Hall of Faith: Rahab
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
We have many heroes of the faith, and many of them are deeply flawed characters, with awful backstories.
Time and again the Bible gives us examples of outsiders and exiles and the lowly who are rescued by the Lord and brought into his people. Humanly speaking they’re the kind of people that we would not choose, that we would not consider yet God is pleased to lift up the broken and bring in the outsider.
Our hero of the faith today is one of these people. Indeed it is a heroine - Rahab.
Rahab is an outsider - She’s a Canaanite.
Rhab is a sinner - She’s a prostitute
Rahb is lowly - by virtue of her gender and profession she would have been considered very low-class.
Yet, she’s a heroine of Faith! She’s an example of what it looks like to trust God and find salvation!
In our hall of faith in Hebrews she is held up, look at vs 31:
By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
Let’s look at 4 aspects of Rahab’s identity that reveal her story of faith!
The Prostitute
The Prostitute
Rahab’s identity is tied to her being a protitute. It is how whe is named both in the book of Joshua and in Hebrews and James. It is consistent.
It is how she was identified.
And this is a hard thing to know, that down through the ages your identitty would be inseperable from your sin, but as we will see: there is grace here.
I’m going to go back and review the story of Rahab from the book of Joshua. Look here:
And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there.
Hotels & Motels were not a thing!
You often just went to the city square and hoped someone would show you hospitality
The local brothel doubled as a guesthouse or an inn. Enter Rahab.
Rahab was probably the mistress of the house. We don’t know anything more than that other than she did have a family dad-mum brothers & sisters.
Rahab’s idetity is tied to here prostitution. This is her title.
We live in a world where “sex work” had rebranded and is considered ligitimate form of employment. But let me remind you that in God’s eyes it is evil.
Sex is made for the mutual enjoyment of two people commited together in covenant
Children are the result of that union, and the covenant of marriage provides the safe space for their flourishing.
Paternity is imortant to establish, and you can’t do that with prostitution
Prostitution demeans a womans body, communicating that you should be able to pay for self gratification and to objectify women.
So Rahab was living a life of sexual immorality. There may have been external factors that pushed her into this way of life, but she was living a life of sin. The men who came to her made her a victim, but she was also living in sin by continuing with it.
Every person who has found themself in a place of sexual brokenenss like this knows the worthlessness, the despair and the shame that she would have carried.
But this is one of beutiful things about Rahabs story, because even theough this was the pit that she was caught in, God was going to lift her out of it. By faith she would leave behind that life!
Before we move forward we can be reminded that The Sexually immoral are among us. The Sexually immoral are all of us.
Jesus tells us that even the thoughts of lust and coveteousness that we have are sin in our hearts. That means that practically everybody has commited mental sexual immorality.
But there are many among us that have commited actual lived out sin in the area, we have been promiscuous (sleeping around), we have committed adultery, we have engaged prostitutes (digitally and physically). And I could go on listing our sins for they are many!
But the Faith of Rahab and the Grace of God reveal to us that we don’t have to stay in our sin and shame. There is a way out. If God can rescue Rahab, he can rescue you!
There may be consequences to your sexual sin that will have lasting effects - you may loose marriages or other relationships. There may be effects in your body that are irreversable. You may need to be convicted under the law and suffer punishment in this life.
Yet, despite those things, there is still salvation and redemption offered to you in Christ! He wilkl take away your disgrace, he hill cover your shame with his righteouness. He will restore you and make you whole again.
For some of us our immorality will go before us, but what that means is that God’s grace shines all the greater in our lives as those who are redeemed and forgiven and reconciled to God & his people!
The Convert
The Convert
Rhab was a convert. She heard about God and his mighty deeds and she wanted to switcch sides.
After the spies show up the city police come looking for them and Rhahb hides them. She says:
Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 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 devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.
Rahab heard what God had done.
Rahab sought escape from God’s wrath,
Rahab acted in faith to hide the spies and switch allegiences.
Hear and beleive!
Hear what God has done, seek escape through Jesus, act in faith to serve God.
It is ok to convert out of fear but you will find peace in jesus.
The Saved
The Saved
Rahab and her family found salvation. Her faith led to her rescue:
Jericho’s wall came down, and the city was devoted to destruction.… except for Rahab & family
But to the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring out from there the woman and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.” So the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. And they brought all her relatives and put them outside the camp of Israel.
Her faith in conversion, her faith in hiding the spies meant that God saved her from the destruction that she and her family deserved.
All of us deserve destruction, but God will save us from our own wickedness.
Rahab was connected to israel, and eventually completely subsumed.
Her faith led to slavation!
Your faith wil lead to slavation in Jesus!
Jesus has promised to destroy this world and rebuild it anew. Will you escape the destruction?
The Mother of Messiah
The Mother of Messiah
The wonderful outcome of the faith of Rhab was not only that she escaped death at Jericho, but that she became one of the mothers of all the great kings in Israel.
and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
One of four women mentioned in the linage of the Messiah
Her faith meant great honour for her as a mother of David, and ultimately Jesus.
Because She joined God in fiath, she was intigrated into the people of God and became the grandmother of their most important heroes, David, the Jesus!
By faith you can follow in her footsteps!
You mothers Raise the Children of God!
So What?
So What?
Rahab was know by her sin
By faith, Rahab heard of the Lord, and feared Him
By Faith Rahab acted to serve God, and rescued her family
Because of her faith, Rahab was the linage of David, and even greater than David, the Lord Jesus himself!
By Faith Rahab ended up playing a key role in salvation History, in God’s plans.
