"Now Jericho was shut up inside and out because of the Israelites; no one came out and no one went in" (Josh.6:1, NRSV) - "Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go in or out" (Ibid., NLT).

You might say Jericho was in lockdown in much the same way as most of the world is right now because of CoVid-19, and for the same reasons - fear - fear of having to deal with the people whom Elohim (God) used to wipe out the mightiest army of the day in the known world, the Egyptian army of Pharaoh and in a way that could only have been supernatural. Likewise the whole world has been terrorised by fear of an unseen killer bug. People are terrified they might contract coronavirus, get a lethal bout of 'flu and die from asphixiation by drowning brought on by pneumonia and respiratory failure. The whole planet is locked up for fear of the reputation of a bug which may, or may not, be as bad as they're saying it is. They just don't know.

Welcome to Day #4 of the Jericho March and to the third day of the biblical week. You'll remember from what we talked about yesterday that there are two different but overlapping cycles in operation here that are out of phase with each other by a single day. That's a bit like the relationship between the saved and the unsaved, the righteous and the wicked. By outward appearances they seem similar but they're marching to a different spiritual beat, they're out of phase. The pagan inhabitants of Jericho will never enjoy a sabbath rest as the Israelites were to because, apart from Rahab and her family, they'll all be dead on the day before the sabbath - on the 6th day of the week, just as the saved and unsaved are heading to completely different destinations. Either can shift cycles at will - the saved can turn their backs on Yah'shua (Jesus) and drist out of one cycle into another, and the unsaved can repent and find themselves in an instant in the parallel cycle of reality. That's how it works down here. You're either in the Judgment cycle that ends unspectacularly at Day #6 when you are transported out of our shared reality here on earth to the Prison House in Sheol or you're elevated to the Salvation cycle and move into the Eternal Sabbath of the 7th Day.

All of this is in accordance with divine tavnith or pattern, as we also saw yesterday, because what happened to the Jerichoites on the 6th day is what will happen to all the wicked - both the living and the dead - at the end of the 6th millennium at whose end we have almost arrived. The righteous, by contrast, meet Messiah in the air and are ushered into the 7th Millennium, the glorious thousand year-long reign of Peace of the Messiah.

To be unsaved is to be in a spiritual 'lockdown' of sorts, holed up inside walls of demonic/fleshy self-protection and self-delusion. The only exit, and therefore the only hope, is the 'Rahab Solution'. But first the unsaved soul needs to recognise what he or she is, and the profession of Rahab is hardly a distinguished or honourable one, is it? The inhabitants of the Unsaved City of Jericho are all Rahab's, walking a wide or broad road that leads to self-destruction - which is what the name 'rahab' actually means...'broad' or 'wide'. She was a prostitute, selling the temple of her body to be used as a sperm urinal for ungodly men. A life lived for any other purpose than for what it was created for is a life that is being used as a DNA urinal.

No doubt the King of Jericho, and those of his court, thought of themselves as anything but whores but that is exactly what they were, selling their souls to pagan gods who in reality were, and are, demons pretending to be who they are not. What are they pretending to be? Deliverers, saviours, benefactors, just as the clients of prostitutes present themselves as financial deliverers, saviours and benefactors, and just as the prostitutes themselves rationalise their behaviour as the only available or financially lucrative means to provdie for themselves and their families. And we gather from the text that perhaps Rahab's lucrative trade provided for a large number of family members since she seemed to have sufficent influence over them to persuade them into what amounted to treasous action.

Jewish traditionalists have gone out of their way to deny Rahab really was a harlot because they are unhappy with the idea that such a woman of ill-repute could possibly have been allowed to marry into a kingly line, a line that would eventually lead to the Messiah. But that's the whole point. Yah'shua (Jesus) not only saves sinners but welcomes them into His Family too as joint-hears of the Royal Household, a real snub to the snobs. She was not a mere 'hostess' or 'innkeeper' as these self-righteous pious traditionalists would have you believe. But neither was she a mere 'harlot' or 'prostitute' either. She was quite an industrious lady with more than one profession, reminding me of the women of Proverbs 31. The fact that she had substantial amounts of flax on her roof and owned scarlet cord indicates that she was a successful business woman too, maybe even providing for her wider family. And, not unsurprisingly, harlotry was not considered by the ancient pagan Canaanites as a business of ill-repute anyway, no more than it is by our modern neo-pagan culture. So people were not ashamed of their sinning or their wicked trades then any more than they are now.

Today, as you have by now gathered, I want to talk about Rahab and the reality of what she prophetically stands for in every unsaved person, or even the carnal believer, for that matter, because when we take our eyes off Yah'shua (Jesus) and start going about or reliving our old pre-salvation lifestyle, we are all of us reverting to being Rahab's. And so that we are in no doubt that the issue is not just raw prostitution, the Hebrew root word for Rahab's name - zanah - is used in scripture not just of sexual harlotry but also of unfaithfulness, whether it be to a spouse, an employer or to Elohim (God) Himself. Whenever you are unfaithful to a spouse, you become a harlot. Whenever you defraud an employer by being lazy ort embezzlement, you become a harlot. (The rteverse is true too of an exploitative employer). Whenever you are unfaithful to Elohim (God), you become a harlot.

The way out for such as you and I should we ever be unfaithful is always through the calling of two witnesses, in the Jericho case, two Israelite spies. The sinner - whether the unsaved soul or the lapsed Christian/Messianic - is always given at least two opportunities for repentance, situations engineered by Yahweh in which the soul is invited to turn around from a life of sin or unfaithfulness. Sometimes there is only one chance - there was only one for the woman caught in adultery. She was forgiven once but strictly admonished not to commit adultery again (Jn.8:3ff.). Had her accusers not melted away into the shadows under the conviction of their own sins, she wouldn't have even got a second chance but would have been stoned to death, because Justice requires only one slip-up and you're condemned. It is grace - undeserved loving kindness, unmerited favour - that gives us a second chance. But it is not a never-ending 'Get-out-of-Prison' Monopoly card. Once cashed in, always cashed in, though looking at the way some Christrians treat sin you'd think they had a James Bond-type 'Licence to Sin' whenever and however often they wanted.

Rahab's ticket out of the doomed city consisted of more than saying 'Hi!' to the two spies and giving them a cup of coffee. Before she felt juistified to ask a return favour of them, she acted pro-actively to help them in their mission. She had heard the amazing stories of what Yahweh had done for Israel during their 40 year trek in the Sinai desert which was a type of hearing the Gospel, and she believed the accounts were true, and trusted in Yahweh. That belief - that trusting - was all that she needed to set her on a course out of the 7-day Judgment Cycle which the rest of her fellow nationals were walking in and into the 7-day Salvation Cycle I described earlier. Notice that her emunah - her faith - was not merely passive. She had to do some things in order to be supernaturally rescued. She had to assist the servants of Yahweh and she had to mark or wear the badge of her newly saved status based on the promise made by the spies as representatives of Israel, by:

• 1. Assisting the spies get out and away;
• 2. Gathering her family together into her little house; and
• 3. Hanging a scarlet cord from the window of her home so that the Israelite army could 'see' who she was - that she was now a covenant member of their nation and to be saved from destruction.

If you search the Scriptures you will see that those seeking salvation, and those who are supernaturally saved by grace through faith, have to do certain things. First, they have to trust in their Saviour, Deliverer or Rescuer to keep his word, as Rahab trusted the promise made by the spies. They have to repent and change the direction of their lives - they have to cease living the heathen, unsaved lifestyle once delivered from it. That means becoming Torah-compliant, as indeed Rahab and her family did, when they becme members of the nation of Israel by covenant. Justification, or being declared righteous by Yahweh, is called, in other words, 'covenant membership. They became covenant members of Israel under obligations to live the way Israel was commanded to live. They have to be obedient to Yahweh's personal proxy instructions too, as Rahab was in gathering her family into her home, and give the sign of one who is marked for salvation, as Rahab did by hanging out the red cord, and as we do by being baptised once actually saved, in the presence of two or more witnesses. Her two 'witnesses' were the spies.

There was one other thing also that Rahab had to do. She had to remain completely silent concerning the visit of the spies, which she entered into a covenant to do. What that means in a New Covenant context is changing loyalties and protecting ones new family. She also told the spies how they could avoid the search party that was looking for them. Likewise we are to protect missionaries who may be risking their lives to bring us the gospel.

Every unsaved nation and every unsaved city always has a remnant who will believe. It is not typical for a whole city to convert. Indeed, it is very rare. What happened to Nineveh in the days of Jonah never happened again, to my knowledge. That was an exception. Realistically, there are only Rahab's and her their families in the cities, towns and villages we are sent to witness to and if they are going to be delivered in an age of abject darkness, as Canaan was then and as the world is becoming now, our model has to be Rahab and the woman caught in adultery, and Lot and his family and Sodom, not Nineveh.

There are risks entailed in being saved, there are very real changes in loyalty that have to be made because the Mrs.Lot's of this world don't make it out alive. You cannot expect to be delivered whilst longingly looking back towards your family and friends who won't repent, who won't come, because if your heart is divided, your fate is to become a mepahorical 'pillar of salt' (Gen.19:26), present in outer form only, encased but not alive. I consider that to be one of the greatest dangers any of us can face - to not be 100 per cent committed like Rahab (or Ruth), but to have unsurrendered longings and yearnings for the old, unsaved life as Lot's wife did.

Are you fully resolved in your mind and heart like Rahab? You see, that gutsy woman had incredible qualities, and it is those qualities that made her great and noble. After having been brought out of the city to the safety of the vicinity of the Israelite encampment by the same two spies she had herself rescued, a period of ceremonial separation from Israel's camp, which basically means in a New Covenant context making the deliberate salvational decisions that aren't always possible when under pressure in a fast moving situation (some people choose salvation in the heat of the moment without seriously thinking the consequences through), was required of Rahab and her family before she could be permitted to dwell among her new national family (Josh.6:17,23,25). You might say even that Rahab and her family first went through a 'quarantine' period.

A great and marvelous future awaited this Canaanite lady of Jericho. This former prostitute then became the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz in the royal ancestry of the Davidic kings - and you will remember that it was her son Boaz who married Ruth the Moabite, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, who likewise shed her former pagan religion and surrendered her life to Yahweh and became an Israelite by adoption, just as we all become Messianic Israelites through trusting in Yah'shua (Jesus) and living the Torah lifestyle.

Rahab is an outstanding example of the kind of emunah (faith) that is required of us too. If I had been Salmon, I would have been proud to have married such a noble woman of character. We are declared righteous - justified - by Elohim (God) by such emunah (faith), as the writer of Hebrews testified:

"By emunah (faith) the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. By emunah (faith) the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient" (Heb.11:30-31, NIV)

In welcoming the two spies, she welcomed Israel. In welcoming Israel, she welcomed the Elohim (God) of Israel into her life. She had the same kind of emunah (faith) as Israel, never mind her background. What kind of emunah (faith) was this, that was excercised both by the nation and by the Canaanite prostitute from Jericho who embraced that nation? The apostle James said:

"You see that a person is justified (declared righteous jurisdictionally by Yahweh) by what he does and not by emunah (faith) alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so emunah (faith) without deeds (works) is dead" (James 2:24-26, NIV).

Rahab proves Luther and Protestantism wrong, at least in part - isn't that ironic? Are you too proud to be like Rahab? Are you such a snob that you want to Protestantise her into a decent 'hostess' or an upright 'innkeeper'? Don't worry, I am not knocking justification by faith, just Luther's clipped or shortened version of it, with its false piety, which isn't scriptural or Yahweh-honouring - 'justification by faith alone'. (Incidentally, though I believe Luther was wrong in this doctrine, I hold the great reformer in high esteem in many other respects). Rather, I am endorsing Rahab, and Boaz, and David (the friend of Elohim/God), all ancestors of the blessed Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus), and I am endorsing Israel the covenant nation, I'm endorsing the nevi'im (prophets) and the apostle James, of esteemed memory, along with all the others whom he said were saved in this way as represented by Abraham:

"You foolish man (yep, he calls the 'by faith-aloners' fools), do you want evidence that emunah (faith) without deeds (works) is useless (of no value)? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous (justified) for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ou see that his emunah (faith) and his actions were working together, and his emunah (faith) was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed (trusted in) Elohim (God,) and it was credited to him as righteousness,' and he was called Elohim's (God's) friend" (James 2:20-23, NIV).

You lazy, couch-potatoe Protestants out there need to repent and do the works of Rahab, which are the same works as Abraham! Why do you think Protestant denominations are crashing down in apostacy and ruin everywhere? Why are they so afflicted by liberalism and charismatic heresy? Why have the Danish Lutherans unilaterally removed 'Israel' from the New Testament of their latest Bible translation? Because they believed, and still do, Luther, who told those who obey the commandments - the mitzvot, the Torah - to run away back to Moses as though Moses had the coronavirus, or something worse. And to be fair to the Lutherans, the reverse is equally bad, the belief that a man can save himself from his sins by Torah-obedience, the heresy of many Messianics - not all, but an increasing number, alas, especially those who have rejected Paul because they have misunderstood him as most of the Protestants have too. For such Jericho is meaningless, and always will be. They not only confuse the two cycles of Salvation and Judgment but also the relationship between Faith and Works.

Most of us would like to emulate the great patriarchs, prophets and apostles. Fair enough, if we can live up to their standards of emunah (faith) and obedience, wonderful, but today I want you to seek to emulate Rahab the repentant whore because she is definitely a good likeness of souls coming to Messiah today, particularly in the West and its neo-paganism. She is a picture of how to start all over again with a clean slate but it requires total commitment, a total forsaking of the old life for the new, a making of new friends and companions in place of the old heathenistic ones who won't respect your choices. You're not going to bring down any walls, or escape from any inner prisons, unless you have the faith of a Joshua and the faith of a Rahab. Peace.