Hebrews (Session 12) Chapter 11

while we're reviewing the epistle to the hebrews quite an epistle of course uh a shattering thing to many people to really realize that the levitical system the levitical priesthood the law is behind us it's been totally replaced eclipsed annulled put away in exchange for the new covenant and a new priesthood and it's very disturbing to many christians to fully really appropriate this issue this issue is hammered away in three epistles by paul episode the romans of course galatians indeed and of course the epistle of the hebrews and uh so and we're not taking except we we we we're not going to make a big thing of paul's authorship some people question that but the more you study the pistol to me the evidence is compelling but the net of it is is that the logic the the integrity the message of the epistle hebrews stands independent of the authorship because it really is built entirely from the old testament and uh it built from that foundation which his readers took seriously anyway because it was written to the jewish mind the jewish christians but it has lessons for every one of us and many of us that are gentiles that are christians gain a whole essential background from this epistle well we've been through a lot of the doctrinal parts we've been with that pretty hard in the previous chapters but now we're in chapter 11 and one of the most delightful one of the most well-known chapters of the epistle now the first seven chapters were all about jesus and that he was the new and better deliverer better than angels better than moses and joshua and aaron and so forth a priest after the order of melchizedek not levi and we went through all of that the first seven chapters and he had the benefit or we have been his benefit really of the better covenant a better sanctuary and a better sacrifice and that hammered away through from chapters 7 through 10 where we were last time and last time we got into the fourth of five warnings tonight we shift from that to a chapter that in many ways stands on its own as a as one of the favorites by many people called the the the hall of faith charles spurgeon made it interesting he says it is not thy hold on christ that saves us it is christ wow it is not thy joy in christ that saves thee it is christ it is not even thy faith in christ that saves thee though that be the his instrument it's christ's blood and merit i mentioned that to sort of start another flavor you know you see a lot of secular well-intended uh uh inspirational films and stuff which you just got to have faith just gotta have and when you see people say that it demonstrates they have no idea what they're talking about because you're gonna have faith in something that ain't working the faith the issue is not the faith you know many people sort of get enthusiastic and say well you've got to have faith no you've got to faith in the right things you know and so we're going to talk about that as we go through here dr sanders said oswald sanders said faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen okay that's getting warmer so let's just jump in and see what the thing says and see if we can understand what it says you know there's a great difference in our institute we have two legs or three legs but two that are very different we have the berean leg which is the study of the word of god and we have the issachar leg which is the understanding the times the berean leg is the bible study part of it and the iskars the intelligence strategic trends and stewardship kind of things they are opposites actually in in terms of tools because when you study the berean leg you're you're studying something you know is true are challenges to understand it to apprehend it the second leg is just the opposite you're dealing with worldly data intelligence briefs they're subject to bias hidden agendas your challenge there is just the opposite apologetics is appropriate to the first leg which is the defending your faith it's like an attorney before a jury it's deductive reasoning the other leg is the epistemologist is the opposite epistemology being the study of knowledge of scope and its limits just the opposite it's it's inductive the first is the tool of a trial lawyer the second one is the true love the tool of the detective trying to determine what really happened it begs the question what is truth well here we are we're in the word of god and here our challenge now is to really understand what it's saying so let's just jump right in in first verse now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for the greek term there in the original is hopeostasis and that is in in that will be coming up again in chapter one verse three it came up it's an exact reproduction it is assurance in several other places that's what the word means the meaning is substance that gives real existence it's analogous to something in a document a legal document in the ancient documents that term was used as evidence like entitled deeds it gives a guarantee of ownership or what have you it refers to the real essence the real essence the real content it's the essence of the future reality as a scientific term hopeostasis is the opposite of hypothesis a hypothesis is something you're suggesting is possibly true homostasis is something you know is true see they're opposites okay the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen well what does that mean elicos which is a legal term meaning evidence that's accepted for conviction in other words only evidence it's convincing evidence if you will it's in effect a commitment to certainty and as a noun it only appears here and in paul's second letter to timothy the person of faith lives out his belief in what his mind and spirit are convinced is true the entire business world by the way rests on faith every time you accept a check you're accepting the good faith and credit on that check every time you use a credit card the merchant is takes faith that that's going to be made good see the whole world economic world of transactions depends on full faith and credit and so so faith is not something distinctive theological but that's obviously the thing we have here see this hope we talk about is not a wish or a dream or a fantasy it's reality and faith is the substance for the scientific mind it's the evidence for the legal mind take either posture you want and all of these things we're talking about here of course are still future and unseen that doesn't make them unreal that doesn't make them uncertain that's what the faith deals with it hope or faith has to have a foundation and that foundation is scripture you've got to have faith no you've got faith in the word of god different deal altogether now even if you have faith in the word of god then that will be accompanied by patient waiting until it comes to pass so faith in the word of god is concomitant to enduring hanging in there that's really the point of the author the author is going to select a whole bunch of examples and some of the examples are kind of surprising we need to understand he's not just giving a chronology of a lot of great faithful people no he's making another point and we're going to watch for what that point is as we go but in this first verse the first the teaching here is that faith gives substance to things that are hoped for and it demonstrates a provable reality to things unseen we'll talk about some of these faith gives assurance that the other world the unseen world really does exist you and i whether we realize it or not are hanging our entire eternity on the existence of a world we haven't seen we need to realize that we want to understand that better the life of the believer today is lived in the assurance of another reality and we're going to talk a little bit about that that's a reality outside our immediate experience although these things are unseen the person of faith is convinced of the reality of them obviously and the second verse says and by it by what by that faith the elders the pre the ones that have gone before obtained a good report so this forthcoming list we're going to be exploring that makes up this chapter is intended to motivate equivalent behavior there are many experiences that people have had in the past that we may applaud that we don't really think are going to happen to us we're not necessarily assuming we're going to be in their shoes but the list that we're going to examine is going to point to behavior that we are expected to emulate to to to follow now these elders we're going to talk about are old testament obviously saints and since the exercise faith to depart from faith is to depart from old testament saints these old testament saints won the battle through patient endurance that's the key to keep probably the two key words this chapter patient endurance these believers must win the battle the same way in other words the writer here paul i believe is saying he's going to point these old testament saints that won the battle you guys you listeners are going to need to win the battle the same way you need to learn how they did it that's how we're going to do it and the key verse if you want to pick a key verse is a verse that is back from chapter 6 verse 12 that you be not sluggish but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises well you can't earn your salvation absolutely not your salvation is done 100 by jesus christ if you're saved it's because you accepted christ he did the whole thing your passport is stamped you are on your way to heaven great that's first base that doesn't mean you inherit what do you want to inherit promises boy there are some fabulous promises that you can forfeit if you're not faithful that's the whole thrust here and that's the thrust of nan's book the kingdom of power and the glory is the idea that there's an inheritance that you will forfeit if you're not diligent let's find out what that means so that's what she deals with in her book so let's go ahead here now we're down to verse three one of my favorite verses through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of god so the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear sounds like a little bit of double talk doesn't it through faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of god now the word of god in the original is the word rima when i go down to australia new zealand radio rima is one of the major networks why do they call it radiorima it's the word because the word rima in the greek doesn't just mean the word of god it means the spoken word it fascinates me to notice and remember back in romans chapter 10 verse 17 faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of god the holy spirit seven times in revelation chapters two and three he that hath in the ear let him hear with the spirit god that i remember as even as a teenager i came across an essay in one of the quarterlies whatever that the the writer took the position that the ear is the portal god uses all through the scripture god said hear what he says he that hath an ear etc etc the writer made the point that the eye is satan's portal eve saw the fruit that was desired to be make one wise you know it's through the eye that satan tends to that's that leads to lust and all these things interesting and i'm not i'm not here to you know to to endorse the particular thesis of the author but it is a provocative perspective that god seems to use the word the spoken word as his instrument in some surprising ways the word riemann so that worlds were framed by what the spoken word of god okay it's interesting that an ancient sage by the name of nachmanides he wrote in the 13th century jewish genius he noted that in genesis chapter 1 the creation chapter of the bible god said and god said occurs 10 times and maybe from that and some other things he came to some interesting conclusions but god said god all that in genesis 1 the creation of everything you can think of it's all listed there in the six days right and god said and god said and god said ten times he says that so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear that's one of those phrases that you first think just sound like a little bit of double talk you know let's find out what does that really mean let's talk a little bit about the dimensions of our reality we're sitting here in chairs i've got here podium up here we're in a room right that's our immediate reality nachmanides back in 1232 concluded from studying genesis chapter 1 and god said 10 times he concluded that the universe has ten dimensions and only four are knowable if you read his commentary on genesis published in 1263 that was one of his conclusions from the hebrew text okay that's kind of interesting we live in the 21st century right we've spent millions of dollars on atomic accelerators to try to understand our reality and what do our scientists tell us today what's the current thinking the particle physics the quantum physicists in the 20th 21st century say we live in 10 dimensions really that's kind of interesting in fact they'll point out that only four of those ten are directly discernible there are three spatial dimensions length width and height three space we all know three dimensions einstein's great insight back at the turn of the previous century was that led to his general theory of relativity is that time is a physical property we live in four dimensions not three three spatial dimensions and time a physicist today will not speak of space and time separately he'll always speak of space-time and four of these ten are directly discernible six they would say are curled using event you know vector terms they're curled in less than 10 to the minus 33 centimeters and therefore that's less than the wavelength of light so you can only infer the other six indirectly it takes some elaborate scientific things to get at them but the point is that current thinking is there are ten dimensions four are directly discernible six are more elusive but nevertheless real legitimate dimensions i think that's interesting that our science has finally caught up to where nakhmanides was back in the 13th century by studying what not particle accelerators studying the word of god say well there's four dimensions isn't that interesting is that is that that we thank einstein for that einstein should have read paul's letter to the ephesians it might have given him a clue because paul speaks in verse 18 of chapter three of ephesians of the breadth the length the depth and the height whoops how many are there four okay breath platos makos for length bathos for depth and hypsos for height but the first one actually means breath and can mean breath like extent it can infer time so am i saying that paul knew was was was of our hyper spaces and that three were spatial and one was no necessarily the holy spirit certainly did and that may guide his flow of thought here but breath length depth and height and the first word the plateaus can mean uh it can be a greek expression for time so you've got length depth and height three dimension three spatial dimensions and height kind of interesting we're not we're just getting started just getting started here okay verse 3 again through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of god so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear let's explore that one a little bit when we were all in school most of us i think got exposed to a model of the atom there's several different models but the most commonly known one visualizes a nucleus and elect one or more electrons spinning around that nucleus the simplest example to talk about is hydrogen the nucleus consists of one proton and an electron spinning around it no problem so far right you realize that's in one plane it's actually a three-dimensional thing but that's okay we'll get there now this of course is not the scale but we have a nucleus and electron fair enough if we're going to make this to scale there may be some usefulness to try to get a feeling for this well the nucleus is about 10 to the minus 13 centimeters and point point zero zero zero zero thirteen zeros and a one is the smallness of the nucleus it's itty bitty okay all right now the electron spinning around it is in the neighborhood of 10 to the minus zero zero 8.0001 it should have been eight i didn't count them but there should be eight zeros and a one right so if the way you summarize these numbers they're called orders of magnitude if you're going to deal with very small or very large things you typically just use powers of 10. okay 10 to the minus 13 is very very small 10 to the minus 8 is not quite that small you with me okay it may be useful for us to get a feeling for the difference if the linear ratio between the two is 10 to the minus 8 divided by 10 minus 13. or putting another way that's it's 10 to the there's a 10 to the fifth difference between 100 000 difference you now you and i generally don't run into a hundred thousand differences let's try to make an example of that let's make a model of this electron and let's use a golf ball to represent the nucleus with me so far well let's we want to make something represent the electron spinning around this nucleus how far away well it would have to if the golf ball let's call it two inches a little less than that i guess but let's call it two inches the electron then would be how far away well it turns out the electron would be about if if i have one it turns out to be about 55 football fields away okay yeah wow that's right that's that's how long is it call it a mile call it a mile okay so football field i'm using like a meter but call it like a yard okay where it's about 5 500 yards that's a long way okay call it a mile in wrong terms but that's just the linear that's 10 to the fifth but if i want to make it volumetric i need the length width and height right so what i really need to do is cube whatever that is well if i cube 10 to the fifth that turns out to be 10 to the 15th now the 10 to the 15th is a number so big that most of us can't relate to that in fact i was in a discussion with dr edward teller and his sidekick norris keeler we were on board together and they were talking about 10 to the 15th and i said boy that's more than one second is to 30 million years and they looked at me shocked they use these numbers all the time at livermore i'll tell you they're taunting scientists you know and even they didn't really relate to the reality of a number that big okay because 10 to the 15th is the same ratio roughly as one second would be to 30 million years do the math do the math figure it out do it piece of paper and work it out it's a it in in in rough size now why am i get why am i getting into this because if i'm saying that this podium is solid and tracy comes up to me and challenges me and says there's nothing there she is more right than i am by a ratio of 30 million years to one second follow me in other words 10 to the 15 seconds to one second there's it's more true to say there's nothing here than to argue that this is solid you see why now you say well that's kind of crazy because i can feel it here no what you're feeling is a collision between the atoms in my hand and should correction the molecules see we've just taken a simple atom here if you take several atoms and put them together you get a molecule and there's all different kinds of molecules and my my body is made up of molecules this podium is made up of molecules and when i put my hand here the electrical fields of my molecules are colliding so to speak with the electrical fields of the molecules here so i sense the illusion that it's solid and it is solid in the sense that i can't penetrate it because i don't i can't you know relieve those electrical fields but the point is that this reality that we are used to experiencing is an electrical simulation that wall over there is not solid it is more empty than solid by some incredible ratio follow me now if i try to walk through that wall i'm going to be very embarrassed okay because my molecules won't you will interact with those molecules and i'll be very embarrassed okay but for us to understand this we've made a step toward trying to grasp our reality there are neutrons that are not not positive or negatively charged passing through us continually and fortunately they don't do any serious damage but there are cosmic rays that impact the earth that may be one of the secrets to aging by the way there's all kinds of hypothesis but let's move on to something else here one of the other discoveries of 20th century science is that the universe is made up of indivisible units they call them quanta and the study of the series called quantum physics what do i mean by that let's assume i took a line of some length doesn't matter i start with a length of line and i can cut that line in half can i obviously and i can throw half of it away and just deal with half of it i'll take what i have left and i can cut that in half can i and i can throw that away and i take the half i've got left and i can cut it in half and i keep doing that can i every time i cut it in half i throw away half i have half left and you would think at least in our imagination that i could do that forever no matter how small that got i could always conceptually at least cut it in half and throw half of it away and the shock to scientists in the 20th century that got into all of this they discovered that that that ain't true if i get down to 10 to the minus 33 centimeters now that's a very itty bitty piece but if i get down that fall and i try to cut that in half something very strange occurs it doesn't cut in half it becomes everywhere at the same time and they've actually confirmed this in the laboratory allen aspect and as guys at cern confirmed this some more than a decade ago that every photon in the universe we're talking about subatomic particles that are smaller than an atom here much smaller than another subatomic particles every sub-atomic particle knows what every other subatomic particle in the universe is doing there's an immediate connection and that makes no sense it has implications philosophically that are extremely shocking so much so that boltzmann one of the founders of quantum physics committed suicide because he understood it and realized he couldn't handle it that's called this the the 10 to the -33 centimeters is what's called the quantum length the flank length in length and that be smaller than this they lose locality there is a planck length there's a plank term for mass energy length and time the ones we can relate to is plaque length we've just shown you that planck time did you know that there's no period of time smaller than 10 to the minus 43 seconds there's no such thing it's my suspicion that that's equivalent if i take lights traveling at the speed of light that's pretty fast going through my retina or my iris i should say i think it takes 10 minus 43 seconds to get through there or thereabouts and that's what i think paul meant when he wrote to the thessalonians when he spoke of in the twinkling of an eye how passo takes place i think it's a hyperdimensional transition and it breaks through the physical barrier of the blank time but in any case that's just one of my weird speculations the point is even time is a physical dimension that's made up of indivisible units now this is what leads to the real shockers we try to understand the universe whether we're talking about mass energy length or time all these things get down to a point where they're indivisible what does that mean they're digital they're digital it's like a piano have you ever strike tried to get a sound that's between two keys see a piano in concept is digital you got black and white keys but the point is each one is and you know it's not like a violin where you can get any sound some quite unpleasant okay a piano if you you're going to get a c or a d or an a in other words if it's to me it's tuned probably you you can't get in between the two except to they can't there's a definitive place between the two the black key between you follow me so in that sense a piano is digital okay we discover that the entire universe is digital and this shows this shows up in the mathematics because we start taking integrations and so forth it turns out that's where all this starts to show up and that's where they first recognized it and then it was experimentally confirmed now let's stand back and we'll use uh symbolically we'll use davinci's vitruvian man to represent our reach as a person that's us in the middle and we'll go left and right we'll call that size to the left is small to the right is big are we together studying the big side of things getting larger and larger and larger and larger we go to astronomy and astrophysics as our boundary right and the great discovery of 20th century science is that the universe is finite it's not infinite that's what led the acknowledgement of that is what led to the big bang theories which are conjectures is how it all started because they know it had to start somehow and so they call that as if you don't understand it you give a fancy name they call that a singularity right well what's the singularity well first there was nothing and then it exploded now you laugh that is exactly that's the best we know and there's all kinds of conjectures as to what happened 10 to the first 10 to the minus 43 seconds and there's books written about where they try to guess what that's like but the main point is see if the the universe we know always go hot hot things go to cold got heated flows to cold if the universe was infinitely old it would be at a uniform temperature but things are still flowing from hot to cold which means it had a beginning that and it hasn't finished yet so it had a beginning somehow and it's going to have what they call a heat death when everything is a uniform temperature throughout the universe no more work can be done it's over the physical universe is over it's like a clock that's been wound up and it's been running down now so we know on the large end of things it's finite we could talk more about that that leads to discussions of astrophysics or astronomy we call that collectively the macrocosm largeness in the ultimate sense okay let's go the other way let's talk about smallness that leads us to quantum physics subatomic particles we discover that's digital that's also finite so we're shocked to discover infinity is totally elusive we can talk about it mathematically we can't find it in the world we can't find it in bigness and we can't find it in smallness it doesn't exist that's disturbing there's some science fiction stories and movies made where people make a a simulated world put simulated world people in there and they play the plot line deals with it and then they discover they themselves are simulated people in the simulated world and and a very clever form of fiction to get across that these boundaries these different realities okay now so that's the microcosm it's digital now what does that mean that means you and i find ourselves inside a digital simulation in which the reality is an electrical simulation and so the medical now what's interesting if we talk about the whole package got microcosm the metacause and the whole thing scientific american in some of the articles scientific american point out it appears that our universe is but a shadow of a larger reality well that's what the writer in the book of hebrews was trying to get across in verse three it's always fascinates me as a technologist and in my specialties information science is to discover some of our frontiers in science are anticipated in the word of god when we read the word of god we may not have the scientific background to fully appreciate its implications but what survives is not our scientific textbooks but the bible none of you would take a course in physics with 1960 textbooks or 1950 or 1940. you'd laugh at it but you can take a bible course with the same bible that scofield use or whoever you know okay we're down to verse four we're making great progress here by faith abel offered unto god a more excellent sacrifice than cain notice it's his sacrifice not his character that's the issue here by the way i think cain had a remarkable character he did a stupid thing but he's anyway by which he obtained a witness that he was righteous god testifying of his gifts and by it being dead yet speaketh it it's his sacrifice that made the difference he wasn't better behaved you could fill in a lot of blanks no it was a sacrifice that he obtained witness that he was righteous what made him righteous his conduct know his sacrifice okay he's an example of one that chooses god's way to approach him cain chose his way god had ordained a blood sacrifice back in genesis 3 verse 21 by the coats of skins they'd be covered a levitical hint very early that was what god had ordained abel did what god requested cain did what he thought was a better idea didn't work okay he gave the fruit of a cursed ground rather than the the what god had ordained cain is an example of one who thinks he can choose his own way to god doesn't sound like a bad idea except god writes the rules and by the way the blood sacrifice did not make abel righteous what made abel righteous was his faith and the evidence of his faith was that he offered the type of sacrifice god required okay it's his behavior that's to be of doing what god told him is the issue the blood itself never saved him the blood on the cross did god testifying of his gifts okay and by the way good question how do they know they're you know abel's sacrifice was accepted right kings was not how do you know how did he know how did cain know that his sacrifice wasn't accepted you put it on an altar what happened what good for you many people don't realize that god in those days took it okay and uh fire from heaven absolutely moses and aaron and leviticus 9 experienced that gideon experienced it in judges 6. samson's parents in judges 13 elijah in first kings 18 very dramatically at carmel david first chronicles 12 and solomon in second chronicles 7. you know we read the bible we don't pick up on that maybe but right on we got someone doing their homework i like that that's good okay now let's move on by faith enoch was translated raptured if you excuse the expression that he should not see death wow and was not found because god had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased god we get to genesis 5 it's not quite clear the writer of hebrews elaborates on it for us here the hebrew of genesis actually reads in genesis he was there and then he was not there anymore okay now if that's the case i probably have had some employees and companies i ran that were translated yeah for before his translation enoch was well pleasing unto god before his translation he was translated because he was pleased okay good goddess please the fact that he pleased god was evidence of his faith okay because it's he's describing his translation of faith okay because he had he was well pleasing because of his faith he was well pleasing because he was pleasing he was translated okay verse six for without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to god must do two things believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that's diligently seek him two essential prerequisites two essential prerequisites he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek them two things if you don't believe in the existence of god you got a problem and it fascinates me to realize that god's is god is jealous of his role as creator we live in a culture that's denying that and there's a specific judgment that god pronounces upon a culture that fails to acknowledge him as a creator and that judgment is homosexuality yeah read romans 1 verse 20 to the end of the chapter you're going to please god you've got due to you've got to believe that he exists and you also need to believe that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him okay verse 7 by faith noah being warned of god if things not seen yet namely rain from the scripture we draw the interest it hadn't rained till then we take rain for granted but we live in a different ecology than noah did there are two huge discontinuities in the history of the planet earth one is the fall of adam in genesis 3 which introduced the entropy laws i believe and the other big discount news the flood of no one is more than just a lot of water the whole world changed in some very dramatic ways if you study that carefully anyway by faith noah being warned of god of things not seen as yet moved with fear and prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith he accomplished two things he saved his house of course but he also condemned the world we overlooked that the world is indicted by the fact that noah did and they didn't but all this because of things not seen as yet and we believe it didn't rain until that time and he showed his faith by building the ark which accomplished two things it condemned the world for 120 years this thing's sitting in his driveway right and he became heir of righteousness which is by faith so noah found grace in the eyes of the lord he was saved by grace okay we get to this guy abraham the father of the faithful many titles in the scripture by faith abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whether he went one of the greatest guys of faith was a guy didn't know where he was going now most of this section from verse 8 all the way to verse 19 is going to deal with this interesting character abraham probably the richest man of in the world at that time the speculation by many scholars but he went out not knowing where whether he went the very act of he departed from his country that showed his faith didn't know where he's going he's just trusting god is the point he obeyed immediately by the way the greek text has a present participle which means the action occurred at the same time as the main verb so he was getting up to obey immediately god god probably hadn't even finished speaking he's on his way that's the same thing we get chapter 22 of genesis god says to offer your son next morning he gets up and goes didn't think about it mood about it i'll pray for it about pray for it make sure it's his idea where we no no next morning he's on his way he didn't mess around by faith you obeyed and went to a place he would afterward receive as a future inheritance he didn't know where he's going but wherever he's going he trusted god that was going to be his inheritance and it would be better than anything he could imagine so by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling in tents the word tabernacle's here but it's basically tense with isaac and jacob the heirs with him of the same promise for he looked for a city gee was you looking for one of the cities around there no which half foundations whose builder and maker is god here we have abraham looking for what we call what he's looking for what was it what is he looking for the new jerusalem the heavenly jerusalem not the jerusalem we think of okay dwelling in tabernacles okay and the word dwelling here means to live as a stranger in temporary dwellings is what the greek term means okay the heirs with him of the same promise isaac and jacob were fellow heirs of the abrahamic covenant as you and i are by faith even though we're not jewish and by the way it wasn't sustained it was through heirs isaac and jacob and we we inherited through jesus christ but uh not through the other sons how many sons did he have six altogether so okay ultimately but he looked for a city the heavenly jerusalem and it's going to be mentioned three more times in this epistle and of course going to be elaborated on in in revelation 21 to you know through early part of chapter 22. through faith also sarah received strength to conceive seed now wait a minute i remember the story right remember genesis 19 what did what did or 18 what what did she do when she found out she laughed she laughed oh does this contradict she received strength to conceive seed no actually interestingly enough the um grammar here implies it's the inserting of the sperm this the the faith is actually abraham's as far as that part of it's concerned and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised so yes she laughed at first but yes she she also was of faith it's mentioned here therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable who's he talking about through these two verses abraham abraham see to conceive seed and delivered of the child so forth it therefore sprang there even of one in him as good as dead he was 90 something right so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable and those are both idioms to try to speak of something you can't count right to conceive seed the greek literally says the depositing of sperm there so and even a one in him as good as dead he's referring not to sarah's faith but to abraham's faith here these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth we are too we are too and the more i hear of the political rhetoric on television the more i know i'm a stranger in this town the writer points out that the patriarchs eventually died and the promises were not fulfilled in their lifetime but they were willing to embrace them from afar the promises they're clinging to were not necessarily fulfilled in their lifetime that's going to be a point that's going to be hammered home here as we go but they're pilgrims working looking for a better day for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country and truly if they had been mindful of the country from once they came out they might have had opportunity have returned there's no attempt to return that's really the point it sounds strange the way it's worded that's really the point they didn't plan to go back abra didn't he may have spent some time he was supposed to he was called out of the early calories and all he did for a while is move up river he's supposed to leave his father no he moved up river until his father died then he went on to fulfill but did he ever want to go back to iran no or no not at all they were willing to receive it in another lifetime you and i are building up an equity in another reality in another lifetime if i can praise it that way in the millennium this promise will be fulfilled when abraham isaac and jacob will own the promised land jesus said that man will come from the north south east and west to recline with whom abram isaac and jacob in the land that's in matthew 8 verse 11. but now they desire a better country that isn't heavenly country where for god is not ashamed to be called their god for he hath prepared for them a city i don't like cities we don't do a good job at planning cities tend to outgrow our assumptions and so most of them i don't i don't romanticize big cities many people do i don't but there's one city that i'm sure i'm gonna find well planned and adequately provided for these guys have a superior home the new jerusalem and again it appears three times this episode more pro in in revelation so the patriarchs lived according to the faith they did not receive the totality of the promise in their lifetime but that's what they clung to and that was what drove them they saw the future fulfillment by faith they believed that god would bring the promises to pass they embraced the promises they confessed that they were earthly strangers and pilgrims and they were seeking a heavenly country that's the summary the main point is they had no desire to return to where they came from they left and were glad of it by faith abraham when he was tried offered up isaac oh this is the biggie and he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son now there was another son who was ishmael yet and he was going to have six more sons he had six altogether before but the only begotten doesn't mean what we think it means it really means it's one of stature not of of sequence only begotten the phrase emphasizes uniqueness not origin in the english it's a little misleading he knew by this time that the promises would only be transmitted through isaac not through his other sons of whom he had several now he was asked by god to kill the one son who was understood to be the inheritor of the promises get the picture here abraham knew that in isaac the seed would be called the seed there is singular not plural meaning christ not seed just in sense of descendants and in in the same writer in the this in the epistle of galatians makes that point for the singular and the plural but the point is the point is abraham knew isaac was going to have children had to have to fulfill god's promises god says okay i want you to offer your son okay no problem no my problem is your problem because you promise you're gonna have kids if you're gonna that means you're gonna have to resurrect them and in verse 19 of this epistle where we understand that abraham it was his belief in the resurrection of isaac that saved him they saved it now he was asked by god to kill the one son that was understood to be the inherited promises so when he was tried he offered up isaac the greek structure again points out that abraham obeyed immediately while being tried he offered up in other words while the commandment come it's he he went right at it if you read even in the in the hebrew in genesis 22 next morning he's on his way he's got a three-day journey right if we look at mount moriah where that all takes place ultimately it's three-day three-day journey from bathsheba bachelor where they where they were and the mount mariah is a ridge system and it's on the west side you have mount zion and there's a valley called the tropium valley it originally was between the two it's now been filled and uh mount of olives is to the east with a kidron valley between them so there's there's sort of three three ridges mount zion ridge system and mount of olives and to the south you have the hinnom valley okay but the base of the ridge down there at the beginning is about 600 meters above sea level and that's roughly where salem or ofel the city of david begins but as you go north on this ridge system it rises in altitude okay when you finally get to about 741 meters is another 140 meters up you're at a a saddleback that was the thrashing floor of aruna and that was ultimately where that david buys that for the temple area but that's not the peak of the hill if you keep going north you finally get to the peak which is 777 it happens meters above sea level you go up another 30 40 meters to get that altitude well let's look at this a little more carefully the thrashing floor is 741 meters above sea level the akida takes place at the peak i believe and that's a place that we call golgotha you can visit it today it's interesting that abraham knew he was acting out prophecy i don't know if he knew that on that very spot two thousand years later another father would actually offer his son as an offering for sin but he knew he was acting out prophecies we'll see here shortly see of the sun hebrews writer points out of whom it was said that in isaac shall thy seed be called the side the seed here is a title of christ it's singular accounting that god was able to raise him up in other words abraham was taking for granted that god's going to have to resurrect isaac he promised seed he hadn't had any seed yet you want me to kill him okay you got a problem not brad but your problem because god was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure in other words obviously god returned isaac to him by the substitution right interesting question that most people miss how long was isaac dead as far as abraham's concerned from the time the commandment came so for three days as far as abraham comes he's as good as dead and he's returned to him on the third day see abraham firmly believed that isaac that he if he had to kill isis before his children then isaac would have to be resurrected to have children and fulfill the promise accounting that god was able to raise him up even from the dead abraham knew he was acting out prophecy i don't know because in genesis 22 verse 14 it says he named the place in the jehovah driver in the mount of the lord it shall be seen he gave me a prophetic name he knew he was somehow i don't know how much detail he knew but he obviously knew he was acting out prophecy and it's interesting that isaac was dead to abraham from the time the commandment came three days be in total and paul makes that part of the gospel in first corinthians 15 how the christ died according to the scriptures that he was buried only paul emphasizes burial because of his baptismal thing and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures where in the scriptures does it say that crisis can be resurrected in three days in several places jonah of course is one example and the other one is here interestingly enough there's a key principle by the way that i also want to bring out here the sadducee i'm changing subjects now we're going to talk about the new testament for a minute the sadducees did not believe in the physical resurrection from the dead as did the pharisees and they like to ask tricky questions to make the pharisees look stupid and one day the saudis tried one of these questions on jesus said a woman was married successfully to seven brothers and the resurrection whose wife will she be that's all in matthew 22 right and jesus answered that the series did not understand god's power they did not understand the nature of the resurrection and then to prove the resurrection jesus quoted exodus 3 verse 6 where god says i am the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob what's that got to do with anything how does that statement prove the resurrection when you're reading matthew 22 you can stumble on that how did that one statement was that enough to prove the resurrection how to do that the phrase i am the god of abram isaac and jacob was the old testament formula for the abrahamic covenant in that covenant god made specific promises to abram isaac and jacob and they all died without fulfillment of the promises god gave each of them what does that prove they're going to have to be resurrected because god keeps his promises it's interesting to discover how god's commitment to his promises undergird that foundation permeates the entire bible the god of islam who they call allah delights in that he can do anything he's capricious he doesn't delight in making and keeping promises they're opposites because our god is a covenant keeping god his covenant with abraham isaac and jacob obligates god to resurrect abram ike and jacob in order to fulfill his promises you missed that as you're reading matthew 22. and by the way david in like manner david has promises yet to be fulfilled and that's called the millennium by faith isaac blessed jacob and esau concerning things to come we're moving on here isaac blessed the son he did not want to bless and vice versa remember he he isaac didn't he wanted to bless esau right no but when he when it got reversed by trickery he just saw that by faith he knew that was that was what was prophesied that the blessings would flow that those blessings would come to pass by faith jacob when he was dying now to jacob going one further when he was dying blessed both the sons of joseph but again in a different order than joseph thought any worship leaning up on the top of the staff why is leading on top of the staff because he's dying yes but he also was a remember when he wrestled the angel like his father isaac jacob also issued prophetic blessings concerning the two sons of joseph in fact that jacob's dying shows that he knew he would die before his promises would be fulfilled so he too knew the fulfillment was in the next lifetime yet jacob believed god was able to keep his promises and did not hesitate to give prophetic blessings to the two sons of joseph by faith joseph now when he died now you know the story of joseph's incredible you could think a lot of things that joseph did the one that the writer picks is weird listen to this by faith joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of israel and gave commandment concerning his bones the writer of all the things he could have picked from this incredible saga of joseph he picks thing before he dies he wanted his bones buried in in the promised land don't leave me here in egypt but see the point the writer's making joseph's mind was on not in his lifetime as what coming next see joseph knew from his father jacob that israel would be in there for 400 years actually that's what god promised him he knew that god intended to bring the jews back from the land of canaan that's where he wanted to be buried and as he grew older and so forth he realized the promise would not be fulfilled in his lifetime but he knew it would be fulfilled so in his will his la will and testament he wanted his bones to be carried with him and by faith moses when he was born was hit three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child now that's kind of an interesting phrase a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandments so they the word there by the way in the greek means much more than the english suggests proper the english proper elegant it means that she and her husband both recognize that god had a special plan for his son that's what they inferred that's why they were willing to stand against the king's commandment and that word is only used twice it's here and in both cases it's always used of moses by the way by faith moses when he was come to years refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to be suffer affliction with the people of god than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season by the way he's in egypt royal heir for what until he was 40. then he made a decision that he would not he no longer be identified with egyptians but with his own people that's one of the things that demille did a fairly decent job in the tent movie 10 commandments they brought that aspect of it out pretty well they returned if he if he had retained his royal position he would have committed a sin of disobedience because the covenantal promise would have been fulfilled would not have been fulfilled unless he read he left the royal court so he spent 40 years in egypt then he's going to spend 40 years in the backside of the desert married to ivan de carla before coming back and spending then 40 years wandering in the wilderness steaming the reproach of christ greater than the riches and treasures of egypt for he had respect unto the recompense of the word notice this here he's a type of the messiah of course who had to bear the same approach psalm 69 makes that point isaiah 53 does but all of them are motivated by what the recompense of the reward motivated by reward we as christians fail to focus on our recompense of reward boy we're saved we put our feelings boy i'm sure glad i accepted christ that takes care of that no behavior matters your behavior will determine the reward that you will be given at the judgment seat of christ we need to understand that i want you to notice this focus on rewards throughout this entire epistle they just they desired spiritual treasures rather than physical ones faith sometimes requires the rejection of the world's riches for by verse 27 for by faith he forsook egypt not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as seeing him who is invisible and you know moses did not flee egypt for fear of pharaoh he left egypt because he was rejected by his own people and said who made you a ruler and judge over us he was wanted for murder that's why he split town he showed his faith publicly later when he came back and kept the passover as we'll find out in the next verse here through faith he kept the passover and the sprinkling of the blood lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them the destroying angels moving through egypt and that's why they call it the passover he passed over those houses the head of the blood of the lord and it's interesting if you were egyptian had blood on the house you were saved it wasn't a genetic thing if you happen to be a believer or somebody had a jewish friend that was in the house and he put blood on the doorpost you were passed over praise god if you were jewish and didn't put blood yeah you had it buddy i understand the difference that the blood is the issue here my faith they pass through the red sea is by dry land which the egyptians are saying to do were drowned moses went through all the details it applied the blood and all those things because faith also obeys the details of god's word whether you're looking at abel or looking at moses in the passover they are following god's instructions as saying may throw you that's just a word meaning attempt okay it's an old english term we don't use it that way too much today by faith the walls of jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days by faith harlot the harlot rahab perished not with them that believed not when she had received the spies with peace now understand something here the amorites in jericho had 40 years to plan their strategy it was clear from the text that they knew what had happened back in egypt that was 40 years earlier the reputation of this strange group of people that god brought out egypt was well known in the culture and probably with some terror maybe because of pretty strange stories that are going around she happened to believe the stories the amorites ignored them by faith harlan she partners not because she she believed the stories and provided for the uh the the guys that were recognizing the the thing and uh so the author uses the first act of faith passing through the red sea and the last act of faith notice he picks just two out of the whole numbers experience normally 40 years technically 38 but the point is that period of time he picked the first example crossing the red sea and the last one the fall of jericho to act as sort of an umbrella covering the entire period of the wilderness wanderings the whole book of numbers virtually follow me he just did okay and then he goes what more shall i say for time would fail me to tell of gideon of barack and of samson of jephthah and david also and samuel of all the prophets so the writer is conscious the fact that i'm using up all my time with the front end of this thing right what more shall i say the time would fail me well let's see if it does we'll see if we can get through this okay the whole point of this chapter is that faith is associated with trials it's natural for faith to be tested your faith will be tested the point of the epistle of yakov we call it the epistle of james the new testament is the same point it's natural for faith to be tested trials should not nullify faith trial should strengthen the faith for trials bring more faith and i believe every day god finds another way to ask you a question do you trust me in the little things the big things whatever okay then he goes through this crime there's got gideon remember his 300 drove the terror stricken midianites into confusion and that out of 120 000 only 15 000 of that army survived the victory of gideon is alluded to here and this he picks this one because that's well impressed on the minds of his jewish readers so we have in fact four judges that he's going to knock off here gideon barack samson and jephthah and then he's also got a couple of david representing kings and samuel prophets that's his way of just getting a whole summary here of barack he was summoned by the prophets deborah and to and his countrymen to war against the host of jabin and his 900 chariots under the leadership of sisera and of course they got clobbered the attack from mount tabor and the alluvial plains mired up the 900 chariots and so they got clobbered and that that's barrack and cicero and all of that song of deborah celebrates that then samson colorful guy by the way had supernatural strength yes he was in good shape but he had supernatural strength that was linked to his nazirite vow he wreaked havoc on the philistines lots of color colorful pranks but they're overshadowed somewhat by his lustful laps with delilah that resulted in his undoing but in his final repentance he brought down the house literally killing more philistines than he did in the rest of his lifetime so that's samson colorful somewhat inconclusive in some respects and jephthah he's the gileadite that has delivered israel from the ammonites and also got into an unfortunate vow regarding his daughter and he sacrificed his daughter to fulfill a vow and maybe not literally but that's another whole story he suppressed the ephraimite force in gilead and he was a judge of israel for six years and then we have david now we could talk a lot about david he's quite a guy he was a victorious warrior very clever general and as a result he subdued the philistines to the west the syrians and to the north the ammonites and moabites to the east and the and malachites to the south so he really established the empire that solomon picks up and then brings to great prosperity he was a very constructive administrator david was judgment and justice for all people is recorded he organizes the priesthood in 24 courses very important to understand if when you get to revelation he was a major poet and songwriter quite a guy wrote 73 of the psalms almost a little over half them his kingdom is the subject of an unconditional covenant we'll talk more about that in a succeeding session that kingdom was reconfirmed by gabriel to mary in the new testament let's remember that most churches overlook that it was reconfirmed by james in the pivotal council of jerusalem in acts 15 where he james quotes amos chapter 9 verse 11 reestablishing david's kingdom and the keys of the kingdom is not explained in caesarea philippi it's explained in isaiah 22 22 and it gets its link into the church of philadelphia in revelation 3 verse 7. okay we could talk a lot about david but then samuel and all the prophets samuel is only equal by the way to moses very key guy he ended the period of the judges he heads the order of the prophets he organized the schools for the prophets he placed israel's first king on the throne and his second king on the throne and so interesting guy and then of course prophets we've got some topic at this point he shifts gears and just lumps who else the all these collectively who through faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness obtained promises stopped the mouths of lions quench the violence of fire escape the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in faith turned to flight the armies of the aliens anybody experienced that personally not yet okay well it may be coming okay these aren't there's three triplets they're national victories they subdued kingdoms like joshua judges and david for example they wrought righteousness like david and samuel they obtained promises like gideon barack and david another triplet was personal deliverances they stopped the mouths of lines as did daniel sampson mania and david they quenched the power of fire as did three friends of daniel daniel three and all of that they escaped the edge of the sword as moses elijah elisha dephtha and david to name a few they had some of them were personal gifts in a minute those that weakness were made strong like gideon samson and david for starters they waxed mighty in war as joshua barack and david they turned to flight the armies of aliens as david and joseph had just for starters then it says women received their dead raised to life again and others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection women received why women why does the writer write that well for one good reason they often were involved with triumphs over death in both testaments old and new most resurrection miracles were on the behalf of the women some examples the widow of seraphath whose son was raised by elijah first kings 17 or the shenamite women whose son was raised by elisha his successor in second kings four the widow of nain in the new testament whose son was raised by jesus himself and of course lazarus is not a woman in this case but you can if you want to it was on behalf of his sense of the brother of martha and mary he was also raised by jesus in john 11. so those are all familiar to you i'm sure so women received and others were tortured not accepting deliverance there were people in the reformation that willingly were burned at the stake for the sake of their conviction to the word of god rather than the the the the medieval church they they not accepting deliverance that they might obtain what a better resume some resurrections are better than others you betcha you bet you that's something we don't think about very often now there are others that god promised a better resurrection because these resurrections were merely restorations back to normal life those who were raised from the dead died again later we talked about that when we're in in hebrews 9 9 26 there's a point in one month for man wants to die but there's a handful exception we talked about lazarus and others that died twice that resurrection is not the resurrection we're talking about the resurrection we're talking about is one he talks about first john 3 2. beloved is not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and so on there's others examples the people god chose not to raise from the dead knew they would receive a better resurrection and immortal one as will others who were tortured to the point of death when they get resurrected it's going to be an immortal one one from which they'll never die again is the point not accepting their deliverance meaning they did not take the easy way out think about it see the right the readers of his epistle were about to take what they thought was the easy way out go back to judaism because they're tired of all the persecution of being a christian and paul said wait wait a minute realize what you're doing big mistake these could not renounce their faith such as the three friends of daniel could could have done they were given an option but they did not seek the easy way out remember genesis 3 you said king if our god will choose to save us and if he doesn't up yours o king that was the missile translation of daniel 3. they chose to die a physical death for the following reason that they might obtain a better resurrection is that our goal euros annoying i hope so the others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings yay moreover bonds and imprisonment and jesus of course uh and jeremiah both suffered those things of bonds and imprisonment and uh jeremiah's associated with the first two joseph to the second two probably in the mind of the writer here and they were stoned they were sown asunder they were attempted they were slain with the sword they wandered about in sheepskins and goats kings being destined afflicted and tormented they were stoned like zechariah was some were sought asunder as we believe isaiah was jerome records that in his uh recordings that manasseh sawed him isaiah with a wooden in half with a wooden saw and then we and uriah is also on the list of mighty men and so forth tempted as joseph slain with the sword that's like uriah and and sheepskins and goat skins like elijah and others death to deflected and tormented that is most of the prophets of course of whom the world was not worthy they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth and as at alba daya and the friend of elijah and others all of these had similarities points of similarities with the readers that's part of the selection that he's the writer is doing here they forfeited employment they were also ostracized from the society they were reduced to poverty mocked in prison and so on all these things are being threatened to his readers that's why he's calling their attention here of course none of them so far of his readers had given their life yet they probably will before the fruit it also shows that it's not god's will to save everyone physically he does not work the same way in every case there's some people he resurrected from the dead but there are others he did not resurrect her from the dead there were some that he rescued alive while there were others that he allowed to be tortured to death all of these had faith although the results of the faith varied as god will and all of these having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise god having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made complete or perfect that's an interesting thing the messianic kingdom promises have not yet been fulfilled but the promises of both the old testament new testament have yet to be fulfilled and we can anticipate the same thing that they did namely the messianic kingdom that's yet coming that they without us should not be made complete he's going to refer to the old testament saints as just been made perfect in the next chapter but the ultimate perfection will come with the messianic kingdom and we're going to talk about that in succeeding sessions the key verse of the whole chapter is hebrews 6 12. i'm going to draw back from chapter 6 because i think it summarizes the key thought here that this one provides the evidence for that ye you and i should not be slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises are you inherent going to inherit the promises you're saved for jesus christ praise god i take that for granted but are you going to inherit the promises i don't know if that's true that's going to depend on your faithfulness your response to the challenges god will put in your path and some may be rather dramatic let's be let's be ready in advance rahab the harlot despite the 40 years was ready through faith and patience inherit the promises okay the next session once you read chapter 12 and also review your notes on the messianic or millennial kingdom because that's going to be coming up in subsequent chapters let's stand for a closing word of prayer

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Length: 76min 9sec (4569 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020