Israel's Failure in the Land
R. Beacon
Table of Contents
Israel's Failure in the Land: Achan
Man being in honor abideth not. Such is the divine testimony. Failure is inherent in man. In innocence, under law, or under grace, no matter what the position, or the privilege, he has never abode therein. Failure may first be secret, in the heart, sometimes the act is hidden, but if unjudged is sure to appear in its consequences. One would naturally suppose the greater the honor the greater would be the jealous care to abide therein; this as a rule holds good in worldly honors; alas, in the things of God the contrary is constantly seen. Favor through the evil nature of man has led to unwatchfulness, and in many instances with ruinous results; always, in the case of a believer, bringing grievous chastening.
To forget God even while enjoying the blessings is the history of man from Adam down to this day. Until the call of Abram, save for a few witnesses, God was shut out in man's thought, from His own world; and outside the chosen race the condition of all was “having no hope and without God.” The fearful consequence was that as they did not like to retain the knowledge of God they were retributively given up to their own evil. Divine light came into this scene of darkness, not at first shed upon all—that full light was reserved for the time when Christ came, Who coming into the world is the true light for every man—but upon a particular race and only upon others as by reflection when they came in contact with Israel. Though not the full blaze for them, it raised them above all other nations and gave them a special place of honor. The point before us now is not the purpose of God in thus separating this race from others, proclaiming Himself as Jehovah, the One God, and proving them, but the fact that they were in honor and abode not.
Another race is now chosen not one according to nature, but called out and separated from the world after another manner: blest with the fullest light, with the complete truth, having not Abraham but Christ as Head. And here as in Israel, this new company abode not in honor. The first blot upon the honor both in the church and in Israel in the land was visited with death; but the pristine vigor and glory of the church had not departed ere failure came in, and a failure equally if not more ruinous as regards public testimony than that of Israel. To them the special testimony was the truth of the One God. To the church it is God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. “This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11). As Israel failed in testifying to the unity of the Godhead and rushed into idolatry, so Christendom has failed to bear witness that life is only in the Son, and placed it partially if not wholly in works. The grace which nevertheless maintained Israel in the land (for a time, and not without judgment) now acts more prominently in and for the church, which in a far higher and different way is the habitation of God, not in a temple made with hands but by the Spirit (Eph. 2:22). In Israel it was in such a way as the natural man could apprehend. God through the Spirit dwelling in the church is not discernible by the natural man, but only by faith which alone realizes His presence.
It is because of the Spirit's indwelling that all in the church of God, i.e. every true believer, are members one of another. Therefore necessarily if one member fail or suffer the whole body is affected, and far more intimately than the congregation of Israel could be. This close intimacy of suffering and equally so of rejoicing, is through the unity of the Spirit which was not possible before Christ had ascended as the risen Man, and had taken His place on the throne of God. Thence He sent the Comforter to abide with us. Thus one Spirit abiding in each, in all, constitutes the one body.
The effect of the sin of one member is not confined to himself. There is what may be called its corporate consequence. If the Spirit is grieved the whole assembly—the local representative of the body-suffers; corporate blessing is hindered, the presence of the Lord not realized in the meetings. There is no remedy for this but humiliation and united prayer. The Holy Spirit may through the intercession of the assembly lead the failing member to judge himself, and, restored in soul, the hindrance to corporate blessing is removed. But if not, the Lord will surely make bare the wrong which the assembly is bound to judge, it may be by public rebuke, or require excision, but the Lord's name must be vindicated, and the purity of the assembly maintained. When the failing one judges himself before the secret becomes known, and is restored in soul, it remains a matter between himself and the Lord. “For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31 &c.). This scripture has special reference to the disorders that crept in at Corinth when the saints mixed the Lord's Supper with feasting as a common meal. But it embodies the principle that if sin is discerned, and therefore judged by the individual himself, he will not be judged. And this judgment is not the judgment of the world, which no believer can come under, but the chastening of the Lord. The chastening of the Lord is that which is administered through the assembly; not the same as the Father's chastening in Heb. 12. We see in Israel not the real unity of the Spirit, but a little foreshadowing of it, and all the clearer, because the image of it is not in an occasion of joy and victory, but of deep shame and fear. Had the occasion been some remarkable feat by a chief, all would share in the rejoicing as a natural thing, but when it is a sin involving death, then the reality of the thing foreshown comes vividly before the mind. Achan sinned, but God said “Israel hath sinned.” It is the first time that the hidden sin of one individual is charged upon the whole congregation. Achan, and his family, alone knew his guilt, but the consequences of his sin were felt by all Israel; they were put to flight by a despised enemy. But though all suffer why is the sin charged upon all, when they were ignorant of it? Is it not a proof that Israel was not THE object before the mind of God, but the church, where the shadow given in Israel becomes to us a divine reality. Surely it was also teaching them that since they were under the lead of such a “Captain” in Whose presence Joshua had to loose his shoes from off his feet, they must be jealously careful that no secret evil should be found among them. It was a sharp lesson, but the holiness of God admits of no compromise. At that moment Israel had charge of it, as its witness before the nations of Canaan. But if Israel failed to guard and keep it, and being known as Jehovah's people, God would vindicate it Himself. Hence the swift and complete judgment of Achan and his family. They had all been defiled though not all consciously guilty, and if Jehovah is the Captain of the host, then every man must be clear from guilt, and from every defilement. It was in the joy of their first victory in the land, that the first failure occurred. Its effects soon appeared. One man sins, the whole congregation suffer. New circumstances bring the sin to light. Israel left to their own resources find they cannot stand before their enemies. Confident in their own strength, elated with the ease with which Jericho was taken—as if it had been by their own arm—they decide as to Ai. The defiling power of Achan's sin was already working. Joshua, and priest, and all forgot God and attempt to do without Him. Had they asked counsel of God, the sin of the guilty man would have been at once disclosed and the shameful flight from Ai prevented. Israel failed through vain confidence, which was the result of Achan's sin. Yet all was, overruled that they might know the necessity of holiness, and of the power of Jehovah for victory. The deeper truth of being members one of another, that if one suffer, all suffer, is intimately connected with the church of God, and the call to us to be watchful, to be holy, comes with far more solemn importance. For we are knit together with a closer tie, called to a higher and inward holiness, to contend with more dangerous foes, and to bear the name of the risen Lord in the midst of enemies who hate Him more than the Canaanites hated Israel. It is the church which has the special interest in this failure of Israel. But the church is the body of Christ, therefore really it is Christ the Head, Whose glory as Head is before the mind of God. As indeed from Genesis to Revelation He is the center of all God's ways with man. The things that Achan coveted pointed also to the evils that have crept into the nominal church and tainted more or less the character of real believers. The wedge of gold and the silver, under the Babylonish garment is the symbol of the love of the world and of that which gives power in the world—gold under the pretense of religion; i.e. the world's religion which is to God the most offensive thing under the sun. Observe the words “and the silver under it,” wrapped in the Babylonish garment. It is covetousness—which is idolatry—covered over and hidden under the semblance of piety which has marked the history of the world-church. And soon every evil will be found in the cup of the scarlet-clothed harlot whose name is “mystery, Babylon the great.” Thus at the very beginning of Israel's possession are shadowed though dimly, the evils which has brought ruin upon the nominal church, which in the end will be spued out of His mouth. For Israel to possess silver and gold and the goodly things of this world—not to covet as Achan—would be a mark of God's favor. But for the church to covet these is a practical denial of its true position, a disparagement of its peculiar heavenly riches, and a deeper offense to Christ than the sin of Achan to Jehovah. Achan did not bring such fatal results upon the congregation of Israel as his imitators have upon the professing church. The judgment upon Achan and his house declares how abhorrent this world-religiousness is to God, as well as His holy resentment against the one who had interposed his sin, a barrier to the uninterrupted and continual display of the glory of Jehovah in His mighty power leading Israel, lately circumcised, Gilgal and the twelve stones fresh in their minds, into the possession of the given inheritance. God resents nothing so much as interference with His ways of grace. At Jericho we see the exhibition of the glory and power of Jehovah, and how He would subdue and drive out the Canaanite before the chosen people. At Ai is displayed His manner to those who while reaping the promises, have dimmed the luster of the glory of their Leader, the “Captain of the Lord's host.” Here is not the éclat of throwing down the walls, not the power that acted without the lifting up of one hand of Israel, but making them feel that their sin had prevented and hindered the visible expression of His power as they had seen it, and in consequence the ordinary and human means of stratagem are used. The trick of pretending to flee was by the command of Joshua, and God gave them the little city, but oh, how little is seen in this of the glory of Jehovah, when the whole force of Israel is brought against the small city of Ai; and even then with the appearance of not daring to meet them in open battle. How far all this is beneath the exceeding display of God's power at Jericho. Then they could boast of the great power of their “Captain.” Now it is mingled with a sense of failure and dishonor, and to all among them who had a care for the glory of Jehovah; the feeling that they had tarnished His glory before the Canaanites. God would have continued the wondrous display, but while giving further proof of His grace and faithfulness, Israel has put an obstacle to the visible manifestation of His Godhead to the Gentile as had been seen at Jericho. For there was overwhelming testimony; that glorious conquest might have brought every nation to submit without daring to fight, but Israel's discomfiture at their first attempt against Ai eventually armed the nations and gave them courage to resist if possible Israel's further advance; it gave them the thought that perhaps they might overcome the dreaded people, and that the God of Israel after all was not so greatly to be feared. The Canaanites would naturally think that it was only by mere stratagem that Ai was overthrown. There was apparently nothing supernatural in the taking of Ai as at Jericho, the wonders of which they would willingly forget. Human skill in stratagem, or mere force they could meet. Hence Israel had to contest every step of the way. Only the ground on which they stood could they call their own. Was not this the consequence of their own sin? And so the word is fulfilled (Josh. 1:3) not yet according to the fullness of the original promise, but for the present modified according to their failure in the matter of Achan.
But Israel's failure is used of God to teach us now how imperative holiness is in the church of God. Without such teaching how much we should have lost. Could the holiness which God demands, and the revenging of ourselves against all defilement (cf. 2 Cor. 6:11) be more solemnly impressed upon the conscience of the assembly than in the judgment of Achan? And more, we should not have known how grace acts in wisdom, restoring, yet in such a way as to make the restored people remember their folly. Marvelous are the ways of grace. The process of discovering sin in the assembly may be most painful, always humiliating, but it is in order that the presence of the Lord might again be realized. Achan did not judge his sin, he valued the things he stole. His own conscience unpurged, he defiled the whole congregation, and Jehovah must step in to purge out the leaven that was leavening the whole lump. The end of discipline is to restore, not perhaps exactly to the same position as before, for the failure will ever remain as a fact; but the restoration of any saint always deepens the power of godliness in his soul, and is always to the praise of His grace.
Israel's Failure in the Land
The vain confidence of Israel in their own might was seriously rebuked at Ai; and no less was their wisdom found to be folly in the matter of Gibeon when as at Ai they forgot to seek counsel from God. Trusting to themselves, they are deceived by circumstances and make an alliance which is not according to the expressed will of God. They have made it in the name of Jehovah, and it cannot be broken. How easily they were ensnared! Even a little close questioning would have exposed the true character of the Gibeonites. For, if they dwelt in so distant a country as the moldy bread and the rent wine bottles pretended, there was no cause to fear Israel. They had heard what God did in Egypt, to the kings of the Amorites beyond Jordan, and that He would destroy the Canaanites and give the land to Israel. If they were beyond the limits why fear, and hasten to own themselves servants to Israel? Their eagerness to form an alliance would have betrayed them to the wise of the world. But Israel were then in a position where, if they had not wisdom of God, they must sink beneath the world's wisdom. The canning of the Gibeonites was too much for them: they were foolishly deceived. The princes, even Joshua, seemed a little doubtful at first, but the stout assertions of the Gibeonites soon lulled their suspicions to sleep. It is an instance recorded for our admonition how far more easily than others the people of God may be deceived when they attempt to decide any matter without. His counsel and guidance. Let us remember there is no folly so great as a saint depending. upon his own mind, or acting according to the maxims of the world.
That their folly was overruled, and that God made it an occasion for skewing how He would be merciful to those who trembled at His word, even though they were of the accursed race of Canaan, is most blessedly true. Isaiah proclaimed it (66:2); but God here shows it. How far mightier the display of mercy, of grace since the cross! The Gibeonites also give the true position of a soul really penitent, for they bow to the sentence of death; they were sore afraid of their lives, and therefore did that thing. They plead not the alliance, they surrender themselves unconditionally, “behold we are in thine hand; as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do.” So true is it that glimpses of richest grace, and of practical righteousness, of the reality of the soul's lost condition before God, are thickly scattered through the pages of God's book, long before the great foundation was laid in the precious blood of Christ. Here on one side is Israel cursing the Gibeonite, on the other the submissive Gibeonite content to be anything that Joshua may determine. Over both is seen the picture of God's mercy to a self-judging sinner.
But we are looking at Israel's failure; before as to their might, now as to their wisdom. If Israel while contending for an earthly kingdom needed to be endowed with power and wisdom from God, how much more we who are receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved, a heavenly kingdom, in seeking and receiving which our obedience, and dependence, and wisdom should be as far above that required of Israel as the realities of holiness are above its mere types!
Alas! the church of God very soon followed in the footsteps of Israel. At the beginning the presence of God was as manifestly with the church, as He hid been with Israel. The Holy Spirit came to take His abode in the newly formed body, and attested His presence by a rushing mighty wind and the cloven tongues of fire. He was the promised Comforter come to guide them into all truth, even as the Captain of Jehovah's host appeared to Joshua, and to lead the armies of Israel. And the energy of the Holy Spirit's power was soon felt by the great enemy, and three thousand were added together. What a triumph here of the name of Jesus over the power of Satan who had so blinded the Jew as to reject Him. It was the taking of another Jericho. Not more wonderful the falling down of city walls than the conversion of so many souls on that Pentecostal day. This was to the church, as that was to Israel, the pledge and pattern of victory over every foe had there been faithfulness in each to have continued in the goodness of God. But when did man individually or corporately continue in His goodness? Individuals from the first Adam have not continued, saints have needed and still need restoring grace. And as to man incorporate, there are two notable witnesses. Israel as a nation, and the church (far more intimately incorporated than the nation), both have failed, both like individuals need restoring grace. Nor will God fail in this; for Israel's blessing is nearing, and the glory of the church yet nearer. But the untrustworthiness of man, and of saints must appear. The glory is God's. If the church had learned in the presence of God the lessons that the course of Israel afforded, what shame and sorrow would never have been known.
The apostles had not long departed ere the church forgot God as the source of power. It forgot that it was only in the name of Jesus that the world could be overcome. “In my Name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16). In My Name only. Not using His Name as a mere talisman, as Sceva's sons attempted (Acts 19) but in true faith, and then the wondrous results follow. The church in its name and strength dared to contend with the world, and the world won the victory as easily as the men of Ai over Israel.
When Israel fled, it brought humiliation and crying to God, and this brought to their knowledge that they were defiled, and so they are led to restoration and joy. God gave them victory over the same foe that had so recently triumphed over them. It was a grand sight to see Israel on their faces before the Lord. Did the church as a whole ever take such a place? Nay. Here and there might have been a gathered few, but their numbers were lost in the general mass of profession. The result is far worse for the nominal church than for Israel. Indeed the analogy between Israel and the church lies rather in the principle of the flesh, trying to be independent of God, than in the manner. In the spiritual warfare of the church with the world the words of the Lord have been forgotten, “In my name;” the names of men have been substituted for His Name, and the world gained a victory. The nominal church is now a power of, and in, the world. As such, it is hastening to its doom; it is the nauseous thing that Christ will spue out of His mouth, and then as a mere harlot it will be destroyed by the world (Rev. 17:16).
The manner of the church's failure is rather in contrast with Israel's at Ai and with Gibeon. Israel attempted no compromise with Ai. The mistake was in not seeking counsel from God, and in attempting to fight Jehovah's battles in their own strength; they did not try to enlist the enemy, and swell their ranks with aliens. But this is what the church did, and spared no pains to win whole masses of men to the profession of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity. And when the priest was turned out of the temple where stood his idol, the so-called Christian priest took possession of the temple and changed the name of the idol to the name of the virgin, or of a “saint.” And this was called conversion! It was the birds of the air lodging in the branches of the great tree. Naturally when such an element came into the professing church, it needed the powers of the world to preserve order, which however did not succeed, as ecclesiastical history abundantly testifies, the strong arm of the law in not a few instances being appealed to. And what a pitiful groping after wisdom we see in the early ages of the church, which are more marked by squabblings than by unanimity! It could not be otherwise. It was an unholy alliance between the church and the world, and was deliberately entered into. Distinctive grace and truth were lost.
Israel's alliance with Gibeon was a greater sin than their proud contempt of Ai, though it was not apparently so disastrous. True, Israel was betrayed into it through unwatchfulness; but after the previous experience of the consequences of not asking counsel of God, their neglect in this case is still more inexcusable. And to make alliance with the world, even though unwittingly, brings in its wake the greatest evils. Israel's league with Gibeon was more dishonoring to God than their attempt apart from Him to take Ai. How could Israel be a witness for God against the wickedness of Canaan, and at the same time in league with one of the nations? Gibeon's submission was not for their consideration. And the union of church and world has surely destroyed in this day corporate testimony for God, such as the whole church was and is called to hear. Israel did it ignorantly, the nominal church knowingly. The church is more guilty than Israel. To know the Lord's will and to do it not will bring the “many stripes” upon Christendom.
Many associations of professing Christians have taken the sword and thus endeavored to fight against the world. But the men of Ai have invariably overcome them. The true soldiers of Christ remember that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, and that they who take the sword shall perish with the sword. But union with the world is fatal, and the church as a whole has lost its character. The true and living church—only known to God—is but a remnant among the mass of professors.
Gibeon was no help to Israel; they became the occasion for the combination of the remaining kings of Canaan who sought to wreak their vengeance upon the city which in their eyes had proved traitorous. Gibbon, now the servants of Israel, call upon their masters. for protection. This alliance brings immediate war. Satan resents the submission of Gibeon to the word of God, and to the people of God; he gathers his forces against them, but only to manifest more gloriously the presence of the great Captain of the hosts of Israel.
Israel might have been slow to prosecute the war. God overrules all, and uses their failure to carry out His purpose. The time of rest was not yet come. And now armed with a direct promise they prepare to meet the confederate kings. “Fear them not; for I have delivered them into thine hand, there shall not a man of them stand before thee.” Jehovah says, “into thine hand,” yet did the hailstones destroy more than the sword of Israel. This may not have been so strikingly supernatural as the falling of the walls of Jericho, but faith sees the same band in both. The former event was contrary to the common law of nature the latter was the power of God using nature beyond its ordinary limit: In each there was a direct intervention of nature's God.
What a glorious day for Israel. The combined forces flee, Joshua wields his sword with might from Jehovah. The “Captain of the host” is with him. And that is but enough, for Jehovah Himself appears apart from human instrumentality and thus completes the victory. The Lord of creation commands and nature obeys, and the hailstones smite not Israel, but the flying foe. Each stone with its own special message discriminates between Israelites and Canaanite. The sword of Israel and the great stones of Jehovah are both guided by the same mighty and unerring Hand. Once before there was a similar intervention of God for His people; then the hail was mingled with fire (Ex. 9:24). Then the people were bond slaves, now they are conquerors “for Jehovah fought for Israel” (Josh. 10:14).
Joshua at the sight rises in faith and power, and bids the sun stand still upon Gibeon and the moot in the valley of Ajalon, that the triumph of Jehovah and of Israel may be complete. In the sight of all Israel, he speaks and God hearkens to the voice of a man.
How one witness after another comes crowding up before the idolatrous world of His eternal power and Godhead! The hailstones, and the long day of twice the usual length, assert in unmistakeable language even to the degraded Canaanite, that God was the one God in the earth as in the heaven. They are without excuse. They still worshipped the false gods of their own making. But when we remember that oven the highly favored nation of Israel, even the people on whose behalf these astonishing displays of power were made, did themselves soon sink into the lowest depths of idolatry, and became worse than the nations whose land was now given them, whose sin was the cause of their extermination, we have a strong—if not the strongest—proof that no display of divine power, of goodness short of the grace that comes through the cross, can wean the heart of man from the love of evil.
In this most renowned battle of Joshua is seen the double thing—the energy of God in man, and the same energy apart from man: the power that clothed all Israel; and the faith that is prominent in Joshua. Faith truly proves itself to be the gift of God by its own power; for to command the sun to stand still is greater than the confidence of victory. But the energy of divine power apart from and above man is now manifest. Israel had the privilege to prove their valor, then Jehovah appears and crowns their victory. Thereafter it is a record of victory; the kings and their armies may gather, but city after city is taken until the people find rest. No further tale of sin or failure follows while Joshua lived.
In the church of God not only we may see the energy of faith in individuals, but there is undoubtedly the action of the Spirit of God who controls the power of the adversary and leads the servants of God to victory. Israel under Joshua in the land is a mirror wherein we see the reflected image of the church, though so many centuries before the church was called. All were warnings, admonitions, and ensamples. Alas! where is our profit?
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