The Scarlet Cord - Moriel Ministries

Feature Article – Continued
these spies. Theologians are divided asking,
“Did she lie” “Was it right for her to lie”
But she is commended for what she did. I
do not personally see it as a lie, but that she
changed sides during a military conflict.
I see it as military disinformation. Others
may disagree, but I will relate a true story.
I knew a lovely lady named Loki Nussenbaum,
a Jewish lady. She and one brother
lived in New York, but she has since gone to
the Lord. I knew her in Israel. She became
a believer at the age of fourteen and after
becoming educated she became a missionary
to the Bantu tribe in Angola. She was a
remarkable woman who could speak Portuguese,
French, Hebrew, Yiddish and German,
but she could also speak Bantu, the native
language of the bushmen to whom she
was a missionary for many years until the
communists took over Angola and kicked
the missionaries out. Loki was incredible.
Most of her family was murdered by the
Nazis, including her father, mother, little
sister and little brother. Loki and one brother
escaped. They were smuggled by Christians
from Belgium to Lausanne, Switzerland,
at the age of thirteen, and a year later
she became a believer.
There were Christians in Switzerland
who told her to look at Romans 13, their
interpretation being that since politicians
are God’s ministers, Adolph Hitler was a
minister of God. They added that since lying
was a sin, those who had lied to the Gestapo
to smuggle her out had sinned. They
told her since she now had a Christian testimony,
she needed to go back and give herself
over to the Gestapo even though they
would put her in an oven. They actually told
her this! These were people who were too
heavenly minded to be of any earthly good.
(I guess they did not like James’ epistle either.)
At the age of fourteen she was very
confused and actually contemplated doing
it. Thank God someone with some sense
got to her before she did so.
Rahab is spoken of very highly. She is a
role model for all of us. Let us see why King
David’s great-great grandmother is spoken
of so highly in the New Testament—this
Gentile who married into a Jewish family after
coming to believe in the Jewish God and
was one of the people who was in the lineage
of David and in the pedigree of the Messiah
Himself, bringing salvation to all of us.
Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two
men as spies secretly from Shittim,
saying, “Go, view the land, especially
Jericho.” So they went and came into
the house of a harlot whose name was
Rahab, and lodged there.
This was a smart move, really. Who
would ever think of looking for a couple of
nice Jewish boys in a whorehouse
It was told the king of Jericho, saying,
“Behold, men from the sons of Israel
have come here tonight to search out
the land.” And the king of Jericho sent
word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the
men who have come to you, who have
entered your house, for they have come
to search out all the land.” But the
woman had taken the two men and hidden
them, and she said, “Yes, the men
came to me, but I did not know where
they were from. “It came about when
it was time to shut the gate at dark…
(Shutting the gate, it is getting dark—
these are eschatological nuances.)
…that the men went out; I do not know
where the men went. Pursue them
quickly, for you will overtake them.”
But she had brought them up to the
roof and hidden them in the stalks of
flax which she had laid in order on the
roof. So the men pursued them on the
road to the Jordan to the fords; and as
soon as those who were pursuing them
had gone out, they shut the gate.
Now before they lay down, she came
up to them on the roof, and said to
the men, “I know that the LORD has
given you the land, and that the terror
of you has fallen on us, and that all the
inhabitants of the land have melted
away before you. “For we have heard
how the LORD dried up the water
of the Red Sea before you when you
came out of Egypt, and what you did
to the two kings of the Amorites who
were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and
Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When
we heard it, our hearts melted and no
courage remained in any man any
longer because of you; for the LORD
your God, He is God in heaven above
and on earth beneath. (Joshua 2:1-11)
(This pagan woman came to believe in
the true God.)
She Knew What She Was
Who is going to be saved If we are here
at the time, who is going to be raptured
Only people who know what they are.
Nobody has to tell a prostitute she is a
hooker. I was a cocaine addict in my teenage
years; no one had to tell me I was strung
out and dealing drugs. Nobody has to tell a
pimp he is a pimp; people like that know
what they are. The most difficult people to
get saved, of course, are religious people.
Nobody has ever gone to heaven because of
religion, but many people—countless people,
have gone to hell because of religion.
Rahab knew what she was. All have
sinned, all fall short of the glory of God
(Rom. 3:23). If we do not know we are morally
bankrupt and spiritually abject before a
holy and perfect God, we cannot be saved.
Unless we know that we are no good, we
will not know how good He is; unless we
know that we cannot save ourselves and
desperately need Him to save us, we cannot
get saved. Remember, the enemy gets
more people into hell with religion than all
the immorality, all the covetousness and all
the substance abuse put together. She knew
what she was.
She Knew Joshua Was Coming
She was not like Rick Warren who tells
us to avoid end-time prophecy. Fortunately
she listened to the Word of God; she did not
read the “Purpose Driven Lie.” She knew
Joshua was coming.
Even unsaved people have a sense that
human history is coming to some kind of
apocalyptic, catastrophic end. The Late,
Great Planet Earth was a superficial book
doctrinally, but many people were saved
through that book in the 1970s. Why Because
it did what Jesus said by preaching
the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mt. 24:14);
it used end-time prophecy to present the
Gospel. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand” (Mt. 3:2). John the Baptist
preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. In
Matthew’s Gospel, He spoke three times as
much about hell as He did heaven. When
we use end-time prophecy, Yeshua says the
Gospel of the Kingdom must be preached.
It is the same Gospel of salvation, but it is
presented in a certain eschatological character;
it is prophecy used to engage unsaved
people.
Why are they going to fortune tellers,
the occult, horoscopes and all this garbage
They want to know the future. Well, we
know the future. Use prophecy evangelistically.
That is the only way to successfully
evangelize a post-Christian, neo-pagan,
post-modern world; not the Emergent garbage,
not the Purpose Driven garbage, not
the Rob Bell garbage—the Word of God.
Do what Jesus said—use prophecy to engage
unsaved people evangelistically.
She Knew God’s Divine Plan
for Israel
Thirdly, Rahab did not pay attention to
people like John Piper; she did not adhere
to Replacement Theology. She knew God
had a divine plan for Israel. She knew that
God’s prophetic agenda depended on His
prophetic agenda for Israel and the Jews.
Israel is a litmus test. If somebody is right
about Israel, it does not prove that they are
right about other things; there are plenty
of crazy people who understand that God
has a prophetic purpose for Israel. We have
people who lift up “Jewishness” instead of
“Jesus-ness” in the Messianic Movement,
Moriel Quarterly • September 2012