Turn back in your Bibles to Hebrews
chapter 11. Hebrews 11. I want you to look down with me at a couple of verses, verses
30 and 31. Verse 30 says, By faith the walls
of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perish
not with them that believe not. when she had received the spies
with peace. I want to talk to you today about
the harlot's salvation. I thought about it. The very people that God has
chosen to tell us about in His Word ought to reveal that all of salvation
excludes our boasting. That if the Lord is pleased to
save you or me, we have no reason at all to boast. And by the same token, they ought
also to give us hope and a reason to seek Him for
mercy and grace. You see, the Scriptures say –
now men don't say this – but the Scriptures say that Christ
died for the ungodly. They tell us that He came to
seek and to save that which was lost. They say that He came not to
call the righteous to repentance, but sinners to repentance. As a matter of fact, that He
came into this world to save sinners. It says that he shall save his
people from their sins. And this may not be illustrated
any better in all of Scripture than in the picture we have here
of this woman Rahab. It says of her, by faith the
harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not. Who was this woman Rahab? Well, if you look back in the
first chapter of Matthew, There is an amazing reference
to her in the genealogy of not only King David, but also of
the earthly genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, there are
a number of what we might call questionable individuals in this
genealogy. But it says of her, it says in
verse 5, And Salmon begat Buz of Rahab, and Buz begat Obed
of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king. And all of this comes down to
the Lord Jesus Christ in this genealogy. She is Rahab, who
was a common sinner, and I would suppose in our minds the least
likely object of the grace and favor and love of God. But when you think about it,
that ought to really, seeing who she is, that ought to really
make us view her as a very likely candidate for the grace of God. Now, I've heard her described
by a number of commentators. who it seems to me are trying
to lessen what she is as merely a taverner or, as some have said,
an innkeeper, which she was most likely in a sense. She entertained
guests and kept residents in her home, which was built in
the city wall. but make no bones about it, she
was without a doubt a prostitute. And I thought about it, you can
kind of play around with that word harlot as it might be in
the Hebrew over in Joshua, and it might not really come out
for what she really is, but when you come down to what we read
here in the New Testament. When we read as she is described
here as the harlot, the Greek word for harlot here that the
Spirit of God uses is porne. That ring any bells? It's the
word that we get the word porn or pornography. It has to do
with those who sell themselves sexually for money. And she was
nothing less than this, as we read here in the scripture. And yet, when we say such things,
what does it make us think about her, and most of all, about ourselves? When it says here that she was
the harlot, are we in some way able in our minds to distinguish
ourselves from her or distance ourselves from her? Are we in
any less need as sinners than she was? Are we any more deserving
of mercy than this woman was? Or are we any more desiring to
know God than she was? Or any more fit to stand before
the holy and righteous justice of God than she was? She standing before God's holy
justice in herself would be pronounced condemned and a sinner. And you and I, irregardless of
what we have not done that she might have done, standing before
God, this same God, in and of ourselves, would be pronounced
the same thing. Absolutely the same thing. Turn over to Romans, the book
of Romans and the third chapter. Sometimes I'm not sure that we
really believe what the Scriptures say about all of us. Romans chapter 3, Paul who was
a Jew himself, God having distinguished between all of humanity into
two categories, Jew and Gentile. If you're not a Jew, you're a
Gentile. If you're not a Gentile, you're
a Jew. Only two. Look down in verse
9. What then, are we better than
they? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. And what God had written concerning
one is said of the other from a long way past. As it is written,
there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is as an open sepulchre,
an open grave. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of ass is under their
lips. whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes." That's everybody. And so God uses these individuals,
such as Rahab the harlot, to show us and remind us not only
of His grace and mercy to us, but of what we really are before
His holiness and in His sight. Because every one of us, according
to this book, We all played the harlot in our father Adam when
we all sinned in him. And not only that, it says that
we also go astray from our birth. And we come forth from the womb
speaking lies, the highest of which are lies about God. What can be said and was said
of Israel has to be said of every one of us, every single son of
Adam, that we have all gone a-whoring after other gods. But it says here of Rahab that
by faith, through means of faith, She perished not in the judgment
that came upon that city of Jericho. She perished not with them that
believe not. One of the reasons why I believe
that men seek to diminish or dilute, I might say, what she
really was is because they want to dilute also the sovereign,
electing, choosing mercy of God. They'll say, well, she really
wasn't as bad as you might think at first glance. She was. And not only was she that bad,
just like us, I'm sure she was far worse in what she was before
God than we could ever begin to imagine that she was. But
God saved her, He blessed her, and He preserved her so that
she perished not with those of Jericho who believed not. Where did she get that faith? Well, She got it. She received
it as a gift of God. It does not say in this book
that faith is offered to all men. It says that faith is given
to some men. Paul, when he wrote to those
believers at Ephesus, he said, for by grace are ye saved." Now
Ephesus was a place of great spiritual idolatry. It was the
center of the worship of Diana. And there were many prostitutes,
many harlots that were involved in this worship of Diana. And so God says through the Apostle,
for by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So that neither Rahab, nor any
of these believers at Ephesus that Paul is talking to, nor
any believer in this hour, if we are unable to believe God,
if we have this faith, by which he reveals Christ to us, we have
nothing to boast in. It is the gift of God. And yet, at the same time, though
it was the gift of God, it was not apart from the means that
God has ordained. In other words, God sent these
spies not simply to spy out the land, but in the sovereignty
and power of His grace and purpose toward her and toward each and
every individual one of His elect, He sent them to her house. The Bible says of the Lord Jesus
Christ that this was an accusation laid at His feet, that He went
to eat and to be in the house of sinners. They charged Him with this. They
said, He is a friend to publicans and sinners. If He knew who it
was He was talking to, He wouldn't be talking to her. But Christ sent these messengers
just like He sends every gospel messenger on a course to seek
out and to find His sheep and to bear witness to each of them
the gospel of what He in grace and for His glory has done for
them in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul again says this
concerning this faith. He says, so then faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." Now, turn over
to Joshua 2 once again. And look down here in Joshua
chapter 2. Is that true in Rahab's case? Look here in Joshua chapter 2
in verse 9. Or verse 8, rather, where we
left off in our reading, it says, And before they were laid down,
she came up unto them upon the roof. And she said unto the men,
I know that the Lord hath given you the land. Now, you can't
ever separate faith from knowledge. You go in Romans chapter 10 and
you read what he talks about there concerning calling on the
Lord, believing on the Lord. And he says, you cannot believe
on one of whom you have not heard. All right, what does it say? And
she said unto the men, We know that the Lord hath given you
the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all
the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard
how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you." We've heard what Jehovah God
has done for you. When ye came out of Egypt, and
what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites that were on
the other side of Jordan, Sion and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed,
and as soon as we had heard these things our hearts did melt, neither
did there remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God He is God in heaven above and
in earth beneath. She had heard some things about
Jehovah God. She had heard the things that
He had done concerning His people. She had heard of His deliverance
of them from bondage. She had heard of how He was a
God of might and power. She had heard of His sovereignty. Is that right? She said, for the Lord your God,
He is God in the singular, in heaven above, and in earth beneath." I'll say this, that's more than
most people have heard in our day. And the amazing thing is what
I'm sure the king of Jericho and the leaders of Jericho and
all these other people of Jericho, what they and could not believe. She believed it. She believed
it was a finished, done deal. And what is the gospel except
this word of what God has done in Christ for His people, this
salvation and this work that He has accomplished and gives
to them freely by His grace." She said, I know. I've heard. For Jehovah, He is God. She had heard that her city and
all in it were under the condemnation of God. And the Spirit of God
took that word and filled her with the fear of the Lord. And she believed what was said
of God and the message that was sent to her by God. And this is still the way God
works and the way He's pleased to show mercy and save sinners,
to bring them to believe the truth. To bring them to believe
on the One who is revealed in that truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. To bring them to believe and
rely upon Him and what He has done, especially in His cross
work for their salvation. That's what John writes. He that
believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Now, here's a woman, a harlot,
a prostitute. And what the Apostle in Hebrews
11 in that 31st verse distinguishes her from all the people, not
only in the fact that she perished not, But the reason that they perished
was because they believed not. They believed not. You see, you
have faith when you believe the Word of God so as to act upon
it. Now, you stop and think for just
a minute. Here is this woman. Many have
even criticized what she did in hiding the spies. They've criticized her for telling
the king what she told him. But the other side of that is,
and this is the real side, the danger that she put herself in,
humanly speaking, for hiding those spies. You see, she never could have,
she never would have done that or said that had she not believed
God. Isn't that right? There are people who say, well,
I believe, I believe the gospel, I believe the truth. No, you
believe, you believe the truth so when you act upon it, when
you cast off every other hope, when you look to the one that
God reveals in His gospel. You see, Abraham, who is given
as a great example of faith, it says of him, he staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he
had promised He was also able to perform. They were trusting in the strength
of that fortress. They were trusting and relying
on the cunning and the strength of their soldiers. They were
resting in the wisdom of their king. But they perished. And
here's a harlot prostitute. And God enables her to believe
this word about Himself. Believing that she was in the
same condemnation as all the others in Jericho. Believing
these men were sin of God. What did she do? She sought mercy
and grace from God. I know we're all worthy of this
condemnation. I know that God has pronounced
a judgment on this city because of its sin. I know that God is
going to give all of this and much more to you people of God. Remember me in mercy. Look back in verse 12 of Joshua
2. What does she say to them? Well,
I know that the Lord is God. I know that He's going to bring
this city down. I know we've all been delivered
into your hands as far as an enemy is concerned. Well, it's
just going to happen. I'm a goner. That's not what
faith does. Verse 12, Now therefore I pray
you, Swear unto me by the Lord, since I have showed you kindness,
that you will also show kindness unto my Father's house, and give
me a true token, and that you will save alive my father and
my mother and my brethren and my sisters and all they have,
and deliver our lives from death." These people who say, well, if
he's a sovereign God and he's going to do what he will in heaven
and earth, if he's going to save his people from their sins, well,
I just might as well go out and do whatever I want to. I'm going
to hell anyway and just be done with it. That's stupidity. The doctor tells you you have
an illness. You say, well, I've got an illness. I just might as well go out there
and go start digging my own grave and I'm ready to die. That's
nothing to be done about. No, we run to a physician. That's what she did. And I'll
tell you, if the Lord ever brings us to really know what we are. If He ever, by His Spirit, causes
us to know what we really are in ourselves and the danger we're
in of ourselves and our great sinfulness, we'll run to a physician. She said of these messengers, Oh, give me some kind of token,
Not just a, I don't want to walk down the aisle, or I don't want
to raise my hand or anything like that. I don't want a religious
icon or an ornament or anything like that. I want a true token. Look at verse 14. And the men
answered her, Our life for yours. Our life for yours. You know, the Lord's people can
all say that to every one other of the Lord's people. Our life
for yours. Because our life is Christ. And our life was given for yours. You're His people. I lay down
my life for the sheep. Christ, who is our life, our
life for yours, they said. If ye utter not this our business,
and it shall be when the Lord hath given us the land, that
we will deal kindly and truly with thee." You know, it seems
like there's an emphasis here of truth and faithfulness and
justice. She said, I don't want you to
do one thing. Say one thing to me and do another
way. They said to her, we'll do exactly
what we say we'll do, and we'll do it truthfully and faithfully.
Isn't that what Christ has done? Isn't that what justification
is all about? God dealing with us justly, faithfully,
truthfully? and in His Son dealing with our
sins justly, truthfully, faithfully, in His grace, righteous grace? And then she let them down by
a cord through the window. For her house was upon the town
wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them,
Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you, and hide
yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned,
and afterward may ye go your way. And the men said unto her,
We will be blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made
us swear. When we come into the land, thou
shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou
didst let us down by. And thou shalt bring thy father,
and all thy father's household home unto thee. And it shall
be that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into
the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be
guiltless. And whosoever shall be with thee
in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be
upon him. Now, it says here a scarlet thread,
and the first thing in their minds is a little piece of red
sewing thread. But it was evidently much more
than this, because by it, she lowered them down the side of
the city wall. I see this right, and I believe
I do. That was just representative,
just a picture of the saving work of the shedding of Christ's
blood on that cross. He said, when we come, You take this red cord or red
long sash, whatever it was, you hang it in the window, visibly
in the window. And you and all your house, all
that are in that house marked by that sash, you'll be safe. Out of that house, your blood's on your own head. In that house, we're responsible
for you. Now, I got to thinking. The Scripture refers to all of
the people of God as Christ's house. And everybody that's in Christ's
house is safe. Somebody a long time ago, it
may have been Brother Mahan, I'm not sure, they preached on
this text. And the sermon was, if I'm not
mistaken, the title was something like this, The Part of the Wall
That Didn't Fall. The walls fell down. Not this house. And judgment came on that place
just as was predicted, just as was prophesied, just as the judgment
of God will come on this world. But everyone in Christ has that red cord. signified. His shed blood. Everyone in Christ is saved. The lowest prostitute. You know, it's really amazing. Paul is enabled to say, by the
Spirit of God, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
of whom I am You know, by our way of thinking,
we'd say, well, a prostitute, that's about as low as you can
go. Not in God's sight. Because Saul of Tarsus, which
is who Paul was, was religious and he was morally upright. And he was outwardly obedient
to the laws of God. He was respected, a prominent
teacher. You see, what God is showing
us is His people come from each end of this spectrum and everything
in between, but He saves them all by His grace. He saves them all through that
cross work of His Son. He saves them all from their
sins because His blood was shed as the payment of their sins.
He saves them all in the same way by imputing to them a righteousness
that they do not have of themselves, the very righteousness of Christ. That's the way he saves harlots.
And that's the way he saves preachers. Either of which, if they don't
know him. Set that scarlet cord in the
window. That represented salvation by
the blood. That represented salvation and
deliverance from sin and judgment through one sacrifice, the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the message of the
gospel. These men are said to be, in
another place, messengers. Now, they were spies in one sense,
naturally. But more than that, they were
messengers to that lost sinner. And others of her household,
I don't doubt. And the one sign, the one token,
the one evidence for any sinner under the just judgment and condemnation
of God is this gospel. where justice is satisfied in
Christ. And here is a woman, a sinner,
who has no right, no claim, no refuge from God's wrath against
the sin of Jericho, and yet God's distinguishing grace and His
sovereign mercy goes out to bless her. Remember the Passover land? Now, God's going to bring judgment
on Egypt, and He did. But He said, you
take a male of the sheep, you put him aside, you watch him
to make sure he's without spot and without blemish, and at a
certain time, you take him out and slay him, and you take that
blood and you sprinkle that blood on the lintels and the doorposts.
of those Hebrew houses in the land of Goshen. And he said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you, because that blood is the blood
of the one I appointed to die in your place. And that's why when John announced
the coming of our Lord, he said, Behold the Lamb of That's the message to Rahab.
When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And that's the message
to all these people. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Christ said of His blood, it
was shed for many for the remission of sins. It set forth a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. Paul says, much more than being
now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
Him. In His blood we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. By His shed blood we which were
at far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. He made peace by the blood of
His cross." That was the same gospel Rahab
heard and believed. How did she respond? How did she respond to this?
You think about this. These men had just told her,
if you'll hang this cord, this red rope, this red sash, whatever
it was, in your window you'll be safe. Well, that's the most ridiculous
thing I've ever heard. That's the way the gospel is
received by men and women who are blind and dead, who have
not faith. She tied that cord in the window,
and she stayed in the house, and she separated herself from
that perishing city, and she showed that there's only one
place safe for a sinner. And that's like that old little
chorus we sang a lot, under the blood of Jesus. Verse 21, And she said, According
unto thy words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they
departed, and she bound the scarlet line in the window. Was she safe? Absolutely. Absolutely. Look over in Joshua 6. The day came. And it always comes. And it will come. And it came to pass, when the
people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted
with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. So that
the people went up into the city, every man straight before him,
and they took the city, and they utterly destroyed all that was
in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep
and ass, with the edge of the sword. That's how God's judgment is.
It's complete. But Joshua had said unto the
two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's
house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath,
as ye swear unto her. And the young men that were spies
went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother,
and her brethren, and all that she had. And they brought out
all her kindred and left them without the camp of Israel. And
they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein, only
the silver and the gold and the vessels of brass and of iron,
they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. And Joshua
saved Rahab." Do I need to remind you who Joshua
is by that name. Joshua is essentially the Old
Testament name for Jesus. Jehovah the Savior, or Jehovah
saves. And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot
alive, and her father's household, and all that she had. And she
dwelleth in Israel even unto this day, because she hid the
messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho." Was she saved because she hid
the messengers? She was saved because she believed
God. She believed on Christ that was
represented, that salvation would be of the Lord. And the fact
that she hid the messengers, that was the evidence that she
believed. And as a matter of fact, in James
2, that's exactly what James says. That her faith, that faith God
gave her to believe the truth. was manifested in these works
that she hid the spies in Jericho. This woman being brought by God to know the true and living God, redeemed her from her sins by
the blood of Christ. And she became the mother of
Boaz, the great grandfather of David, and in the lineage of
Christ. She was in His house. And everybody's safe in His house.
Everybody's safe who's under this blood. And they are all brought to believe
on Him. That's the harlot's salvation. That's my salvation. And I hope
it's your salvation. Our Father, we thank you beyond
measure this day for that mercy that is beyond
explanation. We pray that we might possess this faith to believe
you, to believe on Christ, to hide in the safety of His
house, of His finished, glorious work of salvation, to trust Him
alone, to believe what you said in the face of all other appearances. to look upon ourselves for what
we are. All this centers worse than the
lowest one. All of us who look to you being saved because being singled
out by your sovereign mercy and grace and the shed blood of your
Son. Help us, we pray, to cast off
every other hope and grant that we might know
that all the favor we receive of you not because of anything we do
at any time, but like Rahab, just because of your grace. Make
our boast to be in you. Help us and watch over us as
we go out of this place. For we pray and ask all things
in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you.