regarding the accursed things. For Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things. So the anger of the Lord burned against the children Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai which is beside Beth-Avon on the east side of Bethel and spoke to them saying, Go out and spy out the country. So the men went up and spied out Ai and they returned to Joshua and said to him, Do not let all the people go up, but let about 2,000 or 3,000 men go up and attack Ai. Do not worry. weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few. So about 3,000 men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai struck down about 36 men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebareim and struck them down on the descent. and therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening. He and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads, and Joshua said, Alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, So the Lord said to Joshua, get up Why do you thus lie on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived, and they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs. before their enemies because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore unless you destroy the accursed from among you. Get up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow because thus says the Lord God of Israel, there is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you in the morning. Therefore you shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that that tribe which the Lord takes shall come according to families, and the family which the Lord takes shall come by households, and the household which the Lord takes shall come man by man. Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel. So Joshua rose up early in the morning and brought Israel by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken. And He took the family of Zarhites and He brought the family of the Zarhites man by man and Zabdi was taken. Then He brought His household man by man and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah. was taken. Now Joshua said to Achan, my son I beg you give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession to him and tell me now what have you done do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done. When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and took them, and there they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent with the silver under it. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent and there it was hidden in his tent with the silver under it. And they took them from the midst of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the children of Israel and laid them out before the Lord. Then Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, all that he had and they brought them to the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. So all Israel stoned him with stones, and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day. May the Lord bless His Word to our hearts. You may be seated. Let's seek the Lord together. Oh Lord our God, we do ask that you would help us as we turn to your word. Teach us. We ask that you would teach the whole world the glory of your righteousness. We pray for your church in Niger. and that you would use your people there to speak your word boldly and to live faithfully in their families and communities. We pray for Jerry and Marilyn Farnick in the Czech Republic, that you would bless the word as they go out with it, and it would bear much fruit in their lives. Thank you, O Lord, for answering our prayers and bringing Rebecca Jane back to us tonight. Thank you, O Lord, for your goodness and grace, and we pray that you would teach us. In Jesus' name, amen. Joshua 7, very simply, without holiness, defeat is certain. Without holiness, defeat is certain. Verses 1-5, Israel is defeated by tiny A.I. I know you may often have heard it said A.I. Technically the correct way of pronunciation is I-E. In verses 6-9 we see Joshua's response to this setback and also I think some very important lessons about how do we deal with temptations when we face immediate setbacks. sudden setbacks and trials. Verses 10-15, the Lord tells Joshua, get up off the ground. This is what you're supposed to do. In verses 16-26 we have Achan's transgression discovered, confession, and his death. So, verses 1 through 5, Israel defeated by Tini, i.e. Achan, of course, verse 1, the chapter opens, has committed this trespass. Nobody knows about it. And yet the sin of taking from the accursed spoil. We ran across the words, the cursed things. These are the things that God put under the ban and said don't touch them, burn them, get rid of them. Some of them He said to bring into His treasury. but the point was at this point the spoils are not for you. Don't bring them into your tent. Even though this was a secret sin and only Achan and maybe some of his immediate family knew about it, it was imputed to the entire nation. This principle of covenant solidarity, the unity that we have with each other was set in Adam at the very beginning. and extends to Christ so that the two parts of the human race, the seed of the woman, Christ and all who believe in Him, and the seed of the serpent, have an identity and a destiny determined by their respective heads, Christ or Satan. We're either children of God or we're children of the devil. And within the camp of the children of God, as we see here, We're bound to one another and so if we dabble with false doctrine, private lust, worldly covetousness, we're touching the unclean thing and we cannot but bring God's chastening hand upon us because God is holy. And even though we may not know and this chapter does not authorize for us to turn into private investigators and do all of our lives, the lessons would be sufficient for us to realize that how I live privately, how we live in our families, how we live in our congregation impacts the whole body of Christ. Verses 2-5, Jericho was a great victory. Jericho was on the plain directly across the Jordan. The mountain range went up from there and they had to move up the mountain range through the pass down into the main part of Canaan. There were two settlements there. One of them was a walled town. The other one was not. They were small. One of them is Ai, the other one was Bethel. And so the spies came back and said, hey, Ai is very small. We don't need a whole lot of men to take it. Maybe there was some presumption in this, it seems to me, and it seemed to many others that there are. Hey, we've conquered Jericho. We can certainly beat this little settlement over here. But when Israel attacked Ai, the men of that town fought back and sent Israel on the run and killed 36 of the Israelite soldiers. The people were struck with confusion and fear. Imagine this setback. We've got Jericho. We just saw the walls fall down. We've gone up in it. We've saved them. And yet we're defeated by this little group of people. They expected an easy victory, but they did not know about Achan's sin. So we're already reminded at the outset of this chapter that no matter how strong we are with God in our midst, they had the ark in the camp. We have Jesus Christ present by His Word and Spirit in the church right here. He is offended by our sins and without holiness our defeat is certain. Now Joshua's response here in verses 6 through 7, as you can see, he is utterly devastated. He and the leaders of the people, they tear their clothes, they fall on their face before the ark until the evening, they put dust on their heads. I mean this is quite a display of What is going on here? But you know, there's a lot of lessons also for us, I think, in their responses because we get news of sudden setbacks, sudden temptations, sudden health things come on us just like that. And it was a blow. I mean, this was a real blow for them to experience this. And notice what Joshua did. First, in verses 6 and 7, he questioned God's actions. Lord, what are you doing? Why have you brought us over here, over the Jordan? Have you brought us over here to deliver us into the hand of the Canaanites which is secondly, what? Totally forgot God's promises. Wait a minute, the whole reason we crossed the Jordan was because God says be strong and have a good courage and I'll be with you. wherever you go, but as soon as there's a setback and a defeat, no, God's not going to keep His promises. Joshua is stung to his soul here with this, but unlike Job, he didn't worship, he questioned. He questioned, you know, we might think to ourselves, oh no, something happens. I'm no longer in good health. Am I going to be able to take care of my family? The church in our land, religious liberty is under attack. Oh no, what are we going to do? Has the end of the world come? Are we going to be cut off? Is everybody going to laugh at us? Are we going to have to go worship in the trees and in the forest again? You know, when trouble comes, especially quickly, our hearts race down the highway of fear, and unbelief very, very quickly. And Joshua here, even as godly as he was, he shows us, hey, we can't trust ourselves in these times. Strong emotions are understandable, but we can't forget what God has promised. We cannot question His action and His purposes because He knows what is best. Notice there in verses 7 and 8, Joshua fears, what are people going to think about us? If only we had stayed on the other side of Jordan. Verse 8, Lord, if we turn our back on our enemies, what am I going to say? Again, he feared the consequences of this. He feared the opinion of others. We learn from Joshua's collapse here that even the strongest, heart can be overwhelmed by troubles. And we shouldn't presume upon our strength to be able to endure these hours ourselves or judge other people too harshly when their hour of trial comes. Oh, we need more tenderness in the body of Christ because we can't expect that God's going to give us an easy path to heaven, an easy victory. He's going to just kind of wink at our sins. Well, I'm not going to be completely submissive to my husband. I've just got a few small idols on the side, but in the main I love the Lord. Again here, the Lord is going to teach us that I'm your only strength and He'll test us. We may fall to the ground, we may be crushed and dazed by what He does to us, But we should worship like Job did and say, the Lord has done this. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We don't understand why. Notice in verse 9, Joshua even goes so far as to say, are we even going to survive? I mean, good night. We had everybody on the run when the walls of the Jordan River. Woo! Everybody knew what happened. We crossed it and then Jericho, the walls fell down. Now they're going to surround us. It's the end of the world. And then, Lord, what are you going to do? for your great name." Now Joshua here is concerned about the Lord's name. He's not consumed with personal circumstances, but he is consumed with, Lord, what's going to happen? Are the rest of the Canaanites going to rise up and kick us out? Again here, the church is very guilty of this. I mean, what are we doing now but apologizing for... Oh, we're sorry we believe Genesis is history, and the world's about 6,000 years old, and made by... Oh, I'm sorry, we can't embrace egalitarianism, and the queer movement, and religious and political polytheism, and we can't accept hypocritical warmongering against Russia and throughout Europe. We can't turn our back And yet, when we do what is right and pleasing to the Lord, the world ridicules. And if we don't make these confessions, He's provoked. You know, we need to remember something in verse 9. Joshua says, and what will you do for your great name? You know, the Lord has bound Himself to us, but He doesn't need us. If you think about our own country, if you know anything about the evils of our nation, abortion, and all the sodomy and everything, and just in the church, forget the world, in the church. How for 150 years we've been replacing God's pure worship with theater and shows and all these things. We don't want preaching. Give us therapy. And we don't want sound doctrine. Give us nice things that make us feel better and principles to lead our best life now and all these things. No wonder God is provoked. And if the unthinkable happens and there's war and people drop bombs on us at one level, nobody can ever say, Well, God wasn't fair. God wasn't just. No, this would be just. This would be righteous. Everything God does is good and righteous. And so the temptation may be to think, but God, if you do that, then there's so many Christians here. That's what Joshua fell into. Lord, if we lose and our enemies rise up, what's going to happen to your name? And God says, in effect, I'm going to take care of my name just fine, Joshua. I don't need you for me to win. This is my battle. We can understand why Joshua is overwhelmed and the suddenness of this and the devastation of this to his own confidence. We can't lose it. It never occurred to Joshua, but it should have. Wait a minute, God's made these promises. Something must have gone wrong with us. Do you notice here that Joshua... Lord, what are you? What are you? You notice something odd? The problem is not with God's actions, His purposes, His promises, His faithfulness, His power, His name. But for some reason, and this is I think very typical of our fallenness, we want to blame somebody. And so Joshua blamed God. And again, God's going to forgive him and he's going to overlook it and he's going to say, get up Joshua, Israel has sinned. We know that's coming. But for the moment, learn the lesson of this. I think it's very important. Now, not all trouble, of course, is when you did this and therefore you get this. We don't believe in a cosmic karma gumball machine that I did this and therefore this happens to me. But all trouble ultimately in this life does come from sin somewhere. Either my personal sin, the sinfulness of the race of man, the sinfulness of mankind. And so instead of, oh, there's something wrong with God. Isn't it funny, the scientist 150 years ago, well, we think we found things that are 17 trillion years old. Something must be wrong with God's Word. Instead of, no, something must be wrong with men's dating. You pick. And now of course we have the advantage of hindsight and we see how men weigh the evidence based on their presuppositions. But I just want you to see this in the big. When things happen, when there's trouble, when you get the news of the sudden, this has happened, the health, the war, the child, the whatever it may be, there's nothing wrong with God. He's not messed up. We need to look at ourselves, our own circumstances, and humble ourselves just like he tells Joshua in verses 10 through 15. Joshua, get off the ground. Why are you on your face? Isn't it funny now? Joshua doesn't have the advantage that we do of the scriptures at the level, but it's almost like the Lord would have expected Joshua. Hey, Joshua, remember me? Be strong and have a good courage for I'm with you wherever you go. Meditate in my word day and night and you will prosper. We didn't prosper. Something's wrong with, oh no, there's nothing wrong with the Lord. There's something wrong with us. We've done something to offend the Lord. You know why? That's not a very popular message, is it? It's got to be my parents' fault. It's got to be this other person's fault. It's not my fault that this happened. The Lord says, Joshua, Israel has sinned. And notice they've broken covenant with me, verse 11, and they've taken some of the accursed things, the things that I put under the ban. So notice the logic. Israel took some of the things God said don't touch He brought it into the camp and so the ban of judgment that God had pronounced on Jericho is now on the camp of God's people. That's how this thing works. Oh, if we're going to have victory, we have to maintain a holy separation from the world and we can't bring the world into the church or we bring the same judgment upon the world to us. And so what does the Lord says to do here in verses 13 through 15? Get up, Joshua, and deal with the sin. Sanctify yourself and the people tonight by prayer, supplication for mercy, tomorrow by getting rid of the accursed thing. The Lord gives him a plan to identify the culprit by lot. A little bit uncertain as to exactly what that was, but it was a way that God made known. I'll say a dice, but it wasn't exactly like that, but it was something that God used to make His will known in specific and hidden instances that His people needed to know. And God says, when the lot falls upon the sinner, take him, all that he has, outside the camp and burn him. He's broken my covenant, he has made my dwelling place unclean, and he has brought disgrace upon my people and upon my name. So in effect, the doom of Jericho falls on Achan and his family because he brought Jericho into God's holy camp. Now this may seem harsh to us. But I'm going to be honest with you, we are far more informed today by Enlightenment obsession with our feelings than by Biblical concern of God's holiness and the upholding of His righteous government of the world. Can you imagine if this story was retold today? We're going to retell the story of Aikens from Aikens' perspective, okay? We've never heard the other side of the story. I mean, hey, don't soldiers have a right to spoil? I mean, this is just like the law of nature, okay? And they're not going to need it, and after all, waste not want not, a penny saved is a penny earned. And so here's this Babylonian garment. Here's these 50 ounces of silver and gold. And so we're going to take them. And wait a minute. Everybody else has got sin too. Why am I being singled out here? Let's tell this story. That's how we would tell it today in the church. But when we tell it from God's perspective, And when we realize that we have the Holy Spirit of God in our midst, His completed Word, and a Bible chock full of warnings against compromise with the world, we realize it's still a very grievous thing, and we are still bringing Jericho into the Holy House of the Lord. We're still bringing worldly covetousness. We're still bringing the world's filth into the church, and the Lord's been very patient with us. But you know, again, if you're fretting about nuclear bombs tonight, don't. Because if we had any conviction of God's majesty, His holiness, and His mercy to us in crucifying His only Son, we should not be in the least surprised that the living God would chasten His church in this land for her nasty worldliness, for her fear of man, her doctrinal compromises, and moral filth. So instead of trying to look at this story from Achan's perspective, instead let us honestly examine our own lives, put our own sins to death, and pursue holiness in the fear of God. The next morning comes. Joshua proceeds with God's plan. You can follow here. I'm sure Achan, his heart was beating faster. reflecting that it only had a few more beats as the lot gets closer and closer to him. Finally, verse 18, he's taken. And Joshua, give Joshua credit, he's very gentle with Achan considering the circumstances. He doesn't torture him for a confession. Nor does he ask for a confession, interestingly enough, because there's any hope of pardon. He doesn't say, you're a dog, you're dead, get rid of you. Why does he want Achan to glorify, you need to listen to this really, really carefully, and I need to listen to it really, really carefully too. Why does Joshua want Achan to glorify God in making this confession when Achan's already going to die? And he's going to die a horrible death. Because it must be clear in Achan's mind, in the mind of the people, that the Lord did nothing wrong. It was Achan's sin, Achan's filthiness that brought this judgment upon Israel. And so Psalm 51 for that you might be justified when you speak and vindicated when you are judged. Not all confessions of sin result in repentance and forgiveness. Some of them are simply to confess and this will be the way it is at the end. I think we have here in Achan. I think we have a picture of those who do not bow the knee to Jesus Christ in this life willingly. They will bow to Him at the end before they are sent to the abyss of hell forever, and they will confess He is Lord, He is the righteous one, and we hate Him, and we want nothing to do with Him. But they will confess that He is the righteous one, and they will bow to Him as Lord. Achan's confession was not unto repentance and unto forgiveness. It was unto judgment and it was primarily to vindicate the righteousness of God. But before we bury Achan, notice his autopsy of sin here in verses 19 through 21. Very, very useful for us. He says, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. This is what I've done. When I saw Never mind that God said don't touch, I saw, young men. Never mind that God said don't touch, I saw. I looked at this. Very much the language of Eve. It was beautiful. It was valuable. Second, I coveted. I wanted. God said don't covet, I coveted. And again, notice the eyes, the desire, the craving. And not only that, I threw off all regard, I took them, verse 21, and I hid them. It was, oh, what an autopsy. Be careful, you know, we used to sing when we were little, I'll never forget in kindergarten, be careful of lies, what you see. Now we laugh at that. You know, our little handheld idols and our bigger, big screen idols have taught us, oh, that's for people who, you know, wore black coats without buttons and black hats on their hands. We can handle this. We're big. God, you want to go the way of Achan? I saw, I wanted, I took, I hid it. What an autopsy on sin from a man who is about to go to everlasting hell and who is still there. But learn this lesson. Be careful little eyes what you see. That's why Proverbs 4, 21 and elsewhere look straight on. Don't look to the right. Don't look to the left. But notice it's not just the eyes that we're supposed to pluck out. It's the heart. Only Jesus can cure my cravings. You've probably all heard it said, you are what you eat. That's not true. You are what you crave. You are what you hunger for. And the more you hunger for Christ, the less you'll hunger for this world. Be careful what you crave for and what you want because you will take it and you will hide it because we follow our cravings. Do you crave the approval of men? Do you crave, if you're a young man, I'll do anything for female companionship. Or if you're a young woman, I'll do anything for male companionship. I'll do anything to be accepted. Can you imagine how many women and men today are selling their souls through an easy platform? We've even got sophisticated job titles for them, like influencers and other things like this. Who, I just, I crave money. It's pretty simple. Acceptance is a way to money. Be careful what you see, what you crave, what you take, what you hide. And he's burned. Verses 22 through 26. And this is hard. They take him. They take the stuff that was under the ban. They take his children. And they take his wife and all of his livestock, verse 24, and they take them to the valley of Achor. Achor is a word that means trouble. And Joshua asks a very sobering question, some of the last words Achan ever heard, why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. Next time you want to reach out and grab and take and see and give in to sinful cravings, remember these words. And see, Akin, boy, he was a good American. It's a victimless crime, okay? Nobody's hurt but me. Maybe nobody did know about it. We don't know. We're not told. But there is no such thing as a victimless crime because the ultimate victim is not men. It's God. This is what we've forgotten in America. This is where atheism comes to its ugliest expression. This is only me. No, it's not. Men are irrelevant at one level in comparison to the holy, holy, holy God. He is the victim, if you will, of our sin and of our rebellion and as a disincentive for each of us to see and to covet and to take and to hide. Hear these words. Why have you troubled us? Because again, all of our sins affect each other. And then they take him out, verse 25 there, and they stone him, and all he has, and they burn them with stones. Boy, what an odd double monument in that area. Can you imagine that? So you got one rock, one pile of rocks at the Jordan. This is what God did. And then just a few miles away, you've got another pile of rocks at the Valley of Acre. This is what our sin did. Almost as if you choose which pile you want to be on. Do you want to be on the pile of what God did? Or do you want to be under the pile of what Achan did? Because he saw, he coveted, he took, he hid. Now, how do we apply, what do we, let me just draw three or four very simple lessons from this text. First of all, there's no secret sins. Second, there's no victory but in holiness. Third, no touching the unclean. And fourth, no holiness without Christ. No secret sins, let's just look at a few passages of scripture. Look at Numbers 32. Again, God was teaching His people early in their history. of the danger of sin. Numbers 32, 23. Again, we can't tell the whole story here, but hear these words. But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the Lord. Be sure your sins will find you out. Turn to Amos, chapter 9. Ezekiel, Daniel. I have to say them for myself. Hosea, Joel, Amos. He's somewhere in the back. Amos 9, 2, and 3. Though they dig into hell, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. And though they hide themselves on top of caramel, from there I will search and take them. Though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent and it will bite them. Ecclesiastes 12, 14. Again, be sure your sins will find you out. Ecclesiastes 12, 14. The book ends with this, For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Hebrews 4, verse 12, finally. Again, it's one of the great lies of sin in our nation and in the West and its apostasy that nobody sees, nobody knows. Hebrews 4, verse 12. For the Word of God is sharper and powerful, living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." There's no secret sins. God knows everything. We can't hide. Now granted, it may not always be revealed as dramatically as it did as it was in the case of Achan, but isn't this an encouragement to us? We have a remedy, don't we? We have a remedy for our sins. Don't hide them. He who confesses his sins will find mercy. He who covers his sins will not prosper. but he who confesses and forsakes them. Bring those sins before the Lord. Confess them where you've sinned against other people. Confess that. Don't hide it because there's no such thing as secret sins. And secondly, closely related, obviously the whole nation suffered defeat because of the sin of one man. Again, remember who we are, Romans 12, 5, while we're in the New Testament. Who are we? What is our corporate identity? You know this verse, Romans 12, 5. So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. And so our sins, just like our holiness, our joys, just like our sorrows, these are not just private. They impact everybody. They impact your family. Men don't think that your secret sins don't impact your family. They do. Nobody may ever know about them, but they do. God knows. It doesn't matter what everybody else knows in the light of what He knows. Turn to Him. Ask for mercy and realize that we can't enjoy collective victory and overcoming the world. And God is provoked. Turn to 1 Corinthians 10, you might say that's kind of an Old Testament idea. No it is not. It's even more of a New Testament idea. Because we have the living God dwelling in our midst. 1 Corinthians 10, the Lord here, this chapter is a warning against idolatry and fornication using the example of Israel in the Old Testament. Verse 6, these things are our examples. Verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 10, Therefore, my beloved, flee idolatry. Wait a minute, what? New Testament? Corinth? I speak as to wise men. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one bread. Observe Israel after the flesh. are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?" What am I saying then? That an idol is anything? Or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. That's how the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit viewed Zeus and Apollos and all the Greek and Roman gods. They're demons. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't go to both worship services. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Why? Look at verse 22. Very New Testament. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? Jealousy provoking. The Lord is holy. Later in this book, He's going to say, I have espoused you to Christ to be His virgin, to be His pure wife. And so when the church compromises and brings the world's worship or goes to the world's worship and tries to bring it into the church and mix, It's provoking to the Lord. It provokes His jealousy. And so we can't but suffer when we do not pursue holiness. And turn to 2 Corinthians 6 for a very closely related idea. There's no secret sins. There's no victory but in holy fellowship. And so therefore no touching the unclean thing. Verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 6, and I do believe the apostle was thinking of Achan when we get down to verse 17. But begin reading in verse 14. Christians don't go trick-or-treating in terms of being dressed up like demons and monsters and hobgoblins. That's mixing light with darkness. We don't do occult games. We don't dress effeminately. That's mixing light with darkness and God is in our midst. And what agreement is Christ with Belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them just like in the camp in the wilderness, but more. I will be their God, they will be my people, therefore..." Now you tell me if he's thinking about Achan. "...come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean, and I will be a father to you." He's telling them, and then he goes on with some promises and motivations which we probably should read, but for the sake of time, don't touch it! Don't touch it, but I can touch it. Okay, you know, six beers, 12 beers, 18, I mean, and again, I'm being exaggerative, but again, drunk, don't touch it. Don't touch, don't touch lust. Don't look at it, don't crave it, don't want it, don't take it, don't hide it. You know, well, I kinda, you know, well, I could give all kind of examples, but the Lord here says, don't touch it. Because I am in your midst. Anybody here, if you're using your phone, even occasionally to look at Phil, go out, find a hammer and break it. And tell your boss, call me on my landline. God says, don't touch it. Well, I've got to touch it. No, you don't. Is your soul worth it? I'm telling you what scripture says. I walk in your midst. Israel lost one guy, okay? And again, I think like the disciples, I asked myself, is it I? You know, it's funny that night when Jesus is in the upper room with the disciples, you know, one of you is gonna betray me, and 11 of the 12, is it me? Is it me? I mean, there was a real sense, I think, that all of them honestly could look at their heart and say, maybe I could do that, is it me? Now, Judas kind of did it after the rest of them, you know, kind of like the pressure, but, There is in every believing heart, take heed. He who thinks he stands late, take heed lest he fall. And again here, this isn't like, you know, don't let your hair touch your collar and all kind of other fundamentalist stuff. That's not the Spirit's argument. The Spirit's argument is, I dwell in your midst. So worldly thinking, worldly living, worldly priorities, worldly dressing. That's why several places in the New Testament, dear sisters, there's a real warning here. Don't dress to call all the attention to your appearance, the adorning, the hair, the makeup, and certainly immodesty. Why? Well, because we have rules here. No, that's not why. I mean, yes, there may be rules, but that's not why. The ethos, the why, is because the Holy God dwells in our midst. And the whole Church of Christ around the world is His dwelling place. That's why we don't touch the unclean thing. That's why we don't get our style orders, our music. Well, I can listen to this. I'll just put a challenge out to you, and I don't listen to much at all of any, hardly any, but what I do hear of modern what passes for music and pop music. If you listen to it, you're listening to musical pornography. And so you cannot listen to it and have fellowship with God. Well, wait a minute, I don't really listen to the words gobbledygook, hogwash, I've been hearing it all since the 70s, okay. Yes, we do. But again, it's not because, well, in the church we only listen to Bach, okay. No, we're not that kind of, you know, elitist craziness. No, no, no, no, no. The reason is because God dwells in our midst. And so what we listen to, what we look at, don't touch it. Now, lastly, where do we get this holiness? Turn to Romans 6. I can't produce it in my own life. Problem is, if you know yourself at all, at one level you're thinking, but I do want to touch. There's a little bit of aching in all of us, not all perhaps in the same areas, but I saw, I wanted, okay? I loved that car, okay? I saw, I wanted, I took it, I hid it in my garage, okay? Again, how do we get holiness? How do we get holy? Actually, I'm sorry, just stay where we were. Go back to 2 Corinthians because we can just keep reading in this very passage. 2 Corinthians 6, 18, I'm sorry. We could go to Romans 6 also, but just stay here. After saying, I will receive you, he says, I'll be a father to you. Verse 18 of 2 Corinthians 6, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Therefore having these promises, Promise? Oh, the promise that I'll dwell with you, I'll be with you, I'll be your father, you'll be my sons and daughters. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. So there's really no secret sins, no victory except in holy fellowship, no touching the unclean, No holiness except in the fear of the Lord. Now, what does that mean, to fear the Lord? And isn't it interesting, all these Old Testament concepts brought right into the New Testament, because there's really no such thing as, well, unless something is repeated in the New Testament, we don't count it anymore. No, God, He's not theologically schizophrenic. What He says in one place is good everywhere, unless He tells us otherwise. And He says, fear me. Gain a high view of me. Think about me. To fear God is to trust Him, to adore Him, to love Him, and to dread offending Him. I'll never forget something that I read in Mr. Calvin one time when I was 17 or 18. And he said something and it just squeezed the life out of me for a minute. He said, a godly man is such that if there were no hell, he would dread sinning against God. If there were no hell, if there were no consequences, He is so wonderful to have Him, to have His Son, to have fellowship, to have forgiveness. If there was no hell and I could do whatever, I don't want to do anything to offend Him. That's what it is to fear the Lord, to adore Him, to trust Him, to want to please Him. That's how in our day and age we don't just survive, but we overcome. Because what is the world throwing out there at us? Oh, indulge yourself. Man, isn't it so sad? Indulge yourself. If you feel like you have some different feelings than what you were born with, follow those feelings. Mutilate yourself in order to pursue those feelings. Can you imagine? Sin is so intrinsically defeatist. I can't do anything about it. Just may as well pass out prophylactics to fifth graders because there's nothing we can do. Yes, there is. The Holy God, parents, dwells in your house. You may have older children like, we want to do this. No, we may not do it. It doesn't matter that other Christians out there just lowered and lowered and lowered the bar. No, we may not do it because God dwells in our midst. This is the lesson of Achan. Why did they lose? Did they know about Achan? Was there an Achan secret society? No. God hates sin. And He dwells in our midst. And we need to pray for each other. Please, just if anything else practically, let this be an encouragement to you to pray for each other. Not to, hey, what are you looking at? And what are you doing? And how much do you drink? And how are you talking about your... I mean those questions are needful and helpful. And they have to be asking the right spirit, but pray for each other. Encourage the young especially. Listen, God is in our midst. He's for you. He loves you. What's the promise here? I'll be your father. You'll be my son. You'll be my daughter. That's why we pursue holiness. That's why we turn our back on the world. It's not because we're so smart. We don't need any elitist smugness. It's not because we're white or European and all that garbage. It's because Almighty God has given us a new heart and He says, I dwell in your midst. Now walk with me and love me and I will bless you and I will be your God and you will be my people. Let's pray together. Oh Lord our God, we do praise you for this warning from Achan Lord, what a horrible thing to hear the words of a man who even now is perishing in hell. The thought is horrific that we in our day have with so much history behind us that we have to learn from a man like this. Lord, please help us. Please help me to fear you. Help all of us to adore you, to dread offending you, to love pleasing you. Help us to live trusting you and your great promises. And bless us, O Lord, that we would support one another and encourage each other in the pursuit of holiness. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.