9 months ago

TITLE: OF WHOM THE WORLD IS NOT WORTHY
TEXT: HEBREWS 11:35B-40

INTRODUCTION: Verses 35b-40 tell of those who by faith trusted in the unfilled promises of God but did not experience physical deliverance from oppression during their lifetimes. Up until these verses, all though faith met severe obstacles, and experienced victory over them.

Today we are being pressed into agreement with vile and evil practices. Gross immorality was done publicly and if you did not engage in or endorse immorality you were made to conform. Coerced and forced to engage in the practice or suffer for your steadfastness not to conform.

1. others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: Stretched like the top of a drum and then scourged. Not accepting deliverance when it was offered them; that is, on condition that they would renounce their opinions, or do what was required of them. This is the very nature of the spirit of martyrdom. See the account of the aged Eleazar (2 Maccabees 6:30), martyred because he would not pollute himself with swine’s flesh and the “flesh taken from the sacrifice commanded by the king.”

2. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, being exposed and made a laughing-stock by reproaches, sarcasms, and nick-names, to aggravate their afflictions; and these inflicted on them by words and external signs, trials which, to an ingenuous spirit, bears harder than external torments, and which they more deeply sense and resent; yet faith makes them to receive all humbly, and carrieth them above them,

3. yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: as Hanani (2 Ch 16:10, “Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.” imprisoned by Asa. Micaiah, the son of Imlah, by Ahab (1Ki 22:26, 27, “And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son; And say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.”

4. They were stoned -- as Zechariah, son of Jehoiada 2 Ch 24:20-22; Mt 23:35.

5. they were sawn asunder-- An ancient tradition, mentioned both by Jewish and by early Christian writers, relates that Isaiah was thus put to death by order of Manasseh.

6. were tempted -- the writer is speaking of the promises and allurements by which the persecutors sought to overcome the constancy of God’s servants. They were tempted in every possible way, by friends and foes, by human and satanic agents, by caresses and afflictions, by words and deeds, to forsake God, but in vain, through the power of faith.

7. were slain with the sword: As in the case of the eighty-five priests slain by Doeg 1 Samuel 22:18-19, “And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.”

8. they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; Rather, they went about, as outcasts; compelled to live the life of wanderers and exiles. Driven away from their homes, and compelled to clothe themselves in this rude and uncomfortable manner.

9. being destitute, afflicted, tormented; The word "tormented" here means tortured. The apostle expresses here in general what in the previous verses he had specified in detail.

(Of whom the world was not worthy:) The world was so wicked that it had no claim that such holy men should live in it. These poor, despised, and persecuted people, living as outcasts and wanderers, were of a character far elevated above the world. This is a most beautiful expression. It is at once a statement of their eminent holiness, and of the wickedness of the rest of mankind.

10. they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. Palestine, from its hilly character, abounds in fissures and caves, affording shelter to the persecuted, as the fifty hid by Obadiah (1Ki 18:4, 13) and Elijah (1Ki 19:8, 13); and Mattathias and his sons (1 Maccabees 2:28, 29); and Judas Maccabeus (2 Maccabees 5:27).

39And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

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