Rahab: The Scarlet Thread of Hope | Joshua 2:1-21; 6:20-23 | Mothers of Jesus

Our Advent series, "The Mothers of Jesus," continues with one of the most unexpected and powerful figures in the Bible: Rahab.

Her story, found in the book of Joshua, is a study in contrasts. Here is a woman—a Canaanite and a prostitute—who shows greater confidence in the covenant God of Israel than a generation of Israelites who witnessed His miracles firsthand.

In this week's message, "Rahab: The Scarlet Thread of Hope," we look closely at the depth of Rahab’s confession and the single, simple sign of hope she clung to: the scarlet cord. This thread is the visible proof that her faith was genuine, and it is the key clue that connects her life of unexpected salvation directly to the covenant promise fulfilled in the birth of Christ.

God’s grace is scandalously powerful, and it always goes where it is least expected. We hope this message strengthens your confidence in a God who saves sinners from every background.

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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.

From listening to me talk to you for nearly 10 years now, every week, you know I like to imagine the different angles of the stories in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament narratives. I think that comes from those are the stories I remember the most, whether it's from Sunday school, seeing the felt Abraham on the board. Remember the felt creatures we had in Sunday school. Or I also had my parents, when I was about five, give me a comic book Bible. Many of the times I imagine the stories, I'm imagining those characters. In fact, one time I went back and looked at it as an adult and I'm like, That is how I picture almost every single one of the Old Testament narratives.

But on my top five list of favorite Old Testament stories, the story of the Battle of Jericho is in there somewhere because what is not to love in this story. There is so much going on. You have spies. You have a battle without really having a battle. You have a fortress that comes down by people marching around. It is an intriguing story.

As an adult, thinking through the angles of this story I've known since I was a child, I think the angle that intrigues me the most is the fact that all of these Canaanite people know the stories of what God has done for the Israelis. They know that God destroyed the armies of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and they know that the Israelis are on the move and heading their How did the word get out? They didn't have 24-hour news networks and social media. No one went to Facebook and said, Mark safe from Yahweh's wrath at the Red Sea. They didn't even have that ancient technology called newspapers. And while they didn't have our modern ways of transmitting information, you can also understand why the word spread like it did. One of the most powerful armies in the world is wiped out in a miraculous way at the Red Sea. Then this large group of Israeli is moving through the wilderness. They don't have very far to go. Then suddenly they stop and they wander for 40 years. What transpires in the story of the Exodus is not something that would go unnoticed. The word would have spread.

Now, as we look at the reactions to these reports by Rahab, what stands out to me is how she approaches this, the faith that she has. Think about this with me for a second. The Israeli who witnessed the event she is talking about firsthand. Forty years prior, sent spies into the promised land. They saw human beings they deemed to be large and thought they were too strong to overcome. All but two of those twelve spies said, We can't do it. We can't defeat them.

Now, an unbelieving pagan Canaanite prostitute believes that they're doomed because of the power of God. It seems, from the way she describes it, that the average Canaanite on the street had more faith in the power of God than most of the Israelites had four decades prior.

I think this draws out a crucial question for us as we come to looking at the faith of Rahab today. How did a woman from a wicked, pagan city end up with this powerful faith? And what did God expect her to do with that faith?

Now, to find out, we're going to look closely at the depth of the confession of Rahab, and we're also going to see this scarlet thread, this scarlet cord that she tied in her window. That's going to give us a clue that's going to connect this shocking story of Rahab to the covenant promise of God, and ultimately, the message of Christmas.

As we start out today, we come to Joshua 2. This story of Jericho and Rahab doesn't take long to get very interesting. Joshua, as the new leader of the Israeli, does what was done 40 years prior, he sends a couple spies into the land to check it out. They are particularly interested in Jericho here. When we learn of the fortification of this city, we get why Jericho was of particular concern. It had walls that made this invasion a problem. So as the spies find their way to Jericho, we learn that they come to the house of a prostitute named Rahab. And we don't get much in the way of details here other than the fact that they lodged there.

But the text does tell us that these two men were clearly not very good spies because the king of Jericho is aware of their presence in the city. That's just not good spying right there. Well, in this time, Canaan was made up of city states that had of the promised land. So there was no greater unified land of Canaan with one king over it. So this coming invasion of the promised land was going to be about overtaking these cities and their little regional kings individually. Had to take over these kings that controlled them. And as we come to verse three, we discover that this little king, a regional king of Jericho, he receives pretty solid intelligence on the spies because he doesn't just know they're in the area, he has information regarding their precise location.

Now, if this wasn't already one of the better known stories in the Old Testament, the way the author of Joshua tells the story creates some tension here. It seems as though the spies are going to be cornered. It seems as though the story is going to turn in such a way that the conquest of the promised land will be thwarted, or at least delayed in some way. The story may turn in such a way that these spies are executed if they're discovered, or maybe a rescued effort will now become the plot line of the story, again, delaying the invasion of the promised land. That's the likely progression of the story with the discovery of these spies. But that's not what happens because Rahab does something unexpected. Instead of showing loyalty to Jericho, she fabricates a story to help these guys escape.

She says to these people coming looking for these men, Yeah, they've been here, but I'm unaware that they were spies. She says that they had left just as the city gate was being closed. She encourages these people questioning her to pursue them. You likely know the story pretty well. The spies didn't leave her place. Instead, she hid them on the roof, and the people the king assigned to track these spies down, they take her bait, and the danger the men are in, it actually subsides.

The amazing part of the story is not found in what Rahab fabricates to get them to escape or to give them the opportunity escape. Instead, the reason we look to this story this morning is because of the reason that Rahab hid them, the reason that she provides for their escape. The men are stuck for the night in the city because the gate is closed. But before they settle in, we learn the why of Rahab's plotting here.

We find, as the narrative continues in this, that this pagan harlot in a pagan land has greater confidence in the promises of God than an entire generation of Israelis. She says that she knows that Yahweh, notice the personal name of God here in all caps, she's not saying your regional God that is unknown has provided for you. She knows the name of the God of history, and she speaks of him by name. She says, I know that Yahwe has given the land to the Israeli. The wilderness outside the promised land is filled with 40 years of corps of people who had less faith than this woman. They were afraid they would be overtaken, and they didn't trust God. Those Israelis lacked faith because they saw people that they thought were big. These are people who survived the plagues of Egypt. These are people who crossed the Red Sea on dry land. They had their mouths filled by God's sovereign hand, giving them manna and quail. They drank water out of a rock, but they didn't believe that God could give them the land over some large humans. They felt the ground tremble at the foot of Mount Sinai when God gave the law. Yet they still lacked faith, and they perished in the wilderness because of their unbelief.

That's a humbling fact, and that serves as a sobering warning for us, because it reminds us that knowledge Of the saving works of God is no guarantee of saving faith. The Israelites had the miracles in the law. They even had the visible presence of God in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, yet they perished in the wilderness because they didn't have faith. The lesson we see here as we continue through the passage is that Rahab had heard these stories of the might of God, and she genuinely believed in the power of God and that only he could rescue her. She laid everything on the line because she believed God was going to bring the people into the land that he had promised them.

We see that the might and power of God put fear in many of the Canaanites. But only Rahab was sovereignly chosen by God to be a part of the story of redemption.

So these stories spread and their hearts melted. They felt the fear that should be felt when you know that God has spoken. And once again, I'm going to bring up the contrast again because it's unbelievable. And the author of Joshua also seems to be making sure that we feel this. The unbelief of the previous generation needs to be abandoned by the Israelites now. The people who are entering the land need to at least have the same level trust that Rahab and the rest of the Canaanites have. But we see that the story of Rahab goes so much deeper than just believing some rumors about the God of the Israeli, giving them some military victories.

What Rahab has heard about Yahweh causes her to act. She puts her faith into action, and her genuine faith is shown to us in her request in verses 12 and 13. Not only does she ask to be saved from the armies of the people of God, but she asks them to promise to it by swearing an oath in the name of the Lord, in the name of Yahweh.

So this outsider, this Gentile, Canaanite, unclean woman, she even seems to realize the significance of name of God. She has not heard the third commandment, but she understands that she wants a promise in the name of this Holy God because she knows her people should not take that name in vain. What she wants to be is to be spared. She knows that her request needs to be rooted in a promise that means something that has some substance. This is subtle, but it's another sign of the genuine faith of Rahab. She knows that the only way that her and her family will be spared is if this God, who has revealed himself to his people by name, shows mercy to her.

Rahab lets them down the wall of the city with a scarlet cord, and that rope is to be the sign by which she and her family would be spared when the invading Israelis come to the city.

But before we move on to the conclusion of the story in chapter 6, I want to point out the faith that the spies had here as well. We're focused on Rahab, but we have to see the contrast between these two spies and the spies earlier on in the story. Unlike 10 of the 12 spies who went out to scope out the land 40 years prior, these two spies have faith that God will provide. Think about this. How easy would it have been for these spies to go back to Joshua and tell them, The invasion is not a good idea. They know we're coming. We probably shouldn't do this. Have you seen the walls of Jericho? Look, we can just go off somewhere. There's a lot of wilderness there. We can just set up and build our cities and have our place to be without any conflict. They know we're coming. Why would we attack? But that's not what happens. Because like Rahab, they believe that God has made a promise, and he is the one who will win victory for them.

As we move to chapter 6, the story of Jericho is well known. The walls were substantial, and the Israelis did not go in with their massive numbers and chip away at it to break through it and overthrow the city. Instead, the sovereign God of history told his people to march around the city for six days. Then on the seventh day, to march around it seven times and give out a shout. And as the famous song says, The walls came a tumbling down. Rahab was right. It wasn't the number of the the Israelites that were going to bring victory. It was God who was going to do it. And the story of Jericho shows that God caused the walls to come down.

And in this story, we see that Rahab was spared. Remember, her home was built into the wall of the city. But by faith, she put the scarlet cord out the window. And when the power of God brought down the walls, remember her house is in the walls. She was still spared. The walls around her fell down. But her home stayed up because she had put that cord there, trusting that God would save.

When I began, I pointed out that humbling truth of the story of Rahab. A pagan harlot of Jericho had greater confidence in the word and power of God of Israel than an entire generation of Israelis. A generation that had seen miracles, received the law, and even had the visible presence of God, but they fell in the wilderness because of their unbelief. They didn't trust that God could deliver them into the promised land.

This is an important and profound application of the story of Rahab for us, that proximity to God's promises is no guarantee of salvation. Only genuine faith and trust in God saves. Rahab, standing on the outside, heard of God's deliverance, and by the work of the Holy spirit in her, she believed by faith. And instead of melting in fear, it drove her to faith and action. She confessed the power of God, she hid the spies, and she anchored her entire family's future on a simple cord hanging out of a window.

There was great comforting truth found in that scarlet thread. That was just an ordinary rope, dangling out of a window of a house built into a wall of a condemned city. But for Rahab and her family, it was a sign of deliverance. It was the mark that judgment would pass over her household. It shows us that she was relying completely on the promise of others and not on her own strength to be spared. There was nothing Rahab could do to survive that. She needed the power of God.

But the reason we talk about her story today on the second Lord's Day in Advent is because this was about more than just surviving an enemy attack. Rahab was brought into the covenant people of God, even though she was an outsider, an unclean Gentile. But not only that, she responded to her salvation by changing her life. Rahab didn't go from being the harlot of Jericho to being the harlot of Israel. She changed. She turned to God in repentance and faith, and She married into the line of Judah. From her came the promised Messiah, the one who was promised all the way back at the garden, all the way at the fall, the one who would come and crush the head of the servant. This is why we celebrate her today as one of the mothers of Jesus.

That's our theme through this advent series, to look at the women named in the genealogy of Jesus that we find in Matthew's gospel. As we look at those stories, we find so much that is scandalous and unexpected. To save a people for his own possession, we see that God uses the scandalous and the unexpected.

Rahab would have been considered unclean because she was a Gentile. She would have been unacceptable because she was a prostitute. But by the grace of God, she was saved through faith.

In fact, the New Testament singles Rahab out in more than just that one line in the genealogies in Matthew 1. In Hebrews 11, Rahab is used as an example of one who is justified by faith. And in James 2, we are told that she was vindicated by her works.

Rahab shows us that the covenant of God was always about mercy. In the story of Rahab, we're reminded that we are all sinners, and that apart from divine mercy, we have no hope. The message of Christmas is that God came to rescue his people through Jesus taking on our flesh and shedding his blood for us. The scarlet thread of his blood is how we are saved. And so gather yourself and gather your family under the promise of his mercy found in that scarlet thread. And trust in God's power to save. Amen. Let us pray.

Great and merciful God, we are blessed to be your people, to have been called out and heard your word, and to know your power to save. Help us to abandon all other things and put our faith in you alone that we might trust in your promises like Rahab and her family. May we know that we are covered for our sin, And may it cause us to depart from here today, desiring to live holy lives that bring glory to your great and glorious name. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon.

For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org.

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