The Faith of Rahab
Notes
Transcript
There is hope for each one of us. WE are to be carriers of hope.
We can be ones who bring hope even when the situation seems hopeless. Give the story of my friend who lives at Holston Oaks and God is doing something supernatural in her. She has lived a life of trauma - finding her mother after she passed from this life, not having a father who loves her, then ending up in a relationship that is not good for her. She has two daughters who are taken from her because of some decisions that she has made. She was at a point of attempted suicide when God stepped into her world bringing her hope through me and through others.
She has hope - is her life perfect no - is she asking God and working toward getting her life turned around. She knows that it is a process. We are all in a process, but it truly doesn’t matter where we have come from and what our role is right now, what matters is that we respond to him.
Today, Lets look at Joshua 2. Could it be that they went there because maybe they wouldn’t be noticed as much, but lets take a look at Joshua 2. The spies were being sent out by Joshua. They were being sent to occupy the land. Just as Joshua had been sent out to spy out the land with Caleb and the others. So, also were they.
I want to look at a woman in the Bible. Her name is Rahab. In our culture we would tend to turn our back on her, but for some reason the spies went to Rahab’s house. They went their to stay and who knows what aspired during that time that they were there and what hope that she may have seen in them.
So when the king at the time heard that she had these spies at her house, he sent word to her to send out those spies, strangers because they were there to spy out the land. This is when the story gets interesting.
Joshua 2 (NKJV)
1 Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there. 2 And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country.” 4 Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5 And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went I do not know; pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.” 6 (But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof.) 7 Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the fords. And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate. 8 Now before they 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, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. 10 For 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 the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. 12 Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father’s house, and give me a true token, 13 and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.” 14 So the men answered her, “Our lives for yours, if none of you tell this business of ours. And it shall be, when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with you.” 15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall; she dwelt on the wall. 16 And she said to them, “Get to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you. Hide there three days, until the pursuers have returned. Afterward you may go your way.” 17 So the men said to her: “We will be blameless of this oath of yours which you have made us swear, 18 unless, when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household to your own home. 19 So it shall be that whoever goes outside the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless. And whoever is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. 20 And if you tell this business of ours, then we will be free from your oath which you made us swear.” 21 Then she said, “According to your words, so be it.” And she sent them away, and they departed. And she bound the scarlet cord in the window. 22 They departed and went to the mountain, and stayed there three days until the pursuers returned. The pursuers sought them all along the way, but did not find them. 23 So the two men returned, descended from the mountain, and crossed over; and they came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all that had befallen them. 24 And they said to Joshua, “Truly the Lord has delivered all the land into our hands, for indeed all the inhabitants of the country are fainthearted because of us.”
Joshua 6:16–17 (NIV)
16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
Joshua 6:22–23 (NIV)
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.” 23 So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
Joshua 6:25 (NIV)
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.
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
Hebrews 11:31 (NKJV)
31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
31 Por la fe Rahab la ramera no pereció juntamente con los desobedientes, habiendo recibido a los espías en paz.
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?
Joshua 2 - we read a story of Rahab - the one who gave space for the two spies - who hid them on her roof below the flax seed.
We also see that as we look at her life that she is honored as one of those who believed in the God of Israel and how her life and her families life was changed in an instant.
Why Rahab - why not her?
As I have been studying Joshua 2 and Joshua 6, I see that she did have something that we all need. Faith to believe and to take action. How did she take action, by hiding the spies. How did she know that they needed to be hid and what they wanted.
Joshua 2
The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Rahab (Person))
Rahab’s name comes from a root meaning “to be wide or broad.” Also meaning spacious.