SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_00: And we are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's been now, what, four months because of the sabbatical and all that we were in the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: So turn in your Bibles to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna pick it up where we left off and want to give you a little bit of a background on Joshua again.
SPEAKER_00: A, because some of you were not with us when we were doing Joshua, but B, to just remind us of what Joshua's about as we look at it again.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you just three quick aspects of the historical nature, and then I'm gonna look at three aspects of the spiritual nature of Joshua, and then we're gonna jump right into chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: But first of all, historically, Joshua's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first book in the Bible named after someone.
SPEAKER_00: So it's the first book named after a person, and that's significant.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to that in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, it is the first book of the Bible that in which those participants in the book had the book.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, Moses had written the Pentateuch.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, those five books, were now available to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: So as they're getting ready to go into the Promised Land, they actually don't have just oral tradition.
SPEAKER_00: They actually now have a written code of ethics and a relationship with God through both the Ten Commandments and all that was contained in those books.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also a bridge, you guys.
SPEAKER_00: It's a bridge to the historical books.
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua stands in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: You got the first five books called the Pentateuch, and then you have, after Joshua, the historical books, okay, like 1st and 2 Samuel and 1st and 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: So those are the three historical aspects to Joshua that make it unique.
SPEAKER_00: But there's three parts spiritually, and I'd ask you to just jot these down.
SPEAKER_00: These are really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we're studying the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: And the first is that Joshua is about a spiritual inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It is, we might say, if I was teaching at a seminary or a Bible college, I might say, Old Testament concealed, New Testament revealed.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning that what we see in the Old Testament through participants, people, real characters, people who really live, there's a kingdom principle in the life they live that we pick up in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So you have stories, that's why you do it with kids in Sunday school and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You do a lot of Old Testament stories because kids, up until about the fourth grade, don't necessarily think three-dimensional yet.
SPEAKER_00: They just literally see things as they are.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why, even as you tell your kids, hey, I love you, that doesn't mean anything to them when they're young unless it's backed up with action.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways it's backed up with action is eye-to-eye contact, physical touching, listening to them, those kind of things.
SPEAKER_00: So we can say, I love you, I love you, until the cows come home, but they won't understand it until after about the fourth grade.
SPEAKER_00: And so what you're doing in those early years is you're actually doing stuff with them where they know that they're loved.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So kind of similar in that the Old Testament is stories that the principles of the kingdom aren't necessarily explained like they are in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So a companion book in the New Testament to the book of Joshua in the Old Testament would be Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians, in my opinion, is the companion to Joshua, because Ephesians is about spiritual inheritance, you guys.
SPEAKER_00: It's if you start reading the first three chapters of Ephesians, it's all about where we are and who we are in the heavenly realm over principalities and powers.
SPEAKER_00: But remember in Ephesians 6, it's about spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's also a key part of, I would say it's the second part of the spiritual principles of Joshua, is it's about spiritual battles won and lost.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to say it's all about winning.
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna find out right after they take Jericho as they go into I, that they're gonna lose that battle because of one person, Achan's sin that he commits.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: You can be promised a spiritual inheritance, but it doesn't mean you're gonna get it.
SPEAKER_00: You have to walk it out.
SPEAKER_00: You can only get as healed as you want to get healed in anything.
SPEAKER_00: So God has given us spiritual laws, men and women, that he chooses not to break because he's given you and I a free will.
SPEAKER_00: So you can say, well, God told me that my marriage was gonna, you know, be this or that, but it doesn't seem to be working out.
SPEAKER_00: Where's God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it might be where's you?
SPEAKER_00: Because God has to work through people.
SPEAKER_00: And he works through your will.
SPEAKER_00: I've had many people come to me over the years and say, Would you cast out my demons?
SPEAKER_00: I said, No.
SPEAKER_00: Well, wait, you're a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: You're a professional Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to cast out my demons.
SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you don't, you don't want your demons cast.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I do want my demons.
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: I can just tell by your actions and your attitude, you don't really want to be set free.
SPEAKER_00: You just want a quick fix to take away the pain.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you that the remedy for you is the disciplines you're gonna have to develop to drive them out by you becoming the disciple of Christ that God's called you to be.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense?
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the second thing is that there's a spiritual inheritance, it's about battles won and lost.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua's gonna give us real examples of what's true in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, it's about how to be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_00: To use a theological term, this life sucks.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is that it's malevolent, it's hard, it's difficult.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not going through the swirls of difficulties, just hang on, they're coming.
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that you're constantly up against demonic forces that are out to steal, kill, and destroy all around us.
SPEAKER_00: So learning to go into the battle, as it were, with strength and courage is so important.
SPEAKER_00: So turn to chapter one and look at this very, very beginning of Joshua, where Joshua probably isn't the most confident guy in the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's probably not sure what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's following the greatest leader that Israel's ever had, Moses, and I think he feels probably insufficient and insecure.
SPEAKER_00: So God says to him, Be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_00: So look at verse 6 of chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong, Joshua, and of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Only be strong and very courageous.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 18, last sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Only be strong and of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to underline all those.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't repeat himself unless he needs to.
SPEAKER_00: So I think Joshua is not this strong and courageous leader, like sometimes we may have thought of him that way, which is great that we think of him that way, but the fact that God had to say it four times to him, be strong and courageous, can't you relate to that?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I shared last week some of the stuff that I'm going through.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, every morning when I wake up, the first thoughts are negative.
SPEAKER_00: The first thoughts in my mind are not good.
SPEAKER_00: And I have to be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_00: I have to do it again and again and again and not quit.
SPEAKER_00: And if if I was writing a book of the Bible, he'd have to say it 20 times to me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's what we get from Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Joshua is also strength and courage.
SPEAKER_00: And the fact, and I think it's important to remember, it had to be repeated.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be repeated in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I wish there were these moments, and I love that sometimes you have these, where you encounter God, you have a revelation of God, it's unique, it's supernatural, it's positive, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Those are great.
SPEAKER_00: But a week later, you're gonna be weak again, you're gonna be faltering again, you're gonna be doubting yourself again, and God's gonna come and say, Be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and courageous in me.
SPEAKER_00: What you can't do in and of yourself, I can do through you.
SPEAKER_00: You can do all things if you'll let me strengthen you.
SPEAKER_00: You can be one who's learning to be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, letting your request be known unto God, so that the peace of God will come and guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're learning, we're all learning that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just get it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we come to church.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we come to this gathering place every week is we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: You have bad weeks, good weeks, terrible weeks, but you need each other.
SPEAKER_00: So you come back and there's something that happens.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually supernatural by gathering together.
SPEAKER_00: And so many a believer has come here and to any church in this city, beat up from the week.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a difficult week, but they come and they get strength and courage from each other.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about Rahab this morning.
SPEAKER_00: She needs fellowship, she needs relationship, she doesn't have that.
SPEAKER_00: She's embryonic in her faith.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna see that.
SPEAKER_00: I think she actually does have believing faith, and her testimony is embedded right here in chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: So look at chapter two, verse one.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick it up here.
SPEAKER_00: And then for the next number of weeks, we're gonna just march through Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men from Acacia, Acacia Grove, which is right there at the Jordan River, to spy secretly saying, Go view the land, especially Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: Now just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: So do you remember how many spies Moses sent out?
SPEAKER_00: Twelve.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember who decided who the twelve were?
SPEAKER_00: The people did.
SPEAKER_00: Bad call by Moses.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you come out of churches where you elect elders?
SPEAKER_00: Like you came out of a church where they they have like almost it's almost like a political event every year where you elect elders.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody come out of churches like that?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the dumbest things I think around.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna let the people decide who the elders are?
SPEAKER_00: People start campaigning and everything.
SPEAKER_00: No, I think the the senior leadership team should decide who the leaders are because they're looking for spiritual men and women, not who drives, you know, a Mercedes or something to church and has all the money.
SPEAKER_00: And so Moses made a strategic and tactical mistake by letting the people choose 12.
SPEAKER_00: Ten come back and say, we can't take the land.
SPEAKER_00: There's giants in the land, there's Nephilim in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: And we can't, we're grasshoppers in their sight.
SPEAKER_00: And there's just Joshua and Caleb say, we can do it.
SPEAKER_00: God's given us this land, it's ready for us.
SPEAKER_00: Look, it's fertile, it's full of milk and honey and abundance and productivity, and we can take it, just have faith.
SPEAKER_00: And they preach it and they're just shut down, and for the next 38 years, they just they're just in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Bad mistake.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Joshua remembers that.
SPEAKER_00: And he remembers his buddy with him, Caleb, who's gonna show up in here in a really cool way in our story.
SPEAKER_00: But he picks two, we don't know who they are, and he picks them, and it's only two, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell them he's doing it.
SPEAKER_00: It was a with Moses, it was a big announcement.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we got the 12, we're gonna go in, and they're like, And then they come back with grapes and they've got it all racked up there, all set up, where they went into these, these, uh, these groves and stuff and come back and they say, but we can't take the land.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's giants on the land.
SPEAKER_00: And they just created a lack of faith in everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Well, two things to remember is that maybe Joshua's not really confident himself as a leader, but these are two really good decisions that he makes right off the bat.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is just two men, and he chooses them.
SPEAKER_00: He knows they have faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then secondly, he does it secretly.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't let everybody know.
SPEAKER_00: He he doesn't, if they come back and it's a negative, it's like it never happened.
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they were just taking a stroll over there on the other side just to see what, you know, maybe Jericho looks like.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that everybody doesn't need to know everything in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know a lot about what's happening in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know everything.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know everything's happening in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And all of you are working on stuff.
SPEAKER_00: All of you have stuff you're working on.
SPEAKER_00: All you every one of you that wants to know the Lord has stuff you wish was better, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua as a leader is making a strategic decision, a tactical decision, which is really smart.
SPEAKER_00: He's picked two guys that he feels like are gonna come back with a good report, because it's now is a time to take the land.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he does it without a bunch of fanfare.
SPEAKER_00: Don't need a lot of fanfare, he does it kind of quietly.
SPEAKER_00: And Jericho is about, we believe historically, archaeological discoveries indicate six to eight acres.
SPEAKER_00: So that's Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: So don't think of this as a massive thing, like a city.
SPEAKER_00: It was a city, but it was a small city right there, six to eight acres is what it was, inside the 12-foot walls.
SPEAKER_00: So you had 25-foot walls, 12 foot wide on the outside, six foot wide on the inside, and it's in a major trade route.
SPEAKER_00: So Jericho is a significant city at that time in ancient times, because you had the riches of Tyre and Sedon flowing through the Jezreel Valley and the Jordan Valley.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jezreel Valley is over what would then be called Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But coming down the Jordan River was the Jezreel Valley, I mean the Jordan Valley, and so that's why Jericho was very, very significant because of the trade route.
SPEAKER_00: And you know this is true even in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00: When Liz and I were looking to get like a house or cabin up in the mountains, I was so convinced that it had to be on a river.
SPEAKER_00: Gotta be on a river.
SPEAKER_00: That's like the coozing fly fish and everything there.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't take me long to figure out that rivers in Colorado are always associated with roads.
SPEAKER_00: Did you guys know that?
SPEAKER_00: So if you're looking, if you got this dream house, it's gonna be on a river, you're also gonna be beside a road.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how they developed the roads with the wagon trains and the railroads back in the late 1800s was according to rivers, because rivers are on level ground, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that's where they go.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about it right now, with 24 and 50 and others, those all follow along a river.
SPEAKER_00: Well, same thing back in those times.
SPEAKER_00: They needed water as a traveling, they could just stop the wagon train, and in the case of the Middle East, they could stop the caravan, and they've got water.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why Jericho was significant.
SPEAKER_00: Now, look at the next paragraph, because how would you like this to be said of you?
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So they went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there.
SPEAKER_00: How would you know some of you in this room struggle with alcohol, some of you may have struggled with drug addiction, maybe you've gone through a divorce, maybe you've gone through some really bad stuff.
SPEAKER_00: How would you like your name to be Alcoholic Joe?
SPEAKER_00: Drug addicted, Susan.
SPEAKER_00: Harlot, a prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing we know about Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, God's gonna mightily use her.
SPEAKER_00: A prostitute named Rahab lodge there.
SPEAKER_00: She's got three strikes against her.
SPEAKER_00: The first is she's a Canaanite, so she's not Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, she's a woman and not a man.
SPEAKER_00: And number three, she's a prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God's gonna, God's gonna mightily use Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just stop right there and say this.
SPEAKER_00: God can use anyone if their will is engaged to a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: No excuses in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: The long arm of God's grace is there for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever your background, whatever struggles you've come out of, that long arm of Christ is with you.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot outsin the long arm of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: You can't out hate the deep heart of God's love for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can't out-addict the chain breaker that is God in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab's gonna discover that.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab has been has been working on stuff, I think, in her life.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So these people in Jericho are getting very, very insecure.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what they're seeing.
SPEAKER_00: They've been hearing for 38 years, which is going to be a part of the testimony of Rahab that's coming up in just a few moments, of what God has done through Israel, but because of the fear in Israel, they haven't crossed over.
SPEAKER_00: They could have gone straight from Egypt, right through, taken on the battles that they took on, of course, crossing over the Red Sea and all that was involved with that and the miracles that happened, manna coming down from heaven, and could have walked right into the right into the promised land, but they didn't because of ten spies instead of twelve spies saying, God can do this.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't willing to trust God.
SPEAKER_00: So they've been hearing stuff, and now he looks out, there's a Jordan River out there a few miles away, and he can see fire by night, cloud by day.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're still getting manna from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That hasn't stopped yet.
SPEAKER_00: They haven't crossed the Jordan River yet.
SPEAKER_00: So they're seeing fire at night from the presence and power of God, and then he hears or someone sees something we don't know, but see, spies have come in, and so the king is paranoid.
SPEAKER_00: So the king of Jericho, verse 3, sent to Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why did he send it to Rahab?
SPEAKER_00: Like duh, right?
SPEAKER_00: If this is a trade route that's coming down the Jordan River, the prostitute's house is probably the busiest place in Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, bring out the men.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they've come to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're a prostitute, they came to see you, who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country.
SPEAKER_00: So what we here's what we believe happened is that they crossed the Jordan, probably a few miles north of Acacia Grove.
SPEAKER_00: So what they did, we believe, is they they went up the eastern side of the Jordan River, crossed over up there where they wouldn't be seen, and then came down the trade route.
SPEAKER_00: So it looked like they're coming down the trade route.
SPEAKER_00: But they're by this time, with fire by night coming down on the encampment of the Israelites, there's spies all over the place for Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: So they they see something, they observe something, that's why he's paranoid.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Then the woman took the two men and hid them.
SPEAKER_00: So he's right, they did come to her.
SPEAKER_00: So she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.
SPEAKER_00: Lie.
SPEAKER_00: And it happened as the gate was being shut when it was dark, that the men went out.
SPEAKER_00: Lie.
SPEAKER_00: Pursue them quickly, you may overtake them, lie.
SPEAKER_00: Is it okay to lie?
SPEAKER_00: She's flat lying.
SPEAKER_00: And if she gets caught, man, she'll be ripped apart by everybody in Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: She'll be stoned to death, probably.
SPEAKER_00: She's already not super esteemed in the city.
SPEAKER_00: She's just a she's just a harlot.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's lying to them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I call it the ethics of smuggling.
SPEAKER_00: The biblical ethics of smuggling.
SPEAKER_00: So in 1980, I had the privilege working with Campus Crusade for Christ, now called crew, to go into Hungary.
SPEAKER_00: Now that was an Eastern Bloc country to smuggle Bibles into Hungary.
SPEAKER_00: I lied.
SPEAKER_00: Came in, guards, communist guards were there when they met us there, and I was packed in my backpack with these little Bibles, those small New Testaments, to get to Christians in the city.
SPEAKER_00: And then when they asked me, do you have anything you need to declare?
SPEAKER_00: I said, No.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer.
SPEAKER_00: And when we were driving in, I was having a quiet time with my Bible, and I put it right on top of my backpack when they opened it up.
SPEAKER_00: So stupid.
SPEAKER_00: We had gone through all this training in New York City at King's College on how not to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And then all the team is behind me, and everybody's just going, oh.
SPEAKER_00: I saw everybody just go like this.
SPEAKER_00: And then I said, he said, What's this?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, That's a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Why are you carrying a Bible?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Because I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, you shouldn't have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Or he said something like that, and it was broken English.
SPEAKER_00: I can imitate what Japanese sound like in broken English, but not Hungarian, so bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And then we talked for like two minutes just about my Bible, and he never checked anything else in the whole backpack.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of us lied our way through.
SPEAKER_00: We just lied our way through.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't take any of the Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: And then for the next two months, all summer, we gave Bibles out to believers and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: We were liars.
SPEAKER_00: All four of us were liars.
SPEAKER_00: Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a liar.
SPEAKER_00: He pretended to be a part of what would be called the kind of like the CIA of the Nazis because he had an in-law that was a general that got him the job as a pretext so he could get Jews across the border into Switzerland.
SPEAKER_00: He lied every time.
SPEAKER_00: You can read about it in some of the biographies on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
SPEAKER_00: Corey Tinboom and her father and her family, they lied to the Nazis as they hid Jews and they got them through and to freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Ethics of smuggling.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's the principle of the good, the better, and the best.
SPEAKER_00: That to save a life, we have to tell a lie even for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: And in James, it says of Rahab that she was justified by her works.
SPEAKER_00: Not just by faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: If you read it, it's by her works.
SPEAKER_00: So what was she justified?
SPEAKER_00: Because he says later in the passage, just there it is, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, was not Rahab, the harlot, also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, sometimes, in unique situations, God calls us to work with his spirit in ways that are deceptive against demonic powers.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Bonhoeff, the Tin Boom family.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing, though, to remember is that in those kind of unique situations that we're in, you have to be willing to also suffer the consequences.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you're willing to die for what you believe in.
SPEAKER_00: And they were.
SPEAKER_00: These are great men and women of God who are willing to die for what they believed in.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where things are going in our country.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Colorado's kind of messed up right now, and that's why we need a congressman like Jeff Crank in the position that he's in.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're battling these forces.
SPEAKER_00: But remember when we were going through COVID, I mean, the stuff they were asking us to do, we were not going to do.
SPEAKER_00: We weren't going to shut down our church.
SPEAKER_00: And we didn't shut down our church.
SPEAKER_00: And we weren't going to do some of the other things that happened.
SPEAKER_00: And I was willing, and I think all of you that were a part of that were willing to suffer the consequences.
SPEAKER_00: I had to ask myself, am I willing to go to jail if that's if that's the degree to which they're going to enforce these new edicts?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I was.
SPEAKER_00: And so were all of our county commissioners.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you remember, we did a declaration of liberty for El Paso County, and 350 of us all went downtown, and as each of the county commissioners made their statements about the declaration that they had developed, 11 standing ovations.
SPEAKER_00: And that was filmed.
SPEAKER_00: And we believe that Governor Polis saw it.
SPEAKER_00: So we were all willing to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we take stands that are unpopular and maybe even go against what would be what we might call the natural ethics of the kingdom because there's a greater ethic, there's a greater kingdom principle being worked out.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that is Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: And God will use anybody.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: He might have looked to and fro all over Jericho to find someone who had a pretty moral life, ethical life, who looked a lot better in Scripture to have them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a Cornelius, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: But the only one he could find that really had faith that he knew he could trust is a prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: But she brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax.
SPEAKER_00: She ought to underline stalks of flax.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a kind of an important part of this.
SPEAKER_00: Stalks of flax.
SPEAKER_00: Which she had laid an order on the roof.
SPEAKER_00: It's parenthetical.
SPEAKER_00: Then the men pursued them by the road of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: So there they they follow her roost and start looking for these guys to the fords.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that okay, it's just my opinion.
SPEAKER_00: Can't prove it exactly, but I think that God's been working in Rahab's life, and that she's actually trying to have a legit business.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that she's got stalks of flax which grew in the Jordan Valley there, and has a business where she had lined them up.
SPEAKER_00: So what they would do is they would take the stalks of flax, they would soak them in water, they'd lay them in the sun, they would crack open, and the fibers inside the flax is what they made cloth from.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: So what they would do is they would take the red rocks of Edom, which were nearby, the red rocks of Edom, they would boil those red, they would, they'd crush the red rocks, then they would boil them and make red water.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be important next week for the message.
SPEAKER_00: But it would make red water, and then they would take the fibers of the flax, dropping it into the red water as it's boiling, soaking them into red.
SPEAKER_00: They would make a rope out of it, they would braid it, make a rope, it's red.
SPEAKER_00: So you got a red rope.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you were dyeing cloth that you wanted red, you cut off a section of the rope, and then you put the cloth in with the boiling water and the red rope, and it would turn it red.
SPEAKER_00: That's how they did dyeing and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in Morocco years ago, you could see this process already still at work in, I think that was 1987 or so when I was there.
SPEAKER_00: But you could see them still doing that, dyeing cloth that way using flax.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that though it's not perfect yet, that Rahab is doing the best she can with what she has to work with.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't have the word yet, she doesn't have scripture yet, she doesn't have a church yet, she doesn't have anybody disciple her or treacher or train her.
SPEAKER_00: She's trying to follow God as best she can, and she's trying to get a legit business with the stalks of flax.
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, she hides them up there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the testimony of Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: This is really important.
SPEAKER_00: This is a really key thing.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 8 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and she said to the men, I know.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I believe, I know, I believe that the Lord Yahweh, that's what this means here, Yahweh, the one true God, has given you the land.
SPEAKER_00: That the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are faint-hearted because of you.
SPEAKER_00: For we have heard how the Lord Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: That's like 38 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: They've been hearing about that.
SPEAKER_00: And I think she's saying, What took you guys so long?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he dried up the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: What's Jericho compared to that?
SPEAKER_00: What's the Jordan River compared to the to the Red Sea?
SPEAKER_00: You dried up the water of the Red Sea, and Yahweh guided you, and you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, who were on the other side of Jordan, Sahon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: We've been hearing these stories.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted.
SPEAKER_00: Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: He is God.
SPEAKER_00: She's the first one proclaiming in Canaan, in the promised land, the Lord Yahweh is God.
SPEAKER_00: And she's a and she's a harlot.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't care what you've done, He cares what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven above and on earth beneath, man, this is one of the great testimonies in the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab, a harlot, has been getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: She's getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: She's there.
SPEAKER_00: She says, way back, verse 9, I know the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I know the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She knows the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And God's gonna mightily use her.
SPEAKER_00: And then Rahab, with the heart and passion that she has, shifts into not just about herself, but about her family.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father's house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers and my sisters, and all of that that they have, deliver our lives from death.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, God loves you, but he also loves your family.
SPEAKER_00: He cares about your brothers and sisters and your cousins and your aunts and uncles.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab understands that it's not just about her, but it's about this connectivity of what we call in Greek oikos, the oikos.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Philippian jailer?
SPEAKER_00: When the earthquake came and all of the doors were opened, and the jailer came out, he was going to commit suicide because he knew he was in so much trouble with the Romans for letting the prisoners, and then Paul goes, No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We're all here.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes them in, he bandages their wound, and it says, He and all his household got baptized.
SPEAKER_00: So God cares about our families, and Rahab is the first unbeliever, Canaanite, to become a believer.
SPEAKER_00: And she's already thinking about her family.
SPEAKER_00: This is a miracle story, man.
SPEAKER_00: This is just such a miracle story, and God can do miracles in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you've been, wherever you've slept, whatever you've taken, whatever your background, don't let shame get on you.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab broke the power of shame by believing in Yahweh, the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
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SPEAKER_01: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
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