Another Fall
Another Fall
Joshua 7:1a But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things.
I had hoped for a better start to this new chapter especially after so great a victory over Jericho, but here we are again. Same old plot and play, just different actors. Another infuriating defeat hot on the heels of an unparalleled triumph. Which begs the question I’ve been wrestling with ever since Adam and Eve at that forbidden fruit back in Genesis 3 that plunged humanity into the depths of sin’s existential crisis: why can’t we as believers just abide in the garden of divine favor for more than five minutes before inevitably clutching forbidden fruit from the slimy claws of a red dragon? To put it differently, why is the art of keeping faith so arduous, as if obeying God’s Word isn’t so much like walking through a riverbed on dry ground but more like walking on a tightrope across two canyon ridges, while wearing rollerblades, in the middle of a hailstorm?! Why is the life of faith so often a chronicle of one triumphant step forward followed by one cataclysmic fall backward? Is virtue really so difficult a feat?
There is significant ground to cover here in Joshua 7 as we reflect on the moral collapse of Achan and on the consequences of that sin on the entire commonwealth, so we’ll need to take our time over the next week to walk slowly through the wreckage. But for starters, let’s reflect on the principle that Joshua pronounces immediately in his opening line. Notice how he writes, “the people of Israel broke faith,” before specifying the actual individual responsible. Which is to say that sin isn’t committed in a vacuum. Now, Joshua is not implicated everyone in Achan’s sin. Certainly, God isn’t holding Joshua and the priests and the elders guilty for a crime they aren’t aware of—which we’ll discuss further in following reflections—but He’s teaching the congregation the discomforting principle that private idolatry has public consequences.
Friend, today, let’s reject the devilish distinction between private acts and public life, remembering that if God sees all—even our hidden thoughts—then everything we think, speak, and do is a public affair.