In his sermon, Paul Carrington explores the biblical theology of faith, drawing primarily from Hebrews chapters 11 and 12. He begins by defining faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, emphasizing that faith is not theoretical but has substance and evidence. Carrington illustrates how faith enabled biblical figures like the elders, Joshua, and Rahab to overcome seemingly impossible challenges. He highlights that faith not only empowers believers to do what they otherwise could not but also to endure hardships they would not withstand alone. The sermon addresses the persecution faced by early Christians and contrasts it with today's relative peace, underscoring the importance of unwavering faith in troubled times. Carrington urges believers to cast aside the weights and sins that hinder their spiritual race, drawing strength from the cloud of witnesses who have gone before them. Ultimately, he encourages looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, as the ultimate example of endurance for the joy set before him. The sermon concludes with a call to action for both believers and non-believers to embrace faith and live with an eternal perspective.

We're going to start in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 and 2 and then we'll jump down to verses 30 and carry on into 12 verse 2. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace.

And what more shall I say, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Sampson, and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel, and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions and 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, women received their dead raised to life again, others were tortured not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 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, of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God, having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Let's pray. Lord we we come to you to this morning and we we thank you for your your goodness Lord we seek to be moved today by your word Lord we seek to know you better and we ask you Lord to increase our faith as the disciples prayed may you may you move upon each and every one of our hearts today father We need you and we ask you to please come and meet with us now. In that great name, the only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved, we pray in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Will please be seated. What a great privilege it is for us to be here and to even have this opportunity to preach to you here this morning. Most Sundays we gather at about 5 p.m. In the afternoon and through this tiny little eye that's set up right in front of me, we join you and we pray with you, we sing with you, we listen to the preached Word together with you and it's been such an honor to stay in touch in that way and to really be up to speed in terms of everything that the Lord is teaching you and teaching us as well through His Word and walking through revelation and understanding a Word sent to people that were in great challenge in many ways.

They were being attacked and being assaulted on many different sides. And in the same way this morning, we're going to be looking at Hebrews 11. But the book of Hebrews, it was written to people in much the same position as you find those saints in those seven churches of Asia Minor. They were facing grave challenges, and many of them, unfortunately, they were being tempted to go back to ritualistic Judaism. In the face of intense persecution, they had begun suffering for Christ just for simply naming the name of Christ.

And then over the course of time, that great nemesis that attacks and assaults all believers at times, that great nemesis unbelief began to kind of creep in to their hearts. Weariness began to take over and discouragement. And to remedy this and to combat this, the writer of Hebrews writes what he calls in chapter 13 verse 22 a word of exhortation, a word that's meant to stir them up, a word that's meant to encourage them to shake them from this downward decline and say, wake up and see the bigger picture of what God has done in Christ. And so that's what we're going to be doing today. We don't know too much about these people.

We don't know where they live. But I think it's probably safe to say that it was not Mayberry. On every side, they're assailed. And the civil government, we just quoted, or we just recited that, they had their property confiscated simply because of naming the name of Christ. Perhaps they weren't able to partake in the guilds and so on.

And from the religious side they were hated. They had left Judaism and now those Jews, much like the synagogue of Satan in Revelation 2 & 3, were doing their utmost to stomp out Christianity. And of course, as anyone knows, when you become a Christian, even your own family and your friends can come against you and begin to attack you and ostracize you. And so here was difficulty sweeping over these saints in waves one after the other simply because of their profession of Jesus Christ What I like about this letter is that these were anonymous saints. We don't we don't know anything about it, but guess what the vast majority of saints all down through the ages were anonymous saints known to God but they were they were subject to worry they were subject to doubt They saw the storm clouds that were gathering out there on the horizon and no different than you and I at times, at least for those that have been in the battle, you might have asked yourself at different seasons of your life, is it worth it?

Is there really any purpose to this suffering that I'm going through? You might even go so far as to ask that question, has God abandoned me? He seems so distant, everything seems so far. To feel a bit of despair, You know, even the great John the Baptist, as he was sitting there languishing in Herod's prison, he sent messengers to Christ. There he is, day after day, maybe week after week, maybe month after month.

And doubts began perhaps to creep in and he sent these two men and they asked Christ, are you the one or should we look for another? And so God's antidote for saints in times like these is Hebrews, the Book of Hebrews, and specifically Hebrews chapter 11 where we're going to be spending our time. And so the idea I want you to be asking yourself, well what do these what do these verses have to say to me? When the skies are blue and the seas are calm, as many of us might be experiencing right now, you know, we are right now in this country living through a prolonged season of peace. Isn't that true?

That no other church age has ever known. And I was reading William Perkins' commentary, actually on Hebrews chapter 11, and he was writing in the late 1600s, and he had this to say to the saints. He says, to apply this to ourselves, Hebrews chapter 11, God has planted His church among us in this land and for many years together has blessed us with prosperity and peace. And during this time we have had great freedom and liberty in God's holy ministry for the Word, prayer and sacraments. But we must know that the state of God's church for peace and trouble is interchangeable as day and night for light and darkness.

Wherefore we must be warned to look unto ourselves, for our state of peace must not always last. These golden days will have an end and troubles and afflictions will undoubtedly come." And I don't think it's any exaggeration for all of us here today to argue that we're perhaps living in the most revolutionary times, perhaps in human history. And whether personally or nationally, all believers must arm themselves with what we're going to be going through in Hebrews chapter 11. And so the pastor and the writer of Hebrews, he meets us here at the crossroads. It's a letter to saints in increasingly troubled times.

That's what this letter is all about. And so the question is, well, how do anonymous, simple, human, as opposed to superhuman, believers endure in the face of difficulty and otherwise overcome impossible odds? How do you do all of this? And so as the heat begins to increase and turn up, Hebrews has something to say to each one of us, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. And so God, what he wants to do is he wants us, each one of us, to be undeterred on our journey as we make our way through our pilgrimage.

This marathon really is what it is. And to look for a city whose builder and maker is God that actually has foundations. And so you have an outline in front of you and we're gonna be looking at Hebrews chapter 11 verses 1 & 2 and and what I want us to see here is what's so critical is that the pastor here is not just simply picking random stories from biblical history, but he's going through chronologically, starting with Abel and then going on to Enoch and then he goes on from there all the way through to Moses. And we're going to pick up in verse 30 with Joshua. And what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be taking a look back in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 30 to 40.

And what I want you to see is this, is that there's two key points that what faith does is it enables you to do what you would never be otherwise able to do on the one side. But faith also enables you to endure what you would never be able to do otherwise without God. And then we're gonna get into Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1, and we're gonna take a look around us, and then end in chapter 12, verse 2, with a look forward to Christ. And so if you're gonna have strength, true, true strength to live in this life, it's gonna have to come from hope in the next life. And so the entire command, it's actually a command to persevere, is gonna actually stem from this.

And so in chapter 11 verse 1, what happens is this, is that the author of Hebrews, he really wants to get us to understand what faith is. He wants to really nail down what faith is. It's as though he's saying, if you're going to understand everything I'm about to say in the following verses, in the next two chapters, you really need to grasp this verse. And so he starts off in chapter 11 verse 1, He says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good testimony. And so the first thing he wants to drill down and nail down and have everybody on the same page with is one simple concept, that faith is not theoretical.

It actually has substance. It's actually alive. Faith, what it does is it credits what God has actually promised, our covenant-keeping God. It credits Him as being true. And then what happens?

It acts on the basis of that. This is the whole of faith. That's really the simple explanation of faith. It could be regarded as the foundation on which hope is built. In fact, without faith, do you know that you can't have hope?

Do you know that you can't have joy? Do you know that you can't have delight without this foundation of faith. That's really what he's driving at here. And the second thing he wants them to see is this, is that faith is evidence. It produces in the ones who have it a conviction of mind.

What a rarity in our day today. There's actually truth. There's something true that you can stand on. It's the opposite of what he just said in the last verse of chapter 10, we are not of those who draw back. Faith is the thing that propels you forward because of who you're actually believing in, even in the face of increasing difficulty.

And so biblical faith, it looks outside of self and it puts all of its confidence and rests all of its confidence in another, in the one who's the promiser. And so one of the things you want to come away with today is this, don't put your faith in your faith, but put your faith in the living God, the one who keeps covenant, the one who is true, the one who's sure. And so having done this, the writer says, now that I've mentioned substance and evidence, what I want to do is give you a list. And he does exhibit A to Z, starting with Abel, and as I said Enoch, and he goes down the line one after the other after the other and what is he doing he's he's trying to demonstrate to you and to me what does faith look like what is faith and then he brings these truckload after truckload of examples delivered to these believers so that they can actually see that in every season, in every age, this is what faith does when it's put into action. And so we're gonna look at that.

What does faith enable believers to do that they otherwise could not have done by themselves. Well, we started in verse 30 today, and we've just finished, you know, if you read the whole thing, Moses had come and gone. We've exited from the Pentateuch, and now we're in the book of Joshua. And he's giving them this biblical theology of faith and he takes us right outside the walls of Canaan where we find ourselves looking upwards to the most strongly defended city of Canaan. And it says this, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.

There's Joshua. You could imagine him there and he's looking up at these walls and he hears from the Lord And you know what he hears from the Lord? And the Lord, this is from Joshua 6, and the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into your hand. He's calling him to see. He's looking up at walls, but he's saying, see, I have given Jericho in to your hands.

He's calling him to see what can't be seen with the human eye. And that word is just simply, look, behold. Grasp it and hold it as though it's already been done. And then he then tells him what to do. Against this formidable city, the Lord, he commands the strangest military strategy that's ever been implemented in history, entirely contrary to all human wisdom.

But we can, we look at this, there's no siege, you know, and those days oftentimes what they would do is they would mine under the walls and somehow try to come up in the city or weaken the ramparts and do all of these different things. None of that takes place. There's no catapults or anything like that. And I want to ask you, just put yourself there for a minute. Seven days go around Jericho.

What would you be thinking on the third day As you sit around the campfire with your fellow Jews. What about on the fourth day? What's what's going through your mind? You know we read these things, but we don't put ourselves there Maybe as often as we could But what's what What was the design here? It was very, very simple.

The Lord promised, they believed, and on the basis of that, they acted by faith. By faith. That's what we're getting at today. So why is this account here? Well, if you consider the Hebrew Christians, they're taken up in a cause on the basis, at least from a human perspective, that was more hopeless than looking up at the walls of Jericho.

On the one side, they have these massive walls of the Roman Empire and on the other side they've got this persecution coming after them from their own countrymen as it were, the Jews. And they're being crushed and it seems like everything is absolutely hopeless. What weapons do they have against such forces as these? Well, they had faith, or they were encouraged to at least have faith, and it's no different for us today. If you have eyes to see and understand, we're actually in a spiritual war going on right now all around us.

Some of us might might have been unaware of that or at least maybe to the degree that the war is actually being waged around us and the walls are higher than those of Jericho. They're thicker than those of Jericho. And so what are we to do? How are we supposed to live in this world in such a situation as this? Well, the whole counsel is to believe and then to persevere in faith.

What do you do? You keep praying, godly living, raising your children, preaching the gospel, going towards, not away from, the storm clouds that are coming on the horizon. In verse 31, we see this, by faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. We're still in Jericho. And here we meet a resident of the very city.

And what we meet with here is an instance of saving faith right here before us. And what a resident this is. Could you find a more unlikely candidate for Hebrews 11 than Rahab. You know, some commentators, you know, he reads some commentators and they seek to tidy up Rahab, the harlot, and they say, well, you know, that word harlot could actually mean innkeeper or hostess, as though they're afraid that God can't save from the deepest dregs, that he can't pull up. Well, that's not the case at all, but how is it that such a woman comes to be commended by the Holy Spirit here in chapter 11.

You know, one of the things that happens is this. Rahab, the harlot, do you notice that? Almost everywhere she's mentioned in Scripture, she never escapes her title, even after she's been saved. It's as though the Lord is trying to show that there's no constraining power that can hold him back when he decides to do something. Here's a woman who's morally abandoned.

What Isaiah would say, her sins are like crimson and like scarlet. What can you do with such a woman? But God. You see that? But God.

And so by faith, here this woman is, and she's washed her robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. She had come out of great tribulation, if you want to say that. And literally what's happening is this, is that she had exchanged her citizenship, she was a resident and a citizen of the city of destruction. Literally before us here in Jericho. But what I love is this in such vivid colors.

You see the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's a word to every Christian in every age, you and I today, and you see it exemplified here. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. And this woman at one time you could have called her graceless much like Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress before he became Christian. What I love about this account in this woman is you flip over in your Bibles and you go to the very first page of the New Testament. And you open it up, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and you go down a couple of verses.

Salman begot Boaz by Rahab. Not only was she saved, but she's literally grafted into the actual lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course we know the story, don't we? That this woman in effect became the great-grandmother of King David. And not only that, but she became the great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, somewhere down the line, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How does, how does this happen? It's only by the grace of God. Like Moses, by faith, she cast in her lot with the people of God, and she was saved. And so her whole life shows something beautiful, that with God there is no one that is beyond the bounds of hopelessness, no matter how depraved they can be saved. I love what Spurgeon says, he says this, often the worst in the devil's army when they are converted make the truest soldiers for Jesus Christ.

And so I have a question for you. Is there anyone today here still inhabiting Jericho? There must be in a crowd this size someone who's still a citizen and a resident of the city of destruction. Well, I want to say to you that Rahab is is held up to you today to show you the extent to which grace will come down and save. There's no excuse.

Turn to the Lord. Will you listen to the trumpet blast outside the walls, much like in the days of Joshua, and come out from Jericho? Or will you remain in Jericho and perish?" When we go on from there and we see in verse 32 this amazing account, I love this, 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." You know, Hebrews could have easily have been the longest book of the New Testament. There's no lack of examples of those who trusted God, who leaned on God, who found their all in God and persevered through difficulty.

The problem is not a matter of example, but it's a matter of time and of ink and of papyrus. See, there's so much all around us that God has been doing. It's as if to say, if you want more, I have it, but surely you're gonna have to get my point from the selection I'm putting before you. That's kind of what he's saying here. And to further illustrate the persevering nature of faith, what does the writer do, the pastor do?

He takes us to the deepest, darkest part of biblical history, the time of the judges, where you see these cycles of prosperity and then deep apostasy and then prosperity and then apostasy up and down, up and down. And even the judges themselves that were sent to deliver the people were men that were full of holes. You might be shocked, I was shocked at some of the names that are listed here for us. Gideon, he was a judge at the time when the worship of Baal prevailed in Israel. But he came weak as he was and the Lord used him to deliver the people.

Look what the Bible says about Jephthah. It says he was a mighty man of valor, but the son of a harlot. And then you go to Samson, his whole life seems to scream at us, go the other way, don't follow me, examine my life and then do the opposite. That's pretty much a summation. But remember, at the end of his life, what happened, the defeated Samson.

There he was being mocked, laughed at, His eyes had literally been plucked out of his head. But he wrought a great victory over the Philistines. And it says, so the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. See, the Bible, it never whitewashes, does it? It never whitewashes the sins of these people.

Neither does it sanction them but it's always pointing toward the one that's going to come. And it goes on and says also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 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. Women received their dead, raised to life again. And here we've got these 10 fruits of faith outlined in action laid out before us. Miraculous deliverance after miraculous deliverance.

You look at a man like David. There he was. He was raised up from the sheepfold. He had just been going about his daily life living. When Samuel comes, he's overlooked because how could God use someone like David?

And of course the Lord rebukes Samuel for looking as though man looks. And he says, God doesn't look on the outward like you do, but he looks at the inward. And over the course of time, David, who at one point had slain a lion, he had slain a bear, those were his training grounds. It came to the point where he went to the plains and visited his brother and came to the knowledge of the fact that this giant was coming out daily over the course of a month and mocking the people of God. And David, he looked at the situation and he basically trusted God by faith.

It says this, then all this assembly shall know, quoting from David, that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands. You see, by faith, he took down the mighty Goliath with that sling and with the stone. He cut off the mighty warrior's head and wrought the victory for all of Israel. These are common stories, stories that we've read over and over. The youngest child among us is familiar with these things.

It goes on to say this, Samuel and the prophets. What a company is compressed just into those words, prophets. You know, There's so much that took place in the prophets. You could look at Nathan. You could look at Elijah or Elisha or Jeremiah or Daniel.

There's so much that went on. When you consider the man Isaiah, who was the prophet during the days of Hezekiah, and we know that story. Of there were the people of God, and the waters, literally it says in the book of Chronicles, had come up to the neck because the Assyrian hordes were just sweeping through the entire region, destroying every city in their path, destroying every soul in their path. Well the Lord was with these people and even though the waters came up to the neck, As we see the Lord shall help us. Just at the break of dawn he comes and he delivers the people.

185 Assyrians snuffed out in the night without an arrow flying through the sky, without anything else. The Lord does it. Why? Because it says that the zeal of the house of the Lord of hosts will perform it. The Lord is mighty on behalf of his people.

And you look at the list of these exploits and they're all enabled by one common denominator, by faith. By faith. And so, well, what is the pastor aiming at here? I want to just call your attention to one phrase in this long list, and that's this, out of weakness, we're made strong. Do you see that?

Out of weakness, were made strong. And let's go back and remember who the writer here is addressing. He's addressing these weak, anonymous Hebrew Christians. Is he trying to make Davids out of them? Or Sampson's or Elijah's?

Is that the intention of the writer? I think there's a great danger to both them and to us, you know. These saints of bygone eras, we can somehow put them in another category. They're not like us, they're made of different stuff than us. You could say, well, I'm a homeschool mom.

This is great, but how does this enable me to serve my husband and children any better? You could say, well, I'm homeschooled, a young person, and this seems so detached. They're great stories. I've known them since I was little but they're just not, it's just not realistic. How can I apply this?

Or maybe you're a dad that you might be saying in your mind, this sounds good but guess what? I have to work tomorrow. Right? There's all these things, there can be a disconnect and if you're thinking those things you're being snared even as I'm talking to you right now. See the Lord, he anticipates in his word that we had this tendency to kind of separate ourselves from others and say well it was good for them but they're in another category.

And how does the Lord do that? Well you read in James, Elijah, who's you could consider him maybe the head of the prophets. James tells us that he's a man with a nature like ours. How about Paul himself, the great apostle? He says, I know this, that is, in my flesh.

Nothing good dwells. He's a man. He would cry, he would weep. He says, who is weak and I am not weak. Don't put yourself and don't fall into the trap of categorizing Christians as though they're somehow different.

But the common denominator all of these men and women had was faith, by faith. And it goes on, you know, you can keep reading all the way through. I just don't want you to miss the main point. It's not great faith, is it? It's like a mustard seed but it's the object in which you place your faith that makes all of the difference.

It's a matter of who you're placing your faith in and What you see in this simple phrase, out of weakness we're made strong, is that faith mixed with weakness produces strength to do what you could otherwise never do if you were just resting on yourself. Not Saul's armor. Don't be like David, Be like David in that sense. Don't trust Saul's armor, but trust in the living God. And why do I say that?

Well, sometimes your mind suggests to you that you're tired, doesn't it? I've felt that many, many times, that you should maybe give up or maybe you should take an easier path. But I love what the Apostle Paul says here. This is the call of Hebrews 11. He says it in 1st Corinthians but he says this, for you see your calling, Brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not and then he says this the things which are not to bring to not the things that are to what end Lord That no flesh should glory in its presence.

God uses weak out of weakness. They were made strong. And so we've seen how God enables these people and how he enables us to do things we could otherwise never do. But now I want to look at verse 35, and what we find here is that not only does the Lord enable you to do, but he also can enable you to endure what you could otherwise never have endured by themselves. Things were going so well until mid verse 35, so to speak, and you've got these nine kinds of intense suffering that are endured, how?

By faith, by faith all the way through. It says others were tortured not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And the Lord is trying to show us here that faith doesn't only enable great exploits, but patient endurance, even under the worst of circumstances. And I just want to say this, that for years, maybe even the better part of the last two centuries, the biggest threat to the Christian in the West isn't communism. It's not socialism.

You know what it is? The love of ease has slain, if you want to say it that way, more Christians and rendered the church voiceless and useless and stripped it of its salt, the love of ease, this infatuation that we have with security. And so as the tide goes out on this nation, I'm talking about this nation, United States, it's likely that you're going to be more and more acquainted with verse 35 on down. It says this, Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings. Yes, and of chains and imprisonment.

They were ridiculed They were marginalized. They were demonized all for holding on and believing in the Lord It says in verse 37 they were stoned. They were sawn in two were tempted were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute, afflicted, tormented. According to tradition they say that Isaiah died in a similar manner as just been outlined right here, that Manasseh, the king, who couldn't stand his calls to repentance, had him sawn in two.

Could you imagine a more cruel way to die than that? And there's this little word in this long list, it says, tempted. You see that? They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted. And the idea here is just a little incense offered to Caesar will suffice.

I was reading earlier, maybe earlier this week, a lot of what's being mentioned here in verse 35 on down is referring to the intertestamental period between Malachi and the coming of John the Baptist. This would have been recent history for these Jews that this letter was was written to. And there was a particular man, a king, by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a king around the 175 BC timeframe. And by the way, Epiphanes is not his surname. He had a bit of a complex.

It actually means God manifest that he named himself. Antiochus, God manifest. And what was his great pastime? His great pastime was getting Jews to renounce their faith. He came up against the Maccabees and their followers.

He actually placed a statue of Zeus in the temple and sacrificed swine on the altar. And one Jewish woman, I was reading the account of this one Jewish mother who had seven sons and they were brought before Antiochus Epiphanes there in Jerusalem And they were commanded to eat pork. And they refused. They refused to do it. And the king flew into a rage, and one by one by one, he didn't just kill each of these seven young men.

He had a big pan heated up and he fried them, cut off their hands and their feet, cut out their tongues, scalped them, and then put them there. And one after the other, after the other, after the other. But they would not renounce their faith. And finally, the mother who is there the whole time encouraging them to be faithful unto death. And like we hear in Smyrna, you will receive the crown of life.

Is this our faith? Is our faith the same faith that enables us? It's the same God. It's not a different God that enables us to live in such a manner that these people have lived. And verse 38, it comes down and it says this, we know what the world sees, but what does God see?

And so the verdict comes down from heaven. It says this, of whom the world was not worthy. Those who did the persecuting and those who did the killing, like they said about the apostle Paul, let us rid the earth of this fellow. They thought they were doing a good thing. But the Lord testifies that the world was not worthy of these same anonymous people.

You know, the church age is also loaded with example after example after example of men and women who have endured. And just two weeks ago, I was listening to a biography of a missionary to Burma, now Myanmar, over in the Far East, kind of around India. And it was Adoniram Judson, a man who labored for 31 years in a place that had never named the name of Christ. And it was entirely hostile, this region was entirely hostile to the message of Christ. But he was used wonderfully and over time people came to believe and trust in the Lord and churches were built but as he was getting older he contracted a respiratory fever and got sick and so he sought to recover in a better climate and the remedy in those days was get out to the ocean and maybe try to find a place where there's breeze and all of that kind of thing.

He goes and partway on his journey, he dies on a boat by himself in the sense of no other believers, just a captain and ungodly swearing man in his crew, not a Christian even among them. And here's this man, no eulogy, no state funeral. Unceremoniously, his lifeless body is just dumped into the Indian Ocean. Did he fail? Did God fail him?

Of whom the world was not worthy." The end result as we see here as we read on it says this that they had a good testimony through faith and so there's coming a day when everything will be made right, Everything will be made clear. We come to verse 39 and 40 and it says, in all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise. God, having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. And I really want you to consider these verses well. There's a twist that you're going to see here in a minute.

You see, this is what you need to understand. All of these people, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, going down the line to Moses, going down the line to Joshua, all that we just went through that intertestamental period. You know what was happening? That these men and these women were running their race in the darkness, so to speak. This is what this verse is telling us.

They had run a good race, they had kept the faith, but what was happening is that they were looking forward toward, it says, the promise. But now the Son of Righteousness has risen. See what Jesus says about Abraham. It says that he rejoiced to see my day and he saw the far off and it says and he was glad. He saw the Son coming up in the distant future and though things were still what they were in the days of Abraham, he knew that one day God would deliver on his promise and he laid hold of that and as a result of that he was glad.

This is the most beautiful thing. Moses, just in the same way as he had to be satisfied with gazing out over Mount Pisgah to the promised land, you could envision him looking towards the promise. And so what do we have to understand here? It turns out that as amazing and as admirable as the faith of these men and these women were, do you know this? Here's the twist.

As a New Testament believer, you are far more to be envied than those that we've just cataloged. Why? Because Christ has come. They're not above you in privilege, though you might say that. In fact, it's the absolute, it's the actual reverse.

The pastor's argument here presented to these suffering Christians, these Hebrew Christians, is that your position is better than theirs. Because on this side, you see the promise, the glorious life, the death, the resurrection of Christ. You know you think of it like this when he took his first breath on resurrection morning, death took its last. That's the power of what Christ has done. You see the fulfillment of the serpent's head now crushed beneath his feet.

And not only that but you see how salvation has now burst the banks where before it was localized, it was just a little nation there in Israel. The truth of God has now burst the banks and exploded into all parts and places of his dominion. You see Christ, as we see in Revelation chapter 5 as a lamb standing as though it had been slain. It's the most beautiful picture and I think Peter was of the same mind as the writer of Hebrews when he said this, of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. And so we've been looking back and that's wonderful But we've seen what God has enabled men to do and what God has enabled men to endure.

And if you leave this section of Hebrews chapter 11, marveling at the faith of these saints, you've missed much of what the author is really trying to leave you with. He's not finished. He's gonna now, on the basis of this, on all of these examples, this biblical theology of faith, he then goes into chapter 12, therefore, for this reason. In light of looking back and seeing all that we've just covered and what God enables people to do and what he enables people to endure, in light of our better position because the promise has now been fulfilled, therefore, and he launches into this beautiful illustration of the Greek games that take us to our final point where he commands the saints to endure. And we see that here in chapter 12, verse 1.

It says, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." This is a picture he's vividly setting before you your mind's eye of a marathon, of running an actual race. He's trying to put these Hebrew Christians in mind of the fact that there was a starting, but there's also an ending. And oftentimes if you've ever run a race or been involved in anything over a long duration of time, there's going to be vast tracks of wilderness, maybe desert or places where there's no one cheering. There's no one there egging you on and encouraging you to go forward. But now, but now, this picture is almost like the picture if you think of even modern-day Olympics of as you come on the final lap and you're coming into the finish line, It's this picture of every side looking around you.

You're not just focusing on one like Noah or Abraham, but instead it's this vast throng, this cloud, so great, not just a cloud, but so great a cloud of witnesses. Those who have already run are now in this picture, in this illustration, cheering you on. You're not on the sidelines. You're not on the sidelines. You're not the church historian anymore.

You're not the admirer. You're not the commentator. Oh, I really like the story of Daniel. That's not what this is intended to do. You're not a spectator living vicariously through all of those that have gone before.

In fact, they're watching your life in this picture. That's what he's encouraging them to do. This is the twist on everything here. The ones who have come out of great tribulation are looking at your life, so to speak, again in an illustration and seeing how are you doing with the conflicts? How are you doing in the battle against sin?

How are you doing in the way that you live? In these crowds, they're erupting on either side, retelling, as we've sung, triumphs of His grace to encourage you on. Their lives are intended to be an encouragement to live by faith. And so the question is, are you are you really living as though you're running a race? Would that be characteristic of the way that you're living, the way that I'm living?

Well the Lord wants you to think in this way. That's why we have this before us, and what we read earlier there in 2 Timothy. And so he says, keep running, lay aside, as a result of all that we've just said, lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. You know, a few years ago we used to have a swimming pool, and I had a bright idea to kind of improve my workouts. I was going to tread water, and I said, well, why don't I put on a belt, and I attached 25 pounds to the belt.

Don't do this by the way children. And I jumped into the deep end I thought I'll give a couple minutes to tread water. But what happened? Boom! To the bottom.

I hit the bottom and frantically unbuckle the belt and left it at the bottom and got oxygen as quickly as I could. A miscalculation to say the least. But what prompted me to do that so frantically? I had become aware, didn't I? Are you aware that you've got weights and sins that are keeping you from running the race?

What are those? He doesn't ask you, by the way, notice that. He's not saying, do you have weights? He's saying, therefore, because of the race. He's assuming that you've got weights and sins that are keeping you back from running.

Is it unbelief? Is there something that's keeping you back? Is it worldliness? I wanna follow, but I don't know. Jesus talks about that doesn't he in the parable of the soils.

May God help us to shed the weights that so easily ensnare us in the sins that keep us back From running I want to just say to you beware the allurements of the world you young people that are here They're calling to you Did these Jews were being called back to Judaism You're being called back to the world, those snares of your own sinful hearts. And you know what? Some things seem so innocent. Notice what he says, weights and sins. Not everything is sin.

But weights are those things that when you indulge them to excess, a good thing maybe, but you indulge them to excess, you're all about fun and the next thing, they can become dangerous to your soul. Do you know that? And are you in business to separate yourself from these things and be a serious minded individual. Beware of the temptations to weariness along the way. I was reading one commentator, his name is Albert Barnes and he says this, there is no part of the New Testament of more value than this chapter.

None which deserves to be more patiently studied or which may be more frequently applied to the circumstance of Christians. These invaluable records are adapted to sustain us in times of trial, temptation, and persecution to show us what faith has done in the days that are past and what it may still do in similar circumstances. Nothing can better show the value and the power of faith or of true religion than the records in this chapter. It has done what nothing else could do. It has enabled people to endure what nothing else would enable them to bear, and it has shown its power in inducing them to give up at the command of God what the human heart holds most dear, weights and sins that so easily beset us.

Well, we've looked back and we've seen the record and now as we've entered the stadium, We've been told to look around at this great cloud of witnesses. But there's something else in verse two. It says, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God. You see, it's this picture, almost if you will, of illustrating this final bend. And you look at this and you see here this runner as he's going.

He's been captivated maybe with all of these different sights and objects, but now he fixes his gaze on the one that's there, waiting, the judge and the rewarder, the one who said, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. There he is standing before you. In a sense, you could almost say that faith is becoming sight for these people. I wanna ask you, do you dare to imagine meeting him with a smile, that the Lord would be well pleased with you? He's not a grim judge, but the one who has been all this while interceding for you.

When you were going through those barren, trackless pieces of land and you thought you were alone, there he was, interceding. He reconciled you and there he is, standing as though he is a lamb slain. You see in Joshua, as we saw earlier, that the walls of Jericho fell down, but at Christ and at his feet, Satan's kingdom fell and was crumbled. We saw the singular salvation of Rahab the harlot, But what will you do when you come face to face with millions of Rahab's the harlots saved by the grace of God? And in his death Samson slew the Philistines, but in his death Christ slew death.

You see that? David took down Goliath with a stone, but what did Christ do on the cross? He decimated sin and destroyed it. They subdued kingdoms, but Christ subdued our sin. Women receive their dead, raised to life, but there's coming a day when we will never taste death again and where every tear is going to be wiped away from your eye.

And you say, well what? How did he do all of this? You know what it says here? It says, for the joy that was set before him. It's as though he regarded all the sufferings he went through as no consequence because of something greater, for the joy that was set before him.

And you see this almost paradox, the Christ on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But he had his eye on the joy that was set before him. And so there he was able to endure the cross and despise all that shame. No mention, by the way, when you come here, there's no mention of by faith Christ, no. He stands entirely distinguished from everybody else.

He's the author and he's the finisher. And so we've come to this. We've come to the end. And what more shall I say? What more do we have that we could look at here?

We've seen so much in what God has been able to do. But I want to say to you just as I wrap up here to you that are unbelievers that are sitting here. We took an example of the saving faith of Rahab and I just want to ask is there anyone here today that desires to exchange their citizenship? To be taken into the family of Christ, grafted in to escape the wrath of the lamb? I just want to ask, what hinders you, what's stopping you from doing what Rahab did and she was rewarded for it?

To you who believe, I just wanna remind you of this, you know it, but where you look is all important. What are you looking at? What's beholding you? What's captivating you? Well, here we're told to look back, then look around and look forward to Christ and lock eyes with Him.

All these saints that we looked at, they saw the promise in the future. And they were, it says earlier in the chapter, that they were persuaded. Do you know what it means to be persuaded of them? And then it says, and they embraced them and confessed as a result that they were pilgrims and strangers in the earth. I want to remind you of what we just talked about, those weights and those sins.

What are you going to do with them at the end of the service or when you go home? Are you going to do business with God and consider these things? Well look ahead and I just want to encourage you set your eyes on Christ. Looking unto Jesus is the antidote for every malady in every season of life. It's the strength for every situation.

May God give us help and grace. Let's pray. Father, we come to you today. We thank you for this record that you've left for us, Lord, and for every reason and every inducement, every encouragement to lay hold of you by faith. We need you Lord.

We ask you to please change us and help us especially in those areas Lord where we're cumbered. May we run with patience to race. May you reinvigorate us, Lord. Put hope back in our hearts and put strength in every stride, oh Lord, as we go forward in this life. Whatever it is, whatever you have for us, Lord, may we endure looking unto Jesus.

Amen. Amen.