The defeat of Israel at Ai, following their miraculous victory at Jericho, serves as a stark illustration of how sin can bring about spiritual defeat. The sermon highlights that while Jericho represents victory through faith and obedience, Ai represents defeat stemming from disobedience and hidden sin, specifically Achan's coveting and taking of the devoted spoils. The core lesson is that even one person's sin can bring disaster upon the entire community, and that God sees all hidden sin, leading to inevitable consequences. The message concludes by emphasizing that true victory requires not only outward obedience but also inward purity, and that sin must be confessed and dealt with to avoid God's chastening or ultimate condemnation.
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And the land of Canaan, Palestine, or Israel, as we know it now. And he said, now, in contrast to the land of Egypt where you were, which was a comparatively level country, he said, now the land where thou goest is the land of hills and of valleys. Undoubtedly speaking of the natural terrain when he thus described it, but not only was that true of the physical features of the land of Canaan, but it was also true of the spiritual experiences that they would have there, and even in a greater way, it pictures to us the over Christian life.
It's hills and valleys. Now, it's possible to have victory in both the hills and the valleys. But on the other hand, very often the valleys become places of defeat. And that's what we have in Chapter 7. In Chapter 6 of this great book of Joshua, we have, as we've studied, that tremendous miracle at Jericho, the falling down of those massive walls without a shot being fired or anything of a military maneuver being enacted there, but simply through the power of God in response to the walk of faith around those walls for one week the children of Israel.
You remember the mighty massive walls so great that houses were even built on them. They fell down. And the children of Israel marched forward and the entire city was destroyed. Only one family being delivered, the family of Rahab, who had taken shelter behind the scarlet cord. Everything in that city according to the commandment of God, was to be devoted to him. That is, all the treasures in it were to be put into the tabernacle of God for the use of the service of the Lord.
And so chapter 6 seems to be a chapter of tremendous victory. And it was. But when we come to chapter 7, And I want you to notice the first word, but, and that sounds rather ominous and prepares us a little for what we're now going to read. Follow the narrative carefully then as I read from Joshua 7, verse 1. But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. The word accursed is devoted.
That is, as I've explained, all of the things the treasures in Jericho were to be devoted to the service of the Lord. For Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zaddi, the son of Zira, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. And Joshua sent men from Jericho to A.I., which is beside Beth Avon, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country.
And the men went up and viewed A.I. And they returned to Joshua and said unto him, Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite A.I. thither, for they are but few. So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men, and they fled before the men of A.I. And the men of A.I. smote them about thirty and six men, for they chased them from before the gate, even unto Shabarim, and smote them in the going down, wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, until the even time, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought us people over Jordan to deliver the Amorites to destroy us. Would to God we have been content and dwelt on the other side Jordan? O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth.
And what wilt thou do for thy great name? And the Get thee up. Wherefore liest thou upon thy vates? Israel has sinned, and they've also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the cursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also. And they've put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turn their backs before their enemies, they were accursed neither will i be with them anymore except he destroyed the accursed thing from among you up sanctify the people and say sanctify yourselves against tomorrow for thus that the lord god of israel there is an accursed thing in the midst of the o israel thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you in the morning be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which 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, it shall come man by man. And it shall be that he that is taken with 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 Zahreites.
And he brought the family of the Zahreites man by man. And Zabdi was taken. And he brought the 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. Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him. And tell me now what thou hast done. Hide it not from me. Make an answer, Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord. Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them, and behold, they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.
So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent. And behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it. And they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them under Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord. Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zira, and the silver, and the garments, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his anthers, and all that he had, and they brought them unto the valley of Acre. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us?
The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned them with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger, For the name of that place was called the Valley of Acre unto this day. You'll understand that when I tell you that the word Acre in Hebrew means trouble. So it's the Valley of Trouble. We hear every now and then about the secrets of victory in the things of God.
And that's very necessary. And we learn the secrets of victory over this world in chapter 6 of John. Joshua. I pointed out in our study of that chapter that it was a walk of faith and obedience that brought victory at Jerusalem. And it's a walk of faith and obedience to God that brings victory over this world. But we not only need to learn the secrets of victory, we need to learn the secrets of defeat. Because wherever there is defeat. There's a reason for. There's a secret behind it.
And that is what we have brought out here at A.I. Now, as I said, it would look as though there had been complete victory at Jericho. The walls had come tumbling down. The people of Israel had moved on in. The been destroyed. The city had been burned with fire. A solemn curse had been pronounced on that city and on anyone who would rise and build it, which took place later, as we have in 1 Kings chapter 16.
And then the chapter ends. You'll notice that last verse. I'm referring to chapter 6, verse 27. So the Lord was with Joshua. and his fame was noised throughout all the country. Now, in reading Chapter 7, there's a two-fold cause for this defeat that took place here at A.I. It's the only defeat that the armies of Israel suffered in their campaign to conquer the land of Canaan. should arrest our attention, and should make us more carefully search for the reason for this unusual defeat here.
You can see how it practically filled the camp of Israel with a panic. It says their hearts failed when they saw that their army had been beaten. And Joshua falls before the ark of the Lord. And you hear words coming from this man that once again are almost unbelievable if we didn't know the unbelief of our own hearts. Here's the man who has seen God open up the river Jericho in a miraculous way. Here's the man who has seen the walls of that great fortress fall flat.
He's saying, now, Lord, why weren't we content to stay over on the other side of the river Jordan? Why did you bring us in here to allow us to be defeated, and now all the other inhabitants of Cane will hear it? They'll come marching down on us. Lord, we're going to be destroyed. Now, from a man like Joshua, I repeat such words. are almost unbelievable if you didn't know your own heart. But how often, even after we have experienced victory in the things of God, how often when another trial comes up, our faith just seems to melt away.
We seem to forget all that God has done for us, and we're filled of a fear and unbelief, and we say in our hearts, if not with our lips, why did we ever embark on this venture of faith? Why weren't we content just to be saved, to be delivered from Egypt, as it were, and not to try and accomplish things for God? Why weren't we just content to dwell in the wilderness there and let God look after us and not bother to go into Canaan and win any more victories for him. How easy it is to do that.
And I'm afraid many of God's people have just settled down in the wilderness this world. They say, I'm saved, I'm sure I'm saved, I'm eternally saved, and that's all I'm interested in. What a tragic thing. that anyone who actually adopts that attitude has ever known the transforming grace of God. It's just like a man taking a bride, and the ceremony is all over. He said, well, now there you are. There you are. Now I've married you. Now you're just going your way. I'll go my way, and you go your way.
That's all I'm interested in. How God must be disappointed. If I may use that term, how God must be grieved when those who have been delivered by the blood of Christ at the terribly expensive Calvary, when they just settle down and say, well, I'm saved and that's all that matters. I'll be in heaven forever. I'm going to please myself. I'm going to live for myself. I'm going to get all I can of this world, and I'm not going about the things of the Lord. Let somebody else look after that. That's not for me.
There may be defeat as we press off. But I say to my friends, it's better to be defeated in doing something for God than never to attempt anything. The person who's never made a mistake or I'm safe to say has never made anything and never will. But when there is defeat, then we should search and search diligently as to the cause of it. Now there's a two-fold cause. I would much rather give this in two messages, because I've learned this.
When you try and give something for unsaved people and for the Lord's people, belongs to Christians, and the Christians take what belongs to the unsafe, and they get all confused. So I want to try and be very, very careful now in what I say. First of all, the basic cause was this. God had seen something that was hidden from human eyes. There had been a victory. The walls had fallen down. The armies had moved in. The city had been burned.
But one man and Israel had sinned, and God saw it. And at all the millions of Israel, God saw what one man did. And remember, you can't hide from the all-seeing eye of God in the crowd. You may commit a sin in the midst of 10,000 people, and God sees them. The Arabs used to have a parable to try and impress on the people, the omniscience of God.
And they said Allah can see a black ant on a black stone in a black night. Now, what they were simply saying was God can see everything. No matter how it'd be hidden from human sight, God can see everything. And remember this, my friend, that ought to sober you. It sobered me 50 years ago when God saved me. And the thing that shook me up that night when God saved me was this, God had seen everything that I had done.
From the moment of my birth, right to that moment, God had seen everything. I'll tell you, that shook me up. And when I began to think of an all-seeing God, for whom I would stand on a coming day, he'd seen everything. He'd heard everything. He knew everything. And not only does God see everything, but there are consequences which are inevitable from what is wrong. Aitken thought he got away with it.
His family, whom I think it's quite evident, were in on this. They knew what had been done, and it looked as though they'd gotten away from it with it. God saw it. And when the armies marched out for their next battle, against the little city up there in the hills, nothing at all like the great fortress of Jericho, just a little city, 12,000 inhabitants, in comparison with this great city of Jericho.
Now, on the other side, let me try without losing that thread of thought, let me just point this out. On the other side, there was self-confidence. We were reading here about Joshua, and his fame spreads throughout all the country. Everywhere in Canaan, they were talking about this great general that was at the head of the armies of Israel. They were saying something like this, or we thought when Moses died, man who led them out of Egypt and brought them to the land.
We thought when Moses died, that we'd have a chance against these armies of Israel. But God has raised up a younger man by name of Joshua, and apparently just as great a general as Moses was. That's what we're talking about all through the land of Canaan. I wonder if Joshua couldn't hold a full cup. Many a person was going on for God when they had to be content with a cup that wasn't very full. But when it was filled to the brim, they couldn't carry it.
For some strange reason, that left hand of mine, which to me seemed to be perfectly still, I've seen the perfect control of it, just as soon as I pick up a cup with any liquid in it, I start spilling it everywhere. And often I've looked at that hand, well I've learned not to use it for that now, but I used to look at it, and I think, now there's a lesson for me to remember. I maybe can't carry a full cup. That may be why the Lord is not filling my cup as full as I might want it to be.
Personally, I'd rather have a cup half full to be able to carry it for the glory of God than a cup that's filled with everything and spill it all over and make disaster. Maybe that's what happened to Joshua. Anyway, he sends out spies and they come back and I don't think I'm making it too strong They came back and said, oh, it's just easy. Nothing, too. Just a little town up there, 12,000 people. Let's not send all the people up there and make them labor. Just send two or three thousand men.
There won't be anything to it. Self-confidence has been the destruction of many a Christian experience blessing and victory from God. And that's exactly what happens here. They're self-confident. There's no mention of the ark until Joshua falls down before it. You remember the ark led the way around Jericho. I don't care how small a test or a temptation, a trial or a problem that you have to face, you can't overcome it if you don't have Christ ahead of you.
I'll mark that down. Many a person has failed at AI that got on fairly well at Jericho. But at Jericho, they followed the ark. At AI, they apparently went without it. Now, I'm speaking to those of you who are saved, or those are the only kind that can follow Christ. Are you following Christ in your life? In every detail of it. No matter how small or what you say, that's just a little thing. I can take care of that myself. Go ahead. Go ahead. That'll be disaster. You'll be defeated.
You'll make a mistake. Whether Jericho or AI, you're only safe when you're following Christ. And you know that you're going to be going in the way that he's leading you. Doesn't matter what others are doing. Doesn't matter how small and insignificant the thing may be. I'm reminded of a dear old friend of mine. He's home in the glory now, a man of God who used to live in Newport News. You know, I never saw that man, and he was white-haired when I first knew him.
I never saw that man raise a glass of water to his lips without bowing his hand. He gave thanks to God for even a glass of water. You say a small thing? Insignificant? Yes. But life is made up of the small things. I've lived long enough to learn this. It's not the great victories we win, it's the little ones. So often a victory has been won in private, in public, and there's been defeat in private.
Someone asked a man who walked across America what he had the greatest trouble with, the great burning deserts out there in the southwest, the mountains when he came to them he said neither well he said what gave you the most trouble on the trip what did you have the biggest difficulty with he said the sand that got in my shoes that's it you ever try to walk the sand in your shoes well you can sympathize with your brother yes you can go across the desert if you your feet are in good shape.
You can scale that mountain eventually. But I'll tell you, even the level land will get you if you've got some grains of sand between your feet and your socks or your hoses, whatever it might be. Yes, it's the little things. An AI was their defeat. Self-confidence. But sin. Now in this chapter, sin is dealt with. In the next chapter, self-confidence is dealt with, because sin has to be dealt with if there's going to be victory. I want you to notice this, just one or two more things.
You'll notice that we began our reading of the chapter with the ominous words, the children of Israel committed a trespass. The end of that verse says, the anger the Lord was kindled the children of Israel. Now, stop and think. At least a million and a half people. We decided in our studies it could be either between a million and a half or three million people. How many men sinned? One man. Who is charged with the sin? All the nation. Now, if that was true in Israel, it's doubly true in the children.
church. The true church is looked on as a unit, and the local church is looked on as a unit too. And everybody in the church doesn't have to sin for God to be angry. Everyone in the church doesn't have to sin for there to be defeat. One sinner. Do you remember back in our studies from Egypt to Canaan, we saw how one woman let her tongue run loose and it stopped the whole camp. One woman gossiped and went to backbiting and three million people were stopped in their tracks.
Yes, we're a unit. And if there's the naked in the camp, God charges a camp with sin. That's why the elders of this assembly are responsible to see that discipline is carried out when there's sin. We dare not, we cannot wink at it, no matter who it is or what it is, without fear or fever, discipline must be carried out according to the word of God, or there be defeat. It's a hard thing to do. It's a difficult thing.
I have sat with the elders of this assembly, and they've wrestled before God, and every one of us would much rather just washed our hands of the whole thing. But God says, Israel has sinned. Lord, don't you mean Achan? I mean Israel. Israel. But while the whole camp is charged with sin, while all of Israel suffers defeat, it's the sinner that's dealt with. Now God will deal with sin.
We read, if we would judge ourselves, this is from 1 Corinthians chapter 10, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. That is, I as a Christian should judge myself and see to it that I'm not allowing in my life anything that's displeasing, dishonoring to God. If I don't, the Lord will judge me, and then He'll chasten me as a child of His.
So I'll not be condemned with the world. When a Christian sins, they get their punishment here. When a sinner sins, he gets his punishment on a hand. That's why there are men and women today that are living in Greensboro and all kinds of sins, and they're prospering, they're getting a hand, they're going fine as they were, they're popular. Don't you try. If you're a Christian, don't you try. You won't get away with it. If you do, you better search yourself whether you're Christian or not.
The Christmas chastened now, the world is condemned in the future. But Achan is judged. Just picture yourself. Eventually confesses what happened, going through the ruined city of Jericho. He sees what's called here a goodly Babylonish garment. It's a beautiful mantle from Shinar, famous for its beautiful cloth. A beautiful mantle, he sees that.
And apparently right near it, there are some shekels of silver, a bar of gold and having a heart like every one of us that's painted with a fall of Adam and the Garden of Eden he coveted it. He says in his confession in verse 21, I saw. That's the first that ensign. I saw. But you can see things. Others saw that. No doubt. but it didn't harm them you can't live in the world without seeing sin but the next step is he says I coveted that oh that's it he sought I'd like to have that I'd like to have that I'd like to have that now James tells us how desire works in James the epistle of James chapter 1 verses 14 and 15, you read of the genealogy of
sin, how temptation works. And it says there's lust and its desire. We have made our English word lust to be almost exclusively connected to a sexual desire. But that's not so in the Bible. It's the simple Greek word for desire. And James says, Desire, when it hath conceived, bringeth or sin. Now, Conception, as you well know, is a period of time in which there's growth.
Then there's the birth. Desire, when it hath conceived, bring a force sin you see you see something I'd like to have that no I'm talking about things are not legitimate there are certainly things you can see and desire to have that are further legitimate be you saved or unsaved I'm speaking about that which is not legitimate this was not this belonged to God you see it I'd like to have it you can see it on your way. I really wish I had that.
I can't hardly do without that. And desire grows stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger as you coveted. Then he says, and I took them. That was the sin. Desire, conceive, bring up forth sin. He took it. Then he did what everyone does. He tried to hide it. And he brought it to his tent and put it there in the tent and carefully covered it over and went on his way, possibly whistling a merry tune that God saw.
No, I'm going to close. Maybe you've got a tent and there's something hidden in it that doesn't belong to you, belongs to God. But you're hiding it and you think you've got it well covered and you're going on everything outwardly, fine, God sees it. God's going to put his finger on it. God said to Joshua, now you bring Israel tribe by tribe, family by family, household by household, man by man.
Imagine if your name had been Achan and you knew right back there in your tent there was that Babylonish garment. When you first saw it, my I'd look good in that. I tell you that would really show off my natural beauty. I'd really look good in it. And when you got it and slipped it on, my I really do look good. But you know it doesn't look so good now. It doesn't look so good now. When you saw that silver and gold, you know, you thought, my, all that I could buy were that when we get settled down and came I'd be a rich man but it doesn't look so good now the tribe of Judah passes by God says take that tribe and then a household is taken take that household the household passes by take that family the family passes by can you Imagine what Achan was feeling like.
Well, when they took Judah, he said, well, a lot of other men in our tribe. Nobody knows anything at all about it, but my sons and my daughters. And I told them not to say anything to anyone. And then the household is taken. And his conscience begins to bother him a little more. Then the family is taken. his heart flushed him, his father's family. And then he braces himself. Well, they'll never know. And the family marches on past naked, maybe shoulder just as straight as anybody else.
Take that man. How beautiful do you think that garment seemed that moment? How rich do you think he felt himself to be right then? Aiken, give glory to God. Tell what you've done. I have sinned. Aiken is too late. Too late. Why didn't you come and announce that before? Why didn't you come and confess that before, Aitken?
You see, you read in your Bible of a number of men, Pharaoh, Judas, Shemai, and others. They all said, I've sinned, but they said it too late. And you may say it too late, because I've sinned. They take him out, down to the valley of trouble. and they stone him and Achan who dug a place in his tent to cover up his sin is covered up by his sin down there in the valley of Acre a valley of trouble why?
because the Bible says be sure your sin will find you out don't make any mistake about it you covered all you can God sees it the time is coming when your tribe will go past your household will go past your family will go past but you won't go past God will place finger on you he buried his sin And his sin buried him, because you can't sin and get away with it.
The only way you can escape the penalty of sin is by coming in genuine repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ and accepting him as your Savior and claiming the death that he died for sin as your death, That's the one and only way, my friend, of escaping the terrible penalty of sin. For that verse I was quoting to you from James 1.15 says, Loss, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
You don't believe it? Ask again. Go down to the valley of trouble. Stand there at that heap of stone. Say, Aiken, did your sin find you out? And back from beneath, that carron of stones will come the words it did. Aiken, what good is that garment doing you now? Nothing. What good is that silver and gold doing, Ewaikon? Nothing. Nothing.
My friends, whatever you sell your soul for, it'll profit you nothing as you weep and wail and mash your teeth in the lake of fire forever. I hope you'll say I've sinned before it's too late. Shall we pray? Father, take thy precious word, impresseth on every one of us.