We should not expect to have pleasant, easy, and comfortable lives through faith, and suffering is not a sign of little faith. Indeed, to be like our Lord, we are called to take up our cross and follow Him. But in so doing, we ought to rejoice because just as Christ triumphed through the cross so now does He lead His church to triumph through suffering.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Hebrews 11:32-40 ESV

As we come to the conclusion of Hebrews 11 and its marvelous survey of the Old Testament saints who lived and died by faith, we ought to once again ground ourselves in context. Again, the key verse of chapter 11 is actually found at the end of chapter 10, where after citing Habakkuk 2:3-4, the author exhorts: “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (10:39). Chapters 3-4 already gave us an example of those who shrank back in fear and were destroyed. The exodus generation of Israelites rebelled against the Yahweh, who proved His might and provision to them over and over again, because they were afraid of the giants within the land of Canaan. On this side of the sermon-letter’s central focus upon the priestly work of Christ, the preacher has been giving us example after example of those who have faith and preserve their souls. He wants to flood his readers with these heroes of the faith because their own faith shall be tested by the crucible of persecution. These were all regular men and women, not superhuman demigods like the pagan heroes, who by looking by faith for the heavenly city that is to come received the greatest prize in all the cosmos: the commendation of their Creator.
And the question that this chapter and the entire sermon-letter sets before us is: Will we do likewise? When push comes to shove, will we shrink back in fear like the exodus generation, or will we have faith and receive the commendation of our Father?
Of Judges, Kings, & Prophets// Verse 32
As we have already seen in 9:5, the author of Hebrews is fully aware of his time constraints. Although he would have enjoyed working through every piece of furnishing in the tabernacle to show how each pointed forward to the coming of Christ, he kept his focus on the goal of his sermon-letter and continued on. A similar point has now been reached in our present chapter. After working his way from Abel to Rahab (skipping already many more examples of faithfulness that could have been told), the author now seems to catch himself from going further, realizing his need to wrap up this discourse on faith:
And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets–
Moving on from Joshua, which recorded the events described in verses 30-31, the author now gives a list of six names, four from Judges and two from 1-2 Samuel. He then ends by saying “and the prophets,” which was large number of men who served from the time of David onward.
By faith, Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah were each judges of Israel after the conquest of Canaan and before there was a king in Israel. The Book of Judges is an unpleasant book because it describes the gradual descent of Israel into wickedness as great or even greater than the nations around them. That descent is recorded through downward cycles of sin and rescue. In each cycle, Israel worships false gods, God gives Israel into the hand of an enemy, Israel cries out for rescue, God raises up a judge to deliver them, and the cycle repeats. Thus, each of these men were raised up by God during a time of great crisis and defeat in Israel, and all were given victory over their enemies through the strength of the LORD.
Gideon is probably the best example. He prepared to fight the Midianites with 32,000 men, but Yahweh commanded him to let those who were afraid go home. So 22,000 left. Yet God further whittled those 10,000 down to only 300 so that all would have to confess that victory came from the hand of Yahweh. By faith, Gideon obeyed the commands of God and delivered God’s people from their enemy. The same was also true of Barak, Samson, and Jephthah. They each obtained victories in battle because they believed God’s words to them and responded in obedience.
Of course, the examples of the faith of David and Samuel would be a lengthy list in itself. Samuel was faithful to God’s command even when it meant defying the highly unstable King Saul. David’s devotion to the LORD earned Him the distinction of being called a man after God’s own heart.
Yet as with everyone else in this chapter, these six men were not always faithful. After his victory over the Midianites and after rejecting the people’s demand for him to rule over them, Gideon made a ephod of gold, “and all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judges 8:27).
Although Barak did conquer kingdoms and put armies to flight by faith, his was a weak faith that was dependent upon Deborah, who was the actual judge of Israel at that time. And because of his wavering faith, the glory of his victory was given to another woman named Jael.
Jephthah was not any better. After his victory, he made a vow to offer whatever greeted him upon returning home to the Yahweh, but his daughter came to him rather than any of his animals. Rather than repent of his foolish vow, he offered his daughter as a burnt offering to the LORD, which revealed that he did not know God’s law or else he would have remembered Deuteronomy 12:29-32:
When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?–that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Samson is perhaps the weakest in faith of the bunch. Although he was used by the LORD to fight back the mighty Philistines, he mostly seems to fight for his own self-interest. Even as he made his final prayer for renewed strength after having his eyes gouged out, he prayed, “O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28).

David succeeded were Saul failed, both in good and in evil. The LORD was his chief glory and delight, yet the great king still sinned. He committed adultery with the wife of one of his most faithful servants and attempted to cover up his sin by sending Uriah on a suicide mission, just as Saul once tried to do to David.
While we are not told of any explicit sins on Samuel’s part, we do read about his sons that they “did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice” (1 Samuel 8:3). Thus, for all of Samuel’s faithfulness, the overt wickedness of his sons would have likely left him unqualified to serve as an elder of a church under the new covenant.
What are we to make of such broken examples of faith?
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At a time when the theological winds of his day were denying the deity of Jesus, B. B. Warfield wanted to affirm from the Bible the foundational doctrine of his humanity, that this doctrine should not be lost in the fog of controversy.  This he has done well.  Jesus the God-Man took upon himself the fullness of human nature that he should be a true substitute for his people.  Warfield has made the case for Christ’s humanity by showing his emotional life from the Scripture.  It’s a book to be commended, or as Sinclair Ferguson has noted, “It is the hidden jewel of his writings”

Here is a brief read from Crossway’s Short Classics series.  Originally written in 1912, the essay itself covers only 83 pages which can be read without much time or effort.  Still, the reward of doing so is significant.  It begins with a forward written by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson in which he sets the stage for the essay.  This is followed by a very brief biography of the author, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield.  Warfield occupied the Charles Hodge Chair at Princeton Theological Seminary and enjoyed a world-wide influence.  He taught during the period of theological upheaval in the late 19th into the early 20th centuries as a stalwart defender of biblical orthodoxy.  The liberal neo-orthodox denial of Scriptural Christology makes the essay especially relevant for its time but also for our day as well.  The repercussions of such liberalism still remain in many churches.
After a brief introduction, the study is divided into three sections each of which addresses an emotional category within the life of Jesus.  The first has to do with compassion which is presented as “the emotion that is most frequently attributed to Him” (p. 33).  Love was foundational to his compassion, taking the form of pity that moved him to action.  It was his love for the Father to do his will.  It was love in pity for the blind, the leprous, the hungry and the widowed that caused him to act.  It was love for the sinner that brought him to self-sacrifice.  “Love lies at the bottom of compassion” (p. 41).
In the second section Warfield spends the majority of the essay on Jesus’ anger.  Most of what he writes is straightforward for any student of the Bible but one area of Christ’s sense of anger may prove surprising.  It’s commonly known about the Lord’s righteous indignation with the money changers at the temple in Jerusalem, but the author doesn’t dwell on this incident.  He’s more interested in other, less well-known expressions of Christ’s vexation.  Jesus was indignant at the cold-heartedness of the Jewish leaders, annoyed when the disciples tried to keep children from him, he raged against death at the tomb of Lazarus, and resented his opponents using terms like the following to describe them:  hypocrites, blind guides, white-washed tombs, that fox, brood of vipers, etc.
But he chided those he healed: Jesus often met the need of those with physical challenges by healing them out of his compassion but would then ”charge” them, “rebuke” them, to tell no one what he had done.  Surprisingly, Warfield defines this as “a show of anger or displeasure directed to this end” (p. 70).  On at least two occasions, he moves quickly, even seamlessly, between expressing displeasure while exhorting silence from the healed to anger toward the source behind the physical need, i.e., an evil spirit or the fallenness of nature.  This point is a bit unexpected and confusing. Nevertheless, Warfield is careful to ascribe the Lord’s anger to his righteous nature.  He states, “…it is the righteous reaction of this moral sense in the presence of evil” (p. 76).
In the last section the author presents the joy and sorrow of “the man of sorrows.”  To be sure, Jesus “exulted in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21) as the conqueror of men’s souls yet it is pointed out that the Bible never states that Jesus laughed or smiled and only once relates that he was glad.  It must be assumed that he experienced joy and happiness in his life, but it did not please the Spirit to record much of it in the Scriptures.  But sorrow?  That’s another matter.
The Lord in his humanity maintained his holiness and utter perfection.  These were constantly assaulted by the fallenness of man.  Sinful behavior and its natural repercussions assailed Jesus at every turn in the form of human suffering, stubborn unbelief, the general characteristics of inhumanity, and the great enemy of death.  Thus, he is said to weep over Jerusalem, to sigh deeply (Mark 8:12) and experience pain of heart (Mark 3:5).  Surely his greatest sorrow was that of being forsaken by the Father on the cross, an incomprehensible agony that has brought to the believer in him the joy of eternal life.
At a time when the theological winds of his day were denying the deity of Jesus, B. B. Warfield wanted to affirm from the Bible the foundational doctrine of his humanity, that this doctrine should not be lost in the fog of controversy.  This he has done well.  Jesus the God-Man took upon himself the fullness of human nature that he should be a true substitute for his people.  Warfield has made the case for Christ’s humanity by showing his emotional life from the Scripture.  It’s a book to be commended, or as Sinclair Ferguson has noted, “It is the hidden jewel of his writings” (p. 10).
Randy Steele is a Minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Providence BPC in Albuquerque, NM.
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The Christian God is God, and he will not sit idly by within a pantheon of other gods and pleasures. He entertains no rivals. Friendship with the world is adultery and enmity against him (James 4:4). This text, and this reality, God used to shake me awake and bring me to Jesus. Dear reader, is your Jesus really God? If he is God — and the Jesus of the Bible is God — then follow him. 

Some texts mark you for life. As Jacob, you grapple with them, and though you come away with a blessing, you leave with a limp. You think differently. You pray differently. You love, speak, and act differently. Life as it was before can be no more.
Elijah’s question to the wavering people of Israel has been such a text for me. As a young college student, alone in my dorm room with a Bible I had just started reading, I came to it:
How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21)
When I read it on my futon, it was as though I witnessed the scene unfold firsthand.
“Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” The wicked king addressed the prophet he had hunted like a deer in the forest. He sneered. Not often did the prey beckon the hunter or the fish, the fisherman. But here, weaponless and alone, the prophet emerged from his hiding place to challenge his pursuer, and all of his prophets, to a public showdown.
“I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals,” Elijah replied. “Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:18–19).
Ahab happily complied.
News spread quickly; the people of Israel clamored around to see the spectacle. I took my place among the masses. The excitement was palpable as prophets and their gods prepared for war. Baal’s king and his army of prophets stood in one corner; the Lord’s prophet approached alone, taking his position in the other.
Pierced Without a Weapon
Yet as the prophet advanced toward the mountain to face off with the hundreds of prophets, Elijah’s eyes of fire rested elsewhere. He gazed at us, drew near to us. The contestant walked over to the crowd, slowly looking us over, and lifted his voice for all to hear,
How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21)
Weaponless, he shot the first arrow. Swordless, he cut me to the heart. Alone, I trembled to hear another speaking.
As I read those words, a lifetime of spiritual indecision flashed before my eyes. It took shape before me. The amphibious creature, offspring of a hearty worldliness and brittle religiosity, reared its head. It bore the horrible beauty of a demon. This angel of light had pleased and soothed my half-waking conscience for a lifetime, while remaining false enough to damn my soul.
This god I followed took no issue with the lukewarmness — the starts and stops, the ins and outs of what I took to be Christian devotion. None of my prophets interrupted me, nor protested when I went my own way. For over a decade, my god was compliant, polite, civil.
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