Tag: jesus

Run the Race Before You, part 1 (Hebrews 12:1-3)

What is your perception of the Christian life?  Many people think that becoming a Christian means that their lives will be better in every way and if not every day, almost every day.  Unfortunately that is sometimes communicated in the gospel presentation.  “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” if not placed in a larger context can miscommunicate the reality that the Christian life is a battle, a marathon, something that requires dedication and hard work.  Jesus presented it as denying ourselves and taking up our crosses.

This doesn’t mean that it is “all work and no play,” but unfortunately too many Christians have understood the Christian life to consist of a decision to trust Christ followed by a life that then focuses on ourselves and our own desires.

Our author in Hebrews has been showing us that the life that pleases God is a life of faith, a faith that believes God’s promises and therefore obeys His commands.  Sometimes that does lead to miraculous deliverances, at other times suffering and death.  Our author marches out example after example of faithful men and women in order to motivate his readers (and us today) that we, too, can maintain a bold and determined faith.  In particular, our author did not want his readers to abandon faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ has been a primary theme in the first ten chapters, constantly showing how Christ was better than the prophets, the angels and the Aaronic priesthood.  He provides a better sacrifice and enacts a better covenant.  And although Jesus was not mentioned in Hebrews 11, our author gets back to Jesus in Hebrews 12.  He is the greatest example of someone who not only possessed enduring faith, but possessed it to the utmost extreme.

Verses 1-3 in Hebrews 12 say…

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

“Look to Jesus,” “consider Him,” this is the primary focus of our Christian race.  One of the key metaphors of the Christian life is that it is a race.  The Bible uses the image of a race to describe the Christian life in several places, including Hebrews 12:1, 1 Timothy 6:12, 2 Timothy 2:5; 4:7–8, 1 Corinthians 9:24–27, and Philippians 3:13–14.

From these verses we know that we must “compete according to the rules,” exercise self-control and discipline, keep our eyes focused on the finish line, and run for heavenly rewards.  Unlike normal races, we are not racing against other Christians and this race lasts for a lifetime.  We cannot just meander or coast or go with the flow, but must run with focused determination toward the goal of Christ-likeness.

Race is the Greek agon, from which we get agony.  A race is not a thing of passive luxury, but is demanding, sometimes grueling and agonizing, and requires our utmost in self-discipline, determination, and perseverance.  (John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary–Hebrews, 372-3)

Sometimes the metaphor chosen to illustrate the Christian life is “walk,” but here it is the agonizing “run.”  We only “run” when we are very anxious to get to a certain place, when there is some attraction stimulating us.  That word “run” then presupposes the heart eagerly set upon the goal (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 895).  “It is the writer’s hope that the joy set before us is so attractive, we will give no thought to the pain or shame that goes with standing firm for Christ all the way to the end”  (C.S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 295).

Hopefully when we come to the end of our lives we will be able to say with Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).  As John Piper says, “Paul knows nothing of coasting Christianity. Paul simply does not recognize a Christianity that is not running a race and fighting a fight.”  Or, as A. W. Tozer so presciently warns, “complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.”

“The Christian is not called to lie down on flowery beds of ease, but to run a race, and athletics are strenuous, demanding self-sacrifice, hard training, the putting forth of every ounce of energy possessed.  I am afraid that in this work-hating and pleasure-loving age, we do not keep this aspect of the truth sufficiently before us: we take things too placidly and lazily.   The charge which God brought against Israel of old applies very largely to Christendom today: ‘Woe to them that are at ease in Zion’ (Amos 6:1): to be ‘at ease’ is the very opposite of ‘running the race’” (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 894-5).

The situation seems to be that the Hebrew Christians had gotten tired.  A lot of time had passed since they were first fired-up for Jesus.  Now they want to relax and coast and they were in danger of losing the race.  Hebrews 10:32–33 says, “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle…and you had compassion on the prisoners…”  In 5:12 it says, “Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again.”  They have begun to coast and, as 2:3 says, “neglect so great a salvation.”  The situation is very serious and the writer suggests that some are showing that their faith is phony and they have “tasted the powers of the age to come” in vain (6:5).

Sam Storms says:

“Some of you may wish it were otherwise; you may prefer that the Christian life be compared to a vacation at the beach or a gentle walk through grassy meadows or a holiday on a cruise ship or perhaps even a lazy, late-afternoon nap on the back porch. But no one in the NT, not the apostle Paul and certainly not the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ever speaks in such terms.”

Chuck Swindoll writes:

The book of Hebrews was written to men and women in the thick of the battle against the flesh, the world, and the devil.  Most of them were trembling in their boots.  Others had retreated to the trenches.  Many were tempted to turn tail and run.  Already the author has warned his audience of the cost of defection in the midst of the battle.  Now he continues to urge them toward a life of enduring hope that responds positively to God’s hand of loving discipline with maturity.  He wants them to lean on Christ, who is superior for pressing on in the faith. He doesn’t want them to be “flash in the pan” Christians (Charles R. Swindoll, Hebrews, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Tyndale House Publishers, 2017), 192).

Jesus talked about these “flash in the pan” people in the parable of the soils.  Jesus explains that the seed that fell upon the rock was a situation in which “when they hear the word, receive it with joy.  But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away” (Luke 8:13).

Hebrews 12:1 is like the gun that indicates that runners are at the last lap.  Don’t stop now, he says.  I can remember my first track meet as a sophomore in high school.  At that time Mena High School did not have a track.  We practiced by running around the football field and the practice field.  One of the events I ran in was the 440, now called the 400 meters.

I was doing quite well, in the lead as we came around the last curve.  Now, I’m sure I had seen plenty of Olympic races where the runners run through the tape to win, but having never run on a track I saw a line on the track and thinking that it was the finish line I slowed down, only to have three runners pass me to the finish line less than 10 yards away.  I stopped short of the finish line.

This author does not want his readers to stop short of the finish line, but to remain faithful to Jesus Christ to the very end.

So how do we run to win?

The first thing our writer calls us to do is to remember that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”  Our author is not saying that these are people who are watching and witnessing what we do, but rather they have lived exemplary lives and we need to receive their witness.  We need to follow their example.

“Perhaps we should think of something like a relay race where those who have finished their course and handed [off] their baton are watching and encouraging their successors”  (Frank E. Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary–Volume 12, 133).

“They testify that it pays to trust the Lord and remain faithful to Him no matter how rough the going gets.  It is their part to assure us that the race can be won” (C.S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 288-9), but not necessarily easily won.

He wants them to remember that others have successfully run this race in the past and that God considers those who finished the race winners.  All those Hall of Famers in Hebrews 11 are saying, “I did it, and so can you. You can do it. Hang in there.  Finish the race.”  We need that kind of encouragement, to know that others have blazed the trail for us, finishing the race and being richly rewarded for it.

This “great cloud” of witnesses would include more than just the 18 mentioned in chapter 11.  We have even more examples today of people who valued Jesus Christ and did not deny Him even when it cost them their lives.

These men and women are in the crowd encouraging us on because they successfully finished the race.  As John Piper reminds us: “We look and we see examples of faith and perseverance under every imaginable circumstance: there’s David who committed adultery and murder, and he finished; there’s John the Baptist who had a weird personality, and he finished; there’s John Mark the quitter, and he finished; and Mary the prostitute, and she finished; and William Carey, plodder, and he finished; and Jonathan Edwards who got kicked out of his church, and he finished; and Job who suffered so much, and he finished; and Stephen who was hated and stoned, and he finished; and Mary Slessor and Amy Carmichael and St. Paul who served as single people all their lives, and they finished; and [there’s others you know as well.] (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/looking-back-to-witnesses-up-to-jesus-and-forward-to-joy)

But all the encouragement in the world will do us no good if we are weighed down with unnecessary or unhelpful obstacles.  Besides knowing that others have successfully run this race before us, we are then to throw off everything that hinders us from running this race.  Everything!

This has reference to the radical stripping off of one’s clothing before a race, as in the Greek custom of the day.  Many runners and fighters stripped naked to keep from being slowed down or having anything that could be grabbed to take one down in a wrestling match.  While runners today might train with weights on their legs, they certainly take them off when running a race.  Athletes today wear the most aerodynamic outfits they possibly can in both track events and swimming events, just to try to take hundredths of seconds off their time.

Our writer indicates two things that serious runners need to divest themselves from—anything that hinders, and any sin: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…”  This must be done before the race begins.  It is preparation for running the race successfully.  We cannot win in the Christian life if we allow these weights and sins to cling to us.

I think it is obvious to most of us that we must jettison the sins from our lives, so let’s look at that first.  We are to “lay aside…sin which clings so closely.”  The word “sin” here is hamartia, which means “to miss the mark.”  Sin is pictured as an attempt to keep God’s commands, but always messing up in some way.

In moral and ethical contexts, it means to fail of one’s purpose, to go wrong, or to fail to live according to an accepted standard or ideal.  Sin is the failure to be what we ought to be and could be.  Paul tells us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).  No one is righteous (Rom. 3:10).

One of the biggest problems with sin is that it “clings so closely.”  The word is euperistaton and it is found only here in the New Testament.  It has the idea of something that “ensnares,” some versions use the word “besetting,” to illustrate something that persistently comes upon a person unbidden, maybe unnoticed.  The problem with sin is, we like it.  We fall into it so easily.  That’s what makes it so besetting, so ensnaring.

A phenomenon of nature, repeated billions of times, provides an ongoing allegory of sin’s billion-fold pathology.  Perhaps you have seen it yourself while lying on the grass by a sundew plant when a fly lights on one of its leaves to taste one of the glands that grow there.  [This is describing the Sun Dew plant.]  Instantly three crimson-tipped, finger-like hairs bend over and touch the fly’s wings, holding it firm in a sticky grasp.  The fly struggles mightily to get free, but the more it struggles, the more hopelessly it is coated with adhesive.  Soon the fly relaxes, but to its fly-mind “things could be worse,” because it extends its tongue and feasts on the sundew’s sweetness while it is held even more firmly by still more sticky tentacles.  When the captive is entirely at the plant’s mercy, the edges of the leaf fold inward, forming a closed fist.  Two hours later the fly is an empty sucked skin, and the hungry fist unfolds its delectable mouth for another easy entanglement.  Nature has given us a terrifying allegory. (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews, Volume 2, pp. 158-159).

The specific sin is not mentioned here, and with good reason.  “We each have characteristic sins that more easily entangle us than others. Some sins that tempt and degrade others hold little appeal for us—and vice versa.  Sensuality may be the Achilles’ heel for many men, but not all. Another who has gained victory over such sin may regularly down jealousy’s deadly nectar, not realizing it is rotting his soul.  Dishonesty may never tempt some souls, for guile simply has no appeal to them, but just cross them and you will feel Satan’s temper!” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: Volume 2, p.159)

These sins are ours, our choices that we make to rebel against God’s will.  As David Guzik says, “If such ensnaring sins were really the work of demonic possession or demonic influence in the Christian, this would be an ideal place for the Holy Spirit to address this.  Yet we are never given reason to blame our sin on demons; the appeal is simply for us to, in the power of the Holy Spirit, ‘lay aside…the sin that clings so closely’”

What sin do you have the hardest time saying “no” to?  What do you persistently struggle with?  Covetousness?  Envy?  Criticism?  Laziness?  Hatred?  Lust?  Ingratitude?  Pride?  Envy?  Whatever sin it is, we must ruthlessly strip it off and leave it behind.

Faith Enough to Secure a “Yes”; Faith Enough to Endure a “No,” part 4 (Hebrews 11:32-40)

So we noticed in our study of Hebrews 11:32-38 that our author contrasts two groups of people.  All of these people lived by faith, but for some of them God came through in spectacular ways and delivered them from their troubles, while for other people (whose faith was just as strong) God did not deliver them from pain and hardship and death.

So much for the prosperity gospel!  Here are saints who are so holy and so full of faith that the world is not worthy to contain them, and yet they are called to persevere in persecution, deprivation, and death.  Not only that, but the reason they are able to persevere is their great faith!  Christians under the oppressive old paganism of Roman culture were to take note, and so must we in the darkening neo-paganism of our day.

Here is God’s resounding commendation, not of those whose faith enabled them to overcome, but for those whose faith helped them endure even the most devastating experiences: these were men “of whom the world was not worthy.”

Along with “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” I don’t think there is any more valuable commendation that we could receive from God than, “This world was not worthy of you.”  Why does God say that?  Because despite the fact that they did not receive glorious deliverances or protection, but instead suffered through pain and persecution and even death, but did it all trusting in God and his promises, God is even more pleased with that kind of faith than in the faith that “gets it all.”  I know most of us would rather have the triumphs, but it is our faith in the tragedies that really finds special commendation from God.  We love it when our faith in God “gives”; but God loves it when He “takes away” and we still persistently trust Him.

One of my favorite chapters in C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters is his fifth chapter called The Law of Undulation.  It expresses the reality that every one of us in life go through hills and valleys.  We love the mountain top experience but lament slogging through the valley.  Yet, there is something within all of us that longs, however inarticulately, for a life free from these undulations.  Why do we experience these unwanted alternations in life?

For those who don’t know, Screwtape is a demon writing to an apprentice demon named Wormwood. Thus, all that is said is said from the perspective of the demon.  When you hear the word “Enemy,” he is referring to God.  So he starts off…

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

So you “have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away”, have you?  I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure.  Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal [by which he means we consist of body and soul}.  (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.)   As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.  This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change.  Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.  If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down.  As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.  The dryness and dulness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite.  Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.  The reason is this.  To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense.  But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing.  One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth.  He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His.  We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.  We want to suck in, He wants to give out.  We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over.  Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

And that is where the troughs come in.  You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment.  But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use.  Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless.  He cannot ravish.  He can only woo.  For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.  He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning.  He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation.  But He never allows this state of affairs to last long.  Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives.  He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.  It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.  Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.  We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better.  He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice.  He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.  Do not be deceived, Wormwood.  Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

This is why God is so proud of those whose faith doesn’t win the day, but still trusts Him as it goes through the long night of the soul.  Let me read that last sentence again: “Do not be deceived, Wormwood.  Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

But why would any follower of Jesus Christ pursue this?  Because a true follower of Jesus Christ cares most about this “better life” (Heb. 11:34) which comes through a resurrection.  That is what they are looking for—they are looking forward to God’s promises being fulfilled not in the here and now, but in eternity.  Paul says it like this: “to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).  Faith endures the present pain for the sake of future glory.

Pastor and author John Piper, commenting on these verses, says, “The common feature of the faith that escapes suffering and the faith that endures suffering is this: both of them involve believing that God himself is better than what life can give to you now, and better than what death can take from you later.  When you can have it all, faith says that God is better; and when you lose it all, faith says God is better…. What does faith believe in the moment of torture? That if God loved me, he would get me out of this?  No.  Faith believes that there is a resurrection for believers which is better than the miracle of escape.  It’s better than the kind of resurrection experience by the widow’s son, who returned to life only to die again later.

Some of us feel like we’re living the nightmare rather than living the dream.  We don’t seem to be conquering any kingdoms; rather, evil seems to have its way with us.  The lions are devouring us; the fires are consuming us; the swords are cutting us to pieces.  What does Hebrews 11 have to say to those living the nightmare?  It says that the dream really is still alive!  It says that the nightmare cannot kill the dream.  It says that the heavenly dream is worth the earthly nightmare.  It says the heavenly dream is better than the earthly dream by far.  It says, for all those reasons, “Hang on to Jesus.”

All these people, whether in victory or defeat, had faith, what Piper calls “death-defying passion for God.”  A modern example of one with such faith is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who in 1933 left his prestigious position as a professor at the University of Berlin to join the struggle against the Nazification of the church in Germany.  The professor of systematic theology at the university deemed it foolish, saying, “It is a great pity that our best hope in the faculty is being wasted on the church struggle.”  God chose for Bonhoeffer the route taken by those in Hebrews 11:35b-38.  He was eventually arrested and hanged naked in the Flossenburg Concentration Camp.  His body was tossed aside into a pile of corpses and burned just days before the end of World War II.  Some quench the power of fire; some do not.  As he faced the fury of the Third Reich, here is what Bonhoeffer said: “The ultimate responsible question is not how I can heroically make the best of a bad situation but rather how the coming generations can be enabled to live.”  That’s faith.  That’s death-defying passion for God!

Why did Bonhoeffer have to die and others to live?  Look at verses 39-40 in Hebrews 11.

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.

These verses are showing that by God’s mercy He allows all the believing to experience eternal reward.  Some would not experience temporal victories and deliverances and blessings; but all those who exercise their faith in Jesus Christ will receive eternal reward.

Notice that verse 39 says “these were ALL commended for their faith.”  All the people mentioned in Hebrews 11, both those who experienced God coming through for them in spectacular ways and those for whom God seemed to be silent at times, all of them had real faith and all of them will receive the promises.

A lack of faith is not what brought on suffering.  All those in chapter 11 expressed faith in God.  Some won in this life, some lost in this life; both will win in the life to come.

What, then determines whether one escapes the sword or dies by the sword?  The answer is not really a “what” but a “Who.”  God determines it and we don’t always know why.  He doesn’t tell us why here.

In the midst of the deliverances and the non-deliverances, there is something that God is looking for.  The people of Hebrews 11, literally, were “commended” because of their faith.  They were noticed by God (10:15; 11:4) that they were righteous (11:4, 7) and pleasing to Him (11:5-6).

The facts that God shares his witness of these people with us in the Scriptures (7:8, 17; 10:15), but specifically in Hebrews 11, shows that he wants the world to realize the value of faith.  People of faith, then, become God’s witness to the world regarding the validity of faith.  For some, that witness will come with triumph.  For others, their witness will arrive in defeat.  For most of us, our witness will come in both.  For all of us, eternal reward is coming!

Why God chooses some for one kind of witness and others for another kind of witness is a mystery.  He must know what will make a good witness in a certain person’s life.  The disposition of God, though is not a mystery.  He is good, and faith believers that he is good even in the face of mystery.

Despite the fact that the people of Hebrews 11 were pleasing to God because of their faith, they “did not receive what was promised” in their lifetime.  God had promised a new and better country for people of faith (11:13-16), but none of these people experienced the fulfillment of that promise.  The reason that they didn’t is given in verse 40, and that reason, believe it or not, is “us” (the author and readers of this epistle, including you and I today)!

Although many promises had been given and fulfilled in their lifetimes, they did not receive the great promise—namely, the coming of the Messiah and salvation in him.  Every one of the faithful in Old Testament times died before Jesus appeared.

As Leon Morris says:

Salvation is social. It concerns the whole people of God.  We can experience it only as part of the whole people of God.  As long as the believers in Old Testament times were without those who are in Christ, it was impossible for them to experience the fullness of salvation.  Furthermore, it is what Christ has done that opens the way into the very presence of God for them as for us.  Only the work of Christ brings those of Old Testament times and those of the new and living way alike into the presence of God (Morris, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary , vol. 12, pp. 132, 133).

Their faithfulness makes our faith a little easier. The writer to the Hebrews began this chapter speaking of faith in the present tense: Now faith is… By faith we understand (Hebrews 11:1 and 11:3).  The end of the chapter reminds us that faith is and it is for we who follow in the footsteps of the faithful men and women of previous ages.

God literally “foresaw” something better for “us.”  And the “something better” that God provides for us is connected to the “better resurrection,” which is equivalent to being “made perfect,” God completing the process of making us conformed to the image of His Son.  Our new bodies and hearts will be perfectly suited to this new life in a new world, unlike our present bodies and hearts (which aren’t even that well suited for this world because of the curse!)

Do you see what the writer of Hebrews is saying?  He saying that this story—God’s great story of faith—is not complete without you and me today.  We are the final chapter of God’s story of faith.

Long ago God foresaw our lives as the final chapter, the climax of this book of faith.  We, too, are commended by God for our faith, and it will be shown to all creation that we who have followed Jesus faithfully are pleasing to God.  God is now adding the storyline of our lives, our faith, our triumphs and our sufferings to His record.

The author’s point is that if the Old Testament saints were faithful through all of these trials, even though they didn’t receive the promise of Christ in the flesh, how much more should we be faithful, since we have Christ!  John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 308) put it, “A small spark of light led them to heaven; when the sun of righteousness shines over us, with what pretence can we excuse ourselves if we still cleave to the earth?”

What are some of the lessons we have learned from Hebrews 11?

First, biblical faith is not limited to any one personality type, gender, age, status, or race.  Even ordinary, different people with faith are being added to God’s Hall of Faith today.

Second, biblical faith is not limited to those who have are consistent moral or spiritual giants in their walk with the Lord.  And I thank God for that!  George Guthrie discusses a common danger we face in thinking that these people are all different from us.  “After all, they are in the Bible.”  However, our author’s point is that even imperfect, inconsistent people are commended for their faith.

Third, biblical faith is willing to believe God against the odds.  From universal floods, to having children at age 90 to walls falling down, people believed God could do the impossible.

Fourth, biblical faith may be present in a variety of outcomes, both positive and negative.  Faith can result in triumphs; faith can be present in tragedy.

Finally, biblical faith will always be rewarded by God.  Perhaps now; perhaps not now, but definitely in eternity.  Friends, the books will be balanced.

So what is faith?  Faith is confidence in God’s promises that results in obedient action carried out in a variety of situations by ordinary, fallible people, with various earthly outcomes either good or bad, but always with the ultimate outcome of God’s commendation and reward.

Faith Enough to Secure a “Yes”; Faith Enough to Endure a “No,” part 2 (Hebrews 11:32-40)

We are continuing our study in the last portion of Hebrews 11 as the author is once again setting forth people who expressed faith in God and saw God often bring about spectacular results, turning things around in His people’s favor.

The first heroes of faith did receive what they asked for…

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35a Women received back their dead by resurrection.

We pointed out last time the fact that God answered the prayers and fulfilled the desires of people who, although very flawed, exercised faith—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel, the first of the prophets.  Of course, there were many more prophets down through Israel’s history.

Viewed together, this dynamic half-dozen bore remarkable similarities to one another. Each lived in a time when faith was scarce—definitely the minority position.  During the days of the judges, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), and this ethic was very much alive during the transfer to the monarchy.  From Gideon to David, each battled overwhelming odds—Gideon with his three hundred against an innumerable host—young David against the giant.  Each stood alone contra mundum, against the world.  And most significantly, perhaps, each of these heroes had a flawed faith.  John Calvin remarked:

There was none of them whose faith did not falter.  Gideon was slower than he need have been to take up arms, and it was only with difficulty that he ventured to commit himself to God.  Barak hesitated at the beginning so that he had almost to be compelled by the reproaches of Deborah.  Samson was the victim of the enticements of his mistress and thoughtlessly betrayed the safety of himself and of all his people.  Jephthah rushed headlong into making a foolish vow and was over-obstinate in performing it, and thereby marred a fine victory by the cruel death of his daughter.

And to this we could add that David was sensuous (2 Samuel 11:1ff.), and Samuel lapsed into carelessness in domestic matters (1 Samuel 8:1ff.). Calvin concludes:

In every saint there is always to be found something reprehensible.  Nevertheless although faith may be imperfect and incomplete it does not cease to be approved by God.  There is no reason, therefore, why the fault from which we labour should break us or discourage us provided we go on by faith in the race of our calling. (William B. Johnston, trans., Calvin’s Commentaries: The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963), p. 182).

God’s power allows trusting people to accomplish great things for God.  Faith looks at impossibilities and smiles in light of the power of God!  Our writer now rehearses a litany of faith’s accomplishments: “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35a Women received back their dead by resurrection.”

Our author lists nine empowerments grouped in three successive groups of three.  The first three give the broad empowerments of authentic faith: “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises” (v. 33a).  This was not only the corporate experience of the half-dozen, but the general experience of the preceding sixteen members of the Hall of Faith.

Some of those who “conquered kingdoms” were David, Joshua, King Asa, Jehoshaphat, King Hezekiah, and King Josiah.  William Barclay has an interesting comment here.  He says “There are two principal ‘kingdoms’ which the Christian is called upon to ‘subdue’: one is within himself, the other without him—the ‘flesh’ and the ‘world.'”  It was easier for Solomon to subdue the Philistines than his own flesh.  This reminds us that success in the battle for character is more important than victories over our enemies.

Among those who “enforced justice” were David (2 Sam. 8:15), Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, and the other prophets in general; King Josiah also.  Some established justice and righteous governments.  Or maybe he was thinking about Daniel, who served kings of Babylon and Medo-Persia for 75 years, and walked in integrity throughout it all.

And among those who obtained promises we could include Caleb, Gideon, and Barak.  Performing acts of righteousness is faith living biblically; obtaining the promises is faith waiting biblically. 

The second trio lists some of the forms of personal deliverances that they experienced: “who…stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword” (vv. 33b, 34a).

The test of faith is trusting God when all we have are His promises.  When the waters are piled high all around us and problems and dangers are about to overwhelm us, this is when faith is tested, and when the Lord takes special pleasure in showing us His faithfulness, His love, and His power.  When we have nothing but His promise to rely on, His help is the nearest and His presence the dearest to those who believe.  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 358)

Samson, David, and Beniah all shut the mouths of lions through physical force. Samson, barehanded, took a charging lion by the jaws and ripped it apart.  David grabbed a sheep-stealing lion by the beard and thrust it through.  Beniah descended into a pit on a snowy day and dispatched another king of the beasts.  But Daniel is the preeminent example, through his faith and prayer (Daniel 6:17–22). 

When I was as teenager the Pat Terry Group had a song about Daniel.  I would encourage you to listen to the whole song, but the part about Daniel and the lions goes like this…

Early in the morning when the sun came up
The king was feeling down
He went to the lions’ den, he looked in the window
And what do you think he found?
Oh, Daniel was leading all the lions in a hymn
They were clapping their big brown paws
He said an angel of the Lord done arrived last night
And he clamped them lions’ jaws
He really did now

Deliverance from the lions’ jaws came not because Daniel was stronger than the lions, but because of God’s miraculous protection and Daniel’s faith in that protection.

While you and I might not be thrown to lions don’t overlook the fact that we’re told the Devil is on the hunt – he’s even now walking around, like a roaring lion, seeking someone to discredit (I Peter 5:8).  Stephen Davey reminds us: “Every time you trust God – every time you do the right thing – every time you respond biblically – every time you avoid the snare of temptation – you effectively shut the mouth of that old lion.”

The phrase about quenching the power of fire goes straight back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in Daniel 3:19-28.  These three young men were condemned to the fire because they refused to bow down to Nebucchadnezzar’s idol.  Given a second chance by the king, with the warning “But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.  And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” (Daniel 3:15b).

I love their response. 

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

They knew that God could deliver them, but “if not…we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.”  Even if God chooses not to deliver us, we will not deny Him.  He is the true God, not you, Nebucchadnezzar.

And God did deliver them, even though the furnace was heated “seven times more than it was usually heated” (Daniel 3:19).

24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” 25 He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” 26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire.

You might not be thrown into a fiery furnace – you might not be thrown into a den of lions, but every day you re-enter your world, whether you know it or not, you face the threat of a firefight and a cunning lion.  We’ve been given the “shield of faith” to quench the fiery darts of doubts and lies that Satan projects our way.  Those fiery darts dipped in temptation or impatience or unbelief or pain.

King David (against both Goliath and Saul, and others), as well as the prophets Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah, “escaped the sword,” as did many others (1 Samuel 18:10, 11; 1 Kings 19:8–10; 2 Kings 6:31, 32; Psalm 144:10; Jeremiah 39).  Moses escaped the sword of Pharaoh, and Elijah escaped the sword of Jezebel.

The third triad tells about the astounding power that came by faith: “[who] were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection” (vv. 34b, 35a).

Some of those “made strong out of weakness” were Sarah, Gideon, Abraham, Esther, and King Hezekiah.  Faith requires recognizing our weakness, but at the same time, laying hold of God’s strength. As Jesus said (John 15:5), “… apart from Me you can do nothing.”  Philip Hughes writes, “Faith is the response of all who are conscious of their own weakness and accordingly look to God for strength” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 510).

Spurgeon reminds us “Many of us may never have to brave the fiery stake, nor to bow our necks upon the block, to die as Paul did; but if we have grace enough to be out of weakness made strong, we shall not be left out of the roll of the nobles of faith, and God’s name shall not fail to be glorified in our persons.”

Paul described his own life as being weak and experiencing God’s strength in 2 Corinthians 12. Starting in verse 7 he says, “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

And in 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul once again speaks of how our weaknesses do not disqualify us from being mightily used by God: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

Every Christian who has accomplished great things for God has known this truth as the very foundation of what they did. Robert Morrison, a pioneer missionary to China was asked, “Do you really expect to make an impact on that great land?”  He replied, “No sir, but I expect God to” (source unknown).  George Muller’s biographer wrote of him, “Nothing is more marked in George Muller, to the very day of his death, than this, that he so looked to God and leaned on God that he felt himself to be nothing, and God everything” (A. T. Pierson, George Muller of Bristol [Revell], p. 112).  Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to inland China, said, “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them” (source unknown). (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-43-faith%E2%80%99s-reward-hebrews-1132-40)

William Carey was a cobbler by trade.  Most churchmen in his day believed that the Great Commission had been given only to the apostles, and thus they had no vision for “converting the heathen.”  But Carey came to the revolutionary idea that foreign missions were the central responsibility of the church.  He wrote a book promoting that thesis, and he spoke to a group of ministers, challenging them to the task of missions.  In that talk, he made the now-famous statement, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God” (Tucker, p. 115).

What are you trusting God for right now that is beyond your comfort zone or human ability?  Are you praying for God to do anything that, if He did it, there could be no human explanation for it?

Several of the Psalms express how David and his men “became mighty in war …” experiencing God’s strength to do battle against their enemies (Psalm 17, 18, 59, etc.).  Allied with that phrase is the next, “put foreign armies to flight…”  David did it on numerous occasions, so did the renowned Maccabeans during the 3rd century B. C. against Antiochus Ephiphanes, the ruthless Syrian king.

Even when experiencing the greatest loss in the temporal realm–death–faith triumphs.  Our author ends this list of mighty triumphs by saying, “Women received back their dead by resurrection” (Heb. 11:35a).  He saves this feat until last because it is the greatest expression of God’s delivering power.

What are you trusting God for right now that seems impossible and is far beyond your comfort zone or human ability?  Are you praying for God to do anything that, unless God shows up in a mighty way, you fall flat on your face?

Faith always involves the risk of putting yourself into a situation where, if God does not come through, you fail miserably.  This doesn’t mean that we should be sloppy in our preparation or planning or follow through.  There is nothing spiritual about sloppiness or lack of preparation or just being lazy.  But it is to say that after all of our planning and preparations and conduct, we should be still praying, “God, if you don’t work, this whole thing is going to be a colossal failure!”

Like Peter stepping out of the boat into the water, we should be very much aware that if He doesn’t hold us up, we’re going to drown!  So pray with me that God would accomplish things through our lives and churches that can only be explained because God did it.

But even before we decide to go out and do miracles and conquer kingdoms, let’s focus on a more personal and practical level.  Let’s first remember that private victories precede public victories.

  • How are you doing on taming your temper…or your sharp tongue?
  • How about conquering that bitter, unforgiving spirit?
  • How about loving your spouse with unconditional love, giving 100% of your time, energy and effort to doing what is best for them?
  • How about reconciling with an enemy?

Believe me, those are miracles too!

Faith Enough to Secure a “Yes”; Faith Enough to Endure a “No,” part 1 (Hebrews 11:32-40)

Today we hear a lot about the “health and wealth gospel.”  These preachers try to tell us that if we have enough faith then we shouldn’t get sick and we will live in prosperity.  Some go so far as to say that if we “name it and claim it” God is obligated to give it to us.  This has not only affected believers in the United States, but around the world.

A third-world pastor Dieudonne Tamfu and a recent professor at Bethlehem College & Seminary defines prosperity theology like this:

The prosperity gospel is an idolatrous perversion of the gospel according to which Jesus is a means to God’s full blessings, primarily of wealth, health, and might, now available to those who trust and obey certain faith principles prescribed by a particular man of God. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-gods-of-the-prosperity-gospel, accessed 5/20/24)

In prosperity theology the God of heaven has been reduced by the religious con artists to nothing more than a dispenser of gifts that gratify the basest lusts of men, and a god that can be manipulated by positive thinking.

The Christian life in America has become synonymous with prosperity, so that any failures, illnesses, or tragedies are ruled to be outside the sovereignty of God, and beneath the dignity of the Christian.  But faith is not a magic button to get God to do what you want him to do.

None of this modern teaching finds any resemblance to Hebrews 11, or the balance of Scripture for that matter.  We err when teaching of faith only in terms of some tangible success or accomplishment.  Faith is just as active, just as real, and just as powerful when all circumstances are unfavorable, when we face deep personal loss, when our enemies appear to conquer us, and when all hope of comfort and happiness are gone.

Yes, we should have faith enough to secure a “yes” from God, even in impossible situations.  But we must also have faith enough to endure a “no” from God, trusting Him still not only when He gives, but when He takes away.

Again, faith in Christ is just as active, just as real, and just as powerful when all our earthly circumstances and experiences are distasteful, when we experience deep personal loss, when our enemies overwhelm us, and when all hope of comfort and external peace are gone.  Faith takes us through the rivers of woe, through the fiery furnace of adversity, over the hills of difficulty, and through many stormy seas.

Both kinds of faith receive God’s approval.  Notice v. 39, at the end of this passage in Hebrews 11.

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised…

Now the “all these” includes everyone mentioned in Hebrews 11, but in particular the two groups of people mentioned in vv. 32-34a and vv. 34b-38.  One group experienced miraculous victories and deliverances, but the other group did not.  Yet, all of them were commended for their faith.  You see, faith is not measured by whether we get what we ask for or by whether we succeed in what we do.  Rather, faith trusts God and submits to His will, in spite of the results, in view of a greater reward.

Remember verses 1 and 6 in Hebrews 11 say, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” …“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Faith in God, the eternal God who is faithful to all His promises, looks beyond this life.  It doesn’t put all of its emphasis on whether God “come through” in the here and now.  Faith believes that the best is yet to come!

The writer of Hebrews in the 11th chapter has been providing his original audience (and us) with one example of faith after another.  He has selectively displayed different individuals and their faith-based actions in chronological order, beginning with Abel, the son born to Adam and Eve.  In verses 32-40, he focuses on the periods of the judges, kings, prophets and beyond.

This passage is bracketed by the words “through faith” in verse 33 and “through their faith” in verse 39.

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35a Women received back their dead by resurrection.

That all sounds great, doesn’t it.  These people, “through faith” were victorious and successful and experienced miraculous deliverances.  But that isn’t the whole picture of people of faith.

But in the middle of verse 35 we start to find situations in which people did not get delivered, did not experience victory or health or prosperity.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—38 of whom the world was not worthy–wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And our author summarizes this whole chapter, again emphasizing the hope for future reward:

39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Our text falls into three portions:

  • In verses 32-35a, he shows how sometimes God blesses those who trust in Him with spectacular answers to prayer.
  • But without even catching his breath, in the middle of verse 35 he shifts direction to show (11:35b-38) that sometimes God blesses those who trust Him with the grace to endure horrible persecutions and difficulties without wavering.
  • He then concludes (11:39-40) by showing that God will definitely bless all who trust Him with eternal rewards.

This is our author’s crescendo and conclusion.

God blesses some who trust Him with the power to secure spectacular results.

Our author begins this portion with a rhetorical question: “And what more shall I say?”  Need he add more examples of faith?  Need he say anything more to prove the necessity and effectiveness of faith?  He admits that he does not have the space or time to do it, “For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets…”

By mentioning these men we see that God’s grace allows flawed people to accomplish great things for God.  Even our flaws cannot prevent God’s grace from accomplishing some great things through us!  Each individual that the writer mentioned was far less than perfect, as is every believer today.  Yet God approved the faith of each one—no matter how weak or frail.

Leon Morris points out: “Gideon was slow to take up arms; Barak hesitated and went forward only when Deborah encouraged him; Samson was enticed by Delilah; and Jephthah made a foolish vow and stubbornly kept it.”

Four of these men were identified in the book of Judges, during that period when “every man did what was right in his own eyes,” and faith appeared to be almost non-existent.  But here’s the reality: Although all five of these men had serious shortcomings, God still honored their faith.  When they expressed their faith in God, God honored that.  He came through.

Ellingworth comments:  “The order of names here may be understood if they are read as three pairs, Gideon-Barak, Samson-Jephthah, David-Samuel, the more important member of each pair being named first” (Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Greek Testament Commentary, p. 623)

Gideon did lead Israel in victory over the Midianites and he did express faith in God that his 300 men could defeat the Midianite army of 135,000, but when God originally approached Gideon, he was hiding in the winepress to escape the notice of the Midianites.  At that point “the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor” (Judges 6:12).  Gideon was anything but a “mighty man of valor” at this point.  He was hiding out of fear.

Then, when God called him to “save Israel from the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:14), Gideon made excuses (Judges 6:15).  Even though God promised to be with him, Gideon tested God two times, asking him to make a sheepskin wet with dew while the ground was dry and then to make the ground wet with dew while the sheepskin remained dry.

But, in Judges 7 Gideon led his 300 men (which God had pared down a couple of times from 22,000 to 10,000 to 300) in victory against the Midianites.  That took faith and God provided the victory.  Gideon would know that he could not possibly win on the strength of his army, but totally relied on the strength of God.  Gideon’s feat was an act of faith with spectacular results.

Barak also led Israel to victory, however he seems to do so on the coattails of Deborah.  Barak, who was from the tribe of Naphtali and led the Israelites against Jabin’s forces, was better than most of the judges who came after him.  Yet, he was no paragon of faith.  God spoke through Deborah, telling Barak to lead men from Naphtali and Zebulun against Sisera, Jabin’s general, and the Canaanite forces.  Moreover, Barak was promised victory (Judges 4:6-7).  However, Barak resisted, saying that he would go only if Deborah went with him (v. 8).  The promise of God was insufficient for him, evidencing a lack of faith on his part.  Deborah consented to go with him, but she told Barak that in the victory to come, he would not receive the glory (v. 9).  God can use people even when their faith is less than perfect, but we lose out on those blessings ourselves when we doubt His promises.  God can give victory, even when our faith is less than perfect.

I hope that is encouraging to you.  God can still use your little faith to accomplish His will.

By the way, just let me remind you that for all his faith in building the ark, Noah got stone cold drunk!  Abraham twice lied about who Sarah was in order to save his own skin.  Jacob was known as the deceiver and is perhaps most famous for having stolen his older brother’s birthright.  Moses committed murder.  All of these men of faith were less than perfect.

Samson routed the Philistines on several occasions, but his whole life rarely evidenced any faith in God, until the very end.  Samson was victorious over the Philistines men; it was the women that tripped him up.

Jephthah was the son of a harlot, initially driven away by his half-brothers.  But later, the elders of his hometown pled with him to return and lead them in battle against the enemy.  He did win a great victory, but then made a rash vow to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house when he returned home from battle and that happened to be his only daughter.  I mean, what did he expect to come out of the house to greet him?  The vow was foolish, but he ended up keeping it.

One wonders why God would put a man like Jephthah into a list of faith heroes.  In our minds hard to reconcile such an act with Hebrews 11:32 and its record of Jephthah’s being a man of faith.  Yet we should note that the author of Hebrews is giving an evaluation of Jephthah with respect to his military victories, not this specific incident.  In Scripture—as in the world today—people who trust in God also sometimes commit awful sins.  That is not to excuse our transgressions.  Jephthah should have repented of his rash vow and not killed his daughter, for God does not want us to fulfill vows that break His commandments.  We can be grateful that God’s grace covers all of our sin when we trust in Christ, but that gives us no license for evil. (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/jephthahs-rash-vow)

The writer does not go into all the details about what these men did. But if we examine the OT record, we find that each man battled against overwhelming odds so that, humanly speaking, there was little chance of his coming out on top.  (Frank E. Gæbelein, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, 129-30)

“Hearts of iron, feet of clay” is a phrase coined by Gary Inrig to describe many of these Old Testament heroes.  And no one fits that moniker better than David, the only king named in all of Hebrews 11.  Though as famous for his sins as for his faith, he was clearly one who from childhood had a simple faith in God—taking on lions and bears with his bare hands, as well as Goliath using a simple slingshot, it seemed not even to occur to David not to trust in his God in those cases.  Though quite imperfect, God still called him “a man after My heart; he will do everything I want him to do” (Acts 13:22).

Samuel is the last person mentioned in this list by name.  He was the last of the judges of Israel but the first of the prophets.  Though not a warrior like the rest, he fought a battle as fierce as any faced by the military leaders—only it was against immorality and idolatry among his own people.  It often takes more courage, as we all know, to stand up against our friends and our own people than against our enemies.

His (Samuel’s) great foes were idolatry and immorality. He had to stand up in the middle of a polluted society and fearlessly speak God’s truth.  His severest opponents frequently were not the Philistines, the Amorites, or Ammonites–but his own people.  It often takes more courage to stand up against our friends than against our enemies.  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 366)

Even Samuel, although a godly man himself, failed to raise his sons to follow the Lord (1 Samuel 8:1-3).  Samuel was regarded as the first of the prophets, and so the term covers everyone from his day down to Malachi that functioned as a prophet—revealing God message to His people.

The reversal of the order of Samuel and David may be intended to bring Samuel into closer contact with “the prophets” who are mentioned immediately after, Samuel being the first in the continuous “prophetic succession” of the age of the Hebrew monarchy.  (F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the NT: Hebrews, 320)

As a whole, these people boldly proclaimed God’s truth, and often suffered for it.  But overall, put the men of verse 32 into a scale and it tips upwards towards those who had glaring flaws.  John Calvin said, “In every saint there is always to be found something reprehensible.  Nevertheless, although faith may be imperfect and incomplete it does not cease to be approved by God.”

It is not the perfection of our faith that God honors, but the perfection of the object of our faith.  God approves faith even when it is displayed through the weakness of flawed personalities, because faith looks to Christ.

I hope this is encouraging to you.  You do not have to be perfect, or have perfect faith, or be a spiritual giant to be used by God.  Just exercise the faith you have in the promise and person of God.

On the other hand, this is not an excuse for not dealing with sin in your life.  If we have sinned, we need to confess our sins and repent and change.

It’s not our faith, but God’s faithfulness that brings the victory.  Even when we are weak, or especially because we know we are weak, it is God’s strength that accomplishes His purposes.

We will continue with what these men of faith did in vv. 33-34 next week.

Faith for the Impossible, the Irrational and the Immoral, part 1 (Hebrews 11:29-31)

John Gardner once wrote:  “We are faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”  Have you ever felt like you’re in an impossible situation, with no solution in sight?  Now, that word “opportunity” is definitely not my favorite word to use to describe a challenge.

Our text over the next few lessons comes from Hebrews 11:29-31, with one verse focusing on the Exodus and the other two verses focusing on the battle of Jericho.  Each of them presents a “disguised opportunity” which seemed almost impossible, yet they were opportunities to trust God and watch Him do wonderful things.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jim Cymbala, pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle and author of several books, leads a prayer meeting with several thousand people on Tuesday nights, and he said in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, “I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.”

I hope that you have that desire as well.  I hope you desire to see God “show himself mightily in your behalf,” to come through in an impossible situation.  For that to happen, first you have to be in an “impossible” situation and second, you have to cry out to God for help and then believe that God will help you.

Listen to our author, in Hebrews 11:29-31…

29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. 31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Today we’re going to look at verse 29 and the exodus from Egypt.  The children of Israel here in verse 29 face an impossible situation.  Here, in Exodus 14, they had the Red Sea before them and the Egyptian army pursuing them.  They were truly “between a rock and a hard place,” an impossible situation.

Faith Attempts the Impossible

Although Moses is the one leading the people, the emphasis of verse 29 is that it was the faith of the people that provided the reason for God parting the Red Sea and allowing Israel to pass through on dry land.

This may seem somewhat surprising given that the author of Hebrews has consistently viewed that generation of Israelites as “evil and unbelieving” (Heb. 3:8-12) and Paul says that “God was not pleased with most of them” and most of them died in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:2, 5).

But, we’ve already seen how generous God can be in describing even the best of the patriarchs as being people of faith, even though they didn’t always act that way.  Perhaps the best way to interpret this is that “by faith” refers to a believing remnant and that faith is then generalized to refer to the whole nation—that is, the faith of a few is seen as characteristic of the whole nation.  There is a similar situation in the New Testament when everyone on the ship with Paul was saved because of Paul’s faith, even though they did not believe God.

Israel is in an impossible situation, caused by their exodus from Egypt.  Pharoah, despite having the nation and his own household devastated by the plagues, decided he didn’t really want to lose his workforce and so he took off after the Hebrews.  Israel had been on their way out of Egypt when God told Moses, ““Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon” (Exod. 14:2).  This would, according to verse 3, cause Pharoah to think that Israel was just wandering around confused…ripe pickings.  Not only that, but God would once again harden Pharoah’s heart.  Why?  So that Yahweh can “gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” (Exod. 14:4).  So Pharoah mobilized his army and “pursued the Israelites and overtook them” (Exod. 14:9).  The Israelites “looked up,” saw the army and “were terrified” (v. 10) and then characteristically said, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?” (Exod. 14:11).

One of the things we will notice in both verses 29 and 30 of Hebrews 11 is that faith does not exempt us from going through trials and difficulties.  Even though they idealized their past, in believing that Egypt had been “so great,” in reality it had been very difficult living.

Here they harp against Moses, but it was God who had led them there.  So here they were, with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptians hotly pursuing them.  It was an impossible situation and unless God intervened, they were doomed.  Of course, this was God’s plan all along, to save them in such a dramatic and miraculous fashion that even the Egyptians would have to admit that Yahweh was the supreme God.

Israel needed to learn that salvation is completely from God, that salvation “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 8:3), which Jonah had to learn.  He said, “What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD,’” (Jonah 3:9).  There was absolutely nothing they could do to save themselves.  There was no place to MacGyver the situation and make an escape.  God led them into this desperate, impossible situation so that they would have to trust solely in him.

That is how God grows our faith today.  Sure, we know in our heads that we need to trust Him totally, every moment, but we don’t believe it in practice until He throws us into the deep end, into situations where there is absolutely no way out unless God comes through for us.

God delights in turning our overwhelming impossibilities into exhibitions of His might.  John Flavel once said, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.”  During the day of extremity, there is an opportunity for God to do what He does.  To deliver.  To save.  To bring good out of bad and order out of chaos.  Trials are like the gymnastic apparatus that makes the muscles of our faith grow stronger.

Here was a situation in which Israel’s enemy thought that they had an easy victory.  But God did miraculously what was impossible.  With God all things are possible.  He piled the waters on either side, allowing Israel to walk through on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-22), then he allowed the Egyptians to confidently pursue them.

The Red Sea is also called the Sea of Reeds, and we are not sure of the exact location where the Israelites crossed, but it clearly took place at a point where there was plenty of water.  I think it is humorous how some liberal scholars will say that the place where Israel crossed was just a few inches deep.  Not only is that not the way the Bible describes it, but then you have to deal with a completely different miracle.  How did God drown the entire Egyptian army in just a couple inches of water?  You can’t have it both ways!

Surely the Egyptians should have noticed the trap!  Water piled up in towering walls alongside them ain’t normal.  But John Owens observes, “There is no such blinding, hardening lust in the minds or hearts of men, as hatred of the people of God and desire for their ruin.”  The Egyptians abandoned all reason and rushed to their own destruction.  And thus a helpless, defenseless, disorganized band of two million slaves were delivered from a powerful, well-equipped army.  Nothing is too difficult for God Almighty!

The particular lesson of faith we learn from the crossing of the Red Sea is this: When you are trapped by impossible circumstances, trust in God’s miraculous deliverance.  Don Moen wrote the song “God Will Make a Way.”  In it he writes:

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

Now, come back to the reason that God delivered them.  Our author says that it was “by faith.”  But after expressing their desire to return to Egypt (Exod. 14:12), “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.  The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exod. 14:13-14).

Up to this point it was really Moses who, up to this point, had faith.  They were full of fear.  He comforts the people and then this eventuated in Moses’ preeminent display of faith when he stretched his hand out over the Red Sea, and the Lord drove back the waters with a strong east wind, and Israel passed through as on dry land (cf. Exodus 14:21, 22).

Both the book of Exodus in the Old Testament and the book of Hebrews in the New Testament stress the fact that the Israelites crossed over the Red Sea on dry ground.  The Israelites did not have to swim or wade across.  They didn’t even get their feet wet!  God pushed the waters back, and the Israelites crossed over on dry ground.  Now that is a miracle.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians followed them into the sea and immediately started experiencing problems.  Their chariot wheels were jammed and they had difficulty steering their chariots.  Then “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place.  The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea.  The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived” (Exodus 14:27-28).

The end result is that “That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.  And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant” (Exodus 14:30-31).

One man’s faith, which led to God’s action, resulted in the people “putting their trust in [the LORD].  What a sublime fact we have here!  One man’s faith can be so authentic and effectual that it can elevate a whole people and secure their deliverance! In lesser ways we have seen this in the lives of such people as Martin Luther and John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards.  This truth holds great promise for us.  Vibrant, authentic faith can elevate our families, churches, and communities.  Because Moses believed, the Israelites believed.

Now, it’s important to understand that the way God opens up for you will still require faith on your part.  Notice God did not just pick the Israelites up and deposit them safely on the other side of the Red Sea.  Exodus 14:22 says, “and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

God created a passageway for them through the Red Sea, but they still had to walk through that passage believing that God would protect them.  I would imagine it took tremendous faith for them to step onto the dry bed of the Red Sea with those walls of water towering above them on the right and on the left.  Only God was holding those great walls of water back, and if He chose to let go at any moment, there was nothing anyone could do to stop that water from flooding back in.

When you are trapped by circumstances, God will make a way for you.  But that way will still require faith on your part, again proven by obedient action.  Sometimes the way God opens up for you involves making hard decisions or taking great risks in order to do that which is right.  Sometimes it requires confession of sin, not only to God but to the person you sinned against.  Sometimes it means letting go of some things that you hold dear in life.  God never promises you an easy way, but he does promise to make a way if you will follow him in faith.

And most important of all, when you do follow God, God promises to go with you.  You never walk the path of faith alone.  When you go with God, God promises to walk with you every step of the way.  God says this in Isaiah 43: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you” (Isa. 43:2).  That is exactly what happened with these Israelites.  The rest of the verse says, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze,” which happened to three Hebrew young men who trusted God and refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol.

Why does the LORD do this?  Look at verses 3 and 4 of Isaiah 43: “For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.  Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.”

First, I am “your God” and “your Savior.”  You belong to me as my people and as your God I will save you.  He specifically says here.  “I give Egypt for your ransom.”  That was the redeeming price for saving Israel.  Second, we see God’s affections.  He is loyal because we belong to Him, but He is also affectionate towards us.  He saves us because we are “precious and honored” and “because I love you.”  Therefore, God will deliver them from other nations throughout their history.

Notice that what God did for Israel He did not do for the Egyptians.  He saved Israel and destroyed the Egyptians, even though they also went into the Reed Sea.  However, the difference, beside the fact that they were not God’s people, is that they didn’t enter the Reed Sea by faith, but by presumption.  They just presumed that if Israel could do it, so could they.

But it is dangerous to presume upon God and faith is not like that.  Faith is based upon God’s revealed promises.  The Egyptians had no promises to go on.  They acted on the presumption that nothing bad would happen to them.  The Egyptians had as much (or more) courage than the Israelites, but they didn’t have the promises.  So let’s not be like the Egyptians, presuming upon God when He has given us no assurance through revealed promises.

A. W. Pink notes: “”There are three degrees of faith. There is a faith which receives, when as empty-handed beggars we come to Christ and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour: John 1:12.  There is also a faith which reckons, which counts upon God to fulfill His promises and undertake for us: 2 Tim. 1:12.  There is also a faith which risks, which dares something for the Lord.”

None of these degrees of faith are effective and beneficial to us unless they are backed by God’s promises.  We can receive nothing by faith unless God has promised to give us something.  We cannot reckon on something being true unless God’s Word tells us so.  And we dare not take dangerous risks unless God clearly tells us to do so.

The test of faith is trusting God when all we have are His promises.  When the waters are piled high all around us and problems and dangers are about to overwhelm us, this is when faith is tested, and when the Lord takes special pleasure in showing us His faithfulness, His love, and His power.  When we have nothing but His promise to rely on, His help is the nearest and His presence the dearest to those who believe.  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 358)

So faith overcomes enormous obstacles, enduring by seeing the unseen God.  “But,” you may be wondering, “what about Peter Cameron Scott and all of his fellow missionaries that died young while trying to take the gospel into Africa?  Their faith did not deliver them!”

John G. Paton (1824-1907), who left his native Scotland to take the gospel to the cannibals of the New Hebrides Islands, answers that question well.  As he was getting ready to leave, an elderly friend repeatedly sought to deter him.  His crowning argument was always, “The Cannibals!  You will be eaten by Cannibals!”

Paton finally replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is to be soon laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms.  I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or worms.  And in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer” (John G. Paton Autobiography [Banner of Truth], p. 56).

When Paton finally received his external call at age thirty-five and landed in the region in 1859, he was quickly “stunned by the dreadful loss” of his first wife, Mary Ann Robson, to fever (John Paton, John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography, ed. Rev. James Paton (Geanies House: Christian Focus Publications, Ltd., 2009, p. 60), Their newborn son, Peter, followed three weeks later. His ministry was undergirded by this reigning thought: “This is strength; — this is peace: — to feel, in entering on every day, that all its duties and trial have been committed to the Lord Jesus, — that, come what may, He will use us for His glory and our own real good!” (Ibid, p. 101).

Let’s join Paton and Scott and Moses as people of overcoming faith, who endure by seeing the unseen God!

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 3 (Hebrews 11:16)

We are in Hebrews 11, verse 16.  Let me read this whole passage about Abraham’s forward-looking faith.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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 for them a city.

We have noticed throughout this passage that it is faith produced by grace that redirects our affections from this world to the next, from earth to heaven, from now to them.

This is basically one way we can determine whether we are practical atheists.  I’m not talking about theological atheists, who argue that there is no god, but rather Christians who live like there is no god.  They value man’s authority over God’s authority, they believe more in the material world than the spiritual world, and they value this life more than eternity.

Abraham wasn’t like that.  He took God at His word, by faith saw the rewards of heaven, and lived his life for eternity.

And this leads us to our second point in this text.  First, faith produced by grace redirects our affections.  Second, faith produced by grace also arouses God’s affection for us.

Look at verse 16b, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

“Therefore,” on the basis of this kind of faith that focuses our hearts and minds on God’s future, heavenly rewards, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.”

This is so incredible!  To think that God not ashamed to be referred to as my God.  It doesn’t bother him that I claim him as my God, rather it delights him!

When I served as a hospice chaplain I would sing hymns to my hospice patients.  Over the years I sang many of the hymns in The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration.  I found six hymns, and I never would have expected this, that talked about God’s smiling face.

For example, the hymn Jesus, I Am Resting Resting by Jean Pigott, begins the fourth verse with “Ever lift Thy face upon me As I work and wait for Thee; Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus, Earth’s dark shadows flee.”  Yes, when we see His smile all the pain and heartache of life begins to disappear.

Or take the hymn He Keeps Me Singing, by Luther B. Bridgers, where the third verse joyfully exclaims: “Feasting on the riches of His grace, Resting ‘neath His shelt’ring wing, Always looking on His smiling face—That is why I shout and sing.”  You can shout and sing and claim the sweetest name of Jesus because you keep your eyes focused on “His smiling face.”

In the hymn O That Will Be Glory by Charles H. Gabriel, he talks about the joys of heaven: friends will be there, joy will overflow, “Yet, just a smile from my Savior, I know, Will through the ages be glory for me.”  That smile will be our joy and delight throughout eternity.

Other hymns that have that concept—the smile of God—are Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts, Sunshine in My Soul and Trust and Obey.  Look them up and let these songs edify your heart.

Far too many Christians feel that God’s countenance towards them is a frown, not a smile, laboring under the false supposition that God in his wrath is about to rain down lightning bolts of anger toward them.  Nothing could be further from the truth as a Christian.

There’s no doubt that God’s heart must be grieved by sin and evil in our world but that is not the main headline!  God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son for us!

The image of God’s smiling face first appears in the priestly blessing of Aaron mentioned in Numbers 6:24-26: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

The image of God’s face shining upon someone paints a picture that signifies God’s divine favor.  Like warm rays from the sun, God’s favor is shining upon his people.  When we read “the Lord make his face shine upon you” it shows God’s radiance warming our lives with love, grace, compassion, guidance, joy, and all other attributes that flow from him. Again, we see the abundance in which God blesses his people. 

To “be gracious to you” shows that this isn’t something we deserve; rather it’s unmerited grace that God is giving us. Because God loves us, he gives us what we need and not what we deserve. That’s grace. 

God was not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, even though Abraham faltered and failed numerous times.  In fact, God later proclaimed to Moses, “I am [present tense] . . . the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).  The most notorious weasel of them all was Jacob, and God delighted in calling Himself Jacob’s God.  And did you know that God refers to himself three times more often as the “God of Jacob” than of Abraham or Isaac?

“Not ashamed” (cf. 2:11) is a litotes implying that God is willing and happy to be called their God.  Our author uses this figure of speech in the negative “not ashamed” to emphasize the more positive: God is proud to be my God.  He delights in associating His name with mine.

No higher tribute could be paid to any mortal.  But God proudly claims whoever trusts and obeys him, and they can humbly insert their name in the divine proclamation, “I am the God of __________!”

We all have seen or heard of family members who turn their backs on a member of the family that is erring and rebellious and who has caused them shame.  Do you realize that Jesus would never, never do that of you?  He would NEVER do that to you.

Jesus said to Mary, after his disciples had all abandoned him, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Did you hear it?  “Go to my brothers…”  My brothers!  Even though they had abandoned Him in His greatest time of need, he still regards them as brothers.  Back in Heb. 2:11 we read that Jesus Christ was “not ashamed to call us brothers.”

It is faith, not perfect obedience, that brings pleasure to God.  It is our dependence upon Him, recognizing that we are weak and needy and powerless.  It is trust that does manifest itself in obedience and endurance, but it is primarily the faith that pleases God.  Remember Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].”  So the reverse is also true: God is pleased with our faith.  That is what delights his heart.

On what basis does God delight in calling himself my God, or Jesus calling himself my brother?  The answer is right there in v. 16.   Notice that God “has prepared for them [and for us] a city” (v. 16b).  This is the New Jerusalem that will come down upon the New Earth. This is a reference to our eternal home.

And what was their response to this marvelous promise of a New and Glorified City that would be established on the New and Glorified Earth?  They “desired” it!  The word “therefore” in the middle of v. 16 points back to the first half of the verse.  In other words, it is because these OT patriarchs “desired” a better country that God is not ashamed of them.  Faith focuses the heart and the mind on those future promises of God.

So how is it that God is not ashamed of us when we are so often ashamed of ourselves?  It has to do entirely with His grace!  I remember reading a few years ago about a pastor in his early 30s who was diagnosed with cancer.  After many tests, the doctors gave him the worst possible news.  He was dying of cancer—sooner rather than later.  It turned out exactly as the doctors predicted.  He lived for a few more years and then he died.  But as long as he was able to preach, he spoke to his people about what he was learning.  The young pastor was given an insight that he shared with his congregation.  It went something like this.

Twenty seconds—and the clock is running!

When you begin your Christian life, you realize that you have a long way to go, but you think to yourself, “I’ve got a lifetime to grow in grace.”  Even though you know that you’ll never reach perfection in this life, you assume that over the years, you will grow much closer to God.  And while you struggle with various sins, bad habits, and a long list of negative tendencies, you think, “Someday I’m going to be a better person.”  After all, when someone points out a weakness to us, what do we usually say?  “I’m working on that,” which means, “Give me time and I’ll get better.”

But what if you don’t live long enough to make even the elementary progress that you planned on making?  That’s the dilemma this young pastor faced, knowing that he didn’t have much longer to live.  And it was precisely at this point that he gained wisdom from God.

He realized, “I’m not going to live long enough to get any better.  I’m going to have to die the way I am right now.”  That’s a shocking and sobering truth!  Suddenly you look up at the scoreboard and where you thought you were in the middle of the second quarter, with plenty of time left in the game, to your dismay the clock shows 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter.  And the clock is running!

What do you do then?  It’s either the grace of God or it’s nothing at all.  The young pastor shared with his congregation a fresh insight from Romans 5:8, a verse we normally use in our evangelistic efforts with the unsaved, the Romans Road: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Did you notice the word “still”?  “Still sinners.”  Jesus gladly gave His life for us while we were “still sinners.”  That word “still” comes from a tiny Greek word—eti.  Christ died for us while we were “still sinners.”  You and I, we were and still are “sinners.”  The dying pastor got up and said something like this: “I realize for the first time that I’m going to heaven because of that little Greek word eti.  I am still a sinner, and I don’t have any time left to get better, and when I die, I’m resting my hope on the fact that Christ died for me while I was still a sinner.”

Near the end, William Jay visited his friend John Newton (the composer of Amazing Grace), who was then barely able to speak.  He wanted some advice on being a pastor, a successful pastor.  But Newton said: ‘My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.’”

That is the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is what “being saved” really means.  That is our entire hope of heaven.

All of us who believe in Jesus Christ, even the very best among us, have so far to go that we’ll never live long enough to measure up on our own.  Someone else has to do the work for us.  And the good news is that Jesus Christ did.  He lived a perfectly obedient life and then died a sacrificial death in the place of those who did not and could never live that perfectly obedient life.

That is why Paul says, in Philippians 3:4-8, that all those things he had counted on and depended upon for righteous standing before God before, he now counted “as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [and then notice verse 9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith… (Phil. 3:7-9)

That is what pleases God, our faith, our total dependence upon His grace and goodness towards us.  It is this kind of total dependence that brings a smile to God’s face.

And why is God smiling?  What makes God proud to be called my God?  He gives two reasons, one at the beginning of verse 16 and the other at the end.  We’re going to look at the latter one first.

“God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he has prepared for them a city.”  As John Piper says, “The first reason he gives why he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has done something for them.  He made them a city—the heavenly city “whose architect and builder is God” (verse 10).  So the first reason he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has worked for them.  Not the other way around.  He did not say: “I am not ashamed to be called their God, because they made for me a city.” He made something for them.  That’s the starting point.  The pride of God in being our God is rooted first in something he has done for us, not vice versa” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

We also called that “city” heaven, or the New Jerusalem.  God has prepared it, but not for everyone, only for “them” who live and die in faith.  All preparations have already been made, as Jesus promised His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3)  It’s a “prepared” room in a “prepared” city” in a “prepared kingdom” (Matthew 25:34).  It’s just like C. S. Lewis said, in The Last Battle, everything prior is but the title page.  From the time of death or the rapture everything will just get better and better from this time forward.

But such is not the case for all people.  For those who refuse to believe a different prepared ending occurs:  “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41)

And that brings us back to the first reason why God delights in being called our God.

It goes like this: “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”  “Therefore” signals that a reason has just been given for why he is not ashamed.  The reason is their desire.  They desire a better country—that is, a better country than the earthly one they live in, namely a heavenly one.  This is the same as saying they desire heaven, or they desire the city God has made for them.

So two things make God unashamed to be called our God: he has prepared something great for us, and we desire it above all that is on the earth.  So why is he proud to be the God of people who desire his city more than all the world?  Because their desire calls attention to the superior worth of what God offers over what the world offers.

In other words, the reason God is proud to be our God is not because we have accomplished something so great.  But because he has accomplished something great and we desire it. (John Piper, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

Heaven has been prepared for you and God delights in being your God IF you believe that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is sufficient for your forgiveness.  If you go back to trusting in yourself and your own goodness, then it is not heaven that is prepared for you and God will say, “I never knew you.”  If you don’t possess this kind of faith, then cry out “Help my unbelief.”

Let me summarize four lessons from this paragraph in Hebrews 11:13-16: First, see God’s promises fulfilled in the future tense.  Bank on them.  Second, embrace your foreignness on this earth.  Remind yourself that this is NOT YOUR HOME.  Third, redirect your conscious thoughts and yearning desires toward heaven.  And fourth, revel in God’s delight in you…and delight in Him.

Each example of faith that the writer has cited so far is a positive one involving a believer who kept on trusting God and His promises in spite of the temptation to stop trusting.  That is what the writer was urging his readers to do throughout this epistle: Keep on trusting and do not turn back.  In every case God approved and rewarded the continuing faith of the faithful.

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 1 (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Do you remember how C. S. Lewis brings his masterful children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia to a close in The Last Battle?  After recording all the exhilarating adventures the Pevensie children with Aslan, the lion, Lewis concludes:

“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

This was Lewis’ provocative way of drawing our attention and affections towards heaven.  All the joys and all the pains of this life are but the cover and title page of our story.  That story for those who have believed in Jesus Christ will never end but just keeps getting better and better.  For us, after death there is destiny.  Earth is but the robing room for eternity.  Our lives should be shaped by our fixed attention and affection for heaven.

Matthew 6:10 tells us that we are to direct our prayers to “our Father in heaven.”  If you are a Christian, your father is in heaven.  Every blessing we receive comes from our Father in heaven.

Jesus is now in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.

Hebrews 12:23 indicates that the “spirits of righteous men made perfect” are also there in heaven.  All those in Christ whom we have lost to death are there waiting for us.

Jesus said that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20).  We each have a title deed to that place.  In fact, Jesus said he is preparing a place for us there (John 14:1-4).

We are strangers and aliens here, because “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).  That is where our “glorious inheritance” is (1 Pet. 1:4).

In Matthew 5:10-12 Jesus tells us that our reward “in heaven” is great for those who are persecuted here on earth.

So our Father, Jesus Himself, our loved ones in Christ, and one day we will be there to hear “Well, done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23)

So Paul tells us to “set your minds on things above” (Col. 3:2) and “seek the things that are above” (Col. 3:1).

And Psalm 16:11b says, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

This is why, for the Christian, anything short of heaven is not really home yet.  All this is merely the foretaste of the joys in heaven.  Everything that is really precious to us is awaiting us in that place.

Isaac Watts wrote:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

The second-century Letter to Diognetus described the Christians’ lifestyle in the following way:  They live in their own countries, but only as aliens.  They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners.  Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. . .It is true that they are “in the flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.”  They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.  They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.  They love all [people], and by all [people] are persecuted.  They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life.  They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance.  They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated.  They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. . . Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world.  (Simon Guillebaud, Choose Life, 365 Readings for Radical Disciples, 5-19)

Abraham knew this to be true and that is the perspective that our author is communicating in Hebrews 11:13-16.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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 for them a city.

From his calling at age 75 to the day of his death at age 175, Abraham knew that everything in this life—including the trials and inconveniences are merely the cover and title page of a story that will get better and better throughout the ages.

Remember, Abram had been born a pagan.  He was comfortable with the polytheism of his culture until one day a Voice called out to him, made him unimaginable promises, and by grace Abram believed God.

This grace-produced faith distinguished itself through obedience, endurance, anticipation and total dependence upon the character of a promise-making, promise-keeping God.  One author had defined faith: “Faith is not a fixation or obsession, but a rational commitment.  It is characterized not by ecstatic intoxication but by sober reflection and critical searching.”

Abraham didn’t shut down his mind and stop assessing the facts, but rather he focused on the character of God and put his faith in that.  Hebrews 11:11 said that Abraham and Sarah “considered him faithful who had promised.”

Despite the obstacles of advanced age and persistent barrenness, they weighed this against the divine impossibility that God would not keep His promise.  Since “God cannot lie” then the only option open is that the laws of normal reproduction must be overturned.  Faith produced by grace also redirects and arouses our affections.

First, faith produced by grace redirects our affections.

How often are our affections directed towards the things of this earth!  “I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home,” we love to sing, but in life’s reality it’s often so different.  Eyes that should be raised heavenward are riveted on earth.  Feet that should be tramping toward Canaan’s shores are mired in earth’s swamps.  Hands that should be reaching for eternal treasures are wrapped around gaudy marbles.  Backs that should be straining in kingdom effort are bent over in valueless pursuit.  (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 137)

John Piper reminds us:  “Jesus is not against investment.  He is against bad investment—namely, setting your heart on the comforts and securities that money can afford in this world.  Money is to be invested for eternal yields in heaven— “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven!”  (John Piper; Desiring God, 165)

In our day, our emphasis is far too much on the good life here and now, and not enough on the promised joys of heaven.  Thus, many that profess Christ as Savior live with their minds on the things on earth, rather than setting their minds on the things above (Col. 3:1-4).  They are motivated more by collecting treasures on earth than by storing up treasures in heaven.  Our focus is on what Christ can do for us here and now.  Heaven is a nice extra, but it does not govern how we live day to day. (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-37-desiring-better-country-hebrews-1113-16)

It is a dangerous thing when a Christian begins to feel permanently settled in this world.  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, vol. 2, 98)

But for Abraham it was different.  Watch how this unfolds in Hebrews 11.

In Hebrews 11:13 we have already been told that Abraham and Sarah finished well.  He says “These all,” he says, “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (v. 13a).

“All these people” include all those who have been discussed so far and all those who will follow.  All of these people lived by faith in the promises of God yet it always involved something that they never fully realized.

And this prefigures you and me.  We also have been given glorious promises, some of which are yet unfulfilled.  Our faith should imitate theirs.

All these “died in faith.”  I hope all of us want to “die in faith,” to go on believing both now and until our final breath, to hang on to God’s promises to the very end.  But those who “died in faith” also lived in faith.  Faith was the dominant characteristic of their lives, right up to the moment of death.

Many years ago, a ship known as Empress of Ireland went down with 130 Salvation Army officers on board, along with many other passengers.  Only 21 of the Salvation Army people survived.  Of the 109 that drowned, not one had a life preserver.  Many of the survivors told how these brave people, seeing that there were not enough life preservers, took off their own and gave them to others, saying, “I know Jesus, so I can die better than you can!”  NOW THAT IS DYING IN FAITH TO THE VERY LAST BREATH!

The Greek text here is somewhat difficult: “in accordance with faith” or “in accordance with the principle of faith” they all died.  Vine comments that the idea is that they died “in keeping with their life of faith.”  Death is the final test of faith, and they all passed with flying colors, living by faith right up to the last breath.  The beauty of their dying was that they died in faith though never receiving the fullness of the universal blessing that had been promised.  Their experience of death did not undercut their conviction that those promises would come to pass.

This is so difficult.  It requires not only great faith, but patient endurance as well.  Their faith “in death” was just as vibrant as it was throughout the totality of their lives.  In fact, isn’t in in death that many times the quality of our faith is made most evident?

One commentator puts it this way: “It is in death that hope in things which are future and invisible shines most brightly.”  The reason that they hung on to their belief in God’s promises is because they saw the unseen, they were certain of what they never could lay their eyes upon.  But they could see through the eyes of faith the ultimate fulfillment of those promises, “like sailors who become content they can see their final destination on the horizon.  Land ahoy!” (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, Volume 2, p. 100).

Now watch how the author builds his case.  He says, “having seen them and greeted them from afar.”  Faith had supplied them with a kind of seeing that transcends physical eyesight, giving them a certitude that allowed them to gladly “welcome” them.  “From afar” or “from a distance” signifies a long stretch of time.

Do you remember the final scene in the life of Moses?  Forbidden to enter the land because of his sin, God told him to climb to Mt. Nebo where God showed him the whole land.  God said, “This is the land I promised…you will not cross over into it.”

In Moses’ case, God physically showed him the land He had promised to give to Abraham’s descendants.  He didn’t get to experience it, but got to see it.  In the case of these “hall of faith” people in Hebrews 11, they so took God at His word that they could spiritually see the fulfillment of promises.

God opens our eyes to see.  This happens to us in salvation.  Because we are Adam’s seed, we are born dead in sin (Eph. 2:1), blind to the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:4-6), with ears deaf to the gospel (1 Cor. 2:9) and our wills are bound by Satan (2 Tim 2:26).  In 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 Paul says,

4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The difference between us in the New Covenant and those under the Old Covenant, God opens our eyes to see spiritual promises that are currently being fulfilled for us (although there are still some future promises yet to be fulfilled).  For Abraham, physical promises such as his land and his son, he could not see except by faith for a long time.

But it was so real to these Old Testament exemplars of faith that they joyfully welcomed them, anticipating the pleasure of the fulfillment of these promises.  Their faith so concretized these promises that they “saw” them and “welcomed” them with joy, they saluted them from a distance.

Paul uses similar language when speaking of the conversion of the Thessalonian believers.  He says, “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.  And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, (1 Thess. 1:4-6)

You “welcomed” the gospel with joy.  Why, because God had opened the eyes of their heart to see the sufficiency and the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.  He saw it and was glad.”  He “saw” it through the eyes of faith.  Likewise, Moses, in Hebrews 11:27 “endured as seeing him who is invisible.”  The prophets searched the Old Testament for that day (1 Pe 1:10-12).

Yet, these men and women of faith did not receive the things promised, but they were still trusting God to fulfill those promises until the day they died.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I would have likely been filled with resentment.  If God had made a promise to me and I lived in anticipation of that promise month after month, year after year, decade after decade and then died without ever having experienced the fulfillment of that promise, I think I would have been a little bitter.  At first, into the vacuum of uncertainty all kinds of fears and anxieties would rush in, but that would ultimately be followed by bitterness and resentment because I would have convinced myself that God really didn’t care about me or else He wasn’t powerful enough to fulfill his promises.

Abraham teaches us that when God’s promises are not fulfilled, when life gets worse rather than better, when the pain keeps on hurting, that instead of giving up on God or giving in to the temptation to doubt or fear or become bitter, we should hold on to those promises, even if we never see them fulfilled in this lifetime.  Why?  Because even more so than Abraham, we can foresee even better rewards in heaven.

Do don’t give up.  Keep on believing.

Faith for the Impossible, part 2 (Hebrews 11:11-12)

We were discussing Abram’s faith last week: a faith that obeyed, endured, looked to the future and believed the impossible.  God’s promises to Abram included land, that was never fulfilled in his lifetime, and a son, that Abram had to wait 25 years for God to provide.  It is obvious that God was trying to build faith in Abram.

Iain Duguid entitles his biographical study of Abraham Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality.  And that is what all of us do.  There is a gap between promise and reality.  God fulfills His promises, but we often have to wait.  God reveals Himself to us, and we respond to Him trustingly, taking Him at His Word.

Now two things were working against Abram: his age and Sarah’s barrenness.  Both made it biologically impossible for Abram to sire a son.

But God had made a promise to Abram and Abram had learned to trust those promises.  He was becoming a friend of God who knew God by experience.

Like men such as Abram and David, our theology needs to become biography.  We need to know God on an experiential level, one that comes only through implicitly obeying His commands and trusting His promises.  Often, trusting His promises results in having to act in obedience.

I don’t mean that our theology should come from our experiences.  That is dangerous ground.  Rather, I mean that our theology, what we believe, must become lived out in obedience.  That is when we really know God, we live with God.

When David said, “The Lord is my shepherd” that is different from saying, “The Lord is a shepherd.”  The latter is a theological statement, the first a lived-out reality.  David had experienced God being his shepherd and taking care of all of his needs.

R. Paul Stephens notes: “A careful study of the book of Job reveals that the only authentic theologian in the book was Job himself.  The reason is sublimely simple: while the friends talked about God, Job talked to God” (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/living-theologically-toward-a-theology-of-christian-practice/ )

Scott Hafemann writes: “Those who know God know that He is bound by his own promises and integrity, not by our wishes.  Moreover, unlike us, God never finds himself in the uncomfortable situation of having made a promise He no longer wants to or is able to keep.  God is never caught by surprise.  God’s promises are made in his infinite wisdom as part of His eternal plan and are backed by His matchless power.  What God says, He does.  God, because He is God, is a promise keeper” (The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, p. 94).

Abram therefore used this experience of waiting without receiving God’s promises to pray and worship and to get to know God better.

In Genesis 15:5 God told Abram:

5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

And notice Abram’s response: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

[We can find] that it was one thing to “believe God and have it credited to [us] as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6) but quite another to move that belief from [our] head into [our] heart and trust God completely in the everyday decisions of life, to move our theology into biography.

Our passage is Hebrews 11:11-12.

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Although the ESV and some versions have Sarah as the subject of this sentence, most commentators believe Abram holds that spot and a better translation might be the NIV, “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

Regardless, it was obviously a team effort.  In order to have a son God would have to do a miracle in both of their bodies.  And eventually both of them expressed faith.

Thus, he became certain that God would do what he said—dynamic certitude! He had visual certitude as he saw that promised baby boy in his mind’s eye and future certitude as he saw it as present.  Genuine biblical faith doesn’t focus on my impossibilities, but on God’s power to keep His promises.

When God told Sarah he would give her a child within a year, he asked the question, “is anything too hard for the Lord?”  It is a rhetorical question:  Of course, nothing is too hard for God.  And that is what Abram hung onto, God’s ability.  Not his inability, but God’s ability.  Not his impotence, but God’s power.

Genuine faith doesn’t need to know “how,” just like Mary submitted to God even though she had no idea how she would bear her Messiah.  Martin Luther says, “If you would trust God, you must learn to crucify the question, ‘How?’”

When God makes a promise, the real issue is never HOW, but WHOM.  Faith is confidence in God’s character, His faithfulness and power.  God backs every promise with an unfailing character.

Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic due to a diving accident as a teenager, has learned to live with her disabilities and disappointments.  Many times she has wondered, ”Why?”  But she says, “Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding His character, in trusting in His promises, and in leaning on Him and resting in Him as the Sovereign who knows what He is doing and does all things well” (Is God Really in Control? p. 9).

Chuck Swindoll tells about a couple of nuns who worked as nurses in a hospital.  They ran out of gas while driving to work one morning.  A service station was nearby but had no container into which to put the needed gasoline.  One of the women remembered that she had a bedpan in the trunk of the car.  The gas was put in the pan and they carried it very carefully back to the car.  As the nuns were pouring the gasoline from the bedpan into the gas tank, two men were driving by.  They stared in disbelief.  Finally, one of them said to the other, “Now Fred, that is what I call faith.”

It reminds me of that metaphor “You can’t get blood from a turnip.”

Faith, however, never involves turning off our minds or checking them in at the door.  Kent Hughes says it like this: “Some people are under the impression that when a person has faith, he inwardly agrees to ignore the facts.  They see faith and facts as mutually exclusive.  But faith without reason is fideism, and reason without faith is rationalism.  In practice, there must be no reduction of faith to reason.  And likewise, there must be no reduction of reason to faith.  Biblical faith is a composite of the two.  Abraham did not take an unreasonable leap of faith….We are to rationally assess all of life. We are to live reasonably. When we are aware that God’s Word says thus-and-so, we are to rationally assess it.  Does God’s Word actually say that, or is it man’s fallible interpretation?  And if God’s Word does indeed say it, we must then be supremely rational, weighing the human impossibility against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word.  And we must believe.

It is very rational to believe God’s Word, even when what is promised is humanly impossible.  Of course, this is the essence of faith.  God’s character is the central issue. Hughes writes, “If God’s Word does indeed say it, we must then be supremely rational, weighing the human impossibility against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word. And we must believe.”

Admittedly, the facts screamed “impossible” as they stacked up one on top of another.  “Past the age” and “as good as dead” seem to tip the scales against faith.  But Abram did a little theology.  Doctrine intersected with life, as it should, and Abram believe that God could still do what he had promised.

Romans 4:18-21 expresses it this way:

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

There was “no hope” as he faced the facts, but he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”  As Spurgeon says, “Your extremity is God’s opportunity.  The difficulty all along has been to get to the end of you; for when a man gets to the end of himself, he has reached the beginning of God’s working.”

Abram’s confidence was in God’s power to keep His promise.  It wasn’t the strength of his faith, because at times it did waver (as we read in the Genesis account); it was the object of Abram’s faith that guaranteed its fulfillment.

After fathering Isaac, Abraham fathered six more.  Why?  Just to show the reliability of God’s faithfulness to His promises and His power to keep them.

This is not blind faith, devoid of intellectual substance.  Later in biblical history we find these expressions of God’s faithfulness:

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, (Deut. 7:9)

O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? (Psa. 89:8)

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful–for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13)

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Heb. 10:23)

This is what faith is—not intellectual abandonment or frenzied optimism, but clear-headed dependence upon the character of the God who made the promise.  This is the kind of faith that obeys, endures, anticipates future rewards and relies upon the character of God.

To emphasize God’s faithfulness and His power to keep His promise, the author emphasizes the powerful contrast between the one solitary man to whom the promise was made, and the innumerable host of descendants:

Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. (Hb. 11:12)

The word rendered “as good as dead” is the same perfect passive participle as Paul uses in reference to the same subject when he says that Abraham, on receiving the promise of God, weighed up all the adverse circumstances and “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), or the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19), but concluded that the certainty of God’s word far outweighed them all. (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews Rev., p. 297).

Both “stars” and “sand” are proverbial for numbers too great to count.  There is “no math” that can count it all.  It is beyond imagination.  And ten times in the Old Testament this promise is reiterated as being literally fulfilled in history.  Truly God is faithful to keep His promises, His power guarantees it.

Philip Hughes reminds us of the “further and ultimate fulfillment which is manifested in the spiritual lineage of Abraham; and it is in this respect that the deepest truth of the promise is to be discerned.  As Paul teaches, the focus of the promise is precisely Christ, who is the seed of Abraham in whom and through whom all nations are blessed, and the seed of Abraham in its multiple sense is composed of those who are united to Christ the Seed (Gal. 3:7-9, 16, 29).  These it is who, within the eternal perspective, constitute the innumerable multitude of the redeemed, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues,” who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev.; 7:9, 14).

Whenever Abram looked out at the night sky diamond-studded with stars or at the grains of sand in the desert stretches, his heart must have thrilled at the hope of a multitude of descendants.  What about you?  Do you long for multitudes of people come to know Christ as Savior?  Then look up at the stars in the sky at night and by faith continue to claim this promise.  Because remember, God continues to fulfill his promise to Abraham even today.

George Muller of Bristol exemplified the nitty-gritty of a life of faith.  After being a wild youth, he was converted in his early twenties.  He obeyed God’s call by living a life of faith and obedience.  He lived in a manner that the world could not fathom.  He and his wife sold all of their earthly possessions, founded an orphanage, and lived by faith alone, making their needs and those of the orphans known only to God in prayer.  They often faced insurmountable problems that were overcome by faith in God’s power.

In 1877, Muller was on board a ship that was stalled off the coast of Newfoundland in dense fog.  The captain had been on the bridge for 24 hours when Muller came to see him.  Muller told him that he had to be in Quebec by Saturday afternoon.  The captain replied, “It is impossible.”

“Very well,” said Muller, “if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way—I have never broken an engagement for 52 years.  Let’s go down to the chart room and pray.”  The captain wondered what lunatic asylum Muller had escaped from.

“Mr. Muller,” he said, “do you know how dense this fog is?”

“No, my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, Who controls every circumstance of my life.”

Muller knelt down and prayed simply.  When he had finished, the captain was about to pray, but Muller put his hand on his shoulder, and told him not to: “First, you do not believe He will; and second, I believe He has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.”  The captain looked at Muller in amazement.

“Captain,” he continued, “I have known my Lord for 52 years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King.  Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.”  The captain walked across to the door and opened it.  The fog had lifted. (From, Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God [Harold Shaw Publishers], p. 243.)

I wish I could tell you stories like that from my own experience, but I cannot.  But George Muller and Abraham should challenge us to grow in the life of faith in the God who is faithful.  Obey God’s call to salvation by faith.  Live as an alien in this world by faith.  Ask God by His power to overcome any insurmountable problems you face by faith.

The Obedience of Faith, part 3 (Hebrews 11:7)

We’ve been talking about the faith of Noah, a faith motivated by a fear of God, a faith that caused him to take seriously God’s warning (which is like a negative promise) and to obey God’s mission to build an ark.

Noah preached righteousness and judgment, he faithfully built the ark, he lived a life of righteousness in the midst of a dark world, like Paul says to the Philippians, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation” (Philippians 2:14-15).  Jesus had told his disciples “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Noah had lived and preached and worked in such a way as to provide a positive witness to his neighbors.  But none of them responded in faith.  They jeered and ridiculed him.

And we ended last week with this question: Do you think Noah felt like a failure?  No!  He saved his family—the most important thing any husband and father could do!  Our text says that Noah, “built an ark to save his family.”  Without his faithfulness he knew that his own children could perish too.  We don’t read much about his boys until after the flood, and then there is little to be impressed with.  We don’t read about them taking up the preaching ministry with their father, though it was likely that they helped build the ark.  But the fact that they joined Noah on the ark shows that they had responded in faith and trust to Noah’s preaching.

It may be that we are losing our children today because we are not living out a radical faith and obedience in front of them.  Maybe our children are declaring themselves as “nones” in greater and greater numbers because all they saw at home was a father and mother who only showed up on Sundays, who maybe ascribed to some of the things the preacher said, but whose lives were not changed and who did not impress upon their children the truth of the Scriptures and the necessity of fearing and believing and obeying this God who saved them.

Many children today watch their parents at church and then see them the rest of the week and see no relationship between what they say they believe and how they actually live out their lives.  It is no wonder that many of them say we are hypocrites.

Many children see their parents pursuing the world, giving in to temptations, worry and fretting instead of trusting, living only for themselves, and they want nothing to do with their powerless faith.

Radically obedient followers of Christ show their faith by obeying God’s Word, especially when the world around them is moving the opposite direction and ridiculing them for their obedience.  2 Peter 2:5 calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness.”

Do you realize, parents, that you are preaching a sermon every day by the way that you live your life?  To live lives of radical obedience will bring us under the criticism of others.  Will you fear the Lord or fear men?  Will you see the reward of obedience and remain faithful, or will you believe the promises of the world and turn your back on God?

How did Noah save his family?  By simply doing what the Lord told him to do, believing and obeying God’s revelation, respecting God enough to believe and obey him rather than giving in to the world.

These children, along with Noah and his wife, “entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood” (Gen. 7:7) and God “shut them in” (7:16).  They were safe as long as they remained inside the ark; destruction came upon those outside the ark.

In this way the ark is a type of Jesus Christ.  When we trust in Jesus God shuts us into Jesus Christ and He is our salvation.  Only by being “in Christ” are we rescued from destruction.  You must enter into the ark, Jesus Christ, by faith.  You must forsake all other arks, all other supposed means of deliverance.  You must not stop at the threshold and just look into the ark.  You must enter in.  Just “looking into Christianity” as a curiosity does not save you.  In those days, it was not enough just to hear about the ark, it was not enough to know about the ark’s engineering, it was not enough to admire the ark for its size and sturdiness, it was not enough even to defend the ark as a seaworthy vessel, you MUST ENTER IN!

Noah’s obedience and preaching led to salvation for the eight people who entered into the ark, but condemnation for those who heard the message, saw the ark being built, but never trusted in God’s Word that a flood was coming.

What about you, today, do you realize that one day Jesus will return and that any of those who have not trusted in Jesus Christ he will treat as enemies?  Judgement is coming.  Are in “in Christ” by believing in the Gospel, or outside of Christ?  Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10

This will happen [the deliverance of God’s people] when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Today is the day of salvation.  Now is the time to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.  Don’t postpone it to an uncertain tomorrow.

The difference between the unbeliever and the believer is this:  the one is a man of the world, and lives here; the other is a man of God, and lives in heaven.  His whole life is a protest and a condemnation of the world.  Abel, Enoch, Noah–all three were equally rejected and despised by the world, because they condemned its works.  God grant that the life of his believing children may be so clear and bright, that the world may feel itself condemned by them!  (Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 435)

Fifth, we also read here in Hebrews 11:7 that Noah’s obedience receives justification.  Noah’s faith results in the best possible inheritance, “and [Noah] became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”  As an heir, it means that he was now an “owner” or “partaker.”  But this didn’t come through dear old Dad, but rather through faith in God Himself.

Now, with the Romans, anyone could become an heir.  A Roman citizen could choose a slave to be his heir.  But with the Jews, an inheritance was generally reserved for one’s own natural children.

Our text says that Noah “became an heir.”  This word ginomai, in Greek, in some contexts means to be born and in a sense Noah and his family, who were born dead in their trespasses and sins, came into existence into a new life, characterized by God’s imputation of his perfect righteousness, just like Abram “believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  All Abram did was trust God’s promise and God credited righteousness to his account.

So Abram is not the first to have righteousness credited to his account.  Noah is the first person to be declared righteous.  This is the “righteousness that comes by faith” which is quite similar to Paul’s distinction in Philippians 3:9, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”

This is the author of Hebrews’ one and only use of “righteousness” in the objective, Pauline sense of righteousness that comes from God through faith, that is imputed or credited to our account.  I like to call it an alien righteousness because “alien” stresses the fact that it does not come from within man, but is an objective gift from outside, from God.  The great Pauline texts often repeat the phrase “righteousness of God.” For example:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16, 17)

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Romans 3:21, 22)

The sublime result of receiving this “alien” righteousness is that we become the righteousness of God, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That’s double imputation—our sins were credited to Christ and his righteousness was credited to us who believe.

The point we must see here is that this righteousness from God is necessary for salvation.  Self-generated righteousness is never enough.  We can never earn salvation.

This objective righteousness was credited to Noah the moment he believed God’s word of warning.  And then subjective righteousness, righteousness on display in our speech and behavior, begins to shine.  This kind of righteousness is right conduct.

When we have true faith and receive the objective gift of righteousness and salvation from God, it enacts in us a growing subjective righteousness (a righteousness that grows from within).  And this is precisely what happened to Noah, as Genesis 6:9 beautifully testifies: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.”  He was “righteous” within.  He was “blameless.”  He “walked with God” toward the same place on the same path at the same pace, just like Enoch.  He lived a beautiful life that pleased God.

Noah was saved by faith—his faith led to his salvation.  There came the day when the rain began—it continued for forty days without stopping—and the pre-diluvians began to think perhaps Noah was not so crazy.  Noah got into the ark, and the jokes stopped for good as the water rose to the pre-diluvians’ knees and over their still lips.

Just as God came to the pre-diluvians through Noah, he comes today to us post-diluvians through the words of his Son who says:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37–39)

The event of Noah was not only a historic event, but it was also a foreshadowing of what is to come, when Christ returns, judgment is coming for the whole Earth.

There is coming another day of judgment.  It will be more severe and carry greater consequences than the previous day of judgment.  But Jesus indicates some characteristics of that coming generation of people, saying that they act just like people in the days of Noah—carrying on with life as normal without a care in the world, “eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,”—just normal, everyday life.

Jesus doesn’t talk about the coming generation’s wickedness, as Genesis 6:5 does of Noah’s generation.  The point is not that they this generation is extremely wicked, it is that they are entirely unaware.  Although the people of Noah’s day had seen Noah building the ark and heard him preaching messages warning them of the coming judgment, “they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.”

And today, people will be just as distracted and just as oblivious as the people in Noah’s day, maybe even more so.

Jesus’ point is, “Wake up!”  Realize that judgment is coming.  It is right around the corner.  And if you’re not careful, you will not be ready for his coming.  If you are ready, like Noah and his family, you will be saved.  If you are not, like Noah’s neighbors, you will perish too.

Greg Morse writes

Life as usual, many will come to realize, was never life as usual.

When Christ returns, many will discover too late that they lived within a dream.  Years came and years went.  Spring turned to autumn, autumn to winter.  They grew and grew old but never awoke.  “Normal life” lied to them.  So, Jesus foretells,

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37–39)

The world-ending return of Jesus will be as the world-ending days of Noah.  Of what did  Noah’s days consist?  Busy people unaware — eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, going about life “as usual.”  The very morning of the flood, people simply concerned themselves with whatever laid before them.  The immediate seemed most urgent, most real.  Planning meals, changing diapers, preparing weddings, working, buying, and selling — these seemed to them the greatest verities of life.  Until the rain began to fall.

So wake up!  Now is the time to get right with God.  Today is the day of salvation.  The coming of the next judgment may be as imperceptible as a rain drop.  We wonder, “What is that?”  But we don’t know its meaning.

Jesus calls the world to prepare for him: “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44).  By faith we can come safely through this judgment as well.

In fact, Peter says that our baptism is like Noah’s experience being carried safely through the waters in the ark.  “In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” (1 Pet. 3:20-21).

He doesn’t mean that baptism is necessary for salvation, but it illustrates a truth about our salvation.  And John Piper says, “Noah came to Peter’s mind because only a few were saved in the ark under God’s judgment.  And now salvation through faith, through baptism, is like that.  Through water, God saves his people, whether few or many, at any given time and place.  And we should rejoice that Christ died to bring us to God through his judgment.  The whole world may laugh, as in the days of Noah, but by faith we come safely through the judgment.”

Mitch Chase adds: “Baptism corresponds to the ark story because the arc of that story was death and life.  Baptism is the Christian’s public declaration that God has brought us through the waters of judgment.  Through union with Christ, we have been brought safely into everlasting life.  The Lord Jesus, the true and greater ark, is our refuge. And in Christ, we are delivered and not condemned.”

The apostle Peter wrote to a dispersed group of Christians in the first century who had been waiting for the return of Christ.  Like Jesus, Peter warned that the biggest obstacle to being ready is the sense of everydayness.  Scoffers will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Pet. 3:4).

This mundane stability can lead one to forget the suddenness of the flood that once submerged the land.  The rainbow sign in the skies points to a covenant in which God pledged to never again destroy the earth by flood.  To those who believed themselves to be abandoned by God—since the end had not yet come, the earth had not been purged with fire, and the new heavens and new earth were not yet here—Peter wrote that what they were seeing was not God’s inattention but his patience, “not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

Just as the ark was the only means of salvation from God’s judgment for Noah and his family, so the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way that God has provided for salvation from His coming judgment on the whole world.  Everyone on board the ark was saved.  Everyone not on the ark was lost.  Everyone who has trusted in Christ’s shed blood will be saved.  Everyone who has trusted in anything else will be lost.  In Noah’s day, it wasn’t a matter of being an excellent swimmer!  As Bill Cosby used to tell the story, God asks Noah, “How long can you tread water?”  You can’t be good enough to merit salvation.  The crucial question is, “By faith have you obediently responded to God’s warning by ‘getting on board’ Jesus Christ?”

God has issued a clear warning: A “Category 5” storm of judgment is heading toward everyone who dwells on earth!  The door of His ark is still open today.  Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one.  Flee to Christ now and you will be saved.  Scoff at the warning and you will be lost forever.  Imitate Noah’s faith and obedience.  Join him as an heir of the righteousness according to faith.