Joshua 2
Two young men were sent by Joshua to see the city of Jericho. Like most of the great cities of that time, it had a high wall, so wide, that a house was built on it, where a woman, named Rahab, lived. No doubt it had steps up from the inside of the wall, and these men came there.
The king heard about the men, and he did not want them to carry back a report of the city, so he sent his men to take them.
Rahab knew the king would do harm to the men, and she wanted to save them because she had heard of God’s great power to Israel. So she hid the men under some flax which she had drying on her roof. And she told the king’s men they had gone away, and for them to hurry after them.
Then she talked with the men of Israel, telling them how frightened the people of Jericho were, because they had heard how God had brought the camp of Israel out of Egypt, and not long before had saved them from the wicked kings across Jordan. She seemed to have heard that they would come against Jericho, and she asked the men to promise to save her and her father, mother, brothers and sisters. They said they would do so if all would be in her house when they came again to Jericho.
It was then night, and she let the two men down to the ground outside the wall from her window, by a scarlet rope. And they told her to fasten that same rope from her window, so they could see it when they came to save her.
Do you not think that Rahab would begin at once to tell her relatives, and perhaps her friends and neighbors, that the only way for them to be saved from the dreadful judgment that was to come upon Jericho, was to come into her house?
May we too, tell all whom we know, that the only way for them to be saved from the dreadful judgment that is surely coming on this poor, Christ-rejecting world, is to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom alone salvation is to be found.
The men hid in the hills and got safely back to the camp, and told Joshua all that had happened. Later we find they kept the promise to Rahab.
Perhaps you notice that Rahab told the king’s men what was untrue. God could have saved her and the men from the king if she had told the truth. Rahab lived among a wicked people, and had herself sinned, but when she heard of the Lord, she believed in Him, and said, “The Lord, your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”
Later God gave her great honor, so she must have given up her wrong ways.
God has always shown mercy to any who will believe in Him.
Do you notice Rahab did not wait to ask to be saved until the trouble came?
ML 02/20/1938