Good Monday morning (4-25-11),

It is the season of Passover and Resurrection. In Egypt, the blood of the slain lamb was applied to the doorway of the home so the angel of death and destruction would pass over that house without doing harm.

In the same way we understand that Jesus was the perfect and final Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. Final means there won’t be any more. He was the final sacrifice because His blood did the work completely, absolutely, once-and-for-all.

Hanging on the cross He pronounced what all creation had been yearning to hear: “It is finished.”

At the moment of my salvation…my redemption, my cleansing, my transformation from one kingdom to another…God applied the blood of Christ to the doorway of my life. Death and destruction cannot pass, or get to me through, that protection.

The completeness and perfection of that cleansing and protection can be illustrated in the story of Rahab the prostitute, found in Joshua chapter 2.

Two spies sent to Jericho sought refuge in a prostitute’s home. She hid them and asked for something in return. Her request was both reasonable and impossible: that they preserve her life, and that of her family, when they returned to conquer the city. It was reasonable in that an exchange of one life for another could be expected. We’ll examine the impossibility in a moment.

The spies told her to hang a scarlet (red) cord in the window of her home. They agreed to preserve her life based on two conditions: “you have tied the scarlet cord in this window and you have brought all your family into your house.”

If the scarlet cord, representing the life-preserving protective blood applied to the doorway, did not hang in the window, she would perish. Anyone found outside the house (not under the protection of the blood) would perish. An oath had been spoken. But the promise was binding only if the conditions were met.

Don’t you love the way God speaks the same truth to us over and over until we understand it?!

Didn’t God say He would look over His Word to perform it? Didn’t He say He would remove our sins as far as the east is from the west? Didn’t He say He would cleanse us and make us whole?

These are oaths, promises, given to us from our Lord. They are binding as long as the conditions are met.

Our conditions are the very same as Rahab’s conditions. We must apply the scarlet cord, the red blood of Christ, to the doorway. In other words, place ourselves under the protection of the shed blood of the Savior. We do this by accepting what He did for us and making Him Lord of our “house”, of our lives.

But we must stay within that shelter. Just as Rahab’s rescue was binding only for those who stayed in the house, the house with the scarlet cord representing the blood of Christ, we are untouchable as long as we remain beneath the protective covering of the blood of Christ.

The blood is applied to us as a gift of grace and mercy from God. We receive it by faith. But we remain in that protection by an act of will…by choosing His ways over the ways of the world; by obeying His Word despite our feelings or the desires of the flesh; by drawing close to God and resisting the devil, who is the bringer of death and destruction.

The promise seemed impossible to fulfill because Rahab’s house was on top of a wall God intended to knock down! I’m so glad my natural circumstances have nothing to say about what God will do or can do on my behalf! Even if my house is on a wall that’s fixing to fall God can protect me and provide for me. Hallelujah!

He’s a God of the impossible. Not one word of His promises has ever failed. Rahab waited, trusting the promises made to her. It’s a picture of what God will do for us if we will wait and trust.

Rahab was a gentile (unbeliever), a foreigner (not one of God’s people), an idol worshipper, a prostitute (a sinner), and she was a traitor to her country. Could she have been a more unlikely candidate for redemption and sanctification? Despite all that was wrong with her she had one attribute that qualified her for rescue. She threw herself on the mercy of One greater than herself.

As a result of her faith God not only preserved her house, He rescued her life, saved her from destruction, and then demonstrated the completeness of her transformation by honoring her as one of only three women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Rahab, the sinner, the idolater, the outsider, the unbeliever, was so transformed she became one of the women through whom God brought the Savior to earth!

Because He is God and cannot lie, having said He is no respecter of persons (He doesn’t have favorites), then everything He did for Rahab He will do for me. He’ll do it for you. So don’t give up. Wait and Trust.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” 2 Cor. 4:16-18

“For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” 2 Timothy 1:11-13

Laurie Gross