AMAZING BITHS
A Prostitute and an Unbeliever
Matt 1:5 (P 681) December 9, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
Have any of you seen those “ancestry.com” commercials. I love this one that features Santa Clause.
(Show video)
Maybe some of you have great stories about famous or infamous people in your family tree…I really would love to hear them.
Kair is a direct descendant of Genera George McClellan from the Civil War…Sherry Clark shares with me the story of her maiden name….LAWLESS…Her descendant were named Macintire, until they were forced to flee to Ireland because of unsavory and illegal actions…thus the name….”Lawless”
My Mom, Mary Ann Bach (pre-named “Back”) when you’re from Breathitt County KY…Always said we were related to Johann Sebastian Bach…because of my musical gifts…I ask her if “those gifts” were like baldness….do they skip a generation …because I was skipped!
I don’t know if you have a horse thief or a cattle rustler in your genealogy…or something more glamorous…like “Airing a Pirate…
But Matt does something radical for his time…he traces the genealogy of Jesus through His mother…Mary…Luke, the beloved physician traces the genealogy through Joseph…even introducing that lineage like this…”Now Jesus himself was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthew… (and so forth, all the way back to Adam) (Luke 3:23)
Matthew’s genealogy…of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, and the Son of Abraham includes the mention of 4 women…the first in verse 3…Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar…
If you’re not familiar with Tamar, don’t feel bad…Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law. Her first 2 husbands died and they died before Tamar had any children. So, (this story is recorded in Genesis chapter 38) she disguised herself as a temple prostitute and slept with her farther-in-law. Judah…she got pregnant and gave birth to twins…Perez and Zerah. It’s quite a story…better than any soap opera...but Tamar; guilty of incest...is in the lineage of the Messiah.
Our text today is from Matt 1:5 and it includes 2 of the four women mentioned by Matthew in Jesus family tree…
“Salmon the father of Boaz whose mother was (Rahab), Boaz the father of Obed whose mother was (Ruth).”
I don’t want to make this too complicated but…the great grandparents of King David were Boaz and Ruth…the great great grandparents of King David were Solomon and Rahab.
I WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT GREAT GREAT GRANDMAN?
Rahab is introduced early in the Book of Joshua, After Moses’s death…Joshua takes command…He’s commissioned by God to be strong and courageous…to cross the Jordon and conquer the people who like in the land of Canaan…the Promised Land…He’s realized the people and they’ve promised “whatever you have commanded us…we will do!”
So before they cross the Jordan Joshua sends 2 spies into the land of Canaan, he tells them “Go look over the land, especially Jericho” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named “Rahab” and stayed there” (Josh. 2:1)
Evidently the King of Jericho has his own spies because he discovers what’s happening…He sends a message to Rahab…”Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house because they’ve come to spy on the whole land.”
Instead of “Narcing” out the 2 Israelites spies, she hides them…misdirects the King’s men and then lowers them down by a rope through the window of her house, which was part of the city wall…she tells them “go to the Hills hide yourself for 3 days so the pursuers want find you.
“Our lives for your lives” was the promise the spies made to Rahab and her family…they took an oath before God. Listen
Joshua 2: 17-21 (p 152)
You know the story…Joshua and the walls of Jericho…God gives a tremendous victory when the trumpets sounded, the people shouted the wall collapses and the army of Israel rushes in…but
Joshua said to the 2 spies…
Joshua 6: 22-23
Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho. She saved the lives of the two spies because she had faith...She feared the God who divided the Red Sea…She’d heard of this God of the Israelites who demonstrated His power…She saved her family and became the Amazing Great-Great Grandma of King David…because she hung a scarlet thread of faith on her window…Hebrews11…the faith chapter even mentions her…”By faith the prostitute Rahab was not killed with those who were disobedient because she welcomed the spies.” (Heb 11:31)
And just like Rahab…our salvation comes through faith.
Eph 2:9 says “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith..and this not from yourselves, It is the gift of God.”
Rahab and her family were placed outside the camp…why…because she’s a prostitute, and a Gentile, and she’s unclean according to the law….
How amazing is it that this woman would move from outside the camp, to inside the genealogy of the Christ? How? By Grace through Faith.
She and her husband Salmon would have a son...his name, Boaz…I bet he saw the redeeming work of God take place in his mother’s life, don’t you…so let’s ask the next question…
II WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT GREAT GRANDMA?
Her name is Ruth, and she lives in the land of Moab…The Moabites worship a God named “Chemosh”…worshipping this God included the sacrifice of children on an altar.
2Kinds 3:27 says “the King of Moab took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as King, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall.”
The Moabites were descendants of Lot through his daughters…listen “So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The oldest daughter had a son and she named him Moan…He is the father of the Moabites today. (Gen 19: 36, 37)
She got her farther drunk he didn’t know what he was doing so she could preserve the family lineage. (v 35)
Not exactly the purest picture of purity, huh…Ruth comes from this people…unbelievers who worship “Chemosh” and Ashterah…human sacrifice and sexual impurity were the main ingredients of worship.
Ruth is a book that tells the story of an Israelite couple who move to Moab during a famine in Canaan…the husband his 2 sons die…leaving the mother, Naomi, alone with her e daughter in- laws Orpah and Ruth…Naomi decides to go home to Israel and Ruth insists on going back with her…one of the most powerful scriptures concerning loyalty and love is Ruth 1: 16-18.
Ruth 1: 16-18 (p 188)
When Ruth and Naomi get back to Israel they look to their relative Boaz for help…and eventually Boaz becomes the “Kinsman” Redeemer…the Man who rescues…He marries Ruth.
(Please remember who Boaz’s mother is…remember…Rahab…) He’s watched his father redeem His Mother…is it any wonder He will love and rescue Ruth in the same way? Boaz and Ruth become the great grandparents of King David.
Having married a girl that says “I don’t really see your scars…I know they’re there, but they’re just a part of you I’ve come to love…
Solomon knew Rahab’s past…and he made her his wife…God chose them to be part of the Messianic tree.
Boaz knew Ruth came from an unbelieving people, she had already been married and widowed…He didn’t care…He choose her to be his wife and the mother of his child, Obed…
Listen to this… Ruth 4:13-22 (p190)
Do I believe those are amazing and miraculous words…absolutely…from the brokenness and grief of a mother who has believed her husband and two sons come a grandmother holding onto a baby in the messianic line…where a prostitute shows great faith in the power of the Israelite God…so she rescues two spies with a scarlet cord and she redeems her whole family.
Solomon must have been an amazing man…like Boaz…likes Joseph, the carpenter, like Jesus…the Nazarene..,
Over and over again in scripture God’s love and his salvation is illustrated through the people He chose…like Hosea, the prophet who marries Goner, the prostitute…over and over she rejects Hosea and returns to a life on the streets…and over and over again God tells Hosea to get her back…
Hosea 3: 1-3 ( p 637)
Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites…Buy her back!!!
Maybe it was easy for Solomon to love Rahab…because she accepted that love and grace..she became his and his alone….maybe it was easy for Boaz to love Ruth, man she oozed loyalty and commitment…to Naomi and I bet to her husband.
But Hosea is a better example for us…It’s a better example for me..It’s why I believe Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth and Bethsheba are in Matthews genealogy..It’s what I know.
[God came seeking me, while I was still rebellious and adulterous..while I still worship other
God’s and gave myself away in other relationships…My theme scripture….1Cor. 1: 26- 31 (p807)
I will never forget where I was when the Redeemer came for me…I will never forget I wasn’t wise, noble, strong or influential..I was lost, dark, rebellious and selfish.
“It is because of Him that I am in Christ Jesus..He is my wisdom, He is my righteousness, He is my Holiness and He is my Redemption…
You know Him….Tamar’s, Rahabs, Ruth’s Bathsheba’s grandbaby…born of a virgin names Mary….Amazing isn’t it.
