as it is a poor heart condition or attitude. One should only be
called to leadership by God. To be a leader is to get under those you lead anyway. To
covet prestige and position because of the things “it does for you” is to
totally misunderstand said position and to mangle the principles set forth in Scripture for leadership. That position is not there so you can "lord" over people with a whip.
To be in leadership brings heavy responsibility and heavy accountability which
a person will be judged more stringently for on their day before the Lord.
Luke 12:48 ~ “But the one who did not know, and did what
deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was
given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom
they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”
So…Achan covets, steals
and hides stuff that is rightfully God's. Joshua and the people march against Ai after the total
annihilation of Jericho. They actually march with a stripped down force of approximately
3000 men due to the sin of complacency and pride when the covenant
people should’ve all marched together. They summarily get their butts kicked
and thirty-six men are killed in what should’ve been a cake walk battle.
Joshua 7:3-5 ~ “And
they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but
let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole
people toil up there, for they are few.” So about three thousand men went
up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the
men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate
as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent…”
It ended up taking
soul-searching with God by Joshua to come to the conclusion their was sin among
the people that needed to be weeded out and dealt with harshly. Do we do this
with our own sin…or that of our congregation and brethren or do we turn a blind
eye and allow it to continue. Do we confront sin and call it for what it is or
do we gradually erode our viewpoint on it and allow more and more of it in our
lives and churches until it over takes us? Remember what Jesus said:
Luke
12:2-3 ~ “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 roofs.
We must weed out and kill sin. We must deal with it
radically before it deals harshly with us radically altering our lives for the
worse. Achan and his family are summarily stoned by all the people to halt the
spread of sin and rebellion among the people. This is so all the people see the
end result of rebellion against God and it also puts the blood-guilt on everyone’s hand
to show the communal responsibility of a covenant people.
In the end Joshua and God’s people march in force
against Ai. For the same reasons God chose only Samson to go against 1000 men, Jesus chose twelve disciples and Gideon was only given three hundred…all the people move against Ai.
God is not Someone that can be set to human patterns of understanding and motive.
Numbers 23:19 ~ "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
God does
things in His own time and for His own reasons (as I know so well). We cannot
put God in a box or in a bottle like a genie. We must turn to God for guidance
in each and every situation as each and every situation differs based on need
and purpose. At the time Joshua moves out against Ai he is instructed to do so with all the people. The reality is this. It appears God had all the people march
against Ai since Ai was not the first fruits. Because Ai was not the First Fruits all the people were
given the spoils of war on this occasion. God was allowing everyone to benefit
from the victory at Ai, hence all were to march on and enter the city. He also
commanded that all enter so that the credit for the victory would be everyone’s…so
that none should boast in the victory. This is a shadow that we will see
surface again in the New Testament in the work of Christ on the Cross and the Christian believer's salvation. God is not a creature
of habit but rather a Being of plan and sovereignty. To assume that He will
continue to deal with things in your life the same way every time is
foolishness. Only you would be silly enough to believe that.
Numbers 23:19 ~ "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
The last thing is sad irony. Had Achan been just a
little more patient, his narrative would’ve been quite different. Had he waited
until Ai to collect the “booty” he would’ve lived to see another day like the
other people. Due to his impatience and inability to wait on God's perfect timing, he ended up
quite dead along with the rest of his family. Obedience and patience waiting on
God incurs a blessing in God’s economy. Disobedience and impatience with God
incurs a curse. Which do you want? Who's timing and plans will you abide by?
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