When Second Chances Run Out

And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. Joshua 7:25

Every time I got a bottle of pills, I was wracked with guilt and desperately afraid of anyone discovering my addiction. So, I’d ask God’s forgiveness, beg him to keep anyone from finding out, and then promise never to do it again. I did that a lot. And I got many second chances. I have no idea if God ever actually shielded me from discovery, but I got away with a lot of pills and I had a lot of second chances . . . until they ran out. Eventually there were no more chances. As terrible consequences threatened to rain down, I went to God once again. Please God. I promise, this time I’ll do whatever it takes. Just don’t let me lose my job or my family. The time for promises was past though. It was time to reap what I had sown. I lost my job. I was losing my family. I had to go to treatment. In treatment, I tried again to bargain with God. I’ll follow you every day for the rest of my life if you give me my family and career back. God promised nothing though, except that I’d stay sober if I followed him. I came to understand that not all consequences are undone when I repent. Even when God forgives, some losses are permanent.

That is the lesson of today’s passage. In it, one of Israel’s soldiers kept some forbidden loot from the defeat of Jericho. This angered God, who had previously commanded the destruction of everything in the city. In their next battle, the Israelites were defeated, suffering dozens of casualties. God revealed to Joshua the cause of his anger and led Joshua to Achan, the soldier who’d brought God’s wrath upon the Israelites. When confronted, Achan confessed, but it didn’t save him. He still paid for his crime with his life. Perhaps he was forgiven by God, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t reap what he’d sown.

This is a difficult concept for many of us to grasp. I’ve met countless men in jail who find God and in their newfound faith, expect that God will get them out of jail. When he doesn’t, it shakes their faith. Forgiveness, however, doesn’t mean that God protects us from all earthly consequences. God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Galatians 6:7-8). We can and should seek God’s forgiveness and we should follow his will so that we stop sowing our own destruction. Doing so though, doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t have to pay for the failures of yesterday. Some consequences are permanent.