Good morning. It's great to be with you again. This is one of my favorite places in the whole world. My times here have always been very special. I know your pastors well and they're men who I dearly respect and really love. And it's good to see you. I see some strange faces this morning and some faces of people I don't know. Wait, what did he just say? You've got to be paying attention. You can't just tune it out. You've got to pay attention here. This morning, as Jonathan gave a very helpful introduction to the hymn, I wasn't singing it up front because I don't know that tune. It's one of my very favorite hymns, but I've never sung it to that tune. So I just kind of let you guys minister to me. Thank you. A debtor to mercy alone. Apart from the grace of God, where would I be? Or would I be? This morning we're going to look at a portion of scripture that we probably don't read very much. And when we do, there's some things about it we find kind of shocking, really. And we're going to see that God takes people's lives At his timing, when it pleases him, judgment begins with God, and he takes our lives when he wants to. And second, we're going to see that God saves unlikely candidates for salvation. An unlikely candidate for salvation. It's like, I never would have expected this person in a million years to become a Christian. But God saves unlikely candidates. One of the reasons we don't read these passages very often, and most of us would say, you know, I don't really know my Old Testament that well, is because of two serious problems we've fallen into. Number one, we think that God's gotten old. You know, it's been a couple thousand, several thousand years, and he's kind of sitting in a rocking chair in heaven, and just, you know, you kids settle down down there. You kids settle down. He doesn't want to get up out of the rocking chair. He's just kind of gotten old. God has not changed. The God who spoke the world into creation, the God who we're going to see judges people at His timing, the God who does amazing things, has not changed one bit. God doesn't age, He doesn't change. But also the second reason why we don't really rightly understand the Old Testament is that we think people have changed. Well, we're sophisticated 21st century people. We don't run around with loincloths and spears. We don't ride in a chariot. We drive a Buick or whatever. And we think that we've become pretty sophisticated, pretty cool. And that's a myth. We're just like the people in the Old Testament. Different clothes, different styles of transportation. But the human heart has not changed. God hasn't changed. The soul that sins shall die. And human nature hasn't changed. I'm going to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, and don't tell me anything else. And so we have Almighty God and rebel sinners. But God is in the business. It's not his job, but he chooses to do it to save sinners. One person I would caution you to look out for, and I don't know who that might be, but you're a self-righteous person. You think that you're a Christian because you're not quite as bad as other people, and you kind of, by discipline and self-will and other things, you pulled your life together. And, you know, grace is nice for the really, really, really messed up people, but not so much you. And this is a passage that destroys any ideas of self-righteousness. But let's read Joshua Chapter 2. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua Chapter 2. What's going on here? Now Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men. Moses was the hero of the first five books. I mean, God's the ultimate overarching hero. But humanly speaking, Moses was the big guy in the first five books. But then he dies. He's allowed to see the promised land, but because of his own sins, he's not allowed to enter. He gets up on a tall mountain, sees the promised land, And he dies. And his associate, his assistant for many years, Joshua, takes over. So they're going into the promised land. Joshua, who had been his military leader, is now the main guy. And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men from Acacia Grove. That's the name of the town they transliterate, or they translate the Hebrew for us. Two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, go view the land, especially Jericho. So they went. and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. 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. Now these spies have come here to check out the place and find out where we're weak, where we're strong, how to take us. So the king of Jericho said to Rahab, sent to Rahab, excuse me, saying, bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country. Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, and the men went out. Where the men went, I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them. but she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof. So here's the deal. These two men came to the town of Jericho. This is before Holiday Inn, before Budget Inn, before RVs, and you're looking for a place to stay, and Rahab the Harlot's Hotel. Okay, so you're going to stay at the place of this prostitute. And apparently, just two guys walking around in strange garb, people will look at them and go, they're not from around here. And so they recognize them as being Israelis, as being Hebrews. They report to the king what's going on. We think that these men we've heard about who are coming, who have already done some major bad things to other people, they're coming to us. And we think they've sent two spies into our town. They found out where they were staying, and she takes the two men up on the roof. In Middle Eastern homes, the roof was a place of storage. Or if it was a really hot day, you could go up there at the beginning of the evening. It would be cooler. She hides them among the stalks of flax and tells the king that these guys have already escaped. Send your men after them. You might catch them. Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, verse 8, and she said to the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For 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 the two kings of the Amorites, who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. The Amorites were one of the subsets of the Canaanites. You have the Canaanites in those different heights, who were part of the Canaanite consortium, and you guys wiped out the Amorites. Verse 11. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted. If the Chinese or somehow some invading nation came across the straits from into Alaska and then down through Canada and there's this huge army perched on the Canadian border and they've destroyed everybody in their path and we're all gulping really hard wondering what's going to happen. She says, our hearts melted when we saw what you did. We heard how the God that you served part of the Red Sea, now you've destroyed part of our Canaanite consortium and you're coming after us and we're desperate, we're hurting. Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God, in heaven above and on earth beneath. 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, my sisters, and all that they have and deliver our lives from death. So the men answered her, our lives for yours. If none of you tell this business of ours, it shall be when the Lord has given us the land that we will deal kindly and truly with you. Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall. She dwelt on the wall. And she said to them, get to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you. Hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Afterward, you may go your way. So the men said to her, we will be blameless of this oath of yours, of which you have made a swear, unless when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your brother's household to your own home. In other words, you better have all your family in this place because we will spare you for our agreement if they're all here. So it shall be that whoever goes outside the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless. And whoever is with you in the house, his blood shall be on your head if a hand is laid on him. Excuse me, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on. In other words, God do to us what happens to your relatives. If they're in this supposed safe place and they're hurt, then our lives are forfeit. And if you tell this business of ours, then we will be free from your oath which you made us swear." In other words, if you tattle on us, if you reveal us to the king, then your blood's on your own head. And then she said, according to your words, so be it. And she sent them away and they departed. And she bound the scarlet cord in the window. They departed and went to the mountain and stayed there three days until the pursuers returned. The pursuers sought them all along the way, but did not find them. So the two men returned, descended from the mountains, and crossed over. And they came to Joshua, the son of Nun, and told him all that had befallen them. And they said to Joshua, truly the Lord has delivered all the lands into your hands. For indeed, all the inhabitants of the country are fainthearted because of us. There's two things we have to deal with in this passage to begin with before we really pull it apart. Number one is there's something kind of shocking to most moderns here. What in the world is the deal with God that he thinks he can just off a whole entire people? I mean, don't we call that genocide? What right does God have to come in here and just wipe out these people? Good question. And the second question is, and what's the deal with this prostitute Rahab, and why am I calling her a brand plucked from the burning? Because in your bulletin says Rahab, a brand plucked from the burning. Well, first of all, let's deal with the first question. Who gives God the right to say when your time is up? Don't you get a vote? The people of Israel are on a mission. God has already told them, I'm going to give you this land. It's inhabited by a people right now. They're called the Canaanites. This is the land of Canaan. Their time is not quite up. In fact, when they were still in Egypt, God told Moses, the sins of the Amorites are not yet full. I'm being patient. They're filling up their cup of wrath by their continued sinning, by their continued rebellion. And it wasn't just garden variety sin. It was the gross sins that God says in the Bible, you want to destroy your culture? Do these two things and I will destroy your culture. The first thing was they worshiped false gods. They worshipped the god Molech. Do you know how you worship the god Molech? Well, you bring your firstborn child, and the statue of Molech was like a statue seated with his arms out, and where his chest was was a giant cavity with a fire burning. And he was a god of productivity, a god of blessing. So if you want your fields to be blessed, you want your family to be blessed, got to toss your first kid into Molech and let him be burned alive, and they'll show you're really serious to Molech. And if that's not bad enough as a representation of God, the second thing was that Molech was served by temple prostitutes, male and female. I'm going to go down to the temple, dear, and worship. Right. What a gross, ungodly misrepresentation of the true God. So they sacrificed their children, and they had gross, idolatrous worship. Now, does it take Sherlock Holmes to figure out, gee, I wonder if there's any ties between America today and what was going on among the Canaanites, the Amorites? Sacrificing their children to a false god? Having gross, ungodly worship that misrepresents the character of God? God gave them more time. He gave them 40 more years. He says, but by then their sins will be full. The sands of time have run out of the hourglass. Their days are over. So God's patience was up, and he took them out. Not just the king, not just the courtiers, not just the heavy hitters among the Amorites. Every man, woman, child, and animal, every living creature in their territory was to be exterminated. God says several times in the Old Testament, the blood of the innocents cries out from the ground. You kill innocent blood. You kill all these children. You live in this ungodly way. You should expect my judgment to fall upon your head. And in case we think, well, that was this guy in the Old Testament. He was kind of cranky, but the God of the New Testament, he's a real sweetheart. He's Jesus. He's really nice. In Luke chapter 13, if you'll turn there, there's a passage which really dovetails well with this, and so turn to Luke 13 and see if you don't hear our Lord Jesus saying the same thing as the Old Testament. Luke 13, verses 1 through 5. They were present at that season. Some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifice. Galilee was in the north. Judah was in the south. Some Galileans had come down to worship in the temple. They had brought their sacrifices. There had been some kind of deal had broken out. Pilate sent in a bunch of soldiers and they just slaughtered all these people in this area. So people laid their dead holding on to their sacrificial animals. That's not right. Where was God when this happened? And Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. I'm not answering your question directly about why God let this happen. This is a universal reality. If you don't repent of your sins, you're just as bad as they are. My father can take you out today. But keep looking on, he gives another illustration. He says, I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse sinners than all the other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. You know, there was that construction site in Bettendorf and it just came down, the crane fell, the construction site collapsed, a bunch of workers were killed. What's God doing? They didn't ask to be killed. You and I do not know the day of our home calling. God's going to call our name and we're done on this planet. And if he chooses to do it to a whole bunch of people, that's his prerogative. He is the potter. We are the clay. And Jesus says, and you don't have really the right to mouth off and say, well, that's not fair. Why did God let those poor people be killed in the temple? Or why those construction workers be killed? They weren't worse sinners than everybody else. They were garden variety centers like us. But if we don't repent, something similar may await us. And that's humbling because we like to think that we have some say in how the plan is going to be run. And it's just not right for God to do things, you know, my Uncle Larry's nephew Beelzebub, he worked on that construction site and he was taken and that's not right. The Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 1, Something very similar, he says, the wrath of God is being revealed. Present, continuous, tense. Not something he did in the past, not something he's going to do in the future. God's wrath can be poured out at the end of time, a judgment, but God's wrath can be poured out in space and time history, in our lives. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against what? All ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. What's ungodliness? I don't want God in my life. I want to run my own life. I don't want to have anything to do with him. He leaves me alone. I'll leave him alone. That's just fine. God is not the center of my life. He's not the eternal point of reference. I live my life my way, not his way. Unrighteousness is basically violation of all God's laws. I don't want God to be my God, and I'm sure not going to live the way he tells me to. I know he says stuff, but I want to do things my way, and that's just rebellion. The wrath of God is being revealed. I'm writing to you in Rome, the center of the Roman civilization, one of the great civilizations that ever existed. The wrath of God is already being poured out on Rome for all of its ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Ancient Roman, first century Roman civilization was already under the wrath of God. So bottom line is God created each person. It determines when and where you live and when and where you die. Our lives are in God's hands. We're all going to die. Only those who turn from their sins and trust in Christ are not going to die facing the judgment of God. But we're all going to die. How many civilizations have come and gone that these were great civilizations? What happened to the Inca and the Maya and the Aztec? What happened to the Sumerians? What happened to the Toltecs? What happened to, just go on and on and on, great civilizations. Look, we found their temple into these bushes back here and we have these great buildings in Egypt, we have the Sphinx, we have the pyramids, we have representatives of just about every great civilization. What happened to all of them? God judged them because they fell into apostasy, they worshiped false God, and gross living flows out of false believing. So the first question is why was God sending his people to exterminate the Amorites, the subset of the Canaanites, because their time was up? You know, is God's time up for America? I don't know. I'm not claiming this is any kind of a prophetic message. But I do know that if you read Romans 1, it's like, whoa, didn't I just see that on the news the other night? Didn't I just read about that? Didn't I just hear about that in some podcast? America is not unlike Romans chapter 1. In fact, I tend to tell people we are in Romans 1. We're at the bottom of Romans 1. God gave them over. God gave them over. God gave them over, and now they're groveling in all the depravity at the end of chapter one of Romans. The second thing I said that needed to be addressed was why did I call Rahab a brand pluck from the burning? Now, they made s'mores, I think, didn't they, the other night? Did they have a bonfire? Now, one of the things you'll learn, whether you're eight or 80, that a stick can, one end of a stick can be in the fire burning, and you can pick it up by the other end, because wood is really not a great communicator of heat, and so you grab it over here, and the end of it can be burning, and the other end is cool enough to handle. What's the deal here? What's the illustration? The Bible says, if you're not a Christian, you're already Has God pronounced judgment upon your head? So to speak, one end of the stick is in the fire waiting for the stick to be consumed. God's pronounced judgment. He hasn't sent the bailiff to come and take you away to ultimate judgment. John Wesley and Martin Lloyd-Jones, two men of God, both described themselves as brands plucked from the burning. Because both of them were in an upstairs bedroom asleep when their house caught on fire. I think John Wesley was eight and Martin Lloyd-Jones was six. And they couldn't run down the stairs because the stairs were on fire. So they were thrown from the upper windows to someone who would catch them on the ground and their lives were spared. They described themselves as a brand plucked from the burning. I wasn't left in the burning. I got plucked out. The fire was extinguished. I once talked to a student, and he just couldn't believe that he was a brand in the burning, and he said, I don't feel the heat. In John 3, 16, you know the verse, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. And we kind of stop there. Even if you're reading John 3, you tend to mentally check out there. But if you keep reading verse 17 and 18, it says the reason why Christ came is because we are already under the judgment of God. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Okay. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. You're not condemned because you don't believe, you're condemned because you're a sinner, and the fact you don't believe is just one more major sin tacked onto all the rest of them. Whoever does not believe is condemned already. The gavel's come down, you've been pronounced a guilty sinner. Verse 36, John returns to that same theme. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son, Jesus says, repent and turn to me, Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. God's sword of justice is already hanging over your head. It's just a matter of when he chooses to execute the final judgment. A brand pluck from the burning is someone who, one end of the stick's already in the fire, and if God's gracious, you're plucked out of the fire to live. So with those two caveats, okay, we're dealing with a sobering passage. The Israelites are being sent in among the Canaanites to exterminate them. This is the end of Canaanite civilization. Their time on the stage of human history is gone. They came on the stage of human history. They lived their lives, they exited, never to be heard from again. When I pray for our country, just about every day I pray for our country that God would not give us over to ultimate destruction, as almost every other civilization ever has been. The second thing I want to address today is the amazing grace that God saves sinners. You know, we use a lot of euphemisms. A euphemism is a nice way of saying a hard thing. No, I'm not a liar, I just don't tell the truth as much as I should. Mean you lie? Oh, I wouldn't call it that. Well, God does. And God saves sinners. Would you depict yourself as a sinner? If someone asked you, well, tell me, what defines you as a person? I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God. Whoa, you're kind of on a negative trip here, aren't you, buddy? I mean, let's not be so dour. Well, that's reality if you're a Christian. God saves sinners. There's four points I want to make in looking at Rahab here in our text. Four points to make. First of all, Rahab came to see the sinfulness of her life and her lifestyle. How did she live? She earned her wages by renting her body to men. Some women rent their bodies for money. They're called prostitutes or harlots or other less kind words. Then you go, okay, I've heard of such people. Well, actually, people like that are all through our culture. In our culture, there are prostitutes. That's true. They rent their bodies for money. But there are also others who rent their bodies for a few drinks and dinner and then head to the bedroom. It's called hookup culture. That's what about vast majority of unbelievers under the age of 40 think that life's all about. You bought my dinner. We had some drinks. Well, let's go to the bedroom. And how is that different than a prostitute who charges you X amount of money? This guy bought you dinner and some drinks, and now you're heading for the bedroom. Hookup culture is just as corrosive as being a prostitute. But, you know, if you live in the dark all the time, you just don't recognize what's going on. You avoid the light of God's holiness and you never see yourself clearly. If you're bumping around in the dark, you never see hardly anything clearly. But what if God should start shining the light of truth into your life and you go, whoa, I am living a really tawdry life. I'm living a really yucky life. And you might even avoid trying to say the word sinful because you're still not thinking in terms of my ultimate offense is not against me. It's not against my parents. It's not against other people. My ultimate offense is God gave me my life and look what I'm doing with it. Look what I'm doing with my life. But then God the Holy Spirit shines his word into your heart and things begin to make sense. I know why I'm unhappy and I know why my life is miserable. She came to see the sinfulness of her life. Now, there's not a verse that says that explicitly, but it's implied by what comes out of her and how she acts. These people who've been sent by God to exterminate every man, every woman, every child, every animal in this territory, total destruction, the word holocaust. And I'm one of the Amorites. I'm an ungodly Amorite. I mean, I'm not, the creme de la creme of Amorite culture, I'm a prostitute. But these are the people whose God is the real God, and they've come to kill all the rebels among the Amorites. And apart from the grace of God, I'm toast. That leads me to my second point. Rahab comes to see and understand who God really is. Look at verse nine. I know the Lord has given you the land. But it's interesting, the word she uses for the Lord. One of the things that took me years to figure out, but now it's very important I camp on it. If the word Lord is in all caps, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that's the English way of saying the Hebrew word Yahweh. That's God's covenant name that he gave only to his people. I'll be your God and you'll be my people. I'll be everything you need and you'll be my loving, responsive people. I know that the covenant God has given you the land. How did she know that? Our text doesn't explicitly say. Other nations around Israel knew that Israel had its own God, an invisible God, no totems, no idols, no daggon that you have to hammer to the wall because he keeps falling over when the Ark of the Covenant's in his presence. They have a different God, but he's the real God. Not the things that we have given ourselves to our idols. I know that the Lord Yahweh has given you the land. And that's important because it wasn't like you're some warring monstrous group of people that are just killing people and marauding through the Middle East. God gave you this land. I've heard. We don't know how she heard. We can speculate and use our sanctified imagination. Verse 10, the first part. We have heard. How did they hear? We have heard how the Lord, the covenant God, Yahweh, dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you. God was not only a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, he was a sovereign, powerful God who could do things. Like, ever heard of anybody else drying up the waters of the Red Sea? No. The word spread throughout the Middle East. The God of the Hebrews is an amazing God. Verse 11, she says, for the Lord, again, God's covenant name, Yahweh, for the covenant God, your God. He's a personal God. You can know him. He's a personal God. You can know him. Not just know about him. Most Americans know there's a God. They won't admit it, but they know it. But she comes to a greater realization. For the Lord, your God, he's a personal God, a knowable God. Everybody else in the world who doesn't know the true God are under what Paul says in Ephesians 2. Without God, without hope, and in the world. And that's every person before they're a Christian. That was me in my BC days. I was without God. I was living my own life, my way, without hope. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't have any, you know, when you're 21, you think you're bulletproof. I'm going to live forever. I'm 74. I don't, I've been long disabused of that idea that I'm going to live forever. Because reality and the Bible tell me that's not true. But when you're 21, no, I'm bulletproof. Nothing will ever happen to me. Screech, crash. Without God, without hope, and in the world. Wow, what a messed up world I'm in. But she was able to see something and her use of how she talked about the Hebrew God shows that she had come to a different understanding. Third, Rahab had come to see that God is holy and just and judges sin. Verse 10, the second part. What you did to the two kings of the Amorites whom you devoted to destruction. That's a phrase used in the Old Testament when God wants you to wipe out everything. Everything and everyone. Man, woman, child. This child is not gonna grow up to adulthood. God's judging the parents and the child together. What you did to the two kings of the Amorites whom you devoted to destruction. I've heard of this. I'm an Amorite. All the Canaanites were related in one sense. And my people are under the judgment of God. I'm a prostitute. I'm under the judgment of God. Your God is a God who doesn't grade on the curve. give you points just for showing up. This is a God who, if you're not submissive to him, if you're not a repenting, believing sinner, he doesn't grade on the curve. A holocaust was about to fall on the Canaanites. From the king to the youngest child, everyone was killed, without exception. Their time on planet Earth was over. God's patience with them was done. And not just the Amorite people around her, not just the town of Jericho, but one of the things that happens to a person when they become a Christian is that for the first time perhaps, they may develop a greater compassion for their immediate family. It's not just me that needs to be saved from the coming judgment, but I've got a mom and dad, brothers and sisters, We grew up together, we are part of the same deal. And I don't see them as in any better situation than me. Apart from the grace of God, they're gonna be consumed too. And she asked if they stay in my apartment, if they stay in my place here against the wall, can they be spared? I know a woman who didn't want Christians to witness to her husband because she said he wouldn't like it. She claimed to be a Christian, but she didn't think her husband would like people witnessing to him. So let me get this right. It's okay for you not to go to hell and go to heaven, but you don't care if your husband goes to hell because he might be offended that somebody would witness to him. What kind of a Christian is that? What kind of an understanding of compassion is that? What kind of biblical insight is that? Does this woman have any clue as to what the judgment of God is like? If we think annihilation of a people under the direct order of God, a specific order of God that wasn't normal Old Testament practice, that Hebrews didn't go throughout the Middle East rampaging, killing everyone, but they were called to exterminate the Canaanites because they were so vile and so gross, God says, you're done, it's over. And so if we have any sense of the judgment to come, why would I not want someone to witness to my family? So Rahab had come to see that God was holy and was going to judge sin and that she was liable to this judgment. It was hanging over her head. And a fourth thing is Rahab came to see that this God who had taken Israel to be his special people was the sovereign God over heaven and earth. He wasn't a local deity. He wasn't just the God of this neighborhood. He wasn't the God of this. I talked to a missionary who was doing missions work in Africa in a tribal area, and he said, we were playing soccer one day. Some of the Christians in the village and some of the non-Christians, we had a soccer game going. And the Christians were winning pretty handily at halftime. They took a break and the non-Christian soccer players went down to the river and they called out to the river God saying, why are you letting the Christians win? We need help. And so because of their tribalism and because of their animism, they thought that the God of the trees and the God of the river, somebody would come and help them. And people around the world are like that. But look at verse 11. For the Lord, again it's Yahweh, the covenant God, your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. In other words, He's the universal sovereign God. He's not a local tribal deity. He is God of all the world. Sinners are saved by the grace of God, by the mercy of God, by the work of Jesus Christ alone, by faith alone. If we try to dress up our lives with the stinking rags of our own supposed righteousness, well, I'm not as bad as some people. Look at that guy. Look at that woman. If we think that the stinking rags of our self-righteousness are going to save us, we're sadly deluded. I think it's six years ago now, in the summer, it's the forest fire season in the western states, mostly. There was a terrible forest fire in Arizona, and the wind shifted, people got noticed too late, and 19 firefighters were burned to death. And I happen to know who was pastoring in a town where many of them were from and did some of their funerals. And it was tragic. It used to be that forest firefighters, try saying that three times, forest firefighters, would be given this reflective blanket and you lie in a ditch and cover yourself with this and maybe the flames will go over you so quick and you won't be scorched. Problem with that. Most people don't die of being burned alive. They die of suffocation from the fumes, particularly in household fires. But in fires out in the open like that, what happens is the fire is burning up all the oxygen around it. And even if the fire flashed over you in the ditch, there's no oxygen for you to breathe. to breathe, and you die. And so they found these 19 men dead doing things they were supposed to do to protect themselves, but there was no air to breathe. They all died. If you were caught in a forest fire, and thankfully the Midwest doesn't have too many, but you'd be caught in a forest fire, there's only one place, there is only one place you can go and not be burned or suffocated to death. And that one place is the burn spot that's already been burned over. Because when the fire comes to the burn spot, there's nothing combustible here. There's nothing to burn. So it just literally stops. There's nothing to burn. When it comes to your sins, there's only one burn spot on planet Earth. God judged sin on the cross of Christ. And if you don't run to the cross of Christ, there's no place where you can go to avoid the judgment of God. You may want to say to me, wait a minute, do you mean to tell me that God saves prostitutes and really gross people like that? Really? No way. And to be honest, if you think that, you don't understand Christianity, you couldn't be a Christian, and you're clueless. God saves sinners. Jesus says his title was the friend of sinners, not the friend of goody two shoes, not the friend of little girls in Sunday school class, not the friend of people who get their life together. God saves sinners. Jesus was the friend of sinners. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians, in the first century, if you grew up in Corinth, Corinth was like taking Vegas and San Francisco and the Quad Cities. Most people probably don't even know about the Quad Cities unless you're from the Midwest. But they've heard of Vegas, Sin City. They've heard of San Francisco, Gross City. In the first century, if you really grossed out your life, they'd say, did you hear about Larry? He Corinthianized, meaning he went off the deep end morally. And Paul reminds the Corinthians in chapter 1, verses 27 through 29, Paul says, check it out. There's not many great and famous people among you, not many wise, not many noble, not powerful people. I don't save people who have something to contribute, something that they might brag about. I save sinners. Paul says, God saves sinners, people who weren't rich, who weren't famous, who weren't powerful, who weren't intellectuals. God saves generic sinners. And chapter six of that first Corinthians, he lists the things that used to be going on in their church or in their lives before they were Christians. First Corinthians six, nine through 11, Paul says, Do you not know that the unrighteous, that's those who don't have the righteousness of Christ, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Don't be faked out. Neither fornicators, that's people who commit sex before marriage, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, adulterers are people who engage in sex when they're already married to somebody else. Nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, both the effeminate and the more masculine homosexuals. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers. Those are people who, it's like the internet. Nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. That's the people who God saved out of the mess of Corinth to make up the Corinthian church. People from all these different backgrounds. Some considered more gross than others, but all highly sinful. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, you were set apart, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of our God. That's the people that God saves, sinners. We had a lady, when she joined our church, She told us that she had become a Christian in another state, and when she tried to join that church, she said, you know, gave something of a testimony, and that she had repented of her sins, and she trusted in Christ. And then one of the elders who was interviewing her said, well, specifically, can you name a sin or two that you've been, that you repented of? And she couldn't think of any specific sins that she had ever committed that she needed to repent of, but she said she had repented. Are you aware of any concrete sins in your life? Are you aware of the fact that sins are concrete, real things that we do and not just vague ideas? Martin Lloyd Jones liked to say, the Bible is not a book about ideas. It's a book about facts and reality. These are not just fancy ideas, highfalutin ideas. This is a book about facts and reality. Do you ever confess concrete, specific sins? Have you confessed your sins when you came to Christ? How does the story of Rahab end? We saw that she acted upon her beliefs, right? She hid the spies. She made them promise that when they came to destroy Jericho, which was gonna happen, they'd spare her and her family. They said, your family's in this place, they'll be spared. If they go out in the street, their blood be on their own heads. And look at chapter six, verse 17 of Joshua. This sermon came out of one of my personal devotions, and it struck me. By the way, you know, I sit tall at the retreat. The Bible is a good place to get your sermons, right? I mean, you wouldn't want me to come up here and blow a smoke. But in my personal devotions that dawned on me, What an exemplar of salvation. Here's a woman who's clueless and lost. Suddenly she comes under the stark realization, I'm doomed. I live among a doomed people. If something doesn't happen, it's over. Look at verse 17 of chapter 6. Now the city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction. It and all who are in it, only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all with her in her house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And that's Joshua reporting on what's about to happen. Look at verse 22 through 25 of the same passage. But Joshua had said to the two men who had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house and from there bring out the woman and all that she has as you swore to her. And the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers. and all that she had. So they brought out all her relatives and left them outside the camp of Israel. But they burned the city and all that was in it with fire. Only the silver and gold and the vessels of bronze and iron they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. And Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father's household and all that she had. So she dwells in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. When this was written, she was still alive. She was known to be among them. And I think it's interesting. She didn't say, wow, I'm saved. That's great. That was a close call. See you all later. I've got to live my life. Her understanding was a biblical understanding that she connected herself, she became a part of the covenant people, the covenant community. If a person professes Christ and never gets involved in a local church, I don't see biblically how they could consider themselves a Christian because you're called to be part of the covenant family, the covenant community, the people of faith, so to speak. You don't need the body of Christ? You don't need to be under the word of God? You don't need to take the Lord's Supper? You don't need to be baptized? Really? Would you believe that? That's a clueless person. She wasn't clueless. I want to be a part of the people who know the true God, who spared my life and my family's life. Well, the story doesn't end here. I mean, that would be great. We'd love it. The Bible has all kinds of amazing things. One of the amazing things is that Jesus' genealogy has all kinds of people that you wouldn't expect, like Ruth, who came from Moab, and Moab wasn't the cool spot to be from in the Middle East. I mean, if you read the book of Genesis and find out how the Moabites got their existence, it's like, gross, really? And she was in Jesus' lineage, but so is Rahab, in chapter one of Matthew's Gospel, where he gives the genealogy of Christ. Who's listed in there? Well, she married someone. They had kids. They had kids. They had kids. And down the road is Jesus Christ. It mentions David, but then it goes to Christ. The book of Hebrews mentions Rahab. By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient. because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. In other words, she proved her faith by her actions and she didn't die with the rest of the Canaanites. She comes up again in James Chapter 2. You see that a person is justified by their works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the delivery and received the spies and sent them out by another way. Sometimes people get in a fluff because how does James go together with Romans? You're justified by your faith, Romans says. You're justified by your works, James says. Obvious contradiction, the Bible's full of contradictions. Close your Bible, I'm not gonna hear it. That's a very cursory, shallow way of reading the Bible. James says, if you claim to have faith and nothing changes, nothing comes from your life, you don't act any differently than you did before, that's spurious faith, that's false faith. You know, 90% of, you know, 80 some percent of Americans claim to be people of faith. Really? Really? Would you want to go to school or go to work and say, every one of these people is a really cool, committed Christian who loves Jesus? No. Most people have false faith. Most people have never had their lives changed by the sovereign work of God. And so James says if your faith doesn't issue in works and things that flow out of your supposed faith, then it's false faith. Paul says you're saved by faith alone because it's in Christ alone. Why is salvation by faith alone? Because I can't do anything to contribute to my salvation. Not a thing. And my faith is in Christ alone because all that he is is my standing before God. Perish the thought, but if Cindy and I are killed in a car wreck on the way home to Indianapolis tomorrow, and I'm staying before God, what would I say? Well, I became a Christian a long time ago, and I worked with students for 10 years. And what else? Well, I went to seminary, and I became a pastor. What else? I was a Reformed Baptist pastor. The angels would go, whoa. I wouldn't have anything to play but Jesus Christ. He is all my plea before you. I come to you, Lord. Christ is my salvation. He purchased me with dying for all my sins. Every last one of them were put on him. And his righteousness was given to me. For God made him who knew no sin to become sin. Where? On the cross. that we, Paul says to the Corinthians, me, Paul, you, Corinthians, we, believing sinners, might become the righteousness of God in Him. Christ is my righteousness. I have none. Christ atoned for all my sins. They're not counted against me. The only thing I have to plead is Christ. Oh, and there's a smile on the father's face. That's the right answer. I sin every day. Why would I expect God to bless me? Because Christ is my Savior. He's my standing before the Father. And I plead that every day. Chuck said I could go as long as I wanted, but most of you were leaving around noon, so I need to finish this up. In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says, truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. He's speaking to the religious leaders. The tax collectors, imagine if the IRS was paid on a commission basis. Gross. It's like, whatever I can gouge you for, that's mine. Really? That's what they were. The tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you or ahead of you. For John the Baptist came to you in the way of righteousness and you didn't believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. They believed the message that God saves sinners. But the goody-two-shoes religious leaders go, we don't have any big deals on our conscience, we're fine. And even when you saw it, meaning the tax collectors and the prostitutes believing and entering into the kingdom, so to speak, even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your mind and believe him. I warn all of you, if any of you are still sitting here thinking, I'm not that bad, I don't know why this guy is hammering away at this today. Because we are all subject to self-deception. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells the parable of two men standing in the temple, one standing afar off, one man the Pharisee standing, Lord, I thank you I'm not like other men. I do this and this and this and I really do this. And I just thank you I'm not other men, like other men, like that guy over there, that tax collector. And Jesus says the tax collector stood there and beat his breast and said, God, just be merciful on me, a sinner. I have nothing to claim. Only Christ. And he said he came for sinners. And that's my only qualification. You must be saved from the wrath to come. Jesus left heaven and came to earth precisely to do that. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And Luke said, there's no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. And we must be saved. I don't want any of you to go to hell. I don't want any of you to miss out living with Christ. I read an article once in a Banner of Truth magazine and something that was said there struck me. Jesus is the best friend a sinner could ever have. Do you know yourself to be a sinner? Christ loves to draw close to sinners. He stands off from proud people. He stands off from people who are full of themselves. He stands off from people who rationalize all the time, who live in denial. I jokingly told the youth, I said, denial, it's not a river in Egypt. Denial is a state of when you just, nope, that's not me. I don't have that problem. That's not about me. And what the Bible says, it's all about us. But when you become a Christian, it's all about Christ. May he be your Savior and Lord. The best friend a sinner could ever have. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you that you do save sinners and that we qualified. I pray that you would give each of us grace. to flee to Christ, to run to Christ, to say, Lord, I have nothing to plead. I'm just a messed up, sinful, disobedient, rebellious person. But I believe what the Bible says, what this preacher man says, that God saves sinners, and that he loves to save sinners, and he sent his son to save sinners, and his son loves to love sinners. Oh, Lord, please save me for Christ's sake. Love me for Christ's sake. Make me into a different person. If you can save a Rahab, then you can save me. May that be true for every one of us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.