He Is Coming (Hebrews 10:36-37) | Adult Sunday School

One more time. Here we go. Good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad you all are here today.

Would you please stand and we'll sing this morning the Solid Rock.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the stonking sand, when darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace.

In every high and stormy gale, my anger holds. On Christ the solid rock, I stand in sand. All of it is sinking sand. So this cup, when iced alone, this poem I come from. The succotty lay, light of the world by darkness slain.

Then bursting glory stands, since curse has won.

One time-sensitive announcement that I need to make you aware of, and that is probably in your bulletin, and is if you're planning on attending the Women's Brunch, Fall Brunch, this Saturday. It starts at 9 .30 in the morning.

Women, if you're planning on attending the Women's Fall Brunch this Saturday, starting at 9 .30 in the morning, you need to sign up at the table that is out in the foyer. Make sure you get your name on that so they are expecting you.

You must sign up today, that is this next Saturday, and child care will be provided for that. Will you turn now, please, to the book of Habakkuk. I'll give you a little bit of extra time to find that.

Probably not one that you turn to often. Even if you read through your Bible once a year, you probably are there only once a year. If you can find Nahum and Zephaniah, you'll find Habakkuk right in between those two.

That doesn't help you at all either, does it? It is one of the last 12 books of your Old Testament. Going backwards from Matthew, you would find Malachi, Zechariah, Haggai, Zephaniah, and then Habakkuk.

So five books back. If you can't find it now, you need to get a new Bible. The book of Habakkuk. We're going to read beginning at the first verse of the book all the way through chapter 2, verse 4. Before we do, so that you can follow along, at least know what to expect, I'm going to give you just a brief explanation of what you're about to read.

You are going to read Habakkuk's lament, and then God answers Habakkuk, and then Habakkuk answers God, and then God answers Habakkuk. So it is a back and forth between Habakkuk and the Lord. Habakkuk is complaining about something, violence and sin.

God gives him an answer, and Habakkuk says, hold on, but wait. And then God gives him another answer, and that will take us through the end of chapter 2, verse 4. Beginning of the book. The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, yet you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me.

Strife exists, and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored, and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore justice comes out perverted. Here is the Lord. Look among the nations, observe, be astonished, wonder.

Because I am doing something in your days you would not believe if you were told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people, who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping. Their horsemen come from afar.

They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings and rulers or a laughing matter to them.

They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it. Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their God. Habakkuk to Habakkuk.

Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge, and you, O rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor.

Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Why have you made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them?

The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, drag them away in their net, and gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net, because through these things their catch is large, and their food is plentiful.

Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing? Then this is the Lord's answer. I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the ramparts, and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved.

Sorry, that was Habakkuk. Verse 2 is the Lord's answer. Then the Lord answered me and said, Record the vision, and describe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time.

It hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come. It will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith.

Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Father, in many ways we observe the sin going on around us in our nation, where justice is not done, where the wicked surround the righteous, where it seems as if your people are on the losing end of every conflict and every strife and every activity.

Our hearts can be overwhelmed by this. The trials and afflictions that you have appointed for us in this age can be daunting and difficult to bear. We pray that we would learn the lesson of Habakkuk, that the just will live by their faith.

We pray that you would lift our hearts and our minds to you, our great God, who is just and good and holy and righteous and true. There is a promise of a reward that is to come. We know that you are accomplishing all your purposes in your perfect timing, just as you always have been.

We are hastening toward the day of our Lord's return. We are hastening toward the day of the end of all things. And we pray that you would lift our eyes and our hearts to heaven and give us patient endurance until the very end.

Accomplish your purposes in us today as we lift our hearts and voices in praise to you. Focus our minds and our hearts upon your word, the truth of your word, and the goodness and the unchangeableness of your character.

For we know that all things that you have purposed and planned, you are also bringing to pass. And we pray that you would make us and keep us faithful until the very end. Steadfast, resolute, unwavering in our convictions and our commitments, bold in our proclamation of the truth, and wise in our witnessing to others and sharing that truth with the lost and dying world.

Be honored through us as we pray, as your word is preached, as we sing this morning, as we fellowship together. May you strengthen our hearts in your word and in your truth, we pray in the name of Christ.

And all God's people said, amen.

Romans chapter 5, verses 18 and 19, it says,. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

For as through the one man's disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be appointed righteous.

I am a sinner, your blameless Lord. My sins against you can't be ignored. They will be punished, I know they. Your law demands it. If you would count everything that I've done wrong, but there's forgiveness with you, God, and a contrite heart, you are a sinner of mercy.

Now we turn in your copy of God's word to Hebrews chapter 10 and find verse 36. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 36. That'll be much easier for you to find, probably because your Bible falls open to that point when you set it down somewhere.

We begin reading at verse 35. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For yet in a very little while he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Let's pray together.

Our Lord, we pray that you would encourage and strengthen our hearts together now in your word. We pray that you would focus our minds and our hearts upon the good things that are to come, the blessings and the reward and the joys that you have promised us in the future, and we pray that it may serve its purpose of motivating us and driving us to Christ and fixing our eyes entirely and always on him.

We ask your blessing upon this time, and may your word accomplish its purposes in all the hearts that are here, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Jesus said in John 14, verses 1 -3, this is the night of his betrayal, just hours before he was betrayed and arrested.

Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again.

And receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. For two millennia, for 2 ,000 years, Christians have lived for and hoped for and anticipated and waited for the promise to be fulfilled, that return of Jesus.

The same God incarnate, Jesus Christ, who prophesied and promised his own death, burial, and resurrection, and then fulfilled that by dying, being buried, and rising again, then also prophesied his second return and his coming for his people.

In Matthew 16, verse 27, Jesus said,. For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds. Matthew 25, verse 31,. But when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left.

Mark 13, verse 21,. And then, if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or behold, he is there, do not believe him, for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

But take heed, behold, I have told you everything in advance. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and then he will send forth the angels and will gather together his elect from the four winds and from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.

After Jesus' ascension, in Acts 1, the angels appeared and repeated his promise to the disciples. Acts 1 .11, they said to him, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come just in the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.

And now we wait. That was 2 ,000 years ago, and now we wait. Orthodox Christians, and by that I mean small-o Orthodox Christians, that is, Christians who have an evangelical commitment to the fundamentals of the faith, not Christians who dress in robes and wear funny head things for worship services, not that kind of Orthodox, but small-o Orthodox Christians, will differ on some of the details of that return.

And I understand because we are reformed in our soteriology as a church that there will be people here who are different than me in your eschatology. That is not an essential issue. Cornell has been talking about some of that in the Sunday school classes.

It is a non-essential issue. We are going to differ on some of the details, maybe the timing of it. We are going to differ on whether or not certain things are going to happen before his return, or what is going to happen before his return, what is going to happen at his return, or what is going to happen after his return.

We might differ on those. And it is not my point today to present to you a correct eschatology, but simply to say that that might come at some point. Cornell is going through that, I think, and I say that jokingly, understanding post-millennial, amillennialists, you are my brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ, we understand that.

We can differ on some of that. So it is not my point today to talk about the timing of these events, or even to suggest to you that they are nigh, and that we are here, and that tomorrow or this week that these things are going to happen.

But there is one thing that we all agree on, and that is that he is coming again. We know that that is the case, because he has promised that that is the case. So we wait for a Savior from heaven, Philippians 3 verse 20.

Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory, by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself.

So once again, we wait. Doesn't it feel like it is near, though? Is it just me, or does it feel like it is near? It feels like it is near. I mean, whatever your, maybe your post-tribulational rapture person, it feels like you have got to be 7 1⁄2 years away from the coming of the Lord, right?

If that is your eschatology, I mean, that is near. That is nearer than 2 ,007 years away from that event. So no matter what your eschatology is, you just get the sense and the feeling that things are different today than they have ever been.

It is certainly nearer than it has ever been in my lifetime. I mean, it is nearer today than it was yesterday. That goes without saying, right? I am older today than I have ever been, and the coming of the Lord is nearer than it has ever been.

It has ever been in the history of the church. Now I know that some of you might say, well, hold on, Jim. Every generation says that. The people in the first century thought it was in their lifetime. That is true.

And the people in the second century thought it would be in their lifetime. That is true. And the third and the fourth. Do I need to go through all 20? So it is okay, and it is quite appropriately the point that we would live with the same type of anticipation and expectation and excitement, and as we see the things drawing near, the things that Scripture describes which are to accompany the end of the age, as we see the chess pieces being put into place and things happening and things trending and happening, we see how all of this would fit together with our eschatology.

It ought to create in us a certain sense of anticipation and expectation and excitement that is quite the point of believing and entrusting in the Lord's return. And the passage of time should not make us skeptical about His coming.

We shouldn't be like the skeptics in 2 Peter 2 who say, well, where's the promise of His coming? It's been 2 ,000 years. You're right, it's been 2 ,000 years. And the passage of time should not make us apathetic about it where we say, yeah, but everybody thought it would be in their lifetime, so it's probably not going to be in my lifetime, so what do I care?

It might be in your lifetime. You don't know if it's going to be in your lifetime. You don't know, and you might be praying that it would, be before the end of this sermon that He would come. And you say, well, I don't have to endure the rest of that sermon and I don't have to endure the rest of the service and get through all of that.

It would be nice if it were before the end of the sermon. I just said to somebody this morning, I actually hope that the Lord would come before I'm done with the book of Hebrews. Some of you are saying, well, that's not going to be in my lifetime,.

And that might be true.

But the fact that it has been 20 centuries since the Lord made that promise ought to cause us to say, not that it will never happen in my lifetime, or, well, what about the promise of His coming, or it might be another 20 centuries.

Instead, it should cause us to say, if it's been 20 centuries already, we've got to be getting a lot closer. It's got to be getting near. And I think that there is a sense in which we are to live with that kind of expectation.

And the coming of our Lord and the anticipation of His coming is to serve as a motivation to us, an encouragement to us. It motivates us to endure a great conflict of suffering, as the author describes in Hebrews 10, verse 32.

This is the motivation for us to bear His reproach and to do so gladly, to suffer joyfully the seizure of our property, to share in suffering with others who are called to bear tribulations and reproaches, or even imprisonment.

In fact, we ought to do this with joy and with glad expectation, knowing that our identification with Jesus Christ has secured for us a reward that is to come. And when that reward is given to us, that it will be well worth all of the time that has passed, all of the reproaches that have been borne, all of the tribulations that we have endured, everything that we have suffered.

It will be paid off, paid back, rewarded back to us in spades, because God is no man's debtor. So whatever it is that we have endured for His sake, we will know, and we can know for certainty, that when He returns and His reward is with Him to give it to every man, that whatever He has allotted for us, it will be amply rewarded at the end of time.

That is our reward that is to come. Last week we looked at that exhortation in verse 35. Do not throw away your confidence. That describes your boldness, your frankness. We are confident in our proclaiming of the truth of Christ because we are confident in our hope that He will return and that His reward is with Him.

We know that we have a great reward, verse 35, and that we will receive what was promised. And that reward is our encouragement to be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, to endure those reproaches with joy and with gladness, knowing that all of the suffering of this age is not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us and to us.

All of the sufferings will be eclipsed by that final revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can have that confidence. We didn't get to verse 36 last week, and that's okay since I said last week it actually goes better with verse 37.

That was a good thing. The timing worked out well. Verse 37 describes the coming of the Lord and the fulfillment of His promise and what it is that we are promised. Having borne the reproach, verses 32 to 34, of faith, we will receive the reward, verses 35 to 39, of faith.

Today we're going to mark just three things about our reward as we look at verses 36 and 37. That is, our reward comes for our perseverance. We are rewarded for our perseverance, that's in verse 36. We are rewarded just as we are promised, also in verse 36.

And then in verse 37, our reward is actually a person. It comes with a person. We are rewarded for our perseverance, we are rewarded as we are promised, and our reward comes with a person. Let's look first of all at the perseverance in verse 36.

Read together with me again, verse 36 and 37. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.

That word that is translated endurance is a form of the very same word translated endured in verse 32, when he says, after being enlightened you endured a great conflict of sufferings. One is a verb, one is a noun.

It's a form of the very same word, and so the idea is the same, the meaning is really the same. It is referring to a patient enduring under something. Remember when we went through verse 32, we saw that.

This endurance is a standing up under, a bearing up under something, which indicates to us that whatever they were enduring was something that required an extra added measure of strength and patience in bearing up under it.

It means to remain under a circumstance or a difficulty or a hardship and to bear the load with steadfastness and patience. In fact, patience is how the King James translates that word when it says, you have need of patience.

It doesn't translate it as endurance, but a patience, and it has the idea of a patient enduring or an enduring patience. It's the same idea. It is a steadfastness of heart, a complacency of heart, where you endure and you put up with something patiently and in an enduring fashion, remaining under it.

John Owen describes the word or defines the word this way, and John Owen was a Puritan who would use entire sentences to simply say what I would only be able to say in a couple of words, but Owen says this.

This is a bearing of evils with quietness and complacency of mind without raging, fretting, despondency, or inclination unto compliance with undue ways of deliverance. Did you catch that? He said, no, I didn't catch that.

I didn't either until about the fourth time I read through it. Without an inclination unto compliance with undue ways of deliverance. In other words, what he is saying is you bear up under it in a spirit of complacency without fretting, raging, despondency, or a desire to deliver yourself through some sin or compromise.

You can always get outside of and underneath of the world's hostility if you adopt the world's mindset. If you adopt the world's values, the world will love you. So if you adopt the mind of the world, you will with it receive the love of the world.

You can always escape suffering if you simply concede or make a compromise or if you sin in some way to get out of that realm of hostility, out from underneath of the affliction. And you can do this in two different ways, actually, by giving in to temptation, for one, to compromise or to go along, to get along, to be quiet, to hold back your testimony, to be silent or deny the Lord in a public profession, to back away into your old lifestyle with your old religion and your old peers and your old friends and your old family members and pretend that your profession of faith in Christ meant nothing.

That would be a sin, giving in to that temptation. Or you can sin under this or not be enduring if you are responding to the world's hostility in a sinful way. That is, by bitterness or vengeance or saying to yourself, yeah, I'm going to get you back.

Or if you have in your heart, and this is really easy to do, to think toward an unbeliever, I may not get you back, but I know somebody who will. And when he returns, he is going to take off his belt and it is going to be a day of reckoning for you.

That is very tempting. We have to avoid that kind of mindset because when we think of unbelievers that way, it is very difficult to also view them as the mission field. It's difficult to also view them as somebody we need to share the truth with and that we need to love for Christ's sake.

Or to respond to the hostility of the world with hatred, animosity, jealousy, frustration, resentment, bitterness. These are the things that have no place in one who endures patiently or who is patiently enduring.

This need of endurance that he describes in verse 36 when he says, you have need of endurance, this is a preeminent Christian grace, this grace of endurance, patience, you want to call it that? Patient endurance or enduring patience.

James chapter 1 verse 2 says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect, that is, mature or fitted, made complete and lacking in nothing.

When he says to them, you have need of endurance, don't think that he is charging them with a want or a lack of endurance. This is an important thing to remember. He's not suggesting that they had no endurance and therefore they needed it.

He's actually highlighting the fact that they had the very thing that they needed. They already had this. You have need of this endurance. They had already demonstrated the endurance. He says in verse 32, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

They had already endured. They had already demonstrated this character trait. And he is now saying in verse 36, you have need of this very thing that you are enduring. He's not saying that you don't have endurance and therefore you need a little bit.

Go get yourself some endurance. Go develop some endurance. He is saying to them, this thing that you have already demonstrated is the very thing that you need. You can talk about somebody needing something that they already have.

Imagine for a moment that I were to take you out on a hike this afternoon and we were to go up in the mountains and it was snowing. This is the wrong time of the year to try and imagine that. But imagine some other time I take you up in the woods and it's snowing.

It's 10 degrees and the wind is howling. And we show up in our jackets. We're going to go on a five-mile hike up on the top of a mountain somewhere. And we're doing all of this for fun. Keep in mind.

And you show up and you have a coat on and mittens and a stocking cap. A toque is a Canadian word for stocking cap. A toque is a scarf. And you're all bundled up to stay warm. And I say to you, you need that jacket.

Now you wouldn't look at me and say, what are you saying?

I don't have a jacket?

No, you'd be understanding that you have the very, I'm saying that you are going to need the very thing that you already have. And you would say, if we're going to go hiking, you need some sanity or some common sense or something else.

In which case, you would be indicating that I don't have the very thing.

That I now need to have.

So when he says you have need of endurance, he is highlighting, he is pointing out something that they already had and he is saying this is the very thing that you need. You've already endured a great conflict of suffering.

And so this is what you need, that endurance. This is going to carry you through. The endurance that you've already demonstrated is going to carry you through.

To the reward.

What must you do to be faithful all the way to the end? You need endurance. What must you have in order to receive the reward? You need endurance. Those who endure the reproach of faith get the reward of faith.

This endurance which you have already demonstrated is the very thing that will carry you through all the way to the end. You have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, now what is he describing there?

When you've done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. What was the will of God for them? For some of them, it was imprisonment. You say it's hard for me to get my head around God's will being imprisonment for someone.

You better get your head around that. If it's not His will, whose will was it and who got their way? For some of them, it was having their property seized. That was His will. For some of them, it was enduring reproach.

For some of them, God's will was that they would suffer with others. For some of them, it was that they would face hostility and opposition. But for all of them, it was God's will that they would endure faithfully all the way to the very end.

That was His will for them and that they would do so enduring all of the afflictions and sufferings with grace and with joy and with enduring patience, being faithful not to cast aside their boldness, not to soften their proclamation or their commitment to the truth, but rather to continue to testify and to proclaim Christ boldly in that opposition in the midst of that hostility.

That was God's will. Having done that, when you have done the will of God, then you will receive what is promised. When you have done the will of God. I may be making too much out of this, but I find something very comforting in that phrase, and that is that the will of God for me at some point will be done.

At some point, you will have done the will of God. You'll be past it. Whatever He has called for you to endure with faithfulness and with patience, you will be past that. There will come a point where you have done the will of God and you have done it faithfully.

You will have run your race. You will have finished your course. You will have kept the faith. You will have completed the mission, the task that He has laid before you. You will have finished your days, and at that point, you will be able to say, I have done the will of God.

And if you're faithful all the way to the very end, then comes the reward. It's also in verse 36. It is not just for our perseverance that is also promised. Verse 36, for you will receive what was promised.

When do we receive it? After we have done the will of God. I have said to my kids over the years, we work now, we play later. Work first, play later. Work first, play second. I would never, in fact, I would say only a fool would take their child or their grandchild out for ice cream before they do what they're supposed to do to earn the ice cream.

You don't give the rewards up front. Nobody would do that. Once you have the reward, then there's no motivation to pursue faithfulness or to do what is accomplished. After you have done the will of God, then you will receive what was promised.

By far, for us, the best is yet to come. This is not suggesting that there are no rewards in this life. There are. We do get to enjoy rewards in this life. Every once in a while, as a fruit of our efforts of serving the Lord, we get to see some of the fruit of that.

As a reward, we get to see some of the fruit of our labors. I think that the Lord only shows to us in this life enough of that fruit to keep us motivated to continue to serve Him, but most of it is hidden from us until the very end.

We get to see just enough reward, just enough blessing, just enough of the fruit of doing the will of God to help us to drive on and to persevere on and to know that if I'm only seeing a portion of this, there's much, much more that is yet to come that we will get to see and that we will get to enjoy.

All of the things that are hidden will be brought to light, and all of the deeds which we have done in righteousness that nobody knows will be proclaimed openly, and we will be rewarded for those. All of the things we have done in secret, God will reward us openly for those.

We only get to see a glimpse of this, but the best, by far the best, and the most of our reward is yet to come. The bulk of our reward is not in this life, which is why Hebrews chapter 11, verse 39 says, of all the saints in the Old Testament, that though they gained approval through their faith, they did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

All those Old Testament saints that endured in faith looked forward to receiving what was promised, but they in their lifetime never received ultimately what was promised. Why? Because it was God's will that we likewise would receive a blessing, and we would all receive that together as co-heirs in Jesus Christ.

So they were waiting for the end, and they died in faith having never seen what was promised to them. Abraham died in faith never seeing the generations that would come from him as the sand of the sea.

He never saw the land. David died never seeing that king that was promised to him. All the Old Testament saints died in expectation, never seeing in their own lifetimes the fulfillment of all that they were promised.

And so shall we, unless the Lord returns while we are alive. Then we will see in our own lifetime, and of course I believe that at the moment the Lord returns, we're all going to be, if we are alive, we're going to be transfigured with him, and so there will be a sense in which we die and are resurrected instantaneously.

But you get what I mean? If the Lord returns, then of course we are going to see that reward. But if he does not and we die in faith, then we will join the long list of Old Testament saints who endured in faith and waited for the reward that was to come.

And we will receive what was promised. You and I understand that a promise is only good as the person who makes it, right? It doesn't matter what I promise you. It could be the world, but if I have no ability, no wisdom, no power, no authority, no means by which to secure that promise or to fulfill that promise, then it doesn't really matter what I have promised to you.

A promise is only good as the person who made it. And that person who made it, if he's going to promise us something, he has to have the ability to fulfill that promise. Well, with God, his character is perfect.

It's impeccable. And his integrity is perfect. And he has a perfect track record of fulfilling all of his promises and bringing to pass his every word. And he has power, infinitely so, to accomplish his promises.

And he has perfect wisdom to know exactly what we should receive and when we should receive it and for what we should receive it. And we add on to the fact that our God is good and holy and true and righteous and just and merciful and gracious and omniscient, infinitely wise, infinitely providential.