Wrong Righted

I want us to look at a few times God used the wrong people to right things and when He used forbidden people to qualify His purpose.

In what theologians call the scarlet thread of redemption, we have a few such instances.

I want us to start with Judah.

He was the leader in Jacob’s family though he was the forth born. It could be because when he was born his mother had surrendered the battle to make herself loveable to her husband to God. That is the reason she called him praise.

He was therefore the firstborn of Leah’s new season, a season of praise.

Unlike Jacob, Judah and his brothers were not constrained to go far for wives. We therefore see Judah marrying a Canaanite wife who bears him three sons.

He gets a wife for his firstborn. But his mother must have ingrained in him some Canaanite vices because the Bible says that the Lord slew him for his wickedness.

As per the culture of those days, the widow was given to the second son who might also have had a lot of Canaanite influence because he decided he would enjoy sex without the corresponding responsibility and used a condom (my paraphrase).

This also displeased God and He slew him.

Now Judah is in a dilemma.

What does this girl have that kills his sons?

Now I know there are many tribes who have clans that cannot safely be married by young men.

In my talks with the ancient men of where I come from, I learnt that it was a mixture of broken covenants and curses that caused such. As such, they can never be taken as first wife or the husband dies.

Probably that is what Judah thought about Tamar.

He therefore told her to go back to her parents and wait for the youngest son to mature, hoping that she would move on with her life.

He therefore gets the shock of his life when he hears that she had become pregnant, meaning that she had moved out of her matrimonial house.

So she was not all curse and death? He must have thought.

He now wants to be a responsible father in law by ordering her judgment then realizes that she had tricked him because she had no plan B about marriage especially when she realized the young man she was promised had moved on without his father doing anything. That is why Judah said that she had proved herself more righteous than he. She produced the spiritual heir, the firstborn of Jacob’s spiritual firstborn.

The second person is Rahab. She did not play the harlot for a son. She plied it as a trade in Jericho.

She was the worst among the worst in this condemned city.

But as is usual to her kind, she kept hearing about Israel in the wilderness. She probably started hearing those stories as a child.

All of a sudden the Israelites are at their gates. In fact two of them are looking for lodging in her lodge (most professional harlots hide behind guest houses and lodges even today).

She finally has got her chance to connect to this God she had longed for and unsuccessfully sought.

What made it even sweeter was that the city authorities want to arrest, probably kill them, thus giving her a bargaining chip.

She hides them then asks them (her only link to the God of Israel) to spare her.

She also gets to join Israel.

How does such a character join Israel? It is simple. God looks for people with the right heart that desires Him.

Israel was able to ’rot’ in the wilderness for forty years because they did not believe. You read Rahab’s confession and you see the complete opposite. And to imagine that it came from stories and hearsay! Her faith simply overtook the faith of those who had gotten used to God’s presence and power as to despise it.

The third one is Ruth’s story.

A Jewish family flees famine to Moab. It is interesting that they desert a place called house of bread. Chances are that it was unspiritual to do so. But who hates greener pastures?

After moving, the man dies and the widow is left with two sons. Instead of going back home, she settles even more by getting them Moabite wives. (Remember Moabites were forbidden for ever from joining Israel). They are therefore in contravention of God’s law in doing so.

The sons also die, leaving three widows.

I suspect that Naomi thought the men were killed for disobeying God. She did not want to carry that judgment with her back to Israel. She therefore used her best arguments to ask them to remain in Moab.

One was convinced. But Ruth had made up her mind. The fractured witness they had given in their backslidden state had convinced her that she needed the God of Israel.

Like with Rahab, it was her confession that clearly demonstrates what she was after, a relationship with the God of Israel.

You therefore see her overtaking so many in Israel as she gets attached to the scarlet thread.

What am I aiming at?

I have been writing about revival for some time now. And I have been saying that it will originate outside our usual or normal circles. I mean it will not come from where we expect it to come from.

Like the three women I have mentioned, it will overtake those in the way of the breakthrough. Or do you think there were no women in Israel when these three came into the picture?

We should continue praying for revival. We should continue preparing for revival. We should even intensify our preparations to handle revival.

But we should not be surprised, shocked or amazed when God breaks out in places we never thought. We should not feel overlooked when God chooses other people and places as the hotspot of the upcoming revival.

Do not be surprised if it originates from the Muslim lands. Do not be shocked when it explodes from the persecuted church. Do not complain when it bursts from the underground church. And do not feel slighted when it bursts out of places we despised because their faith was shallow and hollow in our eyes.

You see, revival is a work of God and is not subject to human participation. We can only participate after His invitation when, where and how He wills.

But revival is coming, coming, coming.

How ready are you?