Thank you very much. It has been a wonderful week for us. It almost seems like this has been a weekend conference. Nancy and I just arrived here the day before yesterday. It seems like this week has gone by so quickly and it has been such a good time to meet so many of you and be able to get to know you it has been a real privilege I do have one one one problem one thing that has been a disappointment to me I have to tell my good friend Bob Logan they did not ask me to sing this week Bob Bob Bob was the director of music at Emmaus for so many years and There were times when Bob would have all volunteer choirs. No one refused except me. So, but I had a wonderful time. You are also in store for a treat this coming week with Dan Smith coming to minister. I'm just sort of the preliminary speaker. The heavyweight is going to come on and he will be speaking next week and I think that you will have a real good time in the Word of God with him. Now this week we have been looking to the book of Hebrews in chapter eleven and the heroes of faith who are mentioned there. This is the Hall of Fame, the scriptural Hall of Fame. of those who have achieved great faith in their lives and pleased God. These are the heroes of Scripture. Who are your heroes? Who are the heroes that we have today? There are very few heroes today. I don't think that a person is a real hero just because he can hit a ninety-five mile an hour fastball that's darting all over the place, just because he can hit that ball and make it to base one out of three times. Or just because a person can take a ball and put it in a hoop and score thirty-five points a game. I don't think that that makes a person a real hero. Or just because a person can take his team down the field and pass after pass completed to score the winning touchdown, I do not think that that makes a real hero. What we have in the book of Hebrews chapter eleven are real heroes. And we have looked at a number of individuals like Noah and Abraham and Jacob. Tonight, I would like to look at a hero, a woman, that you might not have expected to be a hero. She is mentioned for us in the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua begins by mentioning two heroes. The first one in chapter one is Joshua, one of the two spies that spied out the land earlier, forty years earlier, during the days of Moses after they had come out of Egypt, and in faith brought back the report that even though there were giants in the land, God would be with the Israelites. Unfortunately, his report was not believed, and the Israelites had to wander around for forty years, and Joshua then in the book of Joshua became the general that led them into the promised land. He was the first hero, Joshua chapter one. But the one that I would mention tonight, would like us to look at tonight, is found in Joshua chapter two. She is mentioned in Hebrews eleven, verse thirty one. And it says, By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish. with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. Here this woman, Rahab, is mentioned in Hebrews eleven, along with the other great heroes of faith. Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, David. And right there among them is Rahab, a woman who learned to trust God and was willing to follow him no matter what the cost was to herself. Rahab was one of the heroes in God's Hall of Fame. Now, there are few people in Scripture that are wherever more unlikely heroes, unlikely examples of faith than Rahab. First of all, she is an unlikely hero because she was a Gentile. She was a Gentile. You remember what the Lord Jesus said to the woman of Samaria in John four, the woman at the well? He said, salvation is of the Jews. When you look at Paul describing the Gentiles in Ephesians chapter two, he says, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You lived in the lusts of your flesh. You were by nature children of wrath. He says you were separate from Christ, excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. That's a description of the Gentiles. Rahab was a Gentile. She was without God. She was without hope. She was a stranger from the covenants of promise. The promises that we've looked at in the life of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the blessings that were announced to Israel in the Old Testament, She was excluded from those. You would not have expected Rahab, the Gentile, to be in God's Hall of Fame here in Hebrews chapter eleven. And not only was she a Gentile, she was an Amorite. Now the Amorites were a people, a nation, which occupied the land of Canaan at this time. And they were particularly noted for their wickedness. There's a very significant verse in Genesis chapter fifteen and verse sixteen. And it's one of the reasons God is telling Abraham, one of the reasons why he was not giving him the promised land at this time, he says, that Abraham's family is going to go into another land. They are going to remain there for four hundred years. But in the fourth generation, they will return here. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. God is saying in Genesis that the Amorites are a wicked people, extremely wicked. But He is going to give them four hundred more years to repent. And in that four hundred years, they're not going to repent, but rather their sin and their evil and their iniquity is going to simmer and brew and come to its completion. And after that time, He would destroy them. When we come to Joshua chapter two, the iniquity of the Amorite was now full. This was an evil people. They were a corrupt and brutal society. They were an idolatrous people who worshipped ugly, brutal, vengeful, lustful deities. milcom, Baal, Ashtaroth. They offer their children up to these gods. Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy chapter seven that they were to drive out these people. He names the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hittites, and the Jebusites. You shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them. You shall show no favor to them." The Israelites were forbidden to marry the Amorites because of their wickedness. They were forbidden to have anything to do with them. They were to utterly destroy them. Rahab was an Amorite. She grew up among this type of people. She had been that kind of a person. You would not have expected Rahab the Amorite to be in God's Hall of Fame of Faith. And not only was she a Gentile, and not only was she an Amorite, she was a prostitute. Look at Joshua chapter two and verse two. Or verse one, it says, the spies went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. Rahab was a sinful, immoral woman who made her occupation by selling her body for sex. Now, it's interesting, there are a lot of people who have tried to avoid admitting this fact. They have tried to cover up her immoral profession. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus, when he comes to the narrative here and describes Rahab, he just calls her an innkeeper. An innkeeper. There have been some Bible teachers who have tried to... mitigate her profession by saying she once was a prostitute, she used to be a prostitute, but that she was no longer practicing this trade. She had changed her profession. Some have even said, look, when the spies were hidden under the stalks of flax on the roof, that is an indication that Rahab had now adopted a new work. She was a cloth maker. That is not what the Scriptures say. The fact is that many have been embarrassed by her profession. Many are embarrassed by the fact that the scribes would have gone to the home of a woman like this. They're embarrassed by the fact that a woman, this kind of woman, would have become a hero of faith in Scripture. Instead of being an embarrassment to us, Rahab should be a preeminent example, a trophy of grace. This is what the grace of God can do in the life of a sinful person. She is like the woman at the well in John chapter four, who was saved by God's grace. She is called in Hebrew. a zona, a prostitute. She is called in the New Testament, in Greek, a porne, a prostitute. She was a prostitute. In fact, I think it was because she was a prostitute that the spies came to her house. Think about it. They could go to her house without any questions being asked. Nobody would be peeking out the window and say, who is that that's going to Rahab's house? Nobody would have been questioning this fact. This is the story of how a Gentile woman, an Amorite, an immoral woman, a prostitute, came to become one of the heroes of faith in God's Hall of Fame. This is a tremendous story. And it's a story that a lot of us should take to heart. Some of you were not raised in godly homes. Some of you look back over your life and there are parts of your life. There is a period of life, your life, that is an embarrassment to you today because it was a sinful life. Rehab tells us by the grace of God that even a person involved in a very sinful kind of life can become a hero of faith in God's Hall of Fame. Isn't that a tremendous story? We should rejoice that our God is the kind of God who accepts and who works in the life of a person like Rehab. Now, the story... of Rahab is told in Joshua chapter two. It starts out with her meeting the spies. In verse one, it says that Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, Go, view the land, especially Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. Now, Joshua... sent out the spies. Forty years ago, Moses or the nation of Israel had gotten in trouble by sending out spies into the land. And some people have criticized Joshua here. Why did he send out the spies to check out the land? God had told him that he would give them the land in Joshua chapter one in verse five. He says, no man will be able to stand before you. Why did Joshua send out the spies? He knew that they would be able to conquer the land, that God would battle for them, that none of the enemy would be able to stand against them. Something that Joshua here is showing a lack of faith. Now I think that there are two reasons why Joshua sent out the spies. Both of these two reasons are legitimate. What he did was something that was legitimate. One of the reasons that he sent out the spy, Joshua was aware of himself. And the other reason that he sent out the spy, the spies, Joshua I don't think was aware of. One of the reasons involved the conquest of the land, The other reason involved Rahab. The first reason that he sent out the spies was in preparation for the conquest. Joshua sending the spies, the spies and the spying out of the land, the scouting out of the land was part of the preparation for the conquest. Yes, God had promised them victory. Yes, the battle was His. Yes, the victory was assured, but that does not mean that you preclude human means in the accomplishment of that victory. God can work apart from us. God can work miraculously. Doesn't have to use us in any way. But God also works through us. And when He works through us, that is just as much His working as when He works miraculously apart from us. For instance, has God promised that He would provide your needs, that He would take care of you and provide your needs? Has He promised that? Has He? Yes, He has. How many of you have been accustomed to go home And find, like the widow of Zerapheth, that you have a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil, and no matter how much you empty your pot of flour, and no matter how much you empty your jar of oil, they keep filling by themselves, miraculously, by God. How many of you have had that as your experience? I haven't. The fact is that the way God normally provides for your needs is through you working, earning an income, paying for your groceries and paying for your rent and so on. That doesn't mean that God has provided for you any less, but He works through you rather than miraculously apart from you. God heals us frequently of our diseases. I believe God has healed me many times. But I do not know in my lifetime, I am not aware of His ever healing me miraculously. Most of the time He has healed me through the wisdom of doctors and the medicines that they have prescribed. Now I still believe that that is God doing the work through human means. Salvation is of the Lord. God is the one who says, do you believe that? Yes. But most of the time he uses us in the preaching of the gospel and witnessing to men. You know, it's very rare that a person like Paul on the road to Damascus has the Lord Jesus appear to him directly and miraculously and speak words to him and draw him to himself. Most of the time he works through the scriptures and he works through our witness and our preaching. He works through men. He is still doing the work. And the point is this. that even though we may have the promise of God in success in a particular area, that does not mean that planning and diligent work are wrong. They are the means that God uses to accomplish His purpose. Now, our trust should not be in our planning. And our trust should not be in our work. Our trust should be in the Lord. It is the Lord who uses these means, and he must be working, or nothing significant will be accomplished. Now, God worked through Joshua. Joshua was a brilliant general. His military tactics can be used. in military textbooks. But when you look at what Joshua did, he used the brain of a smart general. He sent out the spies. He scouted out the land. He scouted out the terrain. He in many places would strategically place his army There was a legitimate reason for Joshua in preparation for the conquest to send out the spies. That's the first reason. And Joshua was aware of that. The second reason for Joshua sending out the spies, he didn't know anything about. This was part of the secret plan and purpose of God. And that is, there was a person in Jericho. Joshua didn't know anything about this person. There was a person in Jericho who needed to be saved. There was a woman in Jericho in whose heart God was working. This was a sinful woman. It was an immoral woman. But God was going to save her. And provision had to be made. so that she would not die when Jericho was captured and when all of the Amorites were destroyed. And so it was the providence of God that sent these spies to the home of this woman and enabled her to be saved. Now there's one very important point that I think that we should notice here. If you read through the book of Joshua, it is a bloody book. It is a book of conquest and it is a book of destruction. It is a book of the judgment of God on wicked and sinful men. The iniquity of the Amorite was now full and God was going to destroy this wicked people. But before any battle was fought, before anyone was killed, before there was one stroke of judgment, we meet Rahab. We meet this Gentile woman, this Amorite woman, this sinful woman, who God is going to save. Before we see the judgment of God, we see the grace of God. Before we see the destruction of the Amorites, we see a woman here that God is going to save. Do not ignore the judgment of God. People do not like the judgment of God today, but ignoring it does not make it go away, but recognizes the grace of God never stops. The grace of God never stops. His grace is greater than the greatest sin and greater than the greatest sinner. And that is why we have Rahab the harlot here at the beginning of this book. Now, in verses two to seven, we see Rahab hiding the spies. First of all, the news of the spies is brought to the king, verse two and three. And it was told the king of Jericho saying, Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country. So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country. Now these spies had a very difficult task. Jericho was a strategic city. It was situated right at the entrance of two passes that led into the interior of the land. And it was a well-fortified city. And the whole nation of Israel was camped right over the Jordan River about twenty miles away. The enemy was at the doorstep. And so the king of Jericho had to have guards, watchmen, all over the place. Somehow these spies avoided the watchmen. Somehow they slipped into the city of Jericho, but they did not get in completely unnoticed. and they were seen going to the house of Rahab. And so the king sent to order her to tell her to send these men out. Look at verses four and five. Then the woman took the two men and hid them. And she said, yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And it happened as the gate was being shut when it was dark that the men went out And where the men went, I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them. Do you realize what she was doing here? She was risking her life for these two spies. She at this moment became a traitor to her own country. She took those spies up to the roof. She hid them there, and then she protected them against those that came to capture them. She was committing treason. She was committing treason against her own people in order to protect enemy soldiers who were about to invade them. All she needed to have happened was for the guard to search her house and find those men. That would have cost her life. All she needed was one of those spies to cause, be discovered. That would have cost her life. She was taking a tremendous risk. Why did she do it? Some people might do that just because they're rebels against society. That's not why Rahab did it. Some people might do that because they see the handwriting on the wall. They may recognize that the Israelites are going to win, and so they go over to the other side. That's not why Rahab did it. The Bible says that the reason she did it was because she had faith. it was her faith in God. Now, some of you may get hung up over the fact that she lied in order to protect the Israelites. And I'd like to talk about that, but I'm going to run out of time tonight if I do that. So if you want to talk about Rahab's lie, I don't think she did the right thing in lying, but she did the right thing in protecting the men. Her actions was an action of faith. Rahab was a new believer. And she didn't do everything right in the process of doing it. But what she did is she did in faith. And God commended her faith. You don't find Scripture commending her lie. And if you want to talk about that issue, We can talk about that after the meeting to a greater extent. But what I want you to notice is that we see here the faith of Rahab in protecting the spies. Look at what she says in verses nine to eleven. She says to the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us. And all of the inhabitants of the land are faint-hearted 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 to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted. Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you. For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Rahab tells the spies, tells them how the people were terrified at this time. They were all afraid of the Israelites. They had heard the stories how forty years earlier God had delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. They had heard about the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians. They had heard about how the Israelites went through the Red Sea on dry ground and escaped that way. They heard how the Egyptians were swallowed up by the Red Sea. They had heard about how the powerful Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, were defeated by the Israelites. The people, the people were afraid. Have you ever stopped to consider how Rahab ever heard about those stories? How did she learn about what God did with the Israelites in Egypt? How did she learn about what happened over there in Moab? I'm speculating a little bit here, but I think that it was likely that it was the men who came to her house from Egypt and from Moab, the men who came to her house because she was a prostitute who brought the news of these stories. These were the stories that God used to touch her heart and begin to call her to himself. And they were brought to Rahab because these people were visiting a house of prostitution. Don't limit the God, don't limit the working of God. and do not limit the grace of God as to how or when or where he might work. Now, what did Rahab say? What was it that brought faith to Rahab and at the same time brought fear to the people of Jericho? Notice she not only acknowledged the miraculous victory and power of God in battle fighting for the Israelites. But in verse eleven she says, the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. She uses the Hebrew name Yahweh, the Lord Yahweh your God, he is God in heaven above. This is the personal name that God had used to reveal himself to the children of Israel. And Rahab is saying that he is the one who is God. He is God in heaven and he is God on earth. This is a confession of Rahab's faith. Now we've been talking about faith during these evening meetings. And I'd like you to consider just what is involved in Rahab's faith. What is involved in Rahab's faith? What is genuine faith? There are three things. that are involved in Rahab's faith. And I think that there are three things that are involved in any faith that is genuine saving faith. First of all, there has to be knowledge. Secondly, there has to be approval of the truth. And thirdly, there has to be a personal trust. Faith involves knowledge. Rahab had knowledge of the power and might of God. She knew what God had done in Egypt. She knew what God had done across the Jordan River. She knew that He was God in heaven and that He was God on earth. Faith does involve knowledge, but knowledge is not enough. James says in James chapter two that among the demons there are no atheists. You got that? The demons know that there is God. They believe that there is God. They believe in God. They believe that God exists. But they don't repent because of that belief. They tremble. They have the knowledge. But that is not saving faith. The rest of the people knew what God had done and they were filled with fear. Rahab was different. Now, Rahab had the knowledge of God, but faith also involves approval. Faith involves approval. Faith involves the acceptance of those facts as true. It means agreeing with the truth and acknowledging it as true. Demons know that there is a God, but they hate Him. They know of the truth, but they do not approve it. Approval of the truth is necessary for saving faith, but it is not enough. When I was growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I was taught the Bible, and I was taught many of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. If you asked me if I believed the Bible was true, I would have said yes. If you asked me if Jesus Christ died for my sins, I would say yes. If you asked me whether Jesus Christ would forgive me of my sins, I would say yes. There was a lot of things that I knew and approved of. I approved of the truth. And yet I still was not saved. Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus. You have to be born again. There is something more that is necessary than just knowing the truth and approving it as truth. There's a third thing that is involved in faith, and that is faith involves personal trust. Faith involves personal acceptance of the truth or trust in the truth. The same reports that brought terror to the people of Jericho brought repentance to Rahab. When she said, the Lord your God, he is heaven above and on earth beneath, there are other people in Jericho that may have been able to say those same words. but they weren't saved. What was the difference with Rahab? She cast her lot with the people of Israel. She cast her lot with the God of Israel. She risked her life to save the spies. She hid them. She sent them out secretly. James chapter two says that her actions reveal... that she really had accepted the truth and that her truth was more than just knowledge and more than just acceptance of the truth, it involved a personal trust in God. Notice what is necessary for saving faith? What is necessary for salvation? You have to know the good news of the gospel. that Jesus Christ, God's Son, came into the world to die for our sins. He paid the penalty for our sins. He bore our punishment on the cross. You have to know that truth. That is knowledge. You have to accept that as true. You have to believe that that really is true. That is the way of salvation. But you also have to make it personal. You have to trust Him. And you have to come to the point where you say, I am no longer trusting in my own works or in my own efforts or in my own self for my salvation. Christ died for me. He is my hope. He is my trust. I accept Him as my savior he is my savior unless I am personally trusting in him to be my savior I may know the truth I may approve the truth but I am not saved there are a lot of people today you know you especially go into the into the southern region of the country the Bible belt there are a lot of people who can tell you what the gospel is they know the truth of the gospel They believe that it is true. They approve of it is true. But they've never made it personal. They've never accepted Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior. You have to be able to say, Jesus is my Savior, my Savior. Now the rest of the chapter tells us how Rahab let the spies down through a window of her house. Her house was on the wall. And she let the spies down to get out of the city through a window by a rope. And then she sent them to go hide in the mountains. Instead of going east where the Israelites were, she sent them out into the west. And so the chase was all in the area of the east. And when the When the soldiers were out, stopped looking for the spies, they could return to the Israelites. Tells how she was told to tie a scarlet rope to the window of her house. And when the Israelites attacked the city of Jericho, they saw that scarlet rope. And Rahab, who had gathered all of her family together into her house, she and her whole household were spared that way. That's what's told us there in the rest of Joshua chapter two. But now let me tell you the rest of the story. Not only was her family delivered, but you have to go to Joshua chapter six, or Joshua chapter nine, And you read another story of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were Canaanites who tricked the Israelites into thinking that they had come from a, that they lived in a long way off. And so the Israelites entered into a covenant with them and spared them. Do you remember what happened to the Gibeonites? It says that they became hewers of wood and drawers, drawers, drawers. Yeah, they carried water for the Israelites. They became virtual slaves of the Israelites. They were prisoners in the land of Israel. That's not what happened to Rahab. What happened to her was very different. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter one. Matthew chapter one. And here we have the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus. And it says in verse five, Matthew chapter one, Salmon begat Boaz by Rahab. Do you know what? This woman, this Gentile woman, this Amorite woman, this prostitute married an Israelite. She was accepted, fully accepted, into the people of God. Rahab was a trophy of God's grace. But you go on in Matthew. And Matthew tells us that, in verse five, that Boaz beget Obed by Ruth, Obed beget Jesse, and Jesse beget David the king. David was the ancestor of Christ. This was the royal line from whom the Lord Jesus came. Do you see that this sinful woman became one of the ancestors of him who came to save sinners? She is mentioned twice in the New Testament as a model of faith. She's mentioned in James chapter two and Hebrews chapter eleven. We read that verse. Who are the heroes today? not our political figures, not our sports figures. In fact, I don't know of very many people in the public limelight that I would consider to be a true hero. The true heroes, the ones who make it to God's Hall of Fame, are individuals like Rahab who had who have a true faith and trust in God. Do you have that kind of faith? That is the kind of faith that the Lord wants each one of us to have. These heroes of Hebrews chapter eleven are meant to be models for us. We are to follow them as they have followed Christ. And maybe we will see that in that Hall of Fame, God's Hall of Fame, there will be many people in this room whose names will be listed next to Noah and Enoch and Abraham and David and Rahab, those who were saved by God's grace and who walked by faith trusting in Him. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for the tremendous example that we see in Rahab of your grace. And we realize that your grace has worked in each one of us to save us from sin. And we pray that we would, like her, trust in you and walk by faith in Jesus' name.