Have you ever read the book “The Scarlet Letter”? I never have, but the plot of this story can relate to the story of that of Rahab. The novel is set in seventeenth-century Boston, a city governed by strict Puritan law. The story begins as Hester Prynne, the novel’s protagonist, is led out of a prison carrying an infant, named Pearl, in her arms. A bright red “A” is embroidered on her chest. A crowd waits expectantly as Hester is forced to climb up a scaffold to endure public shame for her sin. While on the scaffold, Hester is terrified to recognize her estranged husband, Chillingworth, in the crowd. He recognizes her too, and is shocked. Chillingworth pretends not to know Hester, and learns her story from a man in the crowd: she was married to an English scholar who was supposed to follow her to Boston but never showed up. After two years she fell into sin, committing the adultery that resulted in her baby and the scarlet “A” on her breast. Chillingworth predicts the unknown man will be found out, but when the beloved local Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commands Hester to reveal the man’s name, she refuses and is sent back to her prison cell. Chillingworth poses as a doctor to get inside the prison to speak with Hester, and there forces her to promise never to reveal that he’s her husband.

Three years pass. Hester is let out of prison and moves to the outskirts of Boston, near the forest. She makes a living as a seamstress, though the people who employ her still shun her. Hester refuses to tell Pearl what the scarlet letter signifies, and Pearl becomes obsessed with the letter. Meanwhile, Chillingworth is working in Boston as a physician, though he has no formal medical training. One of his patients is Dimmesdale, who has fallen ill with heart trouble. Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale to care for him full-time and begins to suspect a connection between Dimmesdale’s heart ailment and Hester’s crime. When he discovers that Dimmesdale has carved a mark over his heart that resembles Hester’s scarlet letter, Chillingworth realizes that Dimmesdale is Hester’s lover. Chillingworth decides to torment and expose Dimmesdale.

Under Chillingworth’s cruel care, Dimmesdale’s health deteriorates. Dimmesdale’s guilt for committing and concealing adultery causes him profound emotional suffering. He even starves and whips himself as punishment. One night Dimmesdale mounts the same scaffold upon which Hester was publicly shamed. At just that moment, Hester and Pearl pass by and join Dimmesdale on the scaffold. A meteor lights the sky in the shape of a red “A” and illuminates Chillingworth standing nearby.

Hester decides she must help Dimmesdale, and pleads with Chillingworth to stop tormenting him. Chillingworth acknowledges that he’s become cruel and wicked, but argues that he’s actually protecting Dimmesdale by not revealing his secret to the public. Hester then takes matters into her own hands: she intercepts Dimmesdale in the forest and tells him Chillingworth’s true identity. She convinces Dimmesdale to flee with her and Pearl to Europe, and they make plans to take a ship the day after Dimmesdale is scheduled to deliver an important sermon. Dimmesdale delivers the sermon (the best of his life). However, he realizes he’s dying and won’t make it to Europe. He mounts the scaffold and asks Hester and Pearl to join him. He confesses his sin to the crowd and bares his chest, revealing a scarlet letter carved into his own skin. He dies as Pearl kisses him for the first time.

Hester and Pearl leave Boston. Chillingworth dies a year after Dimmesdale, leaving Pearl a small fortune as an inheritance. Many years later, Hester returns to her cabin on the outskirts of town. She still wears her letter “A.” Pearl has married into money in Europe and writes to Hester on occasion. Hester remains in Boston until her death and is buried alongside Dimmesdale. Their shared tombstone bears a letter “A.” (link)

Many people can relate to the story of Hester. She made a mistake, and she wore the scarlet letter “A” for adultery for the rest of her life. While the preacher was the one who accused her at the beginning to save his ministry, he would eventually reveal that he is the one with the scarlet letter after experiencing much pain and emotional distress, and they both would go to the graves remembered by their scarlet letter. What you commit in secret will eventually be made public. You can try to keep it a secret in order to save your reputation and ministry, but those hidden sins that you have kept in the closet will come out through your character and behavior. When it has not been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, it can only torment you. When those emotional scars in your life remain only deep within, they can make you miserable and depressed. The only way that God can forgive and strengthen you is when you come boldly to throne of grace, confess it before the Lord, ask Him for forgiveness, and allow Him to transform you into a new creation that leads to a testimony of what His goodness and mercy can do! 1 Peter 4:8 says, “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” We are to cover each other through forgiveness, even if they do not deserve it. Love is as strong as death, it can cover a multitude of sins that people work against you. As many times as God has loved and forgiven you time after time again, you too can love and forgive those minor things that people have done against you! Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.” It profits you nothing to stay rooted in bitterness and bear the fruit of hate, gossip, jealousy, slander or strife, but it is worthy everything to have your branches stretched out long and wide in love. 

There may even be moments where you need to confess to someone what you have done, or someone trusts you with their confessions, but when you confess, make sure the person is trustworthy and God-fearing, but when they confide in you, keep a lid shut on it and pray about it. They reveal it so you can cover them in prayer, not misjudge them! Proverbs 17:9 says, “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.” We must cover each other in love and confidence and not try to slander and tear down. Confession has power to bring freedom, and it should never create bondage for a person’s life as something to hover over their head for the rest of their lives. If it has been confessed and repented of, then it is forgiven! James 5:16 says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” We are to confess and then pray for one another so those emotional and physical scars can be healed. We are to not just say one prayer and then forget about it, but we are called to pray fervently and unstoppably so the breakthrough can come. We have to trust one another and pray as each other’s covering so that we can have each other’s back in faith! When you take it to God, He Himself will cover you! His love still covers a multitude of sins today. The blood of Jesus Christ has not lost any power till this day! There is hope and freedom, and it is in Jesus! 

They went to the grave with this scarlet letter. You do not have to go throughout your life and all the way to the grave with a scarlet letter hanging on your garments or tattooed in your skin. You do not have to bear the same label for the rest of your life and allow it determine your future and destroy your purpose in God. Your label may not be an “A” for adultery, but it may be “A” for Accident, “B” for Bully, “C” for Covetous, “D” for Drunkard. It could be “G” for Gossip, “J” for Judgmental, “L” for Liar, “M” for Mistake, P for Prideful, T for Thief, and the list goes on, but whatever the label is, it can be broken. For Hester, it was her past sins that the fruit of the sins being revealed that led to her having a scarlet letter stamped upon her body. She was imprisoned by it, and she was considered an outcast in her society. You can be sitting here right in the church tonight and feel as though you have a scarlet letter that imprisons you and makes you feel an outcast, but through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, those labels can be torn, broken, and removed from your life. It may be the result of past sins and failures, or it may be because of your background, but regardless of your past and background, it does not have to determine your future. God can position you on the front lines and give you a destiny like only He can give you, but you cannot go where you are going with those old labels. He will make you a new creation in His sight if you are willing to confess and believe upon Jesus Christ! He is ready, but you have to be willing!