Dave continued our Joshua series, looking at Joshua 2 and Rahab and the spies.
Background
40 years before, Moses had sent out the 12 spies including Joshua and Caleb to spy out the land promised by God to the Israelites. Joshua and Caleb were the only two to come back with the true faith filled report. The other 10 had come back with a report full of unbelief. God was angry with this report and the Israelites spent the next 40 years walking around the desert until that generation died out.
The Israelites then started to move towards the land of Canaan (promised land) and asked various kings if they could pass through their land. These kings picked fights with the Israelites and were destroyed. The word used to destroy is the same as to consecrate to God.
Now Joshua is the leader and ready to full fill his destiny by entering the promised land.
“The Lord your God is giving you a place of rest. He has given you this land. “
Joshua 2
1. Rather than send out 12 spies very publicly like Moses did, Joshua sends only 2 because he remembers very well the disastrous consequences from the last time 40 years ago.
2. Why did the spies go to the house of Rahab? It was strategically a good place but this story is more about the kindness and grace of God. They went to Rahab because this was a Devine appointment for the spies to be part of the salvation of Rahab.
3. So we have to discuss the fact the Rahab was a prostitute. It means what it says in the bible. She was a prostitute but the whole of the people of Jericho were sinful. God makes no scale of sin. He hates all sin but wants the best for his creation and those he loves.
4. The canaanites were not just sinful, they were depraved. Chapter 18 and 20 of Leviticus has a list of laws that are there to keep God’s people pure, healthy and have a positive influence on the culture around them. These were written especially for the Israelites to learn because He knew they would be entering a land where the temptation of the culture was so very different.
5. Verse 8->11 Rahab makes a wonderful confession of faith in the God of heaven and earth. People who do not know the God of heaven and earth find their hearts melt in fear at death. When we know Jesus, our hearts melt in awe of him that has that edge of knowing we are deeply loved.
6. Verse 18. This part of the story mirrors a list of pictures of being in Christ. Noah’s ark, the Passover where angel of death brings judgement on the Egyptians. Those inside the ark, the houses with the blood on the door frame, Rahab with the red chord from the house, all escape death. Rahab knew that judgement was coming to her people. She chose to be different and put her faith in the God, Yahweh.
7. The red chord (tekveh) is symbolic of the blood round the door frame in the Passover but the word also mean hope. She put her hope out for God’s people to see and so be saved from death. Biblical hope is not a strong version of wishful thinking. Biblical hope is to show a greater certainty in something than the knowledge that the sun will rise again tomorrow.
8. The final picture comes when we look at the cross. Jesus is sinless unlike the Israelites, Rahab, you and me but he knew that the awful judgement of God awaited Him when he was in the garden of Gethsemane but He chose to take all the judgement we deserved and set us free. “The Lord your God is giving you a place of rest.”
9. Why do we go on so much about being In Christ? We are like the Israelites going into a land that is full of sin. The world view is that your identity is in you finding yourself. M People “search for a hero.” Ed Sheahan’s “shape of you.” We can so so easily slip into thinking that we live in Christ but pick up the mind set of the world. We are to be in the world but not of the world. We are to live life’s that bring a positive influence to the culture around us but this means being the rebels in a world that has rebelled against God’s way.
10. The story of Rahab shows us th
