Please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 30, all the way to verse 40. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 30 to 40. Let's hear God's holy, inerrant, infallible word. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab, the harlot, did not perish along with those who were disobedient after she had welcomed the spies in peace. And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel, and the prophets. who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 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. Women received back their dead by resurrection, and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with a sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world was not worthy. wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the grounds. And all of these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect. Now let's pray. Gracious God, we pray that you might grant us understanding, wisdom through your word. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. The central question, as we said last week, am I resting in full assurance of future hope? Do I have a deep and abiding, lasting conviction of things which I've never seen, but which the Word of God declares? Do I fundamentally have faith in God? Do I? And what we mean by that is not just faith that God exists, but faith in God as our Redeemer and Savior, faith that God can and will save me, faith that God has saved me, faith that God in loving me is my Savior, faith that God not only loves me, but is through Christ granted to me all things necessary for my salvation and for all things pertaining to a godly life. Do I believe? Do I have faith? That's the question. In chapter 3, verse 12, there was the statement, take care, brethren, lest there be any of you of an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. In chapter 11, we're told faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So there is something that we need to avoid being and something that we need to make certain that we are. We are to make certain that we are people of faith who believe and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior. We have to make certain that we are not internally of an evil, unbelieving heart. and in danger of falling away from the living God. This is vital. This is vital as it pertains to our future life. This is vital as it pertains to our salvation. It's vital in that it pertains to the stuff of our soul. It's the single most important question you'll ever face and answer. Am I a believer? Do I believe? The importance to this question really lies in whether or not we are a believer and what will our eternal state be. The larger catechism asks the question, what are the punishments in this world? And then subsequently, what are the punishments of sin in the world to come? And the answers are provided. The punishments of sin in this world are either inward, as blindness of mind, a reprobate sense, strong delusions, hardness of heart, Horror of conscience, vile affections, or outward is the curse of God upon creatures for our sakes and all other evils that befall us in our bodies, our names, our estates, relations, and employments together with death itself. The punishment of the sin in the world to come is everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God. The most grievous torments in soul and body without intermission in hellfire forever. This is why it is so very important that we are men and women, boys and girls who believe, people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we don't sleep through worship. This is why we stay awake and listen to the word of God. This is why we come to worship God, that we might hear the words of salvation and believe. Are we of those who shrink back? in demonstration of having an evil, unbelieving heart? Or are we of those who believe and trust and thus are delivered from the wrath to come and have entrance into the kingdom of God? Without faith, dear friends, it's impossible to please the living God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Well, there's this wonderful section of chapter 11 that brings this even more home to us. We've been reviewing through chapter 11 all these wonderful pictures of faith and what faith looks like. We've been examining throughout this entire chapter what it means to live unto God and to believe. what it means to live in light of the assurance of things hoped for and to have a conviction of things not yet seen. In all these ways we are hoping in and trusting in the Lord, assured of what we have not seen, believing in a God whom we do not see, trusting in a God whom we have never seen with our eyes. Do we have faith? That's the question. And here's this wonderful explosion, this wonderful explosion in 10 verses of what it means to display faith in the course of one's life. An explosion of examples of faith and faith at work and difficulty. And I put to you this morning that we need this encouragement for our souls. We need to hear, we need to see what this looks like. We need to hear what faith looks like because we are a people who live in a difficult world, who live in a world affected by the curse. and in this world we experience not only in the things that we see but also within ourselves what it means to live in a world destitute. The first example in this passage is this wonderful example of the walls of Jericho falling down. I went looking the other evening for archaeological understanding of what had taken place in this city and what we know about this city. And I believe around the turn of the century, there was a great excavation of the biblical city of Jericho. It was found. And there was a denial on the part of the primary field archaeologist. As she said, we have not seen walls that have fallen. There seems to be no evidence of very large, massive walls. that have been broken down. And yet, subsequent archaeologists have discovered great and vast piles of brick and mud that was smeared on the face of those brick and foundation walls that were below. It's a wonderful thing to be affirmed by archaeology, but by faith, we have always understood it to be. But the Israelites marched around the walls over the course of six days. And on the 7th, there was a great shout and they marched after a period and shouted out and proclaimed the glory of God and the walls fell and all Jericho was delivered into the hands of the Israelites. This is a wonderful work of God. There's no mistaking that this was a work of God and God did it on purpose so that they would understand that it wasn't anything else that got them there. that it wasn't anyone else who was going to give them the land of Canaan. There was an immense obstruction to their entrance into the land, the promised land, the land of Canaan. And that was that there was this great city, Jericho, and it was positioned in such a place that they could not enter from the east into the land of Canaan toward the west unless they went through this city. And it was a walled city, something that they, in their wanderings for 40 years through the desert, had not yet seen. There were many who dwelled in cities all around them, but they had not yet come to battle against a people in a walled city. And God intended through difficulty to make it clear that they themselves would march around and the victory would be his. And indeed that was so as the walls fell down and the people ran in. I've heard all sorts of reasons for why the wall fell down because the loud noise, and the proclamation of the people, and these very fragile walls, and the bricks, and the mud, and the lack of fibrous things in the mud itself, and the lack of rebar, and all those sorts of things, that if you just shout loud enough, the walls will come down. I really don't care what the reasoning or what the physical reason for why the building or the walls came down. I only know the biblical testimony, and that is that when they shouted and proclaimed, God himself intervened and broke the walls down. With the exception of one small section of the wall where there was a house that was, along with other houses, but one house in particular against the city wall, out of which there was a cord, and it was a crimson-colored cord, and Rahab and her household, there believing and trusting in God, were saved. It's really an extraordinary thing. I think there are four things really for us that come up to us in this passage this morning. The first of which is faith at work. in an impossible situation. In all these wonderful examples, in this wonderful explosion of all these examples and stories of faith, and exceptionally so in this first story of Jericho and Rahab, we see that faith works in impossible situations. We see these examples of faith working in an impossible situation. Here were the Israelites. They did not have siege warfare. They didn't have the great war machines that we see in the movies. They didn't have the means of entering into a city that was walled. They had no means of doing so. They would have decimated themselves as a people if they tried. Romans were very powerful people, very powerful armies. They had weapons for siege. They had slave people who could walk up against the walls and pour dirt out and eventually build this walkway, this causeway, all the way up into a city and then eventually march up into it and take over the city fully on their own. The Israelites lacked both the machinery as well as the know-how of how to fight against the city with significant walls. We see this impossible situation. It's really an extraordinary thing. But I think what we really need to understand is that this passage is primarily, predominantly, incessantly, and continually saturated with this idea that God can do anything. God can do anything. You and I have faith, we have faith in God. We believe in God and in a God who can do anything. Who can do anything. God can do anything. Look at what God can do is what you and I should be doing and what we should be saying to our children as we read about these stories from Joshua chapter 2. The walls of Jericho fell down. I remember reading about this as a boy, being told about this, hearing sermons about this. And oftentimes what I heard was that we need to have faith. If we have faith in God, he can and will do anything. But I think we need to turn that around. We do need to have faith in God. We need to have faith in a God who can do and will do all his holy will. And we need to marvel, first and foremost, at the wonder-working power of God. That our God is all-powerful, omnipotent, and He can carry out all He desires to do. He can speak into nothingness where there is nothing, even called nothing, and bring everything into being. According to Isaiah 49, stretches out the heavens, calls the stars by name, and they gather up before Him that they might praise His name. We need to believe in God because God can do all things. And I'll put to you this morning that God can mercifully provide all that you need as well. It's not that you and I proclaim something and therefore all of a sudden magically it appears. It's not that you and I can see something in the Bible that we can extrapolate from its context and say this is in reference to me. God's going to make me well, God's going to fill my pockets, God's going to speak prophetically through me. I think that's an abuse and misuse of the word of God. But rather that you and I can bring our needs to God, and God who is all-powerful, if it is his will, will give us all that we need. And faith should feed upon that reality, that with God all things are possible. Jesus said this, with God all things are possible. As he healed a man born blind from birth, he'd never seen anything in the entirety of his life. And he asked him, do you believe? And he said, yes, Lord, I do. And he was healed. Or the woman who touched him, if only I could just get the slightest edge of his hand and touch it with my hand, I'd be healed. A woman upon whom many doctors had prayed and who had taken her money and who had not healed her. With God all things are possible. Do we believe that? Do we live that way? When we're engaged in some sin or some sin comes to light in our life and we think, there's no possible way I can ever be freed from this. It's in my DNA. It's in my disposition. It's something I've learned. It's something I've been calculated about all my life in my mind and my heart. I want it. I find its desire in my flesh. I'll never be free of it. With God, all things are possible. I have this great and deep desire and need. I need it, but I'm told that I can never do it. Perhaps I've longed for a godly friend, perhaps I've longed for a specific job, perhaps I'm longing for enough to really take care of the needs of my family, because living in this job right now is just not meeting our needs. Or perhaps, perhaps I, my deepest desire, your deepest desire is to have a spouse who loves God, or for your spouse with whom you're currently already bound that she or he would know the Lord Jesus Christ, and you've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed, and they're just as far from God as they ever were. Or perhaps you're longing before God that you might have a family. That you might, that God might lead to you just the right person. And you think here in Massachusetts, it's impossible to find another Christian man or Christian woman. And you've longed, you've cried out, you've asked the Lord, and you've brought your loneliness to Him, and you've wept, and you've cried out, and here we are in 2020 and nothing's changed. Perhaps you know what marriage is, and you've had someone, and now you person is gone and you're lonely and you want the Lord to address your need. Perhaps you've witnessed your co-worker and time and time and time again and you thought that in various circumstances that they would as they were brought low and they're humbled and they came to you that surely now they'll listen and year by year by year it goes on. Perhaps you've shared the gospel with your family members and or perhaps you have your covenant children and you wonder about the state of some of their souls and you're not certain that they're believers and you know how they were raised and you continue to proclaim the goodness of God and the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ to them. And here we are in 2020 yet again and they're not believers yet. Look at what faith has done. Men and women received their dead back by resurrection from the grave. God struck the rock and out poured the gushing spring that nourished all the people of Israel. God delivered Rahab in this impossible circumstance. Walls of Jericho were broken down. God effected our salvation by offering his own son on the cross so that we would have eternal life and our sins would be pardoned and we would become children of the living God. He's quenched the power of fire. He's enabled his people to escape the edge of the sword. He's always declared and displayed himself as being strong in our weakness. He's mighty in war. He's put foreign armies to flight. These people have experienced mocking and scourging and chains and imprisonment, but one thing has been true. God has preserved them and kept them. God has been glorified in them and by them. Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and all the prophets say, Keep believing and trusting in God because you will come into full possession of all that God, according to His holy will, intends for you if you wait on Him. Sometimes we don't believe the Lord, we don't believe in God's promises, and we begin to assume of God, we begin to assume of God that because he hasn't given me yet what I so desire, and he has given me these longings, he himself has given me this desire, and he has not yet provided for me that somehow God does not love me. And or somehow God does not mean it when he says that he'll give me what I need. And we begin to question the love of God, the promises of God, the goodness of God, the mercy of God. Do you know that when you do that, you make God a liar? Because what God says is true. And he has proven himself true to you and for you. All you need to do is believe and trust. Trust yourself into the hands of God. and in humble recognition and acknowledgement that God may not give you all that you desire but he will give you all that you need and he will care for you and does care for you and he will provide for you and that all you need do is bring your deepest need before him in submission to him and cry out in tears and longing and ask the Lord and do you also recognize that the complete story of your life is not yet finished There is yet time. There is yet time for the Lord to address your need and provide for you. The Lord knows the longings, the deepest longings of your heart. He's not forgotten you. He will never forget you. You are the apple of his eye. You are the object of his love. Don't judge the Lord by what you lack in life. Don't judge the Lord by contrary circumstances. Don't judge the Lord by whether or not he has given you every single thing you've ever asked him for. And don't judge the Lord by whether or not he has given you that deepest longing of your soul. The Lord has poured out his grace into your life. He has given you life in Jesus Christ. This is your greatest need. And if you wait upon the Lord, and you cry out to him, and you submit to the Lord in his will, he will give you the desires of his heart. This is his promise. Trust him. Believe him. Have faith in God. The second thing that we see here is that faith is generated in an unlikely place. Here's Rahab, and trust me, I promise the rest of the chapter will go quickly. Faith is generated in an unlikely place. Think about Rahab. Who is she is? She is mentioned twice in the Bible here in this passage in Hebrews 11 and also in James, James's epistle. In both instances, she is referred to as a harlot. Did you catch that? By faith, Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient after she had welcomed the spies in peace. Our elder Noah has read that passage this morning, and there's Rahab. And in a surprising and shocking way, she speaks to the spies and brings them in, keeps them safe, and says, I'll keep you safe, only do this. Save myself and my family when the day comes when we are subjugated to the God who divided the Red Sea and provided you victory over all your enemies. She's trusting not in the Israelites, but in God, the God who kept and provided for the Israelites. She has seen what God has done and she is trusting in that God. So what she's doing is she's looking at a God who she knows is going to judge both she and her people and destroy them. And so what does she do? She goes to the God who judges and she begs for mercy and salvation. And that's what every believer does. recognizing that we are subject to God's wrath and curse and deserving of that punishment of being separated from the comfortable presence of God and grievous torments and soul and body without intermission in hellfire forever. And yet we go to that God and seek mercy and we find it in Jesus Christ. Faith is generated in an unlikely place. Here is Rahab the harlot. Here is this person who is least likely, at least from our perspective as human beings judging people, who is least likely to come to this recognition that she has need of salvation in her God. I know that we do not have this character as a church, but there are some in Christendom who would look at harlots who would look at drug abusers, who would look at homeless persons, who would look at people who are opposed to God, atheists, Muslims. And they might say, this person does not deserve God's mercy. Or they might subtly say that in the back of their mind and thus neglect to go to that person and to tell them about Christ. or observe the horrible behaviors of people at work who treat you badly and through your silence never come to Christ because you never open your mouth. I'm thankful that that is not what type of church this is. And you are not that kind of people. But there are those kinds of people in this world who would look at Rahab and say she has no right to the mercy of God. Didn't Jonah do that? Didn't Jonah look at the entire city of Nineveh, the great kingdom? Didn't he say, I refuse to go. I don't want to go. I know that you'll be merciful to this people and you will forgive sin. I don't know why Jonah thought that, whether it was his own cultural inhibitions or whether or not it was his own personal judgment of wickedness in the earth. I know that each of us is capable of looking on someone who has been ultimately and horribly wicked and thinking they have no right to the mercies of God. And yet, look at this woman. Amongst an unbelieving people, who sees and hears of the God of the Israelites, who knows very, very little, who is not able to write a systematic theology on who and what God is and what God will do. thinking very little, aware of very, very little of God's word, if anything, and yet she believes and trusts. She seeks God as salvation and finds it. It's a glorious thing that by faith she put that scarlet rope outside her window, believing and trusting in God, that she would not fall, enduring through six days, and then on the seventh, looking at these people waiting to be crushed, all those around her quaking in fear or mocking, and yet God generated faith in her heart, enabling her to believe. This should give us a great compassion for every single person without distinction. They need the Lord Jesus Christ, you and I should be praying for them. Not in any way opposed to the idea that they should come to faith in Christ, even even in the offense of our sensibilities if in fact they are offended. It's a glorious thing that faith is generated in an unlikely place. Think about it though if it comes close to home. What if someone you know and or someone you care about brings back an unseemly person and all of a sudden they're bound to your family? What happens if there's someone who comes to the church that might scandalize our sensibilities and our sensitivities. I hope and I trust, I do believe, that you as a congregation would receive them, believing and trusting in God's mercy, even if they're different from us, even if they come from a different way of life, even if they're culturally very different than ourselves. More than this, even if within our own American culture, they would be rejected. I thank God that over the years we have had many varying types of people come into this congregation. We've received them all. Even the man in a wife beater t-shirt who came in with tattoos all over the place and raising his hand during the worship service and the preaching and just didn't quite know how to act. And yet we as a church welcomed him, talked with him, showed love to him. I'm so thankful to have a body here in this congregation that would be warm genuinely to someone like that. Who cared for the young man who came into the church and we knew not where he had come from and who was in great need. Or many years ago, the woman who came into our congregation who is in great need and was asking for money and how compassionately and mercifully this congregation responded to her. Faith can be generated in a very unlikely place. And God is at work in the souls of mankind, men, women, boys, and girls, of every nation, color, and creed. It is our obligation to share the gospel, to proclaim it blindly and willingly for the Lord. May God make us faithful. Third thing that we see is faith is key to living and working in this hostile world. Think about this. How could these people live How could these people live when there were women who received back their dead by resurrection and others were tortured and accepting their release, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection? Think about that. Not being willing to be released, but being willing to undergo torture because they had an expectation of something better. And that's really also fundamentally what this passage is about. God has something better. That's what this whole book has been about. God has something better. Others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with a sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men and women of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, holes in the ground, Faith is key to living and working in a hostile world because it says in verse 39, and all these having gained approval through their faith did not receive what was promised. What was promised? Is that not troubling to us? Even though believing they had not received what they had been promised. And this really is our last point. Faith is key to living and working in this hostile world. And here are these people who have undergone such horrific things as being sawn into, Christians living in the catacombs subsequently, Christians being subject to Nero and his games, being fed to wild animals. How can a Christian live in such a hostile world? in expectation, in hope, in the assurance of things not seen, in an expectation of God fulfilling what he has promised. All those Old Testament examples never saw the day of Christ. They never saw the day of the Messiah that was promised to them. They never saw the day when the Lord was displayed on the cross, his body broken and his blood poured out. They never saw nor realized God's immediate provision for their sin and the covering over of their iniquity. They never saw it. And yet God preserved them and they in faith preserved their souls by trusting in the Lord and the preserver of their souls. They gained approval through their faith. even though they didn't receive what was promised. Why didn't they receive what was promised? Verse 40 answers that, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect. Here's a verse that cuts to the quick any dispensational ideas. Here's this verse saying, God did not yet fulfill for them what he had promised to all of us, because his intention was to save us all in one way. in solidarity in Jesus Christ. He intended to save all the Old Testament saints, and he saves all those who are after them in one way, in one moment, bringing about their salvation. One faith, one Savior, one baptism, one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is what God has done. He made the Old Testament believers wait in order to bring about this one event that he purposed for all of us. It's a glorious thing. Faith is key to living in this hostile world. And so faith stands in solidarity around redemption. It's like Ephesians chapter one, verse nine says, the mystery of God's will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. And this God has done. And so many, many, Many Old Testament saints waited for it. And many, many, many, many New Testament saints look back at it. Even though we have not yet seen Christ, we trust and believe that we will in the same way. We have seen the fulfillment, but we await the final consummation. We await the renewal of creation, the redemption of our bodies, the swallowing up of this mortal life, the descending and revelation of the new heavens and the new earth and righteousness. John Calvin has the last word, as a tiny spark of light led them to heaven. But now that the sun of righteousness shines on us, what excuse shall we offer if we still cling to the earth? Old Testament Israelites, they or Old Testament believers, including Rahab, they looked to, and they had this tiny sliver of light that spoke of redemption, that spoke of cleansing from sin, that spoke of a Messiah that God would provide, who would rule over the earth when he reigns victorious, and they believed. And yet, should we not take something from that that we should not cling so closely to this world when the fullness of Christ has been revealed to us. We have so much more, so much more is required of us. How can we be so tied to this world that we would judge God by our physical needs and that we would be so enamored with this world, so much so that we would pour all of ourselves and our resources and our money into obtaining more stuff and resources and financial stability without really worrying about, without really working toward the stability of our soul and our faith in Christ. Making certain that we are examining our calling and our election to make certain that we are destined for heaven. Working out our salvation with fear and with trembling. Should our effort not be greater in working for the kingdom of God and storing up treasure in heaven, seeking to subdue the flesh and live for God. Should our efforts, should our prayerful efforts, our striving, should it not be for those things more so than it is to see our physical needs and our financial stability established? Should we not delight in God's kingdom, rejoicing in the Lord, Should we not seek to gain approval through faith and trusting in God, knowing that God has something better for us, even us? May God give us a growing and increasing faith in Him and in His provision. Let's pray.