Thursday after Sexagesima Sunday
Posted on February 8, 2024 by under
Scripture: Hebrews 11:32-40 (NKJV)
11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again.
Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, 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 mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
Devotion
The lesson presents the example of the Lord’s saints in the Old Testament as models of those in whom the sowing of the Word had been fruitful. Whatever their particular circumstances in life according to their vocations, and whatever the nature of the suffering which they endured from an unbelieving world, the same assessment is presented concerning them all: They were those “of whom the world was not worthy.”
The world holds all faithful confessors in absolute contempt. At best, those who are of the world look with pity on the saints, but far more often than not, the people of the world do not hesitate to afflict God’s people.
But as we consider today’s lesson, one further detail stands out. For all the blessed constancy in faith which the Lord worked in the hearts of those saints of old, still there were blessings reserved for the Church in the days following our Lord’s resurrection: to know the Name of God Incarnate and to confess our hope in Christ Jesus, who is risen from the dead and who has ascended to the right hand of the Father where He intercedes for His Church until the day when He returns in glory.
Collect: O Lord God, Who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do: Mercifully grant that by Thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
