Exposing What’s Buried

The sin of Achan was buried. 

When God led the Israelites to conquer the land of Canaan, their first battle— the battle of Jericho— was a tremendous success. The Israelites were wholly obedient to the Lord and the battle was won by faith. The Lord forbade the Israelites to take for themselves any spoils from their battle. Everything was to be burned, except for the precious metals which were to be deposited into the Lord’s treasury. 

After Jericho, came the battle of Ai , in which the Israelites suffered an abysmal failure. What they didn’t know, was that an Israelite named Achan took spoils from Jericho for himself. He took gold, silver, and an intricately woven Babylonian garment called a “mantle,” and buried them in his tent. In Middle Eastern culture, an intricately woven robe or mantle was a symbol of authority, position, and power. God told the Israelites not to take any of the spoils from the land they conquered “so that you do not covet them.”  Thus, we see by what Achan took, he coveted authority, power, and wealth. And it was deeply buried in his tent. 

Achan did a good job hiding these things from his fellow Israelites, and they would have been none-the-wiser that all of it was buried in his tent, unless the Lord Himself exposed it. The Israelites would have carried on in frustration at their continual failure to overcome the giants of the land, unless the Lord exposed what was deeply buried in their encampment. 

O Lord, cleanse Your encampment of the buried things. Open the eyes of the blind and pass our hearts through Your cleansing fire. 

(Josh 7:19-21) Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.” “It is true,” Achan replied, “I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I did: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

(1 John 1:8,9) If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

(Luke 8:17,18) For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Pay attention, therefore, to how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.