So it’s a joy to see again all of you back here; physical gathering. As we now realise, now it should not be taken for granted. And I’m also especially happy to meet some of you who are here, even though during this MCO period see you for the first time. Now some really first time, like David Loh and his dad, Mr. Loh. And some also first time since a long time alright like Francesca and Ejin alright. So, it’s really good to see you. I know that even though we have you know, we didn’t see you physically but we see you online or you see us online. And so you have been following our series on Sunday, and that is on Hebrews chapter 11. And so this morning we are going to continue. And we are now looking at the last section of this chapter.

Alright so we have been spending several weeks on this chapter. And today, we are looking at the last section. So please turn with me again in your Bible to Hebrews chapter 11. So to those who are following us on livestream alright, so I think this time round we are not putting up the references on the screen. So, turn and follow us in your Bible. So as usual, I’ll read. I’ll read the text that we are looking at this morning, and that is Hebrews chapter 11, beginning in verse 30 right through the end of the chapter. Hebrews chapter 11, beginning in verse 30, which says: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked 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 battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”. Let us again go to God in prayer to seek help from above.

“Our Father in heaven, we know that as we come together this morning, it’s such a joy to meet one another. But we come also to draw near to You and to hear Your Word. And we pray now as we study this passage of Scripture, we look to You for wisdom. And we pray for the Spirit to enlighten us, to grant us humility of heart to bow to the authority of Your Word. And so we pray that You’ll bless our time together as we study this passage, for we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Alright, I had called this section “Heroes of Faith”. Heroes of faith. Now Israel, you know have their heroes. And I’m sure we also have our national heroes. Perhaps I think there is no dispute as to who our national heroes are. We can think of national heroes like Lee Chong Wei alright or heroes like Nicole. Now not this Nicole, this is our hero alright, but the national hero Nicole David alright, and perhaps others. And so I say that Israel also had their heroes or their national heroes. And I’ll like to say a few things about the heroes of Israel. Three things. One is that the great heroes of Israel were heroes because of their faith. They were heroes. They were well-known alright. You ask the Jewish people who are their heroes, they’ll mention some of these people- David, Moses.

Why are they heroes? I say they were heroes because of their faith. And the second thing I want to say from this passage is that the great heroes of faith teach us what a life of faith is about. We all are people of faith, but what is a life of faith about? And thirdly, I also want to show that the great heroes of Israel, they are God’s gift to the world alright- they are God’s gift to the world. And so let us look at these three points here. And firstly, the great heroes of Israel were great heroes because they were great men and women of faith.

Now we know why Lee Chong Wei is our national hero. Because he’s a great man of sport. Or why Nicole David alright is a great woman of you know, our national hero. Because she is a great woman of sports. But not so with these people alright. So they were great men and women of faith. Now when you look at this verse, this passage here in verse 30, you would observe that the writer to the Hebrews kind of fast forward forty years to the time when the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land. Now you can actually observe.

You can actually see that the writer to the Hebrews in this chapter will actually bring it, you know kind of refer it to the Old Testament in a chronological manner alright, beginning with the beginning alright with Abel, and then he goes on in chronological order. So after Moses and you know in the earlier part when they left the Promised Land, crossing the Red Sea. And then he fast-forwards forty years to the time when they were about to enter the Promised Land. Now you might wonder why? I think it’s not too difficult to guess. Well probably during those forty years, there were no real heroes alright of faith.

And so he has a fast forward, and then he tells us some of the heroes. So who are the real heroes of their nations? So he says alright, he’s now mentioning them. First, in verse 30. It says: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.”. Now, do you remember Jericho? If you’re not familiar, now it was a time when the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, but they were not able to enter because of the wall. And so they were instructed to walk around that city alright, walk around it for seven days. And so the people did just that. They did just that. So day one, they walked one round alright, they walked round. Day two they walked, day three they walked, day four, and then for six days.

Six days have gone by, and nothing is happening except the people of Jericho looking at them and perhaps laughing at them. What’s these silly people doing? Monday, they walk, Tuesday they walk one round, Wednesday they walk, but what are they doing? These people are just walking round and round and round, and nothing is happening. And so what kept them going? What kept them you know keep doing the same thing over and over again? The answer? Faith. Because God says you walk, and you walk, and you walk. And one day something is going to happen alright. On the seventh day, something is going to happen. And so they walked by faith alright. I believe that is how we live our Christian life. We walk by faith and we walk.

Now sometimes you know it’s kind of meaningless kind of thing. We just walk and walk, and nothing really is happening. And maybe even with people looking at us, living out our ordinary Christian life, and ridiculing us. Come on, move on alright. Let us do something you know. Let’s grab the world. But that is faith alright- that is faith. And God says that that is how that city was to be taken, and they believed that. They couldn’t see how alright, humanly speaking you know, it’s just ridiculous just by walking round and round you can capture the city. But they believed and they acted alright- they believed and acted. And that is what the writer to the Hebrews is saying that that generation. Now there was one generation that was passed and they died in the desert.

There’s another generation. They came and heard the Word of God. They believed and they just acted upon the Word of God. They are proud of that generation. Now he’s actually not referring at the moment to one particular person. He’s thinking of a generation. We are so proud of that generation. God told them what to do, they did that, and they conquered the city God’s way. And so that is the first mention alright of the national heroes, now here referring to one generation of people. Then, verse 31. He now refers to another person. He says this is another of our national heroes. “By faith (verse 31) the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she received the spies with peace.”.

Now remember that Rahab was an inhabitant of Jericho, and God had determined that the wall of Jericho will come down and she lives on that wall. God had said that the inhabitants of Jericho would be destroyed and killed, and she was an inhabitant of Jericho. But she didn’t just raise her hand you know and give up in despair. Why? Well, let her explain to us why alright by looking at Joshua chapter 2. Now Joshua chapter 2. And here in verse 8, Joshua 2.

In verses 8 through 13: “Now before they lay down, she (that is Rahab) came up to them on the roof, and said to the men: “I know that Yahweh has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father’s house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, and my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.””. Why did she not just throw up her hand in despair saying that she belonged to the other side, belong to the people that God had determined to destroy? Because of something that she heard. She heard the gospel. She heard the good news. She heard about the God of the Israelites and she believed. And she believed. And that is what made her their national hero. Here is a woman of faith.

And because of what she had heard and because of her belief, she hid the spies. She changed sides and she now wants to be a people of God alright. She changed sides, and that saved her. And so that’s why she was a hero because of her faith. And then in verse 32, back to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11, as the writer continues. Verse 32. And he says: “And what more shall I say?”. In other words, he says there’s just so many of them. Just so many of them as I think through you know the history of Israel. I think of one by one the Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, and David, and Moses, and so on, and Jacob. And I say there’s just so many.

So “what more shall I say?”, he says. “For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets”. So he named a number of them here in this verse. And interestingly if you look at the list in verse 32, the people mentioned in verse 32, four of them are from the period of the Judges, where faith was scarce alright during the time of the Judges. But there were some who shone in the environment of unbelief. And that’s why he wants to say, even that period of time what we can think of Samson, we can think of Barak, we can think of these people alright. And so there were these heroes. There were these heroes.

Verse 33: “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of the lions”. See, again he’s making his point. Now why were these people our heroes? What made them special? That’s what he’s trying to say. It’s through them, of what they did. In other words, he said they were heroes because they were great in faith alright they were men of faith. And that explains what they did. You think about their lives and think of their exploits, the things that happened to them and their actions. What explains their actions? It’s faith. Gideon defeated the Midianites with just three hundred men alright they all knew that. Barak fought Sisera and the mighty Canaanite army, and they knew that. That’s why you are our heroes.

Samson. Now Samson is included because of his one-man war against the Philistines. Jephthah, he took up the challenge to fight the Ammonites. David, he slew Goliath single-handedly. Samuel, what about Samuel? What did he do? Samuel, because of his faithful ministry, he prepared Israel for the golden era of the monarchy. One man’s faithful ministry. He laboured and laboured, but he prepared the nation to go for the golden era. What else, who else, and what else did they do? And so he continues.

Alright, he continues in, you know in verse 33 he says: “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained mercies, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched (verse 34) the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented”.

Now it takes, I think it’s beneficial in a sense to kind of read this because the writer in a sense is deliberate in mentioning, now that’s why there’s a number of verses here. Now after mentioning he says begins to mention the lives of these people. He mentions them. What happened to them? What did they do? And so these are the things that they did. These are the things that were known to the nation of Israel. Here is the writer, their writer writing to them and reminding them you see. Can you remember these people? They were great men and women of faith. Do you remember the lives that they lived? How many of you remember lives that people lived?

Sometimes you read biographies. It’s good to read biographies, good to listen to now some of these. If you’re not a great reader, at least listen to people who share biographies. Now I think that actually it’s not easy alright to give a biography or share biographies with people. But I think there are some very gifted men who are able to do that. Two men in particular I enjoy listening. One is John Piper and the other is Steve Lawson alright. Listen to them. You’ll be stirred. These men and women in the past, great men and women of God and their exploits. Their lives can stir us. Our lives should be able to, I mean we should stir other people by right if you want to live that kind of life. You want to live the life that these people lived.

Alright, so that is the first thing that the writer is bringing up here. He says that let’s look at the heroes, our national heroes. And the first thing is they were, they are our heroes because they are men and women of faith. Second, these great heroes of faith, they teach us. We don’t just read this as oh, but there are lessons in other words. There are lessons. They teach us truths about a life of faith. What does it mean to live a life of faith? And that’s what the writer is saying, let’s look at them and we learn some lessons here. Let me just begin by saying that this text in the sense blows away confusions about what a life of faith brings or actually is.

A lot of people think of life of faith, they have a different impression, different picture of a life of faith. But this passage here will clarify that. So what is a life of faith like? Well, the writer says sometimes it brings deliverance through miracles and acts of providence. And that is what verse 30 to verse 35 alright- verses 30 through verse 35a (the first part of verse 35), the writer here is saying. That when you live a life of faith, sometimes it brings alright deliverance through miracles and providence through miracles. By miracles, I mean supernatural or the supernatural or the extraordinary acts of God. Now some people think that because we are not charismatic churches alright, we don’t believe in miracles. They tell you we believe in miracles. We believe in a God who can perform miracles.

I say miracles means the extraordinary or supernatural acts of God. And these verses here clearly tells us that God can and does work miracles. In fact, we can look back at verse 29 said: “By faith they passed through the Red Sea”. God opened the Red Sea, that is a miracle. We believe in such a God. Don’t say that our God is a small God, cannot do things like that. He opened the Red Sea. Verse 30 alright as we have read earlier on that He in a miraculous way brought down the walls of Jericho. It was not the people, they were just walking around. God brought it down in an extraordinary way. And then we read in verse 34 alright that God can save people from the fiery furnace that quenched the violence of fire.

Then we also in verse 34 that God can save them from the edge of the sword. God can shut the lion’s mouth. And then when we come to verse 35, the first part alright, it says that God can raise people from the dead. We believe in the God of miracles. He can do extraordinary things. And when we see here, now first part of verse 35 rightly belongs together with the earlier verses alright. So don’t be disturbed by the arrangement in your Bible. Alright, so we see that that is what the writer is saying alright. So we find that in this first part, in every case God’s people were helped or delivered from danger or from death in a miraculous way.

And, there is providence. So he moves on in the second part of verse 35. He talks about sometimes when we live our life, God works through providence alright to save us. Now, what is providence, or what are acts of providence? Providence refers to the works of God in controlling all events and circumstances in the world. So God is the One who orchestrated. He’s the One who controls everything- every event, every situation in this world. Nothing escapes His attention. He is the One who is fully involved in every minut thing or action that is happening in this world.

And so we see, now as in the case of many people alright in the Bible, we can immediately think of many examples in the Bible where God through you know where the work, we see clearly the works of providence of God. In the case of Moses, how the little baby Moses was delivered alright in the basket. We see the providential dealings of God in his life. We see the providence of God in the life of Joseph alright, how through all those you know events in his life that God was behind now every situation in his life. Now we can think of the providence of God in the story of Esther in saving the nation of Israel, and so on.

So we see. We see the miraculous work of God; we see the providence of God. And we can think of examples of providence even today. And when people sometimes tell. In fact, once someone told me that his friend you know during 9/11 alright, and when the World Trade Center was brought down and his friend turned up for work late that day, and he was saved. You see the providence of God. Or someone who missed the flight that crashed, you see the providence of God. And so that is what we mean by the providence of God. Now we wouldn’t call providence miracles. But in the sense, they are also miracles of God. I mean in a miraculous way, you just missed the flight alright.

So these two in a sense are the miracles of God. But this is how God works in our life alright through miraculous acts and through providence. And so that’s the first thing alright about what a life of faith alright entails or is like. But sometimes- sometimes faith sustains us through suffering instead of delivering us from suffering. Now, this is an important point to note alright as we read these few verses here. So what the writer is saying, you look at these great men and women of faith. Sometimes, they were delivered. Daniel from the lion’s mouth, his friends from the fiery furnace, Moses from death. Sometimes alright is deliverance, and we can expect God to do that in our lives.

And we can very often testify of that, that how God delivered us through ways that we cannot understand. But sometimes, He sustains us through suffering instead of delivering us. Now, this runs counter to people who teach a very different theology. People who teach that if you have faith, everything will be okay with you. Always be delivered, no suffering. People who teach that a life of faith will bring health and wealth and prosperity and success and no pain, I say it just run counters alright to a passage like this. And that’s why I say when you read on, it is important to note what the writer is now saying, that sometimes it doesn’t bring deliverance. Look at verse 35 again, the second part where he now says ‘others’.

Who are these others? These others too were great men and women of faith. It’s not like oh here’s these others, they are great men and women of faith. They were delivered and be ‘others’, no faith. That’s why- that’s why what? Look at that, tortured. Verse 36: “Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented”. Who are these people? Oh, these are the faithless. No! You see he’s still talking about great men and women of faith.

So you see, that is a realistic picture of a life of faith. Sometimes being delivered, at other times no deliverance- tortured, slain. And so you see that the contrast, in fact he’s kind of intentional in the way he puts it, you know the contrast he’s trying to make. For example, you look at verse 34 alright- verse 34. And it says there that “quenched the violence of fire, escaped”, now stirring this expression. “Escaped the edge of the sword”. So some, because of their faith, they “escaped the edge of the sword”. And then you look at verse 37, ‘others’ alright- others, they were what? They were sawn, they were killed by the sword, they were slain with the sword. You see the contrast there in verse 37 and verse 34?

Some, they escaped the edge of the sword; others, they were slain with the sword. The same sword, killing one and the other, but both are men of faith. Now that is what the heroes are teaching us. So don’t have a false idea of what a life of faith is like. It’s not just all rosy you know, it’s always like Daniel always escape from the mouth of the lion. Now sometimes you’re eaten up by the lions. Alright, so that is what he is teaching us. Now the point- the point is this. The point of this passage here is that God can deliver. That’s the point of verse 30 to the first part of verse 35, that God can deliver. He’s powerful enough. You see it in the life of Daniel and his friends, and Moses, and others. God can.

Then in second part of verse 35 to verse 38 tells us but He doesn’t always do it. He can, but it’s not always His purpose. It’s not always His will to do it. So you’re not outside the will of God when you are suffering. Now that would not be consistent with what the writer to the Hebrews is saying here. Now so that is the point. God can deliver, but it is not always His purpose. In other words, so faith, therefore, is not the ultimate reason whether you prosper or suffer. Faith is not the ultimate reason why you’re suffering or why you are not suffering. God’s will is alright- God’s will is. It’s whether is the will of God whether you should be delivered or not. Now, this is immensely comforting and a relief.

I mean this understanding, this teaching here is immensely comforting that faith is not ultimately the reason whether you suffer or not. It’s God’s will. Why? Why is this teaching comforting or such a relief? Because you know that there is a higher explanation for your pain or for your pleasure. There’s a higher explanation than whether you have faith or not. Now wouldn’t it be a horrible thing to say to a person, a horrible thing to say on top of your suffering you tell the person it must be your lack of faith? Now that is a horrible thing. But that’s what we hear very often. Alright you’re not prosperous, you’re not this. You’re not because you don’t have faith. You don’t have my faith, that’s why I’m wealthy alright.

Now, these heroes of faith tell us that we must not make that assumption alright- we must not make that assumption. So ultimately it is God, not we who decide when and how we die. God has His will and His purpose. Faith means that we believe that His will is the best alright. His purpose is the best for us. So in the end when all else is gone alright when everything is gone, what really matters, now he says in verse 39 and verse 40: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”. In a sense at the end of the day, it’s not whether you’re prosperous or not prosperous, whether you’re clever or not clever.

You look at the list here. Some are rich like David and Abraham. Some are poor, some are men, some are women, some more successful, others not very successful, some were nobles, others were outcasts. But what put their names in this list? What made them make this list, on this blessed list? Because they believed in God. They believed in God. They cling onto the promises. God said it and they believed it alright. That is why they are in this list. And sometimes we think that the people in this list. In fact, some of the people in this list we don’t even expect. Sometimes we think of great men and women of faith alright of this generation.

Let’s say of this generation, now who can we put in the list? John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Steve Lawson, and some of these people. Will you ever put any one of us in the list? Now I think the writer might because some of the people in the list were not known people. How many of you known Jephthah? I mean, you’ve never heard of him alright. See many of the people who made this list are maybe not known to people. They’re quietly living out their lives faithfully. But in God’s eyes one day God will produce that list, and maybe your name is in this list alright. Alright, so what really matters alright? What made them make this list is that they believed in God. They trusted Him.

Now that leads us to the third and the final point alright that I want to bring up in this passage here. So the national heroes alright, the heroes of Israel, they were heroes because of faith. And these heroes of faith teach us something about what a life of faith is. And finally, the heroes of faith, they are God’s gift to us. The heroes of faith, they are God’s gift to the world. Now verse 38, it says, “of whom the world was not worthy”. In other words, he said these are special people of whom the world is not worthy. They are God’s gift to the world. Sometimes we think of God’s gift to the world, we think of people like Steve Jobs. In fact, he is mentioned very often as God’s gift to the world because Steve Jobs you know we are so blessed.

This world is so blessed. He changed the world. And perhaps Thomas Edison too was God’s gift to the world. And I believe they in a sense are God’s gift to the world. Because of Thomas Edison, we have electricity and lights. But above all, and that’s what the writer is here saying. But above all, Joseph, and Moses, and Samuel, and David, and Elijah, and Jeremiah, these are God’s gifts to the world. In other words, the prophets and the preachers, they are God’s gift to the world. Think about it. Where would Israel be without Moses? God gave to Israel Moses, and that nation was so blessed. When God gives a nation. Or people like Samuel and Ruth. Now what would that period of time be like without these people? Or Daniel and his friends during the exile?

And so you see, when he writes this list, he comes up with this list in Hebrews 11, he thinks about them, he teaches us about them, and he said these are very special people of whom the world is not worthy. They are God’s gift to the world. When God gave to a generation men of faith, that is a blessed generation. You can think of the era of the Puritans. You say: Oh, we want that. We want to live in that era. We’ve always been reading books, you know the Puritan books. You see, when God gave to that generation men of faith, that is a blessed generation. When God gives to a nation men of faith, that is a blessed nation. And when God gives to a home father and mother of faith, that is a blessed home. Don’t take God’s gift for granted.

When God gives you father and mother who loves God, who believed in God, that is a blessed family. And that’s why Paul can write to Timothy and say you are very blessed. You have a mother and a grandmother who brings you the gospel that you have heard from childhood, which is able to make you wise unto salvation. However, though they are God’s gift to the world and God’s gift to us, they are imperfect gifts. Moses, we know was not a perfect gift alright. He was not perfect, but he pointed to Jesus Christ. Joseph, David, they were all not perfect, but they all pointed to Jesus Christ.

Now Jesus is God’s greatest gift to the world. Jesus is God’s greatest gift to the world. And that’s why Paul when he writes of that, he speaks of Him as the indescribable gift of God to us. How blessed is the world that we have Jesus Christ who came and lived among us and died for us! He is the One who should be the gift that we all should have. If you have not that gift, now I urge you, the way to receive this gift is by faith, to come to Him and trust in Him and follow Him. Let us pray.

“Our dear Father in heaven, we want to thank You for our study of this chapter. And we thank You for these men and women of faith that You have raised through the generation. We also want to thank You, O Lord, for men and women even today. We know that You have raised them and we are so blessed by them, blessed by their teaching and blessed by their lives. Some of them, perhaps are far away from us, but some of them perhaps are near us. We want to thank You especially for mothers and fathers who are people of faith and how they blessed their families. And we pray Lord that You’ll give us more and more of such men and women. For these, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.