This is a list of men who never believed that God was on the side of big battalions. They were willing to risk everything because they believed God. It's a list of people who cheerfully and courageously and confidently accepted God's commands and stood absolutely alone, face to face with apparently undefeatable hostile hordes for the sake of obedience to God, and in every case they came out on time. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Well, you've probably had a day when you didn't get the job you wanted, or your child reached a new level of rebelliousness, or your doctor gave you bad news when you faced any number of trials. In those difficult moments, how do you demonstrate a firm and genuine trust in the Lord? Well, John MacArthur is going to help you with that today as he continues his study titled, The Power of Faith. Today's lesson looks at a group of saints in the Old Testament who faced trials of all kinds and yet remained faithful, providing excellent examples for you and me to follow today.
So follow along with John as he begins today's message. Verse 32, he starts naming various people, great heroes of faith, and they're not in chronological order incidentally, but they're all rulers. Four of them are judges. Samuel was both a judge and a prophet and so forth in the transition, and David was a king.
They're all great rulers. And you know these men of faith, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon. Oh, you remember Gideon? Then Barak.
You might not remember so much about Barak, Judges chapter 4. What a fantastic character he was. He took 10,000 men and he was assigned the task of fighting against Sisera. Sisera was a commander in chief of the Confederate chariot force of the Canaanites, which would be like a tank division. And this was a tremendous, tremendous powerful force. Now there were incredible odds.
There was just no way, practically speaking, that Barak could handle Sisera. But he believed God. He said, okay guys, pack it up.
Here we go. He entered into the fray. If he hadn't believed God, he would have been an idiot to do it. But he believed God, entered in, and won a battle.
In fact, Sisera jumped out of his chariot and took off running. God had plans for him too. He ran right into the tent of Jael, J-A-E-L, the wife of Heber. And Jael had a plan. She gave him some milk with a little bit of a drug in it. And when he laid down to take a rest, she took a big nail and drove it through his temples and nailed him to the floor.
And that was the end of him. But God threw all this, to put it mildly, it's for sure he didn't wake up and say, I have a headache. They had the courage, they had the courage to believe God for an impossible task and because they believed it, God fulfilled it.
Then you find who's the next one in the list? Samson. You say, oh, I never thought of Samson as a man of faith and go back and read Judges 13 through 16 and see how many things in his life were apparently done on the basis of faith. You know, Samson knew he had power, but he knew who the source of power was. He knew that it was God, right? Sure he did. And he believed God. Listen, you've got to have a lot of faith to go in there and tackle a lion. Now he knew God gave him the strength and he went right in there, tackled that lion.
You remember how the account went. Now God had called him to be the champion of Israel against the Philistines. Each one of these judges had a particular emphasis. In spite of the terrible tragedy of his life with Delilah, his life still stands out as a great life of faith. He had courage to go in there with that lion. And boy, was he an irritating spot to the Philistines, no question about it. And all the time he would get in these terrific battles and he'd be fighting a whole army all alone and he never for a minute thought God had pulled the plug on his power.
He believed God, you see. And so he went in with courage, first in anger at the father of his Philistine wife. He married a Philistine girl, which he shouldn't have done, but he was angry at her father because her father gave her away to somebody else. And so he got mad and tied 300 foxtails together, put torches between the tails, lit the torches and sent the foxes through the grain fields of the Philistines, which didn't go over real big. The Philistines found out about it and they found out who did it so they went and killed his father-in-law and his daughter, which incensed him all the more. The Bible says he grew furious and he smote them with a great slaughter. Well, they retaliated. They came back after him. He stood his ground, grabbed the jawbone of an ass, happened to be laying around and slew a thousand of them. They tried to trap him in Gaza.
We've got him. He's inside the city. He just walked along, picked up the gates, the side posts and the beam across the top and carried the gates up on the top of the mountain and threw them down. He believed God. He had to believe God. He didn't stand there saying, oh, I'm here again, God, give me that power. Oh, nervous time and run away, you see. He shot right into the battle because he had his confidence in God, you see.
Now that takes courage. You've got to believe God. I love the fact that after he had been blinded and was found in the prison house grinding grain like some kind of an animal, finally his hair began to grow and he got it right in his heart with God again and they were going to make a joke out of him and laugh at him a little bit. So they were having a big feast in the monstrous temple and they took him out of there and he said to somebody, let me lean against the pillars. And so they took him to the pillars and he just gave the pillars a big shove and wiped out many Philistines in one fell swoop.
But you know something? If you go back to the 13th chapter of Judges in the fifth verse, you'll read something very significant. Samson all his life knew that God had called him and that God had empowered him to conquer the Philistines and he believed God and he never faced the Philistine army without absolute and total courage.
Why? Courage in what? His own strength?
No. Courage in what? Courage in the fact that God had promised to give him the power to do it and he believed God for it. And you know what's so tragic about so many Christians is that they talk about faith, but their faith doesn't have enough courage to go out and face some kind of a battle believing that God will give them the victory.
And so they hang back waiting for reinforcements all their life. Then you come to Jephthah. What about Jephthah? Judges 11, 32 and 33, another one of Israel's enemies was the Ammonites and the courage of Jephthah knocked off the Ammonites. Again, he believed God and he faced tremendous, incredible odds and won the victory. After Jephthah comes David.
Well, I don't even need to go into that to begin with. He spent his whole life facing incredible odds. It all began when he fought against Goliath. There's no way that a child such as David was going to have victory over a giant and experienced warrior like Goliath, but David believed God.
I don't... It's really strange to even imagine a kid like David even wanting to do what he did, but he did it because he knew God was with him. In 1 Samuel 17, 46, this day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee.
Don't you like that you say, you brash kid? And I'll give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day under the fowls of the air and the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know that there's a God in Israel. Where did he get that kind of courage? He believed God. He believed God.
Then you come to Samuel, dear Samuel, great man of faith. You know, he never fought in any war, Samuel, but he fought a tougher battle than physical war. You know what he fought? He fought the battle of idolatry. He fought the battle of immorality.
You know what he had to do? He had to stand up in the midst of a polluted society and speak the truth, and that's tough. He had to stand for the courage of his convictions when all of his people were going down the tubes of immorality. When all the people were beginning to move toward idols, he stood up and rang true to the living God. And that's a battle that may be the most difficult any man ever faces, the courage of his convictions in the face of an immoral world.
And he had the courage to do it. And then the prophets, so many of them, such courageous men. Verse 33 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, became valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women received their dead, raised to life again.
Stop right there. These great men of time past and including those wonderful prophets all the way from Samuel to John the Baptist, they achieved...they achieved conquest in the midst of struggle because they believed God. This is a list of men who never believed that God was on the side of big battalions. They were willing to risk everything because they believed God. It's a list of people who cheerfully and courageously and confidently accepted God's commands and stood absolutely alone face to face with apparently undefeatable hostile hordes for the sake of obedience to God and in every case they came out on top. They conquered and they did it through faith. It says in verse 33, they subdued kingdoms.
Kata ganadzimai means to put down. They were victorious. They wrought righteousness. Literally the Greek means they executed justice. It refers, you see, to leaders who upheld justice against pressures. David was such a man against all kinds of pressures, against all kinds of potential bribery and to be bought off. He held justice high. It says in 2 Samuel 8.15, and David reigned over all Israel and executed justice.
And it's the same phrase used here. It has to do with them doing what was right when everybody else was doing what was wrong and that takes courage. They obtained promises. Oh, God gave them all promises and said, I'll give you the victory and they obeyed and they obtained the victory.
They stopped the mouths of lions. To whom does that refer? Daniel. Remember Daniel? King said, don't worship anybody but me. Daniel said, I'll worship God. And Daniel didn't go in his closet and worship God. He turned toward his window and threw it wide open and worshiped God where everybody could see. And they said, you're going to get thrown in the lion's den.
And Daniel said, that's okay. And they threw him in the lion's den and as the song says, all the lions got lockjaw. You say, well, I don't know if God could handle the lions.
That's kind of a scary deal. You don't think God can handle that? Listen to Daniel chapter 6, verse 22. Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live forever.
Which is, you know, the common greeting along with the king. My God hath sent his angel and hath shut the lion's mouths that they have not hurt me for as much as before him innocence was found in me and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceedingly glad for him and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no manner of hurt was found upon him.
Watch this, bang, does this come home? Because he believed in his God. You get it? Because he believed in his God, not only were the lion's mouth shut, but because he believed in his God, he came back out of the lion's den, a greater man in front of the world than he ever was before he went in. He trusted God to take him through a circumstance, come out the other side and be stronger for it. It says after that, verse 34, that some of these men courageously quenched the violence of fire. You remember three of them in Daniel's day, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three Hebrew children who were thrown into a fiery furnace.
Why? Because they believed God and they got in there and who was in there with them? Jesus Christ himself in a pre-incarnate form. They had courage. Now a friend's faith in its pinnacle has the courage to conquer in the face of any struggle.
It says further they escaped the edge of the sword. David escaped the sword of Goliath and there are others. They believed God. They went into battle and God protected. Out of weakness, they were made strong.
There's a great story about that. Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a great king. And back in 1 Kings 2, 4, God had said as long as you're faithful, as long as you're obedient, as long as you're righteous, there shall not fail a man on the throne.
In other words, there will be a line of sons on the throne. Well you know what happened? Old Hezekiah got old. He was about to die. And he was getting ready to die and he didn't have a son. And so he recalled God's promise and he started to talk to the Lord. He said, Lord, you've got a promise to keep now and I'm going to believe you for it even though I'm about to die. And out of his weakness, he became strong. God reached down, touched old Hezekiah. He lived 15 more years and he bore a son. And God honored his faith. Out of weakness came strength. Then they became valiant in fight and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. So many of them.
You couldn't even begin to list all of them that won great battles. And then it goes on to say, and 35 women received their dead, raised to life again. You remember the case of Elijah? Elijah and the child of the widow of Zarephath. That's in 1 Kings 17, I think. And Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, he healed her dead son. Remember Elisha who raised the child of the Shunammite woman? And that is in 2 Kings chapter 4. The faith of both of those prophets brought back those children from the dead. They believed God could do it. And He did it. And that was the struggle of death.
But you know something? They achieved, but it isn't always so. But the courage of faith is not only courage to conquer and struggle, but secondly, to continue in suffering. Sometimes God doesn't design the battle to be victorious. He only designs the battle to go on and on and on and on.
You know, people always say, you know, it's been like this so long and I just don't seem to be getting any better. Well, God's working through that, even in its elongation. And the second characteristic of courage, courageous faith, is that it continues in suffering. Verse 35, and this is the absolute pinnacle. Oh yeah, faith is great that conquers, but faith is even greater that continues in suffering. This is the absolute high point. The Germans would say, the hirpunkt, this is it.
You don't get any higher than this. The kind of faith that continues in suffering without murmuring, without saying a word, but believing God for it every minute of the way. Verse 35.
Oh, I love this. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Tumpinizo, interesting word, tortured. It literally means to torture with a tumpinum.
That was a wheel-shaped instrument over which criminals were stretched as though they were skins and then they were beaten with clubs. You know that some people for their love of God went through that? They did. And they could have had deliverance, it says in verse 35, but they did not accept deliverance.
Why? Because it was at the point of recanting their faith. They were to deny their God and they wouldn't do it. They'd rather suffer than deny their God. It's reminiscent of Martin Luther, isn't he? I cannot, I will not, here I stand, so help me God, said Luther. He had the courage of his convictions.
Oh, many throughout history have. You see, what gave them the courage to stand and not to deny their faith? Verse 35, the end, that they might obtain a what?
Better resurrection. They looked for a future. They had their eyes on something glorious in the future.
They never sacrificed the future on the altar of the immediate. They wanted a full reward in resurrection. They didn't want just a resurrection, they wanted a better one. They wanted the fullness of reward. And so they endured torture. And the very word gives us excruciating visions of what they went through. Verse 36, others had trial of cruel mockings.
You know, sometimes the hardest pressure that comes against us is mental pain, the anguish of being criticized. Jeremiah went through this. Jeremiah, that blessed weeping prophet who spent his life crying over Israel. Nobody ever listened to him. They mocked him so much. But he did it.
He took it. Others through scourgings and Jeremiah as well. Moreover, bonds and imprisonments. Verse 37, they were stoned. And what a horrible thing that was. Others were sawn asunder. Tradition tells us that that's what happened to Isaiah, blessed Isaiah. It says tradition was sawn in half.
The people got so sick of hearing him preached, they finally just cut him in half. Others were tested. It's hard to know exactly what this means, but perhaps best explained by just simply meaning the torture of being pressured to deny their God. They were tested to the point of breaking to deny God. Others were slain with the sword.
And the literal Greek here is very interesting. It means they died by sword slaughter, which has to do with a mass kind of slaughter. Some Old Testament faithful were just slaughtered in mass rather than deny God. Oh, they had such courage.
Courage is amazing. Others they wandered about in sheepskin and goatskin, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. Skip to verse 38 in the middle. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.
What does that mean? That means they're poor. Some of them, because they came to a knowledge of God and because they believed in Him, had to forsake everything the world had to offer. They lived in absolute poverty. The only thing they could put on their bodies was sheepskins and goatskins. They were destitute. They were afflicted. They were tormented.
Literally oppressed, kakukeo, which means to be maltreated. And they wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. You know, the Old Testament history isn't by any measure complete, folks. There were others.
Here's just a little look at what some of these people went through. What courage. How it shames us. And then this most powerful statement at the beginning of verse 38, just let it sink into your mind. Parenthesis, of whom the world was not what?
Worthy. Isn't that a powerful statement? Of whom the world wasn't worthy.
You know something? This world isn't good enough to even let those kind of people live in it. The terrible suffering that came to the people of God was met with faith and it was met with courage. And the world wasn't even worthy to have them around. You know, the world drove them out.
The world thought, they're unworthy to live with us. And the fact of the matter is, they were so worthy, they shouldn't even have been in the world at all. And believe me, folks, God will make up for it in heaven forever. They'll be worthy of everything they receive up there. First Peter 1, 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Watch this. To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven. Can't you imagine some of those suffering believers in Peter's day were rejoicing about what was going to be theirs? This world isn't worthy of people who have the courage of faith to suffer for Christ. You know that? This world isn't worthy of them.
They're far too good. And this, dear ones, is the pinnacle of faith. There it is. It's the pinnacle of faith to endure trial with courage and faith in God and never waver.
That's it. So true faith has the courage to conquer and struggle to continue in suffering. Thirdly and lastly, and just quickly, true faith has the courage to count on salvation. You know, they had to live in hope, didn't they?
They had to hope. The abiding confidence of all these people, what was it? They believed that God would redeem them and reward them someday when all the suffering was over. Look at verse 39, and these all...what do you mean these all? Everybody from Abel to Samuel and everybody through the prophets and everybody who went through anything in those days, all of them having received witness through faith, received not the promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect.
Now let's look at verse 39. What promise? These all having received witness through faith received not the promise. What promise are you talking about? Not the promise of the land because that promise was never given to Abel and Enoch.
What promise are you talking about? That these all received, I'll tell you what, the promise of a Redeemer, the promise of Messiah, the promise of a covenant that could bring perfection, the promise of a salvation that could bring men into God's presence totally. They never knew the Messiah, but they believed in the promise though it never came. You know, in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 10 it says, they looked to see when it was going to come, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Watch, searching what person or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify. In other words, they were looking to see when and how the Redeemer would come. You know something, in the midst of all their suffering, they were the courageous ones who counted on salvation. They believed God for it, the promise of full final salvation. Verse 40, but they didn't receive it because God had provided a better thing for us. What is the better thing in the book of Hebrews? The New Covenant. They never found the promise in the Old Covenant.
It was never there. They never found full access to God. There was always what hanging between them and God?
The veil. They never found the freedom of conscience that comes with total forgiveness because they had to sacrifice over and over and over and over and over. They never found the perfect high priest because their priest kept dying on them. But God provided a better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect. In other words, their perfection had to wait for us. The New Covenant gave them what the Old Covenant couldn't give. So they lived by faith and oh, what a courageous faith. So courageous they conquered and struggled. They continued in suffering and in all of it they counted on salvation to come and they never saw it, but they believed God for it.
They got it on credit. And here we see the courage of faith and pinnacle of faith in this glorious chapter. I close with this. The world wasn't worthy of these people. Oh, I pray God that we would live the kind of lives that it might be said of us, the world isn't worthy of them.
Let's pray. Father, we again have been thrilled and lifted out of ourselves, transported to another day and another age and another mind to see You and to see the glories of those people who lived for You. God help us to realize that we today who love You and love Christ are members of a vast family of great heroes, great men and women of faith who believed You in the midst of impossible situations. They believed You when they achieved.
They believed You when they had to endure. Oh, God make us people of faith and may we see new courage. May we follow in the train of these great men. We pray in the name of Christ.
Amen. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, continuing his study here on Grace to You titled The Power of Faith. You know, someone who is in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Fame of faith, a person we didn't really have time to get to is Rahab, who Scripture tells us was a prostitute, and yet she is on the Hebrews 11 list, along with many great spiritual leaders. So John, what's the lesson there about the kind of people who can have a powerful faith that honors God? Yeah, it is an interesting partnership in the book of Hebrews, but that's how it is in the kingdom of God. You go to the beginning of the book of Matthew, where you have the genealogy of the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it starts, you know, with Abraham, and then it's David, and it goes through all the heroes of the Old Testament that are in that messianic line, all the way down to Jesus. If you look a little more closely, you're going to find Rahab in that genealogy, and you're going to find other sinful women in that genealogy, and a whole lot of sinful men as well.
This is how it is in the world, and I've said this so many times. Look, if God couldn't do his work through sinful people, he couldn't do his work, because that's the only kind there are. Let me remind you about the book, Twelve Unlikely Heroes, because everybody who serves the Lord faithfully is an unlikely hero. We have to be transformed. Well, unlike Isaiah, he says, Lord, you certainly can't use me. I'm a man with a dirty mouth, and I live with people with dirty mouths. And he put a curse on himself, and the Lord said, I want you to serve.
Go. Be my man. That's what God does with all of us. We're all unlikely heroes in the kingdom of God. This book will really, really empower you. It's called Twelve Unlikely Heroes, affordably priced from grace to you, free shipping in the U.S.
Thanks, John. And, friend, you're going to be encouraged as you see how these everyday men and women trusted God, even in horrible circumstances, and how you can do the same. Order your copy of Twelve Unlikely Heroes when you contact us today.
The number to call is 855-GRACE, or you can order from our website, gty.org. Twelve Unlikely Heroes costs $10, and as John said, shipping is free. To pick up Twelve Unlikely Heroes, or maybe a few copies to use in a midweek Bible study, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. And keep in mind that the message you just heard on the heroes in Hebrews chapter 11, and the other lessons from John's current study titled The Power of Faith, are available free of charge at our website. You can download the MP3 audio.
You can also download the written transcripts. In fact, all of John's sermons, over 3,600 messages, are free in both formats. We also have free apps for your mobile devices, so you can take John's sermons wherever you go.
Find the links for downloading the apps at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378, and be here tomorrow as John continues his study, The Power of Faith. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
