"By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies." (Hebrews 11:29-31).

Pat Benatar sang, "love is a battlefield." OK. But I think life is a battlefield. The pressures, the attacks, the deadlines, the struggles: they feel like war. Bullets flying, missiles whirring, and I think I might become a casualty of life.

We are a people in need of God's victory, his help in life. And believers have this great advantage. We are on team Jesus. Not because we're awesome, but because we realized we're the opposite, and accepted Jesus' blood to make us whole before God. Now he offers his aid by his Spirit for life today, life in the trenches.

So now, believers are to walk by faith in God, which will help them access victory from God.

Hebrews, seeking to show its readers how to live by faith, gave us a cluster of victorious characters to help us walk by faith today. The victory over Egypt at the Red Sea, the toppling of Jericho's walls, and one of Jericho's citizens are mentioned. Each shows us a facet of the victory God can give.

1. Red Sea: Faith accesses victory from God through anything.

After the terror of the Passover, Egypt begged Israel to depart. Whatever they wanted or needed, the Egyptians would supply it. Just get out.

But Pharaoh, a man hardened against God, decided to chase Israel with his military. As the chariots pressed closer to wandering Israel, they panicked. They said to Moses, "Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?" (Exodus 4:11). The people feared for their lives. Surely, they thought, we are going to die.

Moses prayed to God. These are your people, Lord. Do you hear them? Stand still, Moses. See the salvation of the Lord. Hands raised, waters parted. dd

We've been told courage will get us through. But Israel had no courage as they journeyed through the parted waters. They were a fearful people. And the Egyptians tried to go through the Red Sea. They were fearless but judged by God.

But Israel survived by faith. They were a couple million people strong, which is impressive, but they had no army and no weapons. The Egyptian army, though decimated through the plagues, was still a far superior force. What Israel did have was faith. As they went through the Red Sea, they believed God. All the Egyptians had was mindless courage. And when they went in, God judged them and swallowed up their army with those waters.

You see, faith brings us through.

I remember a time I was passing through a particular trial that was so confusing. I could not see the way forward. I felt I couldn't turn to the right or left. I couldn't go backward. There was no solution. Israel was in the same place. They could only go forward. But how?

But God made a way through their difficulty that completely violated their imagination. He opened the seas and led them through.

They might've thought they were doomed. But the Lord had an altogether surprising and delightful source of victory for them. They weren't going to go around the Red Sea to the left. They weren't going to go around the Red Sea to the right. They didn't need to go backward into Egypt. But God was going to lead them through that body of water. And he wills to lead us, so often, through the trial, not around it.

2. Jericho: Faith accesses victory from God over anything.

By faith, the walls of Jericho fell after they'd been encircled for seven days. Now, perhaps you noticed a major gap in the record. In the events of the Old Testament, after they went through the Red Sea, they ceased to believe God while in the wilderness. They rebelled and did not believe God could bring them into the promised land. So the author of Hebrews omits them and fast-forwards forty years to the next generation.

And when they went in there, the first major opponent was embodied in Jericho. There was no place for them to go without first dealing with Jericho. There were a lot of enemies inside of the land of Canaan. But the major enemy was this walled fortress of a city.

Joshua, their leader at the time, came to the outskirts of Jericho. He was actually just gazing, setting his eyes upon it. I imagine him as the commander, praying, thinking, strategizing, and wondering, how in the world are we going to defeat a fortress of a city like that? You know, they've built it like that to defend themselves against people like us. How can we defeat it?

I imagine Joshua thinking and strategizing and stressing.

Then the angel of the Lord appeared with his sword drawn. Joshua questioned his identity at first, but soon realized the presence of the Lord right in front of him. He took off his sandals and began to worship. He said, What does my Lord say to his servant?

I imagine just all this stress, all this pressure, rolling off Joshua's back at this moment. He didn't have to win the victory. God would do the work and create the plan.

Joshua would've rejoiced: It's not for me and my armies to figure this whole thing out. It's for the angel of the Lord with his sword, he's the one who's going to go before us. He's going to win this victory.

So Joshua said, What do you say to me Your servant? I'm just your servant. I'm not that I'm not the guy in charge. I respond to the guy in charge. What do you want?

Then God unfolded a wild plan. He told Joshua to take all the people and leave the camp to encircle the city of Jericho. They were to march around it once a day for six full days in complete silence.

Then on the seventh day, circle it seven times. And at the end of the seventh time, tell the priests, not the warriors, to get out their trumpets, not their weapons, and blow their trumpets. And everybody will shout.

Faith gives victories like these. Sometimes God has to give us counter-intuitive plans which require we trust him. For example, Jesus invites us to lay down our lives, a very counter-intuitive thing. It's not what we or our flesh wants to do. But he says, as you lay down your life, you're going to find your life. We believe that if we sacrifice, that we will gain. We believe that as we are poor in spirit, we will be rich in the kingdom of heaven. Or that as we live counter-culturally, in a way that's different from the worldliness that's around us, that we will be able to tap into a life of great joy. So in one sense, you could say the whole Christian life is a counter-intuitive experience.

But on the other hand, unique times will also come where the Lord will ask you to do things in a way that just doesn't make sense to the flesh. It won't make sense to your brain and the way that you would do things. But because God exists, and because he's for you, the victory is there.

3. Rahab: Faith accesses victory from God for anyone.

Now Rahab was connected to the victory over Jericho. She was a prostitute. Her story is fascinating.

When Israel came into the promised land, Joshua wanted to spy out the land of Canaan, just as he had done forty years earlier. But rather than send ten spies, Joshua only sent two.

They went into Jericho, sneaking in by stealth. They were able to lodge in the house of this woman named Rahab. As a prostitute, sometimes, people would go to her home for lodging. The spies did this and found refuge in her home.

Now, word got out that these two spies were there. The authorities came to Rahab's house and asked her to give up the men, but she covered for them. She told them the spies had already gone. She deceived the townspeople. But the Israelite spies were hiding on her roof.

She then explained to them how the dread of Israel had been on them for forty years. Jericho knew about God's victories over Egypt. This terrified them. They trembled at Israel's presence. They knew God was there to judge their gods.

Because of this reverence, Rahab asked for mercy. She feared God and pleaded with them for grace.

They said, If you don't tell anybody about us, and if you hang a scarlet cord from your house when we come we'll have mercy on you. God will have mercy on you.

And that's exactly what Rahab did. She kept it to herself. She hung the scarlet cord when the walls fell down.

We assume that God preserved her little part of the wall, and she was saved. She actually became adopted by the Israelite nation, married an Israelite man. Eventually, their offspring gave birth to David, who became the greatest king that Israel has ever seen. And David's line became Jesus's line. And Matthew, when he writes his gospel, starts out by giving the family tree of Jesus, including Rahab in the record.

So she entered into the line of Christ because of her faith. What this shows us is that faith can lead to victory from God for anybody.

I mean, if God is willing to work with Rahab and the Bible goes out of the way to record her story, God can work with us. He redeemed the prostitute's life. He made way for her to come into the family of God. There is no one beyond his reach. Faith accesses victory from God for anyone.