Rahab’s Red Rope

Read Joshua 2-6
 
Joshua 2:18 unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.  
&
Hebrews 11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.  
 
ONE reason we are viewing the lives of particular people from the Old Testament is to see God’s redemptive power is true. Faith in his renewing Spirit very dramatically changes lives. Knowing what God has done in the past through many different people, we have a sure hope none of us is too broken for God to save, change and use us.
    If you don’t know Rahab’s story, please read the Judges passage. We meet her in pagan Jericho when God’s law commanded the Jews to reject everything about her. She was a Gentile in a city so corrupt it needed to be destroyed and rebuilt. She live in a form of sexual depravity that pointed to Baal worship. What was good about Rahab?
    As the Hebrews passage tells us, God had chosen this pagan prostitute to use her for his good. In faith, she was born again to confess God’s sovereign power. Joshua 2:10 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. Knowing God, she acts for God. Both Hebrews & James puts her alongside Abraham as an example of faith in action: James 2:25 In the same way, 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?  
    The spies gave Rahab instructions to keep a scarlet cord out her window as a sign that she and her family were to be spared from Israel’s destruction. She obeyed and all were saved. This red cord has become a symbol of God’s red cord displaying his grace throughout Scripture to point to the red blood of Jesus Christ – God’s sign to us of his saving grace.
    By faith Rahab’s life became new. She would become a citizen of Israel. She would marry into the tribe of Judah. One of her descendants is Obed. We’ll see him in Ruth’s story. From Obed came David, and the generations continue to Jesus Christ. (Mathew 1)
    In Jesus’ blood, Rahab’s story is God’s grace story for all who seek God’s redeeming power. As Rahab, we are born aliens’ to God’s kingdom. We are Gentiles in a broken world until God grants us faith to display the cord of salvation in our hearts and our lives. Thank God, he has given us the safe place from Satan’s assaults.
 
Psalms 37:40 The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.