This morning I'm going to do something I
don't normally do, but I'm going to read
the entire second chapter of Joshua.
So you should open your Bibles to the
book of Joshua.
There'll be some other scripture, but basically that's
where we will be, is Joshua chapter 2.
I want to give my very special thanks
to all of our musicians and technicians for
our time of singing and worship and praise
this morning.
It was very special, thank you very much.
Joshua chapter 2.
Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two
spies from Chittim, go look over the land,
he said, especially Jericho.
So they went and entered the house of
a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
The king of Jericho was told, look, some
of the Israelites have come here tonight to
spy out the land.
So the king of Jericho sent this message
to Rahab, bring out the men who came
to you and entered your house because they
have come to spy out the whole land.
But the woman had taken the two men
and hidden them.
She said, yes, the men came to me,
but I did not know where they had
come from.
At dusk when it was time to close
the city gate, the men left.
I don't know which way they went.
Go after them quickly.
You may catch up with them.
But she had taken them up to the
roof and hidden them under the stalks of
flax she had laid out on the roof.
So the men set out in pursuit of
the spies on the road that leads to
the fords of the Jordan.
And as soon as the pursuers had gone
out, the gate was shut.
Before the spies lay down for the night,
she went up on the roof and said
to them, 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.
That was 40 years before that.
And what you did to Sion 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.
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.
Our lives for your lives, the men assured
her.
If you don't tell what we are doing,
we will treat you kindly and faithfully when
the Lord gives us the land.
So she let them down by a rope
through the window for the house she lived
in was part of the city wall.
Now she had said to them, go to
the hills so the pursuers will not find
you.
Hide yourselves there three days until they return
and then go on your way.
The men said to her, this oath you
made us swear will not be binding on
us unless when we enter the land you
have tied this scarlet cord in the window
through which you let us down.
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 streets, 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.
But if you tell what we are doing,
we will be released from the oath you
made us swear.
Agreed, she replied.
Let it be as you say.
So she sent them away and they departed
and she tied the scarlet cord in the
window.
And when they left, they went into the
hills and stayed there three days until the
pursuers had searched all along the road and
returned without finding them.
Then the two men started back.
They went down out of the hills, for
to the river and came to Joshua, son
of none, and told him everything that had
happened to them.
They said to Joshua, The Lord has surely
given the whole land into our hands.
All the people are melting in fear because
of us.
Will you stand, please?
And while I lead in prayer now,
Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit will
take your word and your truth.
And apply it to our hearts with the
supernatural power that only you can do.
If we do not hear from you, we
have heard nothing.
So we pray that you will speak in
Jesus name.
Amen.
In the city of Akron, Ohio, where I
was a pastor for 10 years, we used
evangelistic home Bible studies as our principal method
of evangelism.
Those Bible studies were literally filled with non
-Christians.
I have been in a living room of
a home where there were 32 people, and
there were only two Christians, myself and one
other.
What great times we had, and how wonderful
to watch people come to Jesus Christ.
In those studies, anyone could ask a question
anytime, as long as it was a sincere
question.
All they had to do was put their
hand up and ask a question.
And I was one of those people.
We would immediately go to the Bible for
an answer.
So over a period of time, there were
some questions that unbelievers ask again and again
and again.
In fact, there were basically just seven.
And if you had the Bible answers to
those, you can answer all their questions.
In the flyleaf of one of my Bibles,
I have 21 questions.
You'll never hear a question that isn't one
of those.
But the number one question that they asked
was very interesting.
It was this, and I've heard it hundreds
of times.
What about the people in other lands who
have never heard of Jesus?
Because we were teaching evangelistic home Bible studies,
and we were presenting the gospel, and we
were saying, Jesus Christ is the only way
of salvation, which is true, by the way.
For there is no other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved,
just the name of Jesus.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth,
the life.
No man can come to the Father but
through me.
So that's very clear, very plain, very direct.
The Bible doesn't quibble about it.
It just says it straight out like it
is.
And so as we taught these Bible studies,
and this message was presented again and again,
that question would come up.
Yes, we're hearing about Jesus.
You're telling us that Jesus is the only
way of salvation.
But what about the people in other lands
who have never heard of Jesus?
Now, I don't want to be unkind, but
the plain truth is they weren't that interested
in those people.
No, really.
They had no burden particularly for people in
other lands who were not Christians, because they
were not Christians.
But they thought they had a good argument,
and they thought their argument was that surely
God would not condemn those people.
You say Jesus is the only way, but
they've never heard about Jesus.
So surely God would not condemn them and
send them to hell, pass judgment on them
because they've never heard of Jesus.
And the reason they wanted to reason that
way is because they were hoping there was
some hope for them if they didn't receive
Jesus, because they would like to convince themselves
that he was not the only way of
salvation.
And that's the reason they asked the question.
Of course, we answered it again and again
and again from the scriptures.
Now, I'm going to make the question harder
this morning.
I'm going to make it much harder, because
I'm going to go back over 3,400
years, 1,500 years before Jesus was ever
born, and ask my question.
What about those who were in sin years
before Jesus ever came into the world?
What about those who were in sin years
before Jesus ever came into the world?
If he's the only way of salvation.
You see, our scripture this morning tells a
most remarkable story.
Jericho was a great city.
It was at the center of two passes
through the mountains into the land of Canaan.
You could cross the Jordan River, and then
you came to this particular area where you
had to get through those passes if you
were going to invade that land.
And there sat the city of Jericho, a
large city with a king, with an army,
with thousands of people within the city, a
city nation.
It was an idolatrous city, and it was,
as most cities of that area, filled with
sin and violence and immorality and horror beyond
your imagination.
Many years before, the Israelites were about to
go into one area, and God said, no,
you can't go there yet because the cup
of the iniquity of the Amorites is not
yet full.
But there would come a time when God
would say, that's it, it's time for judgment.
That time had come for the city of
Jericho.
It was about to be completely destroyed by
the supernatural power of God.
Does God have a right to pass judgment
on sinners?
Did God have a right to drown the
world in the flood and only save Noah
and his family?
Is God righteous if he passes judgment upon
sinners?
I'm going to tell you something very plainly
this morning from my own heart.
I have lived long enough now that I
have come to know enough about me.
I don't know everything about you, though I
know some things about you.
But I know a lot about me.
I don't know everything about me, I'm sure.
And the things I don't know, my wife
tells me about, because her and God have
set out to straighten me out in that
order.
No, I'm kidding.
But I will tell you, I know enough
about me to know that without the grace
of God and the shed blood of Jesus
Christ and salvation through faith alone in Christ,
I haven't a ghost of a chance.
That God would have every right to strike
me down as I stand in this pulpit
and to send me to hell this morning,
right now, if he so desired.
It would be within his right and perfect
justice to do so.
What about you?
In this city, they took their little babies
and sacrificed them to the god Moloch, that
was a great iron god, and they made
a fire in the god until the arms
became almost white hot and the flames shot
up and they took something and laid their
live baby in the arms of the god
Moloch and burned him to death as a
sacrifice.
Their immorality was so great that there was
absolutely no standards of any kind sexually.
You say, no wonder God destroyed them.
Well, we don't do it in the god
Moloch, but we do it in hospital operating
rooms.
By the millions, by the millions, a lot
more than they and immorality is taken for
granted as the way to live in both
Canada and the United States.
Am I right?
And dishonesty and violence is the order of
the day.
Some more gang-related murders in Toronto.
It's the way of life.
Immorality, corruption, lying, stealing, cheating, killing our children,
murder, sin of every kind.
Would God be within his right if he
destroyed, if he let his judgment fall on
the United States and Canada?
Would God be within his right?
Brothers and sisters, we have had the truth
for years and years and years and God
would be within the right and I have
no way to know if he hasn't decided
to do something about it.
So here was this city and within this
city was a woman who was living like
everybody else and she was a prostitute and
made her living by sexual immorality.
She probably had a place that was like
an inn and you could go there and
have your sex partner and have your dinner
and have a place to sleep for the
night for so much money.
That would have been a likely scenario.
But I want to talk to you a
minute about Rahab the prostitute.
Joshua sent them secretly into the land and
they went into the house of a prostitute
named Rahab and stayed there not because they
wanted the services of the prostitute but because
they needed a place to eat and sleep
for the night.
She was a prostitute, she was an idolater,
she was a liar, right?
I read it to you.
The king sent messengers to her house and
said some spies have come into your house
and what a tale she told.
Is it all right to lie?
So she was a liar and on top
of that she was a traitor.
She was a traitor to her own country.
She was willing to betray the king and
the people of her city.
This is not a nice woman.
She probably was a beautiful woman who had
started plying her trade and may even have
had others involved.
I do not know.
That would have been the normal procedure.
She was in a city that was under
the judgment of God, was condemned, and every
man, woman, child, and animal was to be
put to death.
Everyone.
Our city of Victoria is probably, what is
it, 320,000?
But see, I want you to know this
morning that every person in this city is
under the condemnation of God and will be
judged and sent to hell unless they escape
through the blood and salvation of Jesus.
Is God angry with sin?
You better believe it.
You say, why would God be angry with
a city like that so full of sin
to the point where he'd destroy it?
Well, what if he didn't destroy it?
If he didn't destroy it, they would go
on having babies, bringing them up to be
idolaters, to be immoral, to be full of
violence, and to die and go to hell.
And they would give birth to children who
would continue to do the same thing and
grow up and die and go to hell.
And they would give birth to children who
would continue.
And God said, I've let this go on
long enough.
Hell has opened her mouth wide and people
are descending into it by the thousand.
And I cannot let it go on.
They had had the truth.
They had rejected it.
And that would be another message this morning.
But this whole country had had the truth.
They had had Melchizedek, who was a pre
-incarnate revelation of Jesus Christ himself as a
priest in that land.
And even when the Israelites come into the
land, they had the prophet Balaam who said,
if you gave me your whole house full
of gold and silver, I couldn't speak anything
but what God gives me to speak.
And he had the message of salvation.
But they had rejected it.
So there they were very serious situation and
Rahab was under that wrath and that judgment
under God's ban.
The city chapter six verses 17 and 21
of Joshua, the city and all that is
in it are to be devoted to the
Lord.
They devoted the city to the Lord and
destroyed with a sword, every living thing in
it, men and women, young and old cattle,
sheep and donkeys, both her and her whole
family were condemned to destruction.
That was her situation.
But she knew about God.
She knew about God.
Isn't it interesting what she said about God?
She said about Jehovah, the God of the
Israelites, he is God in heaven and on
earth.
He is the true God.
She knew that.
You see the word of God says in
Romans 1 18, the wrath of God is
being revealed from heaven against all the godly,
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the
truth by their wickedness.
Since what may be known about God is
plain to them because God has made it
plain to them for set through the creation
of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal
power and divine nature have been clearly seen
being understood by what has been made so
that men are without excuse.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
The firmament shows his handiwork day in the
day, utter speech night and tonight shows knowledge.
There is no language where their voice is
not heard.
All men have the light of creation.
They know there's a God.
They know he is the God of heaven.
They know he is the creator, even if
they try to deny it and they know,
but they do not worship him.
She knew the difference between right and wrong.
She said, now swear to me by the
Lord that you'll do this.
She knew that even though she was a
liar, she knew that there was such a
thing as truth and she wanted these men
to swear unto her that they would keep
their word and that she could be saved,
her and her family.
There are many stories in the Bible about
people in this particular situation and she had
a conscience that made it clear to her
what was right and what was wrong, but
I don't just want to talk about Rahab
the sinner and Rahab the condemned under the
wrath of God and his judgment coming, but
I want to talk about Rahab the believer.
She heard, she heard, she feared, she believed,
she confessed, and I want to say to
you this morning, this morning you are hearing
and will hear the truth about Jesus Christ.
And the question is, if you are not
born again, if you have not received Christ
as your savior, will you tremble over the
fact that along with me you are a
sinner and that God's judgment is coming and
that his wrath hangs over you and you
haven't the least chance of escaping total and
eternal and everlasting destruction except through Jesus Christ
and his shed blood.
Paul said of the people in Rome that
there was no fear of God before their
eyes.
We're living in a day when people no
longer fear God, but we ought to fear
God.
We ought to tremble.
He is God.
He is the almighty creator and sustainer and
ruler of the universe.
He is the master of the universe.
He is the final judge from which there
is no recourse.
There is no other supreme court.
There's no way to get around it.
God is the almighty God and he is
righteous and he has provided his love and
his salvation and paid a price beyond our
understanding and he is saying, accept my son
Jesus or I have no recourse except for
my full wrath and power to fall upon
you and to judge you and to send
you into a dark and lost eternity.
That's just the way it is and I'm
so thankful for what happened in Rahab's life.
There she was in this terrible city of
sin, her life full of sin of every
kind, but she heard about God and she
believed and she trembled with fear and she
wanted to be saved and she cried out
to be saved and not only for herself
but her family.
It's a terrible thing for me to be
lost, but it's an awful thing for my
family to be lost to my love.
When Jesus told the story about the man
in hell, do you know what he was
concerned about?
His five brothers because he had never been
concerned about his own salvation or theirs and
now he was in hell and he didn't
want them to come there and Rahab loved
her family.
She said I want to be saved and
I want my family to be saved and
so she acted upon her faith and she
confessed the word of God says if you
confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God has raised
him from the dead you will be saved
and so she confessed her faith and she
acted upon her faith and now I want
to talk for a minute about Rahab the
saved.
There is a place of safety for us
sinners you know, it's at the cross.
There is a righteousness of God, that's what
we need.
We don't have any righteousness of our own,
not by our own righteousness, not by any
works of our own righteousness, not by the
works of the law, none of it can
do it.
It can only condemn us and show how
sinful we are, but the righteousness of God
is available to us through Jesus Christ.
That righteousness can be imputed to us, that
perfect, perfect righteousness of the Son of God
can be imputed to us and that righteousness
can even be imparted to us in our
daily living by his grace and they said
to her well what you need to do
to have a place of safety in the
middle of destruction is to put this scarlet
cord in your window.
I love the way there's a scarlet cord
running right through the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation don't you?
And when you get to Revelation you find
that they overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb.
There's a scarlet cord that runs all through.
Before Christ was born it looked, all those
blood sacrifices of the Lambs looked forward to
Jesus and pointed to him and since he
came and died and rose again, when we
partake of the Lord's Supper we look back
to him who died for our sins, but
he's the only Savior.
So they said you must be under the
sign of the blood.
They knew all about that because when they
came out of Egypt, do you remember that
God said take the blood of the Lamb
and put it on the doorpost, the lintel
and the doorposts of your house and get
all your family in there under the blood
and when the judgment falls on Egypt it
won't fall on you because you'll be under
the blood.
And there's an old gospel song, when I
see the blood.
Anybody remember that?
A few old people.
When I see the blood, when I see
the blood, I will pass over you.
Oh, that's a great old gospel song, talks
about judgment coming.
Judgment is coming, but there is safety in
the blood of Jesus and in Christ.
There is safety in the Son of God.
And it says in Hebrews 11 31, by
faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the
spies, was not killed with those who were
disobedient.
By faith.
It was by faith that she was saved.
And her family was saved by faith.
She said, now swear not only for me,
but my family.
Do you remember what Paul said to the
jailer in Acts 16 31?
When he said, what must I do to
be saved?
And he said, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will be saved and your
household.
Oh, I thank God for that.
I want to get in, don't you?
I want to be saved when the judgment
falls.
I want to be saved.
She was saved and her family were saved.
And it says in Matthew, in the genealogy
of Christ, Matthew one five, Solomon, the father
of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
You go back and read the story.
Rahab, after she was saved, after that terrible
judgment fell and Jericho was destroyed and she
and her family were saved and they were
taken into Israel.
And according to the custom of Israel, men
had to be circumcised to become Israelites.
Women had to be baptized.
So she must've been baptized.
She was married to an Israelite man and
she became part.
Now that's incredible.
This sinful woman became part of the genealogy
of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
Isn't that amazing?
Her and her family totally take it in.
Joshua 6 25, but Joshua spared Rahab the
prostitute with her family and all have belonged
to her because she hid the men.
Joshua sent his spies to Jericho and she
lives among the Israelites to this day.
And she became part, her and her family
of the people of God.
I want to tell you this morning that
if you're outside of Jesus Christ, the just
judgment of wrath of God hangs over you.
You say, I thought God loved me.
He does.
All you have to do is look at
the cross and see the poured out blood
of God, the son, pain beyond our imagination,
anguish and broken heart that we can never
understand God dying in our place to save
us.
But that doesn't change the just judgment and
wrath of God for sin.
And I want to say the just judgment
and wrath of God for sin hangs over
every human being on earth who does not
know Jesus as their savior.
And that means you this morning, if you
haven't received Christ.
But I want to tell you that the
love of God is reaching out to you
even as it did to Rahab through Jesus
Christ and his shed blood and his willingness
to love us and sacrifice himself for us.
And we don't need to be destroyed under
God's wrath and judgment.
We can be saved.
We just have to come and believe and
open our hearts and receive Christ as our
personal savior and Lord.
And our sins are forgiven.
And in Christ, we're accepted in the beloved
one by the father, and we will not
come into condemnation, but we're passed out of
death into life.
And we become part of the family of
God.
And then we can pray the rest of
our family into the kingdom, and we all
become part of the family of God.
Oh, this is good stuff.
A wonderful truth of salvation.
One night a man was sleeping and he
had a dream.
I've had all kinds of dreams in my
time.
And he was in great distress of mind
at that time about the fact that he
was not right with God.
And he was greatly concerned about his salvation
and how he could be saved.
And he thought he stood in the outer
court of heaven and he saw a glorious
host marching up the steps of light, singing
hymns and bearing banners of victory.
They passed by him and entered through the
gates, and he heard in the distance the
sweet strains of music.
He asked an angel that was standing there,
who are they?
And he said, don't you know?
They are the godly fellowship of the prophets
who have gone to be with God.
And in his dream he heaved a deep
sigh as he said, alas, I'm not one
of them and shall never be and cannot
enter heaven.
By and by there came another band, equally
lovely in appearance and equally triumphant, robed in
white, singing and praising God.
And he said, who are these with wistful
expectancy?
And the angel said, they're the goodly fellowship
of the apostles.
Alas, he said, I do not belong to
that fellowship.
I will never be able to get in
there.
He still waited and lingered in the hope
that he might yet go in, but the
next multitude did not encourage him, for they
were the noble army of martyrs, and he
could not go in with them because he
had never died for Christ.
He waited still and saw that the next
was a company of preachers of the gospel
and earnest Christian workers, but he didn't feel
like that would help because he had never
done a thing for God.
His hope of entrance into heaven seemed gone
when at last, as he walked, he saw
a larger host and all the rest put
together, a great throng without number, marching and
singing.
And in front walked the woman that was
a sinner and the thief that died on
the cross next to Jesus.
And Rahab, the harlot, and many others.
King Manasseh, who repented as an old man,
and when they entered, he could see who
they were and knew who they were somehow.
Well, there won't be any shouting about that
crowd, he thought, but to his astonishment, it
seemed as if all heaven was rent with
sevenfold shouts as they passed in.
And the angel said to him, these are
they that are mighty sinners saved by mighty
grace.
And he said, bless me, God, I can
go in with them.
And so he awoke and was saved by
God's grace.
Are you a sinner?
Have you received Christ as your Savior by
faith?
If you have not done that yet, you
may do so this morning.
And in a moment, we're going to sing
an old gospel song, Amazing Grace, how sweet
the sound, the Savior wretched like me.
But what we're going to do is we're
going to ask some of our counselors who
pray with people who have needs or who
come for salvation to come and stand at
the front here, so that you have somebody
waiting to receive you.
And if you need Christ, you just come
forward, go to one of these people, then
they will take you up these steps into
a prayer room where there's a comfortable room
where you can pray and where they can
help you to understand and open your heart
and receive Jesus as your Savior.