Sr. Pastor Mark Stafford

Rahab is a story of scandalous grace.  I don’t mean God’s grace was immoral.  I mean it was radical beyond measure!  With the grace God extended to Rahab, He reached down into a situation that was so immoral and He poured out so much mercy on Rahab that it is nothing short of shocking.  You could call it “scandalous grace.”

Rahab and Abraham were both given as examples of faith in James 2.  Both are listed in the “Hall of Faith: in Hebrews 11.  The two characters couldn’t be any more different:

• Abraham was a Patriarch.  Rahab was a prostitute
• He mostly lived a moral life.  She lived in a pit of immorality.
• He was the original Jew.  She was a Gentile women.
• Abraham was wealthy, influential and powerful.  Rahab lived in the midst of wickedness.

Nevertheless, in Rahab we see a mustard seed sized faith.  Jesus said in Matthew 17:20b, “…if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

God saw Rahab’s mustard-seed-sized faith and He blessed it a huge way, so I want to focus on Rahab’s testimony this morning and save the Biblical account of Abraham for another day.  In Rahab, we see how God reaches down past our immorality.  He sees us in our sinfulness and imperfections and he draws us into his family.  It’s not fair.  It is extreme grace!  We too are recipients of scandalous grace that we neither earn nor deserve.

How could a holy God include a sin-stained woman like her into His family?  The same way he included people like you and me into His family.  He poured out his wrath on Jesus so Rahab didn’t get what she deserved, but received mercy instead.

In the same way, God wraps every believer in the righteousness of His son, Jesus, so that we all can look ahead to an eternity of being in God’s presence, ruling and reigning with Christ.  In eternity, there will be people like Rahab standing with us.  People who don’t deserve to be there any more than we deserve to be there.

In Rahab, we see a clear picture of justification.  She did nothing to deserve God’s love, but once faith awoke in her heart, she acted upon it.  James 1:25 says, “in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?”

So what did Rahab do to display such notable faith?  Let’s turn over to Joshua 2 and find out.

Recap

In Joshua, chapter 1, Moses died and Joshua was taking over leadership over the nation of Israel.  God had promised his wandering people a homeland and had shown his people the promised land before Moses passed away.  God had given the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh the land across the Jordan river to the east.  It was Israel’s duty to help conquer these allotted lands and then go on to conquer other lands to the east and to the west for the other tribes.

Sitting right in the middle of their path was the fortified city of Jericho.  It was a walled city.  It is the oldest fortified city in recorded history.  It was a fortress that was central in the defense of Jordan Valley.  The city controlled the passes into the central highland.  They would not be able to take possession of the land without defeating Jericho first.  It was a God-sized task.  Jericho had been there for hundreds of years and without God’s intervention, it seemed to be impossible to overtake.

#1 Defeating Jericho was a God-Sized Task – Joshua 2:1-3

Joshua needed to know what he was up against, so he sent 2 spies into Jericho.  Look at Joshua 2:1

     2 And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”

Before attacking the city, Joshua needed complete information about the city.  He needed to know about the gates, the fortified towers, the military force in the city and the morale of the people who lived there.

These spies were taking on a very dangerous mission.  It they were discovered, they would certainly be killed.  They left from Shittim.   It is an area about 7 miles east of the Jordan.  They probably travelled north and swam across the flooded river at the fords of the River Jordan.  Turning back south, they would have approached Jericho from the west side, entered into the gates and tried to blend into the crowd.

At this point, they were seeking out a place where they could gather information and remain inconspicuous.  Travelers usually stayed at an inn.  Rahab was a prostitute, but she was also an inn keeper.  Inns and brothels were sometimes connected to one another in ancient pagan cities’ like Jericho.  The last part of verse 1 says

And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there.

Look at this artist’s depiction of Jericho. The inn would have been good cover.  They would be able to learn about Jericho from the people who traveled through there.  The position of the inn on the city wall would have allowed them quick escape if they ran into trouble.

But most of all, God in His sovereign purposes led them there.  God had been working on Rahab the prostitute.  In His grace, he was pursuing her in love. Against all odds, God was sending in spies from Jericho’s attackers to be a witness to Rahab of His saving power.

God in his saving purposes wanted there to be salvation extended to this prostitute.  She would provide a living example of the power of saving faith.  A women in a desperate situation, living at the lowest level of a pagan culture would be pulled out of her sinful situation and introduced into the family of God!

Despite all their care to go undetected, their cover didn’t work.  Keep in mind that the Israelites were camping just a few miles away on the other side of the Jordan.  Everyone in town was on high alert.  When two strangers entered into the city, someone noticed and alerted the King.

² And it was told to the king of Jericho, “Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.”

Their cover was blown and the king quickly sent messengers to demand that Rahab send out her guests

³ Then the king of Jericho sent 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.”

Rahab must have immediately sensed there was a difference between these Israelite spies and the type of men who usually entered her inn.  She lived in a culture with a religion that sacrificed children and that worshiped these demon-like gods (Baal, Mot, Yam, Dagon, etc.) through lewd acts with temple prostitutes.  Right away, she must have noticed these Israelite men were different.

#2 God’s people stand out as radically different – Joshua 2:3

They were not sensualists.  These were men of high morals.  In her position in the Canaanite culture, she may have never met a moral man before.  She knew these men were really different from the travelling merchants or the Canaanite men who usually came to the inn.  So, when she saw the messengers coming, she must have instantly known they would be looking for her guests.

Right away, she took them up to the roof to hide them.

Flax stock were pulled up during harvest time.  They were soaked for 2-3 weeks to separate out the fibers and then laid out to dry in the sun.  After the sun dried them out, the flax could be woven into linen.  At this time, her roof was covered with flax stalks drying in the sun.

⁴ 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. ⁵ 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.” ⁶ 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.⁷ 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.

The soldiers took Rahab at her word and did not search her property, but quickly set off on a wild goose chase back to the east.  The fords of the Jordan were the most likely place to cross the Jordan to head back to the Israelite camp.  They ran off to try to catch them there.  Rahab told a bold-faced lie and they fell for it.  That begs the question, was it wrong for her to lie?

Some say that Rahab was born and raised in a culture where lying was the norm.  These were immoral people and in their society, lying was universally practiced.  She probably did not know it was wrong to lie and, besides, if she has told the truth, the spies would have surely been captured and killed at the hand of the King.

BUT… such arguments that the spies would have certainly died if Rahab didn’t lie is to ignore the sovereignty of God and His ability to protect the spies in some other way.

• Some people argue that it is wrong to make up excuses to condone what God forbids.  They say lying is always wrong regardless of the circumstances.
• Other people argue that it is allowable to lie in the context of war or another extreme, life-threatening situation.

The Bible doesn’t explicitly support or condone her method of protecting the spies in this instance.  It is simply recounting what happened and that Rahab’s faith led her to make a bold move.  It honors her for having the faith to risk her life to protect these men – even if she didn’t go about it the exact right way.

#3 When Rahab hid the spies, she risked her own life and exhibited faith in God – Joshua 2:4-7

When she hid the spies, her actions were an act of treason against her own people and an act of faith in God.  She was allowing men to escape the city with information that could lead to Jericho’s destruction.  If Rahab had been found out, the Canaanites would have not hesitated to execute her.

So why did she do it?  Why did she risk her life for two men and a people group she had never met before?  The answer to those questions comes in the next few verses.  Look at verse 8:

     ⁸ Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof ⁹ and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the                 inhabitants of the land melt away before you. ¹⁰ For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of       the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.

#4 Rahab put her faith in the power of God over the strength of the city – Joshua 2:8-10

Jericho had been standing there for hundreds of years.  It was fully fortified.  Its inhabitants thought that it was invincible.  But Rahab heard God’s word through those who had been travelling through town.

One theologian commented, “The people in Rahab’s time most frequently used such houses of prostitution were travelling merchants.  From them she had probably repeatedly heard of the marvelous nation which was approaching from Egypt and the God of Israel who had perfected such striking miracles.”^[1]

God had been sending her information about Himself in the context of a brothel.  Maybe it was her pagan clients who told her about the miraculous way the Israelite God had parted the Red Sea and delivered Israel from the hand of their other enemies – namely the two kings of the Amorites.

She didn’t have much information about the God of the Bible.  She had never been to a Jewish religious meeting.  She had never read the Scriptures.  Regardless of her lack of religiosity, she believed that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, was the real God who made heaven and earth.  She believed in the Israelite’s God and she acted on that simple, mustard-seed sized faith in the way she knew how to act on it.

Remember that we defined faith as “Trusting that God will Fulfill His Promises.”  Rahab had a basic understanding that God was the one who was really sovereign over all things, not the false demon-gods of the Canaanite culture.  Rahab believed that judgement was coming on her land and she had a basic, reverential fear of this sovereign God.

Like James, the writer of Hebrews points to Rahab as a hero of the faith.  Hebrews 11:31 says, “³¹ By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

Rahab isn’t a hero of the faith because of her religious activities.  She is a hero of the faith because she put her life and everything dear to her on the line for the Lord.  She trusted the God of the Israelites without hesitation, qualification or reservation.  She had a faith that was proven authentic by her actions.

#5 Rahab had a faith that was proven authentic by her actions – Hebrews 11:31, Joshua 2:11-14

She risked it all so that the people of God might over-run Jericho for the glory of God.  When she protected the spies, instead of turning them in, she took a radical step.  She betrayed her own people so that she could stand with the people of God.  James commends that kind of faith.

Now she turns to the spies and describes the morale of those who are living in the city of Jericho.

¹¹ And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

Remember that a major objective of the spy mission was to assess the morale of the citizens of Jericho  Rahab revealed to the spies that the citizens of Jericho, as well as the rest of Canaan, was utterly demoralized.

This news would have been “music to their ears.”  The Canaanites had heard of the mighty works of God and were fearful of what they had heard.  Although they were fearful, only Rahab demonstrated faith in God.  The other were relying on their fortifications and their false gods.  God was in the process of delivering Jericho into the hands of His people and taking it away from the grossly immoral Canaanites who occupied it!

After Rahab saved the spies and delivered this news to them, she made one request.  She wanted the Israelites to spare her and her family.

¹² 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 ¹³ 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.” ¹⁴ And the men said to her, “Our life for yours even to death! If you do not tell this business        of ours, then when the Lord gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”

More than just saving their physical lives, Rahab and her family were ultimately grafted into the Jewish culture.  Rahab lived on to marry into the lineage of Jesus and she was a great-grandmother to King David.  She was a living example of how God reaches out to people in the depravity of their sin and brings them into His house as sons and daughters of the King!

I hope you now understand what James meant when he wrote in verse 25, “²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?”

As we come to the end of James 2 and to the end of our discussion of what faith looks like in action, we need to be clear about the nature and basis of genuine saving faith.  Many people over the years have struggled with this passage, including the great reformer, Martin Luther.  He was concerned that we might easily misread verse 26.  It says, “²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”  When we look at Rehab’s life, it is not her works that saved her, but her faith.

#6 Genuine faith always results in works – James 2:26

However faith always results in works.  Luther said,

Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. And so it is impossible for it not to do good works incessantly. It does not ask whether there are good works to do, but before the question        rises, it has already done them, and is always at the doing of them.

He who does not these works is a faithless man. He gropes and looks about after faith and good works and knows neither what faith is nor what good works are, though he talks and talks, with          many words about faith and good works.

Let’s consider three realities about faith and works as we close.

Application

#1 Salvation is through Christ alone – 2 Corinthians 5:21

How was Rahab declared right before God?  She could have never paid the penalties for her own sins in God’s eyes.  Her sins were too great and too wicked.  If she stood before God on the basis of her own merit, she would have nothing to stand on.  She needed a Savior.

The gospel is all about providing a Savior.  Jesus lived a righteous life and then paid the penalty for our sins in our place on the cross.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Rahab became righteous before God through Christ alone.  Jesus took on the sin of her prostitution so that she might stand before God clothed in the bright white righteousness of Christ.

She wasn’t saved because she protected the spies.  She was saved because she believed in God.  The proof of that belief is when she trusted God and protected the spies.  She risked her life on the belief that the Israelite God was authentic and that the Canaanite gods were not.  She was righteous before God on the basis of her brand new, tiny little bit of faith.

#2 Salvation is by Faith alone – Romans 10:9, James 2:19-20

Faith is trusting God.  It trusts God in real ways.   Faith that “trusts in God to fulfill His promises” relies on the fact that God will always act in a way that is consistent with His character.

Faith realizes that there is no work that needs to be added to the finished work of the cross.  God promises that the work was finished at the cross.

God said that Jesus’ ransom was enough and faith trusts that God is telling us the truth.  Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

At the same time, faith is more than belief by itself.  James said earlier in James 2:19-20, “ ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?”

Demons believe in the facts of the Bible.  They might even possess a better understanding of biblical theology than theologians possess do.  They’ve seen God.  They know Satan.  They know the Bible.  James is making the argument that a stockpile of knowledge is not the same thing as faith.

Faith is a transfer of trust.  I can believe that this stool can hold my weight, but I don’t have faith in the stool until I go over and sit in it.  In the same way, I can believe that God always follows through on his promises, but I don’t have faith in God until I begin relying on those promises.  Faith begins with belief and results in action.

Salvation begins the instant that faith is awakened in our hearts.  However, the result of our faith is played out time and time again for the rest of our lives through our works.

#3 Works are the evidence of saving faith (not the cause of it) – James 2:25

I’ve heard it said that works are the fruit of our salvation, not the root of it.   “The root of justification is by FAITH.  The FRUIT of justification is by WORKS.”  James 2:25 says that Rahab demonstrated bold, saving faith by her actions.  It says, “²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?”

Real saving faith fuels bold actions for God’s glory.  Rahab believed God and consequently was willing to risk it all.  She showed her faith by what she did.

What about you?

• Like Rahab, do you have a faith that is willing to take risks and really rely on God?
• Are you willing to trust God’s word enough to follow it?  To rely on it?  To risk everything for it?
• When you consider the scandalous grace God has extended to you, does it motivate you to want to take risks for His glory?

Let’s not play it safe anymore.  The comfortable Christian life is often a life that is missing much of God’s blessing.  Let’s live boldly and take risks for the gospel.  When you and I put ourselves in a position of really trusting God to follow through, then we can begin seeing God at work in our lives like we’ve never seem him working before.

[1] Abraham Kuyper, Women of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI Zondervan, 1961) p.69

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