Rahab

Heb 11:30-31 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.


Why is Rahab in faith’s hall of fame?

In Florida, some of our women were involved in a woman’s prison ministry. One woman, (we’ll call her Lucy) made a profession of faith. She had been a prostitute like Rahab. The life she described to me was not glamorous, not in the least. She had AIDS, and knew she would never see her child grow up.

Our church accepted her, even embraced her. But no one suggested that she was a shining example of faith.

The woman’s name was Rahab, and she appears in Joshua, 2:1-2 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

This story occurred just before the Israelites finally crossed over into the Promised Land. Joshua needed reconnaissance before they entered the land, so he sent spies to scout the town of Jericho. Jericho was the largest city in Canaan and was directly between them and the rest of the land. It had an enormous wall that protected it from g invasion.

The two spies decided that the safest place for them to hide was in a house of prostitution. Though this appeared morally objectionable, from a military standpoint it made sense. Israel’s enemies knew that they did not approve of prostitution, though it was acceptable among the Canaanites, so a house of prostitution would be the last place they would look. Besides, a house like that would be a good place to pick up information.

Rahab was common, though successful harlot. She had her own house in a prestigious part of town, next to the city wall. She had money, she had no respect, any more than she would today.

We certainly would not approve Rahab’s way of making a living. But we have to ask, why why would this woman be thought worse than other kinds of sinners? Should she be treated as an outcast while other women did the same thing in the pagan temples, and were treated as priestesses. The respected the women who gave themselves to men in the name of a pagan god were no better than she. In fact, in our eyes they would be worse, since the practiced both prostitution and idolatry.

God does not rate sinners. He treats all sinners the same. If a sinner, no matter how wicked repents, then they can find forgiveness from Jesus. It did not matter what Rahab had done in the past, she could be forgiven.

Last week we talked about two kinds of faith-saving faith and living faith. Moses exemplifies that living faith. But Rahab exemplifies saving faith—which is the belief that even the worst of sinner can find forgiveness through the mercy of God.

There is good in all people, and there is evil there as well. Everyone who ever lived is the sa,e mixture of God’s breath and Adam’s mud. The person we don’t want to pass on the street may be closer in God’s eyes than a deacon in church or a pastor, if we knew their heart. We cannot judge others according to our standards. In Rahab’s case, a pagan woman in a horrid profession is treated with more honor than a thousand saints. .

How can God do this? Because it is not what we do, but what God does that saves. Faith makes the difference. It is not whether fail or whether we succeed, but whether we have faith to believe God can shine His mercy on both the just and the unjust. The only thing that saved her among all other people in her city was that she believed God.

Rahab had heard stories of the approaching Israelites. The king and the leaders of the land feared the Israelites numbers and military might. Rahab knew better than that. She knew it was not the military might of Israel that made them invincible, but Israel’s God. Here is what she said about them.

Josh 2:9-11 "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

Here is a common prostitute speaking to the spies in her house of prostitution. Yet she mentions three times the true name of God, which even the priests fear to mention. She realizes that the success of the Israelites had nothing to do with the numbers or skill in battle, but was because of the power of their God.

Do we really look to God’s power or to our own? Can we follow Rahab’s example?

We have something in common with the ancient citizens of Jericho. God’s wrath may well be coming on us very soon. We cannot look at the world today without seeing a cataclysm ahead. The Old and New Testament speak of the day of wrath. When that day comes, there will be little difference in what we we did before. The only difference will be who we will trust to get us through. If we trust in our own strength or cleverness, we are doomed to fail. But if we put our trust in the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus, who was sent to rescue us from death, then we will escape the day of wrath.

Imagine you were in a store in Japan in the great earthquake and tsunami. . Some of the survivors make it to the roof, and wait for rescue. All kinds of people wait—church deacons, gamblers, schoolteachers, prostitutes, gay people, straight people—all kinds.

A helicopter appears over our heads. Someone throws down a ladder. “Come up,” the pilot says. “Catch the rope.”

Will the helicopter pilot say “all you good people come up. You sinners stay down?” No, the offer of rescue would be to any and all who will take hold of the ladder. Those who trust will travel.

Jesus is God’s rescue operation. He came to earth to save sinners. Any who will trust Gun will be saved. Our previous lives do not matter. The only thing that matters is whether we are willing to hold on to Christ and His grace.

When Rahab saw these spies, she saw an opportunity to save herself and her family.

Josh 2:12-13 Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death."

The spies agreed on two conditions—the same two conditions God makes today.

First there has to be a public confession

,Josh 2:17 The men said to her, "This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us 18 unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down

Rahab needs to have a sign that this is her house. This sign has to be public.

God wants to rescue us. But God insists that that rescue be open and visible. He does not rescue people in secret. We must be willing to confess Him publicly.

Jesus said Luke 12:8-9 "I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.”

To be saved has implications in every area of life. It is to become new person with new ideals and new interests. It is impossible to be a new person and keep it secret from everyone else. If we try, it will forever hinder us from being what God wants us to be, and prevent us from following Jesus where He leads. For that reason, we must make our decision for Him public.

Second, we must reconcile with others.

18-20 “and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him.

In our culture, single women do not live with their parents forever. But in Joshua’s day it was different. Single women lived with their families forever.

So why isn’t Rahab’s family already in her house? Her profession as a harlot kept her from either living with her parents, or having her parents live with her.

To save her family she had to make peace with them. It was probably not easy.

Jesus said in Matt 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

We must reconcile with others to be reconciled to God.

Rahab did everything the spies told her. So she and all her family were saved. More than that she became only one of five women who were mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus.

Faith is not just for good people. It is for all people. All of us must lay hold of faith.

Today, our time is getting shorter. Whether or not Jesus comes in our time, we know that our lives on earth can end at any moment. It’s time to take hold of the rescue ladder of fath. Don’t worry about what you have done in the past, all that matters is that you have faith in Jesus today.

Mercy is not easy. It is not cheap. Mercy can be a desperate rescue effort. Mercy may require that we swallow a lot of pride and that we suffer a lot of pain. W must we willing to go after them not just sit back and let them come to us.

.The Footsteps of Moses

When I was a boy, my dream was to be a marine biologist. I wanted to explore the oceans, and the weird creatures living there. I have since found that it is not an uncommon dream. A lot of children have it. There is something about the hidden world of the sea that fascinates us. The thought of us, being land animals, being able to go to the very bottom of the ocean in our submarines and diving suits is exciting. In that world, the strange creatures we see are the native, and we are the aliens.
Christians are aliens in this world, too. Our real native land is fare above, in heaven with God.
Imagine you are a deep sea diver. You spend hours each day exploring the ocean. You interact with the creatures of the sea. Then one day, you become so comfortable with the sharks and the octopi that you forget you don’t belong there. You take off your mask, and you immediately find yourself in trouble. As much as you think of yourself as belonging in the ocean, you don’t. You cannot breathe what they breathe. You were born to the land.
Being aliens, we must stay disentangled with this world. We must keep our focus and remember that at the end of the day we are going to our true home, and our true world.
It requires faith to remember who we are as we stare out into this alien landscape. It is easy to think that this world is our world. By faith we keep our vision and our sanity.
In Hebrews 11:24-29, we read about Moses, who kept his vision and his faith, in spite of some great temptations to the contrary.

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of pt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.  
By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

In the Hall of Fame of faith, there’s wing devoted to Moses. Last week’s story about Moses’ parents was just the beginning of the tour. There’s a lot more to see. This week, we are going to see three separate acts of faith performed by Moses in his early life, and a surprise act of faith, performed by someone else.
These four separate acts are marked off with the simple words “by faith.”
First, Moses chose humility over status.
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
 We do not know how much Moses knew of his inheritance as a Hebrew. Moses did not have a Hebrew name, but an Egyptian one. The greatest Pharaohs had similar sounding names --Ramses, Thutmose. The first parts of these names refer to the God they worshipped. Take away that name, and you get Moses, This gave us an idea that Moses must have been raised thoroughly Egyptian and in the royal family.
We do don’t know how much he knew about his Hebrew heritage. He had some inkling, to be sure. He may have been instructed by his mother/nursemaid, but we do not know when or how he knew he was not Egyptian.
But we know he knew the Egyptian court. It was a great place for a boy to enjoy. There were pleasures and delicacies in abundance. If you were going to live in the ancient world, it is better to be in the court of a king than anywhere else.
As a boy, Moses must have enjoyed it. But as he grew into manhood, he would discover that it was not a good place to be. Take the example of the most famous pharaoh--King Tut. Forensic examination of King Tut's mummy revealed that he was only nineteen when he died, and that he was probably murdered. It may be good to be the king, but it is also dangerous. You can enjoy the privileges of being a kingdom if you didn’t mind murdering people, and possibly getting murdered yourself. The court was a beautiful place, but a cruel place as well.
Moses saw the best Egypt had to offer, and rejected it. He realized that it was lie. People were not happy. All the pleasures of the court were nothing compared to the wickedness of people in it.
Moses had a choice. Did he stay with adopted family and become a ruler, or did he choose his God-fearing relatives and become a slave? Moses chose God over power. He chose to be a humble servant, rather than being a cruel master.
What would you choose, if you had the chance—wealth and power, or truth and Godliness? In the end, Moses clearly made the right decision. .
Second, he chose loneliness over the wrong company

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Moses angered the Pharaoh. He could have worked his way in Pharaoh’s graces, but he chose not to. Instead, he left all his relatives, friends, and servants, and went alone into the Sinai desert.
The desert must be a profoundly lonely place for a man traveling alone without even his wife and children. But Moses endured and was rewarded.
The term they use in the Bible is persevered. We can live alone, but we cannot survive as Christians if we choose those who will undermine our faith. The greatest fear Moses had was not the snakes and scorpions of the desert, but the corrupting influence of a world which did not know God. Moses believed in the invisible God, who judges all men, and to whom he must answer in the end.
Third he chose to fear God more than worldly power.

By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

The writer of Hebrews recalls an event which happened at the end of Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh. God brought plague after plague upon Egypt until Pharaoh agreed to let them go. The last plague was the word of all—the plague of the firstborn sons. God was going to send an angel to kill the firstborn of every household. God told Moses to mark the doorpost of his house, and all the other Hebrew houses with the blood of a lamb, to assure the angel of their faithfulness, as well as a means of atonement for their own sins. Moses did exactly as he was told.
Picture the contrast in what Moses is doing. Moses has appeared ten times before the mightiest ruler on earth. Ten times, he has shown himself to have no fear of him. He did not obey his commands. He did not respect his position. But God tells him to mark the door with blood, and he does it without hesitation.
He knew that Pharaoh was utterly ruthless. He could kill his entire family on a whim. Yet Moses is unconcerned. He does not even take unusual precautions against assassination. He stays in the open. But when the first-born faced the angel of death, Moses offered an atonement to God. He knew that people could not hurt him. But he also knew that God could. By faith he feared a sovereign he could not see more than one he did not.
Which do we fear more, Man or God? Most people fear people more than they fear God. But Moses had the faith to believe in the invisible God, which he had not seen, except as a voice form a burning bush. He did not doubt that God was going to do what He said he will so, so he protected himself and his family from the wrath of God.
Then the writer of Hebrews tells us of a fourth great act of faith from a surprising source.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

Notice those words—by faith, the people. This is the last exhibit in the Moses wing, and the greatest. It was not only Moses who had faith. All the people who followed him had to have faith as well. A million and a half people at least went down into the Red Sea, walking between two walls of waters, and started for the Promised Land.
Moses was a mighty man of God, but he was just one man. If Moses had all the faith in the world, and no one shared it, it would be useless. If God gave us a Moses today, to lead our nation out of spiritual bondage to the light, it would do us no good, unless someone followed him.
God has given us great leaders—people like Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, Asbury, Moody, and Billy Graham. These were men of God who followed humbly the directions of God. But you would have heard of none of these if it were not for the millions of people who were called to faith by them and responded.
A pastor cannot have faith for the church. The church must have faith for itself. A pastor cannot evangelize a community. The church must evangelize the community. If the people of God do not have the faith, courage, and desire to leave the comfortable ways of the past and to set out on a new adventure from God, then no leader, however effective will do them any good.
But what if we do follow? Then there will not be one Moses, but a thousand Moseses, a million, a hundred million. Whenever people choose to leave their pleasurable lives full of comfort and ease, and follow a risky course, then they follow the steps of Moses.
More than that, they follow the steps of Christ.

Miracles

I have a quirky fascination with pseudoscience--UFOs , bigfoot, ancient aliens, etc. I don't believe in any of it, but it's fun to see what passes for proof on tv these days.


I have friends that take all this very seriously, though. They really do believe that there are aliens in the sky, giant apes in the woods, and ghosts in the attic. These are intelligent people --sometimes even brilliant people--but they seem ready to take extraordinary claims at face value with less than ordinary evidence.

The biggest mystery about these tales is not the what, but the why. Carl Sagan once famously said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Though there may be unexplained evidence, there is no evidence of any of it that rises to the level of extraordinary. In spite of the lack of good evidence, why do we keep looking for ghosts and aliens?

I think is because we were created that way. God placed in us the knowledge that the world we see is not all there is. There are forces beyond out imagining, and that those forces affect our lives today. Even people who have rejected religion seem to want to believe in something beyond the ordinary. They would rather believe, like atheist Richard Dawkins, that intelligent design by God is impossible, but that it is entirely possible that aliens created life.

The modern fascination with the supernatural I believe is due to the decline of a belief in a supernatural God. Much modern religious thinking discounts the miraculous, and focuses on naturalistic religion.

In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, Western culture adopted a mechanistic view of religion in which all things happen according to the laws of logic and physics. Deism is of course the extreme of this view, but that is only the far edge. Before we get to deism there are many scholastic approaches to Scripture which assert that nothing supernatural happens today.

This is unfortunate, because the supernatural is precisely what the world yearns for. That desire to touch the divine was built into us by our Creator. When we exclude the divinity from our world view, then the supernatural is all we have left. In the old days it let people to believe in ghosts and leprechauns. Today, it is bigfoot and aliens. Ether way, we are looking for something for knowledge beyond our understanding.

Our knowledge of the laws of nature is not absolute, but fluid. Newton gave way to Einstein. A mechanistic understanding of subatomic physics gave way to quantum mechanics and strange attractors. Technological advances have come so fast that what we think is of as magic or science fiction one day become commonplace the next.

In such a world, is it really so hard to admit the possibility that there is a God? Or to admit that that God can play by different rules than we know? We must go further and admit that if there is a God, then He must operate outside of nature and be by definition supernatural. I would go even farther and suggest that a real God must make himself known by real miracles, by revealing himself through breaks in the natural order.

Reduced to it's core, the message of the Bible is this--trust God. Do not lean upon your own understanding. In return for this trust, God rewards us with the revelation of His supernatural Presence, which is above time and space.

The problem with modern religion, it seems to me, is that in our effort to make religion palatable to unbelievers, we have removed from our churches the one thing that makes religion attractive to believers and unbelievers alike--miracles. We have adopted a view that supernatural manifestations of Hiis divine power and presece were for ancient times, but not for today. We may tell the stories of those times, we may even believe them, but we do not seriously expect God to repeat them today. But in ancient times, it was those miracles which drew people to Christ. In a world obsessed with the supernatural, why is it unreasonable to expect God's miracles to draw people to Him today?

We need to pray for miracles and expect them, and not just for our own benefit. The world needs to see them, too. We need to get ourselves out of the way and expect God to show Himself to our modern world the same way He did to the ancient one--by His sovereign manifestation of His power.

Some random thoughts on worship

A few random thought on Christian worship




A couple who went to our church in Florida started attending a different church, a larger, more contemporary church.

She said "We love the people in your church, but the people, the service, and the programs at the other church are so alive."

I said "Did you ever see a sponge."

"Yes," she said.

"How about a cheetah?"

"Yes," she answered with a puzzled expression.

"A cheetah is alive. Isn't it?"

"Yes"

"And a sponge is alive too, isn't it."

"Yes."

"Well, if God can make the cheetah and the sponge then he must like a variety of animals. Just because a cheetah moves fast, and a sponge does not move at all, does not mean that one is more alive than the other. God made us all to move at our own pace."

I was proud of that answer at the time. But in retrospect, it really was not very effective. People don't go to the zoo to see sponges. People want to see movement. People do not want to see an unmoving God, either. They want to see Him move--or at least feel Him and hear Him. People go to church to be reassured that God is present and alive.



Perhaps the reason so many of our churches are ineffective is that people come looking for a divine-human encounter, ministers come to get people to go do something.

They are here to worship, we are here to work. We are like the stage hands at a symphony, too busy arranging chairs and opening curtains to hear the music. We ministers have heard it all before, and our ears have grown too used to its hearing, so we no longer feel the Spirit as we preach.



The longer I am in the ministry, the more convinced I am that while the pastor displays Christ before the people, the people must also display Christ before the pastor. Pastors need to see Him revealed in the collective community just as much as everyone else. Public worship is a collective revelation of Christ. I don't know how we do that by onl letting the pastor speak and the choir sing. Occasionally, we see Christ revealed in congregational singing, but it's much harder to see it in the corporate mumble that constitutes most hymn singing. We sing as if we are ashamed to admit that we aren't sure about what we are singing. Corporate singing is so bad we must cover it up with loud organs or guitars and drums, depending upon our worship style. Where are the testimonies of what God has done? Where are the cries of a corporate desire for God? We have achieved an orderly, regular service by squeezing out of it all passion and spontaneity. Why can't the people testify to what Jesus has done for them? Why is it only the preacher and choir members who have a responsibility to exhibit the living presence of Christ?



If the reason Christ put us on earth was to build beautiful buildings, we have succeeded wonderfully. If the reason Christ put us on earth is to build a living tabernacle, then we have failed miserably. We are not in the building of preserving buildings and institutions, but in saving souls. Let realtors worry about buildings. Let's just be God's temple.



Theology is the yeast of the church. But who eats yeast. We have to put it in something and give it time to grow. The only time theology does us any good is when it is applied creatively and sincerely to the human condition over time in the warmth of the spirit.



Much of our worship makes me wish for the liveliness of a funeral. We cannot expect to move the living to God when our services resemble our mourning for the dead.



Why is the only principle we Reformed Christians discuss is the regulative one? Shouldn't there also be a creative one as well? Aren't we called to bring our whole being--our whole heart, gifts, talents, and imagination to Him? Is God more interested giving control and order, or in giving life? If we are created in God's image, and our creativity is part of that image, then are we really doing our best if we do the same thing in the same manner week after week, without even thinking about it? If we loved our wives with regulation and without imagination, it would be grounds for divorce.



Preachers and congregations have been at cross purposes almost from the first day we had preachers and congregations. The preacher want the congregation to be an army on the move. Congregations want the preacher to assure them that everything is all right already and they don't have to move. Preachers push people to action, congregations counter with inaction. They like it the way it is. More often than not in this tug of war, the congregation wins. In the end, the preacher usually gives in and gives up. That's why God finds us lukewarm.



Preachers do not move the congregations because they do not love them as they are. They love them for their potential, or they love them in a spiritual sense, but the do not see them as people who are just as they are worthy of God's love now. Preachers are like bad husbands who see their wives as people that they must improve before they the can give acceptance. Their constant drum of shoulds and coulds communicates guilt, not grace.



Why do we have to help God be majestic? We put a great deal of time and effort in the church trying to create an artificial sense of holiness with ritual, architecture, and music. We put preachers in high pulpits just to exalt the Word, but the people are not fooled. They know to exalt the preacher. God doesn't need all this. Our attempts to drum up a sense of the presence of God in worship are like ants trying to prop up an elephant. God is present. We need to get out of the way and let Him exalt Himself.



My greatest desire is to be in a congregation where no one has to say "the Lord is in His Holy Temple. Come, let us worship Him." because we will already experience His presence all around us.