In a Washington hearing before members of the U.S. Congress Wednesday, regarding the genocide of the Chaldo-Assyrian Christian and Yezidi people at the hands of ISIS, the chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International testified, “There are (7,000-plus) young Yezidi women, girls, and even children, who as I speak have been enslaved and forced into sexual slavery. These girls are subjected to daily, multiple rapes by ISIS monsters.
“ . . . Some of those women and girls have had to watch 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old children bleed to death before their eyes, after being raped by ISIS militia multiple times a day.
“I met mothers, whose children were torn from them by ISIS. These same mothers came to plead for the return of their children, only to be informed, that they, the mothers, had been fed the flesh of their own children by ISIS. Children murdered, then fed to their own mothers. ISIS militia have burned many Yezidi girls alive for refusing to convert and marry ISIS men."
*****
Hebrews 11 is the “by faith”
synopsis of the Bible. From the very first verse of the Book
of Hebrews, God, the sole writer of the text, implores, “Look to the provision that God has made for you in Jesus
Christ.’
Chapter 11 delineates and commends
the faith of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gedeon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthae, David, Samuel, etc.
God reports, “Women received their
dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance;
that they might obtain a better resurrection: [36] And others had trial of
cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: [37]
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the
sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute,
afflicted, tormented; [38] (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in
deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
*****
“In Hebrews 11 are 11 things
described, all of them positive achievements in order that these people might
achieve a better resurrection,” explains Jordan.
“Notice the little parenthesis—‘Of
whom the world was not worthy.’ Isn’t that an interesting little comment about
these people?
“They were wandering around like a
bunch of hunted wild animals, and while He’s describing that destitute
condition, He puts that little parenthesis in. They were wandering around like
that because they were too good for the world. They didn’t have a place to fit
in.
“You have seven negative reactions
and you’re told it’s to get better things. When verse 35 talks about ‘others
were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better
resurrection,’ that’s an interesting statement. That means they could have
gotten out of it if they wanted to.
"The reason they endure this by
faith—it doesn’t mean they were getting it in the neck because they couldn’t
avoid it. They could have avoided it if they didn’t walk by faith—faith
required them to accept the consequences.
*****
“Each one of these people were told
something to do. Noah was told to build an ark and so on. So the instructions they
were given were different.
“There was one basic underlying hope
and promise behind everything and that’s that issue in Hebrews 11:35 of a
better resurrection. The Old Testament saints, by the way, understood there was
going to be a resurrection.
“In Job 19 he says, ‘And though
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ We’ve
already studied that the Melchizedekian priesthood of Christ is an eternal
priesthood. That is, it is a priesthood that provides eternal life and the
basic issue is everlasting life.
“When you do away with the literal,
physical Israel and the kingdom their promised in Scripture, instead imputing it
to Gentiles . . . any system that does that and says that in today’s Christians
are fulfilled the promises God made, you know that can’t be true because for a
promise to be completed, it has to be fulfilled, and when God promised them the
land, either they get the land or God doesn’t do what He said He’d do.
“The issue coming down through
Hebrews 11 is that the way these people back there obtained a good report was
by FAITH. That’s what He started out telling in verse 2: ‘By faith the elders
obtained a good report.’ God gives you His great list of all the elders,
illustrating how they obtained the report through faith.
“They took God at His Word in spite
of all the obstacles; in spite of all the circumstances and the human reasoning
and all the rest to the contrary.
“God says in Hebrews 12:1:
‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’
"That’s the issue that Hebrews
10-12, the practical section of Hebrews, is talking about. Are you going to
endure on to the saving of your soul, or are you going to draw back to
perdition?
*****
“The message is, ‘We’re encircled
with this great cloud of witnesses so that we don’t have any alibis to pretend
that the race can’t be run or that it isn’t winnable.’
“How do you know the race can be
won? You got this great cloud of witnesses that did it! That endured! That
didn’t draw back! That continued on and they didn’t even get a fulfillment of
what they were hoping in.
“The only reason they wouldn’t run
is because they’re weighted down, and that goes back into the Gospels with ‘the
cares of this life’ and all that kind of stuff, or there’s sin in their life
and they’d rather have the sin and the self-will. The passage is saying, ‘Lay
that aside. Be like the elders and let’s run the race with patience. That’s the
issue.’
“Hebrews 10:35-36 says, ‘Cast not
away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye
have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might
receive the promise.’
“It’s faith that’s going to allow
you to endure and not draw back and God gives 40 verses of illustrations of the
enduring capacity of faith.
“And then He comes to chapter 12 and
makes the application. Hebrews 12:1-2 is sort of like Romans 12:1-2: ‘Here’s
the point of the ‘nitty-gritty-make-up-your-mind-let’s-get-down-to-it-and-make-the-decision.’
“He uses the issue of the Second
Advent to encourage these people to endurance. Christ is going to come. ‘You’re
waiting on a sure thing,’ He tells them.
“Hebrews 12:2 says, ‘Looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand
of the throne of God.’
“The only motivation that’s ever
going to get Israel through the tribulation; the one thing that won’t fail them
is for them to look for the provisions that God by His grace has made for them
in the New Covenant Jesus Christ brought about through His blood poured out at
Calvary.”
(new article tomorrow)
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