This episode of Through the Bible invites us to walk alongside the voices of perseverance and courage, both from the past and present. Steve Schwetz and Greg share powerful anecdotes of contemporary believers who have endured incredible hardships for their faith, drawing parallels to the biblical legends discussed by Dr. McGee. Discover how prayer fuels these modern missionaries, and how our collective spiritual support can make tangible differences in their lives. Explore the teachings of Hebrews 11 and be inspired to strengthen your own spiritual journey through faith and action.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz, here with you on the Bible bus for another great study in the book of Hebrews with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. Chapter 11 is where we’re at, and hopefully you know that it’s often referred to as the Hall of Faith. So as we prepare to look at some legendary heroes of the faith, Greg and I want to tell you about some modern-day saints, those who take God’s word to some of the world’s hardest-to-reach places.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, of all the privileges that I think you and I have enjoyed getting to be associated with this kind of ministry, getting out God’s word around the world, perhaps one of the most honoring and humbling is to meet people that have literally… risked their lives for their faith or suffered or been tortured or persecuted, and just to see that they maintain their love for Christ and their passion to get the gospel out.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think about the Arabic guy who ended up a wealthy man who lost everything and was beaten and tortured and sent to prison, and then the guy ends up having a Bible study and leading all these guys in prison to Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he baptized people in a Saudi Arabian prison, which I still, if I didn’t trust the source of that story, I wouldn’t believe it. Yes. And this man lost millions of dollars. They took all his money. Yeah. And he’s joyful and he’s passionate. And I knew a man, I used to work with a brother that was Vietnamese who had been sent to a, quote, re-education camp.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
For years. And this man was a quiet, godly man. And he would just smile, even though I’m sure he was tortured. We know our friend Viktor Akhtarov, his father was in prison. And even some of Viktor’s own staff in Ukraine were martyred as recently as the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war. So this is not something in the past that we read about. There are people on the front lines, many of whom we are working with today.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And if you’re listening and you’re thinking, gosh, how can I make a difference with these brothers and sisters in Christ around the world? A really good thing that you can do if you haven’t done so already is sign up for our world prayer team.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Just go to ttb.org forward slash pray. Now, what that does is it puts you on an email list where you’re going to get a short world prayer team email Monday through Friday. We go around the world, figuratively speaking, on our knees, praying and hearing stories about how the Lord is moving in people’s lives. And you can pray effectively for those leaders in those particular areas. So again, ttb.org forward slash pray. We would love to have you a part of that world prayer team.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the reason that’s so important, Steve, is that of all of the people that I’ve met around the world who have suffered, not one has said, please ask the Christians in the West to pray that it’ll stop. They pray that they will be faithful, that we will pray for them, and that we will continue to feed them the word of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, such a good reminder. Thank you for that, Greg. Greg, pray for us as we begin our study.
SPEAKER 03 :
Father, we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, and that’s hard for us to understand. But we trust you, Lord, and we entrust all of our colleagues around the world who are willing to risk their lives for the sake of the gospel. We pray for their strengthening and their faithfulness. And, Lord, in our own worlds now and in our own study of your word, strengthen our hearts and make us faithful to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee to continue our study of Hebrews 11 on Through the Bible.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’re ready now to begin with Hebrews, the 11th chapter, at verse 20. By now you’ve found your place, and we want to put in here with Isaac today. We saw Abraham last time, the worship of faith. And it led to obedience in his life so that it could be said of Abraham, Abraham believed God and was counted to him for righteousness. And this man obeyed God on that basis. Now we come to his son Isaac in verse 20. And we’re told here by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. And you’ll notice that very little is said concerning Isaac, especially when it’s in contrast to his father Abraham. And what can you say concerning Isaac? Well, actually, the thing that characterized his faith was willingness. By faith, Isaac, a grown man, he was in his 30s, probably 33, when his father Abraham offered him on the altar. And this certainly speaks of willingness. But notice here, by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come, so that the one thing that is picked out of his life is this thing here that we call faith, and just blessing his sons. Now, that is a very strange thing concerning this man here, because, very frankly, Isaac was a well digger, and he’d dig a well, the enemy would take it away from him, he’d go down and dig another well. He’s, in many ways, a rather colorless individual. And the thing that characterized him is willingness. And he was willing to bless Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Nothing in the immediate present that would cause him to bless them, however. And now we come down in verse 21 to a very colorful individual. And you have here the worship of faith. By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Now, actually, you could say of both Isaac and Jacob that worship did constitute the same thing that constituted their father Abraham. But here it says he worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Now, this man Jacob lived a life of faith actually in relationship to his father and to his son Joseph and to his grandsons. And that is made clear here. The one thing picked out of his life is when he was dying. You’ve got to wait till you get to the end of this man’s life before you can say that he’s a man of faith. But at that time, he blessed both the sons of Joseph, they were his grandsons, and he worshiped leaning upon the top of his staff. Now, there’s several things that can be said concerning him. You have here what I’m sure is an illustration of human nature. And it reveals that by grace are ye saved. If it had not been for the grace of God, Jacob would have been lost. He had no human merit, none whatsoever. And I’m not sure what that’s a picture of all of us today. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. It is said of Dr. Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, that when he was out on the mission field, a new missionary arrived, he and his wife, and Hudson Taylor had a way of emphasizing the fact that you’re nothing. You and I before God, we’re nothing. And God is the only one that can take nothing and do something with it. And finally, the young fellow came to Dr. Taylor one day and said, you know, it’s difficult for me to think that I’m nothing. Dr. Hudson Taylor said to the young man, he says, you’re nothing. You can just take God’s word for it. You don’t need to believe it yourself. Just take God’s word for it. Now, this man, Jacob, is a picture of human nature. And we hear today a great deal in psychology about prenatal care, natal care, and postnatal care, and how important these are in the life of an individual. The gynecologist and the psychologist gives a lot of emphasis to prenatal care, natal care, postnatal care. Now, prenatal is before birth, and natal care is the birth of the individual. The postnatal, of course, is after birth. Now, what can be said of Jacob? Well, it is said before he was born that the children struggled within her. Jacob, even at that time, was wrestling, trying to get the upper hand. And then at the time of the birth, He’s still struggling. He came out last, but he held on to the heel of his brother. He was a heel grabber, and he was that all of his life. And then you have the postnatal care, and that’s after birth. And Jacob was a deceiver. He was a rascal. And in our study in Genesis, which was a long time ago, many of you that were with us at that time recall, I’m sure, the emphasis that I put at that time upon the fact that he was a rascal and that God, though, did transform his life. Now, you have, first of all, in the life of this man, faith in relationship to his father. Well, he was a deceiver. God had promised him the blessing, and he couldn’t wait. He had to take it by very deceptive methods. And then you have faith in relationship to his son, Joseph. He was deceived in that connection. He was not the deceiver there, but he was deceived. And you will recall that this man, Jacob, go back in his life. He left home. He spent that night in Bethel, very homesick, but no change had taken place in his life at all. And then you find out that he got down with his Uncle Laban, and he’s still using his wits. And then God had to stop him when he finally returned back to the land, and God wrestled with him that night at the Brook Jabbok. and that night why God crippled him. He had to to get him. And then you see, therefore, that the very thing that he did, the sin he committed, now comes home to him in this boy Joseph. Joseph, his brethren, brought that very bloody coat of many colors and said to Jacob, is this the coat of your son? Do you recognize it? He began to weep. But the very way in which he had deceived, he was deceived in relationship of the son. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. And this is certainly an example of it. Now you see faith in relationship to his grandsons. And that was Manasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph. And that’s what is picked out here in the epistle to the Hebrews. And it’s not until you get to the end of the man’s life. By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, he’s on his deathbed. And now here is the first thing that you can lift out and say now, by faith, Jacob. He blessed both of the sons of Joseph and he worshipped. And now for the first time, but it’s too late. There’ll be no obedience in his life. And the thing that’s always interested me, he worshiped leaning upon the top of his staff. What was that staff? Well, you remember he’d been crippled. And that staff enabled him to walk. Even when death came, This man who’d been a deceiver and all of that, he still wants to go. He did not want to lie down and die. And now you can say this of the man. There’s no blessing in the life of Jacob. It was a life of sin and deception, chicanery and crookedness. And no blessing can ever eventuate from sin. I think that we as a nation have been humbled now in several places. The last one was Vietnam. And why? Because we as a nation have not been a good leader for the world. We are no leader at all. We need a leader. And then the second thing that can be said here, and this is the important thing for you and me, God can take any life and straighten it out. Where there is confusion and deception, if there is faith, then there’s no merit in faith. Faith is not our Savior. The faith must be anchored in Jesus Christ, and it’s what enables us to lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you have here faith operated in the life of Jacob, which you have to come to the end of his life. Now we come in verse 22 to Joseph. the son of Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now Joseph. And by faith, Joseph, we’re told here, when he died, he made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. Now, this man Joseph, and I’m confident that the writer here in the Spirit of God could have picked many instances in the life of this man. that would illustrate faith. I’m sure that you could pick out of the life of this man that time when he was down there and put into prison. You’d think that in Egypt that that would be the end. Many of us would cry out that time. But that’s not chosen. And there’s so many other instances in the life of this man, Joseph. But actually, what a contrast he is to his father, Jacob. We didn’t whitewash Jacob. Now we can say this concerning Joseph. There are no faults or flaws in his life. He is a man that’s been elevated to a high position in a foreign court. And there’s probably no one in the entire Old Testament who is more a type of the Lord Jesus Christ than he is. And yet here’s one man that’s never used in Scripture as a type. But the analogy is striking. I wonder if I may just run down this rather hurriedly. He was the best beloved son, as the Lord Jesus was. He had a coat of many colors which set him apart from his brethren, and it gave him a lordship over his brethren. And he had a vision. The brethren thought he was a dreamer. And the Lord Jesus Christ, you will recall, came with a message that they thought he was a dreamer. And he obeyed his father. And the Lord Jesus said he’d come to do the father’s will. His brethren hated him. And the Lord Jesus had said he came unto his own, and his own received him not. And the father sent him to seek his brethren. And the Lord Jesus came to this earth seeking the lost. And he found them in the field, and they were shepherds. And shepherds by night, you remember, came when the Lord Jesus was born. And they mocked this boy, Joseph, and they refused him. And that’s the way that they treated him. And the same thing happened to the Lord Jesus. They plotted to kill him. And the analogy certainly follows through with the Lord Jesus. He was sold into slavery, sold for 30 pieces of silver. His coat was dipped in blood. And the vesture of the Lord Jesus Christ, they gambled for it with his own blood upon it. He was sold into Egypt, and God raised him up there to save the world. And the Lord Jesus went down into death. He was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the Lord Jesus was. He became the Savior of the Gentile world. And the Lord Jesus has come to seek and to save all, both Jew and Gentile. While on the throne, he gives bread to the people. And the Lord Jesus did that. He got a Gentile bride. down in Egypt. And the Lord Jesus is calling the people out of this world to his name. And then you have the coming of the sons of Jacob down, and Joseph knows them, and he finally makes himself known to them. And someday the Lord Jesus will make himself known to his own brethren. The interesting thing about this man, he had faith in the dream that was given, faith in the pit in which he was placed, faith in Egypt. And that’s the thing that buoyed him up. But at the end of his life, You’d think that he’d be satisfied with Egypt, but not this man. He says, when the day comes and the children of Israel leave this land, be sure and take my bones up. Well, why didn’t they take his body at that time and bury it yonder in the land of Ephraim? Well, the reason, I think, is quite obvious. He was a national hero. But there came a day when there rose a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. And then when the children of Israel left, they took up his bones. And yonder at Shechem, up in the Samaritan country, they’ll point out to you the tomb of Joseph there where his bones are buried. Well, they may or may not be there, but they were taken up and put in that land. So we have this record of this boy Joseph. Now we move down quite a few years. And the children of Israel are down in the land of Egypt. And verse 23, By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child. They were not afraid of the king’s commandment. So that Moses had godly parents who were willing to take a real stand, by the way. And therefore, this boy Moses begins faith to be born, by the way. And then we read in verse 24, by faith Moses. Now you see the work of faith. When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. You see, he was brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, and he would have been the next Pharaoh. And so you have faith to choose the right year. And he did that. Verse 25, “…choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” And somebody else besides Abraham saw Christ’s day and rejoiced. That was Moses. Now, verse 27, will you notice this? By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured his seeing him who was invisible. Now he has faith to act. Faith leads to action, as we have said. These folk today that are everlastingly talking about, I believe, I believe, but do nothing. May I say to you, faith reveals itself in action. God saves without works. But the faith that saves has works, by the way. It produces works. And so this man here, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured his seeing him who’s invisible. And then through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. You see, faith now to obey God. God said to do this, and he did that. And you have that exemplified in the life of this man. And he forsook the pleasures of Egypt. And he now went out into the desert. And he’s now come back. And he’s going to deliver his people. Faith to obey God here. Now, will you notice, by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians are saying or attempting to do were drowned. Now, whose faith do we have here? Their faith? Faith of the children of Israel? Well, they had none. They said to Moses when they saw Pharaoh and his chariots coming, they said, let’s get back to Egypt as quickly as we can. We made a mistake in leaving. It was Moses’ faith who went down to the water’s edge, floated with that one, and it was by his faith. that the waters opened up, and they marched over to the other side. And then they sang the song of Moses in the land. They were identified with Moses, but let’s understand it was Moses’ faith. Now, we leave that and we come to the time of Joshua. And in verse 30, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. And here you have the watch of faith. If you had met that man Joshua on about the fifth day that they marched around the city of Jericho and you’d have said to him, well, it doesn’t look like you’re getting very far. He says, you just watch. And you would have said, well, why are you doing such a foolish thing? You’re a general that has a whole lot of intelligence and you’re not getting anywhere. He said, you forgot that I saw the captain of the hosts of the Lord. And he told me that headquarters was not in my tent, but in heaven. And I found out that I wasn’t a general, that I happened to be a buck private in the rear ranks, and I was to take orders from him. And he said to march around, and I’m marching around. And you just watch. Those walls will come down. I’m following the strategy of someone who knows.” And here you have the watch of faith. My, I tell you, the faith to believe God. And this man, General Joshua, had learned that. Well, we’re going to leave off there today, but… We’re still talking about those in the Old Testament who walked by faith, who lived by faith, who watched by faith. And God blessed them abundantly by faith. We’ll see that next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
To listen to this message again, find it on our app or at ttb.org. Or to be in touch, call 1-800-65-BIBLE. Now next time we’re going to witness one of the Old Testament’s most dramatic rescues. See you then.
SPEAKER 04 :
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