WOMEN OF WONDER - Rahab: The Scarlet Cord of Salvation (Mother’s Day)
May 12, 2019
Joshua 2:1-21 (p. 147)
Introduction:
One of the most amazing books I’ve ever read is Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel…and the first chapter starts this way…
On a blustery October night in a church outside Minneapolis, several hundred believers had gathered for a three-day seminar. I began with a one-hour presentation on the gospel of grace and the reality of salvation. Using Scripture, story, symbolism, and personal experience, I focused on the total sufficiency of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The service ended with a song and a prayer. Leaving the church by a side door, the pastor turned to his associate and fumed.
“Humph, that airhead didn’t say one thing about what we have to do to earn our salvation!”
Something is radically wrong.
The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper. The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works where-in the elite are honored and the ordinary ignored. Love is stifled, freedom shackled, and self-righteousness fastened. The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded.
Put bluntly: the American Church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love.
Why have we stopped presenting God as the shepherd who searches for lost sheep…and more like an authoritative school master who rewards good little boys and girls with gold stars?
Even though we read: “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called…you weren’t wise…you weren’t influential…you weren’t of noble birth…but God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise…He chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are. So that, no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus.”
(1 Cor. 1:26-30)
He called…He chose…He pursued…It is because of Him…
Our story this morning begins with these words…
Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two spies from Shittim, “Go look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.” (Joshua 2:1)
I. WHAT KIND OF GOD CHOOSES A PROSTITUTE’S HOUSE?
I’ll tell you what kind of God does! The same God who chose to use Tamar’s incestuous relationship with her father in law Judah in the lineage of His Son. The same God who chooses the lowly, the broken, the outcast, to be the preplanned recipients of His grace.
Rahab’s not just a prostitute…Rahab is not an Israelite…She, like Tamar and Ruth, are outsiders…They aren’t part of the people of God…They are Canaanites…Idol worshipping, lost people who don’t even know about Jehovah God, except for rumors they’ve heard about Him.
Some say the spies went to Rahab’s house because men going to a prostitute’s house, especially strangers, wouldn’t seem unusual, they wouldn’t stand out.
But I believe they went to Rahab’s house because a providential God was already at work there.
The spies sent by Joshua are to look over the whole land…“but especially Jericho.”
It’s a God-incident that they enter Rahab’s house, not a coincidence!
The same is true for me and you…God is pursuing us…He sends messengers into our house…into our lives…and maybe we’ve heard about Him…but now we’ve got an opportunity to choose Him…even if its dangerous to do so…
It was for Rahab…Listen:
JOSHUA 2:2-11 (p. 147)
The king of Jericho finds out about the two Israelite spies…He knows they’re at Rahab’s house…He demands she produce them…she has a choice…save her own hide…or risk it all. That’s what faith is.
Faith is a response to God when He enters your life…And Rahab wasn’t being saved because of her race. She was being saved because of grace.
John 6:44 is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible…it says: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.”
Jesus plainly says, “The catalyst for our salvation is God the Father…he’s the pursuer…He’s the one who woos us…whether we are a prostitute, a pothead, a Pharisee, a tax collector, a fisherman, or rebel.
Rahab sends the King’s men on a wild goose chase…and after the gates are locked (not great news if you’re a spy) she comes up on the roof of her house, the spies crawl out from under the silk flax, and she says….I know the Lord has given this land to you…a great fear has fallen on all of us here in Canaan because we’ve heard of how you conquered Og and Sihon…our hearts melted…our courage failed…BECAUSE THE LORD YOUR GOD IS GOD!!!
[I know that fear Rahab and her people felt….where your heart melts…your courage leaves you…I was 17, lost in my sin…rebellious in my heart…running as far from God as I could get…and then He got my attention…I hit a mail truck in front of my High School…went to jail…and then the next day saw my car…totally destroyed…and I knew I should have died in that wreck…and the Holy Spirit whispered…“If you had, you would have gone to Hell…You are lost…]
I think that’s what Rahab felt when she thought of His power and what was coming to Jericho…and that conviction led her to do something about it.
She looks at the spies and says, “Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters and all who belong to them and that you will save them from death.”
God had also sent people into my life to point me toward the cross of Christ. The most powerful demonstration of who God is that this world has ever seen…I cried out for salvation…and God saved me…completely…totally…Death wouldn’t win…Jesus won!
II. ALL BECAUSE OF A SCARLET CORD OF FAITH
Rahab’s house was part of the city wall to Jericho…she lets the spies down by a rope through the window…she tells the spies…“Go hide in the hills for 3 days until the search party returns…then go home…
Before they leave, Rahab makes a deal with them…Listen:
JOSHUA 2:17-21 (p. 148)
That scarlet cord hung in her window for days…It hung there as Israel marched around the city…and the trumpets blew. Joshua 6:22 reveals what happens…
JOSHUA 6:22-23 (p. 150)
She and her entire family are saved because she kept her oath…she believed in faith and acted on it…that scarlet cord revealed that she belonged to God.
The writer of the Hebrew letter says, “By faith, the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.” (Heb. 11:31)
James, the Lord’s brother says, “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.” (James 2:25)
The Bible is always filled with symbolism. And that scarlet rope that hung from a prostitute’s window is no accident.
That scarlet rope of faith stretched all the way to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Rahab asked for a “sure sign” from the spies…it was a covenant agreement. They said, “Tie this scarlet cord in your window.” It’s a sure sign because of what that scarlet cord emphasizes…it’s a blood covenant…it’s a blood oath. Remember these Israelites would continue into the promised land with the tabernacle of God being the place where their covenant with God was kept (in the Ark)…where this covenant was continually reemphasized with blood through sacrifices.
If you remember what the tabernacle looked like, you might remember that throughout the tabernacle, its walls, its curtains, its embroidered cherubim, its clothing for the priests - throughout it all, there was interwoven scarlet thread. And between the walls of those scarlet woven and embroidered curtains, a ritual happened repeatedly, the ritual of sacrifice. Animals were taken, their scarlet blood drained and gathered, sprinkled, their carcass butchered and placed again and again on the alter to signify to the people that once again, this covenant they had with God was signed and sealed. They were his people, God was their God, their sins were forgiven.
To the Israelites, the scarlet thread interwoven throughout the tabernacle, along with the repeated ceremonies of sacrifice were for them symbols of covenant, of their agreement with God, sealed through the shedding of blood, that their sins were forgiven and they were God’s very own people.
It was for good reason that these spies, who were about to be let down by a scarlet rope to escape from the city, insisted that the sign of their covenant agreement with Rahab, to save her and her family, would be the sign of that scarlet rope hanging out of her window. They were giving what Rahab had demanded, a sure sign, the covenant was sealed. Having made the agreement with the spies, Rahab quickly tied the rope so that it hung out of her window, a visible witness to an agreement made. She would have to trust that hope, that it would secure her future because of that agreement.
The writer to the Hebrews points us to this truth:
HEBREWS 9:19-21 (p. 842)
The Great Great Grandma of Jesus was saved by the providential grace of God and that scarlet cord she tied in her window by faith, pointed to the blood of her grandson…His blood would save us all.
His blood poured out on the cross would become the scarlet cord of salvation tied in the window of the world…
My prayer is that as God seeks you…as He draws you to Himself, you will experience His mighty power, and by faith this morning…bind that cord around your life.
