You-Have-A-Reputation

Everyone in here has a reputation, and everyone in here

has a reason to believe that God cannot use you

in your current state. Yet it was remarkable to me

that God used rehab in Joshua chapter two as the

gateway to the land that he promised to his people,

and he used her before he delivered her. Because I

thought for God to use rehabs, she'd have to quit

her job. And I thought for God to use me,

I'd have to be completely free of the addiction. And

God does want to set me free. But his faithfulness

is greater than my bondage or my brokenness. Can I

show you in the text? She says, She says, we've

heard about you, We've heard about you. You have a reputation.

So now a woman with a reputation is telling the

men of Israel about their reputation. Because sometimes your enemy

knows more about God's plan for you than you do.

Some of us, the devil believes in our destiny more

than we do. And you know how tell how you

can tell the way he's been attacking you, the things

he's been bringing against you. The devil doesn't waste artillery

over anybody that doesn't threaten him. Now life is hard

for all of us. Please don't hear me saying that

your flat tire is because you're going to be the

next Billy Graham. But what I am saying is that

in this passage, God uses Rayhab, who was technically an

enemy of the Israelites. You got to remember, she was

not one of them, and he uses somebody who is

technically an enemy to inform them of their destiny. I

wonder if God has been trying to get an announcement

through to you about the plan that he has for you.

But he hasn't been doing it through your friends. He's

been doing it through your fights. And the reason that

you're fighting. Maybe it's for one person. And if it's

just for one person, you can receive this word for yourself.

And maybe you're not even at this campus, maybe you're

watching online, But maybe the attack was an announcement that

God has got you on the edge of the promise

and now's no time for you to turn back. She said,

she said, we've heard about you. I wonder has your

enemy heard about you? Because one time in scripture, the

Bible says that there were these Jewish priests and they

were called the Seven sons of Siva, and they wanted

the ability to lay hands on people like they saw

Paul lay hands on people. And they were like, hey, man,

that's cool. Maybe we could do it. Maybe we could

make some money off of that. Maybe we could maybe

maybe we could use that power to make a prophet.

And when they went to do it, it was a

crazy thing that happened because one of the demons that

was looking at these seven sons of Siva said back

to them, Hey, wait a minute, you're talking about Jesus.

We know Jesus. You're talking about Paul. We know Paul.

But who are you? I'll get paid to argue with you.

Who are you? I don't even know your name. Some

of you are like, I don't understand all this preaching

about attack. That's because the devil doesn't even know your name?

Who are you? Does the enemy know who you are?

The Devil knew Job's name because when he came before

God and he said, Hey, I've been going around the

earth and I've been messing with people, And God said,

have you tried Job? Job is special to me. Job

is so faithful and trustworthy that you can test him

and try him, and I can trust him with trouble,

and if you tempt Job, he will not sin against me.

So when the enemy had touched Job's family and touched

Job's cattle, and touched Job's oxen, and touched Job's house

and was still unable to make Job deny God, he

came back to God and said, let me go another round.

You haven't let me touch him yet. And God said,

you can do anything you want, but you can't take

his life. Somebody shot him. Still here, been through some

things when I'm still here now, even when his body

was covered with boils, and Job was in so much

pain that even his own wife said, God, you know

has God has obviously left you. There's no need for

you to continue to play this game like God is

good when it's obvious that he isn't. Why don't you

curse God and die? And Job said, what shall I

receive good from the hand of God and not evil

from the hand of God? And you know, it's a

funny thing about Job, because the Bible says that in

all this he did not charge God with wrongdoing. In

other words, he did not let his circumstances alter God's reputation.

Because he had a relationship in other words, you can't

make me doubt him. I know too much about him.

He's been good to me. It doesn't feel good right now.

It's been a while since I felt his presence, but

I know he's with me. See, my reputation with God

is not based on what I go through or what

I get from him. It's based on relationship. And you

can't tell me he's not a healer. And you can't

tell me he's not a provider, And you can't tell

me he's not a waymaker. I've seen him do it.

And he chooses who he wants to choose, and he

does what he wants to do, and he uses who

he wants to use, even a prostitute named Rahab. And

in case you think I'm making too much of this

Old Testament scripture, would it interest you to know that

in the New Testament, Rehab is mentioned by name as well.

Oh yeah, in Matthew chapter one, known as the Genealogy

of Jesus, where the writer takes time to tell us

that there were fourteen generations and then fourteen more, and

then fourteen more. And this is the part of the

Bible that most of us skip because it's a bunch

of names that are unfamiliar to us. And it says,

be got, and begot, and begot and be good. But

some of those begots are a blessing. Some of the

stuff you skip will really bless you if you slow

down and look at him. And I got blessed because

I usually skipped to verse eighteen, where it mentions the

name of Jesus. But I slowed down and read the

names in Matthew chapter one, and the writer told me

that Salman, the father of Boas, whose mother was Rahab. See,

in order to get to Jesus, you have to go

through Rahab. In order to get to the Prince of Peace,

you have to go through the prostitute. If you're tracing

the family line of Jesus, okay, his ancestry dot com

will lead you to Rehab's house. And just in case

you think that this is a unique incident in Matthew

chapter one, perhaps we should visit Hebrews chapter eleven. This

scripture is commonly called the Hall of Faith. It lists

some of the heroes that you would be familiar with

and some of the mighty exploits that they did for

God during their lifetime. Many of the people that we

mention and teach about in Sunday school or many of

the people that we idolize in our Bible classes. And

many of the historic turning points of the nation of

Israel's faith are listed in Hebrews eleven, where it says

by faith verse twenty nine, the people pass through the

Red Sea as on dry land. But when the Egyptians

tried to do so, they were drowned. See, God doesn't

bring you into deep waters to kill you. He brings

you into deep waters because he knows your enemies can't swim.

And our trials are where God brings our doubts so

that we really have to deal with them beneath the

surface and decide whether or not we will believe even

through our doubt. And the Egyptians drowned because by faith

verse thirty. The walls of Jericho phil after the army

had marched around them for seven days. By faith, the

prostitute Rayhab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed

with those who were disobedient. And what morsel I say,

I don't have time to tell about Gideon, Barack, Samson,

and Jefda, about David and Samuel, and the prophets now,

wait a minute. You don't have time to talk about

David the King, but you had time to talk about

Rahab the prostitute. And God said, that's right, because I

don't choose people like you choose people. Some of the

people that I want to use are people whose names

you don't even know. God doesn't use people who have

a reputation with people. God uses people who have a

reputation with him. By faith, the walls fell. Hey, thanks

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