‘God is Able!’
- Jun 6, 2025
- 6 min read
We learnt last week that Rahab (and ourselves) are more than the mistakes of a broken past, and that she had become a believer in the one true living God.
Rahab doesn’t have a lot of theological knowledge. She had heard how God had brought the Israelites through the Red Sea. But look what happens when Rahab's people heard this about God; the fear of God fell on them and their hearts melted. For Rahab, that was enough, she believed in God and goes onto say (HP paraphrase!), "Just remember us and save us when you come to take the land" (see vs12-13).
She was simply saying: 1. God is real; 2. Judgment is coming; 3. There’s nothing I can do to save myself; 4. I appeal to you and your God for mercy.
That’s it, and this is the essence of faith. “God, you’re real; and I’m a sinner who can’t save myself, but I know you are able. Your love is strong enough and your mercy is long enough to save even me.”
Such hope and encouragement come from this story today.
I’m praising God today, that as we look at this passage we have one who is able to bring hope into hopeless situations.
Jackie Pullinger’s book ‘Chasing the Dragon’ is an amazing book. It’s about her story that started in 1966. It tells of her boarding a ship with only a £10 note and a prayer that God would show her when to get off. When the boat pulled into Hong Kong, God told her to disembark, and she obeyed.
Kowloon Walled City was a lawless slum where only triads profited; such a place of darkness, but where Pullinger’s story began. She got to work, loving the unlovable.
Her message was simple - being so sure of God’s love, that we go out and share it with the lost; with the Triads, drug gangs, and prostitutes.
A 72 year-old lady, Alfreda had nothing. She was messed up; no income; no identity card; and as far as the government of Hong Kong was concerned, she didn’t exist. But God knew!
God met her and changed her. She met ‘Little Wa’, a gentleman aged 75, and fell in love. Jackie described the wedding as 'the wedding of the decade': the former prostitute, heroin addict, walked down the aisle, in white, cleansed, forgiven, transformed by the love of Jesus Christ.
God is able to bring about such transformation into people's lives.
Max Lucado said, "No one is more solidly in our corner than God himself. He lifts us up, dusts us off, and cheers us on in the 'messy' race of life."
Back to Rahab. The testimony of Rahab sealed it for the spies “all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you" (v9). The two spies had heard all they needed to hear. Their testimony when they returned to Joshua was,“The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us" (v24).
Now think about it. The Israelites had lived for over 40 years under the assumption that they were the ones with something to fear. However, it turns out the people who inhabited the Promised Land were the ones “melting in fear.”
So often, our fears are so much bigger than the reality. How long has it been that you’ve been held by that fear, or that issue, and have refused to move forward? You’ve heard and believed the lie and been in fear of it ever since.
Please note! It wasn’t because of Israel’s awesome army, or great leader like Joshua, that they needed not be afraid. It was because they had heard about the power and might of God. A God who is able to do far more than we can imagine or think!
Oh, how we need to gain the perspective Rahab had. If we could begin to see things from God’s perspective, we would realise the barriers and obstacles that hold us back are “melting away” because He is able!
Rahab knew that they had no chance because it was God's Kingdom that was coming. Look at verses 9 to 11 again! Rahab knew that her world was crumbling and destined to fail.
We should be in no doubt either: God's Kingdom has come and is coming. God will build His church and nothing will stop it!! Don’t be fooled or misled.
Let me ask you, are you so attached to this world, strangely happy with your wilderness existence? Or, do you want to receive from God and be part of His coming Kingdom?
Charles Price said, “God’s victory is something not to be won, but to be received. Perhaps the greatest quality in women and men of God is the capacity to receive! It is not the capacity to create or to produce that is the mark of spiritual reality and true godliness, but the humility to receive what God alone can give, and to trust what God alone can do!”
Rahab had so much going against her. She was an enemy, a Gentile, a woman, and a prostitute. There’s nothing here that could make her acceptable. Yet, all she has to do to be saved is believe in God and receive His grace. In the end, Rahab was not saved by what she did; she was saved by what God did!
The spies set three conditions for Rahab to be saved: she must not tell others about them (vs 14 & 20); she must tie a scarlet cord in the window (v18); she must assemble her family in the house (v18).
This choice of the ‘scarlet cord’ must have had great resonance for the spies. Years ago, the Israelites had gone through an amazing rescue by God. Passover night, those homes where the blood of a Passover lamb had been put on the door frame God spared the family. (See Exodus chapter 12.)
In Hebrew, the word for cord or thread also means 'hope'. The Hebrew word is ‘Tikvah.’ It means ‘the expectation to receive what is desired.’ Tikvah is first used here in Joshua 2 as Rahab's scarlet cord. The cord is a symbol of protection, promise and of a future. It’s a mark of salvation, safety and security. The cord would hang from her window, awaiting the saving work of God. It was a sign of her trust in God and the future plans He had for her.
The bigger story - her salvation on that day would be God working out His story through her, to when His Son would be born into the world. The cord a reminder of being secured by hope into the family line of the Messiah.
What’s so amazing about this story is that in the midst of the city that was going to be destroyed, there’s a sign of redemption, of hope; a scarlet cord would reveal the way through.
William Evans said, “Cut the Bible anywhere and it bleeds.” He observed, “the atonement is the scarlet cord running through every page in the entire Bible”; it “is red with redemption truth.”
Isaiah 1:18: “'Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool."”
We won’t read the end of Rahab’s story for a couple of chapters. In fact, we don’t really come to the end because we’re part of the continuing story. Isn’t that amazing?
Let me ask you a question: why did Israel need someone to go spy on Jericho?
They needed to know God’s story, and this would be lived out through Rahab. It is a story about God’s promise to his chosen people, and His care and concern for one person in a city that’s about to be destroyed.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, "I'm so glad that God chose me before the foundation of the world, because He never would have chosen me after I was born!"
Why not stop for a moment!
Rahab was marginalised in her own story, in her own society, but God's story was so different. She would be blessed by God, and as a consequence move from the margins of a Canaanite city and culture that would be destroyed, to the centre of Israel's ongoing story.
You may be like Rahab: a person with an unremarkable past, held by the labels given by others, but who is used by God to advance the work of His Kingdom.
You may feel that God can’t/won’t do anything through your life. The truth is: you have no idea what God can, will, and is doing through you right now. Because of your testimony He may be planting seeds that will not come to harvest for years to come. But He's at work; He is able!
Someone once said, "Nature forms us, sin deforms us, prisons try to reform us, education tries to inform us, but it is the power of Christ that can transform us."
Pray
Thank God today that He is a God of hope, and by His grace we are moved from the margins of life and become central to His story being worked out in us!
Thank you for an encouraging message once again, Harry. To be reminded that no one God created is forgotten by Him no matter what their circumstance. For the second time this week seeing things from God’s perspective has come up, and what come to my mind instantly is how can I do this with God’s thoughts and ways being infinitely higher than mine, but here the perspective of Rahab has shown me this is about knowing, being aware of who God is from His word and what He sees in my life and of those around me.
God is the voice of hope and anchor for the soul.