Rahab escaped the judgment upon a doomed people by believing Yahweh and trusting Him for her salvation. An exposition of Hebrews 11:31, Joshua 2, 6.
Sermon Transcript
Hebrews 11:30–31: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.” So we now come to the last specific example of faith and that is with Rahab. Her story is inseparable from Joshua because her story overlaps that in verse 30 of the walls of Jericho falling down, as she was one preserved outside of those who perished because of their unbelief and because of their disobedience. And though Rahab is not the last person mentioned in Hebrews 11, she is the last person whose name is tied to a specific example of faith as an example for us.
And in many ways she is unlike anyone else that we have seen in this chapter. In fact, she’s quite remarkable. And I think that as you will see before we are done, her example is a perfect way to cap this list of people in Hebrews 11 because in many ways her example encapsulates everything that is in the author’s argument. It is the perfect conclusion, the perfect summary, and in many ways I think the triumphant example and the best example of the kind of faith that we’re talking about in Hebrews 11.
Now, before we go back to Joshua 2 and pick up her story, I want you to observe a couple of things here in Hebrews 11, and I’m going to be reminding you of some of these phrases and points when we get back into the book of Joshua. I want you to notice first of all that her harlotry is mentioned. Take note of the fact that she is referred to here as a harlot. There was part of me that wanted to make harlot the word of the day for today, but wiser and saner minds prevailed. Actually, a wiser and saner mind prevailed. I happen to live with that mind, and she said, “No, you’re not going to do that.” And I wanted to do it just so that I could spend the afternoon chuckling about what it might be like for the parents of young children to be riding home and talking about the sermon, as some of you are wont to do. But I didn’t do that.
Rahab is mentioned three times in the New Testament. Two out of the three times that she is mentioned, the fact of her harlotry is mentioned along with her name. She’s mentioned in Matthew 1 where just her name appears, and then she’s mentioned here in Hebrews 11, and then she’s mentioned in James 2:25, where we read from James, “In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” And the purpose in mentioning her harlotry in these passages and in Joshua 6 is not to label her with a scarlet letter—and that’s an appropriate use of that phrase—but not to label her with that scarlet letter so that her sin would follow after her all through the time immemorial. But it is simply to highlight the great grace of God that would save one such as her. And that is the reason for this mention.
Surely the author of Hebrews did not need to mention to his readers that Rahab was a harlot. They would have known that. They would have known who Rahab was, and they can follow the chronological order and recognize that Joshua came right before that with the crumbling of the walls of Jericho. And simply a mention of the name Rahab would have indicated exactly who it is that he was speaking of. So he doesn’t need to mention the fact that she is a harlot, but he does mention it, I think, because of how it sets her in this context of all of these other righteous individuals in Hebrews 11.
We read through this chapter and you read of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and Moses’s parents and Joshua . . . and Rahab the harlot. She seems out of place, doesn’t she? She seems out of place because of her background and her notoriety. And yet here she is in this context. And the reason for mentioning her harlotry is simply to put her sin against the backdrop of all of that and say, oh yes, remember there was also a Gentile, one who came from a nation under the judgment of God, condemned for its wickedness and its unbelief, who God, in His free and sovereign grace, saved entirely undeserving. If you might for a moment think that Abraham deserved the grace of God or Jacob deserved the grace of God or Isaac deserved the grace of God or Joseph or Moses or his parents had done anything worthy of receiving the grace of God, if you might think that, you would be entirely wrong and entirely deceived and you would entirely miss the point of Hebrews 11, that it is all by faith. But here Rahab stands at the end of this list, almost entirely unexpected. You might expect him to mention David and his faith or Isaiah or Ezekiel or Daniel or any one of those other great men and those other great works. But no, Rahab appears here.
And her contrast with Joshua is quite remarkable. She is, remember, a Gentile. She is not a Jew. That means she’s not in the godly lineage. And this seems to be the author’s point in tracing the men that he does through Hebrews 11, beginning back with Cain and Abel and the mention of Abel and his faith, and then going through that godly lineage through Noah, and then on into Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, that godly lineage. That has been his pattern. But Rahab is one who is outside of that godly line, which means that she can make no claim to any of God’s promises. She cannot make a claim upon God’s grace. She cannot claim that land as her own. She cannot claim God’s grace as her own. She can make no presumptions on anything because she is outside of the line of promise as a Gentile.
And not only is she a Gentile; again, she was from a nation that was devoted to destruction. The Canaanites and the Amorites particularly, the group that she was from, were devoted to destruction. They were a condemned people. And lest you get on some high horse and think that God is somewhat unjust in destroying all of the nations that occupied the land of Canaan, I just want you to remember that these were a people and this was a culture that had remarkable levels of depravity on display each and every day. They practiced child sacrifice. Every form of immorality, sexual immorality, and perversion that you can imagine was rampant in this city. They were idolaters, a brutally violent people. And if I were to sit here and just list for you or to describe for you some of the sins for which these people were guilty, and not only these people that were in Jericho but all the people in the land of Canaan—these were morally depraved, morally bankrupt, completely corrupt, idolatrous, pagan, brutal, violent and immoral people groups that God destroyed in that. They practiced all of the things that would make a nation worthy of judgment and ripe for judgment. So when God destroyed them, they got exactly what it was that they deserved.
And of course, Rahab is a woman. That’s another thing that marks her different than most of the rest of the names in this chapter. The only other woman mentioned in this chapter is Sarah, and she is mentioned in connection with Abraham’s faith and the promise of the son. And she is not like Joshua, the leader of the people, a person renowned or popular or acceptable in society. She would have been a poor person. She would have been at the bottom of the societal structure.
And yet with all those differences between Joshua and Rahab, in fact all of these other people in Hebrews 11, with all of those differences, the differences are really not what is significant at all in this narrative. In fact, we forget all of the many differences, right? Because of faith, do we really even think of the fact that Rahab is different than Joshua? That her skin color might have been different or her background was different or that her sin was different or that her life was different, her nationality, her ethnicity, or her culture? All of that kind of fades in the background when you realize that Joshua and Rahab are in glory right now, enjoying the presence of God, both of them justified by faith, both of them won because of what Christ has done. And you and I will worship and fellowship and enjoy time with them together in the kingdom as well. All of the differences between Joshua and Rahab, they just sort of blend in the background. It’s not that they disappear entirely, that they cease to exist. Those differences are still there, but they take on kind of an insignificant meaning in light of the faith that both of them shared, right?
That is why the church’s preoccupation—just to get off on a side note for just a second—this is why the church’s preoccupation with all of the progressive critical race theory, social justice, and racial dogmas of our day is an affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because those things make no difference whatsoever in light of the fact that these two people both have faith. The differences are there, but they’re meaningless. They’re completely insignificant in light of that truth that these are both people of faith.
Rahab enjoyed not just a physical deliverance from the edge of the sword but also a spiritual deliverance, as will become evident here in just a moment. Notice in Hebrews 11 that the rest perished, being disobedient. That is the word that is used to describe that. Those in Jericho who perished in that judgment, they were disobedient, which means that they weren’t ignorant and they weren’t innocent. They’re disobedient. And you’re going to see the significance of that term here in just a moment. The evidence of her faith is on display in that verse, verse 31: she “did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.” Throughout Hebrews 11, we’ve seen that one of the themes that comes up over and over again is this reminder that faith always produces obedience and obedience is the evidence of faith. Obedience does not make us justified in the sight of God. Our faith justifies us in the sight of God. But obedience is the evidence that the faith is real. That’s what James is talking about in James 2 when he mentions Rahab the harlot and says that she was justified by faith when she received the spies and sent them away in peace. It’s not that the action justified her, but that action was the demonstration of her justifying faith. So her justifying faith is put on display in the work that she did. And the author of Hebrews here mentions her act of obedience.
Now I’ll remind you of some of these phrases here in Hebrews 11 as we go through Joshua’s account, but I want you to turn back now to Joshua 2, and we’ll take note of Rahab, and we’ll look at what it is that Scripture says concerning her. Joshua 2—again, I would just remind you of the context that Moses by this point is dead, and Joshua has been commissioned as the leader of the nation of Israel. And the Lord has already appeared in Joshua 1. He’s already appeared to Joshua and promised him victory and told him not to fear. He is God’s man for this hour and for this time.
Joshua 2, beginning at verse 1: “Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’ So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.” So this is a reconnaissance mission, and you would imagine that the leadership of Jericho is a bit vigilant, having heard—and we’re going to find out here in just a moment—they had heard that the nation of Israel had come out of the wilderness and that they were on the other side of the Jordan River at this point and they’re about to enter into the land. So the citizens of Jericho knew this. And so you can imagine that the king is hyperaware at this point. He’s kind of watching and observing, and he probably has a number of people who are looking for strangers in the crowd and at least have an eye over there on the Jews on the other side of the Jordan River, waiting to see when this is going to happen and how all of this is going to shake down. And word would come to him eventually that this is what was going on, that there were two men who had come in to spy out the land. Somehow word got out that these men were in the city. Rahab found out.
We may ask the question, why is it that they came to a harlot’s house? What are these two worshippers of Yahweh doing going into a harlot’s house? How many of you asked that question or wondered it at least in the back of your mind? OK, only one or two of us? That’s it? Nobody else wants—OK, maybe three. Nobody else wants to wonder that. It kind of makes me wonder why is it that these two worshippers of Yahweh would come in and that they would find themselves in the house of a harlot?
I don’t believe for a moment that these men were seeking the services available in that house. I do, however, believe that this would be the best way for these men to hide in plain sight. That’s why. See, it has nothing to do with what was offered inside that house. It’s been suggested that Rahab ran not just a house of harlotry but also what we might think of as a hotel or a motel. In ancient cultures, they didn’t have a Marriott or a La Quinta or a Holiday Inn Express. If you wanted to stay the night in the city, you went to a place like this run by a woman like this. And it’s not that they offered a continental breakfast. They offered other services that were available for those who stayed in these hotels. So this would be a way for these men to come into a place where other travelers from outside the city would be coming into the city. This is where they would stay. They could get lost in plain sight in that. They could get lost in this place, this house of business, where other travelers and other visitors would come and they would be spending multiple nights there. They could get a feel, as it were, for the culture and the people and kind of keep their eye on things that are going on, talk to other travelers, get to know some people, and see what was going on. That, I think, is why they ended up in a harlot’s house. This is where they would have stayed while they were there in the city. And it was the best way to hide in plain sight.
It’s also possible that Rahab—as we’re about to see, she already had faith before these men showed up. It’s also possible that Rahab identified them, saw them in the crowd, and recognized them and thought to herself, “This must be the people of Yahweh coming to spy out the land.” And it might be that she approached them and said, “Come to my house. I will hide you and allow you to stay there for the night.” That might be the case.
Now, look at chapter 2, verses 2–3: “It was told the king of Jericho, saying, ‘Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.’ And the king of Jericho sent word 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 land.’” Now, the king had gotten word and he obviously heard who these men were, where they were from, and what their intentions were. Verse 4:
4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.
5 It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.”
6 But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.
7 So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate. (Josh. 2:4–7 NASB)
Now, this action that she took was at great risk to herself. Not only welcoming the spies into her home and giving them a place to stay for the night—that would have been done at great risk to herself because other people would have found out and other people would have caught onto this and word might have spread. But then when the king sent messengers to her to find out the location of these men so that she would turn them over to him, her deception toward these men, her lie that she says to these men is motivated to do good to these men and to preserve them because she believed strongly that God was going to give the land to the children of Israel. And so what she does in this action, even in lying to the messengers of the king, she does at great risk to her own life. Because not only if it had been found out that she had brought these men in and invited them in, but also the lie itself, all of that would have been punishable by death. If the king had not bought this, if these men searching out the two spies had not bought this lie, they would have executed Rahab on the spot and killed her along with the spies as a traitor. So her action even at risk to herself is something that is, I think, motivated by her faith. It is because of what she believes about God and because of what she believes about these men that she deceived those who came looking for them.
Verse 8:
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 [now watch this confession], and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you.
10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
11 When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” (Josh. 2:8–11 NASB)
That is an amazing confession. Don’t let it get lost on you. Imagine that you are a Jew, and imagine that you, being a Jew, believe what you do about the Canaanites and these people, that they are ripe for destruction. To hear a harlot make a confession like this, you would just have to be blinking, blinking, deer in the headlights, blinking to hear a confession like that come from a woman whom you would think is committed and destined for destruction. This had to have shocked these two men.
She is confessing to them that she is convinced that God, Yahweh, was going to give this land to the Jews. Notice it in verse 9: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us.” She doesn’t say, “I know that the Lord has given us the land.” She doesn’t even consider herself as one worthy to receive that kind of a promise or to even remain alive through the execution of judgment on Jericho. But she says, “I am convinced that Yahweh has given you the land.” That means she would have heard of and understood the promise that God made to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob, that Joseph trusted in, that Moses believed in. So four hundred years have passed at least between the giving of that promise to Abraham and this point. She has heard of that promise. She knows about it. It has reached her ears, and she is convinced that Yahweh is going to give them this land.
And she is a believer in this Yahweh, this God, before they ever arrived. Notice that. She believes in Yahweh before they have even arrived there. She had heard of what God had done to the two kings of the Amorites, to the Red Sea. This had caused fear and faith in her, and she had become a believer before these two men showed up. These two men were there on a reconnaissance mission, not a short-term missions trip. They didn’t show up in Jericho and go knocking on doors and say, “Excuse us, ma’am, we are from the Yahweh Bible and Tract Society and we’re here to talk to you about the state of your soul. We want you to know that we are planting a civilization right here in your neighborhood, and we’d like to know if you would like to join us before we destroy you.” That’s not what these two men did. When they arrived in Jericho, likely they were sought out by her. She identified them, and when they heard this confession, it must have just shocked them to their core.
The whole city had heard in fact. See, the word had spread. Notice that. The inhabitants of the land have melted away, the Lord dried up the water, and we heard what you did to the two kings of the Amorites. Look at verse 11: “When we heard of it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you.” All the inhabitants of the land now are just in trembling at the prospect of what they are sure to meet. And this was God’s purpose in judging Egypt. Do you remember that? Exodus 9:16: “But, indeed, for this reason [God said to Pharaoh] I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.” This was the reason for the judgment on Pharaoh, for the destruction of Egypt, for bringing them out to the Red Sea, destroying Pharaoh’s army. All of this had unfolded so that God could proclaim His name throughout all the earth, so that all the nations around there might hear of what God had done, that they might see that, that they might fear that, and that they might respond in faith and repentance. Well, Rahab had got the message. Look at verse 9: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you.” So God had accomplished His purpose. All the peoples had heard, the nations had heard. “When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you” (v. 11).
Notice that last sentence in verse 11: “The Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” Wow. Notice that Rahab does not say, “Your God is obviously stronger than our god.” This would have been the pagan way of thinking. If one nation defeated another nation in battle or did a mighty work that another nation’s god could not work, they would think that that god who that nation worshipped was stronger than the god that had allowed them to be conquered. And so they, just, in a polytheistic society, regarded this pantheon of gods, any one of whom could be worshipped. And if one nation conquered another, they’d say, well, that god is obviously stronger than our god. That was the way of thinking. But Rahab doesn’t say your God is stronger than our gods, and therefore I want to serve your God. Rahab says, “Your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” That’s everything up and everything down; everything belongs to Him. So He is the only God. This is a confession that there is only one God.
Second, He is a promise-keeping God. He’s going to give you the land just as He had promised it to Abraham. Nothing is too difficult for Him. In fact, I want you to notice that Rahab is at this moment believing in the impossible. It was physically—we looked at this a couple of weeks ago—it was physically impossible for a nation of wandering nomads who had been circling around the desert for forty years, untrained in the skills and art of war, with no weapons of war or machines of war at all, to come up against Jericho and to do any kind of battle against a well-fortified frontier city like Jericho was. It was physically impossible for that to happen.
But notice what Rahab is saying. I believe that the Lord is going to give you the land. She is saying, “I believe that God is going to do the impossible. There’s no way you can take this city, but that is no problem for your God.” That is her confession. She knew that Jericho would fall, and she staked her life on it. She is so convinced that she took in these spies, and at risk to herself, she hid them and she kept them and then she sent them away in peace.
I want you to compare that faith to the exodus generation that came out of Egypt. You see, the generation that came out of Egypt, they had seen and they had all of the promises of God—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And they’re carrying around a box of bones with them, Joseph, and this is a reminder that God is going to bring us up, He’s going to take us into the land. So for generations they have heard of this promise. And then that generation sees the rise of Moses, and Moses shows up and is able to do miracles. And then that generation watches all of those ten plagues unfold on the land of Egypt while they are preserved supernaturally from any of the effects of those plagues. That generation sees the death of the firstborn. That generation sees God deliver them through the Red Sea on dry land and destroy all of Pharaoh’s army and then provide water out of a rock in the middle of a desert. That generation sees all of those things, all of those miracles, and then they get ready to go up and to possess the land. Moses sends twelve spies into the land, and they come back and what do the spies say? “No, we’ll never be able to take that. Jericho’s too big. The people are too big. They’re too mighty. We’ll never be able to take that land. It’s impossible. It can’t be done.”
Rahab had not seen any of those things, had she? Never seen a single miracle, didn’t see any of the ten plagues. She heard about those things. She saw none of them. And yet she believed that God would do the impossible. Even though she had not seen any miraculous deeds, she took the bare word of God who had promised them that land, and said, “I believe that, and I believe that your God is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” They saw it. The exodus generation saw it and did not believe. Rahab merely heard about it and she believed.
This should be a reminder to you that miracles do not create faith. They don’t create faith. They can’t. Atheists would not be convinced that God is real if you were able to do a miracle in front of them. The Pharisees of Jesus’s day were not convinced in what He said, and the truthfulness of it did not create faith. It did not create repentance in them even though they saw the miracles that Jesus did, even all of those who walked with Him in John 6. They saw the multiplying of the bread and the fish, and they heard of Him walking on the water. They saw His signs. And yet, when Jesus pressed upon them the hard truth of their own impenitence and their unbelief, when He pressed that upon them, they walked away. It did not create faith in them because unbelief is never due to a lack of evidence. It is always due to a love for darkness. Remember?
So all of Jericho, they loved their darkness. The report of Yahweh’s works was a means by which God saved Rahab. She heard of what God had done and she believed and responded in faith. And this meant that she would turn from her own people and her own culture. Doing those things to the spies and giving them a place to lodge and sending them away in peace was only serving to undermine her own people, her own culture, her own idolatrous neighbors, the people among whom she lived. Notice her pledge of fealty in chapter 2, verses 12–13: “Now therefore, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” She is convinced that Jericho was going to fall and that everybody in it would die. And so she knows that she is entrusting herself to Yahweh and to His mercy and to His grace and to His good keeping. And the way to do this is to come before His people and simply cast herself on their mercy, knowing that that is to cast herself on the mercy and grace of God Himself.
Verse 14:
14 So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the Lord gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”
15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall.
16 She said to them, “Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way.” (Josh. 2:14–16 NASB)
This is the evidence of her faith. Her obedient action is to preserve their lives. This is why James says, “Was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” (James 2:25)
Verse 17:
17 The men said to her, “We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear,
18 unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father’s household.
19 It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.
20 But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear. (Josh. 2:17–20 NASB)
I’ll comment here just a moment on the scarlet thread. She put that in the window, it says later on. She put that in the window. And remember, she kept it there the entire time that Israel was outside walking around the city walls. Again, think of this from the perspective of Rahab. She’s on the wall. That’s where her house is at, so she gets a vantage point for all of this, and she sees on day one that people go marching around. She thinks, OK, reconnaissance mission, good. She’s waiting for something to happen. Sun sets, nothing happens. She hears later on that they’ve gone back to the camp. OK, that was odd. Day two, day three, day four, day five, day six. It’s the same thing each of those days. She kept that scarlet cord in the window the whole time. Not for a moment, in spite of all the goofiness that she saw from the human perspective going on outside the wall, not for a moment did she begin to doubt that God would give them the land. You would think that, having watched that, she’d start to think maybe this isn’t going to happen after all, after day six. But she kept the scarlet thread there anyway.
Verse 21:
21 She said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
22 They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them.
23 Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them.
24 They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us.” (Josh. 2:21–24 NASB)
Notice they mentioned the inhabitants of the land. All of those who were judged in the takeover of the promised land, every last one of them, they had heard of what God had done, but none of them responded with faith. Word had come to them that Yahweh was giving the land to His people, and yet they remained hardened and disobedient.
And this is why Hebrews 11:31 refers to those in Jericho as those who were disobedient—“by faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient.” Not those who were innocent but unknowing, not those who were ignorant of what was to come. She did not perish along with those who were disobedient because all of those in Jericho who had heard the same things that Rahab had heard, they should have responded with repentance and faith, but they did not. Instead, they responded with incalcitrant unbelief. She is contrasted with those who were disobedient because all of them knew what was coming. And yet, like many people today, they continued on in disobedience and impenitence and unbelief and rejection of the truth even though they have been warned of the judgment that is to come. This is the ugliness of unbelief. It is not the only sin that damns men, but it is certainly the only sin that makes their damnation absolutely unalterable. Because as long as unbelief is present, damnation is certain. So we’re damned for all the sins that we commit, but unbelief keeps us from forgiveness. It is in that sense the only unforgivable sin. Every other sin that a man commits can be forgiven, but if he remains in unbelief, none of his sins can be forgiven because it is unbelief that cuts men off from the grace of God and the mercy of God and the forgiveness of sins.
Rahab responded in faith and she believed. And those in Jericho, all of the others in Jericho, responded in disobedience. They would not believe. Unbelief is irrational, it is inexcusable, and it is the most provoking of sins against God because it is so inexcusable.
Now let’s fast-forward to the end of the story in Joshua 6. Let’s skip over the circling of the walls for seven days. We covered that a couple of weeks ago. Joshua 6, look at verses 16–17: “At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout! For the Lord has given you the city. The city shall be under the ban, it and all that is in it belongs to the Lord; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent.’”
Verse 21 of chapter 6, down to verse 21:
21 They utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the harlot’s house and bring the woman and all she has out of there, as you have sworn to her.”
23 So the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all she had; they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel.
24 They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. (Josh. 6:21–24 NASB)
So these people in Jericho, in spite of all of the warnings of judgment that was to come, in spite of the fact they knew for certain and they had heard everything that Rahab had heard, they responded with unbelief and impenitence and rebellion, and they were judged for it.
Now, let me ask you a question. If Jericho was judged justly for not repenting at the mere hearing of what God had done, how much more those who are exposed to all of this truth and yet reject it? God’s judgment is just. You and I know more about God. And if you have sat under the preaching from this pulpit in this church and in all of the Sunday school classes, you know more about God, about Scripture, and about His truth than any of the inhabitants of Jericho ever understood. You know far more. And if God’s judgment on Jericho was just, how much more those who neglect so great a salvation? That’s what the author of Hebrews asks.
Look at verse 25: “However, Rahab the harlot and her father’s household and all that she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” So she was spared not just the physical judgment that fell upon Jericho but also an eternal damnation by faith. There’s no reason to believe that after she was spared, that Rahab continued in her harlotry. In fact, we have every reason to believe that she would have abandoned that harlotry since harlotry was against the law of Israel. She would have been executed if she had continued in that, especially as a foreigner, as a Gentile living in their midst. But she must have abandoned her harlotry because we find out later on that she married a Jewish man.
She obviously adopted God as her God, and the Jews became her people. She married a Jewish man named Salmon. They together had a son named Boaz. Boaz had a son named Obed after he married Ruth. Obed had a son named Jesse, and Jesse had a son named David. So Matthew 1 says that this harlot is included in the genealogy of Jesus. Is that not gracious? Rahab then is the great-great-grandmother of King David.
Consider this: Joshua is not in the Lord’s lineage. Moses is not in the Lord’s lineage. Joseph is not in the Lord’s lineage. You know who is? A harlot is in the Lord’s lineage. God brought a Gentile into the lineage of David so that He might show His intention to include Gentiles in His redemptive purposes. Also that He might magnify His grace because one born from Rahab’s lineage would end up bearing all of Rahab’s sin. God is able to forgive Rahab. Why? Is she special in some way? She’s not. She is redeemed by free and sovereign grace out of a pagan nation from among a people committed to destruction. Why is God able to forgive her? Does He wink at her sin? Does He ignore it? Does He simply pretend that she never committed any of those sins? No, that was never the intention of God. Instead, God’s intention was that one born from her lineage eventually would become the sin bearer who would stand in the place of all who have faith in Him and bear all of their sin and all of their wrath and take all of that judgment of God on their behalf. This demonstrates the super and abounding nature of God’s grace, free grace, undeserved. She deserved damnation and judgment and Hell for all of eternity. But so do you and I.
First Corinthians 6 says,
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name [and by the grace] of the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 6:9–11 NASB)
Such were some of you. Heaven is going to be full of Rahabs. You know how I know? Because all of us are Rahabs. Every last one of us. You, me, we’re all Rahabs. That’s our story. An insurmountable debt of grace that God by His free and sovereign goodness forgives, not because He owes us anything, but simply because He is a good God.
Rahab then becomes the perfect specimen of the kind of faith that we’re talking about in Hebrews 11. She trusted in unseen realities. Remember, this is the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Rahab believed in a God she had never seen; in His power, which she had never seen demonstrated; in His ability to do miracles, which she had never seen; and in His promise to give that land to those people, a promise she had never herself heard. She believed all of that, and she believed it so much she was willing to stake her life on it. Isn’t that the essence of faith, to be convinced of things you have not seen and to be assured of things that you are hoping for? To be assured and convinced to a degree that you are willing to bet your life that these things are true because I believe them, because God has said them? Even though God’s word personally had never come to Rahab and she had never seen any of the miracles, yet she believed. That’s the very same kind of faith that you and I are called to have.
Second, she left her own people and joined the people of God. She abandoned a culture, a people, a religion, a paganism. She became, until the Israelites came in and conquered the land, she became an alien amongst her own people. And like Moses, she ended up turning her back on all of the pleasures and treasures that Canaan offered her so that she could call herself amongst the people of God. So she becomes very much like Moses. Remember, Moses considered the pleasures and treasures of Egypt not worth the reproach of Christ. Here was Rahab, who had no claim upon the grace of God at all and no descent from Abraham whatsoever, and yet she was willing to name His people as her people and to take them for herself and to become one of them and thus bear that kind of reproach.
And then she illustrates the greatest triumph of faith. And this really is the greatest triumph of faith, and that is the triumph over sin. The greatest triumph of faith is not walls crumbling down, it’s not walking through the sea on dry land. The greatest triumph of faith is not trusting God to spare you when He kills the firstborn. The greatest triumph is not hiding a baby in a basket or giving orders concerning your bones as Joseph did or trusting God for a son in your old age. The greatest triumph of faith is not building a boat when warned of a flood. Those are great, but those are not the greatest. The greatest triumph of faith is when faith enters in and takes a pagan, idolatrous harlot and puts her in the genealogy of Lord. That’s the greatest triumph of faith. It’s the victory over sin.
It’s the same story that you and I share. It is Rahab’s story. It is your story, that God would take liars and thieves and blasphemers and fornicators and idolaters and adulterers, the disobedient, murderers, prideful, haters of God, gossips, slanderers, and rebels, and then remove the enmity and reconcile us to Himself, adopt us into His family, and give us an inheritance with the saints in light. That is the greatest triumph of faith. That is why Rahab is the perfect way to end this chapter. Hebrews 10:38–39: “But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” That’s Rahab. She had faith to the preserving of the soul. She did not shrink back in unbelief to destruction.
By faith and by faith alone, you and I will not perish among those who are disobedient. That is the promise to every believer, and it is a warning to every unbeliever.