Milford chronicle., 1906-03-23
Rahab,. After LIfe virtuous.

RahRb's After Life VirtuOus.
Let me read you something that
found in my investigations. This is
what great Bible student once wrote
IN reference to this heroine of my
text: Gas regards Rahab herself, we
learn from Matthew i, 5, that she be-
came the wife Of Salmon, the son of
Naasson, and the mother Of Boaz,
Jesse's grandfather. The suspicion
naturally arises that Salmon may have
been one of the spies whose life she
saved. But, however this may be, it
is certain, on the authority of Matthew,
that Rahab became the mother of the
line from which sprang David and
eventually Christ, and there can be no
doubt that 1t was so stated in the pub
lie archives from which the evangelist
extracted our Lords genealogy, in
which only four women are named.
That the Rahab mentioned by Matthew
is Rahab the harlOt is as certain as
that David in the genealOgy is the
same person as David in the books of
Samuel Is not this a glorious trans
formation? Rahab the Outcast could
become Rahab the pure, Rahab the
God honOred, the ancestress of Jesus.
And is it not also a glorious thought
that though you may have wandered
away from Christ, wandered as far
away as did Rahab, yet by the grace
Of God and through the cleansing blood
of Jesus Christ you can be purged IN
til you are clean and washed of your
sins. until you become whittier than the
driven snow?"
Thus in closing this sermon am
glad to say that every Rahab, every
Mary Magdalene, every Peter and ev-
cry prodigal son can be saved by Gods
grace, as well as all the Marys and all
the Enochs and all the Joshuas who
never ceased to walk with God. In
the midst of the Atlantic ocean, half
way between Brazil and Africa, there
is sea in the midst of many cur
rents. 1t is a sea or lake within an
ocean. 1t is called the Sargasso sea.
1t is formed by many different cur
rents converging, and there, in the
midst of these currents, the water is
still and quiet. The student of ocean
geography tells US that these great
ocean currents create in the middle
Atlantic a dead quiet spot about as
large as Europe, into which is sucked
all the refuse of the ocean. just as
when you stir a basinful of water rap
idly the corks gather in the center
and stay there. This kind of a pro Ness
has been going on for centuries in the
/ SargassO sea, throwing into 1t quanti-
| ties of seaweed and all sorts of rub
bish, which stay there in a thick, i'm
! penetrable mass, through which no
| ship can pass and in which any ship
would surely perish. All, the sea of
| SargassO may be a collector of the
refuse of the ocean. but my Christ is
more than that in the spiritual sea of
/ life. He is Sargasso sea for the
/ immoral Outcasts of the human race
if we only come as penitent sinners to
his cross. No matter how low we
may sink we can all come to him if
we will. He has been collecting the
sinners as well as the saints through
all the past centuries As l go today
and look into heaven l find that those
who are now wearing the brightest
robes were once as we are. They have
been the Rahabs and the Mary Magda-
lenes and the prodigal sons Of earth.
Oh, my friends, like Rahab receiving
the messengers Of Joshua, will you not
start your life over again in Christ?
SO may it be to all of us through the
blood Of Jesus Christ. May we not
only be saved ourselves. but, through
Christ, may we, like Rahab, be able to
bring all our dear ones with us to
glory.
[Copyright, 1906. by Louis Hlopsch.J