Again, it's good to see you tonight. We are continuing our study in the book of James. So if you would turn over to the book of James, we really haven't made much headway. We've had so many interruptions and disruptions, especially with the holidays upon us and me being gone. But we are right at the end of chapter two, a most difficult and historic chapter in that much hinges on your understanding of what James is saying here. James 2, we're going to be looking tonight at verses 25 and 26. Just those two verses. And so we read, likewise, or in the same way. And so obviously we are breaking into the middle of a long discourse, but he's just given us the example of Abraham being justified. Now he says, likewise, also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works? when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. For as the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." We have looked at dead faith and devilish faith. Dead faith we could define as a faith that has no works flowing from it. And back in verse 14 when he says, save the man who has this kind of faith. We need to understand that he's saying, can this faith, this kind of faith, save him? A dead faith, a faith that does not demonstrate itself by words. And of course, the answer is no. Devilish faith, we can look down in verse 19 where he says, you believe there's one God, the devils believe and tremble. In a lot of ways, the devils have more faith than most men in that at least they tremble. And yet notice that with the devils, there is no change of conduct. The devils believe it because they have to. They don't like it, but they must mentally assent to the proposition that, yes, there does exist one God. So that kind of faith does not save. Then last time we were together, and it's been a while now, we started looking in verse 21 at the first of two proofs to James' proposition. And he says in verse 21, "...was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?" I guess I need to sort of stay up to speed with my thing here. Okay, so the question is, is what James is saying here, is this contradicting what Paul says in the book of Romans Just one example, Romans 3, 28, where he says, So we see then that a man is justified by faith alone, apart from or without the works of the law. Paul stresses the fact that it is faith and not works that justifies us. Here, James says in verse 21, Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar? At first glance, it appears that these two statements directly contradict themselves. And yet, when we look a little closer, we notice that in verse 23, we read, "...the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God." In other words, if you didn't know your Old Testament, you would assume that it was when Abraham offered up Isaac that this then was spoken to Abraham. Abraham offers Isaac, of course God spares his son, and so then God says, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. But if you know your Old Testament, and James certainly knew his Old Testament, the people to whom he's writing knew their Old Testament, you would realize that this didn't happen there when Isaac is a young man, This statement was made to Abraham back in Genesis 15 before Isaac was even conceived. In other words, Abraham is declared just by God that night when he was told that as the stars of the heavens and the sands of the sea, so shall thy seed be. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. So in other words, when we really look into what James is saying here, we understand then that James has a little bit different understanding or definition of justification, that for him it's a bigger picture than the forensic side of justification that Paul majors on, the point of being declared not guilty. For James, it's a whole package deal. It speaks of the fact that our faith, the faith that saves us, is now vindicated or or made perfect, is how he uses the word in verse 22. It is perfected by our works. In other words, if you want to see the proof of justifying faith, look at the works that flow out of it. If there are no works flowing out of it, it's not justifying faith. But justifying faith will always have works attached with it. You can trace this statement back to Calvin. I think it's in the Westminster Confession of Faith. that though we are saved by faith alone, apart from works, we are not saved by that faith which can be alone. Do you get the sense there? Yes, Barry? Well, it's like it's made radicated, vindicated. Yeah, yeah. It's confirmed by the actions of Abraham. But what James is, you ask yourself, what is James' agenda in this whole chapter? And it's that true saving faith is a lifelong thing. It's not a one-shot, oh, I believe that, bingo, you're saved, now you go live like you want. Saving faith is a living, ongoing faith, a persevering faith, a faith that then lasts the rest of your life, that is showing itself as you live by these acts of faith. And so it's the whole kit and caboodle. That's James's, shall we say, his agenda in this chapter, that a faith that merely says something but doesn't do Remember, way back in chapter 1, he's been talking about being a hearer of the Word, but not a doer, just hearing. Then he's talking about confessing, but not doing. Notice that what is interesting is that both James and Paul cite Abraham as the example of their position. And by the way, both of them cite the same verse, that Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. James quotes that, Paul quotes that, and says, see, that's what we're saying. So in other words, it would be very difficult to say they're citing the same example, same verse, but for two different purposes. I'm thinking that James is simply giving us a sort of a broader definition of of justification than we're used to thinking about. Not so much a theological definition, but a practical definition. How would you know that someone is justified? Look at the way they live. That's how you know. You want to see if Abraham was a man of faith, a justified man before God, look at what he did with Isaac. There's your proof. And so it's like that, that the works are the vindication, the proof of the faith. You can't see the faith. Remember back there in the interesting thing he says in verse 18? A man may say, thou hast faith and I have works. Well, he says, show me thy faith without thy works. Think about that a minute. Show me thy faith without your works. How would you show somebody your faith without your works? Is faith something that you can just look somebody in the face and say, hey, you've got faith. I can see it. I can see it there in your heart. How else can you see faith except by your works? And that's what James is saying here. Show me thy faith without thy works. I will show thee my faith by my works. My works will be the proof of my faith. OK, so In actuality, when we look at this, no, we're not seeing a contradiction. Both of these men know the point at which Abraham was declared righteous, and it was long before Isaac was ever born. So James is speaking of the proof of justification by your works, not the ground. Okay, let's get down to business. Now he gives us a second example, and it is a most interesting one. It is the case of Rahab. She is found in Joshua chapter two. I know we don't have time to read the entire chapter and then again in chapter six during the destruction of Jericho. But you remember the story that Moses or Moses, Joshua sent two spies to spy out Jericho. They entered into the city and that night they entered into the house of Rahab the harlot. She hid them. She lied to the officers that were sent. They said, we saw men coming into your house tonight. They've come here to spy out the land. And she said, oh yeah, they came here, but they're long gone. They took off a long time ago. In fact, she sent them on a wild goose chase. I'll tell you about my trip to Israel. Standing there at Jericho, it's very interesting. You have the Jordan River. You're in the flat Jordan River plain. Jordan River, just a mile or two back over this way. And then you have these real stark mountains rising up beyond the ruins of old Jericho. And so if you're going to and the Israelites are over there on the other side of the Jordan River. So you would assume if you leave Rahab's house or leave Jericho, you're going to head for the river. That's where your people are. That's where the army of Israel is. You're going to hightail it to the river and get across over there. But Rahab, you remember, sent the spies the other direction, up into those mountains behind Jericho. They hid up there a while and then made their way to friendly forces on the other side of the river. And she sent these guys on a wild goose chase after them. So that's sort of the background of the story. Rahab, the very name, means proud. And Rahab is used in the Old Testament on several occasions as a nickname for Egypt. I don't know if we need to look at those verses or not. Are y'all familiar with that? Well, okay, maybe we need to look at at least one. Look at Psalm 87. Look at verse 3. Psalm 87, verse 3. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God, Selah. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me. Behold, Philista and Tyre with Ethiopia. This man was born there. Notice that Rahab in this context must mean a place, a location, a country. We're talking about people bragging about where they're from. Anybody here bragging about where you're from? I mean, I'm from Texas. My dad always told me, never ask a man where he's from, ask him if he's from Texas. He said, you don't want to shame him if he's not. And said, if he is, you'll know about it sooner or later. Well, that's true. Yeah, if he's from Texas. We brag about the place of our birth. And so this is, in verse 4, mentioning places that people brag that they're born there, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, and then in verse 5, in Zion, of Zion it shall be said, this and that man were born in her, and the highest himself shall establish her. In other words, the real bragging rights is the man who is born in this place called Jerusalem, in Zion. So clearly in this context, Rahab speaks of a land, of a place, and as I mentioned, it was a nickname for the land of Egypt. So, she has a rather, shall we say, name. We think of proud as being the very opposite of what God requires of man, to be humble, to abase himself. Here, her very name means proud. On top of that, she is a Canaanite. She is a citizen of Canaan. the very land that israel is being set to depose she is a resident a citizen of an accursed city the city of jericho in which all the residents in it and all the stuff in it were under a curse of haram in hebrew it's like a jihad where you have cursed a a thing and it is devoted to destruction remember the whole city of jericho now they didn't do that all the cities But there are about three places that the entire town was devoted to destruction, meaning every living thing in it was to be killed. Remember, they were not to touch any of the accursed thing in the city, lest they themselves become accursed. And you remember the story of Achan. He did the very thing they told him not to do. So in other words, you would have to say this woman is her birthright, her name, her position, everything she's got's going against her. I mean, can you think of a worse situation than a woman named Rahab in a land of Canaan in the city of Jericho that has been devoted to destruction? Well, I can't think of one thing worse. On top of all that, she's a harlot. In modern times, there has been an attempt among liberal scholars to sort of whitewash her reputation. They say the word here for harlot just means an innkeeper. Well, I can remember growing up watching Gunsmoke and seeing Miss Kitty hang out with the sheriff, you know, and I was thinking, well, saloon girls, they're just there to, you know, to visit with the guys, you know, at the bar, you know, it's like Miss Kitty. And it was a little later that the light dawn that no, those saloon girls are, shall we say, women of the evening. They're not just hanging out to talk to Marshall Dillon, you know. They've got other things on their mind. In the same way, innkeepers in the ancient world, first of all, you didn't have Holiday Inn Express. You didn't have hotels like we think of hotels. Most of the time when you went somewhere, you stayed with family or you would be taken in by family. Most of these places where you went to stay somewhere for the night, in a city like this, they are houses, all right, houses of prostitution. And the word zana, which is the word here, there were two words for harlot in the Old Testament. One is kwadashah, a holy woman of all things. But remember that that referred to a shrine prostitute. To be holy is to be separated, set apart to something And these qadoshahs, these holy women, had been set apart to, usually, these fertility gods and goddesses. I gave you the example of Corinth, where the temple of Aphrodite, they're on the Acropolis outside of Corinth. According to Strato, the Roman historian, a thousand temple prostitutes worked out of that temple. So they were plying their trade, shall we say, on the streets of Corinth below. They're holy women. in the sense that they are separated to Aphrodite. And the sad thing about it, learning a little more about this on my trip, did I tell you about my trip to Greece? Yeah, okay. The sad thing is that you learn that a lot of these girls that were prostitutes dedicated to Aphrodite were slave girls and they were given by their masters to the temple of Aphrodite. So these poor girls never ever had any choice in the matter. It's not like they have consciously made a choice to be a prostitute, a shrine prostitute. They simply were given from one master to another master. And so a very, very sad situation. So that's one word, kwadashah. The other is the word zanah, which is just the common, ordinary prostitute in business for herself or her pimp, so to speak. That's the word that is employed here. Rahab the harlot. In Greek, it's porne, parne. It's where we get our word pornography and that kind of stuff. In other words, from the most ancient of times, Rahab was always seen to be a harlot, not just a mere innkeeper. And of course, that makes perfect sense. You say, why in the world would these spies go into Jericho and lined up in the house of a prostitute, in a house of prostitution. Well, if you're roaming around the city of Jericho looking for a place to go, you want a place that's open all night, a place where no questions are asked, where men can go and sort of hide out, and this would be the perfect place for them to sort of disappear off the streets of Jericho once the sun goes down. That's where they went, and for that very reason. Did you understand this? Contrast the two examples here. Here you have Abraham. Everybody in the ancient world revered, even the Muslims revere Abraham. I mean, this is the great father of the faithful. This is, I mean, he's about as good as you can get. And then on the other hand, you have Rahab, the harlot. It's sort of polar opposites. He's a man. She's a woman. He's a great man. She's a lowly prostitute. This is about his far apart, as you can imagine, two examples, and yet notice the thing they have in common is that they are both justified by faith. And when you sort of think through that, you begin to understand what James is saying, that when he speaks of being justified by faith, he's not saying that you can do good works that will somehow make up for your sins, somehow to earn and purchase justification, but he's speaking of a faith that then somehow faith in God that results up completely apart from all the things we've done results in our justification, a faith that simply believes God, trust in God. The amazing thing that both an Abraham and a Rahab the harlot are going to be justified by the same kind of I'm forgetting my my thing here. There's there you go. There's our example. I want you to turn to Joshua 2 a minute. Take a look at her faith. And as I say, how would you see her faith? That's what James is saying. If you want to see somebody's faith, you've got to look at their works. Well, let's look at her works. Let's look at her testimony here. Let's look at the actions that flowed from her faith. Joshua 2, in verse 8. Remember, she sent them up on the roof, covered them with stalks of flax, and hid them. from the men that were searching for them. Then afterwards, Joshua 2 verse 8, before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof, and she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land. Now listen to this, I know the Lord, that's little caps if you've got a King James, Jehovah, Yahweh, the God of the Jews, Israel, the God of Israel has given you the land. and your terror is fallen upon us and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard. Here's the report that she's heard. We have heard how the Lord, Jehovah, dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom he utterly destroyed. And soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and in earth beneath." That's a pretty good confession. Do you see her faith being confessed? We speak of a profession of faith. Here Rahab is saying, I've heard this report of what your God has done for you, and I know He has given you the land." Here's the words coming out of her mouth, her profession of faith. Then she not only hides the spies, lies to the officers sent to find them, but now she asks for deliverance. She asks for mercy. Asks that her and her family might be spared. She asks that they might be delivered from death in verse 13. And that is when the men tell her, you know the story of how when we attack, put the red cord in your window and get everybody in this room. If they're not in this room, we're guiltless. But you get them in this room, we will spare you. And then later on, we have the description of the battle in chapter 6. Let's go over there. Chapter 6, verse 22. Let's back up one verse, verse 21. Joshua 6, 21. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man, woman, young and old, ox, sheep, ass, with the edge of the sword. But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house, bring out from there the woman and all that she hath, as ye swore to her. And the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and her mother, her brethren and all that she had, And they brought out all her kindred and left them without the camp of Israel. And they burned the city with fire and all that was in it, only the silver and the gold and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury, the house of the Lord. And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive and her father's household and all that she had. And she dwells in Israel even until this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Notice that interesting statement. Whoever is writing this, whoever is recording this history says they not only spared her life, but she's still alive. She still lives in Israel even today. And so this remarkable story of how a harlot's faith was that which delivered her and her household spared her. And notice that it is a faith if we think back to James's What's his agenda here? That true, saving faith is always a faith that acts upon what it says it believes. And Rahab's faith is exactly that kind of faith. Would you look for a moment over in Hebrews chapter 11. Y'all know this is the faith chapter, right? We call it that. All these examples of faith. In Hebrews 11, it begins in verse 1 with this proposition, this definition. Hebrews 11, verse 1. Now faith, he says, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I'm trying to remember the fellow Barnes that wrote the commentary. Jim, help me here. Not Thomas Barnes. Albert Barnes, I believe you're right. Albert Barnes, he was a Presbyterian minister in the 1800s. He has one of the best comments on this verse I've ever read. And I'm just going to give you the Mark Webb version of his version of it. He simply says this, that what this verse is telling us is that true faith sees things that are but promised, that are not yet present, but it sees them as if they are present, and that they're not just promised, they're actual, they're real, and it acts on them. That's an excellent way of understanding what this definition of faith, and what Barnes says is that this isn't just saving faith, this is any kind of faith. That if you truly believe something, then you see it as a reality, even though it might not be present, and it might not be visible Faith sees it as if it were right there, if you truly believe it. And he says that's true of any faith. He says you may have never been to a place called London, but you will get on a boat and buy a ticket and travel over. If you believe that place exists, you've never seen it with your own eyes, you've just heard testimony of it, but you treat it as if it is a real place. And your faith acts as if it's really there. go to great pains together. He said a man will learn, he'll hear a way to make money in a business venture. And he will invest in it. He will pour his life in it. In other words, it's not present, but faith treats it as if it's right there. If it's real. Let's read that again. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. That is, they're not present yet. We're waiting for them. We're wishing for them. We're hoping. But faith sees the substance of what's hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen. It sees by faith, by a testimony, what others don't see. And then this chapter is filled with examples of that. For instance, in verse 7, by faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet. Right? You don't see them yet. He moved with fear. He acted and prepared an ark to the saving of his house. Do you see the concept here? He hadn't seen these things yet, but he believes the Word of God and acts upon it. Let's look at Moses in verse 27. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. He can't see this God, but in a sense he does see. He acts as if he does see. You see the principle here. In that same way, right here in the middle of this chapter in verse 31, what do we read? By faith, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not when she had received the spies with peace. In other words, in each case, those who have true faith believe something They see it as a real thing and they act on it. They move. I'm thinking of Noah being moved with fear. Moses forsakes Egypt. All these actions that flow out of the confidence that what is promised is so real, we act as if it's present. That which is yet future to us is a present reality. That's faith. And the life of the man who truly believes shows it by how he lives. So, let's come back to what James is saying. That we see that with an Abraham. We see that with a Rahab the harlot. And yet, as I said, these things are so opposite, polar opposites, that we begin to understand that faith justifies us in spite of our background. Whether it's good, like Abraham. Whether it's evil, like a Rahab, faith is looking to something else. Faith is not resting on our works. It looks to the testimony and the works of another and acts on that. It works. In other words, we're not saved by faith. We're saved by a faith that works. We're saved by a working faith. That make sense? You guys? You understand the difference? The Roman Catholics go to seed on this. They say, well, what justifies us are the works that the Holy Spirit produces within us. The Holy Spirit comes to us through the sacraments of the church, produces these good works, and on the basis of those good works, God looks at those good works and says, you're justified. What we're saying is, no. It is not anything in us that justifies us. It's our faith in a justifying God that justifies us. But then good works flows out of that kind of faith. OK, now I find a lot of people that major when they deal with this text on the very things I've dealt with tonight. I find very few. Maybe it's because nobody else is interested in the kind of things I'm interested in that go one more step and ask this question. What is the consequence of Rahab's faith? What's the result of her faith? I mean, when we left her in the story there in Joshua six, She is brought out of the city, set outside the camp of Israel, and the writer simply says, she's with us to this day. But what happened to Rahab the harlot? What's, as Paul Harvey would say, what's the rest of the story? And in my mind, this is the most fascinating thing about the whole thing. Would you go over to Matthew chapter 1? There you go. In Matthew chapter 1, We start, as you see, in verse 2 with Abraham, and we work our way down. Look at verse 4. And Ram begot Amminadab, and Amminadab begot Nashon, and Nashon begot Salmon, and Salmon begot Boaz of Rahab. And so you follow the line that here is the genealogy that ends up with Jesus. I'm assuming this is Joseph's line, Joseph's genealogy. But notice that here is Rahab, the harlot, married to this guy named who? Salman, who is the mother of Boaz. Is that sort of intriguing? Well, what becomes even more intriguing is who her... In other words, what we learn is, she didn't remain outside the camp. She, at some point, gets married to this guy named Salman. But what is even more fascinating is who this guy is. Because when you look back a generation, you'll see that he is the son of a man named Nashon. And in the book of Numbers, the name Nashon keeps popping up over and over again. Let me give you an example. Go to Numbers, the book of Numbers, chapter 1. In the book of Numbers, chapter 1, Moses is instructed that each of the tribes are to have one man, that is the head, of the tribe. Look in Numbers, chapter 1, verse 4. Numbers 1, verse 4, he says, God saying to Moses, with you there shall be a man of every tribe, every one head of the house of his fathers. In other words, this is the head guy of each of the 12 tribes. And notice in verse 5, these are the names, here's their names of the men who shall stand with you. Here's the 12 heads of the 12 tribes, of the tribe of Reuben, this Eliezer, of Simeon in verse 6, this guy, but look at verse 7, of Judah, Nashon, the son of Amenadab. In other words, Nashon is not just any old guy in Israel. He is the chief, he is the head dog, numero uno, of the tribe of Judah. Well, what does that mean? When we look at the ranks of the tribes, what tribe is always ranked number one? It's the tribe of Judah. Let's go a little later here in the book of Numbers to chapter 10. You remember that the camp of Israel is to be ordered. The tabernacle was right smack dab in the middle. And then you had three tribes over on the north, three tribes over in the south, three tribes over in the west. But the prominent ones were over on the east because that is the gate of the tabernacle open to the east. And so when they blew the trumpets rather than having to rearrange themselves, the whole kit and caboodle just rose up and they all went together. And guess who's leading the parade? It's the tribe of Judah. Look in Numbers 10, and I'm breaking into the middle of it. In the first place went the standard of the camp of the children of Judah according to their armies, and over its host was Nashon, the son of Amenadab. That's Numbers 10, verse 14. In other words, when they rose up to march, you remember they would stop, then they would break camp, blow the trumpets, the whole kit and caboodle all move together. And who is out front? Who's in the number one position? It's the tribe of Judah. And who's the number one man of the number one tribe? It's this guy Nashon. Man, that explains some things. It explains why then Salmon, being the number one man of the number one tribe, you're going to wind up with a pretty good inheritance in the land, right? And your son, Salmon, is going to be the inheritor of the estate, of the plantation that you got. And it is that man, Salmon, who marries Rahab, who gives birth to Boaz. Now you understand why Boaz is the big farmer in the tribe of Judah. Where at? Bethlehem. In other words, how is it that Boaz has all this land? When Ruth goes out to glean in the fields, how is it that she lights upon a field that belongs to Boaz? Because he happens to be the grandson of the big dog of Judah, back when they were conquering the land of Canaan. He's in the number one family of the tribe of Judah, and his daddy is married to Rahab the harlot. In other words, Rahab, you're talking about marrying up. This girl hit the jackpot. Well, Paula, you know, she probably hit the jackpot too. But anyway, that's another story. But I mean talking about hitting the jackpot. She comes from a harlot. in an accursed people in an accursed city to marry into the number one family of the number one tribe of the land of Israel. And then not only do you have that example, in the next generation you have Ruth the Moabitess again coming from an accursed people, journeying to Bethlehem, winding up in the field of this guy Boaz, who now has inherited the plantation, And talk about marrying up. She started out that spring as a field hand and winds up in the fall living in the big house. You see this pattern. And there is the end of Rahab's faith. The consequence of Rahab's faith. She is accepted not only into the tribe, into the land of the people of Israel, but into the tribe of Judah. And not as just out there on the fringe somewhere. She marries in to the number one family. of the number one drive. That's what faith, not secondary citizenship, and no irrespective of our background, of how many sins we've committed, what kind of sinner we might be, we being justified by faith or being justified on the merits, on the basis of the works of another and his works are absolute perfection. And we're not accepted into the family of God as second-class citizens. But we are married up. And we're going to live in the big house forever and ever. So, as Paul Harvey would say, that's the rest of the story. Okay, we'll stop there tonight. I find it just a fascinating thing that James would pick, of all people, Rahab the harlot, as one of his examples of what faith does. How faith works. and the payoff for those who have believed.