Discover His heart: He is willing to save anyone who calls Him Lord
Whenever I’m visiting a city for the first time anywhere in the world, I make it a point to find a travel book on the city or visit the local Visitor’s Center for maps and local information. But when I get down to the nitty-gritty about where to eat, shop and hang out, I talk to the locals. Yes, the hotel concierge is helpful to a point, but when I want to find the best seafood or barbeque ribs in town, I have a little chat with some of the locals, especially those who look like they’ve eaten a rib or two. Joshua’s two covert spies that entered Jericho must have had this same strategy; but, unlike them, I must admit I’ve never chatted with a harlot…to my knowledge.
@ Joshua 2
“Scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan River, especially around Jericho.’ So the two men set out and came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there that night.” (1) Help! What were two nice Jewish boys doing in a place like that! Well, I imagine it might be a good place to gather information from the locals. We are uncertain of their reason for stopping at Rahab’s place and they may have been unsure themselves, but we do know that God was in it. After all, if God can use a talking donkey, an ungodly Persian king and a stubborn Pharaoh to accomplish His will, He certainly can use a prostitute.
Rahab gave just the information the spies needed to know, “We are all afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror. For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely destroyed. No wonder our hearts have melted in fear! No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.” (9-11) Most agents of espionage only hope to have intelligence like this handed to them!
Rahab’s actions that night not only spared the lives of the two spies when the king’s men came searching for them, but also provided them with valuable information to report to Joshua. “Then the two spies came down from the hill country… and reported to Joshua all that had happened to them. ‘The Lord has given us the whole land,’ they said, ‘for all the people in the land are terrified of us.’” (23-24) Victory was at hand!
Through her encounter with the spies, Rahab and her entire family were saved. As a relative of Boaz, she is mentioned in Matthew in the lineage of Jesus, imagine that. And because of her faith, Rahab is included with the Heroes of Faith in Hebrews 11. When God chooses individuals to use for His purposes, we would be wise not to question the validity of their credentials. God saw a hungry heart in Rahab who recognized Him as “the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below,” and, sadly, many of the Israelites never made that leap of faith. Rahab the prostitute was a hero.
There are individuals connected with us at work, in the neighborhood or even in our families who we feel are the least likely to ever find the Lord as their Savior, but because they are in our lives, we are probably wrong. God sees their hearts and, like the spies, we are expected by God to follow His leading to their heart’s door with the message of Jesus. Who knows how God will use them to bring victory in our own lives.
Moving Forward: Because He knows each heart that is open to Him today, I’ll follow Him wherever He leads me, regardless.
Tomorrow @ Psalms 1-2
Phyllis Benigas 