The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-03-25

in my nvestiga tions This is what a great Bible student once wrote In refer enee to this heroine of my teXt As regards Rahab herself, we learn from
 Matthew i, 5 that. she became 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 it was so stated In the public archieves from which the evangelist eX- tracted 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 transformation? Rahab the out
 cast could become Rahab the pure, Rahab
 the God honored, the ancestress of Jesus.
 And is it not also 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 until you are
 clean and washed of your sins, until you become winter than the driven snow|' Thus in closing this sermon I am glad
 to say that every Rahab, every Mary
 Magdalene, every Peter and every prodi-
 gal 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 Att lantic ocean, halfway between Brazil and Africa there is a sea in the midst of
 many currents. It is a sea or lake within
 an ocean. It is called the Sargasso sea.
 It is formed by many different currents 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 when you stir a baslnful of
 water rapidly the corks gather in the center and stay there. This kind of a
 process has been going on for centuries in the Sargasso sea. throwing into 1t quanti- ties of seaweed and all sorts of rubbish, which stay there In a thick. impenetrable mass through which no ship can pass
 and in which any ship would surely per
 ish. An, the sea of Sargasso may be
 collector of the refuse of the ogean, but my Christ is more than that in the spir-
 itual sea of life. He is a 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 I 20 today and look Into heaven l find that those who are now wearing the brightest robes were
 once as we arc. They have been the Rahabs and the Mary Magdalenes and the prodigal sons of earth Oh. my friends like Rahab receiving the messengers of Joshua. will you not start your life oyer again in Christ? So may if 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 1 to glory
 l Copyright. 1906, by Louis Klopsch)