Would you eat a bowl of soup from a larger pot that you knew contained a teaspoon of rat poison? I know I would definitely have second thoughts!
Just as only one teaspoon of rat poison can ruin an entire pot of soup, so the spiritual poison coming from one person can bring defeat to a family, community and even a nation. Such “spiritual rat poison” resulted from Achan’s sin of looting Jericho’s wealth for personal gain.
When the Israelites captured Jericho, God banned them from taking anything for themselves. Jericho’s gold and silver would go into the treasury for God’s glory and ultimately to bless all of Israel, not just one person. To cheat God is to cheat a nation. God meant Jericho’s wealth to bless all, not satisfy one person’s greed.
God warned the Israelites in advance that coveting Jericho’s wealth would bring Israel under a curse. Did the people of Israel gasp in surprise when they saw the great wealth and beauty of Jericho’s material possessions? Most likely they did. But they all managed to resist the temptation and leave it alone.
All, that is, except for Achan. Achan could not or would not resist the temptation. He violated God’s specific command to take nothing for himself. He rationalized. He saw himself as an exception to the command of God Himself and did what was forbidden.
Achan did not know it, but his act of defiance against God’s clear command added “poison to the soup,” bringing humiliating defeat at the next battle for the equally wicked city of Ai. Achan’s violation allowed Satan to get his foot in the door to confuse, defeat and demoralize a whole nation.
Just one person can cheat a church, family, community and nation from the blessings of God through forbidden and deliberate acts that violate God’s clear commands. Hidden acts forbidden by God, especially by key people, can render everyone else ineffective, or at the very least, less fruitful than they would be otherwise.
God never takes such desecrations lightly. God is loving, patient and kind, but even God has His limits. Earlier, God had warned the Israelites, “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23), meaning that hidden sin always has consequences through guilt, exposure, broken relationships or God’s judgment. Deliberate violations of God’s ways always have repercussions.
Achan may have thought that he had gotten away with his ill-gotten gain. He was sure to tell no one else what he had done, which indicates that he knew he had sinned, but…
He forgot that the all-seeing eyes of God had seen his weakness of character as well as his theft. After the Israelites suffered their humiliating defeat, and their hearts melted and became as water, God informed Joshua that one of the Israelites had violated His specific ban on looting, and this brought their defeat and put the conquest of their Promised Land in jeopardy. The culprit needed to be exposed.
God isolated Achan as the culprit in at least five separate steps, beginning with his tribe and down to Achan himself. Through this gradual exposure, God gave Achan at least four opportunities to confess his sin and repent before it finally reached him.
I believe that God was giving Achan an opportunity to throw himself at the mercy of God. We read in Proverbs 28:13: “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
But Achan never uttered a word until he was at last exposed with the goods. He forfeited his every chance for confession–and God’s mercy. He waited until it was too late. He passed the point of no return.
Now he had to pay the ultimate price–not only he but his entire family. Some people think this was too harsh. The scriptures do not tell us exactly why God did it this way. Were other members of the family willing accomplices helping to hide the forbidden goods? Proverbs 15:27 tells us that a greedy man brings trouble to his family.
We don’t know for sure the extent of his family’s involvement in his rebellious and selfish act, but this heinous act had to serve as an example for everyone else because it polluted not just one man but an entire nation. God is good and merciful, not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance.
But He is also holy and just, not to be trifled with, especially when He gives specific commands of what to do or not to do. He tolerates no one who repeatedly violates His clear commands and makes a caricature of His holiness. His long-suffering and patience are meant only to bring us to repentance. When repentance is refused or fails to come, God’s judgment falls with swift, harsh and final results. God will not be mocked.
None of this had to happen to Achan and his family. We must try to understand why it did so we will not fall into the “Achan trap.”
What happened to Achan had its beginnings long before in many little decisions he made along the way. There is an old saying: “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
Achan’s story all began with a thought. It began with what he chose to take into his mind. “Above all else,” we are told in Proverbs 4:23, “guard your heart [your mind, your inner being], for it is the wellspring of life.” “Above all else” means this should have been Achan’s first priority–as it should be ours. For Achan, it was not.
Achan did not have a well-guarded mind. He did not have reverence for God’s purity and holiness. If he was not overtly hostile towards God, he was at best indifferent to Him, even after he saw the walls of Jericho fall at God’s hand.
Indifference cuts us off from God just like hostility does. He was at best casual and careless with the word and acts of God. God’s holy and pure ways became only means to his own selfish ends, not to a purer life. He either did not believe God had his own better interests at heart or he simply did not care what God thought. As a consequence, he never allowed God to train his mind with what is best (Romans 12:1-2). It was a recipe for future disaster.
Achan’s mind was not a vacuum. It had to be filled with something, and with indifference to God who always gives the best, he opened his mind to lesser things. When we do not hunger for God’s pure truth, we allow our minds to fill with those lesser (and impure) things until, at last, they control our actions. That is why we must always seek out “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure … think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).
We live in an unguarded world infested with lesser things. We all stumble at times, and (hopefully) feel uneasy about it. But a mind regularly filled with and dominated by impure thoughts, actions, habits, characters–and final destinies becomes regular choices made over time. We come to feel “at home” with lesser things. We develop a taste for them. We come to prefer them over what is pure with no uneasy conscience.
Martin Luther once said, “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.” Achan let those birds nest in his hair until it cost his life.
We cannot guard our hearts alone. We all need others who also want to guard their hearts in an unguarded world. These things are good reasons why we need to seek the regular company of mature Christians who motivate us to keep our thoughts true, noble, right and pure (Titus 2:2-8).
It is good for all of us to remember the needless end for Achan when we are tempted to get overly familiar with God. We must never rationalize His specific commands into something else to justify what we would rather do. We must never mistake His love and patience for softness and winking at evil. This is a mockery of God’s purity, righteousness and holiness.
Without naming names, there are Achans within today’s church who have weakened our witness because they have defied the bans of God by declaring as good what God has forbidden and declared evil. Some of these are in places of leadership and have already been exposed for what they are.
The Achans’ exposure in the church is not over. The Bible tells us that one day, Jesus will present His ekklesia to the Father “without spot or wrinkle.” Instinctively, we all know that day has not yet arrived.
Achan’s end did not have to happen. All he had to do was simply obey God’s word that He meant for all of Israel without exception. We all do well to periodically consecrate ourselves anew, to renew our covenant relationship with Him, to repent, confessing to Him with any specific and besetting sin without holding back its full nature.
Only then can we become the most effective members of God’s army to take our Promised Land and join with Him to “crush Satan under our feet.”
Father God, with your help, I commit myselfto guard my mind, to seek only what is true, noble, right and pure in your eyes. With your help and the support of mature friends, I promise to obey your Word, so I might experience all you have for me and bless others. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
