Hebrews 11:1–40

It is not a definition of this principle that the letter gives us at the start of Hebrews 11, but a declaration of its powers and action. Faith realises (gives substance to) that which we hope for, and is a demonstration to the soul of that which we do not see.

No one can explain the mystery of faith, any more than the mystery of life, or light, or love, or a thousand and one things. God brings these things into existence, and alone knows their secret. Those of us who have faith can mark its effects, its powers, what it feeds on, and what it reaches for. But as to the thing itself, no one knows.

"Faith is the substance," or "the substantiation of things hoped for." It is what makes the "things hoped for" a reality in the present. It is "the evidence," or, better, "the conviction" — what the power of divine truth brings into the soul as a reality, "of things not seen."

The promise of God was a reality to their faith, since "Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for." The things hoped for are real, and faith substantiates them, or, makes them real, to us.

Faith also has that special power of showing us "things not seen." Faith in the living God is not blind. It is the actual opening of the eyes, accepting unquestionable evidence that unseen, spiritual things are real.

When wrong exists it is well that we should see it, but if that is all that we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. It is when the eye of faith is fixed on God, that we go right. We are told that, "faith is … the evidence of things not seen." Faith can see what is unseen to the natural eye.

In Scripture, faith itself is simply believing God. It is accepting His word because He says it. It rests not on visible evidence or on reasoning, but on God's authority.

Faith is not imagination. A poet may imagine heaven, as you can see in many poems; but this is mere fiction and does not exist. Faith knows what is real. A real glorified Jesus; a real city, whose builder and maker is God. Faith puts us in living connection with a real, living Lord, who has triumphed over death.

His old friends say to him, "You are surely a fool. Here is our Temple. The sacrifices go up and the silver trumpets sound. We have the ancient worship God Himself set up, and priests descended straight from Aaron. You can see our religion; you can smell it; you can hear it; we have the real thing. You have got only a little upper room, where your Master gathered His disciples. Now He is gone. Where has He gone? Really you have got nothing, you are running after mere ideas." … A few years after this letter, the Roman armies came and swept the whole shadow system off the map.

Faith gives present confidence in the future we hope for. In the same way it gives proof of things not seen. We look, according to the word and in the Spirit of God, at the things that are not seen and eternal. There is not only certainty but present enjoyment.

That familiar expression shows he was writing to Hebrew Christians. They could look back on the fathers and call them "the elders," whose history they knew well. "The elders" of the Old Testament had obtained a good report by faith. What was the basis of their reputation? Was it any special worth in themselves? Not in the judgment of God. And faith always looks at things as God looks at them.

"Elders" seems a fitting description for the heavenly redeemed. Hebrews 11 already applies it to the Old Testament saints. Though they obtained witness through faith, they did not receive the promise. God has provided some better thing for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Through it also the men of old obtained a good report — of course in God's history of things, not in man's. In Scripture it is easy to see what made these old worthies what they were: faith. How complete the contrast between the same men when faith energized them, and when it was at a low ebb in them!

It was not by their works, or by their lives, but by their faith that they obtained a good report. They were men and women with the same passions as ours. Their lives were marred by many a failure, and their works sometimes deserved blame. Still, despite all failure, they were marked by faith in God.

"For by it the elders obtained a good report." Did legal-minded Jews consider this? Rigid law-keeping did not clothe the lives or works of the most outstanding Old Testament saints with such striking beauty. A genuine, active faith in God did.

Some people create a problem for themselves by wrongly assuming that we have here a definition of faith. That is not the aim. This is a description of faith's power, range, and effect. In Scripture, faith is believing God. It means accepting His word because He says it — not on visible evidence, not on reasoning, but on God's authority.

All through this chapter the writer speaks of faith in a practical way. "By it the elders obtained a good report." In every case he mentions, faith was so real and practical that it marked the man out.

In the past they lived by faith. Today they have a good report. In the future they will enjoy the reward when they enter the promised blessings. The blessing of these Old Testament saints will be great. Yet God has provided some "better thing" for the Christian.

Verse 3 begins, "Through faith WE understand …" and it sets the things seen in creation before us. This is a very significant statement! In the days of the apostles Christians clearly shared one faith: "the worlds were framed by the Word of God." Is it the faith of all Christians today? We have just seen that faith is "the conviction of things not seen." Now we find that only faith gives us a right understanding of the things we do see.

The word "worlds" may include ages. But the material world is certainly included in it. It may mean the worlds governed by successive ages. Still, no competent mind can seriously deny that the whole universe is in view. "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen" — which would not be true if only an age were meant — "were not made of things which do appear."

This is not a mere belief that this present universe was created by God — of course, we believe that. It says, "by the word of God." The word is the expression of the mind and thoughts of God. So by faith we do not merely believe the fact that God made the worlds by His word. We understand that the thoughts and purpose of a divine Person found expression in creation, and that all was not merely the effect of divine power. So in Genesis 1 we read again and again, "And God said." … Chapter 1 of this letter shows us that the Son created all things, and that He is the appointed Heir of all things.

God spoke, and brought things into existence. At the command of the Almighty created things appeared. They did not evolve out of things that already existed. Matter is not eternal. The writer is dealing here with the origin of the universe. He is not describing the earth emerging later out of chaos to be prepared as man's home. We are to believe what God has told us. This is surely reasonable. What creature witnessed the act of creating? What could we know of the origin of created things if we were left to human reason alone? … So we must rest on revelation for the distant past. Will it then be unreasonable to take God's word about the future?

Here faith is connected with creation. "Nothing can come out of nothing" — that is man's wisdom! The philosopher could never have found out for himself how "the worlds were framed." Reason knows nothing of creation. "By faith we understand," but man's way of accounting for it led to pantheism, atheism, and so on. Men have now gained some knowledge of it from the Bible. Without Scripture it could never be known clearly or with certainty.

What you are left with is the simple fact stated here: "Through faith we understand" the very things the world cannot understand. The world stumbles over them, gropes in darkness, and loses its footing where it once stood firm. All that uncertainty for the world becomes absolute assurance for us. The simplest new believer in Christ knows that the "worlds were framed" by the word of God. "The things which are seen" — the visible world around us, its organised life, everything in it that witnesses to design — "were not made of things that do appear."

The emphasis in Abel's faith is not on his personal character, and not on the fruit of his life. It is on the "more excellent sacrifice than Cain." That is what distinguishes the two men. They are not held up to us, one as wicked, and the other as righteous… He receives that witness by what? Not by his works, not by his faithfulness or his character, but by the offering he brought.

Abel's sacrifice was excellent because of what it admitted: his own place as a sinner before God, under the sentence of death. He did not bring the firstlings of his flock alive. The words that follow show this: "and of the fat thereof." … Abel did in principle what the tax collector did in the story the Lord told in Luke 18:13, and the same happy result followed in both cases.

It shows us that his offering was an act of faith — the first to be put on record. Now faith lays hold on what God has revealed… Abel understood the meaning of the coats of skins. By his offering he admitted that he was a sinner under the death sentence. He could only come to God on the ground of the death of a victim. Cain had no faith. He ignored this, and approached under false pretences.

Abel received witness that he was righteous — "God testifying of his gifts." Notice, God did not testify of Abel. If He had, He would have had to testify of his guilt, for Abel was a sinner, as Cain was. But God testified of his gifts. They pointed forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of Him God counted Abel righteous.

If we look anywhere else for evidence that we are righteous — at our feelings, our experiences, or even our faith — we are bound to end up uncertain. God bears no witness to any of these things, because none of them is perfect… God bears His witness to the perfect sacrifice of Christ. We find perfect certainty in God's witness, and here we can safely rest.

It is not merely the example, the devotedness, the life of piety. What was it by which Abel speaks? "By it," that is, by the sacrifice which he brought. Abel has been speaking from that day to this. He speaks wherever people faithfully preach Christ's gospel. He says: never approach God without a sacrifice. You can only come to Him through the blood of a Substitute. And so Abel speaks "by it" of the great fundamental truth that redemption is the only remedy for sin.

Scripture uses this term to mean a "change of place or status." Abner threatened to move the kingdom from the house of Saul to David, 2 Sam. 3:10. The believer is delivered from the power of darkness and is transferred into the kingdom of God's dear Son, Col. 1:13. Enoch was translated without dying, Heb. 11:5.

He was "translated" to God. The brief record of Genesis is that at the end of the 300 years "he was not; for God took him." This is expanded in the New Testament. There we learn that faith was the energy in which Enoch walked with God, and in which at last he was carried into God's presence. After three centuries of walking with God it must have seemed simple and natural when one day "God took him." Enoch exchanged his home on earth for the very home of God Himself.

Faith does not always take the same shape, though it is the same divine principle working in man by the Spirit of God. So in the next witness we see the power of life, not the sense of death... Enoch looked to the same Messiah Abel did. He knew, as Abel did, that the woman's Seed must be bruised. But he also knew and felt sure that He would bruise the serpent's head. He saw life triumphant over the one who had the power of death. In that faith he walked, and he pleased God well. So his end on earth was not by death like Abel, but by a power of life that was his alone.

Then the life shows itself in the walk, and the power of that life is that he does not die at all... Enoch is not found, for God took him — death does not touch him at all. The power of death is done away.

Reading verse 5, we cannot help feeling that Enoch's three hundred years of walking with God and his bold witness for God was about to end in violent death at the hands of the sinners before the flood. Just then God stepped in and translated him. They were after him, but before the blow could fall, "he was not; for God took him." God did not step in for Abel, who died a martyr's death. He did step in for Enoch. This man deeply displeased the men of his age, but he pleased God so much that He took him into His presence beyond the reach of his enemies.

Verse 4 tells us that before Abel was slain he had the testimony that he was righteous. Verse 5 tells us that Enoch before he was translated had the testimony that he pleased God. One was right with God and he knew it. The other was agreeable to God and he knew it. Both knew on divine testimony.

Enoch bore this witness a little before the flood, as Elijah did long after it. Both lived in times of great and growing wickedness. Both were prophets of a judgment that would not sleep. Both were taken on high without dying. Their removal points to the great translation ahead. It will be the portion of all the living saints who remain, when the Lord Himself comes down for them from heaven. They will be caught up together with the dead saints, raised to meet the Lord in the air.

His life, separate from evil, was a testimony to the character of God, and God took him. His faith is connected with his translation, for he lived as one who did not belong to this world, but to another scene suited to God. And should not all this mark those who are awaiting their translation to heaven at any moment? Strictly speaking, the Christian has only one business here: to walk with God, to please God, to obey Him, and glorify Him.

The account in Genesis says nothing about Enoch's faith, but it tells us twice that he "walked with God." That is what the apostle seems to point to when he says that, before God took Enoch away, "he was commended as having pleased God." From that commendation the apostle argues that Enoch must have had faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Suppose someone does not really believe that God exists. Then his religious approach to God is pure hypocrisy. Faith is a true recognition of God. Nothing less than that can please Him. This is the basic essential. The last part of the verse shows faith at work, diligently seeking God. God will reward that seeking, because He is faithful.

The flesh never trusts God. Its mind is hostile to Him... So its independence turns out to be hostility toward God. Because it seeks its own will, it does not and cannot submit to His law... "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." God's delight is in the Man who always sought and did God's will, not His own.

Even in these doubting days, many people cannot explain how everything came to exist without assuming that some sort of God exists somewhere. But that is reason, not faith. Only faith puts us in the presence of the living God. He knows, He sees, He acts, He makes Himself known, and He even rewards those who diligently seek Him.

Whoever draws near to God "must believe that He exists." Man ought to know that much from the witness of His works (see Romans 1:19-20). But the second half — "and that He rewards those who seek Him" — a sinner could never know unless God's own gracious word told him.

"He rewards those who diligently seek Him." Again, I say it plainly: you would never have found faith described that way in Romans 4. "What legal language!" some would say if they read it in a book. But here it is beautiful. The faith of a believer is a working thing. Will God ever be in debt to any man? No. He pays those who sow generously.

Faith is not an initial act and done with. Faith is the motive spring of the whole Christian life... Note the word, "diligently"—diligently seek Him. Does that characterize you and me?

God never fails an expectant heart... He sent a Philip to the eunuch in the desert of Gaza. He sent a Peter to the centurion, in the town of Caesarea. He sent a Paul to a woman who sold purple cloth, on the edge of Philippi. And He will send a message to whoever reads these lines, if that person is truly seeking God's salvation.

The word of God brings His light to shine on everything by which man's heart is deceived. But only faith will be "warned by God" when the things He speaks of are "as yet unseen." Nature goes by what it sees; its senses rule it. Faith goes by the pure word of God — an inestimable treasure in this dark world! This gives stability, whatever outward appearances may be. When God spoke to Noah of coming judgment, there was no sign of it. It was "as yet unseen." But the word of God made it real and present to the heart that could mix that word with faith.

The verse states plainly that fear moved Noah. The goodness of God does lead to repentance, as Romans 2:4 says. He shows that goodness in His forbearance and patience with guilty man. Yet fear of coming judgment has often acted powerfully too, and Noah's case is an example. It was fear of the right kind. It was not the helpless alarm the rest of that generation no doubt knew when the flood came and swept them all away. It was the fear that sprang from faith in God's warning word.

Here faith connects with work in the face of judgment. Noah worked because he believed God. The dreadful reality of God's judgment stirred his soul. Light motives did not prompt his labour in building the ark, or his preaching while he did it. "Godly fear" did. God had spoken, and God would make good His word. Only Noah's house was saved; others despised both his long preaching and his amazing labours in building the ark. But the weight of popular opinion was only folly in this case: all was swept away in the flood.

He did not condemn the world by rebuking the actions of the wicked. That would be easier, and it would place him on the judgment seat. He condemned the world by his actions, by his life. That is a higher thing, and it reveals the whole spring of his being — faith.

Noah realised that the sentence of doom had gone out from God's lips. He accepted it, and in his turn he condemned the world by building the ark as a refuge from the coming disaster. Every nail, as he drove it home, was a token of salvation for himself and his house, but a token of condemnation for the world.

Verse 4 has told us that "By faith Abel… was commended as righteous"; that is, God accounted him righteous then and there. He was righteous, not merely an heir of righteousness. Noah too was righteous; we are told so in Genesis 7:1; yet this does not clash with what we are told here. There could be no revelation of "the righteousness which is by faith" until Christ had died and risen again, as we see in Romans 3:21-22 and Philippians 3:9. So this verse views that righteousness as a future thing, and Noah by his faith became heir to it.

Enoch had warned others, and was himself caught up to heaven, before the flood came and took away all except those in the ark. Noah had a warning from God about things not yet seen. He himself was warned, and moved with godly fear. The godly Jewish remnant will be the same at the end of the age. They pass through that solemn time of divine judgment. They come out to inherit the earth, and the righteousness that is according to faith. The world lacked that righteousness, and so stood condemned. Waiting to believe the prophecy until it came true would have ruined Noah, as it ruined that generation. So it will be with the world again, in a day that is hurrying toward us.

If faith first obeys, faith also continues. Here is the steady, plodding life of faith. It is not a settling down among earthly comforts, but a pilgrim path, as Abraham's tent bore witness. Mere material, present advantage is no object at all for faith.

He was a pilgrim, not a settler in the land. He was as much a pilgrim in the land as before he came there... God's promise of the land brought him out of his own land, out of what stands as a picture of the earth. But in Canaan God raised his eyes to heaven, instead of letting them rest on the world. And this is exactly what the letter to the Hebrews shows us. It shows not only the faith that brought him into the land, but the faith that kept him a stranger there.

Notice how verse 9 keeps up the pilgrim and stranger character: living in tents was the mark of a stranger and a pilgrim... Abraham lived in a tent. Lot did too at first, but he did not keep up the pilgrim character. First he pitched his tent towards Sodom, then sat in the gate, and had a house in Sodom. Abraham kept his tent, because he looked for a city. He knew there was such a city. And the Holy Spirit adds, "whose designer and builder is God."

When he got to this land of promise, what did he find there? He did not have so much as a foot of land he could call his own. It is very significant that the only part he ever owned was a tomb, a burial place. It reminded him that in life he had nothing, but it was also an anticipation of resurrection... His dwelling was in a form that suggested his home was not here.

Abraham lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob. That was indeed so. But then, they were heirs together of the promise. Of this they were, in the middle of their pilgrim days, fully persuaded. And so, on fitting occasions, they can act on that full persuasion. They take up the dignities and places the promise warranted, in a way that nothing but such persuasion can account for.

It is very interesting to see Jacob included in this pilgrim life. Jacob lived only a small part of his life in the land of Canaan. Through his own waywardness, he spent much of it outside his own land. Yet what God sees here is his life of faith in a tent, as well as that of Abraham and Isaac.

In all this Abraham's history pictures the position of the believer today. It is full of instruction for us. We are not called to leave any particular city or country, nor to come out of our family circles. The heavenly calling that has reached us is more sweeping than this. It involves our being "delivered from the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4)... Our links with the present evil age must be cut. Yet we still live in the same place and the same circumstances as before our conversion.

Faith led him into the land, though it was unnamed and unknown to him. Once he was in it, faith looked to receive it from God another day, while he was content to be a foreigner who did not yet own a foot of it. But faith also learned to wait for a brighter and better scene. For the city here described stands in contrast with all that is earthly or can be shaken and removed. It is the scene of heavenly glory... The word he heard made him look up. He believed, so he did not rush, and he would not be put to shame.

Abraham spent his life outside the cities of men because he had in view the city of God that is yet to be — "a city which has foundations." The point seems plain: the cities of men lack foundations. Their physical foundations may be sound enough, but the right moral foundations are missing. Unless righteousness and love lie at the base, no city can last or endure. Sooner or later such cities decay, or violent upheavals from inside or outside sweep them away.

In the original it is not "he looked for a city," just some city. It is "he looked for the city" — the well-known one, and there is only one such city. He looked for the city that had the foundations, because they are well-known foundations. There could be only one kind of foundation for a city like that. In Revelation you find it in precious stones, which speak of God glorified in Christ. Christ Himself is the foundation of that heavenly city. His atoning work is the basis on which it rests, as everything else does.

As to Hebrews 11:10 — I take the "city" to be very general in contrast with tents (v. 9) — a stranger in the land. But the only city is the heavenly Jerusalem — itself a figure. It is not "a city," but "the city."

He looked for a city that has foundations, and its Architect and Builder is God. He devised the plan, and He carries it out... The mention of "the foundations" brings before us the very city of Revelation, with its twelve jewelled foundations, like the high priest's breastplate. They are the glorious lights and perfections of God's character. A city built on these must last for ever.

This goes beyond anything the Old Testament records about Abraham's expectations. It shows that faith looked further than what God had openly revealed at the time. No one had ever mentioned the heavenly city then. But faith could see that the God who cannot decay would provide what cannot decay, something above everything a person can take in by the senses... So faith wants nothing less than what is wholly God's own work. It will not be disappointed.

Abraham wanted no place in this world. With his tent and his altar he waited for the city that has foundations, the city God designs and builds. His tent marked him out as a pilgrim and stranger before people. His altar spoke of him as a worshipper before God. Our tent and altar must go together.

It is only in this chapter that we find any mention of Sarah's faith. You look in vain in the Old Testament story for evidence of faith on her part. How good it is to remember that God's eye can detect what we cannot! ... She laughed; and when the Lord spoke to her, she denied it. So the two things that marked her at that time were unbelief and untruthfulness. This seems the least promising soil for any plant of faith to grow in. Yet God could see there the elements of a faith that in His sight was of great price.

All this makes the grace of God stand out, and it cheers us. God has forgotten her early failures. He records only the later triumph here. What clearer proof could there be that He loves to speak well of His own!

A rebuke of her unbelief had to awaken her faith (Gen. 18). The Lord reproved her. She was afraid in the presence of the One who searched her thoughts. Out of that fear grew a confidence that trusted God to be true to His name. Faith cannot act until the heart first sets aside its own reasoning. ... Sarah judged Him faithful who had promised, once her heart was emptied of self.

The plain word of God given to her changed her unbelief into genuine faith, and that faith bore fruit. To take God's word deeply to heart is the very essence of faith.

Faith here connects with the receiving of strength. A step of obedience to God is admirable. A life of steady continuance is better still. But without the supply of God's power, neither is possible. Faith finds this too. It completes a series of seven beautiful products of faith, basic to all godly character: 1. Wisdom (v. 3); 2. Worship (v. 4); 3. Walk (v. 5); 4. Work (v. 7); 5. Obedience (v. 8); 6. Continuance (v. 9); 7. Strength (v. 11).

In Sarah we learn more. Faith looks to God when difficulties press hard. It also trusts God when nature makes a thing impossible. She did not look at the ordinary way of having a son. She did not ask, "How can this be?" Her confidence was in God. He would keep His own word in His own way. ... He brings strength out of weakness and life out of death.

This is a fine reason to exercise faith. With her the question was not, "Can it be?" but, "He has said it, so it shall be." She rested on this alone — the word of her God. For who before her had become a mother at ninety?

Here is fruit beyond counting, far past the limits of Sarah's own hopes. Natural hope was dead, so that long before this she had given up any such expectation. ... The fruit of faith's submission is far greater than it appears at the time, or for years afterward. Only eternity will reveal it.

If God rewarded Sarah's feeble faith, why not yours?

God secures a great company of people according to His purpose, but does so in His own way, from one "as good as dead". As so often in the ways of God, He carries out His plans by vessels of weakness in circumstances that seem hopeless. He brings strength out of weakness, food out of the eater, and life out of death. And from one as good as dead He brings a people "as many as the stars of heaven." "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Here faith wins a fresh victory. It overcame utter weakness, made worse by the passing of years far beyond the natural age. The weakness lay on both sides. Scripture names the mother first, and then describes the father in a way that heightens the wonder of such an overflowing family from one as good as dead.

Suppose Abraham had looked up into the sky, sprinkled with countless stars. Then suppose he looked at "his own body, which was as good as dead." How could he ever grasp the idea of a family as many as those stars? Impossible. But he did not look at his own body; he looked at the resurrection power of God. That was the power which would produce the family. So we can see that the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore are only feeble pictures. What natural object could show the effect of a power that raises the dead?

His children were to be as the stars — that is, the heavenly family, those who inherit his faith, as shown in Romans 4:16, which includes every believer. They were also to be as the sand on the seashore — that is, the earthly family. The sea (the Gentile world) may beat upon them, throw up mire and dirt on them, and cover them for a time. But it can never dissolve them or absorb them.

Believers in Christ, as children of Abraham, get the heavenly side of the promise — "stars of the heavens"; Israel (and with them the nations) get the earthly side — "sand of the seashore" (Heb. 11:12).

If ever a people passed through difficulties and dangers, distresses and destructions planned to defeat the promise of God, it was the Jews. That holds even on the smaller question of their numbers. Everyone knows how nations great and small, near and far, have set their policy against them. Again and again through the ages they have tried to cut them off from being a people. Rome took away their place and scattered them as captives over the earth. Even so, it could not put an end to their nation... Yet scattered in this strange way, they are perhaps as numerous as ever.

Long ago, Abraham received the promised son by God's intervention alone. In himself, Abraham was "as good as dead". In the same way, a sinner can no more justify himself from guilt before God by his own efforts than a dead man could. As far as doing anything to justify ourselves, we are "as good as dead." We are left with nothing but the work of Another — the work of Christ.

Even when Abraham reached Canaan he had not reached the object of faith. He was as much a pilgrim in the land as he was on the journey to it. His whole life was a pilgrimage. He never owned what God had promised him... "These all died in faith," or, as the word is, "died according to faith." They died in line with what faith had laid hold of. By faith they saw the promises connected with the inheritance, but they did not receive them. Nature grew feeble. Its powers decayed, and they were laid in the grave. But they died in faith, clinging to the promises still far off — convinced of them, so that there was no uncertainty.

The history strikingly illustrates this. They valued their dead bodies and the burial places that held them. While they lived, they were content to live in Canaan without owning so much as a foot of it. But "they died in faith." God's promise had given that land, that very land, to them, though they themselves would be gathered to their fathers (Gen. 15). This was the warrant for their dying in faith, in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to enjoy it.

Faith sees death as only a necessary step toward the fulfilment of the promise, so the patriarchs stayed calm and quiet in the face of death. First in our verse we see faith's long sight. Second, its firm, unshaken persuasion. Third, its embracing with the whole soul the preciousness of the truth of God. Fourth, its unhesitating confession before the world that earth is only a foreign land of pilgrimage. How full, real, and precious such a character is! Who would trade it for all the wealth, pleasure, power and popularity the world may offer for a brief span of years?

The first thing to do with a promise is to take hold of it — then to exercise faith about it — and then to receive it by the heart. They "embraced" them. Their hearts hugged them. How far has my heart hugged the promises?... But surely the closer we hug them the more blessed we will be as we consent to be strangers and pilgrims in this world. Did they speak of being strangers because they had left Mesopotamia? No; but because they had not reached heaven.

A fugitive is a man who has fled from home. A vagabond is a man who has no home. A stranger is a man who is absent from home. A pilgrim is a man who is on his way home.

In Haran, where Abraham was delayed for a time, we read he "dwelt there." But once he arrived in the land, we read he "pitched his tent," as one who had no fixed dwelling place. What is more, we read that he "passed through the land." As a stranger he had only a tent in this world. As a pilgrim he was passing through to another world.

And so these all died in accordance with faith, just as they had lived. They looked forward to Messiah's day, when the promises would be made good. The addition of "and were persuaded" in the Received Text has very little support, and that support counts for nothing... It really weakens the truth. But the practical result is as weighty as it is undeniable: they confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth.

Notice that expression, "they declare it plainly." It is not that they always talked about it. The pilgrim's dress is our best witness. Not the clothes we wear, of course, but the whole pilgrim character. Did anyone ever question that the Lord Jesus was a stranger here? that He was not seeking wealth or a place here?... People can tell when a man is heavenly. They sense it when his character, his conversation, his whole life breathes an air that does not belong to earth... This is not something you can get by imitation. It comes by keeping company in spirit with Christ.

When we accept the path of the stranger, we will become witnesses for God on the earth... The man who declares plainly as a witness for God is the man who answers the call of God.

Even the land of promise was not their home. Still less was Chaldea, the country Abraham left at God's word. They looked higher — to heaven. Life and death alike bore witness that they were at home nowhere on earth. They lived in tents as pilgrims. They were strangers in the land of promise, a land not their own — yet theirs in a hope that puts no one to shame. All along they declared plainly that they were looking for a fatherland on high.

He set out "not knowing where he was going." He reached the land at last, the land "which he was to receive as an inheritance." Yet he lived there "as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise" (Heb. 11:8-10). In these words the Spirit points out that he left the glories of Ur for the land of promise, and then never enjoyed what he set out to have. He gave up any immediate or personal hold on it. As Genesis shows, he was content with a tent and an altar. So he declared himself still to be seeking a country.

Their sense of being strangers on earth did not come from regrets, but from hopes. They were dissatisfied with the present thing, not because of what was past but because of what was to come. The scene around them was a wilderness because of the power over them of the scene ahead, not of the one behind them.

Those who freely call themselves pilgrims show plainly that they are done with earth (verse 14). People admit late, only when they are forced to die, that human life is nothing but a journey full of change. They own up to a shared emptiness, and they do it unwillingly. But God's anointed ones never settled on the earth. They wandered all their days. They knew that flesh and blood could never enter the place where their hopes rested.

The believer is "not of the world." His home and citizenship are in heaven. His walk down here on the earth should show a clear awareness, and a clear confession, that he "seeks a country" (Heb. 11:14). This is of the greatest importance.

Had those saints of old been mindful of the country they had left, says the apostle, they might have returned. There was no constraint or necessity laid upon them. Abraham could have gone back to Mesopotamia, or to Haran, where he had stayed for a time. He could have even continued in the land of Egypt, where, in unbelief, he went for a season. But the faith that had caused him to hear the word of God made him continue looking for a better country.

He was the stranger to the end. He might have returned to Mesopotamia. He had not forgotten the road, as we noticed before; and the constant respect and friendliness of all his neighbours proved that there was no enemy to hinder the journey. But the call of God had fixed his heart, and he looked only where it led him.

The record in Hebrews 11 does not hide from us that the old land of Mesopotamia had attractions. They might well have pulled hard at Abraham. If he had let his mind keep dwelling on the old place he came from, its fascination might have grown. Then his heart would have turned that way, and his feet might soon have followed. It would have been easy: he "would have had opportunity to return."

The enemy always has a side road open to the man of faith. He had an Egypt for Abraham, and now he has the world, in all its varied forms, for us... It is the opportunity to return that proves the genuine fixedness of purpose to go forward. The Lord leaves His people free, in order that they may "declare plainly that they seek a country." This is what glorifies God. It would count for nothing if we were forced, as with bit and bridle, to go from earth to heaven. But when, through grace, we freely give up the things of earth to seek the things above, that is to the glory of God. It shows that what He has to give is far more attractive than this present world.

"They would have had opportunity to return": that is, where faith is exercised and put to the test. You who have known the Lord some time have had opportunity to return — how has it been with you? A stone left on the ground gradually sinks in. Present things constantly tend to press down the affections — not open sin, but duties. Nothing is a greater snare than duties. We have one duty, that is to serve Christ.

He does not put us actually into heaven, but leaves us here to try our affections. He puts us to the test. The Lord must have a heavenly people, as well as a heavenly place for them. He exercises our hearts, but does not yet put us in actual possession of the heavenly things... Satan tries to settle us where God has made us strangers. The world has rejected Christ, and Satan wants us to be satisfied with it for our portion.

Their sense of being strangers on earth did not arise from regrets, but from hopes. They were dissatisfied with the present thing, not because of what was past but because of what was to come. The scene around them was a wilderness because of the power of the scene ahead of them, not the scene behind them.

Both Ruth and Orpah make a profession of devotedness to Naomi... But, as ever, profession is put to the test. Naomi says, "Go, each return to her mother's house." They are given opportunity to return. This will bring to light whether the thought of their minds agrees with their outward profession. If they are "mindful" of that country from which they came out, they have opportunity to return (Heb. 11:15). At once the mind of Orpah is revealed. Her heart clings to the land of her birth. Ruth, as we shall see, desires "a better country."

One who professes faith in Christ, if he prefers his former sins to a path of faith and the truth of God's Word, may return to his folly again; but this would only prove that he had never in actual faith embraced the promises of God.

God kept Abraham and others in the path of faith and pilgrimage, because they had set their hearts on something better than all they had left. They desired "a better country, that is, a heavenly one." This is a remarkable statement. As far as Genesis is concerned, the record is that God called him to a place on earth: it was "to the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1)... God's public call to Abraham was an earthly one. Yet he became aware that God had heavenly things in reserve, and on those things he set his heart.

"Therefore," we read; "therefore God is not ashamed." And when we turn to the context to find what it points back to, we find it is the faith which led Abraham and others to the pilgrim life. They had set their desires on the heavenly city that was yet to come. They gave up present and earthly things in view of the coming things of heaven. God is not ashamed to be known as the God of such men as these.

Of men whose lives show these marks we read, "God is not ashamed to be called their God." In the details of their lives there were many failures, and much they were no doubt ashamed of. But the great governing principles of their lives, which moved them and gave character to their walk, were such that God was not ashamed to own them and to be called their God.

He identifies Himself with them, as the apostle shows us, because of the practical faith they had in Him. That faith showed itself in a life of pilgrimage, in obedience to His call. God is not ashamed to link Himself with those whose faith in Him gave Him so good a character. If He had called Himself the God of Lot, what would Lot's conduct have led men to suppose God to be? But God shows His own character by calling Himself the God of Abraham, despite Abraham's failures.

They are strangers in the land of promise, and they do not enjoy the fulfilment of promises here below. So they wait for more excellent things — things which God prepares on high for those who love Him. They are in unison with God in His own thoughts. Their desires, through grace, answer to the things He takes delight in. So they are the objects of His special regard. He is not ashamed to be called their God.

For such God has prepared a city, and in that city all that was of God in their lives will have a glorious answer.

It could not be the New Testament Church that Abraham looked for, because that was as yet entirely hidden in God (Eph. 3:9).

How do matters stand with us? Of how many of us would God be ashamed, if He were called our God? These are searching questions. God has indeed provided some better thing for us; that is the fruit of His sovereign choice and action. Then comes the question of our responsibility to answer to the grace given. How well Abraham responded in faith to the lesser grace given to him. How poorly do we respond to the greater grace given to us. Let us stir ourselves up, so that in days to come we do not find that God was ashamed of us, though He was not ashamed of Abraham.

It is worth seeing that God gives us a great honour when He tests our hearts this way. We never read that "the Lord tested Lot." No — Sodom tempted Lot... God knew well that Abraham loved Him far better than Sodom. But He would make it clear that Abraham loved Him better than anyone or anything. So He laid His hand on the nearest and dearest object: "Take your son, your only son Isaac." Yes, Isaac — the child of promise. Isaac, the hope Abraham had waited so long for, the object of a parent's love, and the one in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed.

This was putting the father of the faithful to the severest test imaginable. He had to give up his only son and heir to the altar, and sacrifice him with his own hand. To all appearances it also put the promises at risk — the promises about his descendants, and through them blessing for all the families of the earth. God's word about Isaac had raised both natural love and religious hope very high and very wide. Now, to human reason, such a command seemed to sweep both away — at a whim, painfully, and for good... Yet he hesitated in unbelief no more at the surrender, painful as its form was to him, than he had at the promise years earlier, unlikely as that had seemed.

The passage in Hebrews refers to Abraham. The expression "only-begotten" is not used here to state how many sons he fathered. It does not stress the begetting at all, for he fathered other children. It shows instead that Isaac, as the child of promise, held a UNIQUE place. He ALONE was the one God recognised, and Abraham's faith recognised, as the heir of the promises. Do we not feel, as we read it, the strain on Abraham's affection? This trial of his faith touched the very one, and the only one, on whom all his God-given hopes rested.

About that remarkable phrase, "he who had received the promises": God asked Abraham to offer up Isaac, the one in whom all the promises rested. Yet faith had given Abraham such inward strength that he laid hold of the One who made those wonderful promises. He had taken those promises as his own. And he held on, even though right then it looked as if they were being taken back on a whim.

To man, death is the end of hope. To God it is only the occasion to use the power of resurrection. Abraham trusted without a waver that God would use that power for Isaac... The proof was complete. Faith could go no further. Abraham counted on God to make good in resurrection the seed he had given up to die at God's word — and the promises bound up in that seed. What fresh gain for Abraham! And what gain for all who do God's will, give up what is dearest to nature, and receive everything back better in resurrection!

God Himself saw in that solemn scene a picture of His own gift of the only-begotten Son of God, whom He did not spare but delivered up for us all. For Him there was no substitute, and there could be none, if our sins were to be judged and borne and blotted out... In His case the death was as real as the resurrection.

If the promise must fall to Abraham's descendants simply because they are his descendants, then Ishmael's line must be let in as well. No Jew would allow that, so he must give up his principle. This is a matter of promise. It does not rest on physical descent, but on His own sovereignty: He had limited the call to Isaac. "In Isaac shall your seed be called."

Isaac is called Abraham's "only" son, and Hebrews puts this as "his only begotten son" (Heb. 11:17). This makes it very clear that Isaac was a type of our Lord, and it also throws light on what the words "Only begotten" mean when they are used of Him. Ishmael did come from Abraham, but he was born in the natural way, so he did not count in God's reckoning; Isaac was altogether unique. So our Lord Jesus Christ was Son of God in a completely unique sense.

Let us not lessen the force of the word "Only Begotten" by saying that it could just as well be translated "Only", or that it means no more than unique or uniquely precious. It means far more than that. It means that He is the only Son according to His divine nature.

There would be a conflict between Abraham's natural feelings and the word of God. There would also be an apparent contradiction between the command and the earlier promise. So nature had room to ask whether his obedience could be right in such a case. Had he heard the command correctly, and understood it? God had promised that his offspring through Isaac would be countless and would hold the leading place on earth. Did that promise not mean that sacrificing Isaac would defeat God's purpose for him and for the world, and would be like throwing away His promise?

In truth there was only one way to bring the promise and the command together, and he took it, wonderful and unheard of as it was. It was the way of resurrection. Abraham counted on it that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. He had never heard of such a thing before, that anyone should rise from the dead. He may have heard how Enoch was taken away without dying; God could prevent death. But to bring someone through death was unknown, and now it had to happen, because the command could not be taken back.

Meanwhile faith is tested. Abraham had to sacrifice the very one on whom the promises rested, so that he would hold them from God alone. This example had great power for the Hebrew readers, because they too had to follow Abraham: they had to leave a Jewish Christ in order to receive a risen and heavenly Christ.

I need not say much about what is so precious to us: how this is a type of God giving up His only begotten Son. God would not ask Abraham to do what He Himself later had to do. The wood was laid on Isaac, as Jesus carried the cross. Isaac was bound to the altar, as our Lord was nailed to the cross. But when divine Justice lifted up its hand, no voice called out to stop it. The Son was given up to death.

There on Mount Moriah, with his only son on the altar, what did Abraham have left? The living God! You may have lost your home, your money, your health, people dear to you, the friendship of those you loved. But tell me, do you have the living God? Then He will make good to you in resurrection everything you have lost for His glory.

Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find such complete trust in God. Here the father proved willing to sacrifice his only son — the son who carried all God's promises and all his own hopes. To man, death is the end of hope. To God it is only the occasion to use the power of resurrection. Abraham was sure of that power for Isaac, and he trusted without wavering.

Isaac was a child of resurrection even in his natural birth. After this event he became one twice over. Yet the faith was Abraham's own. He reasoned that the God who could bring a living child into the world from parents who were physically dead could and would raise him from the dead.

There was not only a conflict between Abraham's natural feelings and the word of God. There was also a seeming contradiction between the command and the earlier promise. So nature had room to ask whether obeying could be right in such a case. Did he hear and understand the command rightly? God had promised that his offspring through Isaac would be a countless multitude and would rule the earth. Did that promise not imply that sacrificing Isaac would defeat God's purpose for him and for the world, and would be like giving up His promise?

Abraham did not know that God would raise Isaac up. But he knew that God was able to do it. And he surely judged that this was the only way God could fulfil His promise about Isaac.

Most, we know, are apt to be content with less. They see the love of God set forth in the sacrifice provided; they see the substitution of the ram answering to Him who died for our sins. And there they stop; but the New Testament does not. In Hebrews 11 the apostle Paul clearly gives us another step... That is, Genesis 22 gives us a shadow not only of the death of Christ, but also of His resurrection.

Abraham receives Isaac back from the dead only "in a figure" (Heb. 11:19). Christ was raised in reality, and the promises belong to Him. It is Christ raised from the dead who is the source of blessing to all the families of the earth.

Meanwhile God tests faith. Abraham had to sacrifice the one on whom God had placed the promises, so that he held them from God alone. This example set before the Hebrews has much power, for they too were to follow Abraham. They were to leave the Jewish Christ and receive a risen and heavenly Christ.

God tests the heart, so that all confidence in the flesh is destroyed. But He also knows that the heart needs holding up under the trial. So He holds it up by a new revelation, and that revelation lets it triumph. This is what we see in Hebrews 11:19. When God asked Abraham for this sacrifice, Abraham received a revelation about resurrection — something hardly known at that time. This is how God, in His infinite mercy, causes us to gain in Himself what we lose in the flesh.

Isaac is set before us next as an example of a man who walked in the light of the future. We read that he "blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come." Genesis 27 tells the story of how he blessed his sons. As we read that sad chapter, where every member of the family fails, we can find little evidence of any faith. There, Isaac appears to be governed by his appetites and seeking to act according to nature. Here, God, who sees behind all outward failure, lets us know it was by faith Isaac blessed his sons concerning things to come.

But we rejoice at the turning point of grace in Isaac's soul. He had forgotten the already declared will of Jehovah about Jacob, and he tried to please the son who fed his appetite. God blocked him, and Isaac bowed to it. When God's overruling broke in on him, he did not blame his wife and younger son. He bowed in self-judgment and trembled greatly. In faith he sealed what his lips had said without knowing it, but under God: "he shall be blessed." He felt that, however others were to blame, the error was his own... It was not according to his leanings, but against them: "By faith Isaac blessed" — not Esau and Jacob, but "Jacob and Esau, concerning things about to be."

How did Isaac come to be deceived by such a clumsy trick? He knew the voice... No man of the world with common sense would have been fooled like that. How did it happen? He was not in communion with God, and the crudest means can deceive a saint who is out of communion... Then faith awoke, and the scales fell from his eyes. God's will, that the younger should rule over the elder, came back to his memory. Despite his earthly preferences, he said, "he shall be blessed."

Is God going to be thwarted? Is He going to be hindered in His purposes? Never! Isaac himself gave the fullest blessing to Jacob, though he thought it was Esau. He did not know what he was doing at the time, yet he spoke with the full sense of authority. That was faith — not in what he intended, for God ruled that. The faith was in giving the blessing, and in realising afterwards that it would stand as the act of God, and that he could not reverse it. It is a striking illustration of the power of divine purpose.

But God is compassionate as well as holy. He would not go back on His own election. Yet He strengthens Isaac to pronounce a second blessing on Esau. By faith he blessed him also, concerning things to come. A rich and full promise was the portion of the firstborn. But it was a material blessing only.

Then Isaac by faith blessed Jacob and Esau, the younger first. This teaches that the blessing, according to the mind of God, does not run in the order of nature. The Hebrews knew that many of their countrymen were resting on being Abraham's children after the flesh. What would that be worth if they refused salvation by Christ? Isaac blessing Jacob had a voice for such people, and for all. "It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7).

When he was young, he was a poor sort of saint. He pushed his brother aside, deceived his father, and was driven away from a mother who doted on him. He wandered to Padan-aram, where Laban cheated him — though he cheated too... But the closing scenes of his life were lit up with brightness. God kept him and blessed him despite himself, so that it might clearly be not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Jacob's best days were when he was old. He blessed the sons of Joseph, blessed his own sons and died a worshipper.

He acts no longer as nature would dictate, but as God would direct. He crosses his hands "intelligently"... Joseph lets his natural thoughts rule him. He does not see the sovereignty of God, who blesses according to His purpose. So he protests when Jacob gives the first place to the younger son. Jacob, however, will not give way... He knows exactly what he is doing. He can say, "I know, my son, I know." ... His spiritual sight was never clearer than at the moment when his natural sight had grown dim with age.

This one act of Jacob's life is the only one recorded in Hebrews 11 as an act of faith on Jacob's part... God made His thought known to him at last, and faith triumphed. He said at the end what we all ought to say at the beginning: "Not this man here, though he is the eldest born and the first on the scene. That Man is the man of God's counsel."

There is not the least ground for making the rod or staff to be Joseph's. It was Jacob's. With his staff he had passed over Jordan once, a poor outcast... Now he is in Egypt, standing before Joseph and his sons, though Joseph ranked next to Pharaoh. Leaning on the staff that had gone with him through all his weary wanderings, the dying pilgrim worships the God whose faithfulness he had proved all the way through. What is more striking than such faith? He blesses the children of his now exalted son, seeing the true worth of Egypt's splendour in the light of the glory of the promised land.

Here he appears as a worshipper, and his staff marks him out as a stranger... how different, how changed is the man who leans upon it! It follows the touch on the hollow of his thigh. He has learned the lesson. He leans. The one who can worship and bless others must himself be dependent. And can we ever afford to be anything else?

The difference between the Hebrew copies and the sense given by the Greek Old Testament is simply a question of the vowel marks: the same Hebrew letters can be read as a staff or as a bed. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the "bed" in the Old Testament, nor of the "staff" in the New Testament. The staff was in his hand while he bowed himself down upon the bed's head.

The blessing of faith to others (Heb. 11:20), and the worship of faith in the attitude of true dependence (Heb. 11:21) follow, and the hope of faith (Heb. 11:22) closes the series.

The blessing of faith to others (Heb. 11:20) follows, then the worship of faith in true dependence (Heb. 11:21). The hope of faith (Heb. 11:22) closes the series. The bright outlook of Joseph's dying bones is the one point chosen out of all his eventful history. It was chosen to encourage readers who, two thousand years later, were going through a great struggle of suffering.

He solemnly charged his sons not to bury him with his fathers, as Jacob had asked and received. Instead they were to embalm him. His body was the pledge that they would leave Egypt in God's time for the land of promise. No splendour in Egypt dimmed the light of promise to his faith. The man nearest to the throne of the world is a stranger. He looks for resurrection. He expects God to bring Israel back to the land, as He swore to their fathers.

When he is dying, all the glory of this world fades from his vision. Instead of looking back to the past glories of Egypt, Joseph is looking on to the coming glories of Israel. At that moment it looked very unlikely that Israel would ever leave Egypt. They had settled down in Goshen and, as we read, "they had possessions there, and grew, and multiplied greatly." Yet faith saw that a hundred and fifty years later God would bring Israel out of Egypt into their own promised land. So faith gave commands with that departure in view.

Joseph believed the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He may also have known God's word to Abraham. His offspring would be strangers in a foreign land, afflicted for four hundred years, before God brought them back to the land of Canaan. But whatever the time, his bones were to be buried in Canaan, as indeed happened. Death itself, and the long years in between, were no barrier at all to faith. Faith simply waits on God.

So, in the power of faith's vision of the living God, he gives directions about his bones. They are not to be left in Egypt. What a witness Joseph's coffin must have been to the Israelites through the long centuries! It reminded them always that not even death can stop the living God from doing all He pleases and carrying out His purpose for His people.

Joseph had been ruler over Egypt, with all its splendour at his feet. Now he has nothing left but his bones. What does he say? "Take them up into that inheritance which God has provided, where I shall be raised." He looks forward to the time of the inheritance. His faith looks onward and upward — not to his glory in Egypt, but to the future glory when Christ will reign.

Moses had enough to occupy his mind on that Passover night, arranging the departure of so large a crowd. What spare time could he have had to care for the bones of Joseph? But Joseph had made the children of Israel swear, in dependence on God. He believed, and therefore he spoke; and putting his trust in God, it was impossible that he could be put to shame.

In Hebrews 11:23 the faith cited is not that of Moses, but of his parents. His mother hid him for three months because she saw he was a fine child. Hebrews shows that his father as well as his mother saw that the child was beautiful. Their eye of faith was fixed on God, so they were not afraid of the king's command. One greater than Pharaoh had their loyalty.

non-ESV verse quotation; archaic "injunction"; adds depth from source

It means that when he was born there was a look on his face that faith could read. "Beautiful to God" is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of his parents, Amram and Jochebed, and they obeyed it.

Here is a remarkable simplicity of faith in Moses' parents. It acts on grounds that most people would think far too slight — the beauty of the child. God still answers it, because it was faith in Him. And how fully He answers, for this is Moses the deliverer!

True, they owed loyalty to their earthly king. But they also owed loyalty to the Lord of lords. Trusting in Him, they were lifted above all fear of the king's command, and they hid their child — the child God had given them — for three months. They counted on God, and they were not disappointed, for He never leaves or forsakes those who put their trust in Him. …The rulers of this world are powerless before those who are linked with God by faith.

Courage always goes with true faith: "By faith… they were not afraid." Where faith rules, God overrules. Strange turns of providence and strange coincidences mark the path of faith — so much so that everything seems prepared in advance.

The faith of Moses' parents makes them ignore the king's cruel command, and they hide their baby. In answer to their faith, God kept him alive by extraordinary means, when there was no other way to save him. Faith does not reason. It acts from its own point of view, and leaves the result to God.

Hiding the child no doubt put their own lives in danger, but God's honour mattered more to them than the king's command. When the mother later placed the child in the basket at the river's edge, that too was an act of faith, and God used it in a way that was all but miraculous. Did she not really give him up into God's hand, and receive him back again in an unexpected way? So faith never loses by giving anything up into God's hand.

He enters the world to find that a place on earth is denied him. There was no room for the Lord of glory in the inn, and Egypt's king decrees that Moses, who is a picture of Him, must die the moment he is born! His parents rescued him by faith alone… In later years he must have drawn strength from this godly act of his parents, and owed them much for this first training in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The start of our course gives colour to the whole of it… Moses' first breath on earth was secured to him only through the faith of his parents.

How old was he when, as the Holy Spirit says here, "he was grown up"? Acts 7 tells us exactly. There the Spirit of God, speaking through Stephen, says, "When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel" (Acts 7:23). Perhaps you would not call a man of forty young. But he was not old, taking his whole lifespan into account: "Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated" (Deut. 34:7).

Moses was not in the immaturity of his life, for he was forty years old. He took in the whole field. He saw the possibilities of his position in Egypt. He saw the disgrace of his own relatives. Looking calmly at both sides, what does faith do? It refuses all this greatness, its dignity, its expectations.

The parents overcame the fear of the world; their son overcame its favours. This makes the faith of Moses all the more striking, for we may overcome the fear of the world and yet fall under its favour. In Acts 7, Stephen tells us that Moses was "beautiful in God's sight", and that he "was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds." Here, then, was a man whose appearance was attractive, whose mind was well-stored with all the learning of the leading country of the world in that day, who could apply his wisdom with weighty words, and follow up his words with mighty deeds. Moses, then, was in every way fitted to fill with distinction the highest position in this world. Moreover, this great position was within his grasp, for he was by adoption the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and thus in the direct line to the throne of the Pharaohs.

This victory first shows itself when he tells the courtiers not to treat him as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. This is a very beautiful glimpse of his faith. It shows us much of his inner mind and his daily walk among people. He was not ashamed to own his origin and early history: how his own person was loathed, as it were, on the day he was born, and how his whole fine estate came through the king's daughter adopting an abandoned child. This was indeed beautiful. This was above nature. This was victory over "the pride of life."

If providence brought him into her house, faith led him out. It was certainly not from any lack of ability to judge the advantage of his position. Suppose the aim had only been to relieve Israel by influence, or even to move them peacefully to Canaan by skilful use of circumstances. No one had a better opportunity, or was better fitted, to bring it about by diplomacy or any other means. But this would have brought praise to Moses, not glory to God, as faith always and rightly seeks. And so Moses turned his back on all natural and worldly advantages, that God might act for His people and against His enemy and theirs.

He gives it all up. "He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." He gives up ease, and chooses hardship. He gives up luxury, and chooses degradation. He gives up the very thing the heart would delight in, and chooses the very thing that flesh and nature shrink from.

Moses was a man of conviction, and his conviction showed itself in this way — he refused! He refused — choosing! The Christian does not live on a negative plane; he lives on a very positive one.

What victory over the world that was! We like those things that put worldly honour on us. Moses would not have it; and I am sure faith is set to the same battlefield and challenged to win the same victory to this day.

We also learn what he chooses, and his choosing is as striking as his refusing. In his day there was a large number of people who formed the lowest class in Egypt. They were unwanted foreigners, treated with the utmost harshness as slaves. Their hard bondage made their lives bitter. They laboured at brick-making and worked in the fields under the scorching sun (Exodus 1:13-14). But despite their low position and hard bondage, these slaves were the people of God. Moses chose to throw in his lot with these people. He preferred to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

The people may be suffering, wretched, and disreputable. They may little understand and poorly repay the love and faith that could give up everything... but it was enough for Moses that the poor captives were God's people... His single eye judged all that Pharaoh's daughter could offer to be the pleasures of sin. He deliberately gave up the glittering honours and worldly influence that God's providence had spread around him... With whom was God identified? With Pharaoh's palace, or with Israel in the iron furnace?

The moment the truth of God fully awakened his heart, he saw that God completely disowned Egypt and its many attractions. No one knew God in Pharaoh's house. A nation that served other gods afflicted His people. To remain at Pharaoh's court with this conviction in his soul would be to despise the people of the living God. Both his education and his habits fitted Moses well to appreciate the pleasant things of Egypt. God's word promised him only unseen things, so the sacrifice it asked of him looked large.

Egypt's greatness may be attractive, its pleasures many, its power unlimited. But the words "For a season" stood over all the greatness of Egypt. So it is with everything this world has to offer. Faith says: those things are temporary. And, thank God, the affliction is temporary too. I will take the affliction. I will identify myself with my people.

Moses lived a long life — one hundred and twenty years. He turned his back on Egypt and its sinful pleasures at the end of forty years. He had forty years on the far side of the desert. Then a much worse forty years, worried and irritated by people who behaved in a very perverse way... But Moses never regretted turning his back on all the pleasures that could only have lasted another eighty years.

Virtue is that energy and courage of soul that knows how to refuse as well as to choose. Moses is the example. He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin"... You have the faith that connects you with God, and you believe in what you do not yet see. But now you must add virtue. That is the courage which knows how to say "No" to the thousand things that come up day by day, and how to press on without wavering in the path set before us.

And notice what Moses "considered greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt" — it was the "reproach of Christ." It was not merely reproach for Christ. "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me." The Lord Jesus, in perfect grace, identified Himself with His people. He came down from heaven, leaving His Father's bosom and laying aside all His glory. He took His people's place, confessed their sins, and bore their judgement on the cursed tree.

"The reproach of Christ!" Think how the Spirit of God describes it. Here were a people suffering and rejected, and God calls it the reproach of Christ. "In all their affliction He was afflicted," and faith sees in that the affliction of Christ Himself. Later the Lord Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus, "Why are you persecuting Me?" It was the reproach of Christ, not only the reproach of His suffering people.

So we find that Moses "considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt," when as yet Christ had not been named. But though Christ was not yet known or revealed, His reproach was always true of His people. That reproach belongs to faith and to those who confess it. It was seen in full in Christ Himself when He despised the shame. It is their distinguishing badge as they travel the road from earth to heaven.

The language here, no doubt, takes on a New Testament character; but Moses' faith, in fact, looked forward to Israel's Deliverer, who was to come.

Here are the treasures of Egypt: put in that side of the balance everything you can think of in this world's wealth and glory. Here is the reproach of Christ: put in this side all the suffering, the scorn, the self-denial, the poverty, the weakness, the trials that come upon us. As you look at the two, which one, in your judgement, weighs more? If we judge by sight, we would say the treasures of Egypt outweigh all that suffering. But Moses looks ahead to the reward. He thinks of the outcome and says: I will throw in my lot with those who are suffering reproach and affliction, rather than have all this other!

He gave up on purpose the glittering honours and worldly influence that providence had scattered around him. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. With whom was God identified? With Pharaoh's palace, or with Israel in the iron furnace? Had he followed providence, he would have used the advantages of his position to help Israel, relieve them, and perhaps in the end deliver them. But faith led him to make himself a stranger to the world and to identify himself with the people of God.

Because he had a view of the divine recompense, he could form a correct estimate of Egypt's treasures. He ranked them far below the reproach of Christ. If Egypt's glory cannot be compared with the reproach of Christ, how will it look next to the glory of Christ? Faith's penetrating sight led to faith's estimation, and this in turn led to faith's choice and faith's refusal.

This principle is universal: in Scripture, reward is never the motive of action. It is always the encouragement of the one who acts from other motives. So, as we well know, it was love, eternal, divine love, and from that obedience to His Father, that led Christ in the path of sorrow. In that path, for the joy set before Him, He endured. Moses visited his brothers because God put it into his heart. He preferred suffering with the people of God over a life of godless ease in a court.

We believe that Hebrews 11:27 refers to this earlier period, though some treat it as the exodus mentioned in verse 29 of that chapter. The events listed there, up to verse 31, are in the order they happened. Unless verse 27 came before verse 28, this would be the one place where that order breaks.

This surely refers to the second time he left Egypt. The first time, we read that Moses fled from Pharaoh (Ex. 2:15). The second time, he stood up to Pharaoh face to face. Under the mighty hand of God he brought the people of Israel out of Egypt in triumph.

Here Moses deliberately leaves Egypt. He will no longer work patiently with it. He gives it up to the judgment of God… In verses 24 to 26 we see decision; in verse 27 we see separation… There is no hint of fear in Moses, and no cringing. For him the presence of God far overshadows the king's power. God is as plain to him as if he could see his invisible Creator standing at his side.

At first he trusted his own eyes. He looked this way and that, saw that no one was there, killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Then a cruel and unfair Israelite soon let him know that it was no secret, and Moses was afraid and said the thing must be known (Ex. 2:12-14)… We need to look to the Lord and lean on Him. Moses did so at last, when he left Egypt, not afraid of the king's anger. The great secret is added: he persevered, as seeing the One who cannot be seen. It is something to know that He sees me; but there is far more in my seeing Him.

And then there was one thing more — he left Egypt. First he gives up its luxury and chooses to suffer with the people of God. Now he turns his back on the whole thing. What gave Moses his power to endure? He saw the invisible God… Our eye of faith sees Christ in heaven, who is invisible to everyone but the man of faith. So the invisible power works in us.

It was the "seeing him who is invisible" which made Moses endure. He had seen the glory of Egypt and tasted its pleasures. But faith's sight took hold of Him who is beyond all sight and sense. So Moses refused, chose, valued and endured!

The man who once led crowds in the splendour of Egypt now spends his years leading a flock of mindless sheep! Yet "he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Acts 7 says he acted as "seeing one of them suffer wrong." When wrong exists, it is good that we should see it. But if that is all we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. We go right when faith fixes its eye on God.

So we may surely say the same of Elijah. He turned his back on the world of his day. He did not fear the king's anger, and, with his vision of the living God, he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Obadiah lacked all this. He may have feared God in secret, but he feared the king in public. He never broke with the world, and he had no vision of the living God.

Faith recognised God's testimony by trusting the power of the blood sprinkled on the door. So it could let God come in judgment in complete safety. God, seeing the blood, would pass over His believing people. Notice here that, by putting the blood on the door, the people admitted something. They stood under the just judgment of God just as much as the Egyptians did. God had given them what preserved them from it; but it was because they were guilty and deserved it. No one can stand before God.

If the world is under judgment because of sin, God must also judge sin in His own people. How can this be done without the judgment falling on their own heads? The passover gives the answer. The blood of sacrifice must shelter the soul. The blood on the doorposts and lintel was the sign that judgment had already fallen. But it fell on an innocent victim, the lamb. Another bore the punishment. What a picture of the great sacrifice of Christ, who has fully borne the judgment of every soul who receives Him as Saviour by faith. Judgment is past, and safety is assured.

It is also important for us to remember that the blood of the lamb was outside for the eye of God. The word was, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Once the blood was there, God would not fail to see it. They did not have to see the blood. They knew it was there, and they could rest content with the definite word of God: since it was there, He would pass over them. The blood was for the eye of God: His word was for the ears and hearts of those within.

The LORD then executed judgment. It was a small-scale pledge of the judgment that will be complete later on. God saw the blood of the lamb, and it held back His hand. The one who destroyed the firstborn did not touch those who had it as a sign on their houses. Faith is not our estimate of the Lamb's blood, but rests on God's perfect estimate. How blessed for every believer!

Its lasting value lay not in the ceremony itself, but in the truth it testified to. Its most unique feature, putting the blood on the doorposts, was never repeated. What a witness to the one offering that is effective for ever! It stood in the middle of a system of many and varied sacrifices, until He came whose death vindicated and fulfilled them all.

The verse credits the faith for the whole operation to Moses, but Israel, at the command of Moses, took the blood of the passover lamb and sprinkled it on the side and upper posts of their doors.

But the strength of Moses was not in the people, but in God. He trusted that the LORD, who had given him this charge, would shape their wills into united consent. God did so… Faith alone could discern the outcome of what God instituted on that great night of remembrance… The faith of one man was to set a nation free.

The Holy Spirit records here that Moses put the blood of atonement, the blood of the slain lamb, between his soul and God. He did it to secure his redemption and to find shelter from the righteous judgment of God. You must imitate Moses if you want salvation. You can have it tonight, if in faith you put between your guilty soul and God the blood of Jesus.

Faith is simple confidence in Another, in the Lord, and at the same time a complete absence of self-confidence, for these two things cannot be separated. The obstacle yields to faith. What does it matter if the walls reach up to heaven? What are they for faith? Faith counts on the power of God, and this, dear friends, is the first great characteristic of faith. The apostle says this is so "that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (1 Cor. 2:5) The fight needs a power that is wholly divine. Only that power can overthrow the obstacle, and faith rests on it alone.

Redemption had been accomplished and deliverance won, yet that did not overcome every difficulty. But the God of deliverance was with them; difficulties disappear before Him. That which is a difficulty to man is none to Him. Faith trusts in Him, and uses means which only serve to express that trust. The walls of Jericho fall down at the sound of trumpets made of rams' horns. This was after Israel had encircled the city for seven days, sounding these trumpets seven times.

Israel used a way of besieging a city that no one had heard of. But it was not simply the walking round the city for seven days that brought down the walls. It was faith that obeyed God's Word.

On the seventh day Israel showed special zeal and sevenfold energy. … We cannot doubt that this scene looks on to the end, to Israel's future, and the kingdom of our Lord over the world. … Patience marks the way Israel made war — the kind of patience that keeps going until God's time of victory arrives. "Persistency" is a word every Christian needs written on his banner. The soldiers of Christ face a sevenfold — that is, a perfect — trial of faith on the path of obedience. The nearer the day, the more we need to work earnestly for the Lord.

What could the blowing of rams' horns do towards throwing down the walls of Jericho? What could look more meaningless and ridiculous to human eyes? … On the first day the people of Jericho, apart from one singled out by grace, might have been amazed and trembled at what would follow. By the sixth day they had learned to mock the procession that seemed so foolish to them. The seventh day brought its terrible reality — sudden and irreversible destruction. … This is the obedience of faith, which is foolishness to the world. Faith was patient through the six days and triumphed on the seventh, and God crowns it all by displaying His power as greater than man and independent of him.

So today God's gospel keeps sounding out to the world with patience, and it is itself a warning of judgment to come. The world digs in against it and hopes it is safe. But God only has to step in, and all their defences crumple: the walls fall down flat, and Israel is victorious.

This letter keeps to the actual walk through the desert, and so to the tabernacle, rather than to the land — except as something still ahead. So we have the Red Sea crossed, not the Jordan. The Jordan would suit the line of truth in the letter to the Ephesians.

This was the very time when grace worked in a way no one could miss, in a place no one would have looked for it, if God had not revealed it there… The people of Jericho knew no less than Rahab about what the Lord had done among Israel… Grace worked in this disreputable woman, and made her believe that the Lord had bound Himself in goodness to a people who did not deserve it.

But fear is not faith. All feared because of Israel; Rahab had faith… All had heard of the Lord's doings on behalf of Israel. All were afraid because of Israel. But all did not know that the Lord had given them the land. Rahab, however, did… That woman lived surrounded by idolatry and all its filthy rites. Yet she had learned, and knew, that Israel's God was the true God, and that He had given them the land. She had no doubt of it. Her language was clear and precise. "I know," she could say.

It is interesting, and it teaches us something, that in Hebrews the men are called "spies." To nature, that makes them enemies. Yet knowing this, the Scripture says "she received them in peace." Faith had caused her to change sides before she got assurance… She sincerely bows to the judgment on her own people. That judgment rested just as much on her and her family, and it was too late to make them any better. She begs life from God for herself and for them, otherwise it will be utter destruction.

She had said: "Swear to me… that you will deliver our lives from death." The messengers reply: "Our life for yours." Her faith rested on others to guarantee, by substitution, that death would not reach her. Our faith rests the same way on Christ.

The one thing recorded to her credit is her faith… Even in the very thing in which she shows her faith she tells a lie. It is as if to set faith apart from any merit at all, and to give us exactly the picture of one who "does not work," but whose only hope is in a God who "justifies the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5).

But there is a lovely conclusion to this sevenfold history of faith… So victory did not end only in destruction. In this case it ended in salvation. If there is victory in judging evil, how much more precious the victory in the deliverance of a soul from evil! We are not told how many were with her in the house, but all of them came through safely… It is wonderful that these seven steps in the history of Moses and of Israel end in salvation for people outside Israel!

God visited her. His mighty grace delivered her, outside and in, and made her part of Israel on earth. By sovereign grace He even placed her in the royal line from which the Messiah had to come.

Hebrews 11:23–31 gives the sevenfold picture of the "course" of faith. Here the scene changes. We are no longer in the foreign land with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are travelling through the wilderness to Canaan, brought out by Moses and brought in by Joshua. Hebrews 11:32 completes the series by giving us the fight of faith in the land of Canaan.

So the apostle has traced many an example of genuine faith through a history they knew well. Now he finds his time too short to go into these precious things more fully.

Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel complete the list of the men of faith mentioned by name. Others have noticed that this list of names does not follow the historical order. In history Barak came before Gideon, and Jephthah before Samson. This may be to stress that in the days of the Judges the faith of Gideon was brighter than the faith of Barak, and that Samson's faith went beyond Jephthah's. David can be grouped with the Judges, since he too was a ruler. Samuel may be placed last to connect him with the prophets who came after the kings.

Gideon was a man whose heart and conscience were truly at work. Barak was so weak in faith that he would not go against the enemy without Deborah, and so he lost the honour God offered him. Yet weak Barak was not as stained as strong Samson. Samson's life was marked by his dealings with the Philistines. Only at the end, blind and broken in spirit, but humbled before God, did he achieve his most wonderful feat — and it cost him his life. Jephthah is lower still on the scale. He stains his victory with a pagan vow.

Barak's faith is like that of many who can follow if someone else leads, though they cannot take first place. It is very gracious of God to name Barak in Hebrews 11:32 as one of the cloud of witnesses who had become victorious by their faith.

It was not by their works, or by their lives, but by their faith that they obtained a good report. They were men and women with the same feelings as we have. Their lives were spoiled by many a failure, and at times their actions deserved blame. Still, despite all their failure, faith in God marked them.

Now we come to the faith that shines among the ashes of a failed testimony. This should have spoken to the Hebrews of that day, as they realised that they were living in the last times. It should certainly speak to us too, who live in days when so much that was bright for God has fallen into ruin and decay. But even if many have fallen by the way; even if the shared testimony has decayed until there is only one here and there, only a little flickering lamp where there should have been light everywhere — faith still shines out in the ruin.

This list of names, the named and the unnamed together, along with the long list of the battles and victories of faith, is not meant to stir up our admiration for the people involved. It is meant to stir up our admiration for the God who sustained them and made them able. Indeed, if we read the history of the first four named, we cannot help being struck by how weak their faith was in many ways. Yet in certain clear cases they did act for God, and faith was plain to see.

This list of names, and of those left unnamed, comes with a long list of the conflicts and conquests of faith. It is not meant to stir our admiration for the people involved, but for the God who sustained and enabled them. Read the history of the first four named, and their faith looks weak in many ways. Yet in certain clear cases they did act for God, and their faith showed. In other cases they broke down, and did not act by faith at all.

Nothing could have been more wretched than Gideon's condition here. He was threshing wheat in secret, for fear of the Midianites, to feed his family! Yet here is a man the Spirit of God delights to mention. No man recorded his name, but God counts it worthy of a place in His record. The Spirit of God writes to magnify the grace of God, not to exalt man. He wants us to keep in mind such small details in the story of the soldiers of faith. Then we see what weak and unimportant tools God works with. He has always won His mightiest victories through such people, not through those with resources of their own.

Gideon and his three hundred men fought the Midianites and Amalekites, who were as many as grasshoppers. In the end Midian went down and never oppressed Israel again. Barak broke the power of Jabin, king of Hazor, and that Canaanite kingdom was heard of no more. Samson began the fight with the Philistines on his own. Samuel, and after him David, carried it on with great success. Jephthah refused to give up any of Israel's land when the king of Ammon demanded it. Then we are reminded of Daniel in the lions' den.

Practical righteousness, in their ways and in ours, is never maintained except by faith. For only God can lead us in a straight and true path. By faith we obtain His promises now, just as they did then.

"Obtained promises." Example after example was given in their history of promises obtained from God when everything on man's side was hopeless.

Here is the whole secret of his protection and deliverance. God produced faith in his soul, and that faith brought God in. God shielded His servant from the hatred of his enemies. He subdued and held back the natural, ravenous instincts of the lions. The apostle has Daniel in mind when he speaks of the prophets: "who through faith… stopped the mouths of lions." This was one of the victories of faith. It was meant to encourage the people of God to trust Him and count on Him at all times.

"Subduing kingdoms" would have a parallel in the New Testament: we "destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." As to "wrought righteousness," here are "the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left" — righteousness acted on firmly in the face of wrongdoing. "Obtained promises" is a positive result of pleasing God, God revealing Himself in grace to the soul. "Stopped the mouths of lions" is answered in 1 Peter 5:8: "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." Sober watchfulness and steadfast faith are the safeguards.

Now we come to the faith that shines among the ashes of a failed testimony. That should have spoken to the Hebrews of that day, who knew they were living in the last times. It should speak to us too, who live in days when so much that was bright for God has decayed. Many have fallen by the way. The testimony as a whole has decayed until there is only one here and there — a little flickering lamp where there should have been a blaze. Yet faith still shines in the ruin, and that ruin is the harvest of what God's people themselves have sown. Faith lays hold on God in it.

We are reminded of Daniel in the lions' den, and of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Elijah and Elisha escaped the edge of the sword. Jeremiah was an instance of one made strong out of weakness.

"Quenched the power of fire." There we see the Hebrew young men in the blazing furnace. The idol-worshipping king Nebuchadnezzar had thrown them in. Instead of destruction, they found their bonds loosened. They also found the company of One whom the king himself says is "like the Son of God."

Faith has found, in modern as in ancient times, a refuge from the arm of violence in God. We may expect both treachery and violence in a world where our calling is to be as sheep for slaughter. But He who hid His prophets from the anger of man, when it pleased Him, is the preserver of His people's earthly lives, at His wise discretion.

"Made strong out of weakness," like Gideon. He felt himself powerless, and would have excused himself from leading a band of three hundred against a great army. Then, after the great victory over the Midianites, he still kept chasing the fleeing army, so that the victory would be complete. You remember the words: "faint, yet pursuing."

Weakness is always the saint's condition until by faith he looks to Jesus as his strength. Faith made the fathers brave in their conflicts, when huge armies of foreigners fled before a handful of brave men. They were God's soldiers, and He was their shield. Their valour and their strength were all from Him, who made them worthy of the Name that was their banner.

After verse 32 the names begin to disappear, and the chapter reverses its earlier order. Examples of the power of faith come first, in verses 33, 34, and the first clause of 35. From there on the chapter celebrates the patience of faith.

It may be useful to note the energy of faith in subduing kingdoms, in being made strong in war, and in putting armies or camps of foreigners to flight. All that fitted the time before the gospel. But it is in no way the model of what the Christian is now called to... In ordinary Christian experience, "made strong out of weakness" applies quite differently from its meaning long ago here. The ground of our difference is plain. Grace is now revealed and reigns as it did not until Christ came, died, rose, and took His seat in heaven.

We are called to a warfare, but our fight is no longer against flesh and blood. What once won earthly kingdoms must now work in another struggle. It is a struggle against rulers and authorities, against the powers behind the darkness of this world, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. By faith the Christian has to press his way into the enjoyment of the things that God in Christ declares to be his.

Faith wins triumphs when it attacks sin and death with active energy. God marks with equal pleasure its gentle, steady endurance of undeserved sorrow and suffering... God has not always hidden His prophets. Sometimes He has honoured them by putting to their lips the cup that Jesus would later taste.

Usually, though, God does not step in at once, and suffering follows... They endured. They did not accept the rescue that could have reached them if they had taken back their words or compromised. Faith suffered, but it carried them through.

The Shunammite woman repeats, on a smaller scale, the story of Abraham and Sarah. The promised child was given to a woman with no natural hope of one, then taken away in death, and then raised again. We see something similar in the story of Elijah.

In these cases, to live was better than to die, because God was dealing with an earthly people. Faith has since learned that to depart and be with Christ is now far better than to stay on earth. So such displays of its power are no longer likely to be seen. Those who mourn will receive their dead back to life when God soon brings with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him (1 Thess. 4:14).

These were not saved out of death. Their faith counted on the better resurrection. Not every martyr was rescued from the death that faced them... But they would not accept release at the price of loyalty to Him. He had called them to that better resurrection, and the eyes of their faith were fixed on it.

They did not accept release, though it was offered to them if they would renounce Christ. Their faith triumphed in death, and they wait for the full victory in resurrection. "Of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:38) — that is God's estimate of every such faithful martyr.

A better resurrection means resurrection to life, not a return to this world. The Shunammite's son and the son of the widow of Zarephath only came back to this world.

Compare and contrast the two statements, and it is hard to doubt the meaning. Some received their dead back from the grave, the well-known and much-loved body alive again. Others looked for their own bodies to be raised too, but in a different way and for a different end: never to die again, but to live for ever beyond death. A better resurrection indeed!

The others who were tortured refused the release that men offered. They wait for a better resurrection still to come, and they are better known in heaven than on earth.

(Verses 33, 34). First, he points to incidents that show the power of faith. It subdues kingdoms and overcomes armies. It is strong in weakness and brave in fight. It triumphs over the power of nature, as represented by the lion, and quenches the violence of the elements such as fire. It even wins victory over death.

(Verses 35, 36). Second, the Apostle sets before us the endurance of faith. Under torture it refused to accept deliverance. In trial it endured mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonments.

They had trial of something that may be harder to bear than physical suffering — the scorn of those who do not know our Lord. How keenly sensitive natures feel the slights put upon them! The neglect, the coldness, the sarcastic and condescending smile of pity — these are scourgings that bite deeper than the lash laid across the shoulders. But faith endures, and triumphs over it all.

Let us take care that we do not become persecutors. Some think there is no persecution except fire and sword; but there is persecution of the tongue. Reviling is called persecution: "men shall revile you and persecute you"; this is tongue persecution. "His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords" (Ps. 55:21). You may kill a man in his name as well as in his person; a good name is as precious ointment... So the earliest saints endured the persecution of the tongue. They "suffered mocking" (Heb. 11:36).

This leads on to the last condition we are to look at — faith in times of persecution... Now names are unrecorded, but the acts of faith were never to be forgotten. So, though we cannot identify all those referred to, we are well assured that their names are remembered in heaven.

The Old Testament does not give us the details of such history, at least in many of these cases. Yet no doubt such cases were not few. The records of later church history tell of many godly people who suffered these very things, and tortures even more cruel, for Christ's sake.

In every age and in every country it has been so. We find the people of faith the objects of the hatred of man. But God owns this people... Here God gives His history of them. He does not interfere. He leaves them "destitute, afflicted, tormented." He does not meddle with the world, and the world goes on. It will not always be so, but that is the present fact... The world has departed from Him, and He will not own it.

As we read in Hebrews 11:33-38, some are delivered and escape the edge of the sword; others are tortured, undergo trials, are slaughtered, or wander about. The mystery of God allows John the Baptist to perish in prison while Peter is rescued. The word to Smyrna is: "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." The word to Philadelphia is: "I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming" (Rev. 2:10; 3:10).

Their names are not given, but God knows them all. He also knows the countless thousands of martyrs constantly added to this list… Some were stoned, as Zechariah (2 Chron. 24), and Jeremiah, according to tradition. Some were sawn in two, as Isaiah was under Manasseh. Some were killed with the sword, as Urijah was (Jer. 26:23), and James the brother of John (Acts 12). They could have worn silks and velvets. They could have lived in the palaces of princes — if they had denied God and believed the world's lie.

The law required stoning for Jews guilty of idolatry, blasphemy, or other open rebellion against the LORD. That is what made the deaths of Naboth and of Zechariah so terrible. The wickedness lay wholly with those in high authority, who twisted the law to hurt saints. We can hardly imagine a worse or bolder wrong. Godly people died the death of the ungodly at the hands of ungodly rulers. It was done by clever lies or in uncontrolled rage.

"Were tempted." The kind of temptation is not stated. No doubt it was some offer of escape from suffering, if only they would give up Christ. This was tried again and again with martyrs for the name of Jesus during the pagan persecutions of the early Christians. It was tried too in the equally pagan public burnings in Spain. There, release was offered even after the victim stood in the flames, if only he would deny the truth that had set his soul free. We can well imagine how sharp such temptations were. Loved ones — wives, little children — all begged the father to stay with them, instead of sealing with his blood the faith he had confessed.

Next comes the more drawn-out suffering in life of those who, for one reason or another, were not killed. "They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated." For some this was an even harder test of faith than a sudden death, whether by law or by violence.

Whether before Christ or after Him, the solid fact remains: God has always had a line of sufferers who believed. It was their faith that made them objects of dislike and persecution. It was not so much that they condemned the world, its pursuits, pleasures, sins, or godlessness. It was the quietest and most telling witness of all — separation from the world to God and His word.

In every age and in every country it has been so. We find the people of faith to be the objects of man's hatred. But God owns this people… Here God gives His own account of them. He does not step in. He leaves them "destitute, afflicted, mistreated." He does not interfere with the world. The world carries on. It will not always be so, but that is the present fact.

What an army! No gold braid or uniform on them, no great glory and honour. There you see them in the caves and holes of the earth, dressed in sheepskins and goatskins. Is your place with them? Is that reproach worth more in your eyes than "the treasures of Egypt"? Faith will always link us with that company "of whom the world was not worthy." They are the ones Christ is not ashamed to call brothers.

So they were often outcasts, roaming in deserts and mountains, and in dens and the caves or crevices of the earth. The same scenes repeated in pagan and papal persecutions after this letter was written. That needs no proof here. In the world's eyes they were unyielding and impossible to work with. Nothing won them: not wealth, ease, or honour. Nothing broke them: not slander, hatred, prison, or death. They refuse present glory. They remember who was crucified and by whom; they await His day and see it approaching.

Still, one solid fact remains, before Christ or after: God has always had a line of sufferers who believed. And it was their faith which made them objects of dislike and persecution. It was not so much their attack on the world — on its pursuits, pleasures, wrongs, or godlessness. It was the quietest and most telling of all testimonies: separation from the world to God and His word... "Of whom the world was not worthy," though they were counted unworthy of a place in it, or even of life. But, as has been said, in condemning them it condemned itself; and God forgets neither.

God came out and wrote their epitaph, and it reads: "Of whom the world was not worthy."

One little parenthesis in the long chapter which records their testimony places at once a glorious tribute upon them and a fearful condemnation on those of the other side; it says, "Of whom the world was not worthy."

The Old Testament does not give us the details of such history, at least in many of these cases. Yet such cases were doubtless not few. And the records of later Church history hold a multitude of godly people who suffered these very things, and tortures even more cruel, for Christ's sake. How full and how precious that word, "of whom the world was not worthy."

How the apostle lets it all accumulate before the eyes of those he was addressing! It is as though he were saying: is your affliction worse than that of those who have gone before you? They were heirs of the same precious faith as yourselves... You see what the portion of faith is — nothing here, everything in the living God, everything in the future. You cannot get your portion here; you must wait for it too.

By faith the people of old received their commendation. It was not their works or their lives that won this good report, but their faith. They were men and women with the same weaknesses as ours. Their lives were spoiled by many a failure, and at times their works deserved blame. Yet, despite all that failure, faith in God marked them. The end of the chapter reminds us again: it was by faith they received this good report.

Through faith the men of old also received a good report — in God's record of things, of course, not in man's. Scripture shows plainly what made those heroes of old what they were: it was faith. What a perfect contrast between the same men when faith gave them energy and when faith ran low in them!

Whatever the different circumstances, enemies, or sufferings of these believers, this is true of them all. God bore witness to them through their faith and gave them promises to sustain them. Still they did not receive the promise fulfilled — the fulfilment they and we all wait for. Meanwhile God had to bring in a new and better thing for us, while Christ, whom men rejected, is at the right hand of God on high.

Even though Abraham's faith reached beyond the promise and looked for the city with foundations, which God had prepared for them, they never entered it. It has not come yet. God would not bring them into their promised portion without us. They, like us, had to live by faith in it.

How often people object, Do you mean to say that people like you are more blessed than faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is your portion richer than that of Moses or Joshua? Of Samuel or David? Of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Daniel? Such thoughts overlook the immense change that has come in. The world rejected Christ, the Son of God. He accomplished redemption for those who believe. God has glorified Him at His right hand, and that is the pledge of our own glory. And meanwhile the Holy Spirit has come down to live in us.

The heavens are open now to faith as they were not to them. Christ has passed into the heavens and has become the present object of faith. He took His place there on the ground of accomplished redemption. So God has made heavenly things known as the present portion of Christians. Our citizenship is there. God has come out of the thick darkness of Mount Sinai and has fully revealed Himself in the Son. By the perfect work of the Son of God we have free access to Him in the sanctuary of His presence.

But we shall all enter the full enjoyment of our own portions together. They will not "be made perfect" without us, and we may add, nor we without them. We shall all reach final perfection together, on the day of resurrection and glory, when the Lord Jesus comes again.

They had not received — that is, they never actually held — what God had promised them. Their faith may have gone beyond the promise and looked for the city with foundations that God had prepared for them. Even so, they never entered it. It has not come yet. God would not bring them into their promised portion without us. They, like us, had to live by the faith of it.

In the meantime God had to bring in a new and better thing for us, while Christ, who was rejected, is at the right hand of God on high. So although Christ's first coming laid the ground for every blessing, the fulfilment of it all waits for His coming again. Only when God's provision for us is complete will they be made perfect — not before.

But heaven is open to faith now in a way it was not open to them. Christ has gone into heaven and taken His place there, on the ground of a redemption already accomplished, and He is now the object of faith. So God shows heavenly things to be the present portion of Christians. Our citizenship is there... All this wonderful privilege belongs to the calling of the Christian — that is, to those called during this time when the earth rejects Christ. It did not belong to believers before He came and died and rose again.

In Christianity the "better thing" has come to light. In fact the word "better" marks out this letter, because, as we have seen, its great point is to show that real Christianity rises completely above Judaism. We have already met a BETTER Apostle, Priest, hope, covenant, promises, sacrifice, substance, country and resurrection.

Where God has never taught people to understand these new blessings, how often you hear objectors ask: do you mean to say that people like you are more blessed than faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is your portion richer than that of Moses or Joshua? ... Such thoughts completely overlook the immense change brought in by the world's rejection of Christ the Son of God; by the redemption He accomplished for those who believe; by His glorification at God's right hand as the pledge of ours; by the Holy Spirit sent down in the meantime to live in us as anointing, seal, and down payment.

There is no perfection, in the full sense, short of resurrection and bearing the image of Christ in glory. For this we wait... For if at His shout the dead in Christ (all who are Christ's) rise first, in bodies of glory, then we who are alive and remain will be changed in a moment. We will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall be made perfect together.

God saw further ahead, and He included the believers of today in His purposes of grace... This is pure, unspoiled grace, and it should bow our hearts in adoring thanksgiving. Why should we receive it, and not they, who suffered so much for their faith? At the very least, all of this humbles our hearts in thankfulness to the all-wise and gracious God of glory.