Well, good morning, church. Took me longer to get up here. Started from farther back, I think. Turn in your Bibles to Joshua chapter 2. If you're new with us, welcome to our outdoor services. We started doing this during 2020 because we wanted to meet together, and it was a nice summertime, and so we decided to start meeting outside, and it's become quite the tradition. We do this now every summer. We come outside for about 10 weeks, meet under or spilling over out of the tent, and we have one service instead of two, so we're able to all be together And yeah, it's just a good time. So thanks for being here. And just so you know, we studied the Bible here. During the the year before we go out in the summer I'm typically working through a New Testament book New Testament epistle or some sort of book from the New Testament But the summertime is kind of a tradition to go into the Old Testament So this summer I've decided to go into the book of Joshua and last week we looked at Joshua chapter 1 This week we'll look at Joshua chapter 2 Joshua chapter two, this is one of those chapters that is like a story within a story within a story. This is one of those chapters that I think rises up out of the book of Joshua as a monument of God's grace. This is a pillar of remembrance of what God can do in the life of someone who yields themself to him. I've titled the message From Harlot to Heroin, that is a female hero, a story of God's grace. You've probably, if you've been in the church for any length of time, been around Christianity for any length of time, you've heard about a character named Rahab. Rahab was a woman who was not known among the Israelites until chapter two of Joshua. She was known in her own parts, but for reasons that you wouldn't want to be known. Joshua chapter two is going to reveal to us the details of this lady, and we don't know much about her, but what we know is not the things that you would want people to know about you. She has a past, she has some history, she has some brokenness that runs deep in her life, and I'm sure she feels the effects of that every day. But again, this story is not so much about Rahab as it is about Joshua, the man that is probably writing this letter, writing this book after these events have happened. In chapter one, we saw that Moses, the great leader of Israel, had died. He was the great deliverer, the one that God raised up to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, out of their captivity. And God used Moses in miraculous ways, including parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk through on dry land. But then after 40 years in the wilderness, after all these exploits of Moses' leadership and the giving of the law and all these things that Moses brought about, Moses dies. The people of Israel, probably a million plus people. That's a safe estimate, it could be up to three million people. This vast amount of people wandering about in the wilderness had finally come to the edge of the Jordan River, just east of the promised land. The promised land that God had promised to their ancestor, Abraham. and now they're staring across the river into the land that would be theirs. They face some major challenges in that the first one is that Moses is dead. Moses, again, is the one that brought them out of Egypt and brought them all this way, and he's the trusted leader, the known leader in Israel, and now he's gone. He's the one that God used and God was with. And so in chapter one, we see a lot of promises spoken from God to Joshua, saying, just like I was with Moses, so I will be with you. And now we're gonna look at several chapters from the book of Joshua, and we're gonna see God being faithful to that promise. to be with his leader Joshua, and more specifically, to bless and take care of and watch over his people Israel. So this story is about Rahab in chapter two, but the story really is about Joshua. But there's another story. A story of God and his faithfulness. A story of God and his compassion and his grace to reach down into a lost humanity and to rescue for himself a people for his own possession. A story that goes all the way back to Genesis chapter one where God made everything and he made it good and he made it right and then in chapter three of Genesis, mankind went astray They rebelled against God's authority and they gave their authority, their God-given authority as man and woman over the creation. They handed it over to the serpent, Satan. And God, ever since Genesis chapter three, has been carrying out a plan to rescue a people for himself. We call it the plan of redemption, and it runs all throughout the pages of scripture, and it will be culminated one day in the final day, when Jesus returns and makes everything right. But this story is also going on in chapter two, and we're gonna see a microcosm of all of these things laid out for us in Joshua chapter two. Let me pray and then by God's grace we'll walk through these seven scenes in chapter two and try to make sense of and apply to our own lives these things that God has given us. Father in heaven, we thank you for this time that we can come before you. We thank you for this weather that you've given us that we can meet outside. We pray that you would help us, Lord, to To be able to focus and to pay attention, we pray that your words would captivate our souls and our minds and our hearts, and that you would help us to fix our gaze and our attention on you this morning. I pray against distractions and other things, and we just ask that your spirit would be our teacher this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. As I said, this story is really about Joshua. And the chapter begins with this. And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, go view the land, especially Jericho. And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. We need to look first at just this first half of the verse. This gives us the context of what's going on. By the time we get to the end of chapter two, these spies will have returned from this secret covert mission. But why are they going on a secret mission? Well, if you remember back in the story, long back before the book of Joshua, about 39 years earlier, 39 and a half years earlier, Moses, that great leader of Israel, after coming out of Egypt and coming through the wilderness, receiving the law from God on the Mount of Mount Sinai, brings the people to the edge of the promised land and sends into the promised land 12 spies. Joshua is one of these spies. As a younger man, him and Caleb and 10 others were selected for this duty of spying out the land. One from each tribe, I presume, and they go into the land and they spend some time there. They go through the whole breadth of the land and they bring back from it some of the fruits of the land. They bring, carrying on poles, large clusters of grapes to show how bountiful and fruitful the land is. but they also come back with a report. And two of the men, Joshua and Caleb, give a report to Moses in front of the people, and they say the land is plentiful, it's bountiful, it's flowing with milk and honey, which sounds sticky, but I think the point is blessing and bounty, not literal milk and honey everywhere. But they give this report of God's blessing and bounty in the land, And that's it. They talk about the fact that there's fortified cities and strong men and giants even, but the other 10 spies give their report, and their report is, yeah, there's big grapes, and yes, there's milk and honey and all that good stuff, but there's giants in the land, and there's fortified cities, and there's no way that we can do anything against these cities. They come back with a pessimistic, faithless response to what they saw in the land. And the people began to grumble. In this nation of people, a million plus people, word began to spread like something going viral on social media before there was ever such thing. And throughout the crowd, as people rehearsed what they just heard from these 10 spies, people's hearts sank. their hearts melted within them, and they grew immediately discouraged and embittered, and they started to grumble and complain against Moses, and they said, why have you brought us out here? It would be better for us to go back to Egypt. And Joshua and Caleb do their best to rally the forces and to say, no, hold on, God is faithful and God promised to be with us and God will give us this good land because God is faithful to his promise. But by the time they could say such things, the discouragement had already gone through the camp. And God says, because they did not believe me, because they did not believe my words and my promises, this generation is going to have to die. Hence, why now, 39 years later, Joshua is the new leader on the edge of the Jordan River, getting ready to take these people into the promised land. Those 10 spies ruined it for a whole generation of Israelites. And so now Joshua, as his first act, as his first command as the new installed leader of God's people, is to covertly, secretly, send out two spies. Not 12. This isn't a public affair. This isn't a democracy. Joshua's the leader, and he's saying, I'm gonna pick two men that I know are filled with God's wisdom and God's faith, and they're going to go and spy out the land. And he says to them, send out men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, go view the land, especially Jericho, where the The Israelites are encamped, they're about seven miles, roughly, on the east side of the Jordan River. And across that valley, across the river, and up the other side, about five more miles, is a city called Jericho. It's dubbed the oldest city in the world. There's archaeological evidence dating back 9,000 years. Archaeologists today say that Jericho is the oldest city in the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but their archaeological findings have shown that, that those dates go long back. This was a well-known city. It was a well-fortified city. It was a strong, established city. Had a great source of water in a parched and dry and arid land, and thick walls. And Joshua wants to know, specifically, find out about Jericho. Scope out the rest of the land, but especially Jericho, because that is going to be their first mission once they cross over the river. Remember the goal, the reason that God raised up Joshua is to send him and these people into this land to take possession of the good land that God had promised them. They're to go and conquer. They're going on a conquest to drive out these other city-states, these other Canaanites, the Hittites, and all the other ites that were living there. And Jericho would be the first rendezvous point. As soon as the story begins, the mission is set, it's a secret mission, and then by the time we get to verse two, there's trouble. Before we get to verse two, though, they go in. They have a plan. They're gonna go into Jericho, probably as just wanderers or maybe passersby. They're not there for any specific reason. They know why they're there, but they're trying to disguise themselves. So as they make their way into Jericho, maybe on the way, they devised a plan. Let's find a shady place and I don't mean away from the sun, I mean a shady place where people won't find us. They don't wanna go to the courtyard, they don't wanna go to the public area where everyone's gonna see them and figure out who they are, they wanna go to a place that is more secretive. And so they find the home of the local town prostitute. and they go and they take lodging with her. This is their strategic point. This is not anything wrong with this. This is not them being immoral. This is not them saying, let's do some things while we're in town. They're saying, let's find a place where we can be away, fly under the radar, not be seen. And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab. I find it interesting that we don't know anything about these spies, we don't know their names, and yet we know the name of this lady, Rahab. She's the one, so far in this story, we know Joshua, he's a great man, he's a man of faith, he's a man that trusts and believes God. He's a man that was Moses' protege. He's the man that God raised up to lead these people, and he chose two spies. Obviously, those men were of great faith and wisdom. They were men of strength and valor and honorable men, or Joshua wouldn't have picked them. And then we come to this other name, Rahab. She's the shady lady from Jericho. But we know her name. and you do because of what follows. Verse two, moving from Joshua's secret mission to the mission compromised in verse two, and it was told to the king of Jericho. Jericho was a city state. By this time in the land of Canaan, all these major cities were kind of ruled by local governors. the greatest nation around was still Egypt. And Egypt ultimately is the one who had big-time authority over the region, but the the king of Egypt, the pharaoh of Egypt, really wasn't concerned that much with what was happening up in Canaan. He pretty much left them alone. And so any major city had their own local king, and then those other smaller towns probably would have gravitated towards those cities. And this King is more like a governor ruling over Jericho and probably the surrounding areas. But at any rate, it was told to the king of Jericho, behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land. This is not a good thing. Two men, what are two men going to do in the city walls against a whole city of people and soldiers? The king, the man with the greatest authority around, has now found out about their mission. And how? We don't know, it doesn't matter to us. It doesn't really matter how they found out. Ultimately, we would say God exposed them. God has a plan that is bigger than Joshua's plan, that is bigger than these spies' plan. God is always working to bring about his good purposes, and we're going to see exactly what those purposes are by the end of this chapter. But the men are exposed. Their plan is now laid out. They don't even know at this point that they have been found out. They've been compromised. But you could imagine, and we're gonna see some more of this as we work through the chapter, you could imagine what the people of Jericho might be thinking. You can see across the Jordan Valley. There's not like trees and hills in the way. You can see from Jericho across the Jordan River for miles until it goes up into the land of current day Jordan. And so everyone would have known that there's a group of about a million people on the other side of the Jordan, and everyone would have known that these people were making their way closer and closer to our land. So while Joshua was sending out his spies, I'm almost certain that the king of Jericho and other local kings probably had their own spies. Hey, go figure out what those people are doing over there. Go find out what they're doing and why they're coming closer to us. Try to discern what their intentions are. These men have been found out. Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab. I wonder if the king of Jericho knew Rahab. I'm sure a lot of politicians in Jericho knew Rahab. Politicians seem to find people like Rahab no matter where they are. And he sends some of his henchmen to Rahab, saying, bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land. The king knows their plan. The king has information about these two men, and he now sends some people to Rahab to have these men be brought forth. This is a completely bad thing. If you're reading the story and you haven't read ahead, you don't know what's going to happen next, this would cause you to sit up on the edge of your seat. What is going to happen with Joshua's plan? What's going to happen with God's good promises to his people Israel? What's going to happen to these two unsuspecting spies that think that they're scot-free? They found a quiet place to hide for the night. All along, their plan has been compromised, their mission has been exposed. And so, verse four, we move now to the third point in the outline, Rahab's big lie. Verse four, but the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, true, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stocks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords, and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out. What is going on here? The tragedy of this story really lies in the fact that for the last 3,400 years, more discussion has been had about Rahab's lie than why the Bible actually knows her name. More people wanna talk about the fact that Rahab lied in order to hide the spies and whether that was okay or not okay. And certainly there's room for discussion about those things, but ultimately, that is not the point of this text. Remember who we're dealing with. This is a woman who is a prostitute. She's not the most moral person in town. She wasn't the most religious person in her city. She was a woman who probably, through extenuating circumstances, ended up in this line of work. She is known by many people in town, but not for being an upstanding citizen and a highly ethical person. The point of the passage is not whether or not Rahab did the right thing or didn't do the right thing. The point of the passage is that this is what happened. Joshua, as he is writing these things down, as he's recounting for us the details of what happened, he just gives what happened. The Bible's not saying this is what you should do when people come to your house and ask for people hiding in your room. This is just saying this is what happened. And Rahab gives a big lie. People wanna be all up in arms, they wanna be all upset about the fact that religious people shouldn't lie, that Christians shouldn't lie, that people of faith shouldn't lie, and you can read that all throughout the Bible. The Bible's very clear that people that believe in God shouldn't lie. It's literally one of the 10 commandments. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor. So that's not the point of the text. But here's what's really happening here. Rahab, I don't know if she hid them before these men started coming or if she saw them or heard their clanking armor coming down the courtyard or through the alleyways. But at a certain point, she takes the two men up onto the roof and she hides them under some stalks of flax. By the way, this woman, based on her profession, was not a farmer. Flax didn't even grow in that part of the region, in that part of the world. Flax was more commonly grown down in Egypt. So I know this is a bit of speculation, but this flax that is now laid out on her roof, being dried out and being made ready to use for clothing, is perhaps payment from one of her last clients. But here it is, nonetheless, on her roof, and it serves as now a great hiding spot for these two spies. These two men are completely compromised. They don't know what to do, and they are now at the mercy of this woman of ill repute. What is going to happen? Depending on what she does next will mean either their life or their death. And Rahab, at the risk of her own life, lies. She sends these soldiers on a different journey. She says, yeah, they came, and there was two men. I don't know a lot of the details. I didn't get their name, obviously. But I didn't know who they were or what they were doing here. Well, I knew what they were doing here. But I didn't know what they were doing in town. And so I sent them on their way and they left just before dark, just before the gates were closed, not very long ago. In fact, if you go now and if you go with haste, you can probably catch them. And the soldiers, perhaps without poking around the house, perhaps without even taking a real search of her own home, go with haste. They make their way out of the gate. As soon as they go out of the gate, the gate is closed, which was a big deal in a fortified city. They would close it every night to protect against bandits and robbers. And the gate is closed. The night is now at rest. Pursue them quickly, she says, for you will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. Flax that would be wetted down and then dried out and then eventually the fibers would break apart and she'd be able to use these fibers to perhaps weave together to make clothing of some sort. and it's laid out on the roof as though it's being dried, which it probably was being dried, and the men find refuge under it at Rahab's prompting. You imagine their thoughts, completely exposed, completely at the mercy of this woman who they've found lodging with. They don't know if a sword is gonna come thrusting through the flax or if they're going to be spared. I wonder if they were laying there praying to Yahweh to save them, to protect them, to watch over them. I wonder if they were laying there thinking to themselves, we let down Moses, and we let down Joshua, and we let down all these people. God, what have we done? We can only speculate on what their thoughts were, but we know that without a shadow of a doubt, they were concerned. This is not what they thought was going to happen. As they found their way to Rahab's house and took shelter for the night, they probably thought, we're scot-free, we're gonna make it, we're gonna do this. Tomorrow we'll go tell Joshua all that we saw and heard, and now they're completely compromised. I don't know if they can hear Rahab talking to the men that she's sending away. I don't know if they can even understand. Maybe they're speaking in a local dialect that the Hebrews don't understand. but they take refuge under the stalks. It's their best chance of survival. Things go quiet, darkness comes over, and then before the men lay down, verse eight, we move now to the real point of this passage, to the real high point, to the crux of what is being said here. Verse eight, before the men lay down, before bedtime, Probably the city has grown quiet now. The men realize, at least for the moment, that they're safe. Their pursuers have gone after them down towards the Jordan River. Maybe they watched out the window or from the top of the roof as these men made their way out to go find them. Before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, I know that the Lord, and if you notice there in your Bible, it says the Lord with all capital letters, L-O-R-D. And whenever you see that in the Old Testament, it's a translation of the name Yahweh. Yahweh was the covenant name of God. That was his name, I am that I am. That's what he told Moses in Exodus chapter three, verse 14, when Moses said, when I go to these people and tell them that God has said to release them, who do I say sent me? And God says, I am that I am. Yahweh has sent me. And this is the name, the covenant name of God by which the Israelites call on him, Yahweh. And here we have this Canaanite woman, this Canaanite woman of ill repute, this immoral Canaanite woman living in an immoral city among immoral people. They do not know the true and living God. And here she says, I know that Yahweh has given you the land. How do you know this? She didn't have any Hebrew scriptures. In fact, all they had were the fragments that Moses wrote down after coming out of the wilderness. They didn't even have a formalized Old Testament yet. But she says, I know that Yahweh has given you the land, meaning the land that we are currently standing on as she's saying this to them. the land that God promised you, I know He's going to give it to you, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us. Here, now, this woman who had these men dead in the rites, these men were completely vulnerable, lying under flax, or stalks of flax on a roof. They were completely vulnerable, and she spares them, and now this lady shows them that she is completely vulnerable. She says, I know it's gonna be given to you. God, Yahweh, is gonna give it to you, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. Rahab now shows all of her cards. She says, look, you guys need to be aware, the fact that everyone living in Canaan knows what's coming. We've heard the reports, she'll say in a moment. We know what God has done for you. And now I'm just telling you plainly, we are freaked out. Everyone is shaking in their boots. Everyone is melting away with fear. People can't sleep at night. People are nervous. People are wondering just when is it gonna happen? all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard. We have heard how Yahweh, the Lord, dried up the water of the Red Sea. That was 40 years ago. Rahab maybe wasn't even born yet. But she has heard, and not just she, but the people of the land have heard how Yahweh dried up the sea, the Red Sea, so that you could come out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, when Moses was still alive, and they tried to pass through the land of the Amorites, and the kings there wouldn't give him safe passage, and they harassed them, and finally God says, deal with them, wipe them out, kill them all. Moses directs the army, in fact, Joshua is the one leading that army. And they wipe out, they totally obliterate these two cities, these two nations of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan. And that word has spread as well. These two kings whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted. That's a good word. It's the idea of going from strength and rigidity of courage and fortitude to going to just a puddle of liquid. We can't even stand up in front of you. We can't even stand before you. We're melting with fear. These two spies, I'm sure their hearts are leaping within them as they hear this report. This is exactly what they were hoping to find in the land. This is exactly the type of report that they want to take back to their new leader, Joshua. That the people have heard what God has done for us. The people know that God is a true God, that he's the living God, and that he's watching over us, and they know, and they're afraid, and they're melting with fear. They're not going to be able to stand up against us. Rahab is giving a horrible report from the eyes of the Canaanites. But for the eyes and the ears of these Jewish spies, this is exactly what they were hoping to hear. So she says a second time, we heard it. We heard the report. There were witnesses, there were people that heard about it, that saw it, that saw the aftermath of it. There were people that heard and saw the parting of the Red Sea, whether nomads out there in the wilderness just keeping watch over their sheep that kind of watched from a distance and saw the whole thing, or reports that have come out of Israel and they've heard about it, reports that have come out of Egypt, and now 40 years later, people are still talking about it in Canaan. In fact, 3,400 years later, we're still talking about it. And they heard about it, she heard about it, just like her neighbors and the king and everyone else heard about it. And she says, our hearts are melting away within us. For the Lord your God, that is Yahweh, your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Yahweh, your God. This is a woman speaking from her Canaanite background. In this day and age and in this region of the world, people believed in local gods. The Canaanites had their gods and the Egyptians had their gods and the Amorites had their gods and their gods supposedly ruled over regions and they were deities that kind of had authority over local regions or over physical things like rain. And what she says is, Yahweh, who is your God, the Israelite's God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. This is a statement that should stop you in your tracks. This is a Canaanite woman speaking from her own vantage point and saying that all the gods that we know don't hold a candle to your God. I don't think she's coming out and saying, you know what, there are no other gods. She's just saying, our gods don't stand a chance against your God. Your God is the sovereign one. He's the one that rules from the heavens above and is on the earth beneath. He's the God who is above all gods, we could say. This is a statement of tremendous faith. This is a statement that is ultimately born out of fear, which the Bible tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. People say we shouldn't make people afraid of God because fear, you know, perfect love casts out fear. That's what John tells us, which is true. And for the believer, the one who knows God, the one who knows God's character and his nature and his promises, they don't need to be afraid of God in that sense. But for this woman who is standing in her city of Jericho knowing full well that God has given the Israelites her land, she should be afraid. She has every right to be afraid, and for you this morning, if you were not bought with the blood of Jesus, if you were not covered by the mercy of Jesus, then you also should be afraid. Afraid of the living God, the one who rules over the heavens and the earth, the one who has said that he will bring an end to all sin and all sinners. The one who spoke more clearly about hell than he ever did about heaven in the gospels. The Lord Jesus is the ruler of the heavens and the earth. He is the great I am, the alpha and the omega, the one who knows the end from the beginning. And he has told us that he has made a place, a place of utter destruction reserved for the angels and all those, the demons I should say, and all those who follow them. Those who refuse to trust in and believe in God and what he has said. a place of everlasting torment, and if you are not afraid of that, you are either a Christian and you have hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, or you are ignorant. This woman finds herself trembling and quaking at two spies that are completely vulnerable. All she has to do is let out a yell, and her neighbors will come running. I have the spies, that's all she has to do. And everyone will come and rally and they will take care of these spies. These men have nothing on her in this situation. But rather than using her strength, rather than using the advantage that she has over these men, she humbles herself, she humiliates herself. She completely lays out her life and is completely vulnerable and says, we have nothing to be able to stand against you. We know that your God is the real God and we know that your God has given you our land. This is Rahab's great truth. In the tragedy of this story, the tragedy of chapter two of Joshua, is that more people, more scholars, spend more time talking about Rahab's lie than they ever do talking about her truth. If you know about Rahab, you know about her probably because she's either a prostitute or because she lied as an act of faith. Those are the things that people wanna talk about. And I don't know if it's just something within human nature that we're bored with the things that we know, and so we wanna speculate about all the things that we don't know. But why don't we talk more about what she said, that your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, amen? This is what we should be talking about. That the God who rules over the Israelites is the God who rules over the Canaanites, and he's the God that rules over America. He rules over Japan and Russia and China and every other country. And he has from the beginning of time until the end of time. He is the sovereign God. And this sovereign God has a plan of redemption that you can read about in his book. We can hear about it, but we can also read about it. and by hearing and by seeing and by taking in the information just like Rahab did when these stories made their way to her ears, we too can be rightfully humbled and have a sense of fear come over our hearts where we recognize that God is the living God and that his plans will come to pass and that no nation, no matter how strong or how mighty or how great their leaders like ours. That was a joke. No nation will be able to stand against him. He's the sovereign one. And he was ordained that his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, would rule not only from the heavens, but from the throne of David on this earth. He will put all nations under his feet. Oh, that we would have the wisdom of Rahab, the town harlot, the woman of ill repute, the woman who was not known for her moral excellency. She was not the one that other moms would point their young girls to and say, go be like Rahab. Go spend some time with Rahab and become like her. In fact, Rahab wouldn't even want people to become like her. Whatever it was in her life that got her into the position that she was in, I guarantee you she lived in shame and guilt all the days of her life. And now she comes to a pivotal moment in time. And we see this invisible hand of God that is always working behind the scenes. We see the fruit of his labors coming to the surface. Joshua has a mission, I'm going to send in two spies, find out about the land, and then we can go take it. These spies have their own mission, we have to make our way into the city, we have to go in unknown, we have to make our way out unexposed and bring word back to Joshua. But above all those plans, God has a plan. God is the one, I think, who exposed the plan of these spies, so that in the hiding of these spies, Rahab's faith could be made evident, that Rahab, this poor woman in Jericho, living a life of immorality, could find salvation in the God of heaven, this God who she has heard about, and now she is about to meet. I think this is Rahab's conversion testimony. This is her conversion point in the story of the Bible. She has an opportunity to demonstrate her faith. In fact, the New Testament, when the New Testament talks about this woman, it talks about her only in one way. It doesn't talk about the fact that she lied. It's not what the New Testament writers were focused on. That's not what they were concerned about. They weren't like using her as a Sunday school lesson. Okay, children, we know we're not supposed to lie. That's not the point of Rahab's story. The book of Hebrews writes about her in that great chapter, chapter 11, about that hall of faith, those people that are in the Old Testament, both men and women, who demonstrated faith, who walked with God, who believed God, and it says of her in 11.31, by faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. This is all it says about her. But she's listed, her name is known, she's listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, alongside people like Moses and Abraham and Enoch and all the others. And then in James chapter two, verses 18 to 26, in that section, I won't read it, but you can look it up on your own, in that section where James is talking about true biblical faith, and he says, faith without works is dead. Oh, you'll say to me, I believe in God, I trust God. Well, show it to me. Let your faith inform your works and prove it. Not that we work in order to have faith, but if you have faith, your faith will work. It'll be demonstratable, it'll be witnessable. And he uses two Old Testament witnesses to prove his point. The first is Abraham. which seems totally normal and natural. Abraham is the father of all those who believe, even us who believe. He's the father of those who believe. So naturally, if James is searching for two Old Testament witnesses, obviously he's going to pick Abraham. But then his next witness is Rahab, the prostitute, that shady lady from Jericho. In fact, they still call her the prostitute. I don't think they're denigrating her. I don't think they're putting her down. What they're doing is they're elevating God's grace. They're saying the woman who is the most least likely candidate of someone who would believe, the woman that the world would completely look over and despise, that woman is the one who demonstrated faith like her father Abraham. And if that doesn't give you hope, I don't know what to say to you. That God can and does delight in calling sinners like Rahab to himself, that he delights in letting her and you hear the message of the Bible and that your heart would believe it and fear it and walk in faith and obedience to it. Are you worse than Rahab the prostitute? Surely not. and all that she had to do was take what she had heard and put it into faith and action, believe what God had said, and God saved her. She stands out from all of those in her city that also heard the reports. All of those across the land of Canaan who heard the reports They've been hearing these reports for 40 years. They probably watched on the hilltops down into the wilderness and saw this massive horde of people wandering through the wilderness and thinking, what's happening? They can see it about to take place. But Rahab, her heart, which was succumbed to fear, turned in faith to the living God. By faith, she gave a friendly welcome to the spies. She didn't turn them over to the authorities like she could have. In doing so, she risked her own life. Could you imagine if those soldiers said, okay, we'll go look for him, but first we want to search your house high and low. They would have found him easily under the stalks of flax. And Rahab would have been the one who died that night, along with those two spies. She believes in the living God, and from there, Rahab seeks mercy. Rahab believes, she speaks truth from her lips because she believes. She hides the spies because she believes. And then in verse 12, she seeks mercy. Now then, please swear to me by Yahweh the Lord. All throughout this discourse, she refers to God as Yahweh, the covenant name for the people of Israel, the covenant name for God, I should say, for the people of Israel. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house and give me a sure sign. Again, I love this story, this part of the story. Here's Rahab. I don't know how long she's been at this profession. I don't know if she's new to it or if she has been in it for a number of years. She has her own home, which tells me she must be decent at her job. She has a home in the city wall with a window. It's prime real estate in Jericho. So she's been at her craft for some time. She is successful at it. And my mind just lingers a little bit. What would that be like for her father and mother? What would that be like for her sisters and brothers and cousins and nephews and nieces? Was she invited to family get-togethers? Was she a complete outcast in her family? We don't know, but we can speculate a little bit because you can imagine how that type of lifestyle affects personal relationships in a family. And Rahab seeks mercy. She acts shrewdly. She has these men still in a very vulnerable position. Again, all she has to do is just scream and they'll come running. And she acts shrewdly and she says, please swear by Yahweh that as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house. Had she not said this, she would have perished with all the others. These two Israelite men, they have no choice, really, but to make this oath with her, to make this promise to her. They have no choice. I mean, they're backed into a corner. What are they going to do? Say, no, you're going to die. Then she would have been like, well, no, I'm not. Not today. You're going to die. So she acts shrewdly, she takes advantage of this opportunity that she has, but more than that, she acts compassionately because she says that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death. It makes sense that she would look out for herself, It makes sense that she would act shrewdly and take advantage of this opportunity and say, hey, I know you're gonna wipe everyone out, but at least spare my life. But she actually says way more than that. She says, because I've acted kindly and spared your life, now you spare my life and my mother and father's life and my brother's and sister's lives and all who belong to them. This is compassion from a woman who perhaps doesn't even have great relationships with all these people, but she still loves them. She still wants to be loved by them. Don't give up on your family. Don't give up on those who everyone else has given up on. Don't give up on those who seem like they've given up on you. People that know the Lord have a heart filled with compassion towards those who do not yet know the Lord. And Rahab, just as she is an example to us in her faith, she is an example to us in her compassion. She asks for a big favor. She doesn't just look out for herself, she looks out for all of the people in her family, her father and mother and brothers and sisters and all who belong to them. And if it wasn't for her request, and if it wasn't for her boldness and her shrewdness, all of her family would have perished. And we'll get to that chapter in a little bit, but let me just give you a sneak preview. They don't. Her request is granted. The men say to her, our life, for yours, even to death, if you do not tell this business of ours, then when Yahweh, the Lord, gives us the land, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you. I just love the wording here. When the Lord gives us the land. Not if the Lord gives us the land. These are two spies like the two spies from a previous generation, Joshua and Caleb, who believed God's promise. Not like the 10 spies who would have said something like, if God does this for us. These men believed God and they believed God's promises and they believed in God's faithfulness, that's why they were chosen for the task. And they say to her, when the Lord gives us the land. We will deal kindly and faithfully with you. Then in verses 15 to 21, as we come to the end of this chapter, verses 15 to 21, they reiterate, they renew the oath, they clarify the terms of it, and they make sure that everyone, both parties are on the same page. This is gonna be the last time they talk. Rahab wants to make sure, hey, you guys know what I meant, right? And they wanna make sure, hey, you better make sure you do what we say or this is null and void. And so they spend some time clarifying the terms. And these details are going to be important when we come to chapter six. Then she let them down by a rope through the window. The fact that she had a window is a big deal. Most homes built into the wall didn't have a window. Those walls would have been very thick. Really, the homes were between two different walls, and they would have fortified that wall by adding structure and strength, and it served as a great place for people to live as well. By the way, when I was in Israel last year, we visited the Hill of Jericho, that ancient site where this all took place. It's shockingly small. But all of this took place and you could see the remains of walls that were broken down, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is, this one wasn't. Through the window for her house was built into the city wall so that she lived in the wall. And she said to them, go into the hills or the pursuers will encounter you. Surely they would have. There's nothing to hide behind in the Jordan Valley. It is barren, wasteless land. And if you saw two men running across the barren desert, you would have seen them from miles away. Go into the hills or the pursuers will encounter you and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterward, you may go your way. Verse 17, the men said to her, we will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. Notice they recognize this wasn't our idea. You kind of got us in a tough spot. We're going to give you what you want as long as you help us out. Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window. This is different than the rope that was used to let them down, different words. They found some sort of scarlet cord, maybe that was hanging in her house, or something that was on her, and they said, this will be the sign, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down. And ye shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father's household. These homes weren't big. This would have been a crammed gathering if everyone showed up. Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head. These are the terms of the oath. Agreed? Agreed. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear. And she said, according to your words, so be it. Then she sent them away, and they departed, and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. Charles Spurgeon has a devotional about this scarlet cord, and I don't wanna spend too much time on it, but it's just fascinating to think about this in light of some other Old Testament stories, like the one from Egypt, where the Israelites were instructed to put the blood of the lamb on the doorframe of their house. And when the angel of death would see the blood on their doorframe, the angel of death would pass over their home and would spare them. And here we have this woman who has demonstrated faith in Yahweh, who has trusted and demonstrated her trust in Yahweh, and now they tell her, put this scarlet cord, this red cord in your window. This will be the sign that we will not come and destroy you. And obviously the spies of that day and Rahab of that day and Joshua and anyone else in the Old Testament, it would have been impossible for them to recognize the implications of what was being said to her. But as we look back from the New Testament, as we see the significance of Jesus' blood and what it means for us who are saved, this is significant. This is at least noteworthy. That when we have faith, that it is that red cord, it is that red blood that causes God to avert His wrath from our lives. That spares us the destruction that we deserve if she had not hung that cord from her window. The Israelites would have come in chapter six and they would have said, she didn't believe, she didn't trust, she didn't follow through. And she would have perished just like everyone else in that battle. But she tied the cord in the window. Again, demonstrating her faith in her trust in her obedience. And with this, the story wraps up. What seemed like a story that was gonna be immediately met with tragedy is now brought back to an encouraging ending. They departed and went into the hills and remained there three days until the pursuers returned. And the pursuers searched all along the way and found nothing. Then the two men returned. They came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua, the son of Nun, and they told him all that had happened to them. And they said to Joshua, truly, the Lord has given all the land into our hands. And also all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of us. This is a good report. It was given to Joshua in secret. It wasn't given in the hearing of all the people. Joshua's not gonna take any more chances like what happened to him 39 years before. He brings him privately probably into a tent and says, tell me what you saw, tell me what you heard. And then his heart is encouraged, and his heart is strengthened with faith, and he realizes God is surely with us. And so we see Joshua's mission is successful, the spy's mission is successful, but there's a small hiatus. There's a story that's happening inside of a story, inside of a story. And those smaller stories were successful. Joshua and the spies both have their successful ending. But God also has a story that he's telling. And that story includes redeeming people for himself, not just from the people of Israel, but from those devoted to destruction. From those like the Canaanites and the Americans. in the Mexicans, in the Japanese, in the North Koreans, that God is redeeming for himself a people, and that in the end, all these people will gather and give him praise and honor and glory. Rahab is a reminder to us that everyone whom God has called will make it. I love how he interrupts their stories and their plans with his own plans, and they don't even know it. Has he done that to you? Probably every day. Man makes his plans, but the Lord is the one who prevails. Surely you should make plans for your life. Surely you have ideas and dreams and hopes and aspirations, but know this, that God is the one who rules from the heavens. He's the one who's over all other so-called gods, and he's over your life as well, and he will be Lord. And he has every right to interrupt your plans, to bring about his own purposes, amen? Amen, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this incredible mission plan that you are on. We thank you that you have plans and purposes and your plans and your purposes will prevail. This snapshot of a story is a reminder to us that you are the God who saves out of destruction. And in a big picture way, Lord, our whole world is on a collision course with destruction. You have promised that you will destroy all those who do not believe in your Son. You have promised that everyone who does not place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will be utterly destroyed. And so I pray that you would draw out of this crowd and out of us Rahabs for yourself. immoral people, religious people, all kinds of people for your own purposes, Lord, and make out of them trophies of grace. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.