Tuesday 6th
Hebrews 11:13-16
NIV (v13) – ‘All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.’
ESV (v13) – ‘These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.’
So far in this great chapter on the heroes of faith, the writer has mentioned Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, (Isaac and Jacob) and Sarah, and in our text for today he says that they were all still living by faith when they died, but on dying they did not receive the promise. Now this does not mean that they had believed in vain, it does not also mean that God had promised and not delivered on his promise, for the writer continues later and concludes this section on faith by declaring ‘And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.’ (vv39-40) In other words, they did not receive the promise when they died, but they will one day receive it, the promise is sure and certain, and the day will come when they along with all of us who have become people who walk by faith through faith in Jesus will receive the promise together.
We have just celebrated Easter, our remembrance of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and these events were crucial to the outworking of the promise of God as given to these Old Testament saints, these heroes of faith. It was to Abram who later became Abraham that God had made the promise ‘And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis12:2) And the source of the blessing that would bless all the families of the world was the coming through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came to be the redeemer, not only for the Jew but also for the Gentile, and as we come by faith to believe we receive the promised blessing which is eternal rest.
And the day is coming and what a wonderful and glorious day it will be when they, that is the Old Testament saints along with us will be made eternally perfect.
Our text says that ‘not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar off’ they saw through the eye of faith, they had believed God, they had the confident assurance that we read about in verse one that what God had promised he would fulfil, and thus they had lived in this world by faith, ‘acknowledging that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.’ As verse 16 says ‘they desired a better country, that is a heavenly one.’ I am reminded of the words of a song we used to sing, ‘This world is not my own, I’m just a passing though, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue’ perhaps it is good for us to have a reminder once in awhile that we are just passing through, we can get so comfortable in this world that heavenly things don’t have as much importance in our lives as they should, after all it was Jesus himself who said that it is those who hunger and thirst after righteousness who would be filled, and later on the same occasion of the preaching of the sermon on the mount he reminded us of the importance to ‘lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (Matthew 5:6, 6:20-21)
It is in this same eleventh chapter of Hebrews that we are told that Moses could have had all that this world had to offer, he would have been well off in every way possible – except spiritually, but he chose instead to suffer with the people of God, in other words in comparison to eternity, the temporal was unimportant and transient, he was making sure that instead of taking advantage of the treasury of Egypt he was banking in the treasure store of heaven. He, like those before him, had seen the things promised and he was not going to let go of it.
May we also cling to the promises of God, ensuring that we do not let the temporal pleasures of this world to satisfy us for a season, but rather to keep our eyes fixed firmly upon the promises of God, knowing that as we endure to the end we will be the recipients along with the Old Testament saints of all that God has prepared for those who love him.