Welcome to our program. Now,
today I'm going to be preaching from the last section of the
book of Hebrews, chapter 11. This is the Hall of Faith, in
which the Apostle Paul, by the Holy Spirit, had listed several
examples of great men and women of the Old Testament who believed
God, examples of faith. And I've entitled today's message,
A Good Report Through Christ. I took that title from verse
39 when it speaks of these great Old Testament saints, these believers,
who were sinners saved by the grace of God, how they obtained
a good report through faith. Now remember what I've said about
faith, saving faith, the faith that is the gift of God, which
no man has by nature. that which comes by the Holy
Spirit in the new birth, faith to believe in Christ and to repent
of our sins and our works. Saving faith always has an object,
and the only right object of saving faith is Christ and Him
crucified. When we speak of the faith which
is the operation of God or the Spirit of God, the new birth
which comes by the power of God, what the Bible calls regeneration
and conversion. In that operation, that powerful
sovereign operation, God the Holy Spirit always gives a principle
of life, a nature of life and grace and brings sinners to see
Christ and to believe in Him. It was the same for the Old Testament
believers. And Paul had listed several here
who had obtained a good report. What is it to have a good report?
I'll talk about that some more. But to have a good report is
to have a right standing before God. And the only way that a
sinner can have a right standing before God is in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It means to be washed in his
blood and clothed in his righteousness. Also, to have a good report through
faith is to walk by faith. A sinner walking by the Word
of God, knowing that salvation is by the power of God and through
the Lord Jesus Christ, and walking in that light, seeking to obey
God, not in order to be saved, but because you already are saved
by the grace of God through Christ. Now, this whole section of Scripture
here reveals to us that in the Old Testament that these people
who are listed, that they recognize that the good things that happened
to them and the good things that they went through, and especially
their eternal salvation, was of the power of God and not their
own power. It was by the sovereign will
and promise of God, and not by their own free will. But it was
of God. Salvation is of the Lord. Always remember that. And then
the next thing that is so important in this passage, and this is
the theme of the book of Hebrews, actually it's the theme of the
whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, even the Old Testament,
is the greater glory the great superiority of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Lamb of God. He is our salvation. Salvation is in Him and Him alone. He is our all-in-all, His great
person as God-man, His finished work on the cross to satisfy
law and justice on our behalf. That's what these Old Testament
believers look to. He is whom they look to, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was all according to a promise
that God had made to Abraham. And even that's based on one
that he made to Christ before the foundation of the world.
Now we pick up in verse 30 of Hebrews 11 where he mentions
Jericho. He mentioned Moses. Moses was
God's instrument to deliver the children of Israel out of the
bondage of Egypt. And you know the story of Moses,
how they crossed the Red Sea, they came to Mount Sinai, and
how they were given the law, the Old Covenant law, and all
that included the Ten Commandments. It included the ceremonial law,
the priesthood, the tabernacle, the law of sacrifice. the law
of Sabbath, all of those laws that were given as God brought
that nation together and formed them, ultimately for the purpose
of bringing through that nation, according to the flesh, the Messiah.
And how they went from Mount Sinai to the edge of the Promised
Land, to the border of the Promised Land. I don't know if you remember
this story or not, but you remember when they got to the border of
the Promised Land, The people decided to send spies over into
the promised land. And when the spies came back,
you know, there were two reports. This is recorded in the book
of Numbers. There were two reports. There was a majority report,
and then there was a minority report. The majority reports
went something like this, that this land is fruitful, this land
is plentiful, just like God said it would be. But we cannot obtain
this land. We cannot conquer it. The people
that live there, they're giants. They're mighty. They're too much
in number and strength. And it's impossible for us to
overpower those people and to take that land. Now that was
the majority report. And then there was a minority
report. It was basically given by two men. One's name was Joshua. You know who Joshua was. He was
sort of like Moses' lieutenant. And then Caleb. Now Joshua, that
name Joshua is significant. Joshua is a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In fact, if you translated the
name Jesus from the Old Testament into the Hebrew, it would be
Joshua or Yeshua. It means Jehovah who saves. And Joshua is a type of Christ.
The name Caleb means faithful one. So the picture here in the
Minority Report is a type, it's a picture. Joshua, who typifies
Christ, the Savior, the Leader, the Redeemer, the Deliverer,
and Caleb, the ones who follow Christ, the faithful ones. And
so we have that minority report, and the minority report went
something like this. It said, now wait a minute. Our
obtaining the land has nothing to do with our power, or our
strength, or our wisdom and abilities. It is all of God. You see, obtaining
the promised land never was conditioned on the strength, the goodness,
or the wisdom of the nation Israel. They weren't strong enough, they
weren't wise enough, and they weren't good enough. They were
sinners. But God promised it to them by
His grace and mercy. He said, I'll give you the land.
That's what He told Moses. He said, you tell the children
of Israel, I'll give them the land, and they'll possess the
land. And He said, I'll bring them
into the land. It had nothing to do with their power, but the
people disbelieved God. They turned against Moses and
Joshua and Caleb, and God punished them by causing them to wander
in the wilderness for 40 years, until that first generation that
rebelled against God died out, except for Joshua and Caleb.
Well, here in Hebrews 11.30, we see that 40 years later, when
the first generation of unbelieving rebels died out, Joshua led the
children of Israel over the Jordan River into the promised land
and he came upon Jericho. And it says, by faith, now look
at verse 30, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they
were compassed about seven days. You remember that story. The
children of Israel still weren't numerous enough and powerful
enough and good enough to break down these walls of Jericho.
But God told Joshua to tell him what to do, to march around that
city, bang on those pipe hands, blow those trumpets and do that
for seven days. And God said the walls will fall.
And Joshua believed God and he commanded the people to walk
around seven days. And they did what God said for
them to do. And God brought the walls of
Jericho down. What a great picture of the salvation
of a sinner. We cannot save ourselves. We're
not good enough. We're not powerful enough, and
we're not wise enough. But God says that He'll save
us for Christ's sake. He'll bring down the walls of
the stony heart. He'll bring down the walls of
the curse of the law against our sin. He'll defeat the enemy
Satan, destroy all that is against us, and He'll bring it down by
His grace through the shed blood and imputed righteousness of
Christ. So by faith, the walls of Jericho come down. Now look
at verse 31. We'll read through some of these.
It says, By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them
that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
Now Rahab was a harlot in Jericho. And it is said that she helped
the spies, the Hebrew spies that came over to scope out the city.
You remember that she took sides with the people of God and the
God of Israel against her own people. You see, God saved Rahab's
soul. God saved her by His grace. He
saved a harlot. You think about it. If any of
us were going to the city, we'd go to try to pick the best of
the best. We wouldn't go to some harlot.
But God led these spies to the harlot Rahab because she was
one of God's elect and she was one whom God marked out for salvation. And you remember how she let
down the scarlet cord. from her room to let the spies
down, and she helped them. And she did that because God
had promised her that she would be delivered and not destroyed
with those who believed not. That was by faith. And I'll tell
you what, Rahab looked to Christ, the future coming promised Messiah,
just as much as any of the other Old Testament saints. In fact,
Rahab is in the fleshly line of our Lord. He came according
to the seed of David, according to the flesh." And Rahab was
in that line. She married a man named Salmon.
And Salmon and Rahab had Boaz, and Boaz had Ruth. And Ruth was
the grandmother of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David. And according to the flesh, without
sin, Christ was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh.
Verse 32 of Hebrews 11, now he mentions several of the judges,
in the book of Judges, where God performed mighty miracles
and he told these men that he would do this and they believed
him and they acted on their faith. And then he mentions David, King
David, he mentions Samuel the prophet. He says in verse 32,
and what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to
tell of Gideon. You remember how Gideon defeated
the Midianites with 300 men? Remember, he started out, he
had so many thousand, and God said, there's too many, whittle
them down. In other words, God whittled
them down to 300 men because it was going to be made apparent
that God was the power behind this victory. Not Gideon, not
the army, not the wisdom and power of men. That's the same
way with salvation. When God saves a sinner, He's
going to make sure that he gets all the glory, not the sinner.
It's not based on what you do for God, but it's totally based
upon what he has done for you in Christ. So Gideon, he mentions
Barak, another judge, Samson. You know the story of Samson,
how he defeated the Philistines. And you know about these men,
and you know about their sins. The Bible doesn't hold back on
that. It tells us plainly and honestly these were weak men
in themselves, sinful men. But God saves sinners. The Bible
says this is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners. Listen,
the physician comes to heal the sick. The well don't need a physician. Christ told the Pharisees, I
come not to call the righteous to repentance. They don't need
any repentance. If you're already okay, you don't
need Christ. You don't need the grace of God.
But he mentions Samson, he mentions Jephthah, who is another judge,
and then he mentions David, King David, you know his story, and
Samuel, Samuel the prophet, one of the prophets. All of these
people, all of these men, look to Christ for salvation. And then it says in verse 33,
he talks about these men, who through faith subdued kingdoms,
they were conquerors. They wrought righteousness. Now,
that doesn't mean they worked out a righteousness of their
own to be justified before God. The Bible says that's impossible.
For by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. The Bible tells us that those
who go about trying to establish a righteousness of their own
in order to be saved or kept or glorified are wicked and evil. And they'll be ashamed, Romans
9 and 10 tells us. But how did these men work? It
says wrought righteousness. How did they work righteousness?
They dealt justly. They dealt with other men in
justice. They were just men. And then
it says they obtained promises. God promised them many things.
For example, God promised Gideon victory with 300 men. Well, what
happened? Gideon obtained that promise.
He got it. God promised Samson. He promised
Barak, Jephthah, these things, and they got them. He promised
David a kingdom, and David got the kingdom. He promised Samuel,
the prophet, many things through his prophecy, and they were fulfilled. It says in verse 34 that they
quenched the violence of fire. That is, when people rose up
against them, they escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness
were made strong. When I look at that phrase, I
think of Samson. Out of weakness was made strong.
Samson was, he started out strong, and he got full of himself and
gave in to Delilah, and he became weak, and he became totally dependent
upon God. He always was, he just lost sight
of that. But you remember when he stood
between those pillars in the kingdom of the Philistines, and
he prayed unto God, let him have that power again, and in weakness
he was made strong. It says, they waxed valiant in
fight. That means they grew valiant,
brave. And that's by the grace of God.
They turned to flight the armies of the aliens. David was a mighty
king and a conqueror. It says in verse 35, it speaks
of women here, faithful women. It says, receive their dead raised
to life again. Those whom God healed and those
whom God by his prophets raised from the dead. And he says, and
others were tortured. Now, others of these believers
were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain
a better resurrection. Many of them were tortured. They
were afflicted by unbelievers. They were, they had swords put
to their throat. They were whipped and called
upon to deny their faith, but they didn't. They accepted, they
didn't accept deliverance from that physical torture. because
they were looking for a better resurrection. Now this proves
that the resurrection of the dead and even the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ is an Old Testament doctrine. You know
there are many people who don't believe that. They believe the
resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of Christ, the
Messiah, is a New Testament doctrine only. And it wasn't taught in
the Old Testament. But it says right here that many
of these faithful women and men were tortured Not accepting being
delivered from that physical torture, because they wanted
to obtain a better resurrection, a spiritual resurrection, an
eternal resurrection. And they knew that in the Old
Testament. They knew that Christ, the promised Messiah, would come,
and that he would die for their sins, that he would be buried,
and that he'd be raised again the third day. Even Job knew
that. Somebody said Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and
it may well be. Job said, I know that my Redeemer
liveth, and he shall stand at the latter day. You see, he knew
that his Redeemer couldn't die and stay dead. Anybody who looks
to a Redeemer or a Savior who dies and stays dead, you're of
all people most miserable. You know why? Because of a very
basic scriptural principle. Sin demands death. Righteousness
demands life. That's what the scripture teaches.
The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible says that as
sin hath reigned unto death, Even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." You
see, a Savior or a Redeemer who is still in the grave is no Savior
or Redeemer at all. Christ came out of the grave
because He finished the work. He paid the debt in full. He
satisfied the justice of God, and He brought in an everlasting
righteousness of infinite value, and He is the firstfruits of
all. of his people. They must come forth from the
grave too. Look at verse 36. It says, and others, other believers,
they had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. They were whipped.
They were mocked. Yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment,
they were thrown in jail for the faith now, for what they
believed. You know, it's amazing how much
we take for granted in our day, isn't it? None of us have ever
been threatened to be. Most, maybe some of you have
in a foreign country, but I'm talking about believers now in
this country. Very rarely, we've never been
threatened to have our lives or be whipped or have our lives
taken or to be whipped or be thrown in jail for the faith
now. And see, many of these did, he
says. He says in verse 37, they were stoned. That means they
were stoned to death. They were sawed asunder. They
were sawed in two. They were tempted. That means
tested. They were slain with a sword, killed with a sword.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented. Many of these Old Testament believers,
and many New Testament believers too later on, lost their lives
because of the gospel, their faith in Christ. Many of them
were tortured, thrown in jail. Many of them lost their means
of income, their jobs, their means of support. And they wandered
about in sheepskins, goatskins. They were destitute, afflicted,
tormented. And look at verse 38. Here in
parenthesis, the Holy Spirit guides the writer, the Apostle
Paul, to put this in parenthesis. These people that he's speaking
of here, he's writing of, it says here, "...of whom the world
was not worthy." The world was not worthy of them. And that
is so indicative of God's view of His people. God loves His
people. He sent His Son to die for them.
Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and
gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The world esteemed
our Lord not, the world esteems us not. The world, the unbelieving,
wicked world under Satan in Adam, accounts and esteems the people
of God, the church of Christ, as nothing, not worthy to be
alive. And yet God says of them, the
world is not worthy of them. Oh, my soul, we need to think
about that. Verse 38, it says, they wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. They didn't
even have homes to live in. They were thrown out of their
homes. They lost their homes. They had to live in caves and
dens. But verse 39, now this is where I took the title. And
these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received
not the promise, verse 40, God having provided or foreseen some
better thing for us, that they without us should not be made
perfect." Now, what is that saying? Well, these Old Testament believers,
sinners saved by the grace of God, and their salvation Their
preservation, their death, all that they went through is a testimony
to the sovereign glory and grace of God in Christ. They obtained
that good report. They had a good standing before
God in Christ. Now, my friend, that's the only
way that you and I, sinners, can have a good standing before
God in Christ. by virtue of the merits of his
blood and righteousness." If we stand before God in our own
works and efforts, we cannot have a good report according
to God's standard of goodness. Now, we may have a good report
according to man's standard, but that doesn't mean anything.
We must have a good report according to God's standard. Somebody said,
well, what is the standard at judgment? Well, the Bible tells
us in Acts chapter 17 and verse 31 that there's coming a day
in which the Lord will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained in that he hath given assurance
unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. That's
Christ. And you see, it doesn't matter
how you and I compare to each other. We can pick out the worst
person on earth and compare ourselves to them, and we think we look
pretty good. But how do we compare to Christ?
Now, there's only one way that I can measure up to Christ, and
my works have nothing to do with my measuring up. It's only by
His blood washing away all my sins. His righteousness imputed
to me, covering me, clothing me, wrapped in His righteousness
so that I have a right standing before God. And that's how sinners
obtain a good report through faith in Christ. We obtain a
good report by walking after and minding the things of the
Spirit, looking unto Christ. We're going to talk about that
next time. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of
our faith. And we obtain a good report by
dying in the faith. And it says they obtained a good
report, received not the promise. What that means, they had the
promise from God. The promise of salvation. They
had the promise of becoming Messiah. But they did not live to see
the Messiah come into this world. That's what that means when it
says they have not obtained the promise. During their lifetime
and in their death, the fulfillment of the promise was yet to come. But, my friend, it did come.
We look back on it. It came 2,000 years ago when
Christ came to this earth and did his great, great work of
delivering his people from their sins. And God, he foresaw, because
he ordained it, some better thing for us. And he says that they
without us should not be made perfect. When were we made perfect? Now that's the issue. I'll tell
you exactly when we were made perfect. The same time these
Old Testament saints were made perfect, when our sins were charged
to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
The Bible says, for God made him to be sin, Christ who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
When did that take place? On Calvary. When did it take
place for Gideon? for Joshua, for Rahab, for Jephthah
and Samson, and for David and Samuel. When did it take place
for them? On the cross of Calvary. Just like that's when it took
place for me and for any other sinner who knows Christ. They
were made perfect by His offering. For by one offering, Christ hath
perfected them that are sanctified forever. Hebrews chapter 10,
that's what it says. Now, when they lived in their
lifetime and they died, that was all given to them just like
a promissory note. It had not yet taken place in
time. But in the fullness of the time,
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
to redeem them that were under the law, that we all might receive
the adoption of sons. All the sins of God's people,
Old Testament and New Testament, even those who are yet to be
born, were made to meet on the Son of God incarnate. He was
made sin. And that was so real, our sins
were imputed to Him, and that wasn't a play-like situation.
It wasn't God treating Him as if He were not something that
He was. Listen, it was real. Our sins became His. by imputation. And he experienced
the full weight of it and he died for Moses, for Jephthah,
for Rahab, and for all the New Testament saints. And that's
when we were made perfect in Christ. That's when our sins
were imputed to him and his righteousness given to us. And so we see that
this is how we obtain a good report through