Week 21

The Joy of Thy Salvation Joshua 2:1-14 Jericho was something like three miles wide and eight miles long.  That’s a big city.  And it had great walls around it for protection.  It sat strategically on the frontier of Canaan.  It was designed to protect the interior from enemies crossing the Jordan.  It was impenetrable.  Nothing got past Jericho.  That’s where God intended the Israelites to make their first strike.  A victory here would send a message throughout the entire land. God has Joshua send in two spies to check things out.  And where do you go if you want to find vulnerabilities in the biggest, baddest city in the land?  The two spies end up in a harlot’s house, Rahab the harlot, a prostitute.  I can just see everyone back in camp asking, “So guys, what’d you really go to her place for?”  Well, Rahab happens to live on the city wall.  The spies could slip in there without being noticed.  Besides, the neighbors are probably used to seeing strange men go in and out of Rahab’s place!  But they are quickly found out anyway, and the king, who evidently also knows Rahab well, sends troops to catch them. Rahab is faced with a problem.  She is harboring enemy spies, and as a citizen of the city and under the authority of the king, she would have to give them up.  But Rahab has learned of a higher authority.  She has heard of the miraculous way the Israelites had been freed from Egyptian slavery.  She has heard of their amazing victories over all who stood in the way.  And she has heard of the God by whose power they were delivered and sustained.  She knows that there is no chance of the city surviving the attack of the Israelites.  In fact, ever since the appearance of them beyond the Jordan, the whole city is quaking in their sandals.  Rahab believes in God and she knows that her life, and that of her family, is in His hands.  Yes, she lies to the soldiers.  But that is all she knows to do in her fledgling faith.  She is willing to risk all.  And God blesses her, not because of the lie, but because of her simple, childlike faith in Him.   Contrast the faith of Rahab to that of the Israelites.  That stiff-necked people has experienced firsthand what Rahab has only heard about.  They walk in the presence of God, tasting of His provision every day.  Yet, every step of the way they complain against Him.  In the end, they only experience partially the blessings that He has for them.  When was the last time you experienced the freshness of simple, childlike faith? Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, And sustain me with a willing spirit.  Psalm 51:10, 12