Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: There's a suffocating weight to secret sin. The constant fear of discovery, the sleepless nights, the slow erosion of peace. Whether it's a financial indiscretion, a hidden addiction, or words spoken in betrayal, unconfessed sin becomes a prison of our own making.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll reveals how one man's buried secret triggered catastrophic consequences and how swift confession could have changed everything. But here's the hope that pulses through this sobering story. God stands ready to forgive. Teaching from Joshua 7, Chuck titled his message Achan: The Man Who Sin Brought Calamity.

Chuck Swindoll: The man at the top, Joshua, the commander-in-chief, pours out his heart before the Lord because he has come upon a mystery: humanly inexplicable, unexplainable, totally illogical. The Lord answers him in verses 10 to 15 in no uncertain terms. "Rise up, Joshua. Why is it you've fallen on your face? Israel has sinned."

Israel has sinned. They have transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. They have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they've put them among their own things. It's not that they took them and tossed them aside; they're hiding those things. You've got sin in the camp.

Everything living was to have been put to death. Everything valuable was to have been taken and put in the treasury of the Lord. No soldier was to help himself to any of the spoils of victory. All of it was set apart to the Lord.

So right here, though Joshua had done nothing wrong—in fact, only one soldier in the whole of the army of Israel had done something wrong—the entire nation had suffered defeat. That's what it means when we refer to sin being in the camp. There was defeat by association.

As we're going to read in a moment, Achan—and we read it in the first verse of Chapter 7—Achan in a moment tasted the sweetness of stolen waters and, intoxicated in the ecstasy of the robbery, he told himself it was okay. Then he sinned. Reasoning and logic were put on hold.

Can you imagine the buildup of the pressure in the heart of Achan? Can you imagine his staying quiet after hearing 36 were killed in battle? He had heard of the ban. Everybody had been told that. It was like living death. If you have ever been responsible for the heartache of another person, especially an innocent person, you know what it is to live with that pressure. It's in the words of Romans, "The wages of sin is death." It's like living death.

Now, some consequences are personal, but others are public. That's what we're going to see in the last part of this story. Remember what I said earlier: many sins are personal and private, most of them, I think, known only to you and your God or to me and my God. And we deal with them in the privacy of our lives, and there is no consequence to anyone else. There is no scandal; there is simply the dealing with a wrong thought or wrong word or a wrong action that impacted no one else. But this is not that case.

These consequences are now public, and Joshua's told you've got to do something about it. So he's told to rise up, to face the fact (verse 14), and to deal with it early in the morning. "In the morning you shall come near by your tribes." Underline the word "tribes." We're going to get into concentric circles here.

"And it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes by lot shall come near by families." Underline "families." From tribes you will come down to families. "And the family which the Lord takes shall come near by households." Underline that. First tribes, then families, then households. "And the household which the Lord takes shall come near man by man." Underline that.

We've got four circles: concentric. We'll first start with all the tribes, and then through a process of casting lots—which, in the days of the Old Testament, was a process used for determining God's will—you will come in next to the families. Not all the tribes will be involved, only a certain number of families. And from the families you will center on households. Then finally you will come to one household; in fact, I'll assist you in finding the man. If Achan wasn't under the gun before now, he certainly was now.

"It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because he's committed a disgraceful thing in Israel." So Joshua rose early in the morning. If you are in leadership, may I interrupt your thought? If you are in leadership, you know that this is the kind of day you dread like no other.

The day of confrontation is a day of dread. In the words of Galatians 6, "If anyone is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted." If it has ever been your lot to sit in on a meeting where wrong is confronted, or where sin is pointed out, or where an individual's lie or secret is exposed, you know it's a dreadful thing.

Joshua rose that morning, and I'm sure before he did anything else, he fell to his knees and asked for strength to do what he had to do that day. He brought Israel near by tribes. The tribe of Judah was taken. So all the other tribes were left. Wherever the problem was, it rested within the tribe of Judah.

And he brought the family of Judah near, and he took the family of the Zarhites. And he brought the family of the Zarhites near, man by man, and Zabdi was taken. And he brought his household near, man by man, and Achan was taken. That's the man. Joshua said to Achan, "My son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord the God of Israel. Give praise to Him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me."

This is an epochal moment in the history of Israel. This is a dreadful hour. I'm reliving those few occasions in my life when it's been my sad experience to be sitting face-to-face with someone who has kept a secret and told a lie and hurt a ministry and hurt a family. Tell the truth. Sometimes it takes a person hours to come out with the truth. Sometimes it takes seconds.

As with David, Nathan said, "Thou art the man." And David said, "I have sinned." But some will lie, some will deny, some will claw and fight and resist. Some will do that for months, some for years. But God is going to get the glory in His work, and He stays on us. He stays after it.

And I appreciate Joshua's frontal confrontation. He says, "Don't hide it from me." And look at Achan. Instantaneously, he says to Joshua, "Truly I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I did." Take a moment to analyze the process of sin.

"When I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold, 50 shekels in weight, then I coveted them and I took them and I concealed them beneath my tent." I saw, I coveted, I took, I hid. That's the way it happens.

Now suddenly I'm reminded of a couple of verses out of the Old Testament. One is Numbers 32:23, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Numbers 32:23. The other is Galatians 6:7, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Whatever one sows, that shall he also reap." But you don't think about those verses at a time like this.

Achan didn't think about "my sin will find me out." Achan thought, "After all, my family and I have been deprived of many good things in life for years in this wilderness living. Here is this beautiful new stylish garment, a little bit of silver, and a handful of gold. It's not that big a deal. This will never be missed in light of all the treasury that we'll get from Jericho. I'm entitled to some enjoyable things in life after all." The human mind, you see, is incredibly creative when it comes to the desire for wrong things.

And in the heady moment, the excitement of hidden sin, the adventure drives us on. We see, we covet, we take, and we hide. One of the older writers of character studies in the Bible is a man named Alexander Whyte. His comments are rich and worth hearing. Let me quote from him on his piece on Achan.

"Everybody who reads the best books will have long had by heart Thomas à Kempis's famous description of the successive steps of a successful temptation. This is first the bare thought of the sin. Then upon that, there is a picture of the sin formed and hung up on the secret screen of the imagination. Now picture this. A strange sweetness from that picture is then let down, drop by drop, into the heart. And then that secret sweetness soon secures the consent of the whole soul, and the thing is done."

That is true, and it is powerful enough. Achan's confession to Joshua is much simpler and much closer to the truth: "I saw the garment, I coveted, I took, I hid it in my tent." Had Joshua happened to post the ensign of Judah opposite the poor man's part of the city, then this sad story would never have been told. But even as it was, had Achan only happened to stand a little to the one side or a little to the other side of where he did stand, in that case, he would not have seen that beautiful piece. And not seeing it, he would not have coveted it and would have gone home to his tent that night a good soldier and an honest man.

But when once Achan's eyes lighted on that rich garment, he could not get his eyes off it again. As à Kempis says, this seductive thing got into Achan's imagination, and the devil's work was done. Just one more quote.

"O sons and daughters of discovered Achan, O guilty and dissembling sinners, it is all in vain. It is all utterly and absolutely in vain. Be sure, as God is in heaven, that He has His eyes upon you and that your sin will find you out. You think that the darkness will cover you; wait till you see. Go on sowing as you have begun and come and tell us when the harvest is reaped how it threshes out and how it tastes. Listen to this word picture: The eagle that stole a piece of sacred flesh from the altar brought home a smoldering coal with it that kindled up her nest afterwards and burned up both her whole nest and all her young ones."

Once a son, always a son, even when a prodigal son. Every son has his father's gray hairs and his mother's anxious heart in his hands, and no possible power can alter that. Drop that stolen flesh; there is a coal in it that shall never be quenched. I looked, I coveted, I took, and I hid.

Now Joshua acts swiftly. Hold on as I read the rest of the story. Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent, and behold, it was concealed in his tent with the silver underneath it. They took them from inside the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the sons of Israel, and they poured them out before the Lord. Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the mantle, the bar of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, donkeys, sheep, tent, and all that belonged to him, and brought them up to the Valley of Achor.

And Joshua said, "Why have you troubled us? Achan, trouble. Achor, a place of trouble." Interesting: the names Achan and Achor both from the same Hebrew term meaning "to trouble." "Why have you lived up to your name, Achan? The Lord will trouble you this day." And all Israel stoned them with stones, and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised up the strangest gravestone you could imagine: a pile of rocks that stands to this day, says the writer of Joshua. And the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger, but the name of that place has been called to this day the Valley of Achor, the place of trouble.

I thought as I read that how different it would be today. There'd be someone who would be there to defend Achan and say he was temporarily insane. Or someone would say no one read the rights to him, therefore he doesn't have to stand trial. Or somebody certainly would do plea bargaining and say it isn't quite as bad; after all, he confessed it. There was no selection of a jury. There was not even the presence of a defense attorney. There was death: instant death. And the whole nation watched it. And the monument stood even through the writing of the great book of Joshua.

Yeah, we live in a day of grace. Some take that to mean you can sin as you please because it doesn't really matter like it used to. You show me in scripture where that is found. Point out in the book of God where your sin doesn't impact the work of God. It does. One individual who continues to walk against the way of God can hurt and hinder an entire church. One Judas can color the entire body of disciples. It is serious, even in the time of grace.

I want to share with you three lingering lessons that emerge from the story, ancient that it is. From the same story, I think there are these lessons that can still apply. First is this: there is a unique stench connected with suspicion. I've chosen those words carefully, and I know that they're a little bit offensive, but they're appropriate. There is a unique stench, a smell, about suspicion.

Let me put it this way: the closer you and I walk with God, the more quickly we can detect the stench. I don't know what it is. I don't even know that it's a spiritual gift. I think there is a perception that is given to some tender hearts, sensitive spirits. It can't be ignored. You can feel it. You can smell it, as it were. It's absolutely detectable.

I came across an interesting piece out of the newspaper. Listen: "The soaring murder rate in Los Angeles is creating a crisis at the county morgue where workers are forced to wear military-type gas masks to ward off the stench of decomposing bodies," according to this report. An audit of the Los Angeles County coroner's office and the morgue, the largest in the nation, showed the facility was overcrowded to the point of a potential health risk for the 200 people who work there.

The overwhelmed morgue handles about 9,000 bodies a year after suspicious or violent deaths, and the number is growing. About 750 bodies a month are retained in the morgue—men and women—and those who work there are now forced to wear military-type gas masks to stand the stench.

I share that with you because it illustrates to me this stench of suspicion that accompanies this whole scene of sin in the camp. Don't be thick as a spiritual leader. Have your ears perked up when something out of the blue creates defeat, or when a ministry is on the move and continuing to grow, but you can put it on a graph and watch the chart as it, without much hesitation, turns downward.

There's a reason for that turn. It does not always mean there's sin in the camp, but sometimes it does. Maybe in your family, maybe in your life.

Second, an absence of peace accompanies hidden sin. Try all you like, the heart isn't equipped to handle hidden sin. The heart is equipped to handle peace that comes when the sin is confessed. We will not live lives that are sinless, free of interruption by sin, but we can live lives that are clean. An absence of peace accompanies hidden sin.

Here's a third thought. You won't like this, and I may not either, but it's good; it's true. When wrong is uncovered, God honors swift and thorough action. When wrong is uncovered, God honors swift and thorough action. I cannot remember a time when I waited to confront wrong that I was later glad I waited. I can't remember a time when I immediately dealt with it that I wasn't grateful that I had immediately dealt with it. When wrong is uncovered, God honors swift and thorough action.

This is the story of a man whose sin brought calamity. I am not suggesting that every calamitous event in a ministry or every decline comes because there is sin in the camp. I am simply saying on occasion that is the reason. And when it is, let's deal with it.

For a moment, will you bow your head and just close your eyes? Scripture tells us that if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. The simplest way of dealing with wrong and the swiftest manner is to deal with it personally. If you find yourself living with rationalized standards, stop it. Deal with it.

If you can't do it alone, get some help. Face it. Get out of the situation that is compromising your walk and the health of this ministry, or your church, wherever you may be from, or your family. Don't force someone else to finally go through the painstaking process of narrowing it down to tribes and families and households and then you. All the while, there will be the litter of the fallout from your sin.

Just deal with it. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. He that confesses and forsakes his sin shall have mercy. But whoso covers a transgression, ah, that's what lingers. It may be that in the process of your search you discover that you really don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. You've never met the Savior, the forgiver of sins, the one who can put reason and purpose back to a life that's marked by confusion and compromise.

I invite you at this quiet moment to turn your life to Him who died for you. These have been serious words, we acknowledge, our Father. These are serious times in which we live. The work of a Joshua takes courage and it takes faith. And somehow it requires our leaving the desire to be liked and embracing the desire to obey.

I pray at this moment, right now, for ministries being hurt because of compromising situations, secret sins, hidden wrong. I pray for any who might be the reasons for that, that you would bring them to their knees before you, that they might acknowledge the wrongness of their actions.

And I pray that as a result, there might be cleansing, forgiveness, restoration, and recovery. Even within our circle this very day, of those of us who have heard this message, deal directly with us, our Father, and stop us in the process of rationalization. Stop us at this moment and cause us to confront the truth and never return to this lifestyle again.

Dismiss us, our Father, with the blessing of your presence, and I pray that you would encourage us with the hope of a soon-returning Lord who will take the heartache and sin and brokenness of this world and give us the joy of peace, relief, and delight in His presence. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Bill Meyer: With his closing prayer, Chuck Swindoll concludes his study about an often overlooked Bible character. Chuck titled today's message Achan: The Man Who Sin Brought Calamity. This is Insight for Living, and we've just completed message number five in a 14-part series of biographical sketches called Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives.

You know that feeling when you're reading through the Bible and suddenly a minor character jumps off the page? Maybe it's Onesiphorus who wasn't ashamed of Paul's chains, or Joanna who quietly funded Jesus's ministry. Chuck has that rare gift of turning these brief mentions into unforgettable encounters with real people who faced real struggles just like we do.

Picture yourself on a Saturday morning with your coffee, opening one of these messages and meeting someone you've read past a dozen times. Or imagine your small group discovering together why God preserved even a single verse about someone's faithfulness. Well, the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook is a great resource we have to guide you.

This popular spiral-bound workbook will transform your experience from listening to Chuck teach into discovery for yourself. Along the way, you'll follow Chuck's preparation process, the questions he asks, and the connections he makes, while jotting down your own insights. It's like having a master teacher show you not just what he found, but how he found it.

To purchase the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives, call 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/offer. Remember when you first started listening to Chuck Swindoll teach the Bible? Well, that moment was sponsored by someone you may never meet. It was a Monthly Companion who sponsored you. If you're one of our regular listeners, isn't it time you took that step to provide for someone else what was once provided for you? We invite you to become a Monthly Companion. Call 800-772-8888 or you can become a Monthly Companion by going to insight.org/monthlycompanion.

I'm Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindoll continues his powerful biographical series called Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives, Monday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, Achan: The Man Whose Sin Brought Calamity, was copyrighted in 1990, 1992, 2006, 2012, and 2024, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.