(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
The verse declares that the world was unworthy of God's faithful sufferers, not that they were unworthy, for though rejected, despised and driven out as unfit to live, they are valued by God and worthy of the highest honor and eternal glory. Their wandering in deserts and mountains and dwelling in dens and caves means being stripped of possessions, driven from homes, hunted like beasts of prey, and forced by persecution to hide in desolate and solitary places in destitution, affliction and torment. It describes prophets and messengers in Israel and Judah who were beaten, imprisoned, stoned, sawn asunder and slain, Christians of the first centuries driven to mountains, deserts and dungeons under Rome, and later the Waldenses, Wycliffe's followers and Reformers who fled to mountains, forests, dens and caves rather than renounce truth. Their faith strengthened them to endure torture without accepting deliverance, to prize God's favor and eternal reward far above earthly ease, wealth and honor, and to count it joy to suffer for Christ. Their earthly rejection and suffering did not lessen their worth to God or prove Him to have forsaken them, and their example is meant to strengthen believers for service now and to comfort God's people in the coming time of trouble.
Meaning of the Words
The declaration that the world was not worthy turns the judgment around: it is not the sufferers who are unworthy, but the world that proved unworthy of them when people of faith were rejected, despised, driven from society, and treated as unworthy of life. Even in persecution and deprivation their wandering and suffering do not make them unworthy before God, for heaven records them as His children and registers them among His faithful sufferers. Though their names are cast out as evil on earth, they are honored in the heavenly records and counted worthy of the highest honor and of eternal glory. Their faith was genuine like Abraham's, and their earthly rejection did not lessen their worth to God, who valued them even when they were despised and driven from place to place.
To wander in deserts and mountains and to dwell in dens and caves of the earth is to be stripped of possessions, driven from homes, and refused the right to abandon truth only at the cost of flight. It is to be hunted like beasts of prey wherever refuge is sought and forced by persecution to seek concealment in desolate and solitary places. That life is lived destitute, afflicted, and tormented, with many killed for their testimony, showing that the world was unworthy of them. In the first centuries this was fulfilled beneath the hills outside Rome, where long galleries tunneled through earth and rock in a dark intricate network extending for miles gave shelter to thousands of suspected and proscribed believers, serving both to bury their dead and as a home.
Scorn, suffering, and displacement do not prove that God has forsaken His people, for God is with them even when they are forced from public worship to gather in secret and lonely places to pray and praise God, and their testimony cannot be silenced. Their steadfast witness from places of suffering proclaims that God is true and that the One they trust, Jesus the Son of God and Saviour, is able to save completely, so their suffering does not make their faith a failure. This was seen when dissenters forbidden on pain of fines, imprisonment, and banishment to meet except as sanctioned met in dark alleys, obscure garrets, and in woods at midnight with the forest as temple, enduring crowded jails, broken families, banishment, and flight across the ocean while persecution spread their witness.
The wandering and dwelling in deserts, dens, and caves does not make choosing isolation or inactivity a model of piety. Christ's example was active, diligent work, and His followers are to serve in the duties of life. They grow spiritually through doing their Master's work rather than treating withdrawal from society as a virtue.
People and Times Described
In Israel and Judah the verse describes prophets and messengers sent at appointed times during the Jewish economy to receive the Lord's portion from His husbandmen and to warn against unfaithfulness and misappropriation of what belonged to God. Though convicted of their unrighteous course the people would not yield but grew more stubborn and hated reproof, beating one servant, killing another, and stoning another. They suffered torture without accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection, cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, stoning, being sawn asunder, temptation, and death by the sword, wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandering in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, because the world was not worthy of them. They were heaven's acknowledged nobility whom the world did not deserve, and when national apostasy had almost completed Israel's ruin every indignity was heaped upon them, with messengers despised, prophets killed, and servants humiliated, beaten, and thrown into prison.
It describes faithful witnesses in Judah under Manasseh who endured severe persecution for bearing witness to truth and righteousness in a corrupt society that sought to silence them, forced to wander in deserts and mountains and take shelter in dens and caves because the world was unworthy of them. This included Isaiah during Manasseh's reign, sawn asunder for reproving the nation's sins, and Jeremiah persecuted by his own countrymen for delivering God's message, treated cruelly and driven from society as destitute and afflicted. It illustrates how those who warned Israel of sin could be rejected and killed by its leaders and driven to wander in desolate places and shelter in caves.
It applies to the Christian witnesses killed by the Jewish authorities, including Stephen and James, and to Stephen, Paul, Peter and other Christians whom persecutors killed. Their persecution and death amounted to crucifying the Son of God afresh, and harming them was an offense against Christ in the person of His saints, whose judges condemned them to death rather than allow them to serve God though they were worthy. Their lives and deaths showed the world was unworthy of them, serving as a witness to Christ and a final opportunity for the Jewish people to repent.
It describes Christians of the first centuries under Roman pagan persecution, stripped of possessions, driven from homes, hunted like beasts of prey wherever they sought refuge, and forced to hide in desolate and solitary places in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, destitute, afflicted and tormented. Many were killed for their testimony, exiled to mountains and deserts, and left in dungeons to die of hunger, cold and torture, with martyrdom as the only way out of distress. They had eagerly accepted light from heaven as the first disciples accepted it from the lips of Jesus, and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ who was crucified for them.
Its wandering in deserts and mountains and dwelling in dens and caves was fulfilled in the catacombs beneath the hills outside Rome, long galleries tunneled through earth and rock in a dark intricate network extending for miles beyond the walls, subterranean excavations where thousands of suspected and proscribed believers found shelter and buried their dead. From those gloomy caverns many martyrs for Christ will come forth when the Life-giver awakens the dead.
It describes the Waldenses who studied the word of God and lived up to the light they had, and for their religion were persecuted and driven from homes, despoiled of possessions gained by hard labor, with houses burned and lands and dwellings destroyed. Pursued across mountains and hunted in secluded valleys among forests and rocks, they fled to the mountains where they suffered hunger, fatigue, cold and nakedness with only skins of animals for clothing. Though scattered and homeless they assembled to sing and praise God that they were accounted worthy to suffer for Christ's name, encouraged and cheered one another, were grateful even for miserable retreats, prized God's love and favor far above earthly ease, comfort, wealth or worldly riches, would not yield their religion even when children sickened and died from cold and hunger, received consolation from God, and looked forward with pleasing anticipation to the recompense of reward.
It was lived again by Wycliffe's followers, the Wycliffites and Lollards, who kept his doctrines and accepted the Bible as guide and standard and carried the gospel through England and to other lands after their leader was removed. Hunted as foes of the church and traitors to the realm, proscribed and tortured after English monarchs secured Rome's support and decreed the stake against disciples of the gospel, with martyrdom succeeding martyrdom in a pitiless storm of persecution, they poured their suffering cries into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. As hunted reformers they preached in secret places, found shelter as best they could among the lower classes and in the humble homes of the poor, hiding away in dens and caves and often in massive dungeons and Lollard towers, gladly sheltering banished brethren while permitted to dwell in homes and cheerfully accepting the lot of the outcast when driven forth.
It describes the United Brethren who held to the ancient faith when former brethren made compact with Rome and took in her errors, cursed by all classes for forming themselves into a distinct church though the world was not worthy of them. Driven to find refuge in woods and caves their firmness was unshaken, and they still assembled there to read God's word and unite in His worship. It describes seventeenth-century godly pastors and faithful souls in England persecuted by the established church following Rome, expelled from positions and forbidden on pain of heavy fines, imprisonment and banishment to attend any religious meetings except those sanctioned by the church. Compelled to gather to worship God in dark alleys, obscure garrets and at some seasons in the woods at midnight, making the sheltering depths of the forest a temple for prayer and praise, they showed that scorn and suffering do not prove God has forsaken them, for God was with them so persecution could not prevail to silence their testimony. Despite all precautions many suffered with crowded jails, broken-up families and banishment to foreign lands, and driven across the ocean to America they laid there the foundations of civil and religious liberty, showing persecution drives God's scattered children to hidden worship yet spreads their witness.
It describes faithful builders of God's temple through centuries of fierce persecution after the establishment of the Christian church, never wanting men who counted the work dearer than life itself and continued the work begun by the apostles. They had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Workers were raised up to defend the faith including the Waldenses, John Wycliffe, Huss and Jerome, Martin Luther and Zwingle, Cranmer, Latimer, and Knox, the Huguenots, John and Charles Wesley, and later promoters of the circulation of God's word and missionaries in heathen lands, so that though workmen were slain the building went steadily forward. The persecuted believers of the Reformation were people the world did not deserve, whom religious and civil powers tried in vain to crush by imprisonment, torture, fire and sword, and though thousands died the work kept going forward, persecution only spread truth farther, and the fanaticism Satan tried to join to the movement only made the contrast between Satan's work and God's work clearer. This includes Reformers who opposed papal power and idolatry and through God's grace resisting darkness endured scorn, derision, hatred and persecution even to death rather than renounce faith, and faithful witnesses driven into dens, mountains and caves because they honored God's law above Roman precepts.
Faith That Endures Hardship
Faith is shown in Hebrews 11 to have strengthened God's people to endure hardship, torture without accepting deliverance in order to obtain a better resurrection, and wandering without shelter in service to God through refusal to abandon truth. During the Jewish economy prophets and messengers were sent at appointed times to receive the Lord's portion from His husbandmen and to warn against unfaithfulness and misappropriation of what belonged to God. Though convicted of their unrighteous course, the people would not yield but grew more stubborn and hated reproof, beating one servant, killing another, and stoning another. They inflicted cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, stoning, being sawn asunder, temptation, and death by the sword, leaving the faithful to wander in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, because the world was not worthy of them.
Those faithful servants were worthy of more than the world could offer, yet they endured wandering, affliction, and hardship, proving earth is no resting place and rebuking desire for an easier, less self-denying life. They valued the promised future and eternal life, God's favor, and the recompense of reward far above earthly ease, comfort, wealth, riches, or honor, so that hope made sufferings seem small beside the reward. Like the Waldenses who studied the word and lived up to the light they had, they were persecuted and driven from homes gained by hard labor, despoiled of possessions, with houses burned and lands laid waste, fleeing to mountains to suffer hunger, fatigue, cold, nakedness and deprivation with only animal skins for clothing. Though scattered and homeless, they assembled to sing and praise God for being counted worthy to suffer for Christ's name, encouraged and cheered one another, were grateful even for miserable retreats, prized God's love and favor above earthly comfort and wealth, and would not yield their religion even when children sickened and died from cold and hunger, receiving consolation from God while looking forward with pleasing anticipation to the reward.
Willingness to endure hunger, thirst, torture, and death rather than renounce religion or surrender truth stands against compromising faith for convenience, while God counts such sufferers worthy of honor. Their courage, fortitude, faith, and trust in God's power to save were gained by years of holy endeavor, firm adherence to the right, and firm resistance to numberless temptations, as seen in early Christians exiled to mountains and deserts and left in dungeons to die of hunger, cold, and torture with martyrdom as the only way out. Having eagerly accepted heavenly light as the first disciples accepted it from the lips of Jesus, they rejoiced to suffer for Christ crucified for them. Their fidelity to God and obedience to Christ made them heroes and examples of faithfulness from age to age, brought conspicuously before the world so their light shone before those in darkness and led others to glorify God.
Those who suffer for Christ are the most precious people on earth, too good for the world. Saul of Tarsus caused such suffering and death by following Satan's track in unbelief, a cruel course done with false conscience, without moral right and without excuse, for which he afterward condemned himself without making excuse.
Prophecy Doctrine and Scripture
The verse describes what befell those who dared proclaim the sacred truths of the Bible when the papal power hid the word of truth, proscribed the Bible by religious and secular authority, perverted its testimony, set false witnesses against it, and used every invention of men and demons to turn minds from it. They were hunted, betrayed, tortured, buried and shut in dungeon cells, martyred for their faith, or compelled to flee to mountain fastnesses and refuges and to hiding places in the earth and underground. That hunted and hidden affliction and obscurity is the faithful witnesses prophesying in sackcloth through the whole period of 1260 years when God's witnesses were kept in obscurity. In the darkest times God gave faithful men who loved His word and were jealous for His honor wisdom, power, and authority to keep declaring His truth.
Their danger under bitter persecution by popes and priests, with the rack, the stake, and every torture that Satan and his evil angels could put into the mind of man, kept the church of God pure, because no one with a corrupt heart would dare declare faith when doing so brought such persecution. They were Christ's devoted followers and the precious of God who loved God and would not yield to Satan's delusions, while Satan's agents tried to kill them so that no true Christian would be left on earth. Angels ministered to and strengthened those suffering saints in suffering and agony and kept a faithful record of it all.
The verse belongs to the record and chapter of the faithful and their experience, which is given as instruction to be applied. The faithful are described as strangers and pilgrims on earth who sought a better, heavenly country and a city God has prepared and built. The chapter calls believers to turn their minds from the common, discouraging things that are seen and dwell on the unseen. The sufferers described are some of the great cloud of witnesses compassing believers, who met evils and difficulties in their way and in the name of the Lord braced themselves successfully against the opposing forces of evil. They were sustained and strengthened, and the Lord held them by His hand.
Instruction for Believers Today
The record of the faithful to which this verse belongs is given as instruction for workers for God to apply in their own labor. City workers are to take that instruction by going forward in faith, doing their best, and trusting God to hear and answer prayer, and in doing that work they gain valuable experience for what follows. The faithful there described were strangers and pilgrims on earth who sought a better, heavenly country and a city that God has prepared.
The faith that worked in God's faithful servants of old can work in believers today and strengthen them for service. God works through hearts of faith as channels of His power just as markedly now as in the past. The firm principles of the ancient faithful were set forth as patterns for Christians, and those same principles can be lived out in later times, as Joseph Bates followed Christ and became a reformer while exposed to the corrupting conditions of seafaring life.
Their lives prove that earth is no resting place for Christians, and still less for ministers. They stand as a rebuke to preachers who complain that their lot is hard, dislike separation from their families, and want an easier, less self-denying position. Such complaining forgets Christ, who gave up heavenly riches and glory to come to earth and die and who commands love like His own, and it forgets the sufferers in animal skins who were oppressed and pained yet were worthy of more than the world could offer. God's servants in earlier times paid a high price to learn truth and give it to others, praying and weeping for clear understanding, accepting separation, lack of comfort and hard labor, and following God's leading step by step without seeking their own ease or drawing back from hardship. Through them God opened the way and made truth plain to every honest mind.
Their self-denying homelessness, hardship, affliction and torment, including wandering in wilderness places and finding refuge in mountains while the world was unworthy of them, exemplify the self-denial required of God's servants.
Their example of counting suffering for Christ a joy is meant to comfort and encourage God's people who will be brought into the coming time of unprecedented trouble such as never was. Their hardships included exile to mountains and deserts, imprisonment, hunger, cold, torture, being left in dungeons to die, and martyrdom. They had eagerly accepted light from heaven, rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ who was crucified for them, and would not yield. Their courage, fortitude, faith and trust in God's power to save had been gained by years of holy endeavor, firm adherence to the right, and firm resistance to numberless temptations.
The verse declares that the world was unworthy of God's faithful sufferers, not that they were unworthy, for though rejected, despised and driven out as unfit to live, they are valued by God and worthy of the highest honor and eternal glory. Their wandering in deserts and mountains and dwelling in dens and caves means being stripped of possessions, driven from homes, hunted like beasts of prey, and forced by persecution to hide in desolate and solitary places in destitution, affliction and torment. It describes prophets and messengers in Israel and Judah who were beaten, imprisoned, stoned, sawn asunder and slain, Christians of the first centuries driven to mountains, deserts and dungeons under Rome, and later the Waldenses, Wycliffe's followers and Reformers who fled to mountains, forests, dens and caves rather than renounce truth. Their faith strengthened them to endure torture without accepting deliverance, to prize God's favor and eternal reward far above earthly ease, wealth and honor, and to count it joy to suffer for Christ. Their earthly rejection and suffering did not lessen their worth to God or prove Him to have forsaken them, and their example is meant to strengthen believers for service now and to comfort God's people in the coming time of trouble.
Meaning of the Words
The declaration that the world was not worthy turns the judgment around: it is not the sufferers who are unworthy, but the world that proved unworthy of them when people of faith were rejected, despised, driven from society, and treated as unworthy of life. Even in persecution and deprivation their wandering and suffering do not make them unworthy before God, for heaven records them as His children and registers them among His faithful sufferers. Though their names are cast out as evil on earth, they are honored in the heavenly records and counted worthy of the highest honor and of eternal glory. Their faith was genuine like Abraham's, and their earthly rejection did not lessen their worth to God, who valued them even when they were despised and driven from place to place.
To wander in deserts and mountains and to dwell in dens and caves of the earth is to be stripped of possessions, driven from homes, and refused the right to abandon truth only at the cost of flight. It is to be hunted like beasts of prey wherever refuge is sought and forced by persecution to seek concealment in desolate and solitary places. That life is lived destitute, afflicted, and tormented, with many killed for their testimony, showing that the world was unworthy of them. In the first centuries this was fulfilled beneath the hills outside Rome, where long galleries tunneled through earth and rock in a dark intricate network extending for miles gave shelter to thousands of suspected and proscribed believers, serving both to bury their dead and as a home.
Scorn, suffering, and displacement do not prove that God has forsaken His people, for God is with them even when they are forced from public worship to gather in secret and lonely places to pray and praise God, and their testimony cannot be silenced. Their steadfast witness from places of suffering proclaims that God is true and that the One they trust, Jesus the Son of God and Saviour, is able to save completely, so their suffering does not make their faith a failure. This was seen when dissenters forbidden on pain of fines, imprisonment, and banishment to meet except as sanctioned met in dark alleys, obscure garrets, and in woods at midnight with the forest as temple, enduring crowded jails, broken families, banishment, and flight across the ocean while persecution spread their witness.
The wandering and dwelling in deserts, dens, and caves does not make choosing isolation or inactivity a model of piety. Christ's example was active, diligent work, and His followers are to serve in the duties of life. They grow spiritually through doing their Master's work rather than treating withdrawal from society as a virtue.
People and Times Described
In Israel and Judah the verse describes prophets and messengers sent at appointed times during the Jewish economy to receive the Lord's portion from His husbandmen and to warn against unfaithfulness and misappropriation of what belonged to God. Though convicted of their unrighteous course the people would not yield but grew more stubborn and hated reproof, beating one servant, killing another, and stoning another. They suffered torture without accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection, cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, stoning, being sawn asunder, temptation, and death by the sword, wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandering in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, because the world was not worthy of them. They were heaven's acknowledged nobility whom the world did not deserve, and when national apostasy had almost completed Israel's ruin every indignity was heaped upon them, with messengers despised, prophets killed, and servants humiliated, beaten, and thrown into prison.
It describes faithful witnesses in Judah under Manasseh who endured severe persecution for bearing witness to truth and righteousness in a corrupt society that sought to silence them, forced to wander in deserts and mountains and take shelter in dens and caves because the world was unworthy of them. This included Isaiah during Manasseh's reign, sawn asunder for reproving the nation's sins, and Jeremiah persecuted by his own countrymen for delivering God's message, treated cruelly and driven from society as destitute and afflicted. It illustrates how those who warned Israel of sin could be rejected and killed by its leaders and driven to wander in desolate places and shelter in caves.
It applies to the Christian witnesses killed by the Jewish authorities, including Stephen and James, and to Stephen, Paul, Peter and other Christians whom persecutors killed. Their persecution and death amounted to crucifying the Son of God afresh, and harming them was an offense against Christ in the person of His saints, whose judges condemned them to death rather than allow them to serve God though they were worthy. Their lives and deaths showed the world was unworthy of them, serving as a witness to Christ and a final opportunity for the Jewish people to repent.
It describes Christians of the first centuries under Roman pagan persecution, stripped of possessions, driven from homes, hunted like beasts of prey wherever they sought refuge, and forced to hide in desolate and solitary places in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, destitute, afflicted and tormented. Many were killed for their testimony, exiled to mountains and deserts, and left in dungeons to die of hunger, cold and torture, with martyrdom as the only way out of distress. They had eagerly accepted light from heaven as the first disciples accepted it from the lips of Jesus, and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ who was crucified for them.
Its wandering in deserts and mountains and dwelling in dens and caves was fulfilled in the catacombs beneath the hills outside Rome, long galleries tunneled through earth and rock in a dark intricate network extending for miles beyond the walls, subterranean excavations where thousands of suspected and proscribed believers found shelter and buried their dead. From those gloomy caverns many martyrs for Christ will come forth when the Life-giver awakens the dead.
It describes the Waldenses who studied the word of God and lived up to the light they had, and for their religion were persecuted and driven from homes, despoiled of possessions gained by hard labor, with houses burned and lands and dwellings destroyed. Pursued across mountains and hunted in secluded valleys among forests and rocks, they fled to the mountains where they suffered hunger, fatigue, cold and nakedness with only skins of animals for clothing. Though scattered and homeless they assembled to sing and praise God that they were accounted worthy to suffer for Christ's name, encouraged and cheered one another, were grateful even for miserable retreats, prized God's love and favor far above earthly ease, comfort, wealth or worldly riches, would not yield their religion even when children sickened and died from cold and hunger, received consolation from God, and looked forward with pleasing anticipation to the recompense of reward.
It was lived again by Wycliffe's followers, the Wycliffites and Lollards, who kept his doctrines and accepted the Bible as guide and standard and carried the gospel through England and to other lands after their leader was removed. Hunted as foes of the church and traitors to the realm, proscribed and tortured after English monarchs secured Rome's support and decreed the stake against disciples of the gospel, with martyrdom succeeding martyrdom in a pitiless storm of persecution, they poured their suffering cries into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. As hunted reformers they preached in secret places, found shelter as best they could among the lower classes and in the humble homes of the poor, hiding away in dens and caves and often in massive dungeons and Lollard towers, gladly sheltering banished brethren while permitted to dwell in homes and cheerfully accepting the lot of the outcast when driven forth.
It describes the United Brethren who held to the ancient faith when former brethren made compact with Rome and took in her errors, cursed by all classes for forming themselves into a distinct church though the world was not worthy of them. Driven to find refuge in woods and caves their firmness was unshaken, and they still assembled there to read God's word and unite in His worship. It describes seventeenth-century godly pastors and faithful souls in England persecuted by the established church following Rome, expelled from positions and forbidden on pain of heavy fines, imprisonment and banishment to attend any religious meetings except those sanctioned by the church. Compelled to gather to worship God in dark alleys, obscure garrets and at some seasons in the woods at midnight, making the sheltering depths of the forest a temple for prayer and praise, they showed that scorn and suffering do not prove God has forsaken them, for God was with them so persecution could not prevail to silence their testimony. Despite all precautions many suffered with crowded jails, broken-up families and banishment to foreign lands, and driven across the ocean to America they laid there the foundations of civil and religious liberty, showing persecution drives God's scattered children to hidden worship yet spreads their witness.
It describes faithful builders of God's temple through centuries of fierce persecution after the establishment of the Christian church, never wanting men who counted the work dearer than life itself and continued the work begun by the apostles. They had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Workers were raised up to defend the faith including the Waldenses, John Wycliffe, Huss and Jerome, Martin Luther and Zwingle, Cranmer, Latimer, and Knox, the Huguenots, John and Charles Wesley, and later promoters of the circulation of God's word and missionaries in heathen lands, so that though workmen were slain the building went steadily forward. The persecuted believers of the Reformation were people the world did not deserve, whom religious and civil powers tried in vain to crush by imprisonment, torture, fire and sword, and though thousands died the work kept going forward, persecution only spread truth farther, and the fanaticism Satan tried to join to the movement only made the contrast between Satan's work and God's work clearer. This includes Reformers who opposed papal power and idolatry and through God's grace resisting darkness endured scorn, derision, hatred and persecution even to death rather than renounce faith, and faithful witnesses driven into dens, mountains and caves because they honored God's law above Roman precepts.
Faith That Endures Hardship
Faith is shown in Hebrews 11 to have strengthened God's people to endure hardship, torture without accepting deliverance in order to obtain a better resurrection, and wandering without shelter in service to God through refusal to abandon truth. During the Jewish economy prophets and messengers were sent at appointed times to receive the Lord's portion from His husbandmen and to warn against unfaithfulness and misappropriation of what belonged to God. Though convicted of their unrighteous course, the people would not yield but grew more stubborn and hated reproof, beating one servant, killing another, and stoning another. They inflicted cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, stoning, being sawn asunder, temptation, and death by the sword, leaving the faithful to wander in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, because the world was not worthy of them.
Those faithful servants were worthy of more than the world could offer, yet they endured wandering, affliction, and hardship, proving earth is no resting place and rebuking desire for an easier, less self-denying life. They valued the promised future and eternal life, God's favor, and the recompense of reward far above earthly ease, comfort, wealth, riches, or honor, so that hope made sufferings seem small beside the reward. Like the Waldenses who studied the word and lived up to the light they had, they were persecuted and driven from homes gained by hard labor, despoiled of possessions, with houses burned and lands laid waste, fleeing to mountains to suffer hunger, fatigue, cold, nakedness and deprivation with only animal skins for clothing. Though scattered and homeless, they assembled to sing and praise God for being counted worthy to suffer for Christ's name, encouraged and cheered one another, were grateful even for miserable retreats, prized God's love and favor above earthly comfort and wealth, and would not yield their religion even when children sickened and died from cold and hunger, receiving consolation from God while looking forward with pleasing anticipation to the reward.
Willingness to endure hunger, thirst, torture, and death rather than renounce religion or surrender truth stands against compromising faith for convenience, while God counts such sufferers worthy of honor. Their courage, fortitude, faith, and trust in God's power to save were gained by years of holy endeavor, firm adherence to the right, and firm resistance to numberless temptations, as seen in early Christians exiled to mountains and deserts and left in dungeons to die of hunger, cold, and torture with martyrdom as the only way out. Having eagerly accepted heavenly light as the first disciples accepted it from the lips of Jesus, they rejoiced to suffer for Christ crucified for them. Their fidelity to God and obedience to Christ made them heroes and examples of faithfulness from age to age, brought conspicuously before the world so their light shone before those in darkness and led others to glorify God.
Those who suffer for Christ are the most precious people on earth, too good for the world. Saul of Tarsus caused such suffering and death by following Satan's track in unbelief, a cruel course done with false conscience, without moral right and without excuse, for which he afterward condemned himself without making excuse.
Prophecy Doctrine and Scripture
The verse describes what befell those who dared proclaim the sacred truths of the Bible when the papal power hid the word of truth, proscribed the Bible by religious and secular authority, perverted its testimony, set false witnesses against it, and used every invention of men and demons to turn minds from it. They were hunted, betrayed, tortured, buried and shut in dungeon cells, martyred for their faith, or compelled to flee to mountain fastnesses and refuges and to hiding places in the earth and underground. That hunted and hidden affliction and obscurity is the faithful witnesses prophesying in sackcloth through the whole period of 1260 years when God's witnesses were kept in obscurity. In the darkest times God gave faithful men who loved His word and were jealous for His honor wisdom, power, and authority to keep declaring His truth.
Their danger under bitter persecution by popes and priests, with the rack, the stake, and every torture that Satan and his evil angels could put into the mind of man, kept the church of God pure, because no one with a corrupt heart would dare declare faith when doing so brought such persecution. They were Christ's devoted followers and the precious of God who loved God and would not yield to Satan's delusions, while Satan's agents tried to kill them so that no true Christian would be left on earth. Angels ministered to and strengthened those suffering saints in suffering and agony and kept a faithful record of it all.
The verse belongs to the record and chapter of the faithful and their experience, which is given as instruction to be applied. The faithful are described as strangers and pilgrims on earth who sought a better, heavenly country and a city God has prepared and built. The chapter calls believers to turn their minds from the common, discouraging things that are seen and dwell on the unseen. The sufferers described are some of the great cloud of witnesses compassing believers, who met evils and difficulties in their way and in the name of the Lord braced themselves successfully against the opposing forces of evil. They were sustained and strengthened, and the Lord held them by His hand.
Instruction for Believers Today
The record of the faithful to which this verse belongs is given as instruction for workers for God to apply in their own labor. City workers are to take that instruction by going forward in faith, doing their best, and trusting God to hear and answer prayer, and in doing that work they gain valuable experience for what follows. The faithful there described were strangers and pilgrims on earth who sought a better, heavenly country and a city that God has prepared.
The faith that worked in God's faithful servants of old can work in believers today and strengthen them for service. God works through hearts of faith as channels of His power just as markedly now as in the past. The firm principles of the ancient faithful were set forth as patterns for Christians, and those same principles can be lived out in later times, as Joseph Bates followed Christ and became a reformer while exposed to the corrupting conditions of seafaring life.
Their lives prove that earth is no resting place for Christians, and still less for ministers. They stand as a rebuke to preachers who complain that their lot is hard, dislike separation from their families, and want an easier, less self-denying position. Such complaining forgets Christ, who gave up heavenly riches and glory to come to earth and die and who commands love like His own, and it forgets the sufferers in animal skins who were oppressed and pained yet were worthy of more than the world could offer. God's servants in earlier times paid a high price to learn truth and give it to others, praying and weeping for clear understanding, accepting separation, lack of comfort and hard labor, and following God's leading step by step without seeking their own ease or drawing back from hardship. Through them God opened the way and made truth plain to every honest mind.
Their self-denying homelessness, hardship, affliction and torment, including wandering in wilderness places and finding refuge in mountains while the world was unworthy of them, exemplify the self-denial required of God's servants.
Their example of counting suffering for Christ a joy is meant to comfort and encourage God's people who will be brought into the coming time of unprecedented trouble such as never was. Their hardships included exile to mountains and deserts, imprisonment, hunger, cold, torture, being left in dungeons to die, and martyrdom. They had eagerly accepted light from heaven, rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ who was crucified for them, and would not yield. Their courage, fortitude, faith and trust in God's power to save had been gained by years of holy endeavor, firm adherence to the right, and firm resistance to numberless temptations.