WWUTT 1862 By Faith Abraham and Sarah (Hebrews 11:8-14)

Abraham and the other Old Testament faithful, they were not anticipating or looking for a land on earth.

That was just a type in a shadow of a greater land that is promised us in Christ, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Thank you, Becky. We're in Hebrews 11, and I'm going to pick up where I left off yesterday, starting in verse 8 and reading through verse 16 in the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance.

And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.

For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is

God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life, since she regarded him faithful who had promised.

Therefore there were born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many as the stars of heaven in number and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

All these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own, and indeed if they had been remembering that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.

But now they aspire to a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he prepared a city for them.

And there's more that the preacher goes on to say about Abraham, but we'll just focus on this section for now, we'll see how far we get.

So who have we considered thus far in this hall of faith that we are walking through?

First of all we heard about Abel, who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, though he was murdered, yet the testimony of his faith still speaks.

We read about Enoch, who walked with God and God took him. He did not die, but he ascended into heaven as the

Lord took him up because of his faith. We read about Noah, who by faith was warned about the destruction that was to come.

He listened to God and obeyed him, constructed an ark through which his family was saved, and also it was by his obedience of faith the rest of the world came into condemnation.

And we considered yesterday how we likewise have been warned of the destruction that is to come, the return of Christ, and how this world will be purged by fire.

First time it was by water, the next judgment will be by fire. And so we listen to the voice of God by fleeing from this world to Christ and we will be saved from judgment.

So now we come to Abraham, and a pretty good section of Hebrews talks about Abraham. We start with saying, by faith

Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

Now the first time Abraham is mentioned in the book of Genesis is in chapter 11. He's mentioned there in the genealogies, but the interaction between him and God starts in Genesis 12, right at the beginning, right at verse 1.

It says, and Yahweh said to Abram, he was called Abram before he was called

Abraham, go forth from your land and from your kin and from your father's house to the land which

I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Now at that time, Abraham was living in Ur of the Chaldees, which was way out in the

Middle East, off to the east, far from the land of Canaan or what would eventually become the land of Israel.

This was a journey of over 700 miles. God just told him pack up and go, and Abraham went.

He didn't know where he was going. But he listened to God. He believed by faith. And the interesting thing about this is that Abraham was not a

Christian in any sense. Of course, nobody was a Christian in the Old Testament. But this was not a man who feared

God or sought after the Lord. He was a pagan. Abraham lived in a pagan land among a pagan people, and yet it was this man that God had chosen and had predestined from eternity past.

It was this man that God chose and from him would make a people unto himself.

Abraham would be the father of many nations, but it is also through this man would eventually come the

Messiah, and from the Messiah would come the many people of God who are part of his church.

All of this was set before the foundation of the world. Going back to what we read in Hebrews 11 .3,

by faith we understand that the worlds or the ages were prepared by the word of God.

And so this is part of that plan that God is putting into effect, which he had even promised in the garden,

Genesis 3 .15, that there would be a Savior who would come and put enmity between the woman's offspring and the devil's offspring.

You will bruise his heel, God said to Satan, but he will crush your head.

And that Savior is Christ, who would be born in the line of Abraham. So God is choosing

Abraham, a man who is from a pagan land, but Abraham is from the line of Shem.

Of course, everybody in the world today is descended from Noah and the three sons of Noah.

So God is choosing from the line of Shem this man Abraham and sends him back to the land through which

God is going to work to bring about his purposes, to fulfill his purposes. Themes that we see in the book of Genesis.

This book, Genesis, is all about land, seed, and covenant. So here you have God promising

Abraham, I'm going to give you a land, you're going to have seed, you're going to have offspring, and God makes a covenant with Abraham.

But the fact that Abraham believed God, scripture says, it is therefore credited to him as righteousness.

Abraham is our example, as said in Romans 4, of believing by faith, of being justified by faith, because Abraham believed and was justified.

So by faith Abraham, first thing that's said about Abraham in Hebrews 11, by faith

Abraham, when he was called obeyed, he went out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

So a journey of over 700 miles from Ur to the land of Israel, or over 1 ,100 kilometers, and he goes to this foreign land.

By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.

So Abraham gets to this land and God shows him the land and says, everything that you see here

I'm going to give to your descendants. And he names the people that inhabited that land at the time.

God says it's not time yet for me to drive them out of this land, because their sin had not yet reached its fulfillment for God to purge them of the land, or purge the land of them,

I guess is the way you might say it. So Abraham dwelled there, and so did Isaac and Jacob.

Isaac was Abraham's son, Jacob his grandson. They were fellow heirs of the same promise. They lived in that same place.

It was Jacob who would eventually move from there down to Egypt, if you'll recall, because that's where Joseph went.

Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery. Joseph is going to get mentioned here in Hebrews 11 as well.

But he's sold by his brothers into slavery, and from there becomes, by the providence of God, the second ranking in command there in Egypt, to cut a long story short.

And so because Joseph had prepared food during a time of famine, Joseph's brothers go down that way.

They end up moving to Egypt. They bring Jacob down along with them, and the people of Israel begin to multiply for hundreds of years there in the land of Egypt until the

Egyptians enslave them, and God uses Moses to free them from slavery.

There's a long story short there in the book of Genesis. So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs, as we refer to them, dwelled in that land of promise, lived in tents.

And the fact that they lived in tents shows that their stay was temporary.

This was not meant to be a permanent home. It also was a type and a shadow of something that was greater to come.

We've read about that in the book of Hebrews, how the priesthood, how the giving of sacrifices, all of these things were types and shadows pointing to something greater, and that greater one was

Christ, who was the greater sacrifice. He is the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

So we've seen this theme of types and shadows throughout Hebrews, and we're getting it again here, even with regards to the land that was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they dwelled in tents because they were strangers in this land.

We continue on in verse 10, for he, talking about Abraham, was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is

God. Remember they dwelled in tents, but he was looking for a city that has foundations, that doesn't move around.

And even the foundations talked about here being something permanent. It won't ever be destroyed.

It is established and eternal forever. The architect and the builder is God, who is eternal.

So this is what Abraham is looking for. He is looking for an eternal reward.

Genesis really doesn't spell that out for us, but it comes from the preacher here in Hebrews 11.

Abraham's expectation was not that he would receive this land, because remember, God in his promise to Abraham for this land said it wouldn't happen in his lifetime.

It would happen several hundred years from now. It's going to be to your descendants. They will be the ones to receive this land.

So what was Abraham going to get out of this? He was looking for that permanent city, that permanent dwelling place where he would live forever with God.

And how many of us look for utopia on this earth? We think that God will just make this land that we live in wonderful and we will have a wonderful, blissful existence for the rest of our days.

And then, you know, hey, heaven to look forward to. But in the meantime, I hope everything works out for me here.

When our position here on this earth should be that we are strangers and exiles, just like it's described of Abraham, we're strangers.

Peter, when he wrote to the exiles in Babylon, that means everybody who is in Christ, we're a stranger here on this earth.

This is not meant to be our dwelling place. This isn't our permanent place of residence.

We are anticipating a heavenly city as we go on to read.

So Abraham was looking for that city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Remember verse six, without faith, it is impossible to please him.

For he who draws near to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

Abraham believed that. So must we. Verse 11, by faith, even

Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life since she regarded him faithful who promised.

Yes, it's true. Abraham and Sarah both laughed at God when he said, you're going to have a child.

Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah was 90. The scriptures say the way of women was no longer with her.

In Genesis 17, 17, Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, will a son be born to a man 100 years old and will

Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a son? In Genesis 18, 12, Sarah laughed to herself saying after I am worn out, shall

I have pleasure? My Lord being old also. But is anything impossible for Yahweh?

God even says that to Abraham in Genesis 18. Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything impossible for Yahweh?

And so sure enough, by this promise that God had made to Abraham, he made

Sarah able to conceive. Her womb was unable to do that. It was by the miraculous blessing of God.

Consider what we read in Romans 4, beginning at verse 16. For this reason, it is by faith in order that it may be according to grace so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

As it is written, a father of many nations have I made you in the presence of him whom he believed, even

God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

There was no life in Sarah's womb. God called life to exist there.

Now it was through natural means, through natural conception that Abraham and Sarah conceived, and Sarah had this son

Isaac. It wasn't a virgin birth or anything like that. But Sarah's womb was nonetheless dried up.

She could not have children anymore. But God, through his miraculous blessing, gave them a son, which he had promised.

Romans 4 .18, in hope against hope, Abraham believed so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which has been spoken, so shall your seed be.

And without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body. Now as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb, yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what

God had promised, he was able also to do. By faith,

Abraham. By faith, Sarah. So by faith, you and I receive the promise that God gives through Jesus Christ.

We continue on in verse 12, therefore there were born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, talking about Abraham, we read that also in Romans 4, as many as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

A couple of times, God brought Abraham out under the stars and said, count the stars if you can, that's how many your children would be.

He said if you are able to count the sand on the seashore, so great will your children be in number, you won't even be able to count them.

Interestingly enough, in the book of Numbers, after the census is taken of Israel, it says there, even in the records of the census, these hundreds of thousands of children of Israel, well specifically the men who were being counted so that they would be ready for battle, it said there, so were the offspring of Abraham.

They were as innumerable as the stars of the sky or the sand on the shore. That was the fulfillment of the promise that God had given to Abraham.

These million and a half Israelites or something like that, that came out of slavery in Egypt, a million and a half offspring of Abraham.

Verse 13, all these died in faith. We're going to end with this clause here before picking back up with Abraham in verse 17.

So here's the clause, verses 13 to 16, we read this, all these died in faith.

Now that's summarizing Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, even the mention of Isaac and Jacob.

These all died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance.

Now this is not like Moses, who was not permitted to enter the promised land, but God allowed him to stand on a high place and look into the promised land so he would see this land that the children of Israel were going to inherit.

God allowed him to be able to see that, but because Moses sinned against God, God was not going to allow

Moses to come into the promised land, but he was able to greet it from afar, right? Okay, what's being talked about here is not like that.

It wasn't like Moses seeing the promised land from afar. This is talking about time, as in the ages in verse 3, it's not talking about a matter of distance.

These died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, not a distance as in space, but a distance as in time.

They knew of this, they knew of this promise, God had promised it to them. They believed by faith, so they saw it at a distance.

There were glimpses of it, like Abraham was able to look at the land, but it wouldn't be for hundreds of years before his descendants would receive it.

They believed in it. They welcomed these things from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, they recognized, this is not my permanent dwelling place.

By faith in God, my permanent dwelling place is with him. Verse 14, for those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

See, we describe ourselves as strangers and aliens in this world, as exiles, because we're anticipating something greater than this world.

It's why we sing in the old spiritual, this world is not my home, I'm just a passing through. My home is somewhere laid up beyond the blue.

All of a sudden, the next line of that escaped me, but you know what I'm talking about. So that's our anticipation.

We desire a heavenly kingdom, Jesus saying, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

And also in Colossians 3, 1 through 4, seek the things that are above where Christ is.

Those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

Verses 15 and 16, and indeed, if they had been remembering that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.

But now they aspire to a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their

God, for he prepared a city for them. And we read about that city in Revelation, the heavenly

Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, that holy city coming down from heaven, adorned in white, which is also described as the bride.

That is the church of God purified, that we will be forever with God in his glory.

We're going to talk some more about this next week. We'll come back to consider verses 13 to 16, and then continue on with the testimony of Abraham.

I said next week. This is only Tuesday. Tomorrow, we'll continue to talk about these things tomorrow as we continue our study in Hebrews 11.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the promises that you have given to us in Christ our Savior.

And I pray that our desire would be Christ. We're not clamoring for the things of this world.

We're not even satisfied with this world. This world is coming to waste.

It is coming to destruction. It's full of evil and sin and death.

And that is not our future if we are in Christ. So we don't want the things of this world.

We want the incorruptible. We want the perfect. We want Jesus. And so,

Lord, fill us up with that desire, longing for heavenly things. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory.

Lead us in these things. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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