THE FAITH OF ALL THE OTHERS

THE FAITH OF OTHERS

HEBREWS 11:32-12:1

"The time will fail me."—HEBREWS 11:32

"Of whom the world was not worthy."—HEBREWS 11:38

"These all . . . received not the promise."—HEBREWS 11:39

            These words are selected from the second to last para­graph of this chapter or section concerning faith. The account does not end with this chapter, but runs over into the twelfth. The whole section began in chapter ten with the declaration of the great principle: "My righteous one shall live by faith," or as the old render­ing had it: "The just shall live by faith." The writer later defined faith as conviction of things hoped for, and consciousness of unseen things. It has proceeded -after that enunciation of a principle, and that definition of faith to illustrate the triumphs of faith, first of all in world history: Abel, Enoch, Noah; and then in He­brew history: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the whole nation, and Rahab.

            The section now draws to a conclusion in a passage which is an impetuous summary of persons and deeds. This summary is vibrant with power, heartbreaking in its account of sufferings, and challenging in its revelation of triumph. These three little sentences are indices, enabling us to focus the suggestiveness of the entire paragraph, and we take them as constituting our di­visions. First, "Time will fail me." Second, "Of whom the world was not worthy." Third, "These all . . . received not the promise."

            "The time will fail me." There is a temptation to take the names and deal with them one by one. After all, we have no more time than the writer had, and therefore I cannot better his method. There is some­thing very suggestive in the fact that at the close he grouped names, and then deeds. He says: "The time will fail me" to deal with them, and he gives a list of names. "The time will fail me." What does he mean?

            It means first of all that the list he has given is not exhaustive. He has not named all the names. He has illustrated faith. By no means has he exhausted the theme. The principle has operated through a succes­sion of persons and deeds through all the running cen­turies at which this writer was casting a backward look, as he was writing to those Christians who were in danger of being weakened, as they felt they had lost so much, as they had to turn their back on the splendors of the Hebrew ritual, and to be content with the simplici­ties in Christ. To that end he is showing them the power of faith, the great thing in the history of men, not the ritual and the ceremony, but the principle of faith. This little phrase, which can be dealt with and dismissed, says: This is not an exhaustive list. There have been persons all through human history, persons who lived and died by faith, deeds which had been the actual outcome of this principle of faith. The prin­ciple has operated through a succession of persons and deeds; and now the writer says: I could go on, but time fails me.

            Let us pause a moment with the list, the illustration first of persons, and then of experiences, the persons actuated by faith. Look over the list again, and see the selections are suggestive. They are not chronological. He has not come down the ages, naming the persons chronologically. He seems to have a mind filled with the past, and he names them without reference to chronology. Yet there is a system. He names five judges—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, Samuel. He names one king, and only one—David. Then he groups in one phrase that brilliant succession—"the proph­ets." Evidently in the back of the writer's mind was this process of history, a continuous stream in history.

            It is interesting to look over the list and think it out in many ways. First of all, notice that faith seems to have been pre-eminently manifested in the time of the Judges. Some names are there over which one ponders and wonders when we read them. We know the stories behind them, Gideon; oh, yes. Barak, of course, the statesman who stood by Deborah. Samson, yes, he is named, and we shall have to leave him in the list. Jephthah, oh, yes, a man who suffered iniquitous dis­ability because born out of wedlock, and the iron had entered his soul, but he was a great man. Samuel, well, of course. Thus in the period of the Judges this writer groups five names. We know what followed them. Saul, David, Solomon, and then an appalling succes­sion; the kingdom torn in two, Israel and Judah, king succeeded king. Of these he only names one.             That is not to say there were no others that acted on the prin­ciple of faith. I would include Hezekiah. But looking over the period of the history, he sees faith operating more strikingly in the period of the Judges than in that of the Kings. Then beyond the Kings, during their kingship, the period when God ceased to speak to the kings, and spake through prophets only, and to the kings through the prophets, he groups all the prophets in one. Faith is seen to be a continuous principle. Il­lustrations abound. He has given a wonderful selec­tion, but the list is not exhaustive. Faith has been there, operating in individuals, and he gives illustra­tions, some astonishing us, but they are there, "through faith."

            Then he passes to that passage which I often wish I knew how to read. I love reading the Bible, and read­ing the Bible in public. I never read it here until I have read it again and again at home in preparation. I have been going over this passage again, and am impressed by the marvel of it, the pathway of suffering endurance, the pathway of constant triumph. Through faith, kingdoms subdued, righteousness wrought, promises ob­tained, the mouth of lions stopped, the power of fire quenched, the edge of the sword escaped, strength pro­ceeding out of weakness. In war, mighty, turning to flight armies of aliens. Then that tender poignant word, occurring in the midst, "Women received their dead by a resurrection." But he has by no means done.

            "Others were tortured, not accepting their deliver­ance; that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others had trial of mockings and scourgings"; and as I read I am inclined to think the mockings are harder to bear than the scourgings. I do not know.

            "Yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, af­flicted, evil entreated (of whom the world was not worthy)." What an account.       What a survey of history, and of things that happened in history. Yes, Russell Lowell was right:

"Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

            The deeds of faith, the sufferings of faith, the enduring of faith. So he summarizes; and time will fail to tell, every phrase an account, every sentence having behind it something of history, but showing what faith has made men able to endure; faith triumphant through agony down the running ages. Such is the summary.

            Then we come to the second little phrase. How very suggestive it is in parenthesis. Now he has gone be­yond the people to the deeds which I have read again, and he is looking at the people who endured; and in a pregnant phrase he says: "Of whom the world was not worthy."          The world. That of course is the world or­der, the order of life in which these people endured, the order of life which created the opposition to these people, and created their own suffering, so that they endured, and bore, and patiently went on. The world!

            What were the characteristics of the world? First of all, no consciousness of things not seen. To put that more briefly, in a word, godless. Second, no convic­tion of things hoped for, the hopeless world. But that in a phrase, without God, and therefore without hope. The world. Oh, yes, this is all past history. The writer has been quoting from past history, but the description abides. That is the world, that has no consciousness of things not seen, the world that smiles with a sort of superior air of pity upon any man who prays; the world that if you tell them you are going to a prayer meeting, of course looks at you quite pleasantly, and yet thinks what a fool you are. The world has no consciousness of things unseen, no traffic with the eternal, no, dealing with the undying ages, no sense of God—the world!

            If it be true that such is the condition of the world, it is equally true that they have no conviction of things hoped for. Things are hoped for, but they have no cer­tainty. They are hoping for many things. They are hoping for peace, but they are not sure that there will be peace. They are hoping for the things of the dust, things of the earth, but they have no guarantee; and the pessimism of our common literature today is evidence of the hopelessness of godlessness. The writer here says all these people lived in the midst of these things, and they triumphed. Therefore these people constituted the world's true wealth. The world was not worthy of them. The world from the standpoint of value was not comparable to these people; the world that hated and opposed, and caused suffering. But the people who were opposed, who endured the suffering, constituted the world's true wealth.

            It has always been so. We may pass back over this whole chapter again, and think of what the world owes to these men. Go back to Abel. We do not know very much of what the world owes to him. Enoch? Let that pass. Noah? What about Abraham? What does the world owe to him? What does the world owe to Moses? I grant you I am taking out the peaks of personality, but it is not only true of them. It is true of all these others and of those whose names are not written, but of whom deeds are recounted; those who suffered, those who in the power of faith stood true and loyal to their convictions, those who were convinced of things unseen, as constituting the ultimate reality in life, those who were certain of things they hoped for, that one day, as Browning has it, "though a wide compass round be fetched," the victory will come; those are the men and women who are contributing to any­thing worthwhile in human history. "Of whom the world was not worthy."

            That brings us to the last of these sentences. The writer says at the close, "These all"—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, all of them; time will fail me to tell of a group which he named—these all, whose names are not written, but whose deeds are recounted, well, what of them? "These all . . . received not the promise." Now I submit to you that is a most startling and challenging statement, and I am inclined to ask at first, What does this mean? Has faith failed? Is the account of faith the account of failure from beginning to end? They endured, they suffered, they bore their testimony, they lived by faith, they built upon faith, they died; but not one of them had received the prom­ise. I repeat, that is a challenging statement.

            We are immediately driven to ask this. What does the writer mean by "the promise"? "They . . . received not the promise." Think of all these men of faith, be­ginning, let us say, with Abraham, or even going back to the man Abel, who by faith sang the first solo of redemption in the glory. Go through them all, they re­ceived not the promise. What does it mean? Was it all wrong? Did they die and miss the way? Certainly not. What then is meant by "the promise"?             Here I make a statement which you can verify for yourselves at your leisure. The idea of the promise runs all through this great epistle, occurring no less than eighteen times. What does the word mean? The word "promise" means an announcement which is a pledge. They all die, not having received the fulfillment of the pledge which had been announced to them, the very pledge that constituted the basis of their faith. They died, they had not received the promise.

Let us press that a little further. The promise was the word of God, and the pledge of God, upon which faith builds. What was it, what was the promise that supported Abraham? Go through the chapter, and cer­tain references make it perfectly clear what the promise was. Abraham "looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." How do we understand that? Go a little further down the chapter: "They are seeking after a country of their own . . . they desire a better country, that is a heav­enly." Does that mean heaven? That certainly does not mean heaven. They were seeking a city. They died not having reached the city. They were seeking a country, a country of their own, a country where they could breathe the air, a country where they could real­ize all the beauties of life; but they never reached it.

            They were seeking a better country, a heavenly, that is a country on earth, according to the heavenly order. Alva J. McClain said it best in his book on the Kingdom of God titled “The Greatness of the Kingdom: “The all-consuming purpose of God in creation was to establish a Kingdom on the earth, in which He could display His glory in the Person of His Son. This display of His glory was to be made to creatures made in His image, and therefore, capable of apprehending, appreciating, and applauding His glory. The unfolding drama of the Bible depicts the movements of God in the accomplishment of that purpose.” Israel is the core of that Kingdom and she shall eventually fulfill her position. The church is His bride who shall rule and reign with Him here on earth.

            Take these three sentences in their setting and refer­ence, and what were these people seeking? They were not seeking to get to heaven. This kingdom is on earth. Abraham did not leave Ur of Chaldea in the hope that one day he would arrive in heaven. These people who endured and suffered and witnessed through the running ages were not seeking to gain haven. What were they seeking? Not that they should gain heaven, but that God should gain earth. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We in faith are to pray for that to come about and it will at His return. Come quickly. To run over to Revelation: go home and read the twenty-first chapter again, and read of that city. We take that wonderful chapter, and make beautiful hymns about it, "Jerusalem the Golden," and all the time we are looking up and thinking about heaven. It is not heaven at all. It is the establishment in the world of the divine order. What did Jesus tell His disciples to pray, and what do we pray for in obedience to the command? "Our Father, Who art in the heav­ens." I pause to say that is a plural word, "heavens," which it ought to be. A doctrine of the omnipresence of God is there. He is in all the heavens. "Our Fa­ther, Who art in the heavens, Thy name be hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." That is the true passion of the man of faith. See how that ending to this wonderful chapter lifts faith into the highest and truest realm.

            What is your faith? Is it purely individual? Is it entirely personal? Is it an activity that is bringing blessing to your own soul? Then it is a poor thing. Faith only becomes majestic and utmost when it real­izes the ultimate purpose of God for this earth and for humanity; and the promise that they did not receive was that God had reserved "some better thing" for us, that they without us "should not be made perfect."

            Therefore, "seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses"—that does not mean the people who are watching us, but that they are talking to us, bearing witness to the power of faith—"seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit­nesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." I do not like that translation, "the sin which doth so easily beset." It is one Greek word, euperistaton, which means the sin that is in good standing around. Is there such a thing as the sin in good standing around? What is it? Unbelief.

            Although the sin is one and it is unbelief, it has many weights that take a persons faith and wrecks it. Some people seem to think that intellectually they are not up to date if they are not shot through with unbelief of some sort. We are to lay aside that which contradicts faith. Let us lay aside every weight. What are the weights? The things that hinder us running. Will I name some? No, I will not. Why not? I should name something that is a weight to me, that would not be to you. Perhaps I will name one. What is it? Trying to find out what the other man's weights are? Lay aside the weights, the things that hinder in the race that is being run, through peril, toil, and pain oftentimes in the history of humanity. Laying them aside let us run with patience the race set before us.

            He did not finish there. What follows is the final in­terpretation. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith." I want to emphasize that closing statement that seems to suggest failure of faith, but does nothing of the kind. Faith is co-operation with God in the interest of the consummation upon which the heart of God is set. "They had witness borne to them through their faith," and they marched toward the goal which has not yet been reached. We are still marching toward it. The circumstances have varied, but the march is the same and the principle is the same.

            Remember that all the illustrations that we have in this article, up to this closing part, are prior to Christ. All these people lived by faith without the knowledge of Christ. With Him a new period and a new era began, but the principle still persists, and the way of faith is still oftentimes the way of suffering. But it is the way of power, and it is the way of progress. Time will fail us; we can make no complete list; it is too great. And of these, such people who do such deeds and endure such suffering, the world is not worthy. They still march on and on, but not yet have they re­ceived the fulfillment of the promise. But the promise stands, the pledge is made; and at last:

"Though the wide compass round be fetched, What began best, can't end worst"; the kingdom of our God shall come and be established, and toward that our faces are set, and toward that we are marching.

            Again, “The all-consuming purpose of God in creation was to establish a Kingdom on the earth, in which He could display His glory in the Person of His Son. This display of His glory was to be made to creatures made in His image, and therefore, capable of apprehending, appreciating, and applauding His glory. The unfolding drama of the Bible depicts the movements of God in the accomplishment of that purpose.”

            Lord help me to help You in bringing about this Great Kingdom. And may Your glory be displayed in the bringing about of this purpose. Please give me my next assignment.