Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Will you please turn to Hebrews 11. We are going to read together from verses 32–38, though we are not going to be going through all of those verses this morning. Verses 32–38 of Hebrews 11. Verse 32:
32 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.
35 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 mockings 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. (NASB)
We have seen that the author of Hebrews was a man very familiar with his Old Testament. He was well-read and studied in almost every section—well, we would say in every section of the Old Testament because he quotes prolifically from the Psalms and the Prophets and from the Law. The author of Hebrews traffics in the nuances of Leviticus and Exodus, nuances in which you and I would get lost. He ties together some obscure passages from the Old Testament and shows their connection to the redemptive purposes of God over time. He grasps the theological significance of various Old Testament characters, and his grasp of them and their significance is quite amazing, even men like Melchizedek, of whom scant mention is made in the Old Testament. And yet the author in chapters 6, 7, and 8 is able to mine from Melchizedek this wealth of theological and technical insight from his life, knowing the mind of the Spirit of God even in recording Melchizedek's name. The author is able to flip back and forth from Old Testament texts, connecting dots and drawing parallels and exegeting those passages.
And he is so fluent in the Old Testament that as we read through Hebrews 11, this list of characters that we've been looking at over the last several months, we quickly get the feeling that the author could go on almost endlessly quoting examples of faith, right? We get the feeling that he's so fluent in his Old Testament that these characters just come to his mind and the examples of faith come to his mind so quickly that he could just continue to go on and on and exhaust paper and pen and exhaust the patience of his audience and exhaust us with examples of faith from the Old Testament. In fact, he does say as much in verse 32: “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.” So he just lists these men. This is a favorite rhetorical trick of preachers, by the way. They always say, “Well, I'm running out of time and I have a lot more to say,” and that's usually an indication that they've run out of things to say right about the right time. And the author does this. “What should I say? I mean, time is going to fail me. I'm at a loss for words. I could just go on listing people.” But in his case it's genuinely true. He is aware at this point that he could exhaust his readers and continue on almost indefinitely. He could go on forever and ever.
And if he had two thousand years of church history to choose from, he could probably go on and cite a whole bunch more, right? Time would fail me to tell of Spurgeon and of Calvin and of Whitfield and of Luther and of Edwards and of Knox and of Owen and of Athanasius. Just beginning with Athanasius, you could do a series of messages. We would never run out of examples, but we would run out of patience and time. And that's the condition that the author is in.
But what we have seen about faith to this point is more than enough for him to make his case. He has been seeking to show that the faith that distinguishes the apostate from the true believer is that the true believer has a faith that endures and perseveres to the salvation of the soul. The apostate has a profession of faith but not a true and genuine faith. He's made that case in chapter 10. In fact, he's made that case in all of the warning passages all the way up through the end of chapter 10. And now he is listing out for us examples of this faith. There are those who have faith who do not shrink back to destruction, but instead they have faith to the preserving of the soul. That's chapter 10, verse 39.
Then he gives us this list of men and women who have had such a faith, a robust list: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses’s parents, Joshua, Moses, Rahab. And then you get in verse 32, just this list of other names. Up to this point he has called out twelve witnesses to stand and testify to the reality of genuine saving faith, and each example has shown us faith from a bit of a different perspective. Each of the people in the list have certain similarities, one with another, and all of these examples have a number of things that they do not share in common. But what they have all shown us is that faith has always been the way that men relate to God and are justified before God. Faith has always been the way and the basis of justification and salvation. Faith is that which pleases God, and faith has always been reproached by the world, but it is always rewarded by God. Remember, those who bear the reproach of faith receive the reward of faith. That has been our theme all the way through chapter 11.
But verse 32 marks a change in pattern. And what follows is not a selective list, chronologically given, of more characters from the Old Testament. In fact, you're going to see that he breaks his chronological pattern here. But instead in verse 32 we just get this list of names, six of them specifically, and then a group of people whom he just calls the prophets. In verse 33–34, we have an example of great feats of triumph that have been effected by faith. Effected, not affected, but effected by faith. And then in verses 35–38, a list of great tribulations and trials that are endured by faith. So a list of men in verse 32. Verses 33–35 is a list of triumphs effected by faith, or caused by faith we might say, done by faith. And then in verses 35–38, a list of trials and tribulations that are endured by faith. And if we were going to do all of this in one Sunday, which we're not, that would be my three-point outline. But we don't have a three-point outline today. Instead, I have two points, which I'll give you here in just a moment, because we're going to be looking at verse 32.
Now, arriving at verse 32 presents me with something of a challenge that I've been kind of wrestling with for a number of weeks. And thankfully, early in the week this week I figured out how I want to approach this. How do you tackle verse 32? Up to this point, every character has received from us a commensurate—commensurate, I should say, to their mention in Hebrews—a commensurate amount of focus and attention as we've gone back into the Old Testament to look at their story and kind of connect it to the points that the author is making in Hebrews. So if somebody's mentioned just one time in one verse, we might go back into the Old Testament, spend one Sunday there, connect it to Hebrews 11 on the next Sunday, and then characters that are mentioned in multiple verses, we've taken more time to go back and to study them. So we've gone as deep with each of those characters as necessary to kind of find out what the author of Hebrews is meaning by his mention of them and his treatment of them.
But now we get to these seven—six people and one group of people—and the question remains what do we do? How do I tackle these? Because you know that I could give a biographical series on a couple of these guys, David and Samuel. You could spend two Sundays on Gideon and a Sunday on Barrack, three or four Sundays on Samson, a Sunday on Jephthah, eight to ten Sundays on David, five or six Sundays on Samuel. And right now, I recognize that there are two groups of people forming in this congregation. There are those who in your mind are thinking, “Oh, please, please go that deeply into the Old Testament and take that number of Sundays on each of these characters.” And I'm not going to ask you, the five of you who are thinking that, to raise your hand because then nobody is going to want to have fellowship dinner with you. They're going to think you should be in your own group, sitting off in a corner doing something special. And then there is everybody else here who is thinking, “Oh, please, please don't do that. Just give us the amount of detail that is commensurate with the mention in Hebrews.” And you will be relieved to find out that I'm not going to do a biographical series on these. And instead, we are going to, since the author just gives us the list and since he gives us this list in sort of a rapid-fire way, we're going to cover this in a rapid-fire way, at least rapid-fire compared to other things that we do. So verse 32 is going to occupy us for today.
Now, here are the two questions that we want to answer. First, what can we learn about faith from this list as a whole? So we're going to tackle the list as a whole and ask what does this collection of people tell us about faith? Because the author—obviously he's not connecting them to individual accomplishments and things in their lives. He's just simply giving us the names. Now he's going to move on and give us a list of things that people did in faith. Some of them are connected to folks in this list, some of them are not, as you'll see in a moment. So his goal is not to get us to focus on the people with a specific example but simply to give us this list of men who have done great things by faith. So the first question we have to answer is what do we learn about faith from the list as it is? The second thing we have to answer is what do we learn about faith from each one of these examples? And we obviously have to tackle it in a very rapid fashion.
So let's tackle the first question: what can we learn about faith from the list? I want you to just notice a couple of general observations from verse 32. First, notice that the author breaks his chronological pattern. These are not in a strict chronological order. Now, I have argued that up to this point, through verse 31, all of the examples of faith have been in a chronological order, but the author breaks that. Now, there is a pattern here, but it's not chronological. In fact, if we were to take this chronologically, then Barak would be before Gideon. Look at verse 32. Barak would be before Gideon, Jephthah would be before Samson, and Samuel would be before David. That would be the chronological pattern. But you'll notice that though it is not chronological that there is a pattern there. Gideon is mentioned before Barak, Samson before Jephthah, and David before Samuel, and these kind of pair up in that fashion in that he sort of skips one and then goes to one who came before it and then skips one and then goes to one who came before him, then skips one and goes back to one who came before him. So there is a pattern there.
And there is also a chronological pattern if we categorize them by the offices which they held. So for instance, he does address judges first, men who served as judges or under judges. Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah were all judges. David is a king and Samuel was a prophet, and then he moves on to the prophets. So there is a flow in Old Testament Israel's history where they were ruled and delivered by judges and then by kings, and then the office of prophet kind of comes after the kings and is attached to that and really flourishes through the rest of the kingdom age of Old Testament Israel. So that is chronological.
But you'll notice that the notable ones in this list are listed first. So Gideon is more notable than Barack. He's more well known than Barack. Very few of you, I would bet, unless you took Miss Diane's class in Judges recently, very few of you would be able to tell me all the significant details from Barak's life. Likewise, Samson is more notable than Jephthah. David is more notable than Samuel or more well known. So there is a pattern here in that he sprinkles these lesser-known figures in with greater-known figures. In this list in verse 32—here's another observation. The author blazes through four hundred years of history. From Rahab to Samuel/David is four hundred years of history. So he's picking a group of people here that cover a long portion of Israel's history. Some of these are well known, others are more obscure. We might even argue that Samuel is one of the lesser-known figures, at least in terms of probably us. We're more familiar with David than we are with Samuel.
One thing to observe of all of them, a couple of things. Number one, that all of them were leaders. Do you notice that? All of these men were leaders. But that's not what's mentioned here. Do you also notice that? What's mentioned here is not that they were judges. In fact, the author does not say, “Oh, there were notable judges. These men were great because of the office that they held, like Samson, who was a judge, or David, who was a king, or Samuel, who was a prophet.” It's not the offices that they held that is notable or noteworthy with these men. They were all significant—kings, prophets, judges, national leaders in their day. Each one of these men's names would have been a household name. Everybody knew who Samson was. Everybody knew who David was. Everybody in Israel knew who Samuel was. Many of them could probably identify these men just from their face, just recognize them publicly. These were all well-known men, but they're not commended here for their office. They're not commended for their leadership ability, for their calling, their greatness before men, but for their faith. Take note of that. For their faith. What sets David apart is not the fact that he was a king. Thousands of people have been kings. Hundreds of people in David's time were kings of other nations. That's not what sets David apart. What sets David apart is his faith. There were lots of leaders of all kinds of tribes in and around Israel in the time of the judges, but what sets Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah apart is not that they were judges, but that they were men of faith.
What the world values is the office. What the world values is the position, the calling, the reputation, the status, that these men are elevated above other men. This is what the world values. God doesn't value that. God sees faith, and that is what is the difference maker for him. He sees the faith that He grants. He sees the faith that is at work in the life of that individual. He sees the acts of obedience and trust and doing what He has commanded, and that is what pleases God. That is what is acceptable to God. That is what He delights in, is the faith and not the office. You can be the greatest of men and have not faith, and you are nothing and you will perish everlastingly. But if you are the least of men and you have faith, you will be greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. That's God's economy. So these men are not elevated or marked because they were leaders but because they were men and women of faith. God Himself is no respecter of persons.
Finally, and we're going to return to this at the end, all of these men, notice it, are deeply flawed men. You notice that? I mean, you read through the list and you kind of—oh, how did he make the list? I mean, Samson? Of all the people to fill in there from the Old Testament? You could have put Elijah there. You could have put Elishah there. There are a lot of competitors for Samson's slot on the list, and you choose a man who is renowned for his flaws. Let's just put it that way. He is renowned for his flaws. So all of these are deeply flawed men. So now let's look at what we can learn about faith from the lives individually of these who are listed.
You'll notice that there is a list of accomplishments in verses 33–35. You'll notice that there is a list of tribulations and trials in verses 35–38. This list is kind of connected to the list of men in verse 32. Kind of. It's not entirely connected to the list in verse 32 because there's not a specific one-to-one correspondence between the people on the list and the things, the triumphs, that are mentioned on the list in verse 33. Some of these descriptions in verses 33–38 fit more than one person on the list. For instance, in verse 33, by faith they conquered kingdoms—who could that refer to? Look up at verse 32. It could refer to Gideon and Barak and Samson really, as a leader of Israel, and Jephthah and David and all of those guys. It could refer to all of them. Likewise with “performed acts of righteousness” (v. 33).
“Escaped the edge of the sword” (v. 34)—did David escape the edge of the sword? Multiple times. He escaped the point of a spear a couple of times, didn't he? How about “from weakness were made strong” (v. 34)? You think, well, that specifically refers to Samson, but David was weak. David was just a wee little guy when Samuel anointed him as king. He was weak, the smallest, the youngest, and seemingly the most insignificant in his father's household, and yet he was made strong. “Became mighty in war” (v. 34) would apply to many of those men. “Put foreign armies to flight” (v. 34) would apply to many of those men. And some of the people on the list actually would fulfill more than one of these triumphs in verses 33–35.
Some of the descriptions fit people not mentioned. Look at the end of verse 33: “Shut the mouths of lions.” Who does that refer to? Daniel. You were thinking of Daniel? Well, you'd be right, I think. But Daniel's not on the list, is he? So he's referring here to some triumph that was done in faith, and yet the person that we immediately think of, Daniel, is not on the list. There's a sense in which Samson shut the mouth of a lion too, right? And David shut the mouth of a lion? Well, how about “quenched the power of fire” (v. 34)? Who does that refer to? Who does the author have in mind there? Probably Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego if we're sticking with the Old Testament. And if he means Daniel by shutting the mouths of lions, then quenching fire probably refers to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the very same book.
You take a survey of the men listed and you’ll see that there is not a one-by-one correspondence for verses 33–35, and certainly not for verses 35–38. So we have a list of men and a list of accomplishments. And let me tell you, this is not what I'm going to do, is to try and draw the lines between those two columns of people. Instead, we want to look at the list as a whole.
Now let's look at the list individually. Let's look at these men, a survey of them. First up, Gideon. Judges 6–8 tells the story of Gideon. Gideon delivered Israel from the oppressive Midianites. He followed God's command. And by following God's command of choosing three hundred men out of thirty-two thousand men, Gideon ensured that God would get the glory for throwing the enemy into confusion. You remember the story of Gideon, that he selected those three hundred men on the basis of how they drank water, not exactly something that they do at West Point today in terms of calling out all of the bad seeds in an army to get your elite fighting force. But the point in Gideon's life was not choosing an elite fighting force but rather demonstrating that in obedience to God, when we walk with Him and obey Him, that God brings the victory, that God accomplishes great things. So Gideon, with a bunch of torches and pitchers, ended up throwing the enemy into confusion and routing an army of 135,000 men. So we could say that Gideon from weakness was made strong, that he conquered kingdoms, and that he put a foreign army to flight.
But is Gideon a man who was without any flaw, any moral flaw? No, he was not. Gideon's father had an altar to Baal. Now, we're not going to criticize Gideon for his father's idol worship, but Gideon was commanded by the Lord to tear down that altar and to destroy that altar. And Gideon did it, but he did it at night because he was afraid of men. He didn't want to be seen doing it. He didn't want it to get out that he was the one who did it. He wanted to obey God, but he feared man in his obedience to God. Not exactly the courageous man of faith that you might at first think, right?
Gideon asked for a sign of the fleece. Do you remember that? Let the fleece be wet and the ground around it be dry and then let the ground be dry and the fleece be wet. Whatever order that happened in. That, by the way, is not a method for determining God's will. You don't put out fleeces. You've heard that used. I don't even need to go into that with you. There’s a good book on that if you want to read up more on it. He asked for the sign of the fleece. But listen, in connection with Gideon, Gideon already knew full well what the will of God was because God had said to him you're to do this and to do this and to do this. And Gideon, in fear, said, well, if it's really to be that way, then how about You give me a supernatural sign? And God graciously, instead of consuming Gideon with fire, gave him the sign. And then Gideon said again, OK, let's switch this around. Just want to confirm this. Give me another supernatural sign. And God graciously gave him the sign rather than consuming Gideon with fire. That is not exactly faith.
After his conquering of the Midianites, Gideon made a golden ephod, which was a religious relic that became an idol in Israel and was obviously the cause of sin and the downfall and probably the damnation of many souls because Israel worshipped that golden ephod. And then Gideon had many wives and violated God's purpose for marriage. So he was a man of faith in terms of what he did in obedience to the Lord, and God used it. We might even say that for Gideon, his example of faith is just surrounded by other very problematic morals connected with Gideon in the rest of his life.
Next up is Barak. Barak was a military leader at the time when Deborah was a judge in Israel. By faith, Barak obeyed God's command to fight against a Canaanite army that was led by a man named Sisera, and he did so in obedience to that command, and God granted him a victory and granted the nation of Israel deliverance from the oppression of that nation through Barak. He conquered a kingdom, and he became mighty in war. Those would be the things that we could say of Barak.
But his failure was this. I think this was his failure at least. He refused to go into battle unless Deborah came with him. Now, some people think that that is actually an expression of his faith, that Barak realized that Deborah was God's spokesperson at that time, that she was the leader of the nation, and that he didn't want to go into battle without having God's person there with him. But I don't think so because when he says to her, “I will do this, but only if you go with me,” she says, “All right, but you're not going to get any glory from this. Rather somebody else is going to get it. A woman is going to receive glory from this.” Barak, because of his lack of faith and lack of obedience in that regard, was robbed of the blessing of receiving the glory for the battle that he would wage. So that, I think, was an expression of his weakness. He was God's leader for that war and he refused to go into it without that woman by his side. He was God's man to command that army and to go. And yet I think we see in Barak an example of cowardice and an unwillingness to lead as a man. In fact, I think that his fatal flaw, Barak's flaw, is that he was unwilling to lead as a man and that was probably indicative of all the other men in Israel, which is why Israel had Deborah for a judge.
When a church or a people have women for rulers—OK, a few weeks ago, I thought I was going to get in trouble for or clean out the church by saying something about baptism. Here we go. When a church or a nation or a group of people have women in leadership, it is always an indication that there are cowardly men who will not lead and they have abdicated that leadership and given it up to those who should not be leading in those environments. That, I think, was indicative of Barak’s problem.
Third up, Samson. Samson is one of the most quirky of all the Old Testament characters. Every time I read of Samson, I stand in awe of the grace of God and of the foolishness of men all at the very same time. By faith, Samson fought against the Philistines and used his supernatural strength for his military victories. He was a one-man war against the Philistines. In fact, one thing that's notable about all the other judges in Israel is that they led armies, they led rebellions, they led people in conquering other armies, but Samson was just one man who led a one-man assault upon an entire nation, the Philistines. He used his supernatural strength to do that. He didn't lead an army in the sense that the other people led armies, but he would just go out and do these impulsive things that ended up being judgments upon the Philistines.
At the end of his life, he is noted for his trust in God when, after being stripped of his strength, he prayed to God one last time to give him strength that he might slay the Philistines, as he was between the two pillars of that temple of Dagon. And God gave him the strength, and by faith he from weakness was made strong and he pushed the pillars apart and brought down that entire edifice and killed more Philistines in his death than he did in his life.
And yet Samson's moral failures were notorious. His craven desire for foreign women. He was a man driven by his appetites. He cared little for God's gifts to him. He thought little of God's call upon his life. He thought little of the gifts that God had given to him, and he basically squandered them. He seemed to enjoy the battle and the war and the revenge and the fight and not necessarily the pursuit of holiness and faith which should mark a leader of the nation of Israel. He relished the conflict and gave little regard to walking in righteousness and holiness. And his leadership, for Samson, was just a means to the gratification of his personal ends. He was a man driven by his lust, and so his power and his notoriety were used to that end, to satisfy his craven desire for women. Samson was a moral shipwreck, and yet he was marked by these episodes of extraordinary, resolute trust and faith. And yet he was a moral shipwreck. His moral failings and impulsive acts were notorious.
It was hot and cold with Samson. One day as an Israelite, you would wake up and say, yes, Samson, that's our man. That's our hero. He's fighting our battles, doing our thing, going against the Philistines. And the next morning as an Israelite, you wake up and you say, Samson, why did you tweet that? Can you just stop tweeting for a weekend? And it's hot and cold and it's back and forth. And at times you think, this is our man, he's our deliverer. And at other times you think this man is the judgment of God upon our nation.
Then there's Jephthah in Judges 11–12. We probably remember his failure more than his faith. Jephthah delivered Israel from Ammonite oppression. He was the son of a harlot, and therefore he was an outcast in his father's house. Notably, verse 31 mentions the faith of a harlot who was included in the hall of faith. Jephthah is the son of a harlot. His father hired a harlot and fathered a son by that woman. And so that was Jephthah. And he was an outcast even amongst his own people, amongst his own brothers and sisters. He ended up leading his own people in a battle against the Ammonites. And he faced down an enemy and trusted God for victory and led the nation. He became mighty then in war and put foreign armies to flight.
But here is his failure: his foolish vow. Remember coming home he said, “I will offer up as a burnt offering the first thing that comes out of my house to greet me.” Well, even if he had cats and dogs, that's a foolish vow. Don't you like your cats and dogs? What do you think is going to come out first to greet you? A rat? A rodent? An armadillo? What do you think is going to come out to greet you and be excited? But instead Jephthah's daughter is the first thing out, and Judges says that he did as he had vowed to the Lord. What a foolish vow.
David—1 Samuel. His faith—and we could give many examples of David's faith. And here's where we could go on a biographical series of David's life that would last us the rest of this month. He patiently waited for God to give him the kingdom. He was anointed as king at a young age, and yet he had to wait years for that promise to be fulfilled. And even when he had opportunity to kill his predecessor and take the throne, he didn't do it. Instead, he trusted in God to give him the kingdom in fulfillment of His word at just the right time. That was an act of faith. He served faithfully in Saul's court and led Saul's army. He killed Goliath by faith. He was a man of warfare by faith. He conquered Jerusalem and made it his home and his city and the seat of his throne by faith. He conquered all Israel's enemies and expanded the borders of Israel beyond anything that it had known prior to that. And by faith, he united those twelve tribes under really one leader and became a nation of nations and a rising nation and the most powerful nation in the area so that by the time that David died, Israel was, for the first time in its history in that land, living and dwelling in peace, unafraid of their enemies. And that's what he handed over to Solomon, by the way, whom he also appointed as king in accordance with the word of God as an act of faith. He made provisions for the construction of the temple by faith, knowing that his son Solomon would build that temple but that David would die before he even saw the foundations for that temple laid. That was all done by faith.
And yet his failures are almost as notorious as Samson's failures. David took multiple wives. He took a wife whom he had taken after he killed her husband and had her husband killed and after he had committed adultery with her while her husband was alive. And that was Bathsheba. He murdered Uriah to cover that up and covered up his own sin until Nathan confronted him with it. David mishandled the affairs of his household so severely that his own son rebelled against him and drove him out of Jerusalem, and David ran about as a vagabond for a period of time until his son died. And he was never reconciled to that son. And yet he's called a man after God's own heart.
And lastly, Samuel. By faith, Samuel served the Lord in the tabernacle. He transitioned the nation from the time of the judges to the times of the kings. He taught the people the Word of God at a time when the spiritual apathy of the nation was at an all-time high and the spiritual temperature of the nation was at an all-time low. He functioned as a priest, a prophet, a leader. He was a religious leader of a nation that really didn't want to follow any kind of leadership at all. He anointed David as king while Saul was still alive. By the way, that would have been an act of faith because that he did at risk to his own life. To anoint Saul's successor while Saul was still alive was an act of faith by Samuel, which he did in obedience to the word of God. And he did this while Saul was alive, knowing that David was not a descendant of Saul and there were descendants of Saul living who could have been anointed as king. And yet Samuel anointed David outside of the line of Saul as Saul's successor, and he did this at a time when Saul could have threatened his life. And he did this in obedience to God.
And yet Samuel had a failure, too, as well. And it's more difficult to identify Samuel's moral failings, his deep flaw, than it is with some of the other characters on the list. But Samuel ended up raising a couple of immoral sons, and he appointed them to leadership. They perverted justice and sinned against God grievously. And that actually led to the nation's demand for a king because the nation came to Samuel and said, “You're about to die, and your sons ain't all that. We want a king. We're looking at your sons, and they're not going to rule us and lead us like you've been ruling and leading us. So give us a king.” That was Samuel's failure.
And then the prophets in verse 7 would refer to, obviously, a whole class of people, beginning probably most predominantly with the era of the prophets, Elijah and Elisha, but it would include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Jonah, and others whose books and whose writings, whose preaching, is not preserved for us in Scripture. And truly, as the author would say, time would fail us to give adequate attention to all these men, wouldn't it? It would.
So what are we to conclude from this? There are a couple things I think that should be an encouragement to us. Number one, faith marked these men. They're not marked here for their sins—do you notice that?—but for their simple trust, for their obedience to the Lord, to the revealed will of God. The key was not in their office, that they were judges or kings or prophets. That's not what made them great in the eyes of God. It's not what should make them great in our eyes. It might be what makes them great in the eyes of the world, but in our eyes what makes them great is their faith. They're not noted here because of their natural abilities or their talents or their perfections. These were deeply flawed men, but God uses deeply flawed men. That should be an encouragement to us. Yes, they're deeply flawed, but God uses deeply flawed people.
Now, to tie into that first encouragement is the second one that is necessary. This is not an excuse for us to be deeply flawed. So you can't approach this list and say, well, I'm no Samson, and God used Samson, and I'm not as bad as he is. I'm certainly not as bad as David. I haven't killed the husband of somebody that I've had an affair with. And so I haven't sunk that deep. And therefore I can give an excuse to my flaws and my moral peccadillos and my failures and my apathy and my spiritual indolence. This list is not an excuse for that. We can't use this list to reject correction and to not pursue holiness and righteousness and to not mortify sin. The lesson is not that our sin doesn't matter, and the lesson is not that God just winks at our sin or doesn't care about our sin. That is not the point of Hebrews 11.
But the point of Hebrews 11 is that, yes, God can draw straight lines with crooked sticks, but you and I should not be content with being crooked sticks. Instead, we should mortify sin and recognize that every person listed in this list, listen, sacrificed great blessings by their sin. Imagine how much greater Samson could have been if he had been a holy man who cared as much about pursuing God as he did about pursuing women. Imagine how great Jephthah could have been in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the world if, instead of making foolish decisions, he had instead vowed things before God that were in accordance with God's Word. Imagine how great a man David could have been if he could have restrained his lusts and disciplined himself and his household and ruled his kingdom even better than he did.
So the point of this chapter in Hebrews and the point of this list is not that you and I can simply flippantly excuse our sin and our failings and say, well, yeah, God uses deeply flawed people and I'm a deeply flawed person, therefore God loves me just as I am. No. Somebody confronts you about your anger, your hostility, your sinfulness, your lust, the use of your time, the use of your spiritual gifts—a godly man will accept that. You see, the reason that David was called a man after God's own heart is not because he sinned in all of those ways but because David grieved over his sins. He deeply grieved his moral flaws. He deeply grieved the sin that was in his heart and prayed that God would purge him and cleanse him from that sin. It's not that David never sinned. And he's called a man after God's own heart because he saw his sin for what it was and he hated it. And he hated that part of him that was sinful, and he wanted to be free from it. That is why David is called a man after God's own heart. Don't think that you can be a man or a woman after God's own heart if you simply excuse your sin and certainly if you use this list as an excuse to do so.
And third, I want you to notice that each of these people was God's person for that time. Each of these people was God's person for that time. As we've gone through the list, we've gone through the history from creation all the way up almost to the end of the prophetic and kingly era in the nation of Israel. And we could go on. By including prophets, you come all the way up to Malachi. That's the end of the Old Testament era. God appoints each person to live in the era and in the area that He desires. So David was for then and not for now, and you are for now and not for then. Catch that. So you are God's person of faith for this day. God Himself ordains our days and our times and our seasons. He ordains our place, not only chronologically but also geographically in His kingdom and in human history. He sees that each man is fit for the time in which He lives.
And it is not of wisdom that we say, “Oh, that I wish that I lived amongst the time of David,” or, “Oh, that I wish I lived in former days.” In fact, Scripture says when you say, “Why were the former days better than these days?”—it is not from wisdom that you say this, Solomon says. For you neglect to realize that the former days were just like these days, except you've forgotten the pain and suffering of the former days. And sure, all you know is the pain and suffering and the affliction and the uncertainty of these times, but all times in human history have been uncertain. And David was a man appointed by God in faith to be used by God in faith in his day. And you and your children are appointed for this day and for this hour to be God's men and women for these times in which we live. And you can say, “We live in some very uncertain times, some very turbulent times. I really wish I didn't live now.” It's not from wisdom that you say such a thing. God has appointed you to live right now. This is the age in which He wants you and I to be men and women of faith. And then we, when we live in faith and obey Him, become the enduring legacy of faith. It is God's to ordain, it is ours to obey.
And by grace, our sins and our deep flaws are not counted against us. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute his iniquities but instead imputes righteousness. And by faith we will live and we will triumph and we will suffer and we will endure and we will persevere to the saving of the soul just as the men and women listed in Hebrews 11.