Let us turn again to the Word
of God and the words which I will bring before you this evening
are found in the Epistle of James in the second chapter and verse
twenty-five. In the Epistle of James chapter
two and verse twenty-five where we read, likewise also, was not
Rae had the harlot justified by works when she had received
the messengers and sent them out another way? The passage
really begins back in verse 20, so we'll read the whole of the
end of this second chapter from verse 20, but wilt thou know,
O vain man, that faith without works is dead. Was not Abraham
our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his
son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought
with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the
scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God,
and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called
the friend of God. Ye see then, how that by works
a man is justified, and not by faith only, Likewise also was
not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received
the messengers and had sent them out another way? For as the body
without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
And it's amazing really, isn't it, that when James comes to
this part of his epistle and he wants to give some illustrations
and examples of what living faith is, He picks these two characters
who could hardly be more different, really, could they? First of
all, he speaks of Abraham in verse 21. Abraham, of course,
the father of the faithful, the great patriarch of the Jews,
the most famous and exalted character. You know how the Jews gloried
in their father Abraham. When Jesus spoke to them back
in John's Gospel in Chapter 8, and he speaks of them being the
children really of sin and the children of the devil, they're
so ready to defend themselves and they say to him, Abraham
is our father. As if they would say, whatever
are you saying to us, we are the sons and daughters of Abraham. So James, he gives us this one
example of Abraham, but then when he comes to the second example,
as I say, he could hardly pick someone more different. Who was
this woman Rahab where we read about her in the second chapter
of Joshua? She was not descended from Abraham,
far as we can tell. She was not a Jew. She was not
one of the chosen people. She was not even a particularly
godly woman. She was a harlot. And she lived
in Jericho, a city which was accursed amongst a people who
were accursed and destined to be driven out of that land to
make room for the sons and daughters of Abraham. And yet Rahab, the
harlot, is here alongside Abraham as a great example of faith.
And of course, the same is true of Paul. You remember the 11th
chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews? when Paul is listing
all those faithful men and women of the Old Testament. And there
are some there that we're not surprised to see. He speaks of
Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham. He speaks of Isaac and Jacob
and Joseph and Moses. And then, almost as the last
of his examples, he too speaks of the harlot Rahab. By faith,
the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not.
when she had received the spies with peace. Who would have thought
that Rahab would be there in that great catalogue of the faithful?
Who would have thought that Rahab would be here alongside Abraham
as one of the great examples of faith? Well, we read the chapter
and no doubt we're familiar with it to some extent. Those early chapters of the book
of Joshua You can almost feel the tension, can't you, as you
turn over the pages? Here are the children of Israel.
And finally, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness,
they come again to the borders of the Promised Land. And it
wasn't the first time they'd been there. And you remember what happened?
On that previous occasion, back in the Book of Numbers, when
they come to the border of the Promised Land, and Moses sends
the 12 spies, and the 12 spies come back, and they say, well,
yes, the land, it is a good land, and it does flow with milk and
honey, and we've brought these fruits to show you what a good
land it is. But they also said, the people
be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and
very great. And they brought up an evil report of the land
which they had searched. They said, it's a land that eateth
up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that we saw in
it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants,
the sons of Anak, which come of the giants, and we were in
our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
They say, in effect, well, the land is a good land, but there's
no way that we can overcome those people. And you remember the outcome,
how the congregation lifted up their voice and wept, and they're
ready to give up, and they say to Moses, well, didn't we tell
you, Moses? We would have been better off
to stay in the land of Egypt and die there. Why have you brought
us out here into this land to fall by the sword? Were it not
better for us to return into Egypt, and they're almost ready
to make a captive, and go back to Egypt. And you remember how
it was as a consequence of their unbelief, and that's what it
was really, wasn't it? despite all that they have seen, and
all the way in which God had brought them out of Egypt in
those miraculous ways and through the Red Sea, yet they have forgotten
Him. And the Lord says, because all
those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which
I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me, now these
ten times and have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall
not see the land which I swear unto their fathers. Neither shall
any of them that provoked me see it. And they're driven back
into the wilderness. And they wander in the wilderness
for 40 years until all that generation, all those who were numbered by
Moses and Aaron when they came out of Egypt, they die in the
wilderness. And now here they are for the
second time. And I wonder whether there were
those amongst the people who thought, well, is it going to
happen again? Are we going to be driven back
again into the wilderness? Are we really going to cross
over into the promised land this time? Or is it going to be another
disappointment? Joshua sends these two spies
and they cross over Jordan and they come into the city of Jericho
to spy out the land. And there's no indication that
they were looking for Rahab's house. No indication that Joshua
said to them, You go and see this woman Rahab who lives on
the wall. But in the providence of God, remarkable providence
of God, they come into Rahab's house and they lodge there. And we read about Rahab's risking
her life really to keep them safe. She hid them on the roof
of her house under the stalks of flax. And she lies to the
men of the King of Jericho and says, well, they did come here,
but they've gone now and I don't know where they've gone. Go and
pursue after them. And all the while they were there
on the roof of her house. She was taking a considerable
risk, wasn't she? She was putting her own life
in danger. No doubt if she'd been found out, she would have
been put to death probably. Why does she take that risk?
Well, we see it, don't we, from the 9th, 10th and 11th verses
of that chapter. And we see something of the faith
of Rahab in her confession, don't we? And in those words that she
says to the two spies, I know that the Lord has 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 when you
came out of Egypt, and what you did unto the two kings of the
Amorites that were on the other side, Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom
he 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." And then she comes to
this, and it's a great confession of faith, isn't it? For the Lord
your God, he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. No
doubt Rahab had been brought up in Jericho. No doubt she had
been brought up to worship the false gods of the Canaanites. But now she sees something that
it seems many of her fellow countrymen didn't see. The Lord your God,
he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. And as we read
that great confession of Rahab, it's an opportunity to test our
own confession, isn't it? Could we say what Rahab says? Would we say that God is God
in heaven above and in earth beneath? She makes this great confession
and she extracts an oath from the two spies. And she says to
them, as I have spared your lives, so now will you undertake and
swear by the Lord. that you will spare my life and
the lives of my parents and my siblings and their households.
And the men agree to it. And of course, we have the famous
incident of the scarlet thread that she binds in the window
of her house in order that when the army of Israel return, they
will be able to identify which house she lives in. It's a remarkable
providence, isn't it, that these two men come to this house and
find this woman, with this faith, ready to take these risks, and
ready to extract from them this oath, and to bind this scarlet
thread in this window. And in these little things, history
has changed, isn't it? And history is being written,
because you know what happened to Rahab Her faith was not disappointed
and we read in chapter 6 of Joshua that when they took Jericho and
the wall of the city fell down flat and all the people in the
city are utterly destroyed. There's only one house, one family
that survives and that's the family of Rahab. 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.
And she's a most favoured woman, isn't she? If you turn to the
opening chapter of Matthew's Gospel, And you remember there
we have a catalogue of the genealogy of the Lord Jesus and his ancestors. If you go through the list of
names, it starts with Abraham, it goes all the way down to Joseph,
the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called
Christ. But if you go through that list of names, you'll find
only five women mentioned. You have Mary, of course, the
mother of Christ, in verse 16. And you have Bathsheba referred
to. She's not mentioned by name, but she's there referred to in
verse 6. David the king begat Solomon
of her that had been the wife of Uriah. And then you have Ruth spoken
of in verse 5. And you have Thamar spoken of
in verse 3, but also in verse 5, The final female name in that
list is the name of Recap. Salmon, we're told, begat Boaz
of Recap. So Recap, it seems, when she
was rescued from Jericho, she ended up marrying this man, Salmon. And then she ended up having
a son called Obed. And then she ended up having
a grandson called Jesse. And then she ended up having
a great grandson called David the King. And if you continue
down the generations, you find that Jesus himself was descended
from this woman Rahab. It's a remarkable proof of the
providence of God and how those little things that happened back
there in Jericho so many years previously, they're all part
of that great plan of salvation that God is working out and is
still working out even today. So we have James picking up the
account of Rahab and speaking of her as a woman of a remarkable
faith. Likewise also was not Rahab the
harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers
and had sent them out another way? But we know that this epistle
of James is an epistle that has some controversy attached to
it. Martin Luther, I think you'll find he described it as an epistle
of straw at one time in his life. He was speaking of it in comparison
to some of the other epistles, and it seems that he did change
his view later on, and certainly if you look at Luther's translation
of the Bible, it certainly has this epistle in it. So he did
acknowledge it as part of the word of God. But it has been
a controversial epistle, Even today there are those who try
and draw a difference and a disagreement between what James says here
in this epistle, and especially here in this second chapter,
and the words of Paul. You remember how Paul's great
message really, in many of his epistles, and especially in the
epistle to the Galatians, Paul's great message is that justification
is by faith, without works. It says so in Galatians chapter
2, verse 16, he says, We know that a man is not justified by
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. A
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. And you'll find Paul saying similar
things in many other passages. And so there are those who read
those passages And then they come here to this epistle of
James and they read words like this. You see then how that by
works a man is justified and not by faith only. And so they're
very quick to say, well clearly there's a difference here. There's a disagreement here.
Paul says that salvation is by faith without works. And James
says that faith alone is not enough. By works a man is justified
and not by faith only. Well, is there really a disagreement
between James and Paul? Well, of course, we know that
there can't be. It's an impossibility because
these two men are both apostles. They're both appointed to that
office. They both have these words. They're not their own
words, are they? Paul's words were not his own
words and James' words are not their own words. They're both
the operation of the Holy Spirit. And God is not the author of
confusion. So there cannot really be any disagreement between James
and Paul. If we understand truly what an
apostle is, that much will be obvious. What does James mean
then when he speaks of justification being by works? Well, James was
evidently not a believer in justification by the works of the law. And
we know that. We know that by two things. First
of all, James is very prominent there in Acts chapter 15, isn't
he? You remember the incident in Acts chapter 15? This incident in the life of
the early church. Here are these certain men which
came down from Judea. And they come to the early Christians
and they say to them, except you be circumcised after the
manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. There are these Jewish
teachers who come to the Christians there in the early church and
they say to them in effect, well, Paul, he's not quite been 100%
accurate in everything he's said to you. We believe that faith
is important. But they said, you do need to
be circumcised after the manner of Moses as well. So they say
it's faith, but it's faith plus works, not faith only. And Paul
and Barnabas have a great dissension with them, as we read in Acts
chapter 15, verse two, and it's decided that they will send messengers
to Jerusalem unto the apostles to ask them about this question.
And so they come to Jerusalem and they describe the situation
and explain what's happened. And the apostles and elders come
together to consider of this matter, and James is there amongst
them. And there's some discussion,
and then James stands up in verse 13, doesn't he? And what does
James say? Well, one thing that is very
obvious that James doesn't say, he doesn't say, well, these certain
men of Judea, they're absolutely right. It's absolutely right to say
that these new believers, these Christians, they do need to be
circumcised after the manner of Moses. They do need to keep
the law. He never says that, does he?
In fact, he almost says the opposite. He says in verse 21, Moses of
old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in
the synagogue every Sabbath day. As if he would say, well, it's
not necessary for us to teach these people about the law because
they're getting that somewhere else. And so this message is
agreed, isn't it? And the message is, well, these
Judaizing teachers, they're wrong. It's not necessary for the Gentiles
to be circumcised after the manner of Moses. They don't need to
keep the law in that way. That's not how they are to be
justified. It's not true to say that except they're circumcised
after the manner of Moses, they cannot be saved. James was one
who was very prominent in this discussion. Clearly, he was not
a believer in justification by the works of the law. But then
there's a second thing, isn't there? Look at the works that
James is talking about here at the end of chapter two. Look at the works of Abraham. What
works is it that he's talking about? In verse 21, when he says,
was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his
son upon the altar? Well, there's nothing in the law about offering
your son as a sacrifice upon an altar, is there? And again,
when we come to Rahab in verse 25, what are the works of Rahab
that James particularly pulls out to speak about? Well, he
says, likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works
when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another
way? He's not talking about the works of the law, is he? There's
nothing in any of the law that was delivered through Moses that
talks about receiving messengers and sending them out another
way, or about offering Isaac upon the altar. These things
are not the works of the law. James is not teaching about the
works of the law at all. What is James doing then? Well,
he's warning us. And he's warning those to whom he is writing about
a very real danger. A very real danger. And it's
often the case, isn't it, that when you have a truth, there
is a possibility of carrying it to such an extreme that you
fall into another error. What was that error that James
is warning about? Well, he's really warning about the danger
of just resting upon a dead faith. That's what he describes it as,
doesn't he? In verse 20, faith without works
is dead. And again, at verse 26, faith
without works is dead also. He's saying that there is such
a thing as a dead faith, that it is possible to have a dead
faith. What is a dead faith? Well, it's
described in verse 17, isn't it? Even so, faith, if it hath
not works, is dead, being alone, being by itself. In other words,
he says, a faith which doesn't have works proves itself to be a dead faith. He uses the illustration of a
body, doesn't he, in verse 26? And you can see easily the illustration
that he's making. You can picture in your mind's
eye two bodies. A living body and a dead body.
You put them next to each other. Perhaps they might look quite
similar. Perhaps you would struggle even
to tell the difference from a distance. A dead body and a living body. How do you tell the difference?
How do you tell if one of the bodies is alive? What do they
do? In a hospital, if you take in a body and they say, well,
first thing we need to do is check whether this person is
dead or alive, what do they do? Well, they look for the effects
of life, don't they? They look for the symptoms of life. They
say, well, is this person breathing? Is their heart beating? Is there
activity in the brain? They say, well, these things
are the signs of life. And where these things are all absent,
then they have to pronounce that that body is dead, that that
person is dead. Well, says James, it's like that
with faith. It's possible to have a faith
which doesn't have any of the symptoms of life. It's possible
to have a faith which doesn't do anything. That's the point that James is
making. He's saying faith, real faith, true faith, is a living
thing. It's a faith that does something.
It certainly did something for Rahab, didn't it? How was Rahab
justified by works? What does James mean when he
uses that expression? Likewise, also was not Rahab
the harlot justified by works? Well, you think about the account
of Rahab. How was it that she was delivered
and spared? How was it that she came out
of Jericho alive when all of the other citizens in Jericho
didn't? Well, you can think of a long
chain of steps, can't you? It's not one thing that saw her
being delivered in that way. You can think of a number of
steps. The first thing is that she received the spines. James
speaks of that here, doesn't he? She received the messengers. She received the messengers.
She could not have done. She could not have received the
messengers. She could have kept her door shut. She could have
said, well, no, I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to
protect you. I am going to betray you to the
King of Jericho. She received them. Then secondly,
you can think of how she hid them. And again, remember that
was a considerable risk to herself, wasn't it? It wasn't just something
that I'm sure she did lightly. She hides them under the stalks
of flax on the roof of her house. She lies to the men of the King
of Jericho, doesn't she? We don't approve of her lying,
of course. Again, surely that emphasises
that James is not here talking about justification by the works
of the law. Rahab broke the law by lying
to the King of Jericho about these two men, but she did lie
to protect them. And then she makes this covenant
with them. She doesn't just send them away and say, well, that's
it, you've done what you came to do. Now go back and do what
you've got to do next. But she extracts this oath from
them. She urges them to swear unto
her by the Lord. And again, that's significant,
isn't it? She doesn't just want any kind of swearing. She wants
them to swear by the Lord, by Jehovah, by their God, the living
God. that one who she has confessed
as the God of heaven above and of earth beneath. She agrees
with them. She makes this covenant with them. And then she lets
them down by a cord through her window. And she advises them
to go and hide in the mountains for three days in order that
they're not going to get captured by the pursuers that have been
sent out by the king of Jericho. And she kept their secret all
through those following days She doesn't tell anyone what
they'd arranged. And she bound the scarlet line
in the window. That was a mark of her faith,
wasn't it? It was a mark of her faith in
the spies and in the oath, yes, but wasn't it also a mark of
her faith in the Lord? They had sworn by the Lord. She
bound the scarlet line and she stayed in her house. And when
the army of the Israelites came to attack Jericho, She didn't
go out of her house. She stayed in her house, protected
by the scarlet cord, protected by the oath of the spies, protected
by the God that they had sworn by. That was where her faith
was really. These are the works of Rahab.
These are the things that led to her being delivered from the
destruction of Jericho. Rahab the harlot was justified
by work. She was saved by her works in
a sense, wasn't she? But the vital thing is what lies
underneath all those works, isn't it? Why did she do all those
things? Why did she receive the spies,
and hide the spies, and lie to protect the spies, and agree
an oath with the spies, and let the spies down, and tell them
to go to the mountain, and bind the scarlet cord in the window,
and stay in her house? Why did she do all of those things?
Well, it was because of her faith, wasn't it? It was because of what she says
to the spies in verses 9, 10 and 11 of that second chapter
about the Lord giving them the land, about the Lord drying up
the water of the Red Sea, about the Lord their God being God
in heaven above and in earth beneath. That's what lay underneath
it. A faith that was not just in the spies, in the word of
the spies, not just in the promise of the spies, but in the God
of the spies, the God that they had sworn by, Was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them
out another way? It was those works that showed
her faith to be a real faith, didn't it? It was those works that demonstrated
the reality of her faith, the scarlet line bound in her window. What would we have thought if
we had gone to Jericho just after the spies had left? And if we'd
found Rahab, and if we'd discussed with her what had been going
on, if she had said to us, well, you know, I do believe that the
God of the Israelites, he is God in heaven above and in earth
beneath, and I do believe that he's going to help them. They're
going to get over Jordan one way or another, and they're going
to surround this city, and they're going to take this city. I believe
all of those things. And then if she had explained
to us further about the two spies and the oath and the arrangement
that she had made with them, well, what would we have done?
We would have looked for the scarlet line, wouldn't we? If
she had told us about this oath and about this promise and about
this arrangement concerning the scarlet line, and if we hadn't
seen the scarlet line, we would have said, well, Rahab, where
is the scarlet line then? And if she'd said to us, well,
I do believe all of those things I just said, but I haven't done
the scarlet line thing. I'm not really sure about that.
It doesn't seem very likely that that's going to save me. Well,
we would have been able to say to her quite honestly, wouldn't
we? Well, Ray, have your faith. It's a dead faith. You say that
you believe those things, but you haven't bound the scarlet
line in the window. Her faith is proved to be genuine,
to be living by her works. Was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them
out another way? Her faith is seen to be real
by her works. Well, what does it teach us then? There is teaching here, there
is instruction here. There is a reason why that account
of Rahab is recorded. It's not just ancient history.
There's teaching for us in it. There's teaching here in the
warning of James. What is the meaning of his warning?
Well, it's this, isn't it? A dead faith is a useless faith.
A dead faith is a useless faith because it doesn't do anything.
It's as useless as a dead servant or a dead horse. We use that
expression sometimes, don't we, about someone who's flogging
a dead horse. If someone is trying to do something and it's evident
it's never going to work, but he keeps on trying and trying
and trying, we say, well, he's flogging a dead horse. We mean
it's never going to do any good. You can beat a dead horse as
much as you want, can't you? It's not going to get up and
do anything. Well, a dead faith is like that. It never does anything. It never does anything. And a
dead faith is not a justifying faith. A dead faith is not a
justifying faith. James is quite right, isn't he?
He's 100% right. But so is Paul. And when Paul
says that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but
by the faith of Jesus Christ, and when Paul says that by the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified, he is just as right
as James is. And when James says that by works
a man is justified and not by faith only, he is just as right
as Paul is. Paul is preaching against a reliance
upon the works of the law. Paul is preaching against the
idea that a man, independent of faith, can take up the works
of the law and keep the works of the law to such an extent
that God will say, well, that's good enough. No, says Paul, it's an impossibility.
A man is not justified by the works of the law. He can't be. Paul knew that more than anyone.
Paul was an expert in the law, wasn't he? You remember his life
as a Pharisee, how he studied at the feet of Gamaliel, that
great Jewish teacher, and he was at the top of the class,
wasn't he? But even he was brought to see
that the law, it was no use building upon the law. He talks about
it in Romans 7, doesn't he? He says, I was alive without
the law once. There was a time, he says, when
I thought that the law would save me. A time when I thought
that my keeping of the law would save me. I thought that God would
say, well, that's good enough. No doubt Paul didn't claim to
be perfect, but he did think that his good works compensated
for his bad works, and that when he came before God, he would
be able to say, well, yes, there were these things which were
not quite right, but look at this great heap of good works that
I did. And he thought that God would look at those two things
and say, well, yes, that's good enough, Paul. But when he sees
the law as it really is, all those hopes are broken, aren't
they? When he sees that the law is holy, when he sees that the
law is spiritual, then he suddenly sees that all those works that
he had thought were good enough, they were no good at all. And
all those things that he was trusting in, They were like a
sandy foundation. They wouldn't last, not good
enough. Paul is preaching against a justification
by a keeping of the works of the law. But James is warning
against a justification by relying upon a dead faith. He's warning
us against saying, well, yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son
of God. I read it in a book. I heard it from a preacher. I know all about him. I can tell
you about his life and his death and his resurrection. I know
all the history. I can take you from Genesis to
Revelation. Surely that's good enough. Oh, says James, that's
not good enough. A dead faith, a faith without
works, is a useless faith. It doesn't do anything. But justification
is by a living faith, a faith like Rahab's. A faith that moved
Rahab to activity. That's what it did, didn't it?
Just like all those in that 11th chapter of the epistle to the
Hebrews, what do you find time after time as you read through
that chapter? It says, by faith, for example, Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear. You see,
it was Noah's faith that moved him to prepare that ark. Think about Abraham by faith.
Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he
should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. It was Abraham's faith
that led him to do that. And you could say the same about
Abel, or Enoch, or Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, or
Moses. All these things, they were the
fruits of living faith. Faith is a living thing, a moving
thing. We had it in that hymn that we
sang, that hymn 731. The hymn writer is talking about
faith there, isn't he? And he confesses a feeble faith.
But he remembers those who have come with a feeble faith before,
like that one with the sick son who had to come and say, Lord,
I believe. Oh, help my unbelief. He had
a weak faith. But you know there was something
about his faith. It was a weak faith, but it was
a living faith. How do we know it was a living
faith? Because he came. And then the woman with the issue
of blood, who pressed through the crowd, who didn't want to
come in front of the Lord Jesus, who just wanted to touch the
hem of his garment and then sneak away. Her faith maybe was a weak
faith, but it was a living faith. How do we know it was a living
faith? Because she came. And so the hymn writer says,
like her, with hopes and fears, we come to touch thee if we may. We come to touch thee if we may.
That's a mark of living faith. Faith is a living thing. Often
misunderstood what faith is. There are those who say, well,
faith, what you need to do if you want to have faith is just
to convince yourself that Jesus died for you, and then he will,
or he will have done. or it will be shown to you that
he did. No, faith is not a coming and saying, I believe that Jesus
died for me. Faith is a coming and saying,
I believe that Jesus died for sinners, that he promises to
receive those who come, and believing that, I come. That's the crucial
step, isn't it? Believing that, I come. Was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works when she had received the messengers and sent them
out another way? Faith is an active thing. And true faith in Christ, what
does it lead to? It leads to a coming. The two
things are so closely bound together that Jesus almost speaks of them
as the same thing, doesn't he? In John chapter six, He's been
talking about himself as the bread of life, and he comes to
this in verse 35 of that sixth chapter of John's Gospel. I am
the bread of life, he says. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. They're
almost the same thing, he says, because one inevitably leads
to the other. Where there is a believing on him, there is
inevitably a coming to him. Where there is a coming, there
must have been a believing. Faith is a coming. Faith is a
venturing. Faith is a living thing, a moving
thing, a motivating thing. It's not a dead thing. Rahab the harlot, she was justified
by her works, says James, those works that were built upon her
faith, that flowed from her faith. They proved her faith to be a
real faith. And then just two other things
concerning Rahab's faith. I've already mentioned one of
them. Rahab's faith was not disappointed, was it? Living faith never is. She received the spies. She sent
them out another way. She bound the scarlet line in
the window. Her faith was in the word of the spies, in the
God of the spies, and she wasn't disappointed. Because when the
Israelites came to Jericho, Joshua remembered, he sent those two
men, go to the Harlot's house, he said, bring out thence the
woman, all that she hath, as ye swear unto her. And they did.
And they 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 she dwelleth
in Israel even unto this day. Her faith was not disappointed. She was not ashamed. Again, think of the words of
the Lord Jesus in that sixth chapter of John's Gospel. I am the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Their faith is not disappointed. They come and
they're satisfied. They believe and their thirst
is quenched. It's inevitable. Rahab's faith was not disappointed.
And then what else can we say about Rahab's faith? Well, there's
something like this, isn't there? The fruits of Rahab's faith,
would they not have been a support to her faith? I mean this, when
she bound the scarlet line in the window, it was there to look
at, wasn't it? And evidently that scarlet line
and the window that it was bound in, it faced outwards. And Rahab would have seen, no
doubt, like many of those in the city of Jericho, she perhaps
would have seen the army of Israel marching round and round and
round the wall for six days. They went round once on the seventh
day. They encompassed the city seven
times. No doubt there were many anxious eyes watching them from
the windows of Jericho that day. And they wondered, well, what's
going on? What's going to happen? But Rahab had something. that
many others didn't have. She had a scarlet line bound
in the window, and as she looked out the window, and perhaps as
she saw the army of the Israelites, what did she see as well? A scarlet
line. And it would have reminded her,
wouldn't it? And perhaps at those times when
her faith was shaken, she would have been able to say, well I
do know one thing, there is a scarlet line there, and I remember the
spies, and the promise of the spies, and I remember the God
of the promise. He is God in heaven above and
in earth beneath. And the acts of faith, they become
supports to faith, don't they? John talks about it in his first
epistle. He says, these things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that
ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of
the Son of God. There's something circular, something self-reinforcing
almost about faith. You could think of the experience
of the Israelites, how much they saw. There were so many steps
of faith in their 40-year journey, weren't there? You could think
of Joshua, all that he saw, the dividing of the Red Sea. And
he, just like the rest of the Israelites, he had to step down
between those walls of water and make his way across. Don't
you think he would have trembled? Don't you think his faith, it
would have been needed on a day like that? And then all through
those other miraculous years through the wilderness, so many
times his faith would have been needed. And now here he is on
the borders of the promised land. And yes, there's a great task
that lies ahead of him, but he can look back and he can say,
well, I do know one thing. We came through the Red Sea on
dry land. And I do know one thing, the
Ark is still here, and the promise of God is still here, and we've
eaten of manna 40 years. All these miracles, how they
would have strengthened the faith of Joshua, strengthened the faith
of those like him. Faith is like that, there's something
self-reinforcing about it. Can look back perhaps to times
in your life, times when you've known seasons of great blessing,
time of your baptism perhaps. And perhaps there are times of
darkness now, but we can look back on those days and we can
say, well, I do know one thing, I did pass through the waters
of baptism. There must have been something
then to make me do that. And the fruits of faith, they
become supports to faith. Was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works after she had received the spies and sent them out another
way? A living faith, a real faith. We're going to sing about it
in a minute in our closing hymn. It's a gift, of course it's a
gift. Why did Rahab have that faith when so many didn't? Sovereignty
of God, isn't it? Wasn't it that Rahab was cleverer
than the others? More intelligent or better educated? Or just a
nicer lady? She was a harlot. And yet she
has shown things that many others are not shown. They all knew. They all knew that the Lord had
dried up the waters of the Red Sea. We have heard it, she says.
All the people in Jericho had heard it. They'd all heard what
happened to Sihon and Og, those two kings of the Amorites that
Israel had already conquered. All of their hearts were melting.
All of their courage was failing. They all knew these things, but
in Rahab, there was something more. There was a faith, the
Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath, and
I'm going to put my trust there, she says. Faith, says the hymn writer,
is a grace divine, a gift, both rich and free. And he talks about
faith, how it's precious, how it's pure, how it's good. And
he says, such is its power and its effect. True faith prevails
with God. It's the same idea, isn't it?
The same truth that James is teaching. True faith has a power. True faith has an effect. It's
not something lifeless. It's not something dead. But
it's an active thing. It's a moving thing. What kind
of things does it move a man to do where we're going to sing
about them? It says, to Jesus and his blood it looks for life
and peace. Faith does that. Faith does that. Faith in Christ's righteousness
alone sets the soul at rest, says the hymn writer. It lives
in spite of hell. When the soul is oppressed with
miseries, it leans on Jesus' breast. Faith does that. And he comes to the last verse,
doesn't he? And he can speak of death and dangers flying like
lightning from the skies. But he says, he that believes
shall never die. Faith must obtain the prize because faith is alive.
and faith is a living thing. Likewise also was not Rahab the
harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers
and had sent them out another way, for as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. May
God grant us a living faith, like the faith of Rahab, like
the faith that we're going to sing about. And may he bless
his word to us. Amen.