SCARLET CORD

Joshua 2:1-24

Key Verse 2:17-18 

The men said to her, "This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us, unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house."

Today we would like to learn about Rahab's faith. We have heard the statement, “Faith is the victory.” But what exactly does it mean to say, “Faith is the victory”? We can find the answer to this question from the example of Rahab. I pray that all of us would learn from Rahab, woman of faith, and thus win a lot of victories this year and beyond. 

I. The greatness of her faith.

First, no one in her community believed, but she believed.

Many say that a man is the product of his circumstances. But the Bible says that we are to overcome our circumstances rather than to let our circumstances overcome us. Only one who has faith in the Lord can overcome his circumstances. Another truth is that the greater faith one has, the better one is able to overcome his circumstances. Thus great faith overcomes great adversities. 

In the case of Rahab, she overcame her unbelieving environment. She lived in Jericho. In the Jericho of her time, not all people believed in the Lord. Rather they believed in something or someone other than the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In fact, in the city of Jericho, no one believed in the Lord; not because they had not heard about the Lord, but even if they had heard about the Lord, they still chose not to believe. But as we see in the passage, Rahab believed in the Lord. This is why her faith stands out so greatly. 

When Jesus began his public ministry 2000 years ago in the land of Israel, a great number of people began to believe in Jesus. Likewise expecting many would believe in him, Jesus re-visited his hometown Nazareth. On a certain Sabbath, he went into a local synagogue and began to preach the good news. People heard the message and were amazed by his teaching and exclaimed, "Wow! What a great teaching! Where did he get such wisdom?!" But later on, they failed to believe in Jesus. So Jesus was amazed by their unbelief. Everywhere else in Israel, Jesus' name was recognized as a great prophet. But in his hometown, they did not give him the kind of honor he deserved. So Jesus was amazed by their unbelief. Their case was kind of the opposite of Rahab's. The unbelief of the people of Jesus' hometown was great, for they did not believe when a multitude of people in other towns believed; Rahab's faith was great because none of the people in her community believed. Surely she had great faith.

Second, she made a great sacrifice. 

When we study Joshua Chapter 2, we can easily see that her faith is great for another reason, that is, she believed in the Lord, and clearly stood on the side of the Lord, even if it meant losing her life and her life’s security, i.e. her job as an innkeeper and her business license to continue operating the inn.  Let us read vs. 1-3.  Here this passage and the actions she did thereafter tell us that, in order to identify herself with a believing people, she ran the risk of losing everything she had, including her own life. Nevertheless she braved the possibility of getting caught, going to jail, and perhaps even suffering capital punishment. 

It is said, "All that glitters is not gold." Likewise, there are many people who seem to believe. But when they face real-life difficulties such as the possibility of losing their life or life’s security (a job or a spouse), or the opportunity to indulge in a pleasure-seeking lifestyle, they chicken out and become no different than unbelieving people. They fail to take a stand. They choose not to come out of the people of the world (i.e. unbelievers), and not to identify themselves with the people of God. 

We know that Moses' faith was great because he risked his life. In order to identify himself with the people of God, he risked the possibility of losing his position as Prince of the Egyptian Empire. Indeed as he came out of Pharaoh's royal palace and tried to serve his fellow Jews, he ended up losing his position as an heir of the Egyptian Empire. And then he lived as a nobody of nobodies. He became the chairman of the JMS – the Jobless Men's Society. But surprisingly the author of the book of Hebrews says that Moses sacrificed something else: limitless opportunities to indulge in the pleasures of sin, all for free. For Hebrews 11:25 says, "He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time."  

It has been said, "Love is a choice." And when you think about it, faith is also a choice. This is especially true with Christian love and Christian faith. Christian means “Christ's person.” It means the one who chooses to love Christ. It refers to one who chooses to rely on him rather than one who chooses to rely on something or someone else. The fact that faith is a choice (or decision, if you will) means that faith is a choice to make a sacrifice. It is impossible for you to believe in the Lord and to sacrifice nothing. It is a simple impossibility. We can understand this concept very well when we think about the example of Abraham, the father of faith. Genesis’ accounts on Abraham's pilgrimage of faith tell us that he earned the title "The Father of Faith" when finally he completed sacrificing his very best: Isaac. Abraham began the life of faith at the age of 75. At that time, he did not have a son. So at first his motive in starting out his life of faith was sort of impure: he believed in the Lord because the Lord [almost] said, "If you believe, I will give you a son." When he started out his life of faith, he was like a brother who kept going to church, believing that his pastor would certainly find a nice looking wife for him. In this way Abraham waited and waited for a son. He waited 10 years. But still the Lord did not give him a son. Now 20 years passed. But there was still no son. Finally, he turned 99 years old. So he lost all hope to get a son. He gave up. But at that very moment, the Lord came to him saying, "Repent and believe." Mysteriously, he believed. After all he still had not lost hope to get a son. And the idea of getting a son was always good. So he believed. Then the Lord God gave him a son named Isaac. But the real problem popped up after getting his son. The Lord God visited him and asked him to sacrifice his son. Had the Lord God asked him to give his son over to someone else, he could have obeyed. But the Lord God said, "Sacrifice your son to me as a burnt offering." What is a burnt offering? A burnt offering is a "burnt" offering. Wow! The Lord God was asking too much. But Abraham obeyed. Why? Because faith is a choice. It is a decision, just as love is a decision. 

This is the kind of faith Rahab demonstrated. Hebrews 11 is called the Spiritual Hall of Fame. There we see the names of the heroes and heroines of faith. But of all the names listed there, we find only two women listed: Sarah and Rahab. Sarah was a Jewish woman. Rahab was a Gentile woman. So we can say that Sarah is the champion of faith among Jewish women while Rahab is the champion of faith among Gentile women. How did she earn this great reputation? She did not earn this title for nothing. She earned it by running the risk of losing everything, even her life!

Third, she overcame her lowly status as a harlot.

When we study the Bible in reference to Rahab, we see one interesting point: that is, the Bible doggedly describes her as a prostitute. Joshua 2:1b says, "[The spies] went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there." Joshua 6:17b says, "Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent." Joshua 6:25 says, "But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because..." Hebrews 11:31 also says, "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies..." Four times sound enough. But still James 2:25 says, "In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous..." Here the word "even" put in front of the phrase “Rahab the prostitute” indicates that she was probably the last person on earth that deserved to be saved. 

This tells us that Rahab’s faith stood out the most because she overcame all the hurdles that come with her status as a prostitute. What kinds of difficulties did she overcome? There were many. But of all the difficulties she had to overcome, I think two obstacles deserve our special attention: the power of sin and the sense of shame and guilt. 

There are many interesting studies about prostitutes. One person I know earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. The title of his dissertation was Immunity to Failure. In order to write his dissertation he conducted intensive research about prostitutes. He entered a prostitute's society. He ate with them, talked with them, and stayed with them. Then he reached the conclusion that prostitutes failed so much because they were no longer afraid to fail; they had failed and fallen to the very bottom of society and could fall no lower. So prostitutes are in fact professionals in failing. They fail, fail, and fail, and then they fail more. Because they fail so many times, even when they fail, they do not feel any pain. I also ran across another interesting discovery, that is, almost 97% of all prostitutes become prostitutes not because of their environment or poor upbringing or circumstances or whatever, but because of their lust! This suggests that it is very possible that Rahab became a prostitute because of her lustful desires! And like many other habits, if you are steeped in a pleasure-seeking lifestyle for a long time, it is really difficult for you to get out of it. And many choose not to believe simply because they love the power of darkness more than the light. Jesus made this point very clear to Nicodemus in John 3:19, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." Certainly Rahab's deeds were evil. Plus she most likely got into “the oldest profession in history” known as prostitution because of her love of darkness. BUT she made the decision to come out of the darkness and step into the light of God! 

Another hurdle she overcame, I believe, was her sense of shame and guilt. God created man in his image. So being a human being, she was endowed with the image of God. One of the features built into the image of God is the desire to live a holy life, a life which is pure morally and spiritually. Another feature that is associated with the image of God is a good conscience. God gave each person a good conscience, and this conscience serves as a moral sensor within a man. Therefore each time someone commits a sin, even if he does not know Moses' Ten Commandments, he nevertheless feels shame and guilt. This shame and guilt are both good and bad, depending on how you use it: good if you recognize its good purpose (like working as a deterrent to sin), but bad if you mistake its good purpose and instead let it cause you to slip into the slough of despair and self-pity. 

Having lived as a prostitute Rahab might have felt a lot of shame and guilt. But she overcame these feelings by repentance and faith in God. Like many, she might have felt the sense of shame and self-condemnation. Yet she shook it all off. By faith she made a decision to come out of her lowly status, and to instead live as a member of the kingdom of priests and a holy nation, a people belonging to God! Surely her faith was as great as her status as a prostitute was lowly! 

Fourth, she bore great fruit.

When we study the Bible we can easily see that real faith produces real fruit. According to the Bible, it is impossible for one to have faith and never produce fruit. The first fruit one bears is seen in his actions. Faith produces action. What kind of righteous acts did Rahab produce? In the passage we find a lot of them. First she welcomed the spies. Then when the local policemen came and knocked on the door, pressing and even demanding her to surrender the spies, she instead made sure they remained hidden. Then in God's wisdom, she protected the spies safely by quickly diverting the policemen toward the wrong direction, and thereby effectively having them shut outside of the city gates. Next she invited the two spies to a midnight Bible conference. There she gave them a history lesson, speaking about God's good deeds. Through this session she planted in the spies absolute faith in the absolute victory to come. I believe she is one of the greatest motivators of all time. After giving them a good night's sleep, she saw them off by lowering them through the window and sending them back to their camp, safe and sound, simultaneously giving them wise instructions on how to escape from the eyes of the secret police lurking everywhere. 

The fruit she bore also included the rewards that come with it. What kind of rewards did she get? As we will soon see in Joshua 6, her faith procured salvation, not just for her, but also for all her entire family. Plus she provided the members of the Lord's army, especially General Joshua, with what they needed the most: deep conviction for absolute victory. Purely thanks to her faith and obedience, the spiritual morale of the Lord's army shot up through the roof! 

More importantly than this, however, is her lasting reward. She earned the glorious title, the Champion of Faith. Plus in Matthew 1:5 the Lord God blessed her faith by granting her a blessed marriage. She married a man with a very interesting name: Salmon. I love sushi, and I love salmon sushi the most. Last Thursday Missionary Mary Yoon invited us to the best sushi restaurant in Redondo Beach. There they served salmon as well. And the salmon tasted very good. It was like chocolate melting in your mouth; the taste was excellent. It was sweet, sweet, and more sweet. So Rahab married Salmon. Certainly her marriage must have been as sweet as the taste of fresh salmon. Out of this marriage came out a real gentleman – in fact a gentleman to end all gentlemen – named Boaz. If anyone wants to find out how sweet and gentle Mr. Boaz is he should read the book of Ruth. And from this line of faith came King David.

II. The secret of her great faith.

Let us stop for a moment here and think about how she had acquired such a great faith. What was her secret? How did she come to have such a great faith? There are a lot of lessons to learn from her, but I would like to focus on only a few of them.

Living by faith is never a blind way of living life. In fact the exact opposite is true, for certainly faith is an intelligent commodity. It has been said, "Faith is an acronym of five words: Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him." But how do we choose to have faith, to trust? We find the answer to this question in one of the hymns entitled, "I know God's promise is true" (Worship In Song, 441). Here we see the refrain, "’Tis true, oh, yes, ‘tis true. God’s wonderful promise is true. For I've tested and tried it, and I know God's promise is true." 

In what Rahab said to the spies, we find the same holds true. Let us read vs. 9-13 responsively. She began this speech with two words, "I know." She knew that the Lord God gave the land to the Israelites. This knowledge was not a superficial knowledge. It was a real knowledge which she knew with absolute certainty. 

How did she acquire this knowledge? In view of what she said in vs. 9-13, we can say that she acquired this knowledge through her research into God's redemptive history. For example, in the passage she talks about how the Lord God dried up the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds)! This event took place about 40 years before. Yet she still remembered it! Plus she followed up all the events that happened to the Israelites and to the other neighboring peoples living in their respective places. 

After collecting all this information, with a scholarly attitude, she analyzed it and reached her own conclusion. That is, she recognized that she was doomed. With the precision of a brain surgeon, she was aware that judgment was about to fall on her, her family members, and upon all who lived in the land of idolatry. With this knowledge she was looking for a way out. And I am certain that she was even praying to the Lord for an opportunity for her to be saved from the impending judgment. And we can easily imagine that her life during the past 40 years as an innkeeper was like the life of a servant keeping watch at the door waiting for the owner of the house to return (Mark 13:35). To the eyes of unbelieving people, she was just a busy businesswoman making a living out of an alternative lifestyle. But in God's eyes, her life for the past 40 years was a long night's vigil. And her vigilance paid off. The Lord God sent two spies to save her. Of course it was Joshua who decided to spy out the land. Of course it was the two spies who decided to stay at her inn. But could it be possible that it was the Lord who told Joshua to send the two spies knowing that she was the only one worthy of salvation? 

From her example, we are reminded of two Bible verses: Acts 17:11 and Hebrews 2:3. 

Acts 17:11 reads, "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Like the Bereans we must examine the Scriptures with a believing mind. Then we will surely reach the conclusion that all who live without faith in Jesus, the Lord and Savior of mankind, are doomed. We have no choice but to repent of our sinful way of rebellion and unbelief, and to turn to Christ with the clarity and decisiveness of Rahab!

Hebrews 2:3 reads, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him." This passage says that we should not ignore the message of salvation. By the same token, we should not ignore the message of the impending judgment – the judgment which will fall on everyone who entertains doubts about God's love, for when we look up to Jesus on the cross, we read the message that God is love. In love he sent his one and only son to take away our sins, sins which are as scarlet as the scarlet cord tied to the window of Rahab’s inn. 

One word: a scarlet cord.