Bo​az Baptist Chronicles

Tell me time frames aren't important.

Dispensations are important, too. I want to prove that to you by presenting the next thing God does after he destroys Achan and his entire family for taking of “the accursed thing” [For the record, I'm not saying that “time frames” equal dispensations—a dispensation is the way a household is run. A time frame might not be a dispensation, but they are certainly similar in some respects.  In this case they are close.] that even though God does this a different way the next time Israel is at war (chapter eight) Achan has fittingly died under the former set up.

God says to Joshua in chapter seven of his book...

“And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.” (Joshua 6:18-19)

God says to Joshua that those things are accursed because He (God) wants them to go into the treasury—His treasury. If they go anywhere else they become a curse to Israel. [In this case, by one man's disobedience the whole nation was cursed.]

Well, as you know, Achan gets discovered and gets punished for his disobedience against God and his crime against his brethren. (Joshua 7:16-26)

Now turn the page to the very next chapter. Look what God tells Joshua this time...

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.” (Joshua 8:1-2)

Do you see it? Look again at verse two...

“...only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves.”

Even though Achan payed the ultimate price for disobeying God's command concerning the spoils hardly a chapter before, now it was okay to keep them.

What changed? A better question, here, would be “Who changed?” God did. For what reasons the Lord changed how He divvied out the spoils, we don't know. Scripture doesn't say. All I know is if someone kept them for themselves after He changed His mind they would have been okay.

My question to you, dear friend, is “Have you found out—or, are you finding out what God is doing today by way of Salvation? Has He changed the way He was doing things before His Son was begotten into the world from the old way (Hebrews Eight) things were done into something new? Will He change the way things go after the church of God gets caught out to marry His son?” Would God be wrong for making slight changes to HIS set up? As His children who study His words to get light, shouldn't we confess to Him that these things are “too wonderful” (Psalms 139:6) for us to grasp and understand (Job 42:3) and that we need to just believe them?

Borrowing from Acts 26:8... “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should...” change His mind from one war to the next or dispensationally speaking from one way of achieving His plan to something else? After all, it is His plan, you know; not our's. He designed it and set it into motion, and He is the One who will see it through until it is completed. All we can do is sit back and watch it unfold.

Think about it for a while. If the incident with Achan happened in chapter eight and not in chapter six, he wouldn't have had to die. Interesting, wouldn't you say? And, if someone died before the prophesied Saviour showed up, their sins were covered but not taken away. (Hebrews 10:10-18) This, too, is very interesting.

Pastor Bob