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"And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, 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 in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." [Hebrews 11:36-40]

The discussion below is not exhaustive. But the four examples provided do represent a few of the Old Testament saints that would have been included in the above passage. None of those examples even mention some of the New Testament saints that would have qualified. But they are also numerous. The deacon Stephen had been stoned. The Apostle James had been killed by King Herod. The Apostle Paul had been decapitated. By tradition the Apostle Peter had been crucified upside down. By tradition, all of the other apostles except John had been martyred for their faith in Christ. Some of those men had been sawn asunder, slain with the sword, or otherwise tormented. The point is that many, many, many saints have forfeited their lives simply because of their faith in Christ. Even though they may not have been explicitly named in the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven they are ALL heroes of the Faith.

The first example is with the Prophet Elijah and the widow Zarephath. I Kings 17:18-24 says, "And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son ? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son ? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived . And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth." In that passage Elijah had hidden himself in the home of the widow Zarephath from King Ahab for the three and a half years that it had not rained in Israel. She had fed him during that time even when she had not had enough food to feed her son and herself. But despite her faithfulness, her son had still died. So Elijah had prayed to the Lord and her son had been restored to life.

The second example is with a saint named Obadiah. I Kings 18:3-5 says, "And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly: For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water .) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts." During the same period of three and half years of no rain just mentioned, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel had taken revenge against Elijah whom they could not find by killing the other prophets in the land. So Obadiah who had been the governor of Ahab's house had very courageously hidden and fed at least one hundred of those prophets of Israel that had probably been in danger. What he had done could have cost him his life. But he had chosen to number himself with the saints of God rather than protecting his own skin.

The third example is the Prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 38:6 says, "Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire ." Jeremiah had told the people of the two southern tribes of Israel that they would soon be conquered by the Babylonians and that many of them would be carried as captives back to Babylon. His message from the Lord had been very unpopular. So they had lowered him into a dungeon so that he would die. The dungeon in which he had been lowered, though, had actually been a well. It did not rain throughout the year in Israel. So the people had often dug a huge hole to retain the water when it did rain. When Jeremiah had been thrown into the cistern in the above passage, it had not been full of water. But it had been full of mire to suggest that it had probably been soon after it had rained. Therefore, the desired outcome for the prophet of God had been that he would either starve to death or that he would drown if it continued to rain. Even though he had eventually been rescued from that dungeon, the extreme to which the people had been willing to go just to get rid of him shows his unpopularity among the very people to whom the Lord had sent him .

The fourth and final example to be mentioned is ALL of the prophets that had been killed because of their faith and walk for the Lord. Matthew 23:34-35 says, "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues , and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar ." During His earthly ministry, Jesus had preached to the Pharisees about the earlier killing of the prophets, wise men, and scribes. That had been their past and it would be their future. So they had not been heroes of the Faith. But their victims had been.