The Achan Spirit: God’s Judgment on Selfishness

Achan’s great sin was to take from the conquered city of Jericho a Babylonian garment, a two-pound bar of gold, and about eight pounds of silver (see Josh. 6:17-19; 7:1-26).

The sin was serious because God had explicitly declared that all the gold, silver, bronze, and iron was devoted to God’s treasury. He had further said that if any soldiers took it for themselves, they would be accursed and would incur God’s curse on all Israel as well.

Everything, including all humans and animals in Jericho, was to be killed and then destroyed by fire. If any broke God’s commandment, they would receive the same judgment decreed for Jericho. Achan did just that, so he and his family and animals were stoned to death by the Israelites, then burned and covered with a heap of stones.

A New Place Is a Dangerous Place

God’s severest judgments are manifest when He is establishing His people in a new place of restoration truth and ministry. For that same reason, He struck Ananias and Sapphira dead for being deceitful when He was establishing the New Testament Church (see Acts 5:1-11). The Lord’s purpose in such severity is to produce the reverential fear of God within the people and to let all know that He is serious about the principles He is establishing for His new movement.

I believe that the current Prophetic Movement has brought the Church “across Jordan” in its restoration journey to possess its promised Canaan land. If this is a divinely established fact, then that means judgment has begun with the house of God, and His severity in judging all disobedience has begun to be manifest in the Church since 1988, when the Prophetic Movement was birthed. (You can read more about that in my book, Prophets, Pitfalls, and Principles.)

Achan’s Character Flaw and Pitfall

What caused Achan to sin as he did when thousands of his fellow Israelite soldiers resisted the temptation? When Joshua asked Achan for his reasons, he replied, “I saw, I coveted, I took, I put it in my tent.” Clearly, his root problem was selfishness.

Achan was like Christians who are stuck in the seventh chapter of Romans, where the words me, my, myself, and I are repeated 52 times in 26 verses. People in that condition need to move on to Romans chapter 8—from the “self” chapter of their life to the “Spirit” chapter—where the Godhead is mentioned 57 times in 39 verses, and there are only two first-person pronouns. When you take the “I” out of “SIN” and reduce it to zero it becomes “SON.” True sonship in Jesus Christ is accomplished by us dying to self and allowing the life of Christ to be made manifest in our mortal bodies (see 2 Cor. 4:10-11; Gal. 2:20).

If we fail to move on to chapter 8, then we will end up praying the prayer that Paul prayed at the end of chapter 7: “Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body [self-oriented life] of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).

“My Ministry Syndrome”

This is the character flaw I call the “My Ministry Syndrome.” Achan’s weed seed attitude was selfishness and concern only for “me and mine” with no concern for others with similar needs and opportunities. Achan was self-promoting and possessive without regard for directions given by the leadership. He was a loner without the team ministry concept.

The other 600,000 soldiers had also spent time in the wilderness (parallel to our preparation for ministry); made sacrifices (times of financial lack and small offerings); gone without change of raiment (lack of new ministry opportunities); and avoided the temptation to grab the gold and silver (bigger offerings or salary). They had endured the same apprenticeship training for warfare in the desert. Even Joshua, the commander in chief, did not manifest a presumptuous attitude as Achan did. Nor did Caleb, who had twice as many years of ministry.

The Achan syndrome will make people feel they are exempt from divine directives and have special privileges to enjoy the material things on which God has placed restrictions. When prophets start thinking they deserve more recognition and offerings or focus only on their own desires, possessions, and ministry, then the seed of the Achan spirit is in their heart. When they press for personal promotion, take the gold that belongs to God’s treasury, and put it in their own “tent” (ministry), then the destructive Johnson grass roots have intertwined with the roots of their good cornstalk.

When Christians lose the greater vision for the success of the whole Body of Christ, then the Achan seed has sprouted into a plant of self-destruction. They have taken of the accursed thing that God hates—the pride, selfishness, and self-promotion that caused the fall of God’s heavenly minister of music, lucifer (see Isa. 14:12-15).

God’s Overall Purpose Our Primary Goal

We who are prophets must constantly remind ourselves that our primary goal should be the fulfillment of God’s overall purpose for His Church, not our possessing the most or making our ministry the greatest. For example, Christ’s purpose for my particular ministry as an individual prophet is to fulfill His greater purpose in raising up a last-days company of prophets. This international company is then called to the greater purpose of co-laboring with Christ to fulfill God’s plans for His universal Church. Christ’s Church is then called to co-labor with God in fulfilling His purposes for planet Earth. And the perfected Church on the redeemed earth is destined to fulfill that even greater eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth.

Most all of the root problems of ministers and other church members would be eliminated if we had the proper perspective on God’s purpose for our position in the Body of Christ. The apostle Paul portrayed this truth when he used the analogy of the human body to describe the Church, declaring, “Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Cor. 12:27). Though there are many members, there is only one Body with one overall purpose.

Interdependent, Not Independent

For that reason, each member has the responsibility to fulfill its own function and to stay properly related to the Head, Jesus Christ. The ministry and success of any individual member is not an end in itself; rather, it exists to contribute to the function and fulfillment of the whole Body. And the whole Body was formed and now functions to fulfill the desires and directives of its Head.

We are not independent ministries, but interdependent upon one another and upon the Body’s headship directives. If we have the old perspective that insists the prophet is a loner, functioning independently of the rest of the Church, then we are subject to the pitfall of selfishness. The banana separated from the bunch is the one that gets peeled and eaten. The lone sheep gets devoured by the wolves.

If the prophetic ministry is the eye or the mouth of the Body, then it cannot say to the hand or foot, “I don’t need you.” The Body may be able to function without certain members, but no member can function apart from the Body. A member that gets separated from the Body withers and dies unless it is put on some sort of artificial life-support system.

But God is now in the process of pulling the plug on the support system of every ministry that is not properly related within the Body of Christ. Every member of the Body diseased with the cancerous cells of exclusiveness, seclusiveness, and independence will be surgically removed by God. The root system of the “my ministry and my needs first” syndrome will be plowed upside down and exposed for what it is, then raked and burned in God’s purifying fire (see Mal. 3:l-3; 1 Cor. 3:12-15).

The Achan spirit manifests itself when ministers become so wrapped up in their own needs, desires, and ministry that they think they have the right to take special privileges and possessions beyond that of their fellow ministers. Such a spirit is a seed of self-deception that will cause ministers to become a law unto themselves, with an attitude that insists, “I deserve greater offerings and more opportunities. If I don’t take, I won’t get. If I don’t promote my own ministry, no one else will.” We must not let the enemy come during the night of temptation and sow such Achan seeds in the field of our hearts (see Matt. 13:24-26).