I saw, I coveted, I took

When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it." – Joshua 7v21

It took Joshua a while to pin down who was guilty and why Israel suffered defeat. He called the whole nation together to find the guilty party.

First he called out the tribe of Judah. This would still leave a huge number of people so the guilty one would not have been too nervous. From them he called out the family of the Zarhites. Okay, still not too bad for the poor guy who had caused the problem. Then Joshua called out Zabdi’s household. I would guess that now the man knew he was sunk. Finally we have the man, Achan called before Joshua.

It is almost like a scene from Murder She Wrote or CSI. ‘Okay Achan, we have you, you might as well confess.’

‘I have sinned, said Achan. I saw amongst al the stuff a beautiful garment. I wanted it. So I took it.’ Achan knew he should not take it, but he did. He knew there would be consequences, but he still took it. How could anyone be so stupid?

Let’s be honest, shall we? Do we not do the same thing every time we sin? We see something that catches our eye. We look at it and the more we look the more we want it. So finally we go for it and take it.

It makes no difference if we know the consequences. It makes no difference if we know that our sin displease God. It makes no difference that we know our God is holy. At that moment our lust wins out and we just do it anyway.

Next time we see something that catches our eye we need to remember Achan and turn away then. Even if our eyes linger and the desire grows we can still turn away. We have all been there. We all know what I am talking about. We have a choice to stop the pattern before it progresses. Will we exercise it, or will we follow Achan’s rotten example?