from the very first verse, we're given the tone of the chapter. It gives us, as readers, this first verse, it gives us the dramatic irony, the dramatic irony. It gives us the background of what is about to happen. For those of you who aren't familiar with that term, dramatic irony, that is, it's a tool that authors will use when they're writing a story. Their goal is to make something known to the readers, that the people in the story, the people that are doing things, that they don't know. So we know something that the readers of the story don't know. Following the conquest of Jericho, God's name through Joshua was made great. That was the last thing we were told in chapter six. It said, so the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land. But in this first verse, we're given the dreadful, dramatic irony, this piece of information that no one else in the story knows, except for God, except for Achan, that Israel has broken faith with God. This is unknown to Israel, but the reality of that fact stands throughout the whole chapter. Israel has broken faith with God. All Israel stands guilty before God. They have failed to obey God's command at the Battle of Jericho. Some of the devoted things that were supposed to be given over to God, the gold, the silver, the bronze vessels, those things from Jericho, they were supposed to be given to God. Achan stole from God. Achan's sin has consequences for all of Israel. But why are we told this right away? Why are we told this piece of information in the first verse? We're told this because this is why what is about to happen happens. And I wanted to open up our time tonight, before diving into the text, just making that note, that little note. In verse one, we're given the whole tone of the rest of the chapter and everything that happens. This is why these things happen. We'll look at what Achan did and why he did it in more detail later, but for now, we just, our chapter opens up with this piece of dramatic irony. Something is rotten. in the state of Israel. Something so rotten that it stands in the way of God giving Israel the land. And so because of this, because something is rotten in Israel, God moves to purify his people. And so Joshua is showing us here tonight that God will make his name great. Even if it means standing against his own people. God will make his name great even if it means standing against his own people. We see this as we see the first failed attack of Ai and then we'll see after that attack we see how God makes his name great. So we'll see that in the first nine verses we see Israel's failure. And then we see in the following verses, 10 to 26, we see how God purifies, we see God's purification of Israel. So the Israelites, they're hot off the all-important win, just as soon as they're finished with Jericho, as soon as they're finished destroying everything that needs to be destroyed in Jericho, their eyes are set on the next step, their eyes are set on the next city. God has just handed them the most powerful city in all of Canaan. Their confidence must be at an all-time high at this point. And really, who could blame them? God is on their side. All of Jericho has been destroyed. That which is devoted to the Lord has been placed in the tabernacle, placed in the treasury of the Lord. Or so they thought. Or so they thought. The eyes of Israel now turn towards the city of Ai. Ai is west of Jericho, so they're moving further westward from the Jordan, moving into the land. Not a whole lot is known about Ai. We know that Ai was much smaller than Jericho, that it was much less defended than Jericho was, so some consider Ai to be sort of this quickly kind of put up a military outpost for the defense of the surrounding cities, the city of Bethel, the area of Beth-Avon. If God could so easily take Jericho, he could take Ai with both of his hands tied behind his back. So Joshua, he sends spies to scout out the land. He's doing his due diligence. The spies come back to him in verse three and they say, do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there for they are few. The people of Ai are few. Israel's confident. Israel is confident. They have scouted out the city. They know that God is on their side, or so they think. So about 3,000 men go up to take the city. But here's the hard truth. When God is not on your side, nothing you ever do will succeed. Notice that in the space of one verse, in the space of one breath, almost, things go from confidence to absolute despair. It's almost as if from the first battle cry of Israel, their defeat is all but realized. We're told in verse four that as soon as they went up, they instantly turned around. And to make what matters worse, in their retreat from Ai, they lose 36 fighting men. Notice the effect that this has on the people. Very important detail at the end of verse five. The hearts of the people melted and became as water. Do you remember Rahab's report of the people, how she describes sort of the state of the Canaanites in chapter two? She said that when they heard of what God did at the Red Sea, they said, our hearts melted because of what God did. Israel is described with the same language as God's enemies. Their hearts melted. God is standing against Israel. This is a complete and utter shock to Israel. I mean, for any invading force, for any invading force to lose men, that's a hard loss in and of itself. It's hard to replenish that loss, but that isn't why this is so shocking. The failure to take eye clearly shows that God is not on their side. John Calvin comments on this when he says that it was a terror from heaven. It was a terror from heaven which dismayed them, more than the death of 30 men and the flight of 3,000. It was a terror from heaven that dismayed them. And this hits Joshua and the elders the hardest. They've been leading the people, they've been stepping forward, stepping forward in faith, they've been stepping forward knowing that just as surely as God dried up the Jordan, knowing just as surely as God tore down the walls of Jericho, knowing surely God is with them, knowing that no one could ever stand in their way, they experience this utter defeat. They're lost. And so we see the classic Old Testament signs of mourning and weeping. Joshua and the elders, they tear their clothes. They fall to their face. They lay prostrated before the Ark of the Covenant. They put dust on their heads. In response to their defeat, what does Joshua do? Notice what Joshua does. It's very important. He doesn't curse God. He doesn't build a golden calf thinking, well, I guess God's abandoned us, let's go try and find the next best God. He doesn't even go back to the commander's tent to try and devise some sort of a counterattack. What does Joshua do? In verses seven and nine, we see Joshua run to God in prayer. He sees his utter helplessness and where does he go? Joshua runs to God. There are really two parts to his prayer. First, we see in verse seven, Joshua brings his distress before God. Brings the distressfulness of this situation before God. And then in verses eight and nine, we see Joshua bring an all-important question before God. What we have here is a prayer filled with bold language before God. We see Joshua wrestling with the will of God. We see a man of faith wrestling with God. Joshua, we see in Joshua's distress, alas, oh Lord, verse seven. Why have you brought this people over the Jordan to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan. Joshua feels the weight of their defeat. They are a small nation and they are invading a much larger, much more established, much better defended nation. But we also see Joshua ask a question of God, a very important question. What will you do for your great name? What will you do for your great name? For Israel to enter the land with this confidence that they've had so far, only for them to now turn their backs and run away from facing down what is a less significant enemy than at Jericho, Them to do that, Joshua knows that this will send shockwaves throughout Canaan. That everyone will think Israel is weak. The Canaanites will pounce on them. The Canaanites will see what has happened to Ai and they'll think, well obviously what happened to Jericho was a fluke. It must have just been a crazy earthquake that just tore the walls down. We can go and take them. That's what all the land will think in response to this retreat from Ai. But this is such a bold and profound question from Joshua. What will you do for your great name? I know in verse one we were given that dramatic irony. We know why the attack on Ai failed, but Joshua does not. And to say that Joshua and Israel are distressed would be a pretty significant understatement. After all, God promised to give them the land. God has proven that nothing can stand in his way. Not rivers, not walls. And so Joshua cries out to God, cries out, what is going on? What's going on? Won't you make your name great? Won't you make your name holy? Here we see how God operates. God halts the invasion of the land. What's more important to God? What's more important to God? Claiming the land or purifying his people? What's more important to God? The conquering of land that is already his or having covenant faithfulness among his people? That's really what's at stake and what's going on. The sin of Achan has corrupted the whole people. We'll look more closely at that in a moment, but the sin of Achan has corrupted the whole people. Why does God allow the defeat at Ai? What is he really doing? How is he, he is showing his people their sin. I love how one commentator puts it when they said, he said, God uses trials, obstacles, and setbacks He uses those to do one of three things, maybe more than one of three things, but one of three things. He uses trials, obstacles, and setbacks to grow our faith, to deepen our experience of grace, and sometimes, as in the case of I, to reveal our sin. What plans is God halting in your life? Think about that for a moment. What plans is God halting in your life. We all have plans, we all pray that those plans are in line with God's will, but is there something that God is halting in your life? We learn here that this is how God puts things in our way. Why? Why does he allow suffering to come upon his people? Remember what Peter says in his first letter. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, that's a refiner's fire, your faith is being refined, and that it may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. God allows these interruptions to draw you back, to draw you closer to himself. He's doing one of these three things that I mentioned. He's growing your faith. He's deepening your experience of his grace, or he is trying to expose some sin in your heart. When God stops you in your tracks, whether it be through sickness, or suffering, or distress, we need to stop and ask, what is God showing me? What is God showing me? How are you, God, growing my faith during this time? How are you showing me your grace in this? What sins do I need to bring to the cross? Joshua here gives us an example of what we should do in these times, in times of trouble and distress. In times where God has halted the world around us, we need to stop and we need to pray. Run to God asking him, what will you do to make your name great? What are you doing? What do I need to see? What are you exposing to me? But in asking that, we need to be ready. We need to be ready for the mirror to be turned towards us. For God to say that he is revealing something in us that needs to be dealt with. As we turn to look at God's response to Joshua, we'll see in the remainder of the chapter that God declares war on Israel. God's declaring war on Israel. And God continues to declare war on sin. And he moves in a mighty and holy way. God is purifying his people. And so as we turn to look to see how God purifies his people, in God's response we see that God uses the same language, the same battle language that he used with the battle of Jericho. There are many similarities between this chapter and the chapter that came before it with the Battle of Jericho. If you remember, when we looked at the Battle of Jericho, one thing that was pointed out to us is that this isn't Israel versus Jericho. This isn't even so much a God versus Jericho. This is God versus sin. This is God versus sin. At its core, that is a battle between God and sin. And God will stop at nothing. to make his name great. He made his name great, he made his name known among the nations as he waged war against the sins of the nations. He will also make his name great as he now deals with the sin of his own people. He is a holy God and he has called his chosen people to also be holy. And so God stops the advance of his kingdom that he is establishing on earth. He stops the advance of his kingdom in order to bring them back to covenant obedience. Let's look at God's response to Joshua's prayer. Verse 10, get up, get up. Why have you fallen on your face? Something is rotten in the state of Israel. God gives five accusations against Israel in verse 11. The people have transgressed my covenant. Two, they have taken from the devoted things. If you remember back during the Battle of Jericho. Everything that, all of the precious metals were to be stored up in the treasury of the Lord. Someone has stolen from these holy, sacred things of the Lord. So they've transgressed the covenant, they've stolen from the, taken from the devoted things. They stole, they lied about it, and then finally they placed it among their own possessions. Those are five accusations that God gives to the nation of Israel. This puts Israel in a very precarious position. Verse 12 tells us that not only will Israel fail against their enemies from here on out until this is dealt with, not only are we told that, but even worse, God is ready to leave his people. I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. That is what is at stake. How seriously does God take sin? Look at what he's ready to do. He is ready to leave his people. He also commands Joshua, get up, consecrate the people, get the people ready, prepare for battle, God is saying. All the people are to gather before God, and God will work his way systematically throughout the nation, starting with the tribes, starting, then moving on to the clans, and then the households, and then he will find the one who has sinned against him. He will find the man responsible. God will expose the sin of Israel. And so they do just that. And here we have the same language as the previous chapter. In verse 15 we're told that when they had taken from the devoted things, he will burn the person with fire. He will destroy them. Jericho was to be burned with fire and completely destroyed. And then we see even the same language in verse 16, and Joshua rose in the morning. He rose early in the morning. We see the same battle language. As the previous chapter, God is declaring battle against his own people. God is at war against sin. He is committed to purifying his people. So I opened asking the question, how far will God go to preserve his holiness? How far will God go to make his name great? This is how far God will go. And so the nations come forward. The tribe of Judah is selected. And then the clan of the Zarahites. And then the household of Zabdi. And then finally, Achan is found. Achan is chosen. You can't hide from God. God knows all. God sees all. Yet this is exactly what we try to do, isn't it? When we sin, we think that because no one else is around and no one else knows or no one else sees what we do, we think we can keep it secret. We forget that God knows the hearts of man. He knows our hearts, he knows our sin, he knows us better than we do. Once Achan is found out, Joshua approaches him and he says, my son, My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me." Joshua tells Achan to confess what he has done. His sin has caused the punishment of the whole nation. Sin dishonors God. But confession, confession brings glory to his name. And let's look at Achan's confession. Achan tells Joshua, truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw, when I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak of shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, Then I coveted them, then I coveted them, and I took them, I took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath." What's going on here? What is going on here in Achan's confession should remind us of the language from Genesis 3. How one man's fall into sin corrupted a whole people. The sin of Achan is not all that different from the sin of Adam and Eve. What we see with Achan's confession is exactly how Adam and Eve fell, and that is exactly how sin works in our lives today, in our hearts today. Notice what Achan says. He gives sort of this threefold progression. With each step, he falls deeper and deeper into sin. First, he saw the spoils. First he saw the spoils, just as Eve saw the fruit. Just as we see things that draw our eyes away from God. Second, Achan coveted. Achan coveted. The fruit was a delight to Eve's eyes. We want the very thing that we should not be looking at. We want the very thing that's drawing our eyes away from God. And then finally, Achan took. Eve took the fruit, we take what is not ours. This is how sin operates in our lives. We see, we covet, and then we take. There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to the devil's tricks. He's prowling around like a roaring lion. The world is always looking for new ways to draw our eyes away from Christ and onto the world. and your flesh so easily gives in to its own passions. It draws you away from God. But God's will is clear. He is a holy God and he has called you to be holy. This means that we too must be vigilant in our battles against sin. God's anger burns against sin. We see that in the conclusion of this chapter. As Joshua and all of Israel bring Achan and his family to the Valley of Acre, or the Valley of Trouble, as I'm sure your Bibles have footnoted. And Achan and his family and all that belongs to him are stoned and burned. How far will God go to make his name holy? How far will God go to preserve his great name? You may be asking, you know, what specifically was it about Achan's sin that he deserved this? Achan not only stole from what was meant for God and the things devoted to him, Achan actually sought after an immediate gratification, sort of that instant gratification. That's what Achan was seeking after. He decided to take the spoils of God from the Battle of Jericho instead of waiting for the inheritance of the whole land, that was the spoil of the war that Achan was a part of. Instead of waiting for that inheritance he grabbed for that immediate gratification of 200 pieces of silver and a gold bar and an ice cloak. And you also may rightly be asking, well, why did his children also suffer? Why did his children also suffer? If you noticed, Achan hid what he stole in his tent. A private sin to the rest of Israel, and the rest of Israel was unaware that he had done this, but a sin that his children inside the tent essentially aided and abetted him in. They share in the guilt of their father. There's no denying that this is a hard and this is a difficult text, and these are hard lessons for us. And this isn't even the only spot in scripture where we wrestle with these things. A few weeks ago, Pastor preached on Ananias and Sapphira, and you also have the story of Uzzah and the Ark, and these difficult passages where we see what our sins truly deserve. These are hard and terrifying passages. But these passages provide us with that black backdrop of sin, that black backdrop on which the diamond of Christ shines all the brighter. Christ took on the full wrath of God that our sins deserve. He stood in our place. He is the propitiation of our sins. He has satisfied God's wrath towards us. For those who are his, for those who are gathered here this evening, we stand assured, assured that nothing can separate us from Christ. Christ is the one who holds on to us. And because he holds on to us, because we are counted as his brothers and sisters, God looks on us with his favor. We can go forward knowing that Christ has taken on the wrath of God that is displayed to us in this text. We do not need to fear being stoned. We do not need to fear fire from heaven. But we do need to watch how we live. We do need to watch how we live. We need to sort of give no ground to the enemy. Give no ground to the devil. As Paul says in Romans 13, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. You are being transformed. You are being conformed day by day into the likeness of Christ, renewed day by day. It is your work. to die to sin and to live to righteousness, and we must stand alert. Be vigilant, standing on guard against sin, fixing our eyes on Christ, never veering our gaze from who Christ is, setting our minds on things above. We also know, we also need to go forward knowing, That when we do fail, when we do stumble and fall into sin again, we have Christ and we are preserved in Him and we need to run to Him. We need to run to Him and confess our sins. Don't try to hide your sins from God. It's impossible. We must remember that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Those are the precious truths that we have in scripture, just run to God. So are there any plans in your life that are being halted? Let's follow the example of Joshua that we have in this text, let's run to God. We need to run to him, bowing before him. and ask, God, what is he exposing in our lives? How does my faith need to grow? What do I need a deeper understanding of when it comes to his grace? Is he exposing sin that I need to bring before the cross? There's no hiding our sin from God. It's foolish to even try. God knows our hearts. He knows our hearts better than we do. How far will God go to preserve his holiness? Sin has no place in the presence of God and he will stop at nothing to make his name holy, to make his name great. Even if that means sending his own son. Even if that means sending his own son to die for you. Jesus, the friend of sinners, who took the punishment that we deserve, never forget that we are hidden in Christ. And when we're tried or tempted, Christ is your strength. In Jesus, you have victory over your sins. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,