60 Seconds -Rahab

A Communist in Hyde Park, London, pointed to a homeless man and said, “Communism will put a new suit on that man.” A Christian standing nearby said, “Yes, but Christ will put a new man in that suit!”

In Joshua 2:1, we read of “a harlot named Rahab.” Fearing God, she saved the lives of two of Joshua’s spies, and is remembered as one of the great heroines of ancient Israel. Her name reappears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew’s account, as the wife of Salmon, and the mother of Boaz, Ruth’s husband (Matthew 1:5). This means she was an ancestor of King David and Jesus. Both her faith (Hebrews 11:31) and her righteous works (James 2:25) are highly spoken of. Merrill F. Unger wrote, “The harlot is an apt illustration of the power of the gospel of grace to save a sinner.”

In 1 Corinthians 6:9 – 11, Paul writes of “fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, idolaters, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners,” adding, “And such were some of you. But you have been washed, sanctified, and justified by the Lord Jesus.” Charles Spurgeon preached, “In Christ Jesus there is merit to cover demerit, purity to cover our impurity, obedience to cover our disobedience, beauty to cover our deformity, perfection to cover our imperfection, acceptance to cover our provocation.”

Titus 3:4 declares that “the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared.” When the Bible states that the love of God “appeared,” it is from a Greek root meaning “superimposed.” The Message Bible words this, “Our kind and loving Savior God stepped in, and saved us.” Note: “We are not saved by the sacrifices we make, but we are saved by the sacrifice God made for us.”

Mel Trotter was a hopeless alcoholic. One day, he came home from a ten-day drinking binge to find his baby dead in his wife’s arms. “I’ve killed my son,” he cried. “I’ll never take another drop.” But two hours after his baby’s funeral, Mel Trotter staggered home–drunk again. He had taken the little white shoes off his baby in the coffin and pawned them for money to buy drink. In utter despair, he headed along a Chicago street for Lake Michigan. But, on the way, the strong arm of Henry Monroe, Superintendent of Pacific Garden Mission, pulled him inside a hall where the Gospel was being preached. That suicidal Mel Trotter heard there was hope in Christ, was miraculously transformed by Jesus Christ, and for the next 40 years served as superintendent of a rescue mission in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and starting 60 other Gospel missions in the United States, all designed to reach the down-and-outers for Christ.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith,” Ephesians 2:8.