All right, we are continuing through our overview of the Old Testament. We finished Numbers, and where we left off, Numbers is the last historical book of Moses. Numbers leaves off with the nation of Israel camped in Shittim, which is right across the Jordan River from the city of Jericho. So across the Jericho, the first place they come to is a plain called Gilgal, and then on the other side of that plain is Jericho. So that's the setting. Then the last two books of Moses, Leviticus and, or there's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The book of Leviticus, we went over, that's the Levites and the unclean and clean laws. Just to comment on that, because this keeps coming up on the book of Leviticus, What relevance does it have for us today? And there was a book written by Rachel Held Evans. It's supposed to be an evangelical book. She was actually just appointed to one of President Obama's councils for religious studies or something like that because she's a blogger. And the book is called A Year of Biblical Womanhood. And in this book, she said she went through the Bible and took all of the interpretations of how women are supposed to be exactly literally, and the whole idea was it's impossible for anybody to ever live that way. Of course, she didn't actually do that, and she lived in a tent for three days at her time of the month outside because that's what the Bible says, which it never says that anywhere. But that reminded me of the... When you read the book of Leviticus, you wonder why God has all these clean and unclean laws, and why a man is unclean when he does this, and a woman is unclean when she does that, and all the cleanliness, and it's a book of the priests and cleanliness. And today, most people say, see, this God is a harsh and cruel and a God that's impossible to approach, and there isn't anything we can do to please this God, so we might as well go live our other life. or live life however we want to because it's impossible to live up to God's standards. And what that shows is the presupposition of hating God. When you have Ferguson, Sinclair Ferguson says legalism and antinomianism. Legalism is a rigid adherence to the law, antinomianism is saying that there's no law at all and Christians can just live as they please because they're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He says both of those seem to be opposites. But they're actually children of the same baby. They're children of the same mother. And the mother is, God is not good. The legalists respond by saying he's a harsh taskmaster that we've got to work really, really hard to please. And the antinomianist says, well, he's a harsh taskmaster, and there isn't anything we can do to please him. And now we're under Jesus, and we're not under the law anyway. So we might as well live as we want to, and God will forgive us all of our sins anyway. But they're both the same thing. And so when you look at the Leviticus codes, if you look at this with the presupposition of the goodness of God, which the scripture tells us from the beginning to end, you see something brand new in Leviticus you've never seen before. And that is the amazing thing is not all of the restrictions on how a man can approach God. The amazing thing is that man can approach God at all. That's something, and so in Leviticus, you see the holiness of God, but then you see God also inviting men, women, and children to himself into his presence. Christ, of course, fulfilled all of the cleanliness and uncleanness laws. He was our circumcision. He's our cleanness. He touched the leper and the woman with the issue of blood and all those people that would be ceremonially unclean, and when he touched them, he didn't become unclean. They became clean. because he took all their uncleanness upon himself and he took it to the cross. So that's the point of the book of Leviticus that God is a holy God and you don't just walk into his presence and yet he loves us and does provide a way for us to be in his presence. When we get to the book of Leviticus, or the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy is the last book of Moses, and it's his final sermon. It's the sermon that he preaches to them as they're getting ready to cross the Jordan into the promised land. And so he reminds them of their history, and throughout his reminding them of their history, he's also reminding them of everything they've learned about God. and he stresses over and over and over and over again with him, you shall keep all the commandments and all the statutes that I've commanded you this day and if you do that it will be well with you in the land that I've promised to your fathers. That's the repeating theme all the way through. There's another important thing in the book of Deuteronomy that we would do well to remember and then he warns them of false prophets. He says false prophets will arise and he says they may even do signs and wonders. Meaning that miracle workers are going to be in the nation of Israel doing amazing things. And people are going to go, whoa. And then they're going to say, let's go serve other gods. And he says, when they say that, you take them outside and you stone them. And his point in all of this is there are people that God sends that are very nice, very kind, very polite, or they're miracle workers and do amazing things and astounding things, not even sleight of hand. They may actually be doing real miracles. And God says, I sent them to you to test you, to see if you will follow all of my statutes and all of my judgments. In other words, we have the scripture. The scripture is God's final revelation. After Moses, after those five books of Moses, everything future had to be judged by those first five books. That's what Moses was saying. That's the foundation of everything else. All the law, all the prophets, everything. And this is why you have in the prophets, they were condemning Israel. Why were they condemning Israel? Because they didn't follow the law of Moses, the law as it was written down, the holiness of God and how God revealed himself to Israel. There is only one God. This is who the God is. He created the heavens and the earth in six days. He delivered our fathers out of Egypt. All of that. And if anybody came along, no matter how they looked, no matter how they sounded, no matter how they spoke, if the words that they spoke were contrary to what was revealed to us in scripture, they're false prophets. Now, the church today, we don't stone them with stones, but we ought to remove them from office, or they will plague the people of God. They need to be removed, and if they don't repent, they need to be excommunicated, which is why our church actually practices that with our ministers. And if a minister is teaching something that's contrary to what we have received, he's to be removed from office. And it was that command in Deuteronomy 14 that led to the church for centuries making creeds because false prophets are slippery. And you have creeds and you say if they say something contrary to this, that's contrary to scripture. and there to be removed from office. Anyway, so that's a very interesting thing that Moses did. He lays down the foundation of everything else that's to come. And all the other scripture, I'm not saying they're just repeating what Moses said, they're building on it. And all of other scripture builds on it. If Jesus had come and said Moses was wrong, let me tell you what really is supposed to happen. He would have been justly condemned as a false prophet under Deuteronomy. He never once said that. And that's why he said in his Sermon on the Mount, he said, I didn't come to do away with the law. I came to fulfill the law. And his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is not Moses said this, but I'm telling you something different. He kept saying, it has been said. And he's taking to task the traditions that have been added to everything Moses wrote. And he's taking to task how they twisted all of that in their hardness of heart to basically pander to their own lusts and greed. Anyway, so everything from there is based from there. And so now this is the setting when we get to the book of Joshua. Israel is in Shittim. Moses has just died. They're getting ready to cross the Jordan River. and conquer the land. Another thing to remember when we go into the book of Joshua is in Genesis 3.15, I'll put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. He shall crush his head and he shall bruise his heel. There is going to be always war between the kingdom of the devil and the kingdom of Christ. Those two will always be at war. And in this day and age, it's not divided up in terms of kingdoms. It isn't, you know, United States versus Canada or versus Syria or anything like that. God has his people in every nation, every tongue, every tribe, every race throughout the entire world. God's chosen race is not the Anglo-Saxon race. He has his people who are united to Christ by faith. In this day and age, though, that we're talking about in the book of Joshua, There was the kingdom of God, which was signified by the nation of Israel, and then there was the kingdom of the devil, which was signified by everyone else, especially at this point, the land of Canaan. God had said those nations that are in the land of Canaan are the children of the devil, and they must be removed from the earth. And so you have this picture of God removing everything unclean from the earth in order to plant his church there. And so in Joshua, you have Joshua giving the nation of Israel the promised rest by driving out the Canaanites and planting them in the land. But you also have, as you read through it, a lot of not yet that's running around in your heart. It's how quickly they fail, how quickly they don't run everybody out. and all the different problems that they struggle with, especially as we get to the book of Judges, we see more and more and more of that, because it's all pointing to something else. All of this is just a picture. It's a picture of the coming King, who is Jesus Christ, who will come to save his people from their sins. The book of Joshua is ultimately only fulfilled when Christ comes again and the devil and his angels and all who worship and serve the beast will be cast out forever into the lake of fire and there will be a new heavens and a new earth with God's people on the new heavens and the new earth and nothing unclean will ever enter into it. This is what's pictured in the book of Joshua and finally fulfilled in Christ. That's the point of Hebrews chapter 3 and 4. Joshua didn't give them rest. This is why David spoke of another day. And then the warning is, let's not make the same mistake they did and not enter into that rest because of our unbelief. That being said, I would like to read Joshua chapter 1. Joshua 1. Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, that is Moses' servant, assistant, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give them, even to the children of Israel. every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon that I have given unto you as I said unto Moses from the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river the river Euphrates all the land of the Hittites and under the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast there shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. Thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have I not commanded thee be strong and of good courage? Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. There's some amazing things there in the first. He says, be strong and courageous three times. And he says, I will be with you. I will go with you. I will not forsake you. I will never fail you. Only be strong and courageous. If they're strong and courageous, what will they do? They will observe to do all that the Lord thy God has commanded them. The temptation is going to be they're going to be afraid. And in their fear, they're going to disobey God. And God says, I'm never going to leave you or forsake you. Don't be afraid so that you'll remember to do all that I've commanded you. The word of this law shall not depart from your mouth. Now, when he's talking about the law, the word that's used is Torah, which doesn't just mean the Ten Commandments. It means all of written scripture. Specifically, the first five books of the Bible, which at this point was all scripture was. But that eventually is going to be expanded into 66 books. It means the instructions of God. Be strong, be courageous, don't forget what God says. So remembering that the Lord will never fail you and will never forsake you is a very important part of being strong and courageous. Otherwise you can't. What happened when Israel tried to go in before and they forgot what God said? They freaked out and they ran and they didn't enter the land because of unbelief. that kind of fear where you refuse to obey what God has commanded you to do, that godless fear is what is the contrary of faith. We fear things other than we fear God. We fear things more than we fear God. Fixing my sentences in my head. And so that's why we don't do what God commands us to do because we're afraid. We put walls around ourselves to keep everybody away and that way we'll never get hurt again. We're going to protect ourselves instead of reaching out in love to our neighbors because we're afraid. Reaching out in love to our spouses, we're afraid of vulnerability. We're afraid people are going to find out what we're really like deep down inside so we keep everybody at arm's distance. How do you love your neighbor as yourself if you keep everybody at arm's distance because you're afraid of being hurt? You can't. So part of that is be strong and very courageous because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Now in this specific context they're going into this tremendous battle. This battle is not going to be easy for them. In one sense it will be because the Lord is with them. But this is where they're going to have to act in faith and not by sight. Because when you see the city of Jericho, this huge fortress city that's undefeatable in front of you, and you have untrained men as your soldiers, they don't have siege machines, what are you gonna do? You're either going to trust God and do what he says, or you're going to run and be afraid. To be very courageous means to do what God says Whether or not you're anxious about it, whether or not you're afraid of it, you do what He says. And you do what God has commanded because He will never leave you or forsake you. If they are strong and if they're courageous and if they remember what God says, God will bless them. The problem is, naturally speaking, we can't do this, as the book of Judges points out. The book of Judges shows us the impossibility of us obeying God's law, not because God's law is too hard for us, but because we don't want to. That's the problem, isn't it? And so who's going to change our will? Only the king who is to come. But that's the theme of Judges, so we'll go from there. I have here an outline. This is my fancy chart of the book of Joshua. As you go through the book of Joshua, it appears as if the first time you read it through, it looks like you just got a whole bunch of names and a whole bunch of weird things. And you got a guy killing a bunch of Philistines with an ox goad. And you got another guy with a jawbone of an ass beating people up. And then you've got Jephthah sacrificing his daughter and all this weird stuff. And it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. A chart will at least help break the book down into its sections so that you'll know what's going on. I'm sorry, I just quoted a lot out of the book of Judges and not the book of Joshua. Anyway, everything's colliding together in my head. In the book of Joshua. You have the conquest of the land, and then you have the division of the land. In the division of the land, there's a whole lot of discussion about whose land goes where, and who's going where, and who's taking this, and who's taking that, and the surveyor lines, and all of that. And it's kind of hard to make sense of. And so it's very helpful to have a chart in front of you, which is what I've done. The first section, chapter 1 versus the first few verses of chapter 6, I've called that the preparation for the conquest. There's a lot of things that need to be prepared. First of all, Israel needs to actually physically be there, which is what the first section is about, that physical preparation. But then there's a spiritual preparation that also needs to take place. The spiritual preparation means they must be cleansed, they must be God's people. You see this back in the book of Exodus when God calls Moses And tells him, go tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And so Moses gets his wife and his kids together, and they start going back to the nation of Israel. And then it says, God appeared to Moses and tried to kill him. Why did God try to kill him? Because he hadn't circumcised his son. And if you don't follow what God says, you're cut off from the people of God. God is very serious about his holiness. And so the first thing that needs to happen before they go into the land is they need to restore their worship and their connection with God. which had been broken 40 years earlier by their fathers. So let's take it one step at a time. First, the physical preparation. There's the command of God, which we just read. Be strong and courageous, the outline of the whole book. And then in chapter 2, we have the spies that go into the land. And of course, you're remembering this vise from chapter 14. You're saying to yourself, this is going to be disastrous. Why are they doing this? They're doing this for the same reason they did it before. Go see what it is we're doing. Moses is responsible, or Joshua, is responsible for leading millions of people, men, women, and children, across the Jordan River, setting up camp, and taking a stalk of what's going on. Where are they going to be? Where are they going to eat? What are they going to do? Where are we going to put them? And so he sends spies in to scope out the land. They don't go throughout the whole land. They've already got the report. They just go to the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho, like I said, is right across. There's the plain of Gilgal. There's the River Jordan, the plain of Gilgal, and then right there is the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho acts as a fortress of the entrance. There's the Ford there that goes across the River Jordan. It's called the Ford of Moab. But at this time of year, that's all covered with water. If you did have enemies that were going to get across the Jordan, There were the Amorites, there were the Ammonites, there were the Moabites, there were the other Ites that were over there on the other side of the Jordan. They would first have to go through the city of Jericho. If Jericho fell, the land of Israel is in a lot of trouble, the Canaanite kingdoms. And so Jericho is built up, the walls are incredibly thick, it's impregnable, it's prepared to withstand a siege and it's prepared to protect any invaders that are coming across the Jordan. Of course, their first thought is, this time of year, the Jordan River is flooded, it's overflowing its banks, no army can get across the Jordan. When it's down and it's the dry season, then an army could ford it. Those are called the fords of Moab, which we're going to get to in the Book of Judges. because they come into play there. But now the water is way high. So there's Jericho inside. We know from Rahab that the city of Jericho has already heard the report. They heard about Israel 40 years earlier and the opening of the Red Sea. This was an amazing event. This was not just a bunch of people walking across the marsh that happened to be dry that time of year. This was something that the entire world was talking about 40 years later. It was an amazing event, the Red Sea splitting open and Israel going through. Jericho's already talking about that. Of course, they're thinking to themselves, well, this is a pretty powerful God that's done that. I don't know if he's as strong as our God, but we'll see. And the nations of Canaan that are scattered throughout all of Canaan, they're saying the same kinds of things. And we've gone over the heart of Canaanite Baal worship. of Israel, then led them through the wilderness, fed them with manna from heaven. When they get to the land of the Amorites, Sihon and Og are both defeated. And Sihon and Og were huge men with huge armies. The description of Og's bedstead is given, how big it was. He was ever bit as big or bigger than Goliath, the king of Bashan. And the men that he had huge men huge armies and they were completely defeated and every single one of them wiped out And so the amazing thought is to the nation of Jericho What's going on? What are we going to do with these people? Well, fortunately the Jordan River is there because there's nobody they can't get across the Jordan So that's the setup They send the two spies across the Jordan to go in and spy out the city of Jericho. What's inside of Jericho? What can we expect? What's coming? God has not yet given them the strategy. So this is a wise thing for them to do and it's an act of faith. They know that they're going to take Jericho, God promised. They don't know what the strategy is yet. It could be that God wants them to go and use their God-given brains and abilities and talent to simply take on the city of Jericho with conventional warfare. They don't know this. If they're going to take it on with conventional warfare, they need to know what the defenses are inside of Jericho. And so that's what these two men are doing. These two men go to Jericho, and we don't know how long they were there. What we do know is the king heard that they were there, and he sends people to go get them and kill them. The two spies get away from the king, and as they're running from the king, they come to the house of a harlot named Rahab. And there are so many questions that pop into people's heads. which kind of show our view of prostitution. The idea is, well, what on earth were two men, what did they go to the house of a prostitute for, number one. Number two, why on earth did God save a prostitute? Doesn't God know that they're sinners? And so forth. Jesus got the same attack when he was on the earth that he ate and drank with prostitutes and sinners. And then you start thinking about it and start studying it a little bit more. You know there isn't anyone, any woman, in the world that decided when she was a little girl that when she grows up she wants to be a prostitute. That's not really a goal that many of them make. What happens is when you have a prostitute, what you actually have is a victim of the oppression of men. She makes a lot of bad sinful choices, of course she does, and so forth. But this is someone who has been, in this day and age, a prostitute is a prostitute just like every day and age. A prostitute is a prostitute because she has no other options. She has nothing else that she can do. It's that or starve to death. And by the very nature of the business she is in, she is being exploited, entrapped, and enslaved, and oppressed by the men of the city. This is why I'm very glad that First Reformed Church is supporting an organization like Restoration Railroad, who's actually helping victims of sex trafficking get out of that business and learn how to live how to live life as a dignified human being because they've never been taught that from the time they were little children on and on and on anyway so here's the beautiful thing God has a very special care for the oppressed, for the weak, for those that are bowed down, for those that are poor, for those that are struggling. The two spies and the spirit of God did not go to the king of Jericho, did not go to the leaders of the city of Jericho, didn't go to the priests and the prophets of the city of Jericho, or the wealthy men of the city of Jericho. They went to a prostitute. And why did they go there? The scripture doesn't tell us specifically, but the main reason is is because God had one of his elect there. And the elect that God had there was not the person that we would expect to be the elect. She was the prostitute. And thus it was in every age. Thus it was when Christ was on the earth. It was the prostitute that wiped Jesus' feet with her hair because she was a sinner. But, and Christ forgave her. But the thing is, is that when it comes to what the scripture tells us, those people that purchase the prostitutes and use the prostitutes have a far greater liability. Think about that for a moment. I think we ought to change our laws. This is a side note, but I think we should change the law to give the death penalty or the same penalty that we give to rapists to anybody that would purchase a prostitute because it's the same thing. What you're doing is the same thing. Anyway, that's a side note. We'll move on. You could apply that also to pornography and everything else. We live in a, whenever we start to celebrate quote unquote sexual freedom, The end result is always the oppression and abuse of women and children. It's always that way. It always will be that way. It's only Christianity that upholds the dignity and worth of all the children of God. Anyway, let's move on. So the spies are there. And I'm in chapter 2 of the book of Joshua. The spies are there. And we don't know how long they were there. We know it was long enough for the writer of Hebrews to mention Rahab as a hero of the faith. What it means is Rahab made her decisions based upon faith, which means she had to know something. Faith is a certain knowledge and a hearty trust. And she didn't have to know everything, but she had to know a little. And so the spies were there at least long enough to tell her about the true God, the one true eternal God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. They had to be there long enough to say who they were. They were the people of the living God. And long enough for Rahab to know enough to say, save me when this comes crashing down. And so she says in verse, Verse number 9, I know, and she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, chapter 2 verse 9, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land faint 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 ye did to the two kings of the Amorites, which were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did they remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord that since I have shown you kindness, that you will also show kindness unto my father's house and give me a true token. and so forth. Now listen to that profession of faith. It's very similar to the confession of faith made by the thief that was on the cross. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. She says, first of all, I know that the Lord, Jehovah, notice it's capitalized, Jehovah, the personal name of God, he is God of heaven above and of earth beneath. Right there, she is turning her back on the entire religious system of everything she was brought up with. Because a Baal worshipper could not say that. A Baal worshipper could say the Lord is God of the hills, the Lord is God of Israel, the Lord is God of the river, the Lord is God of the wall, the Lord is God of the city. All those things a Baal worshipper could say. But a Baal worshipper could never say he is God alone in heaven above and on earth beneath. There's your confession of faith. Also, we're in a lot of trouble. This is coming down. God has given you that God makes a distinction between the kingdom of the devil and the kingdom of Israel. That that distinction today mentioned in our Heidelberg Catechism, the children of unbelievers and the children of believers. God makes a distinction between the two. And once that distinction is clear in people's heads, when they've been awakened by the Spirit of God and they know, I'm a child of wrath. I'm a child of the kingdom that's about to be destroyed. But these people are the children of God. And the only mercy, the only hope that I have is to be counted among the children of God, which can only take place by the kindness of God. And so she says, show me kindness. Swear to me that you will show me kindness. Do you see her profession of faith going on right there? Now at that point, the men are downstairs banging on the wall. You have to understand this whole picture going on. The soldiers have arrived. They're banging on her door, demanding to be let in. She's upstairs. She's covering them on the roof. The roof was flat. She lived on the wall. Way out of the way up on the wall and the roof there was flat and out of the roof You could see the plains of Gilgal and you could see out there And so there she is on the top of the wall the men of the city or the the spies she lays down flat on the roof and covers them with flax the flax is sitting up on the roof and drying out, and they're going to soon weave it into rope and all the other stuff they do with flax. So it's laying on the roof, and so she hides them under all the flax. Meanwhile, the men are downstairs banging on the door. She runs downstairs, she opens the door, and they say, where are the two men that came here? We saw them come in here. Where'd they go? And she says, they went that way. If you hurry fast, maybe you can catch them. I don't know where they went from there. And then all the soldiers take off after the wrong direction, which leads to the second question. Was Rahab right or wrong when she lied? The fact that people ask that question shows how far our hearts are from compassion and from true faith. At heart, we all still think like legalists, don't we? A legalist thinks in terms of, if we do all of these things right, God has to love us. Now, God will forgive you. He'll forgive your sins. But first you have to make sure you confess it. And then you have to live a godly life by the grace of the Holy Spirit. But if you don't, at the heart of that, God is not good. So let's look at it from a realistic perspective, and I'm going to finish, I'm going to clarify all of this in the time we have left, hopefully. Let's look at this from a realistic perspective. Rahab was not given an opportunity to think it through. She was not given an opportunity to analyze all the pluses and minuses of her proper answer. She was not given an opportunity to think about all the moral implications about what she was about to do. She was given an absolute split second to make a decision. And her decision was only this. It wasn't, should I lie or not lie? Her decision was, do I side with Jericho or do I side with the people of God? That was her decision. If she had said, like I've heard theonomists say, what she should have done was, I can't answer that question, then she would have already answered the question and the spies would have been dead. There was nothing else she could have said. If she had said, I refuse to tell a lie, What she would have done is she would have said, God is not good. He's a harsh taskmaster. But I am good enough to earn his approval. And at heart, that's what every legalist says to themselves. God is a harsh taskmaster who demands us to serve him. And it's tough, because sometimes when you serve him, bad things happen. But I'm going to stick it through. It's really the arrogant heart that we're good enough that God looks at us and he may see a formal prostitute but man we don't lie now we always tell the truth and this comes out whenever you have what do you do at this point as a pastor as an elder as a member of the church you have a young woman that comes to you And this debate is going on right now. And she finally opens up, because you've established a relationship with this young woman, she finally opens up to you that she's scared to death to go home. Because dad puts on this smiley face at church, and everybody knows him as a smiley, cheerful, jovial, godly man. But at home, he's vicious, and cruel, and hateful, and beats her, leaves bruises all over her body. and she shows you the bruises and says if I go home I think you'll kill me because right now he's going nuts then what do you do and you can say well I need to send her back home because he is the father and the covenant head of the home and besides we haven't gone through the steps of Matthew 18 and we gotta look through the steps of Matthew 18 before we can determine whether or not she's telling the truth or whether she's not telling the truth and when you've gone that route you've issued the death penalty on this poor girl. You see what I'm saying? Sometimes we have a rehab situation. There's times, and the time will come, when you need to go through the steps of Matthew 18, and you need to find out legally what to do, and you need to figure out all those ins and outs and all those other stuff, but in the meantime, you've got spies underneath the flax of the roof getting ready to die. What are you gonna do? And that's when our heart comes out. Are we truly people of God's goodness and God's grace and God's mercy or are we going to be legalists and issue the death penalty on everybody who doesn't meet up to our standards? That's the real question and that takes you away from asking all these questions about situational ethics and about whether or not you should do this or whether or not you should do that and whether or not she should have lied or whether she shouldn't have lied and then if she did lie, under what circumstances is it proper for somebody to lie and on and on and on it goes. You're asking all the wrong questions. Rahab only had one choice, side with the people of God or side with my kinsmen in the city of Jericho. That was all she was given by God and she made her split-second decision. They went that way, hurry up, you might be able to save them. And then she goes back up on the roof and lets the spies down over the roof and they swear to her that they will show her kindness. And there we have