Brown's Daily Word 8-13-09

A good Thursday afternoon to you,
Summer has finally arrived here in New York, the Empire State. It will be in the mid-eighties over the next few days. We are planning to visit Janice and her family in Boston, Sunita and Andy in Washington, DC, and Jessica and Tom in Philadelphia.
Laureen has felt the Lord's calling to go on a short term missions trip with the Continentals this fall. She is excited about the opportunity to go as an Assistant Director with the Continentals Worship Team. She will be leaving in approximately five weeks. Her team will be in our area for a concert of worship and praise on October 12, prior to heading northward into Canada, and then westward to Thailand. Keep her in your prayers as she prepared for this adventure for Christ.
While visiting Washington, DC, our Nation's capitol, in a previous trip we have been to the center of Arlington Cemetery to a monument that is beloved by all Americans. It is the Tomb of the Unknowns, which is guarded 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by the Old Guard of the United States Army. The members of this group live in a barracks below the monument, and pledge to never swear nor to drink alcohol (even after this duty is over for them), or they will be stripped of the badge of honor that they wear.
The monument to the unknowns has engraved upon it the words,
"Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God"
It’s hard to view that sight and not be moved. The truth is that the majority of the heroes throughout all our wars were people just like us, and that hits home. They were plumbers and mechanics, bankers and nurses, housewives, sons, and fathers - basically the fellow next door. Their lives seemed to be “unworthy” of the honor of being called American heroes. But we know that they are.
Hebrews 11 is a passage of Scripture which has been visited by many believers. Here the Lord has honored and memorialized them in His Word. Some of these people (unnamed) are known only to God, but in His Word He has erected a monument to the story of His grace in their lives so that we, too, may view that sight and be moved, be strengthened, and encouraged. Thus it is with faith. In Hebrews 11:38 the Bible speaks about those “of whom the world is not worthy.” The phrase “of whom the world is not worthy” is a condemnation of the world and its inability to grasp the power of God at work in the most common of lives. It is reminiscent of Paul’s analysis of God’s glorious ways.
Those whom the world would count as unworthy of honor, God honors. Hebrews 11 is a veritable hall of heroes of faith. Those memorialized in Hebrews 11 include names like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, and Moses. But in Hebrews 11:30, the author made a shift. He included people whose names are almost hidden in the pages of Scripture, people whose names would be unfamiliar to many Christians and certainly unfamiliar to those who know little of their Bibles. Yet these people are special to us. The aim of this section of God’s Word is to encourage us in our faith. Heroes of faith are just people like us. In Hebrews 11:30-32 we see the utterly unknown names of Barak and Jephthah mingled with the names of spiritual giants like Gideon and David. Remarkably, it all starts in Hebrews 11:31 with a woman named Rahab the prostitute.
"But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27).
God has elevated what man has despised. God has commended to us as examples those whom the world would throw on the ash heaps of history. In the Book of Hebrews, Rahab is said to be, in the Greek, a porne. In Joshua 2.1 she is called, in the Hebrew, a zonah. In English, those words reveal that her identity was the epitome of sin and shame for a woman; she was a harlot. She was a woman who operated a sort of inn at the very wall of the city. The passage is clear; she was a woman living in sin, a woman with a past, a woman living off the sins of others. She was a woman on the edge, living a throw-away life, unable to be redeemed — or you might have thought. Rahab was not only condemned by the Law of God, but no doubt was also abhorred by her own pagan people. But the Lord had his heart set on this prostitute, and as Christ stood for the woman caught in sin in John 8, God also stood for this woman. Her past in no way could indicate the glorious future God had for her.
The dramatic real-life tale of Rahab and the Hebrew spies surpasses any stories of military espionage. The two spies, sent out by Joshua with a mission to conduct covert operations inside enemy territory for no explained reason, found shelter inside a harlot’s home. They did not go there as other unscrupulous men went, but went there, no doubt, to discover what was really going on from a woman who probably knew the high and the low alike. For whatever reason, as they took cover there, their covert plan was compromised. They were discovered. And in an amazing scene in Joshua 2:3, the very king of Jericho found his life and nation now subject to negotiation with a prostitute. He ordered her to hand over the men. Troops were sent out to seize the men, but Rahab, in a wartime act, covered the truth of the matter, concealed the spies under stalks of flax drying on her roof, and sent the the soldiers of Jericho,on a wild goose chase. A deal was then made with the Hebrews. Because of her aid to the spies, if a scarlet cord was hanging in her window (the sign of her covenant with the spies) when Israel came into the land, her home and her family would be saved from harm.
The spies and the plan were secured, and God’s promises were carried out all because of this woman’s plot. When Joshua “fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came a tumbling” down, Rahab and her family were saved. That is what the writer indicates in Hebrews 11:30-31. First, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. Then he shows that it was the faith of Rahab that allowed that great event to take place. In the end, what others saw as a red cord in a harlot’s house, was seen by Israel as a sign very much like the blood of a lamb on the doorposts. This was a sort of Passover experience for this woman.
I am amazed and provoked by Rahab’s profession of faith. “…I know that the Lord has given you the land….For the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on earth beneath (Joshua 2:9, 11).
This passage is amazing. Rahab believed in her heart that there is a God and that He is the only way to be saved. Her faith led her to works of righteousness out of worship for this God and a heart’s cry for her own salvation. She entered into a covenant with the Lord through God’s people, turning her back on her old ways and turning to the living Lord. In it all there was a scarlet cord, the sign in her window that became the token of her faith, a sort of sacrament by which she was identified with Israel. By faith are ye saved. Her faith saved her life and saved her soul. Make no mistake about it. This woman was trusting in all of the promises. She was trusting in a God who could cover her sins, could cover her past, and could secure her future and that of her family. No longer would she be a woman of sin. She would become a woman of faith.
We hear the words of the Apostle Paul echoing through this story. The promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring. It is not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (Romans 4:16, NIV). If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29, NIV).
Not only Rahab mentioned in Hebrews and in James, but she also ends up in a remarkable section of Scripture, memorialized in Matthew 1. There her name is listed as the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth, and as the grandmother of King David, and is in the direct lineage of the Savior of the World, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The world that would have accused her for her sins, would not be worthy of her, says the Lord.
John Calvin, the Pastor of Geneva who did so much to liberate the life of the common man, wrote, “Although the world may reject the servants of God as rubbish, the fact that it cannot bear them is to be thought of as its penalty because along with them goes some blessing from God.”
By faith in Jesus Christ, human beings are valued. Whoever they are, whatever they have done, there is value in human beings. Like Rahab, behind every broken, sinful person is also a very real human being in need of the love of God. No one can claim moral superiority over another. We are all level before the Lord, all human beings in need of Christ’s righteousness. The church is filled with such people. So Paul would chronicle a list of sins of the worst kind and then say, “And such were some of you.”
By faith in Jesus Christ, human pain and sorrow may become transmuted into godly gain. Rahab’s story would not be there if it were not for her pain. In Christ, our broken past becomes the fuel for a testimony of grace. The very things which seem to destroy us become the instruments God uses to transform us. Paul taught us that “when I am weak then I am strong.” By faith in Jesus Christ, the worst sinner may become the greatest saint. Rahab was a great sinner, but Christ was a great Savior. So it is with all of us. Christ taught us that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
By faith in Jesus Christ, our painful past is no indicator of a painful future. In fact, God will redeem our painful past and use it to send us into a glorious future. The prophet Joel spoke to a people recovering from the judgment of God against their sin, a people who had been ravaged by the locusts, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” (Joel 2:25).
The story of Rahab is here for each of us. Let this story be a giant memorial engraved with the words, “Of whom the world is not worthy.” Then we will begin to understand the glory of this passage and of this story of grace. For Christ Jesus, who redeemed her and put her in the royal line of the Savior, will redeem us and make us heirs of the kingdom of Christ.
We are all as Rahab. We are not only born sinners as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, but we have all prostituted ourselves—sold ourselves into sin by our malicious hearts towards others, our pride before God, the lusts of the eyes and lusts of the flesh. "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Romans 5:12).
Thank God a Savior has come into our camp. A free offer of salvation is here. And all who will call upon the name of Jesus Christ will be saved. Though it rage all over the universe, no fiery judgment will touch you. A righteous God shall surely bring down the walls of this world, but the destruction shall not touch you if you are in Christ. Not even death can destroy you, for there is a scarlet cord hanging in the window of every harlot who professes faith in Jesus Christ. That cord is the blood of a Savior sealing that house. That cord is a sign that you, an unworthy sinner in the eyes of the world, have come into the covenant of grace, and God now calls you His own.
Look at Hebrews 12:1-2 and see how the writer makes the transition from chapter 11 and the hall of heroes of faith to showing the reader how we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses in order to run the race of faith. We see them around us—Abraham and Sarah, Rahab and David, all of them—great sinners who called on a great Savior and who became great people of faith. All of this is given that we might be free from the accusations of self, the accusations of Satan, and the accusations of the world. What God has called clean, let not man call unclean. You are saved. Do not let sin have dominion over you. Do not let your past sins accuse you as you run the race of faith. How do you do that? We are told, "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV).
He is mighty to save,
In Him,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ghKwGEQRA