I realized this morning that the radio message
on KJAN picked up Joshua.
I didn't know whether to go ahead with
this lesson this morning or not.
But I'll give you my word, that tape
was prepared a year ago, and I had
no idea that we were going to be
talking about Joshua this morning.
But I think there is enough here in
Rahab, and the title of the lesson, incidentally,
is Assurance, to be sure, and there was
some assurance in there, a place of safety.
Joshua sent two spies to spy out the
city of Jericho, the first city to be
encountered on the west side of the Jordan
River.
The two spies, when they entered the city,
they went straight to the house of Rahab,
and there are some indications that she was
an innkeeper.
Now, pardon me, the Berkeley translation has it,
it does not call her a harlot, it
refers to her, they went in and came
to Rahab's house, an innkeeper, and lodged there.
It was a lodging place.
And the Berkeley translation, all throughout the translation,
calls her an innkeeper.
But the word in the Hebrew and the
reference to her in the New Testament and
the Greek means harlot and nothing else.
It doesn't mean anything else.
I suppose that Berkeley translators didn't want this
to be true of Rahab because she is
in the direct line of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
She is in the genealogy of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
And I suppose they thought that wasn't proper.
But let me remind you of something else.
Four women are mentioned, not one by name,
but four women are mentioned in the genealogy
of Matthew's Gospel.
Tamar, Ruth, Rahab and Bathsheba, though not by
name.
She is mentioned as the wife of Uriah.
Bathsheba is mentioned.
Now three of those four women were involved
in the Scriptures and in morality.
The fourth, Ruth, was a Moabite.
And she was barred from the tabernacle of
the congregation.
She should have been.
She wasn't.
So the tenth generation, an Ammonite and a
Moabite, were not permitted to come into the
tabernacle of the congregation.
Even to the tenth generation forever.
That's Deuteronomy 23 and 3.
Why are these four women mentioned?
Did a male chauvinist write the Gospel of
Matthew?
Hardly.
They show the wondrous grace of God.
God can triumph over something like that.
And he does triumph over that.
Now Ruth, the Moabite, is the great-grandmother
of David the king.
Great, great, great, great or great.
I've forgotten at the moment.
And not too far down the line was
Rahab, in the line of David.
Now I don't think we can seize upon
this that God tolerates sin or condones it.
Not for a moment.
But you go into the scriptural account and
three of those four women were involved in
Amorality.
Now, lest you men get to thinking that
you're something, men were involved too in some
pretty notable characters.
Judah, for instance.
David, for instance.
This isn't very pleasant, is it?
God, if God doesn't triumph over us and
all our sins, nothing is going to be
accomplished.
He triumphs.
And what God cleanses we're not to call
common or unclean.
It makes us appreciate more and more the
precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now in the Old Testament, of course, the
blood that covered over those sins made an
atonement was just pointing forward to the blood
of Christ that would save those people from
their sins.
The Old Testament people.
They were saved on credit.
Now when you get saved on credit, or
when you have credit, you get the benefit
of the article before the price is paid.
They were saved on credit.
They got the benefit of salvation before the
price was paid.
God saved them on credit.
But we look back to a finished, paid
salvation.
Oh, what assurance that should give to us.
I marvel at the grace of God that
these poor women are mentioned in the Matthew
genealogy.
But they are.
Let's don't try to dodge it.
Let's just praise God from whom all blessings
flow.
A triumph over the worst of it.
The worst of it is in us.
And the worst of it is through us.
Now, they came to the house.
And the king of Jericho heard that they
came.
And immediately sent.
He sent a message.
And he said to Rahab, those men are
spies.
And they were.
They were sent by Joshua to find out
the city.
And to get a line on it.
And so they did.
They came in as spies.
Now Rahab, when she realized this, or apparently
realized it before the messengers of the king
got there, or held them at the door,
until she could hide these men.
But she hid these men in the stalks
of flax on the roof.
And they were hidden up there.
That was a common thing, to spread stalks
of flax on the roof.
If you remember what the eastern home was
like in those days, they had a parapet
on the roof.
And Moses says you better put a parapet
up there because if anybody falls off your
roof, you're responsible.
And there's a whole lesson in that.
Build a parapet on your roof.
Make it hard for people to fall off.
She hid them up there.
And she got rid of the men of
the king of Jericho by telling them that
they had fled.
She lied.
I'm not going to defend her.
But two lives were in balance here.
I'd hate to be put in a spot,
wouldn't you?
I'd hate to be put in a spot.
But she lied.
She told them that they weren't there.
That they had fled.
They'd gone out about the time of the
shutting of the gate.
And she says pursue after them and you'll
find them.
But after the men had gone, after she
by this ruse had gone, and she went
up to the roof of her house and
she knew that these men were spies now.
I don't know whether they had told her
then or not.
Yes, they had because she hid them, of
course.
She says in verse 9, She said unto
the men, I know that the Lord hath
given you the land and that your terror
is fallen upon us and that all inhabitants
of the land faint because of you.
For we have heard how the Lord dried
up the water of the Red Sea for
you when ye came out of Egypt and
what he did unto the two kings of
the Amorites that were on the other side
Jordan, Sion and Og, whom he utterly destroyed.
Pardon me.
And as soon as we had 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.
Now therefore I pray you, clear unto me
by the Lord, since I have showed you
kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto
my father's house and give me a true
token.
Now she told these men something that was
of military value.
She said we are frightened to death of
you for we have heard how your God
has undertaken for you and brought you to
this point.
They had heard about the Red Sea, she
mentioned that, dried up the water of the
Red Sea and how they had conquered the
kings of the Amorites, Sion and Og, and
of all the miraculous things that God had
done, this was common knowledge in Jericho.
She realized, she realized that she was going
to be dealing with the God of Israel,
which is the true God.
Now she called him the Lord, no man
can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy
Ghost, and she immediately wanted to take her
place on the Lord's side.
She realized that God had given the land
of Canaan to the Israelites.
That was common knowledge.
And she wanted to be on the right
side.
She believed in the God of Israel.
Now she took her place.
She took her place with the Israelites because
she realized that God had spoken.
There's a lesson in that.
Here's something that I like.
For her faith, because of her faith in
God, because she believed that God meant what
he said and said what he meant when
he was going to give the children of
Israel the land of Canaan, that faith got
her enshrined, if I may use those words,
in God's Westminster Abbey of Faith, the 11th
chapter of Hebrews.
This woman, and she's called a heart up
there, this woman Rahab is mentioned in the
11th chapter of Hebrews as one of the
worthies of faith.
It shows us the value of faith in
the eyes of God.
Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto
him for righteousness.
There is absolutely nothing that we can do
to please God more than simply believe him.
I feel sorry for any unsaved person who
knows about the fact that he can be
saved because Christ died for him, because God
loved him and Christ died for all his
sins and yet that person is not saved.
Do you know that he's calling God a
liar?
That's a serious thing.
There was a time in the western history
of the United States that if you called
a man a liar, the guns began to
blaze.
It's a serious thing to call a man
a liar.
Think what it must mean to call God
a liar.
I'd like to recur you to the 5th
chapter of 1 John.
Verse 9.
If we receive the witness of man, the
witness of God is greater.
For this is the witness of God, which
he hath testified of his son.
He that believeth on the Son hath the
witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him
a liar, because he believes not the record
that God gave of his son.
This is the record that God has given
to us eternal life.
This life is an eternal life.
He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life.
These things have I written unto you, that
believe on the name of the Son of
God, that ye may know that she hath
eternal life, that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God.
I wonder if the unsaved realize that they're
calling God a liar.
Would you want to call God a liar?
Well, now I've kind of slipped up on
you.
I've kind of slipped up on you.
This is a little mean, but I've got
a kind of a mean streak in me.
Have you ever had any unbelief?
Oh, let's go on.
Hasn't God told us, I will never leave
thee, nor forsake thee?
Hasn't God told us that?
Have you ever listened to Satan when he'd
say, God's forgotten all about you?
You're not important anymore?
Now, Satan is the liar, isn't he?
He's the father of it.
He was the liar from the beginning.
Now we're on Scripture ground.
But why should we delete his lies when
we can believe the truth of God?
Now, I know there are times.
I know there are times when it would
seem that God had forsaken us.
And now there may be times.
Let's face this problem.
There may be times when God leaves us
to our own devices so that we can
find out we can't fend for ourselves.
We can't undertake our own cause.
Now, under those circumstances, it might seem that
God had forsaken us.
But that's not the case.
God has just left us flounder a little
bit until he can really rescue us and
we'll know where the help came from.
Now, this is Christian living.
God does try us.
And he tries our faith.
He tried Abraham's faith.
He told Abraham, Go offer that son of
yours, that lovely son, Isaac, your holy begotten
Isaac, go and offer him up on an
altar that I'll show you in the land
of Moriah.
He tried him.
God tried the righteous.
That's scriptural.
He just wants to see how firm your
faith is.
He wants you to see how firm your
faith is.
But, not to believe that Jesus Christ died
for me, not to believe that I'm saved
when I put my trust in it, is
to call God a liar.
And I do not want that responsibility.
Do you?
Are you saved?
I believe God.
When he tells me that my sins have
been paid for, I believe it.
I'm resting on it.
And oh, the peace that comes with simply
believing God.
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto
him for righteous.
All right.
Rahab believed God.
And because of this, she is in the
11th chapter of Hebrews.
And right after her, we might turn to
the 11th chapter of Hebrews, where we see
the heroes and heroines of faith.
Hebrews chapter 11.
We have wonderful instances of the faith of
the people of God in the Old Testament.
And then we began to group them together.
But Rahab is the last that is mentioned
singly.
I want you to notice that.
Verse 31.
By faith, the heart of Rahab perished not
with them that believed not when she had
received the spies with peace.
Why?
Because she believed, obviously.
And what shall I more say?
For the time would fail me to tell
of Gideon.
Now we're beginning to lump them together.
Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and
of Jephthah and of David also and Samuel
and of the prophet.
Two through faith of these kingdoms brought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched
the violence of fire, gave the ages of
swords.
Out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant
in flight, fight, turned to fight the armies
of the Asians and so on.
Now, I want you to notice that Rahab
is the last one that is mentioned that
is given individual notice.
The others are linked together after that.
God has given us, God by his Spirit
has given us in the 11th chapter of
Hebrews enough instances of faith to let us
see how it works.
Working faith.
And then he runs out of time.
The apostle runs out of time in writing
this.
The apostle Paul, I believe.
As a matter of fact, he does the
same thing in the 9th chapter of Hebrews.
This is interesting, but not too earth-shaking.
But I'm going to give it to you
anyway.
In the 9th chapter of Hebrews, he goes
into details about the tabernacle and then he
stops talking.
He says, of which things we're not going
to talk about.
He gets so far and then he quits.
And he says, we're not going to talk
about them because we've got something more important
to talk about.
Now, in this 11th chapter of Hebrews, the
Spirit of God carries us along.
Until he just feels that we've had enough
illustrations from the Old Testament to see that
faith is a workable, viable thing.
And it works.
But the significant thing to me is that
Rahab is the last one that gets individual
attention.
Isn't that nice?
How would you like to be in the
11th chapter of Hebrews?
I'd value it if I were there.
I would even value it if I...
In verse 32, where I didn't even get
individual attention, where I was lumped together with
a lot of other people, I'd be happy
if my name was even there.
But she gets individual attention.
She believed that Israel was going to dwell
in that land.
She believed that God was going to give
it to them.
And she took her place.
She took sides.
She nailed her colors to the mat.
She said, that's the boat I want to
be in.
So she takes action.
Now, not only does the 11th chapter of
Hebrews mention Rahab, but James.
James the Apostle.
And I'll tell you, James the Apostle was
a pragmatist.
If you'll excuse the use of that word.
But he was.
He was a practical person.
And do you know he mentioned him?
Let's turn to James chapter 2.
Now, I don't want to lionize Rahab, but
I just want to show you how God
looked at faith and how we can honor
God by our faith as well.
We read John, verse 23, And the scripture
was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and
it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
And he was called a friend of God.
You see then how that by works the
man is justified, and not by faith only.
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works, when she had received the messenger
and had sent them out another way?
For if the body without the spirit is
dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Now don't you think Abraham is in pretty
good company here?
I mean, Rahab.
That's all my point.
She's in good company.
She's mentioned along with Abraham.
And we know Abraham was a man of
faith.
Now don't you think the spirit of God
could assign another illustration besides Rahab?
He could have, but he didn't.
Here she is.
Now she's in good company.
She's mentioned with Abraham as exercising faith in
God.
Now, what this I think should do to
you and to me is make us realize
how we can still honor God by faith.
By believing Him.
If we really want to please God, all
we have to do is just believe Him
and act on it.
And she acted on it.
Believe me, she did.
Now, these men, when they came up back
in Joshua 2 now, when she came up
to the ropes, she confesses to them, verse
11, as soon as we heard these things,
our heart did melt.
Neither did there remain any more courage in
any man because of you.
Now this is an indictment.
Alright, I want you to think about what
Rahab said here.
She says, as soon as we heard these
things, our heart did melt.
Who?
All the people of Jericho.
Neither did there remain any more courage in
any man, that's pretty inclusive, because of you,
for the Lord your God, He is God
in heaven above and in earth beneath.
Now I'll ask you a question.
Why didn't the whole city of Jericho surrender
and said, look, we believe God too.
Do you know, they chose to fight it
out.
And it didn't get them anything.
They lost the battle.
You don't fight against God and win.
She indicted the whole city of Jericho.
And she made that remark.
They were responsible.
Don't you think?
They were responsible.
They knew they were fighting.
You know, I've been thinking a lot about
people that are going to hell.
I feel sorry that one of my great
burdens of my soul is for any people
that are close to me, relatives especially, that
are going to hell.
But do you know?
They know what they're doing.
Do they know what they're doing?
They don't realize what they're doing, but they're
fighting against God.
Now, the other nations in the land of
Canaan, they had the same privilege.
Ray had indicted the whole land of Canaan
for these remarks.
This is a serious thing.
It's a serious thing to fight against the
living God.
Don't do it.
Not even as a Christian.
Submit.
And by faith, believe Him that He loves
us.
All right.
She wanted to make a deal.
Bless her heart.
She thought of her family, first of all.
She said, verse 12, Now therefore, I pray
you, swear unto me by the Lord, since
I have showed you kindness, that you will
show kindness unto my father's house and give
me a true token, that you will save
alive my father and my mother and my
brother and my sisters with all they have
and deliver our lives from death.
And then answered her, I'll lie for years
if ye utter this our business, and it
shall be, when the Lord hath given us
the land, we will deal timely and truly
with thee.
Then she let them down by a cord
through the window, for her house was upon
the town wall, and she dwelt upon the
wall.
Maybe she was off her side.
That's why she was out there, maybe.
I don't know.
She said unto them, Get ye to the
mountain, lest the pursuers meet you, and hide
yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be
returned, and afterward may ye go your way.
And then said unto her, We will be
blameless of this, I know, that thou hast
made us swear.
Behold, when we come into the land, thou
shalt bind this line of scarlet thread, that's
the poor translation, of course, scarlet cord in
the window, which thou didst let us down
by, and thou shalt bring thy father and
thy mother and thy brethren into thy father's
house, home unto thee.
Now, the thread was scarlet.
Paul mentioned that this morning as we were
singing to the children.
The thread was scarlet, it was red.
This house was protected by a red cord
hanging out of the window.
It reminds us of the 12th chapter of
Exodus where the houses of the children of
Israel were protected by the red blood sprinkled
on the doorposts and on the lintel of
the house.
They were protected by that red blood.
And the destroying angel, when he came to
the land of Israel that night, God promised,
when he sees the blood, he'll pass over
you.
When I see the blood, I will pass
over you.
The destroying angel.
He would not suffer the destroying angel to
go in.
God was looking for blood.
He was not looking for good work.
He was not looking for church membership.
He was not looking for fascism or the
ordinances.
He was looking for blood.
And this cord that was tied in the
window was red.
That house was sheltered by a red cord.
They tell the story years ago in England
in the Royal Navy, when the Navy of
England was composed of sailing vessels.
They had the best rope in all of
England.
But that rope was highly prized and it
was stolen.
It was stolen until the Royal Navy could
hardly keep up, keep rope on their ship.
So they hit upon a plan.
In the middle of the strands of that
rope, they put a scarlet cord.
And then they made a law that if
anybody was found with rope with scarlet cord
in it, he was immediately imprisoned.
That was the way they took care of
it.
Wherever you cut that rope, you found a
scarlet cord.
And you know that's true of the Bible.
Wherever you cut the Bible, you find the
scarlet cord.
The work of our Lord Jesus Christ, by
typology, by prophecy, by picture, you see it
throughout the Bible.
This house was protected by its scarlet cord.
Now I don't know whether Rahab's father and
mother and brothers and sisters had any scruples
about her being a harlot.
But I'm going to say this.
If they did have any scruples, there was
one time in their lives when they were
glad to take shelter under her roof.
And that was the only place of safety,
nevertheless.
They tell the story of D.L. Moody
during his campaign in Chicago years ago.
He held a gospel meeting and hundreds of
people were out.
When the invitation was given, a man came
down in full formal dress, a rich man
evidently, with a swallowtail coat.
And he sat on one side of the
aisle.
Across on the other side of the aisle
there was a woman of the street.
You could tell it by looking at her.
They faced at the index of the light
and you could tell she was a woman
of the street.
Everybody knew who she was.
She was another Rahab.
Mr. Moody approached the rich man first and
he said, Why are you here?
And he said, I need to be saved.
He said, Are you a sinner?
He said, I'm a sinner.
He looked across the aisle and he directed
the man's attention over there.
Are you willing to take your place alongside
that woman?
The man thought him an illiterate.
He got up and walked over and sat
down beside the woman.
D.L. Moody had the pleasure of pointing
the quote when they believed one was just
as clean as the other.
Precious blood of Christ then.
I don't know their scruples, but this was
one time they were glad to be in
Rahab's house.
Now the city fell.
It took seven days for them to do
it, so I can't do it in two
minutes.
But the city fell, all except Rahab's house.
They brought her out, her father and her
mother and her brothers and sisters and they
were absorbed in the nation of Israel all
by faith.
Now they had to have faith the same
as Rahab did.
That there was only one safe place.
Now they were specifically told don't go out
of that house.
Now the assurance comes that these men guaranteed
the safety of these people.
Well now, my safety is not guaranteed by
spies.
My safety is guaranteed by the Lord.
He says, My sheep are My boys and
I know them and I give unto them
eternal life.
Jesus shall be praised.
Jesus shall end the man.
Put them out of it.
My hand is not theirs.
I and My Father are one.
My hand and My Father's hand are one.
That's not a literal quote.
I've got a better guarantee than the spies.
My guarantee is from the Lord Himself.
Nobody is going to take it out of
their hands.
That incident was an instruction that was given
to the children of Israel in 12th chapter
of Exodus 2.
They said, Don't go out of your house.
Stay in that house.
And they told the same thing to Rahab.
Don't go out of that house.
Now that doesn't mean that we can go
in and out of Christ at random.
It doesn't mean that at all.
It means that that's the only place of
safety underneath the precious blood.
These, the blood on the doorpost and the
lintel and the scarlet cord, speaks of the
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only safe place.
Are you under the blood?
I'm under the blood.
That blood was shed for me.
It shall be praised.
Father, we do thank Thee for these Old
Testament stories that illustrate to us and we
pray that we might have faith that will
put us in the kingdom, that will glorify
God, will believe Him when He tells us
that God loved us and that Christ died
for us.
We thank Thee for such a wonderful salvation
and give thanks in His name.
Amen.