Joshua 2:3-7 | Episode #1217

June 16, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 2:3-7

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply

God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today.

Word of God, please speak to the

hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus.

Amen. We are in Joshua, chapter two and verse three through seven. What we're doing is we're dealing with Rahab. And let me give you a little bit of background. Just make sure we're all on the same page. We talked about Rahab and her relationship with Jesus. Her being a great grandmother, great, great, great, many great grandmothers of Jesus. She's in the line of Jesus in Matthew, she's in the line of Joseph. So she is a very important figure. The couple of things that I did not mention that I think are important about this is first of all, the female characters in Scripture, and then second of all her position as far as how she's fulfilling a role that is a hybrid of those now in Scripture. Generally speaking, as far as female characters are, and this is a deep generality, but it is an important one for you to know. When you run across a female in scripture, and there are lots of them, they generally play into three categories. They're either an old virtuous woman, which is usually a picture of Israel, or the Old Testament, or the law. So when you've got an old woman of virtue and character, an older woman that it doesn't have to be super old, but beyond childbearing years, when you have an older woman of character, of virtue, that's usually the Jews, the Jewish people, it's the Old Testament. It is the law. It can be the law. Not as much the law, but sometimes. And then when you've got a young virtuous woman, a virtuous that usually is the church, the bride of Christ, okay, so that's the New Testament, that's the church, that's the bride of Christ. When you have a woman of a bad reputation, a woman of ill repute, and that's what Rahab is. When we find her, she usually represents false religion. So you have really, you have what is in essence a picture of some form of religion. You have Judaism, Christianity and some other false religion, which is usually some type of paganism. And by the way, the third largest major world religion that we would talk about, the Abrahamic religions, is based in paganism. It just straight up is paganism. It's a mixture of a desire to start a religion that mirrors Christianity, mirrors Jesus, and then it wants to inculcate the writings of the Bible, both New and Old Testament, and then it just totally goes into absolute paganism, the pagan religions of Arabia and that area, and then puts them all together and tries to mash them together and make a religion. And it is, well, just horrific, horrific as a religion. And so when we come to Rahab, who is Rahab? Well, when we meet her, she's a woman of ill repute. She's a Gentile, she's a Gentile woman. And by the way, that's not necessarily negative because obviously the church has some Gentile features, a lot of Gentiles, but it is important because she's a woman of ill repute. Now she's going to go from being a woman of ill character, poor character, to a virtuous woman who is actually in the line of Jesus, which is a perfect picture of the church. She is a perfect picture of the bride of Christ, the New Testament body of believers. Because we go from being a person that's lost in our sin to a person who has been redeemed and given God's righteousness and holiness by the finished work of Jesus Christ. So obviously Rahab. And we see a right at the start of Joshua, right at the start of going into the promised land, the first person that the Jewish people come across, the two spies that go in. And by the way, the number two is either a number for division or separation, or it's the number of the Holy Spirit and a faithful witness. And so these two spies are going to take on the latter role. They're going to be a faithful witness. They're going to be a picture of the witness of the Holy Spirit. And so they go to Rahab and Rahab takes them in. I mean, you can't miss the pictures of the church. This whole idea of entering into the promised land, the first Person they come across is going to be one who is converted and becomes a part of the plan of God, which would be the New Testament church. Just the pictures are so obvious when you kind of step back and look at them. Who is Rahab? Well, she's a picture of the. Of the church. She's a woman of ill repute who is redeemed out of that into the kingdom of heaven. And so it says. So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, because the king of Jericho heard that these two spies went to her. Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house. For they have come to search out all the country. So the king of Jericho kind of figures out that they're out there spying on them. And obviously, so. Because we're gonna find out that they're really paranoid about it. It says, then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. Which is not wrong. That's right. And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went to, I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flash flax which she had laid in order on the roof. Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the Jordan river, to the fords of the Jordan. Meaning they went to all the places where you could cross the Jordan river easily. So all the men of Jericho go out searching for them. And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate. So the men are hidden up in the roof of her house. And her house, you're gonna find out, is on the wall of Jericho, which is not unusual. They would build up the walls. And as they built up the walls, they would be part of people's houses. And their houses, they might even have windows or at least places where you could see out, or slits in the wall so that light could come in. And they would use that to fire at enemies that came to. To siege them. And so she's going to be on the wall, and her house is a part of the walls of Jericho. And so when they go looking for them, when the enemy and the enemy here, remember, the inhabitants of the promised land are a picture of the forces of darkness. They're a picture of the demonic hold and the fallen angelic hold that the enemy has on the earth and on God's promises. And they're going in to take the promised land. So you have the picture of being filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the whole point of the Spirit filled Christian life. And maybe I need to go into a little bit of discussion that maybe I'll do that a little bit later on in the week. What it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the whole point of the. That's how you reach the level in the salvific process where you're walking with God in fullness, is that you're filled with the Spirit and then you're walking in hope and life. But the whole point of it is that the enemy controls it. And there are going to be those who are under the control of the enemy, who are going to be redeemed out of it as a part of God's redemption process. He always saves a remnant. He always holds out hope for those who are perishing. He always gives them opportunity, gives them a opportunity for life. Rahab is a picture of that. And what is she doing? She's doing whatever it takes to be a part of that. She is giving herself totally to these spies. For what reason, we don't know. The only reason she would do this is because the Holy Spirit's leading her to do it. The only reason she would do this is because she believes that this is a part of God's plan and this is part of God's plan for her life. She's urged to help these spies and hide these spies and take care of these spies for the purpose of salvation. She knows that this is only her only hope to be saved. And so she, rather than siding with her people and her king, she decides she's gonna hide. She's going to side with God and his people. And isn't that a beautiful picture of salvation? And you can't hide that. She is a Gentile and she is a picture of the church. Rahab is a picture of the church and that she is hiding these Jewish men from the forces of darkness. And that is a picture that has been in place for many, many, many centuries, for dozens of centuries. That the body of Christ would be a cover and a source of strength and a source of hope for the Jewish people. And I don't want to get past that, especially during the days and hours we're in, even right now, that it has always been a position, and you need to hear this especially of the Evangelical Church, the Evangelical Protestant Church has always, always historically taken the position that Israel is a intricate part of God's Plan, not just God's former plan, but God's plan for the future is quite clear from the book of the Revelation that they are and that God is going to use them to bring about his end and bring about the coming of His Son, Jesus Christ. And one of our tenets of modern evangelical Protestantism is that we support Israel. We always have, and we do. And the reason we do is because all the promises in the Old Testament that are to Israel are yes and amen. Therefore, today his promises don't go away. His gifts and promises are without revoke, without repentance. They're irrevocable. And the fullness of Christ is the fulfillment of those promises in many, many ways. But those promises are still there, and they're still there for Israel, and they're still there for God's people. And so when we're studying this and we're thinking about it, I want you to see the picture of who Rahab is. I want you to understand those pictures throughout the Bible, because you're going to see them over and over and over again as we study through Scripture. And then I want you to see that as we go through these studies and as we think about these things, that God's working His will and his way out as much today in our modern setting where we're at today as he ever has before. We're not reading things in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, that are so far beyond who we are today that we could never, ever see them or attain them. In fact, that's not true. The same promises and the same work of God and the same acts of God and the same power of God that we see and we read about in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the truths and the character of God that we see in the Old Testament and New Testament, they're available to us exactly, exactly the same way today. And God's plan for us is continual even today. And when we choose God's will, God's plan, God's way over any other plan or way. And this is what Rahab is doing. She's choosing to side with. She is siding with God's people rather than siding with even her own people. And it is going to not only inure to her benefit, but ultimately it's going to lead to her taking on a huge role in the plan of God for God's people. And so I don't want to miss that in the time that we're in today, that we would miss out on understanding the good and the really wonderful things that God is doing as far as his plan for his people. And I want you to see the pictures and then I want you to understand that God's still doing that stuff today. As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.