He rests confidingly on the cross, that only valid moral basis before God; at the same time he is waiting for the glory that is to be revealed. He has set His mind upon making us, patterns of His holiness. The point which the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make is that all three men died without having entered into the promise that God had made, the promise of the Promised Land and of greatness to the nation of Israel. He has not been of by the reader before; he is never heard of again in history. A woman came in with a dish of meat for the gods. For most of us much of their impact may be lost, for this reason--phrase after phrase is a reminiscence. It is a happy thing where yoke-fellows draw together in the yoke of faith, as heirs of the grace of God; and when they do this in a religious concern for the good of their children, to preserve them not only from those who would destroy their lives, but from those who would corrupt their minds. The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. [3.] The product of his faith: He forsook Egypt, and all its power and pleasures, and undertook the conduct of Israel out of it. Indeed we may say that the whole epistle to the Hebrews is just this: we start from the foundation of grace up to God Himself in the heavens; and thence springs the certainty that the stream of grace is not exhausted, and that undoubtedly it will issue in unceasing blessing by-and-by for the earth, and for the people of Israel above all, in the day of Jehovah. How I thank God for the work of His Spirit as He helps us in our weaknesses, that I rely not upon my faithfulness, my work, my ability, but upon His faithfulness, His work. Thus the first part of the chapter shows us simply what God holds out to the new man; but the epistle to the Hebrews never looks at the Christian simply in the new man, but rather as a concrete person. (4.) 22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones. And observe that it is assumed to be so common and obvious a maxim that it could not be questioned. Then, consequent on the fall, comes the ground of the believer's acceptance; then his walk with God, and deliverance from His judgment of the whole scene, in the midst of which we actually are. [2.] Others doubtless could speak of their Ararat, their Olympus, their Etna; but which boasted of the true God that loved His people in the way that Zion could? For these very features did Judaism despise the gospel. J. P. Struthers was the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Greenock, a little congregation, which, it is neither false nor unkind to say, had a great past but no future. There are certain surroundings which indicate to the competent eye when the word "covenant" is right and when the word "testament" is better. The supports of his faith. When we remember that the one who makes the promise is God, there comes the realization that however astonishing that promise may be, it must none the less be true. Although the blood on which that covenant was founded may be now long shed, when the covenant comes into force for them will it not be as fresh as the day the precious Victim died and shed His blood? If, therefore, when you find the word "testament" anywhere else in the authorized version, you turn it into "covenant" in my opinion you will not do amiss. A strange mystery is the simple act of faith. [1.] As they are companions, so do they test a walk with God; one is faith, the other is suffering. The story is told in Exodus 14:1-31. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace ( Hebrews 11:31 ). I cannot say that I believe with all of my heart without my life conforming to what I believe. So God took unseen things and made the material, seen universe in which we live, the worlds. Here is the great function of life. He only removes obstructions, and maintains our communion with Himself; surely this ought to settle every question for the believer. When Moses was entrusted to the waters of the Nile, he was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, whose name is given as Bithia, or more commonly Thermouthis. When they came to Haran, he could have turned around and gone back into Babylon. Up until the time of Noah, it had never rained upon the earth. As Faber had it: The Christian believes that no man who takes the side of God can ever ultimately be on the losing side for, even if he knows earth's defeats, there is a victory whose trophies are in heaven. Moffatt finely comments: "Death is never the last word in the life of a righteous man." It might paint the mental picture of the extraordinary healing of Hezekiah after he had turned his face to the wall to die ( 2 Kings 20:1-7). If God's word be true, and to this the Spirit adheres, the blood of Christ has thus perfectly washed away the sins of the believer. God promised Abraham that the place he was called to he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, after awhile he should have the heavenly Canaan for his inheritance, and in process of time his posterity should inherit the earthly Canaan. In the second part of the passage the writer to the Hebrews tells what these men did and others like them in a series of machine-gun-like phrases. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. (2.) In these consists our double present association by faith, while on the earth. For by it the elders obtained a good report._ The names of those who lived in old time are handed down. Second, we will remember that, even when it may not look like it, somehow God is in control. And why? His fear, thus excited by believing God's threatening, moved him to prepare an ark, in which, no doubt, he met with the scorns and reproaches of a wicked generation. Abraham saw Christ's day, when it was afar off, and rejoiced, ; John 8:56. Such was the Priest of whom God spoke. He taketh away the first" (that is, the law), "that he may establish the second" (that is, God's will, often unintelligently confounded by men with the law, which is here set in the most manifest contradistinction). Twice Moses forsook Egypt: [1.] By faith we may see this invisible God. When it was that the faith of Joseph acted after this manner; namely, as in the case of Jacob, when he was dying. l. 1. c. 8. p. 379. . 1. The faith of Moses himself (; Hebrews 11:24-25, &c.), here observe. Josephs faith was recognized from the time he was a small child (approximately seventeen years of age) when he was sold by his brothers and taken to Egypt until near the time of his death. On the seventh day the priests were to blow upon the trumpets, after the city had been encircled seven times, and the people were to shout with all their might, "and the wall of the city will fall down flat." They were confronted with "the wheels and racks and hooks and catapults and caldrons and frying pans and finger racks and iron hands and wedges and hot cinders." Accordingly we find everything about Moses. 7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, 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. Moffatt quotes a saying of A. S. Peake: "The courage to abandon work on which one's heart is set and accept inaction cheerfully as the will of God is of the rarest and highest kind and can be created and sustained only by the clearest spiritual vision." They did not send an army to oppose him; such was the might of Rome that they did not need to. Such is pre-eminently the bearing of this epistle to those who had no such frequent opportunities of profiting by his teaching as the Gentile churches. It simply says that in God's good time he passed serenely from this earth. You, as a Christian, ought to have the calm settled consciousness that God, looking on you, discerns not one spot or stain, but only the blood of Jesus Christ His Son that cleanses from all sin. How glorious was the triumph of his faith in so great a trial. By a testament, to be sure, as every one knows. He was sold into Egypt. The apostle here mentions some things that very much added to the greatness of this trial. Rahab also is given a verse to herself in Hebrews 11:31. All their lives the patriarchs were foreigners in a land that never was their own. Faith brings God into everything. She placed him in his arms, and he was so entranced by the child that he embraced him and. Through that faith he passed judgment on the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is the result of faith. It may be observed, too, that the Holy Ghost appears but little in this epistle. This then is the monument for such as we are. 1. They were not mindful of that country whence they came. He didn't build any cities. He will have nothing more to do with sin. His wish was fulfilled (Joshua 24:32; Acts 4:16). One of the old Greek fathers said: "Up to this time no man had died so that Cain should know how to kill. "These wild beasts, fierce as panthers, first dragged all the flesh off his sinews with their iron gauntlets to his chin and tore off the skin of his head." In his willingness to go ahead with the sacrifice, Abraham did, in effect, offer up Isaac, but God intervened and Abraham received his son back, so to speak, from death (17-19; cf. (Hebrews 9:15). Men have called God The First Principle, The First Cause, The Creative Energy, The Life Force. They suggested to him that they would bring him dressed meat which was not pork, and that he should eat it pretending that it was pork. But, by the grace and the power of God, the impossible became true. Let me emphasize that God has never given such a command, either before or after Abraham's time. There are many who believe in God but do not believe that he cares. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. This prediction of Joseph could have rested only on faith in the promise of God. So Abraham took the ram, and offered it on the altar. For, before this change came to him it was testified that he pleased God. For, says he, "we have an altar," yea, more than that, an altar, "whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." Nimrod sought to murder the infant but Abraham was concealed in a cave and his life saved. It is a recompense of reward, because given by a righteous Judge for the righteousness of Christ to righteous persons, according to the righteous rule of the covenant of grace. The apostle here mentions some things that very much added to the greatness of this trial. They cared not to engage much in it. 11:23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left. In this place (and in Genesis 5:22, &c.) we read, (1.) He had a divine revelation, whether by voice or vision does not appear; but it was such as carried in it its own evidence; he wasforewarned of things not seen as yet, that is, of a great and severe judgment, such as the world had never yet seen, and of which, in the course of second causes, there was not yet the least sign. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.". If he takes to himself the title of their God, he will fully answer it, and act up to it; and he has prepared that for them in heaven which will fully answer this character and relation, so that it shall never be said, to the reproach and dishonour of God, that he has adopted a people to be his own children and then taken no care to make a suitable provision for them. "With all three the significant thing was their firm conviction that death cannot frustrate Gods purposes." He subscribed to God's wisdom, as fittest to direct; and submitted to his will, as fittest to determine every thing that concerned him. That, after the fall, God opened a new way for the children of men to return to him in religious worship. On the other hand it is notoriously true, that in no case can a testament come into execution without the testator's death a figure that every man at once discerns. But although it will be the shaking of all things, not of earth only but also heaven, yet, marvellous to say, such confidence of heart does grace give, that this, which may be regarded as the most awful threat, turns into a blessed promise. (3.) Biblical References: Hbr 11:23-30 . But then comes far more definite instruction, and, beginning with Abraham, the details of faith. The apostle does not dwell on the detailed application of His Melchisedec priesthood, as to the object and character of its exercise. So we see this one hundred year old Abraham, one hundred and eight at this time, leading this little eight-year-old boy towards Mount Moriah where he is going to offer him as a human sacrifice unto God. We enter in to the glorious promise of God. No doubt all will be good and right in its due season then. Abel's sacrifice was of a living creature, Cain's was not; therefore Abel's was the more acceptable. They do not belong to heaven like the angels; but God had an eternal purpose, which brought them by an extraordinary favour there. 11:20-22 It was by faith that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in the things concerning the future. In Hebrews 10:1-39 he applies the matter to the present state of the believer. Think of the shaking of heaven and earth being a promise! It is I likely that the Hebrew believers were somewhat unruly. 27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. The thought in the mind of all these men was the same: "God's promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. Hereby, [1.] Let peoples serve you and nations bow down to you." And the apostle would that their work of watching might be done with joy, and not groaning for this would be unprofitable for the saints. It greatly alleviates the evil of suffering when we suffer with the people of God, embarked in the same interest and animated by the same Spirit. For everyone at some time there comes something for which there seems to be no reason and which defies explanation. So that, let the Jews say what they might, there was only found what answered to their own scriptures, and what proved the incontestable superiority of the great Priest whom Melchisedec shadowed out, and of whom it was now for the Christian justly to boast. Jeremiah positively declares that God will make a new covenant. Made mention of the departing of the children of Israel - Margin, remembered. The meaning is, that he called this to their mind; he spake of it. But this essential difference separates between the city for which Abraham looked and the bride so symbolised in the Apocalypse. When Abraham heard the promise he fell upon his face and laughed ( Genesis 17:17). They are strangers as saints, whose home is heaven; they are pilgrims as they are travelling towards their home, though often meanly and slowly. The legends go on to tell that Terah not only worshipped twelve idols, one for each of the months, but was also a manufacturer of idols. Both are true; and Moses is the type of the latter, as Abraham of the former. He collapsed and one of the soldiers kicked him violently in the stomach to make him rise. Now after the apostle has given this account of the faith of others, with Abraham, he returns to him again, and gives us an instance of the greatest trial and act of faith that stands upon record, either in the story of the father of the faithful or of any of his spiritual seed; and this was his offering up Isaac: By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, Hebrews 11:17. The simple statement in Genesis has a kind of mystical quality. Then comes a second exhortation as to their guides, or leading men among the brethren. But as God said, "Through Isaac shall thy seed be called." For now God came out, so to speak, in His own power and grace, and, in the person of Christ on the cross, put away sin abolished it from before His face, and set the believer absolutely free from it as regards judgment. Hebrews 10:19-22. It is not implied that they may not sin, or that they have no consciousness of their failure, either past or present. (viii) Above all, there are those, like Enoch, who have seen death as an entering into the nearer presence of him with whom they have lived for so long. (2.) (6.) Joseph gave instruction about returning his bones to Canaan: But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. In so great a trial s time past or present he passed from. Children of men to return to him in religious worship the believer how glorious was the more acceptable,... 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