Rahab's Fearful Decision

Joshua 2:2-11; Psalm 84; Luke 14:25-35

Rev. Chris Harbin, Rocks Baptist Church—Pamplin, VA

17 April 2005

We live in a society of choices. For the most part, they are choices of comfort and convenience. Not all the world enjoys the same freedom to choose among the variety of options before us. One satellite TV system offers 225 channels of entertainment options, not to mention competing packages. There are well over 31 flavors of ice cream on the market and over 5,000 mutual funds. It is easy to become numbed by the choices and options around us. If we are not careful, do we not run the risk of missing the importance of life’s weightier decisions?

Rahab was at an uneasy crossroads. The issues facing her were not the simple ones of which salad dressing to buy at the Jericho market. The decisions she had to make would determine her very survival. Perhaps it was this heightened sense of the import of her decisions that gave Rahab the courage to make the choices recorded.

Rahab’s life was hanging in the balance. Her survival depended upon determining which side would win the impending battle and aligning herself with the correct side. She knew little to nothing about questions of eternity or how the Hebrews might treat one who aided them against her own people. She did know how her own would likely treat her as traitor to the city. She faced death at the hands of the Hebrews lining up to attack the fortified city of Jericho. She faced death at the hands of her own people if she were to betray them.

Rahab did not look upon her circumstances the way we might tend to do. What hope did an army of foot soldiers with no chariots, horses, or battering rams have attacking a walled city like Jericho? They might be able to lay siege to it, cutting off its water and food supply. They might build siege mounds to gain access to the top of the walls, but that would be a very long process. Jericho had the upper hand in terms of military options. They had provisions, for the flax had been gathered, earlier crops having been stored as well. With the spies in her hands, she could easily curry favor with the king of Jericho and increase her standing in the city. She chose to cast her lot with the God of these foreign spies instead.

It would seem that Rahab knew more about Yahweh than these Hebrews. With all the physical world reasons to trust Jericho to have the upper hand, Rahab sensed a greater reality at play. They had heard of the victories that Yahweh had granted the Hebrews over Bashan and Sihon. To the Hebrews, those victories were ancient history. To the people in Jericho, they were the hallmarks of Yahweh’s strength and sovereignty. Those victories and the parting of the waters for Hebrew passage were billboard demonstrations of the overwhelming nature of the God they were facing. They were concerned that a God who could part the waters of a river or a sea might have no difficulty with a wall of stone.

Jericho was not worried about the spies. Jericho was not worried about the Hebrews. Jericho was worried about Yahweh, the God of these Hebrews. As is still true for some people in the Middle East, reality for the Canaanites was more about the spiritual world than the physical and material that take so much of our focus. They recognized that ultimate reality was not the physical things of this age, but the invisible reality of the spirit realm. War was about the interaction of the gods, not of men.

The Hebrew language does not distinguish as past, present, and future. It records the events describe by Rahab as one continual present—an ongoing reality. In Rahab’s words, “I know Yahweh gives you all the land and your Dread falls upon us. All the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. We hear that Yahweh dries up the waters of the Reed Sea before you when you come out of Egypt and what you do to the two kings of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan—to Sihon and to Og whom you commit to the ban. We hear and our heart melts. Breath remains in no one because of you, for Yahweh, who is your God, is God in heaven above and upon the earth below.”^[1]

To Rahab, God’s victories and promise are a present reality. They are the realities upon which she will base her decisions and choices. She casts her lot with the Hebrews, accepting the possibility that she could be caught and dealt with as a traitor to her own people. There is a greater reality at stake than the momentary comfort of Jericho’s walls can overcome. It was a choice made out of fear, yet a decision that required courage and trust.

Rahab counted the cost of her decision quickly. She had little room to debate the issues at hand. In talking with the king’s men at her door, she already knew what decision she would need to make. She had already assessed her greatest concern and where she would ultimately place her confidence. The king’s urgency to eliminate the spies perhaps sealed her decision not to cast her lot with a people living in fear, but with a people following a God who inspired confidence.

Jesus called the disciples to the same kind of decision. He called the crowds to assess their degree of commitment. Discipleship was to be a decision of weight that would make all other aspects of life pale by comparison. If one was to follow Jesus, that decision must carry greater weight than one’s ties to friends and family, and even to concerns over one’s own welfare and survival. Jesus taught that we should take a serious look at the issues of following God, making matters of faith the all-determining focal point for our lives.

That is not the kind of Christianity with which we are familiar. When Rocks Baptist Church was established in 1772 it was the reality of the day, but no longer. The founders of this church determined that they must live their lives in faithfulness before God, regardless of the consequences. Baptism as an expression of conversion required a stance against the Congregationalist establishment that might land one in jail or under penalty of a heavy fine. Baptists in that day determined that following God was worth the cost, whatever the stakes might be. Like Rahab, they determined that the spiritual reality would be the determining factor behind their choices and direction.

Luke records the challenge of discipleship and weighing the cost of our decisions appropriately. We would like to overlook Jesus’ final comments in the chapter. Discipleship, like salt, makes a valued difference in the world. If salt loses its flavor, it loses its worth. Is discipleship any different in that regard? Would Rahab’s decision have retained value if she had turned back from Yahweh? There are many decisions and choices that face us every day. If we are not careful, we could easily allow them to take precedence over the weightier matters of discipleship. If we allow the concerns of the mundane to take over our lives, what becomes of our claims of faith? Will our discipleship retain its flavor and value for eternity? Perhaps life and death decisions are simpler, for the consequences are more defined.

—©Copyright 2005 Christopher B. Harbin

This sermon in pdf

¹ Joshua 2:9-11, author’s translation.