063. The Scarlet Rope

The Scarlet Rope

Jos_2:21 : ’93And she bound the scarlet line in the window.’94

If you have any idea that I have chosen this text because it is odd, you do not know me nor the errand on which I come. Eternity is too near and life too short for men to take texts merely because they are peculiar. I take this because it is full of the old Gospel.

There is a very sick and sad house in the city of Jericho. What is the matter? Is it poverty? No. Worse than that. Is it leprosy? No. Worse than that. Is it death? No. Worse than that. A daughter has forsaken her home. By what infernal plot she was induced to leave, I know not; but they look in vain for her return. Sometimes they hear a footstep very much like hers, and they start up and say, ’93She comes!’94 but only to sink back again into disappointment. Alas! alas! The father sits by the hour, with his face in his hands, saying not one word. The mother’92s hair is becoming gray too fast, and she begins to stoop, so that those who saw her only a little while ago in the street know her not now as she passes. The brothers clench their fists, swearing vengeance against the despoiler of their home. Alas! will the poor soul never come back? There is a long, deep shadow over all the household. Added to this, there is an invading army six miles away, just over the river, coming on to destroy the city; and what with the loss of their child, and the coming-on of that destructive army, I think the old people wished that they could die. That is the first scene in this drama of the Bible.

In a house on the wall of the city is that daughter. That is her home now. Two spies have come from the invading army to look around through Jericho, and see how best it may be taken. Yonder is the lost child, in that dwelling on the wall of the city. The police hear of it, and soon there is the shuffling of feet all around about the door, and the city government demands the surrender of those two spies. First, Rahab’97for that was the name of the lost child’97first, Rahab secretes the two spies, and gets their pursuers off the track; but after a while she says to them: ’93I will make a bargain with you. I will save your life if you will save my life, and the life of my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters when the victorious army comes upon the city.’94 Oh, she had not forgotten her home yet, you see! The wanderer never forgets home. Her heart breaks now as she thinks of how she has maltreated her parents, and she wishes she were back with them again, and she wishes she could get away from her sinful enthralment; and sometimes she looks up in the face of the midnight, bursting into agonizing tears.

No sooner have these two spies promised to save her life, and the life of her father and mother and brothers and sisters than Rahab takes a scarlet cord and ties it around the body of one of the spies, brings him to the window, and, as he clambers out’97nervous lest she have not strength to hold him’97with muscular arms such as women seldom have, she lets him down, hand over hand, in safety to the ground. Not being exhausted, she ties the cord around the other spy, brings him to the window, and just as successfully lets him down to the ground. No sooner have these men untied the scarlet cord from their bodies than they look up, and they say: ’93You had better get all your friends in this house’97your father, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters; you had better get them in this house. And then, after you have them here, take this red cord which you have put around our bodies, and tie it across the window; and when our victorious army comes up, and sees that scarlet thread in the window, it will spare this house and all who are in it. Shall it be so?’94 cried the spies. ’93Ay, ay,’94 said Rahab, from the window, ’93it shall be so!’94 That is the second scene in this Bible drama.

There is a knock at the door of the old man. He looks up, and says, ’93Come in’94; and, lo! there is Rahab, the lost child; but she has no time to talk. They gather in excitement around her, and she says to them: ’93Get ready quickly, and go with me to my house. The army is coming! The trumpet! Make haste! Fly! The enemy!’94 That is the third scene in this Bible drama.

The hosts of Israel are all around about the doomed city of Jericho. Crash! goes the great metropolis, heaps on heaps. The air suffocating with the dust, and horrible with the screams of a dying city. All the houses flat down. All the people dead. Ah, no, no! On a crag of the wall’97the only piece of the wall left standing’97there is a house which we must enter. There is a family there that has been spared. Who are they? Let us go in and see. Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, her sisters, all safe, and the only house left standing in all the city. What saved them? Was the house more firmly built? Oh, no! it was built in the most perilous place, on the wall, and the wall was the first thing that fell. Was it because her character was any better than any of the other population of the city? Oh, no! Why, then, was she spared, and all her household? Can you tell me why? Oh, it was the scarlet line in the window. That is the fourth scene in this Bible drama.

When the destroying angel went through Egypt it was the blood of the lamb on the door-posts that saved the Israelites; and now that vengeance has come upon Jericho, it is the same color that assures the safety of Rahab and all her household. My friends, there are foes coming upon us, more deadly and more tremendous, to overthrow our immortal interests. They will trample us down, and crush us out forever, unless there be some skilful mode of rescue open. The police of death already begin to clamor for our surrender; but blessed be God, there is a way out. It is through the window, and by a rope so saturated with the blood of the cross that it is as red as that with which the spies were lowered; and if once our souls shall be delivered, then, the scarlet cord stretched across the window of our escape, we may defy all bombardment, earthly and satanic.

In the first place, carrying out the idea of my text, we must stretch this scarlet cord across the window of our rescue. There comes a time when a man is surrounded. What is that in the front door of his soul? It is the threatenings of the future. What is that in the back door of the soul? It is the sins of the past. He cannot get out of either of those doorways. If he attempts it he will be cut to pieces. What shall he do? Escape through the window of God’92s mercy. That sunshine has been pouring in for many a day. God’92s inviting mercy. God’92s pardoning mercy. God’92s all-conquering mercy. God’92s everlasting mercy. But, you say, the window is so high. Ah, there is a rope, the very one with which the cross and its Victim were lifted. That was strong enough to hold Christ, and it is strong enough to hold you. Bear all your weight upon it, all your hopes for this life, all your hopes for the life that is to come. Escape now through the window. ’93But,’94 you say, ’93that cord is too small to save me; that salvation will never do at all for such a sinner as I have been.’94 I suppose that the rope with which Rahab let the two spies to the ground was not thick enough; but they took that or nothing. And, my dear brother, that is your alternative. There is only one scarlet line that can save you. There have been hundreds and thousands who have been borne away in safety by that scarlet line, and it will bear you away in safety. Do you notice what a very narrow escape those spies had? I suppose they came with flustered cheek and with excited heart. They had a very narrow escape. They went in the broad door of sin; but how did they come out? They came out of the window. They went up by the stairs of stone; they came down on a slender thread. And so, my friends, we go easily and unabashedly into sin, and all the doors are open; but if we get out at all it will be by being let down over precipices, wriggling and helpless, the strong grip above keeping us from being dashed on the rocks beneath. It is easy to get into sin, young man. It is not easy to get out of it.

A young man, to-night, goes to the marble counter of the barroom of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He asks for a brandy-smash’97called so, I suppose, because it smashes the man that takes it. As the young man receives it, he does not seem to be at all excited. It does not give any glassiness to the eye. He walks home in beautiful apparel, and all his prospects are brilliant. That drink is not going to destroy him, but it is the first step on a bad road. Years have passed on, and I see that young man after he has gone the whole length of dissipation. It is midnight, and he is in a hotel’97perhaps the very one where he took the first drink. He is in the fourth story, and the delirium is on him. He rises from the bed and comes to the window, and it is easily lifted; so he lifts it. Then he pushes back the blinds, and puts his foot on the window-sill. Then he gives one spring, and the watchman finds his disfigured body, unrecognizable, on the pavement. Oh, if he had only waited a little’97if he had come down on the scarlet ladder that Jesus holds from the wall for him and for you and for me! But no, he made one jump of it, and was gone.

A minister of Christ was not long ago dismissed from his diocese for intoxication, and in a public meeting at the West he gave this account of his sorrow. He said: ’93I had a beautiful home once; but strong drink shattered it. I had beautiful children; but this fiend of rum took their dimpled hands in his and led them to the grave. I had a wife’97to know her was to love her; but she sits in wretchedness to-night while I wander over the earth. I had a mother, and the pride of her life was I; but the thunderbolt struck her. I now have scarcely a friend in all the world. Taste of the bitter cup I have tasted, and then answer me as to whether I have any hatred for the agency of my ruin. Hate it! I hate the whole damning traffic. I would to God to-night that every distillery were in flames, for then in the glowing sky I would write in the smoke of the ruin: ’91Woe to him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor’92s lips!’92’93 That minister of the Gospel went in through the broad door of temptation; he came out of the window. And when I see the temptations that are all about us, and when I know the proclivity to sin in every man’92s heart, I see that, if any of us escape, it will be a very narrow escape. Oh, if we have, my friends, got off from our sin, let us tie the scarlet thread by which we have been saved across the window. Let us do it in praise of him whose blood dyed it that color. Let it be in announcement of the fact that we shall no more be fatally assaulted. ’93There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’94 Then let all the forces of this world come up in cavalry charge, and let the spirits of darkness come on, an infernal storming party attempting to take our soul; this rope twisted from these words, ’93The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,’94 will hurl them back defeated forever.

Still further, we must take this red cord of the text and stretch it across the window of our households. When the Israelitish army came up against Jericho, they said, ’93What is that in the window?’94 Some one said, ’93That is a scarlet line.’94 ’93Oh,’94 said some one else, ’93that must be the house that was to be spared. Don’92t touch it.’94 That line was thick enough and long enough and conspicuous enough to save Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, and her sisters’97the entire family. Have our households as good protection? You have bolts on the front door and on the back and fastenings to the window and perhaps burglar alarms and perhaps an especial watchman blowing his whistle at midnight before your dwelling; but all that cannot protect your household. Is there on our houses the sign of a Saviour’92s sacrifice and mercy? Is there a scarlet line in the window? Have your children been consecrated to Christ? Have you been washed in the blood of the atonement? In what room do you have family prayers? Show me where it is you are accustomed to kneel. The sky is black with the coming deluge. Is your family inside or outside the ark? It is a sad thing for a man to reject Christ; but to lie down in the night of sin, across the path to heaven, so that his family come up and trip over him into an infinity of horrors’97that is the longest, the deepest, the mightiest! It is a sad thing for a mother to reject Christ; but to gather her family around her, and then take them by the hand and lead them out into paths of worldliness, away from God and heaven’97oh, it will take all the dirges of earth and hell to weep out that agony.

I suppose there are here homes represented where there has not been an audible prayer offered for ten years. There may be geranium and cactus in the window and upholstery hovering over it and childish faces looking out of it; but there is no scarlet thread stretched across it. Although that house may seem to be on the finest street in all the city, it is really on the edge of a marsh across which sweep most poisonous malarias, and it has a sandy foundation and its splendor will come down and great will be the fall of it. A home without God! A prayerless father! An undevout mother! Awful! awful! Is that you? Will you keep on, my brother, on the wrong road, and take your loved ones with you? May God arrest you before you complete the ruin of those whom you ought to save. You see I talk plainly to you, just as I would have you talk plainly to me. Time is so short that we cannot waste any of it on apologies or indirections or circumlocutions. You owe to your children, O father! O mother! more than food, more than clothing, more than shelter’97you owe them the example of a prayerful, consecrated, pronounced, out-and-out Christian life. You cannot afford to keep it away from them.

Now, as I stand here, you do not see any hands outstretched toward me, and yet there are hands on my brow and hands on both my shoulders. They are hands of parental benediction. It is quite a good many years ago now since we folded those hands as they began the last sleep on the banks of the Raritan, in the village cemetery; but those hands are stretched out toward me to-night, and they are just as warm and they are just as gentle as when I sat at their knee at five years of age. And I shall never shake off those hands. I do not want to. They have helped me so much a thousand times already, and I do not expect to have a trouble or a trial between this and my grave where those hands will not help me. Theirs was not a very splendid home, as the world calls it; but we had a family Bible there, well worn by tender perusal; and there was a family altar there, where we knelt morning and night; and there was a holy Sabbath there; and stretched in a straight line, or hung in loops or festoons, there was a scarlet line in the window. Oh, the tender, precious, blessed memory of a Christian home! Is that the impression you are making upon your children? When you are dead’97and it will not be long before you are’97when you are dead, will your child say, ’93If there ever was a good Christian father, mine was one. If there ever was a good Christian mother, mine was one?’94 Will they say that after you are dead? Standing some Sabbath night in church preaching the glorious Gospel, as I am trying to do, will they tell the people in that day how there are hands of benediction on their brow and hands of parental benediction on both their shoulders?

Still further, we want this scarlet line of the text drawn across the window of our prospects. I see Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and sisters looking out over Jericho, the city of palm-trees, and across the river and over at the army invading and then up to the mountains and the sky. Mind you, this house was on the wall, and I suppose the prospect from the window must have been very wide. Besides that, I do not think that the scarlet line at all interfered with the view of the landscape. The assurance it gave of safety must have added to the beauty of the country. To-night, my friends, we stand or sit in the window of earthly prospect, and we look off toward the hills of heaven and the landscape of eternal beauty. God has opened the window for us, and we look out; but how if we do not get there? If we never get there, better never to have had even this faint glimpse of it. We now only get a dim outline of the inhabitants. We now only here and there catch a note of the exquisite harmony.

But blessed be God for this scarlet line in the window! That tells me that the blood of Christ bought that home for my soul, and I shall go there when my work is done here. And as I put my hand on that scarlet line everything in the future brightens. My eyesight gets better, and the robes of the victors are more lustrous, and our loved ones who went away some time ago’97they do not stand any more with their backs to us, but their faces are this way, and their voice drops through this Sabbath air, saying, with all tenderness and sweetness, ’93Come! Come! Come!’94 And the child that you think of only as buried’97why, there she is, and it is May-day in heaven; and they gather the amaranth and they pluck the lilies and they twist them into a garland for her brow, and she is one of the May-queens of heaven.

Oh, do you think they could see our waving now? I wonder if they can see us from that good land? I think they can. If from this window of earthly prospect we can almost see them, then from their towers of light I think they can fully see us. And so I wave them the glory and I wave them the joy and I say, ’93Have you got through with all your troubles?’94 and their voices answer, ’93God hath wiped away all tears from our eyes.’94 I say, ’93Is it as grand up there as you thought it would be?’94 and the voices answer, ’93Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’94 I say, ’93Do you have any more struggle for bread?’94 and they answer, ’93We hunger no more, we thirst no more.’94 And I say, ’93Have you been out to the cemetery of the golden city?’94 and they answer, ’93There is no death here.’94 And I look out through the night heavens, and I say, ’93Where do you get your light from, and what do you burn in the temple?’94 and they answer, ’93There is no night here, and we have no need of candle or of star.’94 And I say, ’93What book do you sing out of?’94 and they answer, ’93The Hallelujah Chorus.’94 And I say, ’93In the splendor and magnificence of the city, don’92t you ever get lost?’94 and they answer, ’93The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne leadeth us to living fountains of water.’94 Oh, how near it seems to-night! Their wings’97do you not feel them? Their harps’97do you not hear them? And all that through the window of our earthly prospect, across which stretcheth the scarlet line.

Be that my choice color forever. Is it too glaring for you? Do you like the blue because it reminds you of the sky or the green because it makes you think of the foliage or the black because it has in it the shadows of the night? I take the scarlet because it shall make me think of the price that was paid for my soul. Oh, the blood! the blood! the blood of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! Through it we escape sin. Through it we reach heaven. Will you let it atone for you? Believe in it, and you live. Refuse it, and you die. Will you accept it, or will you pull over on you the eternal calamity of rejecting it?

I see where you are. You are at the cross-roads today. The next step decides everything. Pause before you take it; but do not pause too long, lest the wind of God’92s justice shut the door that has been standing open so long. I hear the thunder of God’92s artillery. I hear the blast of the trumpet that wakes the dead. Look out! look out! For in that day, and in our closing moment on earth, better than any other defense or barricade, however high or broad or stupendous, will be one little, thin, scarlet thread in the window.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage