“So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there.” Joshua 2:1
As we make our way through the book of Joshua, laid before us are different and unique promises in this Land of Promise. Many assume the book of Joshua is about VICTORY and I’m sure you could make the case that victory in Jesus is scattered throughout this book… but after a thorough study, the real THEME is TAKING POSSESSION OF ALL THAT GOD HAS FOR US.
Here in chapter 2 and I would encourage you to read it for yourself, Joshua sends in not “12” spies (as I am sure you remember the bad experience Joshua had as 1 of the 12 when Moses sent them in) but “2.” Joshua tells them to go in and do a type of reconnaissance mission. He wants them to check things out and ‘especially Jericho.”
Now, in the midst of a military mission and 2-3 million Jews waiting back in the camp on the other side of the Jordan, there is “ONE” person that God has His eye on. It’s not the prototype person one would assume, but it is a prostitute living in Jericho who He unbeknownst to Joshua and the 2 spies God has set this whole mission up for. After meeting the 2 men, hiding them, protecting them, misleading her own people to save their hides, Rahab finally has a chance to profess her faith in Jehovah God. She asks the men for salvation from judgment and what do they tell her to do? So simple. No works attached. No striving of the flesh. No earning of her safety. They simply tell her to tie a scarlet cord in the window and when judgment comes all who are behind that scarlet chord will be saved. What a picture of salvation? What a picture of obtaining God’s favor by GRACE THROUGH FAITH.
Rahab went on after the conquest of Jericho to marry a Jewish man named Salmon, They had a son named Boaz who is the HERO of the book of Ruth as he swept in and married her and took care of her. They had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jessie, who was the father of Israel’s greatest KING… King David. And, if you read Matthew 1 in Christ’s genealogy there she is, in the lineage, the great great great…. GRANDMOTHER OF JESUS THE CHRIST. Only our God, can woo with grace and love and truth a prostitute from a heathen land to become a child of God and put her into none other than the FAMILY PORTRAIT OF KING DAVID AND JESUS THE MESSIAH.
May God’s grace and power and ability to save to the uttermost any who come to Him be marvelously on display in your life.
By His Spirit,
Pastor Bill