THE HARLOTS FAITH - A RELATIVE OF JESUS

THE FAITH OF RAHAB

JOSHUA 2:1-21; 6:22-25

"By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with them that were disobedient."—HEBREWS 11:31

            As we study this wonderful record of the triumphs of faith in the letter to the Hebrews, it is inevitable that we find ourselves sharply pulled up by this text. Look­ing at faith, we have seen it illustrated in a remarkable and wonderful way in great personalities—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the na­tion leaving Egypt, the nation entering Canaan. Now suddenly, quite definitely, with almost startling bru­tality, "Rahab, the harlot."

            Such an amazing statement demands consideration. In passing I may say it is rather interesting to those who are given to the study of the Word of God, in order to its interpretation, and are always interested and mostly helped by the opinions of other writers (I said mostly), to see how very busy some expositors have appeared to be in their anxiety to get rid of this verse.   They have tried to explain it away somehow. It is not long since I was reading an article by a very brilliant writer, a preacher, who came to this account, and by the time I had finished reading his article I was quite sure the thing had never happened! Of course I went back to my Bible as the ultimate court of appeal in all these matters. Let us remember first of all that the reference of the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is to a definite historic event; and in the second place that what he says is an inspired interpretation of that event. This is an event in history. The account is from the book of Joshua, and in this letter to the Hebrews, the writer thinking of faith, writing of faith, illustrating faith, having moved through this wonderful list of outstand­ing personalities, writes down, without any apology, "Rahab the harlot perished not with them that were disobedient." If this statement is startling, marking her for all time, it therefore demands consideration, and to that I propose we give ourselves. First let us look at this woman; then consider her faith; and finally consider the issues of that faith.

            First the woman herself, and I am principally con­cerned with this whole account, as it constitutes a revela­tion of God. Of course the woman is here. We are told what she did, and we are going to look at what she did, and of course it had its issues. But the great revelation is one of God, and it is the more remarkable that it blazes out in that Old Testament history, when comparatively even those who believed in the One God were living in the twilight, when they lacked the clear shining of the light given to us in which to live. Now the New Testament writer, when the twilight has given place to the dawning and rising of the sun, quotes from that Old Testament record, and I hope we shall see what an unveiling of God is here, even in that dim distance of the past.

            Who was this woman? First remember that she was a pagan. Having said that, perhaps I need not say any more, but I am going to say more. We are terribly prone to put the measurement of the light in which we live on past events, and to judge people in the light in which it is our privilege to walk. It is not fair, right, or reasonable. Before we come to any hasty conclu­sion, remember that she was a pagan. She belonged to those people who dwelt in Canaan. We find her de­scribed in the Old Testament in Joshua, and in the New, in my text, and in James by this extremely ugly word "harlot." It is true that the Hebrew word so rendered may simply mean an inn-keeper, and several Jewish expositors so explain her, and almost invariably describe her as an inn-keeper. But it is interesting that the translators in the Greek, the Septuagint, employ a word that does not bear that interpretation, a word that we associate with our word harlot; and it is equally significant that when the writer of the letter to the He­brews, and James in his letter, made reference to her, they employ the word, the Greek word that the Septu­agint translators had used. I think there is no doubt that the word is justified, and we have the account, "Ra­hab, the harlot."

            But we need to remember some other things. Even if we understand the word as we use it today, the dire and sorrowful and terrible word it connotes, we must not measure that woman by our standards. First of all she lived in a land where the worship was inevitably pagan. There were various gods and goddesses; and in all the worship of that country there was the deification of natural forces, especially the sexual. Nearly all their worship circled around that terrific mystery, and religion consisted in giving license to appetite. Here this woman was born, and here she had lived. If her man­ner of life was indeed, as we believe it was, described by the terrible word used, then in that country and city and time, among those people it was tolerated. Indeed, toleration is too weak a word. It was encouraged; she was looked upon not as irreligious, but rather as a priestess. I am trying to visualize the picture, and that means this, to summarize. This woman had no con­sciousness of sin, and no consciousness of holiness, as these two great facts were given to those people of Israel to know and to understand.

            She had no consciousness of sin. Oh, I think very likely, as in the case of all men everywhere shrouded in darkness, there was a consciousness of the difference between right and wrong; but certainly that conscious­ness would not enter into the living of the life this woman was living. Sin? No one would have called her a sinner among the people of which she was a member. Holiness? They did not understand the term. It was a term not known among these pagan peoples. These two opposites were not seen as they were seen by the Jewish people. That came through the law of Moses. So we have this woman living in a pagan atmosphere, brought up in the worship—if there was worship at all—of the deification of natural forces, and especially in the sexual forces; a woman minister­ing to her age.

            It is very difficult to see this and to understand it. Here we are as to date, in 2013, which has to do with the coming of Jesus, and the revolution in human thinking that has been wrought by Him; and the interpretation by Him of the meaning of sin and holiness. That is where we are living, and if the word harlot is whispered, almost inevitably there is created in our mind a sense of horror. We have all sorts of names, and I hardly like to defile my lips, but there they are—prostitute. I do not know why you reserve that word for the woman and not for the man! Fallen woman we say. I am not quarrelling with it, but I am saying those attitudes are the result of the light in which we are liv­ing. This woman had none of them: a pagan, a woman outside the covenant, without the law, with no con­sciousness of sin or of holiness, or of the difference between them.

            There was something fine about her. We cannot read this account quite simply and naturally, without bias and prejudice, without seeing that she had got a heart, and in view of the perils that were threatening her peo­ple she thought of father and mother and brothers and sisters. Do not pass that over lightly. There is al­ways something fine to be discovered in the most depraved people. I may get all the theologians down on me now! You may say, Don't you believe in total depravity? Yes, I do. Don't you believe in original sin? I do, because I have found so much in myself, and in so many of you! Listen to one word of Jesus that lights up the whole thought. He was talking to blasphemers, to His enemies, to those all-round about Him opposed to Him and His words, and He said: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children." That is all I want. Do you see the recognition? You are evil, but there is something good in you. You know how to give good gifts to your children. That is a truth never to be forgotten, that how­ever depraved a man or woman may be, they are good to their children. Here it is seen away back in the Old Testament. Think of my father, think of my mother, think of my brothers and sisters. Hers was not a selfish nature altogether. At any rate there was something in it that is fine. There is the woman. Did I hear a whisper that I am whitewashing her? I am not. I am taking off the black smudge men have placed upon her, and asking you to see her in the light of her age, with no consciousness of sin and of holiness, brought up in the midst of religious rites and ceremonies that all seemed to warrant her in the very life she was leading. That is the woman, Rahab the harlot.

            Then we have the account of her faith, and how it acted. First of all her faith was founded upon a conviction that had come to her concerning the people that were approaching, and the secrets of the approach of these people. Notice what she told those spies, that they were familiar with the advance of this people of Israel as they crossed the Red Sea. That is a very significant thing. The crossing of the Red Sea had been forty years before, and it is quite possible that this woman was not living then. But mark the effect it had on all these peoples of Canaan. She heard about it, heard the old men talking of that march of the host dry-shod through the parted waters of the Red Sea, into the wilderness. It had produced a fear and terror in the minds of the people.

            Moreover she referred to the fact of the victories won over Sihon and Og. Go back to Numbers to get all the particulars. Here is the conviction that pos­sessed her own soul. I give it in her own words: "The Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath." It was a wonderful declaration. Born and bred in that pagan atmosphere, and trained in that way, acting in accordance with those earlier religious blasphemies—she would not have called them that—but she had come to see behind this strange people who crossed the sea on dry land, and overcame two mighty enemies who opposed their progress, she had come to see God, had come to the conviction that behind the people was One other, and that One other was God.

            Now on the basis of that conviction her faith took action. What was it? First of all an appeal, then a venture, and then obedience. I am not going to discuss this old account as to what she said. We may say she did not tell the truth. I do not think we must talk about that in this country when we think of wartime, and of propaganda. We need to be careful. Remember the day again. I have heard clever interpretations of this, that when she said the spies had gone out, they had gone out—on to the roof! I am not prepared to take that line of interpretation.             Undoubtedly she acted un­truthfully, or she said things that were not exactly so. But I am not concerned with that. Her heart was filled with fear at the approach of these people, and with greater fear because she had become convinced that Someone was behind them, and the Someone was the God of heaven and the God of earth; and she made an appeal to His representatives for pity.

            The Revised Version reads: "Rahab the harlot per­ished not with them that were disobedient." She was separate from them because of her faith. I am not quarrelling with the Old Version that says "them that believed not," because not to believe is to be disobe­dient. They also had heard of the crossing of the Red Sea. They also had known of the victories over Sihon and Og. They also had had the fact of the mysterious God forced upon them, but they had not obeyed it. They were disobedient, and they persisted in their own courses. Here is this woman venturing, venturing, ven­turing, and she was obedient. That is faith. "By faith Rahab the harlot perished not." Here I cannot refrain from pointing out that it is an arresting word that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews uses, this letter which is pre-eminently one of faith; and the letter of James which is said to be the letter of works. Both writers quote this woman. One says, "By faith Rahab," and the other says, "Rahab . . . justified by works." They are both true. We see her faith operat­ing in obedience.

            What is the essence of all that? A soul in pagan darkness coming upon the fact of God, yielding to the fact, and acting on behalf of the purposes of God. She had come into contact with that God as she hid the spies, and as she appealed for mercy. That was the act of faith, and it was a great act. I do not want to be putting these things into comparison. It is very absurd to try to do it. We look back over the chapter, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. Not one of them was more remarkable in faith than was this pagan woman who, coming upon the fact of God, went out, yielding an obedience to the thing of which she was convinced, and flung herself upon Him through His representatives, seeking for deliverance.

            Then finally, in a word, what were the issues? We all know. She and all her family were preserved. Did you notice that remarkable little phrase in the sixth chapter of Joshua? "She dwelt in the midst of Israel, unto this day." Of course that is the day in which the account was written.       We see what happened. She was delivered, and was put outside the camp for a while, and then was admitted into the national life of this peo­ple, and she dwelt from that day forward in Israel. In other words, she became a daughter of Israel. She cast in her lot with them in worship and life. One could let one's imagination run riot. I can imagine how at first she had to be instructed, had to be told the meaning of sin, and light flung upon her past life. She had to know the meaning of holiness, but she dwelt in Israel unto this day, and cast in her lot with the people of God in worship and in life. That is all we know about her in the Old Testament.

            When we get into the New Testament we have an­other startling revelation, for not only the writer of the letter to the Hebrews and James mention her, but Matthew names her. He puts her name in a list, in the first chapter, in that great genealogical table of Jesus which was the legal genealogy, not the actual, although the lines converge at a certain point. Joseph adopted Jesus, "being as was supposed the son of Joseph." That is a poor translation. It is, "being by legal adoption the son of Joseph." It was necessary the name of Jesus should be entered in the archives. Luke gives us the actual genealogy through Mary. Matthew's is the legal, and if we look down it we find this amazing thing. It is a Jewish genealogy, and yet in it we find five women. Luke's is also a Jewish genealogy, but he names no women. Listen to the women Matthew names: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bath­sheba, Mary. Tamar, the account of her sin is terrific. Rahab, the harlot. Ruth shines with brightness and beauty. Bathsheba, we know her account. Rahab is named, and finds her place. Mark where she comes. She is the wife of Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. Go on and on, and you will come to Jesus. Through Rahab, indirectly, came the Messiah. Oh, I know people have difficulties about Salmon as to who he was. There was a quaint Scotch expositor who thought he was one of the spies, and that Rahab mar­ried him. At any rate there is the issue, a pagan woman making a venture under conviction, delivered as the result of her venture, dwelling in Israel, becom­ing a daughter of these very people, coming to look on life as they did, marrying into the nation, presently dying, and we know nothing more. The ages sweep on and on, until at last Jesus. "By faith Rahab the harlot."

            Fifteen hundred years after this historic incident Peter was one day speaking, and telling of a new view that had come to him of life and humanity. What did he say? "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him."

            It took fifteen hundred years, and then almost re­luctantly, and with difficulty an apostle of Jesus Christ came to see that. Well, here it is away back, fifteen hundred years before, God no Respecter of persons, of countenances. Joshua and his massed hosts made no appeal to Him because of their countenances, because that is the word Peter used. There is a woman who was convinced and wrought righteousness by faith, she was acceptable to Him. God is revealed to us here, one of the gleams full of glory, shining in the Old Testament.

            When we are tempted to look with contempt upon any human being for any reason whatsoever, let us re­member Rahab, and let us form our estimates of hu­man beings not on the basis of a past, which may have been one of definite iniquity and sin, and more often is one due to ignorance and wrong upbringing; but let us base our conception upon that present attitude; and if they too, out of the midst of all these things, with only a glimmering of light as yet, not understanding all the mighty things of our faith and holiness, have neverthe­less made contact with Him and submit to Him by faith, like Rahab they are delivered, and perish not.