Well, you can open your Bibles then and turn to Hebrews chapter 11. I've been doing a sermon series on Sunday nights on the chronicles of faith, or some people call it the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. And I know in the bulletin it says through verse 38, but we're gonna stop in the middle. There's kind of two parts. I'll kind of explain it more in the next couple sermons, but in verses 32 to the end, there's kind of two parts to that section. I'm going to read the first part tonight, and it's going to end in the beginning of verse 35. So you call it 35A. So we're going to read verse 32 through the beginning of verse 35. So let's pray for a moment for God's blessing on the reading and preaching of the word. Thank you for your word, Lord, which is truth, which is perfect and pure. And we pray that the preaching of the word would go forth tonight by the power of your Holy Spirit. Teach us, O God, what it means to have a firm faith and trust in you. So please bless the preaching and reading of the word tonight. In Christ's name, amen. All right, so God's word, Hebrews 11, verse 32 through the beginning of verse 35. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Beric, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection." That's how far we'll read for tonight and look at. Have you ever tried to convince someone by giving them a ton of examples or proofs of something? You were trying to make a point, so you were giving them a lot of examples to try to convince them. Maybe you went to some new restaurant in Hudson, for example, and you're trying to convince your friend that that's an amazing restaurant. The pretzel appetizer was the best you've ever had. Your burger had the perfect amount of bacon and cheese on it. And the fries were actually crispy. You didn't get these nasty chip things, but you had good fries. And then you would say, my friends went with me too. And they all said the same thing about their food. My boss told me about it. And there's over 250 reviews in their first week of being in business. You're just trying to convince your friend that that's a really good restaurant. So you're heaping on all the proofs and the evidences. And we do that in life sometimes. And sometimes preachers do that too in preaching and teaching. In fact, some scholars say that Hebrews is a sermon. If you read later in chapter 13, Hebrews calls itself a word of exhortation. So you can think of Hebrews as an early church sermon. And in the section that we're reading, that we read already, he kind of says in verse 32, you know, what else can I say? I don't have enough time to give you all the rest of the examples and all their details. Maybe this verse, verse 32, is a biblical proof for not having such long sermons. He said, I don't have enough time to do all this work to explain all in detail more about what faith means. So in chapter 11, though, we have been learning about the benefit and power of faith in God. We are learning about true faith And for the last few weeks, as we've been going through Hebrews 11, we've learned that faith in God accomplishes great things. Faith in God accomplishes great things. And we've been learning that faith in God endures great suffering. You can make it through difficult trials by faith in God. Those are some things that we've been learning about faith. And in the last part of Hebrews that we read the beginning of, those same topics come up. Only the preacher does it in like bullet point form to heap on examples of what it means to have true faith. So, before verse 32, Hebrews gave us 11 names of Old Testament believers and their faith, plus more. Now we get six more names of Old Testament people who had faith. And it's interesting, he doesn't use the exact order of the Old Testament, but he also talks about the prophets of God, like Elijah and Jeremiah and Isaiah, and women of faith, as we've talked about before. So these are the people of faith that Hebrews is pointing out from the Old Testament. And like it says in verse two, these all were commended by God for their faith. You want more examples of true faith? Hebrews says, I'll give you some really quickly. So that's what we're gonna do tonight. We're gonna look at the verses that we just read. But first, very briefly, I kinda wanna summarize the stories of the names of those people in verse 32. Gideon, Barak, Samson, and so on. If you've read the Bible before, or maybe you know quite a bit about the Bible, you might have to stop and pause and think about the stories of Barak or Jephthah. And that's okay. Sometimes we read Old Testament stories and we forget them. So I wanna just go through them very briefly to jog your memory of who these people are. And then I'll do some comments on the rest of the verses. So Hebrews is using more names of Old Testament believers who had true faith. And now he's going to the period in Israel's history after Joshua brought the people into the Promised Land, to the time of the judges, all the way to the time of the prophets. So pretty much the rest of the Old Testament from judges to the end. So let me just touch through these different names to jog your memories. In verse 32, he says, I don't have enough time to tell stories of Gideon. Gideon, you can find his story in Judges six through eight. Do you remember Gideon's story? God raised up Gideon as a judge to lead Israel during those days. And God used Gideon to deliver his people from the Canaanite enemies. But if you remember Gideon's story, he had some doubts. Remember, he set the fleece out because he was doubtful if God was going to help him. He needed a sign from God. But at the end of the day, in the story, if you read it in Judges six through eight, Gideon trusted God, and with an army of just 300 people, They defeated thousands and even tens of thousands of Midianites. And he did it by faith. Remember Gideon's battle cry back then, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. That's the Gideon story. Now, how about the next one, Beric? If you were taking a little Bible quiz, could you write three or four sentences about who Beric is? Well, he's in Judges four through five. And he's a military commander back then who the Lord called, again, to fight against the Canaanites, especially the general Sisera, if you remember the story. Now Barak, or Barak, was not 100% confident. Do you remember that story too? He needed Israel's leader, the judge, the prophetess, Deborah, to go along in battle. He says, yeah, I'm not gonna go unless you go, because he needed Deborah with him. But she did go, and Barak obeyed God, and God gave him the victory. And him and Deborah sing this great song of faith, this hymn of faith in Judges 5. So Barak has faith. You can see it in the story. Now Samson. That's the next one. Maybe you remember Samson and the long hair. That story's a bit more memorable than some of these other ones. This is in Judges 13 through 16. Again, God called Samson to lead Israel against the Philistines, those enemies. Remember his long hair and how it symbolized his strength, and remember that sinful story that he had with Delilah and all that? He was a pretty flawed character. But if you read the Samson story, he trusted in God even when he was captured by the Philistines, even after his eyes were put out, even after he was weak because his hair was cut. He prayed one last time, a strong prayer of faith, and he broke down those beams of the temple and destroyed many Philistines in his own death. He was a man of faith. That's Samson's story. Okay, how about Jephthah? You probably remember something that Jephthah did that wasn't very good. Remember his rash vow about his daughter? You have to read that one in Judges 11 if you're curious. But Jephthah was another elite soldier, and God called him to destroy and defeat the Ammonites. And even though he did make a terribly rash vow, and he was a very imperfect man, Jephthah did trust in God. God gave him his Holy Spirit, and Jephthah had victory over the Ammonite army by faith. Jephthah did that. Now, the next name in the list you know, I don't have to give lots of examples about, David, King David. 1 and 2 Samuel, right? Many chapters of the Bible are devoted to David, or the Psalms which he wrote. You guys remember how David defeated Goliath with just a slingshot and some stones? You guys remember how David was a man after God's own heart and he wrote these wonderful hymns that we even sing still? He wasn't perfect. That's Sheba. But he was a man of faith, true faith. Alright, next one. Samuel. You probably remember him, too. He was about the same time as David, and you can read about Samuel in 1 and 2 Samuel. He was another judge, a prophet in Israel, who God raised to lead Israel during the first years when the kings reigned. And Samuel was a great man of faith. Remember how he grew up in the temple with Eli the priest? And Samuel spoke words of faith to God's people, and he was a great spiritual leader who condemned their idolatry and helped them to fight idolatry. You remember Samuel. And then the preacher in verse 32 just mentions the prophets. Remember all the prophets. Elijah, in 1 and 2 Kings, who stood against Jezebel and Ahab. Elijah who called down fire from heaven to burn up the altar of Baal. Or Jeremiah, remember the stories of Jeremiah, how people hated him and he was persecuted, but he still prophesied with faith in God and he persevered. Now one more, and you have to skip ahead to verse 35. Women who received back their dead by resurrection. There, that's a good question. Where in the Old Testament do you find stories of women whose child or children were raised from the dead? Well, in 1 Kings 17, Elijah was a prophet at that time. He went to the widow of Zarephath. Remember that story? Her son died and Elijah brought back the widow of Zarephath's son from the dead, or God did through Elijah. Or another story with Elisha this time, the woman from Shunem, the Shunemite woman. 2 Kings 4, same thing. Elisha stretched out over the little child and he came back to life. Women received their dead back to life by faith. So that's just a quick run-through of all these different people in the Old Testament who had a strong faith in God. They're excellent examples of what it means to trust in God. Now, as I hinted at, or actually just pointed out, this isn't a list of perfect people who had no flaws or failures. Rahab was listed earlier. But this is a list of people who had strong, obedient, and bold faith in God, true saving faith. And that right there, I think, is a good point of application. That people of true faith, people who truly trust in God, who truly trust in Christ, are not perfect people. But you can call them people of faith. The Bible never says people with true faith are perfect people and they never mess up or they never make mistakes. All these stories of these people are of flawed individuals, sometimes very highly flawed individuals. But what stands out in their story is their great faith in God. And so that should encourage us, if you're a Christian today, if you're a believer, just because you have some flaws and faults doesn't mean you're a horrible Christian who has no faith or whatever. you should hate your indwelling sin and you should hate the evil that lies in you. This morning we talked about that, but don't despair because you've had some sin in you. Even people who are very imperfect can have a strong and true faith. That's one thing we learn. So anyway, let's just quickly go through the rest of the list. Again, we don't have time to give all these stories, but in verse 33 through 35, There's this bullet point list of what those people and others in the Old Testament did by faith in God. And so the title of this little section I'm calling, Faith Accomplishes Great Things. So earlier we talked about Enoch who was taken up by faith, or Noah who built the ark by faith, or Sarah who had a child in old age by faith, or Israel who passed through the Red Sea on dry ground by faith. And here's a list of other things that God's people did in the Old Testament by faith. So just remember, before I go through these, that we're learning that faith trusts in God's promises and in his power. If God says he will do something, faith believes it and says, amen, I believe God will do it, I believe God can do it, and great things happen by faith. So let's touch through this list a little bit. Through faith in God, they conquered kingdoms. Read those stories of the judges. Read David defeating huge enemy armies. They conquered kingdoms. They enforced justice. You could also translate this, they did what was just. Samuel certainly did this. David certainly did this, enforced justice. They obtained promises. Specific promises from God they obtained. For example, God said, Gideon, I'll give you the victory over that army. Gideon believed, and it happened. He obtained that promise of victory. And then the next one, stopped the mouths of lions. What's the man's name where that story happened? He's not listed earlier, but it's Daniel, right? In the lion's den. By faith, God stopped the mouth of lions. By Daniel's faith, the lion's mouths were stopped. And then the next one, you probably remember this one too. By faith they quenched the power of fire. Remember Daniel and his friends in the fiery furnace? By faith they were not burned. They quenched the power of fire. The flames did not touch them. There's more. They escaped the edge of the sword. Remember David fleeing Saul. Remember Elijah fleeing wicked Jezebel. Remember Jeremiah too, they tried to kill him, but they couldn't. By faith, they escaped the edge of the sword. And the next one is they were made strong out of weakness. They weren't all strong men. Remember Gideon with just 300 soldiers, they defeated a huge enemy army. or Samson at the end of his life. He was no longer strong, his hair was cut, but by faith he tore down those beams of the temple and defeated many enemies. They were mighty in war, as I've been saying. They put foreign armies to flight. They received their own dead back to life, those women did, the woman from Shunem and Zarephath. So you see this, he's giving you overwhelming evidence of the great power of faith. Like in all these stories, faith accomplishes great things. It trusts in God's promise and his power, and God does great things through faith. And he could go on. He's just giving you a bullet point summary. There's something for us to think about here, and let me give an illustration first. Sometimes we say, how did you do that? Let's say your sister's an artist, and she drew a sketch of some prairie with the sun going down, and you look at it, and it's realistic, and you said, how did you do that? That's amazing. Or I have a friend who can, it's kind of funny, but he can do freestyle rap. It's incredible. And he can make up improv rap about anything you ask him to. So if I'd ask him to make up an improv rap song about the baseball playoffs, he could just do it, and it's pretty amazing. And I'd say, how do you do that? How can you do that? Or maybe, you know, someone who can juggle five balls while on a unicycle, or hit a hundred free throws in a row, right? We say that sometimes. How do you do that? Most of the time, the answers to those questions is a lot of hard work, a lot of patience, a lot of practice, right? But when you think about these Old Testament believers, you say, how did they do those things? That list we just read. What's the answer? By faith. They weren't wealthy and accomplished those things by their wealth. They weren't these great masterminds with ingenuity, and that's how they overcame those obstacles. They did it by faith in God. All these people faced obstacles and roadblocks, very scary situations, evil enemy armies, their own doubts and skepticism, major hurdles in life. So all those things that they faced, they overcame every single one of them and they did them by faith in God. That's what Hebrews is teaching. It wasn't easy for them. They didn't have wonderful lives, you know, of wealth and health and ease. They had to work hard sometimes to obey God's call. But they did all these things by trusting in God, in his promises and in his power. And so there's application here. Hebrews is telling readers back then in his day, but also now, you can overcome obstacles as well. How? By faith. Not exactly the same things. We're not in the old covenant anymore. We don't have judges and kings. So don't read through the list and think, we're going to do all that. Those are the Old Testament stories in that specific time. But the point that Hebrews is making here is that if you trust in God truly, with this big and bold, obedient faith, you can also overcome obstacles and roadblocks, frightening situations, the evil temptations and sinful struggles, With this big and bold obedient faith, you can overcome your own doubts and fears by faith. I think we've all known Christians who have gone through some very traumatic and difficult situations, and some of you have too, I know that. Maybe you have a friend and she went through a terrible divorce because her husband was a monster who abused her, and it's a horrible situation. And a couple of years later, you're talking to her again, and she's a good, strong Christian, and you say, How did you make it through such a horrible situation? You know what she's gonna say? I trusted in God. I clung to God in faith and he brought me through. Or maybe you or someone you know who's a believer is facing a tough mental challenge. I've told you before, I've read some stories or maybe you know some people who have like clinical depression or schizophrenia or bipolar, believers who struggle with these mental challenges. And sometimes on the good days, you say, how are you getting through this? And they say, I don't really know except for I trust in God. I just have to trust in God. or maybe you or someone you know who's a believer is going through a serious, life-threatening medical condition, like MS or cancer, and they're pressing through pretty well, and they're good examples for you in the Christian faith, and you say, how are you getting through that? And you know what she or he will say? By trusting in God. He's with me, he's giving me strength, and he's comforting me, He's reminding me of what Jesus has done for me on the cross and in the resurrection. He's reminded me of eternal life and the resurrection of the body like we talked about this morning. I'm doing this by faith, getting through this obstacle by faith in God. So you know what I mean, right? You can get through difficult obstacles and trials in life by faith in God, not by our own strength, not by the investments or the money that we have, not by some good luck, but we get through them by faith. We overcome obstacles like these people in the Old Testament. So next week, we're gonna look at the end, and in the middle of verse 35, it kind of goes to the opposite, the suffering that faith had to deal with and how faith brought them through all these different points of suffering and trials. But just for the rest of the sermon, just for a few minutes, I'm gonna talk more about this faith that can overcome obstacles. Faith that does great things. I was reading John Newton's diary, remember he wrote Amazing Grace and he kept a diary and it's quite insightful. John Newton said this, all the complaints of God's children flow from two grand causes, which feed each other and overlap. Two related causes. So let me say that again. All the complaints of God's children flow from two grand causes which feed each other and overlap. First, lack of faith. Second, lack of faithfulness or obedience. I think that makes sense for some of you, right? It's a pretty heavy but true quote. If we had strong faith, And if we were faithful to God in all of our callings, we would not have many reasons to complain or to grumble or to struggle in the Christian life. I think Newton is right. All of our complaints, maybe there's a little hyperbole, but all of our complaints flow from two great causes which feed each other and overlap, lack of faith and lack of faithfulness. And speaking of lack of faith, Jesus talks about this in his teaching. How many times did he say, oh, you of little faith? Or why are you afraid? I'm thinking about Matthew 6, one of the several stories. Remember, Jesus is teaching them about anxiety and worry. He's saying, why are you worried about what clothes you're gonna wear or what food you'll eat or what you're gonna drink? Oh, you of little faith? God feeds the birds. Your father clothes the lilies of the field. How much more is he gonna provide for you? He's God, he's your father. Trust him, he'll provide, don't worry. Oh, you have little faith. And of course, there's other stories where Jesus teaches something similar. So I think Newton is right. Just speaking about the faith one, a lot of our struggles and worries in life and internal conflicts in life come from lack of faith. Because we just don't trust God enough. Is that true in your life? where you have anxieties and worries and struggles and doubts and fears, maybe it's because you don't have enough faith. And so Hebrews, I'm gonna use Hebrews here to call you to that big and bold faith like these Old Testament believers had. And here's how you can reason, then, if you're a Christian, if God makes walls fall and if he makes enemy armies flee, if he can shut the mouths of lions and bring people through fire and raise the dead, He can for sure protect and provide for you, right? Trust Him. He'll bring you through these obstacles. So what obstacles or challenges are you facing right now? You're all facing challenges and obstacles in life. Maybe some of you are afraid of sickness and death. I don't know, maybe some of you are worried about your job situation or your income. That's a challenge for you. Or maybe some of you are constantly plagued by the same sin and you're just battling the same sin over and over and it's a challenge. Or maybe you're one of those Christians who just always doubts yourself and you have a lot of self-hatred. Or maybe you're like the original readers of Hebrews and you face some kind of mockery for being a Christian. That's a challenge too. The question would be then, if you read Hebrews 11, how do you get through these challenges and obstacles in your own life? You know the answer. It's by faith in God. By faith in his promises and power. So like I said, Lord willing, next week we'll look at the last part of this. And right now I just want to read from the end of chapter 10 in Hebrews. It says to Christians, we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Amen. Let's pray.