Devotional for April 7, 2025 | Monday: Victory and Defeat

Joshua 7:1-8:29 This week’s lessons show the consequences of Achan’s sin upon the nation of Israel, and how in the midst of God’s judgment, grace and blessing are offered.

Theme

Victory and Defeat

Have you ever noticed in your life what a short step there often is between a great victory and a great defeat? One moment you’re riding high on the cloud of some great spiritual success, and the next moment you’re plunged into the valley of some grim spiritual failure.  One moment you’re like Elijah on Mt. Carmel, calling down the fire of God on the altar. And the next moment you’re like Elijah at Horeb, complaining to God and asking for death.

It’s like that in the book of Joshua. When most people think of Joshua, they think naturally of the great victory of the Jewish armies at Jericho, which we have in chapter 6. We think of the armies encircling the walls in silence day by day, repeating that action seven times on the last of the seven days and then sounding the trumpets and shouting, with the walls falling down and then marching in to take the city. We think of it as a great victory, which it certainly was. But it’s only a very short step between that great victory of Joshua 6 and the defeat we find in the very next chapter.

Chapter 7 of Joshua begins with the ominous word, “but.” Great victory, yes, but now, a great failure. What is it that can account for a change like that, and a change so rapid? Commentators have suggested a number of things. Some have said, “Well, the people failed because of self-confidence.” Certainly there is a lot of self-confidence evident in the story. The army sent spies up to this next city, the city of Ai, which lay up the mountainous ascent to the hill country. The spies came back with the report that in comparison to Jericho, it was a very small city. Jericho was a large, military fortress. It was surrounded by strong walls. Ai was a military fortress, too, but not nearly so large and not nearly so formidable. The report came back, “You don’t need the whole army. Two or three thousand men ought to be sufficient.” What they had forgotten is that it was not the size of their armies, whether great or small, that had given them Jericho. God had given them Jericho; but they were self-confident. They thought, “We can take it with a few.” But they lost.

People have also suggested that it was a lack of prayer, particularly on Joshua’s part. The earlier battle had been planned undoubtedly by the Lord Himself, the commander of the host. He had told them what to do. From a human point of view, it was senseless to march around the walls all those times. But that was God’s battle plan, and so Joshua carried it out. We sense, though it doesn’t say this explicitly in Joshua, that this consulting of God was overlooked when they came to Ai. The spies were sent, the report came back, and the plans were made on the basis of that report.

It’s possible that the commentators are right when they point to those two things as the causes of Israel’s failure—a great amount of self-confidence and a lack of prayer. But it is interesting that when the failure takes place, and Joshua along with the elders of the people prostrate themselves before the Ark of the Covenant to ask what has gone wrong, it is not self-confidence or a lack of prayer that God mentions. Instead God says that there is sin in the camp of Israel. Sin is the cause of the failure. It’s interesting how this exchange takes place. Joshua says, “Oh, sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?” After he explains what’s wrong, God replies, “Stand up. What are you doing on your face? Israel has sinned. They have violated my commandment, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies.” If we learn nothing else from this great chapter of Joshua, we must learn that sin is what destroys victory in the life of God’s people, and for that reason sin cannot be tolerated.

Study Questions

1. What are some reasons offered for why Israel lost the battle against Ai?
2. What was the real reason?

Application

Reflection: Did you ever have a similar experience as Joshua, where you quickly went from a spiritual high to a spiritual low? What brought that change about? What lessons did you learn?

Key Point: If we learn nothing else from this great chapter of Joshua, we must learn that sin is what destroys victory in the life of God’s people, and for that reason sin cannot be tolerated.

For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message, “Sin against Man, Sin against God.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)

https://www.thinkandactbiblically.org/monday-victory-and-defeat/

Devotional for February 21, 2025 | Friday: Rahab’s Salvation and Ours

Joshua 2:1-24 This week’s lessons describe how by faith Rahab became an unexpected recipient of the grace of God.

Theme

Rahab’s Salvation and Ours

I started out by saying that this is a story of God’s mercy, which indeed it is. When the spies arranged to save her life, they said that she was to tie a scarlet cord in her window. That was to mark the house, such that no one would touch it when the Israelites came. It was a powerful symbol of her deliverance. Going all the way back to Clement of Rome, there has been a tradition to trace the scarlet cord through Scripture and see it pointing to the blood of Christ.  It’s called “the line of the blood,” beginning with Abel’s sacrifice of the lamb and leading to Calvary.  It is through the mark of the blood that we are saved. 

Now I don’t know whether that’s reading too much into it or not.  It may be.  But what Rahab was to do was strikingly parallel to what the Jewish people were to do at the time of the exodus from Egypt, when they were to take the blood of the lamb and mark the lintel and the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death might pass over.

Now let me say as I close that it’s also our story if you understand it correctly. We’re the Rahabs of this world. Our background is her background, and our salvation is exactly what she experienced. And furthermore, we are a part of, and dwell in the midst of, a wicked people; and we too have our own sins. It might not have been the sin of prostitution, though it may have been. But whatever it is, it’s our sin. We know what it is. And so, in our alienated state, like the citizens of Jericho, we have found ourselves under the judgment of God awaiting that which is certainly due to us for our sin.

But then what happened? God allowed us to hear the gospel, the good news, to find out who He was, that the real God is not the gods of the people among whom we live—those false gods, those images that we throw up to make ourselves feel better. But we heard about the real God, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, the God of Jesus Christ, the God who died for us to provide our salvation. And we had messengers come, representatives of that God, to teach us about Him. And by the grace of God, just as in the case of Rahab, we believe that. And also like Rahab, that faith produced works in us, and we began to live differently. We began to live as Rahab did against the world because, you see, our situation now is the situation in which she found herself between the moment of her belief and the time of her deliverance when Jericho was destroyed.

Like her, we live in the midst of that kind of a pagan city. We believe on God, the true God; but the deliverance that we anticipate is not yet. So we live in faith, and we live boldly against the culture because it’s a culture contrary to the culture of our God. We say, as Rahab did, and Athanasius did, and all the other great saints have done in their own historical situations for thousands upon thousands of years, “Here I stand against the world because I stand for God and His righteousness.” What am I to say to you if you’re a person who, in the symbolism of this story, are not like Rahab but are still living in Jericho, living there in unbelief? You may be deluding yourself. You may be looking around at the walls. You may be saying, as the citizens of Jericho must have said, “Well, we don’t have a whole lot to fear. Look at these walls, these big, thick walls. As long as we’re surrounded by our secular embattlements, we’re safe. And besides, Jericho has been here for thousands of years. Look how long our secular culture has endured. Why, we’re alright. We don’t need the God of Israel.”

And yet, I wonder if it’s not the case, as it was of the citizens of Jericho, that, internally, your heart is failing you with fear. You’re saying to yourself, “What if this God really is all-powerful? What if this God really is the true God? What if this God really does demand righteousness and holiness of life? What if there really is a final judgment? What if I must really stand before Him one day?” If you’ve gotten to that point, let me say that you don’t have to remain in unbelief any longer. Rahab must have been there herself at one time. But she passed from unbelief to faith. And as she passed from unbelief to faith, she passed not only from the kingdom of the Amorites into the kingdom of the Jews; she passed from the kingdom of Satan’s darkness into the kingdom of God’s light. That’s what you need. You need only to put your life in the hands of that God and say, “I know that that’s the true God, and that’s the God I’m going to follow regardless of the standards or pressures of my culture.” That God will save you. He has done it before. That God will do it again. That God will do it now if you’ll trust Him as Rahab did.

Study Questions

1. From church history, what does the term, “the line of the blood,” refer to?
2. From the lesson, what other story in the Old Testament does Rahab and the scarlet cord remind you of? What are the similar themes between the two?
3. In what ways does our spiritual situation parallel that of Rahab?  What biblical ideas are the same?

Application

Application: God’s judgment is coming on all who reject Christ, just as it fell on the Amorites and the city of Jericho.  Pray for the Lord to give you opportunities to share the Gospel with those who need to hear it, before it is too late for them.

For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message from Habakkuk 2, “Living by Faith.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)

For Further Study: The book of Joshua recounts the conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites. But in this story of Rahab, we see that this book also teaches us about God’s grace in the salvation of this woman, and her faith in God’s mercy. Order your copy of James Boice’s Joshua, and receive 30% off the regular price.

https://www.thinkandactbiblically.org/friday-rahabs-salvation-and-ours/

Devotional for February 20, 2025 | Thursday: Rahab’s Faith

Joshua 2:1-24 This week’s lessons describe how by faith Rahab became an unexpected recipient of the grace of God.

Theme

Rahab’s Faith

Thus, with all her liabilities, she did have one great thing going for her: she had heard about the true God. And when she begins to speak to the spies in the heart of the story, which is really her testimony, this is what she talks about. She says, “I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you because we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.” Just hearing that was sufficient to lead her to faith in the true God.

An interesting thought occurs to me at this point because I ask myself, from whom did she hear it? Well I suspect the people from whom she heard it were the men who frequented her establishment. You see, there probably was no greater place for gossip or for catching up on information than the house of Rahab the prostitute. Guests would come and ask each other if they heard about all that happened in Egypt, and all that God had done for Israel in delivering them from slavery by bringing great judgments upon the Egyptians.

I find that interesting because although the Bible certainly does not endorse prostitution, it was in the context of that kind of life that Rahab heard what for her became the good news. And, you see, as long as that’s true, you can never say, “Well, I despair of the salvation of so-and-so.” Or, “I just don’t see any hope in that situation. Why, there’s so much sin. There’s so much disobedience. Things are so bad. How could God possibly work there” God delights to work in situations like.  The story of Rahab show us that we must never despair of the salvation of anyone, including ourselves.

Do you know that this woman is praised twice in the New Testament for her faith? One of the places in which she is praised for her faith is the great eleventh chapter of Hebrews, which contains a roster of the heroes and heroines of the faith. It says of her there in verse 31, “By faith, the prostitute, Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.” It’s a short reference, but it’s a good one. And it’s as long as the references that are given for Jacob, and Joseph, and a number of the others who are mentioned.

The other reference is in James, who also praises her for her faith in 2:25: “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?” You see, what James is saying—and what Hebrews says as well—is that hers was a true faith because it was based on knowledge. And it resulted in action—in her case, the saving of the Jewish spies.

But there’s even more than this. When you begin to think of what Rahab did, and when you put that in the context of her culture, not only was her faith a genuine faith expressing itself in action; her faith was a heroic faith because it was exercised at great danger and in near isolation. Just think what she did. First of all, she put her life on the line because Jericho wasn’t a nice city. This wasn’t a pleasant suburb somewhere; it was a military outpost. And in a military outpost, especially in war time, you do not take the existence of traitors lightly. If the messengers of the king had not believed her answer that the spies had left the city before the gates were closed, when they had searched her house and found the spies, imagine what would have happened to Rabab. She and probably her family would have been arrested on the spot, taken before the king, undoubtedly tortured, and killed perhaps in the cruelest way possible. Yet still she put her life on the line. Rahab risked it all in order to identify with what she perceived by the work of God in her heart to be the truth concerning the Jewish God.

Secondly, Rahab turned her back on her own people. Now, this was war time; the Israelites were set against the inhabitants of Jericho. And this was a war to the death. The inhabitants of Jericho knew that if the Jews succeeded in overrunning the city, they would kill everybody. And by contrast, if the citizens of Jericho had won, they would have killed all the Jews. And yet, here was Rahab the Amorite, the citizen of Jericho, who nevertheless was willing to turn her back on her entire past and upon her people because of her conviction of who God really was and what God required of her.

The third thing Rahab did was to identify with the Jewish people. She well could have said, as Ruth said to her mother-in-law, Naomi, “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” Now think about that because when God took Rahab into Israel, God did not bring her in as a second-class citizen. Hers was not a second-class salvation. Apparently, Rahab was received from the beginning with full standing in the Jewish camp. And, moreover, she also married into it, and by the grace of God, through that marriage, she actually became an ancestor of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There was a prince in Judah among the Jews whose name was Salmon. Salmon married Rahab, and the son born to them was Boaz. And Boaz was the one who married Ruth. Then from them came Obed, who begot Jesse, who was the father of King David. And we know that eventually from King David came the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn’t it marvelous that God took this woman—a Gentile, even an Amorite prostitute—and saved her simply through hearing about the Jewish God?  From there, He took her out of her environment and incorporated her among the company of His people so that she actually married into a line that produced the Lord Jesus Christ.

Study Questions

1. From the lesson, what does Dr. Boice say was the one thing Rahab had going for her?
2. Read the two passages from the New Testament that talk about Rahab’s faith. How did she put that faith into action?
3. From the lesson, what three things did Rahab do as an expression of her faith?

Application

Key Point: The story of Rahab show us that we must never despair of the salvation of anyone, including ourselves.

Application: Most of us have family members or friends who are not Christians.  Commit to praying for them every day, asking that they might come to saving faith.

For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message from Habakkuk 2, “Living by Faith.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)

https://www.thinkandactbiblically.org/thursday-rahabs-faith/

Devotional for February 19, 2025 | Wednesday: Mercy Even to Rahab

Joshua 2:1-24 This week’s lessons describe how by faith Rahab became an unexpected recipient of the grace of God.

Theme

Mercy Even to Rahab

Continuing the idea from yesterday’s study, isn’t it striking that in this story of judgment, the first thing is not of judgment, but of an act of mercy as God reaches out to save this pagan woman. It should direct our attention to the mercy of God, in Rahab’s case and in other cases as well. The mercy of God is particularly evident in Rahab’s case because, humanly speaking, she had nothing going for her. You have to think of her liabilities. First of all, she was a Gentile. To be a Gentile was nothing. It was to be cut off from all the spiritual benefits that God had poured upon the Jewish people in history. Rahab didn’t have a Bible. Rahab didn’t have the patriarchs. Rahab didn’t have true worship. Rahab didn’t understand any of these things spiritually. She was a Gentile.

Not only was she a Gentile, but she was an Amorite. Now when the people of the land are named, the Amorites are just one of the peoples. There are about twelve different tribes that are named. And yet it would seem that of all these wicked people, the Amorites were very wicked. They performed vile sacrifices, even killing their own children. That’s why, when God spoke to Abraham, He said that the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. There was particular wickedness associated with that tribal division.

So Rahab was a Gentile and, beyond that, an Amorite. But in addition to these, she was a prostitute. This has bothered some people, causing them to conclude that while she may have been a prostitute in the past, by this time she had reformed her sinful way of life. But that is not what the Bible says.  It says that Rahab was a prostitute. Now, I do think that Rahab was converted before the story, and it may well have been that she had recently abandoned her profession or was in the process of abandoning it. But I do notice that when the king heard a rumor that two spies had entered the city and had gone into her house, he wasn’t at all surprised that strangers had gone there. After all, men were coming and going all the time. Thus, when she told the king that the spies had been there but left, he accepted that. I think it indicates that she really was an immoral woman.

All this might cause one to ask whether it was fitting that God should save a person like that.  But Francis Schaeffer says in his commentary that it is most fitting because it’s precisely people like that who God saves. Jesus Himself said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And He said, “There’s more joy in heaven over a sinner who repents than over all the righteous who have no need of repentance.” Rahab was a woman who really did repent.

Study Questions

1. From the lesson, what are the three liabilities Dr. Boice uses to describe Rahab?
2. Given Rahab’s background, what does this story teach us about God and His grace?

Application

Reflection: God sometimes converts people we would least expect. We must beware of the temptation to think that we are somehow more worthy of God’s favor simply because we are not marked by the things that someone like Rahab was.  Except for God’s restraining grace, each of us could be what Rahab was.

For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message from Habakkuk 2, “Living by Faith.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)

https://www.thinkandactbiblically.org/wednesday-mercy-even-to-rahab/

Devotional for February 18, 2025 | Tuesday: Rahab and Her Encounter with the Spies

Joshua 2:1-24 This week’s lessons describe how by faith Rahab became an unexpected recipient of the grace of God.

Theme

Rahab and Her Encounter with the Spies

Rahab’s story is set in the midst of a greater story, and this greater story is that of the conquest of the land. And, moreover, it’s entwined with another story which is also part of that greater story, and that is the story of the sending of the spies. Now Joshua had been commissioned, and he stood with the armies of Israel on the banks of the Jordan ready to go in. He sent two spies ahead of him, and they went to Jericho. I find it interesting that he sent two spies. I’m sure that was not accidental.  You’ll recall that 38 years before, Moses had sent twelve spies into the Promised Land.  Ten had come back with an unbelieving report that they would not be able to conquer the inhabitants.  But there were only two spies who believed God’s promise of victory. I think Joshua must have been thinking back to that.  He wanted two that had faith in the God of Israel, and who would find out what they needed to know, and who would return with a believing report. So the spies went off to Jericho, and there they met Rahab. Afterward, they came back with the report that the people of the land had hearts that were failing them with fear because of the presence of the Jewish people on the far banks of the Jordan.

It’s really a very interesting story. If God was the one who sent the spies, we have to understand that it wasn’t primarily for the sake of bringing back information about Jericho that the spies were sent because, of course, God knew all about Jericho. He knew what He was going to do, and the battle didn’t depend upon any particular strategy hinged upon the geography of the land or anything like that. If God was sending the spies into Jericho, the obvious reason why He was doing that was to save Rahab because He had one of His children there in this pagan city, a woman who had come to believe on Him. And it was through her meeting with the spies and the arrangements that were made that this woman’s life was spared, as well as the lives of all of her family, when the Israelites eventually did overrun the city and destroy it utterly in accordance with God’s command.

So isn’t it interesting that the first great story in Joshua is a story of God’s saving of this pagan woman? What that really means is that the first real story in a book of vicious conquest is a story of God’s grace. From the Israelites’ point of view this is a marvelous story because it’s a victory. But from the Bible’s point of view it was a judgment. This was no little altercation; this was a massive invasion, and it was an invasion flowing from the judgment of God because of the sins of the people of the land. Way back in the book of Genesis, when God was speaking to Abraham about the land that He was going to give, He spelled it all out. He named the tribes, and then said, “But that’s not going to happen for a long period of time yet because the iniquity of the Amorites is not full.” At that point they hadn’t come to full term in judgment; but now they had. As all those years had gone by the iniquity of the people had increased, and judgment was coming.

Study Questions

1. Why might Joshua have sent only two spies into Jericho? Why is that important?
2. There could be different reasons for wanting to send spies into an area before a military operation. But from the lesson, what was the real reason these two spies were sent into the city? What does this teach us about God?

Application

Reflection: How do we see both the judgment and mercy of God present in the world today?

For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message from Habakkuk 2, “Living by Faith.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)

https://www.thinkandactbiblically.org/tuesday-rahab-and-her-encounter-with-the-spies/

November 30 | An Unlikely Heroine

“By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace” (Heb. 11:31).

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Rahab illustrates the depth and breadth of God’s amazing grace.

Our final Old Testament hero of faith is an unlikely addition to the list. Not only was she a prostitute, she also was a Gentile—and a Canaanite at that.

The Canaanites were an idolatrous, barbaric, debauched people, infamous even among pagans for their immorality and cruelty. Yet in the midst of that exceedingly wicked society, Rahab came to faith in the God of Israel.

Joshua 2:9–11 records her confession of faith to the two men Joshua had sent into Jericho as spies: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted 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 utterly destroyed. And when we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath” (emphasis added).

Rahab demonstrated the genuineness of her profession of faith by risking her life to hide the spies from the king of Jericho, who sought to capture them.

Because Rahab lied to protect the spies (vv. 4–5), some people question the validity of her faith. Surely genuine believers wouldn’t lie like that—or would they? Abraham did. Sarah did. Isaac did. Jacob did. But the important thing to understand is that God honored their faith, not their deception.

As with all the heroes of faith before her, Rahab’s faith wasn’t perfect, nor was her knowledge of God’s moral law. But because she trusted God, she was spared during Jericho’s conquest, and then was given an even greater honor. She became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth, the great-great-grandmother of David, thereby becoming an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:5).

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Suggestions for Prayer: Praise God for receiving even the vilest sinner who turns to Him in faith.

For Further Study: Read all about Rahab in Joshua 2:1–24, 6:22–25, and James 2:25.¹

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¹  MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1993). Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (p. 347). Crossway Books.