Let's open our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11. I'm going to take a diversion from our journey through the book of Acts today. And since it is all saints day, I wanted to recognize that. I wanted to give you a word of encouragement and exhortation. And Hebrews chapter 11 is what we commonly call the Hall of Faith in a very fitting passage today for all saints day. Yesterday was all saints Eve or all Hallows Eve or as we commonly call it Halloween. It was also Reformation day. On October 31st in the year of our Lord 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the Whitmerk Castle Church. Sparking what we know now as the Reformation. That was 509 years ago. And I don't believe it is hard to see that we need another Reformation, another great Awakening today. So I wanted to remember and I wanted to celebrate those saints who had gone before us, which is what this day is about. Those who have passed on to us the faith that belongs to the Holy Catholic Church. We confess this every week. We believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Some people get confused. It's like, wait, wait a minute. I thought you are a Protestant. Are you Roman Catholic? No. The Holy Catholic Church is not a denomination. It's not a certain particular brand of Christianity. It is the collection of God's people past, present and future. And you are part of that church. And we absolutely believe in that Holy Universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So today for all Saints day 2026, I wanted to read for you our church. For you our text, Hebrews 1132 through 12 verse 2. Let's pray. Father, we thank you as we break open your word that it is sharp and powerful as a two-edged sword. Lord, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and a bone and marrow. It is a discerner of the heart opening our hearts, not for you to see. You already see our hearts. But the word opens our hearts for us to see, for us to know the true condition of our being. And Father, would you today by your Holy Spirit indwelling us? Would you open our hearts? Would you show us our true condition? Would you show us, Father, our part to play in our lives? Would you lead us and guide us and teach us how to live faithfully for your glory? Father, we ask this that your name would be glorified, that your church, Lord would see and know the victory you promised. Not just one day in the future, but even now in our own day and our own time. We ask this Father for the glory of your name, to Jesus' name we pray, amen. Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 32. Hear the word of the Lord. And what more shall I say for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Baroque and Samson and Jebtha also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to fly the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dins and caves of the earth, and all these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise. God, having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and every sin which so easily ensnairs us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 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 has set down at the right hand of the throne of God. This is the word of the Lord. As I said today is all saints day, and the point of commemorating this day, the point of us talking about it, taking a diversion from our lesson through the book of Acts, was that we might be inspired by the faithfulness of those who came before us. And that our own faithfulness may inspire those who come after us. I came to faith in Christ in 1984, was not, as many of you know, I was not raised in church. I had never read a Bible in my life. I just graduated from the University of Texas. I was working my first real job as a responsible adult out on his own to make a way for himself. And my goal, my desire was to get rich. That is what success was to me. My dad literally dug ditches for a living, and he taught me, he said, you go to school, you get an education, so you don't have to dig ditches like I did. And so success to me was having all the things the world defines as success. And little did I know that God had a different plan. And so I came to faith in Christ. Just four years before Jesus was going to come back to earth, and we were all going to be raptured out of here. So obviously my priorities changed. Who cares about getting rich and being successful? We're all going to get raptured to heaven in a very short period of time. We just need to get as many people into the kingdom as we can before that fateful day happens. Well, obviously some of you might know that didn't happen in 1988. Didn't happen in 1989, but it's going to happen. And it wasn't 40 years because then I was taught, well, you know, a generation to be 70 years. So 70 years. See, 48 plus 70 is 2018. That's the date. Well, guess what didn't happen in 2018. And somewhere along the way, God helped me in my ignorance. And the short of it is God says, boy, you're going to be here. And the world's going to be here for a long time. So get busy and start working and start living not for yourself, not for your escape from this earth, but live for the generations that are coming after you. This really is what the celebration of all saints day is. And it's originate, recall the victory of Easter, the resurrection, the victory of Christ, resurrection, and so our own. And at its core, all saints day proclaims that what is true about Jesus' body and the resurrection will also be true of the bodies of all his people. It was a kind of second Easter for the church, acknowledging all those who will be raised with Christ in his resurrection. Thus all saints day speaks to the future hope of the church, not a great escape, but the future hope of the church, come what may, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, Matthew 16, 18. We should live daily with that truth embedded in our souls. All we share in this life, any taste of encouragement or joy or his glorious victory before the resurrection yet to come is only a foretaste of the communion. We will experience when Christ returns and puts his final enemy under foot and that final enemy is death. And in that day he will make all things new. And until then we are called to faithfulness. That's the word of the day, faithfulness. That is the word that should be in the forefront of our minds every day, faithfulness. The festival of all saints presents the church with the feast that continues the story of Jesus by proclaiming the way in which his life and his victory is being lived out in the life of his church today. As Protestants, we are not worried about people praying to saints, that's what the Catholic Church does, so what the Eastern Orthodox Church does, they pray to saints. Well we don't do that. Jesus didn't teach us to pray to saints. He didn't teach us to pray to people who have departed this earth. He taught us to pray to our Father in heaven, in His name. As Protestants today, we're not worried about people being tempted to pray to saints. However, we should be concerned about a church that is oblivious to its history and too often content to disengage from the culture that is currently in steep decline. We are susceptible to what CS Lewis called a chronological snobbery that assumes that history has nothing to teach us. You know, I do teach history at Cornelian classical Christian school. In history was actually one of the subjects I loved when I was in school. Math was that subject I despised because I was very bad, I'm sorry, Catherine, but I was horrible in math. I learned to love it later on in life when I was in college because I had to work so hard just to pass my classes. But I encounter, it's not uncommon to encounter people who tell me, oh God, I hated history. I didn't like English, I didn't like history, you know, I just didn't like that. And I think it's a very common thing, a very common thing that for some reason we don't seem to value history. But history is important. History is important because if we don't remember our history, we're doomed to repeat the mistakes that created that history, much of it, not good. So we should be concerned about a church that's oblivious to its history. We should look for opportunities, not just to learn from our history, but we should look for opportunities to express gratefulness, to celebrate, and to praise God for those faithful saints who have gone before us, including those in our own lives who have contributed to our lives. We should have contributed to our own faithfulness, not just people who have been dead for centuries, but people even now in our own lives, saints that have touched us and helped us. This day traditionally commemorates the faithful believers who have finished their race on earth and have entered the presence of God. It is a day to remember and to honor all the faithful throughout history. In its beginnings, it traced back to remembering those martyrs of the faith. And over time, commemorations expanded to include all believers who lived and died, whether they did that in service to God, whether they were persecuted or whether they just simply died through the daily trials of life. Life just finally got them. They just lived long enough, and now they're not here. It doesn't make them less of a saint. We all want this testimony where we go out in the blaze of glory or we have some, I don't know, testimony so unique, so extreme. But I always tell parents, you know what? If your child can grow up becoming an adult and never remember a day in their life, if they didn't trust in Jesus, you've done your job. We don't want to depart and have to be that person that has some wild testimony of how God captured them and brought them back. Now we want to instill faithfulness in our children. That's why we baptize them and bring them into the covenant when they're little bitty babies. And we raise them up as covenant members and we teach them the doctrines of our faith. And we do what the scripture says. We raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord so that when they're old, they will not depart from it. That doesn't make your testimony boring. That makes your testimony glorious. This day stands as a reminder that we are a part of a larger communion of saints, not only those presently living, but those who have gone on to be with the Lord, those saints through their lives. Faithfully lived, have given us the faith we have today. This day raises important themes regarding God's people, the universal body of Christ, the hope of the resurrection, and our total and complete victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. What more shall I say for time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Brock and Samson and Jetha of David and Samuel, the prophets? Who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions? Who through faith subdued kingdoms? Not through armies, not through power or might, but through faith they subdued kingdoms. How? Because God was on their side. Through faith they knew the battle belonged to the Lord. They knew it was not by might, it was not by power, but by the spirit of the Lord of hosts, that they would have victory. It is not different for us today. The enemy uses fear. It is the only thing he has is to deceive us. And fear is, I don't think there is a greater tool the enemy has than fear to deceive us. And if you think about all the ways that fear is used against you, you're not enough. You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not rich enough, you're not tall enough, you're not this enough, you're not that enough. And you fear. Or you, you're a news junkie, and you can't escape the darkness that's broadcast every day to make you think everything's falling apart and nothing is going to last. And our nation in the world is just going to fly apart any moment and we're all going to die. Now you're not. And it doesn't matter if our nation crumbles. God is still there. The Lord is still Lord. I personally don't think our nation is going to crumble. But it doesn't matter if it does. It doesn't matter if we go back to the times we read about in the Bible or in Fox's book of martyrs or in church history where they killed Christians, host cells, fastest they could gather them, they killed them. But you know what? Here we are. And the promise of Christ still stands. Gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Doesn't matter how many they killed, doesn't matter how much blood of the martyrs they plan in the ground. God's going to raise up his church. Victorious. Through faith, they worked righteousness. Oh, that we would see a hunger and a thirst for righteousness to be worked in our land. Through faith, they obtained promises. God's given to us great and precious promises. And it's only by faith that we will see those promises come to pass in our own generation in our own time of visitation here on this earth. And this is why above all else, your faithfulness matters by faith. They subdued kingdoms. We want to see the kingdom of darkness subdued yet in our own time. We've seen God rejected. We've seen the embrace of godless religions and godless ideologies thinking they are the answer to our problems. And specifically, we've seen the attempt to subdue the gospel of Jesus Christ as a belief system that must not prevail. And this has allowed the darkness to advance while attempting to hide away the light from its proper place. We must once again take the light forward to vanquish the darkness and to set things in their proper place, shining the light as a beacon of hope. And I'm telling you, church, that is happening more and more every day. It just isn't reported because the world, the enemy, the people who want to control things, the people who want the gospel of Christ to be diminished don't want you to know the truth. But you shouldn't be getting your truth from the news media or social media. You should be getting your truth from this right here, the infallible word of god. This is where you should get your truth. And if you get your truth from the Bible, if you get your truth from the scripture, it won't matter what they put in the newspaper on the TV. It won't matter why your news feed says, and your favorite anchor wants you to believe and wants you to hear, it won't matter because this is the truth and the truth is the church cannot fail. It will not fail. We recall those saints of old today with their accomplishments by faith to encourage us, to encourage us own. Own in our faithfulness, that it may be said of us as well, that by faith we subdued kingdoms, we worked righteousness and we obtained promises, even stopping the mouth of the lion who still roams around seeking who may be amazed by the truth. We did a vow and may he devour no one who hungers and thirst for the righteousness of Christ, kingdom. They cringed the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword and out of weakness were made strong, became valiant and battle turned to fly the enemies of the aliens out of weakness were made strong. Jesus told the Apostle Paul, my strength is made perfect in weakness, 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9, and then in verse 10 Paul said, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Does it make sense does it, when I am weak, I am strong. We read about strength and weakness in the scripture, but I don't think we really believe it much of the time. I know many who don't like that scripture because no one likes being weak and we will do just about anything to avoid admitting that we are. Yet there it is in the Word of God and we must do something with it other than ignore it or pretend it's not even there. We have to deal with it and trust the truth. Do you believe that's truth? When I am weak, I am strong. Do you believe it's true when Jesus said to Paul, my strength is made perfect in weakness? By faith we must embrace our weakness. By faith out of weakness we are made strong and by faith Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness. By faith when I am weak then I am strong. That's not an empty motivation, it's not just some feel good phrase. That is God's infallible Word. His truth, his two-edge sword that cuts through our own lies, our own false beliefs that have convinced ourselves to believe certain things that are in the Word of God. We are not true. One such lie is that we must not be weak. Whatever you do, don't be weak. Whatever you do, don't show weakness. We need this Word to open our hearts and reveal to us what is inside. We may not like what we find but if we can expose those things that keep us from believing God's Word in the Word of God, God's promises, we might begin to believe that we really are strong when we are weak. We might begin to understand what it means to be made strong out of weakness for it is not our work, it's not our doing but the Lord's. He brings us out of weakness to a place of strength by His mighty power. And that movement from weakness to strength is a movement birthed by faith. By faith we are made strong in His strength. By faith we do valiant things not because we are brave or gifted or special or valiant or strong but because we are faithful in the one who is our strength. Again, faithfulness is our calling. It is our measure for success. Women receive their dead, raised alive. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. We don't really associate torture with faith but we should. What we do when we talk about the persecuted church by the way today is the international day of prayer for the persecuted. It is easy for us to look at the persecuted church and identify their faith with their persecution because that's why they are being persecuted after all. It's not quite as easy when we go through hardship, when we are tormented, tortured if you will, maybe not physically but in other ways. Sometimes it's hard for us to associate that with our faith. There was a saint named Polly Carp, he comes to mind, a disciple of the Apostle John. Polly Carp was burned at the state because he refused to say Caesar is Lord. Polly Carp didn't have a problem with Caesar being impure but he could not acknowledge him as Lord. Polly Carp could have easily escaped death but he did not accept deliverance because it would have required his compromise to truth. That truth is that only Jesus is Lord. We live in a culture today where the art of compromise is taught in books, classrooms, boardrooms and the halls and the chambers of our greatest political institutions. Compromise is expected and sometimes it may be necessary but never ever at the expense of the truth of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Polly Carp gladly burned the death at the stake rather than compromise the Lordship of Christ. It is by faith that we will endure persecution and refuse to accept deliverance. Think how difficult it is for many Christians today simply to endure the cancel culture or social media push back or the number of likes or follows diminishing instead of increasing. We often fold under the simple pressure of our popularity suffering. It makes one wonder what would happen if real physical persecution ever broke out. You know what? Maybe perhaps. It would spur some on to even greater faithfulness as it has throughout the history of the church. There are so many examples of men and women who refuse to accept deliverance who stood strong in the truth by faith. John Hoof's is another. He preached and taught all the doctrines of the Reformers 100 years before the Reformation. He too was burned at the stake. He too was given numerous opportunities to just walk out of his dungeon. But he refused to escape. He refused to walk through that open door for the sake of the principles he believed in and the Lord he served. And by faith he was tortured and burned at the stake not accepting deliverance. May we have such faith today that may it provoke a Reformation and an awakening among us here and now even in our own land. Still others had trial of markings and scourgeings. Yes, of change and imprisonment. They were stone. They were sawed in two. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskin and goatskin being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dins and caves of the earth. These of whom the rider tells us the world was not worthy. I believe we often do not see ourselves rightly. We must consider what it means when it says of these saints of whom the world was not worthy. We must see ourselves through the eyes of Christ and through the eyes of our Father. The Apostle Paul wrote the following words about himself and those of his company in his first letter to the Corinthian church. He wrote these words to the present hour. We both hunger and thirst and we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless and we labor working with our own hands. Being Reviled, we bless, being persecuted, we endure, being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the off scouring of all things until now. Well, that's a picture of success, isn't it? Yes, actually it is. I might add they endured all of that by faith. It could be equally said of them as it can be of us and of all the saints who have been brought, who have been bought with the price of whom the world was not worthy. Those words of whom the world was not worthy are words that convey the worth of Christ, not the inherent worth of those being described by the rider or Paul describing himself or of us. In making a statement about their worth and their faith, he's making a statement about the Lord who saved them, who redeemed them, and who made them his very own by purchasing them with his very own blood. Just as he has purchased you, those saints who endured what they did not, what they did by faith did so because they had come to know the one who had bought them with the price of his own life. They knew their identity in Christ meant the world was not worthy of them because the world was not worthy of Christ yet Christ came anyway to this world. He humbled himself, he put on flesh and was obedient even under death on a tree. And out of that humility, he was given the name that is above every other name on earth and in heaven. Do we rightly know who we are or better? Do we rightly know who we are? We belong to Jesus. He is the Lord of all whose name is above every other name. And the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You can bet your bottom dollar that day is coming and your knee will bow and your tongue will confess either because you love him as your Lord or you will despise him because he is your Lord and you hate him. You are the Lord's. That is who you are. That is who you belong to if you've been purchased by his blood. That is whose name you have been given. That is who has commissioned you and authorized you to go and to make disciples of the nations teaching them to obey all that he has commanded. And thank God, Saints throughout the ages have been faithful to that commission because that is why we are here today. The world will not like it. It may persecute you. It may treat you badly, but you are to endure by faith knowing that the world is not worthy of you. And that is not a point of pride for you. That is actually a point of great humility because the only reason the world is not worthy of you is because of Jesus. Has nothing to do with you. You endure because of who you are because you belong to Jesus the Lord of glory and you cannot lose no matter what this world does or what happens to you. You are the church and the gates of Hades, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you or your brethren. All these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise of God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. All these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise. I would like to point out in verse 39 and 40 that though they obtained a good testimony through faith, they did not receive the promise at that time. They did receive the promise in time, but God made them wait until the time was right according to His plan and His purpose. And my point is not to discuss why they had to wait. My point is to discuss the fact that they did have to wait. Just as you and I must wait oftentimes for promises we want so badly we can taste them, but we can't have it, not yet. And you and I must with joy learn this lesson. Not credingly, not with a bitter heart and a bitter attitude, but with joy we must learn this lesson. We often wait in faith, live and walk faithful yet we do not see the promise we hope for. We must remain faithful, walking by faith and not by sight. For all these saints listed in Hebrews who endured so much and obtained a good testimony through faith only saw the promise of far off. They did not in their lifetimes live it, see it, touch it or taste it, accept by faith. These saints had to be content knowing the promise was real. And though it was a far off, they would one day experience the fruit of God's promise even if it was in the next life. We are to have such faith, walking in such faithfulness in our own lives. We are to live faithfully knowing that much of what we are working for today will be reaped and experienced by those who will come long after us. That kind of faithful living is the good testimony through faith that we want to have. Chapter 12 verses 1 and 2 are final verses. Therefore we are surrounded by so great cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnared us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us 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 has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. As has been the case since the beginning at creation in the garden sin is there to easily ensnare us if we allow. In Christ we are no longer in bondage to sin and Christ we are now delivered from that bondage. We are not free to sin we are free from sin. In the case you didn't know it until Christ set you free all you could do is be sin. Sin once held you in bondage and you had no escape from its clutches until Christ set you free. Paul writes these words in 1 Corinthians 10 13, no temptation has overtaken you except such as common man but God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Here we see that sin may easily ensnare us but we are to run our race set before us with endurance. One of the ways we run with endurance is looking unto Jesus who is the author and the finisher or the perfecter of our faith. If we run looking unto Jesus we will never run into sin we will always run away from sin. And as we look unto Jesus we should do more than just simply look. We are to be transformed as we gaze as we lock our gaze unto Jesus. We are transformed even to the same image. 2 Corinthians 3 18. So we do more than simply look. We are to be transformed. We are to become more and more like Jesus as we look unto Jesus as we walk in the light as He is in the light. Looking unto Jesus who is the light of the world though we once were darkness now we are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. That is our faithfulness to walk as children of light to live and move and have our being in Him as children of light. The light we bear witness to must inform all we are and all we do by faith may our own lives, our own faithfulness inspire others not for our glory. But for the glory of the Lord God works through the faithfulness of His people. Not big faithfulness just a little faithfulness. Faithfulness in the little things may we aspire to faithfulness across fellowship church. And as we do may we be assured that long after we are gone our faith will encourage those who come behind us for His glory. Soly day of glory in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us prepare to come to the Lord's table. Amen. Here is your charge church. Your charge is very simple today yet not always easy. A spire to faithfulness not only a spire but walk faithfulness. That means you are to walk in the light as He is in the light. That means you are to not be moved by what you see or what you do not see. Instead you walk by faith and not by sight. In other words you walk faithfully. Faithfulness is what we need. Daily faithfulness in the small things the things unseen by others but seen by God. That commitment to faithfulness in the little things will translate in God's economy to faithfulness in greater things. The reformation did not happen overnight. It took centuries of faithfulness by mostly unknown and unseen men and women until one day all that faithfulness erupted into a reformation that changed the world. Moms think of all the faithful mothers who changed the diapers of all the faithful reformers. We don't think about them. We just think about the reformers and their great writings and their great preaching. My point is there are thousands, millions of people behind the scene being faithful for us to have what we have. Do not think it will not happen again a reformation that changed the world. It will. Though you do not know when you can know that your own faithfulness will play a part. By faith your life matters and your faithfulness is making a difference. Trust God. He knows how to take your faithfulness in small things to bring about great things. Now faith is the substance of things hope for the evidence of things not seen and for it, for it by from it the elders obtained a good testimony and so will you. Stay faithful. Amen. Let us sing our thanks to God. Amen.