Scarlet Thread
Her name, Tamar, is interesting in itself. In the Hebrew language Tamar means “Palm Tree.” (Strong 1983)
The thing about Palm trees that makes them unusual is that they can survive much higher winds than other trees. They can bend all the way over without breaking, and when the storm is over, they stand right back up again. Palm trees can survive even major hurricanes, when winds get up to 150 miles an hour.
Tamar, true to her name, went through a very stormy time, but she never broke. She never snapped. She never gave up.
Tamar was an Israelite woman who lived around the year 1900 BC. In those days, women couldn’t work; only men could work, so women had to get married to survive. For the same reason, women tried to have sons so that if their husbands died, then their sons could provide for them.
Tamar was an Israelite woman, and she married an Israelite man. This is where Tamar’s storm began. Her husband was not a very good man. And then he died.
Tamar’s father- in- law, Judah, said, “my other son will marry you.” That was the custom and the proper thing to do in those days. So Tamar married her husband’s brother. But he also was not a very good man, and he also died. Tamar’s storm continued.
So now what? Judah only had one son left, and he was too young to get married. Plus, now Judah was afraid that maybe Tamar was bad luck, and he didn’t want his last son to die too.
So he sent Tamar back to her own parents, but promised her that his third son would marry her when he was old enough. He told her, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” (Genesis 38:11 NIV)
So Tamar went back to her parent’s home. But years passed and Shelah grew up, but he never came for Tamar.
And Tamar began to realize that Judah was not going to fulfill his obligation to her. And she knew that time was running out, because once her father died, she would have no man to provide for her and she would starve to death.
So she devised a sneaky plan – she was a desperate woman! She dressed like a prostitute and covered her face with a veil. She lured Judah into sleeping with her, and Judah, not realizing that it was Tamar, slept with her. As a result, Tamar became pregnant.
When Judah found out Tamar was pregnant, he ordered her to be burned to death. He didn’t yet realize that he was the man who had gotten her pregnant.
But Tamar had taken Judah’s seal, cord, and staff the night she slept with him. And when the men came to drag her out to be burned, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” (Genesis 38:25 NIV)
And when Judah heard this, he said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” (Genesis 38:26 NIV)
And so Tamar lived, and God blessed her. When the time came for her to give birth, she not only had one son, she had twin sons!
And the midwife tied a scarlet thread around the wrist of one of the babies to mark which one came first.
Tamar gave her sons interesting names. She named one son Zerah, which means “scarlet,” and she named the other Perez, which means “breaking out.”
Halleluiah!! Do you see how Tamar’s blessings broke out? God had heard Tamar’s prayers, seen Tamar’s suffering, broken her curse, stopped the storm, protected her from any more unfair treatment, and provided for her future with not one but two sons!
I believe there’s some symbolism for us in this story. When we go through a storm and there’s nothing to hang onto but the blood of Jesus, that’s when the blessings break out!
Tamar’s story reminds me of another time the color scarlet was involved in a blessing during a “storm” of life.
About 400 years after Tamar, Israelite families huddled together inside their homes, waiting out their storm, as the destroyer came through Egypt and killed the firstborn son in every home that was not marked with what? The scarlet blood of the Lamb.
Moses had instructed the Israelites, saying:
When the Lord goes through he land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (Exodus 12:23 NIV)
And the next morning, the Israelites found that they had been broken out of their slavery, protected from death, and blessed with gold and silver all because of the scarlet blood of the Lamb!!
Tamar – and the Israelites – came through their storms and they didn’t break. Like those Palm trees in a hurricane they had bent all the way over but now they stood back up, straight and tall and hearts full of joy and gratitude for that beautiful scarlet blood of the Lamb.
Now let’s look at another woman who also discovered the power of the scarlet blood. This is a woman named Rahab. Rahab was a prostitute!! But she also became the great great great great great great great grandmother of Jesus!!
Imagine that!!! A prostitute in the line of Jesus!!!
We find Rahab’s story in the book of Joshua, chapter 2. Rahab lived in the beautiful city of Jericho; she was not an Israelite; she was a heathen.
The Israelites had come across the Jordan River, into the Promised Land, and they sent two spies into Jericho to figure out how to plan their attack.
And the two spies went into Rahab’s house. And she told them, basically, I don’t want to live with my people anymore- I want to be an Israelite like you. I will protect you and hide you from my people, but you must promise to save me when you attack Jericho.
And the spies made her a promise. They told her that when the Israelites came to destroy Jericho, they would save her under one condition: she would have to hang a scarlet rope out of her window. And that’s what happened…
When the Israelites came to attack Jericho, they saw that scarlet rope hanging out of one particular house. Everyone in Jericho died that day except for the prostitute and her family who were huddled together in the house with the scarlet rope.
Rahab was a prostitute, but she, like Tamar, was protected and delivered by that scarlet rope, which symbolizes the blood of Jesus.
Rahab went on to live with the Israelites, but she was no longer a prostitute. She began to worship the true God, married an Israelite man, and became part of the genealogy of Jesus.
I believe that we can learn some valuable lessons from Tamar, the Israelite people living in slavery, and Rahab.
We learn that when we turn to Jesus, it doesn’t matter who we are or what we’ve done- when we turn to Jesus and ask Him to cover us with His blood, He will!!
No matter if we, like Rahab, were sinners all our lives
No matter if we, like Tamar, have had nothing but bad luck and storms, and people think of us as being a curse, and we are unloved, overlooked, ignored, and hated
No matter if people look down on us and oppress us
None of this matters to God once we are covered with the blood of Jesus!
Our righteousness, our deliverance, our salvation, our protection has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the scarlet blood of Jesus Christ!
One of the biggest lies that Christians believe is “you’re not worthy for God to bless you because you don’t look worthy.”
Tamar didn’t look worthy but it wasn’t her fault! She had married two bad guys who both ended up dying and it made her look like bad luck!!
Rahab didn’t look worthy and it was her fault! She had made a conscious choice to become a prostitute and lead a life of sin!!
The Israelites didn’t look worthy and it wasn’t their fault – they had been enslaved against their will.
In the eyes of the world none of these people looked worthy of God’s blessing, but I believe that God chose them to remind us that there is only one way to be blessed; one way to be worthy of God’s blessing.
That’s the scarlet thread
The scarlet rope
The blood of Jesus
We need to understand that our value, our worth, comes not from anything we’ve done, or what people say about us. We become worthy and valuable in the eyes of God when we become covered with the precious blood of Jesus.
The devil wants to keep that a secret. Why?
Because the devil knows that the blood of Jesus gives us power over the all the works of the devil. So if the devil can get us to forget the blood, he can continue to wreak havoc in the world.
We should never never believe the devil’s lie!
we can never be too down and out
we can never be too much of a failure
we can never be too much of a sinner
we can never have had too much of a past
These people were “unvaluable” in the eyes of the world - unclean, unloved, unworthy. But they all took a chance and asked for the blessing anyway!!!
They were bold, they were desperate, they were relentless!!! And because of the scarlet rope, the scarlet thread, the scarlet blood, they all received their blessing!!
The Bible tells us that because of the scarlet blood of Jesus, we have …
healing
Deliverance
Salvation
Protection
Provision
Power and authority over the devil
And we are …
Blessed when we come in
Blessed when we go out
Our jobs will be blessed, our kids will be blessed; everything we touch will be blessed.
Not because we’ve been good enough…
Or worthy enough
Or smart enough
Or successful enough
No! we will be blessed with over 3,000 blessings because we are covered with the precious scarlet blood of Jesus!!
References
Strong, James. Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. Baker Book House, 1983.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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