Joshua, chapter seven, verses one through 12. We're going to start reading today and I'm also going to buy a new pair of glasses soon. I realize these are breaking, so I hope they don't break beyond or hope they let me finish today. All I need is to read this scripture and got this tiny Bible or tiny print Bible. It was fine when I bought it, but that was a few years ago and I'm older now.

The Israelites. In Joshua, chapter 7, verses 1 through 12, the Israelites disobeyed the command about the city's riches. Achan a c h A N Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah from the tribe of Judah, stole some of the riches. The Lord was furious with the Israelites. I could stop there and that's enough for today, but we're going to go on.

Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is located near Beth Aven, in case you were wondering, east of Bethel. He instructed them, go up and spy on the land. Joshua, by the way, is the guy that's leading Israel now. Moses is dead. Joshua is his replacement.

So the men went up and spied on AI. By the way, that's not AI like we have now. Artificial intelligence. It was a town called AI or A. I'm not sure how they pronounced it, but anyway, AI. So about 3,000 or sorry, they.

So they went up and spied on AI. They returned and reported to Joshua. Don't send the whole army. About 2 or 3,000 men are adequate to defeat AI. Don't tire out the whole army.

For AI is small. So about 3,000 men went up. But they fled from the men of AI. The men of AI killed about 36 of them and chased them in front of the city all the way to the fishers and defeated them on the steep slope. The people's courage melted away like water.

By the way, this is their second battle, the first one they've had. Literally all they had to do was walk around a city for a few days and then they shouted and blew a horn and the city walls fell in and God gave it to them. They're not used to losing. This is their second battle and they start losing. 36 guys seems like an acceptable number in the just in the chronicles of war.

Doesn't sound like that many. But to them it's a problem because it means something has happened, something has changed. Is God not with us? That's what they're thinking.

So the people's courage melted away like water. Verse six, Joshua Tore his clothes. He and the leaders of Israel lay face down on the ground before the Ark of the Lord until evening. And they threw dirt on their heads. That's a sign of, like, mourning and repentance and humility.

We don't understand that. We would be like, I'm not putting dirt on my head. You know, like, I might do some other stuff. But that's not happening. Joshua prayed, oh, oh, Lord God, oh, Master, Lord, why did you'd bring these people across the Jordan river only to hand us over to these Amorites so they could destroy us?

If only we had been satisfied to live on the other side of the Jordan River. Oh, Lord, what can I say now that Israel has retreated before its enemies? When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will turn against us and destroy the very memory of us from the earth. What will you do to protect your great reputation? The Lord responded to Joshua.

Get up. Has God ever told you to get up like, you've been. You've been mourning. You've been crying. You've been praying long enough.

Has God ever told you you prayed long enough? Now do something. You probably haven't prayed that long, have you? Okay, I got it. Anyway, so he says, get up.

Why are you lying there? Face down. Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenantal commandment. They have taken some of the riches they have stolen them and deceitfully put them among their own possessions.

The Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies. They retreat because they have become subject to annihilation. I will no longer be with you unless you destroy what has contaminated you. Let's pray. God, we've got business to do today.

Lord, we. We are called on the carpet by your word. Your scripture has called us today. And you've called me today to bring this message. Lord, I, I, I. I feel it burning on my heart.

It's heavy burden this morning. And, Lord, I just pray that I would only faithfully spe. Put on my heart to say, in Christ's name we pray. Amen. See, there was one guy that's responsible here.

One guy. His name is Aiken. Aiken. Stole some stuff. Now, I want to tell you, in war, that's kind of common, right?

Winner take all. You go to battle, you go to war. You destroy your enemy. You take their stuff. That's how they did it.

You, you probably put to death all the men. You take the. The boys and you treat them as slaves or servants. You take the women that are of marriageable age. You Get.

Take them as wives. You. You wait till their daughters are old enough to get married off. You maybe sell them as wives to foreigners, or you take them as wives for yourselves. However it works, that's what people did.

And so normally you take the wealth, the riches, the animals, the. The gold, the clothing, whatever it is, and you take that stuff and now it's yours. That's part of war. That's how they did it. Except God said one thing.

When you go to Jericho, you're not going to fight for that city. I've got that city already conquered. I want you to walk around it once a day for six days on the seventh day. Now, interestingly, God usually says on the Sabbath day, but now he has them marching on the seventh day. It's a day of war.

They march around that city seven times. They march around it seven times. They give a big shout. And God causes the walls that are multiple feet thick to collapse in on themselves. And all the troops just walk into the city and put it to the sword.

It was an evil city. It was an idolatrous city, a pagan city. And it was under the judgment of God that it was time for it to go. We don't like to think of them killing everybody in the city, but that's what God told them to do. When we can talk about that in our class that we have afterwards, it's a great discussion.

We call it Sunday school, but we don't have a lesson plan or a curriculum. We talk about these things.

God said, take everything there and it's all devoted. Some of it is devoted for destruction, and some of it is devoted for God. Put it into the treasury of the storehouse of the Lord to build the house and ministry of God among his people.

But one man named Achan, this guy, he later becomes called the troubler of Israel because his one sin, his personal sin that he committed, ended up affecting the whole nation. It affected the people of Israel, it affected the reputation of the God of Israel, and it caused problems. He was the troubler of Israel. And what he did was he. He finally.

He was given, by the way, he was given overnight to confess his sin. When these. When these men went into battle, there's 36 of them that died and they retreated. They come back home and they say, what do we do? What do we have to do?

What is going on? They're lying on the ground, they put the dirt on their head. They're doing all these things. And God says, get up. You've got sin in the camp.

You've Got sin in your midst and it has to be dealt with. Now. Not only had this been days since Achan had stolen things from the battle in Jericho, now he sat idly by while 3,000 of his brothers go into war. He gets to stay home, hanging out, chilling in his tent with his family, enjoying life, so he thinks. But meanwhile he's taken some things.

And when this ruling comes back that Israel has sinned, he's given overnight to come forward and confess. But he's a coward and he doesn't do that. Hear me? His sin was weighing on him, but he ignored it. He pushed it down.

He says, this isn't about me, is it? It must be somebody else that did something worse. Do you hear me? I was just telling Tom earlier, I said too many times when I preach, I just assume you'll make the connection. So I'm going to do what they call on the Internet, it's called tell it to me like I'm five.

You ever had that where you like, just. Can you, can we dumb it down another notch? Can we get it now? I'm starting to get the hint. Like, let's get it down to where.

How you would explain it to a 5 year old? Here's what I'm trying to say. When you think somebody else's sin is worse than yours, and that must be what the problem is, you're wrong. Okay, that's it. Oh, I know I'm stepping on, I'm going to step on toes so much worse today.

Here's the thing. I did not plan on saying all this at all. This is two hours old that God put on my heart. I was in my house putting my, my stuff in my pockets, ready to come to church, sermons already written, ready to go. And God put something, one sentence in my mind and he says it's time to start writing.

So I got a piece of paper, I write it down, I put it on my computer, I print it, I put it in this book that I use.

God gave me this message to share with you, so you better be willing to listen to it. Not because it matters to me, because this is important stuff, okay? Achan stole the stuff from God. He sat by thinking that his sin wasn't that bad, that his sin wasn't important, and that it must have been somebody else. So he didn't come in and confess his sin, and yes, I stole some of the devoted things.

Instead he waits and they, they do this thing where they seek out God by doing something they call casting lots, they cast lots, they find out it's this. This tribe, the tribe of Judah. They find out it's this clan. Then. Then this.

This father within the clan, and then which son it is, and then his household it is. And they come down to this guy, and finally they're like, okay, it's you. Tell us what happened. Tell us what you've done, son. He says, well, when we were in Jericho, I saw this awesome robe from Babylon.

He. He saw this pimp robe. Like, it was awesome to him. He's like, I need that in my closet, right? Like, he can't even wear it because somebody be like, where'd you get that pimp robe?

You know? And I don't mean like it came from a pimp. I just mean, like, that's something the kids say. Like, man, that's real pimp, dude. You know?

Anyway, some of you younger guys, a couple of you that are here, get it, I think. I don't know. Anyway, so, like, it's this real pimp. Am I right, Daniel? We understand it, right?

You know what I'm saying? Tom's got it. You're not even that young, Tom. Good for you. So you got to have a young mentality, folks, right?

If you have a young mentality, things are going to go great with your life. So anyway, so he's got this robe. He can't even wear the thing because people be like, where'd you get that? We live in the desert, okay? You know, nobody has clothes like that.

They wear, like, you know, these rag. I don't know. Anyway, so he's got this cool robe, but he's got to bury it. He's got, like, gold and silver, like a gold bar and silver coins and stuff. And he hid them.

He has to hide them under his tent. He's got to hide them from everybody so they can't see that he's got it. This is wealth that doesn't do him any good. He can't do anything with it. But he coveted it.

It was an idol to him. It was something that he worshiped. It's something that the Israelites are going to deal with over and over and over. We'll see this next week as well. Over and over.

They're going to deal with. With the. The constant desire and struggle to worship idols, to give themselves over to something in worship that gives them nothing in return. It just has to be buried in the ground. It does nothing for us.

Him. And so when he's found out, he goes, he. He's. He's called in front of the people and they're like, son, tell us what you did. And so he confesses his sin.

Then when it's already found out, what's the verse in the Bible? It says, be sure your sins will find you out. My old pastor, Daryl Blank used to quote that almost every week it seems like, and it's like drilled into my head, be sure that your sin will find you out. It's not just your sin. It's not just personal and private.

It's something that affects people. And so Achan, he comes up, he confesses this. And the thing that here's where like it goes off the rails if you didn't think we already were, is here's what God said to me this morning. He said, you're content, you're all too happy. Stealing from me.

That seems like a simple statement, but here's where, like, I don't know if you want to pick your feet up, you know, off the ground so I don't stomp them. I don't know what it is. I don't know who this applies to. This is not a complete list. But I want to tell you some of the ways that you're robbing God and some of the, when you're doing this, it's costing you in ways you don't realize and you don't think you're robbing God.

And neither did Achan. He thought he was just taking stuff that was spoils of war, but they were devoted things. They were things devoted to God and he took them from himself. He stole from God. I want to tell you that some of you are stealing from God the way you're living your lives, and I do as well.

You steal God's praise by not offering it up to him. Oh, I don't just mean when we sing songs in church. I mean, there's ways that you can praise God, read the psalms and understand the heart of a worshiper. And when you see that, you recognize that God is calling out a people who will praise him because he is rightfully due that praise. That praise is like owed to him because of who God is.

And we are robbing him by keeping that to ourselves. You steal God's reputation in one of two ways. Either you call yourself a Christian, but you're living like a pagan, or you call yourself a Christian, but don't ever really share that message with anyone. Do I need to explain that further? Like, let's come down to the five year old thing, okay?

Like, when I say living like a pagan, what I mean is this. You say, I'm a Christian. But your lifestyle, the things that you do, the things that you spend your money on, the things that you watch, the things that you listen to, the things that you say, what all of these things look like. A non Christian lives, in fact, sometimes worse. And it's really worse because if you're putting the name of God upon you when you say I'm a Christian, that means you're a little Christ.

Christian. That's what the word Christian means. Little Jesus is little Christ. You're supposed to be indistinguishable from Jesus Christ in the way that you live. And yet some of you are calling yourself a Christian.

And you come to church and it looks good, and then you leave here, and nobody can tell that you are ever in the presence of the people of God or God himself. You're not living as a Christian in the world. You're living like a pagan lives. Some of you, though, you're doing just great. You're.

You're on a path to holiness. You. You call yourself a Christian, you live as a Christian, but you just don't let anybody else know you're a Christian. I don't want to share that because it's too controversial. Because we.

We grew up, we don't talk about politics and religion. Ooh, good for you. Neat. Talk about it. I don't care.

I don't care about the politics. But the religion thing, like, it's not religion, folks. If you thought that's all it was, you done got it wrong. This isn't religion that we're about. If it's religion, I'd say you can walk out the door, but I made sure that they were closed today because don't walk out the door.

It's literally a symbol. Like, these doors are closed. You can leave when they're open. You can leave at any time. There's multiple exits.

The fire marshal won't let us lock them. But anyway, the point being, like, don't leave. You need this. I'm not hearing enough amends. Okay, cool.

So you steal. You steal God's reputation, but another way you do it is you steal God's blessings. See, you thought that when God was blessing you is because he just really cares so much about you and he wanted you to be blessed.

Yeah. Thanks, Susan. I appreciate it.

You're supposed to be what's called a conduit. I mean, the Romans built these aqueducts to transfer water from one place to the other. We have plumbing, you know, copper, iron, plastic. There was a stupid drain system that used to be Here from the late 60s, that was called Orange Bird Pipe. It's literally paper and tar.

I'm not making that up. They made pipe called Orangeburg pipe. It was invented in the era of the Civil War, and they were still putting it in here in 1969. You can imagine how bad that went. Anyway, so we dug all that up and put, you know, PVC in the ground years ago here.

It was a fun project. We did it ourselves. It was good. It still works. So praise God.

Thank you for those who helped with that. Anyway, you're supposed to be a conduit. You're that thing that carries something from one place to another. A conduit of God's blessings. When God blesses you.

When God blesses you, he doesn't mean it to just sit there in a pile in your presence. It's meant to be. Your life is a conduit to connect the blessings of God to other people. But you've robbed God and hoarded it for yourselves. Jesus calls you a fool for doing that.

He told a story about a guy that had. He was a farmer and he had a bumper crop here. So much grain that he didn't know what to do with it. And instead of giving it away from or just selling it and giving the money to the poor or whatever it is, he just said, you know what? I'm going to.

I don't understand this. He said, I'm going to tear down my barns and build bigger ones. I get hung up on that part of the story because I'm like, tear down your barns and build bigger ones, you idiot. Build more barns. You don't get rid of barns ever.

You just build more barns. Right, Keith? You just add to it, you know? So anyway. But Jesus is like, you fool.

Tonight your very life will be demanded of you. You didn't understand properly why God blessed you. Now, does that mean he said you can't, like, fill your barn or keep what you've got? But no, it's like, you know, you're supposed to understand the blessings from God. Yeah, he wants to bless you.

He's your loving heavenly Father. That's his prerogative to bless you. But it's also so that you can learn to be like your Father in heaven and give it to others. And so you've been robbing God by hoarding everything to yourself and not living as a conduit to bless other people tied to that. You steal God's money by not tithing.

Oh, I know it's easy to say. Well, Jesus never talked about tithing or that was one of the Ten Commandments and it's not in the New Testament. First of all, hogwash. Second of all, what do you call when Abraham gives a tithe to this guy named Melchizedek? That was long before the law of Moses came into place.

In other words, God is setting a precedent for tithing. He's saying, you think that 100% of the money that comes in on your paycheck is yours. You think that that belongs to you. All we have is God's. He can require it of you at any moment.

And so all he asks is to say for you to properly understand where you've gotten that money from, where you've gotten that provision from. He's telling you, I want you to put that into proper perspective by giving 10% of it back to his work and his ministry. In the Old. In, in the Old Testament, when they had the temple that came into the house of the treasury of God. And you know what the beautiful thing about it was?

The, the only people that had anything to tithe off of were people that had money that made money. It was usually the landowners, the farmers and those things. And so they didn't have like this monthly or weekly or bi weekly paycheck system like we've got now. So it was totally different. But basically what he's saying is, like, when I bless you, I want you to understand what it is.

And the proper way to understand that is to give a portion of it back to me. And some of you are well beyond 10%. Some of you have like, I've never even tried that. Guess what? There's a place in the last book of the Old Testament, a guy named Malachi, that's a prophet.

And he says, you know what? Try God in this. You're robbing God. See, it wasn't even my language today about robbing God. Malachi used it and he says, you're stealing from God.

And you're like, how am I stealing from God? How can I possibly do that? He lives in heaven, I'm here. I can't steal from him. Well, first of all, Achan did it.

And second of all, Malachi said the children of Israel were doing it. And they're like, how do I do that? He says, well, in your tithes and offerings, that's the plus over the 10%, right? Like, 10% is a good starting number. You think it's a lot of money.

God just says, start there. I know you guys are uncomfortable. You don't like when the pastor talks about tithing. Good news. I don't very often.

I am today because the word of God took me here. Literally, the word from God brought me to this place today. And so I'm. I am in error if I don't bring it to you. God says, you're stealing from me when you don't give the tithes, when you don't give your offerings.

In other words, you think that it was your hard work that got it. You fool. God blessed you see the previous point to be a blessing to others. Anyway, I'll move on from there. Oh, I won't.

There's one thing Malachi says, try me. Anybody ever been in a place like that where somebody, you think it's a threat, and they're like, are you threatening me? You're like, try me. See how much of a threat it is. I learned about this thing recently, this week.

This is awesome, by the way. This has nothing to do with anything. I'm just telling you because I think it's cool. There's this thing. This is where I get into trouble.

For those of you that know me, there's this thing that some states have, and I haven't looked up which states, because I'm not a fighter, you know, I like people mostly most of the time. Sorry, Lord, if I'm lying. Anyway, I like a lot of people a lot of time, let's put it that way. And there's this thing called mutual combat laws. Like, if a couple guys or girls decide that they have beef with each other and they want to fight about it, like fist fight, that they can do that, and it's not illegal because it was mutually agreed upon combat.

It wasn't like an assault or something. It's just like, you want to take this outside? And that's kind of what Malachi is saying. He's saying, like, this is God's answer to you. When you think like, I'm not stealing from God, and you're like, oh, yeah, try me.

See how I feel about that. For real? God says. And then he says, he says, here's what you're going to find when you want to, you know, kind of follow my way on this. See, just, just, just do a trial, give that 10%, give that tithe, and see if I don't bless you so much in return.

And I don't want to sound like one of those TV guys is like, write that check. No, first of all, who has checks? I know some of you guys still have checks. I don't. I think I got like two In a drawer somewhere, and I don't remember which drawer.

So I still have to go to the bank and get a sheet of them printed off if I have to write a check for something. So please don't ask me for a check. But it's like, seriously, if you give that money, God's gonna be a blessing to you. He says, I'll open up the floodgates of heaven and bless you so much that you don't have room to contain it. Oh, I hear those amens, and I know who said it.

And I hear it because I know that you have lived that life and you've lived that promise of God in your lives. Is that right? Your testimony. Thank you.

Some of you are stealing God's daughters by sleeping with them when you aren't married to them or by watching them in pornography. Stop it. Just stop. That goes for you ladies too. You're not kind of, you know, missing out on this one.

The stats are heavily towards the men's side of things on this as far as the pornography. But cut it out. Here's what I'm saying with this.

These young people are sons and daughters of God. Whether they're following his ways or not yet, I don't know. But we're talking about, especially with pornography or whether you're sleeping with your girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever it is. You're looking at this and you're saying, well, that's a daughter of the king, that's a son of the king, that's a prince or a princess. So.

But I'm just going to go ahead and just kind of peep in through their window. Or I'm just going to go ahead and slip into their room and the king won't know. How do you think the king's going to feel about that when he finds out?

Oh, I know you guys are thinking. You're like, ah, this is a young man's game that he's talking about. No, you guys can't hide. I don't know what you're into. Statistically, I know what you're into.

I know what's in your heart. Because I've had evil thoughts in my heart, too. God only lets that stuff go for so long before it starts affecting you in so many ways and you start to think, it must be some other reason that this is. This has happened to me. It must be some other reason that I'm going through this struggle, this trial, this hardship.

God is serious about how we treat his sons and daughters. God is serious about how we look at other People that he has created in his image. Now you start treating them like a brother and a sister and like a child of the king, or God's going to have some words for you. I do believe much harsher than the ones that I'm saying this morning. See, what we're doing so many times is we're stealing, like Adam and Eve did, from that tree in the garden.

If you don't know the story, God said, hey, eat freely from all these trees, but not from that tree. That tree, essentially, is what God is saying is he says, that tree belongs to me. That's my tree. It's none of your business what's going on in that tree. You leave that tree alone.

And that tree, he says, don't eat from that one, because if you eat from it, it'll kill you. First thing Satan does, he comes up and he's like, did God tell you you can't eat from that tree? Oh. Or from all the trees? And Eve's like, no, just not from this one.

We can't even touch it or look at it or we'll die. It's not what God said. What God said was, don't eat from it. She adds all these other things. We always love adding to the word of God and making it more complicated, don't we?

I know. Pastors are good at that, too, right? You're like Pastor Nick, though. You say complicated things.

Sometimes they're supposed to be. You've got to work on it, figure it out. That's why Jesus told parables. You weren't supposed to figure it out easily. You're supposed to, like, turn it over in your mind.

That's why you have this nice little book, has lines for notes that you can write in and then take it home and do homework. Are you guys doing that? Some of you. Good, good. I'm glad it works.

What happens when they ate from that tree was they began to say the things that God said were evil. They began to call it good. They began to say, well, God said, don't eat from this tree. But it's pleasing. It looks good.

It looks appealing. It looks like it would taste good. It looks like it would satisfy me. I should just go ahead and do this. It won't hurt anyone.

That's what Eve is thinking. That's what Adam's thinking. By the way, have you ever thought of it this way? We blame Eve quite a bit, but she was literally fooled in her temptation by a guy who had been an angel in the presence of God. That convinced a third of the created angels to leave God.

Right? Like, people that. I'm not people, angels, beings that lived in the presence of God. And Satan convinces a third of those angels to leave God's presence and rebel against God. I can give her a little slack for, like, kind of falling for his.

His lies and stuff, just a little bit. But Adam, he just listened to this woman, his wife. He listened to her. He's like, yeah, I guess I'll just go ahead and disobey God because you said so. What an idiot, that man.

I mean, like, you're gonna listen. I know husbands that will do some stuff. Like, we will. We will just go along with some things to, you know, that happy wife, happy life thing, whatever, you know? But, like, oh, you want me to double down?

The hardest thing is for men to figure out what makes a woman actually happy. Okay. All right. Anyway, so.

But seriously, like, don't go so far to try to create peace or some type of happiness in the household that you're willing to sacrifice literally eternity with God just to have a few moments of happiness and serenity right now. It doesn't work. Good.

We call evil good and good evil. See, what we were supposed to do, we were supposed to take what God says is evil and abide by that and avoid the evil. We were supposed to take the things that God said were good and live in the good. By the way, he created probably thousands of trees in the Garden of Eden that he freely gave to them and said, eat from them freely. I wish he had said, there's also a barbecue.

Like, that would have made it nice for me. But they started by eating stuff on trees, and God just told them about one tree not to mess with. Like. Like, if you think it was harsh that God would put limitations on them, you're missing something here. God has given so freely, so much good for you to be enjoyed as good, and yet we so often are just willing to be like, I don't know.

I don't like the rules God gave me. Why do I have to. Why do I have to avoid these things that he calls evil? It can't really be that bad, can it? You see, we're doing things that we believe is just personal sin.

Things that we believe are just only affecting us. This guy named Achan, he stole the devoted things of God. He took what God had told him not to take. Some were to build the house of God. Some were to be utterly destroyed.

He hoarded God's plunder, sat there while his brothers got killed in battle and did nothing. About it.

You think your sin is private and hurts no one. No, I know you think that. It wasn't a question like, you think your sin is private and hurts no one. You think, well, that was just me. Well, that anger that's in my heart towards that person, they don't really know about it.

You're not that good at poker. Your poker face stinks. Okay, we can tell when you don't like us, all right? Like, we can tell the hurt, the anger, the bitterness that's in your heart. You think, well, I can just kind of.

I can just share this gossip with just like one or two people and it won't really matter. Nobody else will really know. But when the reputation of that person destroys from the lies that you told about them or even the truths that you told about them, but they, they had already maybe repented of it. Have you ever thought you tell something about somebody? Can you.

Can you believe what they did? Can you believe what this person did? Oh, can you believe that so and so is getting a divorce? I literally had this conversation this week. I'm sorry.

God, can you believe they're getting a divorce? Yeah, I heard she cheated on him. Oh, yeah, I heard about that too. Oh, what if that isn't true? What if that didn't really happen?

But in my mind, in the person I've talked to's mind, and we're all starting to think, oh, that's how their character is. That's what their nature is. Next time we see that person, we're like, not talking to her. I'm not talking to him. Yeah, we think that it's just private.

We think. We think that our sin doesn't affect anyone other than ourselves. And if it were only just that. See, the problem is we also get convinced that our sin doesn't even affect us. How long was Achan planning on keeping that stuff buried under his tent?

And by the way, they were tents, they were mobile, they moved. Like, at some point he's going to have to dig it up and hide it in his belongings and then move it and bury it in the next place. What does he think is going to happen? He doesn't have a game plan for his sin. He doesn't have a road map for what he's going to do.

He just kind of does it and then is like, well, I'm stuck in my sin now, so I have to keep this lie going. I have to keep burying it and hiding it and keeping it from everyone. I also wonder if his family knew about it. Did his Family know what he had done. I mean, it's not like, you know, he's got, like a big house with closets and basements and stuff.

He had a tent. He has to bury it under the tent. I'm pretty sure they understood. They knew about it and they just kept their mouths shut. How often are you complicit in your family, your friends, in a relative's sin?

And yet you say nothing. You do nothing because you think I'm not supposed to judge them. Look what happened with Achan and his family. His family gets called out with him. They're complicit in his sin, and they have to pay the price for that.

There's literally a death penalty for Achan's whole family. And we look at that and we think, oh, my goodness, that's terrible. Yes, it is. And this is the effect of your sin.

How much of the world's suffering? See, here's where I got with this. When Joshua and the leaders are laying on the ground with dirt on their heads, they're prostrate before God. They're seeking the face of God. They're ready to do whatever it takes.

And God says, get up. Israel has sinned. He didn't say Achan sinned or somebody within Israel sinned. He said, israel is guilty. All of my people carry the guilt from this one man.

You think your sin is private. You think your sin only affects you.

Israel sinned because of the thing that one man did, the actions of this one guy. And yet they're all held accountable for it. 36 of them died, and Achan's family as punishment for it. And they bear this cost. They bear this price.

We wonder why. We're like, why would God hold them all accountable? Because they're all accountable to one another. You see, this never should have happened. There were probably other soldiers who had seen him carry this.

I mean, he's carrying gold bars, a robe, some silver. You don't just kind of tuck that in a pocket like, it takes a little work to do that. I don't think they had backpacks. He can just shove it in. Like, I don't know what he had besides, you know, a few weapons of war when they went into Jericho.

But he carried some stuff out that he didn't carry in somebody, One of his brothers by his side knew what this man had done, but they didn't want to judge him. They didn't want to. They didn't want to call out somebody's sin because their sin might be shown for what it is. As well. Oh, sure, they didn't do that one.

They didn't. They didn't commit the same sin that Achan did. They committed their own sins, though. I'm sure. And as soon as we start calling out the sin that we see in our brother's life, then we have to, like Jesus said, take that plank out of our own eye.

He says, you're looking at a speck of sawdust that your brother's got in his eye and you got a whole telephone pole sticking out of your eye. It's really hard for people to walk around you because every time you turn, you know it's hitting them. I mean, it's a hilarious picture Jesus paints. And as soon as we start talking about other people's sin and holding them onto account for it, we're worried that our sin will be called out. Yet we still foolishly cling to the notion that I can hide this sin.

I can just keep it just to me. I don't have to repent of it privately or publicly. I don't have to talk about it to anyone. I don't have to seek the word of God on it. I don't have to do any of these things.

My sin hurts no one. So I wonder, just like the nation of Israel in those days, I wonder how much of the suffering that we see in the United States of America has to do with the people of God living in sin that they haven't repented of, that they haven't allowed the word of God to speak into, and they just let it fester. They say, well, it's buried, it's gone. I buried that. I don't even care about it anymore.

Maybe Achan was planning on leaving that sin when he picked up his tent. He was just going to leave his stuff in the ground and move on. Who knows what he planned on doing with it. The thing is, he kept it there and he didn't. He didn't reveal it, he didn't confess it.

People died, men died. Families didn't have their daddy to come home, their husband to come home because they died in that battle. And we think that our sin is private and hurts no one.

I wonder how much our country is suffering and struggling today because people in the church are living worse than pagans. Pagans sin, and we know they sin. It's like, obvious, right? But when the people of God live in sin and they try to hide it, it shows. Be sure your sin will find you out.

And so then if that's happening, it means that your sin is Also affecting the local church.

I was just talking with a friend of mine, pastor, on Wednesday and part of our conversation was talking about just some of the struggles we find. Seems like so many things that we try to do in the church. And we're looking for. We're looking for some, excuse me, some type of response out of it, a response from the people, whether it's. Whether it's an altar call at the end of service or whether it's.

Whatever it might be, you know, in a ministry that we're trying to do or a prayer night, a prayer meeting, which by the way, we've got a prayer meeting on Thursdays at 6pm It's a quiet prayer, like you don't have to pray out loud. You have nothing to be scared of. Come and pray for an hour on Thursdays in this room at 6:00'. Clock.

And we think, well, I don't know what I was saying. I talk about prayer.

I guess I need to repeat that. Come pray.

We think that our sin doesn't even affect the church.

Your sin does. Oh, I know. I was talking about talking with my friend. We were talking about these things that we do at the church. Whether it's a prayer thing that is poorly attended, a class that the attendance just goes up and down and people aren't committed, whatever it is.

I don't know. We're talking about all these things. And I said, I know the question you have sometimes because he was going through some stuff, kind of struggling with it. I said, I know the question that's in your head, is it me? He looked at me.

I said, yeah, I think we all have that as pastors. I say, well, maybe it's me. You know, we have a personality. We tell dumb jokes sometimes off, you know, maybe jokes that we shouldn't have told, whatever it is, make these offhanded comments when we're talking and it's hit somebody the wrong way and that's the only thing they heard. And they say, well, I'm not coming back if he's going to say that.

Or I didn't get that much out of class today, so I don't think I'll come be part of class. Or I came to prayer, but God didn't really speak to me so I'm not going to give it a try. Well, I gave my tithe once and it didn't change anything. Well, of course not. Your heart wasn't in it.

Your wallet's attached to your heart. It's like those bikers that have the wallet chains. You Know that hooks to their belt, but it's really clipped to your heart. Your wallet is attached right here. Jesus says you, you'll put your treasure where your heart is.

You can tell me. I can tell you a lot about yourself by what you give away. Now, the good news is I don't know what you give away. I really don't. Sometimes I see a report that shows what our tithes and offerings is because I have to manage the business side of the church too.

I don't have a tally list of who gives and who doesn't. I can't tell you right now. I know some of the people that give often or a lot, and I thank you for that. There's some of you that put cash in the thing and I'd have no idea about it and I don't care. All it is is like when the doctor puts a little tongue depressor in and looks at some stuff in your mouth.

Puts the otoscope in. Yeah, I know the name of it. Aren't you proud of me? The otoscope in your ear or your nose and looks into that, looks into your eyes for, you know, the. What happens with your pupils when they shine a light in them and all those things.

I did say it, right, Karen, didn't I? Otoscope, yeah. See, I do know some things. And we look at those as just. Those don't diagnose terrible things.

They're just a little indicator of something going on with the broader health of the human body. The way we pray, the way we give, the way we do some of these things isn't an indicator. Oh, are you a Christian? Because even the most atheistic non believer can give money and be generous to others. That's not the point.

The point is it's a little bit of an indicator of what's going on in your heart. Okay?

So I'm talking with this pastor and we have this question. Is it me? Like, is it me? Is the pastor? Is that why certain things don't work?

Is that why. Is that why people come and go? Is it something that I did or I said? Or maybe I don't have what it takes to provide something beneficial to a congregation. And so that's why people don't really, you know, show up in bigger numbers than that.

Because the product we have is the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay? Like, like if, if, if that doesn't win people over, that's the most supreme, beautiful good thing in this earth that has ever happened, is the good news of Jesus Christ. And, and Pastors sometimes wonder, am I the. The. The.

The part that's wrong? And that question rattled around with me as I talked with him about it. And I thought about it this week, and then it hits me as I'm studying for this Scripture. And it didn't hit me until this morning, yeah, it can be me, not me as the pastor. That's so irrelevant.

So irrelevant on whether you're here or not, or whether you worship God or not, or whether you give or not or any of those things has to do with the sin that you keep buried in your own heart. And you might be thinking, I'm an open book before God in the church. I've confessed my sin. All these things I don't. It may not be you.

There were a lot of Israelites who were clean in the matter, and yet they were still affected by it because somebody in Israel had sinned. And the thing that hit me this morning is that some of you are trying to hide a sin in your life. And it's hurting the church, it's hurting this congregation. And from there, our community is suffering because this church isn't everything that it could be or should be.

From there, you can go to the nation or the world, because if that's happening in every congregation, somewhere along the way, the church of Jesus Christ is not being what it should be. We're not being the conduit of the gospel that we should be. And because of that, the world is suffering. Because of that, people are dying and going to hell. I'm not a bang my fist on the table kind of guy.

I'd probably knock my coffee mug off and all that stuff. So I just. I just don't like that stuff. I'm not gonna do that. I don't raise my voice.

I don't have, like, a sweat rag, although one of my favorite preachers does that. And I think it's hilarious to me. I'm like, I don't preach that hard, you know? Like, that guy gets after it. He also wears a hoodie, and I don't understand that.

That's like, you could take the hoodie off, wear a T shirt, you'd be just fine, my friend. Anyway, it's good stuff, though. I'm not that guy. That's not my style. I don't just sit here and yell about hell almost never.

Maybe not often enough. See, there are people that you're going to talk to this week, maybe even today, who will die. I don't think that's news to you. But one day they'll be standing before the white throne of judgment. And in that moment, they'll try to come up with a reason, a defense.

They'll try to come up with something that says why they should be allowed into the eternal presence of God in heaven. And Jesus will say, I'm going to paraphrase something here. And then I'm going to quote him. He's going to look at them and say, well, you didn't want anything to do with me on the earth, why would you want to be with me now? You cared nothing about me than that short little period of time that we called life.

And now we're going into eternal life and it's forever. And you didn't want to be with me on earth because you enjoyed your sin. You enjoyed the clubs, the bar, the sex, the pornography, the drugs, the alcohol, the money, the wealth, all these things. And you didn't care about me one little bit. Why in the world would you want to be with me forever?

Go to hell. No, he gives them permission. He's not telling them that. He's like, you, have at it. You actually were living in hell on earth and you thought you enjoyed it.

I will allow you there for eternity. He never forces them to be somewhere they don't want to be. The thing is, hell is a lie. See, there's people that say, ah, I'm going to be partying with my bros in hell. No, you're not.

You're going to be tortured, maybe even by them. They got there first. Hell has a hierarchy and you don't want to be part of it. Live for Christ now. Not only that, look at the people around you.

I'm not saying you got to start judging them like, well, they're going to hell. I'm pretty sure of that.

Have a burden on your heart for people that may or may not end up there. Folks, I've got relatives, people that I care about. I've got neighbors, Some of them I don't really know, they just stay inside all the time. I don't want to knock on their door and be like, see them in a wife beater or something like, sorry, I interrupted your doing nothing or whatever. But like, do you know Jesus?

I know it's difficult, right? But like, when you can, when you have these opportunities and you're with somebody and you realize they don't know Jesus, they don't know him now and they're going to spend eternity apart from him. I don't want people to go to hell. And yet I don't live as if it matters. Like.

Like I don't spend my time in prayer. Like it matters for them. I don't spend my time talking to them, setting my schedule where I have purposefully built time in with people that don't know Jesus. Not because I want to turn them into a project where I can put, like, a notch on that page in my Bible. It's like, how many people did you get saved this, by the way?

There's no page on your Bible like that. I'm just saying I don't want a page like that where I got tally marks of everybody that I led to Jesus. That's not the point. It's not a competition. It's not a game.

It's literal eternity. People are dying because of it, because of our sins. The things that we thought were private, the things that I thought I could hide and not let anybody see is allowing people to die and go to hell.

I want to have prayer time today.

And I've said that your sin isn't as private as you think it is.

Like, your sin isn't just, like, hidden from everyone else. We may not know what you're doing, what you've gotten into.

We may not know what the particular sins are, how long you've been doing them. We may not know any of that stuff.

And yet we know that you're living in them because there's this thing called the fruit of the spirit, and we would see that fruit in your life, the fruit that says that the spirit of God richly dwells in you.