do you see the phrase in verse 34 they escaped the edge of the sword and then do you see the phrase in verse 37 they were put to death with the sword by faith they escaped the edge of the sword Faith brought them a miraculous deliverance from The Sword verse 37 by faith they were killed by the sword by faith God brought them home if God's Providence does not always grant us escape from suffering how does he sustain us through the suffering he permits in this episode of light and Truth John Piper turns to Hebrews 11:29 to 38 to show how we are sustained by faith this sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on August 10th 1997 and I invite you to turn to Hebrews 11 verses 29- 38 and as we read the text today today the main thing to see is the startling shift in the middle of verse 35 and I'll point it out when we get there and it makes all the difference in the way you see God the way you see the life of Faith Hebrews 11:29 by faith they pass through the red sea as though they were passing through dry land and the Egyptians when they attempted it were drowned by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days by faith Rahab the Harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient after she had welcomed the spies in peace and what more shall I say for time will fail me to tell if I tell of Gideon bar Samson jeffa of David and Samuel and the prophets who 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 shift others were tortured not accepting their release in order that they might obtain a better Resurrection others experienced mockings and scourgings yes also chains and imprisonment they were stoned they were swn into two they were tempted they were put to Death By The Sword they went about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute Afflicted ill treated men of whom the world was not worthy wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground father I pray that this word of God would not meet with indifference or unbelief this morning but that it would in all of its glory and Glory reality awaken faith and help us be ready to escape and die Lord sober this people here this morning not many media encourage sobriety of thought in the face of death and suffering most of our lives are spent under the influence of powers that are attempting to help us Escape reality only the Bible in the end deals with reality and this is a really real text this morning and I pray that many who are are living in the dream world of the media or of daily ordinary life out of touch with eternity would wake up right now in Jesus name amen Christians and non-christians both and I assume they're both in the room right now can have defective views of God and the ways of God with man man preaching the word of God is intended at least as I understand it and attempt to do it preaching the word of God is meant to bring views of God and his ways with man more and more away from defectiveness and into Accord with truth more and more that's what we're about week in and week out trying to refine our vision of who God is and the way he does things with our lives so that he and his ways Accord with reality with what is with what's biblical now I do that for unbelievers so that you can assess and then Embrace Christianity on the basis of true views and not distorted views which are so prevalent so I'm glad you're here and I do it for believers so that we will live our lives not on the basis of defective or distorted and especially discouraging views of God and his ways with people now this text I can remember the first time I was walloped by the shift in verse 35 and the lifechanging effect it had on me in my understanding of God and faith and suffering and I hope I pray that it will have a similar effect on you because this is a powerful chapter these verses 29 to 35a and 35b to 38 if you understand those two and how they fit together under one God through one kind of Faith you will have a vision of God and a vision of his ways with people that will make you like a tree planted by streams of water whose leav leaves keep on coming and fruit keeps coming and wood gets stronger no matter what kinds of winds blow across you and I'll want that for you so bad okay now Point number one through our faith faith is the dominant theme in this chapter through our faith God can and does work miracles and acts of PR Providence to help and deliver his people from pain and misery that's Point number one I use the word Miracles and acts of Providence carefully I want to explain those terms I say God can and does yesterday today and tomorrow work miracles to deliver his people from pain and suffering now I base that upon verses 29 to 35a and what I mean by Miracles are things that are God's Interruption into the ordinary cause effect of way things usually work there are five of them here at least for example verse 29 the dividing of the Red Sea verse 30 the falling down of big thick City walls at the blowing of trumpets verse 33 the shutting of the mouths of lions or verse 34 the quenching of fire I assume it's referring to Shadrach meach and Abednego when they were thrown into the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar and they walked around in the flame now those are what I call Miracles God does that sort of thing and he does it through faith and he can do it today and he does it that's the first thing he does now I use the term acts of Providence for the less extraordinary but no less God intensive things that God does in the world there's several of these mentioned here as well for example Rahab says uh in verse 31 did not perish because she had Faith well you look at that well was nothing especially miraculous about that she had heard that the people had broken through the Red Sea they had wiped out the king of Edom and Bashan and they were coming against Jericho and she decided I'm going to go with the true God and she survived by faith another example is uh conquering Kingdoms in verse 34 I assume that refers to David's great exploit nothing especially miraculous about winning those kinds of triumphs necessarily establishing righteousness Escaping The Sword like when Elijah was not killed by Jezebel because he hi tailed it to the outskirts he did that by faith and so on so there are there are ways that God works in our lives that are not what we call miraculous but are no less wonderful ways by which He blesses us us and grants us escape from suffering and From Misery now the point here is that all of these Miracles listed in verses 25 29-35 and these acts of Providence are by faith just notice that verse 29 by faith they passed through the Red Sea verse 30 they pass through the Red Sea 31 that Jericho fell down 33 Rahab didn't perish by faith they conquered kingdoms so that's all by Faith so my first point very simple is that through your faith God can and does work miracles and acts of Providence by which he delivers from suffering and grants escape and practical help on this Earth Point number two God does not always work miracles and acts of Providence for our deliverance from suffering but sometimes by faith sustains his people through horrendous suffering that's Point number two that was long but simple wasn't it not always does he work miracles and acts of Providence to Deliver Us from suffering but he sustains Us by that same Faith through suffering now i' base this on verses 35 to 38 another way to say it would be having true faith in God is no guarantee of comfort Security in this life now I cannot tell you how important it is for you to believe this if you want to stay a Christian verses 35- 38 are very very painful verses and they say I think very plainly that the miseries of God's people come by faith and are endured not because of unbelief but by faith notice verse 33 make this crystal clear so that you can point to the actual words that show you that all the miseries there's 10 of them listed here depending on how you count all the miseries of verses 35b to 38 are through faith look at verse 33 it says by faith they conquered kingdoms and then without any break the sequence and the list continues right into verse 35 It Is by faith that others were tortured and others experienced mockings and scourgings the phrase by faith in verse 33 carries us all the way to verse 38 now if you doubt that drop your eyes down to verse uh 39 and we can just read it in reverse verse 39 says summary all of these now the these refer ref to the misery and the suffering people in verses 35- 38 all of these having gained approval through their faith now is that clear enough these people were being slaughtered not because they displeased the Lord or lacked Faith do you hear it if you got it take that verse and believe it these people verse 39 says gained approval through their faith in fact they suffered through their faith they embraced it through their faith suffering misery destitution torture ill treatment lacking clothes are not owing to God's disapproval rather God's approval is resting on them because of their faith now let's be specific here because there are many of us who simply don't believe this when it happens to us we don't believe it we get angry at God and we think he's punishing us for some lack and it seems out of proportion we feel let's go to right to the biggie verse 35 second half of the verse says others were tortured this means that God does not always turn the hearts of your torturers away from their torture though he could say that again this means that God does not always influence the hearts of the torturer to stop torturing you though he could he could do that now some would say now wait a minute they would say the torturers have free will and God can't intervene and mess up the system of free will he has limited himself that's not true that's not true you need to disbelieve that when you read it in books even books by people you admire let me give you an illustration for why I do not believe it the Bible is simply replete with instances of God's influencing the wills of men to restrain them from Evil and to channel their evil for example you remember the time that uh Abraham went down into Egypt and lied about his wife and said she's my sister so that aimc the king wouldn't kill him because she's so pretty and add her to his herum not a very great thing for Abraham to do but he did it so aimc takes her as his sister into his herum first night into the Herm what do you do you you sleep with her she's pretty and he didn't do it he didn't do it and God came to him in the morning after he had discovered that she was his wife and this is what God Said to aimc I kept you from sinning against me therefore I did not let you touch her now if you tell me God can't do that sort of thing to torturers in the back room of a jail in mosambique I won't believe you therefore when we scream under the knife or the rack there's no point in screaming fix the system of Free Will which you would be a reasonable request I think there are other things to scream about and other things to say I really I really am burdened about this because of how prevalent this solution is to the problem of suffering and I want to read you I I don't want to to go after a person this morning as I read this awful quote but I I want you to know this is a very popular book I have in my hand here I don't even feel inclined to hold it up so you can tell what it is a lot of you have read it a lot of you know this author and a lot of you would admire this person and this is horendous theology here but I'll read it to you and I hope that you can measure this and I read it simply because I'm your Shepherd and my responsibility is to protect you from wolflike teaching if not from wolves and to feed you with food that'll help you die well okay when an individual inflicts pain on another individual I do not not think we can go looking for the purpose of God in the event I hate that sentence with a passion of course God allowed the event to occur because his ultimate purpose includes having free agents and this Freedom as I argued in an earlier letter must be irrevocable but to allow something and to purpose it or cause it are two very different things I know Christians frequently speak about quote the purpose of God in the midst of a tragedy caused by someone else which by the way is what verses 35 to 38 are all about Mark this these are tragedies being caused by hostilities most of them not all of them I know Christians frequently ask about the purpose of God in the midst of tragedy caused by someone else there was a young girl this year at bethl who was killed by a drunk driver and a lot of students were wondering what purpose God had in quote taking her home but this I regard to Simply Be a piously confused way of thinking the drunk driver alone is to blame for the girl's untimely death the only purpose of God in the whole thing is his design to allow morally responsible people the right to decide whether to drink responsibly or irresponsibly chapter 11 is just setting us up for chapter 12 chapter 12 is a description of Our Father who disciplines us for a purpose and the discipline in context is the slaughter of chapter 11 that'll be very plain affected by evil people upon other people using their Wills which God could if he pleased restrain without calling their moral accountability into question if this is your theology that I just read you will be very uncomfortable in this church because it isn't mine and I loathe this theology it's very quiet in here isn't it it's funny how when when you make plain the lines when you draw the Contours of issues instead of just letting the kind of fog we're all together it's all one everything's okay we all think the same thing about Jes Jesus then we can all be happy and but if you lay it out and you draw the lines clearly people something at stake here let me give you another example of this second Point look at verse 37 they were sa in two now this is almost too horrible to think about tradition has it that Isaiah was swn into alive Isaiah Isaiah there isn't anybody greater than Isaiah in the Old Testament is there son in two imagine this how forsaken you might feel if not only death lies in front of you but somebody was devising a way to make death as horrible as it possibly could be now that has happened it may be happening as I speak in certain countries of the world it's happened to people of whom the world is not worthy verse 38 says and the Bible teaches God could stop that if he pleased he could stop that just like he stopped aimc from committing adultery with Abraham's wife and he could do it without nullifying the accountability of anybody's will isn't that the point of verses 29 to35 get this isn't the point of verses 29 to35 God can get people out of scrapes he can cause them to escape he can deliver them in miraculous ways he doesn't have to let them be tortured that's the point of verses 29-35 which means that when verses 35- 38 says they are tortured they are slain they are destitute they are beheaded it means he didn't do it he chose not to do what he was doing in verses 29 to 35 the clearest picture of this I remember when I first saw this the clearest picture is in the contrast between verse 34 and 37 do you see the phrase in verse 34 they escaped the edge of the sword and then do you see the phrase in verse 37 they were put to death with the sword by faith they escaped the edge of the sword Faith brought them a miraculous deliverance from The Sword verse 37 by faith they were killed by the sword by faith God brought them home the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord over the rent body of Isaiah God does not always use Miracles and Providence to grant us Escape by faith he sustains his people through the suffering that he permits and ordains this is light and Truth god- centered preaching to help you see Christ clearly and treasure him truly I'm your host host Dan kru thank you for listening on our next episode John Piper continues our 12-part series risk taking Faith with a sermon titled Faith declares that God is better I hope you'll join us for more resources visit desiringgod.org