Joshua Study - 2026-03-04

Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.

If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you get your Bibles, we are in Joshua chapter 2 tonight. I heard Jesse did a

too young to be John. Must have been Jesse.

All right. Let's pray. Lord, just thank you for, thank you for these midweek,

midweek Bible studies. They just pause from work, pause from life, and just look to you

and hear from your word and look in passages that sometimes we don't

typically spend time in. So God, I just pray that your spirit would lead tonight,

that you would lead me as I teach, and that you would just open all our hearts

and eyes to see something impactful tonight, something that we can take and

apply to our lives or help us to see your character more tonight and to just be

more in love with you tonight. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. Joshua chapter 2. I'm gonna read the first, gonna break it up into a few

sections. First one is, first seven verses we'll read here. And Joshua the son of

Nun sent two men secretly from Shaddam as spies, saying, Go view the land, especially

Jericho. And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was

Rahab, and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, Behold, men of

Israel have come here tonight to search out the land. Then the king of

Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Bring out the men who have come to you, who

entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land. But the

woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, True, the men came to

me, but I didn't know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be

closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue

them quickly, for you will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the

roof and hid them with the socks of flax that she had laid in order on the

roof. So the men pursued after them on the way to Jordan, as far as the

fords, and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.

We, Tara and I were just in Florida. We had a little babymoon, which was very

nice to be. We love Maria, our daughter, but it was really nice to have a

couple days without her. And I got back, though, and my mother-in-law said to me,

she watched her for four days, and she said, Boy, does she ask a lot of

questions. I ask a lot of questions. And so apparently that gene has passed down.

But one of the questions I had when I was reading this was, Joshua, why are you

sending out more spies? Like, we just read chapter one last week, and he again

reminds him, I'm gonna give you this land. It's yours. Where your feet go, that's

yours, I promised. And we've seen countless, countless armies destroyed and defeated,

by Joshua even, without them even having to lift a finger sometimes. And so I'm

sitting here reading, and I'm going, Joshua, why are you sending out spies?

Why do you even feel the need to do that? But I think as I was trying to decide

the answer to that question, the more I was realizing that this isn't Joshua

distrusting, but rather him acting in his gifting and in his skill set. Moses

was a shepherd, and so when he was leading the people, he led in a manner that a

shepherd would lead. Well, Joshua, if you don't know his background, was a spy. And

so he's gonna lead in the manner that a spy would lead. So he sends out these

two men to go forth. In fact, Joshua was the one 38 years prior to this in

Numbers chapter 11 that was the spy doing this exact same duty, going out

and spying out the land, figuring out what does our enemy look like? What does

our promised land look like? What's there? And if you know that story, you know

that it didn't turn out super well. That was 38 years ago, and they've been

wandering ever since, because Moses sent out 12 men, one from each tribe,

including Joshua and including Caleb. I almost said Jacob. I was like, no, not

Jacob. Caleb and Joshua were two of the men, but he sent them out in not secrecy,

but everybody knew that these spies were going out, and they were actually

going to come back and give a report of the land and of what the people

looked like. And when those men came back, it didn't end in, hoorah, let's

go and take this land. It ended in disunity and frustration and eventually

rebellion. And the only two spies that said no, we can have faith and trust that

God will defeat these people for us was Joshua and Caleb. So he learned from that,

from the mistake of Moses, and over the next 38 years, probably of becoming a

very good spy, he knew that, one, I needed to do this in secrecy. That's kind of like

the whole point of spies. I don't know, Moses didn't understand that, I think, but

spies are supposed to be covert, and so it says that he sent two men secretly. So

he sends them out, not proclaiming to everyone that they're going, and then he

does not ask them to come back and proclaim to everybody what the land looks

like, what the people look like. He heaps that to himself, because he knows that he

can already trust the Lord, and he has faith that the Lord is going to defeat

these people on the other side of the river for them. So that answers the first

question. Maybe you didn't have that question, but that was one that I had.

The second question I had, as I was reading this, as I read verse two, or

so they go out, and it says that they found themselves in the house of a

prostitute. Well, that had me with another strange question. Why did these two men

find themselves in the house of a prostitute? And in fact, I feel like this

is a passage, and Rahab is a person that we can quickly read and go, there's a

real quick, but I think that would be obviously doing disservice to it, because

she's in here for a reason, and she's in the New Testament for a reason. So why are

they in the house of a prostitute? Well, let's start by putting their objective

into the foreground of our minds real quick. They have the job of getting

access and intelligence. Later in verse 15, it tells us that Rahab's

house was inside the wall of Jericho. There's their access. I gave them a quick

getaway if things went wrong. This is also a place where strange men often visit, so

it wouldn't be alarming to see two strangers walking into her home. No one

would ask any questions or be surprised if they saw these two strangers. So they

have their exit, and they have discretion. And finally, the most pivotal part of

their objective, information gathering. Perhaps this is no surprise to you, but

the home of a prostitute is a place where information flows freely. In verse

two, it even indicates that the king knew who Rahab was. He sends to Rahab,

bring out the men who have come to you who entered your house, for they have come

to search out all the land. It doesn't tell us that they had to search and

figure out who's prostitute or which home they were in. They knew exactly where

they were, and they knew who Rahab was, apparently. This is a home that

information went into. These men strategically thought out who they were

going to lodge with that evening. It wasn't just two men looking for

something to do that night. In fact, they were doing their due diligence as spies,

and they were finding the place that gave them access and information. Tara and I

watched a night agent. Have you guys seen that show? We watched that recently, and so

all my mind was thinking about was covert ops. I was like, okay, that's not

necessarily what this passage is about, but that's certainly what these men's

lives were about, though. So that clears up question number two, at least. They

weren't looking for sin, but rather access and intelligence, and they

strategically found the person in Jericho who could give them both, and that's in

the home of Rahab. And then verse two and three, and it was told the king of

Jericho to the king of Jericho, behold men of Israel have come here tonight to

search out the land. Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, bring out

the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come

to search out all the land. But the woman had taken the two men and hidden

them, and she said, true, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were

from. So even though they came in to try and be covert and secret, apparently

this city is on like high red alert or strangers, and they are made known

pretty rapidly, it seems. And this is a part, however, where we get to see the

character of Rahab, the character of someone that we would assume is not very

good, character, because her last name apparently is prostitute. That was a joke.

But rather we see a character of faith. When they came to her, she told them, they

came to me, but, let me see where I, sorry, verse four, but the woman had taken the

two men and hidden them, and she said, true, the men came to me, but I did not

know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the

men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you

will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with

the stalks of flax that she laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued

after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the Fords, and the gate was shut

as soon as the pursuers had gone out. She hid them, and in this moment her faith

is revealed. See, there's this thing about faith. Nobody knows you have it

until you do something that reveals it. We just talked a lot about faith in

the book of Hebrews, and we know that Rahab is a woman of faith because one, it's

being displayed in this story, but two, it's talked about in that book in Hebrews

chapter 11. Chris taught about this probably three months ago now in what

we would call the Hall of Faith, and in that section of Scripture there are all

these names of great people of faith, and there's two women listed. Sarah, the wife

of Abraham, and Rahab the prostitute. It's in verse 31 of chapter 11 where it

says, by faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient

because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. By her faith she was saved.

She was a woman of faith. We see it right here if we read on in verse 8.

Before the men lay down she came up to them on the roof and said to the men,

I know that the Lord has given you the land. Let me read that again. I know that

the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us and

that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you, for we have heard

how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of

Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the

Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you've devoted to destruction. And as soon as we

heard it our hearts melted and there was no spirit left in any man because of

you. For the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth

beneath. Now then please swear to me by the Lord that I have dealt kindly with

you. You also will deal kindly with my father's house and give me a sure sign

that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all

who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death. And the men said to

her, our life for yours even to death. If you do not tell this business of ours,

then when the Lord gives us the land, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.

Her faith is evident here. I just want to emphasize two verses. Number nine at the

end there, I know that the Lord has given you the land. And then over to

number eleven, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the

earth beneath. Sounds like a statement of faith if I've ever heard one, isn't it?

Nobody knows you have faith until you do something that reveals it. And here we

see that she does something to reveal it. She hides these men. She protects them.

And in all honesty, she was being really, really, really smart. Because if she

believes what she just said, which is that the Lord had given them the land and

that they were about to be conquered and destroyed, then she knows that if she

gives these men up, there'll be no report that goes back to Joshua, because

these men will probably be executed. And in a matter of days or weeks or months,

she doesn't know, but she knows at some point that Israelites will come, they'll

march, they'll defeat, and she'll be wiped out. But if she does hide them and help

them, then she could get caught. Whoever came to ask where these men were, whether

that's guards or soldiers, could have said, we don't believe you, we're gonna

search your house. And they could have gone upstairs and found the men. I've

never looked through long grass is what stocks are, but I can imagine it's not

that hard to find somebody. But they didn't. But she could have lost her life

that day. And her whole family would have probably been executed as well,

along with the two spies. But again, she already knew that everyone was gonna die.

So it was a risk, but it was a risk she was willing to take. Because in her mind,

it's die today or die in a few weeks by the hands of the Israelites. Or their God

shows me favor right now with my actions, and I don't have to die at all. And that,

as we continue to read, sorry to spoil it, is what happens in the next chapter.

Sorry. There should be no spoilers in this group, because you guys read your

Bibles. So she used wisdom, and she decided, I would rather risk my life and

the life of my family right now for the hope that the God that I am saying is

the Lord. He is the God of earth. He is the God of heavens. It's not little G in

my Bible. It's big old capital G. She is saying, I know he's God. I grew up in the

Canaanite family where we served hundreds of Gods. I'm talking about rehab,

not me. I'm from America. But I know, and I trust, and I'm putting my faith that

your God, he's real, and he is the God, and he's the only rescue that I have. And

these men, being faithful children of God, they honor her faith and agree to spare

her.

And I just want to say to a backstory of Rahab, is that because she's living in

as a Canaanite woman and a prostitute, this isn't, this is not a career path that

she probably thought, you know, I think I'll be a prostitute. Now back in this

time, she was probably forced to become a prostitute by her father so that they

could have a living, so that they could feed the family. And so this is probably

a life of agony and pain and sorrow and abuse. And I say that because I think it's

easy, again, to read Rahab and read prostitute and just kind of skirt right

past it, but I think it's important to realize that she's a lot more relatable to

us than we think. Not saying that you've been abused in the way that Rahab perhaps

was, but we all come into this world and experience pain and hurt and our own

traumas. And like Rahab though, we have a good, good father that wants to rescue us

and wants to save us. So let's keep reading verse 15. Then she let them down

by a rope through the window for her house was built into the city wall so

that she lived in the wall. And she said to them, go into the hills where the

pursuers will encounter you and hide there three days until the pursuers have

returned. Then afterward you may go your way. The men said to her, we will be

guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear.

Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the

window through which you let us down and you shall gather into your house, your

father and your mother, your brothers and your father's household, all your

father's household. Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the

street, his blood shall be on his own head and we shall be guiltless. But if

a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, this blood shall be on

our head. But if you tell us, if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be

guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear. And she said,

according to your words so be it. Then she sent them away and they departed and

she tied the scarlet cord in the window. I just want to zoom in on verse 18.

Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window.

We will save you if, if you tie this scarlet rope in the window. Why an if?

Maybe more importantly, why a scarlet cord? Scarlet being the same color as crimson

or the same color as blood reminds us of what happened in Egypt when the plagues

were going on and the the final plague, the firstborns of every household would

be taken. But God said to his people, to his children, if you put the blood of a

lamb on the door post, the angel will pass over your home. That's where we get

the celebration of the Passover. I was just looking, there was a pamphlet up

here. We have a Passover celebration coming up, Sunday, March 15th. I don't know

if I was supposed to announce that, it was just sitting here, but now you guys know.

So I think it's very, I don't know if they thought it through and intended for

it to be a scarlet cord or if by God's divine intervention there just happened

to be a scarlet cord sitting there and they said grab that cord and when you put

it in the window, we'll know. But we know the significance. This is something I heard

this pastor teach on this and I had never heard this before, but if you're

into colors and how to make colors, then maybe you know this already, but back

then to make the color red or crimson, there was a little worm that they would

squish and it was just full of blood and so you'd squish it and the blood would

just gush out and that's what they used to make the color red. It in Hebrew is

the same word for red. Very random. Why am I telling you this? I don't really

that what saves us is the blood, the crimson red blood. When that is at our door

post or when that is hanging from our window, the judgment passes over because

that's the blood of Jesus. All of this is a picture of what's coming through

Jesus. Even in this story of rehab the prostitute, we get to see a picture of

the coming Jesus. So here she is asked to put her faith in action and what does

she do? Verse 21, she said, according to your words so be it. Then she sent them

away and they departed. This is the best part. She tied the scarlet cord in the

window. She didn't wait. She didn't wait till the next day or the next week. She

did it right away. I don't know if your parents said this or some of you are a

little bit older than me, only by a couple years, but my mom used to always

say this to me, obey today and watch it pay. Any of you parents say that? No?

Alright, just my mom apparently. I haven't said it to Maria yet but give her two

more years and then I'll be saying it to her. Obey today and watch it pay. Rehab

understood that. I'm gonna obey right away. I'm not gonna hesitate. I'm not

gonna spend any time thinking about this, which is the neat thing about this

too is that her home, as we read earlier, is in the wall. Soldiers left. That means

they still had to come back and they might see this scarlet cord hanging in

the window and who knows what that could have meant. Maybe they could have

caught on and been like, hey get that out of the window. We've got soldiers

coming. But she did not care. She wanted to obey right away. She showed

that I have faith even though I don't see my rescue coming yet. She's just

trusting that they're gonna come back. She's trusting that they're not gonna

just destroy her family. She's having immense faith in the people of God and

in verse 22, they departed and went into the hills and remained there three days

until the pursuers returned. And their pursuers searched all along the way and

found nothing and the two men returned. They came down from the hills and

passed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun and they told him all that had

happened to them and they said to Joshua, truly the Lord has given all the land

into our hands and also all the inhabitants of the land melt away because

of us. I wrote down in my notes a sentence, a big idea as I called it. The

one point everything was attempting to lead to. The one sentence God said, this

is what I want you to see and this is why I wrote down. We receive God's

inheritance when we walk in faith. That will make a little bit more sense when

I continue. But in chapter 1 of Joshua in verse 3, I just want to read. It says

this, every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to

you just as I promised to Moses. That is a promise verse, a promise of land being

inherited from God. But God specifically said, whatever your foot will tread on,

the land that you step on, meaning you can't inherit what you do not go

and possess. We can't inherit something if we never go and take hold of it. They

could have climbed a mountain, made a city, looked out onto their beautiful

inherited land and thought, wow, isn't it so beautiful what God gave us? And then

continue to just live there on that mountain, dying while looking out onto

the beautiful promised land without ever getting to feel it, taste it, touch it,

walk in it. Now that probably sounds absurd, doesn't it? Like they're literally

right there, why would they do that? They had to act, Ryan, they had to act. Yeah,

we'll read James later, there's a good one in there. It sounds crazy for them to do

that, yet that is how so many Christians live. God has given us amazing promises

and some of us are just looking from a distance in awe of how good God is, but

we never run into the land and capture it and walk in the promises ourselves. We

just talk about our faith, but we never display it in our actions. When we talk

about it from their perspective, it seems silly, but so many of us do that all

the time. The goodness of the Lord, isn't it just amazing? But life is hard, man, and

so I'm just kind of stuck in this sin. But why? God has something better and He

wants you to step in it, to walk in it, to experience it. The amazing part about

the story of Rahab. In other passages of Scripture, we see that women, whenever

they took over land, are captured, women and children are taken into the people of

Israel, but you never really hear much of their stories, much of their lives. You

don't know if that means their lives got better or if their lives got much

worse. Hardship fell or blessing fell, you don't really know, but with Rahab we

see something different. We see her surrender to them and act in faithful

obedience and then she actually later marries one of these men. She has

children with him. She was taken into the family, not made a slave or a servant,

not a laborer, but a child of God through her faith. And as we continue to read in

the Old Testament, her name is forgotten. But then we get to the New Testament. I

mentioned earlier she's talked about in Hebrews, but did you know she's talked

about before Hebrews in Matthew chapter 1, reading the genealogy of Jesus right

there, Rahab. Yes, we'll cover it when we break out into a discussion group, Brian.

But keep thinking because it's incredible. You're reading the genealogy of the

perfect child of God and right there towards the top is Rahab the prostitute.

When we obey, when we have faith in God, we are brought into his inheritance, not

as servants, but as children. That's what it tells us in Hebrews. We receive God's

inheritance when we act in faith. What way is God saying to you, hanging the

crimson cord? If you're from Alabama, that means something completely different.

It's not what we're talking about. In what way is he asking you to trust him, to

rescue you? Trust him when all the walls are crumbling around you. Will you have

faith? Will you trust that he's coming to rescue you? Have faith in me. Tell your

co-workers about me. Go talk to that neighbor that is lonely.

Stop taking shortcuts in your work. Start walking in joy. Faith is seen in what we

do and how we live. There's just one more verse I'll close this with. One verse that

compels us to live with faith like Rahab. It's found in Ephesians chapter 2. In

faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that

no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do

good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. The Israelites had a river

between them and their promised land and it was only a matter of time before they

went over and possessed it. God's given you promises. God has given you an

inheritance. Will you be brave enough, have faith enough to cross over whatever

Jordan is in between you and that inheritance? He has planned out good works

for all of us to do. Small works, big works, all kinds of works, but it's gonna

take faith to walk them out. Amen? Alright, let's pray. Thank you Lord for

your word. Thank you for, thank you for Rahab. Thank you for this obscure scene

of redemption, of hope, of faith. God help us to have faith like Rahab when everybody

is afraid. She acts in faith. Lord we, we have plenty opportunity to be afraid, but

God I just ask that you would help us, strengthen us, to walk instead in courage and in faith.

Amen. Alright, we're gonna break into groups and hopefully you've got a little sheet.

There's a few questions on here. We don't have to answer all of them. They were more

intended to just kind of jot down thoughts as we went through the passage, but if you

wrote something down, if you brought a pen and you wrote something under one of those,

just be willing to share that in whatever group you end up in. And then whoever's kind

of leading whatever group you're in, if there isn't a lot of things to talk about in

our first four questions, you can focus on the last three, which is what principles can

we learn from the spies? What principles can we learn from Rahab? And what does this story

tell us of God's character? Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God

and discuss His word. Don't forget to join us for worship live Sunday mornings at 10

a.m. Eastern on YouTube. Be blessed and have a great day!