Hebrews 11

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We simply do not believe the promise of a better existence when Christ will put all things right. The result is that the faith of our feet are firmly planted in the here and now without any confidence about the future. We have stopped listening to the hope-giving melody of the future, with the result that we are not faithfully dancing now. Though Abraham and Sarah were advanced in age, they died dancing. They truly believed the promises of God. We must keep before us that the main promise that the writer has in view in this epistle is the promise of the gospel. It is a Christ-centred promise.

He desires his readers to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. This is the promise that we must believe before we die—if we will truly die in faith. And that is my main appeal to you. But having noted this, let us also remember the biblical principle promise that, if God did not spare His own Son for us, then surely He will not withhold any good thing that we need Romans 8: But we must also grasp the reality that there are other, more general, promises that we must confess; especially in those times in which the way ahead is cloudy.

I am thinking of the inexplicable and mysterious ways of the Lord that challenge our faith. It is at such times that the general yet no less true promises such as Romans 8: As a family, we have been for the last few weeks fostering a young boy while his mother has been considering whether to give him up for adoption. She has recently decided to take him back. We have no idea whether or not he will be raised in a godly home, or whether he will ever even know the love of a father. We have struggled as a family to know what God is doing.

Why does He not allow the boy to be adopted by a godly family? We live in a sorrow-filled because broken world. We serve in sorrow-filled because broken local churches. But God is sovereign even in our sorrows. This almost goes without saying yet say it I must: These saints of old were faithful for the simple reason that they knew God was faithful.

He was the Person behind the promise. They were fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised Romans 4: They knew that God cannot lie Titus 1: The trustworthiness of God is the reason that we trust Him. This relates to the previous point. They confessed because they really believed that these promises would come to pass. As the saying goes, perception is reality, or as v. Their spiritual vision was very healthy. They could see beyond the immediate to the ultimate. It is the difference between mere mathematics and the joy of marriage.

This, of course, is precisely the perception that we strive for as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are far too materialistic. To use an older term, too often we are merely naturalistic. We tend to believe only what can be evidentially explained. Therefore we struggle with the idea that we can actually experience joy even though our world is otherwise falling apart.

We are too quick to conclude that if only everything was great in our life relationally, financially, physically, politically and socially, we would be happy. That is to approach life materialistically rather than biblically. When you look at the life of Paul you quickly realise that he had an abundance of the lack of the things that we think that we need to make us happy, and yet he was so joyful that he could sing in prison Acts He saw beyond Nero to a far higher authority.

It is this spiritual perception that keeps us joyful and warm-hearted in a world that is otherwise filled with heartache. It is this kind of faith-fuelled perception that empowers a wife to be joyful even though she is married to a selfish and carnal man. This is the perception that we desire to emulate from the lives of those in the Hall of Faith.

The particulars of the answer are many, yet the fundamental element is the knowledge of God in Christ. To the degree that we are growing in propositional-based experiential knowledge of God, to such a degree we will be able to view this world and our circumstances faithfully —and therefore productively. And the same desire moved him to write similar words to the Colossian church 1: He knew that if Christians would consistently, confidently and constructively confess Christ, they would need a comprehensively glorious view of Christ. This is what shapes how we perceive what is happening in our life.

In his wonderful book, Marriage Matters , Winston Smith reminds Christians that God is at work in the ordinary circumstances of life—including such things as when your wife, whom you are trying to contact, has chosen to put her cell phone on silent—or when a husband continually views the laundry basket as a goal rather than a commitment. But this also applies in more serious circumstances, such as infidelity and selfishness and meanness and the painful break down of communication.

Smith points us to consider the reality of an ever-present God, who is at work. When we have such a perception, we are able to persevere in the relationship with a godly disposition. And when we do so, we end up—before God—with a good testimony.

In fact, look and you will perceive Him. And such perception will make all the difference as to how you behave in this world.

Third, these saints confessed because of their perspective. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. What they perceived produced their perspective. They believed God for the future and this made a profound difference in their worldview—quite literally.

But as we saw when we studied vv. Rather, the Lord who would one day be born in the land was what mattered. They, in fact, were often treated as outcasts and rejects and were sometimes the recipients of much hostility. These saints, in other words, did not view the Promised Land as their ultimate dwelling place. They were seeking rather for a homeland— the homeland. We saw this in v. They had a long view perspective. We are told that they viewed neither Canaan nor their former homeland as their ultimate home. In that case, they could easily have gone back there. The point that the writer is driving home is that, regardless of where they lived, and regardless of the temporal blessings that God bestowed on them, these believers did not sink their roots deep into this world.

They really were otherworldly.

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In fact, we have a wonderful historical account of this very thing recorded in Genesis Abraham wanted a wife for his forty-year-old son, who seemed to be a bit slow to launch. After all, if the promise to Abraham was going to be fulfilled then Abraham, if not Isaac, realised that his son would need a wife who would eventually become a mother.

So Abraham sent his servant to Mesopotamia to find a bride. But his instructions to his servant were clear: He was not to bring Isaac down to Mesopotamia under any circumstances vv. Isaac was not to return to his homeland. Too much was at stake. What a wonderful example of fidelity to God! And this is very instructive for us. Though earlier he had been see Genesis 13, 20 he apparently learned his lesson.

There is much here for our edification. How easy it is for us to compromise. Far too many spiritual broken homes have been the result. How tempted we might be to compromise principles in order to achieve some good end. We must not give into these temptations. Instead, we must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing that God will provide and produce what He has determined. The lifestyle of these believers was such that they were practically confessing where their hearts were. And their hearts were not focused on a sin-cursed world. It was for this very reason that they had such an impact on this world.

The faith that consistently confesses Christ is the faith that seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. As we have noted, such prioritised seeking is itself a confession of faith. This eternal perspective confidently confesses that there is much more to life than what we merely see. The person of true faith will increasingly live so as to put last things first. In a very real sense, the faith that truly has God as its object is otherworldly.

God speaks to us through the town. Text Courtesy of BibleSupport. God is not ashamed ] But honoureth them as his confederates, because for his cause they renounced the world. No man ever did or suffered anything for God that complained of a hard bargain. John Trapp Complete Commentary. For the latter construction also see reff.

There are two ways of understanding this clause: I would adopt a modification of this last. God is not ashamed of them, nor to be called their God: He did not deceive their hopes, but acted as their God by verifying those hopes. Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary. But now they desire a better country, — This made them carry their thoughts still further; and since they did not enjoy Canaan, nor see how Canaan could answer their expectations, they desired and expected a better country, that is, an heavenly.

They had opportunities enough of returning to their own country, had they thought that the promises made to them were to be fulfilled in that country; but since they were persuaded of the truth of what was promised, and did so sincerely embrace it, and yet declared themselves strangers and sojourners here, they must expect a better country, that is, a heavenly, in which they might receive their reward. They knew that God cannot lie or deceive; they knew that God is a rewarder of them that seek him; and yet Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, notwithstanding the particular promises made to them, received nothing here which could in this sense be called a reward.

They had not any possession in Canaan; no, not a place to set a foot on, that they could call their own; Acts 7: Could any thing be more obvious, than to turn their thoughts upon some place very different from that they lived in? None of them met with any such place here, and therefore they expected and desired a heavenly city, —a place of sure reward; and they had the more reason to expect this, because God called himself their God: It may be said, that their reward, or the good things promised them, were all things of this world; see Genesis There was therefore something more than the things of this world promised by God to Abraham, when he was pleased to call himself the God of Abraham.

It is added, for he hath prepared them a city. Neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, had any place in Canaan which they could claim as their own, except a burying-place bought with their money; and if their posterity four hundred years afterwards had possession of Canaan, yet the patriarchs themselves were no more than travellers, and lived in tents: Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible. Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: But in its fruits, as well as in its object, our faith must resemble his. The character of every true Christian—.

He does not make an unnecessary parade of his religion; nor does he affect needless singularities: He has seen how uncertain they are, both in the acquisition and enjoyment; how wholly unsatisfying to a. Heavenly things, on the contrary, he has found to be every way worthy of his pursuit: He has learned to regard this world as a mere wilderness; a land through which he is passing to his own native country [Note: The conduct of the patriarchs gives, in this respect, a just idea of the Christian. They dwelt in tents , and not, like those around them, in cities: But there is no man, except the Christian, that is uniformly and universally dead to the world, at the same time that he has every opportunity to enjoy it.

No person, but the true Christian, compares the two worlds together, so as to give a deliberate and determined preference to that which is above. The glories of the eternal world are seen by none but him, and therefore are coveted by him alone. Others, in their judgment indeed, will acknowledge the superior excellence of the eternal world: The true Christian, on the contrary, does seek it above all.

And in this there is no difference to be found between saints of any country, or any age. The mind of the Patriarchs is the mind of every Christian under heaven. The same sentiment prevails among the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the healthy and the dying. There may be a difference in many points both of faith and practice: The high honour conferred upon him—. But he is in a peculiar manner the God of those who consecrate themselves to him, and endeavour to walk according to his will.

This is particularly declared in reference to the point before us; a separation, in mind and spirit, from the unbelieving world. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? Thus will he do to all, who, like Abraham, endeavour to maintain a constant fellowship with him. Yea, whatever God himself possesses, even all his own infinite perfections, shall be employed in behalf of the believing soul, as much as if there were not another creature in the universe to engage his attention.

Thus will he do, I say, in this life: He robs him of his heart, his time, his service [Note: How is it possible that God should approve of such base proceedings, or profess himself the friend of such worthless creatures? This is my name for ever; and this is my memorial unto all generations [Note: Those who set their hearts on earthly things—. Compare your life, or rather your spirit , with that of the persons mentioned in my text. Do not mistake, as though their call was peculiar, and nothing resembling it is given to you. I know you are not called to go out from your country, and to dwell in tents: And is there not just occasion for you to seek it?

Compare the present with the future world: Why, then, do you not act agreeably to your convictions? Do you not know, that you can never have any hope of heaven if you do not desire it: You are afraid, perhaps, that your names will be cast out as evil if you renounce the world, and live m it as pilgrims and sojourners. To be ridiculed as righteous overmuch is, in your eyes, too formidable an evil to be encountered.

No doubt he will: Without a surrender of yourselves to him, you can never hope that he will give himself to you. Those who are endued with patriarchal virtue—. What if people despise, and hate, and persecute you, shall that be suffered to divert you from your purpose? Charles Simeon's Horae Homileticae. God is not ashamed of them, namely, to be called their God. Reference to Exodus 3: The fact instanced in proof of this communion is added in the concluding words: He has already conferred it upon them as a possession so Braun and Bleek.

He is not ashamed , because He has bestowed on them great blessedness, such as it becomes God to confer, and has fulfilled the promises which were made to them; therefore, not only is He not ashamed , but derives praise from it [glories in it]. First, He called Himself, then they so called Him: Bibliography Bengel, Johann Albrecht. The state, society, enjoyments, and place, they longed for, were all heavenly, Philippians 3: Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: For he hath prepared for them a city; that heavenly state and place which they sought for, Hebrews Bibliography Poole, Matthew, "Commentary on Hebrews THESE are bold words.

He needs heaven for His vindication. And if people professing to be His, and professing that He is theirs, do not so live, they would be a disgrace to God, and He would be ashamed to own them for His. There are, then, three things here for our consideration - the name; what it pledges God to do; and what it binds men to seek. Let me ask you to look at these three things with me. First of all, then, regard the significance of the name round which the whole argument of our verse turns. The writer lays hold of that wonderful designation, by which the God of the whole earth knit Himself, in special relationship of unity and mutual possession, to these three poor men - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he would have us ponder that name, as meaning a great deal more than the fact that these three were His worshippers, and that He was their God, in the sense in which Moloch was the God of the Phoenicians; Jupiter, the god of the Romans; or Zeus of the Greeks.

There is a far deeper and sacreder relation involved than that. It is the name which He took for Himself, not which men gave to Him, and, therefore, it expresses what He had made Himself to these men. That is to say, the name implies a direct act of self-revelation on the part of God. It implies condescending approach and nearness of communion. It implies possession, mutual and reciprocal, as all possession of spirit by spirit must be.

It implies still more wonderfully and profoundly that, just as in regard to the relations between ourselves, so, in regard to the loftiest of all relations, God owns men, and men possess God, because, on both sides of the relationship, there is the same love. Other forms of connection between men and God differ from this deepest of all in that the attitude on the one side corresponds to, but is different from, the attitude on the other.

If we think of God as the object of trust, on His side there is faithfulness, on our side there is faith. If we think of Him as the object of adoration, on His side there is loftiness, on our side there is lowliness. If we think of Him as the Supreme Governor, His commandment is answered by our obedience. But if we think of Him as ours, and of ourselves as His, the bond is identical on either part.

And then, of course, in so far as we are concerned, the name carries with it the most blessed depths of the devout life, in all its sacredness of intimacy, in all its sweetness of communion, in all its perfectness of dependence, in all its victory over self, in all its triumphant appropriation, as its very own, of the common and universal good. I do not rob you of one beam of the sunshine when it irradiates my vision. We take in of the common land that which belongs to us, and no other man is the poorer or has the less for his.

Now a word or two, in the second place, as to what that name pledges God to do. It matters nothing where.

Faith Confessing (Hebrews 11:13–16)

The point of the text is that, in any case, they were servants of a future promised to them by God, as they believed, and that that future shaped their whole life. Think of what their life was. And then, if the end of all was that they lay down in the dust and died, having been lured on from step to step by dazzling illusions dangled before them, which were nothing but dreams, what about the God who did it?

God needs the City for His own vindication. Now that seems to be a daring way of putting it, hut it is only another form of expressing a very plain thought, that the facts of the religious life here on earth are such as necessarily do involve a future of blessedness, and a heaven. If we believe that the awful silence of the universe has ever been broken by a divine voice; if we believe that God has said anything to men - apart, I mean, from the revelation of Himself made by our nature and in our daily experience - we must believe that He has promised a life to come.

And unless such a life do await those who, humbly and with many faults and imperfections, have yet clung to Him as theirs, and yielded themselves to Him as His possession, then. Let God be true and every man a lie. Unless there is a heaven, He has flashed before us an illusion like that which has tempted many a wanderer into the bog to perish.

He has fooled us with a mirage, which at the distance looked like palm-trees and cool, flashing lakes, and when we reach it is only burning sand, strewn with bleached bones of the generations that have been cheated before us.

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That is true, of course, in the most absolute sense, in regard to all the physical necessities and yearnings which the animal nature possesses. In all that region God never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them; and need is the precursor and the prophecy of supply.

So it is in regard to the whole creation; so it is in regard to that in us which we share in common with them. Care never irks the full-fed beast. No ungratified desires torture the frame of the short-lived creatures. And is that to be all? If so, then God is a tyrant and not a god, and there is little to love in such a character, and He might be ashamed, if He is not, to have made men like that, so ill-fitted for their abode, and to have bestowed upon them the possibility of imagining that to which realisation shall be for ever denied.

And if that is true in regard of many of the desires of life, apart altogether from religion, it becomes still more manifestly and eminently true in regard of Christian experience and devout emotions. For if there is any one thing which an acceptance of Christianity in the heart and life is sure to do, it is to kindle and make dominant longings, yearnings rising sometimes to pain, which the world is utterly unable to satisfy. Is it ever to be so? Then, oh then, better for us that we should never have known that name; better for us that we had nourished a blind life within our brains; better for us that we had never been born.

Morning dreams are proverbially true. Then there is another thought still, and that is that it would be a blot ineffaceable on the divine character if all the discipline of life were to have no field in the future on which its results could be manifested. These three poor men were schooled by many sorrows. What were they all for? And in like manner the facts of our earthly life and our Christian experiences are equally inexplicable and confounding unless beyond these dim and trifling things of time there lie the sunlit and solemn fields of eternity, in which whatsoever of force, valor, worthiness, manhood, we have made our own here shall expatiate for ever more.

I do not mean that life is so sad and weary that we need to call another world into existence to redress the iralante of the old. I think that is only very partially true, for we are always apt in such considerations to minimize the pleasures on the whole, and to exaggerate the pains on the whole, of the earthly life. But I mean that the one true view of all that befalls us here on earth is discipline; and that discipline implies an end for which it is applied, and a realm in which its results are to be manifested.

And if God carefully trains us, passes us through varieties of condition, in order to evolve in us a character conformed to His will; puts us to the long threescore years and ten of the apprenticeship, and then has no workshop in which to occupy us afterwards, we are reduced to a state of utter intellectual bewilderment, and life is an inextricable tangle and puzzle. You may go into certain prehistoric depots, where you will find lying by thousands flint weapons which have been carefully chipped and shaped and polished, and then, apparently, left in a heap, and never anything done with them.

Is the world a great cemetery of weapons prepared and then tossed aside like that? We need a heaven where the faithfulness of the servant shall be exchanged for the joy of the Lord, and he that was faithful in a few things shall be made ruler over many things. And now a word about my last thought; and that is, what this name binds Christian people to seek.

As long as he kept apart from them, he witnessed to the promise, and God looked upon him and blessed him. Translate that into plain English, and it is this. And as long as they do so, the world will know a religious man when it sees him, and, though it may not like him, it will at least respect him. But a secularized Church or individuals who say that they are Christians, and who have precisely the same estimates of good and evil as the world has, and live by the same maxims, and pursue the same aims, and never lift their eyes to look at the City beyond the river, these are a disgrace to God and to themselves, and to the religion which they say they profess.

God is not ashamed ; because they place such confidence in him and desire such pure and elevated joys, he has prepared for them a permanent abode and unending bliss in heaven. God is ashamed of those who have no confidence in him and prepares for them no habitation in heaven. He will not acknowledge them as his people, Mark 8: This digression is meant to shew that the faith and hopes of the Patriarchs reached beyond mere temporal blessings. Bibliography "Commentary on Hebrews Now —In accepting the inheritance of Canaan, they read a title clear to a better… a heavenly country.

And outside of the fleshly Israel there have been faithful souls belonging to the true Israel. God is not ashamed —The God of the universe condescends to be God to these immigrant pilgrims. All the stars of limitless astronomy, lifeless things as they are, are not as dear to God as one faithful human soul. Prepared… a city —The heavenly counterpart of which, the earthly is type and earnest.

But now the case is that, see chap. Whether all this was foreseen by the patriarchs has been much questioned. There may be a fulness of meaning here which the patriarchs did not reach; but in substance they believed that the promise given them was the promise of a future home, a promise connected in part with an earthly heritage; but their desire was for the presence and blessing of Him who was their trust, and with whom they hoped to be when their earthly pilgrimage was ended.

Less than that fails to explain the language of the Old Testament, as it fails to recognise the clear teaching of the New. The apostle hereon draws another inference, wherein he expresseth the true, real object of their faith and desires, with the great advantage and dignity which they obtained thereon.

Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. It was not a mere complaint of their present state and condition; nor,. Did it include a desire after any other earthly country, — not that in particular from whence they came, where were all their dear concernments and relations: It must be another country, of another sort and kind, that they desired and fixed their faith upon; which is here declared.

What was the consequent thereof: The ground and evidence hereof: In the first, the apostle declares that in the midst of the world, and against the world, which contemns things future and invisible in comparison of those which are of present enjoyment and use, they lived in the hope, desire, and expectation of a future, invisible, heavenly country.

And in this profession testimony is borne unto the truth and excellency of divine promises. To avow openly in the world, by our ways of walking and living, with a constant public profession, that our portion and inheritance is not in it, but in things invisible, in heaven above, is an illustrious act and fruit of faith. If we love the world like others, use it and abuse it like others, we destroy our own profession, and declare our faith to be vain. In the first part of the words we may consider,.

It is twice used by our apostle in his First Epistle to Timothy, and nowhere else. In the one place it is applied to the desire of episcopacy, 1 Timothy 3: They had an earnest, active desire, which put them on all due ways and means of attaining it. Slothful, inactive desires after things spiritual and heavenly, are of little use in or unto the souls of men. And this kind of earnest desire includes,. Here he expresseth where that city is, and what it is; namely, heaven itself, or a habitation with God in the everlasting enjoyment of him. The apostle here clearly ascribeth unto the holy patriarchs a faith of immortality and glory after this life, and that in heaven above with God himself, who prepared it for them.

But great endeavors are used to disprove this faith of theirs, and overthrow it. If we may believe the Papists, they were deceived in their expectation. For whereas the apostle teacheth that when they died they looked to go to heaven, they affirm that they came short of it, and fell into a limbus they know not where. The Socinians grant a state of immortality and glory to be here intended; but they say that these holy men did not look for it, nor desire it, by virtue of any promise of God.

But they are said to do so, because it was that which in the purpose of God would ensue; but they had no ground to believe it. There is herein not only boldness, but wantonness in dealing with the Scripture. For this exposition is not only expressly contradictory unto the words of the apostle in their only sense and meaning, but also destructive of his whole argument and design.

For if he proves not that their faith wrought in the desire and expectation of heavenly things, he proves nothing at all unto his purpose. Grotius and his follower would have the country intended to be the land of Canaan, and the city to be Jerusalem, — which yet in a mystical sense were typical of heaven, — for these were promised unto their posterity; than which nothing can be more remote from the mind of the Holy Ghost. Certainly men follow prejudices, and are under the influence of other corrupt opinions, so as that they advise not with their own minds, who thus express themselves concerning these holy patriarchs.

Shall we think that those who were testified unto to have lived by faith, to have walked with God, who gave themselves unto prayer and meditation continually, who denied themselves as unto all worldly accommodations, whose faith produced inimitable instances of obedience, rose no higher in their faith, hopes, desires, and expectations, than those earthly things wherein their posterity were to have no share comparable unto that of many of the worst enemies of God; the whole of it being at this day one of the most contemptible provinces of the Turkish empire? I no way doubt, but on the promise of the blessed Seed, they lived in that faith of heaven and glory which some that oppose their faith were never acquainted withal.

But we see here, that —. Faith looks on heaven as the country of believers, a glorious country, an eternal rest and habitation.

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They are born from above; there is their portion and inheritance. God is the one and the other. Thereunto they have right by their adoption; that is prepared for them as a city, a house full of mansions; therein they have their conversation, and that do they continually long after whilst they are here below. In all the groans of burdened souls under their present trials, there is included a fervent desire after heaven and the enjoyment of God therein. So was there in this complaint of the patriarchs, that they were strangers and pilgrims, Heaven is in the bottom of the sighs and groans of all believers, whatever may outwardly give occasion unto them, Romans 8: And this was the greatest honor that they could be made partakers of.

He who is the great possessor of heaven and earth, the God of the whole world, of all nations, of all creatures, would be known, styled, and called on, as their God in a peculiar manner; and he distinguisheth himself thereby from all false gods whatever.