Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God." They suggested to him that they would bring him dressed meat which was not pork, and that he should eat it pretending that it was pork. He collapsed and one of the soldiers kicked him violently in the stomach to make him rise. Jacob had the precedency and the principal blessing, which shows that it is grace and the new birth that exalt persons above their fellows and qualify them for the best blessings, and that it is owing to the sovereign free grace of God that in the same family one is taken and another left, one loved and the other hated, since all the race of Adam are by nature hateful to Godthat if one has his portion in this world, and the other in the better world, it is God who makes the difference; for even the comforts of this life are more and better than any of the children of men deserve. But we read here that it was through absolute faith in the word of God that Abraham was willing to go through this whole experience, believing so powerfully in the word of God that he knew that God would, if necessary, raise Isaac from the dead in order that He might fulfill His word, "Through Isaac shall they seed be called. There it was in the Psalms. And a lot has been made over that. And Abraham said, "Son, the Lord will provide Himself a sacrifice" ( Genesis 22:7-8 ). in the other scale the best of the world, and in his judgment, directed by faith, the worst of religion weighed down the best of the world. Hebrews 11:22. It became God to give Him to die; for such was our estate by sin that nothing short of His atoning death could deliver us; but, having delivered us, God would make us to be heavenly. Above all, let them take care that they be not a shame and reproach to their God, and so provoke him to be ashamed of them; but let them act so as to be to him for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory. He had good company with him, and they were a great comfort to him in his sojourning state. He insisted that we must take the long view. "I will go home," he said. But how? Learn here, (1.) He would not comply with the king's order, "no, not if you pluck out my eyes and consume my bowels in the fire." Hence learn, (1.) Here was a great trial of their faith. He first brings us into the joy and nearness of His presence. He'll send the Savior. "I can never attain to that." If you have and prize one alone, you have only got the half of Christianity yea, of its foundations. All our spiritual privileges on earth should quicken us to set out early, and get forward, in our way to heaven. The death of Christ, both in the sense of a victim sacrificed, and of a testator, though a double figure, is evident to all, and tends to the self-same point. It is told in Joshua 2:1-21 and finds its sequel in Joshua 6:25. The actings of his faith here mentioned, and they are two:. Being a man of faith doesn't mean that you will always going to have healing, you're always going to have victory, you're always going to drive a Maserati, you're never going to have any trouble. How easily we even forget that we are not Jews but Christians! You have the immediate advantage and the eternal advantage to choose. And if there were any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed; and those with whom they were found miserably perished also" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 12: 5, 4). That is like Moses and God. He alludes to several facts, but leaves them. "As it is appointed unto men once to die," wages of sin, though not all, "but after this the judgment," or the full wages of sin, "so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;" this He has finished; "and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Notwithstanding their meanness by nature, their vileness by sin, and the poverty of their outward condition, God is not ashamed to be called their God: such is his condescension, such is his love to them; therefore let them never be ashamed of being called his people, nor of any of those that are truly so, how much soever despised in the world. when near his end.. In the city of Jericho there lived a woman whose name was Rahab, who had received the spies that Joshua had sent. The Lord will provide. They knew the way. And there he heard things and if I tried to describe them in human language it would be a crime" ( 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 ). It is our duty to be reasoning down our doubts and fears, by the consideration of the almighty power of God. in ordering his bones to be exported, he had no regard to himself, as though his grave in the land of canaan would be sweeter or better than in egypt; but his only object was to sharpen the desire of his own nation, that they might more earnestly aspire after redemption; he wished also to strengthen their faith, so that they might confidently So you, first of all, have to believe in the existence of God, but then you have to believe that God is good; God rewards those who diligently seek Him.The next example is that of Noah. We often say, "It is good to be akin to an estate;" but surely it is good to be akin to the covenant. Heaven is a great reward, surpassing not only all our deservings, but all our conceptions. But the apostle takes all this difficulty by the horns, as good as telling them, that their having suffered all this was simply because it is the right road. God said . They were not mindful of that country whence they came. There it was more particularly the activity of faith; here it is the suffering of faith. All their days the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land. Are you supposed to die in faith? (2.) 13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. This is one of the first instances that is upon record of fallen men going in to worship God; and it was a wonder of mercy that all intercourse between God and man was not cut off by the fall. And where thou art a stranger thou must not open thy mouth. The trumpet call about being strong in warfare and routing the ranks o the aliens would immediately make men think of the unforgettable glories of the Maccabaean days. (2.) (2.) It is excluded from syllabuses of religious education because it is held to teach an unacceptable view of God. He did this leaning on the top of his staff; not as the papists dream, that he worshipped some image of God engraven on the head of his staff, but intimating to us his great natural weakness, that he was not able to support himself so far as to sit up in his bed without a staff, and yet that he would not make this an excuse for neglecting the worshipping of God; he would do it as well as he could with his body, as well as with his spirit, though he could not do it as well as he would. Verse 22. This isn't my home. (3.) (3.) We should never forget that there was a day when his friends came and tried to get him to go home because they thought that he was mad. We are not told the details of what preceded the great week when God made the man and the woman. There were those in the ancient world who believed in the gods, but they believed that they lived out in the spaces between the worlds, entirely unaware of these strange animals called men. And this heavy water blanket in the atmosphere no doubt accounted for the discoveries in the geological stratas of asparagus ferns sixty or seventy feet tall. From the beginning to the end of it the Christian in Hebrews is not thus dealt with apart from the old nature, as we may see him regarded in the ordinary epistles of Paul, where the old and the new man are most carefully separated. Account en lijsten Retourzendingen en bestellingen . But mark another striking and instructive feature of this chapter. [2.] And almost all things are according to the law purged with blood; and without shedding, of blood is no remission. Of this we saw somewhat inHebrews 10:1-39; Hebrews 10:1-39. "There is employed in that particular text what is known grammatically in the Hebrew as a polysyndeton. Faith does work. You ought to have the consciousness that there is no judgment for you with God by-and-by, however truly He, as a Father, judges you now on earth. 2. But the really amazing thing is that, according to the Exodus story, Moses not only made these regulations for the night on which the children of Israel were leaving Israel; he also laid it down that they were to be observed annually for all time. (i) It began with sheer incredulousness. This his right of inheritance was through faith in Christ, as, and, if a child, then an heir. Though they had not received the promises, yet. The story is told in Exodus 2:11-14. that is, of a great and severe judgment, such as the world had never yet seen, and of which, in the course of second causes, there was not yet the least sign. You can feel it. Now here is evidence of what men have wrought by faith. I am not going to enter into any statement of facts as to this now, but there is no truth in its own place more important than that with which the apostle commences in this chapter, namely, that "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." On the other hand, the priests, Aaron's family, among the sons of Levi, "have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham." This shows that, beyond question, among the Jews of that day, Psalms 110:1-7 was understood to refer to the Christ alone. Here it is the grand truth itself in its own character. "God," said Epicurus as a first principle, "does nothing." "Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.". He completely forbade circumcision and the possession of the scriptures and of the law. Hereby he became an heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (2.) FAITH AND ITS SECRET ( Hebrews 11:23-29 ). The ground of Noah's faitha warning he had received from God of things as yet not seen. Jacob gave blessings and Joseph gave instructions in the light of the nearness of death. Though he knew that it was great, and levelled at him in particular, and that it marched at the head of a numerous host to pursue him, yet he was not dismayed, and he said to Israel,Fear not, ; Exodus 14:13. Thus does the apostle reason on it: "For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh" (which the Jew would not contest): "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to do religious service to the living God? When Moses was entrusted to the waters of the Nile, he was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, whose name is given as Bithia, or more commonly Thermouthis. 2. Let men who can see only look there, and what will be found? A paroikos ( G3941) was not very much above a slave in the social scale. Carefully observe that it is the tabernacle, never the temple. The Jews themselves acknowledge that Psalms 110:1-7 must be fulfilled in Christ, in His quality of Messiah. How Abraham lived in Canaan, not as heir and proprietor, but as a sojourner only. He presses a conversation without covetousness, and a spirit of content, founded on our confidence in the Lord's care. Joseph was eminent for his faith, though he had not enjoyed the helps for it which the rest of his brethren had. They wished to destroy Moses there and then. The influence this had upon his present conversation: it was a support to him under all the trials of his sojourning state, helped him patiently to bear all the inconveniences of it, and actively to discharge all the duties of it, persevering therein unto the end. Be assured it is of the deepest possible moment to cherish the activity of Christ's present love and care for us, the activity of that priesthood which is the subject of this epistle. Hebrews chapter 11 New International Version 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. A. Never was there a time when men used terms with a more equivocal design than at the present moment. After three days the Lord showed to Abraham Mount Moriah. The next instance of faith is that of the Israelites, under Joshua their leader, before the walls of Jericho. The Lord said, "I'll pass through the land this night and the firstborn in every house will be slain. First, in God's counsels it was always before Him to have One more than man though a man to deal with this greatest of all transactions. Grace be with you all. Perhaps more likely in the time in which the writer to the Hebrews wrote, it would remind his hearers of that epic but bloodthirsty incident told in the Book o Judith, one of the apocryphal books. But it has pleased God to single two instances out of many of the faith of this patriarch, besides what has been already mentioned in the account of Abraham. "For by it the elders obtained a good report." [2.] 1. Accordingly we have a remarkable line of blessing pursued for our instruction here. "Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience; in all things willing to live honestly. Abraham said, 'They have the law and the prophets; if they will not believe the law and the prophets, neither would they believe, even though one came back from the dead. He prophesied that they should be blessed; but, as Isaac did before, so now Jacob prefers the younger, Ephraim; and though Joseph had placed them so, that the right hand of his father should be laid on Manasseh, the elder, Jacob wittingly laid it on Ephraim, and this by divine direction, for he could not see, to show that the Gentile church, the younger, should have a more abundant blessing than the Jewish church, the elder. Faith discerns this, and determines and acts accordingly. So when God's call came to him he was ready to go out into the unknown to find him! Tertullian said of the Christian: "He knows that on earth he has a pilgrimage but that his dignity is in heaven." How Abraham lived in Canaan, not as heir and proprietor, but as a sojourner only. "There was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called holy. 00:02:01 Arkansas town elects youngest Black mayor in America. Then comes a second exhortation as to their guides, or leading men among the brethren. Long ago Epicurus said the chief end of life was pleasure. Both these requests were granted. There were two specially famous interpretations of the death of Enoch. What it was that supported and strengthened the faith of Moses to such a degree as to enable him to gain such a victory over the world: He had respect unto the recompense of reward, that is, say some, the deliverance out of Egypt; but doubtless it means much morethe glorious reward of faith and fidelity in the other world. The infant Moses was about to touch the jewels when Gabriel took his hand and put it on the coals. The Isaac story, told in Genesis 22:1-18, is that most dramatic account of how Abraham met the supreme test of the demand for the life of his own son. True faith draws forth sincere and fervent desires; and the stronger faith is the more fervent those desires will be. XI. What is the end of the path? Now is the time for self-denying labour, and endurance in grace; by-and-by the account must be given to the Lord that appointed them. He knew he would die in Egypt, but he instructed that his bones be buried in Canaan. If any of the families of Israel had neglected the sprinkling of this blood upon their doors, though they should have spent all the night in prayer, the destroying angel would have broken in upon them, and slain their first-born. It looks on death as a reward. And gave commandment concerning his bones; and the command was a very strict one when he gave it; he took an oath of his brethren to fulfil it; it was concerning his bones, not his body, which shows that he believed their departure out of Egypt was at a great distance, when his flesh would be consumed, and only his bones left, as it was about two hundred years after his death; it respects the carrying them out of Egypt with them, and burying them in the land of Canaan, when they came there; and this is an instance of his humility, in choosing to lie with his fathers, rather than with the kings, and great men in Egypt, and of his care to prevent idolatry, which he might observe the Egyptians would be prone unto: and this command was a great instance of Joseph's faith, that the children of Israel would return to Canaan, and which might serve greatly to confirm their faith in it; it also shows his belief of the resurrection of the dead, and of his enjoying the heavenly inheritance, signified by the land of Canaan; See Genesis 50:24, the Papists, from hence, plead for the relics of saints; but it should be observed, that it was at the request, and by the command of Joseph, that his bones were preserved, which is not the case of the saints, whose relics are pleaded for; besides, these were the true and real bones of Joseph, whereas the relics of the saints are only pretended; to which may be added, that the bones of Joseph, were ordered to be buried, not to be showed for a sight, much less worshipped, as Popish relics are. Have enough faith and you can drive any kind of car you want or live in any kind of home you want if you just have enough faith." Genesis 1:26, lxx. See Matthew 2:19; Matthew 9:18; Luke 7:2, etc. It did not make sense. He has shown its the symbolic mount Of grace in Zion, contrasted with Sinai the mountain of law. "And unto the city of the living God, (not of dying David,) the heavenly Jerusalem" (not the earthly capital of Palestine). They had been listening to the Old Testament stories and determined that they too would offer a sacrifice. The best way to enjoy our comforts with comfort is to resign them up to God; he will then return them, if not in kind, yet in kindness. Cain and Abel could not agree as to what they should possess. Stevenson tells of an old byreman who spent all his days amidst the muck of the byre. At the back of this story lie two great truths. Who ever in his senses built a great hulk of a ship on dry land far from the sea? (2.) 11:7 It was by faith that Noah, when he had been informed by God about things that were still unseen, reverently accepted the message and built an ark to preserve his household in safety. In this way he declared his faith that one day his people would inherit the land God promised them (20-22; cf. Another point follows, connected with what we have had before us, and demanding our attention. Now after the apostle has given this account of the faith of others, with Abraham, he returns to him again, and gives us an instance of the greatest trial and act of faith that stands upon record, either in the story of the father of the faithful or of any of his spiritual seed; and this was his offering up Isaac: By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, Hebrews 11:17. The man with the wanderlust is lured on by the thought of the countries he has never yet seen. "We're all imperfect beings," he began. The circumstance of time is taken notice of, when Moses by his faith gained this victory over the world, in all its honours, pleasures, and treasures: 3. And the wheel was besmeared all over with blood, and the heap of coals was extinguished with the droppings of gore, and pieces of flesh flew about the axles of the machine." The ground of Noah's faitha warning he had received from God of things as yet not seen. The reasons will be given in a moment. "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. Although the blood on which that covenant was founded may be now long shed, when the covenant comes into force for them will it not be as fresh as the day the precious Victim died and shed His blood? But this becomes the occasion of a remarkable allusion, on which I must for a moment dwell. "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice in the place that I will show you" ( Genesis 22:2 ). Moses by faith chose the path of suffering affliction over the path of ease and glory, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, because. For Christ is not entered into holies made with hands, figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us.". But when Cain saw that his offering was rejected and Abel's was accepted, he was angry with the Lord for rejecting his offering. Observe, [1.] The thought in the mind of all these men was the same: "God's promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said that if a man comes to the altar and realizes that his brother has ought against him, he ought to first go to his brother and reconcile their differences and then come and offer your gift unto the Lord ( Matthew 5:23-24 ). Heaven and earth have not been united, nor have they been in fact possessed for the blessing of man by the power of God, since sin severed between the earth and that which is above it, and the prince of the power of the air perverted all, so that what should have been, according to God's nature and counsels, the source of every blessing, became rather the point from which the guilty conscience of man cannot but look for judgment. (1.) Joseph on his death-bed remembered the promise of God to give the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:7), and also the prediction to Abraham that his descendants should pass four hundred years in bondage in a strange land, and should afterward be brought out thence, Genesis 15:13, Genesis 15:14. God alone who spake it into being can pronounce upon it. Above all things, he is the God of the gallant adventurer. Nowhere does the apostle give the smallest occasion for such a thought. This Christian hope is such that it dictates all a man's conduct. The devil instructed him in this in a dream." "Woe to a man of such an age," said Abraham, "who adores the work of one day!" But he said to them: "Though you rail at me now, the time will come when I shall rail at you; for you will learn to your cost who it is that punishes the wicked in this world and reserves for them a further punishment in the world to come.". This leads to another point; for the change of the priesthood imports a change of the law. It was a figure and earnest of the glorious resurrection of all true believers, whose life is not lost, but hid with Christ in God. (:17-22) FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS - PASSING THE BATON OF GOD'S PROMISES TO THE NEXT GENERATION -- LOOKING FORWARD TO FUTURE BLESSING. It is said that without this faith it is impossible to please God, without such a faith as helps us to walk with God, an active faith, and that we cannot come to God unless we believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. Remembered is appropriate here. Faith has a clear and a strong eye, and can see promised mercies at a great distance. The riches and honours of Joseph, as they could not secure him from death, so they did not make him unmindful of it; nor was he afraid of dying, or uneasy about it; nor did his prosperity make him proud, or above speaking to his brethren, nor revengeful to them, nor unthoughtful of their future afflictions; nor did his affluence of temporal things take off his regards to divine promises, nor weaken his faith in them, which is here commended in the following instances; as that at the time of his death. Thus, before he enters on the subject of the sacrifices at length, he takes notice of the covenants, and thence he draws a conclusion from the well-known prophecy in Jeremiah, where God declares that the days were coming when He would make a new covenant. And they believed the promise of God that He would provide salvation, and they died believing that promise of God. 2. I know that God's word is faithful. The next instance is the faith of Rahab, Hebrews 11:31. Hebrews 11:22 Hebrews 11:24-26. This opened a way for the return of Abraham's posterity into the land of promise. the author of creation cannot set!" But not the patriarchs. God's arm is not shortened; his power is not grown less. He was possessed of a true justifying righteousness; he was heir to it: and, [2.] And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest." The writer to the Hebrews must have known these legends and they must have helped to add vividness to the picture in his mind. This was an effectual call, by which he was converted from the idolatry of his father's house, 2. I'm looking for my dwelling with God in His eternal kingdom. This was a final call; and how gracious! (1.) Pharaoh's wise men were full of foreboding that this child would some day trample the royal power under foot. Again, we usually in our minds picture Isaac, because of the Sunday school papers that we had, of being maybe eight to ten years old. And as he starts towell, before he gets into it, he starts with just the creation of the world itself. The difficulties Isaac's faith struggled with. he had respect unto the recompense of the reward ( Hebrews 11:26 ). In this story, as Moffatt points out, there are five different acts of faith. In the first chapter we saw the seat of personal glory connected with atonement; in the eighth chapter it is the witness of His priesthood, and where it is. The writer to the Hebrews is here seeking to inspire new courage and a new sense of responsibility by making his hearers remember their past. In the end even the guards were moved to wondering compassion. 12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. Arranged all beforehand, neither Isaac's partiality nor Jacob's deceit was able to divert the channel. The powerful success of the prescribed means. This deeply interesting chapter closes with the reason why those who had thus not only lived but died in faith did not get the promise: "God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Manasseh the evil son of Hezekiah ordered him sawed in two. 'Ye are come unto Mount Zion,' the dwelling-place of the living God, from whose lips there will steal into the ears and the hearts of those who keep near Him, gracious words of consolation, so thrilling, so soothing, so enlightening, so searching, so encouraging, that they which hear them shall say, 'Speak yet again, that I may be blessed.' VI. And he knew that God having given him by a miracle, could also by a miracle sustain him until the promise of God was fulfilled through Isaac.Continuing down through history. Hence, therefore, he now introduces us "to the spirits of just men made perfect." Under the inspiration of the prophetess Deborah, Barak assembled ten thousand young men and faced the fearful odds of the Canaanites with their nine hundred chariots of iron to win an almost incredible victory. It is the setting aside of God, and the setting up of man; it is the precursor of the apostasy that is coming, which again will issue in man taking the place of God, and becoming the object of worship, instead of the true Creator. But this trial was greater than all; he was commanded to offer up his son Isaac. They from Italy salute you. It has been said of Noah that "he threw the dark scepticism of the world into relief against his own shining faith in God." They were not afraid of the king's commandment. Hebrews 11:1. How glorious was the triumph of his faith in so great a trial. Take thy son, not one of thy beasts or slaves, thy only son by Sarah, Isaac thy laughter, the child of thy joy and delight, whom thou lovest as thine own soul; take him away to a distant place, three days' journey, the land of Moriah; do not only leave him there, but offer him for a burnt offering." Fully does He allow, as connected with this, that the chastening seems not joyous but grievous. It is simply that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews saw even more deeply into the story. His righteousness was relative, resulting from his adoption, through faith in the promised seed. Then you may bless God that He has so blessed you, and given you to know as true of yourself that which, if not so known, effectually prevents one from having the full joy and bearing the due witness as an unworldly and simple-hearted servant of Christ here below. He owed his life to this princess; and to refuse such kindness from her would look not only like ingratitude to her, but a neglect of Providence, that seemed to intend his advancement and his brethren's advantage. The Christian believes in the spirit rather than the senses. We see the effects of the wind. They saw he was a proper child, a goodly child (Exod. Hebrews 11:1. and of Elisha ( 2 Kings 4:8 ff.) In the Letter of Aristeas the writer says: "It is a fine thing to live and to die in one's native land; a foreign land brings contempt to poor men and shame to rich men, for there is the lurking suspicion that they have been exiled for the evil they have done." Because as it goes on. These all died in faith, not having received the promises ( Hebrews 11:13 ). To some extent this story has fallen into disrepute. Thus it will prove a land-mark to direct their course, a load-stone to draw their hearts, a sword to conquer their enemies, a spur to quicken them to duty, and a cordial to refresh them under all the difficulties of doing and suffering work.
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