The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: I don't know about your past. If you'll connect with the kingdom of God, God can turn that thing around.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans says our history doesn't have to cost us our hope.

Dr. Tony Evans: He can take your yesterdays and make them better tomorrows. It's not too late.

Guest (Male): This is The Alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

Your past may not be something you're proud of, but today Dr. Evans points out God is bigger than all the bad choices you've ever made. Let's join him as he explains.

Dr. Tony Evans: In chapter two verse one of Joshua, Rahab was a harlot. In fact, that label, harlot, would follow her even into the New Testament. One day she is visited by two strangers. We're told who they were; they were spies sent by Joshua to spy out the land. The spies, wanting to be as inconspicuous as possible and as safe as possible, found a place where strangers would go: the local brothel, that is Rahab's house.

However, somebody saw them go into Rahab's house and reported to the king that we've got two Jewish guys in Rahab the harlot's house. The king sends some emissaries to smoke these guys out and they come to Rahab and they say, "Now, you've got two spies in your house. Bring them out." But she doesn't send them out, in spite of the fact that her very life is threatened. She hides them on her roof.

And she says to the king's emissaries, "Ah, you just missed them. They left five minutes ago. If you hurry, you might catch them." And so she sends those away who were trying to seek out these men and then goes up to the rooftop to where she has hidden the two spies from Israel. And she says to them, verse nine, "I know that the Lord has given you the land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites."

He goes on in verse 11, "We heard it, our hearts melted. No courage remained in any man any longer because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God of heaven and on earth beneath." She says, "We know about y'all. We've been scared of y'all for 40 years, and your reputation has followed you. So the reason I hid you up on my roof is because the Lord your God is the God of heaven and of earth." In other words, my faith controlled my choice.

I made a choice to hide you rather than satisfy the government, the king, the rulers of this world because I needed to make a decision: who am I going to be identified with? Because we're already scared. We're terrified of you because we've heard the message. Now, that's interesting. She says for 40 years, all of Jericho has known about God. So the folks who lived in Jericho were like a lot of people today; know about Him, don't want to deal with Him.

Because they knew about Him, and they didn't just know intellectually. It says, "We were scared to death. Our hearts melted because of your God, but we still followed our gods." A lot of people are like that. They know about God, but they have never entered into a relationship with God. But she says, "As for me, your God is the God of heaven and of earth." And to let you know that I know who the real God is, I've hidden you and protected you from the enemy.

Therefore, she makes a request. It's an interesting request. She says in verse 12, "Now therefore, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you will also deal kindly with my father's household and give me a pledge and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, and my sisters with all who belong to them and deliver our lives from this death." In other words, we know we're getting ready to get massacred, and I want to be delivered.

One of the reasons many of us are not seeing God come through for us is He can't find faith. Because the only way you can validate you've got the right kind of faith as a believer is that you're doing the right kind of work. That is, you're doing what God demands, which validates that you have the faith that God expects. Now, don't get me wrong. To get to heaven is faith alone.

But to get heaven to join you on your job, to get heaven to turn your situation around, to get heaven to work out that relationship issue, to get heaven to address that career challenge, to get heaven to reverse the circumstances that you face on earth takes a faith that works. And in Joshua chapter six verses 17 and 25, "The city shall be under the ban, it and all that belongs to the Lord. Only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent."

Verse 25, "However, Rahab the harlot and her father's household and all she had, Joshua spared, and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she had hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho." Faith not only delivered her; it delivered everybody associated with her. The spies said, "You bring all your family into this house, and when it come down, because of your faith, the whole family going to get delivered."

Now, don't think this is just Old Testament, because in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, the Bible says that the children are protected under the hesed covering of the parent who has a working faith in the home. That there is protection, covenantal covering, by association with a person of faith. That's why if you have weak faith, you want to hang out with somebody who has strong faith so that you're covered by their faith.

But in order for her to see this covering miracle that protected her and her household, do you know what she had to do? She had to go against the culture. She's the only one not going with the crowd. She's the only one not buying into the philosophy, the theology of Jericho. She looks like the lone ranger. She's by herself. Sometimes it's good to be by yourself.

The beauty of association with God's kingdom purposes is that when stuff collapses around you, God can still take care of you because you're in His will and you're not collapsing with the culture around you. That's why He can take care of your house in a bad neighborhood. That's why He can take care of your career when other careers are falling apart. That's why He can take care of your relationships when every other relationship is going to pot. Why? Because you're not following the crowd; you're following the kingdom. You're not following man's way; you're following God's way. And that will make you sometimes look like the odd man out or, in this case, the odd woman out. But she wasn't selfish with her faith as we said; she cared about her family.

Now, this leads to the question about it not being too late. Rahab's story does not end with the Old Testament as we've just seen. Her name is repeated often in the New Testament. So evidently there's something about Rahab that God wants us to learn. And what's interesting is God doesn't drop her title. He doesn't go around saying Moses the murderer when He talks about great faith.

He doesn't go around talking about Abraham the liar when we talk about great faith. He doesn't do that in Hebrews chapter 11. But when He comes to Rahab, He says Rahab the harlot. Why does God keep titling this woman rather than just saying Rahab and leave the sister alone? Why does He want you and I to know this is the woman of the Old Testament who was of ill repute?

Because God wants you and I to know through her illustration that your past doesn't have to control your future. God wants you to know no matter how wretched your past can be, she's placed next to Noah and Enoch and Abel. God wants you to know if you get your stuff together with Him, He can take your yesterdays and make them better tomorrows. It's not too late.

Here's a woman whose designation stayed with her, even though she didn't have a godly religious background, even though she didn't have a spiritually devoted husband, even though she did have a shameful career. It wasn't over. When she connected her purposes to God's purposes tied to the spies, then that thing got turned around. When she connected her purpose to God's purpose, her whole life changed, and she delivered her whole family.

So I don't know what your past is. I don't know how bad it is. All I know is the woman found in Joshua chapter two is also in Hebrews chapter 11. The woman in Joshua chapter six is in James chapter two. And in the New Testament, she's an illustration of godliness, an illustration of power, an illustration of victory. Because God knows how to take lemons and make lemonade. He knows how to take a mess and turn it into a miracle so that you know God can turn a life around.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return shortly with more on how God can turn a checkered past into a cherished future. Before he does, we want to make sure you know about a powerful set of resources that can help you build on what we're learning today. It starts with Tony's encouraging book, Kingdom Heroes, where he highlights the lives of people in scripture who trusted God and saw him do remarkable things, even when their situations seemed impossible.

Right now, for a limited time, we're including that book along with all eight full-length messages from Tony's current sermon series called, It's Not Too Late. These two resources combined give you a powerful picture of how God works in your life. And they're available as our gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry. Get the details and make your request at TonyEvans.org. Or call 1-800-800-3222 and let our resource team help you. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at TonyEvans.org.

Guest (Female): Are you hungry for more of God, more of His truth, more of His power, and more of His wisdom applied in your life? Then you need to connect with the community of passionate believers who are growing in God's word through the Tony Evans Training Center. With exclusive video and audio teaching from Dr. Tony Evans, this interactive online study experience allows you to explore theology, biblical history, and real-life application of the kingdom agenda anytime, anywhere. Visit TonyEvansTraining.org to get started today. That's TonyEvansTraining.org.

Dr. Tony Evans: We are told in verse 25 of chapter six of Joshua that when Rahab and her family got delivered, she dwelt in Israel. She's hanging out with the people of God. She's got a new family now. A man named Salmon for whatever reason sees her, falls in love with her, and marries her. She's got a Jewish husband, even though she's a Gentile girl. Because now she's hanging out with Israel.

Let me tell you something about Salmon. We're told in 1 Chronicles chapter two, Salmon built the city of Bethlehem. My boy has his own construction company. My boy is building cities. In fact, he builds the city that Jesus is going to be born in, called Bethlehem. So not only does she go hang out with Jews, she finds a brother with a job, with a good job, because he's in the construction business. He didn't say Salmon who built the house; said Salmon who built the city of Bethlehem. So she finds herself married to Salmon.

But that's small stuff. Let me give you the deep stuff. And that is Salmon's lineage. See, the Messiah had to have two realities associated with him. He had to have legal right to the throne of David in order to qualify to legitimately be Messiah. Well, Matthew chapter one gives us the lineage of David legally through Joseph.

Jesus had to have legal right to be King of the Jews, which means you had to descend from a legal line through David. Well, we are told in verse 16 that Jesus' father was a man named Joseph. But Joseph was a stepfather because Jesus didn't have a biological father because He was born of a virgin. But he had a stepfather who adopted him when Mary got pregnant, giving him legal title to the throne of David.

Luke also has a list. But when Luke gives his list, he gives it through Mary. Because Mary is his biological mother. But guess what? Mary is tied biologically to the throne of David because she is a descendant of David biologically. So in getting Joseph and Mary hooked up, God hooked up the legal line with the biological line so that Jesus was both legally right and had rights to the throne, but through Mary he had biological rights to the throne, qualifying him twice to be King of the Jews as declared by the word of God. See, God know how to hook a sister up.

And so Rahab the harlot falls in love with Salmon, who's got his own construction company, but who's also legally tied to Jesus Christ. She has a baby. Her baby is called Boaz. We know Boaz from the book of Ruth. Because Boaz saw Ruth gleaning in the field. God now hooked another sister up with another dude that had a job. She hooked the two up and Boaz married Ruth. Ruth had a baby and her baby was Obed. Obed got married, had a baby. His baby was Jesse. Jesse got married, had a baby. His baby was David.

What I'm trying to tell you is I don't know about your past. I don't care how bad your past is. If you will connect with the kingdom of God, God can turn that thing around. But if you don't connect with the purpose of God, you'll be hanging out and hooking up with anybody who talks a good game and missing out on the delivering power of God to the woman or man of faith. And so God was able to do something special in this lady's life.

But there's something else, and this might be the best thing of all. It's found in Joshua chapter two. He says these words, I'll start with verse 17, "The men said to her, 'We shall be free from this oath, the promise to deliver you and your family, which you have made us swear, unless tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather yourself into the house, your father, your mother, your brothers, and your father's household.'" He says, "When we come to take this mama down."

Verse 21, "According to your words, so be it." She sent them away and they departed, and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. Oh, it's all about that scarlet cord. The two men say, "Look, when we come to take this thing down, we need to see something hanging in your window. Because all the other soldiers won't know who you are. They won't know where you are unless we see something hanging in your window. And what we want to hang in your window is a scarlet thread."

He calls it verse 21 a scarlet cord. Scarlet means red. The cord means ribbon. What he says is, "I want you to tie a red ribbon around the rope coming outside of your house. Because we're going to be marching around this wall for six days, once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day. And as we march around that wall, everybody going to see that red ribbon. And that red ribbon is going to let us know that's the prostitute's house."

Now, why is that important that you and I know what that scarlet thread was? They had red ribbons. And what they'd do is tie red ribbons to their windows or doors, signifying to the travelers, "This is a house of prostitution. If you want to be serviced, you can be serviced here." This red ribbon like a red light identifies the sin that takes place in this house.

But the two spies say, "When you hang your sin outside of this house so we see your sin and your acknowledgment of who you are, guess what we're going to do? We're going to provide salvation. When you show us your sin, we're going to show you God's grace because you've identified with God's program and we're going to offer you God's salvation."

When you show us your sin, we're going to show you God's grace and you're going to see God's salvation for you and your house. I believe when Israel was in the Passover, God said, "Put the blood on the door, the red, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you." You say, "What's that got to do with the legacy of Rahab for us?"

Well, 2,000 years ago, on the cross, Jesus Christ shed His blood for your sin and my sin. And when He sees the blood that was shed for our sin, that is the route to our salvation. Your salvation comes because of the blood that was shed, but the blood was shed because of our sin. So when we confess our sin to the Savior who shed the blood, I'm going to go to heaven today. And the reason I'm going to heaven is I'm covered with the blood.

But I'm only covered with the blood because of the sin that was carried by Jesus Christ on Calvary. So all I'm saying today is God can start your life all over again. But you got to be willing to tie the red ribbon around the outside. Say, "I'm a sinner and I need a Savior. I've messed up, but I'm trusting God's grace to fix me up. I've failed, but now I have faith in the Son of God. I was bad, but I'm trusting God to make me better. I have been the terrible sinner, but He's going to make me a glorious saint."

Because as He moves around and collapses the sinful world that does not respond to Him, when He sees the blood on me, He's going to pass by me and give me the deliverance that I need. Your yesterday doesn't have to determine your tomorrow. God can put you in the New Testament and write a whole new chapter for your life. He can start you all over again.

Guest (Male): If you're ready to find out how that new beginning actually begins, if you're ready to experience the miracle of being reborn into a whole new life by asking Jesus to forgive your sins, visit TonyEvans.org right now and click on the link at the very top of the homepage that simply says Jesus. There Tony will tell you all about what it means to be a Christian and walk you through everything you need to know to start a brand new life.

Today's lesson was titled Rahab, the Prostitute God Used. And you can hear the additional material we didn't have time to bring you in the full-length message that's included in our current series, It's Not Too Late. As I mentioned earlier, all eight lessons in this collection are our gift to you when you support Tony's ministry with a financial contribution. And for a limited time, we're also including Tony's powerful book, Kingdom Heroes. But be sure to contact us right away; this is an exclusive offer that won't be around long. Just drop by TonyEvans.org where you can get all the details and make your donation. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Or you can call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help with your resource request.

If you find these messages from Dr. Evans helpful, you'll appreciate hearing him engage in thoughtful discussions with spirit-filled guest speakers on the Unbound podcast. You can find these conversations on his YouTube channel or wherever you stream your favorite podcast.

It's been said that facts speak for themselves. But on Monday, Dr. Evans explains why the facts don't always tell us the whole story. And he'll show us how God's promises can rewrite our reality. I hope you'll join us.