Hebrews 11:17-40. I hope this means I am back permanently. A couple of weeks ago I got a call out of the blue and an old friend said God had put me on his heart. He asked me if there was anything He could pray for. A couple of things came to mind but the one thing I asked him to pray for was this blog. He said he would but then told me that something was better than nothing. I appreciate the prayers but I have a little trouble with the rest of the advice. The point of this blog is to help you all read your bibles regularly and understand what you are reading. In order to help you understand what you are reading I need to understand what I am reading and communicate that accurately to you. James told the readers of his letter that not many of them should be teachers because teachers would be judged for their teaching (James 3:1). This isn’t just a discussion about a movie or the weather this is about the reality of a relationship with God. Like the chapter we are in the middle of (Hebrews 11) this blog is about eternity. I don’t want to cut corners, which means that this blog will take me some time each day both studying (which I finished for Hebrews over a month ago) and writing (which I am obviously behind in). I hope what you read here will help you understand the Bible more each day and will improve your relationship with the God of the Bible today and for eternity.
The second half of Hebrews 11 continues with more of Abraham’s example. If you read yesterday’s post (well the one before this one anyway). You should remember that Abraham was promised that his descendants through a child Sarah would have would bring a blessing to the world. As we will see tomorrow Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise and he does descend from Isaac. In verses 17-19 the author of Hebrews brings up a very strange event in the life of Abraham, he was told to take Isaac up on a mountain and sacrifice him, tie him up, stab him in the heart and burn the body; pretty gruesome. This sort of thing was done regularly with animals but we usually consider human sacrifice pretty evil. Although Abraham went all the way up to putting Isaac on the pile of wood and raising the knife over him I think he really expected God to step in. In the story in Genesis 22 he told Isaac that God would provide the animal (Genesis 22:8). According to the author of Hebrews Abraham thought that if he did go through with the sacrifice that God could bring Isaac back to life (Hebrews 11:20). That’s a lot of faith. Fortunately Abraham never got that far because God interrupted the sacrifice and did supply an animal. Now before you go all PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on me and want to reject God as an animal murderer let’s remember where all this death and trouble started, with Adam disobeying God. Before sin the world was a happy place (Remember Genesis 1:31, “it was very good”). And it appears that we were all vegetarians at that time (Genesis 1:29-30). Personally I think that God changed all of that after the fall so we would have a constant reminder of the trouble we brought into creation (See also “The Old Testament Connection”).
Verses 20-31 give several more examples for the history of Israel (the descendants of Jacob, see “The Twelve?” and “What’s in a Name”). Theses example all deal with actions by the people mentioned which were based on promises God had made, or more specifically based on the one promise that Abraham’s descendant (see Galatians 3:16) through Isaac and Jacob (Israel) would make the world a good place again. One person that I would like to point out is Rahab. Not only was she not a descendant of Jacob but she was also a woman. For her to be included in this list really shows that the promise of good was for the whole world.
Verses 32-38 uses example from the book of Judges (You can read more about theses people in the posts on that book), the book of Isaiah (although the Bible does not tell us how he died Hebrew tradition is that he was sawn in two by King Manasseh), and other Old Testament prophets. What is interesting about this part of the reading is that we see that the events of these faithful people’s lives were not all fun and nice, we see that faithful people can have trouble in their lives too.
Verses 39-40 come back to an idea that is similar to what I shared about sacrifices above. The lives of these faithful people were filled with tests and trouble because the world is not what it ought to be; not what it will be. But the world will not be that that “very good” place again until all the people God is waiting to come back to him actually do return. We see from this chapter that that means people who may not even have been born yet. Rom this chapter though, we learn that God has made promises and God is faithful to his promises. As a result we can live lives that show we believe God and are willing to live for and wait for his eternal kingdom.
God I know that the time is not here yet for you to restore the world to perfection. There are millions of people who would miss out on “the city whose architect and maker are you” if you brought your kingdom to earth today. Help me live each day a life of faith, focused on your promises. Help me be a representative of your kingdom each day. When people are horrified by the evil in the world help me remind them of the source of and the solution to evil. Thank you for Jesus.