The scripture reading this afternoon is Joshua chapter 7. Joshua chapter 7. The text is Joshua 7 verses 11 and 12. After looking at the fall of Jericho last week, we continue this afternoon with Joshua chapter 7. 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 Beth-Avon on the east side 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 three thousand men. And they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six 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. And Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide. He and the elders of Israel and put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other side, Jordan. O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth. And what wilt thou do unto thy great name?" And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up. Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and assembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed. Neither will I be with you anymore, except you destroy the accursed from among you." Up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel. Thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you. In the morning, therefore, ye shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof. And the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households, and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man. And it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath, because he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he hath wrought folly 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 brought the family of Judah, and he took the family of the Zarhites. And he brought the family of the Zaharites man by man, and Zabdai was taken. And he brought his household man by man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdai, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him, and tell me now what thou hast done. Hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them. And behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it. So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent, and behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it. And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had. And they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore, the name of that place was called the Valley of Achor, or the Valley of Trouble, unto this day. So far the reading of God's holy infallible word. The text this afternoon is verses 11 and 12. Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and assembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed. Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you." Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I originally chose to preach on this chapter this afternoon because I thought it would be a nice fit to what we looked at last week Sunday. After looking at the fall of Jericho, I thought it would be interesting and enjoyable for us to look together at what happened immediately afterwards. However, as I began studying this chapter a little more, I began to see just how sad and how shocking this event truly was. And as I continued to study the passage even more, I began to see the hard preaching that I would have to give based on this text. However, by that time, I had already committed myself to using this as the text for this afternoon. This is not to say that hard preaching is something I would rather avoid, but it is just to say this, my original purpose in choosing this text was simply that I thought it would be a nice follow-up to what we looked at last week. The reality is, congregation, The text this afternoon gives all of us a very solemn warning against our sins. The text gives all of us a very solemn warning against the private sins that we might be harboring in our own personal lives. The text this afternoon emphasizes the seriousness of God's commandments. It emphasizes the hatred of God towards sin. And one thing especially that the passage emphasizes is the kind of trouble, the trouble that our own personal and private sins bring upon families and upon the congregation as a whole. One thing that stands out in this passage is the reality of corporate responsibility We never sin merely as individuals, but we sin in one way or another always as members of a body. One of the purposes with the sermon this afternoon is to stir up within us a greater fear of God, to stir up within our hearts a righteous hatred, a righteous indignation against our own personal sins. One of the purposes of the sermon is to stir up within us a greater sensitivity to how our own personal and private sins affect the life of the congregation as a whole. Looking at this chapter together, I think that we will appreciate and covet, once again, the faithful exercise of Christian discipline in our own midst as a congregation. And after looking at this chapter together, if I am faithful to my task, the result will also be this, that the gospel, the gospel of gracious salvation in Jesus Christ will, in the end, shine more gloriously in our hearts and in our consciences. Take as our theme this afternoon, the sin of Aitken. We look at that theme under three points. First, the horrible sin. Second, the corporate responsibility. And third, the appropriate punishment. What a glorious victory the people of Israel had just experienced. Through a miracle, through a wonder work of God alone, the walls of that mighty fortress Jericho had come tumbling down. And the battle of Jericho was not so much the battle of Jericho as it was the slaughter of Jericho. The whole city had been destroyed. But hopefully you remember, congregation, the instructions that God had given the Israelites concerning the city of Jericho. Not only must every living thing be killed, but all the gold and the silver and the vessels of brass and iron needed to be delivered over to the priests and put into the treasury of the Lord. And then everything else such as clothing and garments were to be burned. God told the Israelites that the city of Jericho was accursed. And He told the Israelites to keep themselves from the possession of Jericho lest they make themselves accursed and lest they make the entire camp of Israel a curse and trouble it. Well, here in Joshua 7, we see how the camp of Israel went from the heights of triumph to the depths of tragedy. In order to understand the sin of Achan, we need to understand what it was for something to be accursed. And we need to understand the spiritual significance of that idea. The word accursed in the text means, quite literally, simply, devoted. The word means to set apart, to devote to the Lord. And so the idea is this, if something is accursed, then it is devoted to the Lord, and it has been set aside for His glory. And in the case of Jericho, the whole city had been set aside. It had been devoted to the Lord's glory in the way of its own destruction. God had set Jericho apart. for destruction, and that would be how Jericho would serve the glory of God's name. God had devoted Jericho to destruction. He had placed His curse upon Jericho so that through Jericho's mighty fall and the evidence of God's power, the power and the glory and grace of God towards His people might be magnified. What that meant was this. First of all, Jericho's inhabitants were accursed. They were set aside for the Lord's glory in the way of their own destruction. But second, the gold and the silver. of Jericho were also accursed. They were devoted and set apart for the Lord's glory as well. But now the gold and the silver were devoted to the Lord's glory, not in the way of destruction, but in the way of being put into the treasury of the Lord. That's how the gold and silver, accursed, would be devoted to God's glory. Now remember what we said also last week. Jericho was representative. Jericho was representative of the entire land of Canaan. Jericho was a kind of firstfruits of the entire land. So the significance was this. The way in which the entire city of Jericho was being devoted to the Lord is really how it would be and how it needs to be with everything else in the entire land. None of the land ultimately belonged to the people, it all belonged to God, and it all must be devoted to God. Either in the way of destruction, namely the inhabitants of Canaan, or in the way of being used positively for the service of God's glory. The gold and the silver, for example. And though the Israelites would be able to keep the spoils, when they conquered the other cities, the point was, even those spoils, in the end, needed to be devoted to the service of God's glory. And Jericho, as the first city, represented that. And now to add to the significance of everything that has been said, keep this in mind as well. that life in the land of Canaan was a picture of life in the church of God. That's where the church of the Old Testament was being planted, in the land of Canaan. In the end, living as an Israelite in the promised land of Canaan meant it was a picture of being an outward member of the church of Jesus Christ. And this also highlights why the Canaanites needed to be rooted out of the land, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land filled with abundance, which God had reserved for his people, which God had devoted to the glory of his own name. The Canaanites were using it, devoting it to their own pleasure and their own glory. And God's purpose with everything was this. It needed to be devoted to him. And I think we can understand then why God emphasized so strongly to the Israelites that everything in Jericho was accursed. It needed to be devoted to the Lord in one way or another. Jericho was going to be a picture for the Israelites and for all of God's people. Of how God's people in the midst of the church must devote everything that they are and everything they have in one way or another to the honor and glory of God. Now, when you have all these ideas before you, then you can understand more easily what Achan's horrible sin actually was. We know what Achan's sin was. Achan took from Jericho a goodly Babylonish garment, an import from Babylon, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight. How much was this? Perhaps today it would be worth a value of $20,000, maybe $25,000. But what Aitken's sin really was, was this. He wanted in his heart to keep doing exactly what the Canaanites had been doing all along. He wanted to use the riches of the land of Canaan for his own pleasure and glory rather than devote them to the Lord. Achan was thoroughly earthly minded and not spiritually minded. For him, the conquest of Jericho was a mad scramble for the things of this earth. In the language of the text, Achan transgressed the covenant of God. He rebelled against God's clear instructions. Simply put, gold and silver were Achan's God. As the Bible says, covetousness is idolatry. And that's what Achan was guilty of. Idolatry. Covetousness. Greediness. Oh yes, he did it privately. It was a private sin. And at the time that he stole these things, no one else was affected by it. It wasn't like Achan was stealing from anybody else in Israel. He was merely stealing from God. But in the end, this was his sin. Instead of devoting everything that came into his possession to God and obeying God's clear instructions, Achan devoted them to himself. And the curse of God came upon him. And now it is true. It is true that we are all guilty of this sin to a greater or lesser degree. But what we need to notice from the passage that makes all the difference is this. Achan persisted in his sin. His lust for riches, his willful refusal to obey God, his covetousness was the single and all-dominating principle of his life. And Achan refused to turn from his sin. Yes, Achan made confession of his sin. And that might catch us off guard at first, but notice when he did it. He did it only after he was found out and only after Joshua had confronted him face-to-face, Achan was forced to confess. Think for a moment, congregation, on everything that had happened before Achan finally confessed his sin. First, before the battle of Jericho even started, God had given that clear command, everything must be devoted to Me. God had even warned the people that if anyone would take of the accursed thing, not only that individual, but all of Israel would fall under the curse of God. But Achan showed no concern for that. Achan was an eyewitness to the fall of the walls of Jericho. Achan had been marching around that city all seven days. He saw firsthand the awesome miracle of the destruction of Jericho's walls. Yet this, too, did not move Achan to keep himself from falling into temptation. Third, Joshua. After they had conquered the city, Joshua placed a curse upon the city of Jericho, emphasizing the seriousness of this whole event. Yet this too left Achan unmoved. Fourth, when Achan heard the news that Israel had lost the battle of Ai and that 36 men had died, it still left him unmoved. He still hoped. that he wouldn't be found with the gold and silver under his tent. So what if there were 36 widows who were grieving over the death of their husbands? So what if there were 36 grieving mothers whose boys had been slain in the battle? It didn't move Achan to repentance. This is the kind of hard-hearted man Achan was. Achan probably blamed Joshua that Joshua hadn't sent enough men to the battle. Fifth, after Joshua had prayed to God, and God told him that the accursed thing was in the camp of Israel, and Joshua told that to the people, Achan still didn't confess his sin. The next day, when it was first the tribe of Judah that was singled out, Achan still didn't confess his sin. Then when it was the clan of Achan's family that was singled out, Achan still didn't confess his sin. Then when it was the particular household of Achan, He still didn't confess his sin. And even when Achan himself was individually singled out, he still didn't confess until Joshua came to him face to face. And just read how Achan confesses in verse 20. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. And you can keep reading it. That does not sound like true repentance at all. Achan isn't here on his knees on the ground with tears streaming down his face, sorry for the sin he had committed, burdened with the guilt that was weighing him down. No, Achan admits his sin. He's forced to admit his sin, but he's not sorry. He's only sorry that he got caught. Achan was a wicked man, congregation. He knew his sin. He had deliberately sinned and he had persisted in his sin. Oh, how much care must Achan not have taken so that no one caught him stealing that gold and silver. You can almost imagine it. Achan there in the middle of the city of Jericho. Everyone else is storming the city, bringing the gold and silver to the priests into the treasury of the Lord. And there Achan is lurking in the shadows of the broken walls with the gold and silver in his hand, trying to get out of the city unnoticed. You shudder at the thought of the bold sin Achan had committed. The reality is, congregation, the sad reality is. What Achan does here, in the end, is a simple, common sin. And what Achan does here is not beneath any of us, left to ourselves. The sin of covetousness, of greed, of lusting after things which are not ours, is something that lives within that old man of sin, within each one of us. God calls us to devote all that we are to Him. God says, you are Mine. God says, I made you Mine through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And God says, now everything that I give you, everything of the earth, devote it to Me and My glory. God gives us the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day, you could say, is a kind of a firstfruits of the entire week. God says, all seven days are mine. You must live for me all seven days. But the first day will be special. Kind of like Jericho was special. The first day will be devoted to me in a special way. And it will be a picture of the rest of the week. But the sinful nature within us says, don't devote the Sabbath to the Lord. Keep it for yourself. and we don't take God's command seriously, then we don't care about the Sabbath day. So perhaps we choose to sleep through it, or we entertain ourselves with the entertainment of the world, or we boldly go and do our own work. God gives us money. And He says, it is mine. You are but a steward of it. I give you gold and silver. You are a steward of it. And the glorious way in which we can reflect that mindset is through devoting the firstfruits of our income to the Lord. Seeking first the kingdom of God. But the sinful nature minimizes it all and says, I don't need to. God gives me the blessed privilege, the joyful responsibility to seek first His kingdom, but my sinful nature says, it's not like anybody is going to see me and notice me if I don't do it. Will they? Proverbs 15 verse 27 says, He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house. He troubles his own house, even as we saw on Thanksgiving Day, because he brings God's trouble upon his own house. The sin of covetousness comes out in still other ways. It comes out, for example, in the sin of lusting after things which are not ours. Maybe it is sexual lusting. the gross, accursed sin of pornography, which is rampant, which is rampant in the church world. Or maybe it is the fantasies of the imagination, committing adultery in one's own mind. Again, a private sin, a personal sin, a sin that we might try to convince ourselves isn't affecting anybody else. We would even rob and steal from our spouses and be dishonest towards them in order to fulfill our own lustiness. But the Scripture says our bodies, too, are the Lord's. Our minds are the Lord's. They must be devoted to Him. They must be devoted to the marriage God has given us. But this is that old man of sin, isn't it? The old man of sin tries to turn us so that we devote ourselves to sin. And the great danger, the great danger is this, that like Achan, our hearts slowly become hardened and we begin to persist in these sins. Oh, the Lord is gracious to forgive congregation. Yes, he is. Seek his mercy and he will show you his loving kindness and his compassion every time. The Lord forgives 70 times, seven times more. He is much more gracious than any mere man. But maybe that's not how we react. By repenting. For example, we listen to the sermon this afternoon or in the morning, we hear God's clear pronouncement that His curse is on this sin or that sin. The pastor mentions sins that we are tolerating, and we go home, and it leaves us fundamentally unchanged. It's that there is no struggling against sin. That's the point. Instead, we give ourselves another excuse. It's a private sin. No one will find me out. It's what I do in the comfort of my own home. Maybe other people are doing it too. After all, it's only a little bit of gold, a little bit of silver, one piece of clothing that I'm pocketing. Not too big, not too much. And instead of devoting all that we are to God, we, like Achan, keep to ourselves that which must be devoted to God. And we bring upon ourselves the accursed thing. Oh, don't you think that there were others in Israel who saw the gold and silver lying in that prosperous city of Jericho, and their hearts coveted it too? Oh, you can be sure that was their sinful natures as well. But they withstood the temptation. They knew the Lord's words. They obeyed the Lord. But not Achan. Let us learn from Achan. What makes Achan's sin so horrible and so wretched was this. He knew. He knew that his sin would affect the rest of the congregation. He knew it. God said it would. And yet, he still went ahead and committed the sin anyway. The passage this afternoon emphasizes to us the reality of corporate responsibility. Because of Achan's sin, 36 men died. And the reality was this. If this sin was not going to be purged from Israel, God would leave His people and they would be utterly destroyed by their enemies. And Achan still had no care to confess his sin. Achan was willing to sacrifice the entire church to fulfill his lusts. That's the power of sin, congregation. What do we mean by that phrase, corporate responsibility? We simply mean this, that Aitken's sin was not just Aitken's sin. God also judged it to be Israel's sin. Israel as a nation, as a church, was responsible for Achan's sin. Corporate responsibility means this, that a man is not only judged individually for his sin, but he is judged as a member of a particular group as well, a particular body. Corporate. And his sin as an individual becomes the sin of the body as a whole. Now we might say, How is that fair? The reality is, this is how God has made it. This is how God operates as God. This is how God operates in the world of science, in biology. Think of a disease. You have heart disease, or you have lung disease, or liver disease, and that disease is located in that one organ. But it affects the health and the life of the entire body, doesn't it? If I lose an eye, that has an effect on the entire body. This is how God operates in the human race. Adam sinned, and all men fell in Adam. Jesus Christ obtains righteousness, and all men who are in Christ are redeemed. This idea of corporate responsibility stands at the very heart, at the very center of the Gospel. And this is also how God works in His church. Both in the Old Testament church and in the New Testament church today. And we might say, how is that fair? But the response must be, who are we to question God? God is just. He is always a just God. And besides, God is the Creator, the Founder of human society. And just as God says marriage is between one man and one woman, and that's how it is. And just as God says, honor those in authority, and that's how it is. So God also says, I will hold a body corporately responsible for the sins of its individual members. When a married individual sins, that married couple is held responsible for that sin. When a family member sins, that family unit is held responsible for that sin. When a student sins in the classroom, the whole class is held responsible. When citizens of a country sin, the whole country is held responsible for that sin. And when a member in the church sins, the church as a body is held responsible for the sins of one of its members. And you have a clear demonstration of that in this event. That's how the entire chapter starts out. Verse 1. But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. The children of Israel That's also in the text. Verse 11, Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and assembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. And this is what God says at the end of verse 12, Neither will I be with you any more. except ye destroy the accursed from among you." And notice, all the while, the people didn't even know what the sin was. Achan's sin was a private sin. Maybe his family knew. Maybe his family didn't even know. When Joshua prays to God after they lose the battle at Ai, God rebukes Joshua, it would seem. God says, get thee up. I am faithful, Joshua. I'm always faithful. Don't question me. It's the people. You shouldn't think there's something wrong on my part. There's something wrong on the people's part. And what was wrong? It was the sin of one man. And instead of reacting to this event by saying, that's not very fair, we would do better by reacting to this event with fear. Holy fear. The fear of the Lord. The desire to honor Him and to obey Him in our own private lives even more so. the desire to devote all that we have even more to God for the sake of our families, for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ, for the sake of the church we love, for the sake of the universal church, we should take an examination of our own personal and private lives. That's the application here. Corporate responsibility is real, congregation. It's how God interacts with His church today. When a son or a daughter of the congregation goes astray, do you think that his family or his church family remains unaffected by it? When an individual in a marriage is living in sin, private sin, do you think that that marriage is somehow unaffected by it? Or that the children are somehow unaffected by that private sin? Truly, that sin has an effect upon the entire congregation. When you're skipping church constantly, when you're perhaps sleeping in church constantly, don't think that that isn't making an impression upon the youth or the children. It has its effect. When an individual in the congregation goes astray and is placed under discipline, that gives occasion for the entire church to get on her knees and repent of her sin. This is not the individual's sin only. This is our sin. We are not individualistic congregation. Not when it comes to the raising of the covenant children. Not when it comes to living in our Christian walk. Not when it comes to the sins committed in privacy. That is essentially an Arminian way of looking at things. Each man for himself. What I do with my own life only affects me. Arminianism adopts an individualistic attitude. Because in Arminianism, it's what you choose. It is the difference you make yourself. And it's each man for himself, each man in his own individual circle. No, the Reformed, the biblical attitude is this. We are all members one of another. We are part of a body. Not one of us has made himself to differ. It is all by sovereign grace that we are here. And so the attitude then is this, I take care of the body because my ultimate care is not myself, but my ultimate care is the glory of God and not my own name first. And as we know, what's going on in one part of the body affects what's going on in the other parts of the body as well. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And the body as a whole is held responsible for the sins committed and tolerated among its individual members. And the bold word I have to speak to you this afternoon is this, if there are any private sins that you are harboring in your own personal lives, if there are private sins that you are persisting in, that's the point, persisting in in your own personal lives without repentance, I implore you, I implore you for your own sake and I implore you on behalf of the entire congregation, get rid of it and cast away the accursed thing from you. Oh, in the church, we are to judge each other charitably. In the church, there must not be this kind of attitude that we are policing one another. No, no, no. We look upon each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. We know the Spirit that lives within one another because we know that same Holy Spirit lives within us. We know that we have our own personal sins that we are struggling against. And we hate those sins. And we would cast them off. And by God's grace, we are making progress. And sometimes we backslide. And sometimes we make good progress, but there's always that battle, that struggle. But the word that I'm preaching is this. If there are sins you are persisting in, in your private lives, if there are sins that you are tolerating, Know these two things. First, if you persist in these sins, these sins will end up destroying you. Like Achan's private sin ended up destroying him. And second, if you persist in these sins, these sins will have a dreadful, a grievous, a mournful effect upon those closest to you and those around you in the body of Christ. And that's why, congregation, the exercise of church discipline as a mark of the church is so vitally important for the health of the congregation and the future of the congregation. This is what Joshua is doing when he confronts Achan with his sin. Church discipline. And Joshua was doing it for the sake of the entire congregation. To give you a simple illustration, consider this. You cannot treat cancer with vitamin pills. You cannot treat cancer with a vitamin pill you would take normally with your meal. Cancer requires radical surgery. And a person may think that his cancer is not all that big of a deal, but that doesn't change the situation or the reality. And the same way, in the same way, we may consider some sin not to be all that big of a deal. It's a private sin, a personal sin. But that does not alter the reality of things. That does not alter God's own view of it. In Matthew 5, verses 29 and 30, Jesus tells us that we should be willing to go to any extreme to avoid sin. That's where Jesus says, pluck out your eye, cut off your hand if it's leading you into sin. We should be willing to go to any extreme to avoid sin. And the only reason that might be so baffling to a person is because that person doesn't share Jesus' alarm over the danger of sin. Well, in the passage, God is strict. But we must see, congregation, in this entire event, God's grace, God's love is on every side. God shows His great love for His people by showing Joshua what's going on. God shows His love for His people by not abandoning them in the land of Canaan. He said, the curse will fall upon Israel if you take of the accursed thing. They took the accursed thing. But instead of abandoning them, God helps them to deal with the sin in their midst. That's God's grace shown to His people in the passage. An appropriate punishment is given out to Achan and his family. It was an appropriate punishment because, first of all, Achan was persistent in his sin. Let me emphasize that. There was no repentance. And second, the rest of the congregation needed to be preserved from that sin at all costs. This needed to be a spiritual lesson for them right away as they entered into the promised land. We know what that punishment was. Achan, his entire family, and all that he had, his cattle, his sheep, were brought to the Valley of Achor. Evidently, with all his animals, Achan seemed to be wealthy enough that he didn't even need that silver or that gold or that Babylonish garment. He was wealthy enough. Yet this is the snare of sin. Joshua says to him, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. Achan is stoned and his family and all that he has is burnt. It is a harsh punishment, but it is a punishment that God is carrying out. And the lesson must not be forgotten. Everything, everything about the land of Canaan, everything about the people of God, everything about the church must be devoted to God, to His honour and glory. Otherwise, in the end, it is accursed. And what about us, congregation? How do we escape that same judgment falling upon us? For as I have said, these sins are not below any of us. Well, this is the reason we must continually be fleeing to the foot of the cross. And at the foot of the cross, I fall down with the burden of guilt to cast off that burden of guilt at the foot of the cross. There, at the foot of the cross, I have tears streaming down my face, and I confess freely, openly, my sin to God. At the foot of the cross, I repent of my sin. At the foot of the cross, I condemn my own sin as worthy of such punishment. At the foot of the cross, I renew my commitment to forsake my sin. I fight against my sin. I pray. I pray for forgiveness. I pray for the strength to overcome my sin. And I pray that the congregation might also not be held responsible for my dreadful sins. And I look to the cross. By God's grace, I look to the cross. And there at the cross, God causes me to see once again. That it was Jesus who took my place when it was I. Who deserved to be stoned to death. And to be hanged on a tree. And to be burnt with the fires of hell. There he took upon himself that curse that was upon me, so that I might not be devoted unto destruction, but that I might be devoted unto the enjoyment of life with God, and to be a vessel of mercy fitted for glory. And now I see myself as one whom God has set apart in Jesus Christ, for I devote all that I am in love to Him. And I pray, Lord, fulfill Thy purposes in me. Fulfill Thy purposes in us. Cause that all that we are and all that we have be devoted to the glory of Thy name. Give us Thy grace. Without it, we fall away. Uphold us, Lord. Work within us a greater fear of Thy holy name. And may we be a blessing to the congregation. May we keep Thy covenant. For Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen. And congregation, That is a prayer that the Lord will gladly, graciously grant. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank Thee for the mercies that are show us in Christ. We thank Thee that the Valley of Acre has become a door of hope. As we look at Christ, who stood in our place and bore thy wrath and the curse due unto us. May we be sensitive, Father. To thy holiness. May the preaching. Be applied to our hearts by thy spirit. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.