Hebrews 11: 17 - 40
The Original Hall of Fame
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. 20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. 21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. 22 By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. 23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. 24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. 27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. 29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. 31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. 32 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: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 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. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 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— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
Have you ever been to Cooperstown NY? If you haven’t I would encourage to go especially if you have any children. It is a good experience. In a way you get to reminisce over times when our Lord gave times of peace. As an old song would go, ‘Roll out those lazy crazy days of summer…”
Since the baseball hall of fame is so popular many others have joined the bandwagon. Here are a few that created their own hall of fame;
Aviation and space
Music
Show business and theater
Sports
All sports
College sports
American football
Association football
Baseball and softball
Basketball
Horse racing
Ice hockey
Motorsports
Professional wrestling
Rugby league
Within each category there are double digit specialized hall of fames. Now aren’t you glad to receive this useless information?
I give you this listing to point out that there was an authorized Hall of Fame by Almighty God. Our Precious Holy Spirit gives us His list of people that greatly were faithful to Him and made a great impact for the kingdom of Heaven. Today we are going to continue the list that we began in our last study.
11.17-19 ‘By faith Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly taken on himself the promises was offering up his only begotten son, even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall your seed be called, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead. From whence he did also in a figure receive him back.’
An even greater example of faith was when Abraham was called on to offer up his ‘only son’, that is the only son born of his true wife, in whom all the promises were centered (Genesis 22). Here was a test indeed. Isaac was a ‘miracle baby’, born when all hope had been given up, and through him God had promised the fulfillment of all His promises. And now he who had taken on himself the promises was being called on to offer up the one who was the future hope as a burnt offering, as a sacrifice. But his faith in God was such that he did not question it. He went obediently about the dreadful task set for him and was about to offer him, even having the sacrificial knife in his hand ready to slay him, when God stayed his hand, and he then offered up a ram in his place. In this way was Isaac was ‘offered up’.
Abraham obedience was because He knew how good and perfect Almighty God Is. On the one hand God called him to slay his son. On the other God had promised that through this son his future descendants would be born (Genesis 21.12). Thus clearly God would raise him up again. ‘He accounted that God was able to raise him even from the dead.’ And indeed that was, in all but fact, what God did. It was as though Abraham received his son back from the dead. He did what he did because he had faith in a resurrecting God and in His promises.
So however great the trials of all which reader the book of Hebrews might be, those trials could not even begin to approach that of Abraham in this example, and his success was on the basis of fully believing the promises.
11.20 ‘By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come.’
Similarly by faith Isaac proclaimed the future hopes of his sons in his blessings. His confidence in God and what He had revealed was such that he pronounced their futures hopes because God had promised them (Genesis 27.27-29, 39-40), even to the point of finally recognizing that God’s greater blessing would come through the younger.
11.21 ‘By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped on the top of his staff.’
In the same way did Jacob in his old age, when he was no longer able to physically support himself, bless the two sons of Joseph and proclaimed their futures as revealed by God, putting Ephraim in the place of the firstborn (Genesis 48.1-20). This was something he insisted on because of the revelation he had received from God. He was confident in the promises of God and therefore in their futures. The stress is on God’s providence. It is He Who determines ‘future history’ for us all.
In counseling I like to focus the thinking of people. Through psychotherapy people focus on all the hurts that they go through. My question is how anyone can focus on the past. You cannot change anything you did or was done to you. The Lord says for us to live one day at a time – today. We have to such out all the good things that we can in this cursed world. I think the biggest problem that we all have is in totally trusting our Precious Holy God. This is what the book of Hebrews is trying to drive home to us. Our Holy Master told us that He would never leave us nor forsake us. He also told us that the good work that He began in each of us, He will complete. Let go and let God is a good thing to do.
11.22 ‘By faith Joseph, when his end was near, mentioned the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones.’
Many examples from the life of Joseph could have been chosen as examples of faith but he centered on Joseph’s confidence about the future of God’s people, his faith in the promises of God in connection with the Promised Land. This was because it not only demonstrated his trust in God but also that he believed the promises about the future and looked for ‘the country’ that his fathers had also sought (verse 14). In all the examples in this section the stress has been on God’s fulfillment of His promises, what He would accomplish in the far future, in which they firmly believed. Each held firmly to the future hope. They were in fact men looking forward to the Messianic hope.
After a gap in time arose the one who would begin to solidify the promises. He would establish the nation of Israel and return them to their Promised Land. His name was Moses, and the life of Moses revealed his steadfast faith in a variety of ways.
11.23 ‘By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.’
First was revealed the faith of his parents. He was born from parents who had great faith. They saw in him someone for whom God had a purpose, ‘a goodly child’, one whose very appearance promised great things in the future, and so they hid him for three months before finally leaving him prayerfully by the river to be found by the Egyptian princess. In all this they defied the kings’ commandment, being unafraid because of their faith. There was great danger for them but their faith overcame their fears because they believed that God was in it. In their faith they looked forward to the future hope.
11.24-26 ‘By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproach of the anointed one (Christ) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked to the recompense of reward.’
The same faith was found in Moses. Once he had grown up he had to choose between the privilege and glory of being Pharaoh’s daughter’s son, with all the glorious future that held for him together with all the pleasures that came with it, the pleasures resulting from sin (the sin being that of disloyalty to God), or being faithful to God and to His people, God’s anointed ones (Psalm 105.15). He had to choose between what offered temporary temporal benefit, and what offered eternal reward. This choice faces all men and women.
It was Moses’ faith in the promises concerning God’s people, and his faith in God’s promise of a future Great King (Genesis 49.10), (what we and the writer would call Messianic promises), that made him opt to choose leadership of the people of God rather than princely authority in Egypt. He did it because his faith was in the living God of Israel and His promises. So, like the Messiah would after him, he chose to bear reproach for God’s people as being God’s ‘anointed one’ (as David would be later), prefiguring what Messiah Himself too would suffer. He looked for and believed for the fulfillment of the promises through his suffering, and to the reward that would be his when his people were safely established in God’s inheritance, which would be a recompense for all that he had given up. For if God’s people ceased so would the ‘Messianic’ promise of Genesis 49.10. That is why he could be said to bear the reproach of the Messiah (compare 1 Peter 1.10-11).
In the same way are the readers of this letter, having seen the actual fulfillment of the Messianic hope, to welcome the reproach of Christ rather than the commendation of the world, for it leads to a full recompense of reward.
11.27 ‘By faith he left behind/set to one side Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.’
Whereas previously the emphasis has been on the choice he had to make, the emphasis here is on the outstanding courage which resulted from his faith.
Our Precious Holy Spirit points out Moses’ behavior and attitude towards Egypt. He had the courage (by faith) to turn his back on Egypt’s jurisdiction, setting it to one side, and to choose God’s way, and thus face up to Pharaoh, the great and mighty king of Egypt in God’s name. In the course of it he rejected the privilege of Egyptian princedom, despite the anger that that would entail and the future conflict it would necessarily incur, so as to follow the invisible God. It is the natural follow up to refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
The point is that Moses had to choose between God and Pharaoh, between the very visible lord of Egypt with all his visible splendor and glory, and the invisible God of Israel, and was unafraid. And the reason that he was not afraid of the wrath of the king of Egypt, the most powerful man in his world, was because his eyes were fixed on the invisible God, and on all that He had promised, and through faith he therefore rather feared Him, and endured for His sake. So should all who truly believe be ready to endure for what they know to be true through His word.
The thought of ‘seeing Him Who is invisible’ was of especial importance in as far as the people to whom he was writing were concerned, for they were in danger of turning from the One Who is now in Heaven, far superior but invisible, to the very visible things on earth, the temple, the priesthood and the sacrifices, all soon to disappear, although they did not know it.
11.28 ‘By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them.’
By faith he obeyed God and ‘kept the Passover’, calling on the people in the face of the promises of God to observe the Passover in their houses, clothed ready to leave for the land of promise, and by faith he ordered them to sprinkle the blood on their doorposts and lintels, an open testimony to their faith in what God would do. He knew that the Destroying angel was coming to slay all the firstborn, and this was so that ‘the Destroyer of the firstborn’ might not touch them (1 Corinthians 10.10). He had faith to believe that they would be spared from the Destroying angel through the shed blood. [Exodus 12.1-30].
So should all readers also reveal their faith in God’s Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5.7), the Messiah, and in His shed blood (9.14), and in its sprinkling (12.24), and the security that it offered in the face of all opposition.
11.29 ‘By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians attempting to do were swallowed up.’
Please note the change from ‘he’ to ‘they’, made more emphatic by the fact that he could have previously said ‘they kept the Passover’ rather than ‘he kept the Passover’, for the Passover revealed their faith as well as his. This thus represents a specific and deliberate change in emphasis. Here all the people are seen as being drawn in and involved. Moses’ part was done. Attention is now drawn to the faith of the people as a people. This ‘faith of the people’ did not mean that all truly believed. It is the faith of the whole seen as one. ‘Israel’ as a whole had faith, even though some within Israel did not.
Concentration is now on the faith of the many and it is contrasted with the Egyptians. Israel believed. Egypt (the representative of the world in its opposition to God) did not. Through the faith of Moses the Red Sea opened up before Israel, and through their combined faith they passed through it on dry land, while the Egyptians who lacked true faith were all swallowed up and drowned (Exodus 14.15-31). We are to see here the faith of Moses absorbed into the resulting faith of the people in what God was doing. On being tested they did not finally return to Egypt, even though many did waver, because they held their trust in the promises of God. Their resultant increased faith is stressed in Exodus 14.31.
For not all who perished in the wilderness were unbelievers. Many were true believers, even though they were yet weak and disobedient. Indeed this is confirmed by the fact that neither Aaron nor Moses reached the Promised Land. Yet they were still people of faith. So it turned out that many also were disobedient believers who had to face the consequences of their disobedience and yet were not excluded from God’s final mercy.
11.30 ‘By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been encompassed about for seven days.’
The same faith was revealed at the end of the journey by a new generation, led by a new leader Joshua, when they trusted God’s promises and daily walked round the walls of Jericho for seven days in silence, following it with a great shout of victory. What a faith was that! And the result was that the walls of Jericho fell down. So also will all difficulties finally collapse for those who steadfastly believe God.
It is significant that no mention has been made of the wilderness journey, for that was the writer’s prime example of unbelief (3.7-19). But having commented on the faith of many of the wilderness generation at the Red Sea, he now stresses the faith of the new generation who had not been disobedient. As a group they had faith, even if there were some in the group that did not.
11.31 ‘By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with those who were disobedient, having received the spies with peace.’
We learn that there was another who had the same faith as Israel that God would deliver Jericho into the hands of Israel, a Gentile who became one with Israel (Joshua 6.25), Rahab the prostitute inn-owner. She listened to what she was told of the promises of God, and by faith received the spies as friends, and refused to join in with the disobedience of her fellows, thus escaping destruction. Both Israel and this God-fearing Gentile believed God at this same time. And through her faith her life was changed. She, and probably her whole family, became one with the people of God because she believed His promises - ‘Received the spies with peace.’ That is as a welcome friend and not an enemy. Our God of Mercy and Grace would use this Rahab through whom Boaz the ancestor of David was born and thereby she also became the ancestress of Christ.
An adulterous innkeeper who was part of the larger idolatrous and unbelieving mass of people, who by faith turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, would be seen as a perfect example of those Gentiles who did exactly the same. Her turning to God and coming within the covenant was a sign of God’s welcome for all Gentiles who would seek Him truly.
11.32-34 ‘And what shall I more say? For the time will fail me if I tell concerning Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David also and Samuel and of the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens.’
Their accomplishments are grouped in threes; three positive virtues in forwarding God’s purposes, three describing escaping through tribulation, which is thus seen as a necessary part of those purposes, and the final three depicting God’s strengthening of them to victory as they grew in potential. It is saying that God’s purposes go forwards, this necessitates tribulation, but in the end the weak are made strong and are victorious.
This first trilogy describes the growth of God’s purposes. First the establishment of God’s kingdom by subduing the enemy ( 2 Samuel 7.9; 8.11-12), then establishing justice in that kingdom (e.g. 2 Samuel 8.15), and finally obtaining thereby many of the promises of God (e.g. Joshua 23.14; 1 Kings 4.21 compare Exodus 23.31; Joshua 1.4).
This second trilogy emphasizes the strength revealed by individuals when facing persecution and tribulation. This especially occurred during the period of Israel’s weakness.
This third trilogy might be seen as indicating growth in potential; made strong from weakness, resulting in waxing mighty in war, resulting in putting the enemy to flight. Gideon, Barak, Samson, David and Samuel may have been especially in mind, but the general idea applies to all. Gideon and Barak felt so weak that they sought to avoid their calling, and led comparatively weak armies, compared with their foes, to victory; Samson was a strange enigma, standing alone but finally triumphing; David and Samuel first came to notice as young men, but grew to be victorious leaders. But all were mighty examples of faith in God’s promises and of God’s ability to strengthen His people until they finally triumphed. They all triumphed by faith over enemies who were outwardly far stronger than themselves.
11.35 ‘Women received their dead by a resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.’
Women received their dead back because they believed God could and would do what He had promised (1 Kings 17.17-24; 2 Kings 4.17-37). Other believers accepted death through torture. Whether in life or death their faith was in God and His promises.
11.36-38 ‘And others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tested, they were slain with the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth.’
The whole of the faithful in past history are summed up here. Every conceivable insult was poured on them, every conceivable violence was shown to them, they regularly endured the loss of all their possessions and of their homes, and had to survive in hiding, but they held firm in faith because they believed the promises of God.
The statement ‘Of whom the world was not worthy’ summarizes his view of these gallant men and women of faith. They were citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3.20) and the world was not worthy of such people as they revealed themselves to be, as men and women of faith. In these seven words is summed up God’s verdict on these people of faith. He knows their names. They are in His ‘Hall of Fame’.
11.39-40 ‘And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided (literally ‘foreseen’) some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.’
This summary brings together what has been the emphasis of the chapter. It describes men and women of faith, and it emphasizes that they were looking for the fulfillment of the promises, for it was those on which their faith was centered. For it was not faith in just a general sense that they revealed, it was faith in the fact that God is, and that His promises are totally reliable.
Yet none of these heroes of faith, although they had witness borne to them through their faith (for God Himself bore witness to them and they were entered in the records of God’s people by the Holy Spirit), received the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah. They had believed, and they had persevered against all odds on the basis of a future expectation, confident that God would not fail in His promise. Yet they had not received the very best. They did die in hope, for they are to be made perfect along with us. But this great privilege of entering into the promise had been reserved for the time when the writer was writing, and for those to whom he was writing, and for their fellow-Christians, and for us who follow on who enjoy the ‘better thing’ which God has foreseen and provided for us. In the words of Lord and Savior Jesus, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see the things that you see, for I say to you that many prophets and kings desired to see the things that you see, and saw them not, and to hear the things which you hear, and heard them not’ (Luke 10.23-24). How responsive they and we should therefore be. Ready, if necessary, to face up to the persecution and opposition of the world.
