Many of us turn to Hebrews 11 when we need encouragement in relation to our faith. This chapter is a well-known meditation on the lives of the faithful from the Old Testament. We read of familiar saints in verses 4 through 32, then the author begins to summarize the lives of unmentioned believers in verse 33. They seem to have moved from victory to victory! They, “by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection.” What an amazing list of blessings!
From the beginning of chapter 11 until this point, there seems to be almost no risk! Even the dead are resurrected! Joy, no doubt, flows like a might river.
But the passage does not stop in the middle of verse 35. If you continue reading, you will see that there is no shortage of difficulty in the lives of the saints. These men and women were afflicted in every way. The message of the chapter is this: God works through the lives of the faithful through many means and for many diverse, personal ends. One saint was brought through the Red Sea on dry ground while another was sawn in two. God worked both in His people! Faith always results in great deliverance—many times in this life even—but ‘always’ does not mean ‘always when we want’ or ‘always when we expect’. The reality is that these people “all died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance” (v. 13).
In this chapter we see the realities of missions work described indirectly.
What God is teaching us through this passage is that, yes, there are many stories of mighty deliverance in the lives of the saints. Missionaries can likewise expect that God will work mightily to bring incredible salvation to many. But there are also stories of those who suffered greatly and experienced great loss. So missionaries must learn to balance their earthly expectations biblically, recognizing the inscrutability of God’s glorious plan. You cannot receive someone back from the dead unless they have died first.
God shows us, then, by the means of these peoples lives, exactly what we should expect in our lives as Christians. Neither in the case of great deliverance nor in the case of great tribulation did the saints receive the ultimate reward of their suffering. The result or conclusion of these lives never came at the end of their last year on earth. The passage concludes with the fact that “all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised” (v. 39). The ultimate reward of their faith was not in this life—but in the next. These men and women did not know what the outcome of their lives would be, but they trusted God to do what was best. The focus of their faith was not upon a specific, favorable outcome in this life, but upon the great God who works through all means for His glory and their good. Some were spared gruesome deaths (Abraham, cf. Gen. 25:7-8), others were not (Samson, cf. Judg. 16:29-30). Either way, no Christian lives their ‘best life’ here and now in this world.
The hope of a Christian goes deeper and farther than anything this world has to offer. We are looking forward to the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22), to a kingdom which cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:28), and to Him who said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). For this reason, whether our lives in this world result in incredible deliverances or irreparable devastation, we trust the Lord and push forward in obedience, knowing that His ways are perfect. He is the missionaries’ motivation, the missionaries present focus, and the missionaries hope for the future.
--Dean of Admissions
“For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” —the author to the Hebrews, 12:3
No comments:
Post a Comment