The Collateral of Sin + The Covering of God - Grant Partrick

The talks last week were so powerful. If you missed it, I wanna encourage you to go back, really link up this whole collection. I think just digging deep into the word of God has been so powerful. Last week in chapter six, it's kind of a great victorious chapter of Joshua. The walls did in fact come down in Jericho. In chapter six, verse 20, we read about it. It says, when the trumpets sounded, the army shouted and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed. So everyone charged straight in and they took the city. And that chapter, chapter six, ends with this incredible verse, verse 27. So the Lord was with Joshua in his fame spread throughout the land. Now we're gonna read, turn to our text in chapter seven. It's a heavy chapter. It's a hinge chapter. It marks a very significant point in time in the book of Joshua for the people of God. And honestly, the lessons we'll learn from it today mark a very significant turning point in our own lives. And so I just invite you to, as we read this, we're gonna read the whole chapter, chapter seven. Let's open up our hearts and ask that the Lord would teach us. Here we go, chapter seven, verse one. Do you have it?

Yes. Okay, 14 of us do. Do you have it? Yes. Okay, great. We gave you a printout with it in there a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully you have it. Verse one, but the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things. Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord's anger burned against Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Bethaven, to the east of Bethel. And he told them, go up and spy out the region. So the men went up and spied out Ai. When they returned to Joshua, they said, not all of the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or 3,000 men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there. So about 3,000 men went up, but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about 36 of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this, the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water. Then Joshua tore his clothes

and fell face down to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there until evening. And the elders of Israel did the same thing, and they sprinkled dust on their heads. And Joshua said, alas, sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan. Pardon your servant, Lord, what can I say? Now that Israel's been routed by its enemies, the Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this, and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name? And the Lord said to Joshua, stand up. What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned. They violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They've taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore

unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord says. The God of Israel says, there are devoted things among you, Israel, and you cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them. Verse 14, in the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe the Lord chooses shall come forward clan by clan, and the clan that the Lord chooses shall come forward family by family, and the family that the Lord chooses shall come forward man by man. Whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done an outrageous thing in Israel. The next morning, Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes and Judah was chosen. The clans of Judah came forward and the Zarahites were chosen. He had the clan of the Zarahites come forward by families and Zimri was chosen. Joshua had his family come forward man by man

and Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zimri, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah was chosen. 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 and do not hide it from me. And Achan replied, it's true. I've sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I've done. When I saw the plunder, a beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and I took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver underneath. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent and there it was, hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent and they brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites spread them out before the Lord. And then Joshua, together with all of Israel, took Achan, son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent and all they had to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, why? Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today. Then all of Israel stoned him and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them.

Over Achan, they heaped up a large pile of rocks which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that it is alive and active. Thank you for being in this space today, God. We wanna hear from you. We wanna position ourselves under the authority of your word today. We wanna invite you to search our hearts today. Our desire is to look more and more and more like you. So chisel away anything in us that is not of you, God. Anything that's gone wayward in our hearts, expose it and extinguish it so that we can look more like you. This is our prayer. In Jesus' name I pray. And everybody said, amen. Well, this is a heartbreaking and alarming text. One that we need to heed its warning in our own lives. And I wanna just pull out a few simple truths for us today that I think we can hold on to. Number one, if you're taking notes. We are often most vulnerable in the moments following great victories. We are often most vulnerable in the moments following great victories.

I mean, think about it. How can this be? They just took Jericho seven verses ago. They saw God do the miraculous. They were literally standing in the rubble, speechless at what God had done. Statistically, they had no business defeating Jericho, but God delivered them into their hands, not through military might or strength or intellect, but through songs and shouts of praise. So how can we get seven verses later and the next chapter begins with the unfaithfulness of Israel? Well, I think their victory caused them to lower their shields and an enemy far greater than the Canaanites wiggled his way in. Achan's sin, we read about it in the first verse, is greed. It says that Achan took some of the devoted things. Now, if you remember from chapter six, this was strictly forbidden. Look at verses 18 and 19 of chapter six. Joshua gives clear instructions, but keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and all the articles of bronze and all the articles of iron are sacred to the Lord

and must go into his treasury. So I want you to see the picture with me. Imagine. The walls of Jericho have fallen. You've entered into the land. And here's Achan. While walking through the rubble along his comrades, Achan places his foot down and he hears the sound of silver coins underneath. And as he looks around and bends over. is down and lets the shackles run through his hands. After all, the soldiers never held that much money. As he walks around among and apart of the great celebration, victorious celebration, in the back of his mind all day long, he longs for the treasure that he stumbled upon. And as his physical shield lowered, unfortunately, so did his spiritual one and the onset of lies began. No one's gonna know, Aiken. How would anybody know? All we're gonna do is burn it up anyway, so what does it matter? Nobody's gonna miss it. Nobody's looking for this treasure. It's not that big of a deal. You deserve it, man. You fought hard today. And later that night, when the entire camp had drifted off to sleep,

Aiken's heart was racing 1,000 miles a second. He gets up. Whether or not his wife knew, we don't know. But he quietly exits their tent and travels back to the place he'd been thinking about all day. He gathers the treasure and carefully and cautiously hurries back to his tent. And he gets into the tent and exhales. I did it. I got it. And nobody saw me. We are often most vulnerable, not while in the heat of our greatest battles, but in the moments following our greatest victories. And you know it to be true. Right after you get the big promotion, right after you submit the paper and get the degree, right after you strobe that sacrificial check to the church, right after you're used by God in some major way. Preachers are not exempt from this. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you the amount of times I've been somewhere on earth preaching, trying to be a part of what God's doing. And before my head hits the pillow that night, the enemy's whispering about something I deserve. The second way the Israelites were vulnerable following their victory, we see in verse two. Joshua has his sights set on Ai. It's believed to be 10 to 15 miles away from Jericho,

but some 3,500 feet of elevation change. And if Achan's sin was greed, we also see pride on display in the camp. C.S. Lewis famously said, pride is the mother hen under which all other sins are hatched. When the spies who scouted out Jericho came to Joshua, you remember this in chapter two, they gave him a report. And here's what they said, Joshua 2 verse 24. They said to Joshua, the Lord has surely given us the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us. In fact, five times, five times in chapter two, in the account of the spies in Jericho, the Lord's name is mentioned. But look at the difference here. Look at verses two and three. Now, Joshua, he sent men up from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Haven to the east of Bethel. And he told them, go up and spy on the region. So the men went up and they spied out Ai. And when they returned to Joshua, they said, not all of the army has to go up against Ai. Just send two or 3,000 men to take it and don't weary the whole army for only a few people live there. Not one single time is the Lord mentioned. Seemingly God is not part of the equation at all here. I mean, after all, compared to Jericho, Ai is nothing. Jericho is one of the most fortified cities in Canaan.

It's like, if we can take Jericho, Ai is no problem. Send the JB squad, Joshua, let us get some rest, man. We can take these guys with one hand tied behind our backs. So they sent 3,000 men, less than 1% of the army. And as they went to battle in Ai, the scripture records that Ai routed them, killing 36 men. Interestingly enough, that's 36 men more than the number who died in Jericho. And it says that they chased them down the hill. Imagine being at the camp. You finally conquered Jericho. The walls have fell. You're in this celebratory thing. There's likely singing and dancing and praising of God. And yet now there's this, our eyes are set on this other fortress, this Ai, but it's small and we only think we need a few people. And so they go up the hill and here. You're all down in the camp and all of a sudden you hear these 3000 men screaming for their lives being chased down the hill. How could that be? How could they be defeated by AI? Jericho was the battle Israel should have lost statistically and AI was the battle they should have won easily. But when God was with them, fortified walls cracked and fell and when hidden sin was in their camp, even a small town sent them running in defeat. Look at verse 12.

The Lord says, I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. So hear me, be careful that you don't let your heart and mind go proud and independent following a great victory as though somehow you did it on your own. Remain dependent on Him. Pray about the big things and pray about the small things because it's not your might and it's not your strength and it's not your intellect that will deliver victory into your hands. It is the blessing and favor of God. So rest in Him, stay dependent on Him. Number two, I want you to see in this text, your sins may be private, but they are not personal. Your sins may be private, but they are not personal. The collateral, hear me, the collateral of your sin will always reach further than you imagine. Simply put, your sin affects the people around you. The sin in your tent will paint the entire camp. You see it in the text. I mean, look at verse one. It says the Israelites, plural, were unfaithful, how? Because of the sin of one guy. The entire camp was gripped and filled with fear, why? Because of the sin of one man. 36 families grieved the loss of a family member who died in the battle of Ai, why? Because of the sin of one man. And I know, I get it.

In our individualized society, where we self-check out and wear our AirPods everywhere and we think our decisions only impact us, it's just simply not true. The decisions you make, the sin in your life impacts the people around you. Ask someone who grew up in a broken home and they'll tell you that the sin in my family impacted my life. Our decisions, they impact the people we love and beyond. It's interesting that all three times, Achan's name is listed in this chapter, his entire lineage is given. His family is listed, why? Because sin impacts your family. It impacts the community. The Israelites were deemed as unfaithful because of the sin of one guy. What does that mean? It means that sin can taint the whole community. What does that mean? It means that the hidden sin in your life can impact this church. Your community group, your marriage, your children. So don't play with it. Don't let your guard down against sin. Don't grow weary in waging war against it. Don't have pet sins. Don't learn to live with the limp. Wage war against it.

Extinguish it. Don't manage it, extinguish it. For the sake of your life, for the sake of your children, for the sake of your family, for the sake of this church and for this community, my prayer is that by the power of the Spirit in us, I pray we would be awakened and invigorated today before we walk out of these doors to fight the battle of the flesh with every ounce of our being. If you are on cruise control, you will get annihilated. We're in a battle right now, you are. And the most loving thing I can do is tell you, wake up, you're in a battle. Wage war against the sin in your life. And I know, I get it, we don't like talking about it. We don't even like the word anymore. We hardly ever use the word. We prefer the word, I struggle with this. And I'm not coming at you if you do that. Unless by you using the word struggle, you are less focused on eliminating it in your life, then I think you should go back to using the word sin. I think instead of, I struggle with looking at things on my phone late at night, I think you should go back to using the word sin. instead of telling your friend group that tomorrow, you should say, I was on my phone and I sinned against God. Because it will do something in you

that will invigorate the fight to wage war against the sin in your life. It was John Owen who said, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. James 1 verses 14 and 15 says this, each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it's full grown, gives birth to death. It's interesting when you look at this text, you can see the anatomy of sin. Look at it in verse 21. Here's what it says about Achan when he finally confesses before Joshua, he says, I saw, I coveted, that means I desired, I took and I hid. Same exact language used in Genesis chapter three. Eve saw, she desired, she took and then they hid. Same pattern in 2 Samuel chapter 11, David and Bathsheba. Saw, desired, took and then hid. And it's not only the same pattern you see throughout characters in the scripture, it's the same pattern in your life and mine. That's why you have to be on guard against the sin in your life and kill it early. That's why Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talks about how important your eye is, what you look at. He says, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? So what's the problem in the garden? What's the problem in Ai? What's the problem with Achan in the plunder? It's desiring something that God forbids. It's desiring something more than God. The fruit wasn't the problem in the garden. There was plenty of fruit in the garden. The silver and gold aren't the real issue here. Say, well, how do you know? Read chapter eight, verse two. They go finally take Ai. After there is repentance, they go battle again and they take Ai easily. And in verse two of chapter eight, God tells them, you can take all the plunder you want. Take it home. It's not about the silver and it's not about the gold. It's about a wicked heart in fighting the sin in our lives. It's not the stuff. It's loving the stuff more than we love God. Good. Third thing I want you to see is this. The sins you choose to cover, God will eventually uncover. Imagine Achan.

He quietly sneaks back into his tent and thought, I did it. I made it. Nobody saw, nobody else was up. There wasn't even a light on in the camp. There wasn't even a candle burning in the camp. Nobody's gonna know. We don't know if his wife knew or was awake or not, but I'm married. I can't imagine coming into the tent and digging up a hole in my wife, not knowing about it. And I think about that conversation. We did it, babe. We got it. We're gonna be okay. Nobody saw. We're gonna be okay. We got food. We got money for months. We got money for food. We can take care of the kids' tuition. We got the 401k stocked. We're okay. Nobody saw. It's amazing how you and me and all of humanity thinks we can hide things from God. And the lengths that we will go to, thinking that somehow he doesn't see us. He breathed out the cosmos, and yet you and I think we can outsmart him.

I remember when I was in middle school, I grew up north of here in the country, and I had three brothers. My mom's a saint, and now I have three daughters, so pray for me. And to make money, we would watch other, in the neighborhood, other people's pets. It's a pretty good job, pretty good business. And we would watch your dogs for you for a certain price. We'd watch your cats. We'd charge you double for that. And the Maloney's, who lived right next door to me, probably gonna see this. At one point, we were watching their pets. They were our biggest client, and they had gotten a new pet, and it was a bird that looked like this, called a parrot. You remember when everybody had parrots, and you could teach them to say three or four things? Maybe people, does anybody have a parrot? Okay, great, just didn't want to come after anybody if you do. So they got this bird and the name was Birdie, very original. And so we were over there watching, taking care of all their pets and we had to take out the trash as part of the thing we had to do. And so me and my brothers are there and we got Birdie out of the cage,

we put him on his finger and we're trying to say like, hi, see if he'll talk back to us. And my brother's taking the trash out of the kitchen door, which is through the living room into the kitchen and the garage door opens and so it's just open air coming into the house. And I didn't even know these kinds of birds can fly. I mean, look at him, there's no way they're going to make it out in the wild. And Birdie gets up off my finger, flies through the living room, flies through the kitchen, goes through the door, out under the garage, and he's free. This is not good if you're in the pet watching business. And we're just going from tree to tree trying to keep an eye on him. We're like, trust me, you want to come back, you had me good, you know? And then we lost him. And we did exactly what you would do. We went to PetSmart, we bought another parrot, and we hope for the best. And when I think about that now as a 39 year old man, I think to myself, we were idiots. That was never going to work. It's amazing the lengths we'll go to. It's amazing how we can convince ourselves that somehow we can hide our tracks

and nobody will know what's happened. In times infinity, when we stand before a holy God who sees and knows everything, Numbers 32, 23 says this, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. Let me read you a few other encouraging verses today. Jeremiah 16, 17, my eyes are on all of their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. Psalm 44, 21, God knows the secrets of the heart. Psalm 139, 3, God is familiar with all of my ways. Hebrews 4, 13, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. And so there's Achan, getting back to his tent, relieved, trying to cover his tracks, buries the treasure, puts the dirt back on top, stamps it down, and thinks he's good. And the next morning he wakes up, detention in the camp. He could tell there's commotion, there's something going on. The people's hearts are melting with fear. And Joshua was told, bring everybody, here's the process. God gives them, bring everybody together, and we're gonna go tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, and figure out who did this. And you go, why would God do that? He's God. Why didn't he just go, hey, Joshua, it was Achan.

I don't know. Maybe to give Achan time to repent, because he's a merciful God. Or maybe to make sure that the whole camp understood the seriousness of sin. But they gather together, all of Israel, all the Israelites, and then they begin to work their way in. And the first tribe is chosen. Judah, and you gotta think, as soon as that was said, Achan and his wife's stomach started to churn. Hamstring started to tighten. A little bit closer. Zerahites. You think they know? How could anybody know? Did somebody see you? Zimri. Carmi. Achan. And finally, Joshua said to Achan, my son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done, and do not hide it from me. So he finally admits it. Now, this is not true confession. This is what you call, I believe the technical term is, busted. And it's interesting to me that before Joshua, Achan got away with it. Joshua didn't know.

Great man of God, accountable for the people of God. And yet Joshua had to have Achan tell him what he'd done. Tell me what you did. Not so with God. Numbers 32, 23. You can be sure of this, that your sin will find you out. So can I just lovingly ask you a question today as a pastor? Is there anything hidden in your tent? John Piper says this, to be caught in secret sin is a horrible thing. There is only one thing worse, not to be caught. The last thing I want you to write down if you're taking notes, and here's the good news for today. So lean in, gospel truth. Point number three, the sins that you choose to cover, God will eventually uncover. Point number four, the sins that you choose to uncover, God will mercifully cover. He will cover them. If there is hidden sin in your tent today, I came to plead with you, bring it out into the light, bring it to God, dig it up, hold it before him. And if you will uncover it through confession, you will find a savior who will graciously cover it on your behalf. This is the message of the gospel, not run and hide, come, come before him and be covered by his grace. Proverbs 28, 13, whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses

and renounces them finds mercy. Romans four, echoing the Psalm says this, blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are, can you see it? Whose sins are, a little bit more, whose sins are covered. If you will uncover them, he will cover you. He will cover you with his blood. He will cover you with his grace. If you choose to keep them covered in time, he will uncover them. But if you through humility will come before him and uncover them at that moment, he will cover you in his grace. This is the point of the gospel. This is the good news. You don't have to run and hide. You don't have to be like, you don't have to be like these guys and standing there with your hamstrings shaking and your stomach churning, hoping, oh, please don't call my family. Please don't call my tribe. No, you can say, call on me. I've been washed by the blood. I've been washed, I'm clean. The sins that you choose to uncover, the Lord will graciously cover. 1 John 1, eight and nine says, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves

and the truth is not in us. When I was in seminary, I had a professor named Dr. Mark Bailey. He's one of my heroes. He's about this big. Well, he watches church sometimes, so maybe I should say he's about this big. But he's a spiritual giant. And I remember him giving this illustration and sitting in his class and it changed my life. It's got seared onto my heart. And so I wanted to try to bring it to life for you today and hope that it will do the same thing in your heart as it did to mine. That in 20 years from now, you'll be thinking about this illustration and you will rejoice in the gospel. And in his illustration, he talked about having two screens in the classroom, would fold his computer down, two screens in the classroom. And he talked about having a BB gun and a bazooka. I asked if I could bring either of those two things to shoot at the screens today and was firmly told no. So I'm gonna change it a little bit. But he said, when it comes to the sin in our lives, there are many of us who feel like our sin is just a little BB. Anybody grow up shooting BB guns? I did, I grew up in Gainesville, Georgia. Fun fact about me,

I got two of them stuck in my left calf muscle right now. Happened to me when I was 10 years old. You know, you remember those BB guns you'd have to pump? Tells you to pump them like three times but everybody pumps them 37 times, you know? And me and my friend were riding on our bikes down to the lake and he fell off. And as he fell off and tried to grip the brake, just straight into my calf muscle. I fell off my bike, I was laying on the ground and I said, the only thing I knew how to say, you shot me. I went to the doctor. They said, eventually it'll pop out like a pimple and you'll be good. Hadn't come out yet, so it's still in there. But Dr. Bailey said, some of you feel like your sin just... It's just about that big. Ding, bing. It's just a little white lie here or there. It's a little bit of greed. It's a little bit of pride. Just lingering on that image. It's a hair too long, nothing major. It's a little bing, bing. One of the greatest tactics of the enemy is to convince you that this isn't a problem. And for some of you, I couldn't bring a bazooka, but I'm gonna do my best to have another option. For some of you, you're aware

of the collateral of your sin. It destroyed your family. Thinking about people watching online today, maybe you had to spend time incarcerated because of a decision that you made. I don't have to convince you today that there's been collateral from the sin in your life. It felt like it was major. It certainly wasn't a bing. It was a boom. And the collateral was felt in every direction. And what Dr. Bailey helped us understand was that this is just as serious as this. And if you've got this hidden in your tent at home, you gotta dig it up and bring it before the Lord. And here's the picture. You know what a bowling ball does to a plate glass window? Do you know what a bowling ball does to a plate glass window? You wanna find out? Do you know what a bowling ball does to a plate glass window? Chatters it. Do you know what a BB does to a plate glass window? Chatters it. Chatters it. Question, how do you fix a plate glass window that's been shattered? How do you repair either of these two? I spent years of my life thinking somehow if I can just figure out which piece fell where. I remember I made that decision

and that definitely felt like a shatter. So maybe this one went here. There are people in this room, there are people watching online right now. You're trying to figure out how you can repair it. But here's the thing. You can't fix a plate glass window. There's no way to repair it. It has to be replaced. And do you know what the cost is to replace that plate glass window? It's the exact same as the cost to replace that plate glass window. And this is the gospel. Whether in the rear view mirror of your life or underneath the hole in your tent today is unconfessed hidden sin just ping, ping, ping. Or whether you dug deep to bury something that feels like it would explode. We both have the same need, to be covered. The gospel is not about putting your broken pieces back together. It's not an improvement plan. It's not a 1-800 number to be called to be repaired. The gospel is not about a God who comes and gets the broken pieces and kind of, you know, maybe we can make something. No, the gospel is about a God who sent his son from heaven to earth on a rescue mission. He lived a life you could not live

and died the death that you and I deserve. Why? Because we are sinful people and sin shatters. Big sin shatters and small sin shatters. And there's no way to put the pieces back together. So he did not come to improve you. He came to offer you a new life. You are a new creation in Christ. It is called substitutionary atonement. He stood in your place. And he didn't come and fix that. He didn't come and fix that. He came by sending his son and said, let me offer you something new. That this will work. That this is life in Christ. That this is the gospel. This is how you are. If you've been covered by the blood of Jesus, this is what your life looks like. And so I just want to invite you today on the basis of God's word and as an extension of his grace, the sin that you choose to cover will eventually be uncovered. But the sin that you choose to uncover, God in his mercy will cover it. This is what it says in the back half of that first John verse. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just

and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Come on, is there anybody who's grateful for that? And I'll close with this. Achan was buried, the scripture tells us, in the valley of Achor. Literally translated, it means the valley of trouble. But later in the scripture, the prophet Hosea talks about that same place. Hosea 2 verse 15, God speaking says this, therefore, I will give her back her vineyards. Listen to this. And will make the valley of Achor a door of hope. How could that be? That in the valley of trouble, there would be a door of hope? His name is Jesus Christ. He entered into our valley of trouble and he says about himself in John 10, I am the door, regardless of how dark the night, regardless of how deep you've hidden the sin, even in the darkest and deepest valley of trouble, there is a door of hope. His name is Jesus Christ. And he's available in this place today. And if you will trust him, if you will come clean before him, if you will uncover what is hidden in your tent, he is faithful and he is just and he will forgive us our sins

and purify us from all unrighteousness.