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Disobedience is a like a disease. It is infectious. God does not always quarantine this disease; He sometimes kills it. God told the Israelites in the Bible Book of Joshua 6:18 (Amplified Bible), "But you, keep yourselves from the accursed and devoted things, lest when you have devoted it [to destruction], you take of the accursed thing, and so make the camp of Israel accursed and trouble it."

But one Israelite named Achan decided to disobey God and keep the accursed things which were certain material possessions. Achan, his family and all that he had was destroyed because of Achan's disobedient attitude and actions could have spread like a disease. Achan's story is not about the cost of the material possessions he stole, but the consequences of his actions.

God is not a respecter of persons. The non-Israelite people living in the promised land had to be destroyed for disobedience and so did the Israelites. God told the Israelites to "utterly exterminate them, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites . . . So that they may not teach you all the abominable practices they have carried on for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 20:17). The command to exterminate was not racial, ethnic or nationalistic, but a test of obedience to God.

Achan was judged faster for disobedience to God than the Israelites who wondered 40 years in the desert and never entered the promised land. Perhaps Achan's judgment was swifter because he had more knowledge. The Israelites coming out of Egypt had to be trained in the ways of God. The Israelites entering and conquering the promised land were to already be trained in the ways of God and training others in His ways. If you refuse to grow in God, your spiritual development does not stay at the same level, it actually regresses. The Bible is silent about Achan's behavior when the Israelites were crossing over the Jordan river. Perhaps his spiritual state was not fully tested. Perhaps Achan always had a problem with disobedience that was kept in check due to a lack of opportunity to express itself or a slow deterioration of character. Proverbs 4:23 (Amplified Bible) warns us to "Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life."

Achan's disobedience infected the Israelites campaign to take the city of Ai. Instead of victoriously conquering Ai, thirty-six Israelites were killed and the Israelites

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