Joshua
1:1 – 3:17
God is very clever and He clearly wanted us
to identify Rahab as a sinner and so we are told she was a prostitute. God knew all along
that He would want us to be able to identify a sinner all these years later and
it’s much easier for us to agree that a prostitute commits great sins, but we
may not agree or are able to see someone who lies or cheats, or we may overlook
some sins as not as bad as prostitution.
The city of Jericho was surrounded by a great embankment,
a steep hill. At the base of that embankment there was a stone retaining wall
that was about twelve to fifteen feet high at the base of the city. On top of that retaining wall there was a mud
brick wall that was six feet thick and twenty to twenty-six feet tall on top of
the retaining wall that was twelve to fifteen feet tall.
Then at the top of the embankment above the retaining wall and
the mud brick wall there was another mud brick wall that at its base was about
forty-six feet above the base of the outside retaining wall. So here is a city
with double walls built on this embankment. Of course you can see that it was
built this way to fortify it against intruders.
And
it kept the sinfulness occurring inside less obvious to a passerby.
Everyone
in Jericho had heard all that the Lord had done for the Israelites. “I know
the LORD has given you this land”, she told them. “We are all afraid of you. Everyone is living in terror. For we have heard how the LORD made a dry
path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, and
the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely
destroyed. No wonder our hearts have
melted in fear! No one has the courage
to fight after hearing such things. For
the LORD your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.” (2:9-11)
What happened to Rehab? Why
was she different? Why was her heart
different than the rest of the residents of Jericho? The Lord had put faith in her heart.
The spies promised Rahab, the sinner, that if she tied this scarlet cord out her window, and she and her entire family remained inside the house when the Israelites came to destroy Jericho, all those who believed in this thread of hope, would be saved.
Wasn’t
it like this for you when you first believed?
You made a choice to believe in something you had never seen. You held on to some thin piece of faith. God had placed faith you in, yet you were/are
a sinner! Maybe you were very young
child when you first became a Christian.
Or perhaps you were a grown woman, like Rahab who had lived in this
world and been of this world and experienced a lot of sinfulness; lived with it
and among it; and accepted it as normal – like pride and jealousy. Or maybe you were involved in sin like addiction
or gambling or prostitution. Whatever
type of sin, you built these thick walls around yourself to protect yourself
from others from knowing about your sin.
But as you continued to live in sin, you had to keep building on top of
those walls, more walls to prevent others from getting to you. You knew that there are people who believe in
God and have even heard of His greatness, yet you didn’t want to stop eating
the candy. You just could not stop
gossiping. Or maybe you kept thinking
you needed that pill to get through the day.
So you piled on top of that wall of excuses to protect yourself from
facing your fear that God can forgive all of your sins. That even you with your secret sin can be
forgiven.
We
all need to be rescued. When God places
faith in your heart, you become a new person and you are given a new
identity. And Rahab is our example of just how great
God is. Jump over to Matthew 1 and read
the lineage of Jesus, from Abraham to Issac; Issac to Jacob; Jacob to Judah;
Judah to… Nashon to Salmon; Salmon was the father of Boaz – his mother was
Rahab!!! Boaz was the father of Obed
(his mother was Ruth). Obed was the
father of Jesse. Jesse was the Father of
King David. Keep reading. Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband
of Mary. Mary was the mother of Jesus!!!
This
is an incredible example of the grace of God at work in the life of Rahab,
giving her a whole new identity. God
dealt with her past, gave her freedom to face her future without fear. She got a whole new identity. She has been redeemed from destruction, while
the entire city of Jericho was destroyed.
She was not left outside the camp of the Israelites. She was richly blessed by God and grafted
into a whole new family! She became a
part of the community of faith! Wouldn’t
you think God would have been choosier about the lineage for His Son?
Instead, God deliberately chose things that the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:27-29)
Do you think when we
get to heaven we are going to hear someone say, “I got to heaven because I was
a good person”? Or do you think we are
going to hear more people like Rahab and know that they didn’t get there
because of their own merit? God chooses
those who are lowly and despised and foolish and weak, and not the ones we
would have chosen.
If you are in Christ,
you are not who or what you once were.
You are a new creation. 2
Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” And like Rahab, we have a new identity and a
new future. Our past is dealt with and
there’s hope in our future. By the grace
of God, there are no hopeless cases! There is no sinner God cannot save.
If God can save someone like Rahab, He can save anyone.
All the walls of
excuses can be torn down. We are all
born rebellious against God and doing our own thing, our own way. Some people have done it with
prostitution. Some have done it by
substance abuse, some have done it with pride and self-sufficiency and
religion.
We are all helpless
and hopeless apart from Christ. You may
be thinking, “Well, I don’t’ really relate to Rahab’s story. I haven’t done the kinds of things she
did. I’m not a prostitute.” Galatians 3:10 tells us that, “It is written,
‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the
Law, and do them.”
You don’t have to be
a prostitute to go to Hell. You can be
sitting in the front row of church every Sunday and still be under the judgment
and the wrath of God. There is no hope
for any of us apart from the grace of God.
The intervening mercy of God, that scarlet thread of hope, the blood of
Jesus that was shed in our place as a substitute and in payment for our sin.
Rahab was not saved because
of her goodness or because she cleaned up her act, but by the undeserved grace
of God. She was saved because she held onto that thread of faith.
