We'll read verse 33 down through
verse 40 together. We're just going to take this
in sections. I didn't want to give you so
much. I want you to take these things
because these are intended for our learning. And the purpose
of this is to show us the feats, not only the feats of faith that
the man of God accomplished of old, but I want you to see the
spiritual aspect of these feats and what the Holy Spirit has
intended by these great, wonderful feats of faith, that they are
spiritual in their application, that they are just as vital for
us as they were for them. That these enemies that they
overcome, these things that they were given to do, they were literal
things. They were literal kingdoms and
literal fires and literal swords. But yet the Spirit of God uses
these things to show us the spiritual aspect of these. We fight not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers
and kingdoms. Not physical kingdoms, but spiritual
kingdoms. We are delivered from a spiritual
sword. We're delivered from spiritual
fire. These things translate over into
spiritual things. And that's what I hope that the
Lord would teach us this morning concerning our faith. Now let's
look at these together. Verse 33. Hebrews 11, verse 33. Scripture says, Who through faith subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong,
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised
to life again. And others were tortured, not
accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered
about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. of whom this world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these
all, having obtained a good report, proved faith, received not the
promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that
they, without us, should not be made perfect. The title of
the message this morning is the feats and trials of true faith. Feats and trials of true faith. Here the apostle is using the
saints of God of old and their faith to show us the character
of true faith. We've been going through this
over and over and I've mentioned this so many times and I want
this to make God brand this in your heart. Every time you read
this chapter, You understand what he is doing by giving us
these examples. He is not magnifying these saints. He is not magnifying even their
faith. What he is magnifying is the
God of their faith. He is magnifying God. And by
this, God is the one that gave us this faith. And there are
characteristics of faith, of true faith, that are exemplified
by these attendants. That's what he's doing. He's
giving us these magnifying faith to show us what true faith really
is. That's important because we must
know that our faith is genuine. Is there anything more important
than to make your calling and election sure? There is nothing.
There is nothing more vital to the believer anyway. To the law
school, they have no interest in that. They make a decision.
Theirs is over. Ours is never over. We must always, always
be looking to Christ, making sure of our calling and election.
So he's magnifying the characteristics of true faith. And He does this to those who
are made partakers of the divine nature. These men, like us, were
made partakers of the divine nature. We received the same
faith. And listen, we, through faith
in Christ, should apply these feats of faith to our own lives. This is very important. These
feats of faith, you should see, are true of you. True of you. These saints of old, by faith,
they subdued earthly kingdoms, wrought judicial righteousness
in those kingdoms, they quenched the vials of fire, they escaped
the edge of the sword, they turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Armies of enemies. You remember we studied Gideon
last time about his weak faith, but at the end, Gideon's faith
was very strong, wasn't it? Those Midianites were as many
as grasshoppers, and he turned them by believing the Word of
God. He took that little light and
clay pot and a horn. Three hundred men with clay pots
and horns turned a multitude of enemies. That was done by
faith. That's an amazing miracle. Now, our faith is not to be compared
in a literal sense to their feats. In other words, true faith is
never... We don't have any illusion of turning armies, okay? We don't have any illusion of
conquering kingdoms, do we, as believers in Christ? Matter of
fact, remember what our Lord said. He said, My kingdom is
not of this world. Why are we not out there fighting?
Why are we not got swords in our hands as the Israelites did,
turning this country by violence, by force? Why? Because Christ
said, my kingdom's not of this world. If my kingdom were of
this world, then would my servants fight. But it's not. It's not what it is. Now listen, we are
not all called to suffer the violence of fire, are we? Now
there are many believers who have suffered the violence of
fire, haven't they? And we'll read of those down at the end
of this. They said, not accepting, not
accepting deliverance. There are many who have suffered
the violence of fire, but yet how many have escaped the violence
of fire? How many have quenched it? I know a very few. Those three
Hebrew children, remember, they escaped the violence of fire. But are we to say that we're
going to expect it if we were to be put to the stake? Should
we expect to be delivered by faith? No. Why? We have no promise of being delivered
from fire, do we? So why should we expect it? We're
not promised to be delivered from that. They're very few. Let us then look at these feats
as they are historically accomplished, but not only as they are historically
accomplished, but what the Holy Spirit really intends. Now there
are nine feats here mentioned. There are nine feats in these
few verses, really in verse 33 and 34. There are many after
that. But I'm just going to take today
four. We're going to take four of these
and next week we'll take some of the others. We're going to
look at four of them this morning. Let's look at this verse. Look
at this. Verse 33. Who through faith subdued
Kings. Subdued Kings. Now the word subdue,
it does not mean to pacify. You know, some people think that
it means subdue. Well, you just subdue them. You
subdue your children. You pacify them. This doesn't
mean that at all. This is a violent word. This
means to take by force. This is one as a soldier would
go into the battlefield and subdue his enemy by force. Subdued, it is a word for a soldier
in the midst of war to conquer or to be victorious over his
enemy. They subdued kingdoms. Isn't
that true of Israel? They subdued them. How? They
went in and violently took them. They subdued them. Subdued his
kingdoms. You can look and see these men,
David, Gideon, Samson, Jephthah, those men mentioned in verse
32, but I think of David. David was a man that subdued
kingdoms. You think, well, what was his
first battle? Remember his first battle? It was against Goliath,
wasn't it? It was against Goliath, that giant. You consider Joshua. He subdued kingdoms, didn't he?
Jericho, those teals, Iowa! And yet God, through faith, He
subdued that kingdom. He believed God. He did it God's
way. And it come out right. He subdued all those other Canaanite
lands. But here's the point. They subdued
these kings and kingdoms that were opposed to God and His people. You realize that? That Israel
only subdued the kingdoms. They only fought against the
kingdoms that opposed God. Now there were some kingdoms
they didn't subdue because there was no opposition. They didn't
oppose it. They didn't like it, but they
didn't oppose it. They didn't try to attack Israel
after they had taken the land. But, I'll tell you this, God,
they opposed, all that opposed God and His people were violently
subdued. You remember Goliath? He defied
God and Israel. He stood and he said, I defy
you. Bring out your best. And he did this for days and
days, defying God, defying his people. And you remember who
went out to meet him? It was David, and he did it how?
By faith. David knew that God would subdue
his enemies. And he believed God. And he went
out to meet a man every bit his superior, right? I mean, Goliath
was a man of war, but Goliath was a man who had killed thousands
and thousands of men. He was the champion of the Philistine. He was the biggest, the strongest.
He was in every way bigger and better and stronger than David. In every way. David was outmatched. Yet we know this, David slew
Goliath. How? by faith, by faith. The whole lesson about faith
here. Believer, our God has promised
us many things. Eternal life. He has promised to give us glory
in heaven, holiness, righteousness, peace. Aren't these our promises? He has given all spiritual blessings
to us in heavenly places. Yet, listen, have you experienced
them all? Have you experienced some of
them, but not even in the fullness of them, have you? You have the
righteousness of God, yet you've not fully experienced what righteousness
is. You have peace with God, but
you've not fully experienced what that peace is. You have
eternal life, and obviously we've not entered into any of that.
A new body, we've not got that yet. We have all these promises that
have not yet been fulfilled. Instead of peace and rest, which
is ours, we receive these things only by faith, and yet we are
surrounded by enemies. We're surrounded by them. You cannot go anywhere without
being surrounded. You are surrounded everywhere
you go. By those that oppose God. Those who are real enemies and
hate God. You're surrounded by them. You
struggle. And not only are you surrounded
by them, you are engaged in a warfare. This morning you're engaged in
the warfare. I'll just ask you, have you had anything distract
you in your mind? Anything? Why is that? Why have you struggled just to
maintain focus and to worship God? Why? Because you are in
a struggle. You are in a warfare. You are
in the midst of a battle. And you're sitting there, you
have no outward battle, no outward struggle. What is this? It is
a spiritual warfare you engage in. It's a spiritual warfare. And listen, the first enemy is
the closest one. Self. Self. The enemy within. The flesh. Go to Relations chapter 5. Relations chapter 5. Verse 16. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now why
should He give us that exhortation? He would give us this for this
reason. For the flesh loves it against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary
one to another so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led by the spirit,
you're not under the law. Thank God! Isn't that a wonderful
explanation to the fact that we have this flesh deal? I'm
so thankful that because I have this warfare going on, I'm not
driven back to the law and try to subdue it. That's what he's
telling us. Don't go back to the law and
try to subdue this lady. That's not going to work. It
doesn't work if you're led by the Spirit. You'll walk in the
things of the Spirit. How do we walk? By faith. What is the weapons of our warfare? They're not carnal, but they're
spiritual. Faith, the gospel is our weapon. The word of God is our weapon.
And faith in Christ, our shield. Truth, our buckle. Our belt that
holds up everything. The righteousness of Christ,
it covers our heart. The helmet of salvation, it covers
our head. These are spiritual things. Because
we are in a constant battle, a constant warfare. The works
of the flesh are manifest, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lascivious,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, immolations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresy, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelings,
and listen, this is not exhaustive, and such like. That's not even
the beginning, the scratchy surface of all the malities and lusts
of this body and mind and flesh that we have to fight against.
See, I don't have to go back to the law to know these things
are wrong. I know these things are wrong before. Now I see them
clearly as being evil. That law has been written in
my heart. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against
such there is no law. And they that are Christ have
crucified the flesh with the affections and the blood. Crucified
Him. Y'all, I tell you this, those
things of the flesh, the scripture says in another place in such
words, some of you. And I tell you what, we followed
those lusts, we followed those passions, and we gave into them
readily, willingly, desiringly gave into those things. But now,
there's a new principle, a new law written in our hearts, and
it's the law of the spirit of love and faith in Christ. And it's by this we fight against
those things. I know, I know some, Young believers,
when they come to Christ, they expect that this flesh will get
better. We all do. I know you're smiling.
You're smiling because it happened to you. You know that very well.
You thought as soon as you came to Christ, this flesh would start
peeling away. It would just start going away,
that the thoughts of our mind would be clearer now. We would
be better in every way. More holy, more righteous, closer
to God. We all thought that. What's your
experience? Their experience is the opposite,
isn't it? The flesh, it only seems to be
more corrupt, more vile. Actually, it's not. You just
notice it. It's always been this way. But
as you grow, as a new man grows in the grace and knowledge of
Christ, we also grow in the sight of the vileness of the old man. And what are we to do with these
things? Because we can't stop them from coming up, can you?
Can you stop thoughts from coming into your head? Thief. Okay, did you think of any thief
or did you think of stealing? You did because it just pops
in. It comes in. What are we to do with these
things? We are to kill them. That's just all you can say is
no compromise. You feel angry at someone? What
are you going to do with that? Kill them. You lust? What are you
going to do with that? Kill them. Thoughts come in? What are you
going to do? Take them captive and crucify them. Put them away. All mouths. Not in your own strength. How
do we do this? Because sheer determination doesn't
work. Have you found that out? The sheer determination and grit
to put these things away just don't work. How do we put these
things out? We put them out by looking at
the beauty of Christ. By seeing the glory of Christ.
By seeing the great sacrifice of our Savior who was crucified
for those sins. It should put us to shame. It
should cause us to bow down to Christ and to weep over our sins. It should cause us to lament
Him and confess Him. And what does the Scripture say?
We confess our sins. And He is what? Faithful, just,
and to forgive us our sins. Now that brings joy, doesn't
it? It brings joy. And so then this subduing this
kingdom is subduing the flesh. Do you notice the flesh to be
persistent? Why? You can't escape it. No matter where you go, there
you are. You know, if I could just get
away from my kids, nope. If I could just get to this one
place, then nope, because wherever you go, there the flesh goes
with you. You can't, you're not going to be separated from it.
This enemy is with you, Every step of the way, and he never
goes away. He never sleeps. I went to God,
he would go to sleep for a while, leave me alone. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't quit. Sometimes we think he's gone,
we think he's dead, and all he's doing is lying in wait. to pop
his ugly head up again. He's like that hydra. Cut off
one head and seven more take his place. Put away what you think you put
away. Who's ever repented so much that they never committed
the sin again? I know that's what people of
modern religion think, that you repent from a sin. Well, I've
repented from that sin. Really? Oh yeah. You never let that slip. Jesus said that which is born
of flesh is flesh. It will live flesh, it will die flesh, and
you must subdue it. You must mortify it. You must
put it away. Paul says this about himself
in Romans 7. He says, for I know that in me
that is in my flesh dwelleth what? No good thing. That's a man, that's the Apostle
of God. That's the one who wrote the Holy Scripture. He said,
no good thing dwells in this flesh and if you don't recognize
it, you'll be conquered by it. You'll be put, you'll be overwhelmed.
If you don't understand that, if you don't know that, You'll
be overwhelmed by it. If you think for one minute that
you've got this thing, whoop, that's a minute you're overwhelmed.
No, this is a constant struggle, a constant battle, it never ends.
He is always present for it. The will is present with me.
But how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the
good that I would do, I do not. And the evil that I would not
do, that I do. Anybody got any experience there? I find a law that when I would
do good, evil is present with me. Even when I think I do good,
you know what? There's nothing but evil next
to it. For I delight in the law of God
and the inward man, but I see another law of my member, warring
against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law
of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am! Not that I was, but that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Remember, that's how the Romans used to
punish prisoners is they would take a dead corpse and they would
sew it around the neck of the criminal and he must wait until
it rots off. That's exactly the picture of
our flesh, this enemy that we have to deal with. Are you such and one as this? Let us not compromise them with our flesh.
How then are we to mortify it? How then are we to subdue it?
By faith. How did they subdue Jericho?
By faith. What was the time? What was the
picture? They marched around Jericho blowing the trumpet.
How is it that we are to subdue our faith? By the gospel of Jesus
Christ. By believing the gospel of Christ.
By looking to Christ. Keeping our eye on Christ. Stop
looking to self. Stop looking for strength within.
Look to Christ as your strength. Look to Christ as your hope.
Look to Christ for all your peace, all your joy, all your love and
affection should be set on Him. This overcomes invisibility. This fortifies the deeds of the
body. I remember there were certain
priests in the false church. You remember they used to beat
themselves, right? Say, oh, I'll keep them under my body. You
know, they didn't do one thing to get rid of seeing. They didn't
do one thing to this body. Beat their bodies, they tortured
themselves, and they said they're trying to get seeing out. No.
Stupid. That's just plain stupid. Man
wanted a carnal means for a spiritual malady. As I guess it were, God, our
weapons are spiritual. Why? Because our enemy spirit
in this place is not carnal. It's not touch, not taste, not
taste. It's the heart. It's the core
of the being that's a problem. The only remedy for that is Christ.
The only remedy is Christ. By faith in Christ alone, by seeing His beauty, by seeing
His love, His forgiveness, His suffering for sin, in love and
faith in Him, we then freely forsake the lusts and passions
of others. You know why we should be kind
to one another? Why we should love one another?
Because Christ loved us. Is that not a motivation? Is
that not the reason why I should be kind? If you're looking for some other
reason, you won't find it. If you're looking for a reason
to love me more than yourself, which you should, you're not
going to find it in me or in you. We should love each other
as Christ has loved us. Has He been kind to you? Do you
not feel convicted when you're not kind to others? It's a good thing.
It's never stopping. Don't think you're going to take
some kind of pill and make this place get better. And that's
magic. People, I know that's true. We
think that. Well, maybe there's a pill for
this. No, no pill. You know what it is? Faith in
Christ. That's how they subdued the kingdom.
This is how we subdued the kingdom through our flesh. Secondly, the world is our enemy.
The world is against Christ. Our Lord said this world will
hate You. Anybody misunderstand me? Yeah, but I got a lot of
friends in the world. You pay attention. If you're able to
declare the gospel to them, they will hate you. They will hate
you. They will hate the gospel that
you preach. This world will hate you because
it hates your Lord. If this world and its religion,
its religious leaders crucified our Lord, should we expect any
better treatment? No. James said this in James
4, he said, you adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that
friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore
will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. The Word of God is such a plain
language that you would have to really work to twist that
with you. You would have to really strive
to twist that scripture. The world and its false free
will work for religion is anti-Christ. And the only way that you can
walk with them is to not walk with Christ. to compromise with them is to
compromise against Christ. John said this in 1 John 2 verse
15, Love not the world, either things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. Got that? For all that is in the world
is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life is not of the Father, but of the world. The world passeth
away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. What is the will of God? What
is the will of God? That you believe on His Son. That's the will of God. The will
of God. If you do the will of God, you
shall abide forever. You're not of the world. You're
not following after the lust of the world, the pride of life. Those things are meaningless
to us. We follow Christ. Our kingdom
is not of this world. Our kingdom is in heaven where
Christ sits. Little children, it is the last
time. And as I've told you, Antichrist shall come even now. There are
many Antichrists. What is this Antichrist? It's the world and it's religion.
The world and it's religion are our enemy. Believer, be not deceived. The world is the beast of Satan. The world and it's religion is
the whore of Babylon. And to be friends with them,
to compromise the gospel of Christ with them is to be devoid of
the love of God. We preach the gospel to all men. We do. I preach to anybody. Anybody wants to listen. Anybody that I come in contact
with, if I have an opportunity, I will tell them. I have no qualms
about that. If they want to know, The gospel. I'll tell you. I desire to. We preach the gospel
to every man. Desiring that all who hear should
be saved. But in no way are we to compromise
this gospel in order to bring men into the church. I'm not
going to compromise this gospel to bring people in. I won't do
it. Because if I do, then I've compromised
and I've went with antichrist. And this goes for people who
will not say things. I know that there are preachers
out there who are clauses. They said, oh, I believe in the
gospel, but I can't say it. I'll lose my congregation. Listen,
you're anti-Christ. I don't care who you are. If
you don't say it, you shouldn't be preaching and you're not a
servant of Christ. That's what Paul said in Galatians.
He said, if I please men, what? I am not a servant of Christ. You mark them down, they're not
servants of Christ. They will not preach it if they
will not say it. They are not His servants. Why? They're with the world. They're
not subdued. Now you who are believers in
Christ, I know that you have people in your sphere who do
not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and follow after that
free will, works, religion, war. That's all she is. You mark it
down. You have friends. Do not compromise for the sake of your friendship. If it comes down to it, that
friendship must be cut off. And I'm talking about family,
friends. I'm talking about children. I'm
talking about spouses and grandparents. Anybody who is in opposition,
when it comes to this, we do not compromise. We do not compromise
the gospel. Would you let a pedophile come
and sleep with your children? Well, that's absurd. Why would you let anyone of that
false harlot religion come into your sphere and try to compromise
Boston? Why would you do that? You wouldn't
do that. You're not supposed to do that. Why? We are at war, friends.
Not carnally. We're not mean to them. We don't have to abuse
them or beat them or try to... I... and I was... that was so
good. They try to pound this in by
debating people, you know, just arguing with them, thinking it
would get them in. No! No, that's not it. Preach the
truth in what? Love. Remember, it is in the goodness
of God that neither men nor penance. So what do we do? We preach the
grace of God. We preach. We just don't compromise. We
won't compromise with Him. And listen, by this, God subdues
and saves his people. Remember Jericho? Again, I'm
bringing this up again because it's important. They marched
around that city, those strong, taut towers and high walls, and
how did the walls fall? Faith. Believing God and doing
His work, preaching the gospel. And you know what? Rahab was
saved. by what killed them, saved Rahab. And it's the same thing with
this gospel. We don't compromise. What do
people do? They take notice. They'll either run from you,
kill you, or God might save you. The outcome is not up to us.
What is our business? Our business is not the compromise. Why? We are still keepers. That's
how the world is to do. How? Faith. This is the victory
that overcomes the world. Even our faith. And it's not
our faith rather but the object of our faith. It gives us strength
to stand. See, I'm not going to compromise
this because of Christ. Because I know Him to be true.
Now look at this a second, the raw righteousness. Raw righteousness back in your
case. This word has the idea of judicial righteousness or
enforcement of the law. When they subdued these kingdoms
in the Old Testament, what did they do? They installed, they
brought judicial righteousness and brought that kingdom under
the law of God. That's what they did. And they
didn't make those kingdoms righteous. That's not what it's talking
about. But behold, the spiritual aspect
of this is through faith in Christ, the law of God is established,
satisfied, and righteousness is given in the new man. See this believer, as God has
promised Canaan to Israel long before they possessed it, did
not God promise us righteousness? He said they We were chosen in
Christ before the foundations of the world for what purpose?
That we should be holy. That we should be righteous.
God purposed that we should obtain righteousness. But how should
this righteousness be obtained? By Jesus Christ. That's how. How is this righteousness
obtained? By the faith of Jesus Christ. We by nature, the scripture says,
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. How then are
men made righteous? So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. This is the promise of God. And
who obtained righteousness? It was Christ. It was Christ
that obtained righteousness. How then is this righteousness
given? When the Holy Spirit comes in power and demonstration of
the Spirit of God, He comes in and He conquers. He conquers. He sets up His Kingdom in our
hearts. Christ sits now on the throne
of our hearts and we are bowing down to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why? Because He has brought righteousness
in us. You go look in the mirror and
you say, there's a righteousness. You can't see that on the outside.
But you can say that in all honesty because Christ has brought righteousness.
That's not being arrogant, that's just so. You are made the righteousness
of God. You were made. Not what you were. It's what He brought in you.
But how then is this experimentally brought in us? Through faith. Through faith. You have true
faith. And I tell you this, you've brought righteousness. The law
of God has been established. Satisfied. In your heart. Not only by faith, righteousness
was brought inwardly, but it is also this, righteousness is
brought outwardly. And believer, I know this, when
God saved you, you're not what you want to be. You want to be completely righteous. But I also know this, you're
not what you were. Now right, isn't that so? That's just so.
Why? Because when God saves a man
from the inside, it always works out. I remember this being, Ralph
Barton was preaching one time and a lady came to him after
the service and he was exhausted. He'd been preaching all day. And she said, Lord, Brother Ralph,
I thank the Lord saved me. He said, that's good. She said,
well, what do I do? He said, don't worry, it'll get
out of him. It will! It'll get out
of him! Righteousness will be wrought outwardly if it's wrought
inwardly. Isn't that right? That's what
John said, whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Talking about
the inner man. Whosoever sinneth and hath not
seen him neither know him. Little children. Let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous. Doeth righteousness. Isn't that
what we desire to do? And yet we have no confidence
in it. We're always looking to the righteousness of God. I've got three more,
but I want to stop there. I want to make sure that I get
to them. Let's do it. Is this your faith? If it is, it's true faith. Subduing
kingdoms. What kingdoms do we subdue? Self. Are you subduing self? You are
if you're a true faith, you're a true believer. You're always
subduing self. Always trying to kill it. Are
you subduing the world? How? By faith in Christ, never
compromising the gospel. Is that you? If your faith is true, it's true. Raw righteousness. Is your righteousness
raw by you or Christ? Raw by Christ. He established
the law and He, through faith, has put it in me. And now I desire
to do the will of God. Please God, serve God. Is that
you? We're faithful here. Isn't that
good? Isn't that not comforting? If
that's you, then you say, Me! That's me! It's you. Who gives
you glory? God does. God bless you.