Achan's sin.

Seems to me like it was direct, intentional disobedience to God's instructions after capture of the city; nothing more, nothing less!

 

Achan did not just sin...he carried his sin home and hid it under his tent floor. He buried it, knowing the fact of it, to HIDE it. Then, after losing the blessing of God and finding out why, Joshua announces that there is sin in the camp, and to go and cleanse yourself...judgementsa comin' in the mornin'! So what does achan do? Refusing to act to purge his life during this period of grace he tries to "fool" God, keep his sin, and get off without consequence. We see a picture of the typical Christian here...but God does not do us like Achan for the same reason Annanias and S. are not reenacted daily in our churches (though Christians rob God all the time). I believe that one should look at an incident like this as an "ENSAMPLE" just as the Bible instructs us to do. It teaches us our tendencies toward revealed sin, and, by the gravity of the direct consequence (destruction of the entire family), it shows our potential to ruin all the best things God has given us (i.e.: our children and wife etc), and it also reveals just how it is that God VIEWS our SIN! Hope this helps.

Remember: There was a season of grace before consequences were meeted out!

 

[Post edited: Non-Baptist posting in a Baptist Only section.]

[ November 29, 2005, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]

 

i agree with Just-Want-Peace & Rhetorician...All I can add is that Achan's family obviously knew of his sin and SUPPORTED him in it. Stoning was a death meted out to KNOWN SINNERS. Were Achan's family innocent, God wouldn'ta allowed them to be stoned with him.

Were innocent people slain at times in Scripture? Yes; a notable example was David's friend Jonathan, Saul's son. But he fell in battle; he wasn't deliberately executed by the shameful death of stoning.

 

In verse 10 God tells Joshua what they did. They stole from God.

10 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? 11 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.

Back up into Chapter 6 and you find this was in direct violation of a command from God NOT to take things from the accursed city, AND in violation of a command that said the silver and gold belonged to God.

16 And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. 17 And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. 18 And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. 19 But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.