Rahab – No Longer a Wasted Woman (Part A)

She was a moral failure, according to God the only God of heaven and earth. She came to know that I God.

Her story is a heroic one. She does not remain where we find her, she advances she converts to become someone very beautiful and very wonderful in the Scriptures with the Bible never makes this mistake of downsizing sin.

It says it like it is that stuff will kill you dead forever. This is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Genesis. Please stay with us after today's message more information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, but for now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 as he begins his message Rahab no longer a wasted woman. I will read from Hebrews chapter 11, where text is taken from verse 31 by faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace now that is the New Testament statement about her. It is a dominant statement and that is why it is the text with the story is found in Joshua two and in Joshua six. I want to mention that we love the Scripture because we know that what is written in the Scripture helps us to live our lives and to serve our Lord. We believe this because we know that the Scripture is infused with lessons from the Holy Spirit, God's touches on all that we have preserved for us. He is the one that has preserved for us. A woman who was a moral failure, a waste of what God created a woman to be there. Many people like this in the Scripture male male and female alike. There are many people in our lives that are like this, their living beneath what God intended them to be.

In spite of sin in spite of the fall. In spite of the flesh a problem with feeling like a failure is that most of us still feel pressured to function as though we are not. That is probably a good thing but it can leave the individual with a greater sense of hypocrisy and I don't know of a solution for this experience except God. And this is why they in the Scriptures, but the New Testament places such an emphasis on the Holy Spirit that third person of the Trinity moving in your life being well received. Being desired. Why should the Holy Spirit come into your life and you really not that impressed with the idea of the Holy Spirit to begin with. In the Old Testament it was righteousness. It was the 10 Commandments with the individual had to be drawn to thus says the Lord.

In the New Testament that doesn't go away, but it is broad and it is expanded and now there is this opportunity for me to host the Holy Spirit in spite of everything about me, so long as I come to him one terms that are laid out before me in Scripture and so we New Testament saints in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We consider these things in the Old Testament as real events, real lives, and in God's response to them. So in my own life when I feel like a failure. Whether I am a not, I feel that way. This pressured this demand to still perform you.

You parents know this you know about this.

You can be very scared of something. But you don't want your children to know you are afraid you don't want to spook them and you are you you regardless of what the bills are doing with her health is doing you still must function and you must function as a leader and so this is part of the experience of life. God knows this. That's the benefit to me knows all this. He has worked this equation out. He has the solution. And if I would just hitch myself to him it all will not only work out, but it will work fruit through my life into the lives of others who otherwise would know nothing of this experience.

Many times unbelievers feel it is noble of them to become advocates of the natives of various countries that have not the gospel, and so these advocates side against the missionaries who came in their and converted everybody will bad missionaries stopping those people from cannibalism and from sexual perversion and all of the multitude of sins that were going on their they they cover that over they mask that over Mark Twain thought himself cute when he said while the missionaries were preaching Hell to the do the native Hawaiians who did not even know there was a hell to go to and he thought that he was an advocate for common sense for decency that the.

The missionaries got it all wrong was indeed Mark Twain who had gotten it all wrong did not understand that wherever the true word of God was preached. The pagan practices were stopped and any benefits that Westerners might have received coming into those lands was because of the missionaries, but they don't want to work out that way they want to live to be true because it offers them a place to hide from what God is doing.

So this is what is happening here and in Jericho and and let me see if I can bring it all together. Here she is a failure.

She knows that she is.

She knows this isn't right and were not told what hardship if any planter planted her in this particular thicket of sin know how she got there, but there she is when the story shows up. She is already in business and it is not a mere transference of our life in time to her as a single.

This is a taboo should not of been done know it is not what God created human beings to be, and while some may sear their conscience with a hot iron in the process of living this out.

Not all do in fact are not even quick to say most do, and so is mention her story is told in the book of Joshua, but her testimony is recorded for us it's broadcasted if you will, in the letter to the Hebrews as our texts spoke of. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace and then James chapter 2 verse 25 was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way is pretty blunt. Bluntly, the Holy Spirit tells us what she was before conversion. She was unfaithful.

She was a moral failure, according to God the only God of heaven and earth. She came to know that I God. Her story is a heroic one.

She does not remain where we find her.

She advances she converts to become someone very beautiful and very wonderful in the Scriptures of the Bible never makes this mistake of downsizing sin. It says it like it is that stuff will kill you dead forever. That's what the Bible has to say about sin and nothing else really at the end, the end of it all this stuff is bad and there is no good in it. Jesus said the devil has nothing in me and we are looking forward to the day when we can say the same thing and so the time will come when she will be so thoroughly cleansed so federally removed from her failure that she is listed in the messianic line. Rahab to Boaz to David to Christ in the messianic line there is Rahab and she did not drift into this position. God drew her in. She had a role to play. She had to consent to it and that she did and the one of the great or the loud lessons that's that comes out of Jericho is that they all should've saw what she saw but they did not, to their shame is our situation as to her situation as with Sodom long before her time.

She lived in a city whose guilt was now under the judgment of God, and by that I mean good. They were always guilty in their sin, but now God was going to act on their sin.

It's it's what is happening to the walking dead. Those who are going to reject Christ to the end.

Their judgment is sure.

It just is not been executed yet and so blunt. Also, is God's description of all who are wrong with him.

Anyone who was wrong with Jesus Christ. I don't mean stumbling get getting tripped up but who have rejected him. The Bible says that person is condemned doomed doom doom. We don't say it this way anymore. We don't say they are damned because it has been so miss you so cheap and by by flooding sort of flooding the market with her that it's lost its value in the mind of the recipient of those who hear it, but its meaning has not lost its potency you if you're wrong with God. You are doing and here in Jericho. On this day was a waste of a woman, a waste of a people who had become so decadent that God's only solution was to get them off the earth, that is an accurate commentary on what what is going on. By the time Jesus comes along.

We read this. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.

The old King James it be damned.

Second Thessalonians chapter 2, in speaking of the one who is energizing the Antichrist, says that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

There's your Jericho Jericho enjoyed her unrighteousness.

It was fun thing about fun as it has an immediate payoff to the sensations, but it always hurt someone. It always ends up wrong and in the end very, very wrong and so serious again about his God is the cross is God opinion of sin. I am going to let my son suffer the shame and death of this cruel cross to deal with this issue of sin, and so wherever her story is told, it must be told with the wrath of God surrounding you cannot just talk about the resurrection you have to talk about the cross of Christ. You cannot just talk about the cross of Christ. You have to speak of the resurrection cannot separate the two. What you cannot speak of Rahab without the judgment of Jericho.

Without this judgment without this army showing up of God never would've made a hill of beans with different to us other armies showed up to other cities and have dropped them in knowing God saved everyone died in Jericho and the surrounding land of Canaan which is about to fall. Also in the series of campaigns over the next couple of years. So few years. Vileness of every kind was elevated to truth. This is an act of worship. Whatever vile act. You could think of.

It became a part of their worship. Whether it will was the sexual perversity whether there was a killing babies after they were born of all ages children offered up to their pagan gods. Whatever it was they elevate whatever the weather was stealing cities in honor of their God. Every vile act was elevated to a religious act was seamless in our lifetime we see homosexuality becoming a sacred cow if if you will, is what everything is all about. How does that happen.

The real devil and real synergy have to handle sinners and to Satan who really have no point of access the portal of the demonic world is through the fallen nature and we know it is true and so this is where she lived. This was her situation and not only did she live in since she lived by sin it paid the bills's logical thing to do.

Cannot justify it any more than he can justify any other sin unknown. It's extreme and you can say the hitman who assassinates people whether the guilt innocent makes a difference for paycheck.

So make it right for society happen to agree with her behavior and that really doesn't matter. At the end of the day.

It's what God would God agrees with and disagrees with. So dangling over her head and the city was this divine law. This divine statement that we are supposed to preach and it were not preaching it were not preaching and it is simply this, the wages of sin is death. That is, it that's the story with with Jericho. The wages of sin is death.

In the end you die. Then you pay worded reach these inhabitants were under this judgment of God long ago about the coming of this invincible army of Jews who was really not a superpower. What really was a supernatural power and everybody knew it wasn't a secret. If you live in this neighborhood. You knew the stories from 34 years ago from the time Moses was still in Egypt. The story begin to circulate what was happening in Pharaoh's court and here we are 40 years later. In this army of freed slaves and their descendents first generation of wilderness people who had everything to gain by taking the promised land. But the most important thing they had to gain was obedience to their God.

That's what everything was back then. Everyone was trying to be obedient to their God which brand pick one through process of elimination, you could easily arrive at the conclusion that God is wrong one because that God kills me sent. That's why to look at Islam and says they think there's anything redeeming about it when in its own writings, they support the violence that they produce is just very simple. What about Nevada's God. And that's not right. That is not consistent with my idea of a supreme being who is good that is consistent with my idea of an evil being, but not a good one, and it was it is not changed in all this time and this very simple way of looking at things is I think one of the first things the devil targets when he locks down an individual so that they cannot become free. But before we get to that part and that is a I hopefully have saved the most powerful part of the message. If I may say so myself to the end. But in the middle. There's building up to this is so much to glean so much to be reminded of talking about what Rahab saw how she saw. She saw what God was going to do before she even knew it was God showing her what he was doing and going to do. She was being exposed to divinity. True divinity at these fake gods that littered the landscape of Jericho and all of Canaan and everywhere else. This was different, and though she was being drawn in and enjoying it still didn't understand. Joshua sent two spies into the land he wasn't going to go through this okay. Let's vote on it and no to yes. This is not up for a congregational vote. This is an an executive decision is executive being God we going to take this land.

I need to good men to go in and I need them to choose from me, high-value targets so we can get the show on the road and descends to man in whom he knows are righteous men. Not only are they stealthy and and why is with their righteous be part of the story, not men like budget which is capable like like Joab, Joab was very capable ever killed everybody in the city that one of his homicidal fits, but is not a man like Joab. These two men were spies.

That was their mission. They were righteous and they impressed Rahab enough to begin to give her a hold and so he sends these two men and as I mentioned, they kindled her hope. There was a dread working in her. She already knew this, they didn't really care. They go to the house of the harlot because it's also in in and will. Where else are they going to go into the city. That was the hotel that I can go to the mayor's office hi were spies from Israel without the copier we just want to see your defenses so it's not like they were doing something wrong by going to her house. This was how it was done does not mean that they engaged her services, not at all that would be diabolical thought and certainly not from the Scripture, but of all those again in Jericho. She alone saw beyond its destruction and saw beyond and entered beyond by faith.

She entered beyond by faith as all those who have faith will enter and that is what Hebrews 11 is all about all these people struggle with their personal struggles of the flesh, yet they saw beyond this life and they are now in the next life in glory.

The time that Hebrews written they were no longer in paradise. They were with Jesus in heaven and that's where they are now. That's where every one of us who believe we are going. Also only at this about the Holy Spirit and this being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I believe that the Bible teaches, there are cases where a person can be saved and not filled with the Holy Spirit, but I believe that is less than what God wants because it's less you can do through it. But the real evidence of being infused or immersed in the Holy Spirit and therefore infused by him is the love of Jesus Christ and the desire to do whatever he wants you to do that is the great part of being not only born-again but Jesus taking you and immersing you and the third part of the Trinity immersing you and God immersing you the spirit of God, and again, why should he do it anyone who is going to undervalue that claim. Salvation the same time so I encourage you to not under value what God wants to do to you and for you and if you've experienced this feeling of the Holy Spirit in the past and and but now it's kind of of Pittard out all you need do is come for refill. You just need to call out and say Lord again fill me not not immerse me again your debts and one-time event but refill me refit me for action power of your Holy Spirit. So when the spies showed up at her door.

She knew this was her one chance she knew it. And as she began to talk with these men. She knew that they were men that she could indeed engage. They were like all the others that would come to her door. These two men were different, that alone. That alone is significant. It tells the power of God that we can block if we're not careful. It also tells of the power of God. The can be unleashed if we are careful and I love that part about the story because these two spies you know there were two angel sentence autumn. They couldn't save the place they destroyed two spies and at the Jericho, they could save the place, but they could get out of Jericho, Rahab and her mother and her father and her sisters and her brother brothers and their the two witnesses that will come to earth. They can save this place, but they are used to extract out of the great tribulation. The great tribulation saints who otherwise would have been doomed with everybody else. So these lessons of God. There are there all over the place.

One of the problems is when I'm struggling one. Maybe it's a time of boredom in my life or time of waiting, which is very difficult when you have all of this energy for God knows times were vulnerable those times. Since Satan can shoot us in the ankles were not careful, it sweeps off her feet have to learn how to weight the right way for God and he do see was beyond just the weight you can think about what what if I don't, you have to trust in what you do what is what has already happened and that has to be sufficient but I'm getting ahead of myself will come to that when we talk about Mrs. Lott but now I mention this is our one chance and I asked you to turn to Joshua chapter 2 Joshua chapter 2 verse verses nine through 11 speaks about her hesitation and there we read, and said to the men. This is Rahab speaking to the two spies I know that the Lord has given you the land that the terror of you has fallen on us and that all the inhabitants of the land or fainthearted because of you that you two guys what you Israel, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea. That's all story for now. You dread the bread Red Sea for you pause there with me. I know I'm interrupting a lot of this, but I can't help the commentary.

God dried up the sea for the people of God, but he didn't dried up for the people along with God.

That's what he does. He makes a distinction between those who are his. And those who are not, and it is really just that simple. She says he dried up the water of the Red Sea, so if for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites were on the other side of the Jordan Sihanouk utterly destroyed.

Notice her emphatic statement you blew the guys away. That's how we would say today to defeat them utterly wiped them out. I'd love to see her eyes, which phrases were moved, you've been listening to cross reference radio daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

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