The Heroes of the Faith and Their Mighty Acts (Hebrews Sermon 59)

I. Time Fails Us Now… It Won’t Fail Us in Heaven

What a gift is time, amen? This opportunity that we have week by week to come together for corporate worship, that we can join together with the body of Christ Sunday mornings, one day in seven. The gift of time, every minute, every hour, every day, every year is a gift from Jesus, amen, and we are called on in Scripture to redeem the time, to make the most of it. What a great gift of grace is the gift of time, and how much greater a gift is eternity, amen. We labor under the restrictions of time in this world. The time is never what we want it to be. It just flies by. I feel like it’s accelerating. My grandmother warned me this, she told me when she was 95, she said, “The second half of my life, I hardly remember, it just flew by.” And it’s just accelerating to some degree. It’s incredible how rapidly it goes. I don’t regret it, though. Every day brings me closer to seeing Jesus face-to-face. I look forward to… I’m not trying to retard the process of aging or of what’s coming to me, I’m looking forward to my inheritance in Christ.

But you know, it’s funny how the author to Hebrews labored in reference to time, even in the verses that we’re looking at. There’s just a limited amount of time, we can’t do everything we would like to do in this world, so we have to be wise in how we spend our time. And so in verse 32, the author comes to this point, he says, “What more shall I say, for time would fail me to tell” fully of each of these individuals. I don’t have enough time to go into all the details I would like to go into. This is the rub of our earthly life. What is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Psalm 39:5, the psalmist there says, “You have made my days a mere handbreadth, the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.” Even the Apostle John, as he was finishing up his work in the Gospel of John, bumped into the same reality that the author to Hebrews is facing in verse 32, [chuckle] he said this in John 21:25, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose even the whole world would not have room for all the books that would be written.”

We can’t tell all the stories we would like to tell. Well, that’s our problem here on earth, we will not have that problem in heaven, amen. We will have leisure in heaven, to listen to all the stories in great detail. When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first began. Now, I don’t think it’s just because I went to seminary that I think there’s going to be seminary aspects up in heaven. And you’ll be free to enjoy them, you actually will enjoy them. You’ll look forward to getting a full lesson on church history up in heaven, and you’re going to get full theology lessons up in heaven, you’re going to study theology and church history in heaven. And you’re thinking, “Oh, no, I thought I was done with all that studying.” No, we’re going to learn each other, we’re going to learn our brothers and sisters in Christ, what God did in and through them. Amen.

We’re going to study how God was gracious to each one. We belong to a royal lineage of brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone before us, 1 Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” Friends, that is your true genealogy, it’s a spiritual one. We’re part of an incredible family of God, brothers and sisters who’ve gone before us and acted with great valor by faith. And we’re going to be able to sit at table, at banquet table, with these and talk to them and find out what God did in and through them for his glory by faith. And we won’t be pressed for time as the author was in verse 32. We don’t be pressed. It says in Matthew 8:11, Jesus said, “I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast at the banquet table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

We’re going to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And there I extend it out to the heroes of the faith that go beyond the Scriptural time. We’re going to be able to sit down with Martin Luther. No translator needed. And we’re going to talk to him about what it was like to stand by faith at the Diet of Worms and defend justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law. On peril of his life, what it was like. Or with William Tyndale to say, “Brother, what was it like to translate the Scripture into English for generations and generations of people who followed, to read in that beautiful clear English, that’s mostly captured in the KJV, the King James version, what was it like?” This is a man who paid for it with his life, burned at the stake for that translation. Be able to walk through the meadows and valleys of the new earth with an explorer missionary like David Livingston, just talk to him about his experiences when he went through the heart of Africa or to be with the blind hymn writer, Fanny Crosby.

I’ve often wondered what was her quiet time like that led to her writing the words to Blessed Assurance. What happened, Fanny? I mean, were you just praying one day, and the heavens were opened, and you just saw angels descending, your heart was filled with his love. There were whispers of mercy. What were you seeing? Whatever it was she was seeing that day she sees it better now, amen. And be able to just share with her experiences of a life lived for the glory of God. To talk to Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ who lived through the communist crackdown during the Cultural Revolution, who stood with great courage for the faith. Or those that were persecuted back in the Roman days, like Polycarp, who stood at Smyrna, the Bishop of Smyrna, and said with great courage, “For 86 years, I’ve served him, he’s never done me wrong. How can I deny him now?”

Or Perpetua and Felicitas, who stood for the glory of God, even at the risk of their lives. Perpetua willing to give up her status as a noblewoman, a Roman citizen, and die for Jesus. I want to talk to them. I want to share with them. And so, we come to this list in which the author basically says, “I wish I had more time, I just don’t. I can’t go into all the great details that I would.” And there are mysteries of this list that he makes at this point.

II. The Mysteries of this List

There are some mysteries here. Why does he shorten the list? Well, he’s kind of already told you that, he said, time would fail me. I have some other things to do. I need to write Hebrews 12 and 13, and if I don’t move on then Andy Davis will never get out of Hebrews 11.  You’ll be with it… In it for the next 20 years. And there’s just more good things to say. So, I’ve got Hebrews 12 and 13 to write and I need to move on. But I’ve basically made my point. You need to live an other worldly life by faith, you need to know that you are an alien and a stranger here just passing through. You need to live for that new heaven and new earth that’s coming, that kingdom, that glorious city with foundations whose architect and builder is God.

You need to live for that. You’re just passing through, you need to effectively live in a tent, even if you don’t physically live in one, in your heart you need to. And you need to be willing to live a life filled with faith for the glory of God, energetic, courageous, doing acts of valor. That’s what you need. And so, I don’t really need much more… Many more examples. Time would fail me if I went into great detail. So I think that’s why the author shortened his list at this point. Why these particular heroes are chosen? I’m not sure. Some of them make more sense than others, but some of them, you know, seem like head-scratchers, like Jephthah, why was he chosen or not, for example, Jonathan? You know, why Barak chosen and not Deborah? Why was Samson chosen?  I mean, he seems to be a weak man beset by lusts. What about Gideon? Given the frailty, the flickering nature of his faith at the beginning of it all, why was he a chosen? We’ll talk more about Gideon in a few moments.

But why no one beyond David? Why weren’t some of the prophets listed out? For example, Elijah, who by faith courageously stood on Mount Carmel, against the prophets of Baal, or Elisha, who by faith saw the chariots of fire surrounding that were coming when the Arameans were coming to arrest him. Or Isaiah, who by faith saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and in my opinion, saw Jesus Christ more clearly than any Old Covenant saint and wrote of it in his incredible prophecies. Or Jeremiah, who by faith stood against the people of his own generation, and predicted very plainly the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and urged the people that the only way that they could survive is to go out and surrender, and therefore he was hated by the people of his own generation, and persecuted and yet, he said, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” it’s Jeremiah. Incredible men and women of God that are not listed here. Why these?

And why were these heroes listed in this particular order? For example, why was Gideon whose story is told in Judges 6-8 listed before Barak, whose story is told in Judges 2-4? My answer is, I don’t know. There you go, there’s the answer. I don’t know why the order is given here, I don’t know why. I know this, that the Holy Spirit does everything for a reason. And that this ordering and these words were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he had his reasons. The real question in front of us is none of these mysteries. The real question is how do these heroes display faith? The same faith that we must have to run our race with endurance right to the finish line. That’s the question in front of us, as it’s been throughout this chapter. Remember at the end of Hebrews 10:38, the key verse that launched us into this whole meditation.

There it says, “My righteous one will live by faith.” The justified are justified by faith and we live by faith. “My righteous one will live by faith and if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” So those are the key verses that launched us into this meditation on examples of faith, heroes of faith.

And so, we’re asking this question, “How do these heroes display the faith we must have to be saved?” The faith-filled life we must live that only that life leads to heaven. At the end of this, the beginning of the next chapter, we have mentioned this cloud of witnesses, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. These are those that make up the cloud of witnesses in the author’s mind and they are testifying to a life of faith.

Now, I’m going to divide the list of the triumphant… Of the heroes and their actions in two parts. We’re going to look at one part of it this week. These are what I call the triumphant heroes. And that would be 32-35A, so half way through verse 35. And the next week, the suffering heroes, 35B-38, God willing, next week. So the triumphant heroes are those whose lives led to outward clear victories that people could joyfully celebrate in this world and see God’s hand and rejoice in. And then the suffering heroes next week, those who were willing to die and to suffer persecution for Christ. And we’ll talk about them next week. So, as I look at this list, as I look at this list of names, and I look at this quick list of actions of what they did, one particular phrase came out to me and I want to meditate on it with you. Now, I think many phrases could come out. There are lots of angles you could take toward this summary list, because there’s so many things involved.

Frankly, I look at this list of names, and this list of actions similar to a big box of keepsakes that an elderly man or woman, let’s say, toward the end of their life, could open up and then take out a photograph or a piece of jewelry, a family heirloom, or a family Bible tattered with little notes on it or a piece of artwork that they received decades ago from their toddler. And each one of these items pulls out with it a whole bunch of memories and relationship and all kinds of circumstances that bring up emotions, tears, joy, happiness, whatever. And I think that’s in effect what’s happening here. The Lord is saying, I know each of these people, I know all their lives. I can remember all of them.

That’s what I do with the genealogy, it’s also in 1 Chronicles. These names may mean nothing to you, but these people mean everything to me. And I remember what they did, but we just don’t have time to go into the details.

III. The Central Lesson: Weakness Turned into Strength

But as I was looking over these verses, one phrase in particular came out to me and that’s in verse 34, “whose weakness was turned into strength.” I want to meditate on that phrase with you. Whose weakness was turned into strength.

And it came out for me personally, first and foremost, from studying the case of Gideon. So I’m going to give undue attention to the phrase, “whose weakness was turned into strength,” and undo attention to Gideon and not so much to any of the others. And that’s how I’m going to preach this section.

But Gideon was a man who lived in a very bad time in Israel’s history, the time of the judges. And as a matter of fact, most of these names cover the period of the judges. And I’ll talk more about that period in a few moments, but there was a cycle of sin that was going on at that point, Israel having conquered the Promised Land, did not completely drive out all of the Canaanites, and they remained to be a torment to the people and to afflict them with temptations toward Baal worship and other things. And so, from time to time, as a matter of fact, regularly, the people of Israel would go in for idolatry and start worshipping and serving created things more than the Creator, who’s forever praised, amen. They would give in to that Canaanite-ish idolatry, and God would have to judge them and he would judge them always the same way, by sending some invading Gentile power to afflict them and then they would cry out to the Lord in the midst of this affliction, and God would send them a deliverer who would throw off these invading Gentiles militarily and give Israel a time of peace and prosperity and fruitfulness through repentance.

That’s the cycle of the Book of Judges, and then when that was over, another generation would come along who didn’t remember the lessons and they’d go right back at it again. And in Gideon’s era, the Gentile power that came in were the Midianites and the power of the Midianites, we’re told, in Judges 6 is so oppressive that the people of Israel had to hide in caves and in cracks in the rocks and all that. These were vicious people who came in and basically took everything of value and left and murdered anyone they could find. And so they had to go flee up into mountain clefts and caves and strongholds. We’re told Midian has so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help, and God sent them Gideon. Now, when we meet Gideon, he is threshing in a wine press, one of the odder moments. I did some threshing last summer in Nepal. And the basic idea is, you need at least somewhat of a breeze for it to work. You’re supposed to kind of beat the thing with the flail and then take the threshing fork and throw it up. And then the lighter chaff blows away and then the grain falls down. You do that enough, and you have mostly grain after that process.

Well, he’s doing it down in a wine press where there really can’t be much of a breeze. I would think if there is a breeze that’s going to swirl around in there, like some kind of a vortex. And so, the threshing in the wine press was a mark of both Gideon’s and Israel’s weakness, their frailty in the face of this overwhelming military power, the power of the Midianites. And so, the angel of the Lord comes and appears to Gideon while he’s threshing in this wine press, and he says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” What an odd greeting, kind of like Mary pondering over the greeting that Gabriel gave to her. He’s saying this greeting doesn’t make much sense at many levels.

Let’s take them one at a time. First of all, “If the Lord is actually with us, then why has all this happened to us?” I don’t get it, “The Lord is with you.” “Where are all his wonders that our fathers told about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us in the hand of Midian.” Well, the Lord answered very surprisingly at that point. “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

And here’s the second question that Gideon has. “‘But, Lord,’ Gideon asked, ‘How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.'” That was his strength. What was his strength? He looked inward and did not see the resources there, and by faith turned that weakness up to Almighty God in prayer. There’s your central lesson for today. Do you have the qualifying weakness? When you look inward, do you find inside yourself the resources you need to fight your battles? Yes or no? If your answer is yes, I don’t know if you even know the Gospel, and I don’t know if you really actually know the enemies that are arrayed against you. More on that later. But Gideon knew that he did not have the resources within him and so therefore, he knew he was weak. And so, Gideon’s greatest strength was his sense of weakness, turned upward to God in faith. The Lord answered him at that point. “I will be with you and I will strike down, or you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

And so, Gideon had faith. But as I mentioned a moment ago, Gideon’s initial faith was a flickering thing. I think often of that passage in Matthew 5, quoting Isaiah, speaking of Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Okay, that’s a picture of Jesus’ incredible gentleness in dealing with broken reeds like us. The bruised reeds like us and smoldering wicks.

So we’ll take the second image. Gideon’s faith was a smoldering wick about to go out. It wasn’t any mighty bonfire at this point. He asked for one sign after another. The first one is the whole offering thing. He wants to make an offering to the Angel of the Lord. And so, he asked the Angel of the Lord to wait, he goes and gets an offering, he comes back and the Angel of the Lord consumes the offering and goes up with it, disappears entirely. I think that’s a pretty good sign, amen. Powerful sign, the Lord is with me. I’ve never seen anything like that, that’s an awesome thing, but it wasn’t enough for him. No, pretty soon he’s doing the whole fleece thing. He wants to put out a fleece before the Lord. You know that story, don’t you, Gideon’s fleece? Maybe you even spread a fleece. Probably not a literal one. Do you know what a fleece is? It’s a piece of cloth made of wool, I guess. And so, he wants to put out this towel or cloth before God on the ground, he put… He wants to put it out on the ground. And the idea here is, if the fleece the next morning is wet with dew, but all of the ground around it is dry, then what? Then you’ll do what you’re supposed to do? Then you’ll obey, is that it? Well, we’ll get to that. But then at least I’ll have that sign. And so the next morning, he takes… He picks up that fleece, that cloth and just wrings it out and it is just saturated with water, but the whole ground is dry. God never does things half way. There’s a huge amount of water.

Is that enough for him? No, he needs another sign. If, possibly, I think he’s kind of a scientist, a sign giver here, he’s going one way and the other. We’re going to do an experiment. It’s like a controlled experiment, and it just might be by chance. Okay, so we’re going to do the opposite thing the next day. It’s the beginning of the scientific method here, okay? So the next day, what I’d like to see is the ground wet and the fleece completely dry. One hymn says, stoop to our weakness, mighty as thou art. And doesn’t God just stoop to his weakness at this point, and do for him what he asked? He doesn’t have to do it. He could say, “Look, I’ve done enough for you already.” But he doesn’t, he does that, he gives the second fleece. And then, as if those weren’t enough, then he gives them the whole barley loaf dream, where just as he’s about to engage the Midianites, basically saying, “If you’re still frail in your heart, why don’t you go down and I’ve got something I want you to hear.”

And so, he goes down into the camp of the Midianites and one of them is relating a story to another and says, last night I had a dream, and all of us were here arrayed in battle strength, and this huge barley loaf came rolling and knocked us all down. What an odd dream. And the answer is even odder. Well, this can be none other than Gideon, Gideon is the barley loaf. And Gideon’s like, “Well, I’ve heard enough, that’s good enough for me.” I am the barley loaf, you know? And you remember the whole story of how God tells him, you have too many men, you have too many men, you have too many men, and he weeds his army down to 300 men who don’t even have a sword in their hands, they have nothing, just a trumpet and then a lantern, and all that. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet and he summoned them and those 300 men conquered the Midianites without a sword in their hands, because they turned on themselves and like Satan’s wicked kingdom imploding on itself he destroyed himself.

And so, the Midianites destroyed themselves and they’re all dead and they didn’t have to do anything, the Israelites, it was something God did. A picture of the cross, as we’re told in Isaiah 9, as in the day of Midian’s defeat you have destroyed, O Jesus, you have destroyed our enemies, with his own sword you pierced his head, the sword of death. Jesus uses death to destroy him, who held the power of death. How beautiful is that? Now, this whole story is the story of weakness turned into strength. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” There’s your strength, bring your weakness to God in prayer. By faith say, “I can’t do this, I can’t finish the journey set in front of me, I can’t. I don’t know that I can run another step. I am so weak. My enemies are so strong.”

I think about what the apostle Paul gave to us in 2 Corinthians 12, when he had the thorn in the flesh, you remember? And three times he sought the Lord in prayer that the thorn be removed. Three times he asked that the thorn be removed from his flesh. And the answer is the same every time, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power or my strength is made perfect in weakness.” What an incredible lesson that is. God’s grace, his strength, is made perfect in our weakness, not in our strength. And therefore, Paul says, “Alright, this is my conclusion, I’ve learned my lesson.”  “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. And that is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Isn’t the opposite true? When you are strong, then you are weak? Because when you are strong, it means you think you don’t need Jesus anymore, and that will never be the case.

And so, God’s power was made perfect in weakness, that was the strength that Gideon had, go in the strength you have, go in that weakness of yours and watch me deliver you. We must turn away from self-reliance, we are so addicted to it. And I believe every trial God brings in your life and mine, every trial, the central lesson is to teach us to no longer rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead, that’s the lesson every time. Stop relying on yourself, trust in Christ. Trust in me.

IV. The Heroes Listed Quickly

And so, that’s the lesson of Gideon. Other than that, we have these heroes listed quickly, one after the other. Book of Judges, a bewildering time. Frankly, as I’ve meditated on the Book of Judges I think that the central lesson there and the warning, and it’s a very poignant warning for me, is what happens to the people of God when the word of God is no longer taught to them?

This is what happens, they become no better than pagans, no better than animals. Frankly, by the end of the Book of Judges, the Levites have so completely failed in their mission that the people of Israel are no better than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. There’s an incredible parallel at the end of Judges with the whole Sodom and Gomorrah story. They’re just the same, we’re meant to think of them as the same. And the Levites show up, one Levite is there who ends up being a Levite for hire, and he’s somebody’s personal family priest for money. And then there’s this other Levite with his concubine, and the whole thing is ugly and a mess, and at the beginning of the whole book, that generation, the next generation didn’t remember all the mighty acts of God, and all of the great things that God had done. But the priests should have taught them.

Malachi 2:7, “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.“ And so from his mouth should be the word of the living God. But the Levites didn’t do their job. And so, there was a famine of hearing the word of God and so they drifted into wickedness. Because they didn’t hear and they didn’t believe the Word of God. Now, in the midst of all of that, God had a remnant, didn’t he? In every generation God has a remnant. Gideon said, “Where are all those mighty acts we’ve heard about?” And so, he had heard and he had faith, because he had heard and believed the word of God. So we have in Romans 11, “I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. And so too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.” In every generation, there’s some remnant of people who will hear God’s word, God will get his word to them, they will hear and believe.

And so we have these heroes of faith teaching us these lessons. Gideon already mentioned Barak, who was a man who trusted God’s word, spoken by a prophetess, by Deborah, but who needed his hand held to go into the battle. And so, he was deprived in some way of the glory of just a strong faith. But he’s in the list. Then there is Samson, who did mighty acts of physical strength, but who seemed to be a very weak man when it came to women, in particular. He just could not curb his lusts, and so, he is very weak, and it ends up costing him huge in his life. This is a man who ripped a young lion to shreds with his bare hands. You know, I don’t actually think that he was, if I can use the vernacular, ripped or cut, you know what I’m saying? I think every child art… Depiction of Samson shows him that way, but he did things that I don’t care how big your biceps and triceps are, you can’t do that. Like lifting up the city gates and throwing them over a hill.

Can I quote another Scripture to you from Zechariah 4:6, “Not by power, nor by might, but by my spirit says the Lord Almighty.” Wouldn’t it be cool if his arms were like pencils actually, wouldn’t that be really cool?  It’s like, I don’t know what the secret of your great strength is. What could it be?  Look at you, you know? But it never says that, but she is wondering, I don’t understand the secret of your great strength. But again and again in Judges we have this phrase, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon so and so.” The Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel in Judges 3:10. Or “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.” That we’ve already mentioned in 6:34 and 11:29, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah.” “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson…” in 14:6, 14:19, and 15, 14 and 15. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him again and again, and he picks up the jaw bone of a donkey and kills a thousand men.

With the jaw bone of a donkey, because the Spirit of God came upon him. Only by faith and by the power of the Spirit can we win these kinds of victories.

Jephthah, I think the most surprising guy in the list. He’s an odd guy. I don’t fully understand his story, I know that the spirit of God came upon him, but a few verses later he’s making a vow that if God will give him the victory, he will sacrifice as a burnt offering whatever comes across his threshold to greet him. That’s odd. Turned out to be his virgin daughter. I don’t think that Hebrews is celebrating Jephthah’s vow, just Jephthah’s faith. And I think that’s probably why men like Samson and Jephthah are chosen, it’s because they’re not perfect people. They’re not perfect, they just had faith. God justifies the wicked, he justifies the ungodly by faith. And then a genuine faith results in heroic acts of valor.

David, Samuel, no surprise that these great men are in the list. But the author just wants you to know, whatever David did, he did by faith. Whatever he did, he did by faith. He faced Goliath by faith. He patiently waited on God for the promised kingdom by faith. He didn’t kill Saul in the cave by faith. He dealt, he administered justice in his kingdom by faith when Ish-Bosheth’s murderers came to him and told him that they had murdered him, and he now had the whole kingdom to himself, he executed them because they killed an innocent man in his bed. He administered justice by faith, because he wanted his kingdom established by righteousness and not by wickedness, by faith. You have to see his life that way. And the same thing, Samuel, who came before David, but is listed after him, but he heard God’s word by faith, even as a little boy, God spoke to him and by faith, he learned to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” and he never let any of God’s words fall to the ground.

But he spoke them honestly, even if they caused pain to someone he loved, like Eli. And then the Prophets, as I said, mentioned a summary of them one after the other, by faith, Elijah, by faith, Elisha, by faith, Isaiah, by faith, Jeremiah. That’s how you ought to see them, but they’re not listed here, they’re just understood. You can read their stories.

V. What Faith Has Achieved

And what had faith achieved? Verse 33-34, “Who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.”  Now, you can play the game, a Bible trivia game and go through and say, “What does each one of these refer to?” And it’s a joy to do that, but I’m not going to do that now. You know these stories, but it is by faith that these heroes of faith did these great things.

What I want to do is I want to apply this list now to you and I want to start by applying it first and foremost to Jesus. Let me tell you something, any attribute or great action done by any hero of the faith, Jesus did it better. He did it better, he was a greater hero than any of these. And so, if you look at this list, is it true that Jesus conquered a kingdom? Yeah, it is. Satan’s kingdom was crushed by Jesus. Is it true that Jesus by the greatness of his reign administers justice? Oh, absolutely. All judgment has been entrusted to Jesus. Is it true that Jesus gained what was promised? Yes, in Jesus, all the promises of God are yes and amen. He gained what was promised for you. He went out and won the victories for you so that you could have the Promised Land. Promised eternal life. Did Jesus shut the mouth of a lion? If you see Satan as a lion, absolutely, he shut his mouth.

And he is likened to that, he is like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who goes out between us and the lion and says, “You’re not going to touch any of my sheep,” and he is the mighty Good Shepherd who protects us from this lion. Quenched the fury of the flames? You tell me. Do you fear the flames of hell? It depends what you mean. Do you believe you’re going there? I don’t believe I’m going there. And when it comes to me, then, he has quenched the fury of the flames. Though I deserve to burn in hell, I will not, because Jesus died for me. Escaped the edge of the sword. Did Jesus escape? Well, he was resurrected, he wasn’t killed by a sword. But I’ve been thinking about that sword. I think that Satan wields, metaphorically, a double-edged sword in our lives. I know that the word of God is a double-edged sword, but Satan wields this double-edged sword, cuts you both ways, temptation and accusation. Temptation and accusation. That’s his double-edged sword.

He drags you and entices you and tricks you and deceives you to sin, and then he turns and accuses you of that sin before God. And Jesus answers it, by his atoning death, by shedding his blood on the cross, under the righteous judgment of God, he stands in the way, and he removes the written code against you by satisfying its demands. And now who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies, it’s Jesus who died for them, who will condemn? Christ Jesus who died, more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us, whose weakness was turned into strength. Was Jesus weak? No one was ever weaker. I’m telling you, he was under the wrath of God, he was poured out on the cross, he was… Great drops of blood coming on the ground in Gethsemane, and out of his weakness or, as Michael Card put it, the frailty of the son, out of the frailty of Jesus, we have eternal life. Our strength is in his weakness that he was willing to die.

They thought because he’s on the cross… “If you’re the Son of God, come down off the cross.” He’s so weak, he can’t save himself, he’s weak, he’s unable. No, no, no, that weakness was his power and his strength, but it’s given to us. His weakness was turned into strength who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. You know something, he’s been doing that now for 20 centuries through weak people like you and me. He has designed this whole thing to defeat little by little Satan’s kingdom in this world through us. Now, what I want you to do, I’ve applied it to Jesus. What I want you to do is now apply it to you. I want you to see your own weakness turned into strength. Maybe you came here lost, you came here outside of Christ. Friend, the Scripture doesn’t just call you weak, although it does. When we were powerless, Christ died for us. Okay. But it calls you dead.

But today you may live. If you can just hear the words of the Gospel, if you can just hear this word, this Gospel message and believe, you will have eternal life. You’ve heard everything you need. God sent his son, he died in our place; at the cross, an exchange was made, our sins laid on him, his righteousness given to us, we have eternal life. Trust in him. Let your weakness be turned into strength through faith in Christ. Now, if you’re already a Christian, go to the cross again, go to Jesus again for your weakness to be turned into strength and for you to put foreign armies to flight. How do you do that? Well, you have an army arrayed against you. I was thinking about this this very day, it was a thought I’d never had before. Do you remember the story of Elisha? Do you remember how the Arameans are surrounding the city, and his servant goes out and he says, “We’re done for, we’re surrounded.” And then Elisha said, “No, there’s more on our side than on theirs.”

Saw the physical army of the Arameans, they looked out on the… The servant looked out with natural eyes on this physical army, and was terrified by it. And then, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes.” By faith then he could see chariot, horsemen of fire, an angelic army surrounding. Well, I pushed it a little bit this morning. I was just thinking, you know what, most of us need to see the enemy army by faith. But we’re not surrounded by physical soldiers, Arameans coming physically to arrest us, but we are in a war zone. Do you know it? Do you know that you have an enemy, the Devil? Do you know that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms? Are you aware of that? Do you know you have an army arrayed against you that wants your destruction?

Do you know that the army that’s fighting for you is infinitely more powerful than it is? But God wants you to know that you must put on your spiritual armor, that you must put on the belt of truth, that you must put on the helmet of salvation, the breast plate of righteousness, you must lift up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. You must fight this battle. There’s so much military imagery in the Old Testament and very few of us are actually physical soldiers. But we are all at war and you have to see that warfare by faith, and see your triumph in it by faith as well. Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So I’m just urging you on the basis of these heroes, and all of their great achievements, to fight the good fight of faith until the day you die. Close with me in prayer.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

I.   Time Fails Us Now… It Won’t Fail Us in Heaven

A.  “And what more shall I say?” Time would fail me…

ESV Hebrews 11:32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets

1.  The author has been tracing out in more or less chronological order key examples of faith from the OT

2.  Now… the Author Seems to Punt on the Rest of OT History… but his points are made

B.    “Time Would Fail Me…”

1.  Here is the rub of our earthly life

James 4:14 What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Psalm 39:5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.

2.  The author acknowledges that, even when it comes to magnificent, rich events of faith, there is not enough time to cover them all

3.  Similar to John’s statement about Jesus Christ:

John 21:25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

4.  Mortal life never has enough time to do all the good things we would like to do

5.  But heaven is not so!!…

C.  Heavenly Leisure: Becoming Experts in Church History… and Theology

1.  In heaven, there will be no such limitation

2.  “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.”

3.  We’ll have fellowship with the greatest people who have ever lived

4.  We belong to a royal lineage, a noble family of faith

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God

5.  We will sit at table with these great heroes of the faith:

Matthew 8:11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

a.  To sit with Martin Luther and talk with him (no translator needed!!) about what it was like to stand at the Diet of Worms and courageously defend the doctrine of justification by faith alone

b.  To talk with William Tyndale who translated the Bible into English and paid for it with his life as he was burned at the stake

c.  To have a meal with martyrs who died under the Roman Empire’s vicious persecution; great heroes like Polycarp (martyred at Smyrna) and the noble woman Felicitas, who gave up the life of a Roman aristocrat to follow Christ, even to her death

d.  To walk through the meadows and valleys of the New Earth with a mighty explorer missionary like David Livingstone and ask him what it was like to probe the mysterious and dangerous heart of Africa

e.  To converse with a beautiful hymnwriter like Fanny Crosby, who was blind on earth but can see perfectly now… to speak with her about her prayer life, and what she experienced that led her to write the incredible words to “Blessed Assurance”

Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels, descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest, Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

f.  To talk with Chinese brothers and sisters who died in the communist crackdowns during the Cultural Revolution

g.  BUT we cannot probe all these stories now…

II.   The Mysteries of this List

A.  Why the Author Makes This List

1.  Why does the author break off his survey of church history at this point?

2.  Why does he start to summarize right after the Jews enter the Promised Land and conquer Jericho?

3.  Does he feel that the point has been made… that by faith we should not love our lives so much as to shrink from death? That we are merely aliens and strangers here on earth? That we should live otherworldly lives in this present age… filled with hope in our future home, the glorious city that He is building for us… the magnificent world to which we are going?

4.  Why the staccato burst of names and serial list of achievements?

B.  Why These Particular Heroes are Chosen and Others Left Out

1.  Even more puzzling, why are these the specific people chosen

2.  The author zeroes in on six individuals that span the gap from the conquest of Jericho to the coming of King David… they are perhaps not the people we would have chosen

3.  Why was Jephthah chosen, and not Jonathan?

4.  Why was Barak chosen and not Deborah?

5.  Why was Samson chosen, given that he had such obvious moral failings?

6.  Why was Gideon chosen, given the frailty of his faith at the start?

7.  Why was there no one beyond David? Why not godly prophets named like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, or Jeremiah?

C.  Why These Heroes are Listed in This Order?

1.  Why does the author, who has been following a very careful chronological accounting of Old Testament heroes of the faith seem to scramble these figures?

2.  Why for example, does he mention Gideon (Judges 6-8) BEFORE Barak (Judges 2-4)? Why does he list David before Samuel?

3.  One thing’s for certain: the Holy Spirit guided him in doing everything he wrote. This was no accident or off-the-cuff effort… every single word is exactly how God wanted it to be through the Holy Spirit.

4.  BUT that doesn’t mean that we will be able accurately to surmise the answer to these mysteries.

D.  How These Heroes Display Faith

1.  This is the REAL question before us… for the author is seeking to help each on of us live by faith

2.  Before this chapter

Hebrews 10:38-39 But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” 39 ¶ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

3.  After this chapter

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

4.  This is the CLOUD of WITNESSES!!! By their example and by faith in the same God who helped them, we also will be able to finish our race

5.  Thus the real issue is: how can these heroes of the faith and their catalogue of amazing acts of faith help stimulate us to similar courage and endurance in the Christian life

E.  Division of the List: Triumphant Heroes (vs. 32-35a) and Suffering Heroes (35b- 38)

1.  Triumphant Heroes are those who achieved great things for God… whose faith led them to what anyone would call “success” for the most part

2.  Suffering Heroes are those who achieved great things for God by bearing patiently the sufferings of a harsh, God-hating world; more on them next week!!

III.   The Central Lesson: Weakness Turned into Strength

Hebrews 11:34 whose weakness was turned to strength

A.  This is the MAIN LESSON I think of these people

B.  Came First and Foremost from Studying Gideon… the First Example

C.  Gideon’s Time

1.  The era of the Judges… more on that in a moment

2.  The key issue: Israel’s faithless lapse into godless idolatry in the pattern of the nations around them

3.  God would sell the Jews into the hands of Gentile invaders who would afflict them harshly

4.  The Jews would them cry out to God for deliverance

5.  God would send a judge to lead Israel both militarily and politically

6.  In Gideon’s era, the Midianites were overwhelming and oppressive

Judges 6:2-6 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys….. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.

D.  Gideon’s Weakness

1.  When we first meet Gideon, he was trying to thresh wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites

2.  This was a terrible place to do this… usually, you would thresh on a broad flat place where the wind can blow away the chaff; a winepress was usually a depressed area, like a vat, more hidden; therefore the wind would have a very difficult time blowing away the chaff

3.  The winepress was a very HUMBLING place for Gideon to try to thresh the wheat

4.  One scholar:

God used the winepress to humble Gideon and show him his weakness much in the same way he used the back of the desert and a father-in-law’s sheep to humble Moses… God used their weakness to prepare them for GREAT THINGS

5.  Gideon deeply humbled… SMALL IN HIS OWN EYES

Judges 6:12-13 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” 13 “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

6.  The Lord answered very surprisingly:

Judges 6:14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

7.  Here is Gideon’s sense of weakness:

Judges 6:15 “But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

E.  Gideon’s “Strength”

1.  Gideon’s real strength was his immense sense of WEAKNESS and NEED

2.  AND that he would turn that weakness back to God in prayer

3.  The Lord therefore made a promise to Gideon…

Judges 6:16 The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

4.  God is motivated by weakness, by need

F.  Gideon’s Weak Faith… Got Stronger and Stronger

1.  Gideon is chosen for his faith… but at the beginning, his faith was terribly WEAK

2.  He asked for THREE SIGNS one after the other

Judges 6:17-18 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”

a.  First, the offering… supernaturally consumed by the angel’s staff… then the angel disappeared. But that wasn’t enough…

b.  Second, He asked for the famous FLEECE as a sign… if the fleece was wet

w. dew and the ground dry, he would believe; it HAPPENED

c.  Third, HE ASKED AGAIN!!! For the opposite: fleece dry and the ground around it wet… again it happened

3.  Even then, God sent him to hear a dream the Midianites had had about him

4.  God built this man up step by step

a.  His first commission was to destroy his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole he had set up… he did so AT NIGHT because he was afraid of his family and of the citizens of his town

b.  Next God poured out His Spirit on Gideon and gave him the power to lead Israel… this is the key to all the achievements of any man or woman of faith

Judges 6:34 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning [Israel] to come join him in fighting the Midianites

5.  By the end of his exploits he was mighty in faith… His faith had grown from a mustard seed to a mighty tree

G.  Gideon’s Success

1.  God used Gideon and his tiny army of 300 men to defeat the Midianites

2.  Without a sword in their hands, by faith, they stood still and saw God fight for them

3.  The Midianites turned against each other and slay themselves

H.  Weakness Turned into Strength

James 4:6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

GOD’S POWER is MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS… that was the “strength Gideon had”

So we also have that kind of strength

We must turn away from SELF-RELIANCE and learn to rely on God alone BY FAITH

IV.   The Heroes Listed Quickly

A.  The Era of the Judges: Bewildering and Wicked

B.  Summation from the Book of Judges Itself

ESV Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

1.  Fundamental flaw: Israel did not know God or God’s word

Judges 2:10-11 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. 11 ¶ Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals.

2.  The Levites failed badly

Malachi 2:7 For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction– because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.

3.  “Faith comes by hearing…”

4.  Yet, even in the midst of this, God raised up believers

Romans 11:2-5 “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

5.  There is a REMNANT in every generation… always raised up by faith in the word of God

C.  Gideon: Already Mentioned

D.  Barak: A Weak Man Who Trusted the Word of God Spoken by a Prophetess

E.  Samson: A Physically Strong Man Who was Morally Weak… and Yet, Mighty by Faith

1.  Many mighty deeds recorded of him in Judges

2.  He ripped a young lion to shreds with his bare hands… a lion can weigh 500 pounds

3.  Amazingly, if you really think about it, there was NO NEED for Samson to have been physically strong himself

Zechariah 4:6 Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.

4.  Everything amazing that Samson did, he did by faith in the power of God… the SPIRIT of God came upon him in power and he killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, or ripped up some city gates and threw them over a hill

5.  Again and again in Judges, the phrase shows up

[Othniel] Judges 3:10 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war.

Judges 6:34 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.

Judges 11:29 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.

Judges 14:6 The Spirit of the LORD came upon Samson in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.

Judges 14:19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Samson in power. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men

Judges 15:14-15 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

6.  The lesson of Hebrews 11 concerning all these heroes is that ONLY BY FAITH were they able to do these great things… because their faith opened the channel for God’s Spirit to come upon them in power

F.  Jephthah: The Most Surprising of the Entries

Judges 11:30-31 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

1.  It turned out to be his DAUGHTER!! A strange occurrence… some think that all he vowed was that she should be a virgin for the rest of her life and not marry

2.  In any case, such vows are generally frowned upon in Scripture

3.  Jephthah is celebrated here not for his vow but for the faith that enabled him to become mighty in Spirit and win the victory for Israel

G.  David: No Surprise at All… but Faith is the Key to Understanding Him

1.  But it was only by faith that he won his initial victory over Goliath, and only by faith did he become King of Israel and rule so wisely… more about him in a moment

H.  Samuel: By Faith Hearing God’s Voice, Identifying David, and Warning the People

1.  Samuel is singled out here because of his faith in hearing God speaking to him

2.  The little boy Samuel began his ministry simply by hearing God speak to him in the dark of the night, and then faithfully reporting to Eli what God had said

I.  The Prophets: A Summary of a Category of Courageous Faith-Filled People

1.  The Prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord were UNIVERSALLY PERSECUTED

2.  They were asked to do some of the most difficult things God ever asked anyone to do

3.  BY FAITH Elijah powerfully stood before wicked king Ahab and declared a drought by the judgment of God… and he boldly stood against the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel

4.  BY FAITH Elisha boldly confronted the Arameans who had come to seize him

5.  BY FAITH Isaiah saw the clearest visions of the Christ found in the Old Testament

6.  BY FAITH Jeremiah boldly predicted the coming of the Babylonians and was hated and persecuted viciously by his countrymen

7.  BY FAITH Ezekiel laid on one side and prophesied for 390 consecutive days against a replica of Jerusalem… one day for each year that Israel had sinned against God; then, when those days were ended, he lay on the opposite side for 40 more days… the whole time he was eating famine rations

8.  These prophets did some amazing and bizarre things when the Spirit of God came upon them… they spoke the truth to a wicked and perverse generation, day after day

V.   What Faith Has Achieved

A.  Everything Done BY FAITH

1.  Great men have made incredible impacts on human history

2.  Alexander conquered a vast empire in a lightning conquest lasting just 14 years, stretching from Greece, down to Egypt and across to India… BUT HE DID NOT DO IT BY FAITH

3.  Julius Caesar did the same for the Roman Empire… conquering Gaul, subduing the warring factions of the Romans and uniting them for the most powerful Empire the world had ever known… BUT NOT BY FAITH

4.  Plato philosophized mightily with awesome clarity and reasoning powers… BUT NOT BY FAITH

5.  Galen the physician studied the human body and advanced medical knowledge more than any who had preceded him… BUT NOT BY FAITH

6.  Archimedes invented awesome technologies and studies physical; principles and laid the groundwork for later scientific advances… BUT NOT BY FAITH

7.  Genghis Khan… Napoleon… Confucius… the list goes on and on and great leaders and earth-shaking insights… BUT NOT BY FAITH

8.  This list of otherwise unknown men and women who did great things… their actions are remembered and celebrated by God for only one reason: these things they did BY FAITH

B.  What Achievements are Listed

Hebrews 11:33-34 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.

1.  Through Faith Conquered Kingdoms

a.  Author almost certainly thinking first and foremost of Joshua

b.  After the conquest of Jericho, they fought one battle after another conquering the Promised Land

c.  When five Kings of the Amorites joined forces, the temptation was great for Joshua and Israel to be terrified

d.  But God spoke to Joshua this promise

Joshua 10:8 The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.”

e.  By faith Joshua did an all-night march, surprised them and routed them

2.  Through Faith Administered Justice

a.  Once the territory was conquered, it had to be administered properly

b.  By faith, judges and kings ruled the people WISELY with JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS

c.  David meted out swift justice to the men who killed Saul’s son, Ish- bosheth… his kingdom was not to be founded on wickedness and bloodshed

d.  Solomon was known for his wise judgments too… as in the case of the two prostitutes and the baby… BY FAITH wise justice is administered

e.  Unbelieving kings and judges act wickedly out of SELF-INTEREST… they are willing to defraud widows and the weak to make themselves rich

Proverbs 16:12 Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness.

3.  Through Faith Gained What Was Promised

a.  Faith takes God’s promises like a signed check of immense value and carries them to the bank of God’s omnipotence to be cashed

b.  These heroes of the faith took God’s promises seriously, and by faith they received what was promised

i)  God promised Joshua that he would conquer the Promised Land… Gideon that he would defeat the Midianites…

ii)  God promised David that one day he would be king

iii)  ALL OF THESE were against all odds… Joshua faced a mighty walled city… Gideon was greatly outnumbered… so was David as he faced Saul

c.  WHAT PROMISES ARE YOU TRUSTING GOD FOR NOW???

4.  Through Faith Shut the Mouths of Lions

a.  BY FAITH Daniel was rescued…

Daniel 6:22 My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, O king.”

HOW IS YOUR QUIET TIME? HOW PRECIOUS IS YOUR TIME WITH GOD TO YOU? By faith, do you choose God above all earthly pleasures?

5.  Through Faith Quenched the Fury of the Flames

a.  Also the book of Daniel… only this was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

b.  By faith, they made this incredible statement:

Daniel 3:17-18 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

c.  By faith, they were delivered IN THE MIDST OF THE FIERY FURNACE… God sent the Angel of the Lord, “one like the Son of God” to walk with them in the furnace

d.  When they came out, not a hair of their heads had been singed, and there was no smell of fire on them

e.  BUT THEIR FAITH PRECEDED THEIR DELIVERANCE

6.  Through Faith Escaped the Edge of the Sword

a.  BY FAITH David was delivered from the sword of Goliath, the Philistines… he went out to meet this giant trusting in the power of God

1 Samuel 17:45 “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

b.  Ultimately David declared this about the sword:

1 Samuel 17:47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.

c.  All who live by the sword die by the sword… David NEITHER lived nor died by the sword… though the sword chased him all his life

d.  By faith David was delivered from the sword of Saul, then from the sword of the Amalekites, then from the sword of the Philistines, then from the sword of the Edomites, of the Moabites, Ammonites… he won battle after battle… as a mighty leader of men, he swung the sword again and again, but he was himself delivered from the edge of the sword

Psalm 91:7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

e.  So the MARTYRS have faced the sword of government laws, government executions… many many many have been killed, their blood shed by the wicked sword of antichristian tyrants… but though they may have died physically, nothing can separate them from the love of Christ:

Romans 8:35-37 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

f.  What SWORD faces you? Probably you are not a soldier, facing a physical weapon… but our battle is spiritual, and Satan swings the double-edged sword of temptation on the one side, and accusation of sin on the other

g.  With this sharp double-edged sword, Satan seeks to slice us off from Christ

h.  BY FAITH we escape the edge of this sword of sin and guilt

7.  Through Faith Overcame Weakness and Became Strong

a.  This is the central lesson as mentioned

b.  Faith FLOURISHES when we recognize our weakness and God OMNIPOTENCE

c.  God rushes in to deliver the humble who cry aloud to Him

d.  WHAT IS YOUR WEAKNESS? Where are you UNABLE to face the challenges of Satan or fulfill the commands of God

e.  BY FAITH YOUR WEAKNESS CAN BE TURNED INTO STRENGTH!!

f.  By faith, you can return to Christ and to the power of the cross and feel the strength of God flow back into your soul again

Psalm 23:2-3 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul.

8.  Through Faith Became Powerful in Battle

a.  Many of the heroes in Hebrews 11 mentioned here were military conquerors… men who were mighty in battle and who won great victories on the field of blood

b.  We fight a different kind of battle…

c.  Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against Satan’s dark kingdom

d.  Our warfare is not earthly but spiritual… conquering the flaming arrows of temptation and fear and depression and selfishness and lust and pride

e.  With the mighty SHIELD OF FAITH we can extinguish ALL THE FLAMING ARROWS of the evil one

9.  Through Faith Routed Foreign Armies

a.  Time and time again, the Old Testament gives us incredible accounts of mighty foreign armies put to flight

b.  For example, in the days of Asa, a vast army of one million Ethiopian soldiers invaded tiny Judah and thought to conquer it

c.  Asa totally relied on God BY FAITH:

2 Chronicles 14:11-13 Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, “LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you.” 12 The LORD struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, 13 and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the LORD and his forces. The men of Judah carried off a large amount of plunder.

d.  These military lessons are given us to teach us to rely on God for all the opposition we may face

C.  The Life of True Faith is ACTIVE

1.  Faith without works is DEAD

2.  These activities are powerful testimony to the validity of their faith

3.  So also OUR LIVES should be filled with bold actions for the glory of God