Full Transcript
It’s good to see you this morning! Open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 2. We’re going verse-by-verse through the twenty-four chapters of the book of Joshua—we finally made it to chapter 2! You say, “This is going to be a long series, if we’re going at this rate!” Well, we’re going to be done by the time the snow melts. . .maybe. . .in 2017. No, we’re going to go a little faster!
Joshua is a book that’s all about moving onward. What we’re learning is that the direction of the Christian life is always onward! It’s appropriate today that we’re talking about remembering things: we’re remembering our seventh birthday; we’re remembering the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross over two-thousand years ago. We’re going to continue that theme as we remember things in the past.
How many of you have a Facebook account? Be honest, Facebook-ers out there. Have you noticed this new feature that Facebook has, where they’re now posting for you memories of your past? Some of those are like less-than-flattering moments in your life? It’s like, “That is the part of my life I’d like to forget,” and yet it’s almost like they’re shaming you by bringing it back up. Am I the only one that’s experienced that? Someone recently posted a picture of me when I was fourteen years old—not my finest moment or my best look, at that point. It was a little shameful for me to see that.
We all have things in our past that we’re ashamed of. We’d like to forget them, but the reality is this: some of the things in our past that are shameful are actually keeping us from moving onward. That is the lesson we’re going to learn today. There is a very vivid picture in Joshua chapter 2 of someone who needed to move onward from the shame in her past.
Let me give you the big idea of the message today. Do you like it when I put it all in one sentence? Here it is:
Big Idea: I will only move onward from the shame of my past when I am tied to the rope of God’s rescue.
We’re going to be introduced to this young lady this morning, and she’s going to teach us three lessons about how to move onward. Here’s the first thing she’s going to teach us. She’s going to teach us how to move:
- Onward from the shame in our past. (v. 1-8)
Let’s dive into the Scripture, beginning in Joshua chapter 2, verse 1: “And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies. . .” You have to say it like that, okay? Inside the heart of every man in this room is a secret desire to be a spy. If you asked the men, when they were seven years old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Football player, race car driver, spy was somewhere in the top five, okay?
I mean, to be involved in international espionage and to be all stealthy and sleuthy—that’s a great occupation, don’t you think? Inside the heart of me, there’s a little spy, and it comes bubbling out every now and then, as I hide in dark corners and jump out and scare my children. Am I the only one that does this? No, inside the heart of every man in this room, there is a little spy. The passage says these two men secretly were sent from Shittim as spies. Joshua said to them: “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”
Now, as I began to think about this, I wondered, “Why did he send the spies in there? God had already promised that they would win every victory.” So, he wasn’t sending spies in to evaluate how big their enemy was; that had already been done—Joshua was a spy earlier in his life, with his friend named Caleb. They’d already done this.
So, why was he sending these two spies in there? I don’t really know, but as I was thinking about it, I’m thinking they wanted to make sure that there was enough distance between Jericho and themselves when the walls fell down. “If the walls are a hundred feet tall, we’re going to have to stand back about a hundred feet, or we’re going to get crushed in the process!” There was an absolute certainty of victory, they just wanted to make sure they didn’t get crushed in the process. That’s what I’m thinking.
So, they’re going in there; they’re looking at the land—and they encounter someone. The passage says at the end of verse 1, “They went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, ‘Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.’” So, apparently they weren’t very good spies, because I mean they got caught as soon as they got in. People were chasing them down; they knew they were there. Where do you go when you’re looking for a place to hide? You go to a person who’s good at hiding men!
So, here, these two spies walk up to the house of this prostitute in Jericho and knock on the door. As Rahab opens the door, she sees these two men. This was not an uncommon sight for her, because men were always knocking on her door. But these two men were arriving for a completely different purpose than the men that normally arrived at her location.
Joshua 2:3 says, “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.’ But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said,” the next word is great, “True…” Just underline that word, because the next sentence is true, but nothing else she ever says is true.
“…The men came to me…” True or false? True. “…But I did not know where they were from.” True or false? True. “And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out…” True or false? False. “…I do not know where the men went.” True or false? False. “Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” True or false? False! She is a great liar! Do you know why she’s a great liar? She’d had a lot of practice! The more shame there is in your past, the better liar you become.
She was a prostitute; she was a professional hider of men who wanted to remain anonymous. This was not the first time she’d hidden men; and this was not the first time she had lied. She was a good liar because there was a mountain of shame in her past.
Verse 6 tells us how she did it: “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. So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords…” That’s not a car dealership; a ford is a shallow place in the river where you can cross over by foot. The men of Jericho are out there looking for the spies at the Jordan River—they’re nowhere near there! They’re on top of the roof of the prostitute’s house. “And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.”
Interesting, isn’t it? The contrast between the prostitute and the spies. How does a woman become a prostitute? If you had asked Rahab as a seven-year-old girl, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, being a prostitute was probably the farthest thing from her mind. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “I want to fall in love!” Rahab had never fallen in love; she had been used, but she had never been loved. She had had sex, but she’d never had love. So, how does a seven-year-old little girl with pigtails and ribbons in her hair—how does she become a prostitute? You have to understand something about the culture in Canaan.
Canaan was a land that was godless. Rahab didn’t have a church to go to, she didn’t have a Bible; she’d never had a preacher tell her about the glory and the redemption of God. She had become a product of the sexual appetites of godless men. As a matter of fact, she probably had been enslaved in human trafficking. She was someone who some man was using for money and sex – the two gods that are very prevalent in our day, even here in America. That’s why we still have prostitution.
As a matter of fact, estimates are there are at least 12.3 million people enslaved in human trafficking for sexual purposes around the world—and that’s just the number from which we have some indication of evidence. Rahab was a commodity.
She was someone who had been greatly sinned against. The average age of a prostitute on her first trick, that we know about, is age thirteen. It’s quite likely she was not much older than that. We’re going to find out later that her parents were still alive, so she was probably a young lady. So she was scarred by the sins that had been committed against her.
When you have been sinned against, repeatedly, over and over and over, do you know what happens? It begins to define your identity. God has an identity for all of us: We’re made in the image of God. His fingerprints are stamped all over us; He loves us; He has a purpose and plan for our lives. But when you are sinned against so often, it begins to redefine who you think you were created to be. Maybe she began to think, “You know what? Because I’ve been treated like trash, I must be trash. Because I’ve been only being used for sex, I must only be useful for sex.” And it began to shape her identity, and the mountain of shame in her heart from her past had begun to overwhelm her.
Wherever shame exists, sin remains. In our world, there are a couple of ways you can get rid of shame. We all have it. If you go to the world—apart from God, apart from the Bible, apart from Jesus Christ—they’ll tell you that shame is the result of a false understanding of sin. If you want to remove the shame, all you have to is to redefine sin. You have to get rid of the construct of morality and sin, and right and wrong, in order to be set free from shame. That’s the world’s way of dealing with shame.
Can I tell you the Bible’s way of dealing with shame? God doesn’t want you to redefine sin, He wants you to repent of sin! You have to own it, you have to take personal responsibility; you stop blaming and excusing and justifying your sin because of “the way those people treated you,” because you have been sinned against.
Here’s what happens: the more often you’ve been sinned against, the more prone you are to sin. The shameful things that have been done to you begin to become acceptable to you and you begin to embrace those things for yourself.
So, Rahab—even though she was a victim, she was not an innocent victim. Sins committed against you make you more prone for sins to be committed by you. And you are so much less willing to identify sins committed by you than you are willing to identify sins committed against you. No matter where you are today, no matter how horribly you’ve been treated, no matter how much you’ve been sinned against – maybe that’s even going on right now in some dark corner of your life and nobody else knows about it – please understand. Your past sins and the sins that have been committed against you—they may explain your sin, but they do not excuse your sin.
You’ve got to take personal responsibility. If you want to move onward, you have to identify sin in order to remove the shame. Rahab needed to be rescued. All in favor of a new future for Rahab? All in favor of moving onward past prostitution? Do you have a little sympathy in your heart for Rahab? You know, so often we’re so self-righteous. We read the story of Rahab and you just think, “Oh, phht, how could she be so evil?” And yet, if we can understand how she’s been sinned against, it makes us a lot more sympathetic to how she is committing sin.
It reminded me, as I studied this this week, of my favorite Valentine’s Day movie. You all know the movie I’m talking about, right? Forrest Gump. Remember Forrest Gump’s girlfriend? Jenny. Do you remember her? She’s a wild child. She’s sinning left and right, and you’re thinking, “What happened to her that made her so out-of-control?” until finally—about halfway through the movie—we learn the backstory on “Jen-nay.”
They’re taking a walk and they came up to a house, and we realize that was the house that was the place where Jenny had been raised and she had been, so often, sinned against. That was the place of her shame. We’re never told what all happened there, but it was certainly a place that she hated. So much so that, in this scene, she begins to throw rocks at the house, and she bursts into tears and falls to the ground. Forrest is wondering, “What in the world is going on?” Jenny was certainly carrying a mountain of shame, and if she was going to move onward, she was going to need to deal with the shame.
We said earlier that in the heart of every man there’s a little spy that wants to bubble out. Do you know what the reality is? Why do you think God preserved this story, for us this morning? It isn’t just a documentary on Rahab; the reality is this—in the heart of every person here, there’s not only a spy, there’s a prostitute; filled with shame and regret, sins have been committed against you and sins that have been committed by you. You’ll never be set free from the shame as long as you are hiding and lying and covering, and content to remain in your sin. God wants you to move onward!
How do you move onward? Here’s the second thing: You move:
- Onward by faith in my present. (v. 9-24)
You move onward by faith, right here, right now! Look at Joshua 2:8: “Before the men lay down…” Remember, they’re up on the roof. “…she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land…”
Now, look at your Bible; do you see where it refers to “the LORD?” Anything special about the word, “Lord?” See the four letters? L-O-R-D—see those? Do you notice they’re in capital letters? That is your English Bible translator’s way of letting you know that is the proper Name of God, that God self-disclosed to Moses back in Exodus chapter 2. It’s the name YHWH (Yahweh); it’s His proper Name. When Moses asked, “Who shall I say is sending me?” God gave His proper name. “Tell them the I AM sent you.” It’s translated that way so we know that that name is His proper name in our English translations—it’s capitalized there.
Here’s what’s significant about that: How did a pagan Canaanite prostitute know the Name of God? She didn’t just say, “The god,” or “the man upstairs.” She used His Name. Somehow, she had been given knowledge of God’s Name. How do you think she got it? I’ll give you a secret here in just a minute. I think I know how.
Joshua 2:9, “She said to the men, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land…” Here’s what else she knew: “and that the fear of you has fallen upon us…” There are only three ways to respond to the knowledge of God. The first one is fear—to run from Him. The second one is to fight—against Him – and some of those men were getting ready to do battle with God; they were strapping on armor and they were going to fight against the will of God—they were going to lose every time. A little side-note, here—you’re never going to win that fight. You might as well just surrender. And that’s the third option here: not just fear, not just fight, but to give Him your faith and believe who He is.
Rahab was like, “You know what, if can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! I think I’d like to be part of that team!” And so, that’s exactly what happens: “The fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt…”
Somehow, the conversation among the Canaanites was what God had done in rescuing Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Do you think that got Rahab’s attention? “There is a God who rescues people who are in slavery! I am in slavery! I am interested in getting to know this God, because I would like to move onward out of my slavery to a better place.”
By the way, who do you think told her? I think it was her clients. I think those men who had passed through had been talking among themselves that “there is an army gathered on the other side, and they have a God that is bigger than our gods (with little “g’s”) and he is on the move, and he is someone who has delivered them out of Egypt.”
Maybe she even knew more detail than we’re given here. Maybe she had heard how God had delivered them out of Egypt. That there were these ten plagues that this God sent to Pharaoh, the king there in Egypt, to get his attention so that he would let these people go. Maybe she had heard about this last plague, about how this God was going to kill all the firstborn there in Egypt if they didn’t let them go, and in order to protect these slaves, He told them, “I want you to take an innocent lamb and I want you to spill its blood, and I want you to take that blood and I want you to put it on the doorposts of your homes – because the color of this rescue is going to red.” And maybe she’d heard about the blood and the lamb, and the rescue and the Passover. And here these people were, gathered on the banks of the Jordan River.
The narrative goes on, in the middle of verse 10. She’d also heard how the Lord had defeated the Amorites, “The two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og” great names for kings “whom you devoted to destruction…” God was undefeated, and those guys lost, so they didn’t really have a whole lot of hope.
“And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted…” Now, you can’t go past that! Some of you have frozen hearts this morning! And you are hearing the story of rescue and redemption and faith, and as soon as you hear it, if your heart is not melting, it’s the wrong response! You should be melting as the story, that has been told for thousands of years, comes to your ears. And the story that melted Rahab’s heart eventually ignited her heart with a flame and a passion to worship and to follow and to obey this God!
The passage says here, at the end of verse 11: “Our hearts melted and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God…” What was she saying? “The Lord your God, He is now my God! It’s not just going to be something that God does for you. I want Him to do that for me.” “He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” That was her profession of faith! Rahab was putting her hope and her trust for a rescue in the God who is the only God.
In verse 12, Rahab continues speaking to the spies, “Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with me and my father’s house, and…” notice, she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t just ask for a promise; she asks for a sign. “…Give me a sure sign.”
Why didn’t she just stop and say, “Swear to me that you’ll get me out of here, that you’ll come back and get me. Swear it to me. Promise!” She said, “I want a sign!” Why do you think she asked for a sign? How many promises do you think she had heard from men? How many clients had told her, “Baby, I love you and I’m comin’ back for you! I’m gonna get you out of this mess!”
Do you think she had much trust in men? No! Because she’d been lied to and sinned against so much by men, she had very little trust of men – not knowing how much integrity these men had, not knowing these were men of God – she said, “I don’t want a promise—I want a sign!” They’re going to give you a sign, and we’re going to find out what that is here, in just a minute.
Let’s continue reading at verse 13: “’…That you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them…” my nieces and my nephews and my cousins—you know how the family tree works, “…and deliver our lives from death. She knew that the invasion was coming; she knew that God was going to wipe out this country, but she wanted out alive! So she asked them for a promise, she asked them for a sign.
The men respond in Joshua 2:14, “And the men said to her, ‘Our life for yours even to death!’” She’d never heard that before. She’d never had men that were willing to lay down their lives to rescue a woman. Do you know what that phrase is? “Our life for yours, even unto death.” That’s the echo of the gospel in the sixth book of the Bible.
How many of you are husbands? Raise your hands. Husbands, today on Valentine’s Day, can I give you one verse? Ephesians chapter 5:25, says this: “Husbands, love your wives. . .” Most of us check out at that point, like, “I’m just not into my feelings; I’m just not warm and fuzzy; I just really have trouble with all this warm and fuzzy stuff.” That verse is not telling you to feel something; that verse is telling you to do something. “Husbands, love your wives!” How do I do that? “As Christ loved the church…” How did He do that? “…and gave himself up for her.” He was saying, “I would rather die than to see you perish! Your life in front of mine!” And that’s what these spies were saying, “We will give our lives to express to you how much we love you for what you’ve done for us.”
Rahab had never heard that before! She’d had sex, but she’d never had love; she’d been used, but she’d never been loved. And for the first time, she sees what real love looks like from real men, who are spies.
Then they say back to her: “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. Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall.”
Now, you’ve got to imagine this: big wall, small house—she lived in a wall, okay? And the wall, apparently, was a couple of stories up, because she was going to let them out a window, down a rope, to get out alive. Now why did these spies need to go out the window, down the rope? It’s very simple. They would have been caught, they would have been killed, if they would have tried to go down the stairwell—the way that they had come in. They would have gotten stopped at the gate; they never would have made it out alive, if they hadn’t gone out the window and down the rope. She, fortunately, had a rope for them!
This rope became a rope of rescue for these spies. They were not getting out without the rope! Scripture continues in verse 16: “And she said to them, ‘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.’ The men said to her, ‘We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. Behold, when we come into the land…”
Do you remember that sign she was asking for? They said, “We’ll give you a sign; here’s the sign.” “You shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood…” Why are they bringing up blood? It’s a phrase of knowing who’s responsible. “…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.” It’s a way of talking about who’s responsible, who’s going to be held accountable for our actions. “His blood will be on his own head, or his blood will be on our head.”
“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.”
We find out another detail about this rope. What color was this rope? Play along with me here. What color was the rope? Scarlet! Or, if you went to public school, “red” is fine—an acceptable answer if you can’t spell “scarlet.”
Now, what is the significance of red? Remember, she has asked them for a sign. “I don’t trust you; I want to see something from you.” They said, “Okay, you’re going to put the rope—the scarlet rope—out your window.” Why was this color so important to the story?
I believe this sign represented three things that the spies wanted her to see: First of all, that color was the sign of her sin. How do we know that scarlet is the color of sin—that it signifies sin in some way? Because of this verse, Isaiah 1:18, “…though your sins are like scarlet…” What color? Scarlet!
If I were writing the Bible…that’s not an announcement, by the way…I would have put “black.” How many of you would have gone with black there? “Though your sins be like. . .uh. . .black, like a stain, like really dark mud and dirt, right?” He doesn’t use the color black—he uses red, “they shall be as white as snow.” Nobody in Florida or Arizona understands this verse; we understand this verse! We know what snow looks like. I don’t need to put up a picture of snow, right? But, what’s the significance of red?
How many of you as parents have given your children juice or Kool-Aid in a cup? And yet, because your children—like my children—have no dexterity, it doesn’t stay in the cup! It ends up on their clothes or on the carpet. Is it just my children, or had anybody else experienced this? How easy is that to get out? Is that hard to get out? It’s almost impossible to get out a red, scarlet juice stain on carpet or on a white shirt. That’s what He’s trying to communicate to us.
It’s almost impossible to get the shame of sin out of our lives! But God says, “though they are red like crimson…” three different shades of red – scarlet, red, crimson – do you need to understand what we’re talking about here?” “…They shall become like wool.” White wool.
What animal produces wool? A lamb! What was the sign? These spies were trying to get her to see that the sign she was asking for was a sign of sacrifice. Do you remember what the parents of these spies had gone through forty years earlier? They were the slaves in Egypt, and the only way they got out of Egypt alive was by red – red blood from a spotless lamb, being smeared all over the doorposts as a way of escaping the judgment that was coming from the death angel. God passed over them because the death angel saw the color red!
And these spies said, “Yeah, that’s a red rope. That’s perfect, because red is the color of rescue! Here’s what you need to do, Rahab—hang that red rope outside the window.” Interestingly, “we went through the doorposts, and then we went out this window, and so now, you hanging the color red outside the window is going to be our way of knowing, we’re going to pass over you and you’re going to be rescued—you’re going to be saved!” Because they understood that rescue is always accomplished through the color of blood!
We don’t know how the rope got red—maybe it was dyed, maybe it was dipped in blood, and that’s what made it red. These spies understood the significance of blood. Do you understand the significance of blood to redemption? Those of you who are carrying guilt and shame for sin—even though you made a commitment to Christ years ago—maybe you continue to be plagued by things that happened last week or last month, or fifty years ago for that matter! Do you know what you need to be reminded of? You need to be reminded about what the Bible says about the power of the color of blood.
Notice this in 1 Corinthians 5:7; the writer points back to Egypt and says, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Christ, once and for all, paid for all the sin of all the people who had ever repented and believed. And if you are in Christ, He is your Passover Lamb. He has provided your rescue through His blood, because He was sacrificed.
Hebrews 9:14, “The blood of Christ…will purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. . .” 1 John 1:7, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Revelation 1:5, “Jesus Christ. . .who loves us and has freed us…” because we once were slaves, “from our sins by his blood.”
The color of rescue is the color of blood! And these spies knew, “There is no way we’re getting out of this alive without the color of blood.” What’s so significant about this color of blood? I want you to see it here. Notice in Joshua 2:21, Rahab did something so significant: “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.”
I need a little help up here. Sam and Olivia, I need you, and Colin—I’ll take you. C’mon up here. I need some victims. Volunteers! You are in the sermon. I’ve got some things up here for you. I’ve got two signs up here. Olivia, come right over here. You get the bad draw today; you will represent sin and shame; just stand right there if you would. Sam, you get to represent the blood and the cross; you’re useless at this point—just hold on.
This is what I want you to understand: In this story, we find the story of us. Let me just say as a precursor, I’m not sure where the explanation stops and the illustration begins, but it is not insignificant that this rope is the color of blood. When you are born into this world, you are tied to sin and shame. You have no choice about it—you’re just tied; you’re a slave. You’re as much a slave to sin as Rahab was to her occupation. You’re just tied up; you’re bound to sin and shame. Some of you today are still bound to sin and shame, and you need a rescue! What God is saying to you through this story is, you need to tie your rope to something else!
These spies that were there, they had somehow gotten caught up in the place of Rahab’s sin and shame. Remember, they’re having this conversation in her house, on the roof. There had probably been some sinful things that had gone on, on that roof, and there they were. They weren’t in sin, but they were in the place of her sin and her shame. And in some sense, they were tied to it, and as a matter of fact, if they didn’t get out of there they were going to die along with her!
Please hear me. The only way that the spies were going to get out of this alive, if they could trust the rope and rappel out of the place of sin and shame to the place of rescue. In their minds, that had something to do with the color of blood. Do you understand that our identity will be determined by which end of the rope we’re tied to? If you are still tied to the sin and the shame of your past, you don’t have victory, you don’t have freedom. You’re enslaved, you’re thinking wrong thoughts. You’ve been so sinned against, and you’ve committed so much sin, you think that’s your identity! What God is trying to tell you today is He wants to change your identity!
The rope of redemption unties you from the shame of your past and ties you to the blood and the cross of Christ. And the blood and the cross of Christ pull you out of your past identity and give you a new identity in Christ. Come here, Colin. Who? Evan. Can I call you Colin? This is Evan. So, Evan represents each of you.
Let me just, as I’m looking at you, he is an upgrade from most of you, okay. This is Evan and he represents you. Up until you become a Christian, you, like Evan (or Colin, or whatever his name is) are tied, you’re bound. But like Rahab (she made a choice)—even though we said she did this by faith, she believed the spies, she believed what she heard about God—it took something more than just intellectually believing that she was going to be saved. . .what did she have to do in verse 21? She had to tie the rope in the window! If she had just sat there and believed that she would be saved, even though she’d gotten all the knowledge about God, would she have been saved or would she have been destroyed? She would have been destroyed!
Rahab had to intentionally come to the place where she tied herself to a new identity. She was going to get out of this alive the same way that the spies got out of it alive. She had to trust the power of red, the power of that rope. The spies trusted the strength of that rope to get out of the window; Rahab was trusting the strength of that rope to be the signal to the approaching destruction, to pass over her and get her out of this! You guys can take all that off, and leave that right there and head back to your seats.
My question to you is this: Which end of the rope are you tied to? Which end of the rope are you going to allow to determine your identity? Are you living, tied to sin and shame, or are you living consciously—repeatedly, daily—tying yourself to the offer of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ, Who loves us and has freed us from our sins.
Here’s the last thing we’re going to learn from Rahab: We’re going to learn how to go:
- Onward in hope for our future. (Joshua 6:22-25)
Aren’t you curious what happened to her?! Let’s find out, real quickly.
Now, the end of the chapter here—let me just summarize those last three verses. The spies got out alive and they made it back over across the Jordan River, and they went back and told Joshua. . .everything I just told you!
Now I want you to turn two pages to the right. Go over to verse 6 and let’s find out what happened to Rahab when the armies of Israel got into Canaan. Look with me at Joshua 6:22, “To the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, ‘Go into the prostitute’s house and bring out from there the woman and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.’ So the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. And they brought all her relatives and put them outside the camp of Israel. And they burned the city with fire, and everything in it. Only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. But Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved…”
I told you this at the beginning of the series, but the name Joshua—actually in the Hebrew pronounced Yeshua—is exactly the same name we use for Jesus in the Greek New Testament. “Jesus” saved her and gave her a new identity! Because she was tied to the color of blood, the judgment passed over and she made it out alive.
The same is true for you. The only way you – the only way you’re getting out of this alive, without being destroyed by the wrath and the fury of God who hates sin, is tie yourself to the redemption offered through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Do you know what is so amazing about this story? That when Rahab made it out alive, she stood back and watched as the place of her shame and the place of her sin was absolutely annihilated! It went up in smoke! The place of her sin and shame would be a place to which she would never return! “I’m not going back there! I’ve got a new identity, I’ve got a new hope and I’ve got a new future!”
Do you remember at the end of Forrest Gump? Jenny died! It’s a very sad story. And after she died, Forrest goes back to Jenny’s house, and do you remember what he did to it? He destroyed it. He destroyed the place of her shame and her sin because, in his mind, she had a new identity. That wasn’t the girl that he knew. Whatever sins had been committed against her, whatever sins had been committed by her—he had given her a new identity.
And the same is true for you. In Christ, we have a new identity. He wants to destroy the place of your past sin and shame, and give you a hope and a future. You know what? This is not the last time in the Bible we hear about Rahab. We read about Rahab in the New Testament! And in the New Testament she’s assigned a new identity.
There are two doctrines that we are studying right now. One is called the doctrine of justification; we talk about it all the time around here. Justification means that Jesus forgives the sin committed by you and me, and treats you and me as if we’ve never sinned, because God treated Jesus as if He’d committed all your/my sin. That’s the doctrine of the justification of God.
But there’s another doctrine here, and it’s the doctrine of expiation. Jesus cleanses not only the sin committed by you/me; expiation teaches that Jesus cleanses the sin committed against you/me. He gives me a new identity! I’m not tied to the past of my sin and shame, I’m tied to His blood and I’m tied to His future. I’m tied to Jesus.
Rahab was tied to Jesus. If you don’t believe that, let me prove it to you in the New Testament. In Hebrews 11:31, she’s identified by her faith. “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”
We read about her again in James 2:25, where she’s identified by her good works: “Rahab the prostitute [was] justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way…” That’s not teaching that you’re saved by works; what it’s teaching is that the evidence of your faith is works. The evidence that she believed God was that she tied the rope. She did something.
If there’s no evidence that you believe, you need to check out whether or not you really believe! Rahab really believed! Not only is she identified by her faith and by her works. She’s identified by her connection to Jesus. Matthew chapter 1 tells us the family tree and the legacy of Rahab.
Here’s the good news! Rahab the prostitute one day met a guy, and they fell in love, and they got married, and they had a baby—and the baby’s name was Boaz. Boaz grew up and he fell in love with a girl named Ruth, and they married and had a baby named Obed. And Obed grew up and met a girl and fell in love and married and they had a baby, and the baby’s name was Jesse. And Jesse met a girl and fell in love and married and he had a baby named David! And David became the King of all Israel!
And David had a legacy that ended up in a baby that was born in Bethlehem, named Jesus! Do you understand what this is saying? Rahab was the great-great-great-great – I’m not sure how many “greats” – great-grandmother of Jesus! Listen! Because Jesus saved Rahab, Rahab later resulted in the baby named Jesus. I can’t explain that, but what we know is this: Rahab’s legacy was not prostitution; Rahab’s legacy was her new identity as she was tied to Jesus!
In conclusion—it’s not about Rahab. It’s about you, it’s about me. My question is this: What will define your identity? You’ve got three options. Are you going to allow what has happened to you to define your identity. . .what has been done by you to define your identity? All that sin, all that shame, all that regret—is that what’s going to define you? Are you going to be tied to that? Or—here’s a better option: Will you allow your identity to be defined by what has been done for you?
Jesus Christ went to that cross for you. He shed His blood for you; His body was broken for you. What are you going to do in response to that? Are you just going to live your life in sin and shame, or will you tie your life and your identity to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?