1 Chronicles 2:7. "The sons of Carmi: Achar the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the matter of the devoted things".

I had no idea who Achar was (other than that he is a part of the listing of the descendants of Judah here in Chronicles), so I looked him up. His story is told in Joshua 7:13-26. When Jericho was conquered, the Israelites were ordered not to take for themselves any plunder. Everything was to be destroyed or taken for the treasury of the Lord, and all was thus devoted to one of these two things. (Joshua 6:18-19). Achar (whose name is spelled Achan in Joshua) disobeyed this command and kept silver, gold, and a mantle for himself. (Joshua 7:21). When Joshua learned of this, he had Achan and his whole family stoned and burned to death, because God had told him "And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done a shameful thing in Israel." (Joshua 7:13-15).

As if that horrible punishment was not enough, we now see Achan memorialized forever in Chronicles as "the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the matter of the devoted things." He and his sin will never be forgotten, all because he gave into temptation and disobeyed a direct order from God.

But we do this all the time, don't we? We give into temptation, knowing we are violating God's law. The difference is that we have the Blood of and mercy of Christ to save us. We can, though, tend to take that mercy for granted, and get ourselves into a lot of trouble thinking we will be forgiven. We should take Achar's story as a lesson to always think through the consequences of what we are doing. It is so easy, in those moments of temptation, to give in. We do have God's mercy to appeal to if we do, but are we being presumptuous with regard to that? And even if we are forgiven, do we want to be remembered forever for our sin? Remembered always as trouble?