We must ever remember the grand practical truth that, in the history of God’s ways with His people, privilege and responsibility are intimately bound up together. To talk of privilege, or think of enjoying it, while neglecting the responsibility, is the very grossest delusion possible. No true lover of holiness could think for a moment of separating them—nay, he must ever delight in strengthening and perpetuating the precious link.
Thus, for example, in Israel’s case, who could estimate aright the high privilege of having Jehovah dwelling in their midst? By day and by night, there He was, to guide and guard, shield and shelter them; to meet their every need, to give them bread from heaven, and bring them forth water out of the flinty rock. His presence was a safeguard against every foe; no weapon formed against them could prosper; not a dog might move his tongue against them; they were at once invulnerable and invincible; with God in their midst they had nothing whatever to fear. He charged Himself with all their wants, whether great or small. He looked after their garments, that they might not wax old; He looked after their feet, that they might not swell; He covered them with the shield of His favor, so that no arrow might touch them; He stood between them and every foe, and flung back in the enemy’s face every accusation.
Thus much as to the high privilege. But mark the corresponding and connected responsibility. See how both are indissolubly bound up together in the following weighty words: “For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy; that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee”
Precious privilege! Blessed responsibility! Who would dare to dissolve the hallowed connection? Had Jehovah deigned to come down into their midst, and walk with them, and tabernacle amongst them? Had He, in infinite grace, condescended to be their traveling companion? Was He there for exigence of every hour? Yes; blessed be His holy Name. If so, then what did His presence demand? We have seen something of what His presence secured; but what did it demand? Holiness! Israel’s whole conduct was to be regulated by the great fact of the Divine Presence in their midst. Not only their great public national institutions, but their most private habits, were to be brought under the controlling influence of Jehovah’s presence with them. He regulated what they were to eat, what they were to wear, how they were to carry themselves, in all the scenes, circumstances, and relationships of daily life. By night and by day, sleeping and waking, sitting in the house or walking by the way, alone or in company, He looked after them. Nothing was to be allowed in any wise inconsistent with the holiness and purity which became the presence of the Holy One of Israel.
Was all this irksome? Were the privileges irksome? Was it irksome to be led, clothed, guided, guarded, and cared for, in every possible way? Was it irksome to repose beneath the overshadowing wings of the God of Israel? Surely not. Why, then, should it be irksome to keep their persons, their habits, and their dwellings clean? Must not every true heart, every upright mind, every tender conscience delight as thoroughly in the responsibility which the Divine Presence necessarily involves, as in the privileges which it infallibly secures? Yea, rather, must we not rank the very responsibility itself amongst our richest and rarest privileges? Unquestionably. Every true lover of holiness will esteem it a signal mercy—a very high order of blessing—to walk in company with One whose presence detects and condemns every form of evil. “Thy testimonies are very sure; holiness becometh thy house, Ο Lord, forever.”
The foregoing train of thought will enable us in some measure to understand the history of Achan, in Josh. 7—a history solemn and impressive in the very highest degree—a history which utters in our hearing, with deepest emphasis, words which our careless hearts are only too ready to forget, “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” Had Achan remembered this, it would have taught him the holy necessity of nipping in the very bud the covetousness of his heart, and thus have spared the whole assembly the humiliating defeat at Ai, and all the consequent sorrow and discipline. How terrible to think of one man, for the sake of a little personal gain, which, at best, could last but for a moment, plunging a whole congregation into the deepest trouble! And, what was worse than all, dishonoring and grieving that blessed One who had deigned, in His infinite goodness, to take up His abode in their midst. How well it would be if each one of us, when tempted to commit any secret sin, would just pause, and ask ourselves the question, “How can I do this thing, and grieve the Holy Spirit of God who dwells in me, and bring leaven into the assembly of God’s people?” We ought to remember that our private walk has a direct bearing upon all the members of the body. We are either helping or hindering the blessing of all. We are none of us independent atoms, we are members of a body incorporated by the presence of the Holy Ghost; and if we are walking in a loose, carnal, worldly, self-indulgent spirit, we are grieving the Spirit, and injuring all the members. “But God hath tempered the body together.... that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” 1 Cor. 12:24-26.
It may seem hard to grasp this great practical truth—hard to see how our private condition and conduct can affect our fellow-members; but the simple and obvious fact is, we must either admit this, or maintain the monstrous notion that each Christian is an independent person, having no connection with the whole body of believers. If he be a member of a body, all the members of which are bound together, and linked with the Head by the personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost, then, verily, it follows that his walk and ways affect all his fellow-members, just as really as if any member of the human body suffers, all the other members feel it. If there is anything wrong with the hand, the foot feels it. How is this? Because the head feels it. The communication, in every instance, is with the head first, and from the head to the members.
Now, though Achan was not a member of a body, but merely of a congregation, yet we see how his private conduct affected the whole assembly. This is all the more striking, inasmuch as the great truth of the one body was not unfolded, and could not be, until—redemption being a grand accomplished fact—the Head took His seat on the throne of God, and sent down the Holy Ghost to form the body, and link it by His personal presence and indwelling to the Head in heaven. If the secret sin of Achan affected the most remote member of the congregation of Israel, how much more (may we not say?) doth the secret sin of any member of the body of Christ affect all the members thereof.
Let us never forget this weighty truth. May we keep it ever in the remembrance of the thoughts of our hearts, that so we may see the urgent need of a careful, tender, holy walk; that we may not dishonor our glorious Head, grieve the blessed indwelling Spirit, or injure the very feeblest member of that body of which, by the sovereign grace of God and the precious blood of Christ, we form a part.
But we must proceed with our subject, and, in so doing, call the special attention of the reader to the way in which the sin of Achan was traced home to him. It is all most solemn. He had little idea whose eye was resting upon him, when he was carrying on his secret wickedness. He would, no doubt, think himself all right, and very successful, when he had the money and the garment safely hidden in his tent—fatal, guilty, wretched treasure! Unhappy man! How dreadful is the love of money! How terrible is the blinding power of sin I It hardens the heart, deadens the conscience, darkens the understanding, ruins the soul; and, in the case before us, brought defeat and disaster upon some six hundred thousand people.
“And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?”—there is a time for lying on the face, and there is a time for standing on our feet; a time for devout prostration, and a time for decided action. The instructed soul will know the time for each—“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 dissembled 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 wall I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you. Up, sanctify the people, and say, sanctify yourselves against to-morrow; for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, Ο Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.”
How peculiarly solemn is all this! How very arresting! How soul-subduing! God’s people—those who bear His Name, and profess to hold His truth, who stand identified with Him in this world, must be holy. He cannot lend the sanction of His presence to that which is unholy or impure. Those who enjoy the high privilege of being associated with God are solemnly responsible to keep themselves unspotted from the world, else He must take down the rod of discipline, and do His strange work in their midst. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
“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.”
This, surely, was coming to close quarters. The sinner might seek to persuade himself that discovery was impossible; he might cherish the fond hope of escaping amid the many thousands of Israel. Miserable delusion! He might be sure his sin would find him out. The self-same Presence that secured individual blessing, secured with equal fidelity the detection of the most secret individual sin. Escape was impossible. If Jehovah was in the midst of His people to lay Jericho in ruins at their feet, He was there also to lay bare, in its deepest roots, the sin of the congregation, and to bring forth the sinner from his hiding-place to bear the penalty of his wickedness.
How wondrous are God’s ways! First, the twelve tribes are summoned, and the transgressor might deem himself far removed from detection. But one tribe is fixed upon! Still, he might escape amid so many. Nearer still! The family is fixed upon! And yet nearer; the very household is actually singled out; and, last of all, “man by man!” Thus, out of six hundred thousand people, the all-searching, keenly penetrating eye of Jehovah reads the sinner through and through, and marks him off before the assembled thousands of Israel.
“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 Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken; and he brought his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.”
“Our God is a consuming fire.” He cannot tolerate evil in the ways of His people. This accounts for the solemn scene before us. The natural mind may reason about all this—it may marvel why the taking of a little money and a garment from amid the spoils of a doomed city should involve such awful consequences, and entail such a severe punishment. But we have to remember that the natural mind is utterly incapable of understanding the ways of God. And not only so, but may we not ask the objector, How could God sanction evil in His people? How could He go on with it? What was to be done with it? If He was about to execute judgment upon the seven nations of Canaan, could He possibly be indifferent to sin in His people? Most assuredly not. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your iniquities.יי The very fact of His taking them into relationship with Himself was the ground of His dealing with them in holy discipline.
It is the very height of folly for men to reason about the severity of divine judgment, or the apparent lack of proportion between the sin and the punishment. All such reasoning is false and impious. What was it that brought in all the misery, the sorrow, the desolation, the sickness, pain, and death—all the untold horrors of the last six thousand years? What was the source of it all? Just the one little act—as man would call it—of eating a bit of fruit! But this little act was that terrible thing called sin—sin against God! And what was needed to atone for this? How was it to be met? What stands over against it as the only adequate expression of the judgment of a holy God? What? The burning in the valley of Achor? Nay. The everlasting burnings of hell? Nay; something far deeper and more solemn still. What? The cross of the Son of God! The awful mystery of the death of Christ! That terrible cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?,י Let men remember this, and cease to reason.