Contacting Your Heavenly Home Part 3
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Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good report.
By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
Introduction.
Introduction.
Visitors. Bro. Stuart and communion. Bro. Joel Walnut Ridge
When Paul lists the Heroes of Faith he finishes with Rahab.
It’s interesting that after all of those years she is still known to the Hebrews as “the harlot Rahab”. It highlights her testimony but also reminds of her past.
It is not within human capacity to forgive and forget. Only to forgive.
But the word justified is “though you never done it, at all.” Justified! And then the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us so from sin, till it’s put in the Book of God’s forgetfulness. He’s the only One can do it.
We can’t. We can forgive but not forget. I could forgive you, but I always remember you done these evil things. 65-1204 - The Rapture
Man knew she had been a harlot, but God knew her as the mother of Boaz.
There are times when a good report is necessary to do certain things. (Preach, Deacon)
Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
7 Furthermore, he must have a good reputation and be well thought of by those outside [the church], lest he become involved in slander and incur reproach and fall into the devil’s trap. AMP
If you let a man preach that would split your church because his reputation is so bad, that is pastoral malpractice. Yet the man who has truly returned to Christ is justified as though he never did it in the first place.
As ministers and officers of the church we deal in trust. that is our fiduciary duty to the church. We are stewards of the mysteries of God.
The preacher’s called to preach his, and to live it too. If you can’t live It, then you stop preaching It. But you’re supposed to live your sermons. 61-0108 - Revelation, Chapter Four #3
You can’t change the past. Sometimes even if you do your best to live a life above reproach, when you go to do a work for God or even try to be a Christian you feel condemnation because you know how important the work is.
What if I fail? What if I’m not really as good a Christian as the people think I am? What about the mistakes I’ve made?
Your conscience will chirp at you like a cricket. (Pinnochio, Bro. Wilson) Don’t let your conscience be your guide, let the Word be your guide. Your conscience is just one of the senses of the spirit realm.
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
Rahab.
How did the harlot Rahab, who never could get over that reputation, believe she was good enough to be saved, and then to marry a General, who would become the founder of Bethlehem?
By Faith, Rahab.
Listen what she says:
And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
“I Know” It was revealed to her.
For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
Faith came by hearing.
And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there 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, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token:
Not based on how I’ve made my living in the past, but I heard the Message, I received the messengers! Give me a true token.
How do you deal with condemnation in your spirit?
1. Turn from every action which is Condemned by the Word.
1. Turn from every action which is Condemned by the Word.
This is repentance.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
Stop trying to worship under condemnation when you have things in your life that obviously need to be made right.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Disciples and epileptic child
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
Now remember, they had the power. Jesus had given them power to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and cast out devils, just a few days before that. They had the power, but not the faith to use the power.
Now, there’s the Branham Tabernacle! There’s the Church, the Bride, today! The Holy Spirit is here with the power, but you, haven’t got that faith to move it. See what I mean? It takes faith to move it.
Here: I got a shell that I hand-loaded. I know what it’ll do by ballistics, like the Word, but I’ve got to fire the gun. The fire has to get to the powder. The powder’s got the power, but it’s got to have the fire to light it off.
And the same thing, the powder’s in the shell, but it needs faith to charge it and throw it out. That’s what it takes, see, Perfect Faith to ignite the power of the Holy Spirit which we have now, since He’s come upon us; faith to ignite, to see great things...
The disciples had power; Jesus gave them power to heal all manner of sickness, to cast out devils, to cleanse the lepers, and to raise the dead.
He gave them power, but they didn’t have faith to operate the power that they had. And then they questioned Jesus and said, “Well, now, why couldn’t we do it?”
Now, remember, they had the Word; and the Word was Flesh then. And the Word told them, “I give you power.” Amen! “I give you power.” And they had the power, but they didn’t have faith to operate the Word that was in them.
But, Jesus had it, He was the Word, and He had faith that what He said would happen. He said, “Oh, bring him here. How long will I suffer you?”
He had faith, with His power. How did He? He said, “I can do nothing in Myself.” Why? He relied upon what He was; He relied in knowing that He was the Word. And He had faith in God, Who made Him the Word.
He was God (the Word), and they was in Him, and that give Him faith because He understood His position. He knowed what He was, because the Scripture had said He was this.
Therefore, He relied upon what God had made Him. And if He did that, then can’t we rely upon what God made us as believers? “These signs shall follow them that believe!” He had faith in what He was.
And if you are a believer, you have faith in what you are: you are a believer! And if you’ve got faith in God, the Bible says over here in…“If our hearts condemn us, then we can’t have faith; but if our hearts don’t condemn us, then we have faith, we have confidence towards God.”
But as long as you’re doing things that’s wrong, you can’t have confidence towards God. So, you’ll automatically know that you’re wrong. You automatically put yourself back there a sinner, by knowing that you’re wrong.
But when your heart don’t condemn you, and you know you are a believer, and there’s nothing between you and God, you can ask what you will and know that it’ll be given, because it’s the Word that’s given to you just like it was to those disciples.
Now, the only thing you have to do then, is have faith in what you are. Have faith in what the Word says you are! And Jesus had faith in the Word of God, that said what He was, “It is written of Me.”
And He knew with that Perfect Faith, that He was the anointed Messiah, that the Spirit of God was upon Him. He said, “Now, I, in Myself, do nothing; but it’s My faith in God.”
And God was in Him, the Word made manifest. And when the Word of God comes in you, It’s made manifest, for you are a believer. And a believer is “the faith of God that moves in you.”
Knowing Who He was, without a shadow of doubt, He knew He was the Son of God. He knew it, for the Word identified. The Word of God identified Who He was.
He said, “If I do not the works of My Father, then don’t believe Me. But if I do, then believe the works, for they are the manifested Word promised.”
Oh, if you could just wake up to that, a minute! You see, the Word Itself identified Him, Who He was.
And He said, “Who can condemn Me of sin?” In other words, “Who can show Me that My life and My works don’t fulfill exactly what Messiah should do?”
Nobody could say nothing; for He was. Then He had faith to believe, then; of whatever He said, it would happen.
Then He turned around and said, “The works that I do, shall you also. A little while, and the world seeth no more; yet you shall, because I’ll be with you, even in you.
Take no thought what ye shall say, for it’s not you that speak, it’s thy Father that dwelleth in you; He’s the One Who does the speaking. And It’s not Me, It’s the Father That dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” 63-0825E - Perfect Faith
Rahab had been a harlot, but something changed in her house. Her faith caused her to perform the works of a believer.
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Works is Faith Expressed. When the Word is revealed to you, at that moment you act on it, and your own action of Faith give you confidence in God’s Word.
2. When you Know you have Believed the Message of the Hour, and the Token is on Display, Arrest every Condemning Thought, and Bind it by the Word.
2. When you Know you have Believed the Message of the Hour, and the Token is on Display, Arrest every Condemning Thought, and Bind it by the Word.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
She could take every thought into captivity because Joshua honored her Token when it was applied. Jesus Christ has honored the applied Token in my life.
He honored it. I don’t really care if you do or not.
301 Anyone knows anything about the Bible, knows that that harlot was predestinated. She sure was! She didn’t…The Bible said, “She perished not with them who believed not.” That’s right. But she believed the message of the hour.
303 Now, the same oath is today, the same thing, see, “I will not let you perish with them who doesn’t believe the Message.” 63-0901M - Token
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God didn’t just save Rahab, He gave her a home in Bethlehem.
Through her conversion, and through her unfailing faith in God, it brought her from a prostitute house, to a beautiful home in Bethlehem. What a difference!
That’s the way it does all of us. From a house of unbelief, and flusterations, and immoral acts, and everything; to a place, position in Christ, which is most beautiful.
And we find out they had a lovely home in Bethlehem, as Salmon had established it, and it would become a great place, and the fertile lands. 58-1228 - Why Little Bethlehem?
Can you imagine someone coming to Rahab’s mansion in Bethlehem, years later and saying “don’t I know you?”. “Haven’t I seen you before? Aren’t you the harlot Rahab? What did you do to deserve all of this? What if your husband found out? She said “He already knows”. Joshua honored the Token, I don’t live in a house of prostitution any more.
That would never happen though, because her accusers had been cast down.
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her.
Her accusers were all dead.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Conclusion.
Conclusion.
The only thing in Bethlehem that could condemn Rahab was her own memory.
(Woman caught in adultery)
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Romans 8 starts this way:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.