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Listen to Joshua 2 A Strange Choice by Cross City Church MP3 song. Joshua 2 A Strange Choice song from Cross City Church is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 48:24. This high-quality MP3 track has 38.771 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 7 May 2025. Stream and download Joshua 2 A Strange Choice by Cross City Church for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
The speaker shares about a wedding, introducing Joshua's story from the Bible. They discuss the significance of faith in Joshua, contrasting it with the failures in the book of Numbers. The focus is on Rahab, a prostitute who plays a key role in the narrative. The narrative also highlights the importance of God's grace and the lessons of relying on God's strength rather than human efforts. The speaker explains the symbolism of Canaan and crossing the Jordan River. The story emphasizes the need for faith and dependence on God's power. Well, good morning, pretty weak. Good morning. Okay, thank you, thank you. Well, we had a wedding yesterday. Some of you all were there, but two of our class got married yesterday. Harry Winsper and Melanie Maddox. So next time you see them, you'll know they're husband and wife. And what? That's what I said. Oh, I thought you said that. I thought I said that too. Anyway, I know you think you understood what I said, but I don't think you understood what I said. So, OK, anyway, whatever. Well, we we're going to start off in chapter two today. Brother Jack, get to chapter three, if we can get through this. We've got it looks like we've got plenty of time. I don't chase too many rabbits. But let me just read the first verse, because you need to understand two things in that verse. If you're going to understand Joshua. Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two men as spies from the Acacia Grove saying, go and scout the land, especially Jericho. So they left and they came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. Now, the book of Joshua is a is a book you can summarize by victory of faith. It's all about faith. It's a contrast with the book of Numbers, which is really a book about failure. Failure to enter the promised land, the failure of unbelief, failure to overcome and to occupy the land. The fear Israel had for the giant people in the land and the great wall cities and the lack of military force paralyzed the Jewish people, their fear dispelled their faith. And so Numbers is a is a book about failure. But Joshua is a book about faith in Israel's promise keeping God. There's an emphasis that he is promise keeping God. Now, in this verse, there are two things that we need to identify. First of all, we meet Jericho, especially Jericho. Now, do you know how big Jericho was? OK, I'm going to tell you. If you go down this hall to through the door down there and you walk 10 steps, you'll be at the property line that we had in 1975 when we came. We had nine acres. Jericho was nine acres. So now you see, we're talking about a really small piece of land. No wonder the king got the word quickly because it wasn't everybody that saw anything, saw the spies coming in. And so he got the word very quickly. So Jericho was just about the size of the original property. Now, our new auditorium, that's on the 13 acres that we got while we were here. So we now have 23 acres here. But Jericho was about nine acres. Now there's Rahab. She's identified in most of our translations as a prostitute or harlot. Now, the Hebrew word for prostitute or harlot can also mean an innkeeper. And so some have surmised that she had a bed and breakfast, if you don't mind me saying. But whatever, the Greek in the New Testament that Jesus spoke and also James called her a prostitute. So we're not going to sugarcoat it. It is interesting because I'll say it now rather than later. But Rahab, she's not a Jew. She's a harlot, prostitute. She's listed in the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1. And also there is another woman of questionable morals in the same Matthew 1 chapter. She's not named by name, but Uriah's wife, who is Bathsheba, is also in that list. Now, I'll just stop long enough to say this is a great reminder and testimony that nobody is beyond the grace of God. And we need to remember that because all of us are sinners by nature and by conduct, and none of us deserve the grace of God. And so all the way back here in this passage now, we're introduced to Rahab, the harlot. And Joshua has just been installed as the new leader. Moses is gone. Joshua was born a slave, and he was delivered from Egyptian bondage, and he watched Moses over all those years during the wilderness journey. He led the army of the Israelites, and along with Caleb, he was one of the twelve spies that went into the land. And if you ever have a map in the back of your Bible that shows the journey of the spies, they really did search the land out. They went all the way up to Lebanon on the coast and swung back through the middle and came back down. I mean, it was a thorough investigation. Ten of those spies, when they came back, said, We can't take the land. God gave it to us and He promised it to us, but we can't do it. There are giants in the land, and they have walled cities, plus they have an army. Israel didn't have much of an army. They didn't have any training, wasn't any military people there. And so it scared the people, and ten of them said that we can't do what God has told us to do. Joshua and Caleb, you remember, gave a minority report, and they described it as a land of milk and honey. That's a way of saying it was a really good place. Everything looked great. Another writer called it a land of grapes and olives. I don't know how to think of that word. Anyway, grapes and olives. So, I mean, it was a great place, and so now then, they'd come back. They came to Kadesh Barnea before, and Kadesh Barnea is down there at the south of Israel and of the Promised Land. And they'd been there before, and that's when they turned away. And God said that because they turned away, they were going to be destined to be in the wilderness until everyone who made that decision is dead. So they wandered around until everybody died off that had made the decision not to be obedient to God, and it turned out to be 40 years. And so now they're back at Kadesh Barnea for the second time. And the book of Joshua was really a history of Israel out of the land and history of Israel in the land. What they failed to do the first time around, they did do it under Joshua. They would have the land conquered, and the tribes all get their places in the land, and they'd be settled, and it would be their land. But for 40 years, they were in the wilderness. They were led, protected, and provided for for 40 years. Now, that never ceases to amaze me. There was at least a million and a half people. Now, I've driven through that wilderness, and I'm going to tell you, there is nothing there but wilderness. They were in a barren land, no trees, no water. God had to get water for a million and a half people at least, food. He had to make sure their clothes didn't wear out. I mean, he provided everything for them, everything they needed for those 40 years. One thing they weren't prepared for, they weren't fighting any enemies in the wilderness. So they didn't have any military strategists. In fact, the book of Joshua tells us in chapter 6 of the conquest of Jericho, we meet Jericho here, and this is kind of a link to Joshua 6 where they actually conquer the city. It was a strange strategy. What God had them do was march around the city six times, seven times, and carry a lantern, carry a trumpet, and just march around it seven times every day. Or was it once a day? One time, one time, all right. On the seventh day, they were told to march around it seven times. And when they got through, they were supposed to break the jug and blow the trumpet and shout, and the walls fell down. You will not find that written up as a strategy in a military book. It was a strange strategy. And yet, the truth is, it had to be that way because God was showing them that the only way they were ever going to possess the land was through his strength, through his power. We want to help God out. Surely there is something we can do. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Paul said in the Romans, we want to do something. But they tried. If you remember, when they refused to go into the land the first time they came to Canaan, and when they didn't go in, Moses said, all right, here is what God said. God said that you are going to be destined for the wilderness, and everybody that made this decision is going to die in the wilderness. And so the people said, oh, we didn't understand that. Now that you explained it, we are glad to know that. We will go fight tomorrow. And remember, Moses said, no, no, don't go. God said, if you go, you are going to be whipped. Well, they were really trying to help and win the day. And so they went out and were soundly trounced, lost, everything, trying to help God out, get what they thought they needed. But God made it very clear to them, as he has to us, there is no way we are going to make it without him. And we may do a lot of things, we may accomplish a lot of things, but to experience the life that we long for, and the life of relationship with God that everyone needs, it is not going to be what we do. It is what God does. And that is the lesson we have here. Now, Canaan, by the way, there needs to be a little explanation. I ran across this in several of the references. Canaan is not a symbol of heaven. Sometimes songs indicate that Canaan is a symbol of heaven. Canaan is a symbol of fighting and conflict, and there is none of that in heaven. So it does not represent heaven. Crossing the Jordan is a good picture of death, and the reason is, it was flood stage. When the snow began to melt in the mountains in Lebanon, and it came back and filled up the Sea of Galilee, and in recent years the Sea of Galilee has been down several feet. It must not have had much snow in the mountains, but when the snow in the mountains begins to melt, the waters come rushing down from the mountains in the north of Canaan, and plunges quickly into the Dead Sea. In fact, that journey from Canaan, from the mountains of Canaan down to the Dead Sea, is described as the descender. The descender. The Dead Sea has no outlet, and the raging waters of the Jordan at flood stage are now a barrier to enter the land. Brother Jack would probably tell you exactly, but it was a huge overflow of water. I mean, it was just no way that you were going to get a million and a half people across it. It would be a miracle. You've got old folks like us, and you've got babies, and a million and a half people, and that river is in a torrent of rain. I mean, the flooding waters, and the deluge coming from the north, and the junk and debris that would be in the way, no way they were going to get a million and a half people across that. So that's why we realized that that was a miraculous crossing of the flooded Jordan River. And most people, I believe, that look at this and study it, say that the Jordan symbolizes the identification of the new covenant in Christ, which includes the believer entering into death, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Back in the 70s, if you remember, we had what we call the deeper life movement. Ron Dunn, he was my favorite. I love to hear Ron Dunn preach. Jack Taylor, Dudley Hall, T.D., a lot of guys were in what we call the renewed, what did I say? You weren't even listening, and I forgot. Deeper life, deeper life, there we go, in the deeper life movement. And the book of Joshua is really a symbol of our experience of entering into a covenant with, and a new relationship with, and a deeper life, a deeper fulfillment of our relationship with Christ. So much of the things we're going to see going through Joshua are things that we experience in our own way, in our own time. And so it's a very significant book. It represents the deeper union of our heart with Christ and a complete separation of our lives to the Lord. And when we get to the New Testament, we're reading about the fullness of God through faith that is ours in our salvation. Now, there's some connections here in the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy is linked with Acts. Leviticus is linked with Hebrews. Joshua is linked to Ephesians. And Joshua is a symbolic picture of entering into the promises of God that we find in Jesus Christ. It indicates a union of our hearts and lives where we become one in him and he dwells in us. It is an intimate union with him in his resurrection and his ascension. And that brings us to the very highest level of Christian, of the life in Christ. In Joshua, we see Israel entering and possessing the earthly inheritance found in the covenant of Abraham. In Ephesians, we see the church, the bride of Christ entering into and experiencing the heavenly inheritance we receive in Christ. In Ephesians, you read in the heavenlies or in heavenly places, that's ours in Christ. J. Sidlow Baxter said, when the river is crossed and the land is entered, but they will not of themselves unlock the gates to roll back its guardian river. No, in the words of Ephesians 2,8, it must be by grace through faith. The old covenant rest day was the seventh day. You work six days and then you rest. Under the new covenant, the rest is on the first day. So in the first covenant, you work and then get rest. On the new covenant, you rest, establish your relationship, walk in the spirit, and you go from there. It is a perpetual rest that we possess in Christ, and that's where we began. That needs a little amplification. We need to realize from the beginning that the Christian life is not difficult. It is impossible. There is nothing within us that can fulfill the law of God, let alone the grace of God. We must come to establish a relationship with God, and then in that relationship, we go from there. So when we are saved, God is preparing us to move into a deeper relationship with him. We don't work for so long and then rest. No, we rest, we establish that relationship, and then move forward from there. We find Israel now camped on the eastern side of Jordan. Cana, with its giants and walls and highly fortified cities, are now on the horizon. And the first chapter of Joshua finds, interestingly enough, God speaking directly to Joshua. It's amazing. God, in his sovereign grace, spoke directly to Joshua, challenging him and encouraging him, and here is how he did it. God placed before Joshua the sufficiency of the word of God. He promised his divine presence to Joshua and promised a certainty of victory. That was what God did. Joshua heard from God, and he believed it. And he moved forward, and his ministry was a very effective ministry because he obeyed God, heard him, and he obeyed him. Dr. Terry reminded us last week that the first thing they did when they crossed the Jordan was have a Passover. And it was kept, and what the symbolic of that is, Joshua was yielding his sword to the captain of the Lord's hosts, to Jesus himself. Joshua claimed by faith what God told him. The people followed him, and they possessed the land. That's really a one-sentence description of the entire book of Joshua. Joshua reveals that Cana was actually Israel's promised rest. They had been a nomadic people. They were in the desert. Now that nomadic existence would give way to a place of settled living, not existence in the barren wilderness. There would be homes that they could sit in with their children, their families in the midst of fertile plains and valleys that would bless them. And when those twelve spies came back, they all said, it is a great place. I mean, they were going to a great place. Deuteronomy 11 describes it this way, the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys watered by rain from the sky. It is a land the Lord your God cares for. He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year. I could say the same thing about our lives. God is always watching over us. He is for us. I remember Roy Fish, a seminary professor for many, many years, evangelism department. He used to say, one established fact is God is for us. We just need to realize God is for us. And so that's what Joshua learned. He learned God is in this thing and God is for us and we are going to get the victory. And God is always in the process of watching over us and caring for us. And anything we ever achieve that is worthwhile is only in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Now, this chapter is kind of a link between chapter one and chapter six. This chapter talks to us about Jericho. We are going to see the defeat of the city of Jericho in chapter six. Jericho was like many of the thirty-one city-states in Canaan. According to Joshua 12, there were thirty-one city-states that were ruled by kings. So we don't know the names of most of those because they were really just cities that were established with what you might say is self-rule and kings ruled over them. And they were not necessarily large. As I said, the city of Jericho was only about nine acres of land. And if you can just remember what we had before we bought the corner property, that's nine acres. So it was a small piece of land. In the first verse, we meet this woman named Rahab and she is simply described as a prostitute. That seems like a strange choice. I mean, we are going to have to look at this for a while. She was an ungodly Gentile worshiper of pagan deities who sold her body for money. Not a very good reputation. Yet, she is mentioned along with Abraham's wife Sarah in Hebrews 11 in the heroes of the faith. Now, from a human standpoint, they didn't have anything in common. I mean, you are talking about Sarah, Abraham's wife, Rahab, the harlot. It really seems strange. And her name is also associated with Jesus in the genealogy in Matthew 1, along with Tamar, Ruth, David, Jacob, Joseph, Mary, and Uriah's wife, who we know to be Bathsheba. Her life was transformed into a true believer in Jehovah God. The most important thing about Rahab is her faith. Her culture worshipped many gods. But she made an incredible confession of faith that I know that God has given you this land and that he is the God of all the heavens and all the earth and he is the only true God. That is a fantastic statement that she made. And where on earth did she learn that? Well, she knew about the crossing of the Red Sea. I guess everybody did. They didn't have all the advantages we do today of communication, but I'm sure something that dramatic would get around pretty quickly in the land. She knew about the defeat of the two kings east of the Jordan when they came through the Red Sea. She knew a lot about the Israelites and she knew of God's blessings and she knew who their God was and she embraced the God of Israel. A pagan prostitute embraced the only God by her own testimony and what happened was she transferred herself into the Israelite family. She's not an Israelite by birth, but now by faith. She is an Israelite. And even though Moses had told the people they could make no covenants or any agreements with the inhabitants of Cana, they made an agreement with her that if she would tie this scarlet cloth to the window of her house that her family, she was asking for her family, would be saved. They must have believed that that brought her into a legitimate covenant with Israel's God because they pledged their lives to make that happen. They thought that she had actually been saved, which in fact she was. According to Hebrews and James in the New Testament, it seems likely that she had put her faith in God before the spies got there. That makes a big difference in how the spies treated her. Now, an interesting thing in verse 1 is that Joshua is introduced as the son of none. Chapter begins, Joshua, son of none. Now, the book of Joshua mentions the name Joshua 138 times, but only 10 times is the full name, Joshua, son of none, used. And at least 5 of those 10 times, it denotes a change in focus, a change in emphasis. And that's what's happening here. The book of Joshua is now shifting from Joshua in Israel to Rahab in Cana. The spies went into Jericho where the scripture states in this first verse, they came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king had sent Joshua secretly. He was secret. I don't know if even the Israelites knew that they had gone. Of course, like most secrets, it didn't remain secret very long. They never do. You think you got away with it? Not for long. It won't stay secret very long. And so it's kind of interesting that when Joshua sent the spies secretly, the very next verse tells us the king of Jericho knew about it immediately. So the word got around fast. Now, that's a good reminder to all of us that secrets never remain secret very long. That's why, and you need to just remember this, these second Corinthians chapter four, starting at verse two. The apostle Paul makes an interesting observation that is often overlooked. He said, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorted the word of God. Renounced is in the Arish tense, which is like a past perfect tense in English. This means Joshua, Paul, was declaring that he had given up his rights to do these things before it happened. He gave up his right to secret things. He gave up his right to shameful things, to subtle things, to deceitful things. He made the decision that he was not going to do that. Now, let me give you a good word of advice. You need to decide right now that there are certain things that you're not going to do, period. I think that's what I did when I married Carol Ann. I know that's what I meant. I think that's what she understood. I promised never to have any more girlfriends, never to have any more sweethearts. She was my sweetheart. That was the decision I made then. Now, there have been times when I could have been compromised, but every time that came up, I remembered, no, I've already decided I'm not going to do that. If you wait until you're tempted to decide whether or not you're going to do it, you are in big trouble. So Paul says, and by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you need to renounce some things. If you're going to live for God and you're going to have the blessings of God upon your life, if you're going to have the marriage God wants you to have or the life God wants you to have, you need to renounce some things now, not later, now. That word is very strong. When Paul used that, he was saying, I have already given up my rights to hide anything or to do anything shameful or anything distorting the word of God or deceitful. He said, I've given up my right to do that. We need to do the same thing. Now, back to the spies. We don't know how they got in the city. It's not told. Who knows? It may have been like the angel leading Peter out of prison. Nobody knew this at all. It may have strictly been something like God may have got them in there and blinded the eyes of many who were probably seeing them come. We don't know how they got to the city. We're not sure how they got to Rahab's house. But nevertheless, we find them in Rahab's house and we have no information or no inclination or of any kind that there was a sexual encounter with her when they came to her house. She was the first Canaanite convert to faith in God. We read in verses 1 and 15 about Rahab's house. Now, where was Rahab's house? Where would you have a house in nine acres with a city full of people? Well, we know that it was on the outside wall. There were two walls around Jericho, an outer wall and an inner wall. And periodically, there was a connecting wall that tied the two walls together. That would be a chamber or a room that could be used for storage or for residence. And so some people think maybe it was on the top of the wall, which it could have been. The scripture just simply says it's on the outside of the wall. So her passageway connected her to the outer wall. And we know it was high up, could have been on top. But the scripture simply says it was inside the wall. And so she lowered them down outside the city, the spies, rather than taking to the city gate because it would have been dangerous otherwise. It was an outside wall. And we know that they were received by Rahab, and she defied the king. She did not betray them. In fact, she hid them in stacks of flax on the roof of her house. And several translations indicate that it was all the way to the top. But verse 15 will indicate the house was built into the wall of the city. Now, we face an apparent contradiction now about Rahab. She expressed her faith in God. She risked her life to protect the spies and then lied about the spies when she was asked about them from the king. Now, here's the question. She's gotten saved. She's a believer, and she just lied. Well, that seems like a contradiction. Now, we can't explain that. We can't explain the fact that she lied, but we can understand it because if she had not lied, the spies would have been killed. And she lied, withheld information, because she did not want them to be killed. Now, you can understand someone lying to save their own neck, but if you tell the truth, someone else is going to get killed. It gives you pause to think about. Now, as I said, I'm not trying to explain that. I'm going to let Dr. Terry, one of these days, do that. But there are millions, well, there are many, many Jews today who are alive because someone lied and protected them and saved them from the German massacre that would have taken place. So I think it's an interesting study in, I guess, in words. To me, it's very understandable why she did not tell the truth because she had believed in God and in the God of these spies that she was protecting them. Now, that's all I'm going to say about it because I don't know anything more difficult than the decision she made, but she had great courage. And just think for a minute what she did. She hid those spies, and then when they made the agreement that her family would be protected when the Israelites came and conquered Jericho, she had to tell her parents, she had to tell her family, what if they told the king? What if they told somebody else? She had great courage. She had a message, and she shared it with them, but it took a lot of courage for her to do that because she did not know she could trust anybody else to keep the secret. It was a tough time for her, but let's don't focus on her lying to the king. She risked her life to save their lives, and James 2.25 reminds us that her actions proved that she was a genuine believer, and so while we can't fully explain it, we can understand the emotions and the reasons why she did not tell the king the truth. Now, upon hearing of the arrival of the spies at her home, the king demanded that she deliver the spies to him, and she misled the king's agent and lied about the spies being at her home, and she had protected them, and she let them down outside the city wall, and her concern for them continued when she told them what to do when they got out of the city. Go into the hills, wait there for three days before you return to Joshua. Now, there is kind of a comical thing here on verse 7, I think it is. At nightfall, when the city was about to close, when the city was about to close, she is telling the king or the authorities, now they left, now you go chase them. So she sent them on a wild goose chase, but this verse says that the gate was about to be closed, and when the people from the city got back from chasing what they thought were the spies, they were early on a wild goose chase, when they got back, the gates were closed. So here is an interesting scene of these inhabitants, authorities of Jericho chasing after non-existent people out in the wilderness, they get back and they are locked out of their own city. I just find that kind of humorous. But God has a good sense of humor. I know that because when I started preaching verse by verse through the Bible, God told me to start with Hebrews. That is the hardest book in the New Testament to go through, but God has a sense of humor and he reminds us of that every once in a while. Now, this is supposition, but the whole thing indicates that the spies were gone three days. Interestingly, Joshua had told the people that they would need to get three days to prepare for crossing the river. So not only were they gone for three days, they were gone during the time when the preparations were made to cross the river. I'm not sure exactly what those were. Maybe they figured out some way to have a pontoon type system of getting people across. I don't know what it was, but they were sitting beside three days. Now, the three days sticks out all over these spies. Their journey was a three-day journey. I'll again come back to Rahab's confession of faith. In verses 9-14 we get information about Israel's reputation and how the Canaanites feared them and had heard all about the deliverance that God had given to them. These verses indicate that Rahab's faith was not just words, but reflected a real change in her life. She received Israel's God as her own and she had heard about these miracles that God had done and confessed that God was the only true God and that certainly made a difference in how the spies viewed her and her family. I think that the confession that she made really brought her into the family of Israel. It was a remarkable confession from a pagan woman. She reported that God was the true God who had dominions over the heavens and the earth. The interesting thing about that, and she said that the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. That's what the pagan gods said, that they were the ones who were in charge of the heavens and the earth. That's what the pagan gods of her culture said. Canaanites had many gods, but Rahab believed that Israel's God was the God of heaven and earth. That is a great statement from this pagan woman. This is her profession of faith in God. She trusted in the God she had heard about and he transformed her life. She was under condemnation and destined to die because the instructions was to completely wipe out the city of Jericho. But she was destined for death. She had a death sentence and God had instructed Joshua to utterly destroy the Canaanites, show no mercy. She didn't certainly deserve to be saved, but God's grace saved her just like his grace saved us. Rahab's conversion was no doubt an act of God's grace. When she stated that Israel's God was the only God, she was declaring that Baal and Asherah and Marduk and Ishtar and all the Canaanite gods were not true gods. They were false gods. She knew that Israel's God had dominion over heavenly things and earthly things and that he alone was God. The phrase, the Lord your God is God in heaven above and earth below is found only three times in the Bible. Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 4 and 5. Each time it is declaring an exclusive claim of God's sovereignty. She was declaring that she believed that Jehovah God was the only true God and that was where her faith was anchored. What she was doing when she asked for protection for herself and her family, more than attempting to save herself and her family, she was making her statement of faith in the only true God. We have to again wonder how she knew all of this and we really don't know, but she is a great example of a pagan worshipper who responded to God in faith and was saved. The entire city of Jericho could have been saved, like Jonah when he preached in Nineveh. They were saved and a great revival broke out, but only Rahab responded in faith and she was rewarded by saving herself and her family. But real faith is not just an intellectual exercise. It's not just an emotional response or some kind of stimulus. It's not a dramatic act like jumping off a tall building and asking God to get you down safely. He'll catch you and let you down. The only one who would do that would be Jesus to illustrate his own power. But Rahab's faith was clear. She knew that God was the true God. She was concerned for herself and her family and she received the spies. She trusted God and pled for the safety of her family. She didn't have full understanding, but she understood enough and she believed what she understood and she had her faith placed in God. The spies themselves pledged their lives to guarantee the safety of Rahab and her family when the battle began. If she told that secret and communicated that with the authorities in Jericho, then the whole deal would be canceled. It would be over. So it was a courageous thing for her to make the claims that she made and to put her faith in the one true God. She continued to be concerned for the spies because she told them to go in the hills and wait three days before returning home, according to verse 16. So they did that. I need to remind you how the Jews counted days. It didn't mean three full days. When we talk about three days, we think of three 24-hour periods. But to the Jews, the first day started before dark. It started the first day, then you had a day, and then when it was dawn the next day, you had one full day and two partial days, or three days. So that was what they hid in the hills for three days, and when the king's men stopped looking for them, they returned to Joshua and gave their report. The report was very positive. They're afraid of us. They've heard all about us. God's delivered them into their hands. We need to move forward. I've always wondered, and I'm curious, Brother Jack talks about his curiosity. That red scarlet ribbon attached to the window, what happened to it when the walls fell? Actually, they didn't really need that because the walls are going to fall down. That's just an aside, and who knows the answer to that. But the chapter ends quickly with the report of the spies hiding in Rahab's house for three days, and somehow that may have corresponded with three days of preparations across the Jordan River. The report they gave to Joshua was, the Lord has handed over the entire land to us. Everyone who lives in the land is also panicking because of us. The next two chapters are requirements for claiming by faith what God has prepared for them. Before them was the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River and the entrance into the promised land. So that's what these next chapters are going to talk about. The book is a clear picture, not only of Israel's possession of the promised land, but also the journey of every believer who enters into true fellowship with God and with each other. So we're going to see ourselves all through this book of Joshua because it is a picture of Israel coming from fear to faith, from defeat and failure to victory, from disobedience to God to obedience, and from out of the land to be in the land. It's going to be an exciting journey, and we're going to read a lot about ourselves as we go through this time. Well, we're going to be through early. Well, not really. We're going to be through on time, and you'll have plenty of time to adjust to the next one. Brother Jack will start there next Sunday, and we'll look forward to what he has to say. If I err greatly, he can correct me when he comes next week. But it's an exciting study. Everybody that has me says, What are you all studying now? I said, Joshua. Everybody says, Wow, that's a great book. It really is. It's a great story. It's a great record. It's a great history of victory and faith and of obedience to God and following God and living in the strength and power of a God. I'm still amazed that a million and a half people could have spent 40 years in a barren desert, had plenty of water and food and make it, but they did. So I'm amazed, but not as much that they could figure out a way to get across the river. And whatever was happening, God provided the way for them to enter the land. And however those spies got to Rahab's house without anybody stopping them, I don't know. Obviously, a lot of people saw them and reported to the king. And so the story unfolds slowly. But we look forward to next week. Father, just thank you for your love and your grace, and thank you that our life begins in you, and we only live the life that is in our hearts to live and in your plan to give to us by trusting in you and obeying you. So thank you for the lessons we learn here in Jesus name. Amen.
