Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Ministry from Jonathan Seed Saturday afternoon.

[0:01] Hebrews chapter number one.
Hebrews chapter one.
Start reading in verse number one.

[0:23] Hebrews one, verse one. God who at sundry times and in diverse matters, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
For unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.
And again, when he bringeth in the first born, first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him.
And of the angels he saith, who maketh his angel spirits and his ministers a flame of fire.
But unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of righteousness is a scepter of thy kingdom. We’ll go a little bit later down the chapter to verse 13.
Same chapter, 113. But to which of the angels said he at any time.

[1:44] Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
Read chapter two as well, a few verses here.

[2:00] Verse number five, small section of exhortation here at the beginning of chapter two.
Another way you can divide the book of Hebrews just by the by, beginning of chapter two, the first section of exhortation, chapters three and four, another section of exhortation at the end of five, the beginning of six, another section of exhortation, and then 10 through 13, another section of exhortation 11 through 13.
So you can take those out of the book, focus on the doctrine, and then come back and that’ll make sense of all the exhortations. But we’ll just skip the exhortation for now.
Go to verse number five of chapter two.
For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come.

[2:44] Wherever we speak. But one in a certain place testified saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the work of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man.
We’ll go ahead, just for sake of time, chapter number 11. Just want to notice a few verses here in chapter 11.
Very familiar to the audience, many ways that we can divide chapter 11 and many things we could focus on, but I really would like to just notice the sentences or the phrases, the statements, that have to do with the future and looking forward.
So in chapter number 11, we’ll notice here, first of all, verse number.

[3:51] Come down to verse number seven. In verse number seven, by faith Noah being warned of God of things as seen not yet, not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith.
A little bit further on, verse number eight, next verse. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed and went out, not knowing whether he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles and so on.
We go a little bit later on down to verse number 12.

[4:41] Verse number 12, speaking of Sarah, sorry, verse 11, through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore sprang there even one of one and him as good as dead.
So many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand, which is by the seashore innumerable.
Verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.” Emphasize that phrase, they saw them afar off.
“‘They were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country that is unheavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.” And for sake of time, we’ll ask the Lord to bless the reading of his word thus far.

[5:49] I’m a little concerned for my generation and perhaps even younger generations.
Part of my concern has to do with what we’ve just heard, the structure of the Bible.
Part of the concern has to do with Another word that we’ve heard today, hermeneutics, the way that we interpret the main storyline of the scriptures.
And my concern to be very specific has to do with our understanding of, we could summarize it, with the kingdom.
And I’m not going to speak about the kingdom today and all the aspects of the kingdom, and how, when, and where, and who, and so on.
But I would like to notice once again from the epistle to the Hebrews that it’s very instructive, how the writer to this group of people.

[6:35] Decided that he would design and how he would structure himself and how he would speak about, the storyline of Scripture. It’s very instructive, it’s very helpful, and I think that we should follow when we’re going to interpret Scriptures, we must follow their train of thought, follow, their line of thought, follow their logic, follow their reasoning, and not read into the text what.

[6:52] It is that we might think. When we go right back to the beginning of Scripture, we can think of a garden, and I love thinking about the storyline of the Bible with these two bookends, the garden at the beginning and the garden at the end, the presence of God at the beginning and then the presence of God at the end. A door at the beginning and then an open gate or gates at the end. A man who or an angel with the flaming sword at the very beginning in the garden barring access on the eastern gate or on the eastern side into the presence of God. And as we’ve just heard about the pattern that is seen in the tabernacle, we see once again a door on the eastern side. And yet at this point and at this time with the presence of God among his people, now there is access. Now we can go in from the eastern side, as it were, retracing the steps of Adam and Eve themselves.
We come through on the basis of a sacrifice and the blood that is being shed, and we enter in in the person of the high priest, the holiest of all, and we have access to God, forgiveness.
We have reconciliation, the presence of God among us.
And you see this repeated all throughout the New Testament, in the tabernacle, and then, in the different temples that we see in the Old Testament.
We see it in the assembly, though that’s a parenthesis. I’ve struggled with that word, parenthesis.
Talked to some people about this.
I don’t really like that word, but it’s true. It is a parenthesis.

[8:08] So it’s kind of difficult. What do we do with the word? Well, maybe we can make another word up, but the point of the parenthesis is this.
What the time that we are living in right now is different than the time that came before, and it’s different than the time that we’ll follow after.
That just takes too long to say. So we’ll stick with parenthesis for the purpose of this message.
In the assembly, we have access. We come into the present with boldness.
We approach the throne of grace with boldness because of our great High Priest, the one who has shed his own blood, not the blood of the animals, not a man after the order of Aaron or the order, the High Priesthood, the order of the High Priest after Aaron, but a man who has come in the order of Melchizedek.
He has gone into a better sanctuary and heavenly tabernacle, As it says in chapter number 10, Heaven itself, chapter 9, Heaven itself…

[8:54] And we once again enjoy the presence of God among us. Even here in this very meeting we, have the presence of God among us. But it doesn’t end here. It keeps going. The story of the Bible keeps going past the church age and we see that there’s a millennial, there’s a future millennium.
There is a great millennial future ahead for us, for those of us who are saved, who will be with Christ. And again, I won’t be dogmatic and I won’t come down hard on exactly what these different views are, but I would take it that we will be here on the earth with Christ and eventually we will get to the day of God, and it will come full circle.
Except it won’t be Eden. You could say it would be, it will be Eden 2.0.
Eden remade. A better Eden. That better country, the better Eden. The time when we will be even closer to Christ than Adam and Eve were close to God. The proximity that they enjoyed in Eden will be magnified and it will be enjoyed by each and every one of us on that future day, on the day of God. That is the broad, very, very broad strokes, the broad structure of the scriptures.
But again, we have to come back to this parenthesis. Where are we? Where are we exactly in this whole storyline of the Bible? We’re in that parenthesis between the first coming of Christ.

[10:10] And the second coming of Christ. You see, there’s another way. There’s another way to explain the the storyline of the Bible. The other way to explain it is this, that really the entire story of Scripture is about the kingdom, and that’s actually true, the reign of God on the earth. But this kingdom that begun really at the beginning and was exemplified in Israel, again as we have heard, and a great illustration for the world that Israel was, and they had their own Israelite kingdom. But that kingdom came to an end. And we read in the book of Daniel that another kingdom is going to come and it’s going to destroy all the different kingdoms. It won’t be the kingdom of Israel, this will be a different kingdom, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this kingdom, when it comes, it will come, and it will take over the earth little by little, piece by piece, city by city, city council by city council, culture by culture, person by person. It will slowly grow and it will slowly permeate the earth and it will slowly spread to each and every corner of the earth that we inhabit today. The kingdom has come, in this understanding.

[11:17] Of the scriptures, the kingdom has come. We ought to build the kingdom. We ought to spread, the kingdom. We ought to enjoy our kingdom life. You know, the reason why I’m worried about my generation, I say it for this reason, all the books that you go to a Christian bookstore, every single, I would venture to say, almost every single book that you’ll find in the bookstore would tell that story. We’re in the kingdom, the kingdom is now, we build the kingdom, we spread the kingdom.

[11:43] Every song that you might listen to, again, I’m exaggerating, over-exaggerating, just I’m exaggerating.
Almost every song that you will hear on a Christian playlist on Spotify or on whatever, do they do CDs anymore?
That was my generation. Anyway, whatever Christian music you might get your hands on, it’s all about the Kingdom.
And the kingdom now, and the king is here, and we expand, and we build, and we grow, and we get to all the four corners of the earth.
What you see when I come to the epistle of the Hebrews, it’s a totally different, not a totally different, but it’s a different storyline. I say not totally different because the kingdom is coming, and the king has come.
And I think we can confidently say that the Lord Jesus Christ is king today, though it would not be quite accurate to say that he is sitting on David’s throne.
However, he is king, but is he reigning as king on the earth at this point in time?
The epistle to the Hebrews would tell us, we’re not there yet.

[12:45] Therefore, look forward. Not just keep going as we saw earlier today, but look forward to that future day because it is not here yet.
And I’ve been impressed as I read through this book that I find the writer continuing to implore us and to exhort us and to tell us, Keep looking forward because we are not there yet.
We heard already in 2 Corinthians, they were reigning as kings.
And Paul tells them that is an over-realized eschatology. That’s just a fancy way of saying, they thought the kingdom was here.
They thought the kingdom was now, and they suffered the consequences.

[13:21] The writer to the Hebrews, he starts in chapter one and he tells us about this majestic Son of God, focusing on his Sonship, but he is the one who is the Son of God.
He was sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. From the beginning, we see even seven different Old Testament quotations, and many of them are coronation psalms that would have to do with Christ as King or the coming Messiah as one who will sit on the throne and who will execute his judgment and display his righteousness to all of Israel and to all the world.
There is a coming kingdom.
But we come to chapter two, he brings up another Psalm, Psalm chapter eight or Psalm number eight.
And he emphasizes just one aspect of the kingdom. I want you to notice this.
The whole Psalm has to do with the subjection, the dominion, that’s a popular phrase these days, by the way, older people, I’m not sure if you know that, that’s a very popular, taking dominion.

[14:17] Well, Psalm eight tells us that there was a man there are men who have been chosen to take dominion. This is back in Psalm 8. This is a positive psalm. Look at the son of man. Thou art mindful of him. What is man? Or the son of man that thou visitest him, thou madest him a little lower than the angels. Thou crowned him with glory, and honor. These are all positive things. These are great things about man and about his dominion.
And did set him over the works of thy hands. Dominion, kingdom, taking over, subjection. These are the themes of this psalm. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that, He put all in subjection under Him. He left nothing that is not put under Him.

[14:57] Then we come to this phrase, but now, but now, younger people in the crowd, maybe older as well, I don’t know, I have a burden for the younger, here with this topic especially, is a very important phrase, But now, we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus. There’s a writer and he.

[15:32] A lot of benefit to a lot of believers, and I’m not trying to tarnish his legacy or anything of that sort, but he was famous for promoting pre-millennial eschatology. Pre-millennial eschatology would essentially be the belief that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, there will be no rapture.
It’ll be one coming to the earth and the millennium will start.
But this is a premillennial, that is to say a belief in the millennium that excludes Israel.
It’s really about the church replacing Israel.
He coined a phrase, if I’m not mistaken, already-not-yet. Already-not-yet.
And it was a paradigm for understanding the Bible. You see, in the scripture, sometimes it is confusing.
Even here in chapter number two, he speaks about the world to come.
But then later on we read in the book of Hebrews that we have come to the heavenly city, to the heavenly Jerusalem.
We are already there. And so he thought of this paradigm to explain those things that are already, there are some things that are already, but then there’s other things that are not yet, and then sometimes they come together.
It’s an already not yet.

[16:42] What has happened, I noticed with this phrase, is that the emphasis today is on the already, and not on the not yet.
Hebrews emphasizes the not yet, not the already. Did I confuse you sufficiently yet?
Already not yet. It’s all here, but it’s not here. We have it, but we don’t.
He’s the king, but he’s not the king.
Well, there are certain times in the scripture where that it is actually helpful to look at it through that lens in Hebrews and in general, and in terms of the trajectory of the biblical storyline, it’s not yet.
And the reason why I think this is important, Johnny, why are you bringing this up?
You know, maybe you just have some weird interest in these sort of biblical themes, but you know, this doesn’t really affect our lives.
We came here to be encouraged. We came here to be exhorted. I think it affects us in this way.
If we believe that everything is already here, or if we believe that even half what we’ve been promised is already here, then we will not be looking forward, we’ll be looking down.
Looking down.

[17:44] Getting things ready here, preparing here, setting things up here, gaining and gathering treasure here, and not thinking about what is to come, the world to come. Just look at the way He does the trajectory here in chapters 1 and 2, and if we have time we’ll get down to chapter 11, where I’m impressed at the forward look at each one of those worthies in chapter 11. But 1 and 2, there’s a trajectory, it’s a storyline. In chapter 1, He speaks about the Son. He is the one who has come from heaven. God is finally this final revelation, this final prophet who has spoken to us. The Lord Jesus.

[18:19] Christ who is God’s own son who has come to the earth. He is the majestic one. He has been exalted. He is at the right hand. Then he comes to chapter number two and the focus is on what has not yet happened but we see Jesus not necessarily the one who is reigning on David’s throne but we see one who came to suffer and that is the great tenor of the Christian life. It is suffering. As we read in the, epistle to Timothy, suffering and then glory. That’s the pathway of Christ. First we suffer and then we come into glory. First we suffer with him and then we will be even glorified with him at his coming with the rest of it when he is glorified in his saints. The storyline in chapter number two is one who was glorified, who was with the Father in his glory before the world began.
And yet he came down to earth and he took on flesh, the incarnation, the great theme of chapter number two.
He took on flesh and he suffered.

[19:15] If you get that wrong, you will be very confused when you suffer.

[19:21] If everything is now, and if we receive everything in this moment and in this life, then we will not know what is happening when there’s loss, when there’s sickness, when there’s failure, when we don’t get what we want, when we don’t receive what we’re asking for.
If we have a different paradigm and emphasis on the now and not on the not yet, we will not be looking forward to what God has for us.
And so chapter number two, I think very accurately, obviously, the scriptures, but in a very helpful, way, shows us in the way that he interprets Psalm number eight, it shows us what we should focus on.
Notice that in chapter number eight, let me just say that, sorry, Psalm eight, he mentions much about subjection. He mentions much about dominion.
He mentions much about kingdom, crowning and glory and honor.
But what does he repeat?

[20:13] Go further down the chapter. What does he repeat? What does he take from the psalm?
What is he emphasizing about the psalm?
You know, I read many, I’ve read many commentaries on Hebrews and the focus of chapter two, according to these commentaries is that Hebrews two is all about the kingdom.
And it’s about how Christ has come. And now Christ has sat on David’s throne and therefore Christ’s kingdom has began.
And this whole kingdom program is slowly unfolding ever since the ascension of Christ, to the right hand of God. That’s not what the author focuses on.
This just struck me recently. That’s not what the writer to the Hebrews focuses on.
And he tells us what he focuses on by quoting it later on.
We read from verse 10 in Adelante, I was gonna say that’s Spanish, but anyway, 10, verse 10 forward, you see that he will mention again what it is that is important about this Psalm.
He says that he too was crowned, or sorry, was made a little lower than the angels.
Verse number, sorry, just so you’re following with me, verse number nine, we see Jesus who was made a lower than the angels for the suffering of death.

[21:16] Crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man, suffering and death, for it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things and bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

[21:37] We see later on, verse number 16, if you could look down there, For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
He didn’t come to be glorified at that moment. He came to suffer. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a faithful and a merciful high, priest.” That is the theme of Hebrews, that we have a priest. He wants to tell these people, you need to go on, keep going. And guess what? In that journey, in that life of faithfulness toward the Lord, you’re not alone. You have a high priest and he will be with you. He was better than the former priests. He is an eternal priest. He can sympathize with you. He’s lived the life that you have lived. And therefore, every time we go to Him, He has the right word. Every time we go to Him, He knows the right thing to say. He knows the right way to comfort us, comfort us and to succor us so that we might continue on down the path. I’d like to switch over to chapter number 11 because we’re going to see this borne out in the life of all those who who have gone before us, given to us as an example so that we might imitate it in our, own lives, looking forward and not looking down.

[22:52] First example I want to notice is Noah in chapter number 11.
See this down here in verse number six, verse number five, sorry, verse number seven.
And when we see Noah, it says he was warned of God of things not seen as yet, yet he moved with fear and he prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
I thought of a brother down in Mexico when I was preparing for this.
This brother down in Mexico, he’s suffered in different ways, not great suffering, not in terms of his health, but in terms of his business.
We’ve heard about careers and career choices and that sort of thing.
This brother’s an artist.
He’s an elder in the assembly in Guadalajara.
Very talented artist. You might see some of his paintings tonight, I don’t know. But anyway, he’s a very talented artist. He’s given up many opportunities to make it big. He’s not one of these guys in some other country where they’re just kind of imitating and copying other paintings and sell them for half or a quarter of the price. No, these are original paintings, sell for quite a penny and they’re worth every penny they’re sold for, peso. But he’s lost a lot of opportunities to climb the ladder, not necessarily the corporate ladder, but the ladder in the artsy world, in the artistic world.

[24:10] I was thinking of this brother because he’s also a brother who’s an example of sacrifice, but not an example of the other extreme.
You see, we have bad examples in the past, not Noah, but we have bad examples of the past of men who faced opposition or men who saw that our lives should be focused on the future and they had families and they had wives and they left the kids behind and they, left the wife behind and they went out to give tracts and they went out to preach the gospel and they abandoned the family and they abandoned the wife and it’s just all about the gospel and gung-ho all the way up to fifth gear, sixth gear and 6000 RPM.
And let’s just go and get the gospel out to the ends of the earth.
And they have failed in their home lives and their children are rebellious and, their wife has no respect for the husband, not this man, there’s that extreme.
But he’s found a way, he’s found a way to make a balance where he provides for his family.
He’s doing something he’s even interested in.
But I’ve never yet met an elder, this is probably just because of my ignorance, but I’ve never yet met an elder who spends so much time visiting the brethren, looking for the believers, phoning the believers, going to their houses, giving them counsel, preparing for meetings, teaching the believers and the assembly.
And many times, after a meeting, he won’t tell anybody this.

[25:40] But he’ll go home and he’ll keep working till midnight, one in the morning, two in the morning, so he can do it all over again the next day. Take care of the family, attend to his wife.

[26:00] Attend to the brethren, live a hundred percent. I agree with our brother when he said, you know, you can’t be a professional in baseball. I agree with that. This brother’s not trying to be a professional artist and a professional elder. He has a job, he attends to his job, he provides for his family, he gives them what they need, but all of his extra and his spare time as an elder, this isn’t for all the brethren, but as an elder, it is all dedicated and it is devoted, to the assembly. And he does it because he’s looking forward. I speak to some of the elders here and I speak humbly as one who has not been many years at this type of work. Men here in the crowd who’ve been at that work for much, many more years than I have. But brethren, I wonder if sometimes we have the ratio off. It’s the career and it’s the making the money or it’s a hobby, it’s the motor, whatever it is, whatever, it doesn’t matter, fill the blank. And when it comes to the assembly, well if there’s extra time, let’s see if we can visit so-and-so next week. I’ll look at my calendar, I think it’s in about a month, it looks like I have a little blank spot in the calendar, we’ll see if we can squeeze you in. No, no, these brethren, they looked forward, they realized that this is not the time to prepare, this is not the time to build barns, unless you’re a farmer, This is not the time to accumulate wealth, the time to think about everything that I can get.

[27:28] It’s a time to be faithful, but looking forward and not looking down.
See another example here, if we want to look forward, we see examples throughout Hebrews chapter 11, not just with Noah.
But we see as well that further on we have the example of Abraham.
The first example that we saw in verse number seven is that to look forward requires reverence.
We must have reverence for the things of God.
Things not seen as yet.
In verse number eight, we see that to look forward requires self-denial.
It says about Abraham that he went out not knowing whither.
He did not know where he was going. You know, recently we had to make a decision down in Mexico and I won’t give any details, another brother and I, another worker down in Mexico, we had to make a decision.
There’s a very difficult decision to make.
And I wish I could tell you, I wish I could tell you exactly how things will end up, but I can’t.

[28:38] We don’t know. But like Abraham, we’re standing on the word of God, we see biblical principles that are foundation of the decision that we’ve made and we’re going out in faith and we trust that the Lord will bless his word. That’s exactly what Abraham did. He didn’t know where he was going.

[28:59] He had the Word of God. This experience, the presence of God, Abraham did just as with, Moses and with Joshua and all the great men of the Old Testament, those great encounters with God.
He was confident in the Word of God. He was persuaded by the Word of God. He embraced the word of God. He was looking forward and therefore he trusted the word of God. You know, another reason why I’m worried about my generation and I’m including myself in this, it’s very much an anxiety generation, an anxious generation. Now we hear a lot about anxiety today, but when I was, I don’t know, in my teens, I never heard anything. I was anxious many times. I never heard anything about anxiety. It seems these days, anxiety to the left and anxiety to the right. Everybody’s on medication for it and all this sort of thing. It’s very, very much an anxiety generation, a nuanced generation. I think that’s part of it. Everything has to be explained.
You know, that’s kind of my tendency. I’m not throwing you guys under the bus.
That’s very much my tendency, my natural way of everything must be explained in fine detail to the nth degree. I was thinking about this again, just working with an older brother recently.
You know, it’s a different way of thinking. I’m not saying we should always, the previous generation we need to imitate every single thing that they did. One of the good things that I think think we could learn as younger people from the previous generation.

[30:19] Is that they didn’t overthink, overthink as much as we do. You know, well, I remember some interactions with his brother and talking about how we’re going to speak to someone and we’re going to go on a visit and we’re going to talk about a certain subject and I’d be worried about how he’s going to feel.
And, but what if he, what if we offend him?
And what if we, like, we got to make sure we say it the right way, because, you know, if it lands, if it doesn’t quite land right, then he’s going to be mad at us.
And I’m going to have to deal with his scowl. And I don’t like it when people scowl at me and all this kind of thing. You know, I was going down that train of thought.
He knows this phrase and it comes back into my mind often. If he ever hears this message, he’ll know I’m talking about him.
Says, it doesn’t matter.

[31:04] It doesn’t matter. And I’d say, what do you mean it doesn’t matter?
But he’ll be offended. It doesn’t matter.
Yeah, but what about it doesn’t matter? Stop overthinking it.
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s go. Wasn’t quite that dramatic, but you get the idea.
Stop thinking of all the reasons why something might fail.
Young people, stop thinking of all the reasons why you shouldn’t trust God.
Stop thinking of all the reasons why something might fail, and start thinking of all the reasons why God is trustworthy.
Start thinking of all the reasons why we ought to trust God.
That’s what Sarah did.
That’s what Abraham did. That’s what Noah did. That’s what all the worthies of this chapter did.
They didn’t focus on everything that could have gone wrong.
Just imagine Abraham as he’s about to go out not knowing whether but I don’t have a map and I don’t have the GPS and there’s no, Uber and I don’t know how to get there and I’m not sure what it’s going to be like and what is the food and how am I going, to feel and what are the accommodations like and how we’re going to what is the road going to be?
What are the what kind of vehicle are we going to use and thinking of all, all the different reasons why this might be difficult.
Stop, stop thinking about it. Just go.
Moses, go out, lead this people into the desert. Just go.
Joshua, cross the river, go into the land, conquer Jericho, just go.
And do you know where they went?

[32:26] It wasn’t because of a stiff upper lip. It wasn’t because of the families they came from.
It wasn’t because they were just stronger. They were part of the right generation.
They were just, it was just in them.
They had the steel in their spine. No, no. They stood on the word of God. They were leaning on the word of God. They were, confident in the word of God and they went forward. As we read here towards the end of this section right here, verse number 12, sorry, verse number 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.
Not yet. Not yet. Look forward. Look to the future, having seen them afar off. And that’s what gave them the confidence. They They could see them. They were persuaded of them. They embraced them.
They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
I see it in the distance!
God has promised that we will get there. That is affecting everything I do, everything I think, every decision that I make. It’s affecting my life. I think my time is gone, so I’m going to need to close. I’ll just close thinking of chapter number 10. Many more examples in chapter 11 that we could think of, more applications that we could make. Just think of chapter 10, verses 34 through Just flip back, it’s right there, one chapter back, verses 34 through 37.

[33:50] See how the writer to the Hebrews handles the assembly here.
To look forward, sometimes we need to look back. To look forward, sometimes we need to take stock and understand where it is that we are.
And he reminds them in verse number 34, he says this to them, you had compassion of me in my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that?
I had my laptop stolen a couple of months ago. I wasn’t very happy.
You took joyfully the spoiling of your good. How would you feel?
These people were in such a state of mind. Their faith was this firm, so firm that they took it with joy, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
They can see forward. We’re not there yet. The kingdom isn’t here yet.
We’re not yet in the millennium. We are not yet reigning with Christ.
That is coming, the better country, that heavenly Jerusalem, even the millennial reign, we will be there with him and we will reign with him.
Not yet.
Not yet.

[34:59] For you had compassion of me. You took joyfully the spoiling of your, you knew in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward, for ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
Two dispensations, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come.
And He will not tarry. Look forward. We’re not there yet. Christ came to suffer.
He was raised. He has sat on the right hand of the majesty on high where He will be until His enemies, all of His enemies will be made a footstool for His feet. But we’re not there yet.
Keep going.
Look forward for the coming of our Savior and that blessed future day when we will reign And with Him, may the Lord bless His Word.

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