Rehab’s Faith - Joshua 2 & 6
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, we are so glad you are here today. I am honored to be back again and get to share with you another impossible moment. Today we are talking about Rahab. So it's, I feel like it could be a popular story but maybe a lesser known story. The cool thing about Rahab's story is that it's a smaller version, or a smaller part I guess I should say, of a larger story. So most of us, I think, if you've been in the church for any length of time, know the story of the Battle of Jericho. And that is the larger story. So if this is like a movie, and the movie was about the Battle of Jericho and walking around the city of Jericho and the walls come tumbling down, Rahab's story is like the setup. Or it's like the flashback to give some context, okay? So we're gonna dive into Rahab's story. Jericho, great story, another impossible moment, Completely different sermon, all right? So we're gonna focus on Rahab's story today. The other cool thing I love about her story is that Rahab has some really impossible moments herself, but then God uses her to bring about other people's impossible moments. And we're gonna look at all of that. We're gonna even like peek into the New Testament a little bit, even though this is an Old Testament story. We're gonna be in Joshua two, mostly today. So if you wanna go ahead and turn there, I'm gonna give us a little bit of background here. So we have the Israelites. They've been wandering the desert for 40 years. They came out of Egypt. They were disobedient. They had to be in the desert for 40 years, wandering around in circles. And Moses had led them this whole time. But Moses had died, and now Joshua was his successor and had taken over. So Joshua was kind of gearing up and getting ready to lead them into the promised land. The Promised Land was this area of land that God had promised the Israelites for like hundreds of years before that they were gonna have this land. And so they've been waiting a very long time for this land, but they had to take on some cities. They had to have all these battle plans. They had an army. They had to conquer some places in order to take this land. So that's where we are.
We are in Joshua 2. We're gonna start in verse one, And we're just gonna read through most of it. And we're gonna see what Joshua is doing here and how Rahab plays into this story. So Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two spies from Shittim. He said, "Go over the land, especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, "Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land." So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab. Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land. But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly, you may catch up with them. But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof. So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan. And as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. Before the spies laid down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, "I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you. For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death. Our lives for your lives, the men assured her. If you don't tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”
So as you can see, Rahab was like a major player here in this overarching story of the Israelites taking over the land. We don't actually know a ton about Rahab. We know she was a prostitute or had been at some time. We know she was a citizen of Jericho and that she had a family. And we know that she knew who God was. She had some frame of reference for him. The people of Jericho knew the stories of the Israelites. Some of these stories like the Red Sea crossing and coming out of Egypt, that was 40 plus years ago. They were still had this sense of fear and trembling because of what God did with the Israelites. She literally said their hearts melted in fear because of them. So there was already this sense of awe and fear towards Yahweh. Maybe they didn't necessarily worship him, but they knew who he was. Now there's some uncertainty of if Rahab was still a practicing prostitute, or if that was her past, but she was literally referred to as Rahab the prostitute. There was no question of what her profession was or had been, there was no question of the sins that she had committed, but that didn't stop God from using her in really big ways. Rahab declared a faith in God, and that in and of itself is an impossible moment. If we just like pause right there, like that and of itself between her profession, her citizenship, the fact that she was a woman helping two men from an enemy nation, All of these things create in this impossible moment for her to even declare a faith in Jesus.
But as it says in the second part of verse 11, "For the Lord your God is God in heaven above "and on earth below." She knew that Yahweh was Yahweh. And she knew who God was to the point that she was willing to stake her life on it. She lied to the king's representatives who came and asked her about the spies. She hid two enemy spies in her home. And then she trusted those enemy spies enough that they would keep their word and protect her family. But she could do that because she trusted in God. She knew that he would come through, despite the danger she was in. Rahab didn't grow up an Israelite. She didn't grow up knowing the law. She had no frame of reference or relationship with God like the people of Israel did. I mean, we already know the Israelites struggled to be obedient to God and have faith in Him and trust Him when things got tough. And yet Rahab's over here just living in this faith that is incredible. But she didn't have that history. And yet she still chose to trust in who God is. But here's what I find so interesting is that she learned about God through the stories and the testimonies of the Israelites. She placed her faith in Him because of what she had heard from other people who didn't know Him, who did have a relationship with Him. Your story, your faith journey is not just for you. It's for other people too. It's for their faith journey. It's to encourage others. Rahab would have no idea who Yahweh was had it not been for the stories of the Israelites and what God had done in and through them. So don't discredit your story. Don't keep it to yourself. It could be an encouragement to other people.
All right, we're gonna pick back up with Rahab and the spies in verse 15 here. "So she let them down by a rope through the window for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. She said to them, "Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return and then go on your way." Now the men had said to her, "This oath you made us swear, sorry, this oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless when we enter the land, you have tied the scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down. And unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads. We will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear." Agreed, she replied, "Let it be as you say." So she sent them away and they departed, and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. When they left, they went into the hills and stayed there three days until the pursuers had searched all along the road and returned without finding them. Then the two men started back. They went down out of the hills, afforded the river and came to Joshua son of Nun and told him everything that had happened to them. They said to Joshua, the Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us.
This recon mission that these spies went on wasn't, didn't end up actually being super profitable as far as military intel went. They didn't get a lot of information about this city. But as we know the story of Jericho, they didn't need a whole battle plan. They just walked around in blue trumpets. They didn't need a major military battle plan. But what they did need was a confidence boost. They needed to hear that God had gone before them and was gonna give them the land. And that's what Rahab's testimony did for them. It encouraged the spies, and they were able to take that back to Joshua and to the people and say, God has given us this land. This encounter with Rahab, this impossible moment in and of itself, the fact that God led these two spies to a prostitute's house who was going to protect them, grew the confidence and the faith of the Israelites. Secondly, this recon mission, it was for the purpose of Rahab. David Guzik, who's a commentator, he said, "There was another purpose at work in sending the spies, to save Rahab. In this, we see the extent God goes to in bringing one woman in her father's house to salvation, someone seemingly impossible to save.” God went to huge lengths to save one family out of Jericho. Without this encounter between Rahab and the spies, Rahab's family would have died. He went to great lengths to save her. And he is willing and wants to go and has gone to great lengths to save us. For those of us that have come to know Him or will come to know Him, He has done incredible things to bring us to salvation.
Real quick, we're gonna jump ahead to chapter six. We'll have it on the screens, but if you wanna turn there, we're gonna be in six, starting in verse 20, or chapter six, starting in verse 20. And this is right at the end of the battle of Jericho. So we're just kinda like dropping in here into the back end of the story. So they've marched around the city for seven days. And when the trumpet sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed. So everyone charged straight in and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it. Men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out "and all who belong to her "in accordance with your oath to her." So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord's house. But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute with her family and all who belonged to her because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho. And she lives among the Israelites to this day.
The walls just came crashing down. But did you catch what we read about Rahab's house earlier in chapter two? Her house was literally built into the wall. We don't know for sure, but I imagine when all the walls come down, her house would have been destroyed along with it, or should have been. I imagine like you had like a bird's eye view or a panoramic shot of the city that I just see just all this rubble and the walls down, but then just her house just perfectly untouched. I don't know that there's a lot of theological significance with this except to show us how cool God is. He's so powerful, He's so big that He can destroy an entire city and keep one house that's built into the wall still standing. Truly impossible things are impossible with God. He can do them. He is so powerful. He is so big. The entire city was set for destruction. The Israelites were only supposed to take the silver, the gold, the bronze and the iron pieces and take them to the house of the Lord. Everything else was to be burned and destroyed. This type of destruction was actually really common with the Israelites when the Lord would have them conquer a city. And the main reason for that was because you had this baby nation trying to learn to be set apart. trying to learn this law and follow God and do what was right. And so God wanted to destroy completely anything that would infiltrate that, anything that would negatively influence that. So he often commanded them to devote everything to destruction so that they would not be influenced to worship other gods or to have pagan practices. So this was actually very common. But God spared Rahab. Her life had been so transformed that God wasn't worried about her negatively influencing the Israelites. He allowed her family to live among them. It just, it wasn't gonna be an issue. Rahab's faith was so evident and so strong that it was actually referenced twice in the New Testament. First we see it in Hebrews 11 verse 31, says, "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient." And then in James 2, 25 through 26, "In the same way was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
That's an impossible moment to me. Rahab's faith to that degree shows that God can use anybody. I mean, the New Testament writers still refer to her as Rahab the prostitute. That kind of, that identity had kind of been attached to her, but it didn't matter. God still used her for his glory and to accomplish his plans. Not only that, not only was her faith so big that it was acknowledged thousands of years later, but she actually became part of the lineage of Jesus. We see it in Matthew 1:5, Rahab was the great-grandmother of a man named Boaz that you might be familiar with, who was the grandfather of Jesse, who was the father of King David. And then we see that lineage continue from David to Jesus. She became a part of the impossible moment of Jesus coming to earth. Because she trusted in God. Because she was willing to stake her life on it and believe that he was who he said he was. There's a lot we can take out of this story from Rahab, but there's a few key things that I wanna focus on as we finish our time together that I really feel like point us to Jesus and boost and impact our faith a little bit. The first one is that our sin doesn't disqualify our salvation. Rahab didn't let her past or her present or her sin or her struggles or her citizenship or anything like that stop her from seeking God and putting her faith in Him. She didn't even discredit herself. She was bold enough to say, I believe in God. Will you spies, will you go into this agreement with me to protect my family? She didn't believe the lie that because she had the odds stacked against her, because she wasn't part of the Israelite nation, that she couldn't be saved. She didn't believe the lie that her sin would prevent her from receiving salvation from God. She knew and had confidence in the Lord and in His saving grace, despite her past. Maybe you felt that way about yourself. Maybe you think, I have this sin issue, this struggle. Maybe it feels like a monkey on your back that won't go away. Maybe you feel like that way about someone else. Maybe there's a family member or a friend that you just maybe feel like it's too far gone and isn't possible to save. But we can see from Rahab's story that no one is beyond the hand of God. No one is beyond his reach. There's hope for us all. Now, that doesn't mean we just choose to live in our sin. We still have to take that and lay it at the feet of the cross and give it over to God probably multiple times. and continue to trust that he has died for us and that he has forgiven us and ask him to keep working in our hearts and our lives, especially around that sin issue. But just because we struggle with that sin, it doesn't disqualify us from being saved.
Number two, God desires to adopt you into his family. He doesn't wanna just save you for the sake of saving you. He wants to transform you and bring you in, adopt you into his family. This is how much he loved Rahab. He didn't just save her and her family and say, "Okay, be on your way. Good luck." He literally brought her into the Israelite and she lived among the Israelites to the point that she married into the family and became in the lineage of Jesus. She wasn't an Israelite, but she was the far off grandmother of Jesus. She was adopted into this family of God. That's how much he loved her. That's how much he loves us. That's how much he loves the person you're praying for right now, that you want to come to know God. That's how much he loves the parent or the child or the spouse or the best friend or or the neighbor who you know doesn't walk with Jesus. He wants to transform their heart. He wants to bring them into the family. If you don't know Jesus yet like that, if you don't have a relationship with Him, this point is for you because I want you to know that He wants to transform your heart. He wants to adopt you into the family. And if you already have a relationship with Jesus, this point's also for you. just in case you missed it. This point is for you too, to not keep your mouth shut about what God has done in your life. Rahab knew the stories of God because of the testimonies of the people. How are your people gonna know what God has done in your life if you don't tell them? This is supposed to be an encouragement for you to continue to invite them to church or events, to invite them into your home, maybe for game night, you're just hanging out, to coffee, just being yourself and being a light, or, and I might step on some toes, to actually tell them about what God has done in your life, to boldly share with them the transformation that you've experienced. Us pastors, we love being here. We love this job, most of the time. We love sharing these things with you, but we're not just here to give you facts and information. We're not here to entertain or make you feel good with lots of fluff. Y'all can go read your Bibles and commentaries and all that stuff for yourself. We're here to equip you and to encourage you to go into your places and to be with your people and to tell them about Jesus. We want you to feel confident to go out, whether it's in your home or your neighborhood or your workplace, wherever you are, wherever you spend time to be that light. The Bible doesn't say you pastors are the light of the world. You super Christians are the light of the world. You theology students and Bible scholars are the light of the world. That you was plural, like y'all, y'all are the light of the world, all of us. We're all called to be disciples and go make more disciples. We don't know like anything about Rahab's family. We don't know if they believed in Yahweh. We don't know if they had a professing faith in him or if they were just kind of along for the ride. but her faith literally saved their lives. Now, hear me out. Your faith cannot save someone else's. Your faith will not save your children or your spouse or your parents. That's an individual thing with them and God, but your faith will create an opportunity for them to get to know who he is. So it's hard. It can be awkward. It can be weird. It can feel intimidating, but we are all called to be disciples, to share our story, to go saturate our communities. Because we never know what our story will do for someone else, to encourage them, to get to know Jesus and to be transformed and adopted into his family.
And finally, God is the God of redemption. And this feels so basic. You probably have heard it in a million other sermons, but God is the God of redemption. Not only did he save Rahab because of her faith, but he redeemed her. To redeem means to buy back or to pay the debt for. Her life was redeemed, as we've said, to the point that her faith was acknowledged multiple times in the New Testament. and she ends up being the far off grandmother of Jesus and being put in the lineage of Jesus, it doesn't get much more redemptive than that, my friends. Jesus has redeemed all of us, all sinners who claim Him, who proclaim Him and put their faith in Him and receive His gift of salvation have been redeemed. Rahab put this scarlet cord in her window as a sign, as a symbol of the salvation that was coming. It's reminiscent of the Israelites when they were still in Egypt and they had the plagues and they had to, for the 10th plague, they had to brush the lamb's blood over the doorposts of their home so that when the angel of death came, it would pass over their home and spare them. and it hearkens forward to Jesus. The blood of the lamb that was shed for us. He redeemed us. We deserve death. We're all sinners. We all deserve to pay the price of death, but not anymore. We have been redeemed. The debt has been paid. So we know from her story that our sins don't disqualify us, our bad decisions don't count us out. Our past doesn't define our future because we are bought with the blood of the lamb. Our lives and our stories are redeemed because of the God of redemption.
Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for these impossible moments that we've been studying that just point us to how good you are, how big and powerful and mighty and awesome you are. God, may we be encouraged in our faith because of the big and small moments that you have shown us through these Old Testament stories. May you encourage us to go out and to tell other people about what you have done, both in the Bible and in our own lives. Help us to live boldly. Help us to invite, to talk to people, to have spiritual conversations. Help us to remember that we are a redeemed people who live on this side of the resurrection and we get to celebrate that. Thank you for your redemption. Thank you for adopting us into your family, for loving us that much, and for caring for us to the point of bringing us in. We love you, Jesus. We thank you for this day. Pray over our people as they go out into their worlds, into their spaces, with their people, God. Be with them, bless them, protect them, give them opportunities to share your love. We love you, Jesus. We thank you and praise you in your name. Amen.