Gospel: Sermons Sinners Preach
“It is not simply the ‘what’ of the things God had done that was so powerful, but Rahab’s recognizance and verbal confession of the ‘Who.’ – Elder Nashay Davis
KANSAS CITY, Kan – Remember the time you were caught up in a fault? Recall the days of your lives in which you lived a life stained by the filth of sin. Perhaps you are in the midst of a seemingly overwhelming and hard-to-quit transgression as you read. You feel as if God will not forgive or freely pardon you. The guilt is unbearable. The shame overwhelms you. All you have heard about sin from church folks comes crashing down on the crevices of your mind like the buckling of an old mare’s legs under a heavy load. In your mind, hell is enlarging itself to make room for you. Now HALT!!! You are in the right frame of mind, my friend, to better understand the power of the Gospel.
Often when reading the Scripture, we tend to reflect upon the biblical superstars of the day such as Moses, David, and even Paul. Yet the Bible is sprinkled with lesser-known, often overlooked, yet Very Important People that directly contribute to our understanding of Christ and him crucified. One such individual was that of the harlot Rahab in the book of Joshua. The story goes that Joshua, successor of Moses and amazing military general, had sent spies into the land of Jericho in order to scope it out and determine a strategy for its impending capture.
Upon the spies entering the walls of the city, Rahab opened her home to hide them from city officials who had gotten wind of their entrance into the city. At that time, Rahab recounted the miracles she had heard that the God of Israel had done for the people in Egypt and throughout their journey to the Promised Land. Yet, this was not merely a casual conversation. Rahab, both pagan worshiper and harlot, told these stories as a confession of her belief in that same God. At that instant she exchanged that faith for her physical deliverance from Jericho’s destruction, which is a sign of her inward deliverance from the destruction of sin!
As in Rahab’s experience, we must realize that the only “gospel” the world might see is the result of the miracles that God has performed in the lives of countless followers of Christ through miraculous healings, signs and wonders, which are as simple as the most vicious of sinners coming to repentance and turning from reprobate to kingdom builder. Rahab recognized that those things were not capable of being wrought by the unmovable hand of an artificial, wood overlaid-in-gold, corruptible god; but an ever-present, invisible, immortal, all-powerful Savior! This recognizance gave Rahab the boldness to offer protection to the Hebrew spies, trusting that the same God that the tabloids said had “dried up the water of the Red seas for you…[and]…”utterly destroyed” some of the surrounding nations, would deliver her and her family.
God, the heavenly father and holy spirit, delivers the children of Israel
Perchance being caught in a web of harlotry and lewd conduct had led Rahab to suffer the same guilt and shame that is consistent with our experiences. Yet “by faith” she risked becoming a martyr, in belief that God would not only deliver the children of Israel, but also her and her seed. Perhaps she saw the coming infiltration of her city of Jericho by the God of Israel as her sign of deliverance from the snares and bounds of sin. She imagined the possibilities of the things she could not see to ignite God’s hand to move on her behalf (and in spite of her past), and because of the confession of her faith, “…Rahab, and her father, and her mother and her brethren, and all that she had…” were saved (Joshua 6:23).
You, like Rahab, cannot imagine your life as one ending up in the rubble of death and defeat, of hell and the grave. The Bible relates in Joshua 6:25 that the seed of Rahab resides with the children of Israel even unto this day. Rahab’s deliverance was a foreshadowing of the adoption of all believers into the royal family. Her story epitomizes how God uses our negative experiences and sinful pasts as a testament to the power of his Resurrection.
Each of us is living examples of the power of the Gospel to transform and regenerate us to a right relationship with him and follow him through to the Promised Land. You thought the mess-ups would obliterate you, but instead He used them to redefine you, drawing you to the cross in order to truly comprehend the gospel as “the power of God unto (leading to, following through to) salvation”. Let us continued to walk with him as he leads us in his everlasting way toward that city not built by human hands!
Read more about Rahab in Joshua 2:1-22, Joshua 6:22-27, and Hebrews 11:31
Elder Nashay Davis MSW, founder of the Bold Life Outreach Commission, is the religious editor of “Mass Appeal News.” She welcomes your comments at shayzblest@yahoo.com
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