Faith in Victory and Defeat

Hebrews 11:29-38

Well I debated with myself since the beginning of this book how I was going to handle this section. There is a large part of me that wants to spend a year in Hebrews 11 and talk about all of the names in the passage. That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Perhaps that’s the way that many of us would prefer it. But two reasons why we’re going to take this in one swoop today. 1. I think it is good for us to view scripture in ways we often wouldn’t. I don’t mean that we read it standing on our heads or something, I mean if we are people prone to looking at the big picture, its probably good to zoom in sometimes. And if we are people prone to look at the the fine details, it is probably best to zoom out.

2. Look at verse 32. He says he’s running out of time so he goes through these quickly, and I think we should take our cue from scripture here and not try to help him do it the way we think he should have done it.

So how does this section work? Well it teaches us one more element about how faith acts: Faith does not look to the results, but instead looks to the final reward.

And there is a major contrast here in this section you’ll see. Sometimes from an earthly point of view faith results in victory. There are some incredible things accomplished in the lives of these believers. Other times however faith results in defeat. Perhaps this is where many of us need to feel the weight of this passage. We often rely on how things look on the outside don’t we. Is it worth trusting God even if the result is a defeat?

1. Faith in Victory

What greater victory of faith could the author have supplied us with that the crossing of the Red Sea? Notice starting here the author begins to shift from talking about individuals to talking about the community of faith, even including Rahab a foreigner and prostitute to the list. This believing people is made up of people from every tribe, tongue, people, male, female, slave, free, Jew, Gentile.

But they crossed the Red Sea by faith on dry land. Talk about a victory. Now it takes faith to cross the sea. Moses told the people in Exodus 14:14 that the Lord would rescue them and fight for them. The people believed God. Just as Abraham had, and they crossed.

You’ll notice there’s a glaring omission of all of the faithlessness of the wilderness generation in between verses 29 and 30. He jumps straight to Jericho decades later.

An entire city defeated through the faith of the people. It doesn’t make sense for a people to march around a city for 6 days and on the 7th blow some horns does it? That’s not the best military strategy. This isn’t a prescription for how to conduct battle… This is trusting God and him giving the victory on his terms. (6 days, joshua rest).

Rahab houses the spies, and doesn’t die with the rest of the city but is saved by grace through faith. A prostitute of a foreign people occupying the promised land is saved graciously by God and becomes the mother of our Lord.

Now from 32 to the middle of 35 he says he’s running out of time and gives us the shotgun list of names and accomplishments by faith.

Now some of these names are shocking. Samson and Jephthah. Who here would include Samson as a hero of the faith? Or Jephthah! Who made a rash vow and had his daughter killed.

I find so much encouragement from these names, i’m so thankful some of these people are included. It really highlights for us that it is the Lord who gives the victory. And I don’t just mean the physical victory, I mean that he is the one who saves us by his own free will.

I don’t know what God is doing in someone’s heart and neither do you. I know there are people in here who’s children used to walk with the Lord and aren’t anymore. Some of you who have made some terrible mistakes, sinning grievously. You can trust this God. He does his work perfectly and right. He has never made a mistake, and you trust him. Isn’t there for much hope in these names?

2. Faith in Defeat

Well there’s a marked shift here in the middle of verse 35. Some were tortured.

Now what are we to make of this? Are we to assume that this first list of names had things figured out? God loved them more? God was more gracious to them? I think we’re headed down a wrong and bad path if those are our conclusions.

These are often our conclusions when we trust God and things don’t end up the way we want them to however aren’t they?

Notice the move in 35. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Elijah and Elisha both raised people from the dead. What a glorious thing! But is our hope that we wouldn’t die?

No see what he says rather is that some were tortured and refused to accept release, that is renounce their faith, because they had their eyes set on a better life and better resurrection. There’s our word better again, by the way. Same word used throughout this book to tell us about Jesus. These people had the resurrection and eternal life with Christ in front of them as they suffered.

Mocking, stoning, flogging, chains, jail. The word tortured probably best means stretched out on the rack. I won’t go into detail about that. Sawn into handles the gore well enough for us. We could attach names throughout the Old Testament to any of these terms, in fact he probably is also speaking about some of the saints in between the Old and New Testament who suffered.

No houses, no land, poor clothing, sick, mistreated.

What is being described here of these people? They are viewed by the world as not being worthy of anything or anyone.

Our Lord came in the same way, did he not? Isaiah 53:4 “4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

The Lord of all creation, worthy of all praise and honor. Worthy of all glory and praise, came to his own people… bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, and we saw him as unworthy.

And in fact he came in that way purposefully to identify with his people so he could represent us. Identifying with us, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

That’s why the author can say of this people described in Hebrews 11 “of whom the world was not worthy.”