Heb 11:35-40 Empowered to Persevere
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32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 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. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
The author of Hebrews is not doing what many churches are doing in these days saying follow Jesus, give money to the church and all your problems will be solved. God says trust in Me, follow Me, and in this life, you will suffer and be persecuted because of Jesus’ name, but you will receive eternal life.
Jesus said in Matt 10:37-39:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
The author of Hebrews gives example after example not only as a substantial helpful example for the definition of faith but ultimately, he is encouraging and preparing the small refugee Hebrew church against the persecution that was mounting against them and was soon to fall into the horrors orchestrated by the mad emperor Nero.
The original readers of this letter were not in America where many churches preach prosperity, peace, and comfort. We live in a country where many churches only preach a Jesus that will make your life easy, your family will get better, your job will be better, and you will be blessed financially if you follow Jesus.
However, what we see in Scripture is not this picture. Here in the book of Hebrews, we see God preparing the church for great suffering. Jesus never said come follow me and I’ll give you an easy life, His yoke is easy and his burden is light. But, Jesus also said in Matt 16:24-26
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
The book of Hebrews and its teachings is not so that we can live the way we want or the comfort we want, and be entertained and encouraged, but it is a matter of life and death. If we have a brief look at history we will be reminded that we are living in the last days, democracy is not eternal, and religious freedom is very fragile.
More and more evil is called good and legal and good is called evil and soon illegal. For some years now those who hold true to God’s Word are called intolerants and before we know it being a true follower of God will put you on the terrorist list. If you think this is too hard to be true, about 2 years ago those who are pro-life started to be profiled by as domestic terror threats.
Remember the pandemic and the lockdown, during that time there was a glimpse of the pressure that the government here and in Canada was having over the churches, and in some places the government was charging legally churches and pastors, in other places pastors were imprisoned and churches barricaded by police. This was happening in the so-called free world.
If your hope is that Jesus will make your life here perfect, then you are setting yourself up for a great disappointment, and your faith might be more in your own comfort than in Christ. But if you have Hebrews 11 faith then you will be empowered to persevere and will sometimes experience astounding victories.
From verses 32 through 35a the author of Hebrews was encouraging the readers by pointing out that it is through faith that God empowers us to accomplish the impossible, like the Browns winning with two little kids playing…
Now from v 35 – 39, the emphasis is that faith provides another kind of empowerment, the power to persevere to the end. This is great news that God provides through faith power to persevere to the end.
1. Power to Persevere in Persecution
Last week we studied until the beginning of v35, in this verse, there is an abrupt change. Previously, from v 32 to 35 we saw the power of faith and how faith is not limited by our limitations, that faith empowers, and that faith pleases God. We say that through faith one can face and be victorious over the most impossible situation, like two little kids defeating 11 professional football players.
Now there is this change to talking about suffering, one might think that the author is transitioning to talk about something else, but in reality, the focus is still on the power of faith, but on the power to persevere, from v35 to 36 there is a description of the power of faith to persevere in persecution.
35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
35bSome were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
The initial reference here seems to be to the Maccabean persecution.
You may say the Maca what persecution, here is why church history is important, it is a reference to the time between the Old and New Testament, about 160 BC. The reason some think that this verse makes a reference to that time is that the word “ tortured ” here has a reference to the tympanum, a large drum or wheel on which Maccabean victims were stretched and beaten or even dismembered.
Second Maccabees details the gruesome torture of a ninety-year-old priest, Eleazar, who refused to eat swine’s flesh ( 6:18–31), and then goes on to recount the even more revolting accounts of the systematic torture of seven brothers for the same reason ( 7:1–42). Each of them could have been released if they had compromised, but each categorically refused—the reason being, as our text explains, “ so that they might rise again to a better life ” (v. 35b).
Better? How can one life be “ better ” than another? What is meant here? It is a “ better life ” because it is a resurrection not just back to life on this earth, as happened to women’s sons mentioned in verse 34, but a resurrection to everlasting life in the world to come.
When we look at the Christian martyrs throughout the centuries, we will find the same testimony of so many followers of Christ who refuse to deny Christ and because of that were brutally tortured. This is not something that just happened in the past but it is the present reality of many Christ followers throughout the world.
The point of these gruesome examples is that through faith God’s children can experience triumphant perseverance—even preferring torture to compromise and release. There is great honor if you suffer for Christ’s name.
The apostles after they were beaten says in Acts 5:41 “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name”
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—
37a They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.
What we see in 37 is that the author makes it very explicit that some through faith had the power to persevere till death.
2. Power to Persevere till death
Since stones are plentiful in Palestine, they were often the weapon of choice against the prophets. Jesus mourned this fact, crying out: “ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together ” ( Matthew 23:37).
As to being sawn in two, there is no record of this happening to a martyr in the Bible. However, the writer here draws on a non-Biblical Hebrew legend in Ascension of Isaiah, which asserts that the prophet Isaiah was sawn in two by the false prophets of Manasseh, who stood by “ laughing and rejoicing, ” and that “ he neither cried aloud nor wept, but his lips spoke God’s Word until he was sawn in two ” (5:1, 2, 14).
And, of course, innumerable saints have been killed by the sword. Some “ escaped the edge of the sword ” through faith (v. 34), others, equally faithful, suffered its pain. Like Polycarp a disciple of John, (tell about how he was killed).
But through faith, they persevered to death whether stoned or sawn or stabbed. The power of faith is much greater than the power to have a better life now. It is the power to suffer what it might cost to have a better life in eternity with Jesus.
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
The author of Hebrews goes on in v37
37bThey went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
What we see here in these verses is that true biblical faith gives us the power to persevere in Deprivation.
3. Power to Persevere in Deprivation
The calculated irony here is that the world has rejected such people, and yet the world does not deserve to have them even if it were to accept them. So much for the prosperity gospel! I can guarantee you that there are not many churches that preach or teach on these passages here. There are so many believers in America who are not prepared for future suffering or just for regular struggling and suffering in this life.
Here in Hebrews are saints who are so holy and so full of faith that the world is not worthy to contain them, and yet they are called to persevere in persecution, deprivation, and death. Not only that, but the reason they are able to persevere is their great faith!
These verses were preparing the first readers for their suffering under the Roman emperor Nero. It is preparing us, every believer for every decade to face a world that rejects God and His Word more and more.
After the author of Hebrews talks about the power of faith to persevere he continues in v39 by pointing out what the result was for those who were faithful in persecution, deprivation, and death. Turn your bibles with me to v39.
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
Beautifully, it was and is the same as for those who experienced great public triumphs in their lives (like Noah, Moses, and Gideon). First, they “ were all commended for their faith ” (v. 39a). This is the way the chapter began—“ Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what all in the Faithful Hall of Fame were commended for ” (vv. 1, 2)—and this is how it ends. All the faithful (the known and the unknowns, the famously triumphant, and those who anonymously persevered in suffering) were “ commended for their faith. ”
God forgets no one who loves and serves him! It is his great pleasure to commend faith! The second result is that “ none ”—that is, none of the great triumphant members of the Faithful Hall of Fame or those who persevered without earthly triumphs—“ none of them received what had been promised ” (v. 39b).
Although many promises had been given and fulfilled in their lifetimes, they did not receive the great promise—namely, the coming of the Messiah and salvation in him. Every one of the faithful in Old Testament times died before Jesus appeared.
They entered Heaven with the promise unfulfilled. Why is this? The answer is given in the final verse of chapter 11.
40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
No one was “ made perfect ” under the Old Covenant because Christ had not yet died. They were saved, but not until Jesus’ work on the cross was complete could salvation be perfect. Their salvation looked ahead to what Christ would do. Ours looks back to what he has done—and ours is perfect but not complete. There is a sense that our salvation will be full when we receive glorified bodies and we are completely separated from sin. The amazing thing is that all people of faith from before Christ were made perfect through us, through Christ’s resurrection.
As Leon Morris says: “Salvation is social. It concerns the whole people of God. We can experience it only as part of the whole people of God. As long as the believers in Old Testament times were without those who are in Christ, it was impossible for them to experience the fullness of salvation.”
Furthermore, it is what Christ has done that opens the way into the very presence of God for them as for us. Only the work of Christ brings those of Old Testament times and those of the new and living way alike into the presence of God. All the faithful of all the ages are made perfect in Christ.
We are all in it together—from Abel to Rahab—from Paul to Billy Graham. And the message to the suffering little church in the first century, and to us, is: how great our advantage! Right here, while we walk on earth, we have the perfection of Christ. And it is so much better under the New Covenant.
We now have a high priest who has offered a perfect sacrifice for our sins once and for all. Our Savior, our High Priest sits at the right hand of the Father and prays for us. We have, then, a better hope! How much easier it is for us to walk in faith while we have the whole counsel of God —even if the walk is down the dark streets of a world that calls good evil and evil good.
We are called to live with absolute confidence in God’s Word. Those who live by faith hear God’s Word and so believe that its future fulfillment is a present reality and visible to the spiritual eye. This is not just a subjective idea, it is a survival truth! it affects how one lives and the author of Hebrews has shown us example after example of people who lived this faith, even when it meant persecution, deprivation, and death.
Christ is coming, but in every century for the last two thousand years, the body of Christ has suffered deprivation, persecution, and death in one form or another.
Share about my future.
There is no need to fear, if God is for us, who can be against us? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, and the sword separate us from the love of Christ? No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Rom 8:31-37)
True biblical faith is robust and it gives us the power to persevere in persecution, deprivation, and death. Suffering is God’s tool to shape our hearts and mold us to be more and more like Christ. It is through great suffering that what you treasure the most will be evident, there are only two options you will treasure your life or you will treasure Christ.