Joshua 7:8-29
Deep and heart-searching are the lessons taught by Israel’s discomfiture before Ai, where hearts, strong through faith, became weak like water, and where the shout of victory was turned to weeping.
In the first verse of Joshua 7 the finger of God points to the secret source whence the sorrow sprang. Evil begins within and works outwards, “A deceived heart hath turned him aside.” The believer in declension is like the noble oak which, in a state of decay, retains the outward appearance of life and vigor long after its strength has departed.
It is only in the light that we can have fellowship with God, and had Israel been walking in the light they would have sought counsel of Him before the battle, and would thus have been spared their sorrow.
Israel judged by sight, They went up and viewed the country, and, flushed with victory, they depended upon their own resources instead of Jehovah. “Make not all the people to labor thither; for they are but few.” Therefore when defeat came, the despair which seized them expressed the real condition of their hearts. Circumstances always bring out what is in a man, developing his real state. When defeat overtakes the believer who is self-confident, despair speedily lays hold of him.
Joshua almost blamed God for Israel’s overthrow. In his bitterness, he exclaimed, “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?” Despair springs from departure from God. Joshua reckoned all Israel as clean blotted out, and he reached the extreme, when he said, “And what wilt thou do unto Thy great name?” But in truth this was the very question which the defeat and slaughter he mourned had answered; and God bade him know that Israel had sinned, and that His name must be cleansed from association with evil at any cost. Israel had taken of the accursed thing; they had stolen and dissembled also.
When God’s people willfully touch evil – steal that which He has appointed to the fire, dissembling and dishonesty characterize them. And as “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,” He has a question with such, both because of the “accursed thing,” and because they do not “walk honestly as children of the day.” Shall the people of God, whose sins are put away by the blood of Jesus, God’s own dear Son, hide evil in their midst, when Israel, who approached God by the blood of bulls and goats, which could never take away sin, were separated from Him because the accursed thing was among their stuff? “Sanctify yourselves.”
“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.”
Joshua was not slow to obey, “he rose up early in the morning,” and, in obedience to God’s word, searched out the evil. When the evil was detected the people’s care for the glory of Jehovah’s great name was roused. They ran, took out the hidden things, spewed them to all Israel, and laid them out before the Lord. None of the shame of the sin was covered over, for the question with the people was this – Achan or Jehovah. There had been no quarter for Jericho, how then should there be quarter for the Israelite who brought the accursed thing out of Jericho into the Lord’s camp? And as all Israel was involved in the dishonor done to the name of the Lord, so all Israel joined in the clearance, “All Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire.”
A great heap of stones was raised over the transgressor, for it was not Israel’s intention to wipe out the memory of the sad lesson they had learned. “So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor (Trouble), unto this day.”
This Valley of Achor became a door of hope for Israel, and, blessed be the God of all grace, valleys of trouble are still doors of hope for the contrite, for, “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Godly sorrow is ever healthful to the soul. Weeping over evil, and putting it away, lead to renewed blessing and further victories.
The accursed thing itself has its instruction. The garment came from Shinar, the plain upon which Babel was built. The men of that day leaving the light – journeyed from the east, and leaving their high places – the mountains whereon the ark rested – found a plain, and there joined heart and hand to make themselves a name in independence of God. This was Babel, or Confusion. Alas! garments of apostasy are now not only hidden in believers’ tents but worn in full daylight. And as for the silver and gold, money is a sad snare to God’s people, piercing them through with many sorrows.
Israel was now restored to God’s full favor. He recalled them to first promises, and in unchanging faithfulness bade them again “Fear not, neither be thou dismayed.” It is thus the Lord leads our restored souls back to the fountain of His grace, and refreshes our hearts with His unchanging love. But because Israel had been lax, and said, “Make not all the people to labor thither,” the Lord now bids them exert themselves to the utmost, “Take all the people of war”; and as they had confided in their own strength, they have now to undergo the humiliation of feigned flight in order to attain victory.
It is well to walk softly after having fallen, for although God forgives us the iniquity of our sin upon our confession of it, yet He deepens in us the sense of our evil ways.
There is encouragement to be gathered from the way in which the king of Ai came out against restored Israel. He perceived no difference in them, but rushed proudly on to his doom. God’s ways with His people baffle the calculations of their foes, who merely match man against man, and leave God out in their reckoning.
The key to the ultimate victory is found in Joshua’s obedient persistency to the Lord’s commands: “For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.” We need purpose of heart and dependence upon the Lord. A thorough-hearted man of faith is never satisfied until the name of the Lord is triumphant. He is a poor soldier of Christ who, having once at his Captain’s bidding stretched out his hand, draws it back before his object is fully attained.