The Courage of Rahab

Today's episode explores the attributes and works of  Rahab. The courage of Rahab saved her family. No matter our circumstances in life, God always provides a way of escape.  Trust God  and trust the process God has for each one of us. Be Bold, Be Brave and Have Courage for God is for you.

💖Highlights💖

-  Keep your courage  in tough situations

-   Don't let your past define your future

- Never allow anyone to demean your importance

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Transcript

The Courage of Rahab

Betty 00:01

Hello Queens. Welcome to SheSpeaks Love, Women of the Bible Series. We're so excited to share these incredible women of the Bible and highlight their personal story and their legacy. These podcasts will encourage, inspire and share wisdom from God's word, as it relates to women in our unique circumstances.

Let's get into their phenomenal story and the power of their voice. Today's woman of the Bible is Rahab, The Harlot presented by Queen Dr. Dionne.

Dr. Edison 00:46

When I started thinking about it, a lot of songs[came to mind], you know, I, I break out in songs every now and then. And the song that came to me was from James Brown that said, "This is a man world and they can't do anything without a woman or a girl. And so I think when you think about Rehab, even though she is referred first as a harlot, we have to remember, we have to think back and remember the times as Michael Jackson said, because the time she was in and the people who are in control of the, of her narrative, leave out so much of the important parts that she has played.

And so when you have a change of perspective and I hope that that's what I will provide for you today, you'll, you'll see what I'm talking about. So Rehab, I don't want you to be distracted by the title of a prostitute. That is always, almost always, she is referred to as Rehab, the prostitute.

And somewhere I saw the harlot came before her name. Instead. I hope that you will recall a faithful woman filled with courage and strength who rose above her circumstances, found redemption and her place among God's chosen people, as well. A branches of the family tree of Jesus. Each of us has at least one Rehab moment in our lives.

Each of us has something that we know folk know about, but we hope they just don't bring up no more. You know, each of us has that moment that, you know, when you go on with this certain group of people, there is somebody who inevitably who's going to reach 20, 30, 40 years back and bring it up. And can you imagine that Rehab it's been thousands of years, how many centuries ago?

And she is still referred to as a harlot. So, a time when we have to choose to believe and trust God and the promises he has made us despite our circumstances. And we have to think, now we go back Rahab is a Gentile. She's not a Jew. We have to think back, go back in time and think, wow. There were no laws.

The laws had just started being implemented with the Jews. It hadn't been in effect, but a little over 40 years. So, she's living in a time where the belief in all these idle gods, that's the going thing. She's living in a time when women are so, you know, women are needed, but in their need, they are so demeaned, so degradated that even with the laws that the Jews have, they are subjugated behind the men. That they and the men can do the same thing and they will be stoned for the doing of it. So when you look at Rehab and you call her a harlot and yet she is a businesswoman with a special skillset. Why, how Lord is she still existing in such a cruel world?

Because you understand that, for the Jews, a woman caught in adultery or, serving as, as a prostitute they would, they were killed or they were ostracized. So a man could use a woman and rape her, but the woman be killed and ostracized as if she caused him to come along and do that. When you think about this, that even in death, her past is remembered before she's acknowledged. That she's considered a failure and marginalized before she's recognized as a woman of faith, even. You say really, how could that be? It's because she's a woman living in a man's world.

Oh, let's see here. The first Gentile record, recorded in the Bible of being converted to Judaism is her confession and her statement of faith in one, true God of Israel. And it's made by only two other people in the Bible, Moses and Solomon. Now you say, well, how can she believe she, there was no Bible, there was no guide for her.

So, how did she come to this faith? And she had not had any, for what we can tell any real contact with the Jewish people. It's because, as God says in his word, you can see the hand of God, whether you've had somebody to show you the way. Think about i, you didn't put the sun out there this morning, you don't cause the rain. You didn't cause the tornado that hit in Branch Height[in Eutaw, AL] last week, not to injure anybody. You have, there's so many things that you have absolutely nothing to do with. You don't have, even control over your existence on this earth, but, you know, by venture of what you are looking around you, that there is a power beyond you.

And so Rahab was the kind of person who looked around and analyzed her situation and made the best of it. How long has she been sitting in the window, looking out from the direction of the Jordan River so that she could see the encampment of the Israelites? How long has she been there? When you look at the verse in the Bible, that says, Joshua told the spies to go and do a task. That the first thing they do is, they go to her. How did they know to go to her first? What were the signs that were up there? Was the red string already in the window, designating a fallen woman, this is where you go; just like the Scarlet letter? Was it, she was sitting in window and saw them come and they looked up and saw her?

And because the people who were relegated to the edges were not living under the, in the communities on the inside, they were all alongside the wall. Will you stop and look at this? You say, how on earth would a pagan woman who is considered to be so lowly and so poor with a horrible job; not only learn about the God at Israel, but come to be such an, have such an absolute trust in faith, in him as her God as well without ever speaking to anybody?

This is her, she has found God for herself because she recognizes somebody that's bigger than her. She's living under a patriarchal situation. Canaanites were enemies of Israel. She has a profession as a prostitute. She's considered weak and broken because of a career, but is she really stop and think about it?

She has to have courage intelligence; be quick wited; resourceful, perceptive, wise, she takes action. She's hospitable, and she is a skilled negotiator. Is she moving from failure to faithfulness? I don't think so. I think she was a seed that was planted and then bloomed. Her faith saved her family; her parents, her siblings and all who belonged to them.

And yet she was unmarried and had no children. Her actions lead to the success of the Israelites over Jericho. Her home was within the outta wall of the city. Can you imagine that you are watching them every day for six days, march around your city? Your house is in the walls. All the tribe is marching.

Not a few, can you imagine the rumblings that she's feeling she has made this deal? And am I gonna survive? Cause I can feel the vibrations of the walls with all these people marching around and they not saying anything. They just march around, they go back every day. Do you think she might have had a crack in her faith of I have made this deal with the people of an unknown God? But she kept her courage. She had made this negotiation to save her family. And then on day seven, they go around seven times and then they holler out. Can you imagine the noise coming in through that window, like a megaphone into her house, the dread, she must have felt that the falling of the walls and yet, where she was, the bricks didn't fall?

They didn't fall until the the spies came and got her and her family. Imagine, all of this, could she not then believe and know that she was on the right course? Who led her to that, unknown God that she still didn't know anything about, but she could see him? She could see him every day out that window.

The person who is thought to be the lowest of low. She knows the evil of her people. And she can see God's covering of Israelites. And she's looking at salvation through the window of a harlot. That string was a thread of evidence. And she went from a house of shame to the hall of fame, and yet she is still called a harlot.

But see, with God, you don't have a pedigree. With God, you are his and all of us got the same thing. And you don't have to know, the Bible word for word. You can see and hear. The Bible says God sings to us. Well, when did he sing to you? He sang a lullaby to me and I slept through the storm. You know, he sings when I hear the birds and they wake you up as your alarm clock in the morning.

He sings because when you feel the rays of the sun on your skin, it's warming you, not just from the outside in, but from the inside out, he is having this personal almost,...aww, orgasmic relationship with you as he fill your heart and your being with the essence of his majesty. Can you not feel that? Can you imagine here's a woman who knows of a God; unseen, untaught who is making that kinda difference in her? Fact, that is Rehab. She does not deserve by us Queens to be called or harlot.

Each one of us have walked her walk in some kind way. And so yes, we in service and yes, but when you say you, you ought to say, Queen Rehab. Queen and that's what she is. That's what she has established for us. When you look at the scripture, the  Hebrews 11:31 says she believed in God sovereignty, which led her to help the spies and leave her life behind. She left her life behind, did it. James 2: 25 says her actions were the proof of her faith, but she had had no formal relationship with the God, who just had only in 40 years established that group of the Jews. She married Salmon from the tribe of Judah. She's the mother of Boaz and part of the lineage of Christ. But was she a stained woman? I don't think she was. I don't think she was, women are important Genesis 2:18 says, it is not for good that a man should live alone and God made a helper for him.

We are equal in importance and we should not allow anybody to demean our importance wherever we are. She was subject to manipulation. But she was brave and, and trustworthy. And she said, let us strive faithfully to say what we mean and mean what we say. You have heard. It was said that our people long ago don't break your promises, but keep promises you make to the Lord.

Matthew said that does our individual faith affect other family members? Hers did, ours does. By contrast to Rehab in the very next chapter, chapter three or Joshua, Aiken who stole spoils for himself from Jericho and is a frightening example of God's response to unconfessed sin. The other Israelite, stoned him and all his family.

So judgment came, to everybody for Aiken, but grace came to Rahab for her entire family. So here we see that the family is not just a biological and social unit, but it, it is an entity through which God carries out his blessings and his judgment. God does not limit himself to being the conduit. In fact, the biblical meaning of family comes to exceed its physical and social identity. Next to the physical family emerges a spiritual one. Rahab exhibits this under dire circumstances.

Women's behavior at the time was extremely limited. Unmarried women were not allowed to leave the home of their father without permission. Married women were not allowed to leave the home of their husband without permission. They normally were restricted to roles of little or no authority. They couldn't testify in court, they could not appear in public venues. They were not allowed to talk to strangers. They had to be doubly veiled, when they left their homes. Multiple wives, sex with servants, girls were less important, property of the father and transferred to the husband. This can be seen Exdous 21, 22 and 24.

They were forced into servitude for life. In Exodus 21:7 and considered unclean after having girls longer than after having boys. In a census, women weren't even counted. You could be married regardless of your wishes and could be stoned to death, if not a Virgin when you did marry. And, you were required to marry your rapist. Deuteronomy 22s' destruction for a rapist to marry the woman, he raped again, remembers that civilization, I want you to remember, was not very civilized at the point that we come in contact with Rehab. The common practice, outside of the law for was that the woman would be killed by her family. Even if she was raped because it brought shame to the family. Nothing happens to the man. And we know that this still happens now, here in 2022.

If she was not killed, she had to live with shame with no options for a future life, with a family that accepted her in the culture. Well, if you say Rehab is who she was, a harlot, then there's got to be more to the story. Because she didn't have to have that kind of existence.

And so I think that Rahab a proverbial 31 woman. In proverbs 31, verse 10, she had virtue, verse 11 she was faithful. Verse 12 she showed reverence, verse 17 she had strength and was a hard worker. Verse 18 she had endurance, manages money and accountant; verse 19 she was well rounded. She makes thread. She had flax up on her roof drying. Flax was good for eating and health. Flax was good to make clothes out of, flax was used to make paper. All these things she had. And now she has a product to sell, so people could have been coming to her house and it's assumed because mostly it's gonna be a man that she's doing something ilist and yet she's doing something that's actually profitable for her family. Let's see, verse 20 she was charitable, 21 she's a provider, 22 she was well dressed, 23 she became a wife of a good husband. She was honorable, wise, she became a good mother because she was praise worthy, she excels, she attained and she feared God. And yet we call her what? We call her queen. That's what we should be calling her.

Joshua gave the people of Israel, a message in verse one and nine to be strong and couragous. But, Rahab hadn't even been present to hear Joshua deliver this message. It takes a whole new level now for her to think that she was that kind of what person strong and courageous. She shows us the absolute faith gives us the courage and the strength we need to stand against anything. No matter how marginalized you are, you have a place in the Kingdom. But it doesn't always come easy. You have to be ready and willing to move when God tells you it's time to move. Have faith and be courageous, no matter how bleak your current situation is, you can have hope. God won't leave you where he found you. No matter your circumstances, God will prepare you for whatever task he has for you.

Sometimes he's preparing you for a role that you would never dream of that you would have in the kingdom. Rehab certainly didn't know she was learning who God was and that she was going to play a prominent role in the Israelites taking of Jericho.

We can be too quick to judge a book by its cover prior to taking a close look at rehab. I never realized that she had a profound and deeply rooted faith in the God of Israel to this magnitude. I guess what I assumed was that since she was a prostitute, she was indeed a simple person who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But if you know the Lord, it's no such thing as it just happened to be.

So I never looked beyond her title of prostitute, but we actually meet a woman of faith when that did not even exist. We all have great potential in the kingdom of God. This is a man's world. It wouldn't be anything without a woman or girl. I can only imagine how Rehab got to where she is. But we remember the times, she had no Bible story to follow.

For whose story are you and who is telling your story? Not Rahab the harlot, Rahab a wounded warrior and queen whose report will you believe? And I look forward to hearing yours. Thank you kindly for listening to me. I hope I brought you something to the table that you will enjoy and can chew on for the rest of your life.

Betty 24:07

Queens.

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