Joshua 2 : Faith’s Conduct – Hebrews 10:36-39
- 36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will
receive what he has promised. 37 For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will
come and will not delay.” 38 And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I
take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” 39 But we do not belong to those
who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
• I ask you to do 2 things today:- Recognize – Respond
MESSAGE
Joshua 2 (entire chapter)
Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,”
he said, “especially Jericho.”
So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.- Why did they go to a prostitutes house?- Rahab: brief bio
• Immoral Canaanite woman
• Lives in a pagan culture that is fanatically devoted to everything God hates—it is
absolutely wicked.
• She has profited from the evil that permeated her society- Rahab is the first person scripture introduces to us, and by name, in the
Promised Land…remarkable isn’t it =)
2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to
spy out the land.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the
men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the
whole land.”
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4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men
came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was
time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them
quickly. You may catch up with them.” 6 (But she had taken them up to the roof and
hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) - True biblical faith can’t be hidden, it but be concerned with action
7 So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the
Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.
8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof 9 and said to them,
“I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on
us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.
10 We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you
came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the
Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. 11 When we heard of it,
our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for
the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.- (SLIDE) Thomas Carlyle - “Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless until it converts itself into
conduct.”
12 “Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness (hesed) to
my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign 13 that you will
spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to
them—and that you will save us from death.”
14 “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing,
we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”
15 So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was
part of the city wall. 16 She said to them, “Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find
you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way.”
17 Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on
us 18 unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the
window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and
mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. 19 If any of them go outside
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your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be
responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our
head if a hand is laid on them. 20 But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released
from the oath you made us swear.”
21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.” So she sent them away, and they
departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
• REAL BIBLICAL FAITH WILL ALWAYS DO SOMETHING- Putting herself at risk, Rahab rejected her past identity as a Canaanite and wanted to
be identified with the people of God, with Israel.
22 When they left, they went into the hills and stayed there three days, until the
pursuers had searched all along the road and returned without finding them. 23 Then
the two men started back. They went down out of the hills, forded the river and came
to Joshua son of Nun and told him everything that had happened to them. 24 They
said to Joshua, “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the
people are melting in fear because of us.”- Faith’s Conduct - Recognizes
- Responds – RECOGNIZE
- WE ALL WERE RAHAB
- Rahab’s Faith
- God’s Faithfulness – Spoken Gospel
- “If a prostitute on the wrong side of God’s battle lines can become a member
of God’s family, so can we.”- RESPOND in Biblical Faith - Personally
3 - God can redeem our past and grace our future in ways that exceed our
understanding
• God can take your great mess (by faith) and transform it into a message of
grace (by His faithfulness) - He calls you as you are – no matter how broken the pieces are right now- Will you respond in faith today???
• Song of response growing up: – Just As I Am….
Just as I am, Thou wilt receive
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve
Because Thy promise I believe
Oh, Lamb of God, I come, I come- Oswald Chambers - “Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not
understand at the time.”
CONCLUSION – William MacDonald - Sums up Rahab the harlot- Rahab’s “works” and not her “words” justified her (Jas. 2:25).
- The Bible does not commend her deceit (vv. 4, 5) but it does commend her
faith (Heb. 11:31). – (SLIDE) Hebrews 11:31 - By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not
killed with those who were disobedient.- James also calls her deed a work of faith (Jas. 2:25). - (SLIDE) James 2:25 – In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered
righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent
them off in a different direction?
4 - She risked her life to save the lives of the spies because she believed in
the power and sovereignty (power+authority) of their God. – So in our Lord’s day some outside the commonwealth of Israel showed
more faith than those who were eyewitnesses of His glory (Luke 7:2–9). - Great faith, wherever it is found, is always rewarded (see chap. 6), for
it is pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6).- She married a man from the tribe of Judah named Salmon. They
had a son named Boaz, who married a Moabite woman named
Ruth. They had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jesse,
who had a son named David (Matthew 1:5-6). – Rahab was a direct ancestor of David, the great king of Israel, and
assuming no generations are left out of the record, she was his
great-great-grandmother (the grandmother of David’s grandfather
Obed).- Online Read - Rahab’s example stands as a testimony to us today, teaching us that no matter
how things have gone in the past – or how dark things may appear in the present –
faith in God and obedience to His word will save us from the destruction of sin and
give us a future and a hope in the kingdom of God.
RESPONSE – Everyone today is invited to place their faith completely in God, trust in Jesus’ saving
work, and live in obedience to God’s will, trusting that He is faithful to His promises
and that He will never leave you or forsake you
• Red cord for everyone – (A reminder that God is a covenant God —who keeps His promises)) – God took an old harlot by the name of Rahab and saved her by grace and used
her for His glory. - He wants to do the same for you. – Will you come today and respond in faith to His faithfulness? – Take a cord + recognize God’s faithfulness and trust in Him!