Learning to Make Better Choices (Part 2)

Decisions. We make them. Then they turn around and make us. And sometimes they break us. Eve was a woman who faced a decision. It was probably not a decision most of us would put in the life-changing category. It was a casual decision about a piece of fruit. The fruit looked delicious. So what's the big deal? The next time you stand in the produce section of your supermarket and choose the right bunch of bananas of sort through the strawberries, think about the choice Eve made about some fruit...

Now we want to look at another woman in the bible who made a decision to throw away everything she knew to be her life, chose to hide 2 Israelite spies and became the ancestress of the Messiah...Rahab knew enough about God to believe He would use His great power to benefit His own. She was willing to bet her life on it. She knew how thick the Jericho walls were. She lived on them. She knew how ferocious the Jericho soldiers were. As a prostitute she probably had listened to enough of them brag about their strength and prowess when they visited her. But despite all that, she had come to believe that the God of Israel would triumph, and that the Israelites were on God's side. She believed that so thorougly that she was ready to bet her life on that reality. Rahab dared to stand alone against her culture because she had a strong faith in Israel's God.

In fact, to our surprise, Rahab's faith was heralded as an example of outstanding faith.

"By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient."...Hebrews 11:31

Here in the Hall of Fame for heroes of faith we find only 2 women - Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and the prostitute Rahab. Remarkable!

Look also at James 2:25-26:

"In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."

Rahab's faith led not only to a strong statement about Israel's God: "Your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below." It also led to a strong action for the people of God. Someone has said that "faith is a step, not just a statement."

The story is told in Joshua 2...Rahab had heard about what God did for the Israelites to bring them out of Egypt - the drying of the Red Sea and the defeat of Sihon and Og, 2 powerful kingdoms were all impossible if not for God being on their side. All Rahab had was a belief in Israel's God...

This is the story...The Israelites had roamed the desert for 40 years and were now ready to embark upon the Promised Land that God was giving to them. Under the new leader, Joshua, the first step was to send 2 spies into Jericho, one of the strongest and most fortified cities in the land of Canaan. These spies aroused the suspicion of the king of Jericho as hearsay got to the king that the Israelites had sent 2 spies to spy on the land. The king sent soldiers to look for them in Rahab's house. But Rahab hid the Isralite spies and led the soldiers on a wild goose chase. Then Rahab made the Israelite spies promise to spare her and her family when they defeat Jericho.

Think about Rahab's decision. What on earth convinced her that she would do better betraying her own people and risking her own life just to save the lives of 2 men whom she had never seen before and didn't know if she would ever see again?

What would you do? Would you do the patriotic thing and turn over the spies to the king? Or would she lie and become a traitor by sheltering the enemies of her people?

Like many split second decisions we make, Rahab's decision came out of who she was and what she believed about herself, about her world, and about God. What she believed gave her the courage to go against her people and her government when she was faced with a split-second decision.

And true enough, Rahab's decision saved her. Joshua would lead the Israelites in a most unusual battle. One where God was the only factor they won the battle. Jericho was a fortress like none other. The mud wall of Jericho was about 20 feet high. And it wasn't just one but 2 walls with a room-wide gap between them. If an enemy succeeded in scaling the first wall, he would be trapped in this no-man's land, an easy target for the defenders. Jericho was well protected. You'd think that a perfect plan of attack was the only way the Israelites would defeat Jericho. No, God had other plans. Led by a team of "worship leaders" or priest, the Israelite army marched around the wall 7 times for 7 days and finally, on the 7th round of the 7th day, they would raise their voice in a loud shout and the wall of Jericho would tumble down, so the armed Israelite soldiers were able to run up over the rubble and engage the sure-to-be bewildered Jericho militia in battle.

"The young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel."

Safe! Rahab had bet her life on Israel's God. God has come through for her and for all who huddled with her inside that house on the wall of Jericho. But wait! There is more to the story. In Joshua 6:25 the writer tells us that Rahab lived among the Israelites to the day the book of Joshua was written. She became one with the people of God. The fact that she had been a prostitute was no longer relevant. By faith she was joined to the community of God.

One of the remarkable things we see when we look at Jesus' contacts with women in the four Gospels is that He often stooped down and lifted up "fallen women". Rahab remminds us that being joined to the family of God has nothing to do with our goodness. It has everything to do with God's grace. Through a prostitute God teaches us that we are saved by grace, not by being good.

But our story is still not over. Turn to Matthew 1 - that dry, dull genealogy - and look at verse 5: "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab."

Rahab the mother of Boaz? That means she was the great-great-grandmother of David, Israel's greatest king. Even more amazing, she was an ancentress in the genealogy of Jesus, the Lord of glory, the God-man, the Saviour of the world.

Rahab, the prostitute. Wouldn't you think that God would be a bit more choosy about the lineage of His Son? For people for whem descent was everything, wouldn't God take their scruples into consideration and choose a purer line for the Messiah? Apparently God wanted us to learn something ekse as we look at Rahab.

Rahab stands as a tribute to the possibilities within every one of us. God saw in her the possiility of an active and invigorating faith. Never mind what she was. He looked at what she could become.

It is the same for us. Our past is irrelevant. Our future alone matters to God. Faith can blossom in any environment. Roses can grow in manure piles. Whatever lies behind us is not nearly as important as what lies before us. The choices we have made in the past have brought us where we are today. The choices we make today, tomorrow, next week or next year will determine our destiny.

Some of those choices will be split-second decisions. They will come out of who we are and what we believe about ourselves, our world, our God. Those decisions will determine the actions we take.

What Rahab had been was irrelevant. What she became through active faith was all that mattered...


(RBC Discovery Bible Studies - Eve & Rahab: Learning to Make Better Choices)