(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Yeah, he had his birthday party yesterday and he was running around. He got a new battery power in his old car that he can drive around in. And Elijah and Sarah, I mean I can just see him driving around. And he was busy chasing around trying to get his birthday car back. So he was running around trying to chase him and he was probably just a little tired after that. Yeah. He was probably a little tired after yesterday. Did he eat any more of those cookies? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. You're done. You're done. All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome back to Strumble Baptist Church. You can open up your notes. Song number 209. Song 209. Sunshine in the soul. Song 209. Sing this out the verse. There is sunshine in the soul. There is music in my soul today. A carol to the king. And Jesus, listen, you can hear the songs I cannot sing. For sunshine, bless the sunshine. When the peaceful happy voters call. When Jesus shows his smiling face. There is sunshine in my soul. There is springtime in my soul today. For when the Lord is near. The love of Jesus in my heart. The love of grace appear. For sunshine, bless the sunshine. When the peaceful happy moments roll. When Jesus shows his smiling face. There is sunshine in my soul. There is gladness in my soul today. And hope and praise and love. For blessings which he gives me now. For joys lit up above. For sunshine, bless the sunshine. When the peaceful happy voters call. When Jesus shows his smiling face. There is sunshine in my soul. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Psalm 144. This hymn has a lot of holes in it. So we'll get this probably around the third or fourth verse. Let's go on the first. A mighty fortress is our God. A hope worth never failing. We obey the blood. A mortal will prevail. For still our ancient love. Does seem to hurt us more. His wrath and power are great. And armed with cruel hate. On earth is not his evil. Did we in our own strength confide. Our striving would be losing. Word on the right hand on our side. The man of God don't choose me. Just as who death may be. Christ Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. God reigns who reigns the same. And he must win the battle. And though this world in devil's will. Should threaten to undo us. The fear for God at will is true to triumph through us. The winds of darkness rail, we tremble not for him. His praise we can't endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little urge shall fill him. That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them alive. The spirit and the gifts are ours, through and through with the sire. Let the dead kindred go. This mortal life also, the body made made real. God's truth, the highest hill. His kingdom is forever. Amen. All right. Great to see you this evening. Great to have you back here with the Strong Holy Baptist Church. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. So if you'd open up, if you don't have a bulletin, slip your hand up real high and we'll make sure that we get one out to you. And if you open up to the first page, you'll see the service time is listed there at the top Sunday evening Sunday morning at 10 30 Sunday evening 5 o'clock Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as the Salvations and the Baptisms for the month of September as well as for the year. If you had any Salvations today, slip your hand up real quick. We'll get those counted up. See a three over there. One and one. One over here. Three. Amen. All right. Great. Did I miss anyone else? I think that was everybody. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. All right, keep up the good work soul winning. I'll just mention again for those of you going on soul winning with the maps. We're still trying to formulate how exactly everything is going to be done. So but please remember to mark up your maps return them back write your name at the top just provide information as much information as you can on the map. So if it's done write completed on it and then put it in a completed folder, you know, let us know as much as possible what is going on. If I find a piece of paper that somehow gets misplaced. I know what the deal is with it or the very least have a name I could go. Hey, do you know anything about this? So I appreciate that we will be improving that, you know in time to come I'm just trying to focus on a lot of different things. So but we're out we're winning souls and that's what matters the most. So appreciate your help with that though down at the bottom of the page. We got the offering tolls received through the month of September prayer requests looks like we've got a couple additions here from the retirement home. So we have a Rochelle Reuben is asking for some relief from her pain. And then maybe I'm not reading that right but Let's see. I'll add this little bit better that can't be the name on here is Bruce, but it looks like Bruce Wayne, but I'm not sure if that's the if that's the right name or not. It's kind of funny. Bruce Wayne is praying for once prayers for everyone in the building. So yeah. No, we're not our retirement home is not in Gotham. So but what I can see I'll write these down a little bit later is a lot on here, but basically it looks like they want to just kind of pray for everyone. There's a lot of struggling going on in the in the building in general. They're concerned with with everybody there which we ought to be praying for everyone there. Anyways, just kind of as a whole for that ministry that we're doing over there and so I'll get we'll get those added to the list and those those three at the bottom of list there to and John Rose Locksley and Melody. Those are all people those are all residents of that facility as well. So those are some of the prayer requests that we have there we added this morning miss Courtney Taylor's dad Jason is his name. He had a mini stroke and we're also be praying that a door would open up to have a great opportunity for him to hear the gospel and understand it and have that opportunity get saved. So pray for that as well. And does anyone have any other updates? We heard the update on this morning on Bobby Levy's not doing well at all. He had a stroke and and just as in bad real bad condition. So so pray for him and his family. Is there anyone else that has any new updates? Yeah, I didn't get that written down actually. And hers was a financial the yeah, yeah, yeah. She had that she had an auto person is okay, but it's just it's all it's all financial stuff though. Like it's the it's the the liability of the damage. Yeah, so many of you if not all of you know miss Juana who lives in South Carolina. She attends a lot of our events. She comes here and goes a lot of soul winning events was involved in a wreck, but everyone's okay. And this was this was months ago, but she's praying that she won't be held liable for above the cost of the insurance what they're going to pay. So that would be a big hit for her if she had to pay even more than what the insurance is going to pay out. So she's asking for prayers in regards to that because it's not done yet. So right now she's still under the limit but but she's hoping and praying that it's not going to go over the limit because then individually she would be held liable for that. So we'll pray for for that situation as well that the that the victim will be satisfied get their satisfaction with completely by the insurance company. All right. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I meant to add that I don't know how it got missed, but it did any other updates. All right, obviously continue to pray for the people on our list here on the next page. You'll see our September challenges the church attendance challenge and the goal is to just attend church three times a week. And if you live too far away to make it to this church, then I encourage you to find a church to to attend on the services that you're not able to make it here just to make sure you're getting in church and you're keeping that as a good habit and getting around God's people to really important. I could go on and on about the the value of attending church, but the challenge for this month is to try to make that a habit for yourself and then obviously continue that moving forward, especially if you don't live very close and maybe you only make it here on Sundays or Sunday mornings or you know, if you only make your on Sunday mornings, I guess you're not listening to me talk right now probably but maybe you're just here for the challenge on a Sunday evening, but try to continue that moving forward. So wherever it whatever it whatever your situation is just make sure you get your rear end in church. Okay, that's the bottom line. All right Bible memory passage run our second week memorizing Hebrew chapter 10. So on verses 3 and 4 3 and 4 much easier than verses 1 and 2 so it's not too late to get started on this if you haven't already we cut this chapter roughly in half. So we're going to work on the first half and work on the second half and get all of Hebrews 10 memorized if you could quote it word perfect within the time frame, you'll earn a prize for being able to do that. We got the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries and I didn't today's the 10th, right? I don't know how I skipped over that this morning probably because I was talking about the church plant but it's Denzel and Kristen's anniversary today. So but they weren't here this morning. So I didn't miss singing to them as we would have done. And then we got the rest of the the birthdays anniversaries in the month of September upcoming events. The the new addition in the kind of mix in the middle. There is the the Science Center homeschool field trip October 6th. There's a sign-up sheet for that. There's also another one in November. I forget the exact date off the top of my head, but there's a sign-up sheet for that here as well for the next for that following homeschool field trip. So please sign up if you're interested in attending these events and we will provide more details next week in the bulletin for for these events and then yeah, so the big news that I mentioned this morning is the plan for a church plant in Greenville, South Carolina. So if you missed that this morning, that is our plan. That's the desire. It is still quite a ways out. We have a lot of work to do to get that set up and going and started and everything else. But I think it's gonna be a big blessing for a lot of people and really looking forward to that. So please be in prayer for that as well. I'm going to add that to the prayer list pray that that God will will work and help us to find the right place and help just to build with with the right people and and have a great work going over there so that it can get up and running and Lord willing just you know, be an independent church and in a short period of time whatever that's going to be it is what it is. We'll take I'm going to take on responsibility and we got a great church here. I know we'll be able to support it. So yeah, it's exciting. That's this is the growth. We want to see not only do we want to see the fruit in replicating believers and Christians and discipling people and with the soul-winning but we want the churches to then start to reproduce and and create new churches. So that's where we're at that, you know, praise God that we're at the position to be able to do that after only five years. It's it's amazing. So all glory to the Lord for that, but it's exciting to be part of that work and appreciate everyone here. All of you make it possible for us to be able to do all the things that we do here. So thank you so much for that. All right, that's about it for our announcements for the evening for the Peter. You please lead us in our next song. All right Church open up your nose song number 43. We're marching his eye on. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. Join in a song of sweet accord. 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Don't let the spirit of the Jehovah's Witness chairs take over you and bring you down. All right. So I mentioned this morning, I had the benefit of going to the preaching class yesterday and had a lot of great sermons. So this is another sermon that the guys that were here yesterday got. You're going to definitely recognize some of it. But it's another one of those things where I just want to go really in deep on this subject. I think there's a lot we could learn here. So the subject matter for the evening is the lessons that we could learn from Achan and this story. Achan is kind of a central character in the story here in Joshua Chapter 7. And we're going to take a look at this and see all the different things that we could learn from his sin and what he had done. And there's multiple aspects of this story that I think are very interesting here. So the first point, the first lesson that I want to highlight here of something we could learn from Achan is that your actions can have a big impact on not just yourself, but on a group of people. So the whole group, especially here, we're going to we're going to start reading again in verse number 10 of Joshua 7. If you'd look down your Bibles, the Bible says, And the Lord said unto Joshua, get thee up, wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Because at this point, Joshua didn't know why God wasn't with them, even though he could have deduced that when they lost their second battle. You know, God had already given them this this warning and said, hey, here's what you need to do. Don't take of the accursed thing. You need to wipe everyone out. All the gold, the silver is consecrated unto the Lord, meaning it belongs in the God. But of course, Achan had sinned. But see, Joshua didn't realize this. So he's on his face and he's humbling himself. And God just like, you know, why are you laying down on the ground? Get up. OK, it's you know, I'm not I'm not just like upset over nothing. There's a there's a cause for this. And, you know, get up. He says, Israel has sinned verse 11, 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. Now, notice here in verse 11, it says they have transgressed. They have taken of the accursed thing. They have dissembled. They have done this even though Achan had done it. Right. One person was found guilty of doing this. But the blame and the guilt in a sense is just being put on the children of Israel. Right. It's they have done this. And the command went forth for the whole group, for the whole army, for the whole, you know, congregation, if you will, that were going out into battle. Hey, here's the rules. Here's what God has for us to do. And just by one of them breaking that command and sinning, it brought a punishment on all of them. It caused God to not be with that group. Now, let's keep reading here. Verse 12, the Bible says, Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turn their backs before their enemies because they were accursed. Neither will I be with you anymore, except you destroy the accursed from among you. Sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel. There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel. Thou canst not stand before thine enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. So there's a sanctification that needs to be done here. The people need to be set apart in order for God to use the people. So this is the people of God. The children of God are being sent forth to battle. They're in a fight. They're in a war. They're going to fight against this city that God has commanded them. Hey, this is your battle. This is your fight. You need to go here and fight this fight and bring on this victory. But you know what? You need to be sanctified. You need to be set apart. You can't be tainted here with the accursed thing because then you're not going to win. You're not going to have the victory. I'm not going to be with you. Obviously our fight today, and keep your place here because we're going to be going through this a lot in the book of Joshua. And turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. We have our fights. We have our battles as a church, as a whole, as the children of God, and as a congregation together. We will face our own battles together. And if we're going to be successful in our spiritual battles, we're going to need God with us. The power of God has to be working in this church. We have to be able to fight in full force and not have some accursed thing festering and just stuck in this church. That's going to cause the power of God to depart from our church as a whole. And you say, well, you guys can all do your thing, but what about my sin, my thing? That's not that big of a deal. No, it is a big deal. It is a big deal. We've got someone in this church, for example, just engaged in fornication, right? No one would necessarily know about that. Just as Joshua didn't know what Achan had done, he didn't. He hid it, right? He kept it hid. It was hid in his tent. No one knew about it. But obviously the Lord was departed from them because they had to turn their back before their enemy. God didn't bring them the victory. God wasn't with them. So, well, why not? Joshua was serving the Lord faithfully. Joshua was a good leader. Joshua was doing what he's supposed to be doing. In fact, everybody else was doing what they were supposed to be doing. But you know what? One person didn't. One person got covetous. One person commit a sin and it wasn't just like, oops, I told a white lie. I mean, he brought the accursed thing home with him and did exactly contrary what the Lord had said. And he specifically told them in the chapter prior, like, look, when you go into Jericho, that whole city is accursed. And Jericho was accursed anyways, even after that, that anyone who went to go and rebuild Jericho was going to pay for it dearly with the price of two of their children, which is actually what happened when they did go to rebuild the city. But that city was accursed. He said everything is accursed and the money that you get out of it is going to be consecrated unto the Lord. Of course, Achan wanted it. He took it. He had that secret sin, covetousness. But as a result of his sin, that caused basically that curse to be brought upon everybody. And this is why we have the teaching in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 of having our church be sanctified. This is why we have to maintain standards of righteousness within the church because we want God using us. We want God's power on our church. We know we're not going to be perfect. But see, God wasn't demanding them to be perfectly sinless or else I'm not going to be with you. But he did say, hey, don't do this. Don't take of the accursed thing. You better not bring that into your house. That was a limit that God had set up and been like, no. But then when you do it, well, now you got to get rid of the accursed thing. We have limits set forth for us in the New Testament church as well, which is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Let's look down at that, verse number 6. The Bible says your glory is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. So first of all, the context here is he brings up a specific sin, a specific person, someone who is guilty of fornication, such fornication which is not so much as mentioned among the Gentiles. He's saying this fornication is extra bad. It's even more perverted. It's not just your standard fornication, but that one would have his father's wife. There's a man there that I assume, I hope, they were divorced or something or his dad had died, but it's still forbidden. It's off limits to be laying with your father's wife. I assume it wasn't his own mother, right, it's his father's wife, so a stepmom or something like that, and he was committing fornication, but that's super perverted and just really wicked. That's a really bad sin. He's saying the world's not even doing that. The Gentiles aren't even behaving like that. That's really bad. So he goes in saying like, and they're acting like there's nothing wrong, and the guy's just coming to church every week or whatever, just not a big deal. He's like, look, you need to purge out that leaven. Don't you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Like you just let this stuff get in. It's going to corrupt the whole church. You have to maintain a standard here. He says purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you an epistle not to accompany the fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters, for then must you need to go out of the world. Now he's going to clarify what he had previously written unto them about not accompanying with fornicators, and it makes perfect sense in the context because he was just talking about a fornicator. So he's saying look I already told you before not to accompany with fornicators, and then he adds some other sins to this list, and he says but look I'm not just talking about like anyone at all because then you just have to go kind of isolate yourself from the whole world because that's what the world is full of, people like this. That's what he says, then you just have to go out of the world. He says but now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man is called a brother be a fornicator. So this is for saved people. This is someone who's called a brother. Okay, you've got a brother in Christ that's a fornicator, or covetous as Achan was, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner with such in one no not to eat. He's saying don't even have a meal with that person. That's a level of separation, of sanctification, of setting apart from someone who's a brother that's engaged in any one of these behaviors where they would be called a railer, a drunkard, you know, that would fit this bill. And I'm not going to go through this. I've done this in the past of really diving deep into these sins. But this is demonstrating, look, we need to have our church set apart just as God needed his people set apart to go and bring judgment on those nations and to keep winning and having God with them. And even having one in the group caused all the rest to become guilty as well and not have the power of God with them. And if our church is going to be successful, we need to have people who already aren't going to be found on this list. If you are guilty of something on this list right now, if you are someone who would be known as someone who is a fornicator, or someone who is covetous, or someone who is an idolater, or someone who is a railer, or someone who is a drunkard, or someone who is an extortioner, you know, you need to repent, you need to get right with God, and you need to get out of church until you get right with God. Now, obviously, you know, I'm not walking around trying to find people who are on this list or anything like that. But if something pops up, I'll just tell you this much in the way that this church is going to practice church discipline in the sense that if I find out that anybody is one of these things, you're out. You're out. So don't be surprised if that ever happens to anybody. And you see like, oh, man, so and so's out. You're going to be out. You're going to be out until you get it right. It's not that we just want you out. Like we want you in but we want you right with God. We want God's power on us. We don't want your leaven to leaven the whole the whole group, the whole bunch. We want to keep serving the Lord and we want God with us. We don't want an aching in the midst that's going to cause the power of God to depart from us so that we're just working on our own efforts because that's going to get us nowhere. That's going to cause us to turn around and flee from before the enemy. Verse 12 says, For what have I to do to judge them also there without? Do not you judge them that are within? So the judgment is being commanded to be done within the church. But then that I without God judges, so the people out in the world, don't worry about them. God's going to take care of them. You know, the standard isn't the same for just people out in the world in general. I mean obviously there's one set of laws for everybody but but the standard that we maintain as a congregation, as a church, as people are coming together, we've got this standard within. Okay, if you meet someone out or some co-worker or something saying it's not like you can't have a meal with someone because they live with their boyfriend or girlfriend, some unsaved person out in the world. He's not telling you you can't do that because we're not demanding that same level of sanctification from someone who's not even saved. Right? But maybe there is a brother in Christ or a sister in Christ and you know that they're saved and you know they're living that life, then you know what? Don't go out to eat with them. Even if they don't come to this church, just be like you got to get right with God. But then there without God judges, therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. They need to be put away. We don't want the whole lump to be leavened. Let's go back to Joshua chapter 7. So the first point that we lesson we learn from Achan is that you could bring the whole group down by your own actions. You can cause the Spirit of God to depart from the whole church because of what you do personally. That should weigh heavy on your mind if you ever face a temptation that would cause you to be like one of these people that would be in that category of sin that's just saying look, no, no. And those sins, they're not just, like I said, it's not just every sin. These are specific sins that are worse than other sins because not all sin is equal. We don't believe that here. It's a common teaching, but it's not what we believe here. If all sin were equal, then why would it be telling us to put these wicked people out from among us but then not everybody? Because we are all sinners. We say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Yet there is still a list of things of people that ought to be removed from the church until they repent, until they get right with God. Let's go back to Joshua 7, verse number 14, the Bible says in the morning, Therefore you shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof, and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households, and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man, and it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath. Hey, thank God for being in a New Testament church. 1 Corinthians 5 is just, hey, put that wicked person away from among you. Agen's getting destroyed here. I mean, and that's real. I mean, that happened. They found that guy that was taken of the accursed thing, and he became accursed, like, oh, you want what Jericho had? Because Jericho got utterly destroyed. Now you're getting utterly destroyed. Same thing with Lot's wife, turning around and looking on Sod, oh, you care about, you want the things of Sodom? Pillar of salt. Jericho is just as bad. We don't know what their specific sins were, but they were bad enough for God to utterly destroy them and wipe them out. It had to be pretty bad. We know the Lord's long suffering, and we know when he brings judgment like that of utter annihilation and like you're raising the city to the ground, it is being torn down. It's like Sodom and Gomorrah having fire and brimstone rained down upon them. Just utter destruction. So this concept of wanting to have and wanting to be part of and partake of that wickedness is akin to Lot's wife turning back and having a piece of her heart in San Francisco. Lesson number two from Aiken is just the overall dangers of covetousness itself. Let's keep reading here and jump down verse number 19 in Joshua Chapter seven. But it says in Joshua said unto Aiken, my son, this is after they went, you know, house by house and narrowed it down. And then Aiken was was the one who was found out to be the one who had sinned. My son, give I pray the glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him and tell me now what thou has done. Hide it not from me. At this point, he's saying, look, you're caught, man. Stop hiding it. Just give God the glory. We know it's you. Tell us what you did. And Aiken answered Joshua and said, indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. And thus and thus have I done. So he confesses now he's going to say exactly what happened. Look at verse 21. When I saw among the spoils, a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold, a 50 shekels weight. Then I coveted them. And took them. So it started off with him seeing it and being enticed by that. You know, you're going through you're raising the city. You're going to see stuff, right? I'm sure he's not the only one that saw silver and gold. Other people were seeing stuff, too. But when he saw him, he said, I coveted him. Coveted means he wanted it, but he was desirous of something that he was not allowed to have. That's what covetousness is. Covetousness is when you desire something, you want something that you can't have. Which is why it's covetousness if you, for example, want to lie with someone else's spouse. Because they belong to that other person. So if you want to have a relationship with that person, that's off limits. That's covetousness. Don't covet your neighbor's wife. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff. Hey, things that belong, don't want things that belong to someone else, it's not yours. You can't desire those things. That's covetousness. Also, the love of money is covetousness. And being given over, just being greedy and just wanting to have all these riches. You're covetous over things that you don't have and things that you shouldn't want to be rich. The Bible teaches us in 1 Timothy chapter 6, a real famous passage. You can turn there if you'd like. Otherwise, I'll just read through it for you. Verse number 6 says, but godliness with contentment is great gain. So just being content with what you have, that's a gain. And Achan would have had a great gain here by just being content with where he was and not having to take the 50 shekels of gold and the silver and the garment. Right? He would have been like, you know what, no, I'm good. God's got me in a good place. I don't need this accursed stuff from Jericho. I'm okay. I'm cool without it. That would have been a great gain for Achan for many reasons. The top of which is getting stoned and burned. Right? Losing his life and being accursed. Godliness with contentment is a great gain for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out and having food and raiment, let us be there with content. I don't know how much money Achan had in his life. It doesn't matter. He had food and clothing. And the Bible says be content with that. And then it says this, but they that will be rich. Will be rich doesn't mean is going to be rich. It means that want to be rich. It's not a sin to be rich. Let's put that out there. If you have a lot of riches, a lot of money, and honestly by the world standards globally over history, we're all rich. People in this room, we're all rich. You say, Pastor Burzins, I am not rich. Someone out there is thinking that and be like, you don't know me. I am not rich. The standard of living that you have right now compared to history, you are rich. Praise God. So I'm not saying that that is just well, you're you're just a bunch of wicked people now, aren't you? You bunch of rich, stinking Americans, wicked doers. No. Hey, if you've been blessed by God, great. But our desire, our will, our heart shouldn't be set on money and material wealth and having all the luxuries and all the the thing that this world has offered. That is not what we should have. We should not have that covetous hearts. We should not want to just be rich, because if you do, it says they that will be rich, they want to be rich fall. That might fall, not it could happen. They fall into temptation and a snare. You're going to fall. If that's your desire, you just want to have riches, you want to have goods, you want to have wealth, just be ready to fall. You're going to fall in temptation and a snare. So there's a trap. It's a trap. And into many foolish and hurtful lusts, because that desire, when you allow that desire to keep going, man, I want to be rich. Oh, I wish I had all this money. It leads you into other lusts, other desires, other things that you want that you can't have. It doesn't just stop with money. It's going to be power. It's going to be people, women, men, you know, whatever. Just just getting off into other lusts. You need to keep that in check. It says which drown men in destruction and perdition. That's a miserable end. That comes to those that want to be rich. For the love of money is the root of all evil. That's the root. You want to get all little things all the way down. What's the cause? What's the root? The love of money. The love of money, because it leads you into other lusts. You say, well, what about the rapist? Yeah, the love of money is the root of all that evil. It's that covetousness. It's that desire to have the things that you can't have. You know, that's where it stems from. That's the cause. Love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Achan coveted. He saw and then coveted that which he was not supposed to have, that which was commanded against. He coveted it. And then because he coveted it, he acted on it and took it. So there's two sins there. One was just even the wanting of it, the desiring of it, the coveting of it was a sin in itself. And then he went ahead and took it. He wouldn't have taken it if he didn't covet it, though. The people who commit adultery, they start with covetous, being covetous, and then it turns into adultery. So stop the covetousness before it turns into something even worse. Turn, if you would, to 2 Samuel chapter 12. And keep your place in Joshua. We are going to come back to Joshua still. First lesson from Achan. You bring down the whole group by one person's actions. It's possible, right? You do a bad enough sin, you can bring, have God's power to power it from the whole church, from a whole group of people. Number two we can learn from a lesson from Achan is the dangers of covetousness. That covetousness cost him his life. That covetousness brought a lot of misery on the entire household of Achan. He lost his sons and daughters, by the way. We're going to see that in a little bit. And all of his goods and just everything. He lost everything as a result of his covetousness. But number three is you can't hide your sin. You can't hide it. Achan thought he could hide it. Achan coveted, he took, and he hid it. No one knew he did it. But God uncovered it. God made it become exposed to where everyone understood, wow, that's what happened. Now we know who did it. And now you've got all eyes on you. Things get blown up a lot more after you sin and then when you try to hide it. Try to cover it up. And look, it is our sinful human nature to want to cover things up. And I can't imagine what it must have been like. I can't imagine, actually. I could imagine what it would be like because I've been in similar situations where you're thinking like, oh, man, I hope they don't find out. I hope they don't find out. As he's going through, imagine the process, right? They're going through tribe by tribe and they're taking kind of all the heads of the households and it's like maybe they'll go to someone else. But he's sitting there knowing he did it. And that anxiety and the stress and the torture of this like getting closer and closer and closer to you, man, sorry about sitting on the hot seat. And it's just like, oh, yeah, all right, you got me, right? Okay, I did it. But he didn't admit to it until it was like you. You did it. You did it. All right. You can't hide your sin. I had to go to Second Samuel 12. Numbers 32, 23 says this, but if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure. This is when Moses was talking to the children, to Manasseh, and you know how there was the two and a half tribes that had gotten their inheritance on the other side, Jordan. And he was saying, okay, but I'll give you this inheritance here, but you need to cross over. You need to fight with the rest of your brethren. You need to help them to get their inheritance and then you can go back to your land. You remember that story? This is where he's saying, okay, but look, if you don't do it, you're sinning because you're commanded to go and help them fight. And he says, be sure your sin will find you out. Don't think that you could just get away with it and be like, oh yeah, I'm just going to leave them to fight and I'm just going to hang back here. I'm cool. I got my inheritance. Go ahead, suckers. Right? Be like, yeah, you think you're going to be fine. You think everything is going to go well. It's not. It's going to come back and get you. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For what's over man, so what that shall also reap. He's like, your sin will find you out. So you think that you could sin and just cover it up and hide it and hide it from everyone and just say no one's going to find this and I can keep on doing this and I'm going to keep on sinning and I'm going to keep on hiding it or whatever. It doesn't work like that. It won't work like that. And as a born again believer, you better believe it's not going to work like that. You look at wicked people out in the world and be like, man, how come they're never judged? Because they're not a child of God and they've got a judgment coming that's going to be way worse. That's why it looks like they get away with things because they're still not getting away with it. They're going to be burning in hell forever. But you as a child of God, you better not think for a second you're just going to get our heavenly Father that sees all things that you could hide anything from Him. Be sure your sin will find you out. 2 Samuel 12, verse 11, the Bible says, Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house. This is the judgment coming upon David after he's just been confronted by Nathan the prophet saying, Thou art the man. And I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. You know that sin you wanted to hide? You wanted to keep it secret? And you took someone else's wife and you did that secretly? And then you had him killed and you did that secretly? He's like, you know what? Now all of your wives are going to be defiled except it's not going to be secret. Everyone's going to know about it. It's going to be spread out for all to see and for everyone to know, and your shame is going to be brought before all the people. Because you thought that you can do this thing secretly. You thought you could hide all of this. You know what? It's getting blown wide open. That ought to be a scary thought. That ought to be a thought that we keep in our minds when you have your moments of temptation, when you're confronted with sinning going like, man, what if this were just to get blown up all over the place? You better take that seriously because that's how God operates. And think about that and lay it to heart to prevent you from getting into sin to begin with and to make the right choice when that temptation comes along when your flesh is trying to draw you away and entice you with the lust of your heart to do something wicked to say, you know what? It's not worth it. It's not worth it, right? To overcome that flesh and to be mindful and think and say, I know how God works. And even if I could hide this sin from my family, from my spouse, from my coworkers, from whoever, from anyone that might know me, I can't hide it from God. And God could very easily just flip the lid and there it is and then everybody's going to find out. I'll read for you from Luke 12. Go back to Joshua, if you would. Go to Joshua chapter 8. Luke 12, verse number 1, the Bible reads, In the meantime, when they were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples, first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed. Neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in the ear and closet shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. Now in the context there, he's saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. What's hypocrisy? They say and they do not. And he's saying, you know what? Because the things that they do in secret that make them a hypocrite, it's going to be well known. The things that are done, he says, nothing's covered that's not going to be revealed. So beware of that. Point number four, what else can we learn from Achan? Wait on God's timing. This is a point that Brother Carter made yesterday. Wait on God's timing. If Achan, when he saw the gold and the silver, would have refrained himself, he would have received gold and silver after the next battle. If he would have honored the Lord with his substance, if he would have given the first fruits unto God because the silver and the gold was consecrated unto the Lord, that was their first battle. That was their first victory. God gets the first of everything. That's why God gets your tithe. That's why God is supposed to be blessed with the increase of your substance. He gets the first fruits. He's always first. Christ was the first fruit. He's the first fruit of the resurrection. God is always first. God is first in everything and you cannot try to be a partaker. No, no, look, don't try to take God's glory. Don't try to take the things that belong unto God. People who want to take the tithe and say, well, I'm not going to pay my tithe. That belongs to God. Just as much as the silver and gold belonged unto God and was concentrated on God in Jericho. Look, that was set apart for him. Achan was guilty of stealing that. Just as much as people who aren't giving their first fruits and aren't giving the tenth of their increase unto the Lord, you're stealing from God. And here's the thing. If you would just recognize that, if you would just say, you know what? I'm just going to wait on God's timing. Look, okay, maybe that's something I want, but you know what? I'm just not going to look at them. I can bother with that. I'm content with what I have. Thank you for blessing me, Lord. Then the blessing could come in God's time. Look at Joshua 8, verse number 1. The Bible says, And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed. Take all the people of war with thee and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land. That was the battle that they had tried to fight, before with less people and lost because of Achan, because of the sin that he had committed. Now God's saying, yep, go up against them. I'm going to deliver them in your hand. No worries. And thou shalt do to Ai and her king, as thou didst unto Jericho and her king. So you can do the same exact thing you did to Jericho, basically. You're going to destroy them. He says, only, so here's the difference, though. Only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. Lay thee at ambush for the city behind it. And then he tells, you know, he said, okay, here's the only difference. Last time I told you not to take anything. It's consecrated to the Lord. That the silver and gold that you get, it's going to be brought into the treasuries of the house of the Lord. It's going to be consecrated unto God. But now, hey, that spoil, go ahead, take it for yourself. You're going to go in. You're going to win this battle because I'm with you. And now you get to receive. You get to partake of the spoils. Achan, if you would have just held out a little bit longer, you would have been part of that. Just serve faithfully. And then God could choose to bless you. And you would have received. You didn't have to steal it for yourself. Just like the Bible says in Malachi about tithing, he says, look, just pay the Lord's tithe because test God on that. He says, I'll open up the windows of heaven and bring down a blessing from above. He's like, you'll be blessed. You do be faithful. You do what I tell you to do. You will be blessed. I will take care of you. And this concept of not wanting to wait and not understanding God's plan and trying to act too early, it also reminds me of Exodus 15, turn to Exodus 15. We see a similar example of people who, you know, if you would just stay faithful to the word of God and just trust in him and know that whatever his commandments are are good for you. Don't go outside of those bounds. You know, trust in the Lord. He's going to take care of you. Aiken didn't need any of that stuff. God was going to take care of him. I don't care how poor he was. He didn't need that stuff. He should have been content. God was going to take care of him. He already had it in his plan to take care of him and bless him some more if he would have just stayed faithful. Instead, he lost everything. Instead, he lost his life, lost his family, lost it all because he couldn't be patient. He couldn't wait. He couldn't just trust in God. Total disaster. Exodus 15, look at verse number 22. The Bible reads, so Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Merah, they could not drink of the waters of Merah for they were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Merah. And the people murmured against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Don't worry, brother Devin. I'm not going to preach your sermon this week. Maybe next week. Brother Devin preached on murmuring. So it was like a lot of concepts here coming together. That was yesterday. But people are complaining about this. They're murmuring against Moses. And if you put yourself in a situation, they went three days and didn't have any water. You get pretty thirsty after three days and not find water. And then when they did come to water, they couldn't drink it. It's like, oh, the water is bad. That just set them over the top. It's like, man, it's been three days. Oh, look. Oh, finally, water. And you're like, oh, it's rancid. Oh, it's bad. Oh, we can't drink of it. It's contaminated. We can't drink this water. So just when you thought you were getting relief, nope. And I'm not excusing their sin because it was a sin to be murmuring and complaining. It was. And they shouldn't have had that attitude. But we need to realize where they were. And especially when you understand the conditions they were in, now think about your own complaining, your own murmuring. They went three days without water. I can't go three hours without water. I'm always drinking water. I love water. I can't imagine going three days. I've never fasted from water for longer than a day. And it's already like, man, give me a drink. Three days. And they're walking. They're hiking. It's not. So just let those thoughts kind of realize that, what it must have been like. And then you finally see the water. And just as you're going to go drink, it's like, oh, man. How much more do we have to go now to get water? So that's where they were at. But they still, they were murmuring, complaining, not right. Now, God knows this. And it says, the people murmured against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Verse 25 says, and he cried unto the Lord. And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance. And there he proved them. He tested them. Now, God knew their whole situation and everything and decided to give them water and to make that water drinkable when they turned to the Lord. Moses turned to the Lord to entreat for them and to allow them to drink. So God heard that request and granted it. But if we keep reading, look at verse 26, the Bible says, and said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And he starts to just tell them, look, if you just listen to me, I'll take care of you. Real broad generalization of this. I'll heal you. I'll take care of you. Just listen to me. Just trust me. Look at verse 27. He came to Elam, where were 12 wells of water and three score and 10 palm trees and they encamped there by the waters. Elam was their next stop. I mean, it's like they're on the highway and you can see, oh, there's a rest stop, you know, and you're gonna settle for like the really dirty restroom in this tiny town where you gotta go get the key and you're, you know, like I'm just, I can't make it anymore. I'm just gonna stop right here. And then like the next exit, you've got the nice Love's or Pilot or whatever, like the clean and the great oasis of the rest stop, right? Like, man, why didn't I just come here? It's like right there. That's what it was like for them. Look, God had already known they need water, but he was bringing them to the place that had an abundance of water for all of them that wasn't already dirty that they had to clean. It was already clean, right? It's like, you know, he gave them a LifeStraw. I don't know about you, but I'd rather just go a little bit longer and not have to use that LifeStraw in that mucky dirty whatever it is because it's already gonna be like, man, I don't know, can I drink this? I know I got this LifeStraw, but like really? I'd rather just go to the place that's got the clean water. Right. Having that faith, knowing, hey, God's gonna take care of me. The children of Israel should have had that faith even in really difficult times knowing it's just a little bit further if I just make it there. God is not just leading, and how many times did they say, oh, you brought us out here to kill us? Like, no, that's stupid. No. No, God saved you. He delivered you. Right? And think about that spiritually. You know, you're delivered from your sins. God didn't deliver you from your sins to just like mess with you or do evil unto you. Right? So if bad things start to happen, don't go blaming God. Like, God didn't do that to cause you, like, well, I started going to church, and now I lost my job, and now I got all these bad things happening. Well, don't blame God for that. God didn't do that, and just trust in him and say, look, he saved me from my sins. He saved me from hell. I think he could save me in this life too. I think if I'm facing something that's really just I don't know what to do, how about I just keep trusting in God just like I trusted him with my soul. I'm just going to keep trusting him to bring me to the place where I need to be, and he'll take care of me because he will. He knows you have need, and he knew that you would lose that job before you knew it. Just because it's unknown to you doesn't mean it was unknown to God. Achan should have waited, waited on God, just like the children of Israel there should have waited, pushed through, and then received the blessing. Last point, point number five, lessons we could learn from Achan. This is very similar to point one. Point one was talking about God's blessing just being removed from a whole group of people and causing problems for the group and God's power being removed. Point five is that just understand your sin will hurt other people. Not just the group of God's blessing not being on you, but his sin literally hurt other people and actually caused other people to die as a result of his sin where he could easily say, well, I'm not affecting anyone else. This is just my personal sin. This is just my private thing. This is just one thing that I want to have for me. His sin caused other people to die. And this is not an isolated case in Scripture where people have lost their life because of the sin of somebody else. Be careful how much are you willing to pay for your sin that you just want to do even though you know you shouldn't, even though you know the covenant is wrong, even though I know I shouldn't have this and I just want it anyways and I'm just going to take it for myself. How much do you want to pay for that? It's never going to be, it's never going to turn out to equal out of what you're getting with your sin compared to what the cost will be. And if you say, well, I can deal with, like think about it, the childish mindset of a child who says, I know I'm going to get a spanking if I do this. Like if I take this chocolate bar, I've already been instructed not to take this, but man, I really want it. That looks good. And kids will do this sometimes and this is true. They'll weigh in their mind, is it worth it? Because if I get caught, I know I'm getting a spanking. But then they'll be thinking, is it a spanking from dad or a spanking from mom? Like who's going to catch it? How bad is it really going to be, right? And sometimes they'll take it because they're just thinking like, I just like it that much and fine, I'll take the beating, right? But this is a bad attitude to have because I know it's kind of funny with the kids, right? I know I'm making light of it. But with Aiken here, it did not just, it's not like he was just getting a spanking for this sin. It had dire consequences for someone more than just himself. And realize that is how sin works. And the worse the sin is, the more collateral damage there's going to be and unintended consequences of your sin and the damage that's going to go forth just extends beyond what you're probably thinking. It'll be, oh, this is just for me. No, it's not. You are never guaranteed for your sin to only impact you. Look at Joshua chapter 7. I'll read from Joshua 22 when he refers back to this event. Just stay in Joshua 7. Joshua 22 19, the Bible says, Notwithstanding, if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over unto the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession among us, but rebel not against the Lord, nor rebel against us, in building you an altar beside the altar of the Lord our God. This is when the children of Israel saw that the two and a half tribes on the other side erected that altar, right? They put up that altar, and they're saying, like, whoa, whoa, what do you guys think you're doing here? There's an altar over here, okay? And if you can't handle that and if you just want to be closer, you can forsake your inheritance and we'll give you inheritance over here, but don't do this thing because they thought they were sinning and trying to just establish their own altar and set up their own worship of the Lord and stuff like that. That's what they thought. So then they bring up Achan. So when they see this altar, before they understand why they even put it there to begin with, they say, did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing? And wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel, and that man perished not alone in his iniquity. So they see this sin, what they think is a sin, this altar, they're saying, look, man, we're not going to let you have that, because you think that that's just going to affect you? No, it's going to affect all of us, and we don't want the curse of God on us, so you cannot have that there because just like Achan, it didn't just impact him, that curse came on the whole camp, and we don't want God's curse on us, so that thing's going to be removed. That was the attitude they had when they saw this thing that they thought was idolatrous, they thought it was going to be sin. Then, of course, they find out, like, no, no, no, it's just a memorial, it's just a show that we believe the same thing that you do, so our future generation's time to come. They're not going to be like, what part do you have with us in this service? Because they had the Jordan River going between them. But the fact that they bring this up, and they're like, look, Achan didn't die alone. Look at Joshua 7, verse 24. The Bible says, And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, so everything he took, and himself, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them unto the valley of Achor, and Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day, and all Israel stoned them with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. He lost it all. He didn't just lose what he stole and like, oh, well, okay, yeah, you're just going to lose that. No, he lost his family. He lost himself. He lost all his goods. I mean, he was just wiped out the same way they wiped out Jericho. And not only, now look, if you commit a sin, it's going to cause you to lose your children. Is that worth your sin? Is that worth the gold and the silver? His sons and daughters died with him. Do you think he was thinking about that when he coveted that garment? That Babylonish garment? That fancy, stylish Babylon garment? Those fancy threads and the silver and the gold? Not worth it. Not even close. He lost his children. And look, it didn't even just affect his family because when they lost that battle, the Bible says in verse number five, and the men of Ai smoted them about thirty and six men. Thirty-six other people, completely unrelated to Achan, also lost their life because the Lord was not with them fighting their battles because of Achan. So thirty-six other people lost their lives. Unintended consequences, collateral damage, but it's Achan's fault. Achan hadn't done that. God would have been with them because they, in the last battle, nobody died. Nobody. And in this battle, thirty-six people died because they had to run away and flee because God wasn't with them. Big price for that sin. Your sin will hurt other people. Like I said, there's plenty of other examples of this type of thing. Look, it's King David. With his grievous sin. It impacted that unborn child when he committed adultery. It wasn't the child's fault, but you know what? That was a consequence of his sin. David brought that on. It's David's fault. A lot of lessons we can learn from Achan. Take heed to what we can learn from Achan. Understand your sin is never going to just affect you. No matter how much you think it's only you, it doesn't. You will hurt other people with your sin. And just think about that because you won't know exactly how it's going to impact them. Just like Achan didn't know. He didn't quite know what exactly was going to happen. But he just wanted it anyways and did it. Well, you might not know. You can know at least here within our church, you commit some wicked sins. You know, you're going to bring down the power of God from this church. You're going to not allow that to happen. Great things that could be done here. Do you want to be the person responsible for that? Nothing being done? Dangers of covetousness, right? He lost everything from wanting things and looking on things and coveting things that he shouldn't have. Be content with what you have. You can't hide your sin. It'll all be uncovered in the end. So don't even try to think that you can start doing things and cover it all up and keep it a secret. You won't. Confess and forsake it. It's the best thing you can do. You sin, confess and forsake it. Or if you're tempted with sin, realize you're not going to keep it hidden. It'll come out one way or another and also wait on God's timing, right? With your contentment, with your faithfulness, just just wait, just serve. Just remain faithful. And God will bless. God will bless. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. Thank you so much for all the great lessons we can learn from scripture. I pray you please help us to let these truths sink in from your word and that you included. We thank you for including the story of Aiken in the Bible. It's not it's not a pleasant one, but Lord, it is definitely one that's going to be very impactful for us to help us to mind our own ways and to and to mind your ways, especially, Lord, that we can serve you faithfully and not get caught up in in our own sins and lusts and desires. I pray you please strengthen us. Dear Lord, strengthen our faith, strengthen our spirit. Help us to to grow our spiritual strength bite by doing spiritual things and committing our works unto you that our thoughts could be established, dear Lord, and that you would just bless us, bless our church. Lord, help us to to get the leaven out of our lives that we can be vessels that are meat for your use. Lord, we love you. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right. We're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? All right, church. Let's sing this out in the first. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. 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