This morning, we're going to
be in the book of Hebrews. Lord willing, we're going to
finish Hebrews 11 this morning, Hebrews chapter 11. As we come to an end of 11, we
see that all these individuals in this chapter, they were given
promises and faith to believe those promises. If the Lord promises
something and we can't believe it because we have no faith,
it doesn't do us any good, does it? All these that's in this,
all these that's in this chapter 11, they receive promises of
the Lord and they believe them because the Lord gave them faith
to believe them also. And as we've heard many times,
faith is not something they produce nor we produce. Faith is not
something merited nor earned. It's something that's freely
given by the grace of God alone. If he chooses not to give it
by his sovereign right and choice, we'll never receive it. See,
he's the author and finisher of faith. He's the alpha and
omega of salvation. He is sovereign in all things.
And if I say especially in salvation, it would almost be foolish of
me to say he's especially sovereign in everything, in everything. And certainly it's true in salvation
as well. He alone opens the blind eye.
He alone causes the lame to walk. He alone heals the sick, raises
the dead. He alone brought the Hebrew men
through the fire by faith. He alone brought the children
of Israel over the Red Sea. He gave them faith to walk. You
know, something interesting about that that we don't really think
about is the Red Sea was a long way across. They couldn't see
the beginning and the end, both. They could only see the beginning,
where they were. And as they're looking out, what do you think
they saw? They just saw more ocean that was parted. And every
step that they took, that ocean would go back a little bit farther
and a little bit farther. That's the way it has to be that
way. You know why? Because that's the believer's
life. No, if it unfolded at the very beginning, they just Wouldn't
have had to walk by faith anymore to have been sight, wouldn't
it? But the believer walks by faith that's bestowed by the
Lord. We walk one step at a time towards
our Lord and Savior. He gets all the glory for his
faith bestowed. His faith is ever looking at
the invisible based upon the promise of God, not sight, looking
to Christ and gives all glory to Christ. Understand that in
the old covenant, everything was by sight. Everything was
by sight. Everything was by touching everything
was by doing but the new covenant, the new covenant of grace, it's
all by faith. It's not what we see. It's not
what we can touch. It's not what we can It's that faith believes without
sight. It's the invisible. We believe
the invisible. How is it possible to believe something invisible?
Well, it's impossible to the flesh. The flesh looks for evidence.
Flesh says, I've got to have evidence or I will not believe.
What did Thomas say? Thomas says, unless I put my
hand in his side and thrust my hands into his hands and see
the nail prints in his hands, I said, I'm not gonna believe
that he's resurrected. And the Lord appeared and he said, here's
my hand and here's my side. But then what did Thomas say?
Lord, I believe that my Lord and my God, he said, oh, you
believe because you have seen, but blessed are they that have
not seen and yet believe. That word blessed doesn't mean
if you believe because you have not seen. That you're blessed,
it means if you can believe without seeing, you're blessed of the
Lord. He's given that ability. He's
given the faith to do that because you and I can't produce that. The Old Covenant acted by doing and touching, but could
never take away sin. Only the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ can do that. Therefore, we have the promise
revealed and the promise received of our Lord. And that's what
we're speaking on this morning a little bit is in the Old Testament,
these individuals all had the promise given, but they never
saw the promise fulfilled. Abraham never saw the Lord Jesus
Christ come and be born as a babe and then live 33 and a third
year and die. He never got to see that. But
it happened, and he believed it was going to happen. It was
all of his hope and all of his righteousness. David never got
to see that, did he? But it happened because the Lord
said it was going to, and they believed God. By the promise
given, there will be a child born. There will be the God-man
incarnate born to take away the sin of my people. And they believed
by faith. They believed by faith. And so
you and I have so much more than what they had in the Old Testament.
We have the fullness. We're able to handle the Word
of God right here that gives us all the information, every
single detail of the wonderful gospel of God and the fullness
of salvation. We don't have to guess the beginning
from the end. He tells us already. He's already gave us the end
what's going to happen, hasn't he? He's already gave us the
end. We have the promises fulfilled
and beautifully displayed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these
promises can only be believed by faith, either in the Old Testament
or in the New Testament. These promises. promises of the
Lord can only be believed by faith given. And these, all these,
they call them matriarchs and patriarchs and all these things,
they would not like you calling them that. I guarantee if they
talk to you, if you talk to them, they just, they said don't talk
about me, talk about him. And you know it's true. If you're
a believer, that's exactly what we say too, is that don't praise
me, praise him. But these individuals that the
Lord gave faith to, They had the same confession. They believed
God. They believed God by faith. Why? Because they in the Old
Testament and they in the New Testament that are the chosen
of God believe God. They're chosen, not just alike.
Are you saying that the church took the place of the Jew? I'm
saying that the Jews chosen of God unto salvation and the church
chosen to God unto salvation are one in the same, one in the
same. They're just called something
different in the New Testament than the old. Let's read our
text here before I get too far ahead of myself. 32 through 40, Hebrews chapter
11. And what shall I say, what more and what shall I more say? For
the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and
Samson, and of Jephthah, and of David also, and Samuel, and
of the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword
out of weakness, were made strong. Boy, there's the key to it right
there. Out of weakness, we're made strong. Waxed valiant in
fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens. Women received their
dead raised to life again, and others went, they were tortured,
not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover of the bonds and imprisonment What would cause somebody to
be on their deathbed, literally, being put to death, and they
said, all you have to do is deny Jesus Christ, and yet they won't
do it. He just told us that in the end
of verse 35. Not accepting deliverance that
they might obtain a better resurrection. They were looking for that second
resurrection. That's why, by faith. Others,
and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings and moreover
bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawed
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wondered
about in sheepskins and in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in the desert,
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. 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. Common denominator. remains the same for all of these
individuals that we see in the Lord's believers now. It is that
we obtained a good report of the Lord. We obtained, how did
one obtain a good report of the Lord? To be found in Christ. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but having his righteousness. The righteousness
that's by his blood, that's by the grace of God, that's through
his faith, where we look to him alone and not ourself. According
to the Lord's choice, creating the need for Christ, he makes
us believe the promises of God. These individuals, they never
saw the promises come to pass. But you and I, we've seen, we've
heard that the promises have come to pass in past tense. We've
heard, we have the fullness of the scriptures now, the fullness. These died in faith. Can you
imagine living your life, and we do it to some degree in a
different manner because The Lord's people are looking for
his coming, his second coming, aren't we? We're looking for
his, we're looking for that second resurrection. We're desiring
him to descend and ascend and be made like him. We're listening
for the trumpet, so to speak. That's what we look for, but
we know that these of old on their deathbed would have continued
to be hoping that the Messiah was coming. that the Messiah
was coming. This is why women in the Old
Testament, the Jews, were so desperate to have children. They
were hoping that the Lord would give them the Messiah, that the
child that they had would be the Messiah. Matter of fact,
Eve, after the first promise was given, was given to Eve that
a Messiah would come to take away the sin, she actually said,
I have a man-child. She thought that this Cain that
she had was Jesus Christ. She thought, I got him, here
he is, first one, all right. we're good everything's taken
care of now everything me and adam did has been fixed no no
that wasn't by faith was it no it actually came to a virgin
girl young lady that was no uh Just like our Lord would have
been nothing for anybody to look at or to say, oh, that's something
special, but she was special because God gave her faith to
believe his word. Think about the faith that Joseph
and Mary had to have to believe God's words whenever, first of
all, Mary was told, you're gonna have a child, and then she conceived,
and then she told Joseph, and she said, I'm a child. Well,
Joseph wouldn't have known exactly what was going on just quite
yet. And then the Lord appears to Joseph and says, fear not
to take Mary unto thee, thy wife, for the son that she has is of
the Holy Spirit. It's of the Holy Spirit. And
you shall call his name Jesus, and he shall save his people
from their sin. And the Lord gave him faith to
believe. Faith to believe. The promise
never came to those who didn't believe. The promise came to
those who believe. And it wasn't that each individual
wanted to have the baby for recognition. They were just desirous of this
Messiah looking unto the Lord. They were wanting that to come
to pass and it never did. Never did. Nevertheless, all
of God's people have obtained God's faith because it was given
freely by his grace in the Old Testament and the New, from Genesis
all the way to Revelation. That's what we've seen here in
Hebrews chapter 11. But notice what it says in verse
40. And this is what I've titled
the message. God having provided some better
thing for us. I've titled the message Some
Better Thing. What is the better thing that
we had? We go back to the verse right before that. We've both
obtained a good report, and these all, having obtained a good report
through faith, received not the promise. But we have some better
thing. What do we have? The promise
of eternal life fulfilled, accomplished, See, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
the salvation of His people on the cross of Calvary. It wasn't
that He came to try to finish the job and didn't get it done.
It was that He actually accomplished the salvation for His people. And when He said it's finished,
that means everything's been fulfilled. There's nothing left
undone. In the Old Testament, they would
constantly be working. They were constantly doing. They
were constantly under the law, the bonds of the law. And yet
by faith they still believed God. Yet that law could never
ever bring about salvation, could it? Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness sake to everyone that believeth. this promise of eternal life,
even though it's still received by faith, we have the fullness
of the finished work of Christ. You can look in the scripture
and see the fullness of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can see the whole life that he lived, the perfect life. You
can see his birth, his life. You can see the miracles that
he performed. You can see his death, how he drank of the cup
in the garden of Gethsemane, how he interceded for his people,
how he, um, took the cup, drank damnation dry, and went to the
cross by himself alone, and how he suffered under the wrath of
God, that you and I might be redeemed, that you and I might
be made the righteousness of God in him, that you and I might
die to the law because we were in him. That's something better
than they had, wasn't it? They were looking to that. They
were believing that by faith. It hadn't happened yet. It just
hadn't happened yet, but they received, we received it. because
now it's been fulfilled. This is why it's some better
thing. We have a new covenant of grace, not the old covenant
by the law, which is of works. Now both the Covenant of Works and the Covenant
of Grace they were instituted by the Lord for two different
purposes. The law was given not to bring
about salvation, not to show you how to live your life so
that you could get closer to God, it was to show you, you
can't get to God on your own. You need a substitute, you're
a sinner. If you could have kept the law
then there would have been no reason, the scripture even says, There'd
been no reason for Christ to come. The scripture even says
that salvation would've came by the law. Christ would've never
had to came. He never would've come. But there's
no salvation in the law, in living it and in doing it. It's just
bondage. Only salvation is given in one name. And what is that
name? The Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the name whereby we must be saved or we're not gonna be saved.
Or we're not gonna be saved. What was the purpose of the law?
The purpose of the law was to show us you cannot approach this
mountain. It's holy. God is holy. God is sovereign. God is just. God is true. And to show you
that you're unjust in all of our ways. We're unjust. We're
unholy in all of our ways. None's good, no not one. We see that all throughout scripture.
Oh, we would harden our heart towards the things of God if
he not take out that stony heart and give us a heart of flesh.
We would harden our heart towards him and raise our fist to him,
say, away with this man. But the Lord don't allow that
for his children, does he? Don't allow that for his children.
He puts a need that only he can feel, and he fills that need
with the one, the Lord Jesus Christ. We rest, not looking
to the law for righteousness, but looking to Christ as our
righteousness alone. The covenant of works was for
time only. Time only. The covenant of works
has ceased. It has ceased. And they that
go back to the law now are working dead works. They're working dead
works. Going back to the law is just
working dead works, that's all it is. And it doesn't matter
whether you're doing a moral law, a civil law, a ceremonial
law, it doesn't matter whether you're doing God's law or man's
law. If you're doing it for righteousness, it's dead works. Anything these
hands touch, anything these mouths say, anything where these feet
go, it's not gonna merit salvation in the eyes of God. If there's
one thing he requires, of the sinner to produce, the precious
sinless lamb of God would not have to come and die. But he
did, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Why? For sin, to condemn
sin in the flesh, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Without him coming, no sin would
have been put away. But because he put away our sin,
now he imputes that righteousness to his people, and he gives faith
to believe him. Now we've been made the righteousness
of God in him. Now we see him as he is, as God,
as Lord, as the Savior, and us as the sinner, having no righteousness
at all. The new covenant of grace, it
wasn't temporary, it was eternal. Christ is the end of the law,
that's when it ended. On the cross of Calvary, that was the
end of the law. He literally is the end of the law. And when
he died, when he died, and we died in him, we died to the law. See, being guilty of the law's
demands of justice, one has to die. The wages of sin is death. So being guilty of one law makes
us guilty of the entirety, and death is the consequence for
that. So unless we were in Christ when he died, and we died in
him, and died to the law at that time, then we are without hope
of salvation. Without hope of salvation. Well,
how am I gonna get in Christ? He's gotta put you there. He
had to put you there before the foundation of the world. He had
to choose you into eternal life. He has all the power to do so.
Why would he do that? Grace. Grace. Why did he save a harlot? Rhea
was a harlot. Why did he save David, a murderer,
a thief, an adulterer? Why did he save him? Why did
he save Abraham, who was a liar? He lied about his wife. He said,
I didn't have a wife. That's my sister. He was trying to cover
his own hide to the king. He didn't want to die. His wife
was beautiful. Why did he save these people? Why did he save
Jacob, the trickster? As a matter of fact, he said,
Jacob have I loved. Why did he do that? Why did he
hate Esau and love Jacob? Jacob, wasn't he just as bad
as Esau? He was worse. In several ways he was worse,
but there was nothing in either of them that merited God's love,
and there's nothing in us that could merit God's love. It's
the free gift of grace, freely bestowed upon all of God's chosen
people. I love the thought of him just
passing by all these sick and afflicted. There was a man, he
sat by the pool of Bethesda and there were all these sick and
afflicted. What would happen is, is the angel of the Lord would
come down one time per year and stir the water. And when he stirred
the water, when the water was stirred, the first person to
jump into the pool, they would be healed. This man had been
sitting there, I believe it was 40 years, I think. Was it 40
years? Yeah, I think so, yeah. And the Lord asked him, well,
think about this, though. He walks past all these people,
everybody that he walks past. It'd be like him entering to
the room. Me and you don't know who he is, because we're in the flesh,
can't see who he is. Nobody could see who he was,
not unless they were told or he was announced. They had no
idea who he was. And he's walking past all of them. Every one of
them. And there would have been so
many different impotent, blind, and miserable people that didn't
have anything, any kind of medicine like we have now at all. And
yet he walks up to this one person, one person. Now what was in this
impotent man that the Lord looked down through the eons of time
and said, I'm going to save this one because of Fill in the blank. What was it that he did? Why
was he good enough? He wasn't. The Lord chose to
make him a vessel of honor. Why? For his glory. For his honor. For his honor. For his purpose.
For his purpose. He walks right up to him and
he says, Sir, will thou be made whole? The man says, sir, I have
no man. Boy, what a confession that is.
If the Lord ever gives us that confession, wilt thou be made
whole? If you hear those words from the Lord, Lord says to you,
wilt thou be made whole? Will you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ? If your response is, I have no man, not this man
can help me, and nobody else can help me, I see that clearly.
That's a gift of grace, isn't it? If I can't help myself, and
I know it, and I know you can't help me to the Lord, that's a
good place to be, because that means I'm lost. That means the
Lord had to show me that. He said, sir, I have no man. When the water's troubled, oh,
so many, they just jump right ahead of me. I can't get in.
You ever been to a, we just had shopping, you want
to call it shopping season. I think every season, shopping
season now, just about it, isn't it? But you understand what I'm
saying. We had holidays, so there's a bunch of people going shopping.
There's a couple times there was only one of one thing I was
going for. Somebody jump in front of me and grab it, what are you
gonna do? If I was impotent, I couldn't. I mean, there's nothing
you can do. Nothing. And we're just talking
about an item on a shelf. This man needed life given back
to him. He had no strength in his body.
He didn't have it. Wilt thou be made whole? Wilt
thou be made whole? Sir, I have no man. For when
the water's troubled, They step before me and they get in. And
I've been sitting here 40 years. I've been sitting here 40 years.
And the Lord heals that man. Arise. Did he ask him to get
up? Did he say, if you would have
me do it, I need you to gather some strength in your legs and
stand up? How foolish is that? He couldn't.
He sat there for 40 years because he had strength in his legs?
No. Rise, take up thy bed and walk. And I love how many times
the scripture says this, and immediately he got up and he
walked. Immediately his legs received
strength. Why? Because it was the command of the Lord. Only
the Lord can give that command to cause you and I to have strength
spiritually. And what is that strength spiritually?
It's life, and it's faith, and they go hand in hand. It's repentance
and grace, isn't it? They all go hand in hand. It's
the gift of God by grace alone. This man received favor of God
because of grace alone, nothing else, nothing else, but because
of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our
only hope. That's our only hope. That's why the covenant of grace
is something, it's, A better thing. It's the better thing
that they didn't have in the Old Testament. They were looking
to it. And what did the Lord tell Abraham? I'm going to make
an everlasting covenant with you. That's the covenant of grace.
Yet they still made sacrifice, and they still wanted to worship,
and they still went through, you've got to go all the way
through Exodus, they're still offering all these sacrifices. But the
covenant of grace was, in the Old Testament, it was a proclamation
of the Messiah coming, the covenant of grace. He's going to put away
your sin. And all those ceremonies and all those actions, they pointed
to Christ. And there was some that did those
ceremonies looking unto the Lord, just like I don't think we, I
don't know, I guess you'd call this a ceremony, I guess, I don't
know. But we come here to worship out of command from the Lord,
looking to Him, not each other, not self. That's why they did
it, looking unto the Lord. Covenant of works was instituted
to show we cannot no way please God. That impotent man didn't
have any hope if it was a work, did he? If it was a work, would
he have been able to get in? Would he have been able to save
himself? No. How do you know? He said, I have
no man. He confessed. I have no man. The woman at the
well is the same way. When the Lord came to her, did
she have any hope of knowing who God was? No. Jesus Christ,
the God man, the Messiah, the Savior standing there. And she
looks at him and says, well, when Messiah comes, he'll tell
us all things. And if the Lord would have left
her to herself right there, she would have died believing, okay,
when Messiah comes, he's gonna tell us all things. But the Lord
said, I am, I am. And she left her water pot. She
left all the law behind, didn't she? Everything she learned in
religion, she left that all behind. She had saw the one, the Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ said, come
see a man that told me all things ever did. Is this not the Christ,
the Savior? See, that's the difference between
the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. Unless the
Lord comes to where you and I are and he saves us by his grace,
we'll continue to work. We'll continue to do, we'll continue
to burden ourself with thinking that we're getting better when
all we're doing is adding to the mountain of sin that we are. But thanks be to God, we received
something better, some better thing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We no longer look to this flesh and what it does, trying to please
God. We look to Christ alone and we are, oh, we're found in
him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but the
righteousness which is through, by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. What the covenant of work showed
us is that one had to come to where we are, where we are. The man at the pool that says
he didn't have any hope of coming to Christ, even if he'd have
known Christ was passing by, how would he have got there? It's
been the same situation, wouldn't it? Blind Bartimaeus couldn't
get to it. Blind Bartimaeus said, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. If the Lord hadn't stopped,
the Lord wasn't obligated. unless he chose to be, nobody
can obligate God. Bon Bartimaeus kept crying out,
Lord Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. He came, they
said, be quiet, be quiet, shush. He cried the louder. The Lord
said, bring him to me. That's a picture of the Holy
Spirit bringing the Lord's people to the understanding of Christ,
isn't it? And what did he do? He left his
robe there, scripture says. He laid his robe down. What is
that a picture of? He didn't have any self-righteousness
to bring to Christ. If you wanna come to Christ,
you can have no self-righteousness. You can have nothing that you've
worked in the law, by the law, that gives you any hope of eternal
life. If you do, you haven't came to Christ yet. All those
that come to Christ, they are completely naked. Completely
naked. We must have his robe of righteousness,
his covering, not our own, not our own, or we have no hope. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. The covenant of grace was given
to show how God saved his people from their sin, not to make an
offer, but actually how God pleased God at Calvary, how he saved
his people from their sin, by the sacrifice of himself. And
only he could do that. Only he could do that. And in
doing so, he ended that first covenant. He ended that first
covenant for righteousness. Now to approach God, to approach
God by going back to the law is to discredit The Lord Jesus
Christ, that's what it means. How bad is it if we go back to
the law? It means you're discrediting Christ, that you have something
to offer the Lord, that you have something that you can give to
the Lord. That he wasn't enough, there's
something you must add to it. Or you take away from something
he did to add to it. That's what going back to the
law is. What is this law I'm talking about? Is it the Ten
Commandments? It could be. It's anything that you do. Period. That causes you to think that
you're gaining merit with God in your salvation. Whether it's
evidence of your salvation or whether it's part of your salvation.
Either one. It could be the most simple thing. Our flesh loves to have praise. Our flesh desires to have praise
and not give God all the glory and salvation. And if you go
back to that old covenant, you are discrediting Christ, discrediting
his finished work. What is your obligation? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and how do you do that? By his faith
bestowed freely, by his grace. It's not a work, because if it
was a work, we would boast. That's what the scripture says.
For by grace are you saved through faith, in that not of yourself,
it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. This is why we have the better
thing. Some better thing. I think I'm going to have to
break this up because if I keep going, we're going to go past
time. So let's take a break.