ANNOUNCER: Of the men and women found in the Hebrews 11, the faith hall of fame, four men are very unremarkable in some ways. Do you know who they are? Well, stay tuned and welcome to Grace in Focus, the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. Please go there and find our blogs. Sign up for them, read them, like them. You’ll find a new one almost every day. Then also we do short videos on YouTube, YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society is where you would find them. So make sure and take advantage of those. Our website again, faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here is Bob Wilkin, along with Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: Philippe, I was thinking we would talk about what you just called the bad boys of Hebrews 11. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, that’s where we come across at least four characters introduced to us in the book of Judges. 

BOB: These are four of the people who were either, three of them are called judges. Now, one of them, Barak, he’s not called a judge, but he was associated with Deborah. It doesn’t actually call her a judge either, but it does use the verb form saying she was judging. But we’re talking about Hebrews 11, verse 32. And by the way, Hebrews 11, some people call it the Hebrews hall of fame, or some people call it the Hebrews hall of faith, because it’s all about these Old Testament believers, but it’s not just telling us they’re believers, it’s they applied their faith, and they were believing God for big things.

PHILIPPE: And they were approved, and gained approval from God. 

BOB: Even these four people who had some pretty big flaws, I think all of you will know these names. So could you read verse 32? 

PHILIPPE: “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephtha, also of David and Samuel and the prophets.” But those four, Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephtha we can call them the bad boys. 

BOB: And by the way, he gave the Hebrew for “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” What’s the Hebrew for that? 

PHILIPPE: Baruch hashem Adonai. So, baruch is “blessed” basically, and hashem is “the name,” and Adonai, of course, is the Hebrew for “Lord.” 

BOB: Now, let’s talk about these four people. What did Gideon do that was good? 

PHILIPPE: Well, of course, Gideon, you know, was initially, you know, just very fearful of the Midianites who will come in regularly to take off all the harvest. So he was hiding basically and sifting wheat, just in a, what was it called? He was threshing, but in a place I was hidden. The angel of the Lord, appeared to him.

BOB: Probably the Lord Jesus. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, the pre-incarnate Christ, and called him mighty valiant warrior. 

BOB: And he’s like, say, what? 

PHILIPPE: But he does end up having a test. Does the fleece twice, what he should do? But then he does very valiantly. 

BOB: Well, he gets ten thousand, didn’t he have ten thousand? But there were too many.

PHILIPPE: Yeah, ten thousand volunteers, and they had to be. 

BOB: God said, that’s too many. So he ends up with 300 against a huge army.How big was the army? I can’t remember, there was like 30,000 or something. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, they just blanketed the whole territory, with their camels.

BOB: With 300, God gives him the victory. But then Gideon didn’t end well because doesn’t he end up, and he makes an ephod and people are worshiping the ephod. 

PHILIPPE: And he comes in, the ephod becomes an idol, and he almost sets up his own priestly system. 

BOB: So even though he was a person, that had some major flaws, yet he’s listed here, he did do some good things. And God remembers that. Okay, now how about we take the second one? Barak, now he was the best of these four, probably, but isn’t he the left-handed guy that stabbed that Eglon? 

PHILIPPE: No, that was Ehud. But Barak is the one that Deborah called him to take care of the threat. And he says, I’ll do that, but I’m not, you need to come with me. 

BOB: And then she says, a woman’s gonna get the honor. And it ends up, Sisera ends up and puts that tent peg through the guy’s head. What was his name? 

PHILIPPE: Well, Sisera was the guy who got the tent peg put through his forehead. 

BOB: Oh, and who is the woman? 

PHILIPPE: It was a woman. It may have been, but Jael may have been her name. 

BOB: But she put a tent peg through Sisera’s head. And it ended up, she got the victory for killing this guy. 

PHILIPPE: I think for killing the general. 

BOB: But Barak is listed here. And he had some issues because he wasn’t willing. It sounds like God. 

PHILIPPE: He wasn’t bold and fully trusting that God was going to bring a [unintelligible]. 

BOB: Don’t you think God would have used him without Deborah if he had been willing?

PHILIPPE: Oh, absolutely. He was, Deborah called him, I think, by divine direction.

BOB: Okay. And then the third one is extremely famous. Children’s stories about Samson abound, right? Samson was this man who was extremely strong. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah. With the jawbone of a donkey he slayed thousands of Philistines.

BOB: Right. And he was mighty and he was a Nazarite. And not Nazarene. He wasn’t from Nazareth. What’s a Nazarite? 

PHILIPPE: Well, the Nazarite is, so he was a Nazarite from birth. 

BOB: But he’s the only person we know of, right? 

PHILIPPE: Right. But the Nazarite vow could be a voluntary vow, but it involved abstention from anything related to the divine, from dead bodies. 

BOB: And you couldn’t cut your hair. Like didn’t Paul the apostle take a Nazarite vow for a while and then he went to the temple after he completed his vow. And the thing is, he was this way from birth so, in fact, from conception, because wasn’t his mother told not to have any wine or grape or any of that while she was pregnant, right? 

ANNOUNCER: Did you know that the Grace Evangelical Society has an online seminary with full scholarships available for students maintaining good academic standing? It is a three-year degree program and you could submit your application now to gain acceptance. Then stay apprised of our registration periods for upcoming semester terms. Program and application details can be found at GESSeminary.org. Have a look at our MDiv degree. Become an approved workman. Find out how GESSeminary.org.

BOB: And then he’s born and he ends up and sins with Delilah. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, he becomes a partier. So I’m sure probably had a problem with drink and you may remember, he found honey in the body of a dead lion and that became a riddle, of course, that he used. But he again got involved and then he had his hair cut. So it seems that every aspect of a Nazarite vow.

BOB: He lost his power. And then he lost his eyes and he ended up being a slave in the camp of the Philistines, right? And he was running a mill. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, a mill, with large mill stones. And then he was taken into the temple to show him off and he ends well because he cries out to the Lord and asks for strength for his final great act. He was given that strength and pushes the pillars over and the entire temple falls on him and all of the Philistines. 

BOB: Three thousand, I think, wasn’t it?  I think the text says he killed more people in his death than he did in his life. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, but I remember seeing this movie that showed the scene where he pushes the thing and everybody’s screaming and yelling and everything’s collapsing and it’s like an earthquake except he caused it and they all die. So Samson is certainly not one of the paragons of virtue. He seemed to be a womanizer, seemed to have a problem with women. He violated his vow by telling her his secret about his hair and he could reasonably assume she was going to cut his hair and she did and he ended up and lost his strength. 

And then the final one is a guy named Jephtha. Isn’t he the one that had the vow and he made some vow and his daughter ended up mistakenly. 

PHILIPPE: I think he was the son of a prostitute and he was ostracized, but then he kind of was a Robin Hood, I guess in some ways, you know, gathered men around him. And when there was a threat, the people who had ostracized him come to him to help deliver from the threat and he does. But as he goes out to battle, he makes a vow that tells God, you know, if you give the victory, then when I come back, I will sacrifice to you the first thing that comes out of my house.

BOB: Which is kind of foolish because it’s not going to be an animal coming out of his house. It’s likely to be a person and it turns out to be his daughter. 

PHILIPPE: So the question comes in whether he fulfilled the vow by offering his daughter as a burnt sacrifice or was it just a devotion to lifelong virginity and to service in the tabernacle? 

BOB: And I think that’s the view of most commentators, right, that she was likely lifelong virgin and she served the Lord, but she never had children. And the point here is, his vow was dumb. He didn’t need to make a vow like that. God was determined to deliver through him. It was good for him to pray, but don’t make a foolish vow because the wisdom literature tells us don’t make rash vows, right? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, and to simply trust God. 

BOB: So all four of these guys had some pretty significant flaws, maybe not Barak as much, but still even him. And I would say the kind of lesson for us is this, God notices when we do well, even if we’ve got flaws and we all have flaws. It doesn’t mean that all of these people are going to rule and reign in the life to come. They may. It sure looks like Gideon ended badly and might have died as an idolater and if so, he won’t rule and reign. But Samson ended well and Jephtha, though, we don’t know how he ended, all we know is—

PHILIPPE: He fulfilled the vow in some fashion, and hopefully not actually having killed his daughter.

BOB: And Barak, we think he, there’s no indication that he did anything other than honorable service for the Lord. So, okay, so I would just suggest that you study Hebrews 11 because we’ve just touched on four people. By the way, there’s no details about these four unless later on in the verse, it says, “out of weakness were made strong, became valiant and battled turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” That might refer to some of them. 

PHILIPPE: Well, that would Gideon and Jephtha and Samson, certainly. So all four probably.

BOB: So this could be, but we’re not specifically told Gideon did this, Barak did this, Samson did this, Jephtha did this, whereas prior to this, we get lots of discussion about Moses or Abraham and all of the, basically the patriarchs are mentioned and with a lot of their deeds. But here, it’s just kind of closing comment that he’s making. But it does jump out to us that these people— 

PHILIPPE: They’re flawed and they’re highlighted and like said, the application to us, we can be flawed and still be useful to the Lord. 

BOB: Amen. So we can have great comfort in the fact that God pays attention. If we do well, He’s noticing and He will reward that, even if we’ve got some warts and flaws and blemishes. Well, thanks so much, y’all and remember, let’s keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be sure to check out our daily blogs at faithalone.org. They are short and full of great teaching, just like what you’ve heard today. Find them at faithalone.org/resources/blog. We would love to hear from you. Maybe you’ve got a question, comment, or some feedback. If you do, please don’t hesitate to send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s [email protected]. That’s [email protected].

On our next episode: should Christians concern themselves with politics? Join us next time and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.