Do YOU Belong?

You've sat in the back row your whole life. At church. Well, you slip in late and you leave so that you time it during the last song. Why do we do that so nobody asks me anything? Good Lord, I don't want anybody asking me anything. At family dinners, you're the one with the divorce. Maybe you never married. Maybe you've got a past. Maybe you're the kid who went off the rails. And everyone's polite enough. But you still feel like a guest. Maybe you're the guy on the cruise. You've never been one of the guys. Twenty years in. And you're still the new guy. Nobody's unkind. But then again, nobody calls either. Maybe you grew up on the outside. Nobody in your house prayed. You never saw anybody in your house praying. It's just not what you would ever see. You don't know the songs. And you're sure everyone can tell. Or maybe it's the opposite. You grew up in the front row. Front pew. You were raised in church. You were baptized young. You know every verse. Somewhere along the way, you quietly drifted in. You're still counting on the family name to carry you through. And under all of it sits this one question. Who's really in with God? And I guess this is a second question. And how would you know? In the first ten chapters of Joshua, we kept running into people who weren't supposed to be there. A Canaanite woman of ill repute. She had a little business going on, said to be the said to be the uh said to be the you know oldest profession in the world. I don't know about all that. But she was a woman of ill repute. And and by the way, there was no question about it. Then there was the man from the royal tribe of Judah buried under a pile of stones. A whole city of foreigners. They lied their way into the covenant. And yet they stayed. Tonight we set them side by side, and when we do, a line shows up in Joshua that most people read right past. I think when you're trying to tick through reading the Bible in a year, and that whole in a year, and I gotta get through yet another accomplishment in the natural that we attach to the divine. Well, I am reading the Bible, you know, but I got to get it done. I got to hurry through. No. You know what? This line that shows up in Joshua that most people read past. It's the line between who's in and who's out. And it was never drawn where we think. This is true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean. I'm Sean. Welcome to the Sunday summation and deepening. It's good to be back with you. I took some time to as what's his name on uh the five says, good to be back with you around the table, no matter how long he's been gone. Good to be back with everybody around the table. I hope trust everybody's weekend, trust everybody's Tuesday, whatever. Always cracks me up every time he says it. But anyway, it is good to be back. I've missed all of you. I took some important time to rest my body, my brain, and my voice. And uh I'm glad we did. We needed it. We needed it, I needed it. So, but thank you all. You all are so kind to join. I feel bad for everybody that wanted to watch um this morning at 6 30 a.m. Thought, oh lands, I missed everything. But nope, that was that was uh that's only me. I did that mistake. I was so Twitter pated over. I got this new piece of equipment I had to get because the there's a power unit that kind of everything goes through anyway, it doesn't matter, but it burnt, burnt right out. It was old, and uh so anyway, so that everything runs through that power unit and that burnt up. So I had to order another power unit, got a power unit, and but it was over my head. I didn't know how to do it. So all these wires and whatnot, but I think praying the Lord we got it. Anyway, I so I took some time to rest. Um this is a lot on my brain. I don't know if you know, but I put a lot into this and it wiped me out. But I really believe 100%, not even a little, that the Lord, this is what he wants me to do. You know, if he doesn't want me to do it, he'll say something different. But I asked him, like, what do you want me to do with this, this, what I'm doing? And uh, and this is the image I was given. Through the Bible in a year, walking the story of God. I'm glad to have you with me. I am grateful for your patience and for your prayers. Psalm 121, verse 4 reads, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep, because he never rests weekend, because he never rests weekend. So two weeks ago, we walked the first 10 chapters of Joshua together. Tonight we go back for it and we prepare for Monday through Friday. And believe me, I'm I'm pretty sure I got it in there right. I'm gonna make sure. I will double triple check uh, you know, after after this tonight that tomorrow's is set up correctly. Um but Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, yeah, we get after it early. And uh it's always live. So I hope you'll join me and the thousands of other listeners and viewers around the world. We have every every every place you can imagine, and I'm honored. I'm deeply, deeply honored. So if you're new, you're you are in the right place. You don't need to, you don't need to have have heard a single episode yet. Uh the free blog and the full study guide for small group, Sunday school, and Bible college classes. It's free. It's all free. I put it all free. I wrote it so I pay all the fees, so you don't have to. It's a true wordfaithforlife.com. True wordfaithforlife.com. Click on the blog, it'll be right there every week on Saturday, generally on Saturday. Um it um it I will have it posted usually by by late morning, mid-afternoon. Tomorrow's does have the correct date and time. Thank you, Miss Colleen. And if everybody can um tell me about the sound, because we oh, thank you. And there you go, Robbie. Great job, great job. He's all over it. The reason I ask is I had to unplug everything. There's a bazillion wires here, you know, and this is not my thing. The tech part of it is not my thing. Um, and so I unplugged everything and then I didn't take a picture of it, which is what I should have done. It's what I think probably reasonable people would do, but I didn't. I just didn't think of it. And uh all of a sudden I'm like, I have no idea what to do here, and it didn't work. The first, like, I don't know, five times I plugged it in, plugged everything in. I thought, well, that looks good, it looks right. Nope. Hard pass. Thank you, Sean spelled correctly. Good to see you. So, my point in all that is I was nervous because I just didn't know, didn't know if it worked. Anyway, I said a lot there, but bottom line is thank you um for going to true word faith for life. We are all, we all are on, we all are one team. Thank you, Miss Colleen. Amen. So TrueWordfaithforLife.com, super free. But if you're listening anywhere other than on the YouTube channel, the primary YouTube channel, which is the one with about 4,000 subscribers. Um, if you're listening there and you're not subscribed and you haven't hit the little bell and the thumbs up, go to the YouTube channel, Trueword Faith for Life with Dr. Sean S-H-A-W-N. And you go there on YouTube, you click on it, it doesn't cost you anything. Click on that because that's really what drives all of this. That's the center point. And then, of course, we have the website. Um, again, I have to tell you, tremendous res resource. I know I write everything, but I practically kill myself working on it, Miss Colleen can tell you. So um I like doing it, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, it'd be a shame to just sit there and nobody ever looks at it. So I want you to grab your Bible, find a quiet chair, and um, if you're driving, I just found out there is a uh over-the-road truck driver. I don't know if you've ever heard that term, uh, but um that's a person that the long trips, long trips. And uh he told me that he and his wife, his wife rides with him, and then their dog Buffy. Hi, Buffy. Um, they they have this satellite situation on their truck and they actually listen. It plays on the thing. He can't look, but he can hear it. And uh they take turns driving, and that's they actually listen. And generally speaking, they're out of wherever they are, wherever they are at the time. They like to be out of there by usually 5:30 or 6 a.m., which I think is fantastic. So hello to you. Thank you for sharing. Um, so you know, uh he said, our chariots, you know, and the the uh these chairs, and it's a Kenworth, which is one of the best ever made. And I'm sure he would argue with that. He would say, Oh, it is the best made. Um, but they've been doing it for a lot of years, and I'm honored to have you doing it. Honored to have all of you listening. It's um it's fantastic. It's fantastic habit, and I'm very, very touched. And I did miss you, and Miss Colleen did miss you all, and miss the community here. Thank you for all of you who sent notes of encouragement and lifting me up and helping me in that. So the walk opened at a funeral. A funeral. Moses was dead. And Joshua stood at a river in flood, hearing the same words again and again. Be strong and courageous. You don't keep saying that to a man who isn't shaking. Come on now, relax, be strong, be courageous. You know what I mean? If he looks like he's ready to handle his business, you don't say that a bunch of times. Across the river, a sketchy but great woman named Rahab tied a scarlet cord in her window. The Hebrew word for that cord is tikvah. Tikvah. Everywhere else in the Hebrew Bible that word means hope. Glory to God. Then the priest stepped into the Jordan at the flood stage before the water moved. The river stopped far upstream in a town called Adam. That's right, Adam. And twelve stones came up out of the riverbed so the grandchildren would ask what they meant. Israel climbed out on the tenth day of the first month, the very day every household chose its Passover lamb. At Gilgal, the grown men were circumcised. Passover was kept, and the manna, food from heaven, stopped for good. A stranger with a drawn sword answered Joshua's question with one word. No. And Israel walked around Jericho in silence for six days until the walls fell straight down. Thursday, Israel lost to a little town whose name means the ruin. Because one man buried a fine cloak from Shinar. By the way, first I thought you might enjoy this. For perspective, Shinar was in what is now Iraq, in the region known as Babylonia, covering much of the central and uh southern Iraq, or Iraq, if you say it that way. Genesis 1010 places Babel or Babel, Babylon, Irak, or Yurok, and Chad within that land. So for a more modern landmark, the ruins of Babylon lie about 53 miles or 85 kilometers south of Baghdad. The land of Babylon, this one man with silver and a bar of gold under his tent caused destruction and loss. I saw, I coveted, I took, I hid. He and his household died in the valley of Achor, the valley of trouble under a heap of stones. Friday Israel was fooled by moldy bread. Friday was a day, wasn't it? Moldy bread, worn-out sandals, and patched wineskins. They checked the evidence with their hands, but they never asked the mouth of God. They kept their word anyway, though. I think that's impressive, don't you? They found out they were lying to them, but they said, hey, we gave you our word. We entered into covenant. How many of us have entered into covenant? We gave our word with somebody, but when it got uncomfortable, we backed out. When it got to be one of those deals where, well, I didn't know it was going to be this hard. Then we back out. They kept their word anyway. Then the sun stood still over Gibeon on a day the Lord fought for Israel. A cord, a river, a wall, a hole in the ground, and a bad deal. Joshua looks like a war story, but underneath it's a story of who gets to belong to God. Again, if you're catching up on this from another platform, I just you can absolutely, I'm happy for you to listen on that platform, especially if you're one of our podcast listeners. We're on every big podcast platform there is, audio-only platform. But our primary is YouTube. So I encourage you, if you're listening on any other thing, if you could just come over to YouTube, click on True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean S-H-A-W-N, and then it's the one with about 4,000 listeners, uh, subscribers, and then click on subscribe, click on the little bell for all notifications, and hit that thumbs up on the way through. You have no idea how important it is. Really and truly no idea. Anyway, that way you'll get notifications, by the way, that we're gonna be on. So five threads. Five threads ran through those mornings that we spent together, several thousand people two weeks ago. Um, I think I don't know how many total listeners it was, but it was it was a lot of 20 some thousand people. That's that's powerful. You are you're you're among a group of 20 some thousand people. And that's awesome, and I'm honored by that. I'll never take that lightly. So thread one, strength is a presence, it's not a functionality. Strength is a presence, but it's not a personality. There's something, but what I mean by it's not a functionality is you can have someone do an act that requires physical strength, but that strength, that strength that comes from your core who you are. Strength of character, strength of commitment. That's a presence. God told Joshua three times in one speech, be strong and courageous. He never once said, Because you are strong. Be strong and courageous, because you are strong. Joshua 1, verse 9 gives the reason under all the others. For the Lord is your God, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. The strength wasn't in Joshua, it walked beside him. Are you listening? Listen to who says it. Moshe or Moses says it in Deuteronomy 31. God says it three times in Joshua 1. Then in Joshua 1, verse 18, the people say it back to him. Be strong and courageous. The whole community lends him its courage. Courage in the Bible isn't the temperament some people are born with. Maybe that's you. Right? Maybe, maybe it has required for you at different times of your life and at different times of your faith walk. Courage. And you say I wasn't born with courage. If you're if you were born with courage, type in the comments or into the live chat. Yes, I was. But you know, for most people, the in the Bible it isn't a temperament. We didn't see it, just innate. It's what happens to that ordinary shaky person. Who believes God is actually there? Who believes God is when he says he is. Amen. Thank you, Robbie. Robbie says, Yes, I was. Thread number two. The step comes before the sign. Amen, Sean spelled correctly. The step comes before the sign. Joshua 3, verse 13. When the souls of the feet of the priests rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters shall be cut off. Did you catch that? Feet first. Go in first. When the souls of the feet of the priests rest in the waters when they're already ankles deep. Ankles deep, then the miracle comes. We saw it all week. The priests step in before the river stops. Israel circles Jericho before the wall moves. In in chapter 6, verse 2, God says, I have given Jericho into your hand before a single soldier takes a step. God speaks the gift as finished. Then he asks his people to walk into it. Faith in action. I want you to look at who was standing on that riverbank. Most of them were children at the Red Sea or were born in the wilderness after it. For many of them, the sea was a story told at the fire in the center of their family. You know, maybe in the family compound there was a center part. And those stories were told. Every family's faith has to become first hand somewhere. For them it happened angle deep in a flood. Faith in Joshua isn't feeling certain. Faith in Yahushua. Faith in Yeshua. It isn't feeling certain. It's moving. Well, it still looks impossible. My friends, you don't inherit. You don't inherit a place with God. You step into it. Thread three, I have missed you too. Miss Susan, you're very sweet. Thank you for your kind notes and your letters, and ugh, they lift me up. So thread number three, the question is never whose side God is on. Never. Joshua 5, verse 13. Joshua sees a man with a drawn sword and asks, Are you for us or for our adversaries? The commander of the Lord's army answers, No. That one word reorders the whole book. Israel doesn't own God. God isn't a tribal mascot. The only question that matters is whether you will take off your sandals and stand on his side. Joshua takes them off. In verse 15, he hears the words Moshe heard at the burning bush in Exodus 3, verse 5. Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. Then the ram's horn sound at Jericho. The Hebrew word for those horns is your vowel. The same word that names the Jubilee. The year of release. Freedom is announced before a single stone falls. God isn't on your family's side. The question is whether you're on God's side. Thread number four. Oh my. What's hidden poisons the whole body. Joshua 7, verse 1. The people of Israel broke faith, one man took the devoted things, and the whole nation was counted guilty. Thirty-six men died at Ai. A. Achan's confession in verse 21 runs the pattern of Eden. Saul, coveted, took, hid. Genesis 3 tells the first sin the same way. By the way, Joey, I would appreciate it. This is not the time nor the place to tell your whole story. I'd love to hear your whole story. If you would contact me through TrueWordfaithforLife.com, TruewordFaithforLife.com. Click on the contact button up there. Tell me your story. We'll get in touch. I will absolutely be in touch. And we'll chat about it. I believe I can help you. I hope you'll you'll listen and be blessed in all of this. Not because of me, but because of God. I want you to notice who steps forward while the lots were falling. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody steps forward. Everything's falling apart. And nobody steps forward. Not a single person. Tribe, clan, household, man. A Khan waited until the lot found him. And still, in verse 19, Joshua's first words to him were, My son. You see, in covenant, nobody sins alone. That's what's so strange to people as it relates to Israel. Modern Israel, ancient Israel, ancient Near Eastern Israel, and in present day, they don't understand how they can operate the way that they do. This is why. In covenant, nobody sins alone. What one hand buries, the whole family carries. Now we're all the way to thread five. Ask the mouth of God. That sounds like a funny thing to say, doesn't it? Joshua 9, verse 14. The ESV and the New American Standard Bible both say it. They both say they did not ask counsel from the Lord. The Hebrew is more physical, though. They did not ask the mouth of the Lord. They trusted what they could see, what they could touch, what they could taste, and they never let God speak. How many times have we done that same thing? Ever make a decision, look so good. Hey, I don't need to pray about this. I got this managed, I got this handled. Why in the world would I waste my time messing around with that? Right? I don't need to pray about it. This is a layup. In basketball parlance, it's a layup. And then all of a sudden, it doesn't turn out good. Schneikes doesn't turn out good. Despite it looking, touching, tasting, all of it looks so good. It all fell apart. Somebody out there has experienced that. I can't be the only one. So when they found out, they kept their word anyway. Now this is amazing. God held Israel to that oath for centuries. Saul broke it, and in David's day, famine came. 2 Samuel 21, verses 1 and 2. And when the people who'd lied to Joshua were attacked, I want you to hear this. Don't miss this. The very people who lied to Joshua, they tricked them. When they were attacked, Joshua marched all night uphill, out of the Jordan Valley and into the hills to save them. They left their safety. They left their kin, their families, their children, their wives. They went up into the hills to save the very people that tricked them. Joshua 10, verse 9. He kept faith with people who never kept faith with him. Then I want you to watch what God does, because what God does with Gibeon is amazing. It's just amazing. Generations later, it's it's the great high place. And in 1 Kings 3, verse 5, it's where God says to young King Solomon, ask what I shall give you. The city born on the day Israel did Nask became the place where God said, Ask. Five threads. Five. Strength from the presence. The step before the sign. God's side, not ours. Nothing hidden. Ask first. I want you to lay those threads next to the people in the story, in this story. And something comes into focus. If you're just pulling up a chair, here's the question on the table. Have you spent your life sure you're on the outside with God? Or accounting on being on the inside. You were just sure. One or the other. On the outside. I just don't belong. I don't feel like I belong. Or you said, oh yeah. My parents went to the first through seventh Baptist church, and then we switched over to the Reformed Lutheran Church of the Sepulchre or whatever. And then we went over there to this other church, the Methodist Bethel Methodist, and then we went over there to this other church, and then we went on denominational, and then we did this and did that. We were all all over the place. And yeah, but we were my parents carried me there. I'm good. I'm good. I'm on the inside. Joshua answers, he answers both, and neither one expects the answer. Once you start with one word, khereim, cheleim. The ESV in Joshua 6, verse 17 says, devoted to the Lord for destruction. The NESB, New American Standard Bible, version 2020 says, designated for destruction. Both are painful. But you know, I don't, man, I don't ever. Do you ever want to be on the end of that? Designated for destruction? Both are faithful and both put destruction right up front. The Hebrew puts ownership up front. John Walton and his son Harvey, they wrote all this stuff on this, did a lot of great research that are amazing to read. They pressed this point in their work on the conquest. What God means for you, not one, and I mean no one. No one. What God meant for you, what God means for you, his blessings for you. Nobody can take it away from you. If God gives it to you, nobody can take it away. Jericho was khirem. Its people and its goods belong to God alone. And the khirem in Joshua doesn't fall where you'd expect it to. Look at chapter 2, Rahab. A Canaanite, a woman, a prostitute. She lives in the wall of the very city under the ban. By every outside measure, she's as far from Israel as a human being can be. Achan, the son of Kodami, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah. Four generations of pedigree from Judah, the royal tribe. Zerah was the twin brother of Peres. David would come from Peres. God is as far inside Israel as a man can be, and the band that fell on Jericho falls on him. Joshua 7, verse 12. God says Israel itself has become devoted for destruction until the stolen things are gone. Now look at verse 9. Or I'm sorry, look at chapter 9. The Gibeonites. Hivites. The text calls them Hivites. Canaanites again from a city inside the land. They come in disguise. But listen to why they came, verse 9. Your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God. They lied about their sandals, but they told the truth about his name. And they end up in the covenant, carrying wood and water. Oh, come on, somebody, get the. Come on. Come on. They ended up carrying the wood and the water for the altar of God. Set the three side by side. A Canaanite woman in. An Israelite from the royal tribe out. A Canaanite city in. The line between who's in with God and who's out was never blood. It was allegiance. Shaol or Paul, the Apostle Paul, says it in Romans 9, verse 6. Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And in Romans 11, verse 29, he says God's calling on Israel is irrevocable. Birth made Echan an Israelite, but birth couldn't cover what he buried. Your family name can't cover what you've buried. The ban was never about ethnicity. Deuteronomy 20, verse 18 gives the reason that they may not teach you to do according to their abominable practices. In Deuteronomy 13, verses 12 through 15, they put an Israelite town that turns to other gods under the very same ban. Rahab pledged herself to the Lord and came under the sign. Achan pledged himself to a cloak from Babylon and went under the stones. Who is Israel? Really? These chapters are hard. And a careful reader asks how a god of Chesed, his loyal covenant love, could command what Joshua describes. Here's what the stones say. Around 840 BC, Mesha, king of Moab, carved a victory stone that now stands at the Louvre. Yeah, it now stands at the Louvre. He boasts that he took the Israelite town of Nibbo and devoted it to his god, little G, using the same route, Khirem. On the same stone he says, Israel has perished forever. But I want you to make no mistake, Israel hasn't perished, not then, not now, not ever. That was just war talk. Older still, around 1208 BC, Pharaoh Merneptah raised a stone with the oldest undisputed mention of Israel outside the Bible. He says Israel is laid waste. He says his seed is not. Israel's seed was then and is now and forever will be alive and growing. Good afternoon, Miss Nicole. Thank you for joining us. Kings of the ancient Near East wrote about war and sweeping total language, and Joshua speaks that same language. That's how Joshua 10, verse 40, can say Joshua left none remaining, while Joshua 13, Joshua 15, verse uh 63, and Judges 1 show Canaanites still living in the land. And God didn't rush. In Genesis 15, verse 16, he told Aphraham or Abraham he'd wait 400 years because of the iniquity of the Amorites. Because the iniquity of the Amorites wasn't yet complete. Can you imagine? None of that makes these chapters easy. It means the sharpest edge of the Kherem falls where nobody expects it. On an Israelite who hid what belonged to God. Then there's the valley. Joshua 7. Verse 25. Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today. The Hebrew verb is achar. Akhar to trouble. In 1 Chronicles 2, verse 7. The Hebrew doesn't even call him Akhan. It calls him Akhar, the troubler of Israel. The English Standard Version keeps Achan in the line and puts Akhar in the footnote. And the place he died carries the word play. The Valley of Achhor, which literally means the valley of trouble. Centuries later, the prophet Hosea, he looks back at that valley. Hosea 2, verse 15 in the complete Jewish Bible, and in Hebrew Bibles, it's verse 17. God says of his wayward people, I will make the valley of Akkor a door of hope. In Hebrew, a door of tikvah. There's that word again. That same Hebrew word, tikvah. The same word as Rahab's scarlet cord. Tikvah comes from the verb khava to wait, to look eagerly for. Picture a cord pulled tight while you wait. That's Hebrew hope. Joshua hangs tikvah in a Canaanite window. And God promises that the valley named for an Israelite's trouble will become a door of tikvah for his own people. Don't tell me. Don't tell me that you are beyond God's reach. Don't tell me that Yeshua, Jesus Christ, can't reach into your life. My friends, if you knew my life, you'd absolutely believe if he can do it for me, he will most assuredly do it for you. But you got to decide what you're gonna do about Jesus, what you're gonna do about Yeshua. What are you gonna do? You have to make a decision. You can't stay on the fence forever. The hope that brought the outsider in is the same hope that brings the insider home. Here's where all of it lands. Joshua 10, verse 26. After the battle of Gibeon, Joshua puts the five Amorite kings to death, and he hangs their bodies on trees. Five trees. Till evening. And at sunset, they're taken down in obedience to Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, which reads, A hanged man is cursed by God and must not remain on the tree all night. They're thrown into the cave where that same cave where they'd hidden. Back in verse 18, Joshua had given the order. Roll, oh come on, somebody tell me, somebody just tell me, amen. If you get this, Joshua gave the order, roll the, roll large stones against the mouth of the cave. Verse 21 says, those stones remain to this very day. Listen to that verb, roll, in Hebrew, Galaw. It's the same root that named Gilgal, Israel's camp, back in chapter 5, verse 9, when God said, Today, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Hold that picture in your mind. Hold it there right now. It is vitally important. Oh, please, whatever you're doing, hold that right in your head. A man hung on a tree, taken down before sundown, laid in a cave. A great stone rolled across the opening. John 19, Yochanan 19, verse 31. The leaders asked that the bodies not remain on the cross on the Sabbath. Joseph of Arimathea took Yeshua's body down before sundown. Metatyahu or Matthew 27, verse 60 says, He laid it in his own new tomb, cut in the rock, and rolled a great stone to the entrance. In Joshua the stones stay to this very day. Conversely, at the garden tomb, our Lord and Savior, Christ the Redeemer, Yeshua Hamashiach, the long-awaited Messiah, the stone roll away. The grave cannot keep our Savior. Not one second longer than God determined. And because of that you have hope. Because of that you have a future. Because of that you have forgiveness. Because of that you have redemption. Because of that, you have a path forward into this life and on through eternity. Come on, somebody say amen. Galatians 3, verse 13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Leviticus 27, verse 29 says, A person under the band can't be ransomed. No price buys him back. So the Redeemer stepped under the curse himself, set apart completely to God and given up for us. A Khan stole what was devoted and died under the stones. Yeshua was the one devoted, and he walked out from behind that stone because the grave could not hold him down. Why? Because the curse that fell on the tree fell on him, so the door of hope could open for you and for me. That's how Rahab's line runs straight to Bethlehem. Matthew 1, verse 5. Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab. The prostitute woman from the wall is in the family of Messiah. And Hebrews 11, verse 31, writes two words in front of her name. By faith, Rahab, by faith, she a prostitute living in a wall. By faith, we will see her in heaven. If we place our faith in Yeshua, by faith we will have eternal life in him. When outsiders come in, Israel doesn't get pushed out. The Ahab didn't replace Israel. She joined Israel. The Gibeonites didn't take Israel's place, they served at Israel's altar. Paul or Shaol tells Gentile believers the same thing in Romans 11, verses 17 and 18. You, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree. Remember, it is not you who support the root, but that root that supports you. In verse 29, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Israel is still God's covenant people, and God has opened the door wide for anyone from any nation who hangs their hope in the same window that scarlet thread. We have hope. Ephesians 2, verse 19. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens. You are fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God. You do not belong to God because of your bloodline. You belong because of his blood, and no one who hangs their hope on him will ever be cast out. Yeshua said it himself in John 6, verse 37. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Here's your step coming for this week. Listen, not easy. Not easy. I get it. None of this stuff I ever tell you really is ever that easy, but it's so doable. First, settle your own allegiance, not your family's. Your family going to church and being involved in all of these things. It has no bearing. You may have a pastor father. You may have elders, you know, your brothers and your uncle and your grandfather and your father and everybody was all they're not, that's not yours. Settle your own allegiance. Hey, listen, not your churches either. Yours. Before you go to bed, come on, before you go to bed, before you go to bed tonight, come on, somebody. Before you go to bed tonight, say it out loud in your own words, whose side you're on. Joshua took off his sandals. I want you to kneel by your bed if you physically can. Take your shoes off on the back porch, wherever it is, mark it. Take your shoes off. This is holy ground. Second, name your valley of a core, the trouble you've been hiding, the failure you think disqualified. You don't tell me. Write it on a piece of paper. Then write Hosea 2 verse 15 across it. Hosea 2 verse 15. Write it across it. I will make the valley of a core a door of hope. Put it where you'll see it every morning of the week. Every morning of this week. Put it there. Hosea 2, verse 15. I will make the valley of a core a door of hope. Come on, somebody. Somebody tell me that you're doing it. Somebody tell me you're writing this down right now. Put it where you'll see it every morning this coming week. Third, find it a hob. No, I'm not telling you to go find a prostitute, somebody walking the streets looking for a date. No, look for someone who feels like an outsider. Someone who says, man, there ain't no chance in this world. Until Nancy Flanagan. Time for you to testify. Until Nancy Flanagan trusted. You don't know the outside circumstances. Didn't anybody know, except for Miss Colleen, what I was going through in my heart and my soul and my head. God had been calling me since I was 16 years old, and I did everything I could. Nope. No hard nope. Hashtag nope. I did everything I could to ruin myself. For the ministry, even my own mother was a no-vote. And Nancy Flanagan, a dear, sweet, beautiful lady who didn't know me at all. Whole nother city. She took a risk. And because the Lord spoke to her about me, she spoke to me about him. She said the Lord said something to the effect of stop worrying about being good enough. Don't worry about being good enough. Listen, I was an outsider. I was a hobby. I'm telling you. Someone that feels look out. Look for a person who feels like an outsider. Maybe it's that new person who sits alone. The neighbor who's never been invited in. The guy at work nobody eats lunch with. You know those people. You thank you, Sean. Thank you so much. You're so kind. Look, this week. This week, I want you to make room for one of them. Sit with them. Invite them to your table. Tell them out loud. You belong here. Israel's story in the land. Israel's story in the land didn't open with a sermon on who gets in. It opened with a scarlet cord and an open window. Be that window for somebody this week. At the end of the week, I want you to look back. Look, Friday's a long way off. And I'm here to tell you it may be me, but some of us aren't going to make it to Friday. Because within our chest, each of us have a beating heart that one day and in one moment will stop. And your opportunity for deciding for Christ will be over. But at the end of the week, I want you to look back. Which of the three that I directed you, and you say, hey, I missed some of it, you can come back and listen. The only thing I'm going to do is once this processes, I'm going to take out the beginning mess, all that, I'm going to take all that out so people that are new to the channel don't have to listen to it. And if you're new to the channel and you're like, hey, I missed all that. What's going on? Click on subscribe, click on the little bell for all notifications, click on thumbs up and you'll get to hear it. It was a lot of blah, blah, blah on my part. But I want you to answer which of the three that I directed you to, which of the three came the hardest to you? That's the one God's working on in you. I want you to bring in it. Sunday's also a long ways off, but I want you to bring it to him by name next Sunday. I'm I'm just gonna tell you, I'm so excited about, I think it's 140. Day 140. Can you believe it? I'm super excited about it. I have for you tonight, though, I have for you a challenge and a choice. Tonight there are two kinds of people listening. Some of you have felt like outsiders your whole life. I did too. I was uh I was born two pounds, six ounces, two and a half months premature. I was frail. I wasn't allowed to go outside in dusty, windy days, literally. I was so skinny and frail. Some of you have felt felt like that your whole life. You've sat in the back. You've assumed your past put you on the wrong side of the wall. I want you to hear a hob. Your history doesn't decide this. Your allegiance does. The window is open. Hang your scarlet thread there. Some of you have felt like insiders your whole life. You haven't felt like an outsider. You felt, look, I've got the pedigree. I got four generations in this same church. Listen, my great times five grandfather Elijah Covington brought he brought the um Methodist faith to the eastern shore of Maryland. He founded 18 churches. My family owns several of them. We're not rich. We give money every family reunion, and that's what keeps it going. They they're actually gonna be meeting. I don't know when. It's a homecoming. Maybe it was today. It's in Maryland, so I I can't go, but anyway, it's awesome. We still do our family, we still do family reunions at the other church. In Star. They're just old country churches, little old country churches. Sure, I got the pedigree. Many generations. Like a hand. Listen, you've got something buried under your tent that you think your background covers. Just like a khan, you've got something buried, something hidden, that cherished sin, that hurt, that habit or hang up that is keeping you from truly hearing God. My friends, the other thing it's keeping you from. I've given an invitation. I gave an invitation at a church. They asked me to preach. I said, I'm gonna give an invitation. I'd like for the two pastors to be up front and for counselors to be ready. And they said, Oh no, no, no, we don't, we don't do that here. We don't give, we don't give invitations. I said, Well, they said you're gonna be up there by yourself, gonna be crickets, gonna be embarrassed. Oh, well, I'll be embarrassed, won't be the first time. But I'm gonna give an invitation. I want you to be there. And a long time later, so many tears had fallen to that altar, not because of me, but because someone asked. And one of the people that came forward was their equivalent of chairman of deacons. He had grown up in the church, and no one had ever asked him, would you like to place your faith in Christ? No, your pedigree won't save you. Only your open hands will. I want you to find that thing that you've been hiding from up and nobody finds, and nobody exposes. I want you to dig it up and put it before God. All of us have made decisions without asking God. Here are the Gibeonites. God can hold you to your word and still turn your worst decision into the place where he says ask. Your past doesn't put you out. Your pedigree doesn't keep you in. So here's the choice. Not whose side God is on. Whose side are you on? The commander still answers no to the question we keep asking. And he's still, he is still saying yes to anyone who falls on their face and says, What does my Lord say to his servant? Take your sandals off, tie the cord, step into the water tonight, right now, right here. Prayer is not asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. Adonai Saveot. Lord of the armies, we come with our shoes off. We confess we've asked whose side you're on when the only question was whether we were on your side. Tonight we choose we are yours. For those of us who have lived on the outside, we've been sure we'd never be welcome. Thank you for Rahab. Thank you that you looked through the window of a house built in a wall and you saw your daughter. I want you to write, if you will. I want you to write by faith. Oh, I can't wait to get to that passage in Hebrews to preach. Oh Lord, let me take my time so I don't rush to get there, but oh my do! I take great joy in preaching that passage. By faith in front of her name. And I ask that you write it in front of our names too. For those of us who have counted on being insiders, I ask you forgive us for hiding things under our own tents and trusting our pedigree to carry us through. I ask that you dig them up, bring them into the light, call us son, call us daughter, and let us live. For the decisions we made without asking you, keep us faithful to our word, and make our Gibeon a place where we hear you say, Ask. Oh, thank you for Israel, your covenant people, whose calling you will never revoke. Thank you for opening the door to every nation that hangs its hope where Ahab hung hers. And thank you for the Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah, our Redeemer and our King, our Savior and our Lord. He was hung on a tree, laid behind the stone, and yet he rose. So the valley of trouble could be the door of hope. I pray this in his matchless name. The mighty name of Yeshua. Amen. If you've never settled this tonight, oh my goodness. Settle it tonight. Settle it whenever you're listening to this. Whether live or on playback, settle it. Settle it. It doesn't matter if you grew up in the front row of the cathedral or the first Baptist church, or that you've never set foot in a church. Bloodline doesn't bring you in. His blood does. I told the dear lady who actually was a prostitute. In a in a a hospital, a religious hospital. And she was, I didn't know it then, but two weeks from her death. She had every communicable disease you could have. I mean, my goodness, she had she had AIDS, full-blown. She had hep C full blown. She had cancer, just had eaten her up. She was only in her 30s and she looked like she was in her 80s. And she spent most of her life being abused by men. And I was asked to go. See if she was real. See if her story was real. Because somebody said, Hey, somebody needs to go pray with this woman. And she said, I'll never, God will never, ever. Save me. Why would he? I'm a prostitute. I'm a drug addict. I'm a thief. I said, Oh, he can't wait to save you. She said, I'm all ate up with everything. That's exactly how she put it. I'm all eight up with everything. And I said, God will make you clean. He will cleanse every sin. And he will welcome you into his arms. As the Father you never had. His son Jesus went to the cross and shed his blood for you. He went into a borrowed grave. And the Holy Spirit rolled that stone away and he and he rose from the grave and he stands ready, waiting right now, for you to place your faith in him. And then I prayed the following prayer with her. And I said, if you want this, pray this prayer with me now and believe. You also can hang your golden scarlet thread, that cord. Right now. Pray this with me. Just like she prayed, just like Rahab the prostitute prayed and that lady prayed in that hospital bed. She'd had only two weeks. You say, well, I'm going to wait. I'm going to think on it. That woman had only two weeks to live. When I called to check on her, first of all, they said they didn't even want, they said, Mister, you don't know what you're getting into. First of all, you need to be all gowned up and have the face mask. I'm telling you, she's full blown with AIDS. She's full blown with Epsy. You need to have gloves. You need to have a mask. You need to be at the soul, whole PPE. I said, no, for whatever reason, I don't know why. I just trusted God. They said, that woman will cuss you. She's horrible. She just screams horrible things all day long. And she prayed this prayer. She prayed this prayer. And by the end of the prayer, you wouldn't have recognized her voice. For it sounded like a child. Tugging on the pant leg and looking up and saying, Daddy, and knowing this time, finally, Daddy's listening. We prayed this prayer. I want you to pray it with me. Yeshua, thank you for the cross and the empty grave. I need you. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today. Forgive me. Fill me. Lead me. I'm yours. In your name. Amen. The part of the story that I have not told you so far this evening is when I called to check on her, they said, Mister, were you the guy that came in two weeks ago? And we told you don't go in there? I said, I am. They said, Well, I'm sorry to tell you, she has passed. However, I don't know what you said to her. But she was a changed person, and I said, It wasn't me. It was God. And you can have the same redemption and healing and hope and joy that she had that changed her from the screaming, cursing, spitting to the most polite person. They said she was unbelievable. And she died peacefully. If you prayed that prayer tonight, you're not a guest anymore, your family. And if you want, type it in the comments. I belong. Just those two words, I belong. If you're listening live, type it in the chat. I belong. Why? So that we can rejoice. Look, I love rejoicing with you. Are you kidding me? We'll be watching for your name and we'll be praying for you by name. By the way, if you need any help, if you want any help, free of charge, no cost or obligation to you, go to true wordfaith for life.com. Go up to contact. Click on that or click on the little thing on the side. I'll be so delighted you won't even know. As soon as I get that message, I'll reach out to you. But I don't want it to stop there. I want you to tell one believer, everybody knows one believer. Tell them what you did tonight. Amen, Robbie. Praise God. Tell one believer what you did tonight out loud. And look, I'll help you do this if you say, Amen. I don't know where to start. Find a church family that reads the scriptures and loves Israel and loves God. And then next Sunday, sit with them. I'll help you find them. I you you know thank you, Sean spelled correctly. God bless you. Listen, I want you to understand something. I know you say, well, you live some other place. How in the world can you know? I have resources. I can find churches. I'll call them. I'll interview them. I will find out if they're a good church. No, but no church is perfect. No church is perfect. I make a ton of mistakes. Kidd me? I do everything I can to avoid them, but I'm human. I'll help you. No stress. I will help you find a good church near you. By the way, ask someone their name. Hey, what's your name? Oh, hey, Bob. I'm Sean. Tell them your name. You don't have to sit in the back anymore. There's a scarlet cord. There's a scarlet cord on the wall. There's a river bed with twelve stones still standing in it. There's a valley called Trouble. And God has hung a door in it. And there's a tomb outside Jerusalem with its stone rolled away when all the others are still there thousands of years later. You were never in because of your name. You are never out because of your past. You're in because he said, Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. The one who was laid behind the stone is alive tonight, holding the door open for you. Come home. Hang your hope in the window. Walk through the door. Someone in your life has always felt like they don't belong. A son who stopped coming home for the holidays. A friend who says church isn't for people like her. Send them this episode tonight. Tell them that the window's open and that the door of hope is hung in the valley. And now, I have not prayed this over you since we were last together. And I want you to receive this in his heavenly name and in Lashon Hakodesh, the language of God, Hebrew. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Until tomorrow morning, live, if the Lord keeps my heart upbeating, till tomorrow morning, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Until then, Shalom Bishem Yeshua, the shalom elakim.