The Israelite spies in Joshua 2 ended up at the house of a prostitute after they were sent out to Jericho. Now, Jericho was the city with a wall that surrounded it completely and living within that wall was Rahab the prostitute. As crazy as it sounds, the walls were meant to fortify the city and it was considered the most important part…so if there was a prostitute living within the walls, shouldn’t that give you an idea of what it was like? There is no Biblical account for what was going on, but we can reason among ourselves that if the wall is considered important and she was there within that wall, we can connect the dots that it was probably quite wicked and the Lord was not their God. There are scriptures alluding to the conditions of surrounding areas, so we can assume Jericho was the same.
Hebrews 11:31 says, “By faith Rahab the prostitute received the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed.” We can find her story in Joshua 2 where to paraphrase, the spies came into her house and she hid them and lied to the king saying that they came but had left…when she actually had them hid on her roof among some flax she had up there. She went up there and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devote to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and the earth beneath.” (verses 9-11)
In the beginning, we see her as a prostitute, but in those verses we just read, we see her proclaim God as Lord. Now, we probably are sitting her asking ourselves, “How can this lady be doing all this and acknowledge Him as Lord? She knew she was being a bad girl!” We can’t know for certain that she was in this life because she wanted to be, but we also know that we all had a day where we had seen the hand of God at work and made the declaration that He was Lord and we needed help from the destruction that we deserved! We were born into flesh and just because we know something to be right, doesn’t mean we always walk in righteousness. This was Rahab’s moment on that roof among the stalks of flax. She proclaimed who God was and made a choice to be hidden in Him. I looked up about flax and it symbolizes purity and righteousness. Rahab wasn’t perfect, but she was proclaiming a perfect, righteous God as they hid under the symbol of who God was! He was their Almighty protector!
Now, we know that she told a lie to the king and said that the spies came to her house, but left as it was getting dark, knowing they were being hid on the roof. Did God need her to lie to protect these spies? Absolutely not, but she did. Listen…God will use us sometimes in spite of ourselves. I think this is a good lesson that in the midst of Jericho’s doom, Rahab made a decision she thought was “helping God”, when in actuality, God doesn’t need our help…he just needs us to be obedient. Well, good thing Rahab seen this and asked the spies to save her house in the destruction of Jericho, because she helped them. They obliged and asked her to let down a scarlet cord through the window for her household and do not come outside and tell no one. She held to her promise, as did the spies and when Jericho was destroyed, she and her family was spared. She was spared because she did as she was commanded and showed symbolically her allegiance to the Lord. Just as the blood on the doorposts in Exodus, her scarlet cord was evidence that she had abandoned her former life and was accepted the Lord in faith. Obedience is sacrifice. She sacrificed her old life for a new one…literally and spiritually.
Why is this lying prostitute a hero? That’s our judgmental way of looking at God using someone that didn’t seem worthy, isn’t it? Well, are any of use worthy? The answer is no. But God uses unworthy and unqualified people everyday. He doesn’t ask you to be either of those things…He just wants you to be willing. She was willing to abandon the loyalty she had to a lifestyle to follow God. She did it without haste because she had seen and heard about what God had done and what he was going to do! That should be our faith! We have seen God work in our lives and those around us, but sometimes we refuse to abandon the things that keep us from living a life more abundant.
We don’t want to abandon for abundance.
We have to be willing to lay down the things in our life in peace and pickup those things of God with purpose! She just didn’t believe, but she acted upon that belief. That is faith, my friend. Faith is belief in action. The thing I love the most is that she is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. The first Gentile woman who ended up being the great (plus about 30 more greats) grandmother of Jesus! Now, tell me that doesn’t get you excited! To know that God allowed a woman of the night to be in the bloodline of the Savior of the world!
You hear me…your past doesn’t define your future and your current position does not determine your purpose. If you are struggling with your current position and feel you are stuck in a wall living out a life that doesn’t make sense to you, drop down your scarlet cord and know you can be saved from where you are. The wall will fall, but you will rise. You are more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We all have a past…but more importantly, you have a future.
