THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF SIN

Israel had just been defeated by the Canaanites at Ai, and Joshua was deeply discouraged.  Although only 36 Israelites had lost their lives in this battle, it signaled the fact that Israel was not invincible. This sent Joshua into a tail-spin. Why? God had promised him:

·       No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Josh. 1:5)

However, Ai seemed to make a mockery out of this promise. How could Joshua ever trust in the Lord and His promises again? If God had let him down once, why not again and again? No wonder Joshua was devastated and even imagined that he had done something wrong by having the hubris to cross the Jordan, believing that he would conquer the Promised Land.

However, Joshua’s problem was that he lacked an important piece of the puzzle, and this lack prevented him from understanding the defeat. God explained to Joshua that Israel had been defeated because they had sinned by violating the command of God:

·       The Lord said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?  Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have 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. (Josh. 7:10-12)

Sin will interfere with receiving any of God’s promises. We cannot expect the blessings of God if we reject the Word of God. Actually, it was only one person – Achan – who had sinned, but his sin involved the entire nation of Israel. We are our brother’s keeper, and whenever we allow unrepented sin in our midst, we all suffer.

We too stand before the Lord, as Joshua had, in bewilderment and discouragement. We have been given glorious promises as had Joshua. We are promised that we are now new people in Christ, reborn and sanctified:

·       Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)

However, we do not see this in our lives. Instead, we see Ai and defeat even after we have repented of all of our known sins. I always pray for opportunities to love others. However, sometimes right after praying, I rush to get into the line ahead of a woman, even if she only has a few items in her shopping cart. Sin is so powerful that it even laughs at my prayers for opportunities to show kindness to others. I can understand how Joshua felt after Ai. However, he was rejuvenated after God had explained the reason for Israel’s defeat. What explanation can the Bible possibly give us for our repeated failures?

For one thing, we are still miles away from the Promised Land, as John explained:

·       Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

Yet, even now, we are children of the Light, even if our day-to-day experiences seem to preach that we are still in our sins. But is the real me the ugly things I find inside myself? Not according to Paul! Instead, he taught that what we find within are the remnants of sin, something we now find abhorrent:

·       So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:17-20)

Notice that Paul made a distinction between the real Paul and the indwelling sin. The real Paul wanted to honor the Lord but, because of sin, lacks the ability.

You might argue that this description only describes the Paul who had been under the law, and that we should now be doing better. However, Paul also described this same conflict after he had received Jesus:

·       Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25; Galatians 5:17)

The flesh, as opposed to the real me, continues to serve sin. Although in Christ, he is now liberated from the domination of sin through its deceptiveness (Romans 7:11), he still had to contend against the power of sin lodged in the flesh.

This is now our struggle. While we want to remain faithful to our Savior, we still struggle against the temptation and the power of sin, but it’s no longer we who sin but the sin that dwells within. Consequently, the real we are reborn into children of the Light.

How then should we regard the ugly and discouraging desires we see within? They are no longer we. I reject them and disown them (Galatians 5:24), although I am still responsible for them. They are like a pit bull I have on my leash. The dog is not me, but I am responsible if I allow it to bite someone.

How do we explain this tension which has become our norm? God hasn’t yet completed His work in our lives. He has merely made a beachhead:

·       And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? (Romans 8:23-24)

It is the power of sin in our lives that forces us to live in dependence to our Savior – the very thing that He has intended. Jesus taught His disciple that “without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5). Paul echoed this truth:

·       Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. (2 Corinthians 3:5)

It is our sins that teach us that our sufficiency is from God. They continue to humble us, breaking us of self-confidence to teach us God-confidence (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). Joshua had to learn that he could only stand as he adhered to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Joshua 1:8-9). The Ai of our lives teaches us the same lesson.