All right, good evening, everyone. Good to see you here tonight. Trust you've had a good afternoon, and we look forward to our time together. Before we pray, just a quick reminder. That Saturday at 9 AM we will have our Christmas decoration time, so if you're able to drop by and help for an hour or so, that would be appreciated. Many hands make for light work, as the saying goes, and it's a good time of fellowship, it's a good time of bonding. We look forward to it every year. You know, this is the fun part. In January, we get together to put everything away, and that's not quite the same excitement, because it's like, ugh, it's over. I guess we have to put it away. So, enjoy this part. Come out and enjoy that fellowship time on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. We'll look forward to that. And then remember, two weeks from right now is our Christmas Cantata. There are cards available out in the church lobby. You can pick those up, give them out to friends and family and co-workers, invite them to come in. And they often will not come to normal services, but this is a special service, right? But if they come, they'll hear the gospel. And that's what it's all about, especially at Christmastime. Christ came into the world to die for sinners like you and me. So we'll look forward to that. Pray that the Lord will give us a good night weather-wise, and of course that we will have a number of visitors. And also, just a heads-up, We do have a cookie fellowship following the cantata. That's where we ask the church family to bring some of their Christmas cookies, and we just put them all together, we put them out there, and we enjoy the fellowship time. So that's just something to keep in mind. That'll be the same night that follows the cantata. That's also part of your invitation. Come out, enjoy the cantata, eat some good Christmas cookies, and that's 11 days before Christmas, so we're getting real close at that point. Hopefully, you'll be able to do that. Let's ask the Lord to bless our time together tonight. Father, I thank You for the opportunity we have to gather together on this Sunday evening. As always, Father, we are so thankful for our brothers and sisters in Christ, the relationship that we have that though We may not all be related physically. We are related in a much more important way, and that is through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, that we constitute the family of God, and that we can come together to be an encouragement to one another, to be a challenge to one another, and to worship you. And I trust that tonight you will be pleased in everything that we do. pleased with our time in your word. May the Holy Spirit give us understanding. And Father, I trust that you would just strengthen us and encourage us so that in this new week, we might live for you every day. So we thank you, we'll give you the glory in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you may be seated. And as you do so tonight, we're going to go back to the Old Testament and I invite you to turn with me to Joshua chapter 7. Now, I don't intend to get as deeply into this passage as we might when we eventually will find ourselves studying through the book of Joshua. There's really one key word that I wanna focus on in this passage, but we do need to give some background, some information. It's a very familiar passage for all of us. I'm not gonna read the entire chapter, but I do want to read the first five verses to kind of get our minds in the right place as a reminder of this passage. So, Joshua 7, verse 1, 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. And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east of Bethel. And spake unto them, saying, Go up, and view the country. And the men went up, and viewed Ai. And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up, and smite Ai, and make not all the people to labor thither, for they are but few. So there went up thither of the people about 3,000 men, and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about 30 and 6 men, for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down. Wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became as water." When you think about this passage, the word that probably should come to mind is the word warning. Because chapter seven of the book of Joshua is a warning. It is a warning about something that each and every one of us probably, if you've been saved for any period of time, you've probably experienced in some manner what Joshua chapter 7 is telling us, what it is informing us. When we come to chapter 7, we are, of course, following chapter 6. That's profound, isn't it? And what is Joshua chapter 6? Well, if we look in Joshua chapter 6, We find, verse 1, now Jericho was straightly shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out, none came in, and we could go on from there and read about this wonderful story that we share with young folks. for Sunday school, right? And for vacation Bible school. We talk about the walls of Jericho. There's even songs that we sing about, you know, how they marched around the walls of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down and No, I'm not going to try to sing it for you, but I think we're all familiar with those songs. And we may associate it with a children's song and with children's stories. And yet, as adults, we understand how important That passage is the fact that when we come to chapter 6, we of course have been thinking about Joshua, who in chapter 1 of the book of Joshua has taken the reins of leadership for Moses. Moses was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land, and so Joshua led them across the Jordan River. In much the same way as they crossed the Red Sea with Moses, God held back the water and they were able to cross over without having to wade through the river. And then, of course, the setup for the time in surrounding the walls, marching around the walls of Jericho. And the point I'm simply making is, when you go through the first six chapters of Joshua, You see the Lord challenging Joshua back in chapter 1. And again, I'll just read this for you because it is so familiar. But back in chapter 1, when the Lord says in verse 8, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, withersoever thou goest." Powerful words for this man who is taking the reins of leadership, God saying, Do what I've called you to do and just trust me. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the essence of what the Lord is saying to Joshua. You have a job to do. And I was with Moses and you saw that and now I'm with you. And so you need to focus and do the job and don't allow yourself to be intimidated because the job is a huge job and it really was. So again, the first six chapters are chapters of victory. They're chapters where you see the thrill of victory. But here is what we find then as we turn into chapter seven, and it's simply this, that the thrill of victory can so quickly be replaced with the agony of defeat. And therein lies the warning for us as we live our lives, as we seek to walk with the Lord, as we seek to honor the Lord, that we can stack many good days, many faithful days of serving Him and honoring Him and growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Clearly, in the first six chapters, you could get a sense that the the courage of the people is growing. I mean, they are seeing God is with Joshua just like He was with Moses. And you can see their enthusiasm. In fact, even in this passage that I read, the first portion of chapter 7, their courage had grown to the point that when they sent some folks to spy out the little town of Ai, and Ai was important because it was on the road to control the highlands of Judea, the Cisjordan Mountains, as they're called. That Ai was the next important place. It may not have been a huge town, and therein is the issue in this chapter. They were so courageous, they were so brave, that had such success up to this point that they looked and said, that's just a small little village. Just take two or 3,000. We don't all need to march on AI. It's not anything like Jericho. We can take AI because it's really nothing but a bump in the road. That was their attitude and outwardly, from the human perspective, they weren't wrong. The problem is not that all things being equal, they could have taken the town with 2,000 or 3,000 people, soldiers, men. The problem is what happened before. the warning of the chapter. We can be riding on the mountaintop. We can be enjoying the mountaintop experience. We can be walking in the sunshine, if you will, under the blessing of God, and in one step, we can plummet into the valley. That we can be thrilling in the victory, the spiritual victories of life, but if we are not careful, If we are not vigilant, if we are not sober, as Peter tells us that we should be in 1 Peter 5, if we become complacent, if we begin to trust in ourselves, clearly here did they ask the Lord whether they should take two or three thousand? No, you don't see an example here of them saying, okay, let's have a real big prayer meeting to figure out what we ought to do. It's like, oh, two or three, yeah, it's a small place, let's do that. But they had missed something very important that led to their downfall. So the warning, one minute we can be living in victory, the next in defeat. The warning, we have to take it seriously that we can be walking well and then wake up a moment later and realize that because we were not careful, because we did not exercise the care that we should take, we can misstep. And that's what we have here. The distance between a great victory and a great defeat is one step. And often it's a short step. One sad truth of reality in a fallen world is that we can be riding high and the very next moment be in the valley. An example of that from the scripture. Think about Elijah. Elijah, can you imagine the spiritual victory he felt on Mount Carmel? Can you imagine as he sets up his altar and the prophets of Baal set up their altar and he is outnumbered greatly and he challenges and says, you guys go first. And they pray, and they go through all the machinations that they would follow as pagans to get their God to send down fire from heaven. He mocks them, maybe he's asleep, maybe he's away, and maybe he should shout a little louder so he can hear you. He's mocking them, nothing happens. And then it's his turn. And he says, wait a minute. Before I ask the one true God of heaven to lick up the altar and fire, pour water on it. Soak it in water. Remember, there's a famine. Remember, there's a drought. Water is a precious commodity. But he says pour it on there and soak it anyway. And what does God do when he prays that God would send down fire from heaven? The fire comes down, not only burning the sacrifice, but burning the altar and everything around it. I mean, it is, there's nothing left. God answered that prayer completely. Can you imagine how Elijah would have felt? I mean, in my mind, if I put myself in his place, I can just imagine how he's kind of sticking his chest out, you know? I mean, guys know what I'm talking about, right? It's like, yeah, boy, we showed them, didn't we? Had those prophets killed, remember? I mean, he is riding high, literally on a mountain, but spiritually, a spiritual high. And then where do we find him the very next day? running for his life and in time praying and saying, God, I'm the only one. You may as well kill me because I'm the only one that's faithful. And God says, you're not the only one. I have thousands who haven't bowed to Baal. You're not alone. And of course, we know the rest of that story. But the point is Elijah went from the exuberance of victory to the Valley of Defeat. Elijah, remember John the Baptist was to come as whom? Basically with the mantle of Elijah, the power of Elijah. I mean, this is a character that is important in Scripture, and yet we see spiritual victory, spiritual defeat. So we come back to AI. Because of its strategic location, it was the next objective. Its defeat was vital in the conquest of the land. AI is smaller. It didn't seem to really be much to worry about. But remember, God had, in the defeat of Jericho, He had placed what is called a ban. Do you remember that word, ban? This isn't a word that we use in that context, right? We don't talk about putting bands, there's no D in the end by the way, it's B-A-N. So it's not something that we necessarily think about or talk about. A band, what does that word mean? Well, it is the Hebrew word, the verb form is harem. It means to ban, it means to devote, it means to destroy utterly. Basically, this word refers to the exclusion of an object from use or abuse by man because it is irreversibly surrendered to God. That's the idea. In fact, there is an Arabic word that is related to it, comes from the same root, if you will, and you probably heard, you may have thought of that when I told you what the root of the word is, harem. Does that sound like something you've heard in Arabic, a harem? And what is a harem? Well, it is where one man has a group of wives. They are his harem. So does the word simply mean a big group of wives? No, what the idea of the word is, yes, he's got all of these wives, but they have been surrendered to him. They are devoted to him. They have been set apart for him. Does that make sense? So the idea of the harem is no other man can, literally the way they would practice it, no other man could even talk to these women. They are literally set apart unto that man. That's the root idea, that's the Arabic idea, but when you bring it back to the older language, which is Hebrew, The idea then is that this is something that there is an exclusion of this object. It isn't something that men can use for themselves. It is something that has been irreversibly surrendered to God. There is no ordinary use, in other words, for this. It is something that is surrendered to God. It is devoted to Him. Now, two thoughts about that. First, everything living was to be completely destroyed. It had been set apart, irrevocably set apart unto God. They were all to, you know, People of the land were to be set apart unto God, and that would be done through them being killed, the Canaanites. Now, I know that, and I won't get too deeply into this, again, someday when we're spending more time in Joshua, we can and we will, but consider this very simple idea. God, 400 years before, had said that the sin of the Canaanites had not yet been, had not yet come to be full. In other words, there's a sense in which God gave them 400 years to repent. 400 years, remember in Jerusalem during the time of Abraham, it was Salem at the time, there was a prophet, a priest king. Do you remember who that was? Melchizedek. And we find that Abraham gave ties to Melchizedek. Melchizedek clearly, from a historical perspective, here is someone in the very midst of the land who was a righteous man who would have been, as a king and a priest, a source of truth. One whose very life and message would have been challenging those who surrounded what would later become Jerusalem. So the point is, they were not left without a witness. There was a witness. And now here we are 400 years later, and the sins of the Canaanites have become full. So much so that they were guilty of worshiping Molech and the means of worshiping Molech was to take your living child, young child, and throw that child into the fire. Now the point I'm simply trying to make is when we think about the ban that God placed and said, when you sweep into this land, I'm giving you all of this land, and those wicked people need to be removed completely. So that gives us some context about the first part of what the ban was for. Secondly, all the valuable objects, the gold and the silver, were to be dedicated to the Lord's treasury. All of the gold in Jericho, all of the silver, all of those things which had intrinsic value, if you will, they were to be set apart exclusively unto the Lord. They were to be a part of the Lord's treasury. They were to be used in the worship of God. Now, this was evidently to be done as a kind of first fruits of the land. You can go to Leviticus 27 and read about that. It was a way for the people to demonstrate their trust in the Lord. I mean, they didn't get rich walking in the wilderness for 40 years, right? I mean, God met their needs. He kept their clothes and their shoes from wearing out. but they weren't getting economically strong in the time in the wilderness. So now they come into the promised land and they come to Jericho and it's full of gold and full of silver. Can you imagine from a human perspective? We're rich. What could we do with the spoil of Jericho? This raises our economic status. And God says, no, all of that comes to me. You take none of that. So what would be necessary for them to exercise at this point? Trust. They have to trust in God. They have to believe that God will supply what they need for the future. They can't take the gold and the silver for themselves. That has been dedicated to the Lord. And that brings us to the word. I mentioned there was one word that to me, it's a word that I've thought about this word for some time. the position of this word when you read the text. Notice verse 27 in chapter 6. So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was noise throughout all the country. Chapter 7, verse 1, but. That's the word. It's a small word. It's a little conjunction, but boy, it sets up a tremendous contrast, doesn't it? Victory, success! But, and this introduces what I've already said, spiritual mountaintop into the valley. But it tells us why this happened. There was a reason why they slipped from the mountaintop of spiritual victory to the valley of spiritual failure. But, And let me just finish the verse. I read it for you a short while ago. But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. Let me stop there for a moment. The children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing, the thing that had been set apart unto God. For Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. This is the powerful part of this verse. Clearly, Achan was wrong. Clearly, Achan, when we go through the rest of the chapter, Achan and his household are judged. They're destroyed because of what he did. because he disobeyed the ban. And what had been dedicated to God, he took for himself and hid it under his tent. You remember the story. But here's the part that I find to be so important. Individually, we understand that there are consequences to our choices, and that individually, we can be walking with God, but then make some stupid choice, decision, and fall into the valley of defeat. But here's the part that I think is so important. It was not just Achan that suffered the consequences. Did you notice that? Achan did this. But the Scripture says the children of Israel committed trespass, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. They lost the battle of Ai. Not because they could not, humanly speaking, overpower AI with 2,000 or 3,000 men, but because God's blessing was not upon them because there was a consequence to Aiken's sin as an individual that impacted the corporate body. And this is part of the warning. Individually, there's a warning that we need to be careful that we do not commit a sin that takes us from that place of walking with God to a place of spiritual defeat. Individually, we need to be careful, we need to exercise caution, we need to be sober. Everything that I said earlier. but don't miss the point that there is an aspect of the consequence of sin that can affect others. How many families have been impacted because one member of the family sins? Maybe it's a dad, maybe it's mom, maybe it's one of the children, but because of a sinful choice that they made individually yet it impacts the rest of the family. And we don't have to dwell on that too deeply because I think we're all aware that that is an unfortunate reality that we have to live with in this world, that our actions have impact upon others. That can be for good and that can be for bad. Clearly, the warning here is your actions and your family can affect other members of your family in a very negative way. But we could take that a step further. It's not just in our individual families. It is even in the work of the Lord. Now, we have to be careful. The church is not Israel in the Old Testament. We understand that. But the principle is still the same. This one man's sin caused them to be defeated and 36 men were killed in that first battle at Ai because of his sin. And so here is a warning. Not only can our individual sin impact our families negatively, they can impact our church family. And so it is imperative that we understand how important it is that we seek individually to walk with the Lord every day, to walk closely with Him, to draw nigh unto Him in the words of James 4, but that we encourage other brothers and sisters in Christ to do the same. so that we are not negatively impacting other believers in Christ. And by the way, we could get, there's so many ways that we could try to describe this, but one of the ways is just by our influence. I mean, think about what would have happened if God had not judged Achan, if God had not put an exclamation point on the reality that what He said He meant when He said, this has been dedicated to Me, to the treasury of the Lord. If He let Achan's sin pass, what would happen in the next town? In the next town? In the next town? The whole concept of these things being dedicated to God would have been forgotten because everybody would have said, well, Achan did it and got away with it, so I'm gonna do that too. Human nature, right? So yes, he is being raised up as a warning for the rest of the people as they march into the land and begin to take control of the land, but through his life, a warning for every successive generation. throughout the history of Israel and even in the church today, we must recognize that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. That's a New Testament concept. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Now we understand, I think we understand from the standpoint of baking bread, you don't put in the whole bag of yeast, right? Because you're probably going to end up with a whole lot more of whatever than you planned, but there's a certain amount you put in. Just a little bit leavens the whole lump. And so that is true when it comes to the idea of sin. Just a little bit of sin in your personal life can grow into something far bigger than you ever intended. Be careful. Be sober. make good, solid, godly, biblical decisions. And when it comes to our relationship to other believers, understand that a little leaven leaveneth a whole lump. When one part of a body chooses sin, that person can infect, and that's probably the better word, not just impact, but infect others. Because others will see you, they'll see what you do, they'll hear what you say, they'll hear the words that you choose to speak, and it will infect them in the wrong way if you are not seeking God first. As I said, we could spend a lot more time in this chapter, but the idea here is one man's sin can affect the whole. So, we need to be careful. That little word, but. Riding high. Everything's going great. And then one man chooses to do what God explicitly said they should not do. And they all suffer. By the grace of God, might we love our brothers and sisters in Christ enough to seek to be an encouragement and a blessing to them and not allow ourselves to be fooled by the devil and the world and our own fleshly nature to think that we can dabble in sin and it not simply bring consequences to ourselves but to others as well? May God use Akin and Ai as a warning. Let us be sober. Let us be vigilant. Let us understand that our adversary walks around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And who is it he's going to devour? The person who exercises the butt. the person who may be doing well spiritually, who then chooses for whatever reason to believe that they can deviate from what God said. May that not be true of us. May God help us to take the warning. I look forward, I don't exactly know when we'll be in the book of Joshua, but we will be there. And I'm looking forward to when that time comes. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the opportunity we have to think about AI this evening, to think about Aiken, and Lord, simply to try to draw some conclusions, some observations from the passage. Lord, I know there's a lot going on here, and Lord, there's a lot in the chapter itself that we could have covered, but Lord, in the little time that we had here tonight, I think it was important simply to recognize that the, overarching picture, which is simply the little 11-11 at the whole lump. That one man may have thought that his choice would not have really had any great ramifications as long as he could keep it hidden. But Lord, we cannot hide our sin from You. You see, you know, and Lord, we need to seek your face. We need to draw near to you. God, help us to exercise those biblical principles that are important so that we might grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, so that we might be a blessing to others and not infect others in the wrong way. So thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for Joshua, thank you for the book of Joshua. And Lord, thank you that you did not leave us to simply try to walk through this world blindly, but you've given us the scripture to provide light unto our path. And Lord, we might walk faithfully with you. So thank you. Bless now this evening as we head to our homes. Give us traveling mercies. Father, I pray that you would bless this new week, that wherever this week finds us, Might we be faithful? We'll ask this in Jesus name and for his sake.