Joshua 2:21

A Bit Of Red Cord

She bound the scarlet line in the window. Joshua 2:21.

A bit of red cord. That was what the spies told Rahab to bind in her window. She wanted to have some pledge that the Israelites would spare her and her household when they captured Jericho. So they told her to put a red cord in her window as a sign; and they promised that when the Israelites saw it they would leave her house unharmed. Perhaps the spies were thinking of the red blood with which the Israelites sprinkled their doorposts on the night that the first-born of Egypt were slain.

Now it is rather odd, but a bit of red cord stands for quite a number of things that are protected or kept apart, just as Rahab and her household were.

I wonder how many of you try to grow sweet-peas in your garden? Well, you know how, when the young shoots are just popping their heads above ground, the birds come along and nip them off. Now, have you ever tried stretching a bit of red string or wool over the place where the peas are sown? All you have to do is to put in a little stick at each end of the row and twine the cord backwards and forwards once or twice so that it will show. You will find it a splendid protection. Somehow or other it acts like a danger signal to the birds and they won't come near it.

Then there are the thick red cords we find in old cathedrals. They are run along from seat to seat to keep the public from trespassing, and sometimes you find them roping off the chancel where the altar and choir seats are. You have seen similar red cords at weddings to mark off the seats reserved for guests, or at big public functions to indicate those set aside for people of importance.

But there are invisible as well as visible red cords. Wherever people have anything that they want specially taken care of or kept apart from common use, there is a bit of red cord whether you can see it or not.

Will you try to remember three things about these bits of cord?

1. Don't put up unnecessary bits of red cord. You remember the old, old fable of the dog in the manger. Mr. Dog was lying comfortably in the manger on a bed of hay when along came Mr. Ox and begged for some of the hay for his dinner. But Mr. Dog got up and behaved in a most ungentlemanly fashion. He growled, and he snarled, and he wouldn't allow Mr. Ox to touch the hay! So Mr. Ox gave Mr. Dog a bit of his mind. “That's just like you,” he said; “you can't eat the hay yourself, and yet you won't let anybody else have any!”

Do you like the picture of Mr. Dog? He was just putting up an unnecessary bit of red cord round that manger and it didn't look very pretty. And we do the same when we refuse to share with others what we can't use ourselves.

There is another way in which we can, and often do, put up this unnecessary red cord.

A well-known novelist in one of her novels speaks about the red cord which certain sets of people put up round them. These people are all very friendly with each other within their own set, but if you come into their company they at once make you feel the invisible red cord which separates them from you. They are like those seats at the wedding or the public function specially reserved and if you are outside their circle they give you the same feeling that the visible red cord does in these places the feeling of somehow being left out in the cold.

Now I know that this invisible red cord exists even among boys and girls. I have seen three or four little girls with their arms entwined and their heads together. They were talking in low voices. And I have seen a fifth little girl join them who was either a stranger or not a particular favorite; and suddenly the conversation ceased. And I've heard one boy tell another straight “Look here, clear out, will you? You're not wanted.”

Now don't have anything to do with that kind of red cord. It isn't an ornament. By all means have your special friends, but be kind to the outsiders, and don't make them feel out of it.

2. Respect other people's red cord. What do we mean by that?

Well, there was an old lady once who lived in a village. All her relatives were dead and she lived quite alone. Her one pleasure in life was her garden. All summer long it was sweet with the perfume of lilies and roses, stocks, mignonette, and carnations; and every day when the weather was fine you might have seen her tending her precious flowers tying up a rebellious shoot here, taking out a few weeds there, watering a sickly plant somewhere else. You see, she had no children to love, so she tended the flowers instead.

Then one day they began to build a new village school opposite her cottage, and before long the school was completed and the boys and girls were occupying it.

Now these boys and girls had each a playground of their own, but many of them preferred playing on the road. And then things began to happen.

One of the games they played was “rounders,” and that meant that very often their ball landed in the old lady's garden. Another game was “cat and bat” and “cats” have an awkward way of jumping where they're not meant to.

The boys and girls used to rush in at the old lady's gate to recover their belongings, and often they trampled down her borders. At first she reprimanded them mildly, but later she began to get angry. And when she got angry some of them only thought that funny, because of course they couldn't see into her heart and discover the pain that was there. They couldn't know that when they were trampling down her flowers they were really trampling down her children.

So at last she grew so unhappy that she gave up her cottage and went away to live elsewhere.

Now, boys and girls, don't trample on other people's flower-beds or mess up where they have tidied, or destroy the favorite books they have lent you. And don't trample on other people's feelings. There are sacred places in everybody's heart where we have no right to intrude; there are other places where we must take off our shoes and walk softly. Respect the red cord of others.

3. Last of all and most important of all, don't forget to put a red cord around your heart, the red cord of Jesus' love. It will keep you pure and unselfish and true. It will hold you back from doing things of which you are ashamed. It will guard you safely in all temptation.