The Bible contains numerous accounts of men and women who successfully walked with God while on earth. We share something in common with them. They successfully walked with God, and we are currently striving to do the same. This episode focuses our attention on the men and women of the Bible whose faith enabled them to receive a good report.

According to the writer of the book of Hebrews, these heroes of faith, “Having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise” (Hebrews 11:39, KJV). We tend to think that if someone says he has faith in God to receive something and he does not receive it, he must not have had faith. According to the verse, however, these servants obtained a good report by faith even though they did not receive the fulfillment of the promise.

It can be hard to remain faithful to God when you are not receiving what you are believing Him for. But that’s what real faith is all about.

What is the promise they did not receive? This is a reference to Jesus Christ. These faithful servants didn’t live to see the fullness of blessings that would come through the promised Messiah. Still, these men and women remained faithful while living in anticipation of these greater promises.

The writer refers to the men and women of faith mentioned in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, as our cloud of witnesses. He says we are “compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). A witness is someone who has experienced or seen something firsthand.

The heroes of faith mentioned in the book of Hebrews are witnesses because they know firsthand what it takes to receive a good report through faith.

From the beginning of the Bible until the end, we have testimony after testimony of real people who had real challenges. They walked with God by faith, and they overcame. According to the Bible, the things that happened to them were written for our examples.