“The Scarlet Cord” – FBC Morning Light (3/12/2024)

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. I hope your day got off, or your week got off to a good start yesterday, and is going well already today.

Well, today we're reading in our Bible reading plan in Joshua chapters 1 through 4, so starting a new book, the

Old Testament today. One of the favorite books of a lot of people, this Old Testament book of Joshua, recording how

Israelites went into the land of Canaan and were able to secure that land of promise for their posterity.

But today, these first four chapters are interesting. The first chapter, Joshua receives his commission to lead the people of Israel into the land of promise.

In chapter 2 is the story of the spies going in and scoping out the city of Jericho. Chapter 3, they actually cross the river, the

Jordan River, and in chapter 4 it talks about setting up these memorial stones, so that it's always a perpetual reminder that the

Lord brought them through that Jordan River on dry ground. I want to focus on chapter 2, and just really one little detail and the significance of that detail, and this account of the spies going into Jericho and scoping it out.

You know the story about Rahab and how she hides the spies and so forth.

They're being hunted down by the authorities. Word comes that they're staying at her place, and she covers for them.

She hides them upstairs and says that they've escaped, tells the soldiers that have come looking for them to go chase them off into the wilderness.

When the soldiers leave, Rahab is going to let these spies down and let them escape, give them direction how to get out of there.

But before she does that, she asks them, when you come to destroy this city, would you please be kind to me and spare me and my family?

So they promise to do so. Then Rahab lets them down by a scarlet cord.

And we read about that when the spies who are being let down, they basically tell her to let this scarlet cord hang out of your window.

So we read this in verses 17 and 18, men said to her, we will be blameless of this oath of yours which you have made us swear, that oath being, will spare your family, unless when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down.

So she has to keep that scarlet cord in her window once these guys leave.

But I want us to think about all that is wrapped up in that scarlet cord, all that's symbolized.

Think about the content of her faith that is bound up in that scarlet cord.

What is the content of her faith? You see in chapter 2, verses 9 and following, this is what she says.

She says, now remember, this is a woman who is running a house of ill repute, if you will.

She's Rahab the harlot, okay, living in Jericho. But she says this, she says,

I know that the Lord, and she uses the covenant name of the Lord, Yahweh, I know that he 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.

For we have heard how Yahweh 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. And as soon as we heard these things, our heart melted.

Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you. For Yahweh your

God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

So she believes that Israel's God, Yahweh, is the one true

God. So when she puts that scarlet cord, hangs that out her window, it is wrapped up in that cord, is the content of her faith, but also is her hope of deliverance.

In verses 12 and 13, she says, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I've shown you kindness, you also show kindness to my father's house and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from this death.

Okay, they say we will, but leave this scarlet cord hanging out your window. She leaves the scarlet cord hanging out her window, and that cord represents her hope of deliverance and salvation.

It also represents her confidence in, and really her reliability upon, her, if I can use the word, saviors, those who will save her from the destruction that the rest of the residents of Jericho are going to get, her confidence in these men who have made the promise.

Verse 14, the men said, our lives for yours, if none of you tell this business of ours, and it shall be when the

Lord has given us the land, we will deal kindly and truly with you. So they give a promise, they make a promise, that we will save you, we will spare you, if you hang the cord out.

She hangs out the cord. The cord symbolizes her confidence and trust in their promise, but it also symbolizes her patient endurance.

Verse 21, she sent them away and they departed, and it says, and she bound the scarlet cord in the window.

How long is that cord going to be there? How long is it going to hang out that window? She doesn't know, she doesn't know, but however long it takes, that's how long she's going to wait.

Patient endurance, so much wrapped up in that simple scarlet rope.

So our Father and our God, I pray that as we see what is wrapped up in the scarlet rope for Rahab, that these same things would be wrapped up in our hope in you, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.