Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. And we want to begin at verse 32 and read down through verse 34. And our subject tonight will be that through faith or by faith, these escape the edge of the sword. These escape the edge of the sword. And I would not begin to think about those of you and your personal lives and the trials and tribulations and dangers that you have gone in in the service of the Lord. I think that today, in our Western culture, I think a lot of our problems are self-made. I don't think as much of them are in the service of the Lord as we find in Scriptures. You'll find that Paul, you read the book of Acts, you read 1 Corinthians, you read 2 Corinthians, he gives a catalog of the hazard of his life that he faced through the service of the Lord. It was him exercising faith and preaching the gospel as the Lord sent him out. You find the same in the early church. We don't have that saying, do we? And in some regard, we thank God. And I think in other regards, we have kind of been abused the peace that God has given us, and we have lulled ourselves into a state of just not serving the Lord. And we're a lot like in practice, and I don't mean this church or the church that I pastor, I mean the state of churches of the Lord in general. It's very similar to the church at Laodicea. They said, oh, look it, we've got rich and we're increased with goods and we've got this and we have need of nothing. And the Lord said, you have need of everything. You have need of everything. And they did. And so, we want to understand this and look at this tonight. So, let's begin at verse 32. And the writer states, Beloved Lord, what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, and of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets." And let me stop there. If you haven't read about Gideon, and about Barak, and about Samson, and about Jephthah, and of David, and Samuel, and of the prophets. If you haven't read of the things that they did by faith as we've gotten to verse 32 some weeks ago, I'd encourage you to start doing that. I'd encourage you to run the scripture reference back to the Old Testament and start reading pretty much the book of Judges. And then get on into some of the things that were done. In the book of Jeremiah, if you see what happened to him and how that he continued on, I tell you he did a lot of things by faith. You look at Elijah and Elisha and you study them out and just reading over their lives, you'll see a great deal of things that were done by faith. And just a simple reading of God's Word. And it'll be a blessing. It'll give context to what follows this. And so if you read over those things, it would, as the writer said, time would fail me. And it would. But he references them so that you and I might go back and read about it. That's why it's there. That's why we have the Scriptures. And so it would do us good to do that. And you may say, well, I don't know some of these people. Well, read them. You say, well, I know about them. Well, re-read it and you'll find some things you didn't know. And the Lord will use it. Verse 33. who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 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, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, or strangers. We want to look again tonight at the phrase, who through faith escaped the edge of the sword. Now in this lesson, a reference is made to the violence of men. You find that when we noted last week on quenching the violence of fire. It was a direct reference into what was done to those three Hebrew children that Nebuchadnezzar did. That was the violence of man, wasn't it? And the Bible says that by faith, that violence of the fire, not the fire, but the violence or the power of it was quenched or put out. The fire had no power on them, did it? And now we find that he goes and he says, escape the edge of the sword. And so again, this is the violence of man. And I will say that I have not faced the edge of the sword nor the violence of fire in the same way that these did. Not a literal fire and not a literal sword. And as I've been here long enough, I would think that if that took place in your life, I probably would have heard about it. And if you haven't told me, you keep it to yourself, between you and the Lord, that's fine. I don't need to know about it. But my point is, is that you probably have it faced in the service of the Lord. Now, I want you to understand, there's things that we do in the service of the Lord, and then there's things that just happen in our lives. And you know, if you faced the edge of the sword, you're out somewhere, and you know, somebody mugged you or something like that, and the Lord delivered you, that's great. That's wonderful. We praise Him for that. The reference here is unto those who were serving the Lord. And they came across these things. And I want you to understand it, that day may come, it may visit us again here in Plank City. It is visiting churches of the Lord throughout the world. And God has given us a space, hasn't He? He's protected us. He's put a hedge round about our churches of the Lord. And you would think that in America, they would use that. But instead, we've seen a lulling us to sleep sort of thing. But we notice here that it states that they escape the edge of the sword. Now I want to say this before we go further. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 4 briefly and quickly. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12. The Bible refers to the Word of God as a sword. And we're going to read this here and then I have some comments and then we'll proceed into the Word of God. In our lesson, but in Hebrews 4 12, it says for the Word of God is quick and that doesn't mean it's fast or speedy It's the same as in Ephesians 2 1 that you were quickened meaning you were made alive So for the Word of God is living. That's what the Holy Spirit is saying here The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the divining asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So what we find is God's Word is this, and if it's being preached, if you're reading it, If you're engaged in God's Word and you read something and you have that inward burning sensation, it is the Holy Spirit using the Word of God and He is doing a spiritual surgery on you. And you ought to thank God. Because He doesn't do it on everybody. He does not do it on everybody. Now, back to the reason I ran this first. When it says in Hebrews 11 verse 34, escape the edge of the sword, it's not talking about God's Word. It is not in reference at all to escaping the Word of God. You cannot escape God's Word. If you are one of His chosen, you will not escape it. And if you are not one of His chosen, you will not escape God's Word. Because the Bible tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 8 that when the Lord comes, He will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. You will not escape God's Word. It's impossible. He will draw in those that He has chosen. And those that He has not, He will deal with them one day according to His Word. So you cannot escape the sword of the Spirit. It cannot be done. So let's put that reference or that thought completely out of our minds. And it doesn't make sense anyways that by faith in God's Word you would escape God's Word. So it has nothing to do with the Word of God. And so let's look, first of all, this evening, what does it mean to escape the edge of the sword? What does it mean? And we looked up these words and we'll just give them to you briefly, but the word sword literally means a knife or a dirt, a straight-edged dagger, or eventually it gets down into a sword. Figuratively, it means escape a war or judicial punishment. We find as well that we look up the word escape, it means to run away or to flee. And then we look up the word edge and it means the front end of a weapon. So basically it means exactly what it says. There's no hidden things. If we look at the Greek, it is the edge of the sword. Now I want you to understand this, when it speaks of escaping or to run away or to flee, I want you to understand that often times we look at people who flee from a battle and we say, well they're cowardly. Not every retreat is cowardly. You find there when Paul was, they had come to kill him and he was let down over the wall in a basket, wasn't he? There were many things. We find that Christ escaped because it was not yet His hour. None of that was done in cowardice. It was all because of faith and in the plan of God. So we ought not to look at these things as such and automatically say, well, they're a coward. It may be a retreat of faith. It very well may be. There were times when David retreated in faith. And in fact, he's one of the ones that this refers to. He escaped the edge of the sword by faith. He fled by faith. This was not, again, attributed to happenstance, or by chance, or by luck. or even the providence of God. Understand this. There are things that have happened in your life and in mine, and I dealt with a great deal of things when I was in law enforcement, and the Lord protected me. I trusted that He would protect me. But it wasn't in the service of the Lord. And there were many dangers that I faced, and you have had dangers that you have faced. And God has evidently, as you're here, delivered you from them all. in that capacity. And we attribute those and we give God the honor and the glory and the praise and we say that He did it. And we attribute things to His sovereignty and we attribute things to His providence. This is not the case of Hebrews 11. What we find here is that the writer says they did this by faith. They trusted the Lord and they escaped or they retreated or they fled by faith. It wasn't they did it and some necessarily providential thing happened of that nature. They believed God and they did something because of that faith and God delivered them and kept them safe. This is what is mentioned here. The Bible makes a distinction that the Holy Spirit of God refers to this as an instance or an exploit of faith. There's a lot of things in this world that people will say, well, we can't go and do this because of how dangerous it might be. Well, if the Lord has sent you to do it, trust He'll provide and protect. I mean, there have been missionaries, evangelists, and there have been church members who have gone out and spread the gospel because the Lord said, I have all authority in heaven and earth, go ye therefore and make disciples. And they said, we're supposed to go, and they went out. And God protected them. And folks want to say, well, it's dangerous. It was no more dangerous for us than it was for Christ who came here to be crucified. It's no more dangerous. So we look at these things, and we see that this was not, again, attributed to happenstance. It was attributed to faith. And we look a little further. Secondly, that it was done by faith. who through faith, there in verse 32, we find that they believed the Lord and could and would. And this again, we base these on what God's Word says. Turn over to the book of Job, chapter 5. The book of Job, chapter 5. And notice, if you would, in verse 8, we'll begin our reading. Job 5 and verse 8. Here we find that one of Job's friends, and I reiterate this, I've said this before, Job's friends, the things that they said about God were true, they just misapplied them to Job's case. And so what they had to say doesn't mean it was wrong, it just means they applied it wrong to Job. And I'm sure sometimes we apply things wrong. We might see somebody, and they're going through something, we say, well, they're lost. Or if they're saved, we say, well, God's chastening them. Not necessarily so, because Job wasn't being chastened. He was under a trial, wasn't he? God was dealing with him, not because he had done anything wrong, but because he was teaching him some further things. In Job 5, verse 8, It says here, I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause, which doeth great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. And so this is again, this is the premise. He says, listen, I would seek after God and I would commit my cause unto Him. The reason why is He does great things and they're unsearchable. You can't find out the things that God does. You can't put pen and paper to the things that God does because they are beyond this world's comprehension. God is not confined to the laws of physics or the laws of anything in this world. He is merely confined by His own abilities which are unsearchable and unfathomable to our minds. If you skip down into verse 15, notice, "...but he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty." Skipping down to verse 20, he says, "...in famine he shall redeem thee from death, and in war from the power of the sword." Verse 27, the writer concludes, "...Lo, or behold this, we have searched it, So it is, hear it, and know thou it for thy good. The writer tells us in these passages, he says, God does great unsearchable things, and here's some of the things he does, and in particular there in verse 20, the latter part, and in war from the power of the sword. Listen, we're in a war, it's a spiritual warfare. And we're engaged in a battle. Like it or not, you are if you're saved by God's grace. You're in a war with principalities and powers and things that are not seen with the eyes of this flesh. And the Bible says that He is able to deliver from that sword. We are able to escape by it. And then He concludes in verse 27, He says, take notice, or lo, we have searched it. So it is. He says, this is not just my fancy, we have seen this, we have searched out, we have found it to be true. And he says, hear it and know thou it for thy good. Hear it. Well, what comes by hearing? Faith comes by hearing, doesn't it? And hearing by the Word of God. And so when we trust the Lord, as it says here, hear it and know thou it for thy good. It's going to be good for us to know that God is able and He's willing to deliver from the power of the sword in war. That's a tremendous thing, isn't it? Job is one of the earliest books of the Bible. He's a patriarch of old. And so all of the prophets, all of those of the judges, they had this available unto them. And they knew what it said in God's Word. We find here, if you'll turn over to Exodus chapter 18, Exodus chapter 18, we find as well in the writings of Moses, they had the example of Moses that God had given them. that they were able, or he was able to deliver the escape of the sword, or escape from the edge of the sword. And in Exodus chapter 18, in verse 4, we have it. We find that Moses named one of his sons in honor of God. And notice what he calls him. He says, the name of the other was Eleazar. And the name Eliezer means God is help or something of that. And he goes on and it says, for, here's why I named him Eliezer, for or because the God of my father said he was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. He delivered me. They said, he delivered Moses from the sword of Pharaoh. It was by faith he delivered them. Now let's turn to Exodus chapter 2 and let's read the instance in which Moses fled and was delivered. Because again, he names his son, so it already took place that God helped him. Because he's not going to name Eleazar before the instance, he's going to do it afterwards like a monument of what took place. We don't build monuments until something took place because it is to remember what took place. Eleazar, he named his son, he says, because God helped me. He delivered me from Pharaoh's sword. So it had to happen before Eleazar's birth. He did not name Eleazar about anything about the plagues or about coming out of Egypt when God delivered him. He did it all before that. in Exodus chapter 2 and verse 11. Exodus 2 and verse 11. And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens, and he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together, and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known." Now, pause here and turn over to Acts chapter 7. And this is why it's so important to compare Scripture with Scripture. Look over in Acts chapter 7. We need to understand that Moses knew that he was going to be the deliverer of God's people when he did that. He already knew God was going to use him in that capacity. And in Acts chapter 7, The Bible tells us in verse 22, And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them but they understood not. The next verse says, And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. Now the Bible tells us here Moses went to them. He understood. He goes, God is going to use me to deliver Israel. He's 40 years old. And he understood that God was going to use him. And he supposed that the Israelites understood that too. They didn't have a clue. They did not have a clue. And then he finds out and he says, Man, people know I killed that Egyptian. Well, look back to our Exodus chapter two and read verse 15. We already read how Moses fled, right? And what did we say the word escape means? It means fled, right? Fled away, to flee from. Verse 15, now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he what? He sought to slay Moses. He wanted to kill him. And the Bible says, but Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Moses didn't flee because he was afraid. He fled by faith. It was not yet God's time. Moses tries to deliver Israel by his own ability. And you'll never do anything in your own ability, neither will I. But when it was God's time, he sent Moses, and the people were receptive, weren't they? So we look at this and we see here how Moses escaped the edge of the sword. And it was done by faith. So these prophets, or these judges, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and then David and Samuel and then all the prophets, guess what? They had these examples. They had the book of Job, they had the example of Moses, that God was able to deliver His people from the edge of the sword. They could escape it by faith. There are many examples. There's the time in the life of Gideon where God delivered the Midianites by 300 people into the hand of Gideon. You read Judges 7 and see if that isn't so. As again, I have to say with Paul, time would fail me to go over all of these instances where God delivered them. You can read in 1 Kings chapter 19 about Elijah and Jezebel. When she found out he killed all the prophets of Baal, she said, and God do so unto me if Elijah's not dead by the end of the day. And Elijah fled. And that was when he went and he asked God, he said, oh, it's enough. Go ahead and kill me. And my dad said if he really wanted to die, he should have stayed there because Jezebel would have done it for him. And she would have. She wanted to kill him. But he was so distraught, he says unto God, he says, God, I've been jealous over you. I've been desirous to serve you for your holy name. I have done this for you. And now he's at a point, he says, I'm the only one left. And God says to him, he says, I've got 7,000 prophets who have not bowed the knee to Baal. I've reserved them unto myself. But Elijah, even though his prophets fled or escaped the edge of the sword, because Jezebel was killing all the prophets of God. She was destroying them all and God, He preserved them. Paul refers to that in the book of Romans. A remnant according to the election of grace. Let's look over fourthly tonight and we'll begin to close with this line of thought, Psalm 59. I have never faced a physical sword, except for the wooden ones my brothers and I used to beat ourselves senseless with, and the ones that the kids have now. But I have faced figurative swords, and so have you. In Psalm 59, beginning at verse 1, the psalmist David records these words And in verse 1, he says, deliver me from mine enemies, O my God, defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity and save me from bloody men. For lo, they lie in wait for my soul. The mighty are gathered against me, not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord. See, David tells us here, he says, they're lying in wait. They're not doing it because I've committed a sin. Because in the Old Testament, there were those who could, if you had committed certain sins, they were punishable by death. And there were avengers that could kill you. If you committed first-degree murders, what we would call today, if you committed first-degree murder, then they had an avenger, typically it was a family member, and they would seek you out to kill you. David says, it's not because I did anything worthy of death as far as the Mosaic Law was concerned. Verse 4, they run and prepare themselves without my fault. Awake to help me, and behold, thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen. Be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. They return at evening. They make a noise like a dog and go round about the city. Behold, they belch out with their mouth. Swords are in their lips, for who say they doth hear. I want you to understand, my father told me this when I was very little. The Bible says, thou shalt not kill. And you can kill a man with your words. You can destroy him with your words. You can destroy your spouse with words. You can destroy your children. You can destroy a brother or sister in Christ. You can destroy a church member. You can destroy a minister with your words. It was done with Christ. Was He not accused falsely and they crucified Him? In fact, we see a very good picture here of Christ and the false accusations that were made against Him. They didn't crucify Him because He did anything wrong, they did it because they hated Him. With wicked hands they slew Him. In verse 12, David says, "...for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride, and for cursing and lying which they speak." The word cursing here, if you remember in James, we spoke about how we're not supposed to swear, meaning go into an oath. That's exactly what was done with Christ. There were those who made false accusations, they lied, they entered into an oath before a judicial, and they cursed. And there were those who, with Paul, remember? They said, well, we're not going to eat or drink until he's dead. Until we kill him. They must have died of thirst or starvation because they didn't kill him, did they? Again, the reference there, for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride. This may be the case. And so David writes concerning, in a sense, the edge of the sword. And he asks God in verse 1, deliver me from mine enemies. Deliver me from the words of their mouth, from the edge of the sword. The Bible tells us in Revelation that the Word of God, or that the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a sword that comes out of His mouth in reference to the Word of God. We all have swords that come out of our mouths. The heathen have swords that come out of their mouths. And you may not face a literal sword, but you will face a figurative sword. and you will escape the edge of it only by faith. My dad told me years ago, and it's still true today, that the only thing that you can do about a lie about yourself is to make sure it's not true. And the Lord will handle it. All we can do is make sure it's not true. Or, We make sure that it is true, depending on which one is good or according to God's Word. So in this 59th Psalm, again, we have a reference unto it. Look at verse 16 and 17. Notice, David called on the Lord to deliver him and did the Lord deliver him? Did he escape the edge of the sword? You know he did. You know that He did. Verse 16, But I will sing of Thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning, for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto Thee, O my strength, will I sing, for God is my defense and the God of my mercy. Notice who He called upon and notice who delivered Him and He rehearsed all the things. He rehearsed just as we were exhorted to last Sunday morning in the preaching of the psalm to cry out unto God and how that these are opportunities to force us to pray. David had an opportunity to cry out and to call upon the Lord and he did and what did he do? He spread it all out before the Lord. As the psalmist in that verse said, he said, I showed before him my trouble. Psalm 142, verse 2. I showed him my trouble. You say, well, God knows what I'm going through. Well, show it to him anyways, because that's what the Scripture says. And that's exactly what David did. He said, here's what they're doing, and this is this, and here's what's going on here, and I didn't do this, and so on and so forth. And he gets down to the end in Psalm 59, and as we read it in your hearing just a moment ago, David says, I will sing of thy power. You know, we never sometimes get to that place, do we? We never get to where we've escaped the edge of the sword and we sing to God's power. Sometimes we're oblivious that we've already been delivered. You know, David anticipated being delivered by trusting God. We ought to anticipate it as well. By faith, they escaped the edge of the sword. If you're here and you're without the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a sword that you do need to escape. And that is the wrath of God. And the only way you're going to escape it is by faith. Trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. Call in upon Him while He is near. And if you are saved, as we walk through this pilgrimage, we need to escape the swords of the enemy. by faith, calling upon the Lord, asking Him for deliverance, showing Him the trouble that we're in. I know, I'm sure there's folks that say, oh, I just feel funny. You shouldn't. You shouldn't feel funny at all. This is a great, high, and exalted privilege that we come before the throne of God boldly, making our requests known unto Him. He delights in us coming before Him, trusting in Him by faith. so that we might escape the edge of the sword.