Joshua is that, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the fear of us and the terror of us are working yonder before we arrive. God is making a way for His conquering purpose before we thunder at the enemy's gate. Therefore let us nerve ourselves. Therefore let us be strong. Therefore do not let us be daunted by the colossal and seemingly impregnable powers of evil. There is a trembling and a quivering in the devil's host. "Your terror is fallen upon

us." Who would think it, to read the secular press? What nonsense clever men talk about religion, as if it were a feeble kind of thing, such as they would call in Scotland "a fozy turnip "-a half-rotten, effete, useless thing. "We are going to have reforms, and we are going to make things a great deal better, but we will have no religion." Did ever anybody hear such addle-headed talking by clever men? No religion? Oh, indeed! You are going to bow out Jesus Christ You ought to have been born a long while before you were, if you are going to do that. You have come into the world much too late, my friend, to put it right without Christ. He is here, and He means to be here, and I trust we are all with Him.

Oh, what encouragement there comes to us out of this! What encouragement-that the kingdom of darkness in all its domain is tottering to its fall, and it knows it! The very devils said when they met Jesus, "Art Thou come to torment us before the time? We know that the time is coming; we know that we are let out to do mischief; but we know that we are on a chain. Have you come to pull us in before the time?" Strange

it is that we who are serving under the heavenly Joshua, and have all these things to fortify us and to infuse strength into us, are so nervous and womanish. Oh, to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and to be strengthened by what we read here as to the condition of things in the enemy's camp! They are just about to surrender if we would put on a bold front.

And I believe that it is often so about some poor sinner just like Rahab. I was near to that on Sunday night. I am back to it again: and it is not I who am repeating myself. It is the Bible that repeats itself, and yet with infinite freshness in the monotone. There is somebody here, or somebody known to you, about whose conversion you are despairing. The devil seems to be deeper into that person just now than ever. It is simply because he knows that his time is short. Be up and active for the conversion of that soul, and more diligent than ever you were before. Do not be put off with appearances. Even while he or she seems to be drinking down iniquity like water, there are twitches and tremors working in their soul about the God of heaven, and about things that they have heard even in the midst of their riot and sin. They have had an ear for other things. And, oh, the things that were told them long ago, in brighter days, at their mother's knee, and by their father, and by their Sunday-school teacher, out of the Bible, as to the God of heaven and His grace-all these things are just now in their soul in activity and power. They are in a crisis, like Rahab, and if you went in you would win,

"Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the

Lord." Is that a bad woman? "Now therefore swear unto me by the Lord, since I have showed you kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto my father's house." Is that a bad woman? It is not selfishly for herself. "Swear that ye will show kindness unto my father's house, and that ye will save alive my father and my mother." I tell you, that prodigal of yours, who is out just now in the far country-you were right, good mother, although just now your hope seemed to be belied-he is the flower of the flock, and through God's grace, I trust, it will be seen yet. He is the best of them. He is the biggest-hearted and the warmest-hearted, and that is where the devil got a grip of him and led him away. But the Lord's turn will come, and it will be seen that he was the best of them. That other son that you have got, the elder brother, is a poor creature. As the Americans say, "I do not take much stock in him." He is correct, of course, like "the elder brother." “Lo, these years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed thy commandment, and thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends." "I" and "my," "me" and "mine." He is swallowed up in himself; he is away from home even when at home.

Look at this woman, and see how the fountains of the great deep are being broken up within her. "Swear to me by the Lord that ye will save alive my father: I have been a heart-break to him. And that you will save my mother: I have been her shame. Swear to me that you will save my father and my mother, and my brothers and my sisters, although, it may be, that for many a day they

have turned their backs on me and are ashamed to mention me. And save all that they have, and deliver our lives from death."

Now, I am not saying a word in favour of the woman's badness—not one word. My conscience is clear there. But here is what I am saying: You and I profess to be much different from this. Was there ever a day or an hour when some of us here went in before the God of heaven with prayers and protestations like this: "O God, save my father and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters. Save the household alive. Son of God, swear to me now by Thyself that Thou art going to save me, and that Thou wilt not let a hoof be left behind, but that Thou wilt save us all"? It is not easy to get

upsides with this woman.

She is a lady. She is an "Likewise also was not

Rahab the harlot justified by her works, when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way?" Even there the Bible is giving her no certificate. It is not trying to make white that which is black. There was a great mixture in her character of what was impure, but there was a something in it that redeemed it, and that something was her faith in the God of heaven. I am not saying that her faith worked by love; I am saying that her faith worked by fear. It was not the best kind, it was not perfect; but it was faith, it was the beginnings of faith. It worked by fear, but by-and-bye it would become love, and would purify her heart and overcome the world. So you see that she was saved. She was saved on God's own,

God's only plan. He has no other way. Either by fear or by love He awakens up in us the kind of thing that throbs and trembles away up with confidence to the holy God, and lays hold of Him, and just hangs there and says, “This is my only hope. I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all; but God as given me a token: God has passed His Word. I will hang on to that for myself, and for all whom I call friend." Have we received "God's spies" with peace. That is faith. Have we so received them that we repent of our past life, tremble to think how near we were to doom, and earnestly seek to save others, and further the Kingdom? Then we may meet with Rahab, our fellow-sinner, some day.

May God bless to us the preaching of His Word.

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