 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, click the NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 197, Hebrews Chapter 11 on the layman, Trey Strickland. He's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Happy 2018, Mike. Yeah, we finally made it. We are. We have crossed the line. We're going to have to get used to saying in 2018, it's never easy for me to switch gears, but here we are. Yeah. Yeah, my wife had to redo a couple of checks today because she already forgot it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's just the way it goes. What can you do? All right, Mike, real quickly, I just wanted to remind everybody that we're calling for Hebrews questions specifically, so we're going to do a Q&A on that. If we get enough good questions at the end of our covering of Hebrews, email me, Trey Strickland at gmail.com. Hopefully we'll pick a few that can add to the conversation of the book of Hebrews. And Mike, I guess, with Chapter 11, what do you think the overunder of you saying the word faith, what's the what's the spread on you saying the word faith for Chapter 11 here? Probably 40 or so times. Yeah, I was going to say, are you going to count them? I'm going to say 50 and a half over and it's 50 and a half. So we'll get Brendan to count them for us. We'll see. Are you going to take the over? Are you going to take the under? I'll take the over. Yeah. I was going to go over. Do we need to go like 60? No. 50 is a good number. 50. All right. 50 and a half. All right. All right. I'll take the under so you can take the over. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. So do we win anything or? Oh, well, no, because you could you dictate who wins because if you're getting close to 50 mentally, you can stop saying it. Oh, I'll never I'll never be able to count that. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Do you want to put something on the line here for this? I mean, you could dub it a sound or something. We'll have to think of something. I don't know. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean, we could we could top that because it's Hebrews 11. I remember as a not a new Christian, but, you know, fairly new. I mean, I, you know, first time I read the chapter, I just thought it was awesome. And this was the only really extensive passage in scripture that I really tried to memorize. So it's a long chapter. I think I got basically the whole thing that was in the King James though. So I'm sure I could I may lapse into King James, you know, quoting part of this, even though I use the ESV for the podcast. But you know, if that happens, you'll know why we're going to go through the whole chapter. I'm not going to read it all ahead of time. We're just going to start out. We'll spend a little time here in the very first verse because it's foundational, really the first few verses. And we'll we'll work our way through the chapter because there's something specific as we read through the chapter that I want people to be thinking about that ties into the last episode of, you know, our series on Hebrews. So if you listen to that, I sort of dropped a little something at the end about the nature, the character, the kind of people that wind up in Hebrews 11. And I'm going to be repeating that here. And I'm going to keep returning to the theme because I think it's an important lesson. These were not super men and super women. They were actually pretty ordinary. Let's just jump in here to the first verse. Again, reading ESV. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. Now, right away. And that's the first verse. We're going to stop there. We need to talk about faith, a Pistis in Greek. And the context for this, you know, low and behold, is the immediately preceding verses, which would be Hebrews 10, 35 through 39. I'm going to read those verses because when the writer jumps into now faith, you know, here in chapter 11, he's thinking about what he just wrote. So here's the end of Hebrews 10, verses 35 through 39. 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 is promised. For, and he quotes, he has a quotation here, the Old Testament, yet a little while and the coming one 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. End of the quote. Then verse 39, but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Now you could go back again to the end of chapter 10. We talked about these verses again. This it's the same thing that we've been talking about. Faith is not just sort of an intellectual ascent. You know, you pray a little prayer, you turn the gospel into an incantation. And it's, you know, we're done with that now. And I can more or less believe anything I want to from that point forward because I said the magic words. Faith is enduring. You have to believe and yet you have to keep believing that the kind of faith that the writer of Hebrews is talking about is the saving faith he's talking about is not an incantation. It's something that endures that persists despite struggles, despite doubt, despite persecution, despite our own character flaws, despite moral failures because the gospel has nothing to do with achieving moral perfection or having more moral pluses than minuses. That is not the point. It's about believing and believing in an enduring tenacious way. So the faith here is of a different quality than we might be thinking about. It's more as well than wishful thinking. In other words, you know, if we're talking about faith and belief, we're not talking here. The writer is not talking about wishful thinking as in a sentence like, I believe the bills can win the Super Bowl or I believe the bills can win the Super Bowl. In other words, it's something you hope happens that you wish for. Okay, this is something different because all the way through the book of Hebrews, the writer, and he's going to do it again here in this chapter, the writer has grounded faith. He uses words like belief and confidence and assurance. And he's going to do it here in the first few verses of Hebrews 11. He doesn't ground it in our wishes. He grounds it in the realities of what Jesus has done and our belief that Jesus has done what is necessary. And that's the end of the story and that we continue in that belief. We have a believing loyalty to what Christ has done to the cross event. And that is what salvation is about. So it's not wishful thinking. It's also not intellectual resignation as in a sentence like, well, given no better alternative, I believe so. That's not it either. Again, it is a firm assurance that endures this faith to quote Hebrews 10 again to draw on Hebrews 10 because this is what is in the writer's head when he says now faith is the assurance of things hope for. Okay, this faith doesn't shrink back. Doesn't shrink back. That's the language of Hebrews 10. It doesn't shrink back from the confidence the writer has talked about to this point. In other words, the object or the basis of belief. And let's go back real quickly. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son and we are his house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope verse 14 of Hebrews 3 for we have come to share in Christ. If indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Hebrews 10 back a little further verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. So the writer's been talking about confidence again. It's not confidence in our performance. It's not confidence that we have more pluses than minuses. It's not confidence that we never have any questions or we don't get angry at God or we don't question what God is doing. We're going to do that, of course, because, you know, news flash. We aren't God. We're also not omniscient. We don't know everything that's going on or what God intends. Okay, none of these things are what this is about. This kind of faith is a tenacity. It's a persistence, a persistent belief, a persistent believing loyalty in what Jesus has done at the cross event. And then that becomes the basis for confidence. Not something we've done. Not something we've talked ourselves into. Not something we wish, not something we sort of resign ourselves to because we can't see a better alternative. Okay, it is confidence in something done for us. Not something we do or that's something we can even understand in terms of it clearing out struggle and frustration. So it's a not shrinking back. That's the quality that's characteristic of all the examples that follow. And this is what I want people to latch on to in this episode. The Hall of Faith, as Hebrews 11 is called, all of the people in this example or in this that are listed as examples in this chapter. They all have one thing in common. Well, they have more than one thing in common, except for Enoch because he's taken off Earth. Okay, they all have struggles. They were suffering. They had moral lapses, a number of them. They had lapses in judgment, again, a number of them. But they're still here. They're still in this list. Again, it wasn't about the perfection of their performance or that their performance was mostly good and less bad. What they share at the end of the day, the reason they're in is that their faith persisted. They never shrank back. They never forsook their faith. They never forsook their believing loyalty in the promises of God and what God was doing as opposed to what they were doing. So they're not examples to put it negatively. The people listed in Hebrews 11 are not examples of never having a problem, never making a bad decision, never sinning. Quite the contrary. They are examples of positively never trading in their faith, never worshiping another God or no God at all. And they maintain belief despite life, despite persecution, doubt, and their own failure. So to go back to Hebrews 11-1, again, now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Assurance here, interestingly enough, and building on what I just said is the same word as confidence in one of the verses we just read, Hebrews 3-14. It's the same word. And again, interestingly enough, it's the same word that occurs in Hebrews 1-3, which we didn't read, and I'll read now. Speaking of Jesus, Jesus, He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. The word here, again, for assurance in Hebrews 11-1 is hoopostasis. Same as in Hebrews 3-14 where it's translated confidence here, it's the idea of Jesus in a qualitative sense. Okay, Jesus is the sort of exact representation. Again, it's a little hard to capture in the wording because confidence doesn't really work. Again, He is the imprint. Jesus is the imprint of God's hoopostasis, God's nature. Well, God's reality. Jesus is the exact imprint of the reality of God is really what the term is used to convey there in Hebrews 1. So recalling all that, Jesus is sort of the objective reality of the glory of God, of the nature of God, the character of God. And by using this term hoopostasis in Hebrews 1 about Jesus, again, being the objective reality of God, by using the word there and then using it here in Hebrews 11, I mean, He ties the two thoughts together. He ties, you know, Hebrews 1 and Hebrews 11. Hebrews 1 is about Jesus. Hebrews 11 is about, you know, the faith of our assurance and things hoped for, which of course is grounded in Jesus. So by using the term in both places, the writer wants us to see that the object of our faith is an objective reality whose name was Jesus. And that is why we should be confident. And that is the thing that is the object of our faith. That's the source of our confidence in our assurance. Again, not our performance, but on what Jesus, who is the, again, the exact imprint, the objective reality of God to us, what He did, not what we do, but what He did, again, at the cross event. Luke Timothy Johnson in his commentary has a little thing here about this that I want to read tying in Hebrews 11 and, you know, with the thought and even what follows in Hebrews 12, he says, the heroes of faith are here presented, are precisely the models that we are to imitate, culminating in the pioneer and perfecter of faith Jesus himself. So if we think about this, let's just think about Hebrews 1 through 11 in terms of chapters. It begins with Jesus as the who apostasis, the objective reality of God to us, to humankind. And because of what that person, what Jesus does, and we've talked about incarnation a lot. Hebrews talks about incarnation a lot. We've talked about Jesus' role as high priest. We've talked about the cross event. Because of what this person did, this person who is the objective reality of God and God's will and what God wants and the salvation God offers, all of that. Then we can have confidence. Again, it's the same term. You know, it just gets translated in different ways. There's this objective thing. There's this thing that's real. And so the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11 is saying, now our faith is a thing that's real because the object of it is real. It was Jesus who did this stuff on the cross. And he ties the two things together. But interestingly enough, if we think about the chapters 1 through 11, it begins with Jesus, incarnation, priesthood, all this kind of stuff. Again, the objective reality of the cross event. And you get up here to chapter 11, then we have examples of people refusing to shrink back from that confidence. They're refusing to shrink back from believing loyalty in the cross event. In other words, they're refusing to worship any other God or no God at all. Believing loyalty. Again, that's the phrase I use in Unseen Realm and I use it a lot here in the podcast. That is what salvation is. Believing loyalty. It's not believing performance. It's not believing doubtlessness. You're never having a question-ness, if that's a word and of course it's not. It's believing loyalty. It's saying this is the means of salvation and there is no other and this is where I'm at. Come what may. And that's what it's about. And it's interesting. Again, you go through all those 11 chapters and then you hit chapter 12, as Luke Timothy Johnson just said. And what is the right or right? Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings to us so closely. So we're looking into Jesus, the founder and perfector of faith. He goes right back to him. Again, he's the basis for the whole thing. Now, back to verse one. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. You know, Lane has a nice comment here. This is from the word biblical commentary. He writes, the second clause, this notion of the conviction of things not seen, which stands in opposition to the first, is equally daring. Faith demonstrates the existence of reality that cannot be perceived through objective sense perception, as the compliment to Houpastasus, reality, again, this objective reality. This word, conviction, it's translated conviction, a lengkos in Greek. This word, a lengkos, must be understood in the objective sense of proof or demonstration, the evidential character that deprives uncertainty of any basis. And why do we have this assurance? Because our faith is in an objective reality, the objective reality that is God to humanity, that's Jesus, and the objective reality of what was done at the cross. Okay, the death, the burial, and of course then the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Again, Hebrews talks about all these things, especially, you know, resurrection and ascension, there in chapter one, having, you know, made himself an offering, you know, for sin, you sit down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Again, that phrasing has occurred several times in the book of Hebrews. So again, this is not a wishful thought. It's not a resignation. It's a confidence in something done for us that basically it was God's plan, Jesus did it, and that's good enough. Again, not a performance-based sort of system, way of looking at things. Now, Luke Timothy Johnson comments again, going back to his commentary. He's going to comment on this term that Lane just did, this Alankos term. This is the only time in the New Testament where that particular term occurs. So it gets some attention from scholars. And Luke Timothy Johnson has this to say about it. He says, this is the only occurrence of the noun in the New Testament. In the wider Greek world, the noun is too many, two meanings. The first is the same as the verb form Alankane that is used in the New Testament in other places. In the sense of reproof or reproach, any sites, you know, Homer and the Odyssey, again, classical world, it's not an unfamiliar verb. This clearly cannot be the meaning here. The second meaning of the Greek noun is an argument of disputation or refutation through cross-examination. And he has a bunch of citations, but it can also be used in the sense of a proof or a demonstration or even for evidence used in proof, like, you know, sort of a legal kind of argument. So Jesus is both the objective reality of God and the objective proof of that reality. Jesus is both, again, the object, the basis of the faith, and he's the evidence for the faith. And it all goes back to the cross event. It has nothing to do. None of these terms have anything to do with human performance. Just period. It's not even in the picture. It's not even on the radar, but yet for us and for so many Christians, you know, it is that this is how we think about salvation. You know, yeah, I prayed a prayer, but now I've fallen into sin. I need to stop, you know, doing that so either so that God can give me my salvation back, again, assuming that we lost it because of our moral imperfection, which is to misunderstand the gospel. Or, well, I know God didn't take it away, but I need to, I need to do this, that or the other thing. So God is, you know, still loves me like he did before or you're gonna keep God happy with me. You know, usually when it gets to that kind of talk, it's not repenting of sin. It's like doing works. I need to observe these particular days. I need to, you know, read my Bible X number of minutes. I need to be in church X number of minutes. I need to do, do, do, do to keep God happy with me. And that is a complete misunderstanding not only of the gospel but of the nature of God. Your performance, your activity, your behavior, your busyness isn't what gives God a loving disposition towards you because God had that while we were yet sinners. Okay, it just doesn't make any sense, but this is where our mind drifts all the time. Now, as we go through these examples, again, just those are preliminary, you know, comments. Now, faith, I'll just read, you know, the first few verses again because we're gonna get into actual examples here. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the people of old received their commendation. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Again, we're not gonna, we're not gonna elapse into verse 3. We've talked a little bit about the universe word there in verse 3 back in actually in Hebrews 1 that it could be plural and plural worlds and all that stuff. If you're interested in that, you know, rabbit trail, you can go back there. But we're gonna just jump into the actual examples because this is what I want the takeaway to be from this episode. As we go through the rest of the chapter, notice how one or more of the following items applies to each person. Suffering, moral failure, and doubt. Okay, I'll read it again. As we go through the chapter, notice how one or more of these items are going to apply to the each person listed in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Suffering, moral failure, and doubt. Again, there's only one exception. That's Enoch because he was taken and really we have next to nothing set about him. But you're gonna find with everybody else somewhere in their life, somewhere in the biblical story, you're gonna have one or more of those three things. You're also gonna, again, as you're familiar with it, with these personalities, you're also gonna notice that giving up the faith applies to none of them because that's what this is about. Okay, it's about believing loyalty. So jumping into verse four, by faith able offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. And he suffered for doing the right thing, for believing the right thing, for honoring God, believing whatever it was that God told them to do. Again, we're not giving much information in Genesis 4, but Abel's heart, again, the reason that he did what he did and did it in a certain way was acceptable to God. Again, we're not told about any conversation related to sacrifice. We're just not giving information way back in Genesis, but his sacrifice was acceptable and Cain's was not. And he suffers for it. You know, we don't have in the biblical story, and we certainly don't have any indication here that, you know, when Abel, you know, came under attack that all of a sudden, you know, he changed his believing loyalty. No, again, that's just not part of the story. And again, based on Hebrews 11 here, that didn't happen. He endured. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him. Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Now, you notice here, faith and pleasing God are connected, and pleasing God is also, in turn, connected with the idea of drawing near to God and seeking God. So pleasing God has something to do in this context with having a relationship. That's important because this passage has been taken by some as an indication that, you know, we're going to talk about lost people here, people who are, you know, outside of Christ, who aren't believers. This verse has been taken by some as an indication that lost people can never please God, ever, ever, ever, ever, that everything a lost person does draws the wrath of God or turns it up a notch. Now, that is also tied to a certain view of depravity. And if you think I'm caricaturing things, let me read you a quotation here. This is from Raymond's systematic theology, and he comes from the Reformed tradition. He writes, because man is totally or perversely, pervasively corrupt, he is incapable of changing his character or of acting in a way that is distinct from his corruption. He is unable to discern to love or choose the things that are pleasing to God. Well, you know, if we're talking about doing something, thinking that you're going to merit God's favor, well, of course, God's not going to be happy with that. But this notion that a lost person can't do anything that God would approve of is, I think, nonsense. And I'm going to quote here from a section of my 60-second scholar book, a book three, a little entry on this. And again, please don't send me emails about, why can't I get the 60-second scholar books? You can find it, Google it, or search on my website, and you'll find out what's going on with the series. The series will be re-released in May. But I wrote this. Several verses are offered to support this contention, again, this idea that a lost person can never please God. Most notably, Romans 8, 7, and 8. Quote, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Okay, unquote. The problem is that this idea and its understanding of passages like Romans 8, 7, and 8 is flatly contradicted by other passages. Acts 10, the story of the conversion of the Gentile Cornelius is perhaps the best case in point. Cornelius was a, quote, God-fairer. A man who respected Judaism and its God, but who, nevertheless, had never heard the gospel. When Peter heard how Cornelius was visited by an angel who commanded him to summon the Apostle to his home, Peter exclaimed, Truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fares him and does what is right is acceptable to him. I guess, you know, Peter had in red Romans 8 or Raymond's systematic theology. Back to my selection here. The passage is clear. While no one can please God in the sense of meriting salvation, unsay people can please God. They can do things that are acceptable to God. Paul said the same thing in Romans 2, 14. Paul's the guy who wrote Romans 8, by the way. He said this in Romans 2, 14, that Gentiles not possessing God's law, nevertheless at times do what's in the law. It's incoherent to think that a Gentile who lives in accord with God's law at any given moment is displeasing God by doing so. The point of Romans 8, 7, and 8 is to contrast those controlled by the Spirit versus the flesh. With respect to lifestyle and being a child of God, it's not that unbelievers can never do anything that pleases God. Cornelius shows us otherwise. Again, I would suggest to you that the lost person who refuses to cheat on his wife and is thinking, well, I, you know, they may not understand the gospel, may not believe it, but they're thinking, well, you know, I agree with you, that Ten Commandments stuff. Just don't think I should cheat on my wife. And if there is a God, I think that this is a good point. So I'm not going to cheat on my wife. And so God looks at that and says, oh, I'm even angrier. Again, you know, we understand that a work's mentality to try to cajole God into giving you salvation. God's not going to approve of that. He's not going to be happy with it. But when the Gentiles do the things that are written in the law because they have the law of God written on their hearts, God isn't angry when people follow his rules for righteousness and justice. It's just they're not going to take your, they're not going to solve the sin problem. They're not going to close the gap between, you know, that is there because of your estrangement from God. You don't work your way to heaven. And that's clear. But, you know, God is honored when people who don't even have the law do it because they have this law of God written on their hearts. God likes when people obey him. But again, he knows that if they're thinking that, well, when I obey God, God's going to have to give me something in return. Okay, that's going to irritate God. But that's not what every situation is. Every situation doesn't devolve into that. Well, let's go back again and think about what do we mean by pleasing God, making God happy? Do we mean, you know, what do we mean by that? Do we mean to produce agreement or satisfaction? When the writer of Hebrews says, without faith, it isn't impossible. Please God, what's going on here? And without faith, it's impossible to make God happy. And what would that even mean? What's happiness? Do we mean to produce agreement or satisfaction, to gratify? Without faith, it's impossible to get God to gleefully accept a person as though there's nothing wrong with their relationship. I mean, what do we mean by happiness? What do we mean by pleasing? Now again, I would say God would certainly agree with a lost person's decision to follow the law of God. He'd be gratified. He'd be glad. But that doesn't mean the act of obedience solves the problem of right relationship. Again, relationship is what's really being talked about in this passage in verse 6. You have to believe that he exists and he's a rewarder of those who seek him. And it's about having the relationship. This is what God really wants. Again, God, it doesn't mean that God is pleased, so pleased that anyone who has earned salvation or does a good thing and it gets into heaven by doing a particular good thing. That just isn't what the picture is. I would suggest this. Why don't we define pleasing God here, God's happiness as a state of being content? Okay, without faith, it's impossible to have God be content. You know, thinking of happiness and being pleased in the sense of being content. Without believing, it's just not possible to make God satisfied, to make God happy in the sense of being content. Why? Because what he wants most of all is for you to believe. That's what he wants most from every person. He wants a relationship and the relationship hinges upon faith, belief. So yeah, without faith, it really is impossible for God to be content, for God to be happy in that sense of fulfillment, that everything's okay now. That requires faith. God can look at a lost person and say, yep, I'm glad you didn't cheat on your wife. I'm glad you didn't do XYZ because this shows that you have a sense of my justice. Even if you don't have the law of God, it's written on your heart. You know, right from wrong. This is sort of something I've woven into the fabric of the world. When God sees someone doing the right thing and living according to his principles of justice and righteousness, God isn't angry when people obey him. But it doesn't fill God up. God is still empty. If there's no relationship, if we can put it that way, God is still not happy. He's still not content because there's no relationship. For that, you need faith. You need believing loyalty. I think that's what the point of the passage is. Now we get back to our examples, you know, continuing on into verse 7. Again, think as we go through these again, notice how one or more of these items applies to each person. Suffering, moral failure, or debt. We're up to Noah now, verse 7. By faith Noah, being warned by God, concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. Now you notice, Noah's believing loyalty there is a precursor to the flood. It's pre-flood. Noah isn't, he doesn't have perfect moral character thereafter. We have the episode with drunkenness in Genesis 9. Does that invalidate his faith? Does it disqualify him? No, he's still in Hebrews 11. Again, his moral imperfection isn't the issue. It's his believing loyalty. His faith, that's the issue. Verse 8, by faith Abraham, obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, you think he had questions? Okay. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful, who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the sea shore. Abraham, perfect moral, upright character here. Okay, they have the whole incident with Hagar. You know, he decides that he wants to, you know, redefine or maybe second guess or maybe take matters into his own hands about fulfilling the promise of God. He goes, he blows it. God has to rebuke him. Sarah. Sarah doesn't believe she's going to have Genesis 18. She laughs when she hears it, but she came around. She came around, she understood. And she's in Hebrews 11 as well. I mean, both of them, Abraham lies. You know, about Sarah being his half-sister and so on. You know, he shades the truth. He lies. You know, he does these things. He puts his own, you know, he makes his own contribution to God's plan and messes that up. But none of these things are the issue. None of those things are the issue. The issue is they're believing loyalty. They didn't throw their faith, throw their believing loyalty to some other deity or no God at all. They believed, even when it was hard. In verse 13, 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. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country. That is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city. Verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said through Isaac, shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking, he did not receive him back or he did receive him back. Now, you know, let's just stop here. I mean, Abraham is tested by God, you know, with the whole episode of offering up Isaac there in Genesis 22. And the comment is made here that he considered that God was able to raise him up from the dead. Now, for sure, you know, do you think does the passage say that Abraham or Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, same person obviously? Did, you know, do we presume that Abraham never like had a question, never had a doubt, like, well, what's God going to do? You know, like, man, if I offer up Isaac, how does that work? Because it's through Isaac. I mean, God told me it's through Isaac that all these descendants, you know, as the stars of the sky, back to the original covenant promise that all of that's going to come from Isaac. And I know it's Isaac and nobody else because I messed up with Hagar and God had to, you know, call me on the carpet for that, that Isaac was the child of promise. So if I kill him, like, how does that work? I mean, if you don't think Abraham ever even at last or at least asked that question, how does this work? You know, I think you're deluding yourself. And again, this is an unbelief, having questions, having uncertainties is not unbelief. The writer of Hebrews has told us consistently how he defines unbelief, and that is bagging it going somewhere else. Turning to another God or no God at all, just saying, I do not believe. You know, the operative words aren't, I have a question or I don't understand. I'm just not sure. Those are all different than saying, I don't believe this. Again, the issue is at the end of the day, do you believe? We could ravage here a little bit. I think it is a little bit worth it. Is this discernible from the Old Testament account, this whole idea of Abraham? Not really, you can't really say figuring it out, but sort of presuming that, well, you know, I'm going to go through with this because even if I kill him, even if I offer up Isaac, you know, God has to be faithful to this promise. So I guess God will bring him back from the dead to me that's not a stretch. We can't look back on the Old Testament account and say that there's something cryptically there that we're going to be able to figure this out that Abraham was certain. Here's what you can't say that Abraham was certain. He knew how this was going to turn out. But he did believe that what God had said, God's promises that God would deliver, he could have reasoned that God would raise up Isaac after he was dead. I mean, after all, God had produced Isaac supernaturally in the first place, and Isaac was to be the means by which the original covenant promises were fulfilled, Genesis 12, 1 through 3. So I don't think Abraham would, you know, would necessarily have known exactly what was going to happen here or how God would do it, but I do believe that he believed God would do something to keep his promise. I think that's what the writer of Hebrews is alluding to. Now, if you go back to Genesis 22, I would also say that I don't think Abraham was lying to the servant in Genesis 22, 5. Now, if you remember the scene, they get to the place where the sacrifice is going to occur, and we read this in verse 5. Then Abraham said to his young men, you know, his servants there, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. All the verbs there are plural. I and the boy, we will go over there. We will worship and we will come again to you. Can it hints at Abraham believing that God would do something here? We don't necessarily, can't really necessarily say Abraham had that this whole thing figured out. You know, I would think he had questions, obviously, but he believed God would make it good. And if you think about it, that's really a great illustration of what the writer of Hebrews is asking his readers, his hearers to do. You're going to have questions. In Abraham's case, he also had moral failures. You know, this is just reality. This is life, but believe. Just believe. Believe God will do what he said he would do. And in the case of the context of the book of Hebrews, what God said he would do is that he would give you eternal life. He would make you part of his family. This goes back to Hebrews 1 and 2. He would make you part of his family on the basis of what happened to Jesus at the cross and his resurrection, his ascension to complete the job, to complete the task. So what we're asked to believe is that God was satisfied with Jesus doing what he told Jesus to do. Actually, what he and Jesus had agreed to do, you know, back to Hebrews 10 from last episode. That's the basis for our confidence. Again, it's not in what we do. It's what's done for us. Back to verse 20. Again, be thinking about each one of these characters, suffering, moral failure, doubt. By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. I mean, do you think Isaac and Jacob never had questions, never had doubts about what was going on? I mean, look at the whole Joseph situation, the whole story there. You know, basically, what do you think Isaac is thinking with the way Jacob and Esau treat, you know, Jacob treats Esau, that whole thing deteriorates. You know, just sort of their relationship with each other just burns up in flames in front of his eyes. You know, Esau wants to kill him. Rachel has to send Jacob away. I mean, it's a chaotic household. I mean, I'm sure he's, you know, Isaac's thinking, well, good grief, this doesn't look real good here. Like, I didn't figure that this is going to be the way things turned out. We're following the true God here. Why isn't life better? Again, it's very natural, you know, for these things to, for life to just get in the way. You know, Joseph again suffered, you know, terribly, but he never turned his believing loyalty to anybody else, to any other God, or no God at all. Verse 23, by faith Moses, I mean, we talk about again, someone with moral failure, you know, Moses, I mean, I guess superseded there in only by David, but I mean, Moses has lots of problems by faith Moses when he was born was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful. They were not afraid of the king's edict by faith Moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. So he has some sense of who he is, what his heritage is choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. In other words, he figured that out before he killed the Egyptian. He considered the reproach of Christ greater than the wealth greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward by faith. He left Egypt not being afraid of the anger of the king because that was certainly justified for he endured us seeing him who is invisible by faith. He kept the Passover and sprinkled the bloods that destroy the firstborn might not touch him. Oh, he's he's just sounds spectacular doesn't he? He's a murderer. Okay, when God calls him, he hymns and haws endlessly about it. He doesn't believe that God, you know, he makes all sorts of excuses about why he's not the one why he can't do this. Why he can't do that. I need help and he's a whiner. Okay, he's a he's sort of a faithless whiner when it comes to this particular task, but at the end of the day at the end of the day, he goes. He believes that that God will do what he what he said he do now it helps and God condescends to and we had a whole episode on this about the Melchizedek Priesthood and God, you know, using, you know, giving Moses Aaron as a concession again to help Moses out, you know, God is gracious to him. You know, we're not going to rehearse all that territory, but at the end of the day, Moses says, okay, got it. You know, we're good now. God gave me some help by you know, we can do this. You know, God's going to be with us at the end of the day. He does believe and then when he sees God work in his faith, you know, get stronger. He he he doesn't he's not just stuck in that whole, you know, problem of doubt, but he goes through it. He goes through it. Lo and behold, he winds up in Hebrews 11. Yeah, this line about he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth and the treasures of Egypt has drawn a lot of attention because, you know, we don't we don't get words like, you know, Christos and the Old Testament Christ. We get Mashiach, we don't get that that vocabulary anywhere in Exodus in the Moses story. So it looks like again, it looks like it looks like the New Testament writer is intentionally tying Jesus into the whole situation. That probably is a bit of an overstatement here because this this idea of considering the reproach of Christ greater wealth and the treasures of Egypt, that refers to Moses disposition his decision before the Sinai event before the burning bush. So this likely is not an allusion to some second power, second Yahweh figure encounter again, because of the chronology of what we're dealing with here. A Hagner, I like the way Hagner sort of approaches this in the way he summarizes that he writes this. He says, the reference to Christ is an anachronism explained by the final clause of verse 26, quote, for he was looking to the reward, unquote, as we have repeatedly seen an essential quality of having faith is being motivated by the future and the unseen and believing that it's going to be real. That's my interjection here back to Hagner. The basis for the anachronistic statement is located in the unity of salvation history and the unity of God's people. When Moses suffered reproach because he was loyal to God's people in verse 25, he in effect, he suffered reproach for being loyal to God's Messiah, who is closely identified with God's people. The anachronism very deliberately has the readers in mind since they're the ones called by their faithfulness to bear the reproach of Christ in this epistle, the reward that Moses would enjoy in the future and that he counted upon in his faith was far greater than the treasure Egypt had to offer. Now, that's just another way of saying that the anachronism here is delivered on the part of the writer because the writer wants to connect loyalty to God, loyalty to God's people, which of course is certainly characteristic of what Moses was about. He wants to connect all that with the Messiah because the Messiah was a representative of God's people. The Messiah was the individual son of the collective son of God, which was Israel. And all these themes, if you've read Unseen Realm, some of this should be familiar to you. But the writer wants to connect these associations with Messiah to Moses and then for his readers. And that's going to matter because they're the ones being called upon to essentially behave like Moses did, to consider the reproach of Christ, to consider their faith decision, that it will lead to something superior, something better than the world has to offer and even more importantly, something better than any other God has to offer or no God at all. In other words, we're back to the same theme of tenaciously believing and Moses becomes an example of that. Back to verse 29. Again, be thinking how do these things apply to each person suffering, moral failure, doubt. Here's a good one. Verse 29. By faith, the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land. Hey, think about, think about how many times the Israelites complained and moaned and whined. But again, when God opens up the sea, when he parts the waters, they do go through. You know, they believe, they see it, they believe it, they put their lives on the line to do. I mean, because they can be thinking, oh boy, we go in here and what's going to happen? You know, they do it. They believe by faith, the people cross the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same were drowned by faith. The walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. Do you think any of the Israelites, they're going around the city, you know, in their little, you know, parade are wondering, what in the world is God going to do? Do you think they ever had a question? Now they're doing by faith what God asked them to do. They are believing. They're not stopping halfway through and think, oh, that's kind of silly. You know, if we had a better God, we wouldn't be doing ridiculous stuff like that. And they're not thinking that. They believe that God will do something in response to his own promise that he would. They believe there's something to it. So by faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, moral failure. Okay. When she, you know, she's not a believer initially, she's a Canaanite. By faith, Rahab, the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. And we could go back to the Jericho story, you know, and it's very clear that Rahab, you know, is in the party, the very small party that believes this is the true God. Okay. We've heard about what's going on here. You know, what happened to the Egyptian. We've heard about that and she's like, I want to be on the side of that God. That God is God. Okay. That's why she's here. She shows her faith by welcoming the spies. Okay. She doesn't earn salvation by not reporting the two Israelite spies. God doesn't look at her and say, oh, you're in. You're just over the hump there. That was a good performance. So I'm going to give you a turn a lot. No, no, she, what she does illustrates the fact that she believes. It shows what she believes. She believes that the power here is with this God. Any God who can do this is God. So that's why she's in Hebrews 11 verse 32. And what more shall I say? The writer says, oh, here we get a good, good, good bunch of, you know, characters. What more shall I say for time would fail me to tell of Gideon doubt, please? Okay. Again, how many times did this guy doubt time would fail me to tell of Gideon barrack? He wasn't like the, you know, the pinnacle of courage. Okay. He had, he had some problems with that. He had some problem. He had some doubts there. Gideon, barrack, Samson. Hello, moral judgment. Jephtha. I mean, here's another screw up. And he winds up, you know, sacrificing his daughter because he's a theological idiot. Okay. You know, he's not a theologian. Let's just put it that way. Jephtha is not the guy you go to with your, with your theological questions. He just, he, he's a screw up. Okay. I mean, he has, he's got some good qualities, but, you know, having his, having all his theological ducks in a row is not one of them. Okay. But he knows where his believing loyalty is. He knows which God he has aligned himself with and he's not budging. You don't know a whole lot, but he's not moving. Yep. Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, barrack, Samson, Jephtha, of David. Again, you know, fill in the blank with, with David's offenses. Samuel and the prophets. Again, there, there are issues of suffering there. You could say there are issues of moral judgment on Samuel's part because his kids are so awful. Again, you have to read between the lines there, but the scripture does make the notation that Samuel, his, his sons were evil. Samuel does get scared when God tells him and for Samuel 16, you know, to go anoint David. This is when, you know, God has to come up with a ruse, you know, for Samuel, you know, for Samuel's sake to, you know, put his fears at ease for Samuel 16. Again, these aren't perfect people. The prophets, again, you know, you could, you could spot problems and, and again, questions, doubts, you know, suffering certainly with the prophets. You get the whole list, verse 33. All of these people who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced justice obtain promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war and put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead, received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. You think this list doesn't mean something to the, to his, his readers and his listeners? This is the diaspora. Okay, they're scattered. They are under persecution. This is exactly what they need to hear. Okay, they suffered mocking and flogging, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Oh, I'd love to hear somebody in the prosperity gospel circle preach this passage. Oh, they just didn't have enough faith. Pardon me, but this is Hebrews 11. They had enough faith. They had the faith that mattered. They had the faith that leads to eternal life, not that leads to gullibility so that you can be manipulated. Okay. You know, again, these people, they are not superhuman beings. They suffer like people suffer people today. When these things are happening to them, it hurt. They could bleed. They could die. They got hungry. Again, they're not superhuman beings. Of course, they would have had questions. Of course, they would ask with Job, where are you God? Why, you know, why is this happening to me? I mean, look at Elijah. I mean, good grief. He, you know, he does, he turns around, he goes from one miracle, then he's run away from Jezebel. Like, like, where's your head at? He gets scared. He worries. He has a question. Okay. But, but, but he never gives up. He never to use the language of Hebrews 10. He never shrinks back from his faith. He does things that are less than admirable, but he never trades it in. He never bags it. And that's the whole point of the chapter. And you get to the end here in verse 39. All these though commended through their faith did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better for us. I mean, two important words for us. God had provided something better for us. Again, do you think his, his hearers, his listeners need to hear that? They need to have to think into their heads. Of course. God provided something better for us that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. Now, again, I like the way, you know, Hagner puts this. I'm going to read and laying. I'm going to read you two excerpts here because I, I like the way they expressed this connection between the old, the people in Hebrews 11 from the Old Testament who, who all, you know, are commended for their faith, but they never receive what is promised because God had provided something better for us. That apart from us, they should not be made perfect. We're connected to them. And this had something to do with, again, with, with, with a plan of God. God had something in, you know, going on here in his mind. So Hagner writes this, as wonderful as God's work was in the past, it pales in comparison with what God now has done in Christ. We have reached a new stage in the history of salvation. This is modest, modestly expressed as something better for us. Verse 40. We have repeatedly seen the word better in Hebrews used to describe the advantages of the new covenant over the old. Let me stop there and just again, editorially say, Hey, if it's better, then you should want that instead of, again, the thing that isn't as good. Back to the quote here. Old covenant saints and new covenant saints have the same inheritance. Okay, old covenant saints and new covenant saints have the same inheritance. I'm sorry if that offends your eschatology, you know, like two peoples of God and all that kind of stuff because that, that is a, frankly, a bogus idea. Hagner's correct here and he's basing it off the, these, the comments here in these two verses, old covenant saints and new covenant saints have the same inheritance. The result is that those of the past cannot be brought to the ultimate goal quote to be made perfect apart from us in the grand story of salvation. All will come together to enjoy one great final and perfect salvation perfectly realized. This will be the reward of those who believed and who expressed their faith, thereby giving faith substance and providing evidence of the unseen and of the things yet to come and to anyone watching anyone paying attention. That's Hagner. Elaine puts it this way. These last two verses in its context, verse 40, places the emphasis on the final realization of the relationship with God. The writer has argued that the sacrifice of Christ secured all that is necessary for the enjoyment of the eschatological blessing of perfection, a definitive putting away of sin, consecration to the service of God and glorification. Okay, Christ has secured all of that. That's what's necessary. Okay, back to the quotation. It is therefore clear that the perfecting of faithful men and women under the Old Covenant depended upon the sacrificial death of Jesus. The promised eternal inheritance that was offered to them has become attainable only by virtue of Christ's sacrifice. The exemplary witnesses of the Old Covenant were denied the historical experience of the messianic perfection as a totality. But now that Christ has accomplished his high priestly ministry, they too will share in its blessings. It's the end of the section. I don't miss the point. The overall point, again, the takeaway here as we close, don't miss the takeaway point. The Hall of Faith isn't filled with supermen and superwomen. They suffered. They had doubts. They had moments of weakness, moral failures and whatnot, but they never shrink back from believing. That's why they're there. They believed in spite of their circumstances, which is what the writer of Hebrews hopes for his hearers and his readers. The goal isn't that they perform better. It's that they keep believing. Mike, I don't know how we can say it any clearer than that. Faith is faith. And you know, with all the science and technology that we have today and people trying to merge the two, you know, faith is faith. It is what it is. Right. It's not performance. It's not omniscience. It's not having the answer to every question. You know, it is what it is. Yeah. It's not having all the answers. That's why it's faith and it is what it is. But all right, Mike. Well, I think you went over on the 50 and a half. So you won. Maybe we'll find out. We'll look for Brenda to be there for either. There you go. All right, Mike. Well, that was a good one. And we're getting close to the end of Hebrews. And then we'll have our 200th episode and then we'll have some single topics. And then shortly after that, we'll vote on the next book. I'm curious to see what it may be. Hopefully we'll stay in the New Testament, but maybe we'll journey back into the old and along Jeremiah. I bet Jeremiah wins, Mike. I don't know. I want to pick up that. Well, we could change some things up to and throw some other things in there. You never know. Sure, we could. All right, Mike. Well, chapter 12 next week. And with that, I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.ermsh.com.