Hebrews 11:17-40 - Those That Have Suffered And Persevered

Well, today, we are taking a stroll down memory lane, and not your memories, but the memories of God's people down through the ages. Man, that was cheesy.

We are in Hebrews chapter 11 today, in a chapter that's often called the Hall of Faith, but really is a showcase from the author of Hebrews to let these beleaguered, persecuted believers know you can continue forward in faith. God is not against you.

He hasn't rejected you. He's not ashamed of you, even though you're going through tough times. Instead, this is the same exact path that God's people have always walked down.

We've gone through struggles, and on the other end of it came out with life and with a relationship with God. And so we don't have to fear persecution or difficult times.

Instead, those draw us close to God, and we experience His miracles and all of that as we walk with Him. So let's pick it up in verse number 17. We went kind of through verses 1 through 16 in the last episode, and now we pick back up.

And today we're going to cover like, you know, 1500, probably 1000 years of history just in today's one episode. So I got to get going. Verse 17, By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.

He received the promises, and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom it had been said, that your offspring will be traced through Isaac. He considered God to be able to even to raise someone from the dead.

Therefore he received him back, figuratively speaking. Okay, there's so many cool things going on here in verses 17 through 19.

I am going to take each of these individual sections just because the author is doing something specific with each one as he's illustrating overall. Suffering equals, you're just following in the same path. All God's people have always walked down.

Okay, verse 17, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. So this is referring to the incident on Mount Moriah, where God had told Abraham, hey, I want you to offer your son Isaac. And this was a very, very like foreign request.

This was an odd request. This is not something that God says at any other point in the New Testament, in the Old or New Testaments, because he's doing something specific here.

He's highlighting for us a deliberate picture of Jesus, which the author of Hebrews is emphasizing that for us. So he says when he was tested, he offered up Isaac. He gave what was most precious to himself to the Lord.

The encouragement is believers, Hebrews. You can give up your most precious and dear things in your life because it's not something new. God's not asking something from you that he hasn't from all people through all time.

So he says he offered up Isaac when he was tested. He received the promises, and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom had been said, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

He says even though he had a relationship with God, even though he had been promised this life and joy and descendants, that didn't exempt him from these trials.

Like this crazy difficult moment in his life, just because he was a follower and believer in God, it didn't mean that he wasn't going to go through this. And he says, and the passage says, he was offering his one and only son.

Okay, well, that should automatically set off like some alarms in our head. Okay, who else is the one and only son? Oh, it's Jesus.

Here are the word monogenes. That is one of a kind, totally unique. One thing that I should note here, Isaac was not the firstborn son of Abraham, and he was not Abraham's only son.

Abraham had several sons, and Abraham's firstborn son was Ishmael.

So here, even in this word monogenes, we can see what is meant by, in older translations, the word begotten, which is kind of an old theological word, which is rich in meaning, but the specific Greek word here, monogenes, should let us know, okay,

this is what begotten means in the New Testament. This is one and only, one of a kind, totally unique son. Jesus was the one who was offered that the father gave to us.

And if the father gave his son, then certainly whatever he asked from us, we can give back to him. Verse number 18, the one to whom it had been said, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

So because Abraham had been told, you are going to have all of these promised descendants through Isaac, Abraham believed, even though right now, God is asking me, like, hey, lay your son, Isaac, down on the altar and sacrifice him.

I know God said that all of my descendants are going to come through Isaac. So even if I sacrifice him, I believe what God had said about my descendants, and so Isaac will raise from the dead if I do sacrifice him.

I do also want to mention one thing. I think sometimes in like flannel graphs or whatever, Isaac at this point is painted or drawn or whatever as a little kid. And so certainly that offends our modern sensibilities.

And we're like, oh, wow, well, this just seems like child abuse. Isaac at this point would have been like early 30s in his age, and Abraham would have been over 100, well over 100 at this point.

So this was not something of someone taking advantage of someone else. This was a willingness of Isaac to lay down on the altar that he didn't overpower his dad. Like he went with God's plan as well.

I don't have a whole ton of time to trace all of that. But just as with Jesus, Isaac laid down his life in obedience to his father and to his God, just as Jesus laid down his life for for God the Father.

So he says, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac, verse 19. He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead. Therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking.

So as we all know, Abraham didn't sacrifice Isaac because God provided the sacrifice that was needed for Jesus. He did die.

He was sacrificed in our place, but he rose from the dead like physically, even though it was like Isaac had raised from the dead because he was laid down, sentenced, if you will, to die.

But then he did not die, and he came back down that Mount Moriah with Abraham.

We can see that even in Abraham's statements, when he was going up the mountain, he told the servants that he left at the bottom of the mountain, me and the boy will return, that he had faith that God was going to do that.

So here the admonition to the Hebrews, like, let's give up our lives for God because he has given up his life for us and the saints of old, they gave up what was most precious to them in obedience and following God, so let's do the same.

Verse number 20, and I gotta hurry a little bit through some of these, by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Here he prophesied, he said, this is what God has told me and so I'm going to tell you guys about it.

Even though it made Esau like mad, sad, he wasn't happy about it, Jacob, he was happier about it. The admonition is for you Hebrews, continue to preach Jesus even if some people respond like Esau and some people respond like Jacob.

Verse 21, by faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and he worshiped leaning on the top of his staff. They're quoting from Genesis 47 and verse 31, that even in Jacob's life, he didn't die in the promised land.

He died in Egypt, but he did so in worship. And so even in our deaths, we can worship. As we pass along the faith, even if it results in our death, we can still worship as we do so.

It doesn't have to be a grudging thing. We can happily go and leave this life. Verse 22, by faith, Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones.

Like make plans in your life for the future of God's working. Here, Joseph is intent that there is going to be this thing that God has promised, of Israel returning to the land of Canaan.

And so he says, hey, I'm going to die, I'm not going to be here for this, but I want you all to know that I do believe that God is going to do this. And so take my bones with you and bury them. Have a certain hope in the future that God has promised.

Verse 23, by faith, Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his parents for three months because they saw that the child was beautiful and they didn't fear the king's edict.

So have faith and believe in what is to come, even despite persecution, just as Moses' parents did with him.

Verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose to suffer with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.

For he considered reproach for the sake of Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt since he was looking ahead to the rewards. So here, Hebrews, don't choose to go with Judaism. Don't choose to go with what's easy.

Don't just blend into your Roman or your Greek culture around you or back into the Jewish culture around you. Instead, step out for Christ, just like Moses stepped out, even though he could have had security and safety within Pharaoh's household.

Because to be with Jesus, shame for the sake of being a Christian, is more wealth. It's greater wealth than all the treasures of this world. A song we sang a couple of Sundays ago, I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold.

I'd rather be his than have riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I'd rather be led by his nail-pierced hand than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin's dread sway.

I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today. Then verse 27, By faith he left Egypt behind, not being afraid of the king's anger, for Moses persevered as one who sees him who is invisible.

He says it was like he saw Jesus, how much he was pursuing God, and he was not afraid of this world's kingdom and how he followed Jesus.

Verse 28, By faith he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch the Israelites. He had this faith and went to God.

He followed what God had said in relation to that last plague on Egypt and the death of the firstborn. And so he went to the place of God's refuge in that time.

And so we are called to go to Christ, who is our Passover, to him who did sprinkle his blood. And when that time of judgment comes, we will be safe in him. We're summer 29.

By faith, they crossed the Red Sea as though they were on dry land. When the Egyptians attempted to do this, they were drowned.

The same circumstances that will, that the child of God will pass through unscathed, that what really matters for us, none of it is lost, none of it is harmed, those same exact circumstances will kill those that do not believe in the Lord.

If you will, because of our faith, we can go to a funeral or a memorial service like we had at our church this past Saturday. We can go through those times and it sparks like hope in us that we say there is life beyond the grave through Jesus.

Whereas for this world, it can bring just despair that someone is gone forever and there is no more seeing them or we don't know if we will ever see them.

For the Christian, it's a totally different circumstance that we can walk through the Red Sea unscathed, whereas that same Red Sea kills all of the Egyptian army coming through to kill.

Verse number 30, by faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after being marched around by the Israelites for seven days. That there was a time that there was all this work that was put in, but then God brings the victory eventually.

And so it is with our lives. We can go through persecution and hard times because we know that God brings the victory eventually. Verse 31, by faith, Rahab, the prostitute, welcomed the spies in peace and didn't perish with those who disobeyed.

Here, this woman that didn't deserve anything and of her own righteousness, because she believed in what God had said and the God that she had heard about, this God of Israel, it motivated her to action, to welcoming the spies in peace.

And so God saved even the wicked because of their belief in him. Verse 32, and what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.

All of these great heroes from the Old Testament who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions like Daniel, quenched the raging of fire like Shadrach, Meshach, and Avendigo, escaped the edge of the

sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead as with Elisha and the widow woman's son. Women received their dead, raised to life again.

Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. They didn't turn their back on the Lord, even though they were tortured.

He says, others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.

So he says, yeah, there were some people like a David or like a Samuel or a Barak that had great times of victory, but these people and others, it wasn't always good times. And we go through persecutions. Verse 38, the world was not worthy of them.

They were better than this world. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground, even as we know about David from our study in the Psalms. As well as Elijah.

Verse 39, all these were approved through their faith. Not through their righteousness, not through their works, not through their giving, not through their religious actions, but through belief in what God had said.

He says, but they did not receive what was promised.

They didn't experience what Moses would call, and then Jeremiah after him would call the circumcision of the heart, that brand new heart and that everlasting kingdom with God, the kingdom that was prophesied in Daniel chapter 2 and chapter 7 and on.

They didn't receive any of those promises. But that didn't mean that God was unfaithful, because, verse 40, they didn't receive what was promised since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

That we are all part of God's family together, and that family was going to get much larger. It wasn't just going to be the Jews. It was going to be the Gentiles as well.

It wasn't just going to be the Old Testament saints. They were going to need the New Testament saints, so that all of this family of God would be gathered together.

The old, those in the Old Covenant that had faith and believed in what God had said in His Word and through His prophets, and they believed, and that faith was the basis of their approval with God.

Not their works, even as we can see with sinners like Barak who doubted God, who said, I'm not going to fight the enemies unless Deborah's here.

Like Samson, who was sexually immoral many times and was proud, like Jephthah, who made a rash vow about even his own daughter being sacrificed or being completely dedicated to the Lord. There's way too much discussion that could be said on that.

Suffice it to say, Jephthah, imperfect person. David, who committed adultery and murder and so many other things. Samuel, who did not even train up his own sons in the Lord and many others.

So here we have these people that are imperfect, but because they believed God, God worked in and through them and they didn't experience the fullness of what God had promised because there was something more and something better to come, which was

Jesus and what he had bought for us on the cross and now is his church. We are commissioned to build that family of God, to make more and more and more disciples until he returns and calls us home.

So the encouragement to these believers was this, like follow the Lord even through your hard times because God is there for you, because there is a promised land of heaven that is waiting for us. And so we can go through all these difficulties.

We can ignore how our government, how these people during these Romans and Greeks and Jews, how they were treating these Hebrew believers. He says, you don't have to surrender because of that.

Instead, keep on following and continuing in faith, even as all of these heroes from the Old Testament did. And it wasn't their killing of people that won them to God. It was faith.

It was saying, God, I believe in your word. And so it's going to motivate me to action. Well, we covered about a thousand years.

My brain is mush now.

And I'm looking forward to studying Hebrews, Chapter 12 with you tomorrow, as all of the Hall of Faith, all points towards one person, one guy who is the ultimate picture of going through suffering and persecution and seeing the reward of God on the

other side of it. And of course, that's our Savior. But we're going to look about what the author says about that next week as we begin Chapter 12. Thanks for tuning in.

Hope you have a great day.