Secrets of the Heroes of our Faith

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Deuteronomy 28:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.  (Deuteronomy 28:3-8) (NIV)

 

These are the blessings that God gave the Israelites as they entered into the Promised Land, and they are also our blessings when we belong to Jesus.

 

Keep those blessings in mind now, as we read another passage.  This one is from Hebrews chapter 11:

 

And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:

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.  (Hebrews 11:32-34) (KJV)

 

Did you notice the words “subdued, obtained, stopped, quenched, escaped, and waxed?  These words imply that God's people endured an attack of some kind.

This chapter in Hebrews is talking heroes of faith – godly people.  People who lived in the Promised Land, had the promises of abundant prosperity, success in everything they touched, health, and protection.   And yet they were being attacked by armies, fires, even lions. 

 

How could this have happened in the Promised Land?  What went wrong?  Was God not able to keep His promises?  Years ago, I heard a very angry young man say, “I tried Christianity once but it didn’t work for me.”  He had been told, “turn to Jesus, and everything will work out for your good.  Jesus will not only save you, He’ll bless you, heal you, and deliver you from your enemies.”  So, he turned to Jesus expecting the heavens to pour out blessings, but nothing happened.  Nothing changed in his life; in fact, things actually got worse.  So again, I ask- is God not able to keep His promises?  What went wrong?

 

Nothing went wrong at all, we just need to look at the passage on promises a little more closely. 

 

Let’s look again at Deuteronomy 28, verse 7:

 

The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. (NIV)

 

Notice what this verse doesn’t say.  It doesn’t say, “you’ll never have an enemy again.  No, it says that you will have enemies, (and notice that’s plural), and these enemies will rise up against you!! 

 

That’s very important to understand.  Many times Christians have a bad situation rise up in their lives they automatically think…

 

Oh, I guess God didn’t want me to have this blessing, or

Maybe God is punishing me, or

I guess God just wasn’t ABLE

 

But none of those things are true.  The Bible says that…

 

we will be blessed, and

We will have enemies that rise up against us, but

We will defeat those enemies!!

 

The great men and women of faith from Hebrews chapter 11 understood this.  So when the enemy rose up against them, they rose up in their faith that God was ABLE to keep His promises!!!  And they kept on believing it, and kept on believing it, and kept on believing it. 

 

And do you know what happened?  The enemies were defeated before them!!  They subdued kingdoms, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword… out of weakness they were made strong!!!!  Hallelujah!!  Faith is the victory that overcomes the world!!

 

Abraham received the promise of a son at age 75, but Isaac wasn’t born until Abraham was 99 or 100.  For those 25 years, Abraham did not waver in his faith:

 

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, (Romans 4:18-20) (NIV)

 

And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. (Romans 4:21) (KJV)

 

Just like all the other heroes of faith, Abraham also passed through a time of weakness before he became strong.  He was childless before he had a child.  He was a failure before he became a success.  And he was made strong – he obtained the promise – by believing the promise.  He kept on believing, and he kept on believing, and he kept on believing.  And in this way he obtained what God had promised.

 

This is a picture of David, hiding for his life for 10 years in various caves.  I can just imagine David, huddled on the cold floor of a cave, praying in the dark of the night:

 

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?  The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies… (Psalm 118:6,7) (NIV)

 

Jesus did this too, on the cross.   Hebrews 12 says:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  (Hebrews 12:1-3) (NIV)

 

I like the way verse 1 says to throw off the sin that so easily entangles and keep running the race.  It’s not talking about our sin that entangles us; this is talking about Jesus and He had no sin, so it’s talking about other people’s sins against us.  It’s their sin against us that we have to learn to throw off in order to finish our race.

 

It’s all about focus.  When the enemy rises up against us in any way, through difficult people, or difficult situations, we have to learn how to not focus on that.

 

Because if we focus on that, we will get all tangled up and fall out of the race.  So when the enemy rises against us through difficult people or difficult situations, what then do we focus on? 

 

The same thing that Abraham and David and all the great hero’s of faith focused on – our God is ABLE to do what He promised!!

 

No one likes being in the battle- it hurts!  Jesus didn’t like being on the cross- he scorned its shame.  But he didn’t focus on the cross.  What did he focus on?  The promise that he’d be soon in presence of the Father and he would have joy.  When he was tempted to focus on his pain or the cruelty of the soldiers, he refused.  Instead, He focused on the promise.  Hebrews 12 says that:

 

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.  Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.  (Hebrews 12:11,12) (NIV)

 

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you will never have an enemy.  You do have an enemy and he will rise up against you, but when you rise up in your faith and believe that God is ABLE to do for you what He promised, He will!!

 

Our faith is the victory that will overcome the world!! (1 John 5:4 NIV)

 

Jehoshaphat was another hero of the faith.  In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, we read that:

 

… the Moabites and Ammonites with some of the Meunites came to wage war against Jehoshaphat.  (2 Chronicles 20:1,2) (NIV)

 

So a huge army – three kings with all their soldiers, had banded together to fight Jehoshaphat.  I love Jehoshaphat’s response:

 

Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set himself to seek the Lord  (2 Chronicles 20:30) (NIV)

 

Jehoshaphat was afraid.  It’s normal to feel afraid when an enemy rises up against you, but don’t stay afraid.  What did Jehoshaphat do with his fear?  He set himself to seek the Lord.  He went to God, all the people gathered around King Jehoshaphat and he prayed this prayer:

 

“O Lord God of our fathers—the only God in all the heavens, the ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth—you are so powerful, so mighty. Who can stand against you? … 

… “And now see what the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir are doing.

…they have come to throw us out of your land which you have given us. 

O our God, won’t you stop them? We have no way to protect ourselves against this mighty army. We don’t know what to do, but we are looking to you.”  (2 Chronicles 20:6-12) (NIV)

 

It was a beautiful prayer.  And when he finished praying the Spirit of the Lord- The Holy Spirit- fell on one of the men in the crowd.  And he said:

 

‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. 

Tomorrow march down against them. … You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, …. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’”  (2 Chronicles 20:15-17) (NIV)

All the people started worshipping and praising God right there with a very loud voice.  The next day, Jehoshaphat sent out his army.  He put singers in the front of the army, and he told them:

 

Believe in the Lord your God and you shall have success! Believe his prophets and everything will be all right!”  (2 Chronicles 20:20) (TLB)

 

And as the singers went out they were singing, “Give thanks to the Lord for His love endures forever!!!”  (2 Chronicles 20:21) (NIV)

 

And as they sang, something amazing happened...  The three kings and their armies started to fight among themselves, and these three armies started killing each other!!

And when the army of Judah finally came to the battlefield, what did they see?  Nothing but dead bodies; no one had escaped.  So the army of Judah began to pick up all the plunder.  It took 3 days to collect all the plunder from all those dead soldiers laying all over the place!

 

So here’s the question:  When the enemy hemmed in Jehoshaphat, what did he focus on?  Did he focus more on the enemy or did he focus more on God's promise to protect?

 

He focused on the promise!

He clung to the promise!

He rejoiced in the Promise!

 

And what happened?  He obtained the promise.  The enemy rose up against him, but it was defeated before him.

 

Halleluiah – Believe and you shall receive!!  It worked for Abraham, it worked for David, it worked for Jehoshaphat, and it will work for you too!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

 

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.