(Read Joshua 2 and 6:1-25.)
THERE is something peculiarly interesting in the history of Rahab, because it shows how the grace of God can go out to one who had no claim upon Him Rahab belonged to an accursed race, a heathen family, and to a doomed city, the judgment of which certainly came, though it was delayed for a few days. In two verses of the New Testament you have the two sides of Rahab’s history. Hebrews speaks of her faith, “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with theirs that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Heb. 11:31). James speaks of her works, “Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?” (James 2:25.)
What marked Rahab? She had faith, and because she had faith in God she takes her side with God’s people, and perhaps that is more than you have ever done yet, my reader. Have you ever taken your side with God’s people? They were very few, but Rahab had the sense in her soul that they were A God’s people, and she said, “I am going to be with them.” She had little intelligence, and she did many things that could not be commended. She did not speak the truth, but we must remember that she was, at the moment of her awakening, in the midst of wickedness and idolatry. She had not then learned the store God sets on truth, but she had learned that judgment was coming, she desired fervently to escape it, and it is beautiful to see how God met this woman.
In ch. 2 we see that Joshua sent up the spies, and that all that was in his mind, as he said, “Go, view the land, even Jericho,” was to spy out the defenses of the enemy; but God had this in His mind, that He would make these two men evangelists to a poor, anxious, sinful woman in a doomed city, and she herself was thus a focus of blessing to others. It is interesting also to notice that Rahab’s, name comes into the line of the direct ancestry of the Saviour (Matt. 1:5). God delights in grace. That is what we may learn from this history, and the more needy, the more undeserving the creature is, the more He delights in showing mercy.
Let us now look a little more closely at Rahab. She had been a wicked woman. God does not hide her character, but the spies come to her, and she at once takes her stand on God’s side. The king of Jericho wants to get hold of these two men. How, easy for her to have delivered them up to the king, but she has the sense in her soul of the deep necessity of being identified with God’s people, the paramount necessity of it.
In the New Testament, God puts Rahab and Abraham side by side (see Jas. 2:21-25). Abraham believed God when He had not got a people at all, and Rahab believed God when He had a people, but when that people had not an inch of the land that He had given to them. Then it was that she said in her heart, “They will have the land by-and-by; and I must be with them.” She sides with God, has faith in God, and so, my reader, must you. If you are going to escape the judgment of God, you must side with God, and with God’s people too. “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.” You will certainly perish, my dear reader, if you do not do as she did, take your place really with God’s people now.
In verses 9-13 of our chapter, we read how Rahab opens her heart to the spies. She is the very picture of an anxious soul who wants peace, pardon, and the knowledge of salvation. She begins by saying, “I know that the Lord hath given you the land.” She, as it were, says, “I know we are lost, undone, ruined.” My friend, do you know yet that you are lost, undone, a ruined sinner, with destruction before you? Rahab did not know how she was to escape, but she had a great desire to escape. My unconverted reader, judgment hangs over you, have you ever desired to escape it? Oh! unbelieving soul, thank God you have still another opportunity of coming to the Lord. Rahab’s words, “Your terror is fallen upon us,” show that the terror of the Lord was creeping over the people of Palestine, and it is high time that the terror of the Lord was constraining you to flee to the Saviour. I have no warrant for saying that God will let the sound of the gospel trumpet ring in your ears for another seven long days, as the sound of the priests’ trumpets did in the ears of the people of Jericho. I can only say to you, my reader, your only safe course is to get NOW all that God can give you salvation today. The people of Jericho put a bold face on it, and so may you, but you know in your heart of hearts that you have to meet God. You may manage to keep the gospel out of your heart, but you cannot keep God from having to do with you in a day very close at hand.
The Lord had let the tidings of His victorious power go into Jericho, and Rehab says in her heart, “I know there can be no hope for us, but in Him.” Then was it that faith sprang up in her soul, and she cast herself on the goodness of God. She got the sense in her soul of the omnipotence of God. She confesses Him thus, “The Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” She knew Him to be the living God, and she had been an idolater, but now, fully alive to the weight and glory of His name, she says, “Swear unto me by the Lord, since I have showed you kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto my father’s house, and GIVE ME A TRUE TOKEN.” How eloquent this plea, “Give me a true token.” There is only one token that God gives. It is what speaks of the blood of Christ. “The blood shall be to you for a token,” was His word to Israel on the Passover night (Ex. 22:13). God has but one token of safety, of security, and salvation for the anxious soul, and that token is the precious blood of His own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Rahab thinks of others besides herself. You will always find wherever there is a downright anxious soul, a soul that has the sense, too, of the grace of the Lord, it invariably takes in others besides itself. Faith, working by love, in Rahab’s heart makes it expand. “I want an assurance from you,” she says, “that the Lord will not only bless and save me, but will also bless and save those that I am connected with.” “Give me a true token that ye will save alive my father, my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death” (vs. 13). The moment the gospel finds an entrance into a soul, that soul gets anxious about other people too. As soon as there is a link with God, and the soul has the sense of having to do with God, it immediately wants others to know Him too.
I ask you then, my reader, have you ever yet been brought into the presence of God with deep desires, not only for your own blessing, but for that of others also?
The spies answer Rahab thus, “Our life for yours, 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” (vs. 14). That is, as it were, “May we die, Rahab, if you do not live.” The Lord makes Himself responsible for the safety of the soul that trusts in Him. How sweet to hear the Good Shepherd say of His sheep, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). The blessed truth of the gospel is this, that the Lord Jesus Christ has absolutely gone into death, that He might deliver us from the just judgment of God, and bring us, in association with Himself, into the place where He now is as the risen, victorious, ascended Man. It is Christ taking our place, accepting all the responsibility that was ours, and shedding His blood for us. God knows the value of that blood, and we must trust it.
Rahab, as she pled with the spies, was really in the spot of the greatest danger of all, “for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall” (vs. 16). But see what follows. The men, let down by a cord through her window; ere they go away say, “Behold, 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 thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.... And whosoever shall be with thee in, the house; his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him” (verses 18, 19): That is, they make themselves responsible for the absolute security of every soul in that house whereon the scarlet line was.
Now mark Rahab’s simple answer, and beautiful faith, “ACCORDING UNTO YOUR WORDS, SO BE IT.... AND SHE BOUND THE SCARLET LINE IN THE WINDOW” (vs. 21). She bound the scarlet line in the window right off. There was not an hour’s delay. She put it there at once, she did not wait until they came into the land. It was real faith. That scarlet line was the evidence to her of her absolute security; she put it up immediately. Her faith was beautiful. They say, “We will be security for your safety,” and she says, “According to your words, so be it”; and you, my friend, will never be at peace until you rest on two things―the word of God and the work of Christ. The work of Christ has all been done, and now the Holy Ghost has come into this world to tell us God’s thoughts about that work, and we have to rest on the word of God.
If you had asked Rahab what she meant by the scarlet line, she would have said, “That scarlet line is to me the evidence that I shall be saved. I have the men’s word, and the evidence of the scarlet line.” And you, my reader, have to rest on the work that Christ has accomplished, and on the word of God about that work.
Rahab heard the word, believed the word, and, acting on it at once, she got beneath the shelter of the scarlet line.
Passing now to chapter 6, we find that Jericho is strictly shut up, and all its doomed but unbelieving people are inside, while God’s host compassed the city without, the priests bearing the ark, and blowing with the trumpets of rams’ horns. What fools the men of Jericho must have thought them, as they cynically beheld them walking round the city, and blowing rains’ horns by the space of seven days. To me, those seven days are an expression of the wonderful patience of God. His long-suffering is always salvation. As those trumpets were blown, what did they say? “Judgment is coming; Jericho must fall; you had better get under the shelter of the scarlet line.” They were warning notes, they emphatically indicated God’s attitude. God was waiting in patience for seven long days, giving the people of Jericho one last chance. Did they take it? Alas, no! Rahab did, and her family did, but the rest went on in their unbelief to judgment. I warn you, my unsaved reader, “Flee from the wrath to come.” Do not say, “I will wait and think about it.” What did Rahab do? She had already got under shelter of the scarlet line, nor was her faith in it misplaced, for I read, “Rahab the harlot SHALL LIVE, she and all that are with her in the house” (vs. 17); “and Joshua SAVED Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household and all that she had” (vs. 25).
Rahab was in downright earnest, so she got in all her kindred. I ask you, are all your kindred converted yet? There is shelter for them and for you under the blood of Christ. Oh, then, shelter your precious soul under that blood now; do not, I beseech you, delay. “Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that she had,” and Joshua means the same as Jesus, Jehovah the Saviour, and Jesus will save you just now if you turn round to Him. The blast of the gospel trumpet is still sounding, saying, “Get under shelter of the scarlet line, for judgment is coming.” There is only shelter under the blood. May your fate, my friend, be like Rahab’s. “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not.” Blind unbelief held the inhabitants, but God’s judgment fell and overwhelmed Jericho. God grant that blind, fatal unbelief may not hurl your soul into an eternal hell! Turn round, I beseech you, to the precious blood of the Saviour, and get the knowledge now of the eternal security which it alone can give.
W. T. P. W.