Faith to Be Strong and Weak
Hebrews 11:29-38
Clearing up the Fog around Faith
Christians and non-Christians can have defective and distorted views of what the Christian life really is. Studying the entire counsel of God aims to bring our views of God and his ways into line with the Truth. We do this for unbelievers so that they can embrace Christianity on the basis of a true picture of it, rather than a distorted one; and we do it for believers so that they can live their lives on the basis of true views of God and his ways, rather than distorted or discouraging views.
Hebrews 11 is tremendously important for clearing up the fog around faith and shows what kind of life faith guarantees. There are many who teach today that the life of faith will bring health, wealth and prosperity, and where those things are lacking it's because faith is lacking, but that view does not coincide with Jesus nor the teachings of the apostles that followed Him.
Look at these verses in Hebrews 11:29-38:
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. 31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. 32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
So what does it mean to “have faith?” What kind of things can we expect from God-given Faith?
1. Through faith God works miracles: That is the point of verses 29-35a. What I mean by "miracles" is works of God that involve some extraordinary interruption in the natural cause-effect way that nature works: The dividing of the Red Sea (verse 29) and the destruction of the walls of Jericho (verse 30) and the quieting of the lions when Daniel was in the lions' den (verse 33), and the quenching of fire by Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, when they walked through Nebuchadnezzar's furnace (verse 34), the resurrection of the son of the widow of Zarephath (verse 35a). All these are what we usually call miracles. God breaks into the normal way things work and in an extraordinary way makes them work out differently. And in every case here the people of God were helped or rescued from danger or death. God interrupts the natural consequences of events!
2. Through faith God works through "acts of providence." "Acts of providence" are works of God that control situations but in a less extraordinary way. Looking on, you would not necessarily say that a miracle happened, but by the eye of faith you see the "invisible hand of God" - as R.C. Sproul calls it. I call it God’s powerful points of providence. Can you believe the coincidence? No wait, it’s no coincidence, it’s God.
For example, the writer refers to Rahab not perishing because she had heard of the power of the God of Israel (Joshua 2:9-11) and cared for the Jewish spies (verse 31); and to David conquering kingdoms and establishing righteousness (verse 33); and to Elijah escaping the sword of Jezebel (verse 34); and to Gideon being strengthened in weakness (verse 34); and to others putting foreign armies to flight (verse 34); etc. In all these cases God is the one who is working behind the scenes, but no miracles are obvious. It’s just God at work!
And the point of the writer here in verses 29-35a is that all these wonderful acts of God - both extraordinary miracles and more ordinary acts of providence - come about "by faith." You see that:
(verse 29) By faith they passed through the red sea . . . (verse 30) by faith the walls of Jericho feel down . . . (verse 31) by faith Rahab . . . did not perish . . . (verse 33) by faith [they] conquered kingdoms . . .
The point is that God works through faith to do miracles and acts of providence to bring practical, earthly help and deliverance to his people.
3. God does not always work miracles and acts of providence for our deliverance from suffering; sometimes through our faith God sustains his people through difficulty.
That's the point of verses 35b-38. Just because you have true faith in God is no guarantee of comfort and security in this life. All the miseries of verses 35-38, "others were tortured . . . and others experienced mockings and scourgings, etc," all the miseries are received and endured by faith.
Look at Verse 39: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” In other words, God did not DISAPPROVE of the suffering and misery and destitution and torture of His people; rather, God's approval rests on them because of their faith. The difficulties and sufferings were endured but not diminished by their faith.
Look at a few of the examples:. Verse 35b: "Others were tortured." God does not always turn the hearts of torturers away from their torture of his people, though he could. Someone might say, "Well, the torturers have free will and God cannot intervene. He has limited himself." That is simply not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible frequently portrays God restraining and channeling the evil of men's hearts. For example, in Genesis 20:6 King Abimelech almost committed adultery with Abraham's wife, but didn't. Why? God says to Abimelech, "I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her." God restrained the evil intent of Abimelech's will. If God can do that to Abimelech, he can do it to the police chief who is about to torture a Christian in the back room of a Mozambique jail. But he doesn't always do it. That is what verse 35b says. And when he doesn't, it does not mean that the suffering Christian does not have faith. Nor that God doesn't love him, (as you can see in Hebrews 12).
Another example: God does not always lessen his children’s suffereing, but permits them to experience it to a great degree. Verse 37: "They were stoned, they were sawn in two." Now this is almost too horrible to think about. It is the way tradition says that Isaiah died. Imagine how forsaken you might feel if death lies in front of you, and a person devises a way for your death to be as horrible as possible. That has happened and it has happened to people of whom the world was not worthy (as verse 38 says). God could stop that – and the point of verse 29-35a - God can and does do miracles and acts of providence to relieve his people and deliver them, but not always.
Look at some contrasts in verse 34 and one in verse 37. In verse 34 the second clause says, "escaped the edge of the sword." So some by faith "escaped the edge of the sword." Then in verse 37 the fourth clause says, "They were put to death with the sword." So in one instance by faith they escaped the edge of the sword, and in another instance by faith they died by the sword. Acts 12:1-2 says, "About that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church, in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword." But the next verses tell the story of how he arrested Peter for the same purpose, but God intervened and miraculously delivered Peter. One died by faith. The other escaped by faith.
So God does not always work miracles and acts of providence to deliver his people by faith, but sometimes by faith God sustains his people through horrendous sufferings. The fourth point is:
4. Having faith does not determine whether you suffer or escape. What is the determining factor? God's sovereign will is, and it includes his wisdom and love. It’s not about whether I have enough faith, or whether it’s the right kind. Wouldn’t it be horrible to sit there suffering and then on top of it all say: “It’s all because I don’t have enough faith.”
We don’t make that assumption in this church. We don’t look into the face of the dying and say, "If you had faith, you would live." Rather, we say: "Trust in God, because whether you live by faith or die by faith, God will take care of those who trust in him. To live is Christ, and to die is gain." Ultimately, it is God, and not we, who decides when and how we die. He has his purposes even when we don’t see them and we believe His purposes are good. Which leads to point five.
5. The common factor of the faith that escapes suffering and the faith that endures suffering is this: “Having faith believes that God himself is better than what life can give to you now, and better than what death can take from you later.”
When you can have it all, faith says: “God is better”. When you lose it all, faith says: “God is better.”
The clearest illustration in today's text is verse 35: “Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” What does faith believe in the moment of torture? That if God loved me, he would get me out of this? No. Faith believes that there is a resurrection for believers which is better than the miracle of escape. It's better than the kind of resurrection experience by the widow's son, who returned to life only to die again later.
In other words, faith loves what God will be for us beyond the grave. Faith loves God more than life. Faith loves God more than family. Faith loves God more than job or retirement plans or ministry or writing books or building the dream house or making the first million. Faith says, "If God handles me tenderly or gives me over to torture, I love him. He is my reward (11:6), the builder of the city I long for (11:10), the treasure beyond the riches of Egypt (11:26), and the possession that surpasses everything in life(10:34)."
The great challenge of the book of Hebrews, and the mission of the church, is to cultivate and to spread a passion for God. Whether it be worship times, Sunday School, Bible study, the relationships of love, activity nights, prayer times, and the individual ministries inside and outside, the goal is this: to spread a deep and satisfying relationship with God so that we rest in him whether living or dying, whether comfortable or miserable. We spread the news that God is better than what life can give us and what death can take from us. One final point:
6. Those who love God more than life, and suffer willingly, await something better than what this earth can offer, those who have faith are God's great gifts to the world.
Look with me at verse 37b to 39, “They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised." What does it mean that the world was not worthy of these seemingly cursed people? It means they were a gift to the world and the world does not deserve that gift.
Many things in this life are exactly opposite from the way they seem. And here is one of them. When God’s precious children are permitted to suffer and be rejected and mistreated and go destitute, afflicted and ill-treated, God is giving a gift to the world. He is gracing the world. He is shedding his love to the world. Because in those who suffer and die in the unshakable assurance of hope in God, the world is given a message and a picture: "The Lord is better than life."
(Romans 11:33-36) says:
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.”
As people of faith, we have to see 3 points from this passage, that run throughout ALL of scripture:
God is Sovereign, He rules, not us. He gives faith to be strong AND weak.
God is Saving: His grace to save is always there.
God is Deserving: He deserves all the credit, all of the praise and glory, no matter what Why? Because in all of it, God is both sovereign and gracious! Amen
