looking at today, which talks about the sufferings of God's people. As we are in chapter 11 now, I remind you that the first 10 chapters marvelously put forward Jesus, God's Son, who fulfilled all the requirements of God's covenant of redemption. He did everything that was appointed for our salvation in order that we might be forgiven. He did his priestly work, and this book, Hebrews, sets that forth very gloriously. And then in chapter 10, it admonishes us to believe, to trust in him so that we might be saved. We're exhorted to trust in him. His saving benefits that reconcile us to God can be ours only through faith. Then in chapter 11, where we have been for some time, we're given a list of examples of those who had faith in the Old Testament as models for us, showing what faith looks like and what it does when it is found in God's people, in the lives of God's people. So we've looked at many examples, haven't we? Last week, though, we saw that the author declared that he had given a sufficient number of examples, enough examples to be sufficient for his purposes, even though many more could be provided. He then proceeded to draw some summary conclusions about the workings of faith, and he provided us with a contrast that we looked at in some detail last week. And that contrast was between faith that does great things triumphantly in this world and faith that endures hard things, great things in how hard they are. We might call it triumphant faith and enduring faith. After looking at that contrast, we then focused on the first half of that triumphant faith, looking at the extraordinary things that were done through faith, such as subduing kingdoms, stopping the mouths of lions, quenching the violence of fire, seeing people raised from the dead, those kind of extraordinary things that we saw that faith was able to do. I explain that these are important for us to consider not because we're likely to experience them. Most of you will probably not be cast into flames of fire in a furnace and be delivered that way. It's probably not what God has planned for you. He ordinarily does not do such things. But these examples are given to us that we might trust God to enable us to do what He has called us to do. First and foremost, to trust in Him for salvation. He calls everyone everywhere, repent and believe the gospel. He enables us to be saved. We can't do it on our own, we do it only through faith. And then on from that, living the Christian life. We need to trust in Him to live a godly life. to bring up our children in the Lord, to overcome sin, to serve others. We could go on and on and on of how we do it all through faith. Seeing that God can do marvels when he calls people to do them should give us confidence that he can help us to do whatever he calls us to do. And the things that are in the word that are given to all of us are things he's called us to do. Today we're going to take a similar approach in looking at the hard things that faith enables us to endure. Our focus will be on verses 35b through 38, where we have examples of marvelous endurance involving everything from martyrdom to continuing faithfully under banishment. We could call it martyrdom or banishment, and we could be called to martyrdom or banishment, and that's a reality. We could have some suffering that will come our way, the way that things are going in the world, and many Christians do. We could be called to that, but whether we are or not, we have things that are hard to endure. And so it applies to us right now today in the things that we have to face and endure for the glory of God. We need to bear them to the glory of God. If these who are severely persecuted were able to endure by faith, how much more should we be able to endure whatever God brings into our lives that's hard by faith, remaining faithful to Him? Let's go to our scripture reading, I'll include the part that we focused on last week. So our reading will begin where it did last week with Hebrews 11.32, and it will conclude at the end of the chapter. We're not gonna quite reach the end today, but we'll conclude with verse 40 nevertheless. So just like last week, remember this is a very beautiful passage that God has given us in his word about those who have gone before us and have suffered. for God's glory and also who have done great things, exploits for God's glory. So listen as I read it to you with reverent understanding. Hebrews 11.32. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Japheth, 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 aliens. Women received their dead raised to life, and 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 wondered 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 providing something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Thanks be to our God for this beautiful and helpful passage. May it indeed be truly helpful. to each one of us today and strengthen us for the future that God has for us, which may include great triumphs of faith, as well as very difficult things that we will have to endure. There's little reason to think that it will not include difficult things. God has told us so. Jesus has told us so. He doesn't hide that from us when he calls us to be disciples. Now, because our goal here, as always, is to apply God's words to our lives, then I have set this up by way of looking at them and then us, them and then us. So each of the points, there's their suffering and ours, their endurance and ours, their faith and ours, their worthiness and ours. So we'll go through that today. Let's begin with the first heading, their sufferings and ours. We have examples here of severe sufferings. Persecution occurs because people are guilty before God. They try their best in their natural until God converts them. They try their best to avoid Him, to deny their guilt. to cover it up, to make excuses, to blame others, whatever they can. It enrages them when they see someone who, by God's grace, has been reconciled to the true God and who is living at peace with Him through Jesus Christ. They employ different means of trying to get rid of the example. They look for hypocrisy in those that are professing His name. And they make much of every sin that they can find. They're always looking, oh, you know, I saw it. I remember when I first became a believer in university and my buddies would say, oh, well, you're supposed to be a Christian. Why do you do that? And they would call me out. And I had to admit a lot of times that they were right. Sometimes the criticism was not justified, but it was often so. They look for hypocrisy, and they make much of whatever sin they can find, because it makes them feel better about their own state. I wasn't claiming to be without sin, and I told him that. I said, I'm glad that Jesus died for my sins. If I was relying on my own righteousness, I would be in trouble. But I tried not to make that as an excuse, either, that I shouldn't repent. Sometimes I didn't want to repent of the stuff they pointed out, but it was challenging. But they look for that sort of thing. They come up with also all kinds of explanations and excuses and all sorts of things. Sometimes they even speak in ways of admiration of those that are following the Lord to ease their consciences. And they maybe really do admire things that they see in those who are following the Lord. But they don't come to Christ. And so it's just a way of kind of deferring and avoiding and thinking like, okay, well I'm a good person because I admire this. Even though they don't themselves actually repent and come and follow Christ. But they also, it's like those who say that they think Jesus is a really good teacher. You know, and he said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Oh, I don't believe that. That was his main thing that he said. You think he's a good teacher, but when he says I'm the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but by me, you don't agree with him? That's what he taught. So it's a curious thing, isn't it, how the world is. But you see, they also sometimes try to destroy us, either by leading us into sin, They love it if they can get you to fall into some kind of immorality, or by punishing us as being offensive to them for following Jesus. They find this offensive. Sometimes they bring that out, you see, when there's more power in that, when God doesn't restrain them as much. We're seeing more of that sort of thing in our society all the time. I mean, you could lose your job simply for believing what God says about marriage and gender. You know, you could lose your job for that. And, you know, that's a kind of a persecution, isn't it? Sometimes in the hands of those who have much authority, The rage is seen in very extreme persecutions. They're like looking for things that they can invent to make the death and the punishment and the torture as miserable as they possibly can. You see the diabolical nature that is in man. The supreme example is the persecution of the Lord Jesus Christ. that led his enemies to demand that he be crucified, choosing a murderer and a robber ahead of him. It doesn't even make sense, except that the mystery of iniquity that's deep in the heart. In our text, we have examples of extreme persecutions that our fathers in the faith in the Old Testament have endured, and that people in various parts of the world are enduring today, things like this. Many are enduring very similar things. The first one is introduced to contrast it from all the others that triumphed that we read about before, like they were persecuted, they were thrown into a fire, but it didn't hurt them. But now it's talking about ones where it did hurt them, where the fire did hurt and it did burn. And there are many that were like that. And so it says, others, to set up the contrast. Verse 35b, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. Here's an example. that I want to give you that was very, very well known to these Jewish readers, because they had had the period of time between Malachi and the time that they were in when this letter was written to them, and they had faithful fathers before them, the Maccabean period, who had stood against the Greeks who were trying to make them Greek instead of to be those who serve the Lord. They wanted them to follow Greek culture instead of biblical commandments. So this was especially under the Greek king Antiochus. who tried to force the Jews to embrace Greek culture. And one of the things he did is sort of a test thing, was you have to eat swine's flesh, you have to eat pork, because the Jews were forbidden to do that. And if they did that, then they were conceding and giving way to the Greek culture. So here is a reading from, this is an apocryphal book. I mean, 2 Maccabees, but it is a useful history book that gives us a history of God's people. So I want to read to you from this, 2 Maccabees 7. It says, it also happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, that's Antiochus, to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law. One of the brothers speaking for the others said, what do you expect to learn by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors. That the king in a fury gave orders to have pans and cauldrons heated. These were quickly heated and he gave the order to cut out the tongue of the one who had spoken for the others, to scalp him and cut off his hands and feet while the rest of his brothers and his mother looked on. When he was completely maimed but still breathing, the king ordered them to carry him to the fire and fry him. As a cloud of smoke spread from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly with these words. The Lord is looking on and truly has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song when he openly bore witness, saying, and God will have compassion on his servants. After the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second to be made sport of. And tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, will you eat the pork rather than have your body tortured limb by limb? Answering in the language of his ancestors, he said, never. So he in turn suffered the same tortures as the first. With his last breath, he said, You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the king of the universe will rise, will raise us up to live again forever because we are dying for his laws. And after him, the third suffered the cruel sport, their cruel sport. He put forth his tongue at once. when told to do so, and bravely stretched out his hands as he spoke these noble words. It was from heaven that I received these. For the sake of his laws, I disregard them. From him, I hope to receive them again. Even the king in his attendance marveled at the young man's spirit because he regarded his sufferings as nothing. After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, it is my choice to die at the hands of mortals with the hope that God will restore me to life. But for you, there is no resurrection to life. They next brought forward the fifth brother and maltreated him. Looking at the king, he said, mortal though you are, you have power over human beings, so you do what you please. But do not think that our nation is forsaken by God. Only wait and you will see how his great power will torment you and your descendants. After him, they brought forth the sixth brother. When he was brought to die, he said, Have no vain illusions. We suffer these things on our own account because we have sinned against our Lord. That is why such shocking things have happened. Do not think, then, that you will go unpunished, having dared to fight against God. Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother who, seeing her seven sons perish in a single day, bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord. Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly reason with manly emotion, she exhorted each of them in the language of their ancestors with these words. I do not know how you came to be in my womb. It was not I who gave you breath and life, nor was it I who arranged the elements you were made of. Therefore, since it is the creator of the universe who shaped the beginning of humankind and brought about the origin of everything, He and his mercy will give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law." Antiochus, suspecting insult in her words, thought he was being ridiculed. As the youngest brother was still alive, the king appealed to him, not with mere words, but with promises on oath to make him rich and happy if he would abandon his ancestral customs. He would make him his friend and entrust him with high office. When the youth paid no attention to him at all, the king appealed to the mother, urging her to advise her boy to save his life. After he had urged her for a long time, she agreed to persuade her son. She leaned over close to him, and in derision of the cruel tyrant, said in their native language, Son, have pity on me who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age. I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them. Then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things. in the same way humankind came into existence. Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with your brothers. She had scarcely finished speaking when the youth said, What is the delay? I will not obey the king's command. I obey the command of the law given to our ancestors through Moses. But you have contrived every kind of evil for the Hebrews. We will not escape the hands of God. We indeed are suffering because of our sins. Though for a little while our living God has been angry, correcting and chastening us, He will again be reconciled with His servants. But you, wretch, most vile of mortals, do not in your insolence buoy yourself up with unfounded hopes as you raise your hand against the children of heaven. You have not escaped the judgment of the Almighty and all-seeing God. Our brothers, after ending Our brothers, after enduring brief pain, have drunk of never failing life under God's covenant. But you, the judgment of God, shall receive punishments for your arrogance. Like my brothers, I offer up my body and my life for our ancestral laws, imploring God to show mercy soon to our nation and by afflictions and blows to make you confess that he alone is God. Through me and my brothers, may there be an end to the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation. At that, the king became enraged and treated him even worse than the others, since he bitterly resented the boy's contempt. Thus, he too died undefiled, putting all his trust in the Lord. Last of all, after her sons, the mother was put to death. Enough has been said about the sacrificial meals and the excessive cruelties." And there you see is a historical reading from the book of Maccabees. This is what These Hebrews would have thought of when they heard of those who were tortured and did not accept deliverance. This is the sort of thing that would have definitely come to their mind. These stories were well known. There were so many children that were named after some of these ones that were heroes of the faith. You can see the other persecutions that are named here. Still others, verse 36, had trial of mockings. They were ridiculed and mocked for their faith, made to look foolish and absurd, as was done with Jesus when he was on the cross. They mocked him. They said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross and show us who you are. They said that God was displeased with him. The verse goes on speaking of scourgings. A method used by the Greeks was to stretch a person out on the rack. And then to beat them with rods and various things, and then to ask them if they would recant. That was one of the other things that they did to torture them, and scourging them, and beating them when they were stretched out to make it more painful. It adds chains and imprisonments. People were shut up away in dungeons simply for believing the truth, having done no wrong to their tormentors. This is the interesting thing. They had done no wrong to those who tormented them, but the rage was against them and what they believed. Some of them were sawn in two. Apparently, we're told that Manasseh, King Manasseh, did this to Isaiah, the holy prophet, with a wooden saw of all things. Make it more painful. They were tempted. One of the Maccabees was told as we did that reading that he would be able to have all kinds of privileges. He would make him one of his friends, friend of the king. He would have high office and everything if he would just turn away. And we're told of others that were told that when they were asked to eat meat in public, that if they were that they could even fake it like they would let them have their bring their own meat and eat that in the pretext that they were eating it to eating swine. And they were tempted, you see. Oh, here, maybe you can do it this way. And still they refused. Persecutions often come in little things. We need to know that the compromise comes in little things often because those are the things where there's more temptation. And that's what you often see. Remember what we saw when we were looking at the seven churches in Revelation, that Jesus commended them for some of them that had been martyred and that were standing true. They were told that the Romans were making them offer a pinch of incense to Caesar. To say that, you know, to worship Caesar, all they had to do is take a pinch of incense and they could say, my heart's not in it. And they just had to do that. And then it was OK. And they died. Many, many, many in the early church died by that test. And those who did not, who gave way to it, never ended up serving the Lord with faithfulness. I can't say never, I mean there were some that would have repented, but yeah, these are things that went on. They were slain with the sword. Sometimes mass numbers, they'd go into a whole village and community that was serving the Lord. to destroy them. Verse 37 and 38 speak of how some of them avoided arrest, which is not unlawful if we can escape and go into hiding if we do it lawfully. Jesus sometimes did that before his hour came. He would avoid certain crowds where it was going to be, where that was going to happen, or got away from them. We might think of David when he fled from Saul for all of those years. He wondered about, as it says that these did, or Elijah, when in his day the prophets hid fifty to a cave and ate bread and water that was brought to them. The text says, from the middle of verse 37, they wondered 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 in caves of the earth. And what about us? Our sufferings might seem very light. after reading some of these things, whatever we have to endure. But remember the point. If our forefathers were able to bear these things by faith, it assures us that we will be able to bear whatever God gives to us by faith, whatever it be. Do not be deceived, this is an easy deception to fall into, so as to think that what you do with your sufferings is not as important because your sufferings are not as great. Oh, well, this isn't a big deal. No. Faithfulness to God is the big deal. Mankind fell by eating forbidden fruit. Many of the early church people fell by offering a pinch of incense to Caesar. You see, it's not the little things matter. Or we say, well, our sufferings are not on account of persecution, so they don't count. That's not true either. Any kind of sufferings we bear for our Lord. It's a lie, you see. We have sufferings that are like theirs, even if not as great and even as not always from persecution. For example, they had to endure pain. So do we. Different reasons sometimes. They had to endure being ridiculed. So do we. All kinds of various ways. They had to bear death and bereavement. So do we. They had to endure living with less than other people at times. So do we. They had to deal with friendlessness. And they were in danger and had to deal with that. They had to deal with being rejected and excluded because of what they believed. We sometimes have to do that. God has appointed things for us to endure for as long as we're in this world. and it's very important for us to endure them for His glory. So, their sufferings and ours. This brings us now to our second heading. Their endurance and ours. Their endurance was remarkable because as noted in verse 35, they did not accept deliverance. In other words, though tortured and offered deliverance, sometimes not only deliverance but handsome reward, They refused deliverance. Very interesting, isn't it? That's how they endured. They said, I will suffer rather than sin against the Lord. And they kept saying that. They endured. It is one thing to be sick and have no choice but to suffer. You know, you've got pain and you can't do anything about it. It's quite another to have an easy way of escape and to refuse to take it because it would involve disloyalty to your Lord. That's what they did, and that's what they're commended for. This applies to us more than you might think in our everyday lives. Even if we have much suffering that is not the result of persecution, that we could not turn off, that we could not stop immediately just by denying the Lord or doing what they want us to do to deny our faith. What are some examples of what I'm talking about? Well, an example would be doing our part to maintain a bad marriage. when the easy way would be to get a divorce. But much more than just refusing to get a divorce involves doing the little things that need to be done every day to strengthen your marriage and to make it healthy, acts of kindness, expressions of commitment and sacrifice, sacrificing your own interests for the interests of your spouse. Another example would be fidelity to God when my finances are lower than I'd like. What do you do when you endure having lower finances than what you would like? The one who endures will not cut corners in their work to turn a dishonest profit. They'll not try to cheat someone when they're selling something or exaggerate about it so that they can get more money. They might work harder. That would be a good thing to do. But they won't lie and cheat and deceive in order to get more. The one who endures will also continue to tithe. You know, so many who have financial troubles claim that they cannot tithe because they have financial troubles. It's a chicken and egg thing. The Lord assures us that if we do not tithe, we will very likely have financial troubles. If we do, then he will help us in that area. It's the same thing with Israel when they said, we have to worship Baal because we have all this trouble. And he's the rain god and we have a drought. And the reason that God sent a drought was because they were worshiping Baal. And you see, they got it backwards. They needed to continue to endure the drought and not turn to some solution that was a false solution. God, of course, made the turning to Baal not work at all for them. He did the opposite. There's an example of depression. I can't work because I'm depressed. But the reason that you are depressed is because you refused to work when you had trouble, and you indulge your feelings instead, and now you're further behind, so you're more deeply depressed. Maybe I had a situation where I truly did get behind, but then instead of rising to the occasion to work hard, I yielded to the discouragement And I gave up. I didn't continue. I withdrew and got even more behind. Very sensitive matter, but one we need to all think about when we're sick or when we're infirm. Are we doing all that we can do? Sometimes you might think about someone who is an athlete. a professional athlete, how hard are they pushing to get an earthly crown? How much are they enduring? How much are they bearing for an earthly crown? Do you work even half that hard when you have the excuse that I have an injury or I'm not well or something's going on. You see, we need to be very again, we want to be sensitive. We don't want to be harsh on on those. But as individuals, when it's our lot to suffer or to have illness or things like that, we need to think about that. Are we being faithful here to do what we can? It requires self-examination. And what about if you must endure criticism? Are you able to do that in a godly way? What do you do if you don't endure criticism? Then you start to defend yourself in an ungodly way that's unnecessary. Sometimes it's necessary to defend yourself. Paul had to do that because his ministry was at stake from all the criticism. Sometimes parents have to do that with their children. They can't allow them to just be critical all the time and saying things. They can acknowledge if they've done wrong, but children will use that as an excuse for their own behavior, and it's a disrespectful thing. But the tendency when we're criticized is to defend ourselves and to attack other people and start criticizing them. And if we're being criticized and looked down on, to start boasting about the things that we've done to try to bolster up ourselves and say, look at how good I am, that's not enduring. That's not enduring the way we need to endure. Maybe some of the criticism is true. Maybe we need to repent. And then I should say a word about enduring daily annoyances as well. Annoyances. If you're complaining. You're not enduring. The Bible says to do all things without grumbling and complaining, without disputing and complaining. Complaining is a kind of kind of like a drug that you take when you're unhappy. You're unhappy with God and His providence. Instead of dealing with it and returning thanks to Him for all of His mercies that He has given you, you start complaining. Maybe you even turn to drugs or drink, or maybe something like eating. instead of complaining. But if you looked in your heart, you're eating because you're complaining, not because of any other reason. And there'd be a lot of bitterness that would be seen if your heart was open in what you're doing. It could be all kinds of things. Do you endure trouble in your life in a godly way? So, you understand what I mean? This applies to us. It's not like you have to be stretched on the rack and saying, I won't deny Him in order to do what we're told to do here. You need faith. You cannot do this without faith. It is by faith that they overcame. So we're not to look for relief in ways that are sinful and that break fellowship with God. Rather, we're to enter into deeper fellowship with God when we're called to endure for His sake. So how can we endure hard things? Well, that's of course what we're looking at with all these examples. And what do they all tell us? I just said a minute ago, it's by faith that we endure. That's what it says all through this passage. We endure hard things by faith. So let's look at our third heading. Their faith and ours. These faithful servants of the Lord, their faith and ours. This is how they endured. We're told why these faithful martyrs and persecuted brothers and sisters did not accept deliverance. And what is the language that's used here? Because they look for a better resurrection. In other words, they did not want the half-hearted resurrection or the half-hearted deliverance, half-baked deliverance that the world was being offered, that their enemies were offering them. We will give you your life back rather than torturing you and killing you if you will just do this. They wouldn't accept that. Why? They were looking for a better resurrection. You see? The resurrection that the Lord promises to His people. We don't want the resurrection that you offered us. We want the resurrection that God gives to His people because we believe in that. That's what you saw with the seven brothers there. They endured by faith. They believe that God is. They believe that He is God and that He made us and that He holds our destiny in His hands because they believed His blessing and His resurrection was way more desirable to them than some deliverance that the world was offering to them. The world's resurrection was only a temporary thing. They saw him who is invisible. That's what faith does, right? It sees him who is invisible and it believes the word of promise that is yet future, the evidence of things not seen, not yet seen. Like Abraham, they look for a city whose builder and maker is God, eternal in the heavens, and they left their homeland and wandered about because God called for it. Like Moses, they would rather suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. They consider the reproach and attacks that came upon them for serving Christ to be greater riches than all the riches in Egypt, like Moses. You need to have faith in a better resurrection that God has for you than whatever sinful relief you turn to when you don't endure. Don't be muddle-headed about faith here. We're often muddle-headed about faith. We think trusting God in this case means praying and then having the problem taken away. If that doesn't happen, then we're, I prayed and God didn't, he didn't answer. Say it's the bad marriage. We just want, pray, God makes it into a sweet marriage, just like that. Hey, yeah, God answered my prayer. It's perfect. Or, sometimes he does that, right? Sometimes. Or we say that, say it's considered the matter of inadequate finances. Our idea of faith, I pray, go to my mailbox, there's a check for $100,000. Some relative just died or something and they left me $100,000. God answered my prayer. Sometimes he does that. But that's what we think faith is about, and it's way, way more than that. So, you know, we're stuck with the thing. Okay, so what is faith, then, in that case? Okay, well, I'll pray that God will just change me and make me patient. So, zap. Ha, I'm happy, I'm patient. God answered my prayer. That's not usually what he does either. But it's nice. He can do that. Sometimes he does do that. But that's not usually what he does. Well, let's look at what God usually does to enable us to endure hard things. What does He usually do? Ordinarily, He uses our very struggle with the hard thing to cultivate faith as we need it to go through the trial. In other words, as we're enduring and looking to God, that is the process by which we are brought near to God and our faith is strengthened that we trust in Him more and we love Him more and we serve Him with more confidence and zeal. We need to develop faith that truly believes that God's resurrection is better than whatever deliverance the world might have to offer us. And so we have the offer of the world that stands and stands and stands day after day after day to compromise, to find our way of relief, whatever that might be. And we have to keep looking at that and comparing that with God. Which is better? Do I want the resurrection that God gives, or do I want, and our faith grows because as we're looking at God, we begin to see how worthy he is. We begin to see how real his promises are, how important his promises are. Being released from the rack is not nearly as desirable as being in the presence of his glory, you see. When you're under that test, you have to say, is it better to be released from this rack, Or is it better to have the resurrection that God promises? I mean, let me put it really in a very blunt way. Our struggle is whether God is worthy of enduring hard things for. Whether we believe that God is worthy to endure hard things for or not. Now, that's shameful. I mean, we don't want to really say, oh, whoa, that's not, I know God is worthy. Of course you know, but do you? When you're in the moment, do you? We know and would say that, of course, God is worth it. But when we turn to simple things or compromising things for relief. Our faith just failed. We said he is not worthy. We're looking for the world's resurrection instead of God's resurrection, as if the world's resurrection is better than God's. Now, that's a disgusting reality of our wicked human sinful hearts, even as believers. Even as believers, we struggle. We are esteeming the world's resurrection better than God's when we do that. Now, ordinarily then, we cultivate stronger faith by exercising faith in the trial. Again, the guy on the rack, he must ask the question, is getting off this machine that is stretching my body apart better than my relationship with God? No, of course not. As he wrestles with that, his faith is strengthened. He begins to look, he has to, in order to make that assessment. He begins to look more deeply at the goodness of God, at the truth and justice of God, at the mercy of God, at the grace of God that gives him strength to see how God does enable him to stand, to trust in God that he will continue to do that. His faith in God, in who God is, in what God has promised is strengthened by the very trial. that would not happen if it was taken away. So if you're enduring discouragement and you turn to the cookie jar instead of to the Lord, you have accepted the cookie jar as your resurrection. But if you look to the Lord and begin to feed on His goodness and His faithfulness to rest in His promises, to delight in His truth and His love, you're looking for the better resurrection. You see the great love of your Lord Jesus, who suffered for you, and it makes you able to suffer for him, and even to do it with joy. You become more acquainted in the fellowship of his sufferings, your suffering for him, who suffered for you, and you learn more of what he endured and how great his love was, who suffered so much more than you did. Here is an excellent thing. You can cultivate your relationship with the Lord like this every day. You can cultivate your relationship with potato chips, or with the internet, or with people's admiration, or with the pursuit of success, or whatever you turn to instead. And that's what we call addictions. We call someone a workaholic or an alcoholic or whatever it might be because they invariably turn to these things rather than the living God. They can never satisfy. We were made for the Lord and there's no true happiness and fulfillment until we find it in him. And we find him by enduring hard things for him through faith in him. We look to him in faith to strengthen us to grow in our faith. To put it plainly, we look to him in faith to keep us. And that's what he does during this time of affliction. This is how he transforms you into someone who seeks a better resurrection. how he melds your character. Even though you have many sorrows, you become filled with joy and hope in those sorrows because you know that you have an excellent resurrection and that he will be faithful to give it to you. Already you are enjoying fellowship and communion with him in your sufferings. You are learning of the grace of Jesus and his love who suffered for you. He is making you beautiful. like the people that we read about today. They were beautiful people because they had been reconciled to the living God and were serving Him and knew who He was. And that brings us to our last heading, their worthiness. and ours. In verse 38 it tells us that the world was not worthy of these believers who endured torture and banishment for Jesus Christ. It says, of whom the world was not worthy. Now there's sort of different ways we can look at that, but the best way I think to understand the world here is we might say worldlings. worldlings, people who have their portion in this life, in this world. For them, the important things are riches, honors, success, pleasures of this world. They have different things, but it's this world. And they look at believers as boring or unsuccessful and not really worthy to be their companions in the world. As they grow deeper in their rebellion against God, they begin to say that believers are actually a plague, that they're evil. They say that we ruin their happiness, and we do, because we're constantly testifying of the living God that they're trying to deny, and that spoils their party. It makes them very unhappy. So they say that we ruin their happiness by reminding them about God, whom they are desperately trying to avoid. They don't always put it in those words. But why is it that there's such invertebrate hatred toward God's people to invent tortures and things when it rises to such a level? That's why there have been such vicious attacks against those who follow the Lord. You know, Jesus was completely unacceptable to the world. He was not worthy to live in the world. His death was preferred to the death of Barabbas. Why? Because he was righteous and godly. He had done no wrong to anyone. It was because he was righteous and godly. But here the Lord turns it around, and He says that it is not His servants who are unworthy, but the world who is unworthy. These worldlings who have their portion in this life. The beautiful people are the ones who have such love for the Lord and such faith in Him that they endure hard things for Him. That is the beauty of the Lord our God upon us as His people. God has formed their character as they walk with him. They have grown in grace and have borne much fruit that pleases him. Now, we are humbled by hearing that because we know that we've got such a long, long way to go. But think about the transforming work that God has done in your life as you walk with the Lord, and especially you can think about the life of other people. They know Him who is the true God that they didn't know before, the real God, the gracious God, the God of love and mercy, and they love Him and they serve Him. They know Him as the holy God, the almighty God. They have found salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, and He has transformed them so that the world is not worthy of them. God is going to show this on the day of judgment. He's going to make it very clear Who's worthy of whose company? Look at Psalm 1, the very first Psalm. What does it say? Very plainly. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. He won't yield, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. That's a beautiful blessed man. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. They had their portion only in this world. like the chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the seat of the right and in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So the question to you, where will you be on that day? Will you be one who has been trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and his saving work? for the forgiveness of your sin and for reconciliation with God, that you might walk with God? Or will you be one who is unworthy to come before the Lord of glory or to be in association with his people and who is cast out into the place of outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth? Is God worthy or unworthy of your attention? You see, are you indeed trusting in him? Please stand and let's call on his name. Oh Lord God, seeing the lives of those who suffered severe persecutions for your name deeply humbles us. And we think about where we are and how the littlest things trip us up. And we pray, oh Lord, that you would help us to endure seeing him who is invisible. That we would be those, O Lord, who are able to rest in You and that we would come near to You when the temptation is upon us to look for resurrection somewhere else. We pray that, like Mary who sat at Your feet, that we would choose the best part, that we would choose the best thing. And Father, that you would help us, O Lord, for we are a twisted and wretched people, but for your grace. And we pray that your grace would be powerfully at work in our lives to make us what we are not, but what we want to be. Who will deliver us from this body of death, O Lord? For we see that there is much sin and iniquity in us. But we thank you that we rest not in our own righteousness, but we rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins. But Father, having rested in him, if we see him, if he is our savior, then it is ours then that we should look to him and that we will look to him and we will look for his resurrection because we believe we have his resurrection promised to us and we believe it by faith. And so we pray that we would show that we are your people and that we would not give way to those things that would pull us away from him, that the world's resurrections May we look only to your deliverance, O Lord, which is the eternal and final deliverance. We thank you, O Lord, for the way that you have established our walk with you. It's not something where you just zap us and we have a zap period every once in a while and things change. But it's rather something where there's a dynamic that we're struggling and we're wrestling, we're fighting, we're going along and we're bearing things and enduring things and we're learning and growing. and fighting and needing to encourage one another. And I pray, Lord, that we would step into the reality of that life, that we wouldn't be living kind of off to the side of that, but we would be right in the heart of it, O Lord, and that you would help us, O Lord, to be faithful and to endure hardness as good soldiers in Jesus Christ. By your grace, Father, it is by your grace alone, it is by faith that we endure. Strengthen us, O Lord. Increase our trust in you and our hope in your promises. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. People of God, you are the blessed of the Lord. Receive now his blessing. May the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect establish, strengthen and settle you. To him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.