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expecting him to overcome

Hebrews 11:30-31 (JDV)

Hebrews 11:30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after being marched around by the Israelites for seven days.
Hebrews 11:31 By faith Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed.

expecting him to overcome

The fall of Jericho and the rescue of Rahab stand together as a vivid picture of what it means to live by faith in a world filled with obstacles and opposing powers. The Israelites did not deny the reality of the wall. They walked around it for seven days. They felt its shadow. They knew its strength. But they also knew something greater: the wall was not an obstacle to their God. What looked immovable to human eyes was nothing before the One who had promised the land.

Rahab, on the other hand, saw the danger from the inside. She lived under the authority of a king who would have executed her for treason. She lived in a city whose walls seemed impenetrable. But she had heard the stories—stories of a God who dried up seas, defeated kings, and kept His word. She believed those stories enough to risk everything. Her faith was not blind; it was informed. She expected the God of Israel to prevail, and she aligned herself with Him before the walls ever fell.

That is the pattern for us.

Faith does not ignore obstacles. Faith names them, measures them, and then places them beneath the authority of God.
We see the walls. We see the armies. We see the cultural pressures, the spiritual battles, the personal weaknesses, the sins that cling, the fears that rise. But we also see the God who stands above them.

Our task as believers is not to pretend the obstacles aren’t real. It is to recognize them fully—and then expect our God to overcome them.

Jericho’s walls were real.
Pharaoh’s army was real.
The destroyer in Egypt was real.
The dangers Rahab faced were real.

But God was more real.

And He still is.

Faith is not wishful thinking. It is confidence in the God who has already proven Himself faithful. When we face obstacles, we do what Israel and Rahab did: we acknowledge the challenge, and then we expect our God to act.