"Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment." Hebrews 11:35-36
There is another application of this to us. You and I, as we look to Christ, have our languishing graces renewed to life through faith. Thereby we "Strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die" (Rev. 3:2). This is God’s Word to his languishing people, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5:14). Still, we know, all too well, that our languishing souls will never take the initiative (Song 5:2). Faith responds to grace. It does not cause it! Let us cry, with languishing saints of old, “Draw us, and we will run after thee…Turn us, and we shall be turned!”
1. "It may also be observed that the apostle takes most of these
instances, if not all of them, from the time of the persecution of the church
under Antiochus, the king of Syria, in the days of the Maccabees. And we may
consider concerning this reason: 1. That it was after the closing of the canon
of the Scripture, or putting of the last hand unto writings by Divine
inspiration under the O. T. Wherefore, as the apostle represented these things
from the notoriety of fact then fresh in memory, and it may be, some books then
written of those things, like the books of the Maccabees, yet remaining: yet as
they are delivered out unto the church by him, they proceeded from
Divine inspiration. 2. That in those days wherein these things fell out, there
was no extraordinary prophet in the church. Prophecy, as the Jews confess,
ceased under the second temple. And this makes it evident that the rule of the
Word, and the ordinary ministry of the church, is sufficient to maintain
believers in their duty against all oppositions whatever. 3. That this last
persecution of the church under the O.T. by Antiochus, was typical of the last
persecution of the Christian church under antichrist; as is evident to all that
compare Daniel 8:10-14, 23-25; 11:36-39 with that of the Revelation in sundry
places. And indeed the martyrologies of those who have suffered under the Roman
antichrist, are a better exposition of this context than any that can be given
in words" (John Owen).