What Wilt Thou Do Unto Thy Great Name?

"What Wilt Thou Do Unto Thy Great Name?" – Joshua 7:6-21 “Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.” When we sense we have displeased God it is because there are signs; and we must learn not to complain about God, but to bring our complaint to God. The study follows Joshua from the inexplicable defeat at Ai —a small city with no walls, right after Jericho had fallen on its own— to the discovery that the camp was troubled because one single man had taken of the accursed thing. It walks through the plain warning of Joshua 6:18-19, the omniscience of a God who sees from the youngest to the oldest in the congregation, Joshua’s grief over the honor of the Lord, the question in verse 9 that gives the message its title, the lots that tighten the circle tribe by tribe to give Achan the chance to give himself up, and his silence to the very end. It ends with the Babylonish garment, the two hundred shekels and the wedge of gold: three things he could have lived happily without, and for which he lost his family. Each of us knows our own downfall; that is why we must make a covenant with our eyes, for if we let them wander, it will surely be to weep afterward.

I. Do not complain about God: bring your complaint to God.

A. When we sense we have displeased God, it is because there are signs.

1. Joshua is stricken: something had just happened that he did not understand.

2. Moses was gone; he was the one who had to rise up as leader.

3. God did not say “do not take it so”: God was seeing it all from the third heaven.

4. “Why are you weeping, if they disobeyed?”

II. The warning was plain (Joshua 6:18-19).

A. “Keep yourselves from the accursed thing… lest ye make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.”

1. Whatever you touch of the accursed thing troubles the whole camp.

2. The silver, gold, brass and iron were consecrated to the Lord and came into His treasury.

3. That was the spoil they gathered to build later the tabernacle and the temple.

4. Those rules still apply today: let us touch nothing that is forbidden us.

III. Jericho and Ai.

A. Jericho was vast and walled; God said: I will take care of the wall.

1. They entered with the least strategy, because the Lord of hosts was fighting for them.

2. At the seventh circuit the walls turned to dust: they could not endure the presence of God.

3. What Israel did at Jericho ran like gunpowder through the whole region.

B. Ai was small, unwalled, and they sent only three thousand men.

1. They prevailed at Jericho but not at Ai: defeated in a shame no one expected.

2. With that situation the Lord troubles the camp of Israel.

3. Joshua rent his clothes and lay hours before the ark, unable to understand what had happened.

4. For the sin of one single man, all Israel was defeated.

IV. God sees everything.

A. Nothing a human being does on the face of the earth goes unnoticed.

1. You think people do not know, and perhaps everyone knows.

2. What men say matters little; what God sees is what we should fear.

3. From the youngest to the oldest, God sees with what intent things are done.

B. The defeat was the measure needed for them to see what was happening.

1. If God had let them win again, they would have believed all was well.

2. Though not all sinned, it affects the whole people: so what happens in a church affects everyone.

3. Israel had to sanctify itself, and that defilement had to come out with weeping and suffering.

4. “The hearts of the people melted, and became as water.”

V. What grieved Joshua most.

A. Joshua had been with Moses, halfway up Sinai: he knew who God was.

1. That under his command there should be displeasure from God was intolerable to him.

2. He cared for the honor of the Lord and the destiny of Israel.

3. The thought of displeasing God tortured him; and it ought to torture us too.

B. The ruin of the church reflects unfavorably on the glory of God.

1. Nothing so grieves a spiritual person as seeing the name of God dishonored.

2. God wanted Israel to be the mightiest nation: He never wanted them mediocre.

3. If my measure is thirty, He wants thirty, not fifteen; if it is a hundred, then the hundred.

4. He does not want to give us crumbs: He wants to give the best He has prepared in the third heaven.

VI. “What wilt thou do unto thy great name?” (v. 9).

A. What will You do, Lord, that Your name be exalted and the earth know it?

1. God wanted Joshua to say: there was sin, let us deal with it; what is the consequence?

2. “Get thee up”: the accursed thing must come out from the midst of the congregation.

3. God does not delight in seeing Joshua shattered: He wants us to bring Him the complaint.

4. He will tell you: here I am, be calm, I am here for you.

B. In our homes we are in charge, and the work falls to us as well.

1. Whoever is head of the home is responsible to bring it forward before God.

2. We cannot do as Adam: “the woman whom thou gavest me”. Excuses will not do.

3. Joshua was grieved and his heart in pieces, and he had to work that way.

VII. They stole, lied, and put it among their stuff (v. 11).

A. They took of the accursed thing, stole, dissembled, and hid it among their own things.

1. If you borrowed something, return it in the same condition or better.

2. “Nothing has happened here”: but God will not let us tell the tale.

3. They forgot there was an omniscient God: He sees all, knows all, searches all.

4. “I did not know God wanted that of me”: did you not read the Bible? There are no excuses.

B. God saw even the smallest thing.

1. God saw the copied exam; He saw the borrowed pencil that was never returned.

2. He saw when you broke it and did not go and say, “I broke yours, I will give you two.”

3. A trifle? God sees everything.

VIII. Achan among the innocent.

A. Joshua had to investigate; God knew, but they had to see it with their own eyes.

1. Does God know what we must set right? Yes; and He waits for us to search our own heart.

2. That we be willing to bend the back, to pray, to read the Word.

B. Achan joined those who said they were innocent.

1. Among those asking “who stole?” was he, quiet, unmoved.

2. He did not confess, did not repent, did not say “wretched am I”: and he had the chance.

3. Perhaps things would have been different for him and for his family.

4. “I do as I please; if I am told something, then I repent”: that is being Achan.

IX. The lots and the confession.

A. “Sanctify yourselves against to morrow… there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee” (v. 13).

1. Thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing.

2. Anathema means accursed; for him who takes of it, the wages is death.

3. First the tribe, then the family, then the household, then the man.

4. Conviction closed in gradually, to give him the chance to come forward and give himself up.

B. And at no point did he have the courage to say, “it was I.”

1. Judah was taken, then the family of Zerah, then the household of Zabdi, and then Achan.

2. He could have said it the day before, so that at least his own might be spared.

3. The just God has many means to bring to light the hidden works of darkness.

4. David did it; Peter wept bitterly. We may bring our errors to so loving a Father.

X. “My son, give glory to the LORD” (v. 19).

A. Joshua ceases to be leader and becomes Achan’s judge.

1. It was no joy to Joshua either: “my son,” he must have said it in that tone.

2. He had to confess before all, because it would serve as a lesson to the people.

3. When nothing was left him: “indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel.”

XI. What caught his eye (v. 21).

A. A goodly Babylonish garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold.

1. He hid it in the earth in the midst of his tent: it did not slip from him.

2. With an eye of faith he would have seen them as accursed; he saw them as good.

3. Not all that glitters is gold: may God keep and sanctify our eyes.

B. Each one knows his own downfall (James 1:14-15).

1. “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”

2. If I know my own downfall, I must always come before God to be kept from it.

3. If we yield to it, it brings forth sin, and that sin brings forth death.

4. Make a covenant with your eyes: if you let them wander, it will be to weep afterward.

XII. The valley of Achor.

A. “Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day” (v. 25).

1. They took them outside the camp and all Israel stoned them.

2. His children were executed with him for concealing his theft.

3. Sin brings disgrace not only on the sinner, but on those nearest him.

4. Today we are not stoned; but spiritual death is among the most terrible deaths.

B. That is why we must keep ourselves in holiness.

1. Our children watch us and examine us, and past a certain age they speak to us.

2. And if we err, let them know we humbled ourselves and that God raised us up.

3. Because it is not the falling: it is how we rise before the mighty God.

4. We cannot prosper until the accursed thing is destroyed from our hearts and our family.