Sermon Tone Analysis

*Hebrews 11:30-31…* By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

31 By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.

*Commentary*

Forty years after Moses led Israel out of Egyptian captivity he died and passed the torch to Joshua who then led Israel into the Promised Land – Canaan in modern Palestine.

The first city to engage in battle was Jericho which, like most cities, was heavily fortified and protected by a large wall (Josh 6:1-21).

These walls were massive, designed to protect against the strongest of enemy attacks.

Some walls were wide enough for two chariots to ride side-by-side on top of it, so it would take years for an invading army to penetrate these kinds of walls.

God’s plan for Israel, however, was not to build siege ramps and wait years to take the city.

His plan was for them to simply march around the city for seven days, then on the last day to blow trumpets.

Sometimes God’s instructions are not logical to the human mind, but they are always perfect.

Joshua was a mighty warrior and a man full of faith, so he did not question God’s plan; he obeyed it.

There’s also no indication that any of the Israelites complained about what God told them to do, but no doubt marching around the city must have sounded absurd to them.

They had learned from the previous generation the consequences of grumbling against God, so they were trained to obey Him and wait for His miraculous glory to be revealed.

Now what happened in seven days of marching around the city would have taken years to achieve by human means.

The walls, on the seventh day, simply collapsed, and Israel took the city killing its inhabitants as God had commanded.

Once again, God’s power was displayed to Israel for their faith.

Only one person and her family are mentioned as having survived the Jericho massacre, and her name was Rahab.

She was a product of the horribly corrupt Canaanite society, for she worked as a prostitute.

But she and her people had heard of God’s deliverance of Israel 40 years prior when they walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.

As a result, she feared Israel’s God without actually knowing Him.

So she helped Israel by hiding the spies when they came into the city to stake it out just before Israel crossed the Jordan.

Her faith was revealed in her willingness to put her own life at risk by her countrymen so as to help the nation whose God she feared.

She is mentioned favorably in James 2:25 as one whose faith was alive through her actions.

She later married Salmon (Matt.

1:5), had a son named Boaz, who was the great-grandfather of David, who 28 generations later begat the Son of God in the flesh – Jesus Christ (Matt.

1:17).

Rahab was a Canaanite, an Amorite – a race God informed Abraham was marked for ruin due to sin (Gen.

15:16).

She lived in a society where perversion ran wild.

The Canaanites were known to take live babies, put them in jars, and build them into the foundation of their cities and their walls as sacrifices to their pagan gods.

So Rahab’s conversion is most unlikely, but she demonstrates how people living in the most corrupt of societies can be saved by faith.

And the fact that she is in the line of the Messiah proves that God calls people from all walks of life.

She expressed her faith by welcoming the spies, by giving them friendly hospitality.

*Food for Thought*

It’s been said that God delights in slaying the pride of men.

Imagine how foolish those Hebrew warriors felt walking around Jericho for seven days.

So too does God sometimes humble us through our trials in order to break our pride and make us do nothing except trust Him.

It’s a risk to have faith, but true faith takes risks because it believes God even when doing so makes us look silly.

We all have a Jericho in our lives in order to develop our faith.

Identify it, and believe.

*Hebrews 11:32-34… *And what more shall I say?

For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed /acts of /righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

* *

*Commentary*

The history of Israel is rich with faithful and fallible people.

The conduct of their lives reveals their faith.

The first four men in v. 32 were Judges, and all of them had their faults in addition to their faith.

They ruled over Israel during a time when “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25).

They stood apart from the backsliding and apostasy of their people – a fitting example for the Hebrews audience.

In Judges 6-8 Gideon’s timid faith was molded when God reduced his army from 32,000 men to 300!

He did this so that Gideon would not take the glory of victory to himself.

So when Gideon’s army emerged victorious against the vast Midianite army, his faith was solidified.

In Judges 4 Barak was a military leader under the judgeship of Deborah.

He recognized that God was with her and would not go into battle without her to fight the Canaanite King Jabin with his mighty commander Sisera who had 900 iron chariots.

Barak believed God’s promise of victory, and he didn’t care when told that a woman would receive the glory for the victory (4:9).

He went out with a small army believing that God would gain the victory.

And God did.

In Judges 13-16 Samson conquered and was conquered.

Even so, he was filled with God’s Holy Spirit, and he knew it.

He confidently and faithfully went into battle against enormous odds and claimed victory each time, that is until he got proud.

But even after his pride brought him down, he faithfully called upon God to deliver him and his people.

And God did.

In Judges 11-12 Jephthah fought faithfully for Israel in the fear of God.

He made a rash vow, but he was indeed a man of great faith who believed God and put his faith into action.

David seems to have never failed to trust in the Lord throughout his life, although he too was not without fault.

From the time he was a shepherd boy fending off bears and lions (1 Sam.

17:34-36) to his bold confrontation with Goliath, he knew no fear in light of his faith in God.

Samuel was a prophet and a judge in the midst of a crooked generation, and he, like David, was faithful from a very young age.

His nemesis, however, was idolatry and immorality among his people Israel, not invading armies per se.

His faith was tested in that he was forced to confront his sinful people and his friends – even King Saul who acted unfaithfully.

Finally, the prophets faithfully received God’s word and courageously preached it.

Daniel actually shut the mouths of lions (Dan.

6) with his faith, and his three friends were the ones who “quenched the power of fire” (Dan.

3).

All of these men “from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (v.

34).

They all did this through faith.

* *

*Food for Thought*

John Calvin said of these men: “There was none of them whose faith did not falter… in every saint there is always to be found something reprehensible.

Yet although faith may be imperfect and incomplete it does not cease to be approved by God.

There is no reason therefore why the fault from which we labor should break us or discourage us provided we go on by faith in the race of our calling.”

All of those who have gone before us with great faith shared two common traits: they believed God and they had their faults.

At times they even went on the offensive, for sometimes spiritual and moral victories are won when we act against this world.

*Hebrews 11:35-38… *Women received /back /their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others experienced mocking and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (/men /of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

* *

*Commentary*

When pondering the heroes of the faith one is amazed as to how they turned agonizing distress into triumphant success through faith.

Verse 35 speaks of women whose children were dead but who through faith received them back.

The widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24) and the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:8-36) are probably in view, but there was also the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-14) whom Jesus restored to life – miracles achieved through faith.

Now in contrast to these success stories, there were those who suffered death and torture.

The word for “torture” comes from the same Greek word rendered tympani, a kettledrum.

The kinship is in the way a drum is stretched, for the torture involved a human being stretched out to be beaten painfully, often until death ensued.

Other faithful saints merely endured verbal mocking and while others were scourged with whips and~/or chains.

Some were just imprisoned and left to die.

These God chose not to deliver from pain and death like the women who received their children back (v.

35) simply because it did not suit His will to deliver them.

But more importantly, it did not suit the will of these tortured people to accept release by failing in their faith!

They endured what they did “so that they might obtain a better resurrection” – one better than the ones in v. 35 which gave merely an extension of life on earth.

Those “tortured” may be a reference to the mighty Maccabeans, the Jewish nationalists in the second century BC who took back and cleansed the Jewish temple from the Greeks (2 Macc.

7).

But it could refer to any number of others, known and unknown, whose faith in God was exhibited through perseverance in the face of the cruelest trials and hardships.

Some faithful saints were stoned to death, which was the Jewish method of capital punishment, but others were actually “sawn in two.”

Tradition has it that the prophet Isaiah was sliced in half by the wicked Jewish King Manasseh.

Some were “tempted” in that they were forced to decide to believe in God or renounce Him.

Those stoned to death include a prophet named Zechariah (2 Chron.

24:20-22; Mt 23:35) and possibly Jeremiah.