Throughout Scripture, we see regular men and women demonstrating remarkable faith. Faith so vibrant they were listed in the Bible's Hall of Faith. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah turns the spotlight on several of these figures. all commended for their faith.
From his series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith. Here's David to introduce today's inspiring message, Ordinary Heroes.
Well, when we come to the end of chapter 11 of Hebrews, we find ourselves with a rather summary statement by the writer. He reminds us of all the other people whose names we could have read earlier, who did great things, not necessarily people as well-known, but yet people as faithful. It is a wonderful reminder to us that sometimes people say, well, I'm just an ordinary person. God uses ordinary people. In fact, in a sense, everybody in this chapter was in essence an ordinary person who began to trust God and became extraordinary.
That's what God wants to do for all of us. And this paragraph is a kind of interesting statement of that fact. It's Hebrews 11, 32 through 40, a wonderful section of the book of Hebrews and a fitting conclusion to our current study. During this month, we have helped you understand Hebrews 11, I hope, but we've also made it possible for you to acquire a wonderful tool for your life. It is a Brand new resource from Turning Point called Where to Go in the Bible: 89 Topics for You to Investigate with Scriptures as the Answer.
Organized topically in an easy-to-use way. This 270-page paperback book will help you in your faith. I promise you, if you take this to heart, it will be a tool, not just a book. And I want that to be true for all of you. It's available for anyone who will send a gift to Turning Point in these next two days.
In the month of November, we want you to have a copy of this. If you'll just send your gift and ask for your copy, and it'll be on its way to you. We are so excited about this little book because we know it's not going to be sitting on a shelf someplace. It's going to be in purses and pocketbooks and study bags. It's going to be where people can get their hands on it because it's not a book to read, it's a book to use.
And I'm thankful for the opportunity to make it available to all of you in that way.
Okay, this is part one of Ordinary Heroes. I think you'll get the gist of it as we begin. Let's open our Bibles together. Good. We have been looking together at the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, which you know as.
the hall of faith in the New Testament. Here in this chapter, we meet people who have distinguished themselves because of their faith in Almighty God.
Now, if you've read the chapter already, you know that there are 16 names listed in Hebrews 11. We began studying the life of Abel. And followed up Abel with the man Enoch. And then we studied Noah. And after Noah came Abraham, and after Abraham came Sarah, and after Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, and Joseph.
And then we studied Moses and Rahab of the 16 names in the book of. Hebrews chapter 11, those are the first 10. The last six are in our message today. Gideon Barrick. Samson, Jephthah.
David And Samuel. And some of you are thinking. We're doing six in one sermon. How long is this sermon going to be? This sort of reminded me of what happens in all of these newly created award shows.
How many of you know there's an award show on every night, and they all have the same format.
Somebody gets up, they show something, they announce the winner, and he comes up, or she comes up. And they get in front of the mic, and then they pull something out of their pocket, and they start reading all the people they're thankful for. Because they have this moment of fame. And then about halfway through the list, you start hearing music playing. Which means you better get off there pretty quick because if you don't, we're going to turn the lights out, right?
And so they start hurrying up and they hurry up and they get to the end and they usually forget somebody and then they walk off. I remember somebody forgot his wife and it took him a long time to get recovery from that. But this is kind of the way this is. You know, we're in the book of Hebrews in the 11th chapter. We've covered all these names.
Most of them got a paragraph or two to describe them. But now, here in these last few verses, 32 to 40. The writer of Hebrews is going to bring all this to a conclusion and summarize by kind of staccato-like going through some other names and some other actions that express how important faith is to all of us. In summarizing the lives of these people, the writer gathers his thoughts together and focuses on their accomplishments of faith. He begins, first of all, with the people of faith.
He begins to reminisce by mentioning heroes from the Old Testament, and he goes into three different periods of Old Testament history to get his heroes. The first period of history is the period of the judges. Heroes from the judges. This is what it says in verse 32 of Hebrews 11. And what more shall I say?
Which in the language of the New Testament means I don't have enough time to say what I want to say. I understand that. That's a preacher's problem. What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell you of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah.
What do all four of those people have in common? They were all judges during the period of judges. And the judges are described in the book of Judges. The book of Judges is an interesting book because it is a book that has a repetitive cycle. The cycle goes like this: The people of Israel were not walking with God.
They do a lot of bad things that get God's attention. God judges them with judgment. They cry out to God for mercy. God sends them a judge. And the judge gets it all straightened out, gets him back with God.
Then the judge either dies or, for reasons, loses his influence. Guess what? Back they go into the backslidden condition. They begin to defy the things of God. They intermarry with other nations.
And God's wrath is poured out upon them in judgment. Guess what? They cry out to God, and God in His mercy gives them a judge. You know, one of the things you should take away from the book of Judges is how gracious and patient and merciful God is. Aren't you grateful for the mercy of God?
Because we're like the judges, aren't we? We keep coming back saying, Lord, it's me again, and it's the same thing again. I'm so embarrassed. The Bible says that during the period of the judges, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Does that sound familiar?
Kind of like everybody had their own agenda. They did whatever they wanted to do. And God put judges in the midst of them to hold them. And focus them. And he lists four of them.
The first one is the man named Gideon. Gideon is a man who was remembered for his dreams. God gave Gideon some wonderful visions and dreams, and Gideon was the most unlikely candidate for the Hall of Faith. I remember the first time I ever preached on Gideon and realized that when God called him to be a champion, Gideon was hiding behind the wine press. And God said, O mighty man of valor, And I'm thinking, Gideon probably said, who is he talking about?
Not me. And I always have thought this, this is a wonderful thought for me, that God loves to take us. Where we are. and make us what he knows we can become. Gideon wasn't much when God got a hold of him, and God turned him into a champion.
And you remember the story of Gideon, how God used him to prove that. He was the God of Israel. Gideon had an army of 32,000 people, and God said, Gideon, that's all right, but it's way too many guys. And so God pared it down to 10,000 people. And then God said, Gideon's way too many people.
So Gideon ends up with an army of 300. 300 people. And he's supposed to go and fight against the Midianites and the Amalekites. And the Bible says that these people were so numerous as the locusts, according to Judges chapter seven, and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sands of the sea. And Gideon's got 300 guys, and he's going to go fight these two armies, this coalition that's coming against him.
And not only did he have not very many people, he didn't have much of a strategy either. God said, Here's how we're going to do this, Gideon. We're going to give you a trumpet, a pitcher, and put a torch in the pitcher. And when it's time, we'll shout and blow the trumpet, and I'll win the war. That's kind of like Joshua, right?
You want me to do what? The Bible says that with fewer people than the number who surrounded Jericho and marched around it, God commanded the Israelites in such a way that they were victorious over the Amalekites and the Midianites, and when it was all done, God got the glory. Because it was a God thing. There's no other way to explain it. I want to ask you: have you ever had a God moment in your life where you look and say, There's no way to explain that.
God did that. I hope you have. It's one of the most wonderful things to realize: that God is still that way involved in our lives, so that there are times when. You just look at it and you say, that was a God thing. God did that.
Well, Gideon's followed in the list by a man named Barrick. Who doesn't bring a whole lot more to the table than Gideon did? Barrick. is obeying Deborah. And he goes forth to meet the great army of Cicero.
Cicero was a general. And he had 900 chariots of iron and thousands of troops. And Barak went against him with 10,000 men that were chosen from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, just two of Israel's tribes. And the Bible says that the chariots of Sisera got bogged down in the mud in Barak. With his token army.
Was victorious. It says in Judges 4:15, and the Lord routed Sisera. And all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak. And Sisra alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. And suffered the indignity, this great general, of being killed by a woman.
She put a tent peg through his temple with a hammer. You think you're married to someone, right?
So here's Gideon. Not much, but God uses him. And here's Barak. You're really subject to the will of Deborah. And then add to the list Samson, and you've got to ask yourself: how in the world does Samson get on a list of faith?
I mean, Samson, he blew it every way you can blow it, didn't he? I mean, he destroyed his testimony. The Bible says Samson loved many women. He was a man with great strength given to him by God, connected to the length of his hair. Samson, during his time as a judge of Israel, wrought many great victories and destroyed many of the enemies of God.
My favorite tale is when he tied a torch on the tails of some foxes and sent them out into the grain fields of the Philistians and burned them to the ground. What a creative strategy that was. But Samson was a weak man. He loved many women, and he finally had a woman who got a hold of him by the name of Delilah, and she. Found out the secret of his strength, and you know the rest of the story.
He lost his eyesight, and he was relegated to an object of derision among the people of Israel until the last moment of his life. If Gideon was remembered for his dreams and Barak for his daring, Samson's remembered for his defiance because in the last moment of his life, The Bible says he had someone put him in a position where he could. hold on to the pillars of the idolatry temple. and in one last moment of strength his hair had unnoticeably grown back. He took hold of those two pillars and he pulled them together.
And the Bible says that Samson killed more in his death than he did in his life. He brought this all down. He figured this is the one last thing I can do. I can destroy some more enemies of God who hate God and are trying to destroy His people. And He went out in defiance.
I have to believe that's why He got in the Hall of Faith. And then there's one last person by the name of Jephthah. Again, I got to tell you, my impression when I go through these stories is how unlikely these people are to be included in God's list of faithful men and women. Do you remember the story of Jephthah? Most people remember Jephthah because of his vow.
Jetha's vow. Whenever you decide to make a vow, before you do it, go read this passage. Because you don't want to make a vow unless you know what you're vowing. Let me tell you the story about this. Judges 11:31 says, Then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon.
Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up to Him as a burnt offering. Fast forward. When Jephthah came to his house, there was his daughter. Coming out to meet him, and she was his only child. And besides her, he had neither son nor daughter.
Can you imagine that moment? You say, what happened? It's in the book of Judges. You can go home and read it, all right? Find out what happened.
In spite of his foolish vow, God used Jephthah in a very special way to denote the power of God in Israel. These four men served During a period of time when there was no king in Israel, They served demonstrating courage, courage that it takes to stand up for what is right when nobody else is standing up for what is right. And are we not getting a chance to experience some of that in this culture today? to stand up for what is right when everybody around us doesn't think that's important anymore. These judges are honored because when everybody else was going south.
They kept going north. And God honored them for their faith. Encourages us by their testimony. They were not perfect men, they were weak men that God made strong.
Now he goes to the second category. From the judges, he gives us a representation of the kings. Hebrews 11:32 says, And time would fail to tell of David. And David is a representation of the kings of Israel. He is chosen to represent this period.
And of course, David was a champion from his boyhood. When he was just a kid, he was fighting with lions and bears. And then, when he was a teenager, he took out Goliath, a 9-foot, 6-inch giant. And all he had to do it with was a slingshot. And you know that whole story, but let me read you the little speech that David gave to Goliath when he stood in front of him.
Here's what he said to the giant. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. And I will strike you and take your head from you. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and David was good. And he did what he said he would do.
This little teenage boy going up against the giant that bellowed out his curses against Israel. And he took him out. became so popular, as you know, that they even wrote a song about David. And it was on the hit parade for many years in Israel. Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
And then David was anointed king. In fact, he was anointed king three times. Did you know that? Before he finally ascended the throne, there were three ceremonies to anoint David. It seemed to David as if he would never become king.
During all that time, while Saul was still reigning and David was the king in waiting, I learned something that I had never known before, a statistic that I had never ever seen before, that during the time that David was waiting to become the king of Israel, 24 different times King Saul either sought to kill him himself or get somebody else to do it in his behalf. 24 attempts were made on David's life. He spent his whole time as a fugitive running from here to there, just trying to stay alive. Waiting for the moment when God would allow him finally to become the king of Israel. David endured all these things, and he continued.
Heroes from the judges and heroes from the kings. Notice, thirdly, heroes from the prophets. It says that Time would fail me to tell you of Samuel and the prophets.
Now, let me tell you about Samuel. Samuel is really a key person in the Old Testament. Here's why: Samuel was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. He was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. And as the prophet, he was the one who anointed Israel's first king.
So he is the cement that holds those periods of time together: the last of the judges, the first of the prophets, and the anointer of King David as the king of Israel. And Samuel did something else that most people don't know about. While he was the first prophet, he started a school. He actually started a school for prophets. Samuel's School of the Prophets, it was called.
And he taught men how to do the prophetic work. And because of the influence of this one man, the prophecy of God, the teaching of the word of God, was spread throughout all the area. He had an incredibly influential place in the plan of God, Samuel the prophet.
So, the first thing that the writer of Hebrews wants us to know is that God used people from lots of different places and different time periods. He lists these for us in that one verse.
Now, he's going to make a change here in how he approaches this subject. He's going to go from the people of faith. The 10 people that we mentioned, to the performances of faith. And here's what the writer's gonna do now. He's gonna go through a list of things that these men and women of faith of the Old Testament did.
He's not going to tell us their name, but he's going to assume that we know something about the Old Testament, so we'll be able to figure out who it is most of the time. Apparently, back in those days, the people to whom the writer of Hebrews was writing knew the Old Testament. And in case you don't feel like you know the Old Testament, I'll tell you who they are as we go along. But I want you just to note how carefully this is laid out for us, one action after another. We've moved now from those who have taken the action, we're going to look at the action that they took.
Here we notice, first of all, there were those who were victorious over their enemies, and by faith they defeated kingdoms. It says here they subdued kingdoms. That's the first word. What that means is that during the period of the judges, these different kingdoms would come and try to take Israel out. And by the faith of the judges, they'd subdue those kingdoms and wouldn't let them take control over Israel.
Under God's leadership, He raised up men. who by faith attacked the enemy and delivered the people. By faith they defeated kingdoms. Notice the second one: by faith, they did righteous works. By faith they subdued kingdoms and they worked righteousness.
What works did they do? Oh, there's so many, I can just represent them by a few interesting things. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal, remember that, on the mountain, and defeated them. And Elisha healed Naaman, and that was an act of righteousness. And the prophets preached the word, and Daniel refused to eat the king's meat and drink the king's wine so that he could be faithful to God.
And Joseph in Egypt ruled in righteousness, and Esther in Persia ruled in righteousness, and Daniel in Babylon ruled in righteousness, and David in Israel ruled in righteousness. 2 Samuel 8:15 says, David reigned over all Israel, and he administered justice and righteousness for all the people. They subdued kingdoms and they worked righteousness. The third thing we read is they discovered the promises of God. Notice again in your Bible, I'm just taking these phrases one at a time as they appear.
They destroyed kingdoms, they did righteous works, and they discovered the promises of God.
Now, watch this. Whenever the people of the Old Testament were in trouble, whenever they got in a tough place, whenever they were at a corner, or their back was against the wall, They would go grab a hold of one of God's promises and hang on to it for dear life. Have you ever done that? Have you ever said, Lord, I don't know where this is going or what I'm supposed to do, but this is what I read in your book. And by the way, I don't know how God does this.
I don't even know how to explain this. But if you're in a regular reading program of the Word of God, Inevitably, you will find that on the day when you need a promise, it's in your reading assignment. And you read that assignment and you read that promise and you think, how did he know? If you're just in no reading program at all, just sort of jumping around, you might find a promise here and there. But when you're in a reading program and you're reading through the Word of God, God has a way of just.
Preparing your heart for whatever you need. And the Bible says that whenever these Old Testament people got into difficulty, they would just grab hold of a promise. And I found two verses that I want to share with you because they're really, really great reminders and encouragements. Joshua 21:45 says, Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord spoke in the house of Israel. All of it came to pass.
Listen to this from 1 Kings 8:56. Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised.
Now, watch. There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised through his servant Moses. How much of the promise of God can you count on? All of it, not one little bit of it, is ever going to fail. Here are two verses of Scripture that said in the Old Testament: every single thing God Almighty promised, He did it.
God never out-promises himself. He always performs what he says he will do. And if he's given you a promise from the word of God and you interpret that promise the way it should be interpreted, God will never, ever, ever not keep his word. How many of you know we're unfaithful? He's not.
We don't always keep our promises, do we? We make a lot of promises to God. And hope in our heart he doesn't keep track of all of them. But he never ever Fails to keep his promise to us. I remember reading the book of Daniel one time and realizing how special this was.
You know, Daniel was the prophet of Israel when they were in captivity to the Babylonians. It was toward the end of this captivity period, and one day Daniel was having his devotions. At least, this is how I think it happened. and he's reading the book of Jeremiah. And he's reading this book, and in this book, he sees Jeremiah's prophecy about the captivity that he's in the midst of.
And Jeremiah says that the days of this captivity are going to be 70 years. And Daniel begins to calculate how many years the captivity has been going on, and he realizes it's almost time for this to be over.
So, guess what he does? He takes Jeremiah's prophecy and he prays it back to God. And he said, God, let me just remind you of what you said. And he puts God's promise back in God's face. Not in an irreverent way, but in a tremendously important way.
You know, the Lord doesn't need to be reminded, but we need to be reminded that the Lord said what he said. Amen. Amen. Isn't that a great thing that you read about in Jeremiah? It's tremendous that that happened.
And it shows us the confidence we can have in the Word of God. If God said it, we can believe it, and that settles it. That's the way we approach the scripture. One more lesson from this series tomorrow on the Friday edition of Turning Point, Part 2 of Ordinary Heroes. I hope you join us then.
As we get to the end of the series, let me remind you: you can get this entire series, Audio Teach on C D, a Study Guide printed out. You can get these materials from Turning Point by going to davidjeremiah.org. There, you will find out how you can order the set of C Ds and the study guide and have all the material that we have been teaching through the month of November. I hope you will do that because it will enable you to share this with others, small groups, study groups, Sunday schools. family devotions, however you use it.
It's the Word of God organized to help you do it and understand it. I'm David Jeremiah. Thank you so much for being with us. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day.
For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's newly updated scripture reference guide, Where to Go in the Bible When. It's packed with biblical answers and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Versions, available in a variety of handsome and resilient cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we conclude the series, Ordinary People: Extraordinary Faith on Turning Point.
