My church is reading through the Bible this year together. Our church has been been highly focused on the unity of the body of Christ. My husband and I picked up on this unity when we began visiting there two years ago and not long after we joined the church began purposely planning ways to grow this unity. We are all looking with hopeful expectation to see what the Lord will do through us as a local body as we grow more unified in Him through the study of His Word.
This looking with hopeful expectation is what stirred my heart in our One Year Bible reading the other day. I am currently in the book of Joshua. As I read of Rahab and the spies in Joshua 2, there was a verse that jumped out at me that I don’t believe has before in this way. That is part of the beauty and mystery of the Word of God, it’s living. You never stop learning from His Word and He speaks to you through it… if you are willing to listen.
Rahab had heard of the children of Israel along with everyone else in Jericho and all the neighboring cities around. The LORD had made quite a disturbance in the area from all that transpired in Egypt and in the wilderness up to the day that the children of Israel finally camped by the Jordan River. The once believed great gods of Egypt had been completely annihilated by the God of these Hebrew slaves and everyone was afraid and unsure of these people and this now very Known God.
Jericho had their own gods as well, all the nations did… but Rahab had decided that she was not going to trust in them. I have no doubt that God already had Rahab’s heart. It was no accident that these spies ended up at her house. This was a woman who was enslaved as well, not in physical chains, but by society and culture and the desperation to provide for her family, and I bet as the news of what happened in Egypt made its way past the walls of Jericho she cried out in her heart asking for the same deliverance that was granted the children of Israel be granted to her. The God of these Hebrew slaves, the Great I AM, heard her. He always, ALWAYS, answers a heart’s cry to know Him.
The spies came. Rahab hid them. She even lied to protect them. Then she told them how to escape and she asked them to spare her and her family when they came in to destroy the city. When it came time for the spies to leave they told her to hang a scarlet cord in the window so that they would know that she was the one to be delivered.
Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household.
Joshua 2:18
I believe it was the spies that gave her the scarlet cord. In the book of Exodus we learn that when the Lord gave Moses instructions concerning the priest and the tabernacle scarlet yarn was a must in the carrying out of them. The curtains, the screen, the veil all were woven using scarlet yarn. All the scarlet yarn was gathered from donations given by the people of Israel which were collected from the Egyptians as they left the nation in haste after the tenth and final plague that brought the death of the firstborn of all not under the blood of the Lamb. This cord, this scarlet cord, was to be hung in her window when they came into the land.
However, it was not the scarlet cord that pricked me as I read this historical event again. Instead, this time, I noticed when Rahab hung this scarlet cord in her window.
And she said, “According to your words, so be it.” Then she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
Joshua 2:21
Rahab didn’t wait for the attack to hang the cord. She didn’t throw her opportunity for deliverance in a drawer to grab at a more opportune time. She didn’t didn’t put it in a safe place to come back to later. She also didn’t hide it in fear. She hung it right then.
How long did that cord hang in Rahab’s window?
The spies hid for three days before they even left the city (Joshua 2:22). Then they returned to Joshua and still had to cross the Jordan with all the people (Joshua 3). After crossing over all the males were circumcised and after they were healed from their circumcision they celebrated the Passover (Joshua 5). Then they still had to march around the wall of Jericho for seven days (Joshua 6).
Rahab had all that time to hang that scarlet cord. She had all that time to wait before she hung that thread of salvation in her window. Yet she didn’t wait. She hung it immediately.
She was hanging by a thread. A thread of a promise. A promise that she had placed not just herself in but all those she loved.
This scarlet cord hung in her window for all to see. She didn’t care. She wasn’t waiting for a sign of the coming attack. She was NOT taking any chances of it not being there when the time came. She was not only trusting in the promise of this scarlet cord to deliver her in the day, she was trusting it to keep her until that day.
Rahab could hang by a thread… because Rahab’s hope wasn’t in the thread of that scarlet cord, it wasn’t in the spies, it wasn’t in their promise to her. She didn’t know these men, but she knew their God. Her hope was in Him. Her hope was in the One who watched over the promise made by the spies who handed her that scarlet cord. She knew that He was no ordinary god, but He was THE GOD!
for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.
Joshua 2:11-13
Rahab was able to immediately hang that scarlet cord in her window because she was not ashamed and she was not afraid. She knew the One in whom she believed and she knew He was able to deliver her…
She no longer was a slave to fear. She no longer was a slave to the culture in which she lived. She no longer was a slave to the ridicule of others. She didn’t care what they had to say about that scarlet cord hanging in her window. She made a public display of her faith.
For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
2 Timothy 1:12
She didn’t know when God was coming for her… she just knew she was going to be ready when He came.
For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
Matthew 24:44