You can turn over to Hebrews 11 if you want to follow along in the Bible. Keep a place over in Joshua as well. We'll be referring to that for sure. So we have been going through the epistle to the Hebrews. And we've been in chapter 11 looking at these different examples of faith. And what faith does and what it looks like, how it works in the lives of God's people. And we have seen that each one is unique. But what we have this time, after looking at about, I think it's 15 different ones, we have an example that is very unique. I've been struck by the fact that all of the 15 have been different from each other. It's not the same, each one shows different aspects of faith. But now we've got one that we call very unique. It stands out by itself from all of the other ones. And in a way, it is kind of a foreshadowing of the mercy that God was to show to the Gentiles, to the nations that did not know him in our times. So the woman that we're looking at today is an example of faith. She's in a class by herself. She stands out as one who is very far from God, yet brought near by grace through faith. You look at the other ones and it's people like Abraham, and his sons, and Moses, and different people like that. But here's someone that was completely an outsider. And she was, there were a lot of things about her. We're gonna look at that. What we have in her example, though, is a powerful medicine that's able to encourage the most desperate heart and able to break the proudest heart. That's a powerful medicine because it does, in a sense, the opposite. Somebody that's all proud and smug and full of themselves, it breaks their proud heart so that they see that they need to come to God for salvation. And somebody that's despairing and saying, there's no hope for me. I've got nowhere to go. I've got nothing. I'm a mess. What can I do? I mean, I'm not right with God. How would He ever receive me? How could I ever come to God and have Him accept me? Because of all the things that I've done, the desperate heart, it brings encouragement and hope to the desperate heart. The same thing here, the same example of faith is able to do both things. The proud heart says, of course God will accept me because I'm not depraved like those people over there. I'm a good person. I stand out. Proud heart. It's got to be broken, humbled. and the desperate heart. No, no, no hope for me. Now you might think with a proud heart that, oh, well, you know, I don't think there's many people like that, you know, that would say, oh, you know, those people over there. But in case you think that's the case, there was a survey that was done of students who are finishing high school. And one of the questions that they were asked in evaluating different things having to do with themselves, are you someone that is easy to get along with? Would you say you're average, above average, below average? It even got a little bit more specific than that. How many of them do you suppose said that they were below average? There were 829,000 that participated. Zero. Not one person said, I think I'm below average when it comes to getting along with other people. At least half of them had an elevated sense of how they stood in comparison to others, because at least half. Probably more than half, because some of them probably thought they were below that weren't. 60%, they had a further refinement, rated themselves in the top 10%. That means that at least 83% of them had to be wrong. Because they said that 60% said they're in the top 10%, 83% at least of those were wrong. And then they said, is anybody in the top 1%? That was another thing that they could categorize. How many people said that? 25% said, I think I'm in the top 1% when it comes to getting along with other people. At least 96% of those 829,000 students had a falsely elevated opinion of themselves. And likely it was more, because likely some of the ones that actually, however you would measure it, but ones that actually would be in the top 1% probably didn't think they were. So it could have been close to 99% that had an elevated sense. Of what they were, well, I guess those ones that said that they were even lower didn't have that, but you get the idea. Each one of us is poisoned in our souls to various degrees with both of these problems that I mentioned today. Okay, despair, there's no hope, I've got nowhere, there's no hope for me, and pride. I'm better, I'm superior. We both have that poison in us in various ways. It's weird we can have it at the same time, but we do. May the Lord then use Rahab's example of faith as a medicine today to help us to look at things in a better way. Our scripture reading is Hebrews 11 31. Listen carefully as I read it to you. It's just one verse. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. Are we in the reading of God's word? May he bless it to us. As with other examples that we have looked at in Hebrews, the author assumes that those who hear and read this epistle, the ones that he wrote to who are Hebrews, who are Jewish people, would be familiar with the background to this story. If you just read this verse, and we hadn't read the story behind it earlier, you wouldn't know what it was talking about. And that's how all these accounts here of faith are. You have to know something of the background. So that's why we read in Joshua 2 and Joshua 6 earlier, and I'll be referring to that as we go along. Okay, we'll be looking back at those passages. So the first things to learn from Rahab's salvation is this. Never suppose that anyone, including you, is beyond the hope of salvation. It's easy to think that way, unless the person's dead. It's easy to think that way. Perhaps God has been showing you something of the depth of your sin. And you say, I'm beyond hope. How could the Lord ever accept me when I keep on coming short? I try to change and I go back, same as I was before. There I have lost my temper again. There I have neglected my duties again to my family, to the people that I work for. There I go falling into temptation again and again and again. Perhaps you're a professing Christian. And you've come to God a lot and you're ashamed to keep coming to him for mercy. You've gone too far. How will God accept you? You have that sense. So often God's people are hesitant to come to Him. He delights to have you come to Him with your sin to deal with it. Maybe there's been serious sin in your life. Maybe there's been adultery or stealing or cursing God's name. Bitterness. Seething bitterness. Been there a long time. Envy. Resentment. Disrespect your parents and you know it. How can the Lord accept you? How can he deliver you? If you come to him and say, Lord, I have sinned, have mercy on me. He will gladly receive you and he will cleanse you and he'll help you change. So I've done that before and then I go back, come back to him again, come back to him again and again and again. God is merciful and he delights for us to come to him. But maybe it's not you, but another that you despair of. There's that relative that you've been talking to that's going deeper and deeper and deeper into sin, further and further alienation from God. They deny the Lord. They're engrossed in all kinds of deviant behavior. It's increasing. Maybe it's even a relative or a friend that is in prison. Maybe a child molester, and you say, what kind of hope is there for this person? You've tried to talk to them about the Lord, and maybe they even start cursing and swearing and say, leave me alone, I'll live my life the way I want. Don't bother me with these things. Or maybe you're someone who doesn't even try to talk to people about the Lord or even pray for them because there's no hope for that person. They're too far gone. I used to pray for them, but I don't pray for them anymore. Maybe you just did that. You didn't say that, but that's what you actually did. Why should I pray? I've been praying for them for 15 years and there's nothing going on. There's no hope. Maybe if you're honest, you'd have to admit that you can't see how God's grace could ever reach certain people. And that person just couldn't happen. Or maybe your issue is a little different here. You hear a preacher declare that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that there are none righteous, no, not one. I remember going through some of those passages when I was doing a Bible study one time with kind of a small group Bible study, you know, where people were talking and everything. And there was an older lady there. She'd been to church all her life and she didn't like that, that there's none righteous, no not one, all deserve to go to hell. And if that's true, they deserve to suffer in this world as well, of course, that's lesser. You hear the Bible says that man's heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. And this woman said, no, no, not everybody's like that. I'm not like that. I'm a good person. I've always been a good person. And she was basically saying, I don't really need God's salvation, because I'm one of the good people. And other people are the bad people. I can see a lot of people are really bad people, and they need God's salvation. She wasn't like a very, in her whole demeanor and life, she wasn't an arrogant sort of a person in her behavior. She was kind to people, and she did really try to live an honest life, but maybe Maybe your honest thought is, you know, people aren't really as bad as the Bible says. I'm not that bad. I know I'm not. That must be talking about the bad people who hurt others and live wicked lives. I'm okay. I try to be good. I try to help people. I try to be courteous. I'm not a drunkard. I'm not an adulterer. You don't see yourself as beyond hope of salvation. You know, you simply don't need salvation. It's a different kind of way. I don't need this. I don't need God's salvation really for that. He can accept me the way I am. Rahab is certainly, now we come back to the picture of Rahab. She's certainly one who might be supposed to be beyond this reach of salvation. Look what our text calls her right there in Hebrews. The harlot Rahab. It's interesting, that's how it labels her. It highlights the fact that she was a harlot. A harlot, of course, is a woman who, for advantage, exposes her person to fornication. She sells her body for sexual pleasure of others. Rahab was not forced into this behavior. Sometimes people can be kidnapped and forced into this kind of behavior, but she ran an inn that was a house of these sinful pleasures. It would seem to be an inn where people could stay as well, either way. One does not sell their body to such things without actually selling their soul in a certain way. They trample on their own conscience, like stomping out fire. Their conscience is speaking against them and they keep stomping it out. When someone gives themselves over to sexual immorality or to drunkenness. There's all kinds of things that we give ourselves over, we sell our soul out. In fact, the Bible says in Hosea 4.11, harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart. So in other words, you become in bondage to those things that you were looking at for pleasure or for wealth or for gain of some kind, whatever it is that are sins against God. Proverbs 7.25 speaks of a young man who goes off with a seductress when it says, he did not know that it would cost him his life. He thought he was getting something that would be good. And there's pleasure in the thing, but he was actually abandoning his conscience, his life, any kind of walk with God, because everyone knows naturally that these things are wrong, and they harden their heart against it as they engage in it. At first, it bothers them, and then they do it a little bit more. It gets more familiar. They're trampling down their life. They're destroying their very conscience and soul. before God. It's one of the most common exit doors from the kingdom of God, fornication. You begin to have illicit sexual relationships with people, and your conscience is troubled, and then you don't like being around God, you don't like being around His people, and then you start to say, I don't know if all this, I'm starting to have doubts about the Bible, I don't know if all this is true. Or you give yourself over to other things like that and you enslave your heart, you see, and you destroy your very soul. You can't respond to God anymore. You don't see that you're a sinner that needs salvation. You're numb. Very, very dangerous thing. So Rahab. She was the one, this is what she did. She's the harlot Rahab. That's who she was. She's also has another thing against her is make her an unlikely convert. She's also an Amorite. The Amorites were a people that God had devoted to entire destruction. I mentioned that before. Because for centuries, they had been in gross rebellion against God. He wanted no trace of them to remain. He was setting them up as a representation so everybody, all the other nations could see that their behavior was not acceptable. And in the time that when the gospel came, that the nations could say, you know, we need this salvation. So they in the city of Jericho were devoted to destruction, as we saw last week. She was a wicked woman then, living in a wicked nation that God had utterly rejected. What hope was there? What possible hope for someone like that? She's numbed herself to God in her conscience, and she's among a wicked people devoted to destruction. Besides her harlotry and her nation, she was also one who seems to have had a comfortable living. She owned this place, it appears, and she lacked nothing. She seems to have been in good health. And Jericho is a place kind of like California. They had beautiful weather that was comfortable and not real humid. It's a really, really lovely climate. It's not that far from Jerusalem, but you go down there and it's like a vacation spot that's just wonderful. Jerusalem's not that bad, but Jericho's really a paradise-like place. Did she have then of the Lord? She didn't have a pressing sense of need. She wasn't in trouble. She was things, she had a thriving business. Everything in that way was okay. So does she not appear to be beyond the hope of renovation? Her harlotry and her people are mentioned for that very reason. Can God's grace save her? See how our gracious God works to save those who are out of reach. First, He causes them to hear the report of His saving work among His people. Remember what we looked at in the call to worship? The Gentiles would give thanks, the nations around that don't know God, that they would give thanks when they see His mercy to us. That's the first thing that God does. He brings a report to them, the gospel, the good news of what was done for His people. They look at it. They hear the gospel and they hear of His mercy to save His people. They see that there are people that have actually been saved by that gospel. Okay, in Joshua 2.10, Rahab tells the spies about what she and her people had all heard and seen, in a sense. They had heard reports. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt. Like, the water of the Red Sea doesn't just dry up and people go across and then the water comes back. They heard, this went around. This got all around the nations and they had heard that. and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan. That wasn't that far away from them. It was just the other side of the Jordan. Sion and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. Nations that they didn't really have their own strength against that God brought down. They know then that God had chosen these people and they knew that He was going to bless them and establish them as a people for Himself. They heard the glorious report. The Lord graciously does this in those outsiders upon whom He wishes to have mercy. Those that He has appointed to salvation, they all hear the report of what God did for His people. They all come to find out, this is what God does for His people. They come to see what He has done to save us from our sin and to establish us as a people forever. Now that Christ is coming to the world, they hear the gospel of how God sent his son to die for his people's sins, that they might be pardoned through faith. They hear of how he has promised to give eternal life and how their hearts have been transformed so that they can serve God, and love God, and turn away from their sins, and be allegiant to Him, so that nothing can shake them, so that even when they're persecuted, and when even they're being put to death, that they continue to serve God, and they say, this is something that God has done. They hear the report. They hear as well that he is going to judge all those who reject him and that he may in order that he may at last establish peace on the earth where God is served in righteousness. Those who have the privilege of hearing his saving work among his people are most privileged. Some people don't ever get to hear. Some people live and die without ever hearing the report of God and His mercy to His people. Those who do, they see that God is merciful and that He goes out of His way to bless sinners. When this is true of you, when you have had the privilege, some of you even grew up with this message. You had it from the day of your very birth. You have a tremendous privilege that puts an obligation upon you to be grateful and to plead for God's mercy, to look to Him for that salvation, to say, Lord, You're a merciful God. Look at what You've done to Your people. Look at what You've done for us. I'm one of Your people, one that's grown up with this, and to follow Him. It's remarkable that often those who grow up among God's people will harden themselves to the message. Because of what I was talking about before, they start engaging in things they know are wrong, they trample their soul, they trample their conscience, they come into bondage, and they don't hear the voice of God anymore. It's just dead. Their soul is dead. They need to repent and turn back to God. And then outsiders, like Rahab, they just hear a bit of a report, just a little bit of a report out there, and immediately they're like, I've got to find out about this. And they come eagerly. Look, and here's a person had all their life. And they're like, I don't really I don't know about that. I don't really care about that. You remember when Jesus was on the earth? He deliberately limited His ministry, especially to the Jews. He even told His disciples in that time when they were going out, don't go to the Gentiles. Only go to the house of Israel. Only go to the Jews. Because He was showing mercy to His people, you see. He was giving Himself for their sins. Then the nations would be called after that. But do you remember what happened as Jesus went about doing that? Repeatedly, people show up, a Roman centurion, or a woman from Tyre and Tydon. They come up and say, Lord, have mercy on me. And like the woman at Tyre and Tydon, he says, you're a Gentile. I came for Israel. Is it right for me to take the children's bread that I came for Israel and give it to the dogs? And she says, Lord, even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. She's like, just all I need is a crumb of your mercy, and it's enough for me. This is the picture that you have in the Bible. The people of God are like, we don't need that. And the other people are like, oh, wow, we've heard wonderful things. We want to know about this. And they come to check it out. There's a wickedness there and a hardness in the people of God that is unconscionable. All who hear, whether you've heard it all your life or whether you just began to hear, all who hear have an obligation to come and say, Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, save my soul. Lord, deliver me. The second thing he does for those desperate sinners who are appointed to salvation is to bring his people to them or them to his people. So we said they hear the report. and then he brings them to actually meet his people, to actually engage with his people. Rahab was the one person in Jericho and her family that God had appointed to salvation. In his providence, Joshua sent these two men as spies ahead, and where did they just happen to end up? At the house of the woman that God was showing mercy to, the house of Rahab the harlot. In the New Testament, we see examples of this portrayed to us. Like you remember with Philip the evangelist, when the Ethiopian eunuch, he's been up worshiping the temple and then he's going home and he's driving on his chariot and everything. And God takes him and just drops Philip off in the desert, transports him. Because this man needed to hear he was one that God had chosen, he made sure that he connected with God's people. And Philip told him about the Lord, and the eunuch believed and received the blessing. And we see that over and over again. We see Paul. He's trying to go, where am I going to go and minister? And he looks at this place and this place, and he keeps getting blocked. And he's like, Lord, where do you? And then he has a vision over in Macedonia. Come over and help us. And he goes to a little place called Philippi. Well, they don't even have a synagogue here. Where am I going to start? And there's a little group of Jewish women that are praying by the river. And he goes to the prayer meeting, and there's Lydia, some of her friends, and they're converted. And then he's out walking around town, and there's this servant girl that's following him around. She's demon-possessed. She was one that was chosen. What happened? She was brought together with God's people. And he cast the demon out. And then when he did that, her owners got mad and cast him into prison. Why? Well, you could say different reasons, but one of the reasons is because the jailer was someone, the Roman jailer, a crusty old, probably an old soldier that was now a jailer, you know, and he was looking after prisoners all day. And there he is, and he was chosen for salvation. And he hears the gospel, and his whole family is baptized in the middle of the night. and trusts in the Lord. This is how God works. He brings his people to those to whom he delights to show mercy. In many cases, this contact with God's people is the thing that enables them to hear the report. That's often how it is. They meet a Christian, they begin to see and they learn about God's mercy and what he's done for them. And as they learn about that, they begin, they draw near to the Lord. But other times they may learn about it, they hear the report, maybe they read and they start reading the Bible and they get hungry and they learn. But eventually God brings them, like Rahab, she heard first and then she actually met the people. God saw to it that she would meet the people. That's the way he works. The Lord does this that they might be joined to his church, the people that he gathers together to call on his name as a community of faith, to encourage one another, to engage in the worship ordinances that he has appointed for us in the Old Testament, now in the New Testament. We are not called to isolation. We're called to community. We're called to be a people that live together before the Lord. The third thing the Lord does for those appointed to salvation is to actually save them. This is dramatically displayed in the case of Rahab with the actual physical deliverance that she had. We're told that she and her household did not perish with the rest of her nation. God had appointed the rest of the nation, as I said, to destruction. They all were killed, every one of them, but she is spared along with her household. And indeed, it was much more than not perishing, wasn't it? She didn't perish, that's right. But she was also faithfully established as one of the people of God. Just as if she had been born there. By grace, she was established with God's people. This is summed up for us in Joshua 6, 25. And Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father's household and all that she had. And then it says, so she dwells in Israel to this day. And do you know what happened to Rahab? She married one of the princes of Judah, a guy named Salmon. Recognize that name, Salmon? She married him. And I don't think he married her because of her riches. She left everything. She left Jericho. I think he married her because she was godly. And he wanted to have a godly wife because it was a godly family that Salmon was part of. Salmon and Rahab. And you know who he is. Rahab the Ammonite was once a harlot. And her great grandparents were, she was a great grandparent to King David. David came from Rahab. And who came from David? Jesus Christ. So when we look in Matthew, in Matthew's gospel in chapter one, it actually, mainly it's mentioning the lineage through the men, the ancestors of Christ. But when it gets to Salmon, it mentions Rahab the harlot. And it says Rahab the harlot again, to highlight this woman was fully brought in and incorporated with God's people. Like, this is powerful. Rahab was part of the family of God. There is no half acceptance with God. There is no half measures. There's no people that are just sort of accepted. When we come into the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, it is His righteousness that's given to us, and we're fully received as God's people no matter what we have done. No one is beyond hope of the Gospel. We must be ready and willing to welcome sinners then as God's people. No matter what they may have done, we must never shun a Rahab or someone like that because of what they did in the past. as if we were superior, no matter what they have done to us even. We need to forgive and receive. It was interesting in studying this passage because one of the commentators that I read is John Brown. There's a lot of John Browns, but the John Brown I'm talking about, he lived until 1858. So he was kind of in that period of, you know, the Victorian times and that sort of thing. And he had to deal with something in his commentary. He had to explain that Rahab really was a harlot. Some people said, oh, she was just an innkeeper, and this word could be used, it does refer to an innkeeper, but it also refers to a harlot. And he had to say, the New Testament word definitely refers to a harlot. But why did he have to do that at that time? Because people said, oh, you're tarnishing this woman. She was someone that became one of God's people, so she couldn't have been a harlot. They missed the whole point. And they're thinking that she couldn't have been a harlot. Don't tarnish her reputation. No, she was a harlot. It calls her a harlot all the time. And the glory of God's grace is seen in that she was a harlot. And she became incorporated fully into the people of God. That's what the whole message is about. And we have to have that attitude ourselves that we welcome anyone who comes into God's kingdom. We must always be a church that welcomes even the vilest offender. Now that doesn't mean that we put someone in charge of children's ministry when they've had a history of molesting children or something like that, but we welcome sinners into the fellowship of God's people. If God receives them and brings them to repentance, who are we to reject them? There is one more important matter that we need to address, and it is the theme that is emphasized in Hebrews 11, and that is faith. Look at the faith. by which Rahab was saved. She was saved by faith. That's what it says in Hebrews. By faith, Rahab the harlot. So here is the faith by which all sinners, even the greatest, are saved. First look at our text, Hebrews 11.31. We're told that faith is what distinguished Rahab from her fellow citizens of Jericho, so that they perished in God's judgment, and she did not perish. It's very simple. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish. By faith, she didn't. That was what distinguished her. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with those who did not believe. So it emphasizes, it was because of unbelief that they perished, it was because of faith that she did not. We saw how both she and her countrymen received the same report though, about Israel, about God's grace to establish them. And here's the thing, they believed the report. They thought that really did happen. They thought the Red Sea really did dry up. And they knew that these people had come and that God had given them these mighty deliverance. They saw it. And there's a sense then in which they did believe. So there's some kind of difference here, isn't there? Look again at what Rahab says to the spies, starting in Joshua 2.9. I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, because they believed the report, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you, all of them. 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 Jordan, Sinai and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted. Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you. Their unbelief then was not a disbelief of the facts. They knew the facts were true because they were terrified. They were terrified because they knew it was true. So they believed that those things happened just as much as Rahab believed that they happened. So what is this belief that we're talking about? What is this faith? Hebrews 11, 31 says, by faith, Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. So there's some kind of a way that they did not believe, an obvious distinction. We're told that the demons believe in God. They know that God is true. They know that Jesus came. They know that he died on the cross. They know that he saves people. But they do not submit to him. They hate that he saves people. They believe the facts, but they do not entrust themselves to him. The people of Jericho should have sought Israel out and pled for mercy from Israel's God, even just for the crumbs of that mercy. But instead of looking to him to save him, they hardened their hearts and they did not believe in that way. The word used here actually for believe, when it says they did not believe, is one that speaks of refusing to trust and obey. In other words, sometimes it says they did not obey. It's that word we ran into before in Hebrews that refers to a resistance to the message, the call to come and believe. And it's a hardening and a pushing off of that, I'm not gonna comply with God. That's why sometimes disobedience or rebellion, I'm not gonna go along with this. Look at Rahab's beautiful profession of faith. It stands out opposite to that. In Joshua 2, look back in Joshua 2. First, she testifies of God's grace to his people. Joshua 2, nine. I know that the Lord has given you the land. She saw that God had a people that he was blessing as being his people and he being their God and giving them a land where he would live for them. She saw the kingdom of God. And she said, you know, I know that the Lord has given you the land. I know that he's given you this kingdom. This place is his people. She saw it as a gift of grace and she rejoiced to see this mercy. Those who have saving faith or are coming to saving faith say this is a good thing. These people have been blessed and look at what she says about God, part of her profession of faith. Remember, she was a pagan idol worshiper, but she but she had come to believe from hearing the gospel of God's grace to Israel. that the Lord was the only true God. So Joshua 2.11, she says, for the Lord your God, okay, speaking to these two spies, for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. She came to see that there was only one God, and that it was this God, that he was the creator, he was the Lord of all. Now see how Rahab then goes on to plead for God's mercy to her and her household. In verse 12 she says, now therefore I beg you swear to me by the Lord since I have shown you kindness that you will also 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. Doesn't that remind you of the thief on the cross? Remember what he said, Jesus is on the cross. And he said, Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom. He came to believe that Jesus was the one, the Lord, and he was going to establish a kingdom of righteousness. This thief came to believe that fact. And then he said, remember me when you come in your kingdom. I want to be part of that kingdom. Have mercy on me. Let me be part of it. That's what she says. God has given you the land. You're coming in. You're going to do this. You're going to be his kingdom people. Let me remember me when you come. When you come back, you know, she knew they were going to come back. She sees it. This is what every sinner ought to say when they see the kingdom of God. It's so foolish to resist Him. What do you think, that you'll stop God's kingdom from coming? I mean, are you going to stop this from happening? She couldn't stop it. She said, have mercy on me. I know this is going to happen. I want to be part of it. Notice how she refers to the kindness that she has shown in protecting the spies as well. Notice that she is also spoken of in Hebrews that Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. Now what is this? People say, I thought she was saved by faith. I thought it was not by works that she did, but by God's. Of course it's not by works she did. We've seen what she was like. She was a harlot. She was an idol worshiper, all of these things. But what it's talking about here, this was the evidence of her faith. It goes part and parcel with faith. It couldn't be separated. Her faith is demonstrated. We love and accept the people that God has blessed and we want to be part of them when we're brought to salvation. Instead of envying them, we want to see them blessed because God wants to see them blessed. And we join with God in blessing them. We want to associate with them and be counted one of them. Now think about what a great thing this was for Rahab. by receiving the spies in the Lord's name, she put her life in danger. If they found out she was doing this, she would have been instantly taken and tortured probably. But she received them in the Lord's name. She was forsaking her people and her people's idols and casting in her lot with God's people. Nothing but faith could cause her to do such a thing. The Hebrew Christians, to whom the Hebrews is written, were required to do the same thing. Okay, so these Hebrew Christians in the first century that received this letter to Hebrews, they read about Rahab, They were in exactly the same situation. They had to leave their people who had hardened their hearts against the gospel, the Jewish people that they had grown up with and had all the promises. They had to leave them and go out with a little group of people that said Jesus is the Messiah and that we're following Him. John Brown says, they, like Rahab, were called on to do violence to their patriotic feelings, to separate themselves from their unbelieving kindred and country, and to follow a course which exposed them not only to the spoiling of their goods, but to the imminent hazard of their lives. To put it simply, they had to leave their people and go to be with God's people, to associate. What else but faith could induce Rahab to do this? She did it because she believed that the world was not about man's kingdoms, but it was about God's kingdom. What else can you do when you believe that God is graciously establishing a kingdom of righteousness in the world? What else can you do but leave everything and come to enter that kingdom and to follow Him? When you come, He meets you at the door and washes you with the symbol of baptism. A symbol of washing with water of purification because we're all polluted with sin and Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood so that we could be purified and cleansed by trusting in him and his death in our place. And he gives us the Holy Spirit who changes us and washes us so that we will turn from our old way and follow God. And it's a process. We still struggle. We go back and forth. But our whole orientation is changed to be for God instead of against God, instead of hardening our hearts. We may do that for a little time. We may go away and be struggling. But then we're going to repent and come back because God's spirit will not leave us alone. God is able to keep those who are truly his people. He does not reject a single one who comes to him and says, have mercy on me. No matter what you have done, God will welcome you when you repent and come to him and say, Lord, receive me and have mercy on me. But if you're proud and you think you don't need his cleansing, That's when there's no hope until that changes and that can change. God can break the proudest heart and he can also encourage the most desperate heart. So if any of you are saying, oh, this couldn't be for me, I'm too far gone. Not true. We've seen that that's not true today with Rahab the harlot. On the other hand, if you say, I don't think I really need that. You're also wrong. You're proud. Your heart needs to be broken. You need to be humble before the living God. We have all sinned and come short. We know it. Everybody knows they've sinned against God. We all know that we need mercy from our God and he's provided it through his son. Please stand and let's call on his name. Gracious Heavenly Father, how can we thank You enough for what we see with Rahab? We think about even ourselves, Lord, no matter when it was that we or our families first came to the Lord. Some of us maybe have been Christian families for a long time, but somewhere back there we were worshipping trees and rocks and offering children for sacrifices. tearing out hearts of our enemies to torture them, and all sorts of things that we were engaged in, and all kinds of pollution and defilement. And Father, You had mercy on us. And we thank You, Lord, for Your great mercies. Father, every one of us, every one of us is conceived in sin. David, who was a covenant child with a faithful family, comes into the world saying, In sin did my mother conceive me. He knew that he was born with a sinful heart that was opposed to you. And it was only by your grace that from his very early days that the Holy Spirit worked and that he was born from above and that he was able to follow you, O Lord. And we thank you, Lord, for your mercy that you show to us and to our children. And we pray, Lord, that we would indeed follow you, O Lord, and that we would rejoice that we have the report of the gospel that is echoed all around our chambers in the church, Lord. We are the people who who have this gospel message of grace that we hear over and over again. And we pray, Lord, that none would harden their heart and that we would go forward and that those who have hardened their heart would repent and would turn back to You. We pray for those outside, that they would see the mercy that You have shown to us and that they would desire it, Father, that they would come to receive it. For You do not turn anyone away who comes to You for mercy. Not a single one has ever been turned away. And we thank you and praise you for that, Lord. We thank you that even in our weakness, Lord, that you will keep us and you will preserve us and hold us up. We've seen examples of faith of those who are in your kingdom, people like we saw Jacob and how he had many things that needed to be refined, and yet you did refine him over the years. We see a man like Joseph, who from his very childhood was faithful all his life because your grace kept him, you preserved him. And Father, one is a testimony of your grace just as much as the other. But both of them were received into your kingdom because they came to you for mercy. Father, here we are. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, for we are all sinners. And if you have no mercy on us, then we will perish with the unbelievers. But if we believe and trust and we come to you for salvation, we shall be saved. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. This is the song of exhortation, Psalm 45. Receive now the blessing of the Lord, and I remind you that as God's people, when you receive that blessing, then it's appropriate to respond with a covenantal amen to confirm that you delight in this blessing. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith. To God alone wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.