Part 1 – Rahab and the Spies (Joshua 2:8-13)
A little girl wanted a cell phone for her tenth birthday. Her father said she wasn’t old enough. Undaunted, she challenged him by citing precedent: “How old were you when Grandma and Grandpa bought you your first cell phone?”
Her father was born in 1967.
Many find it hard to believe that people were able to survive without cell phones. How did they communicate? Somehow, word got out.
The two men sent to spy on Jericho expected discretion from Rahab, a disreputable woman who kept a disreputable house in town. What they did not expect was her active assistance. She hid them on the roof. She deceived the townspeople who were looking for them. She pointed the spies to safety.
Up on the roof, Rahab told them why she had done this: “I know that the LORD has given you the land” (Joshua 2:9a ESV). Then she explained how she knew that. She recalled how the Israelites had defeated two kings east of the Jordan River. These were recent events. But she also recalled “how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came up out of Egypt” (v. 10a), an event that had taken place forty years earlier! How did she know that? “We have heard it,” she said. Somehow, the Word got out!
Rahab described the Word’s effects on the people of Jericho: “As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you” (v. 11a). But there was Spirit in the disreputable woman. Through that same Word, faith was alive in Rahab’s heart. “For the LORD your God,” she confessed, “He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (v. 11b).
By faith, Rahab saved the spies (Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25). By faith, she asked for mercy, and not only for herself: “Give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death” (Joshua 2:12b-13).
God gets His Word out today, and the Word has the same effects on all who hear it. The terrors of His Law convict us of sin, melt our hearts, and dissolve any trust we ever had in our works. But the same Word that works death in us also works life in us. God has mercy on us and offers us the consolation of His Gospel, the promise of forgiveness and everlasting life, not only for ourselves, but for our households, too.
The spies gave Rahab the “sure sign” she requested. We remember the scarlet cord she tied in her window. That cord was the sign of her family’s deliverance from death; of her bond to Israel (Joshua 6:22-25); and of her bond to the Savior, born in the fullness of time, of her own flesh and blood (Matthew 1:5).
What Rahab recalled and revealed was not only good information for the spies, but Good News for them as well. Forty years earlier, Moses had prophesied that Israel’s enemies would hear of God’s saving acts and that their hearts would melt when they heard it (Exodus 15:15-16, 23:27; see also Deuteronomy 2:25). What comfort it gave the two men to hear this prophecy fulfilled! And what joy it gave them to show God’s mercy to Rahab!
Biblical literacy has declined, but it hasn’t vanished. God’s Word still gets out. When we cross paths with someone and they throw in some unexpected snippet of Scripture, we should rejoice, because this is our opportunity to proclaim the mercy of God and share the Word of Christ.
The Word of Christ is the sure sign of our deliverance from death, and faith comes from hearing it. Faith is our bond to God’s Son and to His people. By faith, we have the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake. To know that gives us comfort and peace. It also gives us the spirit of urgency, as we cultivate Biblical literacy and communicate the Gospel to our neighbor. The Savior Himself, descended from Rahab, tells us how vital this work is: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24 ESV).