Let us first go to God in prayer.

“Our most holy God, only You can make a valley of dry bones live; and so only to You do we turn and ask for help to understand these words, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Well, words spark memories. We like to sit and talk sometimes together, reminisce about the past. Certain keywords spark sweet memories. Perhaps for some of you, sports day reminds you of some nice moments in your life. You remember the time when you could still run fast, winning a medal. Or maybe for some of us, church camp/youth camp this kind of thing sparks fantastic memories of laughter and fun. But different words would spark different memories. The rotan (the cane), and we think of the painful lessons. The cane reminds us only of failure, sin, and pain.

And so it is for the nation of Israel. Mention to them Jericho, and they remember their glory days. “Remember the time when we fought the battle of Jericho, God was with us. We obeyed Him and He gave us victory, brought those walls down when it seemed impossible. Those were our high moments.” But mention Ai, and all they will think of is sin, defeat, and death. Such a contrast between the two. If we just go to the previous chapter in Joshua 6:27, how did it end? Our previous encounter of this story: “So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country.”. When God’s people are obedient, are faithful, God helps them and they achieve victory. And when these things happen, God is glorified. God is honoured.

The neighbouring nations, the whole country is afraid of these people not because they are powerful, not because they are strong, because their God is the one true God. Their God can do anything, and the rest of their enemies are afraid of them. But just one verse later, a complete turn. The next verse says: “But the children of Israel committed a trespass concerning the accursed things”. There are certain things they should not have touched. God said do not touch these things, but somebody touched it. “So the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel.”. Now as we read such a verse, only one thing can come to our minds, and that is trouble is coming. When you disobey God and “the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel”, we can only expect one thing: Trouble is coming.

And today, our story is all about trouble. Literally, our story is about a man named Achan, whose name means ‘trouble’. And so, let us consider this story of trouble under three headings. Heading number one, the realisation of trouble. What happens? The people did not know this particular piece of information. And so they carried on their activity. We just beat Jericho, we are feeling confident, let’s move on. And so they went from Jericho to the next city called Ai. And as usual, they would send out spies. They want to gather intel. It is good strategy to know more about your enemy. And the spies come back in verse 3 and they say: “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand”. Out of the forty thousand they had, they said: “Let’s send a few”.

Remember Jericho, that difficult one? This is the total opposite of that. Ai is gonna be easy. Why? “Because the people of Ai are few.” Do not weary all the people. Don’t trouble yourself. Those of you who haven’t wake up, don’t need. Don’t disturb them. We don’t need everyone. This is going to be easy. And so, let’s go. So about three thousand men went up there from the people. But they fled before the men of Ai. Now to some of you, are you familiar with that National Geographic video clip where they have this lion chasing after the zebra, and the National Geographic theme song is being played? Now imagine that picture in reverse. Can you imagine the zebra chasing after the lion and the lion running away for help?

That is what we see here. Israel is considered a powerhouse nation now. They can defeat anybody, and they go into this battle as the favourites to win. But they encountered a surprising defeat. In fact, they were totally defeated. They were fleeing. They were running away from their little enemy, the nation of Ai. And there’s some kind of a slope over here because they were chasing them. And as you picture this in your mind, it would have been comical if not for the fact that people are dying. It’s not a laughing matter. They are suffering a humiliating defeat here, and it is not a joke. Nobody is laughing here. On the slope, as they are running down, people are dying. “Therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water.”

Now let’s pause here for a while. Do you remember these words: “the hearts of the people melted”? Recall Joshua chapter 2. Rahab was telling the spy something. What did she tell the spies? “Our powerful nation, Jericho, when we heard what your God can do, our hearts melted.”. That is the effect when people hear what God can do. They don’t even want to fight anymore. What for bother fighting? No, we are going to lose. A few chapters after that (Joshua chapter 5), again verse 1 says what? When they heard that the children of Israel coming (they are coming). They crossed the river Jordan. How? Opened the river. When they heard, their hearts melted. Their soldiers don’t even want to fight. Who can win? Who can defeat this powerful nation?

But how the roles have been reversed, how the tables have turned. Now it is Israel’s turn. It is their turn. These words supposed to be describing their enemies is now describing Israel. Now it’s their turn to have their hearts melted, and they became like water. Defeat has led to despair. And how do you think Joshua is feeling right now? Verse 6, he must be feeling really, really down to be able, to be strong enough to tear his clothes (Of course, not as strong as Ezra who tore his beard but equally strong, almost. Joshua tore his clothes). He cannot believe what he’s hearing. How did we lose? “And he fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD”.

Again, let us pause here for a little while. He did not fall before the people of Israel; he did not fall before the leaders of his army. He fell before the ark of the LORD. Why? Because for Joshua, he understood one thing: He remembered that when they crossed that river; when the impossible was being done when the river was opened up, the ark of the covenant of the LORD was in the center of it. When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, they were marching around it in formation, and in the center of that formation was the ark of the covenant of the LORD. God gave them victory. If they have victory, it’s because God gave them victory. And so, if they lose, it is because God made them lose.

Joshua can see that. He understands one thing: Victory came from God; defeat now has come from God, and Joshua wants to know why. Why did we lose? It is unthinkable. You promised us something. In chapter 1 You said that You will be with me, You will never leave me nor forsake me. How did we lose? You said we would defeat everybody. No man will be able to stand before me. That’s what You said. Why did we lose? And Joshua is praying here and he’s pleading, and he’s wondering why. Is it possible that God’s people can lose? What will happen to us? If the neighbouring nations hear of it, what would happen to us? Verse 9: “The Canaanites, all the inhabitants of the land will hear it, they will cut off our name from the earth.”.

You have led us into a war zone. And now if You don’t guarantee us victory, there’s only one thing that’s gonna happen. We’re gonna be extinct, all our enemies surrounding us. If You don’t help us win, we are going to be wiped out from the face of this earth. “And what will it do for Your great name?”, Joshua prays here. And he asks: Does this honour You? If Your people will be utterly destroyed, what would be their reaction to these people’s God? Is this God not powerful enough to protect His people? It is unthinkable that we should experience defeat. But a surprising defeat has led to a shocking discovery. Let us go to our second heading. They realise they are in trouble, now we see the reason for their trouble.

Consider the response in verse 10: “So the LORD said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face?”. Now, this response is already very, very striking. It is shocking. It is especially striking when especially after listening to the observation made by Pastor Sinclair Ferguson who said this. He said: “Do you find in Scripture that we are called to not pray or pray less maybe?”. On the contrary, we know of verses after verses where we are encouraged to pray. Paul says pray always. Pray unceasingly. Even our Lord Jesus taught us to pray. Men always ought to pray and not lose heart. And so it is very shocking here that God stops prayer. Why? Why does He say: “stop it”? Whatever you are doing now, I do not accept it. There is a big, big problem.

This is the reason why. This is the reason for your trouble: Israel has sinned. And now we go on some sort of a rampage here. Can you sense the tone of rage of wrath? “Israel has sinned, they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things”. I gave them instructions. Something here, don’t touch. If you touch, that is sin. When God says don’t touch and we touch, that is called sin. Some of them took it, “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”. Don’t speculate. Don’t try to be smart and gather your armies and try to think: “Why did we lose? Why did we lose?

Well, we were too proud? We were overconfident? We sent too few people? Let’s try it again. Send more, change strategy.” No use. You lost because you sinned. Verse 12 makes it crystal clear: “Therefore you cannot stand before your enemy”. Therefore you are destroyed because you sinned. Israel has sinned, and God is not done because they have become doomed to destruction. What is this word ‘doomed to destruction’? It’s supposed to be describing God’s enemies, Israel’s enemies. Who is doomed to destruction? Who’s heading to destruction? Jericho, this evil nation, this perverse nation. And they are so-called ‘cursed’. They are heading for destruction. Why do you want to take their things? You want to be a part of them?

The word ‘doomed to destruction’ is describing Jericho. It’s describing Sodom and Gomorrah. Don’t go near that evil city. God already decided that this city is heading for destruction, no hope for them anymore. Why do you want to go back and be part of them? The world is doomed to destruction. Why would you want to be a part of that? Israel now is doomed to destruction. God is not done. He says: “neither will I be with you anymore”. Look at all the reversal of every promise He ever made in chapter 1. God said: “I will be with you. I will always be there to help you”. A total reversal. Can you sense the anger of the LORD here in verse 12? In effect, what is He saying? What is the bottom line here? My people are no longer My people.

What a terrible thing it is if God were to say that My people are no longer My people. The world is heading for destruction, but My people also heading for destruction. This is serious. And perhaps some of us might be starting to wonder: What is the big deal? This is a small sin, isn’t it? One person took something. Just one tiny sin. What’s the big deal about just one sin? Just one act of disobedience and God wants to disown His people? What’s the big deal? Now if you are wondering what is the big deal, what is so serious about this sin; if you are wondering why God is making such a big deal of this one sin, then I wonder whether it’s perhaps due to a false understanding.

We don’t know something here. We don’t understand how serious is sin. And perhaps that is down to the deadly preaching that we hear nowadays. Preaching out there is trying to tickle our ears. They’re trying to say things that we like. They’re trying to preach the gospel where they say: “Do you want to go to heaven? Do we want to go to heaven? Let’s all go to heaven. All you need to do is accept the Lord Jesus Christ.”. And I’ve heard that personally. I’ve heard that before. I have people who once told me that “church is not for me. I have no time to go to church. I’ve got other things to do. But don’t worry about me ah- don’t worry about me. I trust in Jesus. I trust in Jesus, so I’m fine.”. What a false understanding of the gospel.

And I wouldn’t dare to say that it’s just out there. The preaching out there is polluting our minds that people now don’t understand the seriousness of sin. How about us? Consider some way of thinking that is so deadly, that is found even for us. Have you ever thought something like this: “Oh I’m in some trouble. I’m in some difficulty now, but if I could just commit just one sin- one little sin, and get out of this trouble, oh I’ll be very thankful. Maybe I accidentally scratched somebody’s car. Oh, I’m gonna be in big trouble. I’m gonna be in this trouble, that trouble, so much trouble. I just need to tell a lie, and everything will disappear. One small sin.”?

Have you thought this before: “Oh this is a sin. It’s very hard to say no to this temptation, but don’t worry. Commit this sin, tonight pray more. Pray extra. Usually, I pray half an hour early at night; tonight, pray more.”? Do we sometimes think like that? Sin first, tonight confess my sin. Sin first, it’s okay. We do not understand the seriousness of sin unless we understand the holiness of God. This kind of thinking just shows that we do not understand the holiness of God. Allow me to borrow the book from A.W. Pink who talks about the holiness of God. He said: “If power is God’s arm and omniscience is God’s eye, then holiness is God’s beauty”. The beauty of holiness. 2 Chronicles 20:21 says: “praising praises of the beauty of holiness”.

God’s beauty is His holiness. Psalm 89:35 says: “I will swear by My holiness”. Why doesn’t He say: “I will swear by My name”? Because holiness is a fuller expression of God. Instead of saying addressing God, sometimes we can say the Holy One or the Most Holy One because that is an expression of Himself. God is so holy. If we understand that, there can be no mixing. It should be unthinkable that a holy God can mix around and have fellowship and communion with a sinful people. And that is something we must understand- the holiness of God. We understand the holiness of God, we will understand the seriousness of sin. And instead of saying this is just a small sin, never mind I sin first and then later I confess my sin and ask for forgiveness.

That is not how God’s people think. They hate sin because God hates sin. I think even this pandemic I can use a simple illustration to help you understand this. When you hear of somebody having let’s just say the virus, do we go near the person and say: “Oh, 1.5 meters. I can go. Doctors say okay ah, 1.5 meters right”? No, we’ll run. A few months back when we heard Sunway Pyramid got one case, everybody don’t want to go. The whole building, we go far, far away from it. To us sin (I mean towards the virus), it’s “oh yucks, yucks”. Oh, stay away from me. I don’t want anything to do with that virus. I don’t even want to go near the building where the person was there. And for God’s people (the church), that is our attitude to sin. It should be detestable.

We should hate sin like how Jesus said if your hand causes you to sin, you might want to chop it off (although not literally), but rather you lose an arm than your whole body be cast into hell. That is the Christian’s attitude towards sin, not “aiyah sin is okay. What’s the big deal of just one sin? Just for one sin, and the whole nation now is facing death?” Well, yes. Remember just for one sin Adam and Eve was put out of the Garden of Eden. Just for one sin, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. For one sin, Ananias and Sapphira was wiped off and was struck dead. And now for one sin- one sin of Achan and the entire nation of Israel are about to be extinct. No wonder.

No wonder this shocking response from God who said: “Get up. Stop praying. Stop what you’re doing.”. Works of piety are never a substitute for obedience. You see the two times God says get up. Verse 10: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face?”. In verse 13: “Get up, sanctify yourself”. God’s response to His people is stop what you are doing and sanctify yourself. 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel told King Saul: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice”. Let us not have a distorted view of God like He’s some kind of a child throwing a tantrum and so we give Him a lollipop to try and appease Him.

No, it doesn’t work that way. We don’t sin first and then try to appease God by serving Him and we tell Him that oh, ninety percent of my life I’m in church and serving You in this and that. No, God says stop it. Stop your prayer meeting. Stop your Bible study. Stop your worship. Stop everything. Works of piety is not a substitute for obedience. And so God tells them: “Get up. Stop what you are doing. You are about to be extinct. Get up, sanctify yourself.”. And you will realise that the nation of Israel doesn’t complain here. None of them are asking God why. None of them is questioning God because they understood. They understood from Joshua chapter 1 what happens when we sin.

God says I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you (He told Joshua) as long as you obey Me. My Word, keep it and you will prosper wherever you go. And towards the end in verse 16 of chapter 1, they answered Joshua. The people all told Joshua: “All that you command us we will do, wherever you send us we will go.”. We will obey everything because we know the holy God expects that of us. And verse 18: “Whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words, in all that you command him (meaning we obey everything), anybody rebel “shall be put to death”. Not God’s words, their own words. The nation of Israel understood the seriousness of sin because they understood the holiness of God.

Do we understand the holiness of God? Verse 13 again: “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”. The realisation of trouble has led to them knowing the reason for their trouble. Finally, let’s consider the removal of trouble. And this is amazing. This is amazing that God although He has found His people to be unfaithful, they’ve broken the covenant, and yet He continues. He doesn’t stop there and say you’re not My people, you are doomed to destruction, finished. It is grace that you find here. We preach a gospel of grace. There is grace found in verse 14. God is starting to give them what? Instruction.

There is trouble, but I’m gonna tell you now how to remove that trouble. And basically, the instruction here is line the people up- tribe by tribe, clan by clan, house by house, man by man. Line them up. This is a, you could say a preview of Judgement Day. Nobody will be left out. Everybody line up. Now, where’s our main character? Oh, he’s there. He was always there. Achan was there since the beginning. Look at his heritage: son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zera, tribe of Judah. He’s very much a part of God’s people, Achan. He was there since the beginning. Great-grandfather already there. He was there of course when God pronounced this judgement upon them and said Israel have sinned. But what is Achan thinking? Who is “somebody have sinned”? Is it me? Is it someone else?

I think it’s not me. Just keep quiet. Line up. And the tribe of Judah was taken. They are narrowing it down. They’re looking for the culprit. Where are you, tribe of Judah? Take it. And his heart is beating now, 1.5 speed. Oh, getting faster. That’s my tribe. The clan of Zera was taken. That’s my great-grandfather. Heart beating faster, times two. Next, the house of Zabdi. Grandfather! Times five speed. Did they find me with someone else? Can’t be me. Carmi, my family. And now Achan, we found you. It was you! The reason for their trouble was none other than the man whose name means trouble. They found him, they confronted him, and this is what Achan had to say.

Verse 21: “When I saw among the spoils (yes I’m not supposed to touch it, but when I saw) a beautiful Babylonian garment”. A little bit of this; a little bit of that, and I liked it. I saw, very nice. “I coveted them and I took them”. They are under my tent, everything. Sounds familiar? Brings us back to the Garden of Eden. Eve saw, was very nice to her eyes, and she desired it. She wanted it. And so she took it and she ate it. That is disobedience. “And Joshua sent the messengers, they ran”. They searched his tent, they found it, and they took everything.

Verse 24: “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, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor.”. Very often sin is not just one sin. We like to say I just want to commit one sin. No, sin doesn’t stop at one. When you sin, people are involved. People have to cover up for you. You have to lie. When we say, “Did you sin?”, obviously you will say no. It’s not just one sin. It’s not just one person. And all to remove trouble, Joshua took them all, this man of trouble and his family of trouble and his possessions of trouble. They dumped them all into this valley of trouble.

And Joshua asked them, asked him: “Why have you troubled us?”. This is a rhetorical question. There is no good answer. Why Achan? Why did you do this? I believe there is a double meaning of the ‘why’ over here. On one hand, he’s asking: “Why? Why would you take all these things that belong to destruction? Jericho is doomed to destruction. Why do you want to be a part of them? Why did you sin? You know that when we obey, God gives us victory. Why do you choose to sin? Were you not thinking? Why?”. But there’s a second why here: “Why? When God said we sinned, why did you not own up? Why didn’t you confess? Did you think you were going to get away with it?

You were thinking in your mind that I’m hoping to get away. I’m hoping it’s not me. Maybe it’s somebody else. I’m not going to confess. I remain hardened. Maybe nobody knows. I’m sure nobody knows, I made sure.”. This is a rhetorical question that we have to ask ourselves: Why would you sin? Was it because God’s Word not clear enough? You didn’t know this was wrong? Was it because you want to be part of this world again like Lot when he ran away from Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife looked back? He missed the world, so enjoyable. Egypt got nicer food there. Israelites always complain: If only we were back there. We miss the world. We want to go back and be part of the world again. Why? Don’t you know that is doomed to destruction?

But there is a second why we ask ourselves: And why didn’t we own up? Did we think we could get away? Sometimes it is a bit strange when we look to the left and look to the right, oh nobody watching me. Oh, quickly sin. When people talk about public sin and private sin, I wonder after reading it, I wonder what is private sin? God knows our sitting down and our rising up. God understands our thoughts afar off. If God can know what you’re thinking, what is private? Even our innermost thoughts, our most evil thoughts that is only here, all the shameful thoughts is only inside. We are sure nobody knows. Well, God knows. What is private? There is no good answer to this question.

Why would you sin? Why have you troubled us, Achan? And when Joshua asked this question, perhaps in their language it sounded something like this: “Achan, why have you ‘Achan’ us? The LORD will ‘Achan’ you this day. So all Israel stoned him with stones; and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.”. Again a picture of Judgement Day here. Everybody lining up. Nobody is left out. There is death of course, but there is a final judgement. Burn them! A picture of that final judgement. Verse 26: “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.”. It is terrifying, yes, when we see this picture of Achan and his entire family being stoned to death and burned. A picture of a final judgement that is to come.

And yet our message doesn’t stop here because if it did stop here, it will be quite depressing. It will be depressing if we stopped here because all we have heard is we must be holy, we must be perfect, and judgement is coming. But here is the gospel: “So the LORD turned from the fierceness of His anger.”. This is the gospel right here, verse 1 and the last verse. Verse 1 says: “the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel”. That is what we must understand that for everyone on this earth, God’s wrath is upon us. God is angry with us. Why? Because of sin. We state so clearly the reason for our trouble is sin. But the gospel we preach is a gospel of grace.

God tells us how to get right with Him, how to remove it. At the end, when we do remove it, God can turn from the fierceness of His anger. Joshua represented God in removing trouble, but Joshua means Jesus. His name literally means Jesus in the New Testament. And Joshua points to Jesus. And Jesus will remove not by killing, destroying Achan, a very different way because for us our sin problem is not dealt with by removing some part of us. Removing my hand, no more sin. No, sin is inside. We were born with it. We were slaves to it. We do whatever sin wants us to do. That is our nature. But consider this: Sin means death. That is the punishment. Now imagine if that punishment could be taken away, and that is what Jesus did.

Imagine sin can be cancelled, and sin’s power over us can be removed. Well, Jesus did that by His death, His blood. And so Charles Wesley penned these words. He said: “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for you and me”. We have hope here. God can turn from the fierceness of His anger, but we must know who to turn to. Only Joshua could help them; only Jesus could help us. Find out this day who this person is. If you do not know who is this person who can help you, find out who He is. But understand one thing: Understand the holiness of God. Understand the seriousness of sin.

And let us not be like Achan (although we all are in one way or another we are Achan). We have sinned; we are very guilty. And just as Achan kept quiet the whole time. When they narrowed down, he kept quiet. They narrowed down some more, he still kept quiet. He remained hardened. He could have confessed. In the Bible, we see many times God is a gracious God when David confessed his sin. No matter how bad the sin was, he could be forgiven.

When the city of Nineveh, God preached judgement only. You are all doomed. But when they repented, God was gracious to forgive them. Why didn’t Achan repent? Why didn’t he confess? Let me borrow the words of the puritan Thomas Watson who said: “He who will not confess his sin like David so that he may be forgiven will confess his sin like Achan did that he may be stoned.”. And that is the message for today: Confess quickly while you still have time.

We know every day all around the world people are dying. Perhaps we say we have more time. Perhaps we like Achan, say it’s not me. Not my time yet. But if you understand that everyday people are dying, maybe tonight is somebody from Malaysia. Narrow it down further, maybe it’s somebody from Selangor. Narrow it down further, maybe it’s somebody from Sunway. How do you know it’s not us? Will you keep quiet like Achan until the very end, until they narrow it down to him and then he confesses? Well, when you confess, when your time runs out, you will confess of course. But when you confess, Jesus’ words to you is not: “Come to Me, I will give you rest”. His words would be: “Why didn’t you come to Me? The LORD will trouble you this day.”. Let us pray.

“Our dear Father in heaven, help us see. See our sin and see our need for the Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour and He alone can save us. We have been very wicked. We are guilty. We pray that You have mercy on us this day, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.