Well, today our text is Hebrews 11:31, which is in many ways perhaps the most surprising of all of the the heroes of faith that we've been looking at in Hebrews chapter 11. We read by faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. when she had received the spies with peace. One of the most surprising inclusions in this list, to be sure. But also one of the most instructive, I am convinced.
In fact, I really wondered. If I could do justice to this text in one sermon. As far as I know, that's all we'll have, but at any rate, there's an awful lot to be learned from the life. and deliverance of this woman named Rahab. We are not surprised to read in Hebrews chapter 11.
By faith. Abel and Enoch and Noah, that doesn't really surprise us. Nor to read by faith Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, again, we're not surprised. We're not surprised to read by faith Moses and Joshua. But we are surprised to read By faith The Harlot.
Rahab. Rayhab. who exercised faith in God and was gloriously saved. Hers is the last in the list in which details are included. The writer of Hebrews seems to have Come to the place where time is running out.
And so following Rahab. He starts clumping names together with general things, but not specific details about them. Verse 32 of Hebrews 11, and what more shall I say? for time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets and he says a few things about them. And then he just talks in general terms about people of faith without even giving their names.
as he brings to a conclusion this great chapter on faith. But of those whose specific details are given, Rahab is one of those, the last actually in the list. With Rahab. We have The story of one whose life was Wretched? And Yatu was gloriously delivered.
And so, we will begin with the Old Testament narrative and then move to the New Testament text and finish with some points to ponder. I read a good bit of the Old Testament narrative in Joshua 2 and Joshua 6. We are told that the Israelites have now arrived on the border of Canaan. They have actually Come to the east side of the Jordan River. When they came out of Egypt, God took them down south and around and they ended up over on the east side of Jordan and had to go west to get into Canaan.
And so they have come now to the banks of Jordan. And they need only to cross the river. And they've come to the place where it is usually crossed at the fords. And they need only to cross the river to be in the promised land that they have been looking forward to, but The impenetrable, or thought to be impenetrable, fortress of Jerichos blocks their path. And as soon as they cross the Jordan, they are going to be faced with this mighty fortress.
And so Joshua sends two spies to scope out the land, and particularly to. analyze the situation with the city of Jericho. And in doing that, they come into the city, they look it over, and they lodge in the home. of the Harlot Rahab. You say, well, why did they do that?
Well, I don't know because the Bible doesn't tell us, but probably because that was a place where. Men were constantly coming and going, both citizens of Jericho and strangers from outside of town. And so that would be the least likely place to draw suspicion to their to their proximity to their their presence there.
However, their presence was known. A report was given to the king of Jericho. And he sent word to Rahab, Bring out those two men that have come to your house out of the nation of Israel. They are spies. They've come to spy out the land.
And Rahab, as you know, instead of delivering them up, chooses to hide them on her roof and to lie to the messengers of the king as to wh their whereabouts, to encourage them to Chase them, pursue them. She says they've gone outside the city. They slipped out of the city gates just before they were closed at dusk. And if you hurry now, you can find them. And so they race out of the city to try to find the two spies, and then she goes up on the roof and gives instructions to the spies.
Now, listen, here's what you do. When you have an opportunity, you need to get out of the city. You go the opposite direction. Don't go back toward your people on the east side of Jordan. You go up into the hills, wait there three days.
until they've given up looking for you, and then you can go back. to your people. But in the course of talking to them, she articulates an incredible testimony of her faith. in Yahweh, the God of Israel. She tells them that she knows that Yahweh has given them the land of Canaan.
She reports that the Canaanites are terrified of the. Israelites. She and the people in that In that land of Canaan, she tells them, know about God's dealings in the Red Sea crossing. Forty years before. They know about that.
They are keenly aware And She and others know about the conquest of two of the Emirite kings on the east side of Jordan. Which report you'll find in Numbers chapter 21. These kings came out with their armies against Israel, and God said, Fight them, and defeat them, and destroy them, and occupy their land. And Israel did. She knows about that, in fact.
Apparently, she was an Amorite herself. She knew about the destruction of her people. She articulates very plainly that she believes that Yahweh. Is the one true and living God. And she appeals for Israel to spare her and her family.
And the spies agree to do that. They promise. Our life in exchange for yours. If you will, protect us, conceal us, help us to get away, spare our lives, then we will spare yours. And so Rahab engineers their escape, tells them what to do.
And the spies arrange for Rahab's rescue, and they tell her. When we leave, you Put a scarlet, a red cord outside your window hanging down the wall that will identify your house when we come. Don't you dare fail to do that. If you don't leave that cord there, no promise, no security for you. But Rahab accepts their terms and acts according to what they tell her.
And that scarlet cord hangs down from her window down the outside wall of Jericho for day after day after day. We don't have any record of anyone asking about it, but surely it must have raised some curiosity. Rahab. Why has you let that Red cord hang outside your window. I don't know, but it seems like somebody would have asked her.
Well, when the time came. Jordan had to be crossed. That was a miraculous crossing. The waters of Jordan parted, similar to that of the Red Sea 40 years before. The children of Israel came through on dry ground.
They came over. To the west bank of Jordan, where Jericho was. They marched around the city, as we looked at last Sunday morning, following the instructions which God gave them in the way of conquering the city, which seemed perfectly ridiculous to human logic, but was exactly God's prescribed way. And the walls of Jericho. came a tumbling down.
But Rahab and her family, everyone who was in her house, her father, her mother, her brothers, her sisters, their spouses, their children, anyone in her house, was spared according to the promise. of God. And so Jericho is utterly destroyed, but Rachab. was spared. Her family, we are told, were placed outside the camp of Israel, and as far as we know, that's where they stayed.
But Rechab herself was welcomed into the camp of Israel. She was welcomed into Israel's society. She became a member. of that nation, a member, a citizen of that nation.
So, with that background in mind, we now look more carefully at our text in Hebrews 11:31. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. when she had received The spies with peace. Let's notice Four things in our text. We will notice, first of all, the person of faith.
The exercise of faith. the evidence of faith and the rewards of faith. The person of faith, of course, we've already identified. It is Rahab. The harlot.
one who would be considered The most unlikely candidate to exercise Such genuine and unrelenting faith in Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But she is the one. and the only one in the city of Jericho who exercised such faith. Everything was against her. In the first place, Rahab was a Gentile.
And we know. The Gentiles are outside. They Covenant, the promises, the blessings that God reserved for the nation of Israel. She belonged to that outcast group of people in the world. But worse than a Gentile, she was a Canaanite of all the kinds of Gentiles, some of which were not quite as.
What should I say? Rejected as others, because even some of the Gentiles were spared when. When the Israelites came into Canaan. But She is a Canaanite, and from what I have read, The Canaanites had become one of the most wicked, one of the most perverse, one of the most vile.
societies, civilizations in the whole world at that time. I read so many things about them, but one thing I could never forget: it was their common custom when they were building. a new city or new city walls. To take living newborn children, put them in a clay jar and Include that jar in the brick of the building, of the foundation, as a sacrifice. for the well-being of their project, if you can imagine such a thing.
That's how wicked this society was. You can understand. Why God was Judging them justly, and also was sparing the world great corruption by bringing these people to an end. And so she was a Gentile, she was a Canaanite. And beyond that, she was, as we know here, a prostitute.
who lived not only in sin, but she lived by sin. That was the way she... made her living. A prostitute. My wife asked me, have you got a song about Rahab to sing?
I said, I don't know any songs about Rahab. But she found one actually on the internet. Yeah. She told me about it. I didn't see it, but apparently it was a song about second chances or something like that.
And so, yeah, there is a song about Rahab, but we. We will spare you that today as we move on.
So the person of faith was the the harlot Rahab. She, however, we are told, exercised faith in God. By faith. The harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. when she had received the spies with peace.
She exercised Faith in the Living God.
Now, what is faith? Remember our definition? We've used the same definition all the way through this study. Faith is believing the revelation of God and acting accordingly, and she is a. primary example of that.
She believed the revelation of God, which in this case was not very. Very impressive revelation. She had no direct word from God. She heard no word from a prophet of God. She had no scriptures to look at.
What she had was what we would have to put into the category of general revelation. She knew that the God of the Israelites had parted the waters of the Red Sea. That was general knowledge. Everybody in Canaan knew that. She knew that the Israelites, by the power of their God, had destroyed.
Two powerful kings of the Amorites on the east side of the Jordan. Everybody knew about that. She Had deduced, I guess, in some way that this indicated God was going to give them the land of Canaan. She knew with the others that they were marching to Canaan in order to occupy that land, and she was convinced that God was going to give them success in this. And she believed in this general revelation.
And that was sufficient. That's what she had. She didn't have much. Revelation. But the revelation she had, she believed.
And God blessed her faith. And we know she believed because she acted in accordance with what she said she believed. Because I believe that. I will hide and protect the spies. Because I believe that, I will appeal to the spies for my salvation when my city is conquered.
Now I suppose, and this is very helpful. I suppose we could say that in a very real sense Everybody in Jericho believed. What Rahab believed. She said they were all terrified of Israel, so they must have believed that God caused his people to cross the Red Sea. They must have believed that God had enabled his people to destroy two kingdoms of Amorites.
They must have believed that the Israelites were coming to conquer the land of Canaan. And she says they're all terrified because they have heard what I have heard and they believe it, but you see, they're. Response didn't indicate the kind of faith that God requires. Believing is Well, there's two kinds of believing. James, in his epistle, tells us.
You have faith?
So do the demons. They know there's one true God. They know more about God than you do. They believe and tremble, just like the Canaanites did. But it does them no good.
It brings them no salvation. They have not surrendered to the authority of this God. They are. Continuing to war against him. They are rebels against God, as were all the rest of the Canaanites.
But her faith caused her to surrender herself to this God and cast herself completely upon his character, upon his. Implied promises, she believed all that, cast herself upon his mercy, and that was believing faith, and her life was spared. That faith was sufficient for her. deliverance, indeed for her salvation. And the evidence of her faith, of course, is given to us in our text.
By faith the harlot Rahab. did not perish with those who did not believe, So, in one sense, they did not, but in another sense, they did. It's the difference between what we sometimes call head faith and heart faith. They knew the same facts, but they didn't surrender their hearts. the God that was revealed by these facts.
Who did not believe, and then this, when she had received the spies with peace. Peace as opposed to war. Everybody else in Jericho related themselves to the Israelites, any of them, all of them. As enemies, as opponents, as people to be fought, not people to receive, to welcome, to embrace. But she Welcome them.
She embraced them. She identified with them. She protected them. She sided she she went she placed herself on their side Rather than on the side of those who were their enemies. She received them with peace.
And that's the evidence of her faith. In other words, she demonstrated the reality of her faith by her works. And therefore She does find mention in the book of James as. An example. Of Faith that produces works.
James 2.25. Likewise, says James, was not Rachab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? James is dealing with this whole issue of what's the difference between. Cognitive knowledge. And Saving.
Surrendered faith. What's the difference? And he gives two examples, one of them is Abraham and the other one is Rahab. He says in verse 21, was not rather Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? And he goes on from there.
The scripture was fulfilled which says Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Now, people have stumbled over what James says, over that word justified, failing to recognize. that when Paul uses that term in his epistles, he's using it in what we might call a theological or doctrinal sense. Justification before the judgment bar of God. James, who's more practically oriented, I guess you might say, is using that word justified the way we would more normally use it. As a What?
Was uh Was he justified in what he did? Yes, he was, because of this and this and this. He uses the word justified as Evidence. For what? Abraham did.
Abraham was justified in the eyes of men. This has nothing to do with his relationship before God, but he demonstrated before men that he really believed God when he was willing to sacrifice his own son. That was the evidence, that was the manifestation of his. Heart faith. And likewise with Rahab.
Rahab's. Faith was demonstrated to be true by the manifestation, by the works, by the evidence of what she did. She protected the spies when everybody else, if they'd have gotten their hands on them, would have killed them. A very opposite response. And so her faith was manifested by her works.
And that's why We say faith is believing the revelation of God and acting accordingly. The acting apart is actually the fruit of faith, the result of faith, the manifestation of faith, but it shows us the difference between an empty faith and a living faith, a professed faith and a genuine faith. And Rahab's faith was clearly genuine because she was willing to risk her own life. To save the spies, to rescue the spies. If she'd been caught, She'd have been killed.
But she did it. Why? Because she believed. The Revelation. that had come to her.
She had faith in God. The evidence of faith. Which brings us number four then in our text to the rewards of faith. And we read by faith. The harlot Rahab, and here's the reward, did not perish.
with those who did not believe.
Some translations say she did not perish with those who did not obey. Interesting. Because Believing The manifestation of faith is obedience. The manifestation of unbelief is disobedience. If we're talking about genuine faith, Unbelief Results in disobedience to God and to His Word and to the revelation which He has given.
But True. Faith, genuine faith, believing faith, saving faith, results in obedience. And she Lined up. With those Who believed, which weren't many. just her and maybe some of her family.
And we're not even sure where they were in the issue of faith. But everybody else lined up on the other side. They opposed Israel because their faith did not Bring to them surrender to the God of Israel. And so the rewards of faith were that she escaped destruction. The rewards of faith were that she rescued her family.
The rewards of faith were that she became a respected citizen in Israel.
Now, I turn to the other reference to Rahab in the New Testament. In Matthew chapter 1, That gives us the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And it starts with. Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, Abraham beget Isaac, Isaac began Jacob, and so forth. And then this in verse 5.
Salmon begat Boaz By Rahab. Lost my place on the page.
Now we got Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. This is another, this is such an interesting line. Obad begot Jesse, who was that, And Jesse begot David the king.
So here's Rahab. She marries. One who is referred to as a prince. Of Judah was a prominent man in Judah. The father of Boaz, you read about Boaz in the book of Ruth, Boaz was a landed gentry, a landed gentleman, a wealthy man.
Who also became the kinsman redeemer for Ruth? But who was his father? Salmon. Who was his mother? Rahab.
Whoa. Greyhap. was the mother of Boaz. who was the mother of who was the father of Jesse. who was the father of David.
So Rahab becomes the great-grandmother of David, and Rahab becomes one in the lineage, the genealogy of Jesus. The Christ. Isn't that remarkable? You talk about from the guttermost to the uttermost. And that's what grace can do.
That's what grace can do. That's the whole point. She became a respected citizen. She became a mother and grandmother in Israel. She was incorporated into the messianic line.
Faith saves to the uttermost. If you want a song about Rahab, how about this? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost. But now I'm found.
was blind. But now I see. Or how about this one? based upon scripture. Though your sins be as scarlet, They shall be as white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson. They shall be as wool. Or, how about this one? I thought of this one when I thought of Rahab. I don't know how many of you know.
The song Yes, I know. Come ye sinners lost and hopeless. Jesus' blood can make you free. for he saved the worst among you. when he saved a wretch like me.
And I know Yes, I know. Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner. clean. That's a song about Rahab, and that's a song about every. Born-again believer in Jesus Christ, we were all wretches like.
John Muton said, a wretch like me, we were all. Scarlet, in our sense, scarlet, I'm told, is one of the is the most difficult color to get out. If you get a fabric that is dyed or stained in red, that's very difficult to get out. But the blood of Jesus can get it out. and the blood of Jesus can cleanse the vilest sinner.
And the blood of Jesus cleansed the sin. of Rahab. Faith in God purifies hearts and lives. Faith in God transforms lives. New life in Christ, abundant and free, is another song we could sing about Rahab.
No. A prostitute who truly believes in God, His character, and His promises, goes to heaven. A respectable person who fails to believe the gospel goes to hell. There it is. Who goes to heaven?
Sinners. Saved by grace. Not people who are good in themselves and therefore earn a place in heaven. Who goes to heaven? Sinners.
And only those who see themselves as sinners. And maybe it was easier for Rahab to acknowledge her sinfulness than some people who think of themselves as upstanding and respectable and good and think that's going to carry them to heaven, and it will not do so. And if you're in that category, wake up this morning, dear friend, and take the sinner's place. Acknowledge that you, like Rahab, are a vile sinner, and salvation comes only to those who know their sinners and cast themselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Many believe that scarlet thread out of Rahab's window was a picture of the blood of Christ.
I don't know if she knew anything about Christ in a specific way. But she believed the promises of God. and was saved. That brings me, therefore, to several points to ponder, and I'll cover them. Number one, let's consider recipients of faith.
No one is too good to escape the need to believe God's word. And no one is too low but can receive the blessings of God's. promises if they will believe. That's the message of Rahab. No one is so good that you don't need to acknowledge your sin, that you don't need to repent of sin and believe in Christ.
Nobody's good. for that need, and nobody is so sinful that if they will believe, they will be cleansed, they will be saved, they will be in heaven. Praise God. Here's another point. I beg you to think with me on this one.
I had to think a little bit about faith and Patriotism. Where does that come in?
Well, we notice that Rahab had to choose between her nation and God. In effect, she had to turn her back upon her nation, her people. And align herself with Israel and Israel's God. in order to be saved. The other Canaanites?
Maybe they're pride of nation, pride of of uh Their patriotism was too great. To enable them to do that, and they perished.
Now what's my point? Patriotism is noble in its proper place. Patriotism is love of country. All of us should have an appropriate love of country. But patriotism is sinful if it competes with God's revelation.
And We must love Christ more than country a whole lot more. Christ makes that clear. When Christ said God If a person will not Hate Father and mother. And sister? And brother, for my sake and the Gospels, he cannot be my disciple.
I think I mentioned that. text recently. And we understand that he doesn't mean hate in the literal I hate you sense, but in the sense that the gap between our love for Christ and our love for other legitimate loves, we ought to love our family. We ought to love our wife and children and brothers and brothers and so forth. We ought to love our country.
We ought to have an appreciation for that and thank God for it. But if our love for Christ is not greater, and so much greater, not just a little bit greater, but so much greater that the gap between our love for Christ and our love for everything and everyone else, including our country, Seems almost like disdain by comparison. then we've got let our patriotism get out of hand. If Rahab had clung too tightly to her patriot patriotic spirit, she'd have gone to hell. But when she recognized that Her faith in God and her loyalty to him and to the nation of Israel because of him must be greater, she made the right choice.
There are a lot of things we do. That we think are honoring to God and patriotism, that I question. I've talked to you about this some times before, but here we go again. I think it's appropriate at this point. And one of the reasons for that is because the United States history has been.
with such a strong foundation of Christianity in our nation. But what's happened is there's grown up almost an idolatry of the United States of America that. Competes with our loyalty to Christ. For example, I Drive by at least one church, and I think maybe more than one church in Alamance County, and I see they have a flagpole, and out on the flagpole, they have two flags. They have the American flag and they have the Christian flag, and which one is on top?
The American flag. What does that indicate?
Well, that's the most important one. That's the highest one. And the Christian flag is a step below that.
Now, nobody really thinks about it that way, but that's what it indicates. That's the symbolism. The reason they do that is because there are rules in the United States of America of how the American flag is to be displayed, and the rules say that the American flag must take the highest place.
Well, if they're going to make That rule, I think I'm just not going to display the flag, certainly not along with the Christian flag, because obviously, if it's appropriate to have a flag. for Christendom. It's got to be the highest one. Why would we ever think it's honoring to God to put it below? Or Flags on the platform.
In most, many churches throughout America, it's customary to have an American flag on the platform and a Christian flag on the platform. But which flag is always to the right and which flag is to the left? The American flag is to the right and the Christian flag is to the left because, again, the rules. Of flag display in America say that the American flag must have the most honored place. And any other flag must Take second place to it.
So the Christian flag must take second place.
Well, that doesn't sound like loving Christ more than... Does it?
Now I could go on and extend these Illustrations, but I think you understand. We've got to think Christianly, we've got to think biblically, we've got to think like Rahab thought. Did she not love her country? I'm sure she probably did. But when it comes down to it, and she had to make a choice.
She made the right choice. She chose against her country to choose with God and with The people of God. And that choice was the right choice, and it delivered her life and that of her family. faith and patriotism. Number three, the requirements of faith.
Faith is believing the revelation of God and acting accordingly. What do we believe? Whatever God has revealed. In the case of Rahab, it wasn't a whole lot, but what He revealed. That She was required to believe, and she did.
And what he has revealed, we are required to act according to that, or we don't really believe it. She did. and she was delivered. Number four, faith and temporal deliverance. I think I touched on this last Sunday, but I'll cover it again.
Faith in God's word will deliver you from any temporal dangers. It delivered her from death. But, as is clear from the history that follows, it also delivered her from. eternal condemnation. But it delivered her from death, from a temporal danger.
And her faith delivered her. Parents and her family from death, and there's no indication necessarily that they believed. It's hard to know exactly. If they had been strongly unbelieving and resistant, and they wouldn't have. heeded her admonition to To uh House themselves in her house for safety.
So there must have been some element of faith there, but the fact that they were put outside the camp of Israel and she was welcomed in make me think that their faith fell short of saving faith, though they benefited from temporal deliverance. Your faith may deliver others as well as yourself from temporal. Dangers. That's why America benefits by having Christians in America. Even if people don't like them, they don't know how much they owe to God's people.
America would benefit more if it had more genuine Christians, and America declines as there are fewer genuine Christians. There are temporal blessings that attend faith in God and in His Word. And those blessings can. Transferred to others as well. But your faith cannot deliver others from eternal destruction.
Salvation is individual. It cannot be transferred to others. Rachel's faith could not deliver her father and mother from hell. They must believe in the promises of God for themselves for that. And finally this.
Faith and redemption. Her faith was in God. She didn't have much. But she'd heard about this God and she believed what she heard. She knew something about the Character of this God, and she believed what she had been taught, the word that came to her.
She didn't know much about him, but she inferred from what she learned that He promised safety to those who trusted in him, and she trusted in him, and she enjoyed the promise of deliverance. Faith must be in whatever God has revealed. And genuine faith in whatever God has revealed is redemptive faith. That's how Old Testament people could be saved without knowing many details about the Messiah. They didn't need to know about the details of his death on the cross.
They didn't need to know the details about his resurrection. Those things would be revealed later. They needed, however, to believe whatever God had revealed to them. Anything God revealed, they must believe it. And the same is true for us.
The Hebrews, to whom this epistle is written, Had more revelation than their ancestors, but some of them were being tempted to turn back to the old covenant form of Jewish religion. Having had Christ revealed to them, they are now tempted to turn from Him and turn back to their ancestral religion. They can't do that. The ancestral religion of their forefathers who believed in the revelation God had given to them. Secured salvation for their souls.
The Faith of the present-day first-century Hebrews must also include faith in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, who died on the cross and rose again from the dead, because that has been revealed to them. And once revealed, you must embrace it. You must believe it. You cannot, in other words, you cannot pick and choose what you will believe. Partial belief or belief in partial revelation is not sufficient.
You can't, God doesn't honor that. You must believe in whatever God has revealed. The Hebrews must believe in Christ. and continue to believe in him no matter the cost. It is Bottom line, the same faith as Rahab, who had much less revelation.
But what she had revealed to her, she believed with all her heart. No matter the cost, she was willing to jeopardize her own life. to b to act in accordance with what she believed, and so must you.
Now what kind of faith do you have? A lot of people professing to have faith in Christ. When it comes right down to where the rubber meets the road, there's not much commitment, there's not much steadfastness, there's not much willingness to stand for Christ. in hostile places. Regardless of the cost.
Dear friend, that's the kind of faith you need. Ask God for it. Shall we pray? Father, Teach us your ways. And show us your paths, we pray.
In Christ's name, amen.
