Therefore all such recurring sacrifices only call sins to remembrance; but what the blood of Christ has done is so completely to blot them out, that God Himself says, "I will remember them no more. They must be very great, suitable to the greatness of the trial: 4. First, He makes a scene where sin enters at once. Abel ran to the hills but Cain pursued him, saying: "The hills are mine." And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you (Exodus 13:18-19). Seneca said: "The first essential of the worship of the gods is to believe that there are godsand to know those gods who preside over the world, because they control the universe with their power, and work for the safety of the whole human race, while they still remember each individual person." Wait a minute! So it is said here, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Robert Louis Stevenson said: "It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive." Now people who speak like that make it quite clear that they are searching for a fatherland. (3.) As it was God's will and the work of Christ, so the Holy Ghost is He who witnesses to the perfectness of it. But as God said, "Through Isaac shall thy seed be called." Israel's danger was very great; an enraged enemy with chariots and horsemen behind them; steep rocks and mountains on either hand, and the Red Sea before them. Lastly, he points "to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better than Abel:" the assurance that the earth shall be delivered from its long sorrow and slavery. These men trusted in the unseen God and in his faithfulness to those who wholeheartedly sought him. But where in the Old Testament is there a prophecy of His rising again the third day? Yet Rahab believed and staked her whole future on the belief--that God would make the impossible possible. Biblical References: Hbr 11:22. If I know what Christ's redemption has accomplished for all who believe, I must know that God has given me this. It was therefore necessary that the representations of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. [2.] Christ, therefore, goes into heaven, and will come again apart from sin. They could not understand how it was they should come into greater trouble than before. 31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. 00:02:01 Arkansas town elects youngest Black mayor in America. This I take to be a general description of the scene of glory for which Abraham looked. The blessing of Jacob is given in Genesis 48:9-22. God sees, God is going to take care of it. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. There has to be that conformity, but faith has to come first. Then, very gently, Popilius told Antiochus that Rome did not wish him to proceed with the campaign but wished him to go home. She said to her father: "What hast thou done? But the sacrifices they made could not put away sin. This Christian hope is such that it dictates all a man's conduct. He received him from the dead, for he gave him up for dead; he was as a dead child to him, and the return was to him no less than a resurrection. He is "minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not of man." However long that hope might be in coming true, its light always shone in their eyes. Of this we saw somewhat inHebrews 10:1-39; Hebrews 10:1-39. (i) It began with sheer incredulousness. [3.] The great improbability of the thing promised, that she should be the mother of a child, when she was of sterile constitution naturally, and now past the prolific age. Women received their dead raised to life again ( Hebrews 11:33-35 ): This is the first section. a. The call of Abraham is told with dramatic simplicity in Genesis 12:1. The writer to the Hebrews has been citing as examples of faith the great figures of the time before Israel entered into the Promised Land. So be believed, notice, he believed that God was able to raise him up really from the dead. That picture of the sojourner became a picture of the Christian life. After the people had been tried and found wanting; after the priests had wrought, if possible, greater corruption; after the king of Israel's choice had reduced them to the lowest degradation. Isaac has not yet had any children. "This corruption must put on incorruption, this mortal must put on immortality" ( 1 Corinthians 15:53 ). The last chapter (Hebrews 13:1-25) follows this up with some practical exhortations as to brotherly love continuing; then as to kindness to strangers, or hospitality; finally, as to pity for those in bonds. But this essential difference separates between the city for which Abraham looked and the bride so symbolised in the Apocalypse. [2.] It became God that Christ should go down to the uttermost; it became us that He should be exalted to the highest. There, is no ground, in my judgment, for the thought of anything mysterious in the facts as to his person. He presses a conversation without covetousness, and a spirit of content, founded on our confidence in the Lord's care. Abraham would ask them how old they were and they would answer perhaps fifty or sixty years of age. And so as Isaac was with his father now, the two of them walking towards Moriah, Isaac said, "Father, here is the wood and we've got the fire, but where is the sacrifice? Observe, [1.] Augustine said: "We are sojourners exiled from our fatherland." Nothing can be more admirable than this reserve of God. He lives in it and he dies in it; and it is the possession of it which makes him act as he does. How could Jesus have been born into the world if the Jewish religion had ceased to exist? For he was afraid that the Hebrews, because they were having so many children, would become a threat to the security of Egypt. The Witness of a Dead Man's Bones .Joseph's body was embalmed. "Who needeth not daily," therefore says He, "as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's." He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,Hebrews 11:25. We have only to think of the early days of the Church. He had the honour to leave behind him an instructive speaking case; and what does it speak to us? It means that God loved Enoch so much that he removed him before age and degeneration descended hand in hand upon him. 29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. (2.) Who ever in his senses built a great hulk of a ship on dry land far from the sea? His faith influenced his practice. 3. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. Christ accounts himself reproached in their reproaches; and, while he thus interests himself in their reproaches, they become riches, and greater riches than the treasures of the richest empire in the world; for Christ will reward them with a crown of glory that fades not away. For he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt ( Hebrews 11:26 ): So on the one side you have the son of Pharaoh's daughter, with all of the glory of the royal palace. In the end they carried him to the fire and threw him on it, "burning him with cruelly contrived instruments and pouring stinking liquids into his nostrils." By their own confession the application of that Psalm was to the Messiah, and the very point that Jesus urged upon the Jews of His day was this how, if He were David's Son, as they agreed, could He be his Lord, as the Psalmist David confesses? In Jesus' name. Meanwhile we are told that He has obtained (not a temporary, but) "eternal redemption." "So accounting that God was able to raise him even from the dead, "from whence also he received him in a figure." And observe that it is assumed to be so common and obvious a maxim that it could not be questioned. When Abraham heard the promise he fell upon his face and laughed ( Genesis 17:17). On the other hand, the priests, Aaron's family, among the sons of Levi, "have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham." It often happens that simply by being himself the Christian passes judgment on other people. (iii) Noah's faith was a judgment on others. In the first chapter we saw the seat of personal glory connected with atonement; in the eighth chapter it is the witness of His priesthood, and where it is. Those who by faith walk with God in a sinful world are pleasing to him, and he will give them marks of his favour, and put honour upon them. He now supports this statement with illustrations from the Old Testament. There are also house () and people () of Israel, and Israel of God, and Israel according to the flesh. To us all is given the tremendous task of helping God make his promises come true. Notwithstanding their meanness by nature, their vileness by sin, and the poverty of their outward condition, God is not ashamed to be called. He had parted with him to God, and God gave him back again. Bishop Newbigin tells of the negotiations which led to the formation of the United Church of South India. So Abel, who was a shepherd, took his best lamb to the place of sacrifice; but Cain, who was a tiller of the ground, took the poorest sheaf of corn he could find and laid it on the altar. (iii) It culminated in the ability to believe in the impossible. And here also we consider. Faith is the ability to lay hold on that grace which is sufficient for all things in such a way that the things which are humanly impossible become divinely possible. Isaac and Jacob were heirs of the same promise; for the promise was renewed to Isaac (. Those with whom they sojourned would have been willing enough to part with them. No attention is paid here to the march through the wilderness, any more than to the establishment in the land, still less to the kingdom. It is a reward suitable to the price paid for itthe blood of Christ; suitable to the perfections of God, and fully answering to all his promises. The fifth brother they bound to the wheel, bending his body round the edge of it, and then fastened him with iron fetters to the catapult and tore him in pieces. That he preferred a significant burial in Canaan before a magnificent one in Egypt. He was so lovely a child that his parents determined to hide him in their house. God said that He was going to cause it to rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. In point of fact they were reaching out after something better, I mean, the heavenly country. They do not believe that God called all things into being. Charles Frohman, who had known Barrie so well, went down with the Lusitania in that disaster of 7 May 1915. So when they died they did not enter in to the heavenly kingdom, but they had to wait for the promise of God to be fulfilled. For, [1.] It is easy to see how this passage can be read against the terrible happenings of these days. He was the lender who had rescued them from slavery and who had received the Law of their lives from God. His righteousness was relative, resulting from his adoption, through faith in the promised seed. As the proof of this, God has prepared for them a city, a happiness suitable to the relation into which he has taken them. These all died in faith ( Hebrews 11:13 ). (b) In Hebrews 11:9 he uses the word paroikein ( G3939) , to sojourn, of Abraham. What can you do but be true to a heritage like that?". And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. Search Results by Book. Isaac and Jacob were heirs of the same promise; for the promise was renewed to Isaac (Genesis 26:3), and to Jacob, Genesis 28:13. God, give us that kind of wisdom that in our choices we will take eternity into view. If we have to wait for the exercise at a future day, the order is as true and plain now as it ever can be. So Egyptian mothers were sent into the homes of the Israelites with their babies; there they pricked their babies until they cried. But yet, in their death they did not enter into the kingdom of God and into that eternal glory. "And whilst the saw cut into his flesh, Isaiah uttered no complaint and shed no tears; but he ceased not to commune with the Holy Spirit till the saw had cloven him to the middle of his body.". With only three hundred men Gideon won a victory over the Ammonites in days when they had terrorized Israel, a victory which went ringing down the centuries. (a) In Hebrews 11:13 he calls them xenoi ( G3581) . That those who obtain this favour from God must expect the envy and malice of the world. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said that if a man comes to the altar and realizes that his brother has ought against him, he ought to first go to his brother and reconcile their differences and then come and offer your gift unto the Lord ( Matthew 5:23-24 ). The time for the proper exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is not yet arrived. But another Jew, seeking to curry favour and to save his own life, came forward and was about to sacrifice. But it has pleased God to single two instances out of many of the faith of this patriarch, besides what has been already mentioned in the account of Abraham. I know!" "By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.". For the Christian that is easy, for God came to the world in Jesus Christ to tell us how much he cares. is one of several phrases in N.T. We often say, "It is good to be akin to an estate;" but surely it is good to be akin to the covenant. The Stoics were wise; they held that a man should not throw his life away by needlessly provoking the wrath of a tyrant. 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. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God ( Hebrews 11:5 ). The faith of parents often procures blessings for their posterity. This is one of the first instances that is upon record of fallen men going in to worship God; and it was a wonder of mercy that all intercourse between God and man was not cut off by the fall. Notwithstanding their meanness by nature, their vileness by sin, and the poverty of their outward condition, God is not ashamed to be called their God: such is his condescension, such is his love to them; therefore let them never be ashamed of being called his people, nor of any of those that are truly so, how much soever despised in the world. Accordingly advantage is taken of an unquestionable meaning of the word for this added illustration, which is based on the death of Christ, "Where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator." 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 was. Isaac, trusting God to fulfill His promises to Abraham and his descendants, pronounced blessings on his own two sons Jacob and Esau regarding their future. The Christian answer is that the future is not uncertain because it belongs to God; and it is enough that God has commanded and that God has promised. It has been said that no astronomer can be an atheist; but it has also been said that an astronomer is bound to believe that God is a mathematician. It looked as if his judges had eliminated Socrates and as if Pilate had crushed Christ; but the verdict of the future reversed the verdict of the moment. Hereby they declared plainly that they sought another country (Hebrews 11:14), heaven, their own country. It is the substance of things that are hoped for. (1.) Though all Israel kept this passover, yet it was by Moses that God delivered the institution of it; and, though it was a great mystery, Moses by faith both delivered it to the people and kept it that night in the house where he lodged. It is then that a man is faced with life's hardest battle--to accept when he cannot understand. For Christ is not entered into holies made with hands, figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us.". It was by faith that Moses, when he grew to manhood, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose rather to suffer evil with the people of God than to enjoy the transient pleasures of sin, for he considered that a life of reproach for the sake of the Messiah was greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he kept his eyes fixed upon his reward. Hence he did receive him back which is a parable of the resurrection. He had a share in these negotiations and in the long discussions which were necessary. So far, Antiochus had succeeded only in causing a division in the nation; the greater part of the Jews were unshakeably true to their faith and could not be moved. He, too, died faithful. It may indicate that God is ashamed that some people call Him God. The actings of their faith during this imperfect state of things. 13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Accordingly observe the change of expression. He is labouring for this, and with divine skill accomplishes it, by the testimonies of their own law and prophets. Apart from faith it is impossible to please God, for he who approaches God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of those who spend their lives seeking him. And the writer probably was in his mind just taking from the beginning the men of the Old Testament who by faith their lives were made outstanding.Now here's what they did through faith. One further effort, a little more waiting, a little more hoping, would make the dream come true. It is that which infinitely exceeds the deliverance out of Egypt, or any ceremonial atonement ever wrought by a high priest for Israel. Hence they apply some terms to the work of God in nature similar to what they apply to His work in grace. "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you" (Exodus 13:19). They saw he was a beautiful child. He leaves an influence of good or ill; every one when he dies still speaks. Rightly then we begin with Zion, and thence may we trace the path of glory up to God Himself, and down to the kingdom here below. He will not have his people take up that rest any where short of the heavenly Canaan. [4.] By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned." Take thy son, not one of thy beasts or slaves, thy only son by Sarah, Isaac thy laughter, the child of thy joy and delight, whom thou lovest as thine own soul; take him away to a distant place, three days' journey, the land of Moriah; do not only leave him there, but offer him for a burnt offering." (2.) This country they seek: their designs are for it; their desires are after it; their discourse is about it; they diligently endeavour to clear up their title to it, to have their temper suited to it, to have their conversation in it, and to come to the enjoyment of it. The blessing which Isaac gave is in Genesis 27:28-29; Genesis 27:39-40. And he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. After this chapter on faith, only the rhetorical culmination (12) and closing matters (13) remain. They know that they cannot explain the existence of the world solely by reasoning from the things that can be seen (11:1-3). There were a great many instances of the faith of Jacob; his life was a life of faith, and his faith met with great exercise. God had before this tempted or tried the faith of Abraham, when he called him away from his country and father's house,when by a famine he was forced out of Canaan into Egypt,when he was obliged to fight with five kings to rescue Lot,when Sarah was taken from him by Abimelech, and in many other instances. As ever we expect to be justified and saved. (iv) Some have seen in death the supreme terror and the unmitigated evil. That was a wicked and a cruel edict, that all the males of the Israelites should be destroyed in their infancy, and so the name of Israel must be destroyed out of the earth. In calling and converting sinners, God appears as a God of glory, and works a glorious work in the soul. (2.) The lamb sacrificed for the house. And declaring, basically, that if it were offered properly it would have been accepted; if his heart was right.There has been a lot made over the fact that one was a blood sacrifice and the other was not a blood sacrifice, but an offering of the fruit of the ground. (i) Noah took God at his word. What the wise men of antiquity, the Platos and Aristotles, never knew what the modern sages blunder about, without the slightest reason, after all the word of God has made the possession of every child of His. He was big enough and brave enough to wait until God said: "Now is the hour.". It is the fact that there He sat down; but in this place it will be observed that His taking His seat there is the reward of the life of faith. The man who goes out into the unknown and keeps going on will in the end arrive at God. Again, we usually in our minds picture Isaac, because of the Sunday school papers that we had, of being maybe eight to ten years old. It has been said of Noah that "he threw the dark scepticism of the world into relief against his own shining faith in God." Heaven is a great reward, surpassing not only all our deservings, but all our conceptions. has remembered in marg. But they voted to banish him. 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." It is sometimes necessary for the Christian to take the way to which the voice of God is calling him without knowing what the consequences will be. He showed thereby his dependence upon God, and testified his condition here as a pilgrim with his staff, and his weariness of the world, and willingness to be at rest. Hallo, inloggen. For Moses to withdraw to Midian was not an act of fear; it was an act of courage. 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