Faith beyond the Red Sea
Notes
Transcript
Joshua, Rahab and More
Joshua, Rahab and More
Hebrews 11:30-40 “By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, desti…”
As we have been going through this letter to the Hebrews, the writer has been taking us on a journey that started from one man who had the opportunity to trust God and enjoy all the blessings that God had prepared for him or to disobey God and be forever subject to God’s judgment.
Adam, we know, chose to sin against God and that sin continued through Cain. As you read through Cain’s story in Genesis chapter 4 you find that Cain’s line leads nowhere but to death and destruction.
But God will never leave himself without a witness and from Adam’s Son, Seth, whom God gave to Adam in place of Abel, we see a line that leads to life and restoration.
Gen4:26 “Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.”
From his line we see the names of the men of faith, Enoch, Noah, Abraham. In their stories we catch a glimpse that God is beginning to fulfil the promise that he made in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.””
The stories of the people in that family strike many chords with us. An ordinary family with thse same fears and hopes and aspirations, and showing many of the same faults and jealousies and mistakes.
Why did God choose them? Because they had faith.
Gen15:6 “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
As we followed their lives we discovered more and more about God’s purpose of redemption, that all nations on earth would be blessed. God’s plan of redemption was to come through the promise given to the people that he chose to be his representatives on earth. We discovered that God is a saving, redeeming God, but he is also a Holy God, who punishes sin. God made this absolutely clear at the time when Moses led them out of Egypt, and then they were given the Law, and the Tabernacle was established.
Just picture the Israelites: two million people, looking for a better future outside Egypt, camped for about a year at Mount Sinai. We have left Egypt heading for a new life and a new future. We are a new nation, a chosen people, separated out from the rest of the world, gathered round the tabernacle of the Lord. We celebrated the first Passover. We are now a people with a set of laws, but more than that, we are a people who have God at the centre of our lives. No tribe is excluded and we are watched over by God.
Numbers5:4 They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses.”
Numbers 6 :22-27 “The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “ ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.””
You might have expected the writer to the Hebrews to say something about the faith of the Israelites in this chapter 11. He does say something about it, but it is in chapter 3 and it is a warning against unbelief
Hebrews3:7-11 “So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ””
Chapter 11 of Hebrews is not about warnings of punishment or retribution or condemnation. Nowhere in the chapter is there any mention of the sins of those men and women of faith. We find instead that they were commended for their faith (v2); Abel was commended as righteous, (v4); Enoch’s faith enabled him to please God, (v5); Noah became an heir of righteousness, (v7); Abraham’s faith led him to receive God’s promise that was to continue through generations, (V9 & 10)
And faith looks forward to the reward that God has in store for all who earnestly seek him. (v6) Abraham was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (v10) Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph were looking forward in faith to a better country (v16). Moses, too, was looking forward to his reward (v26)
This chapter was written, not to condemn or to discourage the readers. rather it was written to encourage and to build up and to give heart to all those Jewish Christians, whose circumstances at that time were difficult and often dangerous.
No mention, then, of those forty wilderness years when all that rebellious generation, apart from Joshua and Caleb, would perish and would not cross the Jordan River to enter the Land that God had promised them.
And so we come to that part of the chapter, where the writer, lists, but not in detail, examples of faith in action that his readers would be familiar with. He starts with an example of faith, where the whole nation is involved under the leadership of Joshua. This was Jericho and you may wonder why God chose this place to test the faith of the Israelites. Jericho was a fortified city of the Canaanites. Surely there were easier routes into the promised land. In their wanderings the Israelites had camped for a time in the plains of Moab and just across the river stood Jericho with its imposing walls.
Numbers22:1 “Then the Israelites traveled to the plains of Moab and camped along the Jordan across from Jericho.”
Numbers 26:3 “So on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them and said,”
The very sight of the city was enough to cause the Israelites to tremble. But this new generation, now under the leadership of Joshua, was to go forward in faith, to cross the Jordan River and to take possession of the land.
Just before his death Moses said to them:
Deuteronomy31:3 “The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.””
Deuteronomy 31:7-8 “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.””
When the Jewish Christians of the early church needed encouragement of their faith, this mention of the fall of Jericho would remind them of that call to be strong and courageous. We see that call time after time in Joshua chapter 1.
Joshua 1:6 “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.”
Joshua 1:7 ““Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.””
Joshua 1:18 “Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey it, whatever you may command them, will be put to death. Only be strong and courageous!””
God was about to reward the people’s faith. They had said to Joshua
Joshua 1:16-17 “Then they answered Joshua, “Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.”
Rahab is in the writer’s list of heroes of faith. A Canaanite woman, not an Israelite. The writer also says that she was a prostitute. What was there about her faith that caused her to be listed here.? When the spies came to her house she said to them:
Joshua 2:9-11 “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. 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. 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.”
The difference was that she came to believe in God even before the spies came.”he is God in Heaven above and on earth beneath (Josh 2:11). It was this faith that made her assist the spies, even if it meant lying on their behalf. Her reward was not just the saving of her life, but her adoption into the Israelite family.
Joshua 6:25 “But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.”
Matthew 1:5 “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,”
In verses 32 to 38 the writer brings to mind many more heroes of faith, and he names only a few of them and their stories are perhaps for another time.
If you look at the list you can see that up to the first part of verse 35 a we have sight of the achievements of faith, even though those who exercised that faith were fearful, as in the case of Gideon; or weak, like Barak, who needed the prompting and support of Deborah before he would obey; or foolish,like Jephthah, who made the vow to sacrifice the first person to greet him if God gave him victory over the Ammonites; or headstrong like Samson, who had not taken seriously his vow of being dedicated to God until the end.
We can make a good guess at the hero or heroes of faith who conquered Kingdoms, administered Justice, who shut the mouths of lions, who quenched the fury of the flames, who escaped the edge of the sword and the women who received back their dead children.
We have to keep in mind the Jewish Christians who would be reading this letter. Like those heroes of faith, they were facing challenges, persecution, the loss of their property, their freedom and possibly their lives if they stood up and professed a belief in Jesus. The writer was making it clear that what the ancients were commended for was their faith. Their weaknesses and their failings get no mention It was their faith gave them power to achieve.
But there is a second list of heroes, whose faith gave them the power to withstand or to undergo hardship, torture, persecution and even death. Their names are not given, and some we can guess at.
This is an aspect of faith that we don’t often want to think about. Where is faith when everything is going wrong?; when prayers for rescue or deliverance are not answered in the way that you hope for? It is not a comfortable thought to realise that many of our fellow believers found themselves, or even today find themselves, on a path of faith that led to torture, to imprisonment, to mockery, to flogging, to hardship, to destitution and homelessness.
It is significant that the writer completes this chapter on faith with those countless men and women who were faithful to the end. We may not know their names, but they are surely written in the Lamb’s book of life. They are those whom Jesus refers to in Matt 25:34 ““Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”
The writer to the Hebrews says that “the world was not worthy of them.”
I am reminded of those three young men who refused to worship the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Refusal to do so would result in them being thrown into a fiery furnace.
Here’s what they said: Daniel 3:16-18 “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.””
Their faith had this alternative: The God we serve is able to deliver us, but even if he doesn’t....
That was the faith of all those who underwent suffering for the sake of their Lord
Look at what the writer says of them in verse 39
Hebrews 11:39 “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised,”
From verse 30 to the first part of verse 35 we see a victorious faith, a conquering faith, victory in what they achieved through faith. From the second part of verse 35 to verse 38 we also see a victorious faith - a faith that enabled them to endure and to end their lives still trusting in their God.
And then we see that triumphant ending of the chapter in verse 40:
Heb 11:40 “since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
The faith that we have is linked with their faith. Whatever we have achieved through faith, or whatever suffering we have had to go through, or will have to go through. God has planned something better for us so that together with us all those saints that he has written about in this wonderful chapter, we will all be made perfect.