The Book of Hebrews 11:13-16 A heavenly one

Good morning. We're going to be going through the passage that Courtney just read for us here. One of the things I just wanted to point out, we from time to time, and it's been I think about five years, we'll kind of go through a period of emphasizing, updating things like wills and powers of attorney and things like that.

It is an immense help to the family when things like that are in place. I've seen situations where people are scrambling when someone starts falling into a medical condition. I've seen those documents get put in place and used just within months. And it can save quite a bit of hassle and difficulty. There's also a situation if you're a parent with children and you have particular preferences as to where you want your children to go if you're not in the picture. That helps get everything really clear, can avoid the children being with someone that you didn't want, or in some cases, family squabbles.

I've been called in as an engineering consultant to try to resolve some of these issues, believe it or not. At any rate, we encourage from time to time looking at, have we got the documents? Have we got them in place and are they current? Also, if you did it in some other state and you moved here, then that's something to take a look at, need to be redone in that circumstance.

Anyway, we will remind from time to time. Now, in the book of Hebrews, here we're in 11, 13 through 16. We are in this passage sometimes called the Hall of Faith or the Great Hall of Faith. This is by faith the men of old gained approval. And so we've been going over this passage here in the past few weeks.

One of the points we've made is everyone has faith. Everyone has faith. Everyone has faith, including the most skeptical person, even the one who openly opposes religion of any kind, they have faith. Everyone has faith, it's only a matter of where they put that faith. We human beings, it's been said that people are incurably religious, and there are those who are not religious who would object to that. But people are incurably faith-placers. People are incurably faith-placers. They will put faith somewhere. That's the nature of human beings.

So, where's the faith? Is the question here. Where's the faith? The Word of God here urges us to place our faith in God, and in what He has revealed to us in His written Word. That's the direction. When people say, well, I want more faith, or I wish I had more faith, really what they're saying is, I wish that I placed my faith in God. I wish I placed my faith in God. Because everybody has faith. It's where you put it. It's where you put it.

One of the points we've been making in recent weeks is that there are no clear transitional fossils between rodents and bats, as it's supposed to be. Some have suggested it's actually from primates up to bats, but either way, there are no clear transitional fossils. What you see there on the slide, that's the oldest one. That's from Wyoming, according to the dating system.

So, since there is no fossil historical evidence that that evolution ever occurred, if you believe that, then that is a matter of faith. That's a matter of faith. We pointed out, similarly, the belief is that an okapi-like creature evolved into a giraffe. And so you go from one creature to the next. There is no fossil evidence supporting that. And so if a person believes that that evolution took place, that's on the basis of faith. There's nothing to support it. It's faith, not fossils. We point out similarly that the turtles have a similar lack of transitional forms. So that's, again, a matter of faith if you believe that the turtles evolved.

We pointed out last week the dewclaw on a dog, also on wolves and that kind of creature. The dewclaw on a dog is often presented as a vestigial organ and evidence of evolution. This one book, Historical Geology, by Wickender and Monroe, says no one would seriously argue that a dog's dewclaws are truly necessary. And then along comes Dr. Christine Zink, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and PhD, who points out several very important uses for the dewclaws. As a matter of fact, the more intense and survival mode that dog is, the more important those are. And so if you believe there are evidence of evolution and evidence that you have a vestigial organ, that's faith.

Add to that the latest count, this is as of current biology published this last week, there's 338 species of hummingbirds which are thought to have evolved from a dinosaur. But they're no clear indisputable transitional fossils. There are some amazing hummingbirds. Hummingbirds, depending on the particular kind and size, flat their wings 12 to up to 100 times a second. Phenomenal performance. There's even one kind of hummingbird with a curved beak that is particularly adapted to a particular kind of curved flower. Very interesting combination there.

Even with all those amazing features and strange adaptations, there really are no transitional fossils between the dinosaurs and these hummingbirds. Even though we had National Geographic just last September publish, birds are living feathery dinosaurs.

So if you believe that that took place, that that evolution took place, that's also by faith. So again, even someone who is extremely skeptical of anything spiritual, biblical, they are still placing faith in these things without evidence. So everyone has faith, and there's one other key thing we pointed out last week.

Where we place our faith is where we hope. Where we place our faith is where we hope. This is a key thing. Faith and hope are both critical, aren't they? And everyone has faith, and everyone likes to have hope, but where we place our faith determines where our hope lies. So, what's this chapter telling us here? This 11th chapter of Hebrews is telling us that the faith that is placed in God, what that looked like in these Old Testament saints, and what it did in the lives of these Old Testament saints. And we're going to need to see for ourselves as we continue to go through it, the lives of those who placed their faith in God in times past, so we can learn what biblical faith is like and what it is not like.

Biblical faith is absolutely essential in order to be saved. I can't get there any other way Now we're really glad you come into this church building. There's nothing in here. That's going to save you Okay, coming into these walls and going home and you can do it regularly and it's great if you do But that isn't going to save you. There's only faith in Christ death burial and resurrection That is going to save okay. It's faith. I It's necessary to have faith to please God. It's necessary to have faith to grow in grace, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. So let's take a look at Hebrews 11, 13, the first verse here.

It says, all these, referring to the previous passage, all these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they are strangers and exiles on the earth. The all these here refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These were the ones who lived as strangers and exiles on the earth, and obviously their family with them. Sarah might also be added to this list, although these are the ones that directly receive the promises. They were strangers and exiles on the earth, having lived away from their homeland and family.

These three, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all lived most of their lives in tents as outsiders to the Canaanite culture. And as I mentioned last week, I'm sure Nancy would be somewhere beyond stunned if I said, hey, let's live the rest of our lives in a tent, right? So this was rather an amazing undertaking for them to say, I'm just going to live the rest of my life in a tent, and I'm going to pass that on to my son and on to my grandson. We're just going to live the rest of our lives in tents, right? each of them died.

Imagine each of them got promised by God directly, but each of them died without fulfillment of what God promised, but still believing what God said. See that title there? All these died in what? In faith. Faith. They were believing all the way to the very end. They still believe God even though they never saw it fulfilled in their lifetime. Here we have the ages of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and we have them in three parallel timelines. Starts off with, here's Abraham who was a hundred years old.

We pointed out last week that both Abraham and Sarah were way beyond the years of having children. God waited until it was humanly impossible to even come up with the idea that Abraham would father a child and that Sarah would bear a child. But nonetheless, that's what happened. A hundred years old, Isaac is born. God promises Abraham, you're going to have offspring so great it'll be like the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea. And God waits until Abraham's a hundred years old and gives him one. One. That's it. Isaac. That's it.

So then you have when Isaac is 60 years old, then Jacob and Esau is born, but Jacob is the line of promise. And then you have Abraham dying then at 175. So that means that Jacob was in his middle teens when Abraham died. And then you have Isaac dying at 180, and then Jacob at 147 there in Egypt. Now, without receiving the promises. In our culture, we generally expect promises to be fulfilled in our lifetime.

When you go to the store, you know, and you go to the checkout counter at the grocery store, you usually don't expect to send several weeks there, right? You don't do that. Matter of fact, these days with Amazon, we can download things, you know, like this Willmaker program. You can just download it, pay for it, download it, you got it right there. Many things are fulfilled in moments to days due to modern technology. If, for example, you wanted to order this full-size replica of the Ark of the Covenant from Amazon for 720 bucks, they'll have it shipped to you that day. And so we expect in our culture to have things fulfilled pretty quickly. And certainly within our lifetimes we expect things to be fulfilled.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, however, were each promised things directly by God, by God Himself, and they continued to believe what God had promised, even though they never saw fulfillment. You can imagine Jacob, you know, look, God promised my grandfather, God promised my grandfather, and my grandfather went to his death, still with no fulfillment. And God promised my father. And I saw my father go all the way to his death with no fulfillment. And here's Jacob. He's saying, I'm going to believe God all the way to the end of my life with no fulfillment. Would you do that? That sounds a little crazy. But that's exactly what's being supported here.

Faith that believes even though they don't see the fulfillment. uses the term here from a distance and one of the points we want to make here the distance isn't about how close or how far something is but the distance has to do with time a great distance in time years and years of time matter of fact centuries eons of time Abraham was promised to have offspring like the number of stars in the sand of the sea but by the end of his life he had one miracle baby that's it One miracle baby. That's as close as he ever saw any fulfillment of stars of the sky and sand of the sea. One. Just one.

Now, their lives were really intense. They were. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each lived most of their lives in tents in a land that was not their own. It was only promised to them by God for their descendants. for their descendants. This is kind of amazing. You're going to get a promise and you're never going to see it. Your grandkids are never going to see it. Isn't that astounding? That's amazing. They still believe God. All three strangers and exiles while on the earth. Because the one place on earth that God had promised to them was never in their lifetimes a land to call their own. Never in their lifetimes. Generations. Centuries going by. No fulfillment.

Now here's an instance in Genesis 23, 1-4. Here is Abraham. It says, Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, that is in Hebron in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Here is Abraham It's now time to bury Sarah, and he's got no place to do it, because the land's not his. He doesn't own anything that's tied down to the land. So this is the first instance where he needs to do that.

Here is Jerusalem on the map. It's in Hebron, right to the south there. Then Abraham rose from before his dead and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. Similar terms to what you see there in the Hebrews passage Give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight I'm a stranger and sojourner among you and with Abraham that was true with Isaac that still remained true and with Jacob a stranger and a sojourner so here is Jerusalem and then Hebron to the south and This structure here was built during the time of Herod the Not-So-Great, and underneath it is the cave of Machpelah. That's the cave that he bought there from the sons of Heph. This is the entrance to the cave, locked up.

Interestingly enough, there was a particular time, because this is actually Muslim controlled, there was a particular time when the Jews had kind of a sneaky opportunity. You see that opening is small. They dropped a 13-year-old girl down there for her to explore in there while they had the Muslims busy doing something else. And so they went down and actually did a little bit of mapping and drawing of what things were like with the help of this 13-year-old girl that went down. But this is the cave of Machpelah. Many of the patriarchs of the family of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were buried there. Rebecca would be an exception. She was buried near Bethlehem.

Just a reminder for us, we have a home too and it's not here. We have a home too and it's not here. The place where we have our seating Our seating in the heavenlies with Christ, the place where we have our citizenship, the place where we have our hope, because that's faith, remember? Wherever you place your faith, that's where our hope is. A fixed and absolute and certain hope, not an I hope so kind of hope. Where we have a Savior and a High Priest, as we've seen here in the book of Hebrews, and groom, the church being the bride of Christ.

That place is not anywhere here on this dismal planet. That place is not anywhere here on this planet. As the Jewish sacrificial system, as we've seen in the book of Hebrews, was an illustration of God's sacrifice, our earthly homes here are illustrations of our home with Christ. What we have here is, at best, an illustration. The real home, home with a capital H, is with Christ.

Now let's look at Hebrews 11.14, for those who say such things make it clear they are seeking a country of their own. This is the second time that we've had this word seen, or seek rather, used in this chapter.

So Hebrews 11.6 is where we saw it before. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. So what were these doing? These men of faith were seeking Him and having faith in Him, hoping to be rewarded with a God-given place of their own that would be real, a real and true home to them. They were seeking a country of their own by seeking Him.

Here's Hebrews 11.15, and if indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. Now this is something to ponder here.

Imagine, here are these guys, they're living in tents. And they're having their wives and their families and they're just living in tents year after year after year and decade after decade after decade and no end in sight. Just living in tents constantly. A permanent camping trip. And so they're living in tents I wonder how often it crossed their minds, you know, why don't we just go home? Why don't we just go back to where we came from, where we actually had a house and we actually had some, you know, decent provisions and we had some nice things. I mean, it was a pretty decent place. Why don't we just go home?

They had the opportunity to do that, didn't they? Was anybody keeping them there? Was anybody saying, you know, you've got to live in a tent. You've got to go camping, right? Nobody was saying that. Nobody was forcing them to it. They had the opportunity to go back. Back to Haran, where the family was located. Back to Ur, where they'd started. They had the opportunity to go back. All they'd have to do is reverse the trip that Abraham made to bring them there. But they didn't. You see, there's no place like home.

Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had roots back at Haran and back in Ur of the Chaldees. They still had extended family back in those places. Remember, here is Abraham, and when it's time to find a wife for Isaac, what do they do? They go to Haran in order to get somebody from their extended family as a relative, not the Canaanites. Same thing with Jacob. Go back to Haran to get family there. They still had extended family back there.

They could have gone back to the city of Ur. Here's the city of Ur, which is at the time, because of the sediment that builds up from the Euphrates River system coming in there, was closer to the ocean at the time. But here's the city of Ur where Abraham started. This is where Abraham and Sarah began, from Ur of the Chaldeans, or Ur of the Chaldees, as it's sometimes said.

And if you look right there, that's called a ziggurat, and this is it. That's the place. It's there today. As a matter of fact, when our troops went in the first Gulf War, I understand one of the first places they went is to establish an outpost here. Right at this ziggurat at Ur. This would be some examples of some of the artwork there, so there was good craftsmanship available, and they had a fairly, I would say, a high culture. Here is a bronze helmet that's been excavated from there during about the time that Abraham was there.

This is a ram and a thicket, and these objects are over at the British Museum. And here is a sword and sheath. Here's some additional things. Queen Puabi had a headdress, as you see there, and that's also at the British Museum. And they had various kinds of inlaid work there.

So a fairly sophisticated culture. And I mean, you could go back to that, right? Hey, this is a pretty decent place to live. It was one of the more advanced cultures of the day. And that's where Abraham and Sarah left. They could have gone back there.

The little harp with the bull's head was also shown there in the inlay. You have this kind of a vase that is also shown in the inlay. And so the vase and the inlay, it's been found. And then here's Haran. Here are the ancient ruins at Haran, which, of course, the walls are now much lower, having things having come apart. Nonetheless, you see walls and houses and structures. You know, it would have been a nice place to have lived as well. There's more ancient ruins at Haran.

I don't quite get the sort of Clay teepees, that's a little strange. But at any rate, that's apparently a fairly common pattern in that area for putting in buildings. So in those places there were homes with foundations and some very nice amenities. One of the things, here is a board game from the city of Ur and fairly sophisticated. Fairly sophisticated.

They all had the opportunity to go back to those places that were much more comfortable. much more comfortable than camping and camping and camping and camping but they never chose the option to return they always came back to this promised land so here's Hebrews 11 16 but as it is they desire a better country that is a heavenly one therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them Now, real interesting, a lot of times we think, okay, well these were the patriarchs, and we think of earthly promises, and they did have earthly promises. But very interestingly, they also had a heavenly mindset. Maybe not a heavenly position, but a heavenly mindset.

Let's take a look at that. This is quite an insight. We've been made aware that the Israelites were given the promised land, and we've looked at that before, and were to drive the Canaanites from the land, and that they could, not were, could be blessed in it. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not looking for the land to be given to them in their lifetimes, but instead they were really seeking a heavenly place for themselves from the Lord. That's quite an insight.

So what does the Bible say happens to these Old Testament saints when they die? There's a color supplement that you have there and I want you to track that with me because we're going to look at what happens to these Old Testament saints and what happens to us. Now, one of the insights that we have here The thief on the cross when Christ was crucified was among the last of these Old Testament saints. You say, well, wait a minute, that's in the New Testament. Yes, you're correct. However, when I say Old Testament saints, I mean from the time from the very beginning up until just before the beginning of the church in Acts chapter 2. The thief on the cross who died the same day Christ was crucified is an example of among the last Old Testament era saints, that is before the time of the church, where Jesus in Luke 23-43 says, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. says he's writing to the Corinthians that he went to paradise and paradise is also promised in the messages to the seven churches to the church at Ephesus.

So here you have a handout that looks somewhat like this. I have it marked on the corner as an S. That's a supplement. And so let's track through this. The present heaven is paradise. So let's ask this question. When Jesus died on the cross, where did he go? Paradise today you will be with me in paradise is what he told that thief on the cross. So this is heaven and Paradise gets called heaven, you know here gets called heaven as Paul writes to the Corinthians and also in the book of Revelation chapter 2 so those three places Paradise interestingly enough is a Persian word that means pleasure garden Okay, pleasure garden. And so Jesus told the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise. That's the term used for heaven in the New Testament.

From there, we have the second coming of Christ with the church. So that's us. By then, and we'll talk about that shortly, by then we will have been resurrected, raptured, and resurrected in new bodies, taken up to be with the Lord. And when the Lord returns, He will come back with us and with the saints of all prior times. Imagine, we're talking about Abraham coming back. We're talking about the thief on the cross coming back.

And we're talking about you and me. Coming back and angels. You see, heaven's going to empty. be a max exodus from heaven. Why? Because it's the kingdom of heaven that is down on earth. So this is the second coming of Christ with the church, all these saints of all times, including the thief on the cross, and the angels coming down at the second coming. then will be the thousand-year kingdom reign of Christ as King of the Jews and King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentile nations.

That will be the thousand-year reign of Christ and here's an insight from Matthew 8.11 Jesus says I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven So will a Abraham Isaac and Jacob be there in the kingdom of heaven when Christ reigns? Yes. Okay recline at table Hey, let's let's have dinner with Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Hey, how would you like that? Won't that be something?

Okay, but others as well Here is David who 3,000 years ago got a promise that a descendant of his would reign on the throne forever. And David's going to be there to see it fulfilled. These guys who didn't see the fulfillment will see it. Will see the fulfillment. And they can tell you about it. It could happen as soon as seven years from now. They can tell you about it. Okay, let's go back to this illustration. Now, let's take a look at ourselves. Oh, excuse me, I got one more thing here.

New heaven and new earth, the saved of all time and the new heaven and new earth. It'll be the end of this present heavens and earth. This place is going to come unglued, okay? This present heavens and earth is going to come unglued. The Lord is going to make a new heaven and new earth. The new Jerusalem will be heaven come down to earth.

The twelve tribes of Israel are at the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem. The twelve tribes are at the twelve gates. Shown here is the gate of Judah in the new Jerusalem. But three entrance gates on each side. So for a total of twelve. And then looking inside, this is the description that there will be a river and the tree of life will be planted on either side. So this is an artistic representation of what's described in Revelation chapters 21 and 22. So interesting, the tree of life was there at the beginning of this present earth and it will be there again in the new heavens and new earth. Now, let's take a look at it for ourselves. For ourselves, what happens is we will be brought to meet the Lord in the air when the Lord raptures the church.

We will then come back after the seven-year tribulation. We won't be here. After being with the Lord, we will come back, we with Christ and all the saints of all prior times and the angels will come back and be with the Lord and wherever Christ is that's where we will be we will be unique in all the earth because we will be the bride of Christ and will be an island of grace in a world ruled by law that's right law will rule the world during the Millennial Kingdom the Jews will be empowered to know it and to live it out but law will rule the world during the Millennial Kingdom but we will be an island of grace Saved entirely by grace. An island of grace in a world ruled by law. Here we will be with the Lord for that thousand year period of time. And then we'll become the new heavens and new earth after this present world has taken apart. and we will be in the New Jerusalem. We the body of Christ are the bride of Christ and will forever be with the Lord." We'll forever be with the Lord there in the New Jerusalem.

And there, as we showed this picture before at the entrance gates, here in Revelation 2.7, which is at the end of the message to the church at Ephesus, it says, to him who overcomes, and that's everyone who believes, to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. Here's that word paradise again, for the third and the last time in the New Testament. This is what the Lord has promised for us. We will be with the Lord forever.

What we have is, one of the great differences is we have a heavenly position now while we're still here. That Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so far as we know, did not have. We have a position and a citizenship in the heavenlies right now. Let's thank the Lord for that. Lord, we take it on faith that you have revealed these things, these dear truths to us because you love us and care for us. And we thank you for that heavenly position that we do have entirely by grace. We thank you for what you've accomplished in our lives. We thank you for what you are doing and what you will do on into the future. And we're thankful that we can count on it, not as an I hope so kind of hope, but an absolute certain and fixed hope. And we just thank you for that certainty that we take by faith, faith in the revealed facts that you've given to us because you love us. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.