Yehoshua 2:1-14 and Luke 17:1-18:43

[Jacob Ben Avraham]

JOSHUA 2:1-24 

    The other “Spy Story” involves “two” spies.   Yehoshua (Joshua) sends them out to spy out “Jericho” They arrive at the house of “Rahab” a prostitute, she hides them and expresses her faith in the “unseen God of the Hebrews” From verses 9 to 13 we read of her faith.

     She hid the spies because the king of Jericho somehow found out that they had come to her.  She risked her own life and the life of her family by hiding them on the roof. 

     “Our lives for yours” were the words of the spies when they left through the window by a rope. (vs 14) but faith needs action, (faith without works is dead) to show her faith, she needed to tie a scarlet cord in the window, so that when the Israelite army came, Rahab and her family would be saved.   

     This reminds us of Passover, that when the angel of death saw the “red” (blood) on the doorposts, the angel would “pass over” all who were in the house.  In the case of Rahab and her family, they were saved from destruction, by obeying the mandate to; 

     “Bind this line of scarlet cord in the window…” (2:18).

  Read chapter 6:25. Rahab and her family were taken from Jericho to the Israelite camp, just like the Israelites were taken from Egypt to (eventually) the promised land.  Rahab received a new start and got exposed to a "new God" the ONLY God.  She is part of the line that led to our Messiah Yeshua.  

     In our case, Yeshua is saying “My life for yours” What do we have to do? “Just believe and accept his one-time-only sacrifice” for all of our sins, past, present, and future. And we pass from the “camp” of sin to the “camp” of Adonai. 

LUKE 17:1-18:43 

     Yeshua teaches here that “stumbling blocks” are inevitable, they will come into our lives, we will fall, yet we will get up again, that is part of the life of a believer.  Our lives are like riding “roller-coasters” at times we are “up” and at times we are “down” because we are in our sinful bodies, yet it will only be “up” when we get into our “new bodies” in Heaven.  Yeshua also speaks of forgiveness, which at times seems hard to do, especially when a person commits the same sin against us time after time, after time.  YET we are COMMANDED to forgive.  This can not come from the carnal man, only from the spirit-filled man (and woman).  

     Yeshua also speaks of “servanthood” Why do we do the things we do? To get special treatment or rewards? Or…because that which we do is expected of us from the Master? Yes, we are HIS servants, and because we ARE we do what we do using our spiritual gifts.  YET Adonai has already promised rewards in heaven, but we shouldn’t do what we do because of the future rewards, but out of love for what HE has done for US on Calvary’s Tree. 

 Shalom