in trying in our own power and
condemning ourselves in our own competitive way of looking at
how we should be, but help us to continually see by faith who
we truly are before you, to see the righteousness of Christ imputed
to us. And Father, I pray that tonight, as we continue in this
text, that you will give us the heart and the eyes to see and
to rest. And we pray this in Christ's
name. Amen. Okay. So, it's a cold and weary,
dreary day. And it was 80 degrees two days
ago. It's lovely. Faith, we're here in Hebrews
11 and I've gone through this text dozens and dozens of times
in the last two to three weeks. I've read it and I've unpacked
it in my heart and read it and read it and read it and I literally
could go through every one of these examples. I could go to
the Old Testament and I could show us Jericho and I could show
us Rahab and Then all of these things like
Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and others. I could talk about Daniel and
the resurrection of the dead and all this stuff. And I may,
I may. But ultimately what the writer
Paul is trying to accomplish is for us to see that all these
people lived. All these people lived in history.
All these people lived under the hand of God's sovereignty.
All these people lived in a way that they were unable to execute
any true righteousness of their own. They lived in a way that
they were not able to affirm or accomplish anything God had
called them to except by God's mercy. They lived in a manner
of not clothing themselves in their own self-righteousness,
but to believe that their righteousness was imputed to them through Jesus
Christ, by God Himself. And all of the stories of the
Bible, they point to the story of Christ. All of the stories
of humanity, I believe, are part of the story of Christ. Your
life and my life are part of the story of Christ. The difference
is that as God called some of old to be part of the canon of
these stories, the measure of this revelation of God specifically
and particularly, we are not. We are not to try to emulate
the life of Daniel and emulate the life of Moses and to be champions
like David or Samson, but we are to live together in simplicity
and in unity and in affection and in long-suffering and be
champions of purity and be champions of sound doctrine. be champions of trusting and
resting in the sufficiency of Christ, that we would not continue
to look at ourselves in contrast to the heroes of the faith, but
we would look at ourselves in comparison to Jesus Christ and
see that our righteousness is only He. And so as we are here in verse
29 tonight through 31, these few verses of chapter 11 of Hebrews, We've just learned about Moses
for the second time here, the third time really in this letter.
And then in verse 29, the Lord says this, By faith the people
crossed the Red Sea as on dry land. But the Egyptians, when
they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls
of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven
days. By faith Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who
were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome
to the spies. And there was a relationship between these three things. There's
a relationship between these three things as it relates to
Moses and the end of Moses. Moses was there at the Passover. Moses was God's instrument to
proclaim the gospel. to proclaim the good news of
God's sovereign grace, powerful and free, that he would take
his people, though disobedient, and he would remove them out
of the treasures and the luxury of Egypt. He would take them
out of slavery and he would put them in a land of promise. And
then even in that temporal way, we see God destroying generation
after generation after generation of those people because they
did not belong to Him, though they bore His name. And then Moses dies. The Red Sea as the gate to redemption should
be seen in this way. As God had promised them salvation,
He fulfilled it. And He fulfilled salvation through
His mighty power that He exercised in wrath against Egypt, and His
mighty power that He exercised in grace for His own people,
that through the picture of Christ's blood, the blood of the Lamb
on the doorpost and lentils of His people, caused the death,
the justice of God, the wrath of God to pass over them. And
so Moses kept the Passover and Moses taught them of the Passover
and year after year since that day, people of Jewish descent
remember the Passover. And we see the Red Sea and we
think about it as an historic event of great power, a miracle
of miracles that God could part the sea. I saw a meme this week
that had Moses parting the sea at the bottom, but at the top
there was this little fish with a bowtie on, and he was late
for work. Have you seen it? And the boss
has said, late again? He says, you won't believe this,
and at the bottom, Moses parting the sea, and he's on the other
side waiting for the sea to come back together. You know, traffic
jam. And that's about as deep as most people look at the parting
of the Red Sea. That's about as interesting as
it is. Wow, could you imagine the sharks
on this side and the people and they're walking through what
they could have seen and all this kind of stuff. And it's almost like
we're going to walk through the Grand Canyon and be amazed at its grandeur. Which would not be a problem,
would it? I mean the poetry and the fiction and the ideas that
have come through looking at creation have put man in a place
of stupor. It has put us in a place of stupor
in all of history. Since the very day when Adam
beheld the creation and God said, subdue it and rule it and rule
over it, name it and take care of it. And comedians had even tried
to illustrate what it might have been like for Adam naming animals. wondering what this would be
called or what that would be called. The point of that is
not to teach us the origins of animals' names, but the fact
that God in His image gave rain over the earth to His creation. to prove that even in the context
of absolute rule and authority and perfection and wisdom as
we see even in Solomon with all wealth and everything that man
will do one thing well and that will be he will make a wreck
of everything. Man and humanity will make a wreck of everything
and in conquest will destroy the very feet on which he stands. I believe the old adage to cut
off one's nose to spite one's face started in the Garden of
Eden. But we could look at the Red
Sea in that way, and we would be justified in doing so. But
as the elect of God, with the Spirit of God teaching us through
His Word, we need to take just a moment and ask ourselves, what
is the absolute significance of how Paul has expressly told
it here? There's much more to say. There's
much more to the details. There's much more to the details
of that short little journey being chased by Egypt. Oh no,
we're at a dead end. Then God opens the waters and
they walk across on dry land. They have the ability to walk
on dry land. Salvation, however, is not in
their ability to walk, but it's in God's ability to prepare a
place to walk. And salvation is not in the volition
of Israel to decide they wanted to walk. They were forced to
walk through the ocean lest they perish by the sword. It was not
free will. Moses didn't say, okay, we opened
it up. Anybody want to go? No, they were like, get us over
there now. We got to go. Something's pursuing
us. And God in His sovereignty pushed
the Israelites through the sea on dry land, and the observers
behind them thought, we got them now. We're just going to follow them
right in. They walked across. We got legs, don't we? We're
going in too. Matter of fact, we got chariots
and horses. We're going to annihilate these
people. Their God has no power over me. I will show them who I am," says
Pharaoh. And God shows them who He is. And the efforts of man, what
one man could do in the same breath, another man may be prohibited
by the sovereignty of God. And God shows grace and wrath,
justice in the same picture of the Red Sea, where He swallows
up His enemies. And that is the last thing we
see of Moses. in the Hebrews in this account. It's not the
last thing we see of Moses in the scripture, but it's the last
thing we see of Moses in the letter to the Hebrews. And they
attempted to do the same, the Egyptians, and they were drowned. And I would say that we would
be remiss for not going then in our minds to the book of Numbers
and seeing in the writing of Moses the death of Moses. Now people go, well we know the
Bible's false because Moses didn't write of his own death. Okay.
Touche. But it doesn't mean it's false.
If somebody picks up all of my fodder after I'm dead and finishes
it out and puts a little addendum of how of my demise in the flesh,
it does not make what I have written not my writing. It's
just called common sense. But we see in Joshua that Moses
is dead. And we see that Joshua is now
leading the Israelites. And this is where the writer
of Hebrews picks up. When Moses dies, Joshua steps up. Now, I've got a lot of friends
in a lot of different disciplines. And I have some friends in the
context of their high interest of the Bible as literature, and
it is, they take Deuteronomy and they deal with it in a way
of, it's not necessarily history,
and then they take Joshua and they deal with it in a way that
it's not necessarily history, because after all, would he really
be named Yahweh Saves, the same name as Jesus? Isn't that coincidental? No, it's not coincidental, it's
sovereign. Joshua's name meant very little
to Joshua in the context of what he was actually portraying. It's
the name his mom and dad gave him. And it was the truth. Yahweh saves. God saves. Yeshua. Yahweh saves. That is the name of Jesus. If
Jesus' Hebrew name was translated to English, it would be Joshua. Jesus' Greek name translated
to English is Jesus. Yahweh saves. Hundreds and thousands
and tens of thousands of people bore the name Joshua long before
Joshua in the Bible lived and probably many people between
then and the day of Jesus when he also bore the name Joshua. But there is a Christological
significance there. Because Moses died by the hand
of God. The same hand that killed the
Egyptians. The same hand that drowned... I want you to listen
to this for a second, beloved. The same hand that drowned the
Pharaoh's army killed Moses. The same man. The same hand,
rather. that gave the miracle to Zechariah
and Elizabeth for John to be born and to be the forerunner
of Meshaic, the Christ. The same hand that brought him
into the world is the same hand that cut off his head. The sovereign
God of the universe. And there's a symbolism here,
there is a story here that is very confidently, purposefully
written by Paul in this letter to the Hebrews. Is that Moses
was not a law keeper. Moses was not an obedient servant
to the best of his ability. Moses was not a non-complainer. He complained a lot about the
people of God. And Moses is seen by the Jewish
people as the one through whom the law was brought. And that
is true. But the confidence of these individuals
who have not been shown the grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
the glory of God in the face of the gospel, they have longed
hell to Moses as their hope. On whom they have, as Jesus said,
put their seal. And so there is no real way in
which God should have ever permitted Moses to go into the physical
promised land. For if they worshipped Him in
death, how much more would they worship Him in life? Just like
the Judaizers and the Hebrew botherers of these Christians
who are the subjects of this letter, the recipients of this
letter, have been bothered by the lack of adherence to Moses'
instruction. So it's no mistake. God killed
Moses because instead of speaking words, he hit the rock. And when he had struck the rock
before in times past, it seemed obvious to not worry about it. But Moses did not listen to God. He took matters into his own
hands and he was angry because they were complaining and they
were grumbling and they were frustrating him again. You brought
us out here to die. And he's thinking to himself,
I've been listening to this garbage for three plus decades. And your
song has never changed. Here is your water. Pow! Pow! Drink and drown all
I care. I mean, you know, have you ever
been there? Yes. Moses didn't go tap, tap. He smacked the mess
out of that rock. And if it hadn't been for the
providence of God, he probably broke his special cane. Maybe he did. Who knows? But I'll tell you this. It's one of those things that
we need to take clear assessment of. God killed Moses for rebellion. He did not do what God had called
him to do. Moses was a faithful slave, but
he was always a slave. Only the Son is free in the house
of the Father. And only being found clothed
with the clothes of the Son can you live in the house of the
Father. You can't clothe yourself in
Moses. You can't clothe yourself in circumcision. You can't clothe
yourself in any of these things. You cannot do it. Moses died. God killed him. And God buried him in the wilderness.
And after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the
Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, Moses,
my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over
the Jordan River, and you and all this people into the land
that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place
that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you,
just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this
Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the
land of the Hittites to the great sea toward the going down of
the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand
before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses,
so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake
you. Be strong and courageous, for
you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore
to their fathers to give them. And then we're here. Back to
Hebrews 11. The promise of God for life. The promise of God for rest. The promise of God to the forefathers. The promise of God that he's
given to the point that Joseph said at the end of his life,
take my body into the promised land and bury me there. We talked about that a few weeks
ago. Now, the time has come to see
that the law did not bring your righteousness, but that God's
mercy brought your righteousness. And so by faith, the people crossed
the Red Sea, but the Egyptians, who walked accordingly, were
drowned. Then Joshua at the helm came
to the place where enemies were in the land. And as a good soldier,
as a good general, he was always an assistant to Moses, and particularly
we see him exercising the sword numerous times in the Old Testament.
Against not just the enemies of God, but the very people of
God who were rebellious in spirit. And so they came to the city
of Jericho, Jericho a fortified city. You know the story. Joshua
fought the battle of Jericho. You know the song too, right?
The one hit wonder. I don't know who wrote it. Somebody's
gonna put that on Facebook right now. Well, I don't know who wrote
it. Send a link. But the mindset of preparation
to receive the promises of God is always in our human mind,
it's always something that we must do. We get to the place,
we go, okay, God has promised us something. So let me prepare
for the promise. Let me sharpen my sword. There
are giants in their woods. There are enemies over there
with great fortified cities. Let us go make more weapons. And the same is true. Remember
Gideon? He's down here. We'll talk about Gideon in a couple
of weeks. Gideon's massive army. And what
does God do with Gideon's army? He whittles it down to just a
few. And he throws away their weapons. And they bust jars and they scream
and they light torches and they clash a shield. And their enemies perish at their
own hands. Jericho, a fortified city. God had promised that everywhere
that their foot trod would be their land and that no man would
ever stand against Joshua as long as he lived. Because as I was with Moses,
he says, I shall also be with you. By faith, Moses believed,
and God is faithful. And Joshua was caused to believe
as well. And the story, we know it. Here's
this fortified city. I want you to put away your artillery. I want you to put away your plans. I want you to dismiss all the
military training that you have. And I want you to line up, and
I want you to get your musicians. And I want you to just circle
the city for seven days, seven times. And I want you to do it over
and over again for seven days. And at the end of the seven days,
I will deliver Jericho into your hands. By faith, they fail. And then we have Rahab here.
Now look at how she's described. I mean, come on, can we give
the woman a break? Can we give her a break? Can we leave the
word prostitute out? Didn't she do well? Wasn't she
given favor by the Lord? Isn't she our sister in the gospel? Can we take away this moniker
of prostitute? Can we let her go down on the
handles of faith as something more? Beloved Moses was a sinner who
could not even talk to a rock the way God taught him to. David was a sinner who couldn't
keep his lustful eyes on his own beautiful wife and kingdom. There is no such thing as a person
who is not a sinner who has received the grace of God. Jesus came to save sinners, not
righteous people. Jesus came and He will not give grace to
righteous people. So the best thing that we could
say about Rahab is that she was a prostitute. Rather be a prostitute in the
hands of Christ than a preacher. with self-righteousness. She did not perish. Well, you
know the story, right? Where is that? You know the story. Chapter,
nope. That's there. They go into Jericho. They're looking around. What do we do? What does Rahab
do? They're looking for these spies.
She hides them in her house. She's heard the story of the
Red Sea. She's heard the story of the Passover. She's heard
the story of the power of God against Egypt. She's heard the
story of the manna. She's heard the stories of God's
provision. She's heard of the tornadoes
of fire and the tornadoes of smoke. the presence of God, she's
heard the stories, and she believes God. And we don't know the details
of that, but we know that we can understand what is taking
place. Is that she is a woman of horrible,
horrible business. But everywhere you go, this business
is common. Now I hear the law keepers, those
who are not sinners anymore, those who are not as bad of a
sinner as they used to be. Oh, you know, if she really loved
the Lord, there would have been some dealing with this prostitution. She'd been Rahab the flower salesman
or Rahab the gardener by the time this came around. No, she
was Rahab the prostitute. And by the mercy of God, she
knew that the promises of God were her only hope. And when
the spies come into her house, was it odd to have visitors coming
into the city, going to see her? No, it was common. People came
into the city, they knew who she was. They knew her kind and
her place and her location. And they knew her house was in
a place where she could see who was coming in and out of the
city. That's why they went to her. That's why the guards went
to Rahab. Because if anybody knew who was
coming in and out, she did. It was her business to know.
It was her prophet to know. She had mouths to feed, she had
a family to take care of, and she had to take care of business.
And so, man alive, when Rahab was inquiring, I mean, was there
and they came in to inquire, she hid them. Have you seen these men? Well,
yes. And they left. Quickly, go find
them. And what does she do? She bargains,
doesn't she? She asks. They say, we will spare
you for what you've done. She says, well, will you spare
my home and my family and my parents? Because I know that God is going
to bring justice upon this city. And I believe He will give mercy
to me. By faith, Rahab the prostitute
did not perish. God did not owe her anything. He did not say, well, you know,
she helped us out a little bit, I'm going to help her out a little
bit. She did a good thing, I'll give her a good thing in turn. How many good things does it
take to undo the evil of our soul? The answer is none. Because it can't be done. Just like the Egyptians could
not walk on dry land in the sea, neither can a human being walk
in righteousness before the Father. except that God opens the sea
of wrath and lays His Son down as the road to deliverance. We walk on the body and the blood
of Jesus to salvation. And Rahab, by the grace and the
mercy of God, understood that. By faith. Now, I've had people debate me
on this. No, they don't debate, they just accuse me. They never
really want to talk, they just want to accuse. They want to
sneeze it out. Well, you're really pushing it
to say Rahab was a believer. If she wasn't a believer, she
wouldn't be listed in Hebrews 11. Ta-da! Common sense. She was
a believer! What saved her? God saved her. How? By His mercy. Through what
means? By His will to give His Son for
her sins. She did not perish. Because she had given a friendly
welcome to the spies. But why does she do it? Because she believed
by faith. There was a lot there. And I'll be honest with you,
in my hammock-laying-gazing-sky-looking mind, I would really love to
just think about that and talk with God about it. I would love
to know the ins and outs of Rahab's conflict. I would love to see
a journal that she wrote that week and just, I am so labored
over my sin, over my job, over my wickedness, but that I know
in my heart that God is a God of mercy. The God of Israel is
a God of mercy, and he has caused me to see him as my redemption,
his work of salvation as mine, and that there's nothing that
I can do but hide his people. And everybody that I know is
going to die. By the mercy of God, he shall
save some. You see, I wanna see that. I
want the letter of Rahab somewhere in here. It would be great. The testimony's not different,
beloved. I can read David's testimony and I can get Rahab's testimony.
I can read Moses' testimony and I can get Rahab's testimony.
I can read the testimony of Mary and I can get Rahab's testimony. Mary wasn't a fallen woman. Yes,
she was. She might not have been a harlot. She was a sinner. And so all of these things, they
are to help us in our war against self-righteousness. there to
help us in our battle in our mind, of which Paul would say
in the latter part of Romans that we ought to be transformed
by its constant renewal on the gospel of free and sovereign
grace. That we ought to think according to like Paul's teaching,
not according to like, according to Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians
4, we ought to think about that which is eternal, not that which
is temporal. Which includes, temporal things
include our circumstances, it includes our False. It includes our guilty conscience. It includes our desire of piety
in any means by making provision for the flesh. Don't go back
to Judaism. Moses is dead. Don't go back
to the law as your hope. Moses is dead, Yahweh saves,
is at the helm, and He is not going to conquer the enemies
of God with a sword and with an army. He is going to conquer
the enemies of God in justice. And He is going to conquer the
sin of His people through the laying down of His own life.
so that we have this treasure, back to 2 Corinthians 4 again
all of a sudden, in jars of clay so that it may be clearly seen
that the all-surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. It is about God's power and His
promises to save His people and no one will be lost. No one. would be lost. The forerunners always die. They always give way to the one
that's coming. Moses gave way to Joshua. John
the Baptist gave way to Jesus. And that's the picture. Jesus sits on the throne of David
this very moment. David He failed as a king because governments
of men were never supposed to succeed. They never will. But the gospel, the word of God
as taught to us here, will always prevail. I'll read continuing
verse 32. And what more shall I say? For
time would fail me to tell of Gideon. I don't have time to
talk about Gideon, who God rescued. Oh, God destroyed enemies through
incredible foolishness. Barak and Samson, who became the hero and the wrath
bringer through his own sin and destruction. And Jephthah and David, And here
we go, Samuel. And of all the prophets, who
through faith conquered kingdoms? Who through faith enforced justice? Who through faith obtained promises? Who through faith stopped the
mouths of lions? You see, they're not all listed
here, even though we have listings of what some of them have done.
Who through faith quenched the power of fire? Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. Who through faith escaped the
edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became
mighty in war, put armies to flight. Women received back their
dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing
to accept release so that they might rise again to a better
life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn
in two. They were killed with a sword.
They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted,
mistreated. Listen to this. Of whom the world
was not worthy. Wandering about in deserts, wandering
about in mountains, and in dens, and in the caves of the earth.
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not
receive what was promised, since God had provided something better
for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."
The promises that God gave, all of these listed here, is the
same promise that He's given to each of us. the promise of
resting in eternal life through Jesus Christ and His death and
His life. And because we have this incredible,
how does Paul say it, cloud of witnesses, let us also do something
about it, do something with it, do something in it. Let us live
in such a way that we get the endurance that is the subject
of this text to begin with. You are in need of endurance
so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive
what is promised. Then he says, let us throw away
and set aside every weight and any sin which clings so closely,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter, the finisher
of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right
hand of the throne of God." Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the
beauty of your word. And we see our battle within. We see the battle in the culture. We see the battle with our own
brothers and sisters at times. But Father, the war is won. We
are victorious in Christ. So help us not to be bogged down
with everything that so easily distracts us from resting in
the grace that you've given us. And we thank you, Lord. We thank
you that you are gracious, that you are kind, that you are loving,
and you have shown your love for us in the giving of your
Son that through him you are pleased with us. Because His perfection is ours. His glorious and beautiful righteousness
is counted for us. So help us, Lord, to be at peace. Help us to be patient. Help us
to be gentle. Help us to teach with boldness
but in humility. Lord, give us the mind of Christ
over and over again, filling us with all of your fullness
as Paul has prayed, so that we might see and be settled in our
spirit as your righteousness. It is because of Christ that
this is true. And it is because of Christ that we can pray to
your ears this day. In His name we pray. Amen.