Well, back again to Hebrews and
Hebrews chapter 11, continuing the theme of faith. We looked
last week at three examples of faith with Abel and Enoch and
Noah. And this week I want to go on
a bit further. Remember that this letter is
written, this book is written, I believe by Paul, so do many
other people, to some Hebrew Jewish believers, believers who
had been converted from Judaism to Christianity, and they had
begun to desire to return to their Old Testament Jewish worship. Because it was tangible, you
could get hold of it. You could go into a building,
it was before AD 70, the temple was still standing. You could
see the priests in their robes, you could see the animals being
sacrificed. It was a physical religion, it
was visible. But what they'd forgotten was
that it was all pictures, which was just a pattern, and the picture
is fulfilled in Christ. The reality of which that was
just the picture and the foretaste had come. Christ has come. The
pictures are fulfilled in him. The truth of God is not physical,
it's spiritual, as Jesus said to the woman by the Samaritan
well. She said, God is a spirit. She was saying, you Jews say
you must worship in Jerusalem, and we say that you worship here,
which is where Jeroboam told them that they could worship.
That was the sin of Jeroboam. And Jesus said to her, it's not
about place. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. It is
by faith that God's justified ones live. That's verse 38 of
chapter 10. The just shall live by faith.
The justified ones shall live by faith. It is by faith, which
is God's sovereign gift of spiritual sight, that God's justified ones
live. Not by physical things. by faith,
that sight of the soul that God gives to his people. Not in images
and icons, not in locations and places and pilgrimages to this
place and that, not in robes and ceremonies, no, it's in spirit
and in truth. These Hebrew Christians, these
Jewish Christians, revered the Genesis patriarchs. They revered
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, who lived not by
Jewish worship, but by faith. Think about that. Think about
that. These Hebrew believers thought
everything was done according to their Old Testament temple,
priesthood, Levitical worship. But the people that they revered,
the patriarchs that they revered, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph,
didn't live by Jewish worship. How did they live? They lived
by faith. They had no scriptures. Have
you thought of that? Abraham didn't have a Bible.
Jacob didn't have a Bible. Isaac, Joseph, they didn't have
Bibles, no. They didn't have a big church
with lots of fellowship to encourage them, no. They didn't have the
law of Moses, or the tabernacle in the wilderness wanderings,
or the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. They didn't have
any of that. They just had family and household as God had given
them. Yet, yet, the true faith, the
faith of God's elect, the faith he gives to those, that multitude
he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, He gave
it to them, and that faith produced fruit. It worked. It produced
an effect. James 2.22 that we read before,
faith wrought with his works. It worked together with the works
of Abraham. And by works was faith made perfect. So let's look in the time that
we have, and I don't think I'll be long this morning, but we'll
look at examples of Abraham and Sarah, Abram and Sarai, as they
were to start with, then Isaac, their son, Jacob and Joseph,
in those verses that were read to us earlier from verse 8 to
verse 22. Look at Abraham and Sarah, Abraham
and Sarah. Abraham was called to go out
and verse 11, through faith Sarah also herself received strength
to conceive seed. This was a couple who were yoked
together in marriage and they were equally yoked in the faith
of God's elect. You know the scripture says,
be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. They were yoked together in the
faith of God's elect, and they had heard God's call. Abraham
had heard God's call, at least, and Sarah obeyed and went with
him as her husband. He'd heard God's call in that
idolatrous, godless culture religious culture, but without knowledge
of the true God in Ur of the Chaldees. They were pagans. They were idolaters. Joshua tells
us that. Joshua 24, verse 2 tells us that
Abraham and his family worshipped other gods. They worshipped false
gods. They worshipped idols. And yet,
from that godless, ignorant society, God himself, by sovereign grace,
shined divine light into the heart of Abram, and showed him
the things of eternity, and showed him the reality of God, and showed
him when, at that time, remember, it was not that long, I don't
know how long, a thousand years, I don't know, since the flood
of Noah's day, and it would be in culture that there had been
a great flood that had swept the world away. and that this
was the judgment of God. And God revealed to him the concept,
the idea of salvation from wrath, salvation from judgment, salvation. He revealed to him life, true
life, the life of God's kingdom for an elect multitude in a substitute
redeemer. And that would have been, to
those people that Abraham was living with, was living, was
surrounded with, like it says in 1 Corinthians, the reaction
to the true gospel. There are the people of this
world with little or no religion, and then there are the Jews with
their strict religion. And it says, to the one, the
truth of God is foolishness. Don't be daft, silly, nonsense. You don't expect me to believe
that, foolishness. And to the other, a stumbling
block. I thought I got right with God
by the things I do. No, that's not what the scripture
says. That's not what God has revealed. That's a stumbling
block. To those around Abraham and Sarah, What he was thinking
was foolishness and a stumbling block, but he saw clearly that
which they didn't see. It wasn't without fleshly doubts.
Oh, he was convinced, but not without fleshly doubts, for we're
all weak in the flesh. For example, when he went out
of Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham took with him his father, Tirah,
and his brother, Haran, to a city that they called Haran because
he died there, and his nephew, Lot, who was the son of Haran,
and he went out looking for a city, but he took some comfort with
him. He hedged his bets a little bit,
took Tyre and Lot and Haran. He looked for a city, it says
there, we often quote it in verse 10 of chapter 11. He looked for
a city. You see, he lived in a city,
a city of this world, built with human hands, built with the ingenuity
of mankind. But God had revealed something
to him. And he looked for a city which has foundations, whose
builder and maker is God. Not a physical city of this world. He looked for a city that God
would build. And in verse 15, he could have
looked back to Ur of the Chaldees. Truly, if they had been mindful
of that country, Ur of the Chaldees, from whence they came out, They
might have had opportunity to have returned. Let's give up
with this. We can't see anything clearly. Let's just go back. It doesn't look like a wonderful
deal, this. We seem to be very, very much
alone. There's nobody else with us. I mean, surely there are
strength in numbers. Why don't we go back? But he didn't, because
he believed God's promise. What was God's promise? You have
to read the account in Genesis 12 through to about 23, 24 to
get the full picture. But Abraham believed God's promise
of redemption through the seed of his and Sarah's dead, infertile
flesh. That's when he says he's as good
as dead. He was dead, they were both dead as far as the fertility
to produce children was concerned. But he believed God's promise.
that through them, through their dead infertile flesh, would come
the promised seed of the woman. Genesis 3.15, at the fall, God
promised the seed of the woman would come. And what was that
seed of the woman? It was God himself. God incarnate
would come. to redeem his people from the
curse of sin, to redeem his people from the fall, to redeem the
multitude he loved with an everlasting love from their sin and from
their just condemnation before a holy God. To do that, it would
come from Abraham and Sarah's dead, infertile flesh. And were they solid in that faith? No, they wavered and they doubted.
because Sarah said, this can't possibly happen. You know, I'm
80 years old or whatever she was at the time. This can't possibly
happen. So she gave her maid, Hagar,
the Egyptian, to Abraham that they might have a child by surrogacy. And Ishmael was born. Ishmael
was the son, the first son of Abraham. And they did that doubting
what God had promised. They doubted what God had promised
there, but that wasn't the right way. The right way was what God
had revealed he would do. And in verse 13, These all died
in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
them afar off. How did they see them? With that
sight of the soul, with that faith that God gave. They saw
that which the natural man cannot see. The natural man doesn't
receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to
him, neither can he know them. Why? They're spiritually discerned,
but God gave. spiritual discernment to these
people. They all died in faith, not having
received the promises, not having seen the promised seed actually
come, but Isaac came, yes, and others from them, but they saw
afar off and were persuaded of them, convinced of them. When
God speaks, the children of God who are given faith are convinced,
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able,
I am convinced that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him, that's my eternal soul, against that day. And they embraced
them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth. So despite frail, unbelieving
flesh, they saw God's promised kingdom, and this is the point,
having seen it, having seen it, they invested all that they had
in it. They leaned on it, they leaned
the weight of their souls upon it. From here, Now, for us who
believe today, we look back to redemption finished at the cross,
whereas they look forward to it. But yet still, we look forward. We look forward to the triumph
of God's kingdom, when Christ will come again, when this world
will be brought to just judgment. Is that where your hopes, where
your confidence, where your anticipation rests? Do you have, as Jesus
said in the Sermon on the Mount, lay up for yourselves treasure
in heaven, spiritual treasure in heaven, not where moth and
rust corrupts on this earth. Do you have spiritual treasure
laid up there? Well now, there they are. They
have Isaac. God has done that impossible
thing which he said he would do. God has done that which was
as difficult as a camel going through the eye of a needle.
All things are possible with God. With man it's impossible,
but with God it was possible. And in verse 17, they've got
Isaac, but by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up
Isaac. He was prepared to kill that
long hoped for, that physically impossible to achieve gift of
God, the birth of Isaac. And he that had received the
promises that through him, in Isaac shall your seed be called,
through him would come the promised Messiah, he offered up his only
begotten son. He wasn't his only son, because
he had Ishmael, but he was the only child of promise. Verse
18. Isaac, of whom it was said that
in Isaac shall thy seed be called. It's through him and not the
line of Ishmael that the promised Messiah would come, the promised
seed of the woman would come. He was tried concerning this
precious son of the promise of God, the son of Sarah's barren,
infertile womb. She was an old woman. She was
90 years old when he was born. Abraham was a hundred years old.
The one through whom God had said the promises would be fulfilled. God had said it's going to be
through Isaac. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. In Isaac
shall that multitude of people chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world. In him and what would come from
him, the Redeemer, a people would come. A people so numerous that
you cannot count them. An innumerable multitude. and
a redeemer from among them, a redeemer from that line, one who would
redeem his people from the curse of sin. But now, having received
all of these promises from God, now he was tested, he was tried. He was to kill him as a sacrifice
to God. He was to take this only beloved
son, the fruit of the dead womb of Sarah and his own dead body,
infertile body, and he was to take what God had given against
all hope. God had given this son and he
was to take him and he was to kill him to show allegiance and
faith to God. In Romans chapter four, verse
20, we read this. Speaking about Abraham, he's
already said in verse 19, being not weak in faith, he considered
not his own body, now dead, infertile, when he was about a hundred years
old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, he staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, unbelief, but was strong
in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that
what he had promised, what God promises, God is always able
to perform. What God promises, he always
is able to perform. Nothing can stop him. He was
fully persuaded of that, that he would perform his promise
and that he was able to raise Isaac up. Look at verse 19. According
that God was able to raise him up, raise Isaac up, even from
the dead, from whence he also received him in a figure. Abraham
had already settled this issue of life and faith in his heart. Isaac was as good as slain already,
and God had already as good as raised him back. You see, I wonder
if Abraham thought that here in Isaac was the promised seed.
rather than the promise seed would simply come down the line
from Isaac. But he was convinced that if
he followed through with what God had told him to do, God would
raise him back to life to fulfill the promises. After all, he had
already seen Isaac as a baby raised up from the dead womb
of Sarah. If that being the case, Why would
God not keep his promise that Isaac, if he followed through
with what God required, would raise him from the dead? So contrary
to physical evidence, you know, if you kill somebody, they tend
not to come back to life. Contrary to physical evidence,
Abraham acted on what he saw and what he heard from God by
the faith that God gave him to believe it, and he was fully
persuaded. He was persuaded whom he had
believed. And so we know what happened.
He went through with that. You can read the account in Genesis
22, I think it is, isn't it? He went through with that and
was prepared to kill him. And God said, no, don't touch
him. On the way up the mountain, Isaac had asked, I see the fire,
I see the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
My son, God will provide himself a lamb. And they looked around
and in the thornbush there was a ram caught by its horns and
that was the one that died in the place of Isaac. Picturing
Christ who would come and die in the place of all of his people.
So then the others, that's Abraham and Sarah. With faith, that gift
of God, without any other of the religious props that we take
for granted today, just that sight of the soul, he showed
them what he would do. And then this one, Isaac, that
was born of them, when he comes of age, and he has children of
his own, Jacob and Esau. By faith, verse 20, Isaac blessed
Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Not a lot to say about
Isaac, is it? If you go back to Genesis, you'll
find several chapters, all sorts of things about Isaac and his
dealings with the people that opposed him in the area where
he lived. You don't read any of that. Just here, it's this.
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to
come. Of all that could have been said,
there's only this regarding the blessing of Jacob and Esau. Naturally,
by natural preference, Isaac preferred Esau. He was the hunter. He made him nice food. He was
the real man's son, whereas Jacob was a softy at home with his
mother. And Rebekah preferred Jacob. But naturally, Isaac preferred
Esau. But Esau had counted the birthright
of no value. Look over in chapter 12. Verse
16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who
for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. You know, when he
was hungry, Jacob had made some nice food, and Esau, being the
older of the two twins, he had the birthright, but he sold it
for just some food, just for a mess of pottage, it says. He
sold it for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright. What was
the birthright? It was that knowledge of the Gospel. It was that truth
of the Gospel. Down the line, it was that which
called them out of darkness into the marvellous light of God.
And Esau profaned it. He was a profane person. He counted
the birthright of no value. He had no thought or desire for
the Christ who would come. He had no interest in salvation,
only the things of this world that he could get now. He was
only obsessed with this world. God's sovereign grace to Jacob
and his sovereign reprobation of Esau, leading to the natural
desires of his fallen flesh, those things were made clear
to Isaac. Contrary to his natural preferences,
he must have known what God had said and says elsewhere, Jacob
have I loved and Esau have I hated. Have I left to his own devices?
For God is a God of sovereign grace. Isaac was deceived by
Rebekah and Jacob, so that Jacob was given the blessing that was
due only to the firstborn. And yet, Isaac, by faith, this
is it, he bowed to the sovereignty of God in the purpose of grace
to Jacob. Later on, after that first blessing,
he blesses him again. It is clear that he sees that
the God of sovereign grace, the line is through Jacob. By faith
he saw this. Yes, Esau was blessed, blessed
concerning things to come, but only with worldly material blessing. And then in verse 21, Jacob,
we read of him, by faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed
both the sons of Joseph. This is down in Egypt, he's finally
gone down into Egypt, all the account of Joseph in the last
chapters of Genesis. And there is Joseph with his
two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Jacob, is down there and
Jacob is going to die soon. And so he wants to bless the
sons of Joseph. And Joseph, Joseph wants him
to put his right hand of blessing on the head of the older of the
two, that's Ephraim. Sorry, Manasseh. But Jacob knew
what he was doing by faith. Jacob blessed both the sons,
but he put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, who was
the younger one. He bowed in faith to God's sovereign
purpose of election, that it was through that that the line
would come, the Messiah would come, that redemption would be
accomplished. He subdued the natural fleshly
rebellion against the sovereign choice of God. He submitted to
that sovereign choice of God. As I say, we see so little here,
but just this. What was it by faith that they
saw? It was the accomplishment of
redemption. It was the accomplishment of
God's electing purposes of grace that would bring the Messiah
through the line that he had chosen, and by faith, against
natural inclination, these people, given faith with no other religious
props or helps at all, they obeyed God. They listened to God's voice. Verse 22, Joseph then, by faith,
Joseph, when he died, right at the very end of Genesis, he made
mention of two things, the departing of the children of Israel, the
Exodus, and gave commandment concerning his bones. In Genesis
chapter 50, right at the very end, in verse 20, there he is. that the brethren, the father
has died, Jacob has died, and all those brethren that treated
Joseph so badly are in front of him. And here is Joseph, the
prime minister of Egypt, so highly raised up in that community of
Egypt, so, you know, the greatest nation on earth at the time.
And there he is, the prime minister of that nation. Surely now Joseph
is going to get his revenge on those brothers who treated him
so badly. And they're terrified. And they
went and found, verse 18 of chapter 50, his brethren also went and
fell down before his face. And they said, behold, we be
thy servants. Oh yes, we treated you so badly.
And Joseph said to them, don't be afraid. For am I in the place
of God? Am I going to do something to
you as an act of revenge? As for you, he says, what you
did, you thought evil against me. You intended to kill me.
You intended to sell me into slavery. But God meant it unto
good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people
alive. Now therefore, fear ye not, I
will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and
spake kindly unto them. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he
and his father's house. And Joseph lived an hundred and
ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.
The children of Machia, the son of Manasseh, were brought up
upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I die, and God will surely visit you. and bring you out of this
land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob. It was going to be 400 years or more before that happened.
And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God
will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from
hence. So Joseph died, being 110 years
old, and they embalmed him. and he was put in a coffin in
Egypt. And later, those years later,
in the Exodus, he was taken out. He only makes mention of his
death and his bones and the Exodus. Nothing at all of God's dealings
with him in that pagan land where he had no written scriptures,
where he didn't even have the fellowship of his family. He
was entirely on his own and he had to By that which God showed
him by faith, think on the things of the God of his fathers. Trust
in those things by faith. He had faith through the time
when he was in prison, in prison for years, falsely accused. When
he was raised up, elevated to Pharaoh's court as Prime Minister,
throughout it all he remained faithful. What faithfulness!
But Hebrews 11 only mentions that Joseph taught, maybe preached,
about the exodus back to the promised land that would happen
400 years later. And his own bones, they were
buried at the end of the book of Joshua, in the account there
where they got back into the land, they buried the bones of
Joseph, and that's accounted in the book of Joshua. He, by
faith, he looked to salvation from bondage, far enough a head
for his body to have decayed to dry bones, which he didn't
want to be buried in Egypt. Why? Because although he'd served
Egypt so well in the purposes of God and kept many people alive
by his wisdom given to him from God, Egypt symbolized this world. Egypt was not the city that has
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He served his adopted
country, but he wouldn't conform to its pagan ways. He looked
for God's salvation of his elect people through his Christ. So
then, That's them very briefly, but I just want to draw a few
lessons before we close. In what ways did the faith of
these patriarchs work? What fruit did it bear? True
faith, the true faith of God's elect, sees and hears God's word
and purpose that the natural man cannot see. It sees what
others, the natural people around about, don't see. So Esau didn't
see the things that Jacob saw. Esau didn't see the things that
his father Isaac saw. Joseph saw the exodus, the promise
of God to fulfil what he promised to Abraham and Isaac. He saw
that, that it was going to happen. All of it pointing to the redemption
of his elect people. Have you seen anything like they
did? We read in Pilgrim's Progress
the account of Christian, who lives in this world. He lives
in a city called Vanity Fair. That's this world in general.
It's so vain. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,
says Ecclesiastes. He lived in that city, but by
the grace of God, and by the revelation of God, and by the
gift of faith, Christian saw the vanity of that world. And
he saw that he must flee from the wrath to come, that he must
find the way to the path to the celestial city. He must get out. Have you seen and heard what
God's word is saying? Is he speaking to you? Secondly,
It believes God. True faith, the faith of God's
elect, believes God and trusts Him. Trusts Him. Not just fleetingly,
not just incidentally, but absolutely lays the weight of your immortal
soul on the promises of God. Fully persuaded of the promises. And being fully persuaded, acts
in accordance with God's revealed will, whatever natural reason
says. God says this, therefore I believe
it. When it comes to matters of family,
when it comes to matters of career, when it comes to matters of home,
where am I going to live, what am I going to do? When it comes
to matters of health and welfare, when it comes to ambitions in
this world, When it comes to fellowship with true believers,
it hears what God says and acts in accordance with God's revealed
will, whatever natural reason says. It's so easy just to go
with the flow on the broad way that leads to destruction. The
way to the celestial city, the city of God, that city which
has foundations, whose builder and maker is God, it's a narrow
way. It's a narrow way, it's a rough
way, it's a steep way, but God keeps his people in that. Thirdly,
true faith, the faith of God's elect. It obeys and it bows,
it decides willingly. It's a volunteer, not a pressed
man, it's a volunteer. Abraham went willingly to sacrifice
Isaac, believing God. He blessed, Isaac blessed Jacob
rather than Esau against what his flesh wanted to do. He let
Jacob bless, Joseph did, let Jacob bless Ephraim before Manasseh
because that was what was revealed that God would do. Faith fourthly
subdues fleshly unbelief. Yes, all of them, all of them. Abraham lied about Sarah being
his wife to save his skin, so he thought. in so many different
ways. He hedged his bets and took his
father and brother with him and didn't go where God had said
to go, but only went as far as Haran before he finally went
out. Fleshly unbelief, but true faith
subdues fleshly unbelief. Abraham didn't want to kill his
son, his only, the son in whom was the promise. Abraham wanted
to protect Isaac from harm, just as the apostle, the disciple,
Peter, wanted to divert Jesus from the cross out of concern
for him, out of natural concern. Isaac wanted to bless Esau. Joseph
wanted Manasseh to be preferred. The natural man stumbles over
God's sovereign choice to save and to pass by. But true faith
says, when the realization comes, What Jesus said, as the man,
if it be possible, take this cup from me, nevertheless, not
my will, but thine be done. Because it knows this, the child
of God with the faith of God's elect knows that what God has
said is true. He said, he that honors me, him
will I honor. Fifthly, it refuses the world. Like Joseph did. You'll see a
piece in the bulletin by Don Fawn. It's out of his book on
Hebrews. But he quotes a piece by Spurgeon
who notes the monument that was in Egypt that he's pretty sure
was to Joseph. Modern archaeologists won't have
anything to do with it. That's because they don't believe
the word of God. But the fact is that Joseph would not be buried
in a pyramid tomb with the pharaohs. as he was honored to do. We wouldn't
do that. He wouldn't be an Egyptian because
Egypt was the world, but the purpose of God was in that line
from whom the Messiah would come. It refuses the world. We live
in the world. We can't help breathing its air
and drinking its water and eating its food, but not of the world. Living in the world Or is the
world living in you, in your heart, in your affections, in
your desires, in your ambitions? All these were greatly humbled
and greatly blessed, but all had their hearts set on eternity,
on that city. You? Think of them. Think of
having all of those things. taken from you. What would be
your reaction? Is your heart set on the eternity
of God? And then sixthly, this faith. I can't think how to, you might
say this is a bit blunt to put it this way, but it dies well. It dies well. Look at verse 13
again of Hebrews 11 verse 13. These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off
and were persuaded of them and embraced and confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. True faith sees the
purpose of God and sees the departure from this life as just part and
parcel of God's good purpose for his people. Psalm 37, verse
37 says this. Mark the perfect man, observe,
and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. Proverbs 4, verse 18. The path
of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more
unto the perfect day, the end of this life, in glory. Psalm
116 verse 15, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death
of his saints. True faith looks to that with
confidence, as Joseph did. Bury me in that land, not this
land. Numbers 23 verse 10, Let me die
the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his. With this faith of God, seeing
these things and resting our whole weight and trusting it
all to God who cannot do wrong, what a truly blessed prospect
we have.