Shannon Popkin (00:02) Well, Lisa Appalo, welcome back to Live Like It’s True.

Lisa Appelo (00:04) Okay.

Hey, thanks for having me back.

Shannon Popkin (00:12) Yeah, so we talked last time a little bit about Rahab and I’d love for our guests to go back and listen to that. We also talked about your ministry for grieving people. You have a book called Life Can Be Good Again, where you tell the story of losing your husband 13 years ago as a mom of seven. And I just love the way that you embrace that part of your story and use it to serve other people.

Lisa Appelo (00:16) Yes.

Shannon Popkin (00:40) But I wanted to call out there’s another part of your background. You used to be a lawyer, is that correct? You were, okay, a trial attorney. Okay, so that means, do you have to, are you like defense or like, how does that work? Do you specialize in one or the other?

Lisa Appelo (00:47) I was, yes, I was a trial attorney.

Most people choose,

yes, typically you will, you I was actually a defense, I did civil litigation. So, and I did mostly professional liability defense. So, yeah.

Shannon Popkin (01:04) Okay.

Okay, professional

liability defense. Okay, interesting. The only thing I know about courtroom, you know, law stuff is like TV shows that have courtroom drama. That’s all I know. And they’re probably way, way, way a stretch.

Lisa Appelo (01:20) Yeah.

Well, my mother

always said, should get paid to argue. So I’ve been trying to get asked the Lord to help me get control over that ever since.

Shannon Popkin (01:36) I love that. That’s cute.

Yeah. One of our kids is like a master arguer. We have said you would make a really good lawyer. But there’s something about when you’re doing trial, there’s something about stories that give testimony, right? How do stories help shape the argument in a court of law?

Lisa Appelo (01:44) Ha

Well, the story is, is the whole case. Um, you can, I mean, there are certain times that the law itself can impact a case, but the case is going to turn on the facts of, on the facts. And so the more you know, and if you can shape those facts in a certain way, especially, but the more you know about a story and the facts, the more you’re able to, to make the judge, especially, or the jury is able to make a determination.

Shannon Popkin (02:29) Okay, so you put people on a witness stand and you train them, it’s called a deposition, right? Where you’re training and you’re trying to have them tell the story and put the facts out there in a particular way. You can do it a bad way and you can do it a right way, is that correct?

Lisa Appelo (02:37) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, the depositions where you’re trying to get the fact, you’re trying to understand what happened. And then by the time they are testifying, like in a court of law, you, the attorney, want to ask the questions in such a way that the story is told in a certain way.

Shannon Popkin (02:52) Okay.

Okay, okay. So I just think it’s interesting that stories play this really important role when there’s a judgment to be made. And in our Bible story that we’re looking at, there is a woman who has heard some stories about God. And it’s about the God of judgment. And I think that’s really intriguing because as we look at our culture today,

Lisa Appelo (03:12) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (03:32) People know things about God. And I wonder what you think, Lisa. I feel like they’ve swung the gavel around and put it in their own hands versus approaching God as the judge of the earth with the gavel in his hand. you agree with that?

Lisa Appelo (03:49) I’ve probably we’ve always done that. You know, if you go all the way back to Genesis, or people were like, I can do things my way when we see that split, you know, from from Adam’s children. And so I think and I think, listen, all of us are prone to wander, right? Prone to say, Lord, I can do it. But yeah, instead of saying, you know, Lord, I recognize that you

Shannon Popkin (03:52) What think?

Yes.

Lisa Appelo (04:16) are God who I need to submit to. There are those who say that doesn’t square with me in my life and what I want to do. So I’m not going to come under that.

Shannon Popkin (04:31) Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the story of the Bible and the story of the world that we’re part of, like the Bible only shines light on the reality that we’re living in, God is the judge and he doesn’t, you know, it’s like, tell us how that is in a courtroom with a judge. Or maybe is there, did you ever work with a judge that you found really interesting? Any judge stories, Lisa? Like is…

I’m just curious about, it how it is on TV where the judge really has a distinct personality and the attorneys like, know, well with this particular judge, you have to approach him this way. Was there any of that that you experienced?

Lisa Appelo (05:11) Yes,

absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And a judge will get to know the attorneys that appear before him or her and will expect certain things from them. So if you have done something, if you have not been honest with the judge, they’re going to know that and they will, you know, they will know that for the next case that you have in front of them. If you have been upfront or if you’ve done your due diligence, if you always come prepared, then they come to respect that, you know, from you as well.

Shannon Popkin (05:28) Hmm?

Okay, were there any judges that you worked with who were super merciful or just?

Lisa Appelo (05:44) I don’t know. mean, I feel like, you know, mostly my practice was in one town and we had to go to a big city. So I’m in Florida. We had to go to South Florida. I had a really, really hard case and I just felt like I got what you call hometown. Like I was from out of town. I didn’t know that judge. I didn’t really know the other attorneys there. I probably sounded different. You know, I spoke differently and I felt like we could never really get a good

Shannon Popkin (06:07) Mm-hmm, yep.

Lisa Appelo (06:13) Like the rulings never really favored us. They never really came down our way.

Shannon Popkin (06:18) Okay, that’s really interesting hometown. I’ve never heard of that. But look at God as the judge. mean, nobody gets hometown with God, right? Because he counts all of the earth as his. And so there is no city that does not fit inside the domain of his rulership. He knows every single one of these cities intimately and he gives everybody a fair trial, right? And he is the…

Lisa Appelo (06:27) Yeah. No, no, no.

Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (06:48) most merciful judge. He’s looking for those that he can pardon. That’s his whole mindset. He takes his place on the judges, what is it called? The seat, judges seat or the, yeah, the bench, is it a bench? And he takes his place on the bench and he’s looking, his eyes are scanning to see who can I show mercy to today? And that’s who he sees.

Lisa Appelo (07:00) Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Popkin (07:15) In Jericho, we’re going to pick up the story about Rahab. This prostitute woman who we said last time, second Chronicles 16, nine, you know, the eyes of the Lord search to and fro looking for whom he may strongly support. And in this case, he finds one woman in the city of Jericho. We talked about how Jericho is a sinful city, wicked people, the sorts of sins that would make us.

horrified right and and he finds one within the city but she’s not this like righteous person he doesn’t ⁓ he doesn’t show his mercy because of her righteousness it’s because of his righteousness because he is so good ⁓ and and so okay we’re gonna and we are gonna get back to this idea of testimony and stories okay as we as we pick up our text so would you please read ⁓ for us joshua two

Eight through 13. Sorry, my glasses are not working for me. Okay, so we’ll skip that where you just read it. It’s like I have new glasses and it’s not, I don’t know, they’re progressives.

Lisa Appelo (08:15) Sure.

Do you want me to read it for continuity or just no? OK.

Shannon Popkin (08:31) Nope, we’ll just patch it, you know? It’ll

be just fine. So for the sake of time. Okay, so Lisa, what is surprising about what Rahab, the testimony that Rahab has heard? Do you think anything in there is surprising?

Lisa Appelo (08:51) Well, the fact that all of this has come to them. mean, they are not, you know, we think that this was before the internet, this was before, you know, the nightly news, this is before, and yet word has gotten out, not just about these Israelites, but about their God. And she names, you know, she says, we know what your God did.

Shannon Popkin (08:55) Yeah.

Yeah.

Lisa Appelo (09:17) in the Red Sea and we know how you destroyed these other two powerful, powerful nations and our heart is faint in us. So you can imagine the fear and trembling that they had as they were approaching and camped right on the other side of the river from Jericho.

Shannon Popkin (09:37) Yeah, so I’ve actually been to Israel. Have you been there, Lisa? Okay. Yeah, so I got to speak in the Middle East at a couple of different places, but we visited Egypt. And so I think we went to…

Lisa Appelo (09:40) I have not. It’s on my bucket list.

Shannon Popkin (09:56) my goodness. Yeah, we went to Egypt first. And then I remember flying over the Suez Canal and then heading over to, we flew into Jordan. And so when we were in Jordan, then we drove then to Israel. But I got to see on that, so I kind of had in my head, you know, the map of where is Egypt, which is where these slaves have escaped from.

The Israelite slaves, this is the first story that Rahab heard was about them escaping from Egypt. And so I know in my head, we passed where Jericho was and it’s really high. It’s like an elevated place and you’re kind of descending down into Jerusalem. So anyway, I can picture travelers going, it would be quite a…

quite a distance, but I could picture them. These were two hubs for travel, Egypt and Jericho, and you could just imagine them staying. Jericho was a beautiful city. It’s one of the most ancient cities on earth. I think I believe I heard that, that it is dated, one of the oldest cities on earth.

Hold on, can I just, I just wanna Google that so I don’t have to, is, share a.

Jericho has a history of over 11,000 years. That is an old city and it has one of the oldest known defense walls in the world. there’s, archeologists have found evidence of 23 layers in ancient sites of Jericho. So it’s this really, really old city. but, but.

Lisa Appelo (11:58) Wow.

Wow.

Shannon Popkin (12:20) So these people and its walls, you it’s famous for its walls. In my Bible, there’s a little diagram and it’s like, so they had double walls. So they had one wall and then I first pictured it like a super thick wall, but no, was like, then there was in, you know, I don’t know how many feet or how many yards in between the two, then, so there was another interior wall and Rahab must have lived between those two walls. And so.

Anyway, it was a very fortified city and, you know, probably a hub for travelers. And they had, the word had come about these things that, and not just were the Israelites famous, but their God was famous. And so they’re kind of receiving testimony that would lead them to believe certain things about God. So just real quick, can you summarize that first or what you know of those two stories that Rahab has heard?

Lisa Appelo (13:03) Mm-hmm.

Okay, I’m sorry. don’t.

Shannon Popkin (13:23) Okay, so in verse 10, let me restate that. In verse 10, she says, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you. She’s talking to these two spies who are Israelites. And when you came out of Egypt and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings, you completely destroyed across the Jordan. So she’s heard two stories about God that have made him famous to her.

Lisa Appelo (13:35) Right.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Shannon Popkin (13:53) You kind of alluded, what’s the story of the Red Sea?

Lisa Appelo (13:57) to the story of the Red Sea would be when they were coming out of Egypt and Moses was still their leader and they got right up against the Red Sea and turned around and right behind them was the Egyptian army. Changed his mind, Pharaoh was like, we will not actually let you go. And so they are hemmed in. They are between the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army who is fast on their heels behind them. And God puts his pillar of fire between them and between the Egyptian army.

during the day and then all night he has the, I’m sorry, pillar of cloud and then pillar of fire all night and parts that Red Sea, parts it so that it is dry land. They’re not even walking, you know, through an inch of water. He parts it and every single one of those Israelites is able to cross the Red Sea and go into the peninsula really on dry ground. And then as the Egyptian army is still pursuing them and

goes into the Red Sea thinking they’ll cross it too. God closes that Red Sea around them and destroys all of them. And so yeah, was just, one of the most astonishing pictures of God’s saving, you know, ability and his mercy.

Shannon Popkin (15:12) Yeah, so they’ve heard this story. I’m sure people were like, you should have seen it. It was like nothing you have ever seen, right? People walking through with walls of water. I always picture like, were you able to reach out and touch, drag your fingers through that wall of water? just, it’s so curious, but they walked through on dry ground, like not muddy ground, dry ground.

Lisa Appelo (15:31) Nah.

Shannon Popkin (15:40) and people are still talking about it. And of course, this army, this Pharaoh’s army was destroyed. that made an impression. What do think the Egyptians thought of that story as they’re telling it?

Lisa Appelo (15:53) Well, I think for the Egyptians, it was also a moment for them to see that God was, he was declaring himself. He was making himself known. It was not just about protecting the Israelites. He did do that. But when every single nation in that whole region, all the way up to Jericho and further all the way into Egypt, all of them had the ability to know.

God had declared himself God of heaven and God of earth. Just like Rahab said, she said, we knew from that time that you were the God of heaven and the God of earth. And God had declared that for everybody to know.

Shannon Popkin (16:33) Yeah, well, and I see some parallels right now, you know, in the day and age that we live in. Our God has made it possible for everyone to know that He is the God over heaven and earth. let’s come back to that statement that Rahab makes, because first there’s this other story. Do you know that one about Sihon and Agha? It’s like there isn’t really much in the Bible about that one, right?

Lisa Appelo (16:57) I’m trying to remember because it wasn’t when they were attacked by the Amorites who came up behind them. So I’m trying to remember that story honestly.

Shannon Popkin (17:04) No, it’s in numbers.

I looked it up and there really isn’t a lot there, but somehow Rahab has heard that story as well. And what I think is interesting is look at the contrast in the way she tells these two stories. The first story is how God saved. He dried up the water and you came out. In that story there was judgment and there was mercy and she focuses on the mercy. So this is a mercy story. God saved you.

Lisa Appelo (17:10) Okay.

Shannon Popkin (17:34) You know, like if I was, if the Egyptian army was coming against me, I would want someone to save me. And she’s noticing God saved you. And then the other story of the Sai Han and Ag, this is a story of judgment. There were no survivors after that story. So Rahab hears a story of mercy and she hears a story of judgment. And I think it’s important that we hear both, right?

I feel like we live in a culture where everybody wants to tell stories of God’s mercy, but nobody really wants to talk about His judgment, almost as if we’re embarrassed by that. You know, that’s the Old Testament God, like we talked about in the last episode. That’s really even the church’s response would be, well, you know, let’s look at the New Testament and look at the God of mercy. But I think to get that fuller testimony of who God is, who this judge is that we stand before,

think we need both kinds of stories, right?

Lisa Appelo (18:31) Well, there

is a holy fear that comes, you know, to know that one day we will stand before God, that everybody, every knee will bow, everybody will stand before God, and that we,

And that, and yet we know, you know, under the new covenant, we know that God is both a God of judgment and a God of mercy. Like he, those aren’t separate. He’s not one at one time and one, even though these are two separate stories, he’s not judge, he’s not a God of judgment in one instance and a God of mercy. He is at both times operating, operating fully in both capacities and.

Shannon Popkin (19:10) Yeah, yeah.

There’s this quote that I love by Dane Ortland. He talks about how we think that it’s God’s wrath that is all pent up and spring loaded, like ready to burst forth and gush at the slightest thing that you do wrong, like God is angry. And when you look at a story like this, God can’t wait to march in and destroy this city. But actually, it’s the opposite. It’s God’s mercy that is pent up. He longs.

he doesn’t have to be provoked to mercy. He has to be provoked to anger. And so his mercy is already ready to flow at the slightest prick. He longs to show his mercy upon those who cry out for it. And so this story, we’ve got two stories here, a story of his judgment, a story of his mercy. And he’s the kind of judge who

He’s so merciful. He longs to show mercy on those who don’t deserve it. But what makes the difference? Like what in these two stories, what is the difference between those that God, does he just play favorites with the people of Israel? Like what is the difference? Who gets the mercy and who gets the judgment?

Lisa Appelo (20:28) I think mercy is available to all of us, right? And, when I think about Jericho, I know you asked about the two stories, but I think about Jericho sitting here, like a sitting duck, you know, waiting for the Israel to come. And yet Israel has been in the wilderness. They’ve had 40 years since the Red Sea happened. They’ve had 40 years to know like Rahab knew.

that this was the God of heaven that they could change that they could find him that they could seek him that they could find out about this guy who is this God if he so declared himself and and so his mercy was all you’re right his mercy was always there but there will come a time where if God is true to who he is he cannot only be mercy

Shannon Popkin (20:56) That’s true.

Yeah.

Yeah, they-

Lisa Appelo (21:18) He has to also say, but also there’s a time where you will give an account for your actions.

Shannon Popkin (21:23) Yeah. Yep. And that day is coming for Jericho. I mean, I picture them camped across the Jordan. know, Jericho could see, they could see this army. They could have sent somebody over to say like, how can we ally with you? You know, how can we, how can we worship your God? We’ve heard stories about him and we want to know like we, he is, he is God and we want to worship him. But no, they, they didn’t want to surrender to God. They didn’t want to worship him. And so they boarded up their city.

I mean, I have to, we have to acknowledge, especially people who read the Bible with a skeptic view, like this is hard. God is taking their land from them. It feels like their land. And yet, God doesn’t see it that way. Everything in heaven and earth belongs to Him. He is the judge. He is the owner. And He doesn’t really have to justify or answer to us. And so,

What’s so astonishing is that Rahab sees that. Like every other person in the city of Jericho sees this army camped and they’re like, oh my word, this is those terrifying people. We have got to get all of our guns out, you know, all of our defenses up. And, and Rahab is the only one. just, this verse is astonishing. She said, when we heard this verse 11, we lost her. Everyone’s courage failed because of you.

For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below. She sees God as God of it all. Like there is no other God. He owns all of it. I just find that so astonishing that she hears these stories and comes to that conclusion. That to me is like the most surprising thing about this text. Do you agree?

Lisa Appelo (23:21) Absolutely. Yeah. And that she would, ⁓ that was such a risk, such a risk for her to leave everything she had known, all the people she’d known, and maybe they hadn’t been good to her. Maybe it was something she was ready to leave, but to put, throw her whole lot and life in with this God she’d only heard about.

Shannon Popkin (23:31) Yeah.

Right.

Lisa Appelo (23:45) And you wonder how long she’d heard about him and wondering, you know, would she ever get to know that God? I want to go back real quick because you said about God giving them this land and how that sometimes seems cruel. And yet God was establishing the nation Israel. Again, it was an act of mercy.

It was, there were to be a city on the Hill for generations, you know, so that all nations would come to know God is the true God. So everything he’s doing is a revealing, he’s revealing who he is so that all people would know. we see throughout the world, what seems cruel to us is people making choices to either believe that or to not believe that.

Shannon Popkin (24:30) Yeah, it’s true. He’s planting a people in a particular place. the idea was never exclusivity. Like even in Genesis 12, when God calls Abraham, he says, I want to bless you that you might be a blessing, that through you all the other nations would be blessed. It’s always been by God’s design that his people would not be an exclusivity kind of thing where

anybody’s welcome. Anyone can be a Rahab. Anyone can say, can I be saved by you, God? Anybody. It doesn’t matter any nationality. doesn’t matter what, you know, sin you’ve committed. doesn’t, there’s nobody who’s too far gone, who’s off limits. Everybody. And that’s, you know, I was telling you last time about this man that I was kind of dialoguing with on Instagram. And I didn’t get around to saying this, but he was saying, you know,

Christians think of themselves as the exception. Everybody else is going to hell and they have a certain exception. And he talked about other religions and how nobody else comes thinking they’re the only way. And my thought was, no, Christianity is the only, I don’t wanna even call it a religion, the mindset, the worldview that anybody’s invited in.

anybody, there are no barriers to entry. Any person can come and they don’t have to do anything to receive this kingdom. It is completely free and it is based on mercy. And the only requirement is to do as Rahab did and cry out for mercy. That’s it. And it’s yours. You know, it’s like God’s mercy. It’s pent up. It’s longing to burst forth. Anybody, his eyes are searching to and fro.

Lisa Appelo (26:17) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (26:25) Who can I find? Who’s crying out to me? Who wants to be saved? And he’s excited to do that. Like we talked about last time, I mean, you could kind of take out Joshua 2. You could just pluck that out of the story. It’s not necessary to the plot, right? These spies that go in, it’s a failed, they’re terrible spies and they don’t get any information. The whole plan to take Jericho is go around it seven times, then the walls collapse. They don’t get any information. The only reason

for chapter two is for God to show his mercy to one woman, one woman. And so what that tells me is you don’t have to be part of the right family. You don’t have to be part of the right country. You don’t have to have a certain resume. All you have to do is cry out for God and he will send a rescue mission to come and get you. I just find that utterly astonishing and so beautiful about God.

Lisa Appelo (27:17) Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes, I agree. God has much more in mind for this woman than to, as you’ve said, to save her physically. He’s much more interested in her spiritual health and for her to know Him as God. And we’re going to see that line because she’s not just in Joshua. She’s going to be woven throughout scripture and really brought into the family of God.

Shannon Popkin (27:44) Yeah, mention.

Yeah, mention that for us. who does, what role does she play? So we’re, not going to be able to get to the story of her being rescued, but basically they’re going to capture Jericho. She is going to put this little red, yeah, the scarlet cord.

Lisa Appelo (28:00) Scarlet cord and anybody

under that scarlet cord which takes you back to the blood painted on the lintel to come under that scarlet cord will be saved.

Shannon Popkin (28:09) Yeah, yeah.

So she’s gonna be saved. But talk to us about after. She not only is rescued, she is assimilated into the nation of Israel, right?

Lisa Appelo (28:23) Yes, and I love it because it says, I’m trying to look at the verse, but it says that they, she was rescued and then she and her family, here it is in, well, I can’t find it. It’s in chapter six. She and her family were put outside the camp because remember she was not Israelite. She was Gentile, but she doesn’t stay outside the camp because…

Shannon Popkin (28:31) Chapter 6.

It’s verse 23,

it’s 623. So the young men who had scouted went in and brought out Rahab and her father, mother, brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

Lisa Appelo (29:00) But she didn’t stay outside the camp.

because God had more for her. we find that in the book of Ruth. find the first, really we find that in Matthew. But if we go to Matthew, the first chapter, there’s that list of names that you always want to just skip because you think it doesn’t mean anything, you know? So we’re under the new covenant, the Messiah is going to come, and the book of Matthew, the first book in the New Testament starts with this list of genealogy.

Shannon Popkin (29:18) Right, genealogy.

Lisa Appelo (29:31) And there are five women who are named and they don’t have to be named in order to trace the lineage of Jesus. But God intentionally names these five kind of startling women. And one of them is Rahab. I think that’s the first time her story really stuck out to me to say, wow, why, why would you name her Lord in this lineage of first of all, why would Rahab the harlot beating the lineage of Jesus? Hello.

Shannon Popkin (29:35) Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Lisa Appelo (30:00) And secondly, why would you call her out like that in scripture this so that we would see her when you didn’t have to do that? But I think again, it’s a picture of God saying, you know, I, can save anyone. It doesn’t matter your past. can save you and I can use you. does not matter your past.

Shannon Popkin (30:18) Yes. Yeah.

You’re not just this, you know, person sequestered over here, like, yes, you’re saved, but, you know, you’re not really a part of the in a, in a grant, uh, intricate workings of God and his people and his plan for the world. Like, no, she was in the lineage that led to Jesus. Uh, she was fully embraced. And I think there’s, isn’t there some speculation that maybe she married one of these spies?

Lisa Appelo (30:45) Well, I don’t know because the spies are not named, but we know that she married Salman. Is his name Salman or Salman? I don’t know. Salman? Okay. She married Salman and he is the father and she is the mother of Boaz. And we look at this book of Ruth and we think, wow, what a man, what a man of God Boaz was. Well, his mother was Rahab.

Shannon Popkin (30:50) Solvent, yeah, yeah, either way.

Lisa Appelo (31:12) And you look at the, you know, the mercy he had for Ruth, the responsibility he felt for her, the love that he showed her, even though she was a Gentile, where did that come from? Well, his mother had been outside the camp and rescued.

Shannon Popkin (31:13) Isn’t that crazy? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

was his mom. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, she was a Canaanite woman. Ruth was a Moabite. These were outsiders who were welcomed in and not, yeah, like we said, not just second class citizens. They had an integral role. It’s so beautiful. So what are the false narratives that this part of the story corrects, I mean, I think we’ve kind of just said it, like that you…

Lisa Appelo (31:52) I think this one, yeah.

Shannon Popkin (31:56) that you wouldn’t be

included, that you wouldn’t be anybody can be used by God to do amazing things, but anything else you’d add to that?

Lisa Appelo (32:04) No, I would say that’s it. That Jesus is only for certain people. I’m not good enough. I wasn’t born into the right family. I wasn’t raised in church. I don’t know enough. There are so many ways that we can say Jesus, you know, He would never and He always is for you. know, over and over again, we see in the New Testament, Him stop and look and invite. And that’s what He does for all of us.

Shannon Popkin (32:27) So good. Any false narratives about God that this story corrects? You we talked about him being the judge and what kind of a judge he is.

Lisa Appelo (32:37) Okay, I’m gonna have to think about that for a minute. I have to. Okay, yeah.

Shannon Popkin (32:39) I can just add some thoughts myself there if

you don’t. I think this story also corrects false narratives about God, right? That he is a harsh judge, that he is looking for those that he can destroy. I think this flips that on its head. Our God is the God who’s looking for the one he can rescue. His eyes are searching the city. Where’s the one I can find that I can show my mercy to? I can pour out my mercy upon. And her story is included in Joshua.

purposefully, Joshua wants us to know that Joshua and the overarching story of the Bible, that outsiders are brought in. And so I think that that is a good picture of God. I think it’s also something that we can live as though it’s true also. Like how can we live like it’s true that God’s people are not this exclusive, only perfect people.

kind of narrative.

Lisa Appelo (33:41) Well, I probably would go back to my friend who really has illustrated this for me more than anybody around me. when I watch her in her ministry to these strip clubs, I think I mentioned it in the first episode. And I watched the way she just loves these women. They don’t come in with a devotion ready. They come, they’re ticket in as food. And their second, the reason that they are asked to come back is because they just love them where they are.

and they get to know them. And then once that wall is down, not just between my friend and her coming in, but between the dancers and the outsiders coming in, once that wall is down and they know they can trust these church ladies, they call them, they begin to understand what the love of Jesus is. And so I think for all of us just to know that,

You know, the story we see, we started out talking about stories. The story we often think we know about somebody is not all there is. And that if we knew them the way God knows them, that we would, it would be so much easier to love them.

Shannon Popkin (34:47) Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You know, thinking of those church ladies, they could be focused on, I don’t want to be misjudged by driving into a strip club. Like I don’t want to be, I don’t want others to get the wrong impression of what a church lady is. Right. And I think some of us, you know, look at these spies too, in the story, they took a huge risk, right. To promise this to Rahab. Like they’re putting their life in their, in her hands, trusting that she won’t tell on them.

Lisa Appelo (35:05) Absolutely.

Shannon Popkin (35:25) Right? And so I think some of us think of those rehabs in the world, whether at a strip club or even somebody who doesn’t come from the right kind of family, you know, like, let’s say your kid is dating someone who’s, who wasn’t raised in church or, you know, your neighbor is someone who doesn’t really, she doesn’t go to Bible study and she really wants to though, wants to though, or, you know, just the person who doesn’t fit the right

mold of what we think a church lady should look like, they kind of can seem risky. I don’t want them in my family. I don’t want them in my Bible study. Like, what are they going to mess up? And that is not the heart of our God. And so living like this story is true is like, who’s your Rahab? And how can you take a risk and invite her in the way that God did, the way that God’s people did? God let her be part of the lineage to Christ. Come on, crying for crying out loud. Like if God is willing to do that.

Like we should save her a seat in Bible study. The risk is so minimal, right? Comparatively. So I want to live like it’s true toward the Rahab’s in my life. But I also want to live like it’s true and be a Rahab who says, God, I need your mercy.

Lisa Appelo (36:39) Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I trust you with my whole life. Like, I don’t understand. I don’t know what this means, but I’m going to trust you.

Shannon Popkin (36:41) Any, any

Yeah, that you’re marching against. I think for us, looking at there’s this final judgment, that’s hard, right? I just wanna be honest. That’s hard for me to think of entire groups of people being swept away into final judgment. And yet I don’t want that to be a barrier for me crying out to God in His mercy and inviting other people to do the same thing. Because Jericho was boarded up

The beginning of chapter six opens by saying, now Jericho was strongly fortified because of the Israelites. So it’s boarded up, no one leaving or entering. That’s how they are responding to this God of judgment. And that’s how a lot of people in the world respond to him. They board their hearts up, they board their lives up like, no thank you, don’t want you God. But I wanna respond like Rahab did. I wanna live like it’s true, that our God is merciful and he will show it to whom.

ever will respond to his mercy. go ahead.

Lisa Appelo (37:50) Mm-hmm. You know, we can even bring it down

even to like a circumstance today, because we are all probably facing some circumstance that we think is impossible. Like there is no way out. There’s no way God could bring something out of this. And God has got to be impossible. And you know, for Rahab to be here and to be rescued out in a way that she never could have imagined.

Shannon Popkin (38:11) Well, let’s see.

Lisa Appelo (38:18) or, or, you know, there just, there’s no way she could have dreamed or imagined. And that is who God is. And so I think of circumstances in my own life that I need to like have that kind of faith that God will, ⁓ that the God who saves me is also the God who is going to take me through circumstances that are impossible.

Shannon Popkin (38:38) Amen, amen. Lisa, that was so good. Thank you so much for being my guest and talking about this amazing story. This woman who’s been misjudged and a God who’s been misjudged, but it’s a story of mercy and rescue. I just love it. Thank you for joining me. we are. I think we need to have a coffee date, just her and us. you know, that’d be great. So thank you so much, Lisa.

Lisa Appelo (38:56) We’re going to have some questions for her in heaven. Just think when she tells us the story. Thank

you.