SUNDAY SERMON - Godly Grief, Confession, & Repentance
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Summary
Joshua 7:10-15 The Bible says that the Lord said to Joshua, "Why have you fallen on your face? ... Why have you sinned? ... They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them... They have taken some devoted things they have stolen and lied, and put them among their own belongings... Therefore, I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you..."
Transcript
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We're picking back up with our series through the book of Joshua. Our text for today is Joshua
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chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. It's a larger text and so
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for the reading portion I would like to focus our attention on verses 10 through 15. So that's the
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portion of the text that I'm going to read today. Would you go ahead at this point and join me in
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standing for the reading of God's Word. I'll read the text in its entirety. When I finish reading
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the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much
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if you would respond by saying thanks be to God. Again, the entirety of our text today is Joshua
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chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. I'll be reading Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 15. The Bible
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says this, the Lord said to Joshua, get up. Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned.
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They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them.
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They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen and lied
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Therefore, the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies.
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They turn their backs before their enemies
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because they have become devoted for destruction.
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unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.
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Get up, consecrate the people, and say, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow.
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For thus says the Lord, God of Israel, There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel.
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You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.
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In the morning, therefore, you shall be brought near by your tribes,
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and the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near by clans,
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and the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households and the household that the Lord
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takes shall come near man by man and he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned
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with fire he and all that he has because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because
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he has done an outrageous thing in Israel this is the word of the Lord all right please be seated
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In your notes, I've written the following.
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The first thing that Joshua does after Israel is defeated by Ai
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Still, it is not long before God tells him that his mourning,
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God does not delight in the grief of his saints merely for grief's sake.
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Rather, godly grief is granted by God as a gift
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of a correlation between verse 10 and 11 of our text
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what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. If you're familiar with that particular text in
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2 Corinthians, it is very likely that the Apostle Paul, who is the human author inspired by the
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Holy Spirit of God, is referring to what he previously wrote in his first letter to the
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Corinthians regarding a particular man who was caught in sin. And the church at Corinth was
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boasting. Now they weren't boasting in this man's sin in and of itself. Very likely, instead, what
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was going on is that the church at Corinth was boasting in regards to their tolerance,
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charitableness, graciousness, in light of such an outrageous sin. So the church in Corinth very
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likely was not saying this particular sin that this young man has committed with a member of
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his own family is wonderful and we're proud of it. No. Instead, what they were likely saying is
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it's horrible and look how charitable we are. Even in the case of outrageous sin, we, the church at
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Corinth, we welcome all sinners. You belong here. Love is love. No judgment here. Judgment-free zone.
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The church at Corinth welcomes everybody. This young man, you might notice, next to the cross,
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we also have a rainbow flag. That's what was going on. The church at Corinth wasn't boasting
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in the sin, what they were boasting in is their position theologically of antinomianism.
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We're not under law here. We're under grace, which is precisely what the Bible does in fact say,
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but under grace and no longer under law, in what regard should be the question that we ask?
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We are no longer, for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is now therefore no more condemnation.
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you are not under law insofar as judgment, insofar as condemnation. You are under rather grace
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afforded to you through faith in Jesus Christ alone, his person and his finished work. But that
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does not mean that the Christian is not under law in regards to a moral obligation. David said,
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as a Christian, as one who is trusting in his ultimate heir, the Christ, that there would be
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a greater king who would sit one day on his throne of the increase of his government. There would be
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no end that he would rule with an iron scepter. David, as well with all the other Old Testament
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saints, was saved in the exact same manner that you and I are by trusting in Jesus. They saw in
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shadows and types, we see in substance, looking back with more clarity on this side of the cross.
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But the point is that David was a Christian, and David of the law, he says, I delight in the law.
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And it is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. It illuminates for me the path
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to salvation. No, it illuminates to me the path from salvation. I'm saved by grace alone through
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faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was accredited to him as righteousness. But as Connor
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so faithfully just taught, as he was working through the liturgy this morning, David, he believes God.
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He is trusting in Christ alone. He acknowledges that he is a sinner, and that God is a thrice
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holy God, and the chasm between God and him is infinite, and that he can only be saved by an act
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of sheer grace alone, and yet, having been saved by grace alone, he delights in the law of God
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and sees the law not as something that shows him the path to merit salvation, but it shows him the
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path of how to respond in gratitude for salvation. That is the biblical view. But the church at
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Corinth is not thinking in those terms. See, they have abandoned legalism, good, but overcompensated
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brother i don't think that's a brag you want you want to rethink that
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no we preach law we do the question is how do we preach obedience to the law of god as a means of
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earning salvation no that's legalism but do we not preach law at all pretending as though
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obedience doesn't even matter? No, that's antinomianism. Both are a failure.
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So the church at Corinth is bragging, not about the particular sin of this young man, but bragging
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about their antinomian, against law, disposition regarding his sin. And so Paul writes to them in
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1 Corinthians, his first letter, chapter 5, and says, purge the immoral man from among you.
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take the sin seriously. But then he writes back to the very same church in his second letter,
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and he actually says, and I believe it's the same man, this would be 2 Corinthians chapter 2,
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he says, welcome him back in, lest he be overburdened by unceasing sorrow. He's repented.
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You've done your job. The point was not to condemn him indefinitely, but to convict him that he might
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repent. And so welcome him back in. And then later, in chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul
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says, now you, speaking about the church as a whole in a corporate sense, quit mourning.
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Grief is good insofar as it is a means to accomplish God's predestined end. And that end
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of grief in many cases, if not virtually all cases, is repentance. And so what the Apostle
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Paul is essentially saying to the church in Corinth is this. He's saying, you've been grieved
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by the sin of this man, and your grief has produced zeal, commitment, vigilance towards holiness.
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It's been used by God to produce individual repentance for Him,
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But it's also produced corporate repentance for you as a church for your sin,
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And guess what? Now that the zeal has come, now that the repentance has been accomplished, quit crying.
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And what I want you to get here, right up at the beginning of our text today,
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God does the very same thing with Joshua. Get up. It's enough. And what I want you to see is I want
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you to see the mercy of God. God does not subject his people to more grief than necessary.
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God is not capricious in his grief giving. Grief, that which is true godly grief, and there is a
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distinction, as we just saw in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, between worldly grief, which leads to
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death and regret versus godly grief that brings about repentance. There is a distinction, but in
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regards not to worldly grief, but rather godly grief, it always is granted by God with a particular
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end in mind to bring about change, to bring about repentance, to bring about holiness, to bring about
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reconciliation, restoration, and when that has been accomplished by God's grace, then the grief
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should cease. God does not grieve his children pointlessly. God is not going around trying to
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make kids cry for the fun of it. That's not his nature. It's not who he is. Just as a good parent
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would try to help their child see the severity of their sin. And in doing so, the child may
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feel sad. The child may cry. It is not the intention of the parent to grieve the child
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for grief's sake, but to grieve them into repentance, to produce change, godly change.
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that His name and character might not be reviled,
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They just got their booties whipped by the men of Ai,
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Connor did a wonderful job preaching that text.
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And they're like, hey, we don't even need to take
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We'll go up there. We just, I mean, we just, we just stamped out Jericho. Jericho was like a
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capital city. It was a juggernaut in the land of Canaan. We just took out Jericho. So surely
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this will be small potatoes. And they go up and they get whooped. They get whooped in a, they,
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they demolish Jericho, a hard, what should have been a hard battle, and then get whooped in what
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what's supposed to be an easy battle. And so Joshua has the right response. Not picking on
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Joshua here. Joshua goes before the Lord immediately. It's his first response. He falls
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on his face. That is to signify humility and a contrite spirit. And it's not just humility and
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reverence of kneeling or falling prostrate, but it also is weeping, mourning before the Lord.
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grief. And that too is proper, a right response. So it's humility and grief.
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But again, I don't want us to miss at the very outset of our text, the response of the Lord.
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Because it's not a condemning correction, but it's actually an incredibly
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wipe away your tears, stand up, get up. It's okay. It's okay. And that's not saying you shouldn't
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have been grieved. Notice that the Lord is not saying continue to grieve, nor is he saying you
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should have never grieved at all. The word of the Lord is not grief was wrong, you shouldn't have
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done it at all, nor does the Lord say your grief is not enough and you should continue to grieve
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indefinitely. It's neither of those responses. Instead, the Lord says the grief, by way of
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necessary inference, the word of the Lord is your grief is sufficient. It was proper, it was right,
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and now it's time to stop. And stop grieving for what purpose? Because the sin is trivial and it
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doesn't matter, and the Lord doesn't really care for holiness? No. No, I want you to stop grieving
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because I want you now to deal with sin. You've been grieving to repentance, and now it's time
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to put on your big boy pants, to spiritually gird yourself, and to mortify sin. Relentlessly,
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unashamedly, to go to war with the sin of Israel. And again, this is a mercy of the Lord. And this
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applies. It applies to us as individuals. It applies to us as families, households. And it
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applies to us as churches. It applies to us even as nations. I believe that. And here's the
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application. Let me connect the dots. The application is this. God is not capricious.
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So whether it be a nation like America, God does not at random begin to withdraw His hand of favor
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and blessing. Now, if the Lord was to manifest Himself here today, which don't hold your breath,
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You're grieved. Now that's enough. Get up. There's sin. The hand of blessing has not been randomly
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pulled back. No, there's sin. Why has God abandoned America? Because America hates God.
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It's not random. God is not arbitrary. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why we
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have such bad rulers? Bad rulers, the Bible explicitly says, tells us the answer. God gives
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bad rulers as a judgment for bad nations who've turned their back on him. I don't understand
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what's going on. The economy. You voted for that economy. I know you didn't. God bless you.
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But someone did. Well, I don't have time to get into how many people actually voted for
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is not arbitrary. It is not random. God did not allow Israel to get whooped by AI right after
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giving them such a miraculous victory against Jericho for no reason. Look, they won against
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Jericho because there was purity and devotion to the Lord. They lost in the next battle because
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there was compromise. There was sin. And before they were going to be able to stand before their
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enemies and succeed again in the future, they needed to deal with sin. Grief, not for grief's
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sake, but grief for the purpose of repentance. That's the first point as I see it in the text
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today. Let's now focus our attention on verses 14 and 15. Let me read those once more so that
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they're fresh in our minds. Beginning in verse 14, the Bible says this, in the morning, therefore,
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you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near
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by clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the households that
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the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And he who is taken with the devoted thing shall be burned
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with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because
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he has done an outrageous thing in Israel. And it was indeed, brothers and sisters, an outrageous
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thing. The Israelites were not permitted to take of the spoil. To the victor goes the spoils,
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you may have heard. Not in this instance. They were not permitted to take of the spoil
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to take those things and devote them to the Lord,
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They are not allowed to personally increase in their wealth
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is the principle of giving first fruits to the Lord.
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here they are at the beginning of their conquest into the land of promise
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long been wandering in the wilderness as sojourners now crossed the Jordan River
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entering the land of promise also I might add still as sojourners but not sojourners
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waiting for God to beam them out but sojourners strangers and aliens waiting to conquer the land
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they've just now entered into the promised land their inheritance and the first victory that God
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grants to them he says give it back to me not because God won't let them have anything
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in fact as we see throughout the book of Joshua as a whole God allows him to receive virtually
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everything except for the first and this is the same principle that we have even for new
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testament christians today that the first fruits of our labor belongs to the lord because it
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demonstrates a recognition an acknowledgement and a gratitude to the lord that he is the one
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ultimately who makes our work fruitful man waters and plants but god makes it grow
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this is true when it comes to ministry that which is spiritual but also that which is physical
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and practical. In every regard, man will work diligently as unto the Lord, but it is the Lord
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himself who gives the harvest. And so, in acknowledging that God is the one who grants
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success, that God is the one who makes our work fruitful, we give not the last leftovers, but
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rather the first fruits to him. And so the people of Israel were commanded to do in this new land,
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after miraculously crossing over the Jordan River,
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one of the most formidable enemies in this land
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for Achan is a just and appropriate punishment
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and commentating specifically on verses 14 and 15
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All this Joshua, though a wise and vigilant ruler,
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knew nothing of, till God told him. Who knows all the secret wickedness that is in the world,
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which men know nothing of? God could at this time have told him, that is Joshua, who the person was
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that had done this thing. But God does not. Okay, this is old English, so let me break it down.
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What Matthew Henry is saying is this. God could have immediately, when Joshua was grieving and
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falling face down before the Lord, asking Him for help, asking Him for guidance right after they
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just lost against the men of Ai, God could have said there's sin in the camp, and this is the
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name of the guy who did it. But God doesn't. Now listen, here's the point. God does eventually
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reveal this. God gets all the way down, right? Tribe by tribe, clan by clan, household by household,
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man by man. So God eventually reveals the most minute details of this particular sin,
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but He does not reveal these things up front. So the question that Matthew Henry is begging,
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and I think the text itself begs, is why? Why does God, in this instance, choose to progressively
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reveal the details of the sin. Matthew Henry provides two reasons. Number one, to exercise
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the zeal of Joshua and Israel in searching out the criminal. Again, this reminds me of
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2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 9 through 11. In verse 11, it says,
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For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear
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yourselves, to consecrate yourselves, to make yourselves pure, to put sin to death, to rid
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yourselves of that which is defiled. What indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal,
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what punishment. And so it is with Israel. That God could have said, as Joshua goes and consults
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with the Lord. This is the sin and this is the man. But instead, he says, this is the sin
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and I am giving to you a process for discovering the man. And this process will require some
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diligence. All of Israel is going to have to consecrate themselves. They're all going to
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have to come out and get ready for tomorrow. And they're all going to have to come forward,
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tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, man by man. The whole nation will be involved.
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And so God is, again, in mercy, providing an opportunity for Israel to care deeply about
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repentance. To care and demonstrate diligence in regards to holiness. And this is a grace.
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This is a grace from God. That's the first purpose of the process of finding Achan.
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Instead of God simply supernaturally revealing this to Joshua all up front. The second reason
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for a process in discovering the man who would send against the Lord. Matthew Henry says this,
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to give the sinner himself space to repent and make confession. So for Israel corporately to
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exercise zeal for the things of God, but also in God's unparalleled mercy for Achan individually
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To give the sinner himself space to repent
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Someone has taken of the devoted things of Jericho
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that were supposed to go into the treasury of the Lord.
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He has taken these things for himself, directly defying a divine decree from God.
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And God, if he had revealed all the specificities to Joshua,
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then Joshua in the very same breath would have said,
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but it is a mercy of God that he did not reveal the man he revealed the sin but not the particular
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man and he did this so that Israel as a whole could be vigilant towards the things of God
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namely holiness and repentance but also so that Achan Achan who deserved no mercy from the Lord
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whatsoever but because God is exceedingly kind and merciful God is providing Achan with time
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they don't have to go tribe by tribe clan by clan household by household man by man
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at any moment a can come forward and say i was the guy
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forgive me lord forgive me that's part of what god is likely doing providing an opportunity
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not just for Israel to repent, but for Achan to repent, which is a very merciful thing.
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Moving on now, let's focus on verses 19 through 21, which say this,
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Then Joshua said to Achan, My son, once the lot had finally fallen on him,
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once Achan had been singled out, unfortunately not by volunteering to confession himself,
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but rather throughout the process and the providence of God, the lot eventually fell
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squarely on him. And now Joshua addresses Achan by saying, my son, give glory to the Lord God of
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Israel and give praise to him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me.
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Achan answered Joshua, truly, I have sinned against the Lord of Israel. And this is what I did
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when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar
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in commentating on these particular verses of our text,
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note in confessing sin as we take shame to ourselves so we give glory to God as righteous
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owning him justly displeased with us again old language but what this late great Puritan is
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essentially saying is that one of the ways we glorify God is by way of consequence the way of
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consequence being by owning our sin. When we own our sin, we exonerate God. In the objective sense,
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God needs no exoneration. Let God be true, and every man a liar. But there is something to be
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said subjectively when a man confesses his sin as David does in Psalm 51 verse 4 against you
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and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that I'm confessing that I did it
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only I did it and I did it against you so that you may be justified in your words and blameless
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in your judgment. God would have been justified whether David confessed his sin or not. He would
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have been blameless whether David repented or not. But there is something to be said outside of the
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objective ultimate truth category within the subjective interpersonal confession and repentance
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realm that when we say I sinned in our hearts we are saying God is exonerated. I think of the book
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of James. Let no one say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted
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nor does he tempt any man, but each man is led astray by his own desire. Desire, if not dealt
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with, sin at the level of desire, eventually gives birth to sin, and sin, when fully grown, brings
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forth death. James is saying a lot in that particular passage, but one thing that he is
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certainly saying is that God is not to blame. One of the things that we do, brothers and sisters,
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Joshua recognizes that in the confessing of Achan's sin,
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he is indicting himself and simultaneously in one foul swoop,
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confessing sin indicts us and exonerates god in the objective sense
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god is always exonerated in the objective sense let god be true in every man a liar
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is god responsible for sin may it never be god forbid but there is something to be said in terms
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the verse that we use in our liturgy every Lord's day,
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If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
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that that person, having sinned, but before confession of sin, is walking in a state of
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not being forgiven by God. Now hear me. In the objective theological sense, that is not true.
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If you are born again in Christ, you were forgiven at the moment of conversion of all your past,
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present, and future sins. You have been clothed through faith, not your own doing,
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or whether you've had the best week of your life,
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you are walking in relationship with god with your sins having been forgiven in the objective
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sense so then what is john getting at in first john chapter one namely verse nine if conditional
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we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins there is i believe what john
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is saying, there is such a thing, brothers and sisters, as the feeling and assurance of forgiveness.
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Everything is intentional, for the record. The reason why in our liturgy we have a portion that
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is called not just the forgiveness of sins, but the assurance of forgiveness. We say every Lord's
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Day, and now for an assurance of Christ's pardon. The reason why we say assurance is what we're
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saying is that if you are in Christ by grace through faith in him alone, then you've already
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been forgiven. You walked in the room forgiven. You'll leave the room forgiven. You'll be forgiven
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on the way home. You'll be forgiven when you go to bed, when you rise in the morning. You're forgiven.
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But there is a difference in being forgiven and having a confident, knowing assurance of that
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forgiveness. Even for the Christian, although, biblically speaking, he can never lose his
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salvation. And therefore, he will never have God ever again as his enemy or judge. But rather, God
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is, from now on, his adoptive father. Even for the Christian, who has God as his adoptive father,
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that that Christian can still be, as the Puritans wrote,
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in a state of being under God's fatherly displeasure.
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Still father in the objective sense, but displeasure.
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Your hand of discipline was heavy upon me.
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this is a Christian talking, that even a Christian can, by choosing not to repent,
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by choosing to procrastinate in confession of sin, by choosing to hide sin like Achan,
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the Christian who in the objective category has already been forgiven, past sins, present sins,
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future sins. In the objective sense, has God as his heavenly Father. And there's nothing that he
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could ever do to lose that. Not depths, not heights, not angels, nor demons. Nothing can separate him
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from the love of God. And yet, in the subjective sense, God's hand of discipline heavy upon him,
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my bones began to groan within me because I was in a state of hiding sin.
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in the subjective sense of feeling reconciled with the Lord.
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Feeling and receiving a fresh assurance of God's forgiveness.
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but now an assurance, a knowing, a confidence of that forgiveness.
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A closeness restored in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
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We will begin in these states of unconfessed sins
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Even as someone who's reformed in your theology,
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knowing that you can never lose your salvation,
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but beginning to believe perhaps you never had it to begin with? I've been there.
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But when we confess our sin, it is good for the soul. It gives us new life in the subjective
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sense, feeling reconciled, feeling forgiven, and it exonerates God, again, in the subjective sense.
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He was already innocent. He was already blameless in his judgments. But now we are saying it. I was
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wrong. You were right. I was wrong. You were right. This is what Joshua says to Achan. My son,
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give glory to God, we might read it like this, by owning your sin. Exonerate God. Praise God
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is blameless in his judgments by acknowledging and owning your failure.
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There's a brief lesson in the text right there on confession. Lastly, verses 25 and 26.
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And Joshua said, why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.
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And they raised over him a great heap of stones
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the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.
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were simply brought out, which is what the text says, but only to be spectators of their father's
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punishment. However, the vast majority conclude that they were also put to death along with their
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father, which is my conclusion as well for the record. God commanded that magistrates should not
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put the children to death for the sins of the fathers. However, God did not intend to bind
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himself by this law. Therefore, God could justly command the execution of a whole household by
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divine decree. What does that mean? Pausing there for a moment. It means that a civil magistrate
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at any time, in any place, cannot punish the children for the sins of a father.
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We must stick to the script. We don't work by a dream or a vision or some interpersonal divine
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revelation from God. Well, God told me that this person is guilty. Well, do you have two or three
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eyewitnesses? No, but I just know it. Well, tough. Tough. In biblical law, better for 10 men
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who are objectively guilty of a crime to get away with murder than to condemn one truly innocent
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man. Why? Well, because in Christian theology, we know that no one ultimately gets away with
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murder. There is a higher court. There is a life to come. There is a perfect judge of the living
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and the dead, and he will eventually do that which is right. So we would rather exonerate
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ten guilty men, then wrongfully condemn one innocent man. And so, when it comes to executing
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justice for the civil magistrate, whether it be in Israel or in the United States of America today,
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we must stick to that which is written. Eye for eye. That is, justice is proportional.
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Tooth for tooth, life for life. Also, justice must be swift. Also, justice must be impartial.
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there is an exception. The exception is that God was verbally speaking to Israel, namely to Israel's
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commander-in-chief, Joshua. That as we saw in Joshua chapter 5, the Lord had already physically
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appeared to Joshua. And so when the Lord appears and speaks, you do what he says. And for any who
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would say, well, the Lord appeared to me and spoke to me and said something that directly contradicts
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the Bible, our response should be, uh-uh. I believe Joshua. I don't believe you. So it's written in the
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Scripture plainly that the children should not be put to death for the sin of the Father. But God is
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binding his people to this law, not himself. Which means in justice, God by divine decree could say
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in this particular instance, the whole family shall be put to death. That's the disclaimer.
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Now here's the point. The point is, although God could justly do this, everything I've just
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articulated, I don't actually think that that's what was going on. I think that more likely the
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reason why Achan's whole household is put to death is because his whole household participated in the
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sin. That his children were actually complicit, grown children in this instance, and that they
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helped their father to hide the devoted things in Jericho. And that the Lord knew this, and that this
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is precisely why, in divine decree, that He commanded the whole house to be put to death
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and not just Achan, because all of them were involved. I believe that although this is not
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explicit in the text, that this is a good and plausible inference.
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Here's the last thing. We've answered pretty much every question that I think jumps out of our text
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today. But the final question that jumped out of the text as I was studying and preparing this week
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was this. Will I see Achan in heaven? And I believe that I will.
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The hardest part of the text for me to grapple with this week in my study was
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when Joshua says to Achan my son give glory to God and give him praise and do not hide anything
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that you have done and Achan's response what he says to Joshua
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let me find it because I don't believe that I actually have it in your notes but it's in our
00:51:17.440
text today. Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 26 verse 19. Then Joshua said to Achan, my son,
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give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give him praise. And tell me now what you have done. Do not
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hide it from me. Now listen to Achan's response. This is what was hard for me. It doesn't sound
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like the response of someone currently in hell. Achan answered Joshua, truly, I have sinned against
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the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from
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Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them.
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He doesn't just say, I did it. He's thorough in his confession. I coveted them and then took them
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and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent
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I like what Charles Spurgeon says in this regard.
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implying that he was only to be troubled in this life by being stoned to death, but that God would
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have mercy on his soul, seeing that he had made a full confession of his sin. And I, too, am inclined
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from the reading of the chapter to concur in the idea of my venerable and now glorified predecessor,
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Dr. Gill, that is John Gill, who preached in the very same church a hundred years prior.
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John Gill also held Spurgeon's opinion on this,
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and believing that Achan really was saved,
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although he was put to death for the crime as an example.
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For you will observe how kindly Joshua spoke to him.
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He said, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to God of Israel,
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hide it not from me. And you find Achan making a very full confession. It seems so full a confession
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that if I might be allowed to judge, I should say, I hope to meet Achan the sinner before the throne
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of God. One final quote from Spurgeon. Although he says, I believe that Achan is in heaven,
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that his confession does not absolve him of guilt and the punishment in this life from the civil
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magistrate, Israel, holding both offices, to be stoned and put to death under the law of God,
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that he was, in fact, forgiven. Because if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
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forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And so he was put to death
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in the physical, but forgiven and saved in the spiritual and before the throne of God.
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Charles Spurgeon affirms this position, but he doesn't leave it with just this affirmation.
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So the final point today is this. Although it may be fair, I cannot explicitly say, but I think that
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it is more likely than not that Achan is in heaven, that he was in fact redeemed. Although
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it may be fair to come to this conclusion, let none of us take away from that, that it's a good
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thing to die like Achan. So let's any of us take away from this, hey, Achan made it to heaven.
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That's the headline of the story. I hear you loud and clear, preacher. You can do terrible things,
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outrageous things in Israel, and at the end of the day, you'll be all right. That's not the headline.
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So Charles Spurgeon finishes up. He follows up his, I think Achan is in heaven, quote, with another.
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Here it is. Oh, to die with full assurance. Oh, to die with an abundant entrance, leaving a testimony
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behind that we have departed this life in peace. That is a far happier way than to die in a doubtful
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manner, lying sick, hovering between two worlds, and neither ourselves nor yet our friends,
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knowing to which of the two worlds we are going. May God grant us grace to give in our lives
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evidences of true conversion that our case may not be doubtful like Achan's. I think that Achan
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was saved, but I cannot say with 100% certainty. But let it be said of you, brothers and sisters
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in Christ, when you breathe your final breath, that there is a blessed assurance that we are
00:56:30.400
certain that we do not doubt or question like we do in the case of Achan, but rather I know him,
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I know her. They are now absent in the body and we are sure that they are present with the Lord
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because by his grace, they gave much evidence in their life of the fruit of the spirit and the
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grace of God. It is not a loving thing for your family and your friends to be left behind,
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assuming that you were actually saved and are now in the presence of God, to leave your family
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and loved ones behind for years, perhaps even decades, of wandering. Why are they saying it?
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but secondarily, for the good of those who love you,
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and lastly, for the good of your own peace of mind and soul.
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oh blessed assurance oh glory divine let's pray father we thank you for your word
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bless it to your people bring glory to yourself amen