Clough Hebrews Lesson 61

Models of Faith: Two Flunkies, a Bastard and a Goon – Hebrews 11:32-33

Last week we left with the Harlot, Rahab, in Hebrews 11:31. Hebrews 11 is one extended argument, one extended presentation of what the faith technique looks like. It is built on the idea of Habakkuk chapters 2 and 3 which are presented in Hebrews 11:6 and also in Hebrews 10:38, and the argument that the author uses over and over is that faith alone pleases God. That’s his general operating principle. His second or minor statement in the syllogism is that the Holy Spirit shows by the Old Testament text that He was pleased with these men and the conclusion is that therefore they become models of faith or models of the faith technique.

And as models of the faith technique they give us a lot of good background material so that while we study them we will remember that none of these men were perfect. In fact, some of the men that we will see tonight were not perfect all the way up until the last moments of their life. In fact, some of them would never have been brought forward as examples of anything except for the fact this author brought them forward and so therefore we’re surprised when we some of the names on this list. And we’re going to go over the background, the Old Testament background of these men to show you why we are surprised to see them here. And our surprise must be because we do not understand fully how God evaluates believers. The way we evaluate believers and the way God evaluates believers seems to be a little different. And that’s why we have this sense of surprise when we meet some of these particular people cited as examples of believers, great believers, who used the faith technique.

In Hebrews 11:32 he goes on, he’s finishes the detailed summary. Remember, he’s gone from Abel through Moses; he spent a long time dealing with each one of the major believers from Genesis 4, Genesis 3 actually, all the way down to Exodus 14. And during this interval of Scripture we do not have the nation Israel in existence. The nation Israel is going to come into existence, and does with Moses, but all these believers back here were picked because they were loners, they were believers who operated when there were no other believers around for fellowship. They were believers who made it, who didn’t whine and cry because they didn’t have someone to hold their hand. They were believers who made it, all by themselves, trusting in the Lord.

Now beginning at verse 32 he stops with the details and now he’s going to very hurriedly go over the names, which means that we will have to not hurriedly go over the names, and we’ll have to go back into the Old Testament text. All of the men that he lists in verse 32 were military leaders, including Samuel; Samuel was a prophet and he was an advisor to the military leaders, but all the other men that he lists here were military commanders, and so every example in verse 32 shows the faith technique applied at the point of killing the enemy. And that’s a good picture of the faith technique because we are involved in dealing with the spiritual principalities and powers in a conflict and there is an aggressive war that is going on. So believers ought to be quite at home in the military environment of verse 32.

The first part of verse 32, “What more shall I say?” is a phase that occurs in Classical Greek very often. And it’s rhetorical and it’s a mark of this man’s style; this man apparently came from Alexandria, the reason why most people think he’s Apollos, and this is one of those little places were the Greek shows his classical upbringing, “and what shall I say more,” and of course it also means that if this was a synagogue that he gave in various places that he had a limited time, he had gone through all this doctrine and his time was drawing to a close, only three more chapters to go. And so he decided that he’d better back off from going into the details of these people.

“And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah; David also, and Samuel, and the prophets. [33] Who, through faith, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, [34] 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.” And he goes on and describes these. We’ll probably only get into the middle of verse 33 tonight because of the background necessary to understand why these name occur.

Notice they are in pairs; there are three pairs of name and each pair is backwards; each pair is chronologically reversed to what the Old Testament presents. For example, Gideon and Barak, Barak is earlier than Gideon. The next pair, Samson and Jephthah, Jephthah occurs first chronologically, then Samson. And obviously Samuel precedes David. Why did the author reverse these three pairs of names. Apparently because, he paired them off first by proximity, similarity of mission and he also seems to use the most famous of the two first; Gideon is more known than Barak; Samson obviously is known more than Jephthah; David is obviously is more widely known that Samuel. So you have a pairing off with the most important member of the pair occurring first.

Now let’s go to Gideon, let’s go to Barak first; we’re going to take them in the order in which they occur chronologically, so we’ll go Barak, then Gideon; Jephthah then Samson; Samuel then David. Let’s go to Barak in Judges 4 and keep in mind when you look at Judges 4 try to see what is admirable about Barak and when you look in Judges 4 nothing looks too admirable. So again Barak is more or less presented in Judges 4 and 5 as a spiritual slouch, yet the author of Hebrews presents him as a hero.

Judges 4; remember the theme of the book of Judges, the book of Judges is the first document that analyzes history, it’s cyclical, you have the people trust the Lord, positive volition, they are prospered, they disobey God and they’re disciplined. Each time they’re in the middle of discipline they are in the middle of an oppression by a group of Gentile nations, they’re in the dark ages all during this time, in fact, most of the ancient east was in the dark age at this time history and it was only the Jews who fought for freedom, and they fought for freedom because of the Word of God. It was the Word of God that was the light that kept freedom alive. So these people, though the military side is emphasized, it wasn’t just the military, it is that they were fighting for a cause, they were fighting for their freedom to worship the Lord and to obey His Word.

So during this dark age there were periods when the nation, or parts of it, would be overrun by the Gentiles and in Judges 4 we have the last time that the Canaanites overran the nation; various groups overrun it and the Canaanites overran it many times up until this time. Barak is going to break the back of the Canaanites. Never after Judges 4-5 do the Canaanites dominate militarily the Jews. Each one of the men, we’ll find this to be true, that each one of the men in Hebrews 11:32 is a man who wiped out the enemy and he is known for the fact that he was so victorious that that particular enemy was never again a problem for the Jews. Everyone of those men killed the enemy. And he did such a good job that they weren’t bothered again, unlike we did in Vietnam as you can tell by the headlines in the paper.

Judges 4:1, “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead. [2] And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin,” so they’re in a period of discipline. “Jabin was the king of the Canaanites that reigned in Hazor” Hazor is a settlement to the north, it’s a famous place, they’ve excavated it, found the burn levels, it’s an immense place, some 200 acres, it was large for a city of that time period, “…reigned in Hazor, the captain of the army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. [3] And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron;” so he had a tremendous force, militarily.

As you will also find every one of these men in Hebrews 11:32, from the human point of view, faced a totally discouraging situation; from the human point of view they were outnumbered, they had very inferior weapons, they had untrained soldiers, and yet in every case these men were victorious. To “the children of Israel cried unto the LORD,” and this is the signal in the book of Judges for confession, there’s a confession going on here, and the oppression that is in the northern part of the land as Sisera is able to patrol with his cavalry units, he is able to patrol the area and keep it under his control, he is going to have some problems. “…twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.”

Judges 4:4, “And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, judged Israel at that time. [5] And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” So the Holy Spirit is going to work through a woman, Deborah. Why does the Holy Spirit work through a woman? Why is there a woman who is the judge at this point? For the same reason that we have two out of every three missionaries on the mission field women? Because the men won’t get off their ass. All right, verse 4, Deborah is called a prophetess; this means she holds equal rank with the prophets. This means, therefore, that God has to use Deborah. It also means that when she… she’s going to be the means that the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, communicates orders down through to the army.

So in verse 6, one order is passed down; see they confessed their sins, and now deliverance is on schedule. So “she sent and called Barak,” this is the man that we’re studying, now watch Barak’s character, he doesn’t speak too highly of the Christian maturity, and if Barak is the leading man in that era we can understand why God had to use a women. “She sent and called Barak, the son of Abinoam, out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Has not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying,” now when it’s asked as a question, she’s not asking him for it, this is her way of saying emphatically, it’s just an emphatic grammatical construction, we would translate it as “The LORD Jehovah of Israel has certainly commanded,” so now she is not misusing her authority here, she is simply passing down the command of God, “Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulun.” Now those were tribes in the north, Hazor is up here and all these tribes are settled in north of the Sea of Galilee and just west of it.

Verse 7, “And I will draw unto thee,” God says, “to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand.” The idea is that God is going to use natural means to destroy the Canaanite army at the river Kishon, which becomes a famous landmark in Jewish history; it’s referred to by Isaiah, it’s referred to in the Psalms and we’ll see those passages. The river Kishon was a famous place forever after this event. Verse 8, “And Barak said unto her,” now look at this, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, then I will not go.” Now that guy’s a real winner, isn’t he. Take Deborah along, Deborah can protect him against the armies, see, hiding behind some woman.

[9] “And she said, I will surely go with thee; however,” at least she had courage, she realized that the Word of God was true and so she said I’ll go with you, the Word is true, it’s valid, that’s what God says, that’s what’s going to happen. “But” she says, and this is a demotion, or a missed opportunity as far as Barak is concerned, “nevertheless, the journey that you take shall not be for thine honor; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” In other words, you had your opportunity to apply the faith technique, you had your opportunity to go out, now you hid behind a woman, so God has a sense of humor. So Barak, because you hid behind a woman, God is going to have you destroy all the army except Sisera, and Sisera will be killed by a woman because you were too chicken to get out. The women were the only ones who had courage in that day, like most Christians. And so therefore the women were the ones who got away with the rewards. “Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.”

Barak, in verse 10, summons the armies, and by verse 14-15 you see what’s happening. “And Deborah said unto Barak, Up,” in other words, she not only has to go with him, now she has to give him orders every inch of the way. Imagine this, this man’s supposed to be a general. And talk about a hen-pecked man, this isn’t even his wife; she’s another person’s wife, her husband is listed in verse 4. So “Deborah said unto Barak, Get u p, for this is the say in which the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand. Is not the LORD gone out before you? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. [15] And the LORD discomforted Sisera,” now in verse 15, because it’s a prose text we only get a very abbreviated account and we have to supplement this with the Song of Deborah in chapter 5 to find out what actually happened, but something miraculous happened because the chief weapon, the nine hundred iron chariots, which was the military advantage, were precisely the weapons that God dismantled and made of no use.

“And the LORD discomforted Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak, so that Sisera alighted down of his chariot, and fled away on his feet. [16] But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the hose, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all of the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left. [17] Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite.” Now the women’s libbers have nothing on this woman, you watch what she’s going to do. “…for there was peace between Jabin, the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber, the Kenite. [18] And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. [19] And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little want to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle [skin] of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. [20] And he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man does come and inquire of thee, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No. [21] Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a nail of the tent,” this is a tent peg, is what she’s taken, “and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.”

Now you can imagine this woman was a pretty strong women; these women had to hammer tent pegs into the ground. Well, you try to hammer a blunt tent peg into somebody’s skull; you’re not going to get to far. Well this woman hauled off with a good sound whack with a hammer and drove it all the way through the skull so it came out the other side. That’s what it says, so needless to say Sisera was inoperative. Verse 22, “And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him,” and the text doesn’t say what went through Barak’s mind but I’m sure he must have thought back to the words of Deborah, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you seek. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.” And the prophecy was fulfilled, that the women were the ones in that day that carried the battle.

Now certainly from this text you don’t get the idea that Barak was one great saint; and even in the Song of the next chapter, which is a psalm, in the newer translations chapter 5 should be translated as poetry, it’s a song. Judges 5:1, “Then sang Deborah and Barak” and even the song, the woman’s name comes first, so she’s still getting credit, “the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, [2] Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.” In other words, they confessed their sins. [3] “Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel. [4] LORD, when You went out of Seir,” and this is a picture of Sinai in verse 4, holy war over nature, “when thou marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.”

Verse 5 “The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.” Verse 6, “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied,” and it goes on to sing [7] “that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.” And then the song speaks of how the army was called out in verse 10 and 11, [“Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. [11] They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.”]

Then verse 12, “Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.” By the way, that “lead thy captivity captive” is a phrase which is repeated in Ephesians 4. [13] “Then he made him that remains have dominion over the nobles among the people: the LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.” It’s a woman that’s singing this. So it’s an obvious early instance of God the Holy Spirit using a woman in a day of national disaster when all the men were cowardly. And the rest of the Song goes and describes how the kings came and they fought, but then in verse 20 we have an added detail that proves God used nature as a devise to discomfort Sisera.

Judges 5:20, “They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. [21] The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon.” Now we don’t know exactly what happens but we can only take verses 20 and 21, combine them with the material we have in chapter 4 to read through and see that there was a miracle in nature that destroyed the military superiority of the Canaanites. Apparently this will be repeated in the Second Advent of Jesus Christ when the Jews will be militarily at a disadvantage and there will be miraculous changes in nature that will dismantle the sophisticated weapon systems. Military superiority today is largely measured in terms of the sophistication of weapons, but always remember that the more sophisticated the weapons, the more things that can go wrong with it.

For example, visualize during the tribulation mass earthquakes; earthquakes are kind of rough on runways. Earthquakes also cause tidal waves which are rough on harbors, and with all the major harbors of the world smashed and many of the runways cracked you can imagine where that leaves much of the air and naval superiority of any country. So it’s not hard to visualize that in the tribulation once again we’ll have God cutting man down to his size through nature, and this may well be why the prophecies of battle at the Second Advent are so primitive; not just the weapons are primitive, but the strategy is primitive.

So Judges 5 is the background on Barak. Now how are we going to reconcile all this chapter 4 and 5 with what we read in Hebrews. We can only go back and say that Barak finally did something and the conversion or the application of doctrine was Judges 4:14, that apparently was the place where Barak decided that he was going to trust the Lord after Deborah had chewed him out twice he got up and believed. He had lost a golden opportunity as a believer to reap a vast reward and yet in spite of the fact that he lost out, he still did not lose out on being mentioned for all time as a hero of the faith in Hebrews 11:32. So here was a man, he was very passive, he sat around, apparently had heard the Word and did nothing, but finally he did believe and just that little bit of belief that led him into battle in verse 14 was enough so that God the Holy Spirit said all right, Barak, I will chose as a model of a man who trusted My Word.

Now you see, that’s the neat thing about Hebrews 11, it just takes one or two major incidents in a man’s life to transform his life as far as God is concerned. And these men become models when they wouldn’t be considered models for us. And it’s because God the Holy Spirit is genuinely pleased whenever we trust in Him. You can be a failure down to the 11^th hour and believe and God is pleased. That’s the lesson we’re learning from Hebrews. So don’t get discouraged if you feel like you’ve blown it here and blown it there and you have a big set of failures, God has you still on earth, still breathing, and you can please Him by simply trusting His Word. If this man did it, Barak, and he had to be prodded into it by a woman, you ought to be able to do something.

All right, the next name is Gideon. Gideon’s episode is described in Judges 6. I always have to laugh at an organization named after Gideon, not because the organization is wrong or anything but I can’t understand why they ever named themselves the Gideon’s because Gideon is another genius in the Barak class, and to be called Gideon’s is like… I don’t know how’d you call it, Barakites or something. Gideon was a man who starts off in Judges 6, also in a dark age but this time instead of facing the Canaanites he faces a coalition of Midianites and the Amalekites. There’s a coalition here, and after Gideon gets through there’s going to be no more Midianites. So you see, even though these men are failures, up unto the 11^th hour, all it takes is once for them to trust the Lord, and look what God does through them. Look what God did through Barak, He completely destroyed the Canaanites, the Canaanites were never militarily a threat to Israel again. After Gideon gets through you can cross another group of peoples off; the Midianites are never a bother after Gideon. Let’s look at Gideon, see what happened, how he started.

Judges 6:3, this is the tactics the Midianites used in conjunction with the Amalekites, “ And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites,” and the Midianites and the Amalekites had a very interesting system of conquering people; they never conquered the people and rule them politically. What they did was that they would gather all their cattle and they would wait until harvest time and then the Amalekite armies would herd their cattle ahead of the army and they’d just… many, many miles front and they’d just come like this and they’d sweep right over the fields and trample them, and then they’d take the harvest, what they could they would harvest for themselves, steal from the people and if they had any left over they burned it. And this was how the Amalekites just were very, very fierce kind of people in the ancient world. Some of their fortress have been found in archeology and they’re filled with the heads and hands, separate from the body, the skeletons. In other words, there’s a lot of skeletal hands and a lot of skeletal heads and the bodies are off in another place, so the only conclusion you can some to is that they cut people’s heads off and hand’s off and that was their way of torture. So they weren’t very nice people.

Verse 4, “And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. [5] For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.” You see, it was a disaster, and how fiercely God dealt with a disobedient people. Verse 7, “And it came to pass,” confession was made, believers are confessing, “when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites, [8] That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; [9] And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land; [10] And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed My voice.”

And the whole point of the history narration, from verse 8 to 10 is to show that this suffering was not due to God’s inability. See, it goes back to the doctrine of suffering. In fact, this would be a good time to just think about taking a situation in your life, such as suffering, and applying our three step concept to it. Here you have a suffering situation and the temptation always is to say God is unfair. The temptation is always to feel sorry for yourself, blame God, blame the pastor, blame somebody else but never examine yourself spiritually. It’s always the unfriendly church or something that’s the source of your problem, not you of course. So suffering is producing unfairness, God is unfair to you.

Okay, that’s the attack; now we want to learn hot to plug in a doctrine to stop that kind of attack. All right, the divine viewpoint, what event do you think of when you think of suffering. What did we learn to link the doctrine of suffering to? The fall, go back to the fall, you can go back to the text, Genesis 3-4. You go back to the doctrine of suffering; the doctrine of suffering says and here’s where we block the attack with that doctrine, the doctrine of suffering. The doctrine of suffering says that suffering originated by a fall of man, it resulted from a volitional choice against God, God did not create the universe with suffering in it and if there is suffering it’s not due to God’s creation, it’s due to man’s creation, and that’s the fall applied.

Or you might take the doctrine of suffering and say okay, I know there are six reasons why believers suffer and there are four reasons why unbelievers suffer. Let’s review; what’s one reason why a believer suffers. [someone answers] All right, obviously the fall is involved in both sides, both the unbeliever and the believer suffer because of the fall. What’s another reason? Rebellion against God’s will after a person becomes a Christian, he rebels against God’s will and that’s a cause of suffering. The unbeliever can rebel against God’s will after he is God-conscious and it’ll cause him suffering, Romans 1.

What’s another reason? Association in a divine institution with somebody else who is suffering, so divine institution 2, you can be married to someone; God clobbers them and you suffer. Or divine institution 3, God disciplines somebody in your family and you suffer. Or divine institution 4, you have a group of people that like to deficit spend which is violating “thou shalt not steal” and they inflate the currency and we all suffer. Or the fifth divine institution, in a certain tribal characteristic, certain culture.

What’s another reason why believers suffer? We are in Satan’s world and identified with Christ so therefore we act as lightening rods to attract that. Another one? As a witness or a testimony to unbelievers, other believers, and angels. What’s another reason why believers suffer? To learn. What are some reasons, we have two on the unbeliever’s side, they suffer because of the fall, they suffer because they rebel, what else. Eventually hell, lake of fire. There’s also a third one. Association, unbelievers suffer to because he’s in the divine institution; divine institution’s are both for believer and unbeliever.

So that’s a lot of material you’ve got to run through your mind, run though your soul in a suffering situation. That’s what ought to be happening, not calling somebody up on the phone, running to somebody else, why is this happening to me and so forth. I hear it so often, I feel like getting a tape recorder, I’ll give you the six reasons why it’s happening to you, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, boom. Next. But that’s what believers ought to do, that ought to be automatic. Now granted there are times when you suffer and you will need somebody else, of course. But basically this is what ought to happen and happen automatically. Okay, block, there’s where you are applying the faith technique, right here, see, that’s the application of faith. You are not applying the faith technique if you do not take doctrine and apply it.

Faith is not looking for feeling, faith is application of doctrine to the situation and because oftentimes you will find yourself, once you do this and you get skill in it and you begin to do it quickly and rapidly when you’re in a situation, people will look at you and they don’t see you reacting the way you should and so therefore they make all these accusations; well, gee, they couldn’t have had very much, or something like that. That’s a dopey excuse. I have a friend of mine who lost his wife, he was in Bible class the next night; well, he couldn’t have loved his wife. What was he supposed to do, fall apart. He was an amazing example of a man who trusted the Word and moved right on, in spite of the whole situation. So you always have the idiots around who don’t know any doctrine, who want you to fall apart like they do, and when you don’t fall apart like they do they get all upset and then they come in with these little jagged little deals, oh, they don’t care or something like this, you’re a very cold-hearted believer, they’re too mechanical. All of these excuses when basically you’re the one that’s believed because you’re the one that has the stability.

Okay, then you counterattack this; what is this? This is basically saying on a human viewpoint basis, it’s basically arguing, if you eliminate the fall and deny the fall, you have to argue that evil is permanent and once you argue as evil is permanent, as all religions outside of Christianity do, and you argue that evil is a permanent feature of existence, then the only escape from evil is escape from reality. And this is why you have nirvana, and this is why you have these religions, why you have the people on drugs, and all the rest of it. They are people who can’t face reality because they deny the fall. All right, spiritual application of the fall.

Now Gideon is the kind of person who comes into a situation when there is tremendous suffering and the prophet has prepared them for it in verse 7-10 and he explains the doctrine of suffering as he concludes verse 10, “you have not obeyed My voice.” What category of suffering does that place it in? Remember we have six categories, fall, rebellion, so that verse says that’s why Israel is suffering, and so the prophet categorizes the suffering and tells them what category of suffering they’re experiencing, why they’re experiencing it and what they can do about it because what’s the answer to this kind of suffering? Confession, this is disciplinary suffering and since it’s disciplinary suffering what does it mean? It means 1 John 1:9, confession our sins removes that.

So Judges 6:11, “And there came an angel of the LORD,” and while the prophet is addressing this to the nation Gideon will be called. Now watch the call of Gideon; again, keep in mind, this is the man that’s being held up as an example to you, and if he, that’s grace because all of us ought to be able to identify with Barak’s weakness and Gideon’s weakness. “And there came an angel of the LORD and sat under an oak … Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.” Now watch, in verse 11 Gideon is afraid; by the time he gets through applying doctrine he has lost his fear; he is going to attack the Midianites. What is he doing here? He’s hiding. What is he going to do by the time this chapter finishes? He’s going to kill him, he’s not going to hide his winepress from the Midianites, it’s his winepress, his property, kill them, don’t hide your winepress.

Verse 12, “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.” See, there’s sarcasm there. See, the guy is so afraid he’s down in the, this hill is what he’s doing, he’s down in this big ravine, and he’s throwing the wheat up, the wind’s blowing across here, and that’s how they separate the chaff, but he’s down in here in this ravine so nobody can see him doing it. And he’s got the wheat over here and he’s got a winepress where they have this vat and they trample this thing out. And he knows what the Midianites are going to do if they see him so he’s hiding. And so all of a sudden this angel, can you imagine it must have startled him, the angel appeared from nowhere and to come out with this booming voice, “The LORD is with thee, mighty man of valor.”

[13] “And Gideon said unto him, Oh my LORD,” see, look at the whining attitude in verse 13, “if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all His miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” Now that is a real promising scene, isn’t it. See that attitude, look at the attitude behind verse 13, it’s that same crybaby, whiney self-pitying attitude.

Judges 6:14, “And the LORD turned [looked] upon him,” look at that, the Lord turned upon him, see, who was the angel? See, the angel was Jehovah, He was the Second Person of the Trinity, that was Jesus Christ preincarnate appearance. So Jesus Christ is standing there and what is Gideon? He’s complaining. Where’s the Lord… the Lord is standing right there in front of him, why doesn’t the Lord do this? Well, he’s about to find out. He “said, Go in this thy might, and you shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee? [15] And he said unto him, Oh my LORD, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” Still a defeatist attitude.

Verse 16, “And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and you shalt smash [smite] the Midianites as one man.” The word “smite” is the word to crush, “you will crush the Midianites as one man. [17] And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that you really are talking with me.” This guy is a slow mover, but the Lord is gracious. The Lord is very gracious. Now you can imagine the insult to Jesus Christ’s character. Christ is standing about two feet away from him and he’s questioning His character. Now you often say well, you know, we only have the Bible here, and you know the Lord Jesus Christ really isn’t here in His body and so forth so we’ve got excuses for not believing. Gideon couldn’t have used that, the Lord was right there. But he wants a sign.

So verse 18, “Don’t leave, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will wait until thou come again. [19] And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour,” don’t know how long it took, maybe an hour or so, the Lord is wasting time for Gideon to do the…the Lord is going to bless him anyway, whether he does the sign or not, but the Lord is sitting there waiting around, [tape turns] until Gideon decides to believe. So this a beautiful example of how we waste the Lord Jesus Christ’s time.

And Gideon brought it out, [20] “And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.” Now Gideon apparently doesn’t know what’s going to come off. But he brings out the food and in the ancient times they fed food to gods; there are great temples, the libation rites they call them, where there are holes in the floor of the temples and they would take these great vats of wine and they’d elevate them up to Dagon and they’d elevate them up to the other gods and then they’d pour them down into the earth and the pouring of the wine down upon the earth meant that the gods were consuming, see, because the gods are natural forces and so as the earth absorbed the wine and absorbed the food the gods were eating. So that’s how they fed the gods. So apparently Gideon has been influenced by the libation rights of the pagan gods. So he brings this thing here and he’s kind of wanting to see what’s going to happen. Well, he’s going to get a surprise.

In verse 21. “Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight. [22] And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O LORD God! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.” And then apparently the voice, just the Lord’s voice came, and said [23, “And the LORD said unto him,] Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.” [24] “Then Gideon built an altar” and he began to move out as the leader of the army.

Now in Judges 6:36 he is back to his usual, Gideon is famous for the fleece; you’ve heard of Christians putting out the fleece, don’t brag about it, it was a numbskull believer that did it the first time, “And Gideon said unto God, If You wilt save Israel by mine hand, as You hast said,

[37] Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that You wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. [38] And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. [39] And Gideon said unto God, Let not Thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me test,” and now he’s going to give the second fleece, “I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. [40] And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.”

You see how God graciously accommodates Himself to all this Mickey Mouse. Now that’s the gracious God of the Scripture. Now at times God doesn’t accommodate Himself to this Mickey Mouse stuff but here He did and Gideon eventually pulls off a very, very famous maneuver, in chapter 7, they all come down, in verse 25, they come down at night with 300 men, Gideon gathers a vast army and God says no, I don’t want a large group, I want in your attack force only 300 men. Probably it was because they had so many and were so poorly organized they’d be tripping over each other. Well, they finally went into the camp, a model of military surprise, “And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb;” men whose names occur, by the way, again and again in the Scriptures, “and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.” In other words, they killed the enemy, just so every one is clear.

Now to show you how the Holy Spirit talks about these events, turn to Psalm 83:9, years and year have passed; the historian looks back, Asaph, and he pleads in another later era of the nation, “Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kishon, [10 “Who perished at En-dor, and became as dung for the earth.” You can imagine, this is the way they viewed their enemies. Verse 11, “Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb, yea, all their princes as Zabah and Zalmunna. [12] Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.” And Psalm 83 is a commemoration of both Barak and Gideon’s victory as great times of history.

Now the thing you want to look at and remember out of these two men, Barak and Gideon, is that their production at a crisis moment of history was fantastic. They go down in God’s record as believers who produced, but when you study the details of the Old Testament, you see that by and large they were not successful believers at all. Now that should give some encouragement that these people, who were generally flunkies, pulled off some of the greatest things of history. They annihilated the Canaanites; they annihilated the Midianites and never again was Israel troubled from those two sources. Why? Because it just took a moment’s trust, a moment application of doctrine to a situation and God did something fantastic with it. God overlooked all their failures, when Barak came down there it’s as though God said I don’t care, Barak, if you haven’t done anything before; I don’t care if you have a harem that’s henpecked you, I don’t care how many women have seized the initiative up to this point, Barak, this is your moment, believe Me. And so Barak believed and went down for all time as a great believer.

The same with Gideon, look at how long it took Gideon to get with it. Look at how he trashed the Lord and would keep testing the Lord, and yet finally there came the moment when he just said all right, I trust the Lord. When he finally got through all this fleece business and all the rest of it, and got down to doctrine, then production occurred. So watch these two men, they’re tremendous. [question asked] In narrative, because there’s a general sarcasm in Judges toward it, the whole thing, but the point is that God is gracious and so He accommodated him and gave him empirical evidence on which he could believe in faith. God accommodates to our lack of belief. But see, both of these men, the reason why these should be encouraging to all of us is that both of these men were never in their lives, I mean, these men were probably forty or fifty years old by the time they got with it, and they were general flunkies all the time except at that one point. And God thought so much of the act of trust at that point that they’re elevated into the canon of Scripture as heroes.

So the point is, see how badly, if I can use that word, see how badly God wants us to believe and look at what happens with just a little belief in these two instances. So that’s why the author of Hebrews points back to these guys; if there were ever two flunkies in the Old Testament, Barak and Gideon, and yet they’re models for us to believe. Let’s go on with the names, the next one we encounter is Jephthah, Judges 11. Jephthah is probably best known because he made a vow, and supposedly, people think, slaughtered his daughter in response to the vow and so on, but we won’t look at that part of his life. Jephthah is picked out as another man. Let’s think back as we go back to Jephthah a minute; what is the situation that the author of Hebrews is facing as far as the believers; what’s the state of the believers that he’s talking to. [someone answers] Yeah, they’re about ready to quit, they’re discouraged believers.

So what better illustrations can you give discouraged believers than to pick similar flunkies and show what they could do. Remember how earlier in Hebrews 11 he said look, Abraham did this, Abraham did this, and you know what, even Sarah did something, the implication being if Sarah did it you surely can do it, because Sarah was a woman that never got with it until she was 99. All right, Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah. Now Jephthah in verse 1 was picked out because he would be called by modern educators as a child of disadvantaged background.

Judges 11:1, “Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he was the son of a whore, and Gilead begat Jephthah. [2] And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.” So he is disinherited as a young person. So you see one flunky, one flunky and a bastard. These are the people that are picked out as examples of faith in Hebrews 11. Verse 3, “Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob,” it’s pronounced Tov, “and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.” In other words, he’s a gang leader. So he has all things pointing in the right direction; bastard out with a gang, that’s how he starts. [4] And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel.” Now here’s a group of people and they’re going to get wiped out. The Ammonites are going to be permanently injured after they encounter Jephthah.

So this is the third great enemy that is militarily defeated in battle by a man who had all the odds against him, all the odds. [5] And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob,” see, they ran to him because he had skill in warfare, that’s what verse 1, the first part, “he was a mighty man of valor,” he was a soldier. And he was a natural born fighter, he probably grew up that way fighting with his brothers all the time, till they ganged up on him and it was too much and they threw him out.

But he was a man who had this leadership ability and so they went and Jephthah, we’d like you to be our commander. [6, “And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. [7] And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? [8 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou may go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”]

In verse 9 Jephthah shows what kind of a good leader he is because he says, “If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head?” In other words, he is requesting authority. He realizes he can’t lead if he is not going to be respected as authority; it they’re not going to give him authority, forget it, they can find someone else to lead their army. So at verse 9 we see his skill.

Now in verse 15, he goes and sends a message to the enemy, “And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab,” see the accusation is that the Ammonites are saying that Israel took away their land, and so in verse 15 he gives them a lesson in history, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon, [16] But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh; [17] Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom,” etc. etc. etc. and he goes on to describe what happened. Now why is verse 15 and following important? Because it shows that Jephthah was a man, who when the crisis hit, he could put away petty resentment. Now the temptation must have been deep in this man’s soul, I was thrown out of my father’s house, they treated me like a bastard and I’ll treat them like bastards. That would have been the natural inclination of Jephthah but he didn’t act that way. When the crisis came, he knew his history, he evidently, therefore, must have studied the Word of God. So he was prepared.

And in Judges 11:29, Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon.” And then he went on and he slaughtered the enemy, victory. Victory by killing the enemy. And then he gave his daughter up and we won’t go into that except for the fact he didn’t sacrifice his daughter, he made an oath for her perpetual virginity as a temple priestess. So he didn’t slaughter her. All right, that’s Jephthah. The third man mentioned by the author of Hebrews. Two flunkies and a bastard.

Now we come to another hero, Samson. Samson is a goon, he never could lead anybody. His major contribution was starting fights everywhere he went. And God used his natural ability to start fights to irritate friction between a group of Jews who at this point in history were compromising their election position. God had called Israel t be separate from the nations. The Jews, by the time of Judges 13, which is where Samson’s story begins, had settled down to treaty, they had a détente going with the Philistines, and the problem in that era was that Samson couldn’t get an army started, it was only Samson. Samson single-handedly started the war. He was a roughneck, you might even call him a redneck, and he was the one that got the Philistines angry at Israel. He figured the Jews won’t get angry at the Philistines so I know what I’ll do, I’ll make the Philistines angry at the Jews, then they’ll beat up the Jews and the Jews will get mad and start a war. So Samson had one goal in life and that was start a fight.

And everywhere Samson went there was a fight. He got mad at his girlfriend’s father, couldn’t stand what he did, he took his girl back and Samson didn’t like it so he tied torches on the tails of some foxes and sent them through the father-in-law’s field, right at harvest time, burned his whole farm down, the guy lost all his acreage, something that really improves the relations with the in-laws. So Samson was that kind of a character, and in Judges 13:3 we have his birth described. “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now,” of the two parents that had the hardest time raising a son, the prize would go to the mother and father of Samson. This couple really had a problem with this guy.

“Behold now, thou art barren, and bears not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. [4] Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing; [5] For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazirite [unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.]” Now contrary to all the Biblical artists who never read the Bible, the men in the Old Testament did not have hair hanging down to their waist. The people in the Scripture had short hair because of the Nazirite oath. The Nazirite oath means there was an exception made for these. So verse 5 shows and proves that the men who had long hair were Nazirites. And if the Nazirite oath was to mean anything it meant that obviously the other men did cut their hair. So the Nazirites were a particular group of men that were set aside as special ministers.

And of course you all know the story of Samson and it concludes in Judges 16:28, you’d better know the story because Golda Meir gave a speech in the Israeli parliament about three weeks ago based on Judges 16 and she was giving a speech on the foreign policy of the nation Israel and she said that the Jewish nation up until this time has had the reputation of having a Masada complex, Masada was the Jewish Alamo where they held out for some, many, many years against the Roman legion. The Roman legion finally built an inclined plain using slave labor up to this tremendously high fortress at Masada, and when they got over the wall, when the legionnaires finally broke the wall and they came over, there were 600 Jews and their wives and their children, and they committed mass suicide so they would not surrender to the Romans; they would fight to the last man and then when they saw they were going to be captured they killed themselves. And so the idea that Golda Meir said is that that’s the idea that people have at large of the Jews, that the Israelis are going to fight and if they can’t kill the Arabs they’ll kill themselves, and she said we want to put the world on notice that Israel today no longer has the Masada complex, they have the Samson complex, and that is that we’re going to take everybody with us. And that’s what Samson did Judges 16:28, Israel has a new nuclear capability, a surface to surface missile, biblically called Jericho and the Arabs know this and the Israeli army, as of tonight has nuclear capability and if Mrs. Meir’s address is any sign… what she’s telegraphing to us is that if the Arabs want to play rough we’ll go nuclear. That’s all, so if they want to play games, we’ll play games all the way.

And Samson was the one, and so here’s the story and it may take on in our own spring of 1975, it may take on some added application. [28] “And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee,” remember he’s a blind man now, he’s being led into the temple of Dagon for sport; everybody is going to laugh at Samson, they brought Samson in for the party, good time, make a clown out of Samson, so Samson is…verse 27 is the context, the place is filled with 3,000 men and women, “who beheld while Samson was made sport. [28] And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” Now it’s significant in the prayer of verse 28 that it is not a doctrinal prayer. It’s a prayer of personal vengeance and everywhere else where you see warriors of the Hebrews in the Old Testament they don’t pray that kind of a prayer. They usually pray O Lord God, avenge Your name, but Samson is, again, a very, very immature believer. He has a long history of compound carnality in his life and he’s never grown spiritually, and so even in his dying moment he has very little perception in praying, and he makes this prayer, which is sick, but nevertheless God is going to honor it because at least it is an expression of his trust in that God can do something.

[29] “And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood,” and to see what he did here, the pillars in the ancient world were not cemented together, they were built like this, and the roof was held on a cross [can’t understand word] and none of this was held by masonry. So what Samson did, he just put his arms around here and pulled these beams in and the whole thing came in like a house of cards. [30] “And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.” Now during Samson’s life he slew at least 1050 men, he was a killer; 1050 men he personally killed all during his lifetime, but in his death he killed most of the people in this temple, which was 3,000. So he went out having killed 4,000 people. That was his badge of honor.

Now Judges presents Samson, again, in a poor light, along with these other miserable characters. And those are the four men, of all the people in Scripture, that the author of Hebrews gives as models to discouraged believers; if these guys can do it, anybody can do it.

The next two, and remember we’ve got two pairs, Barak and Gideon; Jephthah and Samson, and now he brings up David and Samuel. Now David and Samuel were altogether different, not perfect by any means, each man, his weak areas are shown in Scripture. Turn to 1 Samuel 3 and see what Samuel looked like. We won’t go into detail because all of this is in the 1 and 2 Samuel series, but just to show you the strength and the weakness, just to refresh our memory, so we don’t make these men into saints, artificial heroes.

The strong point of Samuel, his attitude; 1 Samuel 3:1, “And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision. [2] And it came to pass at that time, when Eli laid down in his place, and his eyes began to was dim, that he could not see, [3] And before the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, Samuel laid down to sleep.” In other words, here’s a young boy whose positive volition is so great, and he knows that God hasn’t spoken for many years, where does this boy take his little sleeping bag and roll it out every night; right there, right next to the temple. Do you know why? Because when God speaks he wants to be the first one that hears it. Now that’s positive volition. Here is a young teenage boy, probably younger than teenage years at this point, and his positive volition is shown by simply where he takes his little sleleping bag at night and sleeps because he wants to be there when God speaks; I want to see Him. See, that’s positive volition. And God rewards him and He speaks. In verse 4, “The LORD called Samuel. And he said, Here am I.” And it goes on in a rather amusing discourse that the Lord spoke in a voice that so much resembled a man that the little boy Samuel thought it was somebody else in the tent and he went to Eli and thought Eli called him. And that little episode shows you something, God didn’t speak with a spooky voice in the Old Testament, God spoke in a normal human voice, because other wise they little guy wouldn’t have confused it. Well, that’s his strong point, his tremendous positive volition toward God.

Now turn to 1 Samuel 8:3, here’s his weak side. Samuel was a strong believer in that he sought God but he also had his failings. “And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after money, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.” So he was a poor father; he’s a good believer, a good prophet, but he turned out to be a poor father. So in the third divine institution Samuel was a failure. That’s Samuel, just to show you that he had his problems and he had his strong points.

Then David, we’ve been through his life and seen his strong points and weakness, and so therefore just quickly go to 2 Samuel for the sixth man that’s cited by the author of Hebrews and to just see one of the great verses that David used and showed his faith as a soldier, because remember the context of Hebrews 11:32 is military warfare. 2 Samuel 22:34-35, this is a promise that David used over and over, it was his concept of military training. “He makes my feet like hinds’ feet, and sets me upon my high places. [35] He teaches my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.” It’s actually in the original Hebrew a bow of bronze, they didn’t have steel in David’s day, “a bow of bronze is broken by my arms.” So verse 35 is talking about coordination, and strength in the forearm and upper arm as he practiced with bows and arrows. In verse 34 it’s talking about his stability in hand to hand combat.

Those are the verses, that’s the background, let’s turn back to Hebrews 11, now we can read verse 32 and get the point. So he says in Hebrews 11:32, “What shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon,” the flunky, “Barak,” another flunky, “Samson,” the bully, “Jephthah,” the bastard, David and Samuel, and of the prophets.”

Now verse 33, we’ll stop half way through it, “Who, through faith,” it means they had nothing in and of themselves, everything these believers did was not related to who and what they were because who and what they were were miserable fallen creatures and you couldn’t have any more miserable than the ones listed in verse 32. “Who, through faith, subdued kingdoms,” they were conquerors, and even though they were [can’t understand word] and failed many times in their life, when the chips were down even these guys came through. And they did it by faith, and they conquered. Look at that, “subdued kingdoms,” Barak, the kingdom of Jabin, the Canaanite; Gideon, the kingdom of the Midianites; Samson started a war with the Philistines; you have the other men, he ended the Philistine threat, Samuel, very severely hurt the Philistines, and then the second phrase in verse 33 that describes these men is “they worked out,” literally, they brought into visibility, ergezomai, “they wrought righteousness,” now you look at these men’s lives and you say what kind of righteousness did the wrought? The righteousness that they made visible was their obedience to kill the enemy. That’s fundamentally the theme of verse 32. They did many other things, but the theme that connects all these men is that then the chips were down, they killed, and they subdued the kingdom.

So we’re going to see a lot more, very interesting stories in chapter 11, look down and in verse 34 you see them escape the edge of the sword, see that magnificent phrase in verse 34, “out of weakness they were made strong,” we’ll study what that means, “they waxed valiant in battle,” the word “fight” is the Hebrew word for war, it comes from the Hebrew word, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for war, they “turned to flight the armies of the Gentiles.” Then it talks about the women in verse 35, those women we’ll find who they were and what their names were. They’re listed in Kings. Others were tortured and he describes in verse 36 and some in verse 37 that we don’t know. “They were stoned, they were sawn in half” and some think that the man who was saw in half in verse 37 is Isaiah. “The wandered about in sheepskins” and it goes on, magnificent passage of Scripture.

When you feel discouraged and you think that the world has come to an end you’ll see that the great, great believers and the sufferings that they put up, just a magnificent and very challenging story at the end of chapter 11.

[someone says something] They wrestling with the principalities and power of darkness, Ephesians 6, the mental attitude. The holy war of the Christian isn’t against the Gentiles, the holy war of the Christian is against these principalities and the powers and the application here is that that same killer attitude that these men had… by nature most of these men were timid men, most of these men were men that just didn’t want to fight, they were men who were totally discouraged, just felt the weight of the whole thing, just think of Gideon, and the angel saying, Well, mighty man of valor, visualize that picture in your mind the next time you feel depressed. And think what these men did in just a few minutes of trust.

Father, we thank You….