Joshua Chapter 7:6-18

God's going, get up, get off your face. What's Joshua doing? Joshua's on his face praying. And you know what God is in essence saying? Get up, you got to do something.

Now see, this is interesting to me. Joshua didn't pray before he went and did something. And now when Joshua should be doing something, what does he do? He's praying. And God's going, you know what? You got to find the balance here, Joshua. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee.

David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Often we pray when we should be doing something and we do something when we should be praying. David McGee discusses getting the order right today as he continues his study in the book of Joshua chapter 7. But first, have you ever experienced a time when you felt spiritually drained? Well, the Bible holds the cure that will bring joy and vitality back into your life. That's why we want to send you a copy of Pastor David McGee's video message, A Checkup from the Neck Up. In this inspiring teaching, you'll find biblical truths that can restore your spiritual health. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life.

So please visit crossthebridge.com to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up. Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Avoiding the Losses. Turn with me to Joshua chapter 7, Joshua chapter 7 verse 1. See, and it starts out with kind of a, you know, an ominous looking word on it, but, But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things.

For Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things, so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Avon on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, Go up and spy out the country. So the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not worry all the people there, for the people of Ai are few. So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai.

So they all went up the hill, and then the guys of Ai chased them back down the hill. Verse 5, And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Sheparim, and struck them down on the descent. And therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water. Verse 6, Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord, until evening.

He and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? All that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan.

So there's a little bit of residual stuff from the wandering in the desert. Doesn't that kind of sound like, Why didn't we just keep us in Egypt? Why did you bring us out in the desert to kill us? Verse 8, O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back before its enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it and surround us, and cut off our name from the earth.

Then what will you do for your great name? Verse 10, So the Lord said, I love this verse, So the Lord said to Joshua, Get up, why do you lie to us on your face? You got to love this. I mean, here's Joshua, and now he's willing to pray.

And don't miss this, guys. Do you understand what's going on? God's going, Get up, get off your face. What's Joshua doing? Joshua's on his face praying. And you know what God is in essence saying? Get up, you got to do something.

Now see, this is interesting to me. You know why? Because Joshua didn't pray before he went and did something. And now when Joshua should be doing something, what does he do? He's praying. And God's going, You know what? You got to find the balance here, Joshua. See, oftentimes, and here's the next life lesson, often we pray when we should be doing something, and we do something when we should be praying.

Often we pray when we should be doing something, and we do something when we should be praying. I never forget early on in ministry, I was kind of under a pastor who had been in the ministry 26 years. I just, I learned a whole lot from the man. And he was confronting a difficult situation. And he brought the gentleman in to confront him on some behaviors and said, you know, and he asked him a question.

He asked him a very direct question. And I'll never forget, the guy looked at him and said, and it sounded really good, sounded really spiritual. He said, before we start, pastor, can we just pray? And I'll never forget the pastor looked at him and said, you know what? I've already prayed about this.

Answer the question. Now, you know, I was still young in the Lord. It's like, you should pray all the time.

You should, you know, it was a good lesson for me as a believer because it was time to discuss the issue. And really, you know what the guy was doing? He was trying to build in some time where he could think of some evasive answers.

That's what he was doing. And yet in his flesh, what was he wanting to do? He was saying, oh, let's pray. Well, it sounds really spiritual, except he was avoiding the question. Now I know that some of you are going, oh my goodness, are you saying that there's times when we shouldn't pray? Well, evidently, because God's the one that told Joshua to get up.

It wasn't anybody else. God said, Joshua, get up, get off your face. We got to talk. There's a time for that.

Understand that. There is a time to pray and there's a time to do something. And often we get the two confused when God is going, you know what? You really need to pray before you do this. And then after we've prayed and God goes, go do it, you know, then we're like, well, I'm seeking the Lord, waiting on the Lord. Been waiting on the Lord 12 years about this one issue. Then you're probably not waiting on the Lord.

The Lord's probably waiting on you at this point. So verse 11, Israel has sinned and they have also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things and have both stolen and deceived. And they have also put it among their own stuff.

Now this is interesting. It says Israel has sinned. Now there was one guy at the cross for the hairs of this, if you will, that we'll find out in a minute, but guess who's catching the blame?

The whole nation, Israel. There was a reason the battle was lost. Do you understand that there's a reason when you lose battles? And let's be honest, it's safe to say everybody in here has lost battles. There's a reason we lose them. And there's a balance here again of looking back and trying to understand why we lost the battle.

And we don't become preoccupied with that. We don't focus on why we lost the battle, but there's good questions asked. You know, Lord, why did I lose this battle? And there's a few questions when I lose a battle that I go into kind of analyzing mode. Again, I'm not losing my focus on the Lord, but ask yourself a few questions.

The questions are, if you're taking notes, you may want to jot these down. Number one, how did this happen to me? How did I lose this battle?

And that's a good question to ask. Second question, what could I have done to prevent this from happening to me? What could I have done to prevent this from happening to me? What are some sure steps I can take to make sure I don't lose this battle again?

What are some sure steps I can take to make sure I don't lose this battle again? And then asking the Lord, Lord, teach me. Teach me what went wrong. See, I talked about having no confidence in the flesh. Understand something. If you place yourself in a position where you can stumble, then you're halfway to defeat. What I try to do as a believer, and I've been a believer a lot of years, and I feel like I have a strong faith, but there's certain situations I will not put myself into. Why? Because there is the possibility, however remote, of me stumbling. So there's certain things that I avoid, simply so I won't stumble.

Why? Because if I don't go there, I won't stumble. See, I no longer struggle with drinking, but if I did, I wouldn't go witnessing at a bar and then go, oh my goodness, you know, I stumbled again. I went down to the bar to witness and I stumbled again, and man, this is like 12 nights in a row, dude.

You know, I got, you know. Don't go back. You're placing yourself in a position where you can stumble. Some of you may have been caught off guard, you ladies, if you called and said, I'd like to counsel with Pastor David. I don't counsel women. Now, I know there's pastors that do, but I don't.

Why? Because there is the possibility of something going wrong in that situation, and there's plenty of ladies here that can counsel women. They'll be more than happy to talk to them and pray with them that will understand much more about what's going on in their lives. You know, because guys are, guys, I don't know why any lady would want to talk to a guy counselor. It's like, okay, all right. Oh, yep.

You got anything to eat? You know, I mean, we're just, we're wired different. We're not wired the same way. And that's not to say, you know, don't walk out of here and go, oh my gosh, he's a raving lusta maniac or something in that, you know, don't counsel, don't get near him. No, it's that something could go wrong. And that something could be just having an accusation made. But see, if I don't place myself in a position, guess what?

An accusation can't be made. It can't go wrong. So there's certain positions that you should, as a believer, not put yourself in. And you won't stumble. You won't fall. But if you place yourself in there, in that position, you can stumble.

I mean, and so it's good when you stumble to ask yourself, okay, how could I have avoided that situation altogether? It's a good question. Now it's interesting, the New King James and the King James versions call it a curse thing. It's an interesting word in the Hebrew, but the revised standard version calls it the devoted thing, the devoted thing. The curse thing would be, you know, devoted to evil. But devoted thing is kind of interesting. Why?

Because all this is coming about, and don't miss this, all this is coming about because the man took something that belonged to God and kept it for himself. Ooh. Uh-oh. I know where you're going with that one, Pastor David. Well, you know, there's a lesson in here. There is a lesson in here because God lays out the model of the first fruits.

And that's what we're dealing with here. If you remember in Joshua 6, it was the only time God said in the Promised Land, the first fruits of the battle, the spoils of this battle, belong to me. He never again said this in the Promised Land. But he says it the first time.

Why? It's a picture of first fruits. And what does the guy do? Instead of giving to the Lord that which was the Lord's, he kept it. He kept it. And they lost the battle.

He took something that should have been set apart for the Lord, and he kept it for himself. Obviously, there's a picture here. And this is not a quantum leap in logic. We don't have to go deep into Hebrew or anything to see this.

There's a picture here for the modern-day believer. And we've talked about this before. And if you're new here tonight, I don't beat people up about money. We don't pass a plate.

We have boxes in the back. I don't give tearful, manipulative pleas or anything like that. But when we come across the concepts in Scripture, I teach them. I don't avoid them. This is the verse-by-verse thing. So, you know, you can't ever sit there and go, well, this is just he's doing fundraising. No, this is the way God raises disciples. And this is an issue. If you don't think it's an issue, let me remind you of some facts.

We mentioned some last week, and I'll give you some new ones. The average donation by adults who attend Christian Protestant churches is $17 a week. That's the average donation of those who give. In 1921, the per-member giving as a percentage of income was 2.9%.

That's members who gave. In 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression, per-member giving grew to 3.3%. But by 2000, after half a century of unprecedented prosperity, giving had fallen to 2.6%. In other words, we give a smaller percentage now than the people in the Great Depression gave.

That should be very convicting. Overall, only 3-5% of Americans who donate money to a church tithe or give a tenth of their incomes, all those statistics suggest that many more claim that they do. 3-5%. Now, I'm going to toss something in here. 33% of U.S. born-again Christians say it is impossible for them to get ahead in life because of the financial debt they have occurred. Hmm. It's their connection?

You betcha. They're losing the battle because they're keeping the first fruits that belong to God. And what happens is, debt comes in and debt is incredible. And I've got statistics here. Just over the last 10 years, it's doubled again. The consumer debt has doubled. Now, it was in 1992 at $778 billion.

It reached $1.5 trillion in 2001 and has exceeded that now. And if you ask some believers why they don't give, do you know what they say? I can't afford to. Can't afford to.

You can't afford not to. My theory, and this is just a theory, my theory is God gets us 10%. Now, He may have you, if you're not going to give it, He may have you give it to the mechanic who fixes your car. Because your car will break down because the devourer comes in and eats the, you know, water pump or something.

It's just a theory. This is what Malachi chapter 3 verse 8 says, will a man rob God, yet you have robbed me. But you say, in what way have we robbed you?

In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts. Again, this is the only place He says, try me, test me. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be enough room to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sake so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts. See, I don't think it's a stretch to say that debt is a devourer. Now, if you have debt, you understand what I'm saying is true. And I know this is a sensitive area. This is, you know, as a teacher, as soon as I start down this path, it's like, you know, everybody, oh, I'm not listening.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And, and there's so many, there's so many things about pastors and begging for money and all this stuff, but guys, you know what? Another part of that is people not giving. And think this picture, let me ask you a question. This is 2.6%. What if, what if, imagine if, this is going to take some strong imagination. Imagine if 100% of those who went to church tithed their income, what could be accomplished in Christendom? Oh, let's back that up.

Let's say 50%. Do you understand that if the church, half the people that went to church tithed, do you understand we could probably fund the great commission in a year or two? Do you understand that one of the biggest struggles that mission, John will tell you, if you ask him, one of the biggest struggles missionaries face is raising funds?

Man, it shouldn't be. We should have trouble finding enough places to give the money. Oh, we want to give more. We want to do more missionary. We can't find enough missionaries.

It shouldn't be imbalanced like that. See, because some of the battles we lose, we lose from within. Do you understand that as a church? We lose it because of ungodly leadership, or leadership not praying, or people not giving, and then we can't fight the fights that we need to be fighting.

And that's a sad thing. Verse 12. Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore unless you destroy the accursed from among you.

Get up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because this is the word God of Israel. There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.

Look at that. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. See, there's a dying to self that needs to happen to remove this accursed thing, this thing that, as the RSV says, the dedicated thing to remove it.

And again, notice something. Who's he blaming for the sin of this one man? He's blaming the whole camp.

He's blaming the whole nation of Israel. Boy, if you don't think that scares me, people sometimes will go, how big is the church now? I don't know.

I don't know. An answer that I give sometimes is more than I deserve and plenty enough to be accountable for. Look around on a Sunday morning and you see all the people coming to church here. Do you understand God holds me accountable for each person coming in here? Pray for me, man. I mean, that's kind of overwhelming. I don't want to think about that very long. But anyway, and for that reason also, you know what? Be careful. Be careful. Because if you're hanging around somebody that begins to get cold in their faith, cold towards the Bible, cold towards fellowship with others, unsubmitted and rebellious, you know what?

The chill will spread through the air. And don't be surprised if your faith begins to wax and wane because you're compromising your relationship with the Lord with these other people. Now, understand, remember, you're not the Lord with these other people. Now, understand, reaching out and we talked about that and that's a valid thing, but you're doing that for a purpose.

You're doing that for a purpose. And when you come here, let me flip this around. I'm accountable for everybody that comes here. But you understand when you come here that you're now part of this people group, that when you go and you mess up publicly, you snap at a waitress or do something silly or even worse, it's no longer, oh, so and so did that. We all suffer.

Be aware of that. So he tells him to get up and sanctify the people. Camp has to be cleansed. Verse 14. In the morning, therefore, you shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes shall come according to families, and the family which the Lord takes shall come by households, and the household which the Lord takes shall come man by man. Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel. So God's desire is to find out, well, let me back, God's desire, God already knew, God's desire is to show Joshua who had caused these problems, which tribe, which family, and which man.

Verse 16. So Joshua rose early in the morning, brought Israel by their tribes. The tribe of Judah was taken. He brought the clan of Judah, and he took the family of the Zahrites, and he brought the family of the Zahrites man by man, and Zabdi was taken. Then he brought his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah was taken. Now, let's get this in our heads. That was a, that was just a couple verses, but that was a long process.

That was a long process identifying one out of 12 tribes, then identifying the family of that tribe that was responsible. Then we're getting close to the man. Why do I point that out? Because all along this process, Achan could have repented. He could have said, you know what, enough with this. I know what the deal is.

This is the deal. But he didn't do that. Let me ask you a question. Did he think about doing it? Oh, you betcha.

You betcha. He was sitting there going, oh my goodness. Oh, I know what this is about.

I know where this is leading. But he didn't step forward. He didn't step forward. He had the opportunity to repent, and he did not repent. That's important because if you don't see that, then you get to the end of the chapter and goes, well, that seems kind of harsh and judgmental. He's judged because he doesn't repent. Understand, God will give you many chances to repent. And if you don't take that chance, mercifully, God may expose your sin. I say mercifully because you know what, because you know what, if God doesn't expose your sin, that's worse. That's worse because you might continue in your sin rather than have it out and deal with it.

So he sits there during this time, and he doesn't do anything. Do you understand too, and this, boy, this is a hard thing. As leaders of this church, do you understand we are called upon by Scripture, by God, to occasionally do this?

This is not an enjoyable part of the ministry. But occasionally, what we have to do is we have to go to someone and say, you know what, this is a problem. And I want you to know, we're aware of it. I'm aware of it.

And I prayerfully want to help you. But you've got to deal with this. And that part of expose, we don't do that to expose weaknesses, and they don't become sermon fodder. You know what I'm talking about, sermon fodder. You know, I don't stand up and go, oh, look at him.

Boy, he's struggling with this, that, and the other. Oh, we had no idea. You can't do that. But you expose so that repentance can come in. That's the desire. That's what we're supposed to be doing.

See, because this is the deal. If you wait until you're exposed, and let's be honest, then it can be mixed. What I mean by that is you might be sad you got caught or busted or whatever the event was when you had the opportunity to repent before that happened. Now, understand there's a difference between being regretful and being repentant. What is repentance? Well, when you go back to the word used in the Greek means to change your mind, to change your mind. Now, that might not be what you've heard before, but repentance is when you turn to God and away from your sin.

It's a two-fold action, but it's singular, if you will. In other words, you can't turn towards God and not turn away from your sin. And what happens sometimes is we emphasize the turning to God, and we don't talk about the repentance, or we talk about the repentance, and we don't talk about turning to God. It has to go hand in hand. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Modern life just keeps getting busier and busier by the day. As a result, a lot of Christians are missing out on the life giving nourishment of daily time in God's Word. That's why Pastor David McGee wants to help revitalize your spiritual health by sending you his video message titled, A Checkup from the Neck Up. This resource shows you how to meditate daily on God's Word so that His truth can transform your life. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So please visit crossthebridge.com now to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up.

You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.