May 10th Sermon

Additional Texts: Joshua 2:1-16, 6:22-23, 25, Matthew 1:5, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Ephesians 2:8-10; James 2:25.

I would like to wish you a happy Mother’s Day. Years ago, I decided that on Mother’s Day, I would draw your attention to an honorable woman from the Bible. I think it is important to note that women are given high regard in the Bible. In many cases their names are well known to those who study the Bible. They are remembered for their obedience to the Lord and their deep worship and devotion to Him. Many provide enduring examples of godly character. We have studied women from both the Old Testament and New Testament times, women whose names include Sarah, Hannah, Ruth, Anna, and Lydia. Each displays godly character and insight on how we are to live the Christian life. Today, from the Old Testament book of Joshua, we will look at the contributions of a woman named Rahab.

Rahab was a resident of the ancient city of Jericho, situated about seven miles west of the Jordan river. She was a Canaanite, because Jericho was a city-state in the land known as Canaan and she was also an Amorite, the title given to those who occupied that region. In Hebrew, her name was pronounced Raw-hawb. She is mentioned in several New Testament passages. In Matthew, her name in Greek was pronounced Rakab, and later in James and Hebrews it is simply Ra’ab. Her Hebrew name means “proud.” At first glance Rahab seems oddly incompatible to be included in such a wonderful group of godly women as we have found in the Bible. Our verse in Hebrews declares that Rahab was a harlot. If you will take your finger and begin at verse one in Hebrews 11, and run down through the verses, you will find notable names like Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Among this group of champions of faith, Rahab seems strangely out of place. Why would God include this immoral woman among such a significant number of faithful people?

We all know that the Bible teaches us that salvation is by God’s grace through faith. Ephesians 2:8 says that idea succinctly; “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;” None of us have been saved through works of our own righteousness but we have been saved through the righteousness of Jesus Christ through the grace of God. This is the message of good news the church has been proclaiming to a spiritually dark world for nearly twenty centuries. We are saved by grace. Every true believer in Christ, each born-again believer has been transformed from sin’s darkness to salvation’s marvelous light.

Rahab’s life story, her testimony, is a message of grace. A woman who lived an immoral and wicked life was totally transformed by grace. While we may not have fallen as deeply in sin as did Rahab, we were still sinners, and would have deserved eternal punishment in hell just as she did. Believers, including Rahab, are fully indebted to God’s grace for their salvation. So while Rahab’s testimony may make us uncomfortable at the beginning, the end of her story is one of grace that brings glory to the Lord. Today we will look at three aspects of Rahab’s life: her background, her faith, and her legacy.

RAHAB’S BACKGROUND. Joshua 2:1-7

Rahab Was a Gentile from a Pagan Culture. As I mentioned, Jericho was part of the Amorite kingdom, a terrifyingly violent, totally depraved, thoroughly pagan culture so hell-bent on the pursuit of anything evil that God had condemned them and ordered Israel to wipe them from the face of the earth. God commanded Israel, “But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 20:17-18).

The culture of the Amorites had been so completely and wickedly corrupt for so long that God called for the eventual destruction in the days of Abraham. In fact, their intensely evil lifestyle explains why God gave the land of Canaan to Israel in the first place. God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants when the wickedness of the Amorites was complete and that time had now come in Rahab’s time. The people of Jericho had surpassed God’s maximum tolerance for evil. God’s judgment had come. Of all their wretched practices, in which the people of Jericho were involved was sacrificing infants and young children to their pagan gods. They called it “passing through the fire,” a horrible heathen ritual.

Rahab Was a Depraved, Immoral Woman. Down through the centuries, some have tried to suggest that Rahab was merely an innkeeper. The text of Scripture shows this is entirely incorrect. Rahab was an immoral woman living in a pagan culture that was fanatically devoted to everything God hates. That society’s long descent into the abyss of moral and spiritual corruption had been intentional and was now irreversible. Rahab had been a willing participant in her society’s unspeakably polluted lifestyle. She had profited personally from the pervasive evil of her culture. Before her encounter with the Hebrew spies, there were no redeeming qualities in Rahab’s life. She was a willingly enslaved to extreme moral depravity, and being so depraved, deserved nothing but God’s holy punishment. Rahab made her living off that culture’s insatiable appetite for unbridled self-indulgent immorality, catering to the most debased appetites of the very dregs of humanity. It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely candidate for divine honor than Rahab.

Rahab Was Ignorant of Biblical Morality. By hiding the spies, who were Jericho’s enemies, Rahab was guilty of treason. She also lied to protect the spies to keep them from the soldiers sent to search for them. Rahab was completely ignorant of the Ten Commandments and the other laws God had given to Israel. She had never met Moses. No one in her culture knew anything of the higher moral values God had given to Israel. For such a completely wicked and pagan culture, deception was a standard practice. There are no excuses–Rahab was guilty. She was a sinner under the judgment of the living God.

God does not lie and He cannot condone or sanction untruth. I do not think we can excuse Rahab on the basis of the “greater good.” I think God would have protected the spies without Rahab’s interference. Many years later three Hebrews were placed in a fiery furnace by a wicked despot. God in His matchless grace miraculously protected them. He could have done the same for the spies. Scripture does not hold Rahab up as a paragon of morality and never excuses her lie. Rahab is remembered and singled out only for her faith.

RAHAB’S FAITH. Joshua 2:8-18, 6:22-23, 25, Hebrews 11:31

Rahab Believed in the Sovereign God. Her faith was seen in her testimony to the Hebrew spies. [Joshua 2:1-11] We discover some astounding information about Rahab. First, Rahab knew the name of the Lord. In fact, three times in these verses, Rahab used God’s personal name, Yahweh. Yahweh (or Jehovah) was a name only the Jews had known. Yet, somehow Rahab discovered God’s name and used His name as an expression of her faith. Second, we find Rahab believed in the covenant God had with His people. (Verse 9) She said, “I know that the Lord has given you the land…” Notice that she, a Gentile, did not object to this. She believed God had every right to give the land to whomever He wanted.

Third, please notice that Rahab believed in God’s omnipotence. (Verse 10) She accepted the Red Sea crossing as accurate. She did not believe that Israel crossed at the Red Sea in ankle deep water. That would not have inspired faith. She had heard and she therefore believed that God had opened the Red Sea, that Israel walked across on dry land and that the pursuing Egyptians had been drowned when the water returned to its place. She recognized the accuracy and authenticity of the defeat of Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings on the eastern side of the Jordan.

Rahab Believed in God’s Presence and Control of All Things. God’s Words tells us that Rahab affirmed that Israel’s God had dominion over the realms of the heavens and the earth. This extremely broad scope included the domains of the gods her own people worshiped. She was, in effect, calling them absolutely worthless. Rahab stated that Israel’s God was indeed the only God. “The Lord your God, He is God.” Rahab’s words become even more significant when we realize that the last part of her affirmation–the phrase “in the heavens above and the earth beneath…”–is found only three times prior to this, all in contexts that affirm God’s exclusive claims to sovereignty. How did Rahab learn all of this about God when people who worshiped other gods constantly surrounded her? How did she rise above the cultic practices of her contemporaries to embrace the God of Israel? There were no missionaries, no Bibles to read, no Christian TV to watch, and no Christian radio to listen to. How did she know about these demonstrations of God’s power? What caused her to turn to Him? What stimulated her faith in God?

Rahab heard about the Lord and believed in Him. The Bible says “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Rahab believed because she heard the truth about the living and always present God. And, she showed her faith by being willing to risk her (and her family’s) life by hiding the spies from her own leaders. She believed and she was will to act because of what she believed.

God Rewarded Rahab’s Faith. (Joshua 6:22-23, 25) The walls that extended around the entire perimeter of Jericho fell except the place where Rahab lived. All of the people and livestock in Jericho were destroyed except Rahab and her family. This was God’s doing–He alone spared Rahab because of her faith in Him. The two spies retrieved Rahab and her family and brought them to safety. Of all the people that inhabited Jericho, only Rahab and her family survived God’s judgment.

Rahab’s Faith Is a Model for All Believers. (Hebrews 11:31) Rahab, who was now a former prostitute, was listed in Faith’s Great Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11. This entire chapter is devoted to faith and designed to encourage faith in believers and unbelievers. It was her faith that enabled Rahab to please God. There is a very important corollary in this verse. True faith always leads to obedience. Since Rahab did not perish with the disobedient, it is logical to conclude she was obedient. This pagan woman was so transformed by God’s grace that she immediately became a woman who faithfully obeyed the Lord.

RAHAB’S LEGACY. Matthew 1:5, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Rahab Is an Ancestor of Jesus Christ. (Matthew 1:5) God’s grace is truly amazing because He gives the faithful so much more than they deserve. This verse tells us that God placed Rahab in the ancestry of Jesus Christ. Rahab married a Jewish man named Salmon. Together they had a son named Boaz. Later Boaz married a Gentile woman named Ruth. Rahab was the great-great grandmother of King David. And David is an ancestor of the Lord Jesus. Only the grace of God could cause such a wicked pagan woman to be so transformed as to be listed among the Messiah’s human ancestors.

Rahab Is an Enduring Portrait of God’s Saving Grace. (1 Timothy 1:15) The Apostle Paul said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Although Rahab was deeply entrenched in a wicked lifestyle, she was not beyond the Lord’s ability to rescue and deliver. Jesus came to “seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). Rahab was transformed. She had been a sinner, but God’s grace began the process of sanctification in her life. While she had been a prostitute, she never returned to that lifestyle. God’s grace changed her.

Rahab Pictures God’s Transforming Power. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) The Bible tells us that all people are lost: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) This is a biblical universal absolute–all have sinned and consequently there are none who can ever be righteous enough to earn eternal salvation. Rahab was without out a doubt a sinner. So are all the rest of us. To show how complete salvation by faith in Jesus Christ actually is, he began by listing several categories of sin that prove the absolute wretched failure of humanity. The point is that God can save a sinner from any sin and every sin. But, he does not leave it there. The sinner saved by grace is not to remain in sin. He or she is to live a life that corresponds to being cleansed, sanctified and justified. Every true believer in Christ is to be pure, holy, and righteous. The new life produces and requires an entirely new kind of living. How did the Lord make that possible? Paul gives three answers:

First, “you were washed.” This speaks of the new birth in Christ. Jesus saves not on the basis of works or deeds of human righteousness we have done. Salvation is God’s work of re-creation that brings to the believer an entirely new life. Second, “you were sanctified.” This speaks of new behavior. To be sanctified is to be made holy inwardly and to be able, in the Holy Spirit’s power to live a righteous life outwardly. Before a person is saved, he or she has no holy nature and no capacity for holy living. But, in Christ we are given a new nature and we can therefore, life out a new kind of life. Sin’s total domination is broken and is replaced by a life of ever-growing righteousness.

Finally, our Holy Spirit inspired text says, “you were justified.” This addresses the believer’s new standing before God. In Christ we are clothed in His righteousness and God now sees in us His Son’s righteousness instead of our sin and wickedness. Christ’s absolute righteousness is credited to our account. We are declared to be righteous and have become innocent and guiltless because God justifies anyone who has true faith in Jesus Christ. A truly transformed life should produce transformed living. A sinner who has faith in Christ should never act like one who is still enslaved to the kingdom of darkness. Rahab’s life was changed. Anyone who comes to Christ will be changed.

Why did God put this true story of Rahab in the Bible? To show that even before Israel conquered the Promised Land, it was His intention to save Gentiles who trusted in Him. Centuries earlier, Abraham believed God and God counted to him as righteousness. Now we find the same is true for Gentiles. Rahab believed God, and He counted it to her as righteousness.

Did you notice how Rahab was saved? She did not wait until she considered herself good enough for God to accept her. God saved her from her sin. The power for living a God-filled righteous life was not in her until she believed in the Lord. From that moment, God protected her from the destruction of Jericho, enfolded her into the nation of Israel, made her part of the promised people, and caused a future king and the promised Messiah to be among her descendants. She survived God’s judgment because of grace. She was given a new life because of God’s grace. Her changed life has put God’s grace on display for untold generations.

God’s grace is still changing lives today. God longs to change our lives and help us to live with holiness and purity. Give your life to Jesus Christ today!