Heroes of Faith

 Jeremiah 26:20-24

The question often asked, what is a hero?  Many would say, as I can, my dad was one of my heroes.  Not when I was young, then he was the dad who slept during the day often, because he worked shift work at a plant and his second job was selling uniforms to people.  

Let me not forget to tell you that his children playing in the house or our friends yelling outside his window often awakened him.  We often saw him as an old grouch, not as the man who loved us and would put ace bandages around his swollen knees so he could walk to work and provide for us.  My dad did not like his job, but I never heard him say that, in that he did not complain about anything.  He was tough and believed that a job worth doing was worth doing right.  He had a strong relationship with the Lord, and yet I had no understanding of him as a hero till I became a dad.

Many in our culture have heroes because they play a game well, or they have a role in a movie or have a good voice, but few ask; do they have integrity?  My dad was a man of integrity.  Why would you want a hero that did not have honesty and truthfulness as their core values?

In Hebrews chapter 11, we find heroes of Faith, and in the very first verse, we’re told what faith is.  “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.”  The author goes on to say our ancestors won God’s approval by it.  And we are informed that it requires faith to understand that the universe was created by God’s command so that what was seen has been made from things that are not visible.  We have a list of many great people who walked by faith, and many like Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim were murdered for being faithful to what God had commanded them to do or say.  The author of Hebrews 11 gives this account in verses 37-38a, “They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.  The world was not worthy of them.”

It takes no jump of faith to see they are talking about men such as Uriah, the son of Shemaiah.  “He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. And when King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt. Then King Jehoiakim sent to Egypt certain men, Elnathan the son of Achbor and others with him, and they took Uriah from Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim, who struck him down with the sword and dumped his dead body into the burial place of the common people.” 

They killed Uriah, God’s prophet for proclaiming a message from God to the people, a message that if adhered to would have saved them from the coming disaster.  Have you been confronted with a word from God, a word you did not want to hear, maybe it came from a preacher or teacher, or from a book you are reading, and you now have a choice, do I receive it or ignore it?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice