Keep your Bibles, if you will, please, they're at Joshua 6. We're also in a moment going to look at Joshua 7. The message title this morning is this, Sin in the Camp. Sin is destructive, both in our relationships with God and our relationships with others. I think we need to have this down in our mind. We must address sinfulness and choose to follow the Lord rather than indulge in sin. The subject of sin is never easy to address. Even though the words come easily because there is so much to say about sin, the subject is really unpleasant. Sin to talk about, honestly, for most people is very difficult. It's almost as if the word sin is a no-no. There's reasons for that. I wanna give you three reasons that you can kinda jot down or remember and give them back to me in just a moment. But let me tell you this, everyone, this morning, that sin, number one, grieves the heart of God. Say it back to me, please. Number one, sin. Grieves the heart of God. Grieves the heart of God. Sin grieves the heart of God. Secondly, what I want you to know about sin, is that sin does great damage to the sinner. Sin not only grieves the heart of God, but sin does great damage to the sinner. And number three, and we'll see in our lesson today from Joshua, almost without exception, sin affects others. The sin that we commit in our lives affects others. So number one, I said sin always does what? grieves the heart of God. Remember that, please, if you will. Number one, sin always grieves the heart of God. Number two, sin always does great damage to the sinner. Great damage to the sinner. And we'll almost always see this to be a fact that without exception, it affects other people. The issue of sin is something we hate to bring up. Like I said earlier, it's almost a no-no. Something we must keep quiet or explain away. Sometimes we deny that there is such a thing as sin. We say, sin? What's sin? What's good for some people is bad for some others, but what's bad for somebody is good for somebody else. So what's sin? We say, sin? What's bad for one person could be good for another. There's no such thing as sin. That's what we say sometimes. Sometimes we blame sin on others, saying that ultimately it's not my fault. It's not us that sinned, but it's my parents. My parents created all this for me. You hear this all the time. I grew up in a dysfunctional home, pastor. It's not me, it's the dilemma of my life and who I grew up around. My family was so bad, they taught us, really, by their nature, to be bad to people, to be destructive. Sometimes we reduce sin to some kind of abstract Eastern philosophy. Sin isn't sin in a moral sense, it's just bad karma, we say. If we do bad things, that finally bad stuff comes around to bite us in the end. So I gotta ask you a question this morning, my church and those who listen by radio, do you and I, do we believe that there is such a thing as sin? Look at me everybody, do we really believe in our church and by our preaching, by our standard of living from the word of God, do we believe that there is sin? And does sin, does sin do those three things? Number one, does it grieve the heart of God? Does sin grieve the heart of God? Number two, does sin, now we're talking about what sin does, does it do damage to the sinner? And does sin always affect someone else? I like to speak about fathers in the home. I love to preach about the home. I love to speak on fathers. Speaking of fathers, there's a question that a father's influence is very, very important. There's no question about that. A father's influence in the home, I'm telling you, is very, very important. Fathers can help create an environment that encourages the strength and health of the family, or he can hurt the family environment by how he lives. How can a father use his influence to positively impact his family? And what does that have to do with the issue of this man we're gonna talk about today and the issue of sin? Well, sin, the father, and influences in the family is all wrapped up in the story I'm gonna give to you this morning. It's an unusual incidence in the Bible, but it's an incident that is set within the book of Joshua in which Israel is about to enter the promised land. The land is full of other nations, and God tells Israel that they must go into each nation and take the cities. God said, first of all, you go to Jericho, and they did. There was a great thing in Jericho. As they went to Jericho, they did everything God said for them to do. And the result was that Jericho, without the loss of one Israeli, fell in their hands. It was a miraculous victory. The people obeyed everything that God commanded of them, and they had the victory in God's hands. God had demonstrated Himself both powerfully and faithfully to His people. And after Jericho, Israel was set to take the next little city. It was a city of Ai. They were about to take Ai and they went about doing that. It was considerably smaller than Jericho. It was kind of like a farming community. And guess what happened? Israel suffered a terrible defeat. They actually lost over 30 people. Now get this, Jericho was a great ancient city, cosmopolitan city, Jericho was, and Jericho was a walled city, but it fell without the loss of anybody being killed in their army. But then they come to this little farming village, and over 30 of their people die. What happened? Well, go to Joshua chapter seven, verse number one. It tells us this, but the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. He had taken of the accursed thing in Jericho, and now God is angry. Now here's what happened. God had instructed the people of Israel to refrain from taking any of the spoils of battle for themselves. Go with me to Deuteronomy chapter seven, please, if you will. I wanna show you what God said should be done and how Israel should do the taking of cities. We go to Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse number 22. And the Lord God will put out those nations before thee by little and little, Thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. Now God said I'm going to have you do this little by little. Look if you will down at verse 24. And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name. Under heaven there shall no man be able to stand before thee until thou hast destroyed them. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire. Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination to thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it. Thou shalt utterly detest it. now shalt utterly abhor it for it is an accursed thing." Again we see in chapter 6 verse 18 and 19 that God gave specific directions in Joshua. Go back to Joshua chapter 6 And ye, in any wise, keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it. But all the silver, and the gold, and the vessel of brass, and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord. They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. God has given explicit commands. Under Joshua's leadership, Israel went, captured Jericho, no problem. God blessed their victory. But in that moment, the narrative tells us something went wrong. Something secretly happened, under the table sort of. A specific Israelite, Achan, in spite of what God commanded, secretly disobeyed God. He took the spoil of Jericho for himself and he hid it, the Bible said. That constituted a breach in the command of God. In that relationship with God, His people, and the people with one another, it caused a breach. Sin always causes a breach. Listen, I don't know who in this building is sinning, and I don't know who's listening by radio that's sinning, but when you sin, do you remember those three things? Number one, it grieves the heart of God. Number two, it Damage is a sinner, very greatly, and number three, it will always affect others around you. There's a beacon of warning going out this morning to somebody. You need to get your life right with God and stop your sinning. The breach of relationship was both a sin against God and against the Israelites, and God's command was given for the good of Israel as they entered the promised land to protect them. You know, God's command given to you is to protect you. The walls God puts up is to protect you, make you the right kind of person. You know, Achan deliberately disobeyed the law. He saw the silver and he liked it. He saw the fine clothes and he liked it. So he got them from Jericho and he hid them under his tent. And when he hid them under his tent, he became like the things he stole. He became accursed too because that's what the scripture said. If you take the accursed thing and you hide it somewhere in your house or under your tent or whatever, you're going to become just like it. You're going to become accursed yourself. He became like the thing he stole. Ultimately, this broke the trust between God and the people. Achan's deliberate disobedience constituted a rebellion. Likewise, the sin had effects on the community. No one knew his sin except for God. They soon would find it out. When Israel went to battle against that little city of Ai, a strange thing happened. They were bitterly defeated. Now remember this big city of Jericho, they took that city easily. No problem at all. In your life, ladies and gentlemen, listen to me, there's going to be big problems that you're going to be able to conquer. But when you allow little sins to come into your life, the next little problem you're not going to be able to conquer. Ai was a small little farming city or village. and they lost over 30 people and were defeated because of Achan's sin. They lost the favor of God because of Achan's sin. They lost 30 people because of Achan's rebellion. Ultimately, Achan lost his life and the life of every member of his family. Daddy, you better listen to me. You are responsible for your family. And your whole family could die and go to a devil's hell because daddy didn't live right. Sin was in the camp. I don't understand why these kids don't live right. Maybe dad's not living right. Secretly not living right. Maybe mom's not living right. Over 30 people die here. Achan loses his life, the life of his family. The text records that the community were instructed to stone them. By our standards we don't understand that stoning, but stoning was a command, a common form of administering punishment in those days. But can you imagine Achan seeing what it created? It created a breach with God, caused the death of over 30 Israelites, caused a military defeat, created division among God's people, and caused both the death of Achan and his family, and then actually and enacted a horrible thing. How would you like to be told, all right, you get Achan's family up here now, and let's get them all up here, and all of you start grabbing some stones, and let's go, you're gonna stone them till they're dead. Not only did his sin affect his family and himself, it affected everybody in the whole community, because they had to pick up stones and throw them at those kids until they were dead. My wife and I watched a commentary last night on Jim Jones, how those little kids had to drink that Kool-Aid that was poisoned. Because Jim Jones said, this is honorable. And 900 and some folks drank that Kool-Aid to their death. Because daddy had gotten away from God. What's it going to take, ladies and gentlemen? What's it gonna take to wake up our dads and our moms to know that I should be in church, and I should be a member of a church, and I should go to church, and I should put God first? Sin in the camp. Now let me revisit my first statement. You can say it to me, I'm sure. Sin always. Grieves the heart of God. Sin always grieves. Say that one more time. Sin always. Grieves the heart of God. Always. Number two, sin always causes the sinner great damage. Damage to the sinner. And number three, sin always, almost without exception, always affects others. Now is that the truth? That's what we see in this story. He grieved the heart of God. God was so grieved because of the accursed thing being stolen. It was so sad to see Achan lose his own life. But it was so sad for the rest of the family to lose theirs. But I'm telling you right now, it's so sad that the congregation had to pick up stones and throw them at them until they were all dead. Not just Achan, the wicked sinner who did it, but his dear wife. I can't hardly imagine throwing a stone at some little kid. The sin affected the whole crowd. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, the sin that you do affects not just you, but the whole crowd around you. Now, from the life of Achan, we can see that sin does have disastrous effects. Would you say sin has disastrous effects? In our relationship with God, in our relationship with others. Whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, the capacity for sin is very, very real for everybody in this room. Now, what can we do to prevent sin? Here's my message. What in the world can we do to prevent sin and protect us from its destruction? What can we do to prevent sin in the camp? Now, when I talk about sin in the camp, I'm not talking about just the church. I'm talking about your home. And then I'm talking about your life individually. What can I do to get the sin out of my camp? Well, number one, Put first things first. Hear and obey the Lord. That's how you get it out. Put first things first. What can I do to prevent sin and protect us from destruction? Well, put first things first. Hear and obey God. Ultimately, I must say that I believe that the scriptures teach that God is the source of our health. I believe that the Bible teaches me that God is the source of all of my health. I can't do it by myself, I have to have God. Listen, you cannot do it by yourself. You've got to have God. But first things first. What is that preacher? Hear and obey the Lord. I cannot fix the issue of sin, folks. I cannot fix the issue of sin with you. I have counseled with people all week long and I've told them face to face, listen, I cannot fix your sin. You've gotta fix it. But you can't fix it. You gotta get to God. Only He can fix it. You see, you cannot fix your sin. There's no way. We cannot work really, really hard and become perfect people who do not sin. Well, preach, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do this week. I'm gonna work really, really hard. I've had teenagers tell me this. Preach, I'm gonna work harder at this now. I said to teenagers, listen, you can't work at it. You can't fix your sin. I'm gonna work, preacher, really, really hard so I don't do any sin anymore. But what we can do, we can't do that, but what we can do is become more and more pleasing to the Lord as we focus our lives on Him. If you want to really get this thing right, you have got to somehow focus your heart and your life on God or you will never be fixed. God's gotta do the fixing. You can go to all the counselors you want. You can talk to everybody you want. You can try to get fixed up as best you can, but until you're ready to say, okay, I'm ready to yield my life to God, surrender my heart to God, become a Christian and live for God and live for his glory and honor, you'll never fix anything. It won't be fixed. So put first things first. You know, I think there's a difference. Now, I hope you're with me in this. There's a difference between failing Failing, to me, is a sinning as a result of our inability to be perfect. That's failing. Every day I fail because I'm not perfect. Do you fail too? But then there's a difference between failing and walking in darkness. There's a difference, folks, between failing. Frank, there's a difference between just failing and walking in darkness. Failing, you see, one more time, let me give you my definition, is sinning as a result of our inability to be perfect. But walking in darkness is choosing to habitually set my direction away from God and what's best for me. There are some people who want help, and we talked about that this morning. They want to go to heaven, but they want to do it their way. You can only go to heaven God's way. There is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. The name of Jesus Christ. Now follow me please, if you will, to 1 John 1. 1 John 1. Won't you follow me please? 1 John 1. And I want to read 5-10. This then is the message which we have heard of him, declare unto you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. There's a difference between failing and walking in darkness. As opposed to walking in darkness, you see, we should walk in light. Rebellion is making the conscientious choice to continue and even indulge in sinful behavior. I know I shouldn't, but I continually do. That is rebellion against God. That's walking in darkness. Scripture in various places teach us that this comes through the process of hearing and obeying the Lord as I walk in the light. I can't walk in the light without hearing and obeying the Lord. I'm telling you that's why church is important. Church is important so you can hear the truth of the gospel preached and then you can make a decision whether I'm going to walk in light or darkness today. I need to walk in the light of His Word. He is going to give me the light. What it means by putting first things first is I focus first upon hearing. I focus first upon obeying the voice of God and my relationship with Him. God loves us and desires that we experience a pleasing and fulfilling relationship, joyful relationship. So how do I begin to hear and obey the voice of God? Begin where you are, number one. Begin where you are. Right there, begin where you are. Number two, listen to what God has to say. Number three, take what God says to heart. And number four, make it real in your life and to those around you. Those are the four things. How do I do this, preacher? How do I begin to walk in the light? Begin where you are, first of all. You see, God loves you. And though we have sinned, God's faithful to forgive us, so begin where you are. Understand you're a sinner. Begin where you are. Listen to what God has to say. You've got to open up your mind. Listen to what God has to say. By the way, here's what God says. It's right here. Listen. Take what God says to heart. Make it real in your life. Achan's actions revealed really what mattered most to him. It wasn't spiritual security. It wasn't spiritual vitality. He had what he needed to have, but he turned to other things. He had direction from God. That was clear. In Joshua chapter 6, we have it all clear there. God told him exactly what to do and what not to do. Don't take the accursed thing. Achan acted like, well, I like that pretty stuff. I kind of like that. That silver and gold is neat. And those fine garments, they're nice. But God said, don't take those. They're accursed. I know, but I like it. Sounds like us, doesn't it? I know I'm not supposed to, but I kinda like it. So he took what he liked at his destruction. He took what he enjoyed. Many people are like that today. We place high value on what we have and how we look. He wanted nice clothes and lots of money. His desire gripped his heart, gripped his imagination. So when he saw the silver and the gold and the beautiful clothing in Jericho, his desire was so persuasive that he took it. He gave the highest priority and value to the wrong things. I'm telling you, there's some folks in our church that are giving the highest priority to the wrong things. You cannot give the highest priority to the world to the things of this life and not to God. The highest priority has got to be the things of God. He disobeyed God. His desire for nice things and money isn't wrong unless it's inherently selfish in its motives. Number two, realize your connection by both God and others. Now we're talking about begin where you are, listen to what God has to say, take what God has to say and make it real in your life and to those around you. You know, I think people all know that you're saved. I think people all know that you go to church. I think people all know that you support the church financially with your tithes and offerings. You know, we're never, never, never, never supportive of something unless we support it with our own monies. People all know, hey, that's what we do. I'm a child of the King. I support His work. I'm there. Begin where you are. Listen to what God has to say. Take what God says to heart. Make it real in your life and to those around you. Realize your connection to God and others. You know, no matter how you slice it in our text, in Joshua here, we're dealing with Connection between us, God, and people. Go to Matthew chapter 22 real quickly. Maybe well verse number 37. You know this shouldn't surprise us that one of the most significant truths that Jesus ever revealed was the greatest law in the scripture is that we are to love God and to love others. Matthew chapter 22. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. We see that Achan, his relationship to his God, his community, ended in disaster because of his rebellion. I'm telling you, there's people that are repeating what Achan has done over and over again. We don't even see them around church anymore. They used to come to church. They do a little sin. What happens when we sin? We hide it. And when we hide it, we try to act like everything is okay, but it's not. Before long, there's a distance between God and us. And then all of a sudden we make a distance between God and other people. Because sin affects. in three ways. Number one, sin grieves the heart of God. Number two, sin always does great damage to the sinner. And number three, sin always affects others. And you'll see it happening. When people get a little sideways, going into sin, doing things they shouldn't do, they start leaving the things of God, before long they won't come around the church anymore either. And they'll conveniently talk about, well, I just don't agree with everything that goes on there. And what it is, it's sin in the camp, in their own camp. His own desire for material things impacted his life. Achan's sin was a downward spiral of selfishness and disobedience. Now don't miss the downward spiral. I saw, I coveted, I took, I hid. That's the way it happens. But he failed to see the final phrase of that whole progression. I saw, I coveted, I took, I hid, I got caught. We never see I got caught. Sin in the camp. The progression of sin is a virtual laundry list of breaches of the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20. Only after sin is birth do we experience paranoia. Who's going to find out? I can't go back to church, they may know what I did. I don't dare do this and that. People are going to talk about me. We don't do that until we're guilty of some sin. Who will find out? Will anyone know? I'd like to remind us of what happened to those around Him. Around Achan, 30 people died. The Lord refused to go with Israel until the sin was dealt with. Achan was stoned. His own family was stoned. Sin always has severe consequences, folks. Are you listening, everybody? Sin always has severe consequences, always. We are always, always found out in our sin. Be sure, scripture says, be sure your sin will find you out. Now whether that sin is gossip, or whether that sin is adultery, whether that sin is stealing, you will be found out. Amen? Sin in the camp. This is a reality because we are intimately connected will be found out. Do you know that no man's an island to himself? You're all interconnected somehow. Here we are. I'm just about finished. We're connected to God, to one another in God's creation. We're connected with each other. But I want you to see again the damage done. Achan's sin amassed damage for himself, for his family, for Israel. Who paid for Achan's sin? Who pays for your sin? Well, just me. Is that what happened? Who paid for his sin? He said, well, I don't know if I believe sin is sin anymore. Well, sin is sin. What is sin? So now we come to that point that I said earlier in the message, well, I just don't know if anything is sin. What's good for somebody is bad for somebody else, but what's bad for somebody is good for somebody else. No, folks, sin is sin. This sin of Achan, who paid for his sin? Just Achan? No. Those 30, I think it was 36 warriors that died in the battle, they helped pay and others. On the battlefield they paid. Achan's family paid. The community who had to literally stone him paid. What's the lesson here? What's the lesson here everybody? Before we go about committing sin we have to realize that we are not an island entirely unto ourselves. We are part of a community. We are part of a relationship between God and others and sin always brings havoc to all of our relationships. I have had some sweet, sweet relationships with people in this church over 33 years. And all of a sudden things change. People get bitter. I hear rumors of what they've said, the bad talk. And I said, I wonder what's happened. What went wrong? And later on we find out there was sin in their life and they tried to make it look like it was the church. It was their sin. I don't know where you are today, but God needs to talk with us and get these sins out of our lives. This is a happy community here. This is a happy community of saints. We love the Lord. We sang a moment ago, I'm a child of the King, a child of the King. I told the choir, I said, now when you sing that, you look like you are a child of the King. You know, I went to Bobbie, and I looked at Bobbie while I was standing there. I said, I'm a child of the King. She said, I am too. I said, good. You didn't hear any of that because we were just up there talking to each other. I'm a child of the King. And so when we sing I'm a child of the King, you shouldn't sing it like, I'm a child of the King, a child of the King. Say, I'm a child of the King. I'm a child of the King. Come on, amen? Now if sins come in, you can't rejoice. And if there's sin in your camp, you can't open your eyes and rejoice and praise the Lord because you know there's something just not right and God knows about it. You need to take care of that today. So what's the lesson? Before we commit sin, realize that we're not an island. We're gonna affect others. I'm part of a community, and sin always brings havoc to all relationships. And here's my conclusion. If we want to avoid sin in the camp of our lives, what can we do? Number one, we can put first things first by hearing and obeying the word of God. Put first things first. Gotta hear and obey the word of God. And then number two, I gotta realize my connection between God and other people. Because no man is an island, and sin affects everybody. Now perhaps there are those of us who are living with sin in the camp in this room today. Maybe by radio you're listening to their sin in the camp. Musicians are coming. What can we do right now? What can we do right now? Maybe somebody has got sin in the camp. You don't want to tell everybody what it is. Achan didn't either. But ladies and gentlemen, hang on a minute. Everybody found out. And he didn't have to say anything. It's coming today when you're going to stand before the judge and folks are going to find out. Let's take care of that this morning. Say, preacher, what can I do right now? First, we need to deal with that sin. That sin, I think, is a foul stench. It's a foul, stinky thing. Sin in our lives. We probably already know what the sinful behavior or attitude is or thought is. We're probably uneasy about a specific sin even as I'm preaching. We try to rationalize it, but what we need to do is stop and repent. Don't rationalize it. Folks, don't leave and say, well, I got to get home. It's only 1110 or 1112, something like that. You take care of the stinky sin now before it gets any worse. Don't wait. Turn away from darkness. Stop, repent, turn away from darkness, walk to the light, walk to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Do it now. Don't wait. Why? Why can't I wait? Because the damages pile up in heaps. Deal with sin immediately for your own sake, for the sake of your wife, fellows, for the sake of your family, for God's sake. for the sake of your relationships with others. God always honors swift, decisive action. All right, preacher, you got to me. You see, I have no power at all except the power of influence. Can I influence you today to check your life to see if there's any known sin that you've got going on? Get that to God and say, God, forgive me of that sin and help me to be right. I've accomplished my goal if I'd done that today. Let's stand together, please, everybody. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed.