From Harlot to Holy - Joshua 2

Introduction

For the last year, Megan and I have been renovating our home. And by renovating, I basically mean bringing her back from the dead. When we bought it, Claire Conner said that she thought it was probably haunted. The house had probably not been painted in twenty years, the yard had become a jungle of every invasive species known to man, and walking inside was like entering a time machine to 1964. Of course, a project that we thought would take three months is moving toward a year and a half. More than one time, I’ve wondered to myself, “Is this house really worth this?” I’m sure most of you with good sense would probably say “No!.” But, you know, even though it was run down and neglected, Megan and I knew that it was our house the second we walked in the door. Strange as it is, we just knew that it was the home that we’d raise our children in. It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s funny how one family can treasure something that looks like trash to another family, isn’t it?

God usually works backwards from the way that we expect him to. He is building his Kingdom and filling the whole earth with his glory. How does He choose to do that? God builds his Kingdom by finding the most run down houses imaginable and filling those houses with the radiance of his own glory. He takes those homes that have been designated for demolition, those houses that everyone else thinks that the neighborhood would be better off without, and He says, “That’s going to be my house. I’m going to put my name on it.”

God’s Word

That’s what we see unfolding in Joshua 2.

Final preparations for entering Promised Land — send two spies, instead of 12

Spies end up in the very last place that you’d expect God’s people to be.

Inn (Joesphus)/Tavern/Brothal

If that’s all you knew, what would you expect this story to be about? Sin? Judgement?

Turns out, this story is one the Bible recognizes as being one of the watershed stories about saving, transforming faith

The Characteristics of Saving Faith (Headline)

Faith “works” from the “beginning.”

James 2:25–26 “25And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

James zeroes in on Rahab as being a premier example of faith that lives.

An example of new faith that’s just coming to life. Rahab didn’t have a long history of being raised under the teachings of Moses. All new — she just knew she believed that the God of Israel was the true God. A picture of saving faith.

James: a faith that is real and alive isn’t merely intellectual or philosophical. It’s active. It works.

How does Rahab’s faith “work”?

Faith makes a choice.

Can you imagine how intimidating it must’ve been for her, a forgotten prostitute on the edge of town, to receive a direct order from the king of Jericho?

She had to choose right then and there who her king was. Who would receive her allegiance? Who did she fear most? Who did she believe in most? Who did she believe herself most answerable to?

(Stupendous faith) She receives the men, and deceives the king.

Joshua 2:4–5 “4But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.”

Faith doesn’t search for middle ground between two kingdoms. Faith isn’t hedging your bets by remaining neutral like Switzerland so you’ll be covered regardless of who wins. Faith is choosing sides because you are convinced of who is true and right and good. It’s choosing sides because you know who wins.

APP: How many of us talk like God is our king but live like America is our Kingdom? That’s not faith. That’s not salvation. Faith makes the choice.

Faith abandon’s all else.

ILL: My grandmother driving me around to teach me my heritage. I imagine these are the types of experiences that are pulsating through Rahab’s mind as she’s talking with the king’s messengers.

She abandons her heritage, her gods, and her home. She was making a decision to aid in the destruction of her people, her home, her heritage. (Maybe she had become disillusioned/maybe she had just become convinced)

Faith is demonstrated when you willingly abandon what you used to live for. Every decision of faith is a cost analysis acted upon. Faith is the expression of what you most believe and most value.

Matthew 10:34-39: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

APP: A belief in Jesus calls for a reversal in values.

Value what’s promised over what is possessed.

Faith takes risks.

Treason: If her deception was discovered, she would likely be tortured and killed.

Faith, by its definition, requires risk. Faith is living like your wellbeing is more important to God than it is to you.

Ranting to our like-minded friends about the problems we see in the world isn’t faith. It’s moral grandstanding. It wins you applause. It isn’t risky. Faith is:

Sharing your faith at risk of your relationship.

Speaking up when the truth may cost you your job.

Going where God is sending you even though you can’t see how it could possibly work out.

Faith is the willingness to pay the price today because of what you believe will be true tomorrow.

What are we supposed to make of the lie?

Universal: the lie was an act of stupendous faith

Debated: Was the lie sinful or not?

ethical deception verses sin

Conclusion: Faith is complex in a broken world. It’s risky, and we’re risk averse. There is grace for us as we seek to boldly stand for the Lord.

Faith “forms” in the “heart”.

v. 8-11 “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.”

In verses 8-11, we learn why Rahab acted as she did. We learn about how her faith in the God of Israel was formed.

God had developed quite the reputation, and reports of his reputation had reached Jericho.

Rahab’s primary customers would have been traveling merchants who would give her the reports of what was always going on around them. One of the reasons why it would be such a good place for spies to stay.

Cut all of Jericho to the very heart. The people knew they couldn’t stand before a God so great, so mighty, so overwhelming. For 40 years, they had worried that God might visit upon them as He had done Egypt.

Two responses to the same reports. It’s the same two responses that you always when confronted with God’s fame and power.

A melted heart reveals either faith or unbelief. Faith always begins here. Luke 24:32: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures.”

Jericho and her king tried to muster up the strength to preserve their way of life.

Rahab gave up her whole way of life so that she could stand on the right side of God’s power and judgement.

v. 11b “for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”

Jericho feared that God would take from them what they loved. Rahab feared God and recognized that only He was worthy of her love. She’d had so many lovers. She’d witnessed adultery and betrayal. She’d been looked down upon and cast out. She knew the very heights of human degradation. Her gods had never acted. In fact, they likely required the very type of fornication that she participated in. But, here was a God that was above them all, that was holy and incorruptible, who judged wickedness rather than participating in it. He was committed to his people, and what she wanted more than anything in the world was to be counted among his people. She called him YWHW, as close to ‘dad’ as you’ll get.

APP: Are you trying to cling to your way of life, or are you willing to trade everything that you have and everything that you want to have so long as you are counted as God’s child?

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Really either response is an act of faith. Either is a bet with your life as the stakes. Jericho’s king staked his life that Israel’s God wouldn’t penetrate their impenetrable walls. Rahab bet her life that YWHW was the ruler over all.

What’s interesting is that there isn’t just a contrast with Rahab’s faith and Jericho’s unbelief. There’s a contrast with Rahab’s faith and Israel’s unbelief.

40 years earlier the original spies had come. They had witnessed God’s power firsthand and still didn’t believe that God could deliver Canaan to them. They were condemned by God’s judgement to die in the wilderness.

At the same time, reports came to Rahab, and she became convinced that God was going to give her home to Israel because that was his promise. She believed He was above every king on earth and god of the heavens. They had seen and not believed. She had merely heard and was convinced. That’s saving faith. That’s what she’s remembered for. (Possibly connect with amazing faith of centurion in Matthew 8 “only say the word”).

Hebrews 11:31: “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

Why did God send the two spies into Canaan? He already knew what was there. He sent them to collect his daughter — the prostitute.

What was God’s very first act in the Promised Land? It was to save. It was to save a person most would think is un-savable.

APP: God wasn’t willing that one person of faith perish. Just one was worth saving. Just one prostitute.

Too often, we avoid the very people that God seeks. Most of us would switch to the other side of the road if we saw Rahab walking down the sidewalk. God went to the other side of the wall and got her.

This is hope and responsibility.

Hope for: the aborters, homosexuals, self-harmers, divorcees, adulterers

Responsibility that we live out our values and GO!

Faith “lives” for the “future”.

v. 15 “Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall.”

She didn’t do what was immediately most convenient or beneficial to her. She stressed herself. Put herself in danger. Sacrificed for the good of others.

She wasn’t living for right now. She was living for one day.

Joshua 2:18: “Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household.”

Scarlet Cord in the window = blood over the doorposts = judgement passing over

God would provide her a way to be saved that would give her a new identity. She, a Canaanite, would become part of Israel, a branch grafted in.

God had not JUST promised them the land. He’d promised them they’d be a blessing to every nation, even the Canaanites. Rahab was a fulfillment in herself.

So, God changed her identity. He made her his daughter. He transformed her from harlot to holy. And, the future held more than she could ever imagine.

Matthew 1:5-6: “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. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah”

God took a prostitute and so changed her that she became the mother of his own Son, the Savior of the world.

If you will come by faith and place your hope for the future upon God’s provision for salvation, He’ll change your identity too. He’ll make you his son or his daughter too. He’ll give you hope too.

God works backwards. He builds his kingdom out of run-down houses.