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To see that our prayer-sins are indeed sins, is the first step to a true and Divine deliverance from them. In the story of Achan we have one of the strongest proofs in Scripture that it is sin that robs God's people of His blessing, and that God will not tolerate it; and at the same time the clearest indication of the principles under which God deals with it, and removes it.
The united: as we see it in all Israel first suffering and dealt with by God, then taking Achan, and his family, and the accursed thing, and destroying them out of their midst. If we have reason to think this is the sin that is in the camp, let us begin with personal and united confession. And then let us come before God to put away and destroy the sin.
Muller felt that he must have men and women like-minded, who would naturally care for the state of the orphans and of the work. If one Achan could disturb the whole camp of Israel, and one Ananias or Saphira, the whole church of Christ, one faithless, prayerless, self-seeking assistant would prove not a helper but a hinderer both to the work itself and to all fellow-workers.
And it behooveth you, each in his own soul, and in his own household, to make inquisition lest some sin of his or theirs, bring this new temptation of card-playing, upon our people, even as the wedge of fine gold which Achan took and hid in his tent, did mightily discomfit the host of Israel with the plagues of the Lord.
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. Then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered, and said unto the heads of the thousands of Israel,
But when Achan abstracted an idol and all its appurtenances from Jericho, the misfortune of Ai followed at once. Joshua inquired of God, why trouble had befallen Israel, but God refused to reply. He was no tale-bearer; the evil-doer who had caused the disaster would have to be singled out by lot. Joshua first of all summoned the high priest from the assembly of the people.
But there was an Achan in the camp, a betrayer high in place, who laid his body and his life in the balance against his honor. The Spanish guns mowed down the English; they fell into pits upon pointed stakes; Spanish horsemen rode them under. Meanwhile the Cygnet, traitorous as its Captain " "Traitorous as its Captain?" flamed the maid of honor. "But on, sir, on!
And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, 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.
At the city of Ai, the three thousand men sent to take it were repulsed, in punishment for the sin of Achan, who had taken at the spoil of Jericho, a Babylonian garment and three hundred sheckels of silver and a wedge of gold. After he had expiated this crime, the city of Ai was taken, and all its inhabitants were put to death. The spoil of the city was reserved for the nation.
Jacob prays, and he wrestles with the angel, and obtains the blessing; his brother Esau's mind is wonderfully turned away from the wrath he had cherished for twenty years. Moses prays and Amalek is discomfited. Joshua prays and Achan is discovered. Hannah prays and Samuel is born. David prays and Ahithophel hangs himself. Elijah prays and a famine of three years comes upon Israel.
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