Missionary Broadcasting.com

“And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.” Trouble of this kind often comes after a major victory. Achan made the same calculation we often make regarding our sin; counting on its not being discovered. The problem is that sin never affects only one person. The secret evil of this one man derailed an entire nation. It seems to have been harshly dealt with here, though the punishment came at God’s command. Our own unrighteous actions should be just as decisively eliminated. If the plan of God is in jeopardy due to besetting sin, stoning and burning would not be out of line. I speak, of course, of the behavior, not the person. Repentance is all about turning to the Savior, with the total and complete abandonment of the sin that kept us from Him. Achan was not totally unlike us, but we are not likely to meet his end for unrighteousness. Our challenge is to learn a lesson from his death, and Israel’s failure; eliminating sin with both timeliness and precision.