Flax & Barley Part 4--For us and for them.

 

Exodus 9:31 "The flax and barley were destroyed because the barley was ripe and the flax was budding."

For Egypt, their refusal to listen to the word of God brought by  Moses--Let my people go!" brought about the destruction of the plants that symbolize salvation and redemption.  Yet for the kindness of God, and His unwillingness that any would perish, there was still hope in the midst of the destruction--

"Those among Pharaoh's officials who feared the word of the LORD made their servants and livestock flee to shelters, but those who didn't take to heart the LORD's word left their servants and livestock in the field."  Exodus 9:20-21

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Joshua 2:6,9-11 "She had hidden the men among the stalks of flax that she had arranged on the roof...She said to them 'I kow that the LORD has give you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you.  For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan.   When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on earth below."

For Rahab, choices were made--by her or by those over her--that brought her to an ungodly vocation in an ungodly city.  Yet God revealed the truth to her, because how else could she have known? She takes the spies and their survival into her hands, and extracts a promise from them to rescue her.   Her declaration of God as LORD was her salvation, and no doubt her life, taken from Jericho and brought into the midst of God's chosen people, was a process of sanctification---flax to linen.  

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Ruth 1:16-17 "Don't plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you.  For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.  May the LORD punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

For Ruth, the choice to leave her life in Moab behind seems easy.  She has a love and respect for her mother-in-law that leads to an obligation for their survival--hers and Naomi's.  She trusts that God can save her from a life of godless living forever.  She takes Naomi's plans, lays them at the feet of her kinsman-redeemer, and extracts a promise from him to rescue her.  Her declaration of God as her God was her salvation, and no doubt her life with her husband--a man of noble character--was a process of sanctification--chaff removed from the barley.  

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These accounts are not just stories.  They are filled with proof of the steadfast and loyal love and faithfulness of God to the ones who declare Him as above all.  

Rahab uses a scarlet thread in her window to mark her room as set apart for rescue. Scarlet--the color of blood, the color of sacrifice.  Jesus. 

 

Ruth sits with Boaz during harvest.  He has rescued her from the general population as laborer; he shows her favor.  He gives her bread and wine.  A foreshadowing of another supper.  The body and the blood, broken and spilled out for us.  Jesus.  

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For us.  What are our choices?  Are we content to stay with the flax, keeping it in it's unfinished state?  Are we content with woody, stalky reeds, when there is linen to be developed?

Are we content to be covered in chaff, unwilling to be shaken free of the discard and debris of sin, never knowing the fresh barley underneath, waiting to be revealed?  

Revelation 19:7-8 "Let us be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has prepared herself.  She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure.  For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints."

"His winnowing shovel is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn.  But the chaff He will burn with fire that never goes out."  Matthew 3:12

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The choice seems so simple, but it's not easy.  It's a commitment every day to the commitment of the  first day.  It's working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  It's hanging the scarlet thread in full view as testament to the blood of Christ that has purchased and covered your sin.  It's taking the Lord's supper, identifying  yourself with His sacrifice for you, as often as you do this-remembering.  It's letting go of the chaff that so easily stunts our maturation, and letting it blow away by the power of the Holy Spirit.  It's taking your flax to God, and letting Him process it into linen.  He is so noble, so absolutely set on redeeming us. For now.  Forever.  

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The rest of their story...

.Rahab married Salmon and gave birth to Boaz. 

 Boaz married Ruth and gave birth to Obed.  

Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered King David. 

 

Rahab got a new life with a new people.  

Ruth got a new life with a new people. (And a new mother-in-law!!!)

But from their line--messy, twisted, saved, made new, -

 we ALL got Jesus--our Kinsman-Redeemer-- who is called the Messiah.  

Matthew 1

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"I will praise my dear Redeemer, 

His triumphant power I'll tell; 

how the victory He gives me,

over sin and death and hell.

Sing O Sing of my Redeemer!!

With His blood He purchased me;

on the cross He sealed my pardon,

paid the debt, and made me free!"