Well we have the opportunity tonight to look
again at Hebrews chapter 11....Hebrews chapter 11. We have come to the end of this great faith
chapter. It is monumental for a number of reasons. It is a monumental case laid for a relationship
with God based on faith and not works. It is monumental as well because it gives
us a kind of summary of the Old Testament. It kind of sweeps us through from the family
of Adam all the way through the prophets which brings us virtually down to the New Testament. It is somewhat like the sermon of Stephen
early in the book of Acts where he summarizes the history of God's working in Israel. Here similarly there is this summary, the
emphasis is on the necessity of faith to have a true relationship to God. Let's read the verses that we'll be looking
at tonight. Verse 30, "By faith the walls of Jericho fell
down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab the harlot did not perish
along with those who were disobedient after she had welcomed the spies in peace. And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon,
Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who by faith conquered kingdoms,
performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched
the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became
mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection
and others were tortured not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better
resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourgings,
yes also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins
being destitute, afflicted, ill treated. Men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering
in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through
their faith did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better
for us so that apart from us they would not be made perfect, or complete." Now as you know, if you've been with us and
if you haven't, I'll try to give you enough of a summary to catch you up, the Holy Spirit
in this wonderful epistle to the Hebrews is making a concentrated effort to convince the
readers and anybody else who will read this through history, of the necessity of faith
as the only way to God. There are only two possibilities. Either you come to God by faith alone, or
you don't. Fair enough? And if you don't come by faith alone, then
you come by some other way and you're left with some form of works system. You either are saved by faith alone apart
from works, or you're saved by some degree of works. The Bible rejects all works as a way of salvation
and leaves us only with the concept of faith. Faith is believing what God has said simply
because He has said it. And in particular, believing Him about what
He says about a relationship to Him, that it is available to those who repent of their
sin and put their trust in His grace and His mercy. Even in the Old Testament people to be saved
had to acknowledge their sin and then come to God and plead for the mercy and the grace
which He promised to offer the penitent sinner. At any point in redemptive history, salvation
is always by that kind of faith. Even before the cross they were believing
God that He would give forgiveness, and mercy and grace to the sinner who repented and believed
in Him. Even though they did not yet know the reality
of the cross. On this side, our faith embraces the work
of Christ in His death and resurrection but it is still faith. Now here is the dilemma. In the New Testament period, as you know,
the gospel breaks on the scene in Israel. Most particularly it is antithetical to the
religious establishment and the established religion. Judaism by the time of our Lord and really
long before that had become a works system. It had been embellished with all kinds of
manmade rules by the hundreds and people were under the illusion that you work your way
to God. It's not apart from faith but it's faith plus
your own efforts. You believe in God, you believe in what God
has said, but that doesn't complete the transaction. You have to accomplish certain things, achieve
certain things, morally, spiritually and even ceremonially. When the gospel of grace and the gospel of
faith came along, the Jews heard it as if it was an alien message because they had been
so well trained on works. To come along with this idea that salvation
is by faith alone and that reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sin and entrance
into the Kingdom of God and the hope of eternal heaven is a matter of faith and nothing more,
seemed to them to be a corrupted message. They were convinced that your works and keeping
of the law, therefore a kind of legalistic system, was the way into God's Kingdom. And so, when the gospel came along, they were
offended by it. And the more invested they were in the works
system, the more offended they were and the most invested were the leaders of the system
in Israel and therefore they were the most hostile to Jesus and the gospel of grace and
faith. Well, of course, the New Testament unfolds
the significance of salvation and reconciliation with God by faith alone. There are still some Jews who are having trouble
getting the point. And the writer of Hebrews understands that
because this letter is written to a community of Jews, presumably somewhere in perhaps in
the land of Israel. It is to show them that the way of faith is
not an alien message, it is not a new message, it is a very old message. To be reconciled to God, you must abandon
your works and you must come by faith alone. Faith willingly admits inability and comes
to God believing that He is merciful and will save the penitent sinner who believes in Him
and in His grace and mercy. Now how can the writer of Hebrews prove the
point that salvation has always been by faith and never by works? Answer, go back to the very beginning of redemptive
history, a biblical history of human history and look at what we find. He starts with the family of Adam in verse
4, and talks about the faith of Abel. And then in verse 5, the faith of Enoch, two
familiar characters in the early chapters of Genesis. Still in the early chapters of Genesis in
verse 7 he talks about the faith of Noah. Still in the early chapters of Genesis he
talks about the faith of Abraham and gives a rather extensive treatment to Abraham's
life. And then he talks, starting in verse 20, about
the faith of Isaac. And in verse 21, about the faith of Jacob. And in verse 22 about the faith of Joseph,
those are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. And they take up the book of Genesis. And then you come in to the book of Exodus
and he refers to the faith of Moses. And, of course, Moses' story sweeps through
the book of Exodus. Moses then also becomes the author of the
Pentateuch, the opening books of the Old Testament. Then he comes, having left behind the patriarchs
in Genesis and Moses in the book of Exodus, and the rest of the Pentateuch, he moves to
the next group starting in verse 30. This group of people moves us into the book,
if you will, Joshua and Judges and begins the trek through the books of history and
the Old Testament. And he points out here that by faith the walls
of Jericho fell, by faith Rahab, you remember the harlot in Jericho, was not terrified by
the threat against her life if she hid the spies, but believed in the true God against
very, very challenging potential circumstances. And then he moves on from there to what we're
going to look at today in verse 32 and following, and that's where we left off. Here we sweep through the...basically the
history of the Old Testament all the way to the end. We start with the Judges, Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah. We touch on the kings, David. We touch on the first of the prophets since
Moses really, Samuel. And then we sweep through the prophets with
just an identification of the prophets and then following that there are all kinds of
statements made about the kind of suffering that they endured and in every case their
faith stood the test. So, the point of the writer is to show us
that redemptive history has always made clear that salvation is by faith. The intensity of the chapter is starting to
ramp up, however. When we look at Abel and Enoch and Noah and
we look at Abraham and we look at Moses, we look at Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, we look
at the children of Israel, at the walls of Jericho, we look at Rahab, there are significant
events going on in which they demonstrate their faith. But when we get in to chapter 11 verse 32,
there's a level of intensity that is added because their faith is now tested in the crucible
of a life and death situation...a life and death situation. And what I read you from verse 32 to verse
40 indicates that this is life and death kind of faith. This is where faith is tested at its highest
level in the crucible of severe threats. Now backing up a little bit, before we go
in to the text, years before this letter was written, the gospel of Christ had come to
this group of people. We don't know how many years. We don't know what group of people it is. It's a group of Hebrews, obviously. But years before the letter was written and
we don't even know who wrote the letter, the gospel came to this group of people. And if you go back to chapter 2 and verse
3, we learn there how the gospel came to them. Verse 3 of chapter 2, "How shall we escape
if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the
Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard." In other words, this gospel was given to this
community of Jews by the people who were with Jesus. This is a first-hand, eye-witness account
of the gospel passed on to these people. And they weren't just people who were with
Jesus, verse 4 says, their testimony was accompanied by signs and wonders and various miracles. Now who would they then be? Who would the preachers be? Well according to 2 Corinthians 12:12, signs
and wonders and miracles are the signs of an Apostle. So here is a community of believers who have
been with Christ, who have been commissioned by Christ, who in fact are the Apostles of
Christ, who have come to this community of Jews and preached to them the gospel of Christ
and the preaching has been attended by signs and wonders and miracles and manifest gifts
of the Holy Spirit. These people then were the recipients of a
powerful presentation, to be sure. Some in this Jewish community, wherever it
was, this Jewish town, some had believed. Some believed and opened their hearts and
received the message of the Apostles and received Christ as Lord and Savior. And we can even assume that their...their
experience with the Apostles was after the cross and after the resurrection. So they heard the full message of the New
Covenant gospel. Some of them believed it. Some of them fully, genuinely embraced it
and formed a church, an ekklesia. There were others who were impressed, intellectually
convinced, who understood the gospel to some degree, who were drawn to it, who were attracted
to it, who associated with the church. This would be consistent with what our Lord
said, that the wheat and the tares would grow together, right? You would have believers and non-believers
in the same environment that would be very difficult to separate. There are people who are interested, but not
genuinely converted. So there were these people associated with
the true believers who had not truly left their works system behind. They had not come all the way to faith in
Christ. Well, this little group of Jews that formed
this church, this community both genuine believers and those associated and interested non-believers,
apparently came under persecution which we know to be the case. Right? Jesus said it, "In this world you'll have
tribulation. Don't be surprised if they treat you the way
they treated Me. Don't be surprised if they hate you, they
hated Me." So we understand that persecution certainly
broke out against these community of believers very early, even in the age of the Apostles. In fact, even to the point that the Apostles
were martyred. So in this group of Christians and associates
became persecuted, that raised the stakes on being a Christian. The true believers had the faith that endures. The true believers were hanging in there. But the superficial non-believers, those who
were merely associated and attracted by not genuine were in danger of leaving. They could be described, I think, pretty easily
by the rocky soil or the weedy soil of our Lord's soils parable. There was an appearance of life but it wasn't
going to last, especially when the persecution started. They were in danger then of going backward,
back in to their Judaism. And so throughout this letter there are repeated
calls to them not to do that. And I just read you one. Back in chapter 2 verse 3, "How shall we escape
if we neglect so great a salvation?" In other words, don't neglect, you've come
this far, don't neglect this salvation...which was preached by the Apostles, confirmed by
miracles. That's the first warning. They're warned again in chapter 3 verse 7. "Just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if
you hear His voice, don't harden your heart as when they provoked me as in the day of
trial in the wilderness where your fathers tried me and tested me, saw my works for 40
years." In other words, don't be like that recalcitrant
unbelieving group of Israelites who were stuck in the wilderness for 40 years because of
their unbelief. Verse 12, "Take care, brethren, Jewish brethren,
that there not be in any one of you an evil unbelieving heart that falls away from the
living God, you want to be a true partaker of Christ...verse 14...holding fast, firm
to the end." So these are warnings. There are more such warnings in chapter 4,
the most familiar warning comes in chapter 6...in chapter 6 verse 4, "For in the case
of those who have once been enlightened," that's to have your mind illuminated to know
the information... "and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the
Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come." Now let's just stop there. What is this? Who are these people? Who is he describing? Who has been enlightened? Who has tasted the heavenly gift? Whose been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit? Whose tasted the good Word of God and the
powers of the age to come? Well please notice, none of those terms are
ever used anywhere in the Bible to describe salvation. None of them. It doesn't talk about regeneration, new birth,
conversion, justification, salvation, sanctification. These are the words used to describe the experience
of those who heard the Apostles and saw their miracles and signs and wonders. In that sense they were enlightened. In that sensed they tasted the heavenly gift. They tasted the powers of heaven. They were made partakers of the power of the
Holy Spirit, coming through the Apostles and the signs and wonders and gifts of the Spirit. They tasted the good Word of God and they
tasted the powers of the age to come. That is all those miracle powers which one
day in the age to come, the Millennial Kingdom will be in full display. They were tasters, not consumers...can we
put it that way? The warning comes then in verse 6, "If you
have then fallen away, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance." In other words, if you have heard the apostolic
gospel, if you've heard the message of Christ, you have understood it, you are enlightened,
you have seen the power display by the Apostles and the power of the Holy Spirit, all of that
is in your experience and you turn your back, you can't be renewed to repentance. Why? Because you can't have any more exposure,
revelation than that. So the warning is, don't turn your back on
it. You'll become an apostate if you reject full
revelation and you'll be guilty of again crucifying the Son of God and putting Him to open shame. There's another warning in chapter 10 and
verse 26. "If we go on sinning willfully and the willful
sin here is unbelief, if we go on sinning willfully, we Jews, after receiving the knowledge
of the truth," if you know the truth, you know it fully, you've seen it, you've seen
the display, the undergirding display of the Holy Spirit miracle power that attests to
the validity of the message preached by the Apostles, if you go on in your sinful unbelief
willingly, "then there is no longer any sacrifice for sins." There's no other salvation, right? What else can be done? Nothing. You have nothing left, verse 27, but a terrifying
expectation of judgment in the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. And listen to this, verse 29, "Your punishment
will be worse. How much severer punishment do you think he
will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and regarded as unclean the blood
of the Covenant by which you were sanctified and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" Your punishment will be worse because you
had full knowledge and rejected it. And for that person, verse 31 says, "It's
a terrifying thing to fall in to the hands of the living God." You don't want to know the full truth and
walk away from it. In chapter 12, the last one I'll refer you
to, in verse 25, "See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking, for if those who
did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who
turn away from Him who warns from heaven and His voice shook the Earth then but now He
has promise saying, 'Yet once more I will shake not only the Earth but also the heaven.'" If you don't listen to the Word of the Spirit
of God and the Word of the Son of God through the Apostles, all that awaits for you is judgment. Now, with that we can go back to chapter 11. The truly saved, let's pull it together, the
truly saved were in danger of trying to lessen their persecution by drawing back into old
Judaistic patterns, customs, worship, maybe even reconnecting with the priests. They are reminded all through Hebrews that
Jesus Christ is a better priest who offered a better sacrifice and who is the mediator
of a better Covenant. Don't go back to the old priesthood, the old
ceremonies, the old sacrifices, the old worship. That's the message to the truly saved. Don't go back and pick up those pieces of
the old religion. The message to the non-Christians is come
all the way to Christ...come all the way to Christ. Chapter 6 says, "Let us go on to perfection,"
perfection is a term used to refer to salvation by the writer of Hebrews. Come all the way to Christ. Now, how does one come to Christ? By faith. And so that's what the emphasis is in chapter
11. This is to help the Christians, the true Christians
hold on to the reality of faith by seeing it as the only way ever to come to God from
Adam's family on, and this is to encourage the non-Christians who are a part of that
community and feeling the pull back away from Christ, turning their backs on the gospel
to come all the way to faith because faith is the only way. The way of law and legalism and works will
only condemn and damn. And since this community apparently is under
persecution, this last part of chapter 11 becomes maybe the most applicable to them. We have talked about all kinds of aspects
of faith. We have talked about how faith walks. We've talked about how faith works. We've talked about many of the features of
faith. But the last segment we're looking at now
is on the courage of faith. Faith, true faith stands the test of persecution. It stands the test of life and death situations. So the word to have in your mind in this last
section, particularly verses 32 and following is the courage of faith...the courage of faith. Courage in struggle, courage in suffering,
courage in waiting...waiting, because remember now, as the close of the chapter says, they
hadn't received what they had put their faith in. So let's just break it down. Let's talk about the courage in struggle that's
illustrated here. Verse 30, the struggle at Jericho, we already
talked about from Joshua chapter 6, the struggle of Rahab, Joshua chapter 2, and chapter 6. Both the story of Jericho and in particular
the story of Rahab demonstrate that faith conquers in a struggle, that faith is courageous. As the New Testament puts it, it is a faith
that endures. That's how Peter opens up his epistle, right? You have a faith that endures. That's the test of real faith. Now when you come to...and we covered that
in our last time several months ago. But verse 32, we'll pick it up. We move here from the patriarchal period of
those names in the book of Genesis and Moses and Joshua, and we move now from the arrival
to the promised land to the land of Canaan itself and the early history of Israel, which
would be the history of the Judges and then the history of the Kings. There are six men mentioned to us in verse
32. And they are not in chronological order but
they were all very critical men in the nation of Israel who demonstrated their faith in
God in crisis situations. They were all courageous in faith. So let's just briefly look at them. "What more shall I say, for time will fail
me," and I love that feature that's so human of the writer, and speaks to the reality of
a human author certainly under divine inspiration, but nonetheless a human author who would love
to tell the whole story of everything but just doesn't have the time to do it. But he does mention very familiar names and
the people would be able to pick them up quickly. They are essentially the heroes of the early
history of Israel. Remember when Israel comes back into the land
of Canaan under Joshua, Moses having died before coming in to the land because he struck
the rock and didn't speak to the rock. They are now in the land, the land is segmented
there. They conquer the Canaanites, as we know. They settle in the land and now that they
are in the land, there are heroes who rise from time to time in the pre-monarchy period
who lead great triumphs and great victories for the people of God. The first one is a familiar name to us, his
name is Gideon. And if you want to read the story of Gideon,
you open your Bible to the seventh chapter of Judges. We can't take the time to do all that for
each of these characters. We could, that would be a whole different
emphasis. But Gideon is a judge. Now the term judge doesn't mean that they
were the ruling president of the nation. It simply means they were elevated to a place
where their leadership and their wisdom put them in a ruling position somewhere in the
life and the land of Israel. This judge had to face the Medianites. The Medianite army had a hundred and thirty-five
thousand men...a hundred and thirty-five thousand men in the Medianite army. Now you remember the story of Gideon. You open your Bible to the seventh chapter
of the book of Judges. He starts out with thirty-two thousand, right? Thirty-two thousand, not impossible odds,
but thirty-two thousand against a hundred and thirty-five thousand, not real good odds. And then God comes to him and says, "You have
way too many men, you have way too many men, Gideon, you've got to pair this down, and
pair this down, and pair this down and finally it gets paired down to three hundred. Three hundred? Those are not good odds against a hundred
and thirty-five thousand. Now, of course, all military strategy is out
the window, at this point, because there is no military strategy by which the three hundred
men can defeat a hundred and thirty-five thousand soldiers. So Gideon is now at the mercy of God. God has paired down his men to only three
hundred so God is going to have to indicate what the strategy is as to how these three
hundred men are going to defeat a hundred and thirty-five thousand Medianites. God gives him strange instruction in the seventh
chapter of Judges. He tells him to get pitchers, pitchers used
to pour water, trumpets and torches and go find the Medianite army. You go find them. Now in history, no one has fought a battle
with torches, pitchers and trumpets. You might announce the battle with a trumpet. You have might have a torch if you want to
protect yourself at night, but that's not how you fight a battle. It is in an absurd battle strategy, humanly
speaking. And Gideon, perhaps if he were thinking the
way any normal human being would think, would say, "Lord, I'm not moving, are You kidding? You've paired me down to three hundred people
and the only reason the three hundred are the three hundred is because of the way they
drank water out of a stream? This is absurd. But Gideon didn't argue because his faith
was so strong and he understood the odds and he understood the potential for death was
a hundred percent on a human level. You remember what happened. They split in to three groups. Gideon took his hundred and a couple of other
hundreds, they got in the circles of the hills where the Medianites were and they lit their
torches. And at the appropriate time of the announcement,
they smashed the pitchers which made noise and revealed the torches and the trumpets
began to blow and the Medianites went into panic, probably assuming that for every torch
there was an entire division of troops when it was just one guy with a pitcher and a torch
and a trumpet. The Medianites panicked. The Medianites rolled out of their bunks,
or off their pads on the ground, and massacred each other. In an absolute slaughter, thinking they were
fighting these massive hoards of Jewish troops who had descended upon them. It would be pretty hard to believe God in
that setting unless you had a supernatural faith in a supernatural God. Then there was Barak. I love the story of Barak. It's one of the most interesting of Bible
stories. I will take you to this one because it's a
little bit shorter. If you go back to Judges chapter 4, it's one
of my favorite stories probably for somewhat bizarre reasons. Barak had ten thousand men and he was going
against the mighty and massive force of Sisera. Sisera was a Canaanite commander of some confederated
chariot troops. Incredible odds, no way to win. But God sent a message to Barak through a
woman by the name of Deborah. Barak believed the message. Barak believed that God would give him the
victory. In verse 7, "I will draw out to you Sisera,
the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and as many troops to the river Kishon; and
I'll give him into your hand." That is the message from God through Deborah
who was deemed there a prophetess because God uses her as His mouthpiece. "Barak said to her, 'If you go with me, then
I will go. If you don't go with me, I will not go.'" I want the spokesman of the Lord with me. "She said, 'I will surely go with you, nevertheless
the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you're about to take, for the Lord will
sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.'" In other words, if you just trusted God and
didn't have to take along Deborah, you'd have gotten all the credit. Now you're going to be sort of embarrassed. "The Lord will sell Sisera into the hands
of a woman." Well, of course, the victory came. It was an incredible victory. Skipping down to what I think is one of the
most interesting events. "The Lord routed Sisera," verse 15, "and all
his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak," just massacred
them. "And Sisera alighted from his chariot and
fled away on foot." That's the general of the army. Well that didn't work out. "Barak pursued the chariots and the army as
far as Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword." Not even one was left. That is a massacre. Sisera is still running in the other direction. Listen to this, "He ran, he fled away on foot
to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin
and the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite." He was associated with Jabin. "Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to
him, 'Turn aside, my master, turn aside to me. Don't be afraid.' And he turned aside to her into the tent and
she covered him with a rug." Come on in here and I'll hide you. "He said to her, 'Please give me a little
water to drink for I am thirsty.' So she opened a bottle of milk and gave him
a drink, and then she covered him. He said to her, 'Stand in the doorway to the
tent and it shall be if anyone comes and inquires of you, and says, 'Is there anyone here?' that you shall say, 'No.' But...this is the interesting part...Jael,
Heber's wife, took a tent peg and seized a hammer in her hand and went secretly to him
and drove the peg into his temple. It went through into the ground, for he was
sound asleep and exhausted." I love the last line. "So he died." I guess, if someone ran a tent peg from one
side of your head to the other into the ground, that would do it. This is a small band of almost unarmed infantry,
routing a tank division by faith. Stepping courageously into an unbelievable
battle, trusting God. These are men of faith. Well then we come to Samson. Who doesn't know about Samson? Everyone knows about Samson. Judges 13 to 16, he was Israel's champion
against the Philistines. And, of course, the Philistines we always
identify, I think, as the primary enemy of Israel. They seem to show up on the scene more often
than any others. And in spite of his stupidity, in spite of
his bad relationship with Delilah, and I don't think in my entire life I've ever met a human
being named Delilah. There's a reason for that. In spite of his tragedy with Delilah, in spite
of his loss of strength, this man had years of great strong faith in God. He recovered from that and he demonstrated
great courage, stupendous courage and power. That man Samson, that man who had had risen
to a place of leadership because of his prowess and his strength was called by God really
to conquer the Philistines. And he approached it with immense courage. He never feared to enter into battle. And he knew that at any point in time his
strength came from the Lord. There was a symbol of his strength, his long
hair, Nazarite vow, but his strength came from the Lord and he knew when he went into
battle that at any moment that strength could disappear because he knew his own heart and
he knew he was not a man who had by any means deserved this power. He trusted God, let's say, not to pull the
plug. He never feared the enemy, never. First, in anger at the father of his Philistine
wife for giving her away to somebody else, he tied the tails of 300 foxes together with
torches in between them and set the torches on fire and sent them through the Philistine's
grain field and burned them all up. Now he knew that could irritate the Philistines
and again he's only one man and he knows that God has given him his power and since it came
from God, God could withdraw it at any point, but he has this strong faith in his calling. When the Philistines found out who did it,
they killed Samson's wife and father-in-law. He even was more angry and Scripture says,
"He smote them with a great slaughter." When they tried to retaliate, he took the
jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand more of them. They tried to trap him in Gaza, he just picked
up, you remember this?, the city gates, post and beam and walked up a mountain carrying
them. He believed the promise of God, that God had
called him to fight for Israel against the Philistines even against unimaginable odds,
one against tens of thousands never phased him. And finally, remember after recovering strength,
he went in to the Philistine temple and brought it down on all of them. His last courageous act of self-sacrificing
faith. Now he knew his calling. He knew his calling. Listen to 13:5 of Judges, "His parents are
told, 'Behold, this young man, you're going to give birth to a son, you're going to conceive
and bring forth a son, no razor will come to his head for the boy shall be a Nazarite,'"
that takes a vow of separation to God, "'from the womb he shall begin to deliver Israel
from the hands of the Philistines.'" So he always knew when he was doing that,
that he would know and experience the power of God. This is faith...this is faith and nothing
but faith and he never flinched in conflict. Now the next name that we see there is Jephthah
and he also is in the book of Judges and the story about him is pretty brief. Verse 32 of chapter 11, "Jephthah crossed
over to the sons of Ammon, crossed over the Jordan River, Ammon is on the east. There is a city there today that you would
know as Amon-Jordan. Ammon is just a variation of Ammon, this is
the land of the Ammonites. So Jephthah who crossed over to the sons of
Ammon to fight against them and the Lord gave them into his hand. He struck them with a very great slaughter
from Aroer to the entrance of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abelkeramim so the sons
of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel." Another group, of course, of Israel's Canaanite
enemies were the Amorites, conquered again by the courage of Jephthah. We leave the book of Judges and we enter the
book of 1 and 2 Samuel because the next name is David. We know many instances against all kinds of
odds. Saul has killed his thousands, but David his
ten thousands. David was a triumphant, courageous general
who fought the fight for the people of God. Of course his most familiar fight was a one-on-one
battle with what we might deem human monster by the name of Goliath in chapter 17 of 1
Samuel. And Goliath is just shocked that they would
send this little shepherd boy out against him. And he, of course, is the great hero of the
Philistines. And so he says, verse 43, "Am I a dog that
you come to me with sticks?" "And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine also said to David, 'Come to
me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.' Then David said to the Philistine...probably
in a squeaky voice.. 'You come to me with a sword, a spear and
a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of
Israel whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up in to
my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I'll give the dead bodies of the army
of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth that
all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know
that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear for the battle is the Lord's and
He will give you into our hands." Wow! You would say that is a lot of moxie for a
little shepherd boy. But we know the end of the story, don't we? Yes, it happened when the Philistine rose
and came near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the
Philistine." He's running after it, he's going into this
battle full force in faith. "David put his hand into his bag and took
from it a stone and slung it." And believe me, that was a divinely directed
stone. I'm sure David was good because he had fought
off the wild animals while he was protecting the sheep. But there was no way this one would miss. Divine providence was involved. "It struck the Philistine on his forehead
and the stone sank into his forehead so that he fell on his face to the ground. Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with
a sling and a stone. And he struck the Philistine and killed him,
but there was no sword in David's hand. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine
and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head
with it. "When the Philistine saw that their champion
was dead, they fled." You know, if a teenaged boy is this powerful,
what are the men going to be like when they show up? "The men of Israel," verse 52, "rose and shouted
and pursued the Philistines as far as the valley and the gates of Ekron," one of the
major cities of Philistia. The slain Philistine lay along the way to
Shaaraim, even to Gath and Ekron. The sons of Israel returned from chasing the
Philistines and plundered their camps and David took the Philistine's head and brought
it to Jerusalem but he put his weapon in his tent." What in the world would give this man the
courage to do what he did? It is faith in the calling of God. These are men of faith. The next name is Samuel and for that, of course,
we're already in 1 Samuel because we're where David is. Samuel also appears here in the first 25 chapters. He dies in verse 1 of chapter 25. Samuel was a great man of faith. He was...he was facing a rebellious people. He was facing idolatrous people. He faced them with the courage of great conviction. He spoke God's Word. He thought nothing of personal protection
and personal safety. Samuel always said what he believed to be
right against all threats. He was fearless when he warned people and
he warned people, believe me, including even the great High Priest Eli. And then it mentions in verse 32 the prophets. And with that, we sweep all the way from 1
Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, the books of history, the period of the kings,
the period of the unified Kingdom, the divided Kingdom. We sweep all the way through the prophets,
all the way down to the end of the Old Testament...the prophets. Now you can go back to Hebrews chapter 11
because we're going to remain there for just a few more minutes. And here he just mentions the prophets. That takes us right to the end of the Old
Testament. The wisdom literature was authored by the
kings predominantly; Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon. There are other historical books, Ezra, Nehemiah,
Esther, Job, goes back to patriarchal period. But we pretty well have swept across the Old
Testament, and now we come to the prophets. And here you have no more names, but you have
experiences that belonged to the prophets. These defining experiences we can find on
the pages of the Old Testament. It's a list of horrible experiences which
these men faced and women with unconquerable courage and faith. The prophets, verse 33, along with all the
rest who by faith, or through faith in every case conquered kingdoms, literally katagonizomai,
overcame, overpowered, overthrew. It literally means to fight down or to subdue. And this would describe the Judges. This would describe Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah and David. And they not only conquered kingdoms, they
wrought or they performed righteousness. Literally they executed justice. They executed judgment, leaders who upheld
justice in very, very challenging times. They were men who did what was right no matter
what the cost. It says of David, for example, in 2 Samuel
8:15, "David reigned over all Israel and David administered justice and righteousness for
all his people." Then it says they obtained promises. There are many illustrations of that. Joshua was given a promise of victory. Gideon was given a promise of victory. Barak was given a promise of victory, David
was given promises by God that were fulfilled and some that were to be fulfilled later. And then we move past those when we come to
the next phrase, "shut the mouths of lions." Who does that describe? Daniel...Daniel chapter 6 verses 22 and 23. Daniel who obeyed God when it meant he had
to go to the lion's den, believing God would take care of that and God shut the mouths
of the lions. Quench the violence of fire. Who would that refer to? Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego as we know them, by their Babylonian names who standing in the fire were not burned. And, in fact, there was a companion in the
fire, very likely an appearance of the Son of God. They conquered. They went into the fire. And do you remember what they said? They said, "We're not going to bow down to
you and if we go in the fire, we'll burn, or maybe we won't burn, but in any case we
will not bow down to you." They conquered by faith. It can be said of these heroes also, they
escaped the edge of the sword. Who was it that was always trying to kill
David? Saul, wasn't it? No matter how often Saul tried to get David's
head within the reach of his sword, he never could. And then, of course, there was Goliath. And then there was Elisha. Do you remember when Jorum was rushing after
Elisha in 2 Kings 6, wanting to kill him with his sword but he could not? And then it says they were from weakness,
verse 34, made strong. You know who comes to mind when I read that? Hezekiah. Remember Hezekiah prayed for long life. He prayed for more life? Because he was a good king, God gave him more
life. He had no son in the death struggle. He believed in God's promise and power and
Hezekiah prayed and was healed and lived another 15 years and eventually bore a son, 2 Kings
chapter20. It further says about these heroes who lived
by faith that they became mighty in war and put foreign armies to flight. And we just read about them. Back to the Judges and the Kings and even
more of the Kings, particularly in the southern Kingdom. And then I love this, "It is through the faith
of these men," verse 35, "that women received back their dead by resurrection." When did that happen? First Kings 17, that's Elijah...Elijah, healing
the dead son of the widow of Zarephath. And then in 2 Kings 4 it's Elisha raising
the child of the Shunammite woman from the dead. The faith of these prophets in death brought
great victory. So this is a faith that conquers very, very
challenging, life-threatening circumstances. The petty problems of suffering that these
Hebrews to whom the letter was written might have been going through for their identification
with Jesus Christ was nothing like what these men experienced. But that's not the whole picture. Sometimes God chooses not to let His people
conquer in struggle, but rather refines them through a struggle. Verse 35 again, "Others were tortured, not
accepting their release." That's not a victory...that's not a release
from torture but an endurance so that they might obtain a better resurrection. Now here we saw the achievements of faith
in the midst of the threat. Here we see the endurance of faith in the
midst of the trial. Verse 35 says, "Tortured," tumpanizo, very
interesting Greek word. Literally to torture with the tumpanium. What is a tumpanium? It's a torture instrument of ancient times. It's a wheel-shaped contraption over which
criminals were stretched as though they were skins and they would have all their extremities
stretched to the circumference of the wheel and they would rotate on the wheel while people
pummeled them with clubs. This is the basis of the word "tortured." There have been those people of faith who
have been tortured. They rejected denial of the faith. They rejected release. They would not banish from their lips the
name of the true and living God because they looked for a better resurrection. They looked to the future. Others experienced mockings and scourgings
and chains and imprisonments. I think of one who went through just about
all of this and that would be Jeremiah...tortured, chained, imprisoned, thrown into a pit, Jeremiah
38, scourgings, beatings, imprisonments...that would be true of Daniel, too, wouldn't it? And there are surely others. Verse 37, they were stoned. That happened to Jeremiah according to tradition. And the Old Testament record of Zechariah
as well indicates a stoning. Sawn asunder, tradition says, Isaiah the prophet's
life ended when he was sawn in half. They were tested, that's probably a better
translation than tempted. They were tested, the torture of being tested,
pressured to deny their God which they would not do. These aren't the triumphant ones on a human
level, these are the ones who suffered even death. They were put to death with the sword, died
by sword. And some of them became exiles. Some of them went about in sheepskins and
goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill treated, mistreated, treated with evil force is the
Greek verb. And then down in verse 38, some of them wandered
in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And I think all of these things would be somewhat
familiar to the Jewish people who were hearing this, being read in their congregations. They knew the stories of these people that
we don't know because they're not necessarily contained in the pages of Scripture, but likely
much of it was passed down. And so in a cryptic fashion, it can be rehearsed
to them. They were wanderers, vagabonds, just existing
because they had been put out society. That was the price they paid for their faithfulness
to God. And then the most commendatory statement that
is made in this entire chapter is in parenthesis in verse 38 and it really ought to be in italics. "These are people of whom the world was not
worthy." Isn't that a great statement? The world was not worthy. The world thought them unworthy. The world deemed them unworthy to live, unworthy
to be comfortable, unworthy to be affirmed or approved, or left alone. The world felt itself somehow diminished by
their presence. The truth is, the world was not worthy of
them. Why did they do this? Why did they do this against all this kind
of terrible treatment? They did it because of what they believed
was in the future waiting for them, a better resurrection. But look at verse 39, "All these having gained
approval through their faith didn't receive what was promised." They didn't have anything in their hand, it
was all faith, right? It was all faith. They didn't even know about Christ. Oh they knew the prophecies about Him, but
they didn't know who He was. He had not come. He had not died. He had not risen from the dead. There was no confirmation that this would
ever happen. They had to believe God's promise. And they did. They gained approval through their faith,
though they didn't receive what was promised because God had provided something better
for us that apart from us they wouldn't be made perfect. None of them would ever be in heaven if it
weren't for what happened that we know about, right? The cross and the resurrection. The better thing is the New Covenant. Perfect means saved in the book of Hebrews. Perfect means access, open and granted to
God, full access to what the Old Covenant couldn't give, access into the presence of
God both in time and eternity. They lived by faith in something they couldn't
see. They lived...and that's how the chapter's
beginning launches it, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen. That's how these great heroes lived. Their faith was courageous faith. They conquered in struggle. They continued in suffering. And they counted on a salvation that would
be provided in a way they could not see. Now I'm going to read verse 1 of chapter 12. "Therefore," this is not the end of the story
and shouldn't be the beginning of a new chapter. "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud
of witnesses surrounding us..." We know who they are, right? We just met them all and to what do they witness? To what do they witness? They witness to the validity of a life of...what?...faith. "Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the
sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the faith race set before
us." These are given to us as models and examples
to stimulate our commitment to run an enduring race of faith. Now, as I said, the chapter shouldn't end
at the end of the chapter, it should go in to chapter 12, so it will next week. We'll look at the twelfth chapter. Father, thank You again for a wonderful day
of worship and fellowship and we have been so greatly enriched tonight to be swept through
the ages. The wrapping our minds around these great
pinnacle people, these heroes of the faith, these great men and women who endured so much
for what they couldn't see. Blessed are the ones who have not seen and
yet believe. May we run this faith race as they did for
while we have seen through the eyes of biblical revelation the full record of Christ and His
death and resurrection, we have yet not seen the future. We have not seen what God has prepared for
them who love Him. May we endure in faith. May our faith be a real and genuine saving
faith, an unwavering, enduring faith, tested and proven true. And may we enjoy the trials and tests that
come against our faith because, as Peter said, they produce endurance and endurance has a
perfecting work. We cherish the trials that demonstrate our
faith holds because that gives us assurance that it's the real thing and there's no greater
joy for us than to know that our faith is real and our salvation is genuine. We thank You for the consistency of Scripture
and how it sweeps over vast eras of history without wavering from its integrity and the
message that a relationship to God is always based on faith and faith will triumph where
works must fail. Strengthen our faith, we pray, through these
examples in Christ's name. Amen.
