The Rescue of Rahab – Joshua 2

[Music] As we continue in our verse-by-verse study through the Book of Joshua, we come now to Joshua chapter 2, which really concerns the rescue of a woman named Rahab and her family, or at least setting up that rescue, as is going to happen in the coming conquest of the city of Jericho. You'll see exactly what I mean as we make our way through the chapter. Let's begin now.

Joshua chapter 2. I'm going to begin by just reading to you the first half of verse one. Ready? Now, Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, "Go view the land, especially Jericho." Joshua, the commander of the Lord's armies there for the people of Israel and the leader of Israel, after the death of Jericho was assured by God in chapter 1 that if they obeyed him, if they followed his word, that God would bless them with good success and they would take the land. Yet, Joshua's careful preparation worked in concert with God's promise. Joshua didn't say for a moment, "Well, God promised us victory, we'll just have a prayer meeting and everything will fall into place." No, as a wise military leader, he took careful preparation. And part of this was to send out two spies, two men to go and scout out the land, especially the city of Jericho.

The city of Jericho was not a particularly large city in Canaan, but it was very well fortified, and it would be the first city that they would come to after crossing the Jordan River. See, the promises that God made Joshua, a victory that we saw in the previous chapter, Joshua chapter 1, were not meant to encourage passivity or inaction on Joshua's part. No, they were meant to encourage his faith-filled activity. Now, it says that Joshua selected two men. The passage doesn't tell us who the two spies were. Some Jewish traditions speculate that they were faithful Caleb, who would have been a very old man by this time, and the high priest Eleazar. Now, those are just legends. They don't have any biblical foundation at all, but that's what the rabbis like to conjecture or speculate.

Now, this happened during the three days that Joshua commanded Israel to wait on the banks of the Jordan River. We saw that back in verse 11 of Joshua chapter 1. They came up close to the river, Joshua told them to wait three days, and God was going to accomplish something special in those three days. Now, we also see in this first half of verse one that it says that Joshua told these men to do their work, to spy secretly. I think it was wise for Joshua to send these spies secretly, in other words, without publicizing it to the whole people of Israel. A generation earlier, the public sending of the spies into Canaan ended in disaster when most of the spies returned with a discouraging report of the land and its people. That's back in Numbers chapter 13. And in that Numbers chapter 13 sending of the spies, only two of the 12 sent returned with a faith-filled and God-honoring report. Those two happen to be Caleb and Joshua. You'll find that in Numbers chapter 14, verses 6 to 9. I find it interesting that a generation later, Joshua only sent two spies instead of 12. He says, "Well, only two ended up with a good report anyway. Let's just send two this time." And the secrecy of their mission may have been not only to conceal it from Israel but also, of course, from the rulers of Jericho. He didn't want people to know either in Israel or Jericho that these spies were coming. And this is what he told them to do. Again, we're taking a look at the first half of verse one of Joshua chapter 2. He said to them, "Go view the land, especially Jericho."

Now, as I mentioned before, the city of Jericho was relatively close to Israel's planned crossing point of the Jordan River. It was one of the most secure and fortified cities in Canaan. And whatever the report of the spies might be that would come forth from it, he needed to know what the condition was of Jericho, what the state of mind was there. If they were highly fortified, if they were afraid of the Jewish people, that's the kind of information that Joshua hoped to gain from this expedition.

Now, coming into the second part of verse one of Joshua chapter 2, we read this: "So they went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there." A harlot named Rahab. Now, through the history of Christianity, it has embarrassed some Bible interpreters that these two spies went to the house of a prostitute, a harlot. And some people have tried to say that Rahab was merely an innkeeper. After all, the Hebrew word could be understood in that way. But the description of Rahab as a harlot in Hebrews 11:31 confirms the fact that she was a prostitute. And some early Christians saw a likeness in the sending of these forerunners before Joshua that was fulfilled in men like John the Baptist, the forerunner before Jesus the Messiah. In the 2nd century, a Christian writer named Origen wrote this. He said, "As the first Jesus sent his spies before him, and they were received into the harlot's house, so the second Jesus sent his forerunners, whom the publicans and harlots gladly received." That's an interesting parallel or likeness.

But in any regard, the two unnamed Israelite spies crossed over the Jordan River, went to the city of Jericho, and they came to the house of the harlot, the prostitute Rahab. Now, the harlot's house was a good place to stay if someone wanted to stay anonymous and remain hidden, despite the strict guard that was set over the city of Jericho. There's no indication at all in the text that the two spies engaged Rahab's services as a harlot. Matter of fact, you could say, and some other commentators point this out, that the text carefully avoids implying any kind of sexual liaison between the spies and their hostess, which was, of course, Rahab.

Now, let's come to verses 2 and 3, where we read: "And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, 'Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.' So the king of Jericho sent 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 country.'" We're not exactly sure how, but somehow the leader of the city-state of Jericho learned that two Israelite men had come to the city as spies. The phrase there used in verse 2 is "to search out the country." Now, this was of great concern because the city was already on alert. We're going to learn that later on in verse 9, they were afraid of an impending Israelite invasion. Therefore, he sent out messengers. And again, we don't know exactly why he targeted Rahab's house. Maybe he targeted the house of several well-known prostitutes, knowing that that would be a place where people would go if they didn't want to be noticed. But he says to Rahab in verse 3, through his messengers, "The king of Jericho said, 'Bring out the men.'" And again, this knowledge was gained by either the use of informers or logic. The king of Jericho believed the spies were with Rahab, and through his messengers, he demanded that they be turned over.

Now, starting at verse 4, we're going to see Rahab's response to the king of Jericho. Check this out. Starting at verse 4: "Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, 'Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And it happened, as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went, I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.' But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof." Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the fords. And as soon as those who had pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate.

Now, we read here in verse 4 that Rahab made a response to the messengers of the king. And the first thing that we notice is that she admitted that the men came to her. "Yes, these Israelite men came to me." It's true, but "I didn't know where they were from." Rahab was smart enough to notice that she could not deny that some strangers came into her home. That was a common occurrence, and other people might have seen that happen. So she didn't want to deny what other people might have been able to verify. Yet, she said, "I didn't know where they were from." And what she did instead was she hid the men. When she learned that her house was going to be questioned, you can just see it that she learned somehow, maybe she sees from down the street, messengers are coming from the king. Quick, hide yourselves! And she hides them on the roof, underneath the stalks of flax that would be used as part of a roof covering.

Now, the culture of the ancient Near East had a strong tradition of protecting guests. But even taking this into account, Rahab went much further than any cultural tradition regarding hospitality. What Rahab did here was remarkable. She put her own life at risk for the Israelite spies. And what she did was actually an act of treason against her own people. Her act of siding with the Israelite spies, lying for them, protecting them, hiding them, as we're going to see, that's not the end of her help, but that's just we see through these first few verses. What she did on behalf of those spies was an act of allegiance to Israel and Israel's God, and it was an act of treason against the king of Jericho, the city of Jericho, and the gods they represented. So she does in this act, and she tells a lie. You saw that there in verse 4. This is what she said: "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from."

The Bible simply reports Rahab's clever lie. It doesn't praise it, it doesn't excuse it. Rahab faced an ethical challenge. Either option before her was bad and a sin in some way. It would be a sin to align herself with the king of Jericho and the gods of Jericho. It would be a sin to give up the Israelite spies who represented the God of heaven and earth. Then again, it was also bad for her to lie. What Rahab decided in that situation, which I think was something that was good and wise and smart for her to do, Rahab decided that it was worse for her to betray the spies than it was for her to lie about their presence. So the men were protected. Rahab's protection of the spies was courageous, despite the fact that she had a pagan upbringing, she lived in a pagan culture, she practiced a morally compromised profession. Instead, she turned her back on all those things, and Rahab courageously allied herself with Israel and the God of Israel.

Now, notice what Rahab said to the Israelite spies. We get into the conversation here, starting at verse 8, where we read: "Now, before they 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, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard of how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted, neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.'"

This contains what I would call a surprising outburst of faith on the part of Rahab. Did you see what she said in verse 9? She says, "I know that the Lord has given you the land." This shows that God had a definite plan in bringing Rahab and these spies together. You see, God had already been speaking to Rahab in some way, and she had begun to believe in the superiority of Yahweh. That's the word there in verse 9 for "the Lord." That means Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. Rahab had already begun to come to faith in him. And don't you think this is remarkable? Of all the places, of all the people where these two spies could have gone, and let me just suggest, I don't want to be indelicate about this, but I don't think Rahab was the only prostitute in Jericho. Of all the places where they could have gone, they went to Rahab, a woman whom God had been communicating to already before she ever had a preacher, before she ever encountered a messenger, a human messenger, I should say, from the God of Israel.

May I say that God continues to speak in remarkable and unusual ways to unlikely people who seem to be distant from the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our world today? There is a phenomenon that's been noted for several years now of people in the Muslim and Islamic world having remarkable dreams that in some way direct them or point them to Jesus Christ or to the Bible or to other believers. I think this is a modern example of the same kind of thing that was happening in the life of Rahab. God had been working, communicating, speaking in some sense to her, telling her, "I am the God of heaven and earth. You need to turn your back on these Canaanite deities. You need to come to faith in me, the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel."

I like what Francis Schaeffer had to say about this work in Rahab's heart. He said this about Rahab: "She was pressured by a powerful city and an ancient culture continuing on in its normal life, eating, drinking, marrying, and so forth. At that moment, she could see nothing with her eyes that indicated it would fall. Yet she knew it. She knew that God had given Israel the land." And as a part of that, she confesses that directly. Did you notice those words in verse 9? He said, she says that "He has given you the land." You see, Rahab's confession of faith included recognition that God had promised the land of Canaan to Israel, and that he was beginning to fulfill that promise. Rahab saw God's supernatural work of causing, as verse 9 uses the word, "terror" among the Canaanites, leading them to be fainthearted. And where did this come from? Well, in verse 10, she says, "For we have heard." That's the phrase used in verse 10 in her confession of faith. Rahab reported that the people of Jericho had heard and believed in the mighty works God did for Israel in freeing them from Egypt.

Now, what do I mean by "heard and believed"? Well, they heard about him, that's obviously. She says, so verse 10, "For we have heard." But they heard how God had dried up the water of the Red Sea. That's in verse 10. And they also heard, in verse 10, what you did to the two kings, how they had already defeated Sihon and Og, the kings in the land of the Amorites and the Moabites. You see, you put all this together, and you realize that there were people in the city of Jericho, among the Canaanites, who heard of the great works of God. But not only had they heard those great works, but also they believed them. Now, they didn't believe in the God of Israel, but they believed that these things were true. When it says that they believed that God dried up the water of the Red Sea, they didn't say, "Ah, no, he didn't." They didn't say, "Well, God helped them conquer the two kings of the Moabites." Oh, no, he didn't. You see, they believed that these things were true.

Now, someone might ask, "Where did Rahab hear about these things?" James Montgomery Boice makes the suggestion in his commentary that she heard about these things from the men who frequented her establishment. Boice says, "Her home would have been a great place of gossip, as strangers from near and far reported their tales of foreign wonders." But Rahab wasn't the only one who heard about these things. But she was one of the few that came to this conclusion. Look at verse 11. Speaking of the God of Israel, "He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath." Rahab's confession of faith declared the greatness and the superiority of Yahweh, the God of Israel. That phrase, "He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath," that's found in some significant declarations of faith for the people of Israel, such as in Exodus 20:4, Deuteronomy 4:39, Deuteronomy 5:8. This is right in line with those great declarations of faith. And as a result of this understanding of the might, the power of the God of Israel, Rahab reported to the spies, verse 11: "Our hearts melted." You see, the combination of all these truths was overwhelming.

There were many among the Canaanites who believed that the God of Israel was greater than their Canaanite gods, had done miracles for the people of Israel, bringing them out of Egypt, had recently enabled Israel to defeat the Moabite kings, and had promised Israel the land of Canaan. Many among the Canaanites believed these things. But believing those things made those Canaanites lose all courage. Verse 11 says, "Yet very few of them acted in faith as Rahab the harlot did." Rahab, therefore, showed admirable faith. And may I say, later on, Hebrews 11:31 praises Rahab. James 2:25 praises Rahab. I like what the commentator Hess says about this. He says, "As an oath of fealty, this covenant would bring Rahab's family into Israelite society, as would have happened with the Gibeonites." So Rahab and her family here, used to be Canaanite and became part of Israel's family because she understood the greatness, the goodness, the superiority of the God of Israel, and she rejected her Canaanite gods and cast her lot with the God of Israel.

Now, let me just speculate for a moment here. What if there would have been hundreds of Rahabs in Jericho? Hundreds of people who said, "We believe the Lord God of Israel. He is God, and we're going to renounce our Canaanite gods and we're going to submit ourselves to the God of Israel." Theoretically, those people could have been saved, as Rahab will be. But there were not hundreds, there were not scores, as we're going to find out. There was Rahab, and as we'll find out in a few verses, there was her family.

Let's come now to verse 12, here in Joshua chapter 2. Rahab says again to the two Israelite spies, who are unnamed: "Now, therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father's house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death." What a beautiful heart Rahab has. She wanted to see her family saved. But she didn't only want it, she went to length, she went to great effort and trouble to save their lives. You see, Rahab wasn't just a person of faith who turned her back on the gods of the Canaanites and turned towards in trust and dependence upon the God of Israel, but she was also a woman of love. She cared about her family and wanted to see them saved. And therefore, she said, "Please do this for me." And she said in verse 12, "Swear to me by the Lord." You see, Rahab wanted assurance of her rescue by asking for an oath. She wanted to leave her sinful life and her culture and live with God's people.

Now, this put her at great risk again. Rahab rejected her past identity as a Canaanite, and she wanted to be identified with the people of God, with Israel. Now, I'll get ahead of myself in the story. She did. Rahab is going to be rescued. The promise is made here in chapter 2, and later on, when the Israelites conquered Jericho, Rahab and her family are going to be preserved. And eventually, Rahab will marry a man from the tribe of Judah named Salmon. They had a son named Boaz, who married a woman named Ruth, a Moabite woman, and they had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jesse, who had a son named David. Friends, according to the Bible, you can find this in Matthew 1:5 and 6, as well as other places. Rahab was a direct ancestor to David, the great king of Israel. And assuming that no generations were left out of the record, we don't always know this for sure, she was the great-great-grandmother of King David. In the Bible, she was the grandmother of David's grandfather, Obed. So this was her request made to the Israelite spies.

Well, verse 14 is going to tell us of the response of the Israelite spies. Here we go. Verse 14: "So the men answered her, 'Our lives for yours, if none of you will tell this business of ours. And it shall be, when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with you.'" Well, this was a solemn oath that the unnamed Israelite spies made. They made it on their lives. That's the meaning of the phrase, "Our lives for yours." Rahab and her family would be spared the coming judgment against the city of Jericho.

Now, I want you to pause just for a moment and think about this because in the larger context of the Book of Joshua, we are going to see harsh judgment on the Canaanites. We're going to see the destruction, in the cause of judgment, of men, women, and children. But even though Joshua is a book of harsh judgment against the Canaanites, the first story in the book that deals with someone other than Joshua is about God's mercy to an unlikely, yet believing, Canaanite. And I'm just going to presume that the inhabitants of Jericho had the same opportunity that Rahab did, but she was the only one who took the opportunity. She was the only one who said, "I'm going to align myself with the God of Israel, with the people of Israel. I'm going to turn my back on the Canaanite gods and I'm going to put my trust in Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel." Friends, genuinely, I believe that in theory, the other Canaanites had that responsibility, and by doing so, they could have done what Rahab did and escape the judgment of God. But they didn't do it, and they were therefore under the terrible judgment of God.

In verse 14, the Israelite spies responded, and they said, "We will deal kindly and truly with you." This confirmed the promise to rescue Rahab and her family from the coming judgment against Jericho. Now, don't you think it's interesting? We don't find really much helpful military intelligence that the spies are going to gain. But when they went to Jericho, they accomplished the rescue of Rahab and her family. I think that was the greatest purpose in their going. Oh, oh, look, I'm sure there was some helpful military intelligence that they gathered, especially learning of the poor morale of the people of Jericho. That's helpful to know. But the real reason was to rescue Rahab.

I want you to relate this to a New Testament occurrence. We find it in John chapter 4. You know, in one sense, Jesus didn't have to go through Samaria on his way to Galilee. There were other roads available. But Jesus did have to go through Samaria, again, that's in John chapter 4, to reach one Samaritan woman. In a parallel sense, Joshua didn't have to send the two spies. They didn't bring back specific information that would prove helpful in the conquest of Jericho. But Joshua did need to send them, if for nothing else, to rescue Rahab and her household.

Let's continue on now, here, verse 15: "Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall. She dwelt on the wall. And she said to them, 'Get to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you. Hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Afterward, you may go your way.'" So the men said to her, "We will be blameless of this oath of yours which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father's household to your own home. So it shall be that whoever goes outside the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless. And whoever is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. And if you tell this business of ours, then we will be free from your oath which you made us swear." Then she said, "According to your words, so be it." And she sent them away, and they departed, and she bound the scarlet cord in the window.

Now, how do we know that Rahab truly believed in the God of Israel and these messengers from the God of Israel? Well, because she actually did what she said she was going to do. Verse 15 says that she let them down by a rope. She protected and assisted the Israelite spies because she really believed in the greatness of Yahweh, and in the reliability of God's promises to Israel. And in this sense, it's certainly true what James says about Rahab in James 2:2, that she was justified by her faith-filled works. For Rahab, faith wasn't just something that she talked about and thought about. It was evident in the way that she lived. And that's the kind of faith that saves us, living faith, not dead faith.

Now, the unnamed Israelite messengers told Rahab to bind a scarlet cord in the window. That would be the signal to the army of Israel that the people in that home were to be spared. You see, despite Rahab's desire, despite her faith, despite the promises of the spies, she and her family would have perished unless she put her trust in a blood-red cord that was cast down from her window. Without that scarlet cord, she would not have been saved. So the spies told her to do it, she did it, and that would be the signal: "The person in this house trusts in the God of Israel and has had actions corresponding to that trust."

As early as the first century, commentators such as Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, and others have seen this scarlet cord as a symbol of the blood of Jesus. Let me read you a quote from James Montgomery Boice. He says, "There is a tradition in the church, going all the way back to Clement of Rome and possibly earlier, that the scarlet cord represents the blood of Jesus Christ, and teachers have talked about the cord running through the Bible from Abel's sacrifice to Calvary." There's something beautiful, there's something powerful about what verse 21 says, that "she bound the scarlet cord in the window." Don't you love it how Rahab immediately put her faith into both the identification and the safety of that scarlet cord? She didn't say, "Well, look, it's going to take those guys three days to get back, and a couple days for Israel to get over. I don't know what's going to happen. I'll get around to putting that scarlet cord in the window sometime or another." No, she did it immediately. She trusted in those ones who made the promise about the scarlet cord. She said, "According to your words, so be it." You can just imagine, she rushed out, she gathered her family into the house, she put the scarlet cord in the window. I wonder, Francis Schaeffer, in his commentary, wonders the same thing. He wonders if Rahab didn't run through the streets saying, "Hey, if you come into my house, if you come under the mark of the scarlet cord, you can be saved." But perhaps nobody responded, only her family. It's like what Lot did in the city of Sodom, but nobody responded except his family. It sort of sealed with Rahab's additional confession of faith in verse 21: "According to your words, so be it."

Rahab's destiny was to marry one of the princes of Judah and to be found in the lineage of King David and of Jesus himself. I like what Charles Spurgeon said about this, that great preacher of Victorian England. He said this: "Rahab tied the scarlet line, not in some secret part of the house, but in the window. It was her public declaration of faith. Let it be a scarlet line that you tie in the window, however, namely, an avowal of true faith in His precious blood, a declaration of confidence in atonement by blood. For there are some who profess a sort of faith, but it is not faith in the substitution of Christ. That was Rahab's great confidence." Friends, the law of judgment against the Canaanites condemned Rahab to death. But by her understanding of Yahweh, the God of Israel, her faith in Yahweh, her rejection of her Canaanite identity, and her embrace of her Israelite identity, add to all that, her willingness to publish an emblem of her trust in God's promise of rescue, because of all that collectively, it rightly triumphed over the law that condemned her. Rahab, in a glorious way, was brought into God's story of redemption.

All right, let's look at it now, starting at verse 22, here in Joshua chapter 2: "Departed and went to the mountain and stayed there three days until the pursuers returned. The pursuers sought them all along the way but did not find them. So the two men returned, descended from the mountain, and crossed over. And they came to Joshua the son of Nun and told him all that had befallen them. And they said to Joshua, 'Truly, the Lord has delivered all the land into our hands, for indeed, all the inhabitants of the country are fainthearted because of us.'"

You see, the Israelite spies were, as verse 22 says, pursued all along the way. But God supernaturally protected them. God's help came to these spies through Rahab, but then it also came by the confusion of the enemies. They tried to catch them, but they could not. And then, along the way, when they came back to Joshua, it says there in verse 23 that they told him all that had befallen them. The two spies made a full report to Joshua. But as I said before, there's no record of anything that they told him that proved to be essential in the conquest of Jericho. It was encouraging to hear that the Canaanites were fainthearted, as it says in verse 24, and it was encouraging to hear of the faith of Rahab. But that did not give Israel a strategy of attack against Jericho. That strategy was going to come from God. It was not going to come from the intelligence that was gained by the spies. I'll repeat it because I think it's good enough to repeat: The greater purpose was sending the two spies in arranging and assuring the salvation of Rahab and her family.

You know, Rahab, not only because she was a citizen of Jericho, not only because she was a Canaanite, not only because she grew up in a depraved culture, but friends, she was a prostitute. She was one that some people might consider to be impossible to save. But friends, God did what seemed impossible. And may I say that even to the present day, God continues to save those who seem to be impossible to save. And Rahab stands as a beacon of what could have been among the Canaanites if they would have rejected the gods of Canaan, surrendered, submitted to the God of Israel and to the people of God. They could have been spared the coming judgment, as Rahab was, as others will be, as we will see in the Book of Joshua. But it was not to be here in the conquest of Jericho. It's only going to be Rahab and her family.

Now, before we leave this in Joshua chapter 2, let's consider a few ways that this chapter points to Jesus Christ. I'm only going to suggest a few ways. I'm sure that you can think of your own, and we'd love to hear about what additional ideas that you have about how this points to Jesus. But here's just a few that came to my mind. Number one, Rahab herself points to Jesus. As she is in the Messianic line, as we mentioned, she was the great-great-grandmother of David, that is, the grandmother of David's grandfather, Obed, that's assuming that the biblical genealogies that we have aren't skipping generations. So Rahab, she directly points to Jesus, herself being in the lineage of the Messiah, as Matthew 1:5 and 6 tell us.

Number two, there's a sense in which Joshua would become a savior for Rahab. He's going to rescue her, but he would be a judge of the rest of Jericho. The rest of Jericho is going to perish. We'll talk more about this later, but it's a heavy thing, men, women, and children. Joshua, a savior for Rahab, but a judge for Jericho. In the same way, Jesus Christ is a savior for those who trust him, for those who turn their backs on the gods of the culture all around them but put their trust in him. Jesus is a savior for those who trust him, but he is a judge for those who reject him.

Then thirdly and finally, Joshua saved Gentiles who came in repentance and faith, and so does Jesus. Jesus opens the door wide, but people have to do what Rahab did: commit treason against the world, the flesh, and the devil, turn their back on the culture they were born into and the world that is set against God, and turn their faith towards the great God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who rescues his people and all who will repent and put their trust in him. I hope that's you. I hope you've received that wonderful rescue from Jesus Christ, even as was promised to Rahab. Lord God, that is my prayer for everyone who hears this, that they would be numbered among those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, that Joshua is all about this great conquest. But Lord, we thank you for our greater Joshua, Jesus Christ, who is a conquering ruler, even as Joshua was, but is also a precious savior who laid down his own life at the cross so that God's people could be brought into right relationship with their God. Thank you for our greater Joshua in Jesus Christ, and thank you for your word, how you're still rescuing those who seem impossible to save. We put our trust in you. In Jesus' name, amen.

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