Note -

I. HOW THIS WRITER SPEAKS FROM FULLNESS OF KNOWLEDGE. AS one might think, he has already been tolerably copious, but he hints that there is really much more to tell. He has looked through all the records of God's people, and he finds faith everywhere. Thus has been produced in his mind a strong conviction of what man can do when he believes in the right way. And might we not attain to a similar fullness of knowledge? Reading ecclesiastical history, in the widest sense of the term, we should see how much stronger is the man of simple faith than the man of this world, with all his resources and ingenuity. As knowledge and experience of the right things grow, so must convictions with respect to them deepen.

II. HOW HE CLASSIFIES THE EXAMPLES OF FAITH. He shows us faith active and passive - what it can do and what it can bear. By his function the prophet had to be a man of action, and as the result of his action he had also to be a man of suffering. God sent him out to do special deeds - deeds beyond ordinary resources - and then he had also to make ready for sufferings out of the ordinary way. He who would do great things in the sight of God must be ready also to suffer great things. Live on the level of the world, and you may escape much in the way of toil and strain; but try to achieve the things which Christ sets before you, and then you will find you must not only have strong hands, but a brave and patient heart.

III. THERE IS PLENTY OF WORK FOR FAITH YET TO DO. There are kingdoms to be overcome, not by physical force, not by disciplined armies, but by those who, having yielded first of all to truth, know its claims and its power, and believe in persistent pressing of that truth on others. Righteousness has to be worked out, promises have to be appropriated; and if we would inherit the promises, we must accept the conditions of faith and patience. Our faith can achieve great things, and therefore great things are set before it. The faith of a simple, humble Christian has far greater things within its reach than anything to be attained by the unaided human intellect even at its best.

IV. SIMILARLY THERE IS PLENTY OF TRIAL FOR FAITH YET TO ENDURE. The more there is to be done, the more there is to be suffered. Ingenious torments and cruel deaths there may not be, but the spirit of the world is unchanging. Let a man persevere as seeing the invisible one, and he will have to suffer. He may not be stoned, but he will be pelted with the sneers of thoughtless and ignorant men. Those who through mere self-respect would refrain from a blow with the fist yet delight in the most cutting words. - Y.

I. THE EVILS WERE —

1. Mockings. The parties mocked were God's saints and prophets; the parties mocking were their enemies and persecutors, which proved to be sometimes their own brethren, of the same nation, language, kindred, religion — and amongst these sometimes the basest of the people, sometimes the priests and princes. These mockings issue out of contempt, and tend unto the disgrace of the party mocked, and makes it a sport to abuse them, so as to rejoice in their misery. These mockings are sometimes in words, sometimes in signs, sometimes in both. And because to a grave, serious person, of eminent worth, some of these mockings are very bitter, cutting, cruel, not only in respect of the matter, but also of the circumstances, this made the sufferings more glorious.

2. Scourgings. This is a punishment also of great disgrace and sometimes of cruel pain, when by whips, either of cords or wires, not only the skin is broken, but the very flesh torn. And this was the more grievous because it was an usual punishment of slaves, of vilest persons, and of such as were of worst behaviour; and by it they were not only put to pain, but to open shame.

3. Bonds and imprisonment. Both these were restraints of liberty, which is so precious and desirable. The end of them was the reservation of malefactors or suspected persons till the time of trial and judgment; and close imprisonment was so much the more grievous when they were deprived of all comfortable society, and no friends suffered to relieve them.

II. THESE THEY SUFFERED. Some endured one of them, some more, some all; for they had trial or experience of these things, so some understand it, as though the sense were that they did not fear them threatened but feel them inflicted. Though their enemies did afflict and vex them unjustly and wickedly, yet they suffered them patiently, and resolved that though God should kill them, yet they would trust in Him.

III. THEY THUS SUFFERED THESE THINGS BY FAITH. For they knew the way to heaven was rough and troublesome, and that these sufferings could not separate them from the love of God nor deprive them of the great reward, but prepare them for eternal glory. For they verily believed that there was eternal life, that God had promised it, and that constancy in the covenant and perseverance in the way of righteousness was the only means to obtain possession; and they knew that though their sufferings were grievous, yet the reward would infinitely recompense all.

(G. Lawson.)

Some creatures are unquestionably used as scourges; but perhaps the less we mortals say about such animated pests the better. They act up to their own organisation, but never beyond; whilst it is far otherwise with mankind. The serpent employs its poisoned fangs to procure food or avert peril, real or fancied; the jaguar uses its terrible incisors in the destruction of its prey; and the shark avails itself of its dental apparatus to assuage its appetite. But man, says Hugh Miller, must surely have become an immensely worse animal than his teeth show him to have been designed for; his teeth give no evidence regarding his real character. Of our racks and thumbscrews, our inquisitions and oubliettes, our noyades at Nantes and our mitraillades at Lyons and Toulons, there is no prophetic intimation in our dentology.

(Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

As a specimen of the fierce cruelty of Queen Mary's officers, Mr. Froude writes: "The persecution degenerated into wholesale atrocity. On the 23rd of April six men were burnt at Smithfield; on the 28th, six more were burnt at Colchester; on the 15th of May an old lame man and a blind man were burnt at Stratford-le-Bow. In the same month three women suffered at Smithfield, and a blind boy was burnt at Gloucester. In Guernsey, a mother and two daughters were brought to the stake. One of the latter, a married woman with child, was delivered in the midst of her torments, and the infant just rescued was tossed back into the flames. Reason, humanity, even common prudence, were cast to the winds. Along the river bank stood rows of gibbets, with bodies of pirates swinging from them in the wind. Ferocity in the Government and lawlessness in the people went hand in hand."

(Tinling's Illustrations.)

Abel, Barak, Cain, David, Egyptians, Enoch, Esau, Gedeon, Gideon, Hebrews, Isaac, Israelites, Jacob, Jephthae, Jephthah, Joseph, Noah, Pharaoh, Rahab, Samson, Samuel, Sara, SarahEgypt, Jericho, Jerusalem, Red SeaBlows, Bonds, Chained, Chains, Cruel, Experienced, Flogging, Imprisonment, Jeers, Laughed, Mockery, Mocking, Mockings, Moreover, Prison, Prisons, Receive, Scourging, Scourgings, Suffered, Tested, Trial, Tried, Underwent, Yea, Yes, Yet1. What faith is.
6. Without faith we cannot please God.
7. The examples of faithfulness in the fathers of old time.

Hebrews 11:36

     5251   chains
     5313   flogging
     5344   imprisonment
     5461   prisoners
     8817   ridicule, objects of

Hebrews 11:1-39

     5763   attitudes, positive to God
     8412   decisions

Hebrews 11:1-40

     8020   faith

Hebrews 11:4-38

     8428   example

Hebrews 11:32-38

     5565   suffering, of believers
     5957   strength, spiritual
     8795   persecution, nature of

Hebrews 11:32-39

     5292   defence, divine
     8221   courage, strength from God

Hebrews 11:35-38

     5584   torture
     8027   faith, testing of

Hebrews 11:35-39

     8215   confidence, results

Hebrews 11:36-37

     5485   punishment, legal aspects

Hebrews 11:36-38

     8481   self-sacrifice

Hebrews 11:36-39

     8796   persecution, forms of

Hebrews 11:36-40

     5500   reward, God's people

October 15. "Faith is the Evidence of Things not Seen" (Heb. xi. 1).
"Faith is the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1). True faith drops its letter in the post-office box, and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it, and wonders that the answer never comes. I have some letters in my desk that have been written for weeks, but there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents, so they are yet unmailed. They have not done either me or anybody else any good yet. They will never accomplish anything until I let them go out of my hands and …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

April 26. "Strangers and Pilgrims" (Heb. xi. 13).
"Strangers and pilgrims" (Heb. xi. 13). If you have ever tried to plough a straight furrow in the country--we are sorry for the man that does not know how to plough and more sorry for the man that is too proud to want to know--you have found it necessary to have two stakes in a line and to drive your horses by these stakes. If you have only one stake before you, you will have no steadying point for your vision, but you can wiggle about without knowing it and make your furrows as crooked as a serpent's …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 3. "He Went Out, not Knowing Whither He Went" (Heb. xi. 8).
"He went out, not knowing whither He went" (Heb. xi. 8). It is faith without sight. When we can see, it is not faith but reasoning. In crossing the Atlantic we observed this very principle of faith. We saw no path upon the sea nor sign of the shore. And yet day by day we were marking our path upon the chart as exactly as if there had followed us a great chalk line upon the sea; and when we came within twenty miles of land we knew where we were as exactly as if we had seen it all three thousand miles …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

January the First the Unknown Journey
"He went out not knowing whither he went." --HEBREWS xi. 6-10. Abram began his journey without any knowledge of his ultimate destination. He obeyed a noble impulse without any discernment of its consequences. He took "one step," and he did not "ask to see the distant scene." And that is faith, to do God's will here and now, quietly leaving the results to Him. Faith is not concerned with the entire chain; its devoted attention is fixed upon the immediate link. Faith is not knowledge of a moral …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

The Illusiveness of Life.
Preached June 9, 1850. THE ILLUSIVENESS OF LIFE. "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."--Hebrews xi. 8-10. Last Sunday we touched upon …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

The Pilgrim's Longings
Now, our position is very similar to theirs. As many of us as have believed in Christ have been called out. The very meaning of a church is, "called out by Christ." We have been separated. I trust we know what it is to have gone without the camp, bearing Christ's reproach. Henceforth, in this world we have no home, no true home for our spirits; our home is beyond the flood; we are looking for it amongst the unseen things; we are strangers and sojourners as all our fathers were, dwellers in this wilderness, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

Rahab's Faith
I do think this triumph of faith over sin is not the least here recorded, but that if there be any superiority ascribable to any one of faith's exploits, this is, in some sense, the greatest of all. What! faith, didst thou fight with hideous lust? What! wouldst thou struggle with the fiery passion which sendeth forth flame from human breasts? What! wouldst thou touch with thy hallowed fingers foul and bestial debauchery? "Yea," says faith, "I did encounter this abomination of iniquity; I delivered …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

Faith
This is an old law; it is as old as the first man. No sooner were Cain and Abel born into this world, and no sooner had they attained to manhood, than God gave a practical proclamation of this law, that "without faith it is impossible to please him." Cain and Abel, one bright day, erected an altar side by side with each other. Cain fetched of the fruits of the trees and of the abundance of the soil, and placed them upon his altar; Abel brought of the firstlings of the flock, and laid it upon his …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

Noah's Faith, Fear, Obedience, and Salvation
We may take pleasure in thinking of Noah as a kind of contrast to Enoch. Enoch was taken away from the evil to come: he saw not the flood, nor heard the wailing of those who were swept away by the waterfloods. His was a delightful deliverance from the harvest of wrath which followed the universal godlessness of the race. It was not his to fight the battle of righteousness to the bitter end; but by a secret rapture he avoided death, and escaped those evil days in which his grandson's lot was cast. …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 36: 1890

The Best Strengthening Medicine
THOSE WHO OUT OF WEAKNESS were made strong are written among the heroes of faith, and are by no means the least of them. Believers "quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong." Who shall tell which of the three grand deeds of faith is the greatest? Many of us may never have to brave the fiery stake, nor to bow our necks upon the block, to die as Paul did; but if we have grace enough to be out of weakness made strong, we shall not be left out of …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

The Obedience of Faith
"Is there a heart that will not bend To thy divine control? Descend, O sovereign love, descend, And melt that stubborn soul! " Surely, though we have had to mourn our disobedience with many tears and sighs, we now find joy in yielding ourselves as servants of the Lord: our deepest desire is to do the Lord's will in all things. Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

The Call of Abraham
I. First, let us LOOK AT ABRAHAM. Abraham's family was originally an idolatrous one; afterwards some beams of light shone in upon the household, and they became worshippers of the true God; but there was much ignorance mingled with their worship, and at least occasionally their old idolatrous habits returned. The Lord who had always fixed on Abraham to be his chosen servant and the father of his chosen people upon earth, made Abraham leave the society of his friends and relatives, and go out of Ur …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

Go Back? Never!
"And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly...city."--Hebrews 11:15, 16. ABRAHAM left his country at God's command, and he never went back again. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. There is a sort of faith which doth run well for a while, but it is soon ended, and it doth not obey the truth. The Apostle tells us, however, that the people of God were …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 61: 1915

The Gaze of the Soul
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.--Heb. 12:2 Let us think of our intelligent plain man mentioned in chapter six coming for the first time to the reading of the Scriptures. He approaches the Bible without any previous knowledge of what it contains. He is wholly without prejudice; he has nothing to prove and nothing to defend. Such a man will not have read long until his mind begins to observe certain truths standing out from the page. They are the spiritual principles behind …
A. W. Tozer—The Pursuit of God

The Christian Faith
Scripture references: Hebrews 11; Matthew 9:29; 17:20; Mark 10:52; 11:22; Acts 2:38; 3:16; 10:43; 16:30,31; Romans 1:17; 5:1; 10:17; Galatians 2:20. FAITH AND PRACTICE Belief Controls Action.--"As the man is, so is his strength" (Judges 8:21), "For as he thinketh in his heart so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matthew 9:28,29). "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). The Scriptures place stress upon the fact that …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

The Voices of the Dead
"And by it he being dead yet speaketh." Hebrews xi. 4. Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact, and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some departed one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he may say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an one; and, though …
E. H. Chapin—The Crown of Thorns

The Practice of Piety; Directing a Christian How to Walk that He May Please God.
Whoever thou art that lookest into this book, never undertake to read it, unless thou first resolvest to become from thine heart an unfeigned Practitioner of Piety. Yet read it, and that speedily, lest, before thou hast read it over, God, by some unexpected death, cut thee off for thine inveterate impiety. The Practice of Piety consists-- First, In knowing the essence of God, and that in respect of, (I.) The diverse manner of being therein, which are three persons--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (II.) …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Testimonies.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."--Heb. xi. 6. In order to prevent the possibility of being led into paths of error, faith is directed, not to a Christ of the imagination, but to "the Christ in the garments of the Sacred Scripture," as Calvin expresses it. And therefore we must discriminate between (1) faith as a faculty implanted in the soul without our knowledge; (2) faith as a power whereby this implanted faculty begins to act; and (3) faith as a result,--since with this faith (1) …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Being of God
Q-III: WHAT DO THE SCRIPTURES PRINCIPALLY TEACH? A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. Q-IV: WHAT IS GOD? A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Here is, 1: Something implied. That there is a God. 2: Expressed. That he is a Spirit. 3: What kind of Spirit? I. Implied. That there is a God. The question, What is God? takes for granted that there …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Abraham and Isaac. Genesis xxii.
1.--"After these things." What things? See verse 33 in preceding chapter. After Abraham had given himself to prayer. It often happens that grace is given for grace. God prepares his own for trial and suffering by revealing Himself. "GOD DID TEMPT."--Like a workman who is conscious the work is well done, fears not the scrutiny which waits his labour. When the smith has put good work into the iron cable, he does not then fear the strain of the test put upon it, and God knew what He had done to …
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread

Enoch, the Deathless
BY REV. W. J. TOWNSEND, D.D. Enoch was the bright particular star of the patriarchal epoch. His record is short, but eloquent. It is crowded into a few words, but every word, when placed under examination, expands indefinitely. Every virtue may be read into them; every eulogium possible to a human character shines from them. He was a devout man, a fearless preacher of righteousness, an intimate friend of God, and the only man of his dispensation who did not see death. He sheds a lustre on the …
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

Faith an Assurance and a Proof.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them. By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear."--HEB. xi. 1-3 (R.V.). It is often said that one of the greatest difficulties in the Epistle to the Hebrews is to discover any real connection of ideas between the author's general purpose in the previous discussion and the …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

A Cloud of Witnesses.
"By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.... By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with them that were disobedient, …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

The Faith of Moses.
"By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw he was a goodly child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

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