Rahab Series

If you have your Bibles with you and you would like to follow along, we will be looking at the book of Joshua 2. That is an Old Testament book. If you wanted to use the red pew Bibles, the story can be found on page 208. First question that we have. Does anyone recognize the name Diana Nyad? A few people. In case you don’t know, Diana Nyad is a 64-year-old long-distance swimmer. Last week, she made it into the record books by accomplishing an amazing feat. She basically swam 110 miles from Havana, Cuba to Key West, FL, which is an amazing thing because those waters are really shark infested and jellyfish infested. It was an amazing feat. In case you didn’t see it on the news, I found a clip from ESPN Sports Science that helps put the whole feat in proper perspective. (Clip shown here.)

Today, what we are going to do is begin a new series that I call “Extraordinary People”. What we are going to do over the next few months is look in the Bible at some of the men and women in the Old and the New Testament who would be considered extraordinary people simply because of their faith in God and their willingness to act on that faith in an amazing way. Today, we are going to look at an Old Testament person by the name of Rahab. Does anybody know the name Rahab? A little bit more than knew Diana Nyad. Rahab was a lady that lived about 1500 B.C. which is 1500 years before Christ walked the earth. She was what some would say a lady of the evening. Others would maybe call her a harlot. What the Bible chooses to do is call her by her trade name, a prostitute. Rahab was a prostitute. Although she was a prostitute, her occupation as we will see did not define her. Her identity was tied into the fact that she was a woman of great faith and a faith that acted out in very concrete and practical ways. Consequently, she has been given a lot of press in both the Old and the New Testament, which means that she is held with high regards. She is considered an extraordinary person in both Jewish and Christian history. That is what we are going to look at today. We are going to look at the story of Rahab.

First a little bit of background in this book of Joshua. In Joshua 1, you see it opens up by talking about the idea that Moses had died and his sidekick Joshua was going to be leading the people into the Promised Land. Into the land of milk and honey. Into the land that had been promised by their forefathers. Into what we know today as pretty much Israel. That is what we are talking about here. Joshua is ready to lead the people into the Promised Land. God basically says we are going to give you every bit of land and even encourages them to be aggressive when they go into the land. In other words, when you enter into the land of the Canaanites, don’t take any prisoners. Kill people. Evict them. Take their stuff. Whatever you need to do to get them out of there and for you to then set up God’s rule and reign in that area. I know some people, especially if you read the Old Testament, say God looks like a mean God to go in there with such vengeance. To go in there and destroy innocent people. You have to remember that the Canaanites were an evil people. It was a very evil culture. It would be considered a cesspool of evil both in human and demonic form. It was a country known for its idol worship and not just any old idol worship. Idol worship that was tied to sexual immorality. Idol worship that was even tied to things such as infant sacrifice where infants were placed on the altar as a sacrifice to a god. Canaan was really a cesspool of evil. It was a place that was ripe for God’s army to come in and basically get rid of them and set up God’s rule and reign. What we have in chapter 1 is Joshua and his people camped out on the River Jordan on the east side of the River Jordan across from Jericho. Just to put it in modern perspective, I have a map here of basically the Middle East. Syria has been in the news lately. You have Syria up here and then down about here would be Jericho. Here is the Jordan River. Here is the Dead Sea. Basically, what you have is they are camped out about here ready to cross the Jordan into the city of Jericho. An interesting side note about this; the distance between Damascus where a lot of the fighting is happening today and Jerusalem is only about 135 miles. Really not much farther than Diana Nyad’s swam. It is not that great of a distance, which is one more reason that we need to continue to pray for the nation of Israel. I guarantee in a matter of time, they are going to be affected by what is going on in Syria.