There are many different ways to enter a city. You can enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey to shouts of welcome and triumph as Jesus did on Palm Sunday. Or you can enter by stealth as two men entered Jericho – only to meet one of Jesus’ distant ancestors. God can use both ways of entry for His merciful and loving purposes.

The two events are connected. For the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the twelve hundred years earlier entry of the spies into Jericho combine elements of grace and judgment.

Palm Sunday was a judgment. Jesus was not surprised when Palm Sunday turned into Good Friday. He knew what He had come to do and what would be done to Him.

This is why Jesus wept on Palm Sunday as He approached the city. He wept because He knew the consequences of rejecting Him. He knew that the beautiful temple would be destroyed. He knew that the City was going to bring destruction upon itself.

This is not what God desires. This is what makes God weep.

This fact is nowhere better shown than in the story of Rahab. The story begins with the people of Israel who have come up out of slavery in Egypt. They have lived for forty years in the wilderness. The battle and travel hardened new generation of Israel is now encamped across the Jordan River from Jericho.

Before they enter the land, God gives them their marching orders recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. God says that they are to remain separate from the people of the land. They are to be a holy people, remembering the covenant.

It is not that God arbitrarily rejects the people of Canaan. He rejects their practices and He will not have His people corrupted. Like a doctor removing a destructive malignancy, God stands in judgment of all that we do that defaces His image in us. He wants us to be a Holy People, uncontaminated by the things which would destroy us.

God is judging. But in judging, God is certainly not functioning from whim. God tells us through Ezekiel that He does “not delight in the death of anyone who dies.” He sees people sending themselves to hell and He cries, “turn to Me that you may live.” He is not an immoral God who arbitrarily devastates innocent people. God judges, but He judges in grace. And there is always room for the one who wants to turn to God and live.

So the people of Israel prepare for the conquest of Jericho – the gateway to the land of promise. And Joshua sends spies into the city where they are assisted by no one else but the town’s prostitute. It is in Rahab that we find the surprise of the story.

If God were going to destroy Moorpark and he decided to save only one person, whom do you think that would be? Would it be our Mayor? Would it be a long-time businessman? Do you think it would be the me? Would it be you? Whom do you think God would choose?

In Joshua 2 God chooses a person in the city of Jericho to spare from the coming destruction. The person He chooses is Rahab.

Rahab is a fleshing out of the promise God makes in His word, “If with all your heart you truly seek Me, you shall surely find Me.

Why did God have Joshua send spies to Jericho? It was certainly not for military intelligence. If you are going to supernaturally knock the walls flat as a pancake, you don't need intelligence to influence your military strategy. God already knew His strategy.

I am convinced that God knows that in that doomed city is a sinful woman who is looking for Him. God sends the spies into Jericho to give Rahab the opportunity to find Him. She has truly sought the Lord and the Lord will deliver her. But Rahab cannot be saved on her own. She needs these two men to find her and tell her the good news. There is always a human dimension to evangelism.

It was told the king of Jericho, "Behold, certain men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, "Bring forth the men that have come to you, who entered your house; for they have come to search out all the land."

This is the moment of truth for Rahab. Before this, she could have gone along and helped the spies without really making a commitment in her heart. But now she must choose sides. Will she protect these spies or will she warn the city? Something deep in her heart helps her to make this decision.

Rahab knows that the only way she could obtain God’s protection from destruction is to risk everything about herself. In order to have faith in God, she has to lose faith in everything else! Rahab could have turned the spies in and then benefited from the reward of being the one who captured them. She could have discounted the many stories she heard about the Israelites and their God. But Rahab bases her faith not on who she is -- a woman of Jericho, a prostitute, a woman living on the outside of the city walls. Rahab bases her faith on who God is – the God who does what He says He will do, who keeps His promises, and who protects and saves His people. Rahab willingly surrendered everything she had to His mercy!

Rahab is scared but she is not only gripped by fear. Deep within her is an intuitive sense that there are forces larger than her and her people at work. There is a spark of spiritual awareness that God desires to fan into a flame.

Now Rahab had not stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai. She had not been numbered among the tribes of Israel. Yet she dares to make this bold confession of faith: "The Lord your God is the Lord of heaven above and on earth below."

How does she know this? She even has word about what happened at the Red Sea. This was long before email. How does she know this?

Could it be that the God who spoke to Abraham had also spoken to Rahab? Could God have been places we have never visited?

Rahab reveals an understanding of God beyond human capability -- considering her background. Perhaps it is the very nature of her life that causes her to recognize the power of God. She has been entrapped by sin for so long, that when she is faced with the Divine, her soul cries out in longing to be free from those things that would separate her from her Creator.

We see the same thing in Jesus’ ministry — where the rejects of society are the ones most drawn to Jesus’ message. In fact, in Matthew 21:31 Jesus tells the Pharisees, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you."

Rahab begs the Hebrew men to give her a promise of safety for her and her family. “Now then, swear to me by the Lord for I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a sure sign, and save alive my father and mother and brothers and sisters and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.”

The spies promise. They point to a scarlet rope, and tell her to hang that rope in the window. Any member of her family who remain in the house during the fighting will be safe.

God commands conquest and then He reaches into the doomed city to save a hooker. No one is outside of God’s notice. No one is outside His mercy! The one who is saved is the one who responds and God goes to enormous lengths to provide the opportunity to respond.

How do you feel about such a God? That he is scandalous? That He is surprising?

Well the story gets more surprising. For Rahab is not only saved from death by her trust, but is declared right before God.

Rahab and Sarah, Abraham’s wife, are the only two women named in the famous Hall of Faith of Hebrews 11. Rahab is also commended by James, our Lord’s half-brother. He speaks of how Abraham’s belief in God was accounted to him for righteousness. Then in James 2:25 he writes: “In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? She too was ‘considered righteous for what she did.’”

Although her faith is like that of Abraham, she is unlike the patriarch in almost every other way. She is a pagan, a woman, and a prostitute. Nevertheless, she chooses to become identified with the people of Israel, a decision based on faith.

And not only is Rahab justified before God, she is included as a part of the people of Israel. Not only is she included as a part of Israel. She marries a Hebrew soldier named Salmon. They had a son named Boaz. Boaz marries Ruth and they had a son named Obed. Obed is the father of Jesse, and Jesse is the father of Rahab's great-great grandson, David the King. And David, of course, has as one of his descendants our Lord Jesus Christ. Writer Frederick Beuchner suggests that having a bit of Rahab in His blood is why Jesus always was such a ready friend to those who practiced Rahab's former profession.

Rahab probably did not understand the significance of the scarlet rope the spies told her to hang from her window as a sign of protection, any more than did all of the Jews who were saved out of Egypt understand the significance of the scarlet blood splashed over their doorways at Passover. They came to understand the significance of the blood sacrifice of the spotless lamb. The scarlet cord of protection in Rahab’s window has in its color a significance which reaches forward in history to the salvation that later came to Rahab and to us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

For Jesus, descendant of Rahab, entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Later that same week, He took bread and broke it – His body broken for us. He took wine and poured it – His blood shed for us.

Let us come to His table knowing that God keeps His promise: “If with all your heart you truly seek Me, you shall surely find me.” He kept it for Rahab and He will keep it for us.

If we were asked to choose, we probably would not have chosen Rahab as the one to be saved from Jericho. But God chose Rahab because He loved her. Her faith was based not on who she is but on who God is. And He loves you just as much.

What have you done that makes you feel unworthy to be part of God’s family? What secret sins from your past are still haunting you and causing you to be discouraged and to feel worthless?

There is nothing that you have done that is so awful that it can separate you from God’s love. Be like Rahab, and step out in faith and accept God’s invitation to you.