(Or “The Peace In The Promise”)
As I considered this week’s blog, tornado warning signals were blaring. There was notification heard throughout the city that imminent danger was likely. The storm sirens were installed at some point after a history of frightening events.
There were no warning sirens in Jericho when Joshua’s two spies arrived in town. But there was a warning system in place of some sort, based on a history of frightening events. Let’s look back.
Forty years before where we pick up, Moses had sent in 12 spies to see what their land was like. Ten spies said, “Oh, that’s a great land, and it is true that milk and honey flow and that produce is incredible. It’s so incredible that two men have to carry it. The problem is some of those men are giants so we’d best stay out of there.”
God had called that “an evil report of unbelief”. Now it was time to see how the land had changed in four decades so Joshua sent in two spies. They encountered Rahab. She was a veritable fountain of information.
The previous generation’s spies went back and told Moses the men were giants and the spies were like grasshoppers in the giant’s eyes. Years later Rahab let these two spies know that the reverse was true.
“I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. 10 For 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 the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Joshua 2:9-11
Jericho’s king sent word to Rahab because he knew the spies had gone to her house. He wanted her to turn over the men to him because he knew they had come to spy out the land. Instead of obeying her king, Rahab made a choice to protect the spies God had sent. When the men the king had sent were gone, Rahab went to the roof where she had hidden the two spies. The conversation was a plea.
The interesting thing about this plea was that Rahab was not in a covenant with God as the spies were. Rahab had no right to ask any favor of these men even though she had helped them. Because she had no covenant. She was asking for protection in the covenant the spies were in even though she did not know their God. By choosing to help God’s people, Rahab partook of the covenant the spies were living in and benefiting from.
Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father’s house, and give me a true token, 13 and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.” Joshua 2: 12,13
The rest of Joshua 2 explains the conditional covenant the spies and Rahab entered into. If Rahab would let down a scarlet rope from the window she lowered them to freedom from, when the Israelites came to take the city her family would be preserved.
What would it be like to know men were coming to destroy your lifestyle and even take the lives of your family? Even the king was expecting destruction, and destruction would come. They all knew the God of Israel was going to give victory to His people.
But Rahab had peace while in the middle of trouble. She could look at the scarlet rope and hear the promise of the covenant. Rahab became part of the covenant and the covenant changed her destiny. Rahab became one of the women named in the lineage of Jesus. In the natural, she was unqualified. In God’s plan, she was part of the deliverance.
If we are “in Christ” we become part of Christ’s covenant with the Father. Without Christ, we are unqualified. In Him, we are as much a covenant son as Jesus is, whether we are women or men. In Christ, the terms of our covenant are equal to that of Jesus.
(If you read this and aren’t sure if you’re “in Christ”, email me: forhisglory1000@gmail.com)
For His Glory 