Scripture focus: Joshua 2:15-24
Disclaimer: Please forgive any typographical, grammatical, and/or content errors in the following notes. They are not meant to be an exact transcription, but rather a helpful guide for those who appreciate the written word along with the spoken word. If you have any questions on what was taught, feel free to reach out on our ‘Contact Us’ page.
Intro Story
Eddie Chapman grew up in the shipyard slums of England during WWI and he quickly took to the slum life. He ran with a crowd that was not the most in tune with keeping the law. He forged his dad’s signature when he was 17 so he could join the Royal Guard. He was dishonorably discharged when he left his post to guard the crown jewels. He ultimately found his way back into the British underbelly and joined a gang called the Jelly Gang. He was a safecracking explosives expert. He was eventually caught and sent to prison in the Channel Islands. WWII hit and one of the places the Germans quickly overcame was the Channel Islands and the prisoners were released. Chapman started a barber shop and he started talking about how he was an explosives expert. The S.S. interrogated him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse to become a spy. He was given invisible ink, a pistol, a wad of cash, radio, and a cyanide tablet in case he got caught. His target was to be in the old shipyard slums where there was an air parts factory. This is where we’ll pick up the story later…
We talked about Rahab, the prostitute last time. She was the person who God worked through to bring about his plan of deliverance. Being poor, a prostitute, and a woman, she has everything against her; but, she ends up being in the genealogy of Christ and known no longer as Rahab the prostitute, but just Rahab in the book of Matthew showing God’s redemptive hand as the one who makes all things new.
Today we’re going to focus primarily on the spies. In Joshua 2:1 we see that Joshua “sent” two spies. Many bibles have a footnote that says that the Hebrew can be in past tense “had sent.” Joshua probably sent these spies while they were preparing their provisions. Jericho was the target as the regional power to enter the Promised Land from the east. There was no way to get over the Jordan River by man made means. During the dry season you could try to pass in the shallow area. Jericho itself was not big, but it was extremely wicked.
As soon as the spies enter, they go straight to the town gossip – Rahab’s inn for prostitution and passing information. Rahab knows everything that the people of God have done over the past 40 years and knows how Jericho feels about it. The flow of events is: the spies come and talk to Rahab, she covers the spies, representatives from the king come and talk, the spies covenant with Rahab and leave.
Flax is primarily used to make linen/clothing. It’s a plant like wheat stalks that are laid out to dry and then soaked and continue the process until the sinewy fibers could be drawn out and sewn into clothing. Clothes are almost always used throughout scripture as a symbol of God’s covenant covering of us. What’s the first thing God does in Genesis after Adam and Eve sin and he pronounces the curses? He kills animals to make clothing for them to cover their nakedness. Paul writes about being clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Isaiah 61:10 says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness…” We can’t miss the beautiful imagery in this exchange. Rahab covers under the flax and she wants what God can do for her just like this – salvation. Rahab wasn’t afraid of the king killing her. She could have made a great name for herself by turning in the spies. She takes a huge risk by dealing kindly with them.
Reading of Joshua 2:15-24
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. 16 And she said to them, “Go into the hills, or the pursuers will encounter you, and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterward you may go your way.”17 The men said to her, “We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. 18 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 mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. 19 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, his blood shall be on our head. 20 But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear.”21 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.
22 They departed and went into the hills and remained there three days until the pursuers returned, and the pursuers searched all along the way and found nothing. 23 Then 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. 24 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.”
The messengers are a wonderful picture of the mission that you and I have been sent on. Now, everyone of us is Rahab. But by God’s saving grace we are no longer Rahab, the prostitute, we are just who we are with a mission. Behold I am sending you out as sheep amidst the wolf so be as shrewd as serpents and gentle as doves. As a sent one, you are called to be a spy and messenger at the same time – kind of like a double agent. In Joshua 6:25 says, “But Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” They spies are not called spies. To Rahab, they weren’t spies, they were messengers. James 2:25 says, “And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” Joshua sent them out as spies to scope out the land, but instantly they were transformed into messengers to Rahab and spies for the rest of Jericho. May we be reminded that this is our role in this world.
The Mindset of a Spy/Messenger
John 17:11 says, “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
John 17:14 says, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”
Do we have the mindset of someone who is in the world on mission but not about the world and trapped in the thinking/culture/values of the world? Praise God that when we are made inheritors of the universe we are not of the world anymore. But we still live in the world, so we need to reject many of the passions that our heart is drawn toward. Philippians 3:20-21 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Our loyalty and identity is not here! 2 Peter 2:9-13 says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
How do I view my life and interactions? Am I a spy here and if so I will spring God’s grace on you. Do you consider yourself a foreigner here?
In C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, Uncle Screwtape’s first letter to Wormwood encourages him to inflame their passions during the war. Push them toward nationalism or push them toward pacifism. If we can get them to pick a camp then we’ve won because they’re forgetting who they are and what their real mission is. We see the enemy doing the exact same thing today with different names and camps. The more comfortable we get in the culture and climate of our day the more we forget God’s chesed covering that we learned about in the last teaching.
Paul tells us the reason people walk away is because they’ve made a God of their belly and their minds are devoted to earthly things (Philippians 3:19). This isn’t a diatribe against labels. It’s a warning that any other label you choose to identify yourself by other than ‘child of God’ may be an opening for the enemy to suck you in and distract you from the mission that you’ve been sent upon. This is why we preach, teach, and study the Word and pray and seek the Lord to fill our hearts, souls, minds with the power and presence of God. He wants all of us to be redefined and made new. ‘All’ of us includes our emotions as well as our intellect. We see that the enemy can even get us into camps on how we pursue God. We can get too caught up in experience and emotion or study and knowledge. Know the word of God and the power of God!
The Mission
Very simply – Matthew 28:19-20 – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” And it’s a good thing that we don’t do the work, the Holy Spirit does it through us.
Recall the last plague in Exodus – death. Jericho was about to face that same plague- death. And the spies heard that confession that Yahweh is God from Rahab. The messengers had to take blood and smear it on our doorways, so Rahab placed a scarlet cord in her window. She immediately puts it in her window – she received the message and this more than any other thing is how we can tell if someone has a heart ready to receive. How do we know? The person’s obedience. Luke 10:6 talks about the person of peace in a community. It’s not something we’ve done at all. It’s the Holy Spirit who’s been working in that person to prepare them to hear and receive the message in their household. Oikos is your sphere of influence – the people I do life with and when I speak, they listen. This is how it works in the kingdom. The Lord will introduce us to people and they become gateways to others for the Lord. Probably the majority of people will not accept the message, but the Lord uses those people to transition you into long term spy missions. The oikos of the spirit is unbreakable and the unity Jesus prayed for in John 17. This is the whole point of Seed Group churches. There is no better context to introduce someone to the Word. They will know we are children of God by our love for one another.
There is a type of person for whom they may be ready to accept the message more readily than others – broken people. This is the exact opposite message that the world gives us and conditions us against brokenness. A good spy will know how to wade deeper than the shallowness. When we see brokenness, rather than steering around it, we should be going straight toward it. Meeting someone’s physical needs is the appetizer for feeding someone’s heart need. Use whatever your platform is and have your antenna up to see who is ready to receive the message. Use your jobs as the vehicle for which your real work is done. One of the enemy’s favorite tools to maintain control over people’s lives. Rahab was afraid – not of her king – but of the Lord. Our God is a zealous God and we can’t be afraid to address the reality that if we die separated from God we remain that way forever. This knowledge should make the chesed covering of our Lord even sweeter for those of us that have it. Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” As we mature in our faith the fear and condemnation is eradicated. 1 John 4:18-19 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.” James 2 specifically says she received the messengers and she sent them out by another way. Her relationship with the messengers was now different. The messengers left through the way of peace and covenant. All parties were changed.
The Report That We Can Give When the Job Is Done
The messengers report was the same as Joshua and Caleb’s 40 years earlier. Using inference, I suspect Joshua didn’t choose just anyone from camp, but men of character and competence that the Spirit has prepared and that he has discipled. The words are almost verbatim from the messengers as Joshua’s. The Hebrew word for ‘melt’ is ‘moog.’ We need to be people who do not faint under pressure. When we are a ‘moog’ we need to fall upon God’s grace and mercy as the Lord shows you how you can grow. This should be our perspective on our failures, not that we are condemned; remember there is no condemnation. Walk in the freedom Jesus has died for, not the chains of shame. When we see fear in others we should be moved to compassion because there is room and opportunity for the gospel.
Final Story
Eddie Chapman, the spy, parachutes into the mainland. Unbeknownst to him, he was under surveillance from the British from the start. However, Chapman immediately turned himself in and British intelligence made him a double agent. They create a plan to “blow up” the factory like he was supposed to. Together with a movie director and the newspaper media they fabricated the explosion so that the Germans moved on from the target. Eddie Chapman was awarded the Iron Cross – the highest German award – while working for MI-5. Here’s the point, Eddie lived a broken life that was ultimately redeemed for the purpose of saving other lives. Unfortunately, there’s no spiritual depth to Chapman’s life but it illustrates what the Lord has done with us. We are Eddie Chapmans being courted by the Germans. The greed and pride and power grabbing is not for us. We have a mindset to move from spy to messenger so that others’ lives can be changed and transformed just like the messengers did for Rahab.