Joshua 7:10

Joshua 7:10 says, And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?  God told Joshua to get up, and then asked him why he was lying on his face.  Joshua seemed to have at least temporarily forgotten the power of God.  When the troops returned in defeat, Joshua questioned God.  As followers of Christ today, if things go wrong in life and we are feeling defeated, we don't need to question God, but to ask what we have done wrong instead.  The Israelites at this time had just assumed that God was going to bless everything they did and went ahead in their own power, without making sure that everyone was being obedient to God.  Verse eleven declares, Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.  God told Joshua the reason that the men had been defeated.  It wasn't because of the power of the enemy, but because of the sin of Israel.  Even though we are only told of one person stealing an accursed thing, it affected all of God's people.  We might think this to be unfair, but all the people were delivered from bondage to the promised land together and they all made a covenant with God together.  We today are not saved as a collective group, but individually, but the sin of one Christian can still impact more than just the individual sinner.  The sin of one can weaken the effectiveness of a whole group of believers as we reach out to the lost world with the gospel of Christ.  Verse twelve adds, Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.  God said that He was not responsible for their defeat, but their disobedience to their covenant with Him was.  God also said that this wasn't going to change as long as this sin remained in their midst.  We cannot hide our sin from God, nor can we expect  Him to continue to bless us if we are allowing sinful actions into our life again.  Verse thirteen continues, Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.  God told Joshua to get up and sanctify the people and to tell them that there was an accursed thing amongst them.  God also told Joshua to tell them that until this accursed thing was removed that they could not stand before their enemies.  If we are going to stand before our enemies today by the power of God, we cannot allow sin, no matter how insignificant it might seem, to enter into our life.  Verse fourteen declares, In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come according to the families thereof; and the family which the LORD shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD shall take shall come man by man.  God told Joshua that the next day that the people were to come before God, and God would single out the tribe, then the family, and finally the man who was guilty.  Ultimately, we stand before God individually to be judged for our sins, and we alone will be accountable for them. We will either have forgiveness through our relationship with Christ as our Savior and Lord, or we will suffer the punishment ourselves.  There is no in-between.   Verse fifteen concludes, And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath: because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel.  There was  a severe penalty for the one who had taken the accursed thing, because this had affected the whole nation.  We may think that a small failure to follow God's will is no big thing, but we need to realize that sin brings serious consequences.  The person who had the accursed thing and all that he owned was to be burned.  No one else was going to profit from the sin of this one person by claiming what he left behind.  When the judgment of God comes, all that anyone has gained outside of the will of God will be burned up, so as His people, we need not attempt to lay up earthly treasures.  We must always put the will of God first.