Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Dave McAllister: Some wonder what good it is to have faith in God when he never seems to answer their prayers. Many lose what faith they have and give up on God altogether. Today, a look at the heroes of faith who believed God, no matter what. Please stay with us.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, Pastor Lutzer continues a brief series on Faith that Survives the Fire. Now, we turn again to Hebrews chapter 11 for a message on "A Faith That Endures."

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: I remember attending a conference where there was a young pastor in a wheelchair dying of terminal cancer. The whole conference prayed for him. I learned that the church of which he was the pastor had had a prayer chain and they prayed all night. And then they decided that they would bring the prayer request to an even wider community and hundreds of people prayed for him, sometimes day after day.

Finally the time came when his last words were these, "I hope that I could go in a blaze of glory, but this is the best that I can do." And then 20 minutes later, he died. A woman who was part of the prayer chain later on said, "I'm never going to bother God with another request again. Why should I? I don't want to be hurt. If he didn't answer the prayer of all those people for this young pastor, why should I trouble the Almighty?"

I remember a woman in a Bible class saying, "Long ago I've given up on God and I've given up on prayer. I prayed for my daughter that she'd grow up and be a missionary. Well, she married an unsaved man. Everything went downhill from there." She said, "I'm not going to trouble God. I don't want to be hurt." Yesterday in the mail at our home came the wonderful publication that we get regularly, The Voice of the Martyrs. I picked it up randomly, opened it, and they check out all that they write in that magazine.

I read the story of a young convert from Islam to Christianity who was shot as a result of his conversion. His sister also converted but then because she was so severely beaten, she denied the faith under that kind of pressure. My question today is simply this: where is God when we really need him? And how do we keep believing when he doesn't seem to do what all rational people would think a God should with all of his power? How do we hang in? Let's take our Bibles and turn now to the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11.

I'm going to begin in verse 32 where it says these words: "And what more shall I say?" A pastor began reading that passage of scripture and began with that question and someone in the back said, "Try amen." "And what more shall I say? For time would fail 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" — evidently a reference to Daniel — "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." Just that far, probably a reference to the time of Elijah and Elisha where you have resurrections from the dead.

Today what I'd like to do is to give you four facts regarding faith, four important facts regarding faith. Fact number one is simply this, that sometimes faith changes our circumstances. Sometimes faith changes our circumstances. Look at the list of victories that is referred to here. It includes such things as military victories. It includes healings and all kinds of miracles that God did. They crossed the Red Sea by faith. We don't have time to list all the miracles. In fact, he couldn't. That's why he said, "What more shall I say?" and then he began to summarize.

Sometimes faith changes our circumstances, and we have good evidence that it does. Sometimes when we pray for people, God answers prayer and there are people in this congregation today who would say that they were healed when the elders prayed for them. And then there are others for whom we prayed that were not healed. But sometimes God intervenes and faith and prayer change our circumstances. Sometimes he miraculously grants money to us when we're in financial need. He proves his faithfulness in multiple ways. Sometimes faith changes our circumstances.

There's a second fact of faith I want you to remember and that is that sometimes faith does not change our circumstances. Sometimes faith does not change our circumstances. Students, I throw this out to you, I hope that you memorize scripture. When I was your age, I could quote the entire book of Hebrews by memory. Also Saint John, the book of John, and a few others. It took me 45 minutes to quote the book of Hebrews once I learned it, but don't ask me to do it today. I memorized it all in the King James Version and now we have different translations.

I remember quoting the book of Hebrews and not even thinking about what I was really quoting and I didn't realize until later that there are two classes of people in the famous 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And the break comes there in the middle of verse 35. Of course, the paragraphs in the Bible, the verses, and the chapter divisions were put in by people. They did not come inspired. That's why sometimes you have the breaks at a bad place. If I had been there, I would like to think that I would have begun a new verse in the middle of verse 35.

Our text doesn't. It says some — I memorized it in a translation that said others. Now we have a break. "Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might gain 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 sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in the deserts and the mountains and dens and caves in the earth." And I want to say, well where was God for them? There was no deliverance.

Where is God for the young man who was shot because of his faith and the young people who have to dig their own graves because they convert to Christianity? Where is God then? We love to tell the story of Daniel in the lions' den and of course it's a true story and how God came and shut the mouths of the lions in that den. But my wife and I have been to Rome and we've seen the Circus Maximus and we've been to the Colosseum. And we discovered there that Christians were thrown to the lions and they cried up to God but the lions came and ripped them apart.

I might say parenthetically that some of the people who watched said that before they died they looked into heaven and it was as if they could already see the world to come but there was no deliverance for them. In the 12th chapter of the book of Acts, the scripture says very clearly there that Peter and James were in prison to be beheaded by Herod. And Herod beheads James. And lo and behold Peter is sleeping there with the intention that he should be brought out the next day and beheaded as well and he's between two guards.

Suddenly he's tapped on the shoulders by an angel, his chains fell off, the prison door opened. I think it was something like when you go into Dominick's, it just opens and you're suddenly saved. But today we accept that, but can you imagine in that day before the days of technology? And Peter lives. You deliver one and you let the other die. The older I get the more I love God but also the more mysterious his ways are. No wonder the Bible says they're past finding out. You can probe them and think about them, but there's a certain unpredictability regarding the way in which God treats people.

The 11th chapter of Hebrews shows that sometimes faith changes our circumstances, sometimes people of faith discover that their faith does not change their circumstances and they are tortured and they are hunted and they are killed and they die at the hand of the sword and there's no deliverance. Notice this, both groups are heroes of faith. Now there's a third fact that I want you to remember about faith and the third fact is this, that faith does not judge God by circumstances. Faith does not judge God by circumstances.

That's how come they made it into the catalog of the heroes of faith even though they didn't see a miracle. What they said is life is hard but I'm not going to blame God, I'm not going to conclude he doesn't love me just because things don't turn out my way. Once again let me ask you, if you were to look at the world with all of its natural disasters, with tornadoes and tsunamis and floods and windstorms and tornadoes that indeed wipe out whole towns even here in the United States, would you conclude that God loved the world?

I don't think you'd make any conclusion like that if you looked at circumstances. The reason that we know that God loves the world is not because this world looks like a loving place. We believe that God loves the world because his word tells us, "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life." That's how come we know God loves the world. You want to know whether or not God loves the world, you look at the cross of Jesus Christ and that'll be a reminder of the fact that God loves the world.

This is Pastor Lutzer. Every once in a while I just want to take time to thank the many of you who support this ministry. You've heard me say it before, but Running to Win is not the ministry of a man or an organization or a church, it's your ministry because we are listener-supported. Would you consider helping us consistently? I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'm going to be giving you some contact info whereby you'll understand what it is to be an endurance partner. The Bible says that we should run the race of life with endurance. Well here's what you do.

You can go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com or if you prefer you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-800-215-5001. You'll be excited to know that Running to Win continues to expand. We're going to be in a new language and it's because of people like you who support this ministry. Once again, find out what it means to be an endurance partner. Go to offerrtw.com, offerrtw of course is all one word, offerrtw.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-800-215-5001.

Dave McAllister: That was Erwin Lutzer, introducing "A Faith That Endures," part of a brief series on Faith that Survives the Fire, taken from Hebrews chapter 11. Next time on Running to Win, join us for more on believing God, no matter what. This series can be yours on CD as our thank you when you give a gift of any amount to Running to Win. For all the details, call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. On the internet, go to offerrtw.com or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Ask about Faith that Survives the Fire when you write or call. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.