Thursday, June 19, 2008
"Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35).
IDEA: It is better to be dead within the will of God than alive apart from it.
PURPOSE: To help listeners sense what is involved in following Jesus.
When young men or women join the military, do you think they realize that it may involve suffering and even death?
When you go to a recruiting office, what kinds of pictures are displayed to inspire people to sign on as a soldier or a marine? Do you blame them?
I. Do you think the writer of the letter to the Hebrews hasn't caught on to how to motivate the people to be Christian warriors?
Why do you think the letter to the "Hebrews" was written?
In chapter 11 the author wants to give a list of examples of men and women who were people of faith.
Look at the last group in Hebrews 11:35-38:
"Others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put into prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised" (NIV).
Does that list of dangers encountered by people of faith inspire you to sign on as a person of faith? Why do you think the writer of this letter described those persecuted people?
II. The issue of faith is this: It is better to suffer and die in the will of God than to live in ease outside it.
Jesus calls us to follow Him and tells us that it may cost us our ease and our life.
Dietrich Bonhoffer, a German Lutheran pastor whose opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany led to his brutal execution, explained the risk he took, saying: "When Christ calls us to follow Him, he says, 'Come and die.'"
You will give your one and only life to something or you will throw it away on nothing. Whatever you give your life to costs you something. Jesus spelled out the possible cost in large print.