Word of Salvation – Vol. 27 No. 40 – July 1982
Rahab’s Saving Faith
Sermon by Rev. A. I. DeGraaf on Hebrews 11:31
Scripture Reading: Joshua 2:1-21
Psalter Hymnal: 57:1,2,6; 227:1.2.3; 380:1,2,3,4; 387:1,2,3
Once upon a time a minister said to one of his members
(a lady, to be precise)
“Coming Sunday I’ll be preaching about a good friend of yours”.
“Oh” she said, “who’s that?”
“Rahab, the prostitute…!” said the minister.
A moment of awkward silence followed.
The decent and upstanding member of the church
obviously was a bit troubled by this.
Good friend of mine? Now what does he mean with that?
Yes, this is of course no wonder.
After all, what will things come to,
when we just mix with everybody,
and would maintain no standards of decency and good behaviour?
And what would then happen to our children?
Yes, that makes sense.
Also: the Bible, the New Testament included,
is rather pointed when it warns against harlotry and sexual immorality.
Indeed, as long as we understand what makes sexual immorality so bad:
it is that the body plays around while the soul does not love.
It is that we tear apart what the Lord made one whole.
That by the way can happen also within marriage.
Yes, God’s Word – the GOD of that Word –
truly is not in favour of us excusing
what after all destroys life as He wanted it and created it.
He loves life and therefore hates sin.
Jesus had to come and die for that sin.
And yet: He also loves and seeks the sinner.
And he or she who once stole is not for all eternity a thief in His book.
This is not necessarily so.
Did you notice by the way
that in our text it seems as if he who stole once IS always a thief?
Because centuries after her rescue from Jericho
the writers of Hebrews and James still add:
“The prostitute” to Rahab’s name.
Why keep rubbing that in?
May that not be forgotten at last?
Must what is forgiven not always be forgotten?
― ― ― ― ― ―
No… not always.
As long as it is for the right reasons, we may… even must! – remember.
It is not because decent and upstanding citizens
might think they are better than the rest,
but because they, too, and all of us
must keep on being amazed about the grace of God,
and about the kind of people He is good enough to welcome.
The word “Welcome” is very important in our text.
Rahab welcomed the spies of Israel, yes and that meant for her danger of life.
But GOD welcomed Rahab,
and that meant for HIM the death of His Son Jesus,
…Rahab’s Son too.
Because, says our text,
all that a fallen woman
or a fallen man! –
needs to get back to complete grace,
to be welcome in God’s own House,
is faith.
― ― ― ― ― ―
THAT, faith, says the text, was the reason,
and the only reason
why Rahab did what she did,
and why she was taken by God and incorporated into – His people,
even made to be one of the links in the birth-chain that led to Jesus.
― ― ― ― ― ―
Why did God do that to this woman?
She gave hospitality to strangers,
even to the extent that it could have caused her execution as a traitor?
that was one of the things her faith made her do, says the text.
But that she had that faith at all, that is the main thing.
And that faith was: that she saw who the LORD was,
and took the amazing decision,
as the only one of her people:
HE is right, HE is God! …and I want to belong to HIM!
I will be good to the members of His people,
so that HE may know that I fear His name.
I will do it so that He may know that I take HIM seriously.
You see, she SAW the POWER of God, but that is not enough:
all Jericho saw that,
many people see that there is a God.
Even the devils see it and they tremble. That is not enough.
― ― ― ― ― ―
She had knowledge – as had her fellow-countrymen.
God had seen to that: His great deeds had not happened in a corner.
The same way many people in the world today
know of a Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died on a cross.
That didn’t happen in a corner, either.
― ― ― ― ― ―
For the people in Jericho God was the terrible One,
the Almighty, the Commander of Israel’s armies.
But Rahab went one step further.
She not only recognized that He was real and terrible and powerful,
but SHE ENTRUSTED HERSELF TO HIM,
As it were — she JUMPED INTO HIS ARMS.
She jumped into His arms
and whoever does that will not fall to his death
but will fall into everlasting life
She jumped… and there was Father!
The God of hosts was: Father.
Yes that God and Father was terrible and powerful:
those walls were going to go down!
But that God and Father also said:
“Just leave that little bit of wall standing – with that house in it
because in it there lives one of my children.
She trusts me and I am not going to let her down”.
Do you see it?
God’s welcoming compassion
does not exclude ANY category of man or woman,
not ANY kind of sinner.
Alas, we do that all too often.
We welcome the rich thieves who give money to the church
that they extorted from others on the stock market,
but no, we have trouble with a wedding service for a girl with a past.
One kind of sin is worse than another
But God does no such thing:
Jesus died for stinking sinners
and the one sin does not stink worse than the other
as far as God’s nostrils are concerned.
– Apart from the prideful sin against the Holy Spirit. –
God’s welcoming compassion
does not exclude any kind of sinner
– pride makes us exclude ourSELVES.
THAT then is the problem: we do not WANT Him to save us.
God’s welcoming compassion does not exclude any kind of sinner.
Also: God’s redeeming and welcoming grace is very liberal:
Not only Rahab but all her relatives as well,
even though the story does not mention their faith by name at all!
Just as much later on the jailer in Philippi was to ask:
“What must I do to be saved?”
The answer was to be:
“Believe, trust, in the LORD Jesus Christ
and not only YOU will be saved
but your HOUSEHOLD as well”.
You just come with the LOT of you, says the Lord,
I don’t mind extra mouths to feed,
you’re all welcome
and there is the background of our Infant Baptism!
Ah yes and then exactly with this woman,
– this prostitute as James and the writer of Hebrews remind us,
the Lord gives a priceless extra.
She is not only given in Israel a refuge, a haven of peace,
but a husband… and children, too.
One of these children is the father of Boaz,
and so she becomes progenitor,
great-great-great-grandmother of David
– and part of the way God brought into the world
the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Sin-bearer of Rahab, too,
the One through Whom the Lord made it all possible.
It was Jesus who would bind Rahab to God’s heart
and into God’s people
with the scarlet cord of His precious blood…!
Oh she had to be made clean:
Seven days outside of the Israel camp was the symbol of that!
She had to be made clean – but she WAS, too,
for the blood of Jesus makes the foulest clean.
She did not remain a prostitute, either.
Better love, a better place was given her.
She was accepted fully,
for how otherwise can sinners be saved
but by the grace that we all need?
― ― ― ― ― ―
Faith is: to see a glimpse of that grace and surrender to that grace.
― ― ― ― ― ―
Faith is to jump into Father’s arms
even though you can only SEE
the mail-clad strong arm of the Lord of hosts!
― ― ― ― ― ―
Thus you get out of the city of unbelief
and when the walls come tumbling down
as tumble down they shall in our world
(what do we think, that we can stop God??)
– -·then yet you may dwell in safety as Psalm 4 says,
the good-night psalm of God’s children.
The scarlet cord out of the window:
and faith and trust in – and the pleading ON – the blood of Jesus
to cleanse ME from all sin,
gives more safety and more joy
than the trust in riches, grain and oil,
the trust in bank accounts
and a good name that the world gives.
That is the security of children of God.
It is better than a good name in the church,
the name of being a fine and upstanding citizen.
― ― ― ― ― ―
God said: Rahab, child of Mine, come in,
You’re most welcome in My House.
What do we church people say in cases like that?
― ― ― ― ― ―
Do YOU have the impression that in my sermon this morning
I told you about a good friend of yours?
Or do you prefer (for coffee after church) someone with a better reputation?
― ― ― ― ― ―
Do not forget the scarlet cord!
How – again – did YOU get in?
You did get in, I hope?
But how else did you get in but by grace alone?
Mind you, when you think yourselves too nice
and criticise the OTHER sort,
when you criticise THEM too sharply,
are you THEN living by grace?
Then it does not make much difference
if you despise them or if you despise harlots.
Rahab’s faith showed itself in hospitality, in saying “welcome”.
Then God surprised her by HIS hospitality,
HIS saying “welcome”.
She could just get into His house, His nation.
What about our home, our heart
….and our church?
Do we allow in those who are different,
…AWKWARDLY different…?
Do we let them in
because God was good enough,
amazingly-gracious enough,
to let us in?
That is what the Christian life is all about.
Amen.