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 sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:36-38, NKJV).
Stephen, the first martyr of the infant church, was stoned, with Saul, who was to become the Apostle Paul, consenting to his death, and looking on, holding the cloaks of the stoners lest these get soiled by blood (Stephen's) and sweat (their own). If ancient Jewish tradition is accurate, Isaiah, the prolific Old Testament prophet whose tenure spanned several Kings of Judah, was placed in a hollow tree trunk by Manasseh, the mostly evil son of good King Hezekiah, and sawn in two.
James ben Zebedee, the brother of John the Beloved, was slain with the sword by King Herod to gain favor with the Jews. And all believers throughout all history were tempted by the world, their own flesh, and by Satan or his minions.
This is representative history for all Christians, and is hardly a vacation brochure for ease and comfort, health and wealth, or position and prestige. Jesus said count the cost before following Me. He promised tribulation and persecution. He promised hatred by the world. He promised division and contention within households, communities and nations.
He also promised power to live as He Himself did, and eternal gains that could not compare with mere temporal treasures. And for all loss suffered here in this age, rewards beyond measure in the next, and above all He promised Himself, to never leave us nor forsake us.
There is a void in the human heart that can only be filled by God. It was placed there on purpose so that fallen creatures, even in the utter depravity of their fallenness, would perhaps seek after the only Thing that satisfies - the Lord God Himself.
What is the essence of Man? For what purpose does he exist?
If you have faith in the ever changing wisdom of the world, you must believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the essence of Man, is material. That he exists because of chance over time, an accident of circumstances and lightning. His purpose is to achieve self-fulfillment, while doing what's best for himself and others because that is the right thing to do, until death, at which point you are returned through natural processes of decay into the component star-stuff from which you were made.
Alternatively, if your worldly faith extends unto the unseen forces around you, you may believe, again without evidence, that the essence of Man is spiritual energy, whose goal is to become one with All That Is - to be absorbed into an undifferentiated mass of consciousness with no beginning or end, and no identifiable purpose except a state of person-less Being.
Or you may hold to some form of religion, based on a cafeteria-like selection of tenets from various faiths, liberally flavored with your own imperfect thinking and self-serving imagination. The purpose of existence under this form of delusional faith is thinly disguised self-aggrandizement and glorification. In short, your well-being and happiness is why the Universe exists, and all things "not you" are there "for you", or best eliminated.
In Reality, it is God, the Author of existence who has determined, and revealed, Man's essence and purpose, and it is this: to be in intimate, eternal fellowship with Him, as an utterly unique individual with free will, moral agency, intelligence, emotion, and physically endless life.
We were created for His good pleasure. And His will and purpose for us is, by His design, the most glorious, satisfying, and good ongoing outcome of life in His Son.
The evidence for His reality is overwhelming. The very celestial heavens declare His glory and power. The irreducible complexity of even the simplest life heralds His infinite intelligence, and the Cross of Christ demonstrates His unending love.
When we escape from the realm of death into the Kingdom of Life through faith in His Son, whose life and ministry changed all of human history forever, we go from darkness into light, from futility into glorious purpose, from infinite isolation to eternal relationship.
And this transition, while only completed at our physical death or His return, is amply evidenced and accessible in the here and now.
That is why the Apostle Paul declared unequivocally, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
That is why these examples of faith in Hebrews 11 are presented to us as beings of whom the world was not worthy.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16, NKJV).
