Starting Out: Overcoming Your Past Series

2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

3. These people worshipped Baal and they did so through gross acts of sexual immorality and even practiced child sacrifice. One of the things that they would do was when they built a new home, they would sacrifice a baby and bury the body in the foundation of the house to bring prosperity.

Leviticus 18:25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.

4. Their practices and behavior was so bad that God said even the very land vomited them out. In Leviticus chapter 18, there is a series of commands given to Israel regarding things like forbidding sexual relations with family members or with animals, or with members of the same sex. It has been discovered that the Canaanites practiced all of these. Homosexuality was encouraged among them, beastality was also common. The Canaanite culture was seeped in sin and fornication, abortion was common as well as just killing unwanted children. No wonder God said the very land vomits them out.

5. Rahab was from Jericho and was also a Canaanite.

B. Rahab was a harlot. (wrong profession)

1. I realize that in recent years there has been a move to somewhat soften this. Some scholars have said that she was just an innkeeper to somewhat take away her reproach. They don’t like the idea that God would choose a prostitute to include in the genealogy of the Savior. Isn’t it interesting that in Matthew’s account of the linage of Jesus, the only three women mentioned were all involved in sexual sin, Rahab, a prostitute, Bathsheba, an adulteress, and Tamar, who committed incest with her father-in-law. Oh the amazing grace of God.

2. The Hebrew word for harlot used in Jos. 2:1 is "zanah" {zaw-naw’} which means a harlot, go a whoring, commit fornication, be a harlot, play the harlot, to commit adultery. It is never used in any form to describe just an innkeeper. The Greek word used in the New Testament to describe Rahab is the word prone from which we get the word pornography. Rahab was a prostitute.

3. Never once is a husband mentioned, why? as a harlot, she didn’t need one. Where was the one place that two strangers such as the Hebrew spies could go in a city and not attract a lot of attention? Where else but a harlot’s place?

4. Now let me ask you a question, did Rahab have a past? She most certainly did. By all accounts, she should have perished with the rest of the Canaanites of Jericho. Was she any better than them? No, she was just as guilty of sin, maybe even worst. If ever there was a person who’s past should have hindered them, it would have been Rahab. Her past was shady at best and immoral at worst.

II. WE NEED TO NEXT SEE HER PRESENT CHOICE.

1. We could only imagine what a typical day for Rahab must have been like. However, there was one day that she heard about the children of Israel. Maybe a customer made mention of these Israelites, of how God had dried up the Red Sea for them a generation ago, or maybe she heard it on the streets of Jericho. She had heard about this group that had came out of Egypt who worshipped an invisible God. She had heard how this invisible God had already delivered the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, the Ammorites kings into their hands. Maybe she had heard how God had cared for them and provided for them for 40 years in the wilderness and no doubt she had heard of God’s promised inheritance of delivering Canaan into their hands.