Let's look at verse 34 in Hebrews
11. By faith, everything that's mentioned in these last... You
noticed as I read those verses before this in Hebrews 11, how
many times he said, by faith, by faith, by faith. He doesn't
say it every time, but you see those words even here. By faith,
they quenched the violence of fire. By faith, they escaped
the edge of the sword. By faith, out of weakness, they
were made strong. It applies to everything that's
being said here. And so we see this thing called
faith in the scriptures. And what a blessing to be going
through James at the same time we're going through Hebrews.
Have you noticed how instructive it is to see these truths in
two different passages of scripture. James is talking about the kind
of faith that God gives to his people and how it acts, how it
behaves. And that's what Paul is dealing
with here in Hebrews 11. And so let's look at this again.
And we saw the beginning of this verse last time, but let's just
review a bit. By faith they quenched the violence
of fire. Now there's other examples of
this, I'm sure, but we all probably thought of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego when we read this and we talked about them and
how that the violence of fire was quenched for them by God. We know that God did it and yet
it's attributed to faith, isn't it? It's the same thing because
God gives us faith and it's God working in you by faith to will
and to do of his good pleasure. We're involved in it. He uses
us, but it's God's work. It's God's battle. It's God's
deliverance. It's God's salvation. Salvations
of the Lord. In this whole journey, Paul said,
I live it by the faith of the Son of God. I live this life
that we live by the faith of the Son of God. And sure enough,
we see that here. They quenched the violence of
fire. It was done for them, through them, in them. And it's shown here in this passage
where we look back in the book of Daniel, how that their faith
displayed two of the characteristics of all true, saving, God-given
faith. And it helps us to identify that.
And when you see faith in these men, you'll see this. And what's
interesting is that all of the things, and we mentioned this
before, Moses, it says that by faith he chose the reproach of
Christ over the riches of Egypt. It says that Enoch walked with
God by faith. It says that Noah moved with
fear by faith. But all of these men do all of
these things. It's the same faith in all of
them. Noah chose the reproach of Christ too. When they were
mocking him, what are you doing building a ship? Oh, it's going
to rain. What? It's going to do what?
It had never rained before. But he didn't He didn't care
what anybody said. He chose the reproach of Christ
just like Moses did. And Moses walked with God just
like Enoch did. You see what I'm saying? It's
not that faith manifests itself in some unique way necessarily
in each person, although all of our experiences of faith are
unique. But the same faith manifests
itself in the same ways in God's people. If you have this faith,
you're going to walk with God, aren't you? If you have this
faith like Noah had, when God says something, you're going
to move with fear. If you have this faith, you're going to look
at this world and say, it's nothing. It's nothing. I don't need anything
this world has. I need Christ and only Christ.
I choose Him by God's grace. This world has nothing for me.
You see what I'm saying? In every case, all of these things
are present. It just mentions them in each
one. particularly pictures something different maybe in their lives,
at least in what's recorded in the Word of God. But these Hebrew
children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, their faith showed
two distinct and glorious characteristics of all true God-given saving
faith. And we've talked about it, didn't
we? First of all, they believed what God said without presuming
concerning that which he didn't say. God has promised to all
of his people that our enemies won't triumph over us, that he'll
bless us and take care of us and defend us and be our strength
and our rock. And so they were able to say,
oh King, our God will deliver us from you. They could say that
because faith believes what God said, but they said he might
deliver us from the fire. He can, if he wants to. You see,
faith wouldn't say he's going to deliver us from the fire.
He may or may not. That's what, you see, religion, and I know
I stress this quite a bit, but we face this all the time in
religion. They believe that faith, you know, they talk about stepping
out on faith, you know. There's nothing to step out on,
you know, but we'll just step out on faith. Well, you better
be stepping on something that God said or don't step. You see what I'm saying? Faith
is not believing that God's just going to do whatever you think,
you know, you need God to do for you. Faith believes God. What did he say he was going
to do? That's what he'll do. I believe that. Whether I burn
up in that furnace or don't burn up in that furnace, God's going
to do what he said he would do, and he's still going to be God,
and he's still going to do all things well, and I'm still going
to be safe and secure in his arms whether I burn or don't
burn. That's faith. So they believe God. He's going
to deliver us from you, and he can deliver us from the fire.
That's all true God-given faith. And then secondly, All true God-given
faith worships only the Lord Jesus Christ, worships God in
all of His persons, but worships Him in the person of His Son.
He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father. You don't come to God except
by the Son. If you're going to worship God,
you have to worship the Son. You see what I'm saying? Why?
I focus on the person of Christ in that because Our dealings
with God are in, by, through, and because of Christ, God in
human flesh. If you want to worship God, if
you want to deal with God, if you want to speak to God, you
better come by Christ. That's why we pray in his name.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me in any sense, in any
way, form, or fashion. Don't you come to God, but by
him. And so they told Nebuchadnezzar,
even if he doesn't deliver us from the fire, we're not going
to worship your gods. If it's the way you say it's going to
be, if we don't bow down to your gods, you're going to throw us
in that furnace, and we're fixing to see what's going to happen,
whether God will deliver us or not. But either way, we're not
going to worship your god. Faith worships one object, and
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. All the persons of God in the
sun, And then we saw that, though some through faith escaped the
edge of the sword, others through faith were slain by the sword. That's the next phrase in verse
34. By faith, some escaped the edge of the sword. But you read
down a little further, and it says, by faith, some were killed
by the sword. Faith is the same regardless
of what happens, of outward circumstances or results. Whatever God does,
if he delivers me from the sword, if he don't deliver me from the
sword, I believe God. And I do it by faith either way.
You can't help but live by faith if you have faith. You may not
have much, and it may not show at all sometimes. But faith is the same regardless
of outward circumstances or results. It's not affected by them. Religions faith says well, I
just believe that God's not gonna let me be killed by the sword. Where are you getting that from? True faith says with Job if he
slay me I'll still trust him. Got to. Got to. He's my God. He does everything
right. He does it for my good. That's
what we say about what happened with Jim. I'm grateful that that
our prayers were answered. We prayed, Lord, heal him. We
know you can, if you will. If he hadn't healed him, he'd still be the glorious God
of all grace. And we'd still be worshiping
him tonight, wouldn't we? We'd still be worshiping him. And
we're just going to. That's what faith does. If I'm
allowed to escape the edge of the sword, I'll praise him for
it. And we praise him. The Jim has recovered so well,
so quickly, and has seemed to suffer relatively little in this.
I'm grateful for that. And we know because of it that
his hour has not come. We thank him for all the good
that results from that. If I'm killed with the edge of
the sword, it'll be gain for me. Did you know there's really,
if it's the Lord's will, if it's the Lord's will, there's not
anything better that could happen to me tonight than for me to
die. What could be better than that? How are you going to top
being absent from this body and being present with our Lord?
How are you going to top that? Either way, I'll wake up in this world praising
him for answered prayer. Or I'll wake up in his arms,
beholding his face, the one that died for my sins, and prepare a place for me so
that I might be with him forever. You know, that's what I call a win-win
situation. Either way, either way, and everyone
that has the faith of God's elect will call it the same way. It's
a win, no matter what. Whatever he does, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good.
That's what faith says. And then it says out of weakness,
they were made strong. You think about that, you think
about a symbol in the scripture of power and strength and I think,
at least to me, when I read this, the most conspicuous example
was Samson. I thought about Samson. Out of
weakness, he was made strong. You know, Samson was brought
very, very low. They gouged his eyes out. His
strength was gone because his hair had been cut. But even in
his death, the Lord answered his prayer and gave him victory.
His hair began to grow back a little bit, you know. And the Lord gave
him victory over his enemies in death, and how he pictures
the Lord Jesus Christ in that. And it's glorious in all of these
examples as we've seen them. We've gone through this chapter,
11 of Hebrews, and in every case we've seen not only the faith,
and this is a chapter that defines faith and reveals the kind of
faith that God gives and how He behaves and defines it in
that, But also, in these examples of faith, we see pictures and
types of the only true object of faith. And that's even more
important to see. Both are important, but we see
the Lord Jesus Christ in it. And when we're thinking about
Samson, you know that when he died, he pulled down the pillars,
the columns of that building, and it collapsed, and all the
big shots were in there and were killed. And he pictures Christ
in that, no question about it. Victory by his death, no question. But let's turn to a passage in
Judges that you might not think of. Judges chapter 16, when you
think of Samson, you might not automatically turn here or think
of this passage, but let's look at how he pictures Christ. And we'll just see this briefly
and we'll move on in the chapter. In Hebrews there, but look at
Judges 16 in verse 1 and let's read this little passage Excuse me judges 16 1 then went
Samson to Gaza and saw there and harlot and went in unto her
and it was told the Gazites saying Samson is come hither and And
they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the
gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, in the
morning, when it is day, we shall kill him. And Samson lay till
midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate
of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar
and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up
to the top of a hill that is before Hebron." Do you get a
little glimpse of Christ in that language? How does this picture Christ?
In every sentence of this we see Christ crucified. Look at
it with me. We're told in this passage first
of all that Samson was surrounded by his enemies. And they had
one intent, they had one purpose, one thought, we're going to kill
Samson. That's what we're here for. We're
going to kill him. We know that when the Lord Jesus
Christ was crucified, when he delivered himself, it says that
he submitted himself into the hands of wicked men. It says
the kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered
together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a
truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed
both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people
of Israel, were gathered together. Everybody, everybody was gathered
together and rose up against God's Christ and they cried,
crucify him, away with him. His blood be upon us and upon
our children. And we're told also in the text
that Samson took the doors of the gate of the city and put
them on his shoulders and carried them up a hill. Can you picture
him doing that and not see another bearing upon his shoulders a
burden and carrying it up a hill by himself? It says in John 19,
16, then delivered he, Pilate, him, Christ, therefore unto them,
all the people we just read about, to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led him
away, and he, bearing his cross, he walked up that hill, didn't
he? He walked up to the place called the place of a skull,
which is called in the Hebrew, Golgotha. When Samson tore down
the posts of the gates, and the gates themselves, bar and all,
And that was a symbol of victory over those enemies, because the
gate of a city was important in those days. That was a symbol
of the security and of the strength of that city. And he just, in
spite of the fact that they had surrounded one man, one man,
and all of their purpose was to kill him. And yet, the whole
story is about his victory over them. And as we see Christ pictured
in that, you might think it an amazing feat of strength that
Samson could carry the gates of the city and their posts,
bar and all upon his shoulders, but that's just a picture of
an infinitely more amazing feat. My Lord, you see, he carried
more than just a wooden cross up Calvary's Hill. He carried
my sorrows. He carried my griefs. He bore
my sins in his own body on that tree and walked up that hill
with them. All the sins of all of his sheep for all time were
laid upon him, bar and all, so to speak. And he carried them
away. But perhaps you're thinking,
wait a minute, Chris. Maybe you should have skipped verse one,
though. Verse one, doesn't this mar the picture? Doesn't this
ruin the whole picture? Oh no, this is what brings the
whole picture into focus. This is what gives purpose to
this whole scene. And don't misunderstand me, this
is no doubt horrible sin on Samson's part. But remember, this is a
picture of spiritual things. And what a beautiful picture
of our Lord. Why did Christ die on Calvary? Why did he have to
carry such a horrible load on his shoulders? and walk up that
hill with it alone, because he had joined himself with a harlot. That's why. And you don't have
to ask who that is, do you? You're looking at him. And when
you look in the mirror, you're looking at him. My Lord Jesus Christ joined himself
to me. Just like, you remember when
he told Hosea, he said to Hosea, I'm gonna teach you something
about my love for my people. Why are you going to do that,
Lord? Go marry a harlot. You think God wouldn't use that?
You read that Judges 16 verse when you think, oh, the Lord
wouldn't use that to picture his holy darling son. You're not going to understand
God's love until you see this picture. He married a harlot. And that's why he had to carry
that load up that hill. He did it for her. He did it
to purchase her off the auction block of sin. And he told Jose,
you go marry that harlot. And he went and took unto himself
Gomer and married her to himself. And she was a harlot before he
married her, and she was a harlot after he married her. And you
know the story. She ran away from him and went
back to her old ways. Even though she did, Hosea said,
that's my wife. That's my wife. So he would take
good things to her and leave them on her doorstep. And she
would say, look what my lovers brought me. You know, if that's
not a picture of us and our Lord that I don't know what is, I
don't know what is. And he gives, he provides, he
takes care of us even though we don't even know how to worship
him. We don't even, we're not grateful. We can't watch with
him for an hour. People talk about, I want to
live for Jesus. You know, I just want to serve
the Lord. You know, I'm glad that my hope is not in my service
of him or my love for him. Because I was a harlot before
he married me and I'm one now too. but I'm his wife. And he's always done everything
for me that needs to be done, and he still does. And he always
will. He'll always provide for me.
And when Gomer was used up and nobody wanted her anymore, she
became a slave. And they were auctioning her
off, and guess who bought her? She was already his. But he came
and purchased her anyway. And my Lord Jesus Christ, though
I already belong to him, my creation, as his creature, I belong to
him as he's the sovereign God and he owns all things and all
people. And yet, because of my terrible
condition, Because of what I was, he came
and paid for me, bought me, redeemed me with his precious blood and
took me to himself. And you know what he said to
me? I'm going to be for you and you're
going to be for me. I am his and he is mine. And I'm still What I always was,
in a sense, flesh doesn't change, does it? By his grace, I'm his. His forever, only his. Who the
Lord in me shall part. And that's what's pictured here.
He joined himself to a harlot. But he never has seen me that
way. I've always just been his bride, his chaste virgin. Listen to Revelation 21 now.
And there came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the
seven vows full of the seven last plagues and talked with
me saying, come hither. I will show thee the bride, the
lamb's wife. This is what we look like to
him. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high
mountain. And he showed me that great city. You see this bride,
this wife of the lamb is not just one person, but a people,
a great city, a holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from
God. Verse 11 of Revelation 21, having the glory of God. You think about that for a second. When a bride is married, you
know, she wears a white dress that symbolizes something, you
know, and she's beautiful. She dresses just as beautifully
as she possibly can. This angel said, I'm going to
show you the lamb's wife. And he did. And this is what
John said when he saw her. She has the glory of God and
her light. was like unto a stone most precious,
even like a jasper stone clear as crystal. We've always looked
like that to him, always have. And then let's look at a few
more words here. I don't even know what time it
is. We may be here all night. But it says, they waxed valiant
in fight. Now, we've talked about this
already, so I'll be brief on this. And they turned, by faith,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Now, we've talked
about the exploits in battle of several of these Old Testament
fathers, of David and how the Lord, he came to the Lord. And we're seeing faith here,
aren't we? So when you think about these exploits, these battles,
we'd take a look at one. What did David do? He went to
God and said, Lord, are you going to go fight the Philistines with
me? That's what faith does. Faith's not going anywhere without
Him. It's not going to do anything
without Him. Faith don't want to be alone.
And so David, by faith, he turned to flight the armies of the aliens. How did he do it? He went to
God and said, are you going with me? Shall I go up? And God said,
go up. I'm going to go with you, and
I'm going to doubtless deliver them into your hands. And so he went
up and whooped the tar out of them. That's how faith fights,
right there. That's how faith fights, in the
strength and promise of God. And so we saw that in David and
in Gideon. You know, here's faith. Faith
doesn't matter who's got the advantage or who's stronger or
who's smarter or who's better at battle strategies and things. No, God said, Gideon, you got
too many. You still got too many. And whittled him down to 300.
Probably not the best fighters of all of them, you reckon. They
drank water like dogs. That's all we really know about
them. But that's faith. Faith will go just because God
said so. Who against hope, it says of
Abraham, who against hope believed in hope. Because God said, I'm
gonna give you a son. Against hope. God chose the things
that are not to bring to naught the things that are. Why? First
Corinthians 129, so that no flesh should glory in his presence.
And faith is all on board with that. Faith is all. Plus, we bow to that, don't we? The flesh wants to do things
in the strength of the flesh. But faith rejoices when God causes
things to be done in such a way that the flesh gets no glory
and that all the glory must go to God. And in the spiritual
battle that his people fight every day, we dare not lean on
the arm of the flesh. David said in Psalm 20 in verse
seven, some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will
remember the name of the Lord our God. We don't trust in chariots
or horses or the number of them or anything else. We're just going to call on God
and rest in Him and His promises. Verse 35. I don't know why I
keep looking at that clock. It's not going to tell me. Women received their dead, raised
to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting
deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection 1st Kings
17 And God sent Elijah to that widow woman and the Lord Jesus
Christ preached about that in the New Testament So there were
a lot of widows around in that day but God sent Elijah to one
and Elijah came to her house and said give me something to
eat and she said Ain't got nothing. I got a handful of meal in the
bottom of the barrel. I'm scraping the bottom of the
barrel here I wish I had something to give you And he said, go,
go fix something. And, you know, the Lord provided
oil and meal and it never ended. The Lord, the Lord is plenteous
in mercy. His mercy doesn't run out. And,
you know, we may scrape the bottom of the barrel of time, but every
time you scrape it, there's going to be something there for God's
people. Never seen one begging bread yet. David is older than
I am. I imagine when he died, he said,
I'm old now. And I hadn't seen it either.
And the Lord provides in every way that in every way he provides
for his people. And spiritually speaking, oh
my, he's plenteous in mercy. He said, if you drink of this
water, there'll be in your soul, in your inner being, like a river
of water pouring forth. It never ends. It's not just
a drink. It's a never ending supply of living water. the inside and then we talked about we quoted
here from verse 35 they received their dead raised to life it's
that same widow woman she's her son got sick and let's turn over
there let's look at it real quick I don't know I don't think it's
too late yet look at first Kings 17 Let's just read this. It's this
part about her son, because it's a blessing. And it came to pass
after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of
the house, fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there
was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, what
have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou coming to
me to call my sin to remembrance? And to slay my son, she thought
that her son was dying because of her sin. You know, she was
guilty and knew it and probably felt she deserved it. But just
like that blind man in John nine, the Lord said, that's not why,
but that the Lord might be glorified. That's why this happened. And
he said to her, give me that son. And he took him out of her
bosom. and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid
on him upon his bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and
said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow
with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself
upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said,
O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him
again. The Lord has power. to give life
to whomsoever he will. Isn't that what our Lord Jesus
said? As the Father quickeneth whom he will, even so the Son
hath authority, power to give life to whomsoever he will. And the Lord heard the voice
of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and
he revived. And Elijah took the child and
brought him down out of the chamber into the house and delivered
him unto his mother. And Elijah said, see, thy son liveth. And the woman
said to Elijah, now by this I know that thou art a man of God and
that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth. Isn't that
beautiful? You know, the Lord has always
given his, when he did do this, he doesn't do it now, but always
when he did, gave his servants, his prophets, his apostles power
to do these miracles. That's why right there. So that
people would know that God sent them and that the gospel that
they preached was truth. Truth. How do you know that about
me? I hadn't raised anybody from
the dead lately. because I preached what he said.
That's why. But before this book was written
in its entirety, the Lord gave these miracles to show that same
thing. All right. And then others were
tortured. We're through. But I just want to look at that. I want to read you one example
that talks about others being tortured and not accepting deliverance. In Fox's Book of Martyrs, that's
a book that you should read sometime. It's a little tedious in places,
but well worth reading. There are recorded the accounts
of many who were tied to stakes and told if they would but recant
the gospel and deny their Lord that they'd be set free. And
we know some of them are true. We have verification of many
of them. I don't know for sure. We don't trust in historical
accounts, but John Bunyan is in that book, and he wrote a
book that verifies what was written about him in there, but these
men, many of them chose to burn at the stake rather than sell
the truth. And how many have sold the truth
for so much less? Solomon said in the Proverbs,
buy the truth, buy the truth and sell it not. How much is
the truth gonna cost me? If you have to ask and you can't
pay it. It doesn't matter, does it? It
doesn't matter. What difference does it make
if you ever find the pearl of great price? You don't ask how
much it is. You say, give it to me and I'll
give you what I got. But others were tortured. I'll
read you one example from Fox's Book of Martyrs. This is another
one that we know for sure is true. This is an account of John
Huss, a missionary that you may have heard of. He, of course,
They demanded that he recant and deny the Lord and he wouldn't
do it, of course. So it says in Fox's Book of Marks,
it says, accordingly, the bishops appointed by the council stripped
him of his priestly garments and degraded him and put a mitre
on his head on which was painted devils with this inscription,
a ringleader of heretics, which when he saw, he said, my Lord
Jesus Christ, for my sake, did wear a crown of thorns. And why
should I not then, for his sake, wear this light crown, be it
ever so ignominious? Truly I will do it, and that
willingly. And when it was set upon his
head, the bishop said, now we commit thy soul unto the devil.
John hath said, but I do commend into thy hands, O Lord Jesus
Christ, my spirit, which thou hast redeemed. And when the chain
was put about him at the stake, he said with a smiling countenance,
my Lord Jesus Christ was bound with a harder chain than this
for my sake. And why then should I be ashamed
of this rusty one? And when the wood was piled up
to his very neck, the Duke of Bavaria was so officious as to
desire him to abjure, that means to renounce what he believed.
No, said Huss, I never preached any doctrine of an evil tendency. And what I taught with my lips,
I now seal with my blood. And the flames were now applied
to the wood. And John Huss sung a hymn with
so loud and cheerful a voice that he was heard through all
the cracklings of the combustibles and the noise of the multitude.
And at length his voice was interrupted by the severity of the flames.
which soon closed his existence. There are a lot of accounts in
that book. It just boils down to this, and
let me close with this thought. When we read accounts like that,
and of course see these examples even more importantly in the
Word of God itself of faith, we don't look at the faith itself.
We don't seek to define faith so that we can rejoice so much
in faith. We don't rejoice in the gift
so much as the giver. We don't marvel or rejoice in
the men who had faith so much, do we? We thank God for them
and for their example and how he used them. But we don't rejoice
in them. All the glory goes to the object
of their faith. And that's just true. If you
have faith, That's just the way it's going to be, isn't it? I'm
not saying it ought to be that way. I'm saying it is that way.
We rejoice in the object of faith. How glorious must be this Christ
that Moses would choose to suffer his reproach over all the treasures
of Egypt. That doesn't say near as much
about Moses as it does about the one he chose, does it? You
see what I'm saying? How marvelous is His word and
the one who spoke it, that men would rather burn at the stake
than to deny Him. May God give us grace that if
we're ever called upon to make such a choice, that by His grace
through faith in His Son, we would choose Christ. Because
without Him, we won't. Without Him, we won't. But if
we have faith, there's no choice really to make.