Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] O Lord, we ask that you would shepherd us through this time of exile, this time in which, though grounded, rooted in heaven, we find ourselves here on earth, in some ways wandering, in some ways not feeling at home.
[00:00:21] And, lord, we thank you that you do walk with us. You guide us by your word and spirit. You have not left us. You have not forsaken us. You do not neglect us, but you answer our cries for help. You strengthen our faith, and you bring us through all trials and temptations until that last day when we will reach the consummation of the kingdom of God, heaven, and eternity. Lord, we ask that you would strengthen us on the way today. We ask that you would bless the further reading and also the preaching of your word. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:05] Let's turn to Hebrews eleven.
[00:01:09] Hebrews eleven. And here, the last part of this chapter that we've been going through for a little while now.
[00:01:24] I'll begin in verse 32 and read through chapter twelve, verse two.
[00:01:44] Hebrews 1132.
[00:01:47] And what more shall I say?
[00:01:50] For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Japheth of David and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith, conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
[00:02:16] Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stone, they were sawn in two. They were killed by the sword.
[00:02:38] They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.
[00:02:52] And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
[00:03:06] Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:03:40] Amen.
[00:03:42] Please be seated.
[00:04:07] Well, the author of Hebrews brings this amazing section, this amazing chapter, to a close.
[00:04:18] And as he does so, you get the sense that he could keep going. Right as preachers can do.
[00:04:27] He says, and what more shall I say? Not as though he doesn't have anything else to say, but he's got a lot more to say. But time is drawing short. Some people, some scholars think that all of Hebrews is a sermon, a sermon in perhaps a kind of written form.
[00:04:48] And he realizes that things have been going on a while, but he recognizes that there are these other people that are still in his mind, other people of the faith, fathers and mothers of ours in the faith that we could spend more time reflecting on and thinking about.
[00:05:12] He named some first Gideon, Barak, Samson, Japheth, David and Samuel and the Prophets, a big category.
[00:05:22] And then he just hints in some ways and suggests at other people, other events in history, that some perhaps come to mind immediately, others not.
[00:05:34] But we get the sense that there is a lot more than has already been said, and that has a special blessing in it. He's saying, in a way, as much as I've already said, I still haven't been comprehensive about this. We could just go and go and go. He describes them in chapter twelve as this great cloud of witnesses, an amazing picture, all of these voices, all of these lives, these moments in history testifying. And this great cloud to the truth about faith, truth is about faith that he has been showing to us and demonstrating and encouraging us with.
[00:06:27] One of the things that we can say, as we've seen throughout this book and as we see here now, is that faith can do great things.
[00:06:38] It enables great things to happen.
[00:06:43] We get a sense of that in verse 33, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, and the list just goes on and on and on. All of these aspects of great strength, of marvelous things, women receiving back from the dead by resurrection, and people enduring great and terrible things.
[00:07:09] This is one of the great reminders to us.
[00:07:12] The world calls us to put our faith in things other than the Lord.
[00:07:18] The world says, look here, look here. Try this, try that.
[00:07:24] But the Lord calls us to put our faith in himself, as the author says here, bringing things to a close in chapter twelve, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
[00:07:40] Jesus is the founder of our faith as the one who gives us our faith. Our faith is a gift. It's something that we receive from God himself.
[00:07:50] He's also the founder of our faith in some ways as the foundation of it. He is the one in whom our faith is in.
[00:07:58] He is also the perfecter of our faith. He doesn't just establish it and say, now, do your best. But he is at work in us, strengthening us, strengthening our trust and reliance on him.
[00:08:14] This is who our faith is in. And that faith in Jesus, the Jesus that the author has throughout the book been explaining and showing us more and more who he is, that Jesus, our Jesus, is reliable.
[00:08:33] And through him and through trust in him, great things happen. Amazing things are possible, more than we ask for, more than we sometimes dream of. But there they are.
[00:08:48] And we had the privilege of hearing Daniel three this evening, one of many great examples of this. Don't you love this story?
[00:09:00] The way in which the author tells the story and emphasizes this image that Nebuchadnezzar set up? Right, repetitive, a reminder of this king doing this thing on his own.
[00:09:18] God does not need anyone to set him up. God does not need anyone to demand people to worship him. But this image was different. This golden image needed to be set up by Nebuchadnezzar. And the text emphasizes that Daniel emphasizes that for us, the image is set up, set up, set up. That's what an image needs. There's a call to come and bow, and there's this power of the king that is demanded.
[00:09:53] And Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, they hear it and they say, no.
[00:10:01] And they say, our God is powerful to save us.
[00:10:05] And if he doesn't, we're still not serving you because their faith was in him and him alone.
[00:10:12] They don't say, well, God, if you rescue us from this, then we'll serve you. They just say, we will serve him because he's the kind of God that can rescue whether or not he chooses to do so.
[00:10:26] And of course, in this case, God does choose to do so. And he displays before Nebuchadnezzar and the satraps and the prefects and the justices and the counselors and all the officials and all the kingdom he put puts before them his awesome power. He proves, he commends the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
[00:10:52] You all hopefully have had the opportunity to be near something hot at some point. Hot food, perhaps, as a blessing to enjoy food, whether it's out of the microwave, right, or on a fire. Perhaps you've been near a fire or an oven. It's not something we get close to, right? It's something we can feel, we sense, even from a distance. And we stay only as close as we know we are able. These men are thrown into a fiery furnace. They are not brought near to the warmth. They are thrown into the fire, the furnace so hot that the men who throw them in died.
[00:11:39] That's intense.
[00:11:43] And there they are.
[00:11:46] They don't even smell like smoke when they're brought out.
[00:11:50] Every time I spend time near a campfire, I smell like smoke, a lot of smoke. I have to hang my clothes outside for a few days, wash them, this kind of thing. Don't bring those clothes in here. Right? You smell like smoke.
[00:12:06] These men did not even smell like it. Their hair was not singed. Nothing was wrong.
[00:12:13] And then there was this fourth angel of the Lord. We wonder, the son of God, maybe someone that Nebuchadnezzar perceived looked like the sons of the. Like a son of the gods was in there with them.
[00:12:35] That's an amazing thing to say, considering they were in a fiery furnace.
[00:12:41] What would you have to see in the midst of flames to make you say that one looks like a son of the gods?
[00:12:53] It brings to mind the kind of radiance that Moses had when he came down, having experienced and seeing the glory of the Lord radiant, or perhaps Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.
[00:13:10] Something divine was happening in that furnace.
[00:13:18] And Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego are so calm.
[00:13:24] They sound calm to me, anyway. I guess we can't know for sure, but they sound so matter of fact. No, we're not going to do that. Yes, God can save us if he wills. No, we're not going to do that.
[00:13:39] And in all of it, instead of dying, they end up being exalted at the end, right? King Nebuchadnezzar brings them out, and they are raised up to greater positions of authority than they had before. And the name of God is, of course, exalted as well by the babylonian king.
[00:14:04] It's amazing. And this is just one of various events that happened in Egypt, Babylon and Canaan and all sorts of other places.
[00:14:16] Amazing events that happen throughout the roman empire as well, and the Greeks before that.
[00:14:23] And these events that are testified to in Daniel and other places, that the Lord would do great and mighty things as people trust him and call upon his name.
[00:14:37] One of the things that the author is keen, I think, to point out, though, is that faith is not necessarily a call to greatness, although great and amazing things happen.
[00:14:51] We see the great things that these people do, the power, the kind of impressive, mighty power that they have in the world.
[00:15:04] But it's that same faith that we also see others in verse 36 who suffer and suffer greatly, who didn't come out of the fiery furnace, others who were mocked and flogged and in chains and imprisoned others who were stoned, others stoned. Others who were sawn in two and killed with the sword.
[00:15:32] Others who went about in skins of sheep, in goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, wandering about in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
[00:15:50] These people were not any less because of their faith. Because miracles didn't come upon their being sawn in two or being hungry or lost.
[00:16:06] No, they were not any less than those who were before.
[00:16:11] Because this is not about the greatness of man.
[00:16:14] This is about the greatness of faith, of their worthiness and of their greatness. The author says so well, of whom the world was not worthy.
[00:16:46] The greatness of these people was not found in this or that particular act, or this or that amazing miracle.
[00:16:56] The worthiness of them was found in their belonging to the Lord, in whom their faith was in.
[00:17:05] They were worthy and glorious and wonderful even in their suffering because of the one whom they served.
[00:17:16] In fact, they were serving not to receive some nicer things in this life.
[00:17:27] Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not do what they do so that they could get a job promotion.
[00:17:34] They were not looking and longing eagerly to establish themselves in Babylon, to make it a more christian or godly place.
[00:17:46] I'm sure that they desired those things. I'm sure they wanted the things of the Lord. But they were not looking to have higher places of promotion. They just wanted to serve the Lord. Whatever happened, they went into that fiery furnace not knowing what would happen.
[00:18:06] We see that same attitude reflected in verse 35 when it says, some were tortured, refusing to accept release.
[00:18:16] Why?
[00:18:18] So that they might rise again to a better life.
[00:18:23] Don't let me go.
[00:18:25] Don't let me go.
[00:18:27] I'll just be here in this world. I want something better, they said.
[00:18:34] Not just another year here in this world. I want something better. I want a resurrection to a better life, they said.
[00:18:45] And that's what we should say too.
[00:18:47] That's what so much of what the author has been bringing about, bringing our attention to in this letter and in this chapter.
[00:18:58] When we put our hope in the things of this world, when we put our hope in the treasures or the learning of Egypt or the greatness of this king or that kingdom, we put our fears against this city or that person or this institution.
[00:19:17] When our hopes and our minds, when our hearts are all caught up in the things of this world, the things of God sort of fade to the background.
[00:19:29] They don't become very important to us. And we become attached to the things of this world. Unsurprisingly but faith looks beyond this world. The faith looks beyond and sees what cannot be seen. As the author began in chapter eleven, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
[00:19:52] For by it, the people of old received their commendation.
[00:19:58] They received their commendation.
[00:20:01] Sometimes in this life, the genuineness of the thing that they put their faith in was made very plain. And the world saw right away the power of faith, as in Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar.
[00:20:22] Better not deny right at that moment. And yet there are other times in which the world rejoices at the suffering and loss of the Lord, the Lord's people.
[00:20:37] But we must remember that it's only for a time.
[00:20:42] Our Lord died on a cross.
[00:20:46] He was persecuted, he was flogged. He was made to be destitute. The very few things he had were taken away from him. His dignity was taken away from him. Fear was put into the people that were supposed to be loyal to him. He was stripped, he was bound, he was crucified.
[00:21:08] And it would seem for a time as though the world had won.
[00:21:14] Because what happened?
[00:21:17] He died.
[00:21:18] People fled, he was buried. And for multiple days, that was the case. That's the way all things seemed.
[00:21:28] Until, of course, that time of suffering and of death, of curses. It ended, didn't it?
[00:21:38] And he rose again from the dead to a better life.
[00:21:43] He rose again to sit down at the right hand of the throne of God, as it says here in verse two of chapter two, which we confess in our creeds.
[00:21:55] He sits down with exaltation and with glory and with honor, ruling and reigning over everything and everyone.
[00:22:07] I love this phrase. He despised the shame.
[00:22:12] Shame is a lot about despising, right? It's about seeking someone, the lowering of someone, the embarrassing of someone, to shame someone. We might say, I despise you. And he saw that shame, which he very much experienced. And he despised it.
[00:22:33] It was hard, it was painful, it was terrible.
[00:22:39] He cried out to the Lord, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But above all of that, above the intensity, above the shame, he also chose to despise it and say, not my will, but yours be done.
[00:23:01] And he despised that shame. And because he humbled himself, he was exalted.
[00:23:09] And the promise is that all of us who are in him will also be exalted in glory in him.
[00:23:17] We may suffer in this world.
[00:23:20] We may have a very difficult time, but our faith will not be put to shame. We can despise the shame that the world would have for us, because our faith will not be put to shame.
[00:23:36] The author of Hebrews is not calling us to greatness. He is calling our attention to the greatness of faith.
[00:23:46] Many of these who are named here had special calls from the Lord. That's why they did what they did. They walked in the obedience of faith, the obedience that comes from trusting in him and faith in God.
[00:24:03] Our call is the same.
[00:24:06] You may not have had an angel come and tell you what to do, a vision or a dream, but you know what? You have had the spirit of God come and tell you what to do. He has come, and he has told us in his words, our calling in this life, the callings that we have to serve the Lord, to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us, to pray fervently, to look for his coming, and many other things.
[00:24:39] Brothers and sisters, that is your call, and you can trust the Lord to help you to fulfill it.
[00:24:48] God made these people strong, and he will make you strong as well, because there is nothing that is as powerful as God's promises.
[00:25:00] God will provide.
[00:25:04] There is nothing so great in this world, no trial or no temptation. And there is no thing that is promised in this world that is so good, that is worth giving up for the loss of the kingdom of God.
[00:25:19] The final thing I'd like to say as we draw this to a close, is that what the author says in verses 39 and 40.
[00:25:30] He says, these people were commended through their faith, though they did not receive what was promised.
[00:25:38] Why did they not receive what was promised? Verse 40 tells us, God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
[00:25:53] What the author is calling us to understand is that we are a part of this same family of faith, and we are a part of the things that God was doing in them, bringing all things in history to this moment of completion. They did not receive the things that were promised because there was something still yet to come.
[00:26:20] And one of the things that was still yet to come is you, the Lord Jesus, coming into this world at the perfect time, Peter says, in which these people and even angels longed to look, they waited and were watching and were wondering, when will our faith be perfected? When will all of these things and these promises be brought into their consummation to their end? And the answer is in Christ and his work that is in this world, and a world in which he has gone out.
[00:26:58] And now what are we seeing?
[00:27:01] We're seeing the every nation and tribe and language coming to praise the true great King Nebuchadnezzar was doing this sort of pretend, mock God thing.
[00:27:20] Some scholars think that that image was an image of himself, which wouldn't be that surprising if that were true.
[00:27:30] God, however, does the real thing in Christ. He has come into this world to establish a kingdom that is throughout the world, in every place, a kingdom that will be so great, it will be beyond the things that we see now.
[00:27:52] And God is bringing that, has brought that into reality.
[00:27:59] We look to Jesus, who is now enthroned, he says.
[00:28:06] And so with that, we have this practical application, with this great cloud of witnesses testifying to this truth, cheering us on, yelling at us. Don't stop. Keep going.
[00:28:22] Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Throw it off. Get rid of it. Toss it in the garbage, put it to death and run.
[00:28:39] Do not give up. Do not stop. Do not get tired. Run with endurance, because God has set a race before you and we have in our sights Jesus, who has already gone before us, who has completed the race and is taking us on the way.
[00:29:04] He is the founder and perfecter of our faith, the one who makes us worthy and will bring all things to a glorious end.
[00:29:14] Let's pray.
[00:29:19] Almighty God, we glorify you and you alone, not the foolish and stupid idols that people set up in this world and say, pay attention to this or pay attention to that, not the foolish idols of our own hearts that we hold onto and cling to, though they are not worthy of even a moment's consideration.
[00:29:44] We come to you, the only and always worthy one who makes us worthy, who makes us worthy through the work of the Son and spirit.
[00:29:57] We ask, o Lord, that you would provide for everything that we need in this life and that you would give us a clarity in our hearts that will not let go of you, but will let go of the things of this world, the things that do not last, the things that are are empty and void of hope, things that moths eat and rust, eats and thieves take away, things which disappear, things which are shameful, things which do not last.
[00:30:33] Lord, instead of clinging to these things, help us look to Jesus, who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, from everlasting to everlasting. Jesus, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:30:58] Lord, fill our hearts with his joy.
[00:31:02] Let us run this race of endurance, not as those who are tired and weary and beaten down, but but are filled with joy, knowing whom we belong to and the hope that is ours in Christ.
[00:31:18] Let us learn to think little of this world, to despise the shame that would be heaped upon us for naming the name of Jesus, for trusting in him above all things and all people.
[00:31:35] Strengthen our faith. Give us courage and bravery that we might not shrink, but that we might run.
[00:31:45] We pray this in Jesus name.
[00:31:48] Amen.
