Some of you remember the book, or have seen the movie: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It’s about a little boy whose day was “terrible…horrible…no good…and very bad.”
This one excerpt will give you a good sense for what it’s about.
“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
At breakfast Anthony found a Corvette Sting Ray car kit in his breakfast cereal box and Nick found a Junior Undercover Agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box but in my breakfast cereal box all I found was breakfast cereal.
I think I’ll move to Australia.
In the car pool Mrs. Gibson let Becky have a seat by the window. Audrey and Elliott got seats by the window too. I said I was being scrunched. I said I was being smushed. I said, if I don’t get a seat by the window I am going to be carsick. No one even answered.
I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
At school Mrs. Dickens liked Paul’s picture of the sailboat better than my picture of the invisible castle.
At singing time she said I sang too loud. At counting time she said I left out sixteen. Who needs sixteen?
I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
I could tell because Paul said I wasn’t his best friend anymore. He said that Philip Parker was his best friend and that Albert Moyo was his next best friend and that I was only his third best friend.
I hope you sit on a tack, I said to Paul. I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice-cream cone that the ice cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Australia.”
Now, what in the world does that have to do with the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11? Well, up to now in the description of what happened when these people expressed faith, in general good things happened to them. We read about that in vv. 32-35a that they “through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 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. 35a Women received back their dead by resurrection.”
But not every act of faith resulted in good news, in blessings, in victories and deliverances. Not every prayer of faith results in the healing of a child or the saving of a marriage. Not every prayer of faith means that we receive admittance to the college of our choice or that we keep a job we’ve had and depended upon for years. Sometimes what we pray for doesn’t happen in the way we desire. Sometimes our dreams are dashed, our hopes are quenched, our relationships fall apart and our bank account is drained.
The test of faith is trusting God when all we have are His promises. When the waters are piled high all around us and problems and dangers are about to overwhelm us, this is when faith is tested, and when the Lord takes special pleasure in showing us His faithfulness, His love, and His power. When we have nothing but His promise to rely on, His help is the nearest and His presence the dearest to those who believe. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 358)
That reality is reflected in these next verses in Hebrews 11, the verses that we wish were left out.
Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 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—38 of whom the world was not worthy–wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
If verses 32-35a sound like a dream, vv. 35b-38 sound like Stephen King’s worst nightmare!
But God blesses some who trust Him with the grace to escape serious trials and others the grace to endure serious trials. You and I might not see it as a “blessing” at the time—to go through trials—but in the long run we will see the blessing. For example, Paul says in Roman 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Even more clear is 2 Corinthians 4:17 when Paul writes, “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
The reality is that some will be “tortured.” The word “tortured” is tumpanizo, from which we get the term tympani or kettledrum, an instrument with a tightly drawn skin over it. In this case the victim would be stretched on a rack or wheel until their skin was tight as a drum, and then beaten while every nerve was taunt until every bone was out of joint and that person eventually died.
Second Maccabees details the gruesome torture of a ninety-year-old priest, Eleazar, who refused to eat swine’s flesh (2 Maccabees 6:18–31), and then goes on to recount the even more revolting accounts of the systematic torture of seven brothers for the same reason (2 Maccabees 7:1–42).
The Maccabean accounts of the torture of the seven brothers carry the words of heroic encouragement by their mother based on her hope of the resurrection:
I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws. (2 Maccabees 7:22, 23)
What a difference from the first part of this verse! Some received back their dead raised to life again, while others were tortured and refused to be released. One group was triumphant in victory through faith, while the other group was triumphant in suffering through faith.
But notice that this is a choice on the part of these martyrs. They “refus[ed] to accept release.” They could have escaped this torture, but rather they chose it. Why? So that by dying in this way, faithful to the cause of Christ, “they might rise again to a better life.” They were willing to endure pain in this life to gain the pleasures of the life to come. “Refusing to accept release” refers to the countless brethren that refused to renounce their Christian faith, accepting instead the punishment allotted them. That is still going on today.
At the Nicene Council, an important church meeting in the 4th century A.D., of the 318 delegates attending, fewer than 12 had not lost an eye or lost a hand or did not limp on a leg lamed by torture for their Christian faith. (Vance Havner)
It is embarrassing for me when I read about the earliest Christians who yearned for and even sought out martyrdom. I have to admit that holding on to life is precious to me, but they thought it precious to die for their Savior.
These men and women were willing to undergo torture in order to “rise again to a better life.” What does this mean? Some people interpret it as receiving a better reward when they are resurrected to eternal life. Others think it refers to the resurrection of the righteous as compared to the resurrection of the unrighteous.
But I think the best explanation is when you compare it to the resurrection already stated at the beginning of verse 35. Some women received back their dead, raised to life again. That was a resurrection back to this life with all its sorrows and pains, and it was not permanent. It would be better termed “resuscitation.” Each of those brought back to life would eventually die again. But the “better resurrection” is the resurrection to eternal life, which is permanent and frees us from all pain and suffering forever.
The phrase “refusing to accept release” literally means “not having accepted the redemption.” It’s a phrase which implies freedom by payment of a ransom. In other words, they were offered freedom for a price, but because that price included denying God and his word, they refused.
But the point is this: only faith will ultimately help you to persevere through the suffering of physical persecution. Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see. You cannot see the “better resurrection,” but you can be sure of what you hope for and that will then give you the strength to go on.
Verse 36 gives us four additional examples of physical persecution. Verse 36 says:
Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
This happened to Jeremiah, for one. Jeremiah 20:2 says, “Then Pashhur (he was a priest who was the chief officer of the temple) beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the LORD.” Another time, fulfilling God’s commands but being suspected as deserting to the Chaldeans, we read “And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made a prison. When Jeremiah had come to the dungeon cells and remained there many days, (Jeremiah 37:15-16; cf. 37:18-20; 38:6-13). The prophet Micaiah was slapped in the face, insulted and sent to prison for telling the truth (1 Kings 22:24-28).
Samson was mocked at the feast of the Philistines. Of course, even Jesus was mocked and flogged.
The Greek word for “mocking” in verse 36 can mean mocking, but it can also refer to brutality. This same word is used in 2 Maccabees to describe the treatment of the second of the seven brothers who had the skin and the hair of his head torn off. (2 Maccabees 7:7). And so, these four words in verse 36 taken together refer to all sorts of harsh treatment.
In the New Testament Paul and the apostles suffered these forms of mistreatment. Even the recipients of this letter to the Hebrews were no strangers to persecution. Listen to these words from Hebrews 10: “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions” (Heb. 10:32-34).
Again, the writer of Hebrews is including these shocking examples to reveal to us severe sufferings do not automatically mean that someone lacks faith. In fact, it could very much be the presence of a strong faith that gets them into this much trouble! Faith not only sometimes leads to victory; at other times it leads to difficult suffering.
Faith not only helps us endure physical pains and persecutions, but it also helps us endure even unto death. Verse 37 encourages the readers that: “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.”
In each of these cases the person who is memorialized for their faith suffered excruciatingly painful deaths. Their faith didn’t save them from suffering and pain, but rather it helped them endure it.
Stoning was a common Jewish form of execution. The Bible records that Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, was stoned to death (2 Chron. 24:20-22; Luke 11:50-51). According to Jewish tradition the prophet Jeremiah was also killed by stoning while living in Egypt. Jesus implied that the stoning of God’s prophets was a common offense in Israel. Jesus cried out in the gospel of Matthew: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.” (Matthew 23:37). In the New Testament both Stephen and Paul were stoned, with Paul somehow surviving his (Acts 7:58-60; Acts 14:19-20; 2 Cor. 11:25)
As to being sawed asunder, there is no record of this happening to a martyr in the Bible. However, the writer here draws on a non-Biblical haggadah in Ascension of Isaiah, which asserts that the prophet Isaiah was sawn in two by the false prophets of Manasseh, who stood by “laughing and rejoicing,” and that “he neither cried aloud nor wept, but his lips spake with the Holy Spirit until he was sawn in twain” (5:1, 2, 14) (R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament , vol. 2 (London: Oxford, 1968), p. 162; cf. also TB Sanhedrin 103b).
And, of course, untold numbers of the faithful were devoured in a more conventional manner by the sword. So we see that although some “escaped the edge of the sword” through faith (v. 34) on the one hand, while others, equally faithful, suffered its pain on the other hand.
Louis Evans remarks:
Here, I cannot help thinking that our author has in mind the martyrdom of Paul, which probably took place just one or two years or even a few months before the writing of this epistle. If Paul had played the game a bit more politically, he doubtless could have had his freedom (Acts 25:12; 26:32). If, as tradition has it, Paul was beheaded in A.D. 67 or 68 and this epistle was written in A.D. 68 or 69 as we have argued, then the memory of his death still burned as a fresh, hot fire on the hearth of his mind. (Louis H. Evans, Jr., The Communicator’s Commentary: Hebrews, 209-10)
Many saints “were tempted” to abandon their faith and to pursue the pleasures and treasures of the world (e.g., Moses; vv. 24-26). The priests at Nob and their families were “put to death with the sword” by Doeg the Edomite (1 Sam. 22:18-19). This fate also befell at least 100 of the Lord’s prophets in the days of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 19:10) and the prophet Uriah in Egypt (Jer. 26:23).
The final list speaks of deprivation. Our text says, “They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated…” Just like Jesus, Elijah and Elisha were homeless, wandering the country because they had a price on their head. Escape to the desert or the hills was a usual response to such manhunts (cf. 1 Kings 19:1-3). Obadiah hid 100 prophets in caves to protect them from Jezebel’s fury (1 Kings 18:4, 13). On the run, those who were persecuted slept in anything they could find, even holes in the ground (Isa. 42:22).
People who “went about in sheepskins and goatskins” as their clothing were those who were forced to exist on the barest necessities. Some were impoverished (“destitute”), “afflicted” in their minds and bodies by their persecutors, and “tormented” by others who encountered them.
Faith in God carries with it no guarantee of comfort in this world: this was no doubt one of the lessons which our author wished his readers to learn. But it does carry with it great reward in the only world that ultimately matters. (F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the NT: Hebrews, 329)
Our author does not identify all the men and women he refers to in these verses, but they have been noticed and numbered in heaven. Read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs or Men of the Covenant or The Reformation in England or The Scots Worthies or By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, or the biographies of William Tyndale, Hugh Latimer, Jim Elliot, and Johnm and Betty Stam, and you will discover that throughout history, and even in our day, countless men and women who have faced great suffering capped by inhumane executions.
What distinguishes those in vv. 33-35a from those in 35b-38? In some cases, nothing! In some cases they are the same people, receiving both resounding victories and painful deaths. Actually, there is one thing that distinguishes those who experience serious losses versus those who experience spectacular results: these are men and women of whom “the world was not worthy.”
What an epitaph! What a resounding commendation…from the very lips of God! Next week we will look a little deeper into why these people, whose faith did not save them from difficulties and death, but that faith helped them endure and for us to see why God reserved this commendation for them.
Grace Still Amazes 