Rahab~ the woman whose faith took her from harlot to being in Jesus' lineage

The next picture we see on the wall shows that God not only went outside of Abraham's family, but outside of the chosen people of God, as well. Why? Because of her faith. Let us take a closer look at her life to better understand why she is a great hero of faith, shall we?

Rahab was a harlot in the city of Jericho. That would make her an untouchable in two ways in Jewish eyes. Why? 1.  Because she was not of the holy lineage of the Jewish people.. They believed that they were not to deal with the  "Greek," also known as non-Jewish .people, for they were unclean. 2. She was a harlot. They not only were told not to touch a harlot, but harlots were often stoned to death for the crime of adultery. So why is she in Jesus lineage? Faith, my friend, faith. Let us take a closer look at that.

Joshua sent spies into the city of Jericho to see where it's weak spots were, as knowing this would help them to best figure out how to over come & destroy it. While there they were spotted & reported to those who were protecting the city. A man hunt was called on. The spies were trying to figure out how to best get out of the doubled walled city before they were spotted. As they did so Rahab whose home was built between the two walls of the city & on the outer wall, called to them. She motioned for them to go into her house to hide. They yielded to her call & went into her home. 

Once in her home, she hid them on the back roof of her house & placed stocks of flax that were drying over them to keep them from being found. People often dried their stocks of flax on their roofs to dry, so no one would have thought anything about them being there. She also lied to the King when she was called into a court of law before the King of Jericho, & told him that she had no idea where they were (Josh. 1:1-6:27 ).

Why?  Because, she knew that they were with the great group of people who had entered the land & had won many battles against other cities in the land. She had heard that people in her city were afraid of them for they knew that the Jewish people's God was very powerful & helped them win these battles. She told them this before she helped them to escape by climbing out her back window & climbing down a scarlet rope. She also spoke of her faith in their God & asked them to spare her family & her when they came to destroy Jericho.  

They promised that they would indeed save her family & her. Then they went on to tell her to get her family together & keep them in the house, also to keep the rope tied where it was so that they would know here her house was during the fight. After they left and led to the hills to hide until it was safe to go back to their people, Rahab gathered her family together in her home & they waited many days for the men's return. I speak of this waiting period in more detail in "In Pursuit of the virtuous woman". Feel free to read it.

Then when the day finally came, and the Jewish people were marching around the city, Rahab & her family continued to wait. For seven long days, they waited. I believe that shows that she continued to have faith enough to be patient for the time to come.  Then the walls finally fell. Can you imagine what it might have been like to be held up in Rahab's house when the walls fell, & the fighting started. Imagine hearing it all, & yet waiting, & wondering... will the walls fall on us, or how long is it going to be, or will they remember their promise. Yet they stayed put. Why? Because of Rahab's  faith(Heb. 11:31).

When they dug up the lower parts of Jericho's walls remains, they found that part of one of the walls were still standing & the houses there were still whole. That is our powerful God!

So you see, Rahab went from being a harlot to being in the lineage of Christ (Mat. 1:5), because of her faith in God.