Rahab – No Longer a Wasted Woman (Part C)

Satan says, If I can drop you, then I will cause doubt in the ranks. They'll say, Raise up a child in the way you should go, and when he is older, he shall not depart.

But you departed. Therefore, they will doubt God's word. They will doubt their interpretation of God's word. I will bring confusion into the camp, and not long after that, victory will be mine. God says, Listen, I need you to be righteous. I need you to not give up and not quit. This is the fourth chapter in the cross-reference radio.

Specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick in the book of Joshua chapter two as he continues his message to Rahab, no longer a wasted woman. A chance to be free from the shame and the guilt and the filth.

She knew it. A chance to no longer be a waste of a woman and a failure no more. I cannot identify with no longer being a waste of a woman, but I can certainly identify with no longer being a waste of a man.

That's what is real to me, and that's what it should be for any man, and this is what it should be for any woman. When we understand that this is what's going on, she needed, she wanted to get away from her past for good because her past was no good. A lot of people don't do that. A lot of people try to make excuses for their past so that they can continue with their past and their present. This is again the case with Lot's wife, Mrs.

Lot. This Rahab risked everything on the basis of a deep spiritual discovery. I emphasize the word deep because that's what it was. Look with me at Joshua chapter 2 verses 2 through 4, and it was told the king of Jericho saying, Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country. So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country. Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out.

Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them. Give her an academy award. And she's lying, and it's wrong, and there is no way to justify a lie. But God is bigger than her lie. I almost cringe to say that because if there is a Christian who is flirting with some sin, they may take that as their out and continue to sin as though it were not a big thing with God.

The puniest of sin, the sin of the size of a flea, is enough to damn one soul to one eternity in hell without out. This is called conviction if you are the guilty one. She was convicted, but she had not grown that far yet. They had some work to do with her. Common sense would say she did the right thing, but we do not walk by common sense.

It's supernatural sense. God knew she was going to lie, so he allowed things to run their course. If she had made up her mind to tell the truth, God would have done something differently to protect her, to protect those spies.

It is nothing for him to do what he does, as Jericho is going to soon find out. As she already knows, but she's just not yet developed it, and that will come out in a moment also. Unlike the Lot family, the Lot family, a man named Lot and his family, who lacked depth and therefore, they lacked want, they lacked desire. See this, the depth of her spiritual discovery gave her a desire to get out, to get right with God. This God that she had talked to them about, they had to be impressed. I mentioned I would have loved to have watched her eyes as the words left her mouth. I would have then quickly glanced over at the two men and looked at their eyes as they listened to her recite for them what God had done. They had to be impressed. They had to say, man, this is a divine moment. This is God. What are you going to do with this? Stab her with a dagger?

Absolutely not. They enter into a covenant with her because of her conversion. Lot's family is forever remembered as the family that lacked depth. They lacked depth and therefore, they had no want. They did not want what God had to offer. Lot forsook his tent and he moved into Sodom.

Let me rephrase that. Lot forsook his own tent where he had control of his destiny, more so than in Sodom, where he could pick up and move should circumstances change, but he moved out of his own tent into Sodom and everything he lived for went up in smoke. Okay, that's an easy part of his story, but there's much more to it. Not only did Mrs. Lot move into Sodom with her husband, but worse still, Sodom moved into Mrs.

Lot. There's the real danger of seduction. She allowed Sodom to move into her. That's what the story is all about, her perishing.

I don't know that you can ever use that word perish without some alarm going off. Even when the Jews saw that the army of Israel perished, it was still a startling moment. They were in the presence of great things. Lot's wife perished not because she looked backwards, but it was that backwards look that indicated that she had a different view. She had a different view of things. She saw things differently and they weren't like what God saw. God simply said, don't look back at this trash, it's done. No depth, no want for God, but when it came to sin, there was depth, there was want. She was hungry and thirsty for the things of unrighteousness. Paul wanted the Romans to be ignorant when it came to the things of sin and filth and he wanted them to be knowledgeable.

He wanted this for all the churches, for Corinth, for Galatia, all of them. He wanted them to be knowledgeable about things that were true, noble. Noble is a big word, it's decent, that's things that are right. Whatsoever things are true, that's first, foremost, you can't get to decency and nobility without truth. The minute you inject a lie, it is no longer true, nobility.

Truth is gone, it's something else now you're dealing with, it's now you're in salvage mode. Whatsoever things are just, pure, lovely, good report, that's what he wanted, but it's not what Mrs. Lott wanted. She enjoyed the thrills of the flesh. She had learned in her mind to sort out that which was over the top versus that which she could live with and she was fine with it and God was not. Her heart was divided. We see this in church often, too often. We see divided believers. Their heart's in two places and therefore they're restless and the conviction is always something that does not work good with, will serve them well, it doesn't work good in them, it works resistance towards God. When you bust them, when you catch them, they want off the hook, they don't want to fix it. They just think about the judgment they're going to get, they don't think about what they've been doling out.

Those who have a divided heart are always unhappy, always unhappy, and they spend all their time trying to be happy and in so doing they make everybody around them miserable. When they stay in the church, we call them immature Christians. There's a difference between being an immature Christian and a babe in Christ. A babe in Christ hasn't had time to mature, by definition maturity requires time. An immature Christian has had time and has not matured. The word used to be dwarf. They've not grown like they should have.

Something is not working the way it should. We should tolerate, we should look to work with them nonetheless because we are not committed to shooting our wounded, nor should we ever be. Rahab, in contrast, in stark contrast to Mrs. Lott, she forsook Jericho. She wasn't about to look back at this place, don't blow the walls down half at it. She forsook her city and moved in with the people of God and everything she lived by before God's people showed up tumbled down. Burned up, the spies ended up burning up her house, they got her out and her family.

But they were ordered to burn down her house and she said, have it. It never did me any good. Oh, to have a heart like that when we look at sin. Every born-again believer wants that heart and this is the struggle that we have.

We get a lot of it, we don't get all of it in this life and it causes us disgust and it should, but we have to learn how to work with our personal disgust in the light of grace or else it would beat us to death. The grace of God, it's not being careless about sin, quite the contrary, it's being careful about what Christ has done for me and I receive it. Let me get this right, you want me to come to the cross and that's that. And if I come to the cross genuinely, something's going to happen to me that could happen nowhere else? Yes, that's what I want, says God.

Then I do it. And that is something that Satan cannot undo. When the Christian loses his temper, hates it, doesn't like it, but still, still continues to serve, still commits to not doing it again, the enemy has nothing else to do. And so out of the ruins of Jericho, a new life is born for her and her family. That is very significant because she could have said, because her family doesn't live with her. We know this because the story the spies tell her, make sure your family is in your house. The deal is off. There's not two houses, one house, yours.

They come under your roof and they will come under the law of Israel and guaranteed the men will be circumcised and be grafted into Israel as converts. We don't have to look any further to understand it, but I'm spending a little time, more time than I want to and I get back to this. It is enough to say about her that she left nothing behind.

I want that to be said about me. Everything he lived for was in front of him, was ahead of him, was beyond this. The things that he did in this life were with what is beyond in mind. That's why he never looked back at Sodom Burn.

He was too busy looking beyond Sodom. That's the idea. This is what she did. This is what she teaches. I think this is one of the great attractive things about her. The only thing she left behind was wasted life and she is an un-wasted woman at this point. She is an un-wasted woman from this point forward. Now as to her type, which is very significant because once you crack the codes of types in the Scripture, it opens up.

A lot more lessons will then open up to you. She is a type of the convert from a sin-filled life in sure judgment. That's one of the types she represents. Now I'll try to make that mean something to us where we live. In other words, this story is not a story with mere eerie similarities, but they are parallel pictures with a message to man. That's what a type is. It's a historical event that has a message in it that runs parallel to the story and our lives.

They run parallel together and it is on purpose. God is saying something. There are types of Christ, there are types of converts, which she is, there are types of Satan, which the king of Jericho is in this story, which we'll get to in a moment. So on the brink of her own doom, she sees what one must do to convert and that is truth. She must come under the authority of truth. To come under the authority of truth, one has to be convicted and he will convict the world of sin and of truth and of righteousness. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said. Nobody really is ready to be saved who has not first come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He puts that searchlight on you and he says, looky, looky, and now he waits because you see it too. And are you going to be true with what has been searched out or are you going to fake it? Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Well this is Rahab. Jericho was securely shut up. It was on lockdown. They did not want to lose any of their soldiers who were afraid of dying to run off and live somewhere else. They did not want anybody to run over to the Israeli camp and say, okay, here's what the city is laid out like and give them valuable intelligence to give them valuable intelligence. So they locked the city down.

Joshua chapter 6 verse 1, now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out and none came in. There is a parallel picture or a type of the lost mind. The lost mind is shut up.

It's locked down. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out when it comes to spiritual truths.

What is already inside their head is all that's going to be inside their head unless something breaches their defenses. And so the king of Jericho, he represents Satan, the prince of this world. This is a type now, a parallel. Ephesians chapter 2 tells us that Satan vigorously opposes any thought of salvation. Ephesians 2, 2, Paul says, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, speaking again of Antichrist and that which energizes him being Satan, he says, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped.

This is the king of Jericho. We read about that in chapter 2 where he interrogates her briefly. He probably trusted her. He knew her.

He wanted to believe her and so he did. But that doesn't change the fact that while that city was locked down, she was a prisoner in her own city. She was trapped by its king. So when we are speaking to an unbeliever, they are trapped. The city is locked down. Nothing's coming in, nothing's getting out when it comes to the truth of God. How many people live today in their own personal Jericho with great walls of disbelief? The great wall of China was built, of course, to keep the enemies out. Unbelievers have great walls, greater walls than those of China to keep truth out and Satan is the builder of this wall and this is illustrated in this story. And they feel secure in their man-made walled city ideas of whatever it is.

Just pick a brand, pick a potion, pick a flavor of the day, whatever it is. Most of us here were once in that city. Shut up in that city. You children of believers, you are a prize, you are a high-value target of Satan. You've been raised in the home of righteousness. You've been exposed to truths that others are at risk of going to hell without.

And yet they're commonplace, perhaps. Maybe they're like, yeah, yeah, God, you know, yeah, church, you know, we've always been going because since I was born. And it's really not a passion, it's not a want. Satan says, if I can drop you, then I will cause doubt in the ranks. They'll say raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is older he shall not depart but you departed, therefore they will doubt God's word, they will doubt their interpretation of God's word. I will bring confusion into the camp and not long after that victory will be mine. God says, listen, I need you to be righteous.

I need you to not give up and not quit. Imagine Joshua looking among his men saying, can I find two spies to go into the land and bring back intelligence and say, I'm not going in there, they might keep me. They might find out I'm one of the Israelites and kill me. If we approach prayer that way, we can expect whatever results would have been produced by whatever response a leader would hear like that. Anyone from God's camp is viewed as an enemy by the people of Jericho.

That's why they had the manhunt out for these two men and so we should not be surprised when we meet with the opposition we meet with. But according to her own words, she was reluctant and God overcame that. And so when we find those who are reluctant, we overcome it by perseverance. Nothing will get done by the church ever without perseverance. Take perseverance out of your Christian walk and you are useless. You're on the casualty list, saved, yeah, but you are a sick bay commando. The only operations you'll be running is from a sick bed.

You will not be out on the field where it counts. This is our message to the believers, not to the lost, but remarkably, remarkably about this woman, she cites the Lord's will, not the Jewish army, as her reason for faith. Look with me again at verse 10, for we have heard, look at verse 9, pardon me, she said to them, 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 are faint-hearted because of you.

The Lord has given you the land. Joshua looked at Jericho and he says, how am I going to bring down those walls? Rahab looks at the walls and said, God's going to do this.

I need to change teams, that it would be that simple for us. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 31 again, our text, this is why the writer of Hebrews writes under the influence of the Holy Spirit, by faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. She perished not. The others did not exercise faith, but she did. Thus the second New Testament statement, James 2.25, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by action when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

So she had two things, faith and action together. That is who Rahab is. That is a picture of the unwasted woman.

That is a picture of the unwasted man. Rahab illustrates that we're not saved by good works, but for good works. She was saved to do good, and she did good. Without her, God would have had to have either come up with another way to save the two spies, lose one of them, or lose both of them.

But he had a Rahab in that city, that walled city. I want to close with two verses, Joshua 2.21, and she said, according to your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed, and she bound the scarlet cord in the window. That scarlet cord, of course, speaks of the blood of Christ.

It is equal to the gesture made by the Jews in Egypt with the blood over the door. Then there is Joshua chapter 6, verse 25. At the end of it all, it says, Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father's household, and all that she had. So she dwells in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

She's not known as Rahab the harlot in heaven, I should add. The way of salvation is always the same, without exception. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. That's God's word.

When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. That is our message. The cross of Christ, the empty tomb, the book of Genesis, ends with a crowded tomb. Everybody in the book of Genesis dies, well, Enoch. The New Testament gospels end with an empty tomb.

That's on purpose. The purpose is faith, is trust me. I told you that the soul that sins will die, but I also said that he shall not see corruption. Death has no power over him.

He is the firstfruits. We follow him. But in Exodus 23 verses 13, 24, verses 13 and 24, 32 and 33, God clearly teaches the Jew that they're not to have anything to do with these fake gods. They're not to even use their names.

They're not to be casual about them. They are to be fierce in their commitment to Jehovah and him only. We have every reason to believe that when those spies and when Joshua and the people in the camp spoke to Rahab and her family and brought them in, that they brought them into that truth also. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is teaching from God's word each time you tune in.

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