If you hide our sins, you will not succeed.  If you confess and reject them, you will receive mercy. Proverbs 28:14

Who doesn’t love the mystery of buried treasure? Stories like “Buried Treasure That Hasn’t Been Found Yet!” get even adults excited.  But there’s a story of buried treasure in the Bible that didn’t end well.

It should have been an easy military maneuver. The book of Joshua tells that God was moving His people into the land He had promised them. They needed to take a city named Ai. Advance spies said, “There are only a few men there—the whole army doesn’t need to fight this one.” So, a fraction of the army was sent…and was soundly defeated! (Joshua 7:5)

God didn’t let the people go any further in conquest because there was a big problem with what was buried underneath the tent of a man named Achan. The treasure buried there didn’t belong to Achan. Achan had coveted and disobeyed God by keeping plunder from an earlier battle when the people had been told it was God’s.

Hiding anything from God is useless but we’ve been doing it way back to Adam and Eve, who hid from the Lord God among the trees (Genesis 3:8). There’s good news here through: “If you hide your sins you will not succeed. But if you confess and reject them you will receive mercy,” the Bible says (Proverbs 28:14).

Achan refused his chance to come forward and confess. It was the end of him and his family, and it wasn’t what God wanted to happen. “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love,” wrote another man, named David, who tried to cover his sin (Psalm 103: 8, 2 Samuel 11:6-8).

God’s offer of mercy to still stands. If there’s anything under our tents, let’s get digging.