I don't know about your past. If you will connect with the kingdom of God, God can turn that thing around. Dr. Tony Evans says our history doesn't have to cost us our hope. can take your yesterdays and make them better tomorrows it's not too late This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr.
Tony Evans. Your past may not be something you're proud of. But today, Dr. Evans points out God is bigger than all the bad choices you've ever made. Let's join him as he explains.
In chapter 2, verse 1 of Joshua. Rahab. was a harlot. In fact, that label Harlot would follow her. Even into the New Testament.
One day She is visited by two strangers. We're told who they were. They were spies. sent by Joshua to spy out the land. The spies wanting to be as inconspicuous as possible.
And as safe as possible. found a place where strangers would go. The local brothel, that is, Rahab's house. In order to To look as inconspicuous as possible.
However, somebody saw them go into Rahab's house. And reported it to the king that we've got two Jewish guys. in Rahab the harlot's house. The king sends some emissaries to Smoke these guys out, and they come to Rahab and they say, Now you've got two spies in your house. Bring him out!
But she doesn't send them out in spite of the fact that her very life is threatened. She hides them on her roof. And she says to the king's emissaries, Or you just missed them. They left five minutes ago. If you hurry up, you might catch them.
And so she sends those away who are trying to seek out these men. and then goes up to the rooftop. to where she has hidden the two spies from Israel. And she says to them, verse 9. I know that the Lord has given you the land.
And that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites. He goes on in verse 11. We heard it, our hearts melted. No courage remained in any man any longer because of you.
For the Lord your God, he is God of heaven and on earth. Beneath. She says, we know about y'all. We've been scared of y'all for 40 years. And your reputation has followed you.
So the reason I hid you up on my roof. It's because the Lord, your God.
Okay. Is the God of heaven? Aniverth. In other words, My faith. control my choice.
I made a choice. To hide you rather than satisfy the government, the kings. The rulers of this world Because I needed to make a decision. Who am I going to be identified with? Because we already scared.
We're terrified of you because we've heard the message.
Now, that's interesting. She says for 40 years, all of Jericho has known about God.
So, the folks who lived in Jericho were like a lot of folk today know about him, don't want to deal with him. Because they knew about him and they just didn't know intellectually. It says, we were scared to death. Our hearts melted because of your God, but we still followed our God. A lot of people like that.
They know about God. But they have never entered into a relationship with God. But she says, as for me. Your God is the God of heaven and of earth. And to let you know that I know.
Who the real God is? I've hidden you and protected you. from the enemy. Therefore, she makes a request. It's an interesting request.
She says in verse 12, now therefore, please swear to me, Joshua 2:12. By the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you will also deal kindly with my father's household and give me a pledge and spare my father, my mother, my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them and deliver our lives from this death. In other words, we know we're getting ready to get massacred. And I want to be delivered. One of the reasons many of us are not seeing God come through for us.
is he can't find faith. Because the only way you can validate you've got the right kind of faith as a believer is that you're doing the right kind of work. That is, you're doing what God demands, which validates that you have the faith that God expects.
Now, don't get me wrong, to get to heaven is faith alone. But to get heaven to join you on your job, to get heaven to turn your situation around, to get heaven to work out that relationship issue, to get heaven to address that career challenge, to get heaven to reverse the circumstances that you face on earth takes a faith that works. And in Joshua chapter 6, verses 17 and 25, the city. shall be under the man It and all that it belongs to the Lord. Only Rahab the harlot.
and all who are with her in the house shall live. Because she hid the messengers whom we sent. Verse 25, however, Rahab the harlot. And her father's household, and all she had, Joshua spared. And she had lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she had hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
Faith not only delivered her, it delivered everybody associated with her. See, the spies said. You bring all your family into this house. And when it come down. Because of your faith.
The whole family gonna get delivered.
Now, don't think this is just Old Testament, because in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, the Bible says that the children are protected under the hesit covering of the parent who has a working faith in the home. That there is protection, covenantal covering by association with a person of faith. See, that's why if you have weak faith, you want to hang out with somebody who has strong faith so that you're covered by their faith. But in order for her to see this covering miracle that protected her and her household. You know what she had to do?
She had to go against the culture. See, she the only one not going with the crowd. She's the only one not buying into the philosophy, the theology of Jericho. She looks like the Lone Ranger. She's by herself.
See, sometimes it's good to be by yourself. Listen, the beauty of association with God's kingdom purposes is that when stuff collapses around you, God can still take care of you because you're in his will and you're not collapsing with the culture around you. That's why he can take care of your house in a bad neighborhood. That's why he can take care of your career when other careers are falling apart. That's why he can take care of your relationships when every other relationship is going to pot.
Why? Because you're not following the crowd, you're following the kingdom. You're not following man's way. You're following God's way. And that will make you sometimes look like the odd man out.
Or in this case, the odd woman out. But she wasn't selfish with her faith, as we said. She cared about her family.
Now this leads to The question about it not being too late. Rahab's story.
Okay. does not end with the Old Testament, as we've just seen. Her name is repeated. Often in the New Testament.
So evidently, there's something about Rahab that God wants us to learn. And what's interesting is, God doesn't drop her title. I mean, He doesn't go around saying Moses the murderer. When he talks about great faith. He doesn't go around talking about Abraham the liar.
When we talk about great faith, he doesn't do that in Hebrews chapter 11. But when he comes to Rahab, he said, Rahab the heart. Why does God keep Idling this woman rather than just saying, Rahab, and leave the sister alone. Why does he want you to know this is the woman? of the old testament who was of ill repute Because God wants you and I to know through her illustration.
that your past doesn't have to control your future. God wants you to know, no matter how wretched your past can be, she's placed next to Noah, Enoch, and Abel. God wants you to know if you get your stuff together with Him, He can take your yesterdays and make them better tomorrows. It's not too late. Here's a woman whose designation stayed with her.
Even though she didn't have a religious background, godly. Even though she didn't have a spiritually devoted husband, even though she did have a shameful career, it wasn't over. When she connected her purposes to God's purposes tied to the spies. Then that thing got turned around. When she connected, here it was, her purpose.
to God's purpose. Her whole life changed. And she delivered her whole family.
So I don't know what your past is. I don't know how bad it is. All I know is the woman found in Joshua chapter 2 is also in Hebrews chapter 11. The woman in Joshua chapter 6 is in James chapter 2. And in the New Testament, she's an illustration of godliness, an illustration of power, an illustration of victory.
Because God knows how to take lemons and make lemonade. He knows how to take a mess and turn it into a miracle.
So that you know God can. Turn a life around. Dr. Evans will return shortly with more on how God can turn a checkered past into a cherished future. But first, we want to make sure you know about a powerful set of resources that can help you build on what we're learning today.
It starts with Tony's encouraging book, Kingdom Heroes, where he highlights the lives of people in Scripture who trusted God and saw him do remarkable things. even when their situations seemed impossible. And right now, for a limited time, we're including that book, along with all eight full-length messages from Tony's current sermon series called It's Not Too Late. These two resources combined give you a powerful picture of how God works in your life. and they're available as our gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry.
Get the details and make your request at tonyevans.org. or call 1-800-800-3222. and let our resource team help you. That's 1-800-800-3222-1. or online at tonyevans.org.
Dr. Evans will return with part two of today's message right after this. Are you hungry for more of God? More of His truth, more of His power, and more of His wisdom applied in your life? Then you need to connect with the community of passionate believers who are growing in God's Word through the Tony Evans Training Center.
With exclusive video and audio teaching from Dr. Tony Evans, this interactive online study experience allows you to explore theology, biblical history, and real-life application of the kingdom agenda anytime, anywhere. Visit TonyEvanstraining.org to get started today. That's TonyEvanstraining.org. We are told in verse 25 of chapter 6 of Joshua that when Rahab and her family got delivered, she dwelt in Israel.
She's now hanging out with the people of God. She's got a new family now. A man named Solomon. For whatever reason, sees her. falls in love with her.
and marries her. She's got a Jewish husband. even though she's a Gentile girl. Cause now she hanging out. It says with Israel.
Let me tell you something about Salmon. We're told in 1 Chronicles chapter 2, Solomon built the city. of Bethlehem. Simon has his own construction company. My boy is building cities.
In fact, he builds a city that Jesus is going to be born in called Bethlehem.
So not only does she go hang out with Jews. She finds a brother with a job. What a good job. Because he's in the construction business. He didn't say Solomon who built a house.
He said, Solomon who built the city of Bethlehem. All right, so she finds herself married to someone, but that's small stuff. Let me give you the deep stuff. And that is Solomon's lineage. See, the Messiah had to have two realities associated with it.
He had to have legal right. To the throne of David in order to qualify to legitimately be. Messiah.
Well, Matthew chapter one gives us the limit. of David legally through Joseph. Jesus had to have legal right to be king of the Jews, which means you had to descend from a legal line through David.
Well We are told in verse 16. that Jesus' father was a man named Joseph. But Joseph was a stepfather because Jesus didn't have a biological father because he was born of a virgin. But he had a stepfather who adopted him when Mary got pregnant, giving him, Joseph, giving Jesus his legal name. When he got Joseph's legal name, that gave him legal title to the throne of David.
Luke also has a list. But when Luke gives his list, he gives it through Mary. because Mary is his biological mother. But guess what? Mary is tied biologically to the throne of David because she is a descendant of David biologically.
So, in getting Joseph and Mary hooked up, God hooked up the legal line with the biological line so that Jesus was both legally right, had rights to the throne, but through Mary, he had biological rights to the throne, qualifying him twice to be king of the Jews, as declared by the word of God. See, God knows how to hook a sister up. And so Rahab The harlot? Falls in love with Salmon, who's got his own construction company, but who's also legally tied to Jesus Christ. She has a baby.
Her baby is called Boaz. We know Boaz from the book of Ruth, because Boaz saw Ruth bleeding in the field. God now hooked another sister up with another dude that had a job. She hooked the two up. And Boaz married Ruth.
Ruth had a baby, and her baby was Obed. Obed got married, had a baby. His baby was Jesse. Jesse got married, had a baby. His baby was David.
What I'm trying to tell you is, I don't know about your past. I don't care how bad your past. If you will connect with the kingdom of God, God can turn that thing around. But if you don't connect with the purpose of God, you'll be hanging out and hooking up with anybody who talks a good game and missing out on the delivering power of God to the woman or man of faith. And so God was able to do something.
Special in this lady's life. But there's something else and this might be the best thing of all. This might be the best thing about it. It's found in Joshua chapter 2. He said these words.
I'll start with verse 17. The men said to her, We shall be free from this oath, the promise to deliver you and your family. Which you have made us swear, unless, say unless, unless when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread. in the window through which you let us down. And gather yourself into the house, your father, your mother, your brothers, your father, and your household.
He says. When we come to take this mama down. Verse 21, according to your word, so be it. She sent them away and they departed and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. Oh, it's all about that scholar cord.
The two men say, look. When we come to take this thing down. We need to see something hanging in your window. Because see all the other soldiers won't know who you are. They won't know where you are unless we see something hanging in your window.
And what we want to hang in your window is a scarlet thread. He calls it verse 21, a scarlet cord. Scarlet means red, okay? The cord means ribbon. What he says is, I want you to tie a red ribbon around the rope coming outside of your house because we're going to be marching around this wall for six days.
Once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day. And as we march around that wall, everybody's going to see that red ribbon. And that red ribbon is going to let us know that's the prostitute's house. Everybody's going to know what that means.
Now, why is that important that you and I know what that scarlet thread was? They had red ribbons. And what they do is tie red ribbons to their windows or doors, signifying to the travelers, this is the house of prostitution. If you want to be serviced, you can be serviced here. This red ribbon, like a red light, identifies the sin that takes place in this house.
But the two spies says, when you hang your sin outside of this house, so we see your sin. sin and your acknowledgement of who you are, guess what we're going to do? We're going to provide salvation. When you show us your sin, we're going to show you God's grace because you've identified with God's program and we're going to offer you God's salvation.
Somebody missed that. When you show us your sin, we're going to show you God's grace and you're going to see God's salvation for you and your house. I believe when Israel was in the Passover, God said, put the blood on the door, the red, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. You say, what's that got to do with the legacy of Rahab for us?
Well, 2,000 years ago on the cross, Jesus Christ shed his blood for your sin and my sin. And when he sees the blood that was shed for our sin, that is the root to our salvation. Your salvation comes because of the blood that was shed, but the blood was shed because of our sin.
So when we confess our sin to the Savior who shed the blood, I'm going to go to heaven today. And the reason I'm going to heaven is I'm covered with the blood. But I'm only covered with the blood because of the sin that was carried by Jesus Christ on Calvary.
So all I'm saying today is God can start your life all over again, but you got to be willing to tie the red ribbon around the outside. I'm a sinner and I need a savior. I've messed up, but I'm trusting God's grace to fix me up. I failed, but now I have faith in the Son of God. I was bad, but I'm trusting God to make me better.
I have been the terrible sinner, but he's going to make me a glorious saint. Because as he moves around and collapses the sinful world that does not respond to him, When he sees the blood on me, he's going to pass by me and give me the deliverance that I need. Your yesterday doesn't have to determine your tomorrow. God can put you in the New Testament and write a whole new chapter for your life. He can start you all over again.
If you're ready to find out how that new beginning actually begins, If you're ready to experience the miracle of being reborn into a whole new life by asking Jesus to forgive your sins, visit tonyevans.org right now. and click on the link at the very top of the home page that simply says Jesus. There Tony will tell you all about what it means to be a Christian. and walk you through everything you need to know to start a brand new life. Today's lesson was titled Rahab, the Prostitute God Used.
And you can hear the additional material we didn't have time to bring you in the full-length message that's included in our current series, It's Not Too Late. As I mentioned earlier, all eight lessons in this collection are our gift to you when you support Tony's ministry with a financial contribution. And for a limited time, we're also including Tony's powerful book, Kingdom Heroes. But be sure to contact us right away. This is an exclusive offer that won't be around long.
Just drop by Tony Evans.org, where you can get all the details and make your donation. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or you can call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222. and let one of our team members help with your resource request. That number again one eight hundred eight hundred three two two two.
If you find these messages from Dr. Evans helpful, You'll appreciate hearing him engage in thoughtful discussions with spirit-filled guest speakers on the Unbound podcast. You can find these conversations on his YouTube channel. or wherever you stream your favorite podcast. It's been said that facts speak for themselves.
But on Monday, Dr. Evans explains why the facts Don't always tell us the whole story. It'll show us how God's promises can rewrite our reality. Hope you'll join us.
