If you would take your Bibles and turn back to Hebrews chapter 11, we’re coming towards the end of our fall series through this chapter, this chapter of faith, this chapter of faith in Jesus, and we’re looking at Hebrews 11:29-31 this evening. You’ll find that on page 1008 in the pew Bibles.
Question 26 of The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “How does Christ execute the office of a king?” We’ll see Jesus as the Messiah, as the Redeemer – He is considered to have fulfilled the roles, the Old Testament roles of prophet, priest and king in His life, death, resurrection and ascension. And so how then does He execute the office of a king? The answer is, “Christ executes the offices of a king in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all of His and our enemies.” In other words, Jesus is Lord. And some say that is the first and the most basic of all Christian creeds and confessions – that Jesus is Lord. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You see, salvation, security, protection, deliverance, they are not found in confessing Caesar as lord; no, they are found in confessing Jesus as Lord. They will not be found in bowing to any of the constraints of any political authority. No, salvation comes from confessing Jesus as Lord, Jesus as King. The Scripture says that, “Whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
One of the things that we find in Hebrews chapter 11 – we find this especially in these verses that we will read tonight – is that Hebrews 11 shows us a conquering faith; a faith that overcomes. It’s a faith that looks to Jesus to rule and to defend us. A faith that trusts in Jesus as Lord and King to restrain and to conquer all of His and our enemies. In fact, that was the case, that was true long ago, “at many times and in many ways,” as Hebrews 1:1 says. As it was when the people of Israel were delivered from the hands of the Egyptians and when the walls of Jericho came crumbling down and when Rahab offered protection to the Israelite spies. And that same thing would be true in whatever opposition was facing the church in the first century in the book of Hebrews context, and that will be true in whatever opposition is facing us, whatever opposition is facing the church today – whether that be the usual suspects of nations and rulers, or maybe it’s something else, like media or technology or corporations. But there is only one Lord able to save.
And so we’ll look at these verses tonight with the following outline. We’ll see, one, the usual suspects, and then two, an unusual Savior; the usual suspects and an unusual Savior. Before we read, let’s pray.
Our Father, we look to Jesus. We bow the knee this evening to Jesus as King. And we pray that He will do the work of conquering and overcoming even in this hour tonight. That You would overcome the hardness of our hearts, the distractions of our minds, the worries on our hearts, and that You would help us to see Jesus in all of His might and power and glory and victory and grace and dominion. We pray that Your Spirit would rule over us and in us and through the reading and preaching of Your Word, that we would see Jesus and grow in our faith in Him, and that we would walk confidently by faith and not by sight in whatever challenges may face us in the rest of this day or in this week or in the days ahead. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 29:
“By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
Well first, let’s round up the usual suspects. Think of those places in the Old Testament where the enemies of God’s people, the constant troublers of Israel, where they are lined up in the dock and the prophets, they give us their rap sheets, they tell us their aliases and their street cred, and yet all of them are weighed in the balances and found wanting. The prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they call these suspects out and put them on notice. Now those may not be your most favorite parts of Scripture, it may not be the easiest part of Scripture to read even. One commentator says that the oracles against the foreign nations and the prophets, they rank right up there with the genealogies and chronicles and the regulations on mildew in Leviticus as the places that rank as maybe the least favorite parts for many people, the most challenging parts of Scripture.
But, but if we struggle with those passages, it is very well likely it is because we have never struggled with those nations. And there is something deeply, incredibly reassuring for the people of Israel that in the midst of harassment, in the midst of abuse, to hear the prophets say, to read where God’s Word says, “Woe, woe to the Ammonites and the Moabites and the Edomites. Woe to Philistia and Tyre and Sidon. Woe to Assyria and Babylon. Woe to Egypt. Woe to all of those who afflict God’s people.” Because in saying that, God is sending the message that their hand is restrained by God’s might and their end, their judgment is certain.
And surely Egypt was the original adversary to the people of Israel. Israel was a people; they were a people whose formative years were passed under the strong arm of Egyptian slavery and oppression. When we lived in Memphis, we lived down the street from an Egyptologist, if you knew that those sorts of things existed. An Egyptologist will tell you that one of the more recognizable symbols of ancient Egypt was the crook and the flail. The crook and the flail. That was the symbol of Pharaoh and his domination, his power. One of them, the crook, it was a curved shepherd’s staff and it was placed together with this other rod or stick with these three strands of beads or rods coming off of it. It looks like an instrument for flogging or for beating. So the crook and the flail together, they represented the state’s control over its people in ancient Egypt. In fact, the crook, or that curved shepherd’s staff, it is actually the hieroglyphic symbol for “rule” or “ruler” in ancient Egypt. And you see, the Israelites, they grew up under the rule of the Egyptian crook and flail.
And even when they obtained their freedom, even when they were let go from slavery, it was not long at all, was it, that they felt themselves doomed because of the pursuit of the Egyptian army and all of their chariots and all of their horsemen coming after them to destroy them. And maybe it’s not appropriate to laugh, but I always find it a funny part of Scripture in the book of Exodus in what the people say to Moses when they are hedged in between the Red Sea on one side and the oncoming Egyptian army on the other side. You know what they said? They said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have brought us out into the wilderness to die? Were the cemeteries in Egypt full, Moses? Did you not get a pre-planned funeral package from the funeral home, Moses? Is that why you have brought us out here into the wilderness to die?” And yet the reason why it’s more sad than funny is because they were overmatched; they were helpless. They were hopeless before the unstoppable force of Egypt. There was nothing that they could do against the Egyptian armies.
But Egypt wasn’t the only problem for Israel, were they? No, because Canaan was not a friendly face either. You only have to think about places like Sodom and Gomorrah. Not ten righteous, not even ten righteous in Sodom. What about what the Lord says to Abraham about the filling up of the iniquity of the Amorites in the land of Canaan? Idolatry, sexual immorality, violence and corruption? Those are the things that they were headed towards in the land of Canaan. And when the people sent the spies into the land, in that passage in Numbers 13, the majority report said, “We’re not going because the land is a land that devours its inhabitants.” They said, “All the people are of great height so that we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers.” And they turned, and they turned again to their old, familiar gripe about dying and they said to Moses, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt. Would that we had died in this wilderness. Would it not be better for us to go back to the land of Egypt?”
Do you see what they are saying? They are saying that Egypt seemed like a better option than Canaan. Death seemed like a better option to them than going into the land of Canaan. Poor, little Israel. The land that they were going in to take possession of, it was a land of seven nations more numerous and mightier than they were. Israel was not, you see, Israel was not the most impressive group of people. In fact, they were the fewest of all peoples, “the least of the peoples” as we read in Deuteronomy 7. How could they stand up to the size and the might and the defense and the violence of the people of Canaan? And to them, the Egyptians and the Canaanites would have seemed like immovable objects, as much so as the Red Sea and the walls of Jericho.
And do you know who would have followed in their footsteps in terms of worldly power? Just trace it on down. Trace it through the story of history, through the story of the Bible kingdoms like Assyria and Babylon and Persia and Greece, all the way to Rome. And it’s Rome that would be on the mind of the church in the first century, in the time when the book of Hebrews was written. Rome was responsible, no doubt, for the mistreatment that they faced, responsible for what they had experienced as this little group of believers to whom this book was written. Sometimes, we’re told, they were publicly exposed to reproach. There were those who were in prison, there were those who were forced to accept the plundering of their property, all at the hands of mighty Rome.
A few months ago, there was a family in New Orleans and they were cleaning up an overgrown part of their yard, and they uncovered a 1900 year old grave marker of a man named Sextus Congenius Veras. It was just this simple stone with a Latin inscription and they came to find out that the family who lived there before them didn’t really know what it was but they thought it was kind of a “cool piece of art” in their words. And so they put it in their backyard as a sort of garden decoration and then they forgot about it. And so here was this family cleaning up their backyard, doing some spring cleaning, and they come across this Roman gravemarker from 1900 years ago that turns out it had been removed from an Italian museum that had been bombed during WWII. And it made its way, somehow, all the way to New Orleans – we don’t know all the details of that story – until it was buried under some weeds and uncovered some months ago. Now here is a soldier in the Roman army, the Roman navy making headlines in 2025. Surely that is just a very New Orleans kind of story.
But it’s also in the headlines because it’s about the Roman Empire. And in fact, it’s because of soldiers like Sextus Congenius Veras that contributed to so much of the Roman domination. In fact, they called the Mediterranean Sea, the whole Mediterranean Sea, the Romans called “Mare Nostrum” – “Our Sea.” Historians say that the Romans basically made the Mediterranean a Roman lake.
Now what chance, what chance did a beleaguered little group of Christians have against the mighty Roman Empire? Maybe it would be better just to blend in. In fact, some people suggest that it was because Judaism was an approved religion in Rome, while Christianity was not, that there was this temptation, this temptation to these believers to shrink back, to shrink back to something that is approved, to something that is known, to something that is safe. And yet what is the writer of Hebrews saying? The writer of Hebrews says, “What about the Egyptians and the Red Sea? What about the Canaanites and the walls of Jericho? What did God do for His people then?” And verse 29 says, “By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.” Verse 30, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.” You see, the enemies of God’s people are no match before the mighty power of God. These are supernatural deliverances. These are miraculous interventions on the part of God on behalf of His people.
And He who, as we read back in verse 3 of this chapter, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.” The God who spoke the universe, the eons into existence, 100 billion stars in our galaxy, perhaps hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, the wonder of creation, the power and mystery of life, all out of nothing, all by His word. What is it then, what it is then to hold back the waters of the Red Sea so that the people of Israel could pass through as on dry land? Or what is it to release those same waters in judgment and destruction on the armies of Egypt? And then when the people of Israel come into the land of Canaan and to the walled city of Jericho shut up against them, who was it that caused these same walls to fall down? God caused the walls to fall down. It was not because of the military tactics of the people of Israel. It was not because of any weapons of war that they had in their hands. No, it was merely because they walked around the wall for seven days. And it was God, the Creator and Redeemer of His people, who delivered the enemy into their hands. No foe was too strong. No obstacle was too daunting for the almighty power of God. He is able to do anything for His people.
I read a story recently about a backup outfielder for the 1937 New York Yankees. His name was Roy Johnson. It says that at some point during that season he grumbled against the manager because the manager had laid into them about how they had played in a certain game that they lost. It seemed like an insignificant loss to him. And he said, “What does this guy expect us to do? Win every game?” And the manager did expect to win every game. And that outfielder, Roy Johnson, wasn’t on the team the next season.
What is it you expect from God? What is it you expect from God? Is there anything He can’t do to help and to preserve His people? What does Paul say in Romans chapter 8? “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” More than conquerors. You see, not rulers, not powers, not the Red Sea, not the walls of Jericho, not Egypt or Canaan or Rome. Nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And by the way, if those things cannot do anything to defeat God’s people, then it also stands to reason that there is nothing that God’s people need from them for help or for validation. We need God for our help and for our deliverance. He is our rock and our refuge. He is our deliverer and our strength.
And so I ask you, “Who are your usual suspects? Who are the usual suspects in your life?” Those things, those people, those obstacles in your life or against the church in general that cause you to fear, that make you want to shrink back and go with the flow and blend in with everyone else? Who is it? Who are your usual suspects? And the writer of Hebrews says, “Look away from those things because faith looks to the faithfulness and the power of God, the faithfulness and the power of God to preserve and keep and deliver and strengthen His people, no matter what.” See, the usual suspects, they have no chance. And we see the way that God’s people are delivered in miraculous ways.
And yet, what we also see in this passage is that sometimes God works in quiet and unexpected ways, even in miraculous ways. It may mean that God works through an unusual Savior as we see in verse 31. Who would have thought, who would have thought that deliverance from Jericho would come from Jericho? Verse 31 says that, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” Now it literally says that she “greeted or received the spies with peace.” Rahab extended peace to them. With peace. Now the rest of Jericho, what had they done? They were tightly defended against Israel. They had heard what the Lord had done for Israel at the Red Sea. They had heard about the victories that God had given to them against two of the kings of the Amorites, and they wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to handle it all on their own.
But Rahab was different, wasn’t she? And she had heard the same reports, and she believed in the Lord. It says in Joshua chapter 2 verse 11 from the lips of Rahab, “For the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” That is a remarkable confession of faith from this woman from pagan Canaan. And by faith, she hid the spies from Israel. She says, “Swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you, you will deal kindly with my father’s house.” And they did. And they did deal kindly with her, so that when the walls of Jericho fell and the city was destroyed, Rahab did not perish. Joshua 6:25 says, “But Rahab, the prostitute, and her father’s household, and all that 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.” You see, Rahab was an outlier. She was an anomaly in the whole story.
Think about what Israel had experienced at every step of the way as they left Egypt and headed to the promised land, as they wandered in those forty years in the wilderness. Every step of the way, Amalek routed them, Edom and Sihon blocked their way, Og fought back, Moab tried to curse and then seduce them, Midian made war. Every step of the way was not peace. And then there’s Rahab. And almost everything about Rahab made her an unlikely hero, didn’t it? A woman. A prostitute. A Gentile. From Jericho. Who would have thought, who would have thought the deliverance would have come from Jericho, that a citizen of the pagan enemies of God’s people would extend peace to God’s people? Who would have thought that a citizen of the pagan enemies of God’s people would put her life on the line for the sake of Israel? And it was not through anything supernatural or spectacular. It was actually something very simple and ordinary that she did for them. She just covered them up. She covered them up on a roof with stalks of flax and then she lowered them down the wall with a rope when the sun went down. It shows us that God works that way too – through ordinary means and unlikely people. And able even to turn adversary into ally like He did with Rahab in order to accomplish His purposes.
And I think we have to remember when we think about, when we talk about Rahab the prostitute, that Rahab the prostitute was every bit of one who was sinned against as she was a sinner. And you can go and talk to Mary Baldwin, one of our missionaries who works in the red light district in Athens, Greece. The women there are involved in prostitution, many of them against their will, victims of sex trafficking in real danger if they tried to get out. And Mary goes to them with Gospel hope and with tangible help. And how does that affect our view of sinners like Rahab? How might Rahab impact how we view and what God might do with those who seem like they are opposed to His way and opposed to His people? Is there grace? Is there grace in our minds, in our hearts, in how we relate to those who would stand in opposition against us?
And then who would have thought, who would have thought that someone like Rahab would become not just spared but that she would become woven in as an integral part of God’s overall plan of salvation? Rahab the prostitute and the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, as it’s found in Matthew chapter 1? There are five women, five women in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew chapter 1. They don’t have to be there, but the Gospel writer has put them there. And every one of them is associated with scandal, in some way is considered an outsider, is someone who is on the margins. And Matthew chapter 1, verse 5 and 6 says, “And Salmon the father of Boaz, by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed, by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David, the king.” Rahab – great-great-grandmother of King David. All the way down, trace it all the way to the end of that chapter, “to Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.”
And the wonder of the story of Rahab is that God subdued her to Himself. And then after He subdued her to Himself, she became not only an unlikely savior of God’s people, but she became an ancestor of the true Savior, of the true King, Jesus Christ. It’s remarkable that through Rahab God was at work to establish the reign of Jesus as King, to establish Jesus as the one who would restrain and conquer all of His and all of our enemies, all the enemies of the Church. You see, there’s a place for Rahab. There’s a place for Rahab. In spite of her being an outsider, in spite of her sin, in spite of whatever sin had been committed against her, there is a place for Rahab because of her faith – a faith, a faith that the God who overcomes whatever stands against His people is the same God who could overcome whatever stands in the way of her salvation.
Which is exactly what we find, the same thing, in Jesus. No obstacle, no sin, no checkered past, no want or lack can stick against us if we are trusting in Jesus and in His finished work of salvation – His life, death, resurrection, His ascension and His coming again in the last day. In fact, Jesus says that because of His death and resurrection, He has conquered the last enemy. He has conquered death. He says that because of His death and resurrection, He is building His Church and “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” “Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.”
I heard someone say one time, they said, “You know, I had just about given up all hope of a brighter past.” There’s no hope for a brighter past, is there? The past is past. But you see, by faith, God who takes those who have no hope of a brighter past and gives hope for a brighter future. He shows mercy and forgiveness. And through Christ, through faith in Christ, He is able to use even those who seem unlikely in His bigger plan of salvation in Jesus, like He did, like He did in the story of Rahab. And Brister Ware, sitting back there, Brister was telling me and some other people the other day some of his memories of growing up here in this church. And he said that there was one time when he was a little boy running around, it was when the church was at a different location, that Dr. Lowe, the pastor at the time, he knelt down to him and he said something to him that really stuck with him. It’s kept with him all of his life, even until now. And he said, he got down on his knee to little Brister and he said, “Brister, you belong here. There’s a place for you here.”
And that’s the story of Rahab. That’s the story of the Gospel. There is a place for her among the people of God. There is a place for you among the people of God. And nothing can stand in your way. Nothing can condemn because faith in Jesus is a conquering faith. It’s a faith that conquers all the usual suspects with an unusual Savior. A faith in which Christ subdues us to Himself and reigns and rules and defends us and restrains and conquers all of His and our enemies. And may we have the faith to look in expectation and confidence of what He might do for us and through us, for the glory of His great name.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we pause here at the beginning of a week, at the end of a day, and we give You thanks for the stories that You have placed in Your Word – stories of Your great faithfulness, and the way in which You have worked for Your people and through Your people in times past. And so we pray that You would give us similar faith – a faith in Christ, the one who reigns and rules and who conquers all of His and our enemies. And would You help us to go out with boldness, with humility that is nothing of our own, nothing of ourselves, of our own ingenuity or strength or might, but we depend every step of the way completely upon You and upon Your grace. And would You use us to be instruments of that same grace in the lives of those around us, even in the lives of those who may seem opposed to us. We give You thanks for all You do and have done for us, and we look forward in faith and hope to what You will accomplish in Your good timing. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.