My Fault But Your Consequence

What happens when someone else’s sin becomes your consequence?  You put your trust in that person, but their choices leave you in a desperate place.  In these last three weeks, we have been talking about fatherhood.  In Week One we spoke of a generation of men who were not able to attain a better life because all their fathers gave up on God.  Not one father gave up on God, but a whole generation of fathers—numbering into the hundreds of thousands.  

For this reason, the children of these faithless fathers needed to place themselves in a vulnerable situation but they were able to get what God had for them.  This week sounds the same, but it’s not.  This time there was no happy ending.

This story can be found in Joshua 6 and 7 Click to read.

 Achan did all that he could to cover his children and his wife as rocks were being thrown at him and his family by a mob of almost 2 million people.  One rock hit his leg then another hit his face, but those rocks did not hurt as much as the ones hitting his daughters and his sons.  He was wrong but his family—his kids in particular—did not deserve to be stoned.    If he could rewind time, I’m sure that he would do things completely different.

Let’s go back to the time when the children of Israel were living in the wilderness for 40 years.  The Israelites were finally going to trust God and do what was necessary to go into the promised land but not until they faced some of the strongest enemies ever.  With God’s assistance, they were able to overcome their enemies, but God had one request. Joshua 6 

18 But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. 19 But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”

It was commanded that silver and gold, and other vessels obtained in the raid, would only go to God but there was one man that decided to do something different…Achan.   Look at the first verse in chapter 7

1 But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.

Unbeknownst to Joshua, their leader, he sent out the Israelites to fight another set of enemies and Achan’s act of greed and disobedience caused thirty-six men their lives that day.   What Achan took did not belong to him, and he knew it because he hid it; now the Israelites were paying for it.

That’s Not Yours!

Isn’t that still our problem?  We are continually putting our hands on things that don’t belong to us, and other people are paying for it.  From the beginning of time, the first two people on earth were given the whole planet to explore and make their own.  Adam and Eve were allowed to have anything, eat from any of the hundreds—maybe even thousands—of trees; however there was one that they were told not to eat from.  They ate from that tree and proved that humanity would struggle for the rest of their existence with wanting and taking what does not belong to them.  I don’t know how many men there are that would admit that God has given them a woman to live life with, healthy children, a decent paying job but lack the ability to enjoy what they have.  There is that desire to venture out of the borders given, and go after what does not belong to them.

I use to drive for Uber, and one day I picked up a man that I had only heard of.  He was a guy that I heard people speak about but never thought that kind of person existed.  On this Uber pick up, this passenger that was in his mid 50’s a little on the thick side and lacked any attractive qualities.  He was on his way to the international airport. I asked him how he was doing and he said not good.  I didn’t want to press him, but he went on to say that his wife was not happy about the trip he was taking.  We talked about surface things a little more, and then I asked him where he was going on his trip, and he said to Korea to see his fiancée.  (I did everything I could not to look surprised but did he say, fiancée?)  So he went on to say that he met a woman online from Korea and for the last 6 MONTHS…the long distant relationship was terrific; so terrific that he purposed to her.  He stated that this was his second time in Korea meeting this woman.  He had all plans on marrying her and bring her into the states.  

The first trip he went he paid for a birthday party for the woman’s one-year-old child and got to meet her whole family.  At this party, they told him that this woman was only a teenager.  I asked him how his wife is taking all this.  He went on to say to me that he knows his wife is upset but he told her that he was done with her.  I asked what made him say that and he said she got fat.  She used to be thin, but she gained so much weight that he lost interest.  As we continued to talk, he said his wife has to know he is in a relationship with someone else cause this was not the first time he cheated on her.  He felt like his wife was in lala land because when he first met her, he told her he was into Asian women and thin ones.  She saw due to her gaining weight from having their two children; he was going to move on and find someone else to fulfill his desires.   

When You Have Everything

Man (women and men) convince themselves over and over again that even though they have much, there is more out there.  Achan was finally out of the wilderness.  We are not sure how old he was, but it is fair to say that he was either a baby when they started that 40-year journey or that he was born there, but it was definite that his children were born in that place.    So how much more could he ask for to be in a position of promise?  He never took from God in the wilderness when there was a lack of everything but manna and quail.  Now when there was an abundance, he took silver and hid it.  Look what happened after.

 11 Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings.

So look at the consequence of this sin after they found out that it was Achan…

24 Then Joshua and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the [royal] robe, the bar of gold, [g]his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and everything that he had; and they brought them up to the Valley of Achor (Disaster). 25 Joshua said, “Why have you brought disaster on us? The Lord will bring you disaster this day.” Then all Israel stoned them [to death] with stones; afterward they burned their bodies in the fire. 

So I have to ask, have you ever allowed your greed or envy to bring to surface your inner selfishness?  Sometimes as parents we are making a decision that we think is best for our family and us but it is rooted in something else.  Fathers have the weight to provide and care for the needs of our family, but many selfish acts start off with good intention.  Maybe you have had very good intentions, but the results have yielded you a result that you were not expecting.  It could also be that you have been a victim of a parent’s wrong choice.  Clearly you weren’t stoned or burned by a mob of people, but you could’ve been found faced with a life of pain because of greed, envy or other wrong choices.  

Whatever the case, God is in the business of restoring you.  We are serving a Father who sent his only Son to die on the cross so that we don’t have to receive the punishment—nor our children—that is so deserved to us.  Yes, we experience consequences, but God can use our biggest mistakes, our life full of pain and bring you back to a place of strength and restoration.  The only way that can happen is if we admit to God that we cannot run our lives on our own.  We must confess the things that we have done to get ourselves here and then submit our will and ways to his.  Once we do that we can go step by step in living our life in the land of promise and leave faulty fatherhood behind.

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