Today's Daily Lesson from Hebrews 11:30
"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days."
When the Israelites finally made it out of the Wilderness and into the land of freedom the first place they came to was the City of Jericho. Inside the city was the prostitute Rahab, who harbored the Israelite spies when they came to scout out the city. When the Israelite army returned to Jericho they marched around the city seven times and, as the song says, "the walls came tumbling down." Rahab was rescued.
The story makes clear that God's redeeming work did not end with Israel's deliverance from the slavery of Egypt. In fact, the story of the Exodus was just the beginning. God's freedom movement would go on bringing deliverance to people trapped in systems of oppression, coercion, and slavery - people like Rahab.
God is of course interested in our personal deliverance from the bondage of sin; but God's vision of freedom doesn't end there. God's dream is for all people to be rescued from the dark powers of sin - whether personal or systemic.
Here is the lead from one of today's USA Today top stories:
"High school students, teens as young as 13 and other children reported missing by their families were among 16 juveniles rescued from forced prostitution during Super Bowl festivities in and around New Jersey, the FBI said Tuesday."
When you read a story like that about girls being trafficked for prostitution think Rahab.
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