Many years ago I read a book by Francine Rivers entitled, The Scarlet Thread, one of the best Christian fiction books I've ever read. In fact, I want to read it again this summer. The theme of the book is unconditional love, agape love, which true Christians seek to emulate but which only God can fully express.
God expresses His unconditional love through His amazing grace, which is very hard for us performance-oriented people to understand or receive. Perhaps that is why God chose to use Rahab as He did - - - to show us His grace.
Today the central text is Joshua 2. (Yes, I'm jumping around in "early Joshua", for some reason). It would be helpful if you read the entire chapter, as I'm not going to cut/paste it here.
Rahab was a pagan Amorite woman, a successful businesswoman, and a whore. Yet, she had the shrewdness to see what was on the horizon and she cast her lot with (put her faith in) the God of Israel for both her physical and spiritual salvation.
Here's the synopsis:
Joshua sent his two best, young men to see what the "fear factor" was in Jericho. They ended up in a whorehouse, a place where they could get a lot of information. (I'm being serious here. Do you really think Joshua's two best men would "abandon" their mission and jeopardize the future of their entire people for a "dalliance"? Not at all likely!) Apparently, via the men who visit such places and what they tell the women with whom they interact, much information (overt and covert) gets exchanged. The two spies got the intel they sought, but information about them leaked out from there as well. Pretty soon the king's authorities came calling at Rahab's establishment. She lied to protect Joshua's men, hid them effectively and helped them escape down the city wall via a long, red rope. Before she let them go, however, she testified to her belief in their Jehovah God, and extracted from them a promise to spare her and her household when the Israelites captured the city.
17-20 The men told her, “In order to keep this oath you made us swear, here is what you must do: Hang this red rope out the window through which you let us down and gather your entire family with you in your house—father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Anyone who goes out the doors of your house into the street and is killed, it’s his own fault—we aren’t responsible. But for everyone within the house we take full responsibility. If anyone lays a hand on one of them, it’s our fault. But if you tell anyone of our business here, the oath you made us swear is canceled—we’re no longer responsible.”
21 She said, “If that’s what you say, that’s the way it is,” and sent them off. They left and she hung the red rope out the window.
The Message
The same is true for us who believe on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We have hanged the scarlet thread out the window of our soul. At the other end are the everlasting promises of our faithful God, our Redeemer. It is impossible for us to keep from falling into sin, "whoring around" if you will. Our salvation is not dependent upon our good actions. Even when we fail to hold tight to Him, He is holding tight to us. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Maybe that is where Francis Chan got the title of his book on the topic: Crazy Love.
I want to point something out here. Once Rahab hangs the scarlet thread out her window there on the city wall, we don't see her standing there, eyes squinted tightly shut, holding on to the other end for dear life, as if her life depended on it. No, look again at her response to the promise in verse 21:
She said, “If that’s what you say, that’s the way it is,” and sent them off. They left and she hung the red rope out the window.
She.Trusted.God.I think I've mentioned in the blog that I'm reading another excellent book, called One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World, by Tullian Tchividjian. I highly recommend that Christians and non-Christians read it, because it so beautifully explores and explains God's grace - - - from the viewpoint of a young man who for over 20 years believed that grace too good to be true.
He wasn't the only one. Many true Christians find God's grace too good to be true! Oh, we know we are saved by it, but then we exhaust ourselves trying to prove ourselves worthy of it. We flip from being Rahab the Harlot to becoming Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50)! This produces less love, more fear and ever-increasing demands that we "follow the Law". In fact, if the unsaved world looks at the Church to see the grace of God, they are often disappointed.
Well, I'm on the verge of rabbit-trailing off into another blog post. Back to Rahab: did you know that there were only two women that the writer of Hebrews mentioned in his "roll call of faith"? Look at Hebrews 11:31 (The Message) - - -
By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.
The other one was Sarah (Abraham's wife), by the way. Both these highly imperfect women - - their faith in Jehovah God was, like Abraham's, posted into their accounting ledgers as righteousness. They both received the grace of God. Let me close with a quote from Tchividjian's book.
"Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable...The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed, but the work of the Redeemer."
Dear Father, thank you for extending Your amazing love to every person, regardless of how "great" or how "small". Oh that we can come to a deeper understanding of Your grace, so that Your supernatural peace can pervade our hearts, but even more importantly so that this lost world can truly see You! In Jesus' name, amen.
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