If you’re visiting for the first time, I’m glad you’re here, and welcome to all of you watching online. Every morning I go on a two- or three-mile walk, and every night I go on a walk — or if I don’t, I’ll ride our Peloton for forty or fifty minutes. There’s a TV screen on it now, so whenever I ride, I go to Netflix, and I found a series I love watching called I Am a Killer. Every episode is about a guy or gal who murdered somebody — maybe multiple people — and eventually got caught and ended up in prison, maybe waiting for execution, maybe in for life. They interview them in prison and you get to hear their story, and then they talk to the district attorney and the police who investigated the crime. It’s super fascinating, and one of the things I found is that you can learn some things from some evil people. And I say all that because the person we’re going to look at today in our Real People series is a really evil person — a wicked person who brought a lot of heartache and pain and sorrow into a whole lot of people’s lives, and yet there are some things we can learn from him. His name is Achan.

If you want to take your Bibles and open them to Joshua chapter 6, you can do that, because that’s where we’re going to be. But to understand the character of Achan, or what happens in the book of Joshua, you have to understand the first five books of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy — and then you get to Joshua. So I want to lay a little foundation and keep it simple, but I think today is going to be a real blessing to you, even though it’s a really dark message. In fact, the story we’re going to look at is one of the reasons a lot of young people say, “I don’t want anything to do with your God.” A lot of people will say, “If that’s what your God is like — the God you just sang to and gave to — then I’m not going to worship your God. I’m not going to believe in a God like that.” Part of that is because they just don’t understand the book of Joshua, so I need to give you a little understanding of it.

There’s no such thing as the people of Israel — no Jewish people, no Hebrews, no Israelis, whatever name you want to give — until you get to Genesis chapter 12. In chapter 12, God says to a man named Abraham: “I’m going to make an incredible nation out of you. You and your wife are going to have a child, and before you know it there’s going to be this whole nation. And the whole purpose of this new nation is that I want that nation to be a blessing to the world — salt and light to everybody. You’re going to be the instrument I use to tell the world about me and my love and my mercy and my grace.” So God tells Abraham and Sarah that from them is going to come a great nation. They finally have a child, and before you know it there’s a family in Genesis 12 — that’s all it is at the time, just a family, not a nation. But that’s the beginning of the Jewish people. Then you get to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and there’s a lot of “so-and-so begat so-and-so who begat so-and-so.” In other words, this family is now a whole lot of people — it’s a nation. That’s basically what the first five books are about: God starting this new family that would become a nation and be a blessing to everybody. In those first five books, this nation is in captivity, going through growing pains, and by the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is in charge. Now God is going to give them a land. Remember, they’re just a nation — they don’t have a place to have a society. So God has Moses lead them out of captivity to what is called the Promised Land. This family that became a nation will now have its own land dedicated to them — the launching point to tell the world about God. But God doesn’t let Moses take the people into the Promised Land; Moses hands the baton off to a guy named Joshua, and Joshua is the one who takes the nation in. That’s what the book of Joshua is about. They get to the Jordan River and God has them cross into their new land. The first twelve chapters of Joshua are all about conquering the land, and chapter 13 on is about how God had the land divided among the twelve tribes.

The problem was that in the Promised Land there were a lot of really evil, wicked people living there — sinful, crummy people. God was going to surgically remove these people and cities from the face of the planet, and the surgical instrument he was going to use was the Israeli army. God says: “This is now your land. It’s going to be holy, sacred, set-apart land, so you can tell the world about me. But we’ve got some business to do, Joshua. There are some really evil people, and it begins in a city called Jericho.” Jericho was an evil city — a pus pocket of unrighteousness. I know that’s graphic, Pastor Rick. I know. And God says, “I’m going to get rid of that city. Here’s the battle plan: you’re going to walk around the city one time and camp out; the next day you’ll do it again. You’ll do that for six days in a row. On the seventh day, you’ll walk around the city seven times, blow some trumpets, and the walls of Jericho are going to come tumbling down.” By the way, I’ve been to Jericho. It’s a real city; it’s still there. I’ve seen the walls that came tumbling down. This really happened.

So Joshua says, “I got the plan, God.” And God goes, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out, big fella. There’s one other thing I need to tell you so you can tell the people.” Look at verse 17: “Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies. Do not take any of the things set apart for destruction, or you yourselves will be completely destroyed, and you will bring trouble on the camp of Israel. Everything made from silver or gold or bronze or iron is sacred to the Lord and must be brought into his treasury.” Let me explain. There’s an old saying in war: to the victor go the spoils. If a conquering army goes into a city and you want to pick up a few trinkets on your way out, you’re free to do that. But God says to Joshua, “Make sure you tell the soldiers that’s not the case at Jericho. I’m not a greedy God. This isn’t about greed or taking all their gold and silver and bronze. No — I’m a holy God. I’m a righteous God. This isn’t about personal gain, and I want all the other nations to understand that. So when your men go in and the walls come down, they don’t take anything. They leave it all. Are we clear?” And I’m sure Joshua said, “We’re clear, God.” So Joshua would have stood in front of his soldiers: “Here’s the battle plan — we walk around the city, the walls come down, we wipe everybody out except Rahab and a few others. But God also said this: do not take any gold, silver, bronze, or iron. Don’t take any cool robes you see. Leave it all. We’re serving a holy God. He took a family and made us into a nation, and now we have our own land by which we can let the world know how holy and awesome and righteous our God is — and it begins by us not taking the stuff.” And everybody, I’m sure, saluted and said, “Right on. You got it.”

So they walked around the city seven times, blew the trumpets, the walls came down, and it was a bloodbath. Everybody’s climbing over rocks, getting in there, and people are dying — they’re saving Rahab and a few people, and God’s doing his work. I know for a lot of people, you don’t get it. I’m not sure I understand it all myself. But this was God’s will. And there was a guy named Achan. Achan heard the instructions of the Lord: don’t touch the stuff. He had one job. And apparently Achan kicks open a door, goes into a house where everybody’s dead, and as he’s walking out the door, something catches his eye. Something shiny. A bar of gold. He shuts the door and goes back inside. There’s silver in there too, and some nice robes, and bronze. He picks up the gold, the silver, some of the stuff, hides it in his tunic, and walks out. He gets back to his home — his wife’s out, the kids are out playing — and he digs a hole in his house, takes the gold and the silver and the stuff, buries it, hides it, and puts a rug back over it. It’s the perfect crime. There’s no police department, no CIA, no FBI, no NSA, no KGB, no satellites over the house looking at thermal imaging. It literally was the perfect crime. All he’s got to do is wait a little bit, let the heat come down, then he can whittle off a little gold, a little silver, and he’s going to be living better than the average soldier. This was really, really brilliant.

The story goes on, and the next city that needed to be destroyed was a city called Ai. And for those of you taking notes, it’s spelled A-i. It was the first AI city ever — way ahead of its time. It was a lot funnier in my mind than it obviously was when it hit your ears, and I’m laughing like crazy in my head right now; I just want you to know. So Joshua gets a couple of spies together: “We know what happened at Jericho, but I need you to go scope out the city of Ai. Find out what kind of army they’ve got.” That’s a good general. The spies go in, scope it out, come back and say, “Joshua, these guys are the Barney Fife of armies. They’ve got like one bullet; their guns are rusty; their tanks have the treads off. We don’t even need to send all the troops — these guys are a bunch of losers. We only need two or three thousand troops. It’s not going to be anything like Jericho; this is going to be a cakewalk.” So Joshua sends two or three thousand guys into Ai. And the Bible says the men of Ai rose up with their crummy guns and crummy knives and crummy bows and arrows, and they killed thirty-six Israeli soldiers. The Israeli soldiers were running for their lives — maybe some lost an arm, some lost a leg, and they’re all running back to camp. It’s a total embarrassment to the Israeli army. There are thirty-six gals who will never see their husbands again. There are maybe a hundred kids who will never see their dad again. And this is a total embarrassment to God.

They come running back and tell Joshua what’s going on, and Joshua rips his clothes and starts crying out to God: “God, this is our land — you promised this was our land. Now all the other nations we go up against are going to think you’re impotent, some sort of loser. God, we couldn’t even take on the army at Ai. I’ve got to go out and face thirty-six women and tell them their husbands were killed. I’ve got to face all these kids and tell them their dads were slaughtered. God, this is a mess.” And one of the things we learn is that there’s no such thing as a private little sin. No such thing. You think there is — “well, it’s just between me and God” — but here we had a guy who clearly knew God’s will and he blew God off, and now we’ve got this mess on our hands.

The story doesn’t end there. As Joshua is lying on the ground wailing and crying and griping, verse 10 says, “But the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Get up. Why are you lying on your face like this? Israel has sinned.’” Now wait — I thought you said it was one guy named Achan? It’s interesting how God indicts the entire nation because of one guy’s sin. That in and of itself is really weighty. Remember, Joshua doesn’t know what’s going on yet. God says: “Israel has sinned. This special group of people that started as a family and became a nation, that I just blessed and gave this land — right out of the gate, you’ve sinned and you’ve blown it. They’ve stolen some of the things I commanded must be set apart, and they’ve not only stolen them, they’ve lied about it and hidden the things among their own belongings.” Wow.

What God does next, you can read in about ten seconds, but it’s the multimedia event of the century. God’s going to do something crazy. I want you to imagine there’s a camera right over here — CNN’s there, Fox News has their camera going, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, Joe Rogan’s got his podcast up. Everybody’s all around, and God’s going to put on the multimedia event of the century. He’s not just going to say, “Hey Joshua, it was Achan, go take care of it.” Remember: thirty-six women lost their husbands, a bunch of kids lost their dad, all because of one guy’s sin. There’s no such thing as a private little sin.

Let me tell you something. When I would go speak at camps back in the eighties — Hume Lake, thousands of teenagers — the first night I’d say, “You guys got questions?” They didn’t know who I was, so kids would ask things like “Boxers or briefs? What’s your favorite color? You like lizards?” Stupid things. But I wanted the kids to be able to ask me anything they wanted. Then something interesting happened. There was a year when the church was robbed of its power and punch — not robbed by the devil or demons, but by the very people who were supposedly the leaders of the church. In the eighties, there were two guys on TV who were the face of Christianity — three channels: 3, 10, and 13. There was a guy named Jim Bakker with this huge ministry, Praise the Lord, married to Tammy Faye, and they took in millions and millions of dollars; they were all over the networks. Then it came out that Jim Bakker was having sex with his secretary, and he was taking ministry money and paying off Jessica Hahn, the secretary, to keep her quiet. It gets out to the media, and the media jumped all over it — every day, “Look what he did! See, all Christians are like this.” And then there was another guy, Jimmy Swaggart, who got up on TV and pointed his bony finger at Jim Bakker and said, “That guy’s a loser.” And then it came out that he was hiring prostitutes to dance around in a hotel room and was using ministry money. By the way, both of them are still on TV today. It’s crazy. Jim Bakker went to prison for a while. It was brutal. So that summer I go to camp, and I’m standing in front of a bunch of kids: “You can ask me any questions you want.” A kid raises his hand: “Are you sleeping with your secretary too? What are you doing with the church’s money?” The questions changed. It wasn’t my sin — it was another guy’s sin. Don’t ever think that your sin doesn’t impact me, or my sin doesn’t impact you. We’re interwoven in ways we don’t even know. So now I’ve got to spend the first few days at camp just getting these kids to think I’m worthy of anything.

Back to our story. God says: “Joshua, gather all the people together” — and it was a lot of people — “because I’m going to reveal the guilty party. And I’m going to do it in a way that a church gathering in a pinhole on a map called Modesto, California, in 2025 is going to learn from it too. I’m going to make sure it’s recorded.” Look at verse 14: “In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the Lord takes shall come forward clan by clan. The clan that the Lord takes shall come forward family by family. And the family that the Lord takes shall come forward man by man.” God’s saying: get the twelve leaders of the twelve tribes up here and I’ll tell you who the guilty tribe is. Achan was from the tribe of Judah. Imagine — zillions of people, a sea of people, and somewhere out there is Achan, maybe hiding behind a bush, wondering what in the world is going on. Maybe the first tribal leader, say from Manasseh, is thinking, “I know all the people in my tribe; nobody in my tribe would blow off God.” He walks up, and God says, “That’s not the guilty tribe.” So everybody in that tribe knows it’s none of their kin. Next comes the tribe of Levi — not the guilty tribe. And I imagine sitting in the front row are the thirty-six women who lost their husbands, and right behind them all the children who will never see their dad again. They want to know who the guy is — who’s the guy who said, “Who cares what God says? I’m just going to do things my way.” Maybe they got through eight tribes, and now on deck is the leader of the tribe of Judah. He’s got to be thinking, “It’s nobody in my tribe. Nobody would do that.” And God says, “That’s the guilty tribe.” If you were part of the other eleven tribes — ten thousand people maybe — you’re all golden. But now all these women and children know: it’s somebody in the tribe of Judah. And somewhere out there was Achan. Wonder what was going through his mind. “Well, that was a lucky guess. One out of twelve.”

Now God says, “Bring up the clan leader.” A clan is like grandpa and all his brothers and sisters — a zillion people. The clan leader knows the people a little better, and he’s thinking, “Nobody would do that; that’s not the clan.” Not the guilty clan. Next — not the guilty clan. Maybe there are six or seven behind Achan’s clan, and all of a sudden Achan’s clan is on deck, and Achen sees his clan leader walk over, and God says, “That’s the guilty clan.” In my imagination, what was Achan doing at that moment? He’s got to be thinking, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Do I just come clean? Is Joshua just getting lucky? What do I do?” And now God says, “Bring them up family by family.” Maybe grandpa had five children and one of those five was Achan. Grandpa knows his five kids: “It ain’t anybody in my family. My family knew what God said; they would never blow God off.” And God says, “That’s not the guilty family.” “Right — it ain’t my family. Ladies, I’m sorry about the loser who took things into his own hands and you lost your husbands, but it wasn’t one of my family members.” Maybe there are eight guys; Achan’s number four. Not the guilty family. Not the guilty family. And now Achan’s family leader — maybe his grandfather — is up next, and God says, “That’s the guilty family.” You see what God’s doing? He’s got a spotlight, and he’s bringing it down to a laser beam in front of everybody — in front of all the cameras, all the podcasters. Everybody’s going to know who sinned and brought such devastation on this new nation in their new land. And now every man comes up. Maybe there are ten guys and Achan’s one of them — and I think he’s got a wet spot by this time; I think he’s got his tunic wrapped around him because he’s going, “Uh oh.”

What’s going on in his brain? I’m reading the story going, “Brother, humble yourself. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.” Because let me tell you something: if you don’t humble yourself and God does it, it’s a whole other gig. You’re going to humble yourself one way or another, bro. Just do it now. You still got time. Not this guy. He’s dug in. Maybe he doesn’t even stop: “You knew I ain’t the guy. Yeah, I know what God said. I would never disobey God. Ladies, I’m sorry. It’s not me. Go ahead, Joshua, do your thing.” Achan’s four back with maybe three guys behind him, and they’re just walking to the podium. Achan’s in the hole. Now it’s his turn. There they all are — the women, the kids. I’m sure Achan’s children were looking up at him going, “There’s my daddy. My daddy’s godly. My daddy would never do something like that. Hi, Daddy.” He walks up, and God says, “That’s the guilty man.” Hey — wouldn’t that make a great Netflix miniseries, what I just pulled off right there? You could read it in twenty seconds; trust me, it took more than twenty seconds.

And the thing Achan did — Achan discipled Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, because what did he say as soon as it was “that’s the guilty man”? “I have sinned.” Well, that’s a news flash. Achan, where were you an hour ago? Thirty minutes ago? Ten minutes ago? You’re busted, and now the crocodile tears are flowing. And I still remember Jim Bakker: “I have sinned.” I remember Jimmy Swaggart: “I have sinned.” What a discipler Achan was of those two dudes — they nailed it. And I know some of you are going to send me emails over this; I don’t care. It was phony. You’re busted and now you’re crying. You’re standing in front of thirty-six gals who lost their husbands and hundreds of kids who lost their father, and the name of the Lord has been dragged through the mud, all because you decided, “God, you’re not going to tell me what to do. If I want a bar of gold, I’m taking the gold. Your holiness doesn’t matter to me, God.” But what he says is pretty amazing. Look at verse 20: Achan replied, “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw among the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylon, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

What you learn there is how to become a hypocrite in four easy steps. Step one: he saw the gold. He’s in the house, doing exactly what God said, and on his way out he sees the gold. I think he’s okay at this point. I have seen a lot of things God probably would rather me not see — I know none of you have, it’s just me — but that’s just step one. If he’d have gone, “Man, that’s a shiny bar of gold. God said leave it there,” and left, he’s okay. Step two: he wanted the gold. Some of your Bibles say he coveted it — that’s the tenth of the Ten Commandments: don’t covet; be okay with what God has given you; don’t want something that isn’t yours. So he opens the door, sees the gold, shuts it: “I really want that gold.” And I can tell you, I get it. There have been a lot of things I’ve seen and taken to the next step: “Man, I really want it.” I think Achan’s still okay. If he’d said, “I really want that gold and that silver, and that robe would look good on me — nah, I ain’t doing it,” and left, he’s okay. But step three: “I saw it, I wanted it, and I took the gold.” It’s one thing to see it, another thing to really want it, and a whole other thing to pick it up, stick it in your tunic, and walk out. Years ago, when I was a youth guy here, we had a member named Pete who bought a brand-new red Ferrari — and the red on this car wasn’t the red of a Toyota; it was unbelievable. There used to be a Starbucks by Barnes & Noble, and I drove up and there’s Pete’s Ferrari. I saw the Ferrari: “Wow, this is an incredible car.” I wanted the Ferrari: “Every youth pastor should have a Ferrari. We deserve a Ferrari. Maybe we could get it as the church bus — we’d only be able to take one kid one place at a time, but we’d get back and forth real fast.” But it would have been a whole other world if I’d gone and broken the window, gotten in, and taken the Ferrari. Now I’ve crossed a huge line. But you’re not a hypocrite until step four: he saw it, wanted it, took it — and then he buried it. He hid it. Nobody knew. That’s brutal. And I know that in my life I’ve had a lot of things buried, and it’s always better to go, “God, please forgive me,” than to have it buried in my life and have it come out. Forgive me, Lord, because you’ve got stuff buried in your life, and it’s going to come out. Better to just confess it to Jesus. We’re all human; we all do things and say things — some worse than others, I guess — and it’s easy to have things hidden in your life while you run around telling everybody you’re a Christian. I’ve been there.

So what happened? Did a wave of forgiveness rush over Achan’s life? No. And this is the dark part of the story — the part I don’t understand a whole lot about. God said, “Then all Israel stoned him.” Take him out to the city gates and stone him. And after they had stoned him, they burned him — and not only him, but his wife and his kids, who knew nothing about the hidden treasures. And I think part of that is to show us that this wasn’t a racial thing with God. He wasn’t just killing off all the people who weren’t Jewish, because he spared people in Jericho who weren’t Hebrews — Rahab the prostitute. And now he’s having Hebrews killed. With God, it’s always an issue of holiness. He doesn’t care what color your skin is or what your nationality is. It’s holiness. That’s what matters to God. So outside the city walls there was this huge pile of stones. Imagine your family out on a picnic, walking outside the gate, and here’s this pile of stones with Achan under it, his wife under it, and his kids under it. “Oh yeah — we’ll go to the other park.” That big pile reminded God’s chosen people — who started from a family, became a nation, and now had a land — that sin’s a pretty big deal to God. For me, the moral of the story — and there are many — is that God hates sin. That big pile of rocks told everybody, “Yeah, I think I’m going to go ahead and just do whatever God says.” You couldn’t help but see, every time you saw that pile of rocks, how much God hates sin.

Now, we live in a different time. We’re not a chosen group of people trying to find a land. We are a chosen people, and we do have a land — a different land. It’s glory; it’s heaven. We’ll get there someday. But here we are in Modesto, or wherever you’re watching, and we’re still God’s people. And I want you to listen carefully: all of us deserve to be stoned. All of us. The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God — every one of us deserves to be taken to the outskirts of town and stoned. Thank God we don’t live in biblical days. You see, God so loved you, God so loved me, that he took the stoning that we deserve. We all deserve to get stoned, but Jesus at the cross basically took our stoning. The Bible says in Romans 5 that God showed his great love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners who deserved to be stoned, Christ died for us. It’s a beautiful image. So when you look at this story of one man who decided, “I just don’t need to live by what God says” — let me tell you something. I’ve done it more times than I could count. You don’t get up on this platform because you never blow it; if that were the case, there’d never be a preacher here. And just because of my age, most of you will never catch up to all the stuff I’ve done, things I’ve thought, actions I’ve taken. It’s always better to go, “Lord, forgive me.” And God forgives. That’s the beautiful thing about our Lord: he forgives. He doesn’t take us out to the city gates and have us stoned — he forgives. He’s a God who forgives, a God who says, “You’re welcome in my home.” And when you look at Rahab, who was a prostitute — she was entered into the lineage of Jesus not because of her good works, but because of her faith. She wasn’t a Jew; she got in because of her faith. When you get into God’s family, it has nothing to do with how good you are. It’s all about your faith. Have you put your faith and your trust in the one true living God — the one who started a nation from a family, kept them through hundreds of years of captivity and wandering, and brought them in Joshua to a land where he hoped they would serve him and tell the world about him? It starts to fall apart by the end of Joshua, and by Judges it really goes sideways — humanity at its worst.

And here we are today, in the year 2025, and God has brought you here for me to say: look, I don’t care what you’ve got buried. I don’t care what step you’re on, because God doesn’t care. But if you choose to say, “No, I’m not going to repent” — just buckle your seat belt, because God cares too much about you. So why don’t you close your eyes for just a second while your heads are bowed. Psalm 19:12 says, “Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant from willful sins; may they not rule over me.” Wow. Maybe this would just be a time where, on June 1st, 2025, you go, “Look, Lord, I’ve got some stuff buried. I just want to ask you: please forgive me. Forgive me, Jesus.” And if you do that, you’re forgiven. Walk out of here a different man, a different woman. Just walk out of here different. My encouragement to you is just confess it. Don’t keep it buried.

Father, please help us to be men and women of the Scriptures — the ancient Scriptures. Lord, I want to know what you have to say, and then would you give me the grace, the power, the strength to live it out as best I can? I know, Lord, I fumble that ball around a lot, but I pray for the people here, that they would be people of the word, and that when they hear the word they would desire to live it out — and when they fumble, God, oh Father, may they be quick not to keep stuff buried, but to confess it and move on. Lord, give us a great afternoon. I pray these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all of God’s people said, “Amen.” Hey, blessings.