WWUTT 1878 All These Gained Approval By Their Faith (Hebrews 11:35-40)

At the end of Hebrews 11, we read about what these faithful men and women were willing to go through to receive a promise that they did not see with their eyes, but they knew with their hearts, for they believed by faith, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Hebrews 11. Finishing up the chapter today,

I'll pick up where we left off, but I'm going to read the reading that we've been doing this week.

So beginning in verse 32 and going through 40 out of the Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the

Lord. And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I recount of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, as well as David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, performed righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong from weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection, and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

And others experienced mockings and floggings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword.

They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in desolate places and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect."

Boy, that last statement there sure is puzzling and something that I've thought about quite a bit. So we'll get to that here in just a moment.

Today we'll be picking up in verse 35. So just to kind of, in context, remember where we've come.

We've had all of these Old Testament saints that have been mentioned as examples to us of faith.

And we got to verse 32 where we read, what more shall I say? And we have this list of names, really rapid fire here.

Time will fail me if I recount Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah. Those are obviously judges.

As well as David and Samuel and the prophets. So you have David that kind of represents the kings,

Samuel that represents the prophets. And then in verses 33 through, well, pretty much through verse 38, we're reading about those others who are talked about from 1

Samuel all the way to the end of the Old Testament. Maybe even the beginning of the New Testament.

I just think of that with regards to they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, mistreated.

I mean, you could say John the Baptist applies there as the last prophet. We think of John the

Baptist as being the last Old Testament prophet. Now, of course, it says he wore camel skin, camels, a garment of camel's hair, not sheepskins and goatskins.

But anyway, you get what I mean. Some of these things here could even describe him. So we have this description that we've looked at yesterday, verses 33 and 34.

Through faith they conquered kingdoms. They quenched the power of fire. In verse 35, where we pick up today, women received back their dead by resurrection.

Now, where do we read about that in the history books and in the prophets? I think of Elijah raising the widow's son to life in 1

Kings chapter 17, or Elisha raising the Shunammite woman's son to life in 2

Kings 4. In that story, the woman had shown such kindness to Elisha, a prophet of God, that the

Lord promised her a son. And she responded, No, my Lord, O man of God, do not lie to your servant woman.

Like, don't promise me this thing if you're not really going to give it to me. But then she conceived and bore a son that season next year, just as Elisha had said to her.

Well, the boy grows up. He's out in the field. He gets a headache and he dies. And the woman rides to meet

Elisha. And she says to Elisha, this is 2 Kings 4, verse 28,

Did I ask for a son from my Lord? Did I even ask you to give me this thing? Did I not say do not deceive me?

So first, Elisha sends his servant and he can't revive the boy. So Elisha comes himself.

And he goes up to the room where the boy is laying dead on his bed. And Elisha lay on the child and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands, stretched himself on him.

And then the flesh of the child became warm. Elisha prayed to Yahweh.

And then the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. And then Elisha called his servant in and says, call the

Shunammite. So she comes in and says, take up your son. And she fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground and took up her son and went out.

By faith, by faith that God could give her a son and even revive her son.

She received back her dead by resurrection. But then you have the rest of that verse.

Others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

So you have that contrast of resurrection there in verse thirty five. Mothers received back their sons by resurrection.

But then there were others grown men who, when they were tortured, they did not accept their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

The resurrection unto eternal life with God. Jeremiah was beaten by Pasher in Jeremiah, chapter 20, and by the princes in chapter thirty seven.

When we go on to verse thirty six here, others experienced mockings and floggings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

That also describes Jeremiah. He experienced that as well. But you think about the story of Joseph, how he was cast into a pit by his brothers.

You think of Micaiah, who was struck by the false prophets, and then he was imprisoned by Ahab.

So there these are general statements, but we can certainly find from the Old Testament those faithful saints who went through these things and did so because of their faith.

But it's also because of their faith that they are richly rewarded with an even better resurrection.

And that's one of the ways that they are examples to us, that we are looking for the promise of things not in this life, not in this world.

We're not looking for tangible reward on this side of heaven. We trust God because we know in Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven.

And with him, we've been made fellow heirs of his imperishable kingdom. So that is the goal.

That is the reward that we look forward to. And when we finish this up, I'm kind of spoiling the ending here.

When we finish up chapter 11 and we jump right into chapter 12, these heroes of the faith are referred to as a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

So in light of this, let us lay aside every weight and sin, which so easily entangles and run with endurance the race that is set before us.

You know this verse, right? Fixing our eyes. Where? On Jesus.

So the goal is Christ. We are striving toward and reaching for Christ.

What the preacher is demonstrating here as we go through Hebrews 11 is that Christ was the goal even for these

Old Testament faithful, though he was not the incarnate Christ. We didn't know him as that name,

Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Yet they knew the son of God. Abraham, Jesus said in the

Gospel of John, he rejoiced to see my day. He said of Moses, Moses knew of me and wrote of me.

They did know the son of God, even in the Old Testament. They held fast to the promise of a

Messiah that was to come and the promise of a kingdom, a reward, a land that's even better than anything we could inherit on this earth.

A better resurrection. We read in verse 36, as I just did, others experienced mockings and floggings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

This even describes the way some of those Old Testament faithful were persecuted.

Even there, of course, we know that of the apostles, that they went through these things. They were mocked, flogged, put in chains and in prison, but they were sharing in the sufferings of those who had come before them.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad.

For great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So when we go through these things, and yet we continue to hold fast to Christ, we're following the example of the

Old Testament faithful that came before us. Verse 37 goes on to continue to describe those things that they went through.

They were stoned. That happened to Zechariah in second

Chronicles 24 20. The spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, and he stood above the people and said to them, thus says

God, why do you trespass against the commandments of Yahweh and do not succeed?

Because you have forsaken Yahweh. He has also forsaken you.

The proclamation of a prophet. And how did the people respond to that? Verse 21.

So they conspired against him and at the command of the king, they stoned him to death in the court of the house of Yahweh right there in the in the temple.

He was stoned to death and killed. So that reference there in Hebrews 11 37 surely had

Zechariah in mind who was stoned. And we know that later on, Stephen, who was the first deacon, he was appointed deacon in the church.

In Acts chapter six, you have the speech of Stephen in chapter seven. This man who was arrested and would become the first martyr in the history of the church.

He said to them, going through the names of all of those who had come before the righteous ones who were persecuted, he says in verse 51, you men stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the

Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you. And which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.

You who received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not observe it.

And after that rebuke, how did they treat Stephen? They dragged him out and stoned him. He received the same as the prophets who had gone before him, but he received greater.

For even when he died, he looked into heaven and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out saying, Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit.

Very last verse in Acts seven 60, then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice,

Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And having said this, he fell asleep only to be awakened again in eternity.

So just as the prophets were stoned, just as there were prophets who were stoned, Stephen received the same thing.

And when we share in those persecutions and sufferings, so they did to the prophets who came before us continue to hold fast to Christ by faith.

So verse 37, again, they were stoned and a Zechariah was not the only one who was stoned. It's believed that Jeremiah was stoned as well.

When Jesus laments over Jerusalem in Matthew 23, this is after he gives the seven woes to the

Pharisees. He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

So there were others who were stoned as well. This next reference says they were sawn in two.

Now do we have anything in the Old Testament where somebody is described as having been sawn in two?

I don't believe there is an explicit reference like that in the Old Testament. However, according to tradition, both

Jewish tradition and even early Christian writers among like the church fathers, there is a reference to the fact that Isaiah died this way.

Now the text doesn't tell us explicitly how Isaiah died, but it's believed by tradition that this was how he was killed and it was by King Manasseh.

Isaiah was sawn in two. Now the next part of verse 37 is kind of confusing.

So it says they were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were tempted.

That's the confusing part because we are having this description of ways that they died. They were mocked.

They were flogged. They were thrown in chains. They were put in prison. So we have that kind of persecution.

Then the way of their deaths, they were stoned. They were sawn in two. And then this statement, they were tempted.

That seems a little bit out of place. But consider that it would have been tempting for them to want to renounce

Christ, to want to not do the thing that they were supposed to do so that they could spare themselves.

Can you think of a prophet in the Old Testament who tried to do this? There were actually several.

Elijah grumbled against God. He didn't want to do it. Moses didn't want to do it. Remember?

Moses said, I'm tongue -tied. I trip on my speech. I'm not a man of eloquent words.

I can't go before Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And so God, in his mercy, said, well,

Aaron will be your mouthpiece for you. But in this particular case, I'm thinking specifically of Jonah, who tried to flee from God's directive.

He tried to go to Tarshish. And of course, there was the storm that came up on the sea. Jonah said, the only way you can save yourselves is to throw me overboard.

So the pagan sailors, they threw him overboard. He was swallowed by the big fish, deposited him on the land.

And then he did obey God. But he went to Nineveh, and he declared to them to repent for the judgment of God was coming.

But he was tempted to not go along with it. Yet he did. He continued to obey by faith.

So we do have those occasions, even among the prophets, where there were those who were tempted to not do it.

But ultimately, they did obey. And may we follow that example also. Another way to read that, they were tempted, it could possibly mean that they were burned.

That their manner of death was, they were set on fire. They were stoned. They were sawn into. They were burned.

They were put to death by the sword. And if you understand it that way, then that seems to fit in the flow a little bit better.

Tempted means to burn. To be tempted by somebody or something, rather, means to burn with desire for it.

So it could mean there that being tempted means that they were set on fire.

And we know the king of Babylon had killed people by setting them on fire. They were put to death with the sword, the rest of verse 37 goes.

And indeed we see that with, what was the fellow's name, Uriah, I think it was, in Jeremiah.

He was killed by Jehoiakim. He was slain by the sword. And we know that James, later on in the book of Acts, he was slain by the sword.

He was one of the first martyrs as well. When Herod had him killed. So there you have an apostle sharing in the persecutions that came against the prophets.

I know Jezebel tried to slay Elijah by the sword. He didn't die that way. He was taken up in a whirlwind.

Elijah didn't experience death. But so we see in the Old Testament, even the apostles went through the same thing.

Even New Testament prophets went through this. Stoned, sawn into, tempted, put to death by the sword.

They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.

And that was most of the prophets. Most of them had to go through that. Isaiah even wandered around naked for a little while.

Verse 38, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in desolate places and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

This statement that the world was not worthy of them. It speaks to their holiness and the world's wickedness.

These men were righteous. Not of themselves, but they had a righteousness that came from God.

The righteous kings, the prophets, yet the world being so wicked that they would persecute those who were righteous.

The world was not worthy of them. The world is not worthy of us either, my friends. Though that is not a cause for boasting except in the

Lord. For our righteousness comes from Christ. Verse 39, and all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised.

Because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

We kind of have some bookends here in Hebrews chapter 11. The second verse and the second to last verse look similar to one another.

Let me read Hebrews 11 too. For by faith the men of old gained their approval, and now the second to last verse, all these having gained approval through their faith.

And we conclude with, they did not receive what was promised, but God had provided something better for us.

What do we mean by this? When we read that God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

Albert Barnes says the following, God having provided or determined on giving some better thing than any of them realized, and which we are now permitted to enjoy.

That is, God gave them promises, but they were not allowed to see their fulfillment.

We are permitted now to see what they referred to, and in part at least to witness their completion.

And though the promise was made to them, the fulfillment more particularly pertains to us.

God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

How are they made perfect by us? Well, because my friends, the people of God are not together yet in our glorified state.

There are some who are in heaven with God, and there are others that are here on this earth. And until we are all together in our perfectly sanctified, glorified state, then perfection has not yet come.

So when that perfect comes, we will all be together.

And that perfection is something that we all share in. You will share in it with those saints that have gone before us.

You will share in it with saints that are going to come after us so that all together we are perfected.

Those saints have received an eternal reward, but they're still waiting for some ultimate perfection which they get when we all join them together in glory.

And all of this being the work of God in his people in redemptive history from beginning to end.

We have the benefit of witnessing the end in the sense that we've been given the book of Revelation.

So we could actually read and see how God is bringing all of these things together ultimately in the end.

And it's there in Revelation where we see saints from the Old Testament and new, where you read about the 24 elders.

That's a reference to 12 in the Old Testament and 12 in the New Testament, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, this number 12 represents the people of God.

And so where you have 24 elders, that's all the people of God together celebrating and glorifying

God forever around his throne. And together we enjoy this perfection in glory that God is doing amongst his people.

Consider Titus 2, 11 through 14, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that denying ungodliness and worldly desires.

We should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

God and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.

Heavenly father, thank you for walking us through this hall of faith, that we might see these men and women who have gone before us, who are examples to us of persevering in faith, that we might receive the reward, not a reward of this earth, but a reward in glory when we will be in Christ forever, praising you around your throne, singing glory to God in the highest.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and who is and who is to come.

Come quickly Lord Jesus, but purify us in righteousness until you deliver us on that day.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.