Trust in God means success. Failure to trust in Him means defeat. Many a carefully laid scheme miscarries because God is not taken into account. Three lessons stand out among those that may be learned from this experience:
(1) It was God and not their own valor that gave the Canaanites into the hands of the children of Israel.
(2) Success cannot come when there is sin in the camp.
(3) When sin is confessed God takes man’s failures and turns them into blessings.
Every man enjoys a personal relationship with his Creator that can be severed only by his own choice. But God also deals with men in a corporate relationship, as groups; thus there is group as well as individual responsibility (see Ed 178, 238). God holds nations, for instance, accountable for their corporate actions. This was true in a special way of the chosen nation, Israel, and it is equally true of spiritual Israel, the church, today. At times the entire group suffers as a result of the deeds of its individual members (Eze. 21:3, 4; PP 497). It is within the power of any member of a group to benefit the others or to bring suffering and evil upon them (2 Cor. 2:15). And, as in the case of Achan, God holds the entire group, as a group, accountable for the deeds of its individual members.
Nevertheless, as then, God acts through the recognized leaders of the group in requiring cooperation and in inflicting punishment. God has a church, and has set leaders over it. He looks to them to take the initiative in carrying out His will. Furthermore, God requires His people to cooperate with their leaders (Heb. 13:17), and will not tolerate independent action on the part of individuals, in opposition to His appointed leadership. Great is the curse that comes upon those leaders who are unfaithful in their task (Isa. 3:12; Isa. 9:16; Jer. 13:20; Eze. 34:10), and upon those individuals who deliberately hinder them in their work (see Judges 5:23). God’s presence with us in the past is not a guarantee of His continued presence with us in the future. In the religious life there must be a continual dependence upon God, and constant inquiry as to what God would have us to do. The grace and strength granted for the accomplishment of one task are not sufficient for the demands of the next. Joshua failed to take this spiritual law into account. In laying plans for the conquest of Ai, he neglected to take God into his counsel (PP 493). How we need to be on guard lest we merely go through the motions of religious service, and fall short of victory, because we have neglected to work according to God’s plan. Our zeal for God must be under the control of sanctified knowledge (see Rom. 10:2; cf. Ps. 111:10).