182 - The Older Serving the Younger - Not by Works [B]

Hebrews Lesson 182  December 10, 2009

^NKJ Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. 

Well, I'm sure there's a new least one person out there tonight watching (live streaming) who didn't hear the announcement and wasn't aware of not having Bible class on Tuesday night because we were off at the Pre-trib Rapture Study Group meeting in Dallas because I know I got one e-mail on that today wanting to know if there was some sort of problem with the Web site because there was nothing there for Tuesday night Bible class and they couldn't live stream. So we also probably should have something posted on both Web sites indicating the schedule as we get into the holiday schedule and then the January schedule as well. 

We had a very good conference. This was one of the better ones. I don't know. This was my 12^th one so I don't remember. There've been some that are better; some that are not as good; but they're all pretty good. I mean at the worst you get an A^- and one or two might get an A⁺. So they're all very good. It's always great to see a number of pastors and pastors bringing more and more people from their congregations to the conference. I think that was one of the great things that Tim LeHay developed in about 2000 or 2001 was when he began to open it up to non professionals to come and to sit and listen and to have the opportunity study the Word via this Bible conference. The last couple of years we've had around 350 to 400 people in attendance, which is really tremendous. So the Lord's provided that in a lot of different ways and to see a lot of the pastors that are there. I remember when I first went 12 years ago. I was the only one from a doctrinal church teaching church background. There were only about 70 there; but then it was just scholars, pastors, professors. So when I got home I started e-mailing all the papers to guys and calling them. So it's a really good to see so many more that were there in attendance from around the country.

On Tuesday we had a meeting. We had a meeting every year. We try to get a hospitality suite so we can have room at lunch to have a lot of the doctrinal pastors come up to the room. We call room service and order about $300 worth of hamburgers by the time everybody gets through putting in their orders and so they can meet each other. A lot of the pastors that many people have heard about (heard their names here and there over the years) and they have never met, get to meet each other. By the way, Kendall Weekes was there. We've been praying for him for years because of his colon cancer. He is just as jovial and happy and glad to see me. And I'm glad to see him every year. It was just really good to see him. He seems to be doing very well and despite the doctors claim that he should have died about 3 or 4 years ago, the Lord is proving them all to be liars! Kendall is doing great. He is thankful for all of the prayers.

So, the conference this year was not around any specific theme whatsoever, just different issues related to eschatology. There are 10 sessions in all. Then there's a banquet on Monday night. The banquet speaker was Chuck Smith who was the pastor of the Calvary Chapel, the original Calvary Chapel Church out in Costa Mesa, California back in the 60's when a bunch of hippies moved down there out of their commune up in San Francisco and moved into Calvary Chapel. That really gave birth to what was known as the Jesus movement. That gave birth to the Jesus music and contemporary chorus music. Chuck Smith was a pretty strong charismatic. He had been ordained Four Square Gospel. But he saw all these radical long haired hippies coming in and he knew they needed the Word so he started teaching the Bible 3 or 4 four nights a week. He didn't get in a lot of depth, but it was good solid Bible teachings. That church exploded in the early 90's. It was one of the ten largest churches in the United States and they purposefully set out a plan to plant other churches. As they got to certain size they would seed groups of people (50-100-150) coming from certain areas in California. Then they would put money into that church for five years to pay a pastor, to pay the rent, pay the bills to get that group of believers out of diapers and walking. Now there's about 1200 Calvary Chapels around the country. Fifteen years ago you couldn't go anywhere in Russia hardly where there were American missionaries that you weren't running into missionaries out of Calvary Chapel. So they've had a tremendous ministry over the years. Chuck spoke on Monday night.

The first speaker was a guy named Dr. Barry Horner. He's got his degrees from a Western Conservative Baptist Seminary and, interestingly enough, Westminster Seminary, which is a reform covenant theology school. He has recently written a book called Future Israel.  I've read about the first two chapters. I always make a caveat. When I endorse a book or something that's good to read, that doesn't mean I agree with everything that he says. I don't know everything he says. I haven't read the book yet. But a lot of people that I trust (Tommy, Randy Price, Ed Hinson and a number of others) have read it and are extremely impressed with it as one of the most articulate well-argued theological cases for why evangelicals need to support Israel and the state of Israel from a biblical argument. So he spoke Monday morning on the reactions and responses to that book.

Then following him I spoke and gave a paper on the chronological issues dealing with the chronological issues within the tribulation period: the seal judgments, the trumpet judgments and bowl judgments.

In the afternoon Charlie Clough continued his papers that he had begun last year dealing with interpretive issues facing the eschatological studies in evangelicalism specifically as they are seen in interpreting geophysical disasters. Last year he spent most of his time dealing with the hermeneutics issues.  He gave the same paper for us at the Chafer Conference because there is more and more of a movement among traditional literalists toward a non-literal interpretation. The danger of that and the problem with that is that you can affirm inerrancy all day long that every word is inspired by God; but you can give it all away by the way you interpret it. 

You can just say, "Well, that's not to be understood literally; and it really isn't meant quite that way." 

This is what is dominating the seminaries today. All of the ones that were so strong 20, 30 years ago are all being heavily influenced by this approach to hermeneutics. Hermeneutics just as it is wiping out in many ways the correct understanding of the United States Constitution; it's wiping out the correct understanding of the Bible. The battlefield today is in the area of hermeneutics. 

Then Tim Demy. Tim Demy is a chaplain in the Navy. I think he's still active duty. Tim and I went through (as well as Tommy) went through our ThM program together at Dallas Seminary. Then Tim and I were also in the doctrinal program in church history together. I think he's got like 3 or 4 doctorates now and 4 or 5 master's degrees. He's educated way beyond anybody's pay grade. He's the Associate Professor of Military Ethics at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He presented a paper dealing with the history of Christian Zionism. I understand that was very well done.

Then there was also let me see the next day I believe the first guy out was Dr. John Whitcomb who's the co-author with Henry Morris of the Genesis Flood back in the early '60's. Dr. Whitcomb is now, I believe, is 86 years old. It the Lord does not take him home by the first week or second week of March, he will be the speaker (morning speaker) at the Chafer Conference when we deal with creation and evolution themes. 

One of the things that we're going to do at the Conference is take one of the afternoon sessions and have an interview with Charlie Clough, John Whitcomb, and Larry Vardiman who is going to be the evening speaker. Dr Vardiman has been with IRC for twenty years, intimately involved with a lot of their research, a lot of their technical things that they've been working on over the years. He'll be speaking on a very significant topic of global warming on Monday night. Who knows where we'll be by then. If winter keeps going the way it's going, we may have to cancel because of a blizzard in Houston. But he'll speak on global warming Monday night; Tuesday night on the real age of the earth; and Wednesday night of ice ages after the flood and coming to grips with that. 

One of the things we want to do is have an interview with them on the history of the modern creationist movement: how it got started, what were the challenges were at the very beginning. Charlie wrote his master's thesis at Dallas Seminary in 1967, much to the chagrin of the head of the department, on the reactions to the book The Genesis Flood written by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb. The evangelical community then as now was not real happy with the creationist position of a literal 6-24 hour day creationist movement. In fact in the head of the department at Dallas Seminary at that time and today doesn't really think that's the best interpretation of Genesis – not the same individual, he hasn't been at Dallas in 30 years. But Bruce Walkie hasn't held to a literal view in many, many years. He threw out dispensationalism a number of years ago. Although he's a great scholar in many ways and very helpful in many way; he's got other problems as well. But Dr. Whitcomb and Dr. Vardiman and Charlie can give is a great perspective on the past, present, and future for the creationist movement.

Then Wayne House gave perhaps were the most difficult papers to work your way through because it was technical. It was an excellent paper, excellent research; something that I think every pastor is going to refer to at one time or another. But he went through in painstaking detail all of the views of the early church fathers and their interpretation of the Olivet Discourse. So that was tough for a lot of people to hang in there through that paper because it's rugged trying to read through all of those quotes. But it's very necessary, very important material to be aware of.

Randy Price also spoke yesterday and gave a little update on the Ark expedition last summer. 

I'm leaving out Mike Vlatch. Spoke on the kingdom program in Matthew, the kingdom program in Mathew. Mark Hitchcock gave a good overview of this whole issue related to 2012 and the Mayan calendar and all the things that are going with that. Not that any of us really needed to know that that wasn't right, but it's going to be very popular and increasingly discussed in the media over the next couple of years and so it sort of helps to be a little bit knowledgeable about what that's all about and what's going on.

The last paper was written by Paul Wilkinson, who's from the northwest of England; and he is the associate minister at the Hazel Grove Full Gospel Church. 

As Tommy said, "You know Pentecostals in Britain aren't like Pentecostals here."

He has great material. Both last year and this year the pastor of their church has written a song for us, and the words have been excellent. I thought the music this year was good. I wasn't as crazy about the music last year; but it was still good. The words were just fabulous in both cases so that doesn't fit with a lot of stuff that's being written today. But Paul is very impressive. He's young. He looks like he's in his mid-thirties, which looks younger and younger every year. 

He had written his PhD dissertation on Christian Zionism and the role of John Nelson Darby, which was published (came out last year). Again, it was just excellent. He has a real love for history and research. This year he gave a paper that was entitled You Shall be My Witnesses – the Transatlantic History of the Prophetic Witness Movement. It was really interesting. In fact I'm going to somehow get this posted up on the web site, same little box with my paper and the PowerPoint because it's good for you all to read something like this. It tells us about our roots and where we came from theologically. It deals with the movements that were going on in England from the middle of the 19^th century and how it went back and forth across the Atlantic among the English speaking peoples in the mid 19^th century and early 20^th century. It was very interesting. It shows a lot of good, interesting insights into Dwight Moody's ministry and Moody's work in England and then coming back over here; Spurgeon also, the number of names that many of us are not very familiar with. So it just gives you a lot of good connections. You may have heard names like a G. Campbell Morgan. You may have heard names like John Darby and two or three others, A. C. Dixon who was an American who also preached over in England quite a bit, and some other lesser known names. But you'll see how all of these people interconnected.  It was very, very interesting. So that was the focus of his paper. But there was one little element of his paper that really struck everyone. We may get to Hebrews tonight, but I want to talk about this and just borrow materials from his paper and then get to the middle of this because it was so interesting. 

I've entitled this Another Tale from the Titanic – Two Men and a Testimony. This is the rest of the story about the Titanic that you've never heard about, but that should have been made into a movie and would've been a better movie than any film that's ever been done on the Titanic. To understand this you have to understand a little background about what was going on in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century among evangelicals. The term evangelical in its historic meaning as it was used at the time referred to Christians who believed that a person had to believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. They had to believe the gospel in order to be born again and in order to be saved. They weren't saved just because of the universal of fatherhood of God. They were saved just because they were born into a church or were baptized. They had to hear of the evangel (the gospel) from an evangelist and believe on the gospel in order to be saved. There were a number of strong evangelicals in the Anglican Church in the 19^th century. 

Research that Tommy has done has shown that some have claimed almost 80% of the pastors in the Anglican Church in the 19^th century were pre-millennial. There was a tremendous interest that developed from 1840's on not only in bringing Jews back to the land and seeing a homeland for the Jews established, but also in recognizing the immanency of Jesus Christ's returns a putting a focus on teaching about Jesus' Second Coming and that Jesus is coming soon and the connection between that message and evangelism. 

We've seen some of that in our lifetimes when you realize how many tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands have trusted Christ by reading Hal Lindsay's book The Late Great Planet Earth and then in recent years the Left Behind series, a fictional work that Tim LaHay co-authored also has seen a large number of people trust Jesus Christ as their Savior. So God has been pleased to use prophecy in order to make people aware of the fact that there is accountability, that there is a payday someday (as R.G. Lee titled his sermon) and that one day we will appear before God and Jesus could come back tomorrow and are you ready? That message has resonated in the souls of thousands and thousands of people over the last hundred years that God has been pleased to use that to bring them to Christ.

Well, in the last decade of the 19^th century and in the early part of the 20^th century this wave almost reached tidal wave proportions. It came at the end of one of the most evangelistic and missionary-oriented centuries in the history of Great Britain. Numerous missionaries went with the British army into South Africa and throughout Africa and into Egypt and into India and other areas of Asia carrying the gospel along with carrying their rifles. 

The 19^th century many historians believe (and I agree with) really didn't end in 1900. The 19^th century ended in 1918 with World War 1, with the end of World War I. That set the stage for what focused the 20^th century. That is true for what happened and a lot of things related to even the history of the evangelical, evangelicalism. 

On December 13, 1917 there was an historic meeting in Queens Hall in London that was led by one of the most well-known evangelistic leaders of that day, a man by the name of Frederick Brotherton Meyer, usually known simply as F. B. Meyer. Some of you may have seen some of his works. I know when I was in high school, college early 70's Camp Peniel used to have a book table there at camp. I picked up several of his books. I know Gordon Whiterock was a student at Moody, Meyer was still alive and he heard Meyer speak. Meyer had been close friends and his younger days (in his youth) with Dwight Moody.  Even though he was holiness in his approach to sanctification (which I wouldn't agree with now) they were still good books to read and challenging books to read. They had a tremendous influence especially in the prophetic movement. So it was at this December 13^th movement that F. B. Meyer was appointed the head of this Prophetic Witness Movement International. They launched a new movement to focus on the teaching in England among the pastors on God's prophetic Word and the imminent return of Jesus Christ rather. Today that movement which was originally called the Advent Testimony Movement has become known as the Prophetic Witness Movement International and is the oldest surviving pre-trib organization in the world. I think Paul said he's on the board for that organization. Both Dr. Fruchtenbaum and Dr. Dwight Pentecost at Dallas Seminary are honorary board members on the board for the Prophetic Witness Movement. 

At that particular time on December 13, 1917, momentous things were happening in the world. It was the beginning of what would become the last year in World War 1. Just prior to this, the great news coming out of the Middle East was that General Sir Edmund Allenby had led the British army into Beersheba in October. At the end of October he has captured Beersheba, which is played up along the film Lawrence of Arabia if you remember that. Then it was in December during that time of Hanukkah that he liberated Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks. This set the stage for many of the developments that have occurred in the Holy Land since that time. 

Just prior to their meeting in December of 1917 (at the end of that previous summer), F. B. Meyer called together a number of key pastors that he knew (just a small group of various leaders) to encourage them to mount a new campaign of teaching in Britain related to the Second Coming of Christ; that Jesus Christ is coming and it is imminent and it could be at any time. 

Just about six weeks later on October 15^th, they had a second meeting (a prayer meeting) in London where they invited many other pastors to come and again the message was to challenge the pastors to make the Second Coming of Christ a focal point. It's not the only focal point because it's always connected with a gospel message. It was between October 15^th and the end of the month that they began to hear the good news about Allenby defeating the Ottoman Turks in the area of the Holy Land. 

On October 31, 1917 (a day we can remember because that's also the date when Luther nailed the 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg), the British and US forces under Allenby's command captured Beersheba from the Ottoman Turks. Then they began to move on toward Jerusalem. 

Then on November 2^nd, in a letter written by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild of the Zionist Federation, David Lloyd George's government formally approved the Balfour Declaration, which approved the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It seemed to F. B. Meyer and his contemporaries that the Lord was about ready to come back, and that he was giving a clear signal that we were nearing some significant end time events. So they adopted an advent testimony manifesto, which they released to the press on November 8^th, which was headlined The Significance of the Hour. 

Can you imagine that today? If we at the Pre-trib Rapture Study Group had released a press release emphasizing these seven points (which we could emphasize today just about the same way), do you think it would even make the Dallas Morning News or The Houston Chronicle or The New York Times or Washington Post?

So here are the seven points.

1. First of all, the present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles. Pick your crisis. Plug it in. That was war was World War I, World War II, anything up to the present time.
2. The revelation of our Lord may be expected at any moment when He will be manifested as evidently as to His disciples on the evening of His resurrection.
3. That the completed church will be translated to be forever with the Lord.
4. That Israel will be restored to its own land in unbelief and be afterwards converted by the appearance of Christ on its behalf. Notice that's not just something that came up in the Pre-trib Rapture Study Group just a few years ago. That has been around and part of dispensational teaching since the 19^th century.
5. All human schemes of reconstruction must be subsidiary to the Second Coming of the Lord because all nations will then be subject to His rule.
6. Under the reign of Christ, there will be a further great infusion of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh. That's the new covenant by the way.
7. The truths embodied in the statement are of the utmost practical value in determining Christian character and action with reference to the pressing problems of the hour. 
8.  

That is a tremendous statement. Later F. B Meyer emphasized the implications of the manifesto and wrote:

The pressing duty of the church is exercise her witnessing function. She is to bear witness to these and similar truths as they are contained in Scripture. 

Notice the emphasis on witnessing, not just in terms of evangelism but being a legal witness. This is what we've been talking about in Hebrews 11, why the writer of Hebrews is going back to those Old Testament saints because their lives stand as a testimony and as a legal witness before the High Court of Heaven.

So he says that:

It's certain that such witness bearing will encourage dislike and opposition. It has always been so. Witnesses are often martyrs; but their lives, characters and words are seed germs, which carry life as the sea birds carry to the coral isles the germs of vegetation. 

He certainly wasn't an evolutionist, was he?

This stimulated tremendous interest not only in Britain but also in Europe and America and Africa and India, everywhere in Australia and New Zealand, everywhere that the English-speaking gospel went. The committee for the prophecy investigation society unanimously approved that. Then they set another meeting Queens Hall for December 13, 1917. This happened just four days after Allenby liberated Jerusalem. They were just stunned that this happened in their lifetime. It had just electrified them. 

There were several statements made by some of their leaders. William Fuller Gooch 1843 to 1929 said that signs we discern, signs we appreciate in their solemn importance, signs we would study in the light of the Divine Word; but we are not looking for signs we are looking for Christ. 

Now that is such an important statement. We see signs. We see things happening that portend the tribulation. But we're not saying that's a fulfillment. Those are the signs of the times that that is prophetic fulfillment; it's going to come after Christ comes, but it indicates that that may be may be near.

G Campbell Morgan stated:

From the hour of ascension until now, it has been true that He might come at any moment. I'm quite sure that I speak what is in the hearts of all of God's waiting children when I say that we should rejoice indeed if by His coming He ended the very testimony we are bearing to Him tonight.

G Campbell Morgan was a major figure in evangelicalism and Christianity in the first half of the 20^th century. He was close to Dwight Moody. He lectured at Moody Bible Institute. At the end of the 19^th century he made 54 crossings of the Atlantic to preach and teach in America. After Moody died he became the director of the Northfield Bible Conference in Northfield, Massachusetts where Moody had held that conference. His preaching (regular preaching) led to his becoming the pastor of the Westminster Chapel of London. He later left that to come to the United States where he was a traveling preacher (itinerant preacher and teacher) for 14 years. Then in the 1933 he went back to England where he became pastor of the Westminster Chapel again. He was one of the great evangelicals of the early 19^th century, died just a week after World War II ended.

Then Alford Taylor Schofield:

Ah, how beautiful we should be in our faces were never turned towards the light. How we should witness for Master if the reflection of the Morningstar could be seen in our eyes.

What he's saying is if the immanency of the rapture were as real to you as it ought to be, you would not have any hesitancy in telling everybody about the gospel so that they would be prepared.

One of the others who spoke at that particular meeting was one I referenced in the title that I gave this little talk tonight. That is, having to do with the Titanic – Two Witnesses and a Testimony. The first of these witnesses was an Anglican vicar who spoke at that meeting in 1917. His name was John Stuart Holden.  His dates were from 1874 to 1934. He was a well-known and popular speaker in churches throughout Britain and North America. He was dispensational in many of his beliefs. In April of 1912 he was due to speak to a Christian Conservation Congress at Carnegie Hall in New York. But on April 9^th (just the day before he was to leave Southampton), his wife fell ill and he had to cancel the trip. The ship he was due to sail on was the R. M. S. Titanic. On April 20^th, the New York Times reported that Holden had narrowly escaped disaster. Holden returned his unused ticket, but he kept the envelope and had it mounted. In thanksgiving to God he inscribed on the frame the words "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction" – Psalm 103:4. It's the only surviving document of its type and it's today held in the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. So this is a copy of a facsimile that Paul had just recently come into possession of. That first testimony was the testimony that he had because God had preserved his life. God has a plan and kept him alive for his ministry.

But there was a second second hero, the second testimony that related to the Titanic. It was related to an evangelist by the name of John Harper. John Harper was a Baptist pastor from Glasgow, Scotland. He had been invited by A. C. Dixon who was an American who was a pastor at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.  He had been invited to speak at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on February 29 in 1912. Then, not long after that he was to go to Moody Church in Chicago in order to speak there. He had spoken there before when they had had one of the most significant revivals in their history.  So when he was asked to return to Chicago, he made arrangements for himself and his six-year-old daughter. We have a picture of John Harper with his daughter and his wife that was taken just before they left. He was initially to travel to America on board the Lusitania, which had its own destiny eventually, but decided to delay their departure for one week so that they could sail on a new ship which was making its maiden voyage. This was the Titanic. 

So what he missed in order to look after his – that's the ship that Dr Stuart Holden had missed when he looked after he looked after his sick wife. When the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14, 1912, the call was issued for passengers to vacate their cabins. Harper wrapped his daughter in a blanket and he told her she would see him again one day and passed her to one of the crewmen. After watching her safely board one of the lifeboats, he then took off his own life jacket and he gave it to another one of the passengers. 

One survivor distinctly remembers him going throughout the ship saying, "Women, children and the unsaved into the lifeboats."

As he stayed on the ship that was beginning to sink, he went from person to person to plead with them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ so that they would be saved. As the ship began to sink, he went to the orchestra – and there's been some debate over this by the secular historians; but not according to those who have written about him – and had them play, Nearer My God to Thee. He gathered the people around him and knelt down on the deck of the ship and with holy joy in his face he raised his arms in prayer. As the ship began to lurch, he jumped into the icy waters; and he began to swim him from person to person pleading with them to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as their Savior.

We know this because 4 years later, a young Scotsman by the name of Aguilla Webb stood up in a meeting in Hamilton, Canada; and he gave this testimony.  He said:

I'm a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night, the tide brought Mr. John Harper of Glasgow also want a piece of wreck near me. 

"Man," he said, "Are you saved?" 

"No, I said.  I'm not." 

He replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved." 

The waves bore him away; but strange to say brought him back a little later. 

And he said, "Are you saved now?" 

"No, I said. I cannot honestly say that I am." 

He said again, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved." 

Shortly after he went down and there are alone in the night and with 2 miles of water under me; I believed. I am John Harper's last convert.

I think you can still get this book, The Titanic's Last Hero. I ran across that searching the Internet today. I didn't take the time to see if I could still order it or get it; but this story was rather well known as indicated also by monthly evangel there that pictures him with his daughter who survived. I'd like to find out the rest of that story and his wife. If you read along the columns on each side of the picture it says:

The Reverend John Harper who lost his life in the Titanic disaster.

This is a picture of Mr. Harper's niece, Miss Leitch and his daughter Nana who were saved. That is just one of those great stories. You'll never watch any one of those movies of the Titanic again without realizing why. I think it's in A Night to Remember. Some of the others may have been playing Nearer My God to Thee. I know the one with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck in A Night to Remember has them playing it at the end. I've always thought about that; and it's great to now know the rest of the story.

So those two men, one who lived and one who was taken to be with the Lord, had a great testimony with their lives and a witness in the heavenly accounts, a witness to both angels and to men. 

Now we're studying the same kind of thing in Hebrews, Hebrews 11. So turn with me there. I think it's important to be reminded that we can have that same kind of testimony. The writer of Hebrews is really emphasizing that when he comes to this section because he's encouraging.  He's challenging these Jewish believers that are under persecution and oppression and rejection from their countrymen. 

They're at a point where they just want to give up on their Christianity and say, "Doctrine doesn't work. God doesn't work. Jesus doesn't work. I'm going to go back into Judaism."

He's encouraging them by showing that this is the pattern throughout history, a pattern of patience in believers that the reward is not seen it in your lifetime.  And it wasn't seen in their lifetime; but they had faith in the promise and their faith changed the way they lived which is why he states in the first verse:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:2 For by it

That's by means of our faith.

the elders obtained a good testimony.

That's really an awkward way of translating that verb. It's the verb martureo, meaning to give a testimony. But it's in the passive voice, which has something to do with the subject receiving a validation. That's the idea there. It sort of reverses the idea so that by their faith the elders didn't obtain a good testimony; but their testimony was validated – that probably conveys the idea better than anything else. 

So the writer of Hebrews goes through one hero after another indicating how they continued to focus on the promise of God no matter what was going on in their life, no matter how much it didn't seem to be fulfilled and that that was the essence of their testimony before the high court of heaven. 

Of course as we begin with this, we think of these great heroes of the faith from the Old Testament: Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham. Now we're going to get into Isaac and Jacob and Joseph in the next 3 verses and then of course Moses and Joshua. But there were many, many others that he's going to summarize as he comes to the end. 

The thing that we see here is these are men who had great failures as well as tremendous spiritual successes because after all we are all sinners. We're all growing and maturing and we're all going to that process of spiritual growth and spiritual advance. 

So tonight we come to the next verse, which is verse 20.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

Don't let me skip ahead here. Now if you look at this verse and you think about it a little bit. 

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

Anybody have a problem with that? What were the circumstances around Isaac's blessing Jacob and Esau? And, notice the order. Jacob is put there first, not Esau. Jacob is the younger. Esau is the older; and the order here is given in the correct spiritual order not in the birth order because God was teaching something. There's an important doctrine that comes out of this in terms of the doctrine of the older serving younger, because the natural law (the law of human culture) was based on – it's comparable to works. Whoever was born first gets the double blessing, the double inheritance. But the ones who are born later, they don't receive as much in terms of the inheritance. Yet God was going to show through Jacob and Esau, through Joseph and his brothers, that it's the older that will serve the younger. God is going to reverse the normal human procedure in order to teach this principle that God's way is different from man's way.

^NKJ Isaiah 55:8 " For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.

His thinking is above our thinking. He is going to take the one that seems to be humanly weaker, with less privilege to be the one that He is going to work His plan through. This is not a soteriological choice. This has to do with the choice within the plan of God in developing the nation Israel.

So in order to catch the thrust and the significance of this one brief statement we need to go back and just pick up some things that are covered in the Old Testament. Turn with me back to Genesis 25, Genesis 25. 

Now remember we talked about Isaac last time. Isaac was the promised seed, the one whom God has promised to Abraham over 20 years earlier by this time over 50, 75 years earlier that it was in Isaac that the seed would be named. So Isaac was the one that the promise would come through. But Isaac had the same problem, faced the same challenge that Abraham had faced and that he was married to a woman who could not give birth, a barren woman.

I covered the Doctrine of the Barren Woman in the past that there are six women in Scripture who are barren. There is one who is a virgin. Barren women are a picture (or a type) of the Mary the virgin because they could not have children, that God is one who brought life where there was no life, where there was death as a picture of what He did would you spiritually through the One who was born through the virgin birth. He would miraculously create life in her womb and in Him would be life for the world. 

We read in Genesis 25:20 that Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah as his wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. He pleaded with the Lord for years because she was barren, and even though we're not told how long a number of years had gone by in order to recognize the reality of the fact that she was barren. The Lord blessed him much in the same way as Abraham, and she finally gave birth. She was pregnant, it was obvious she had twins, and they were struggling within her.

^NKJ Genesis 25:22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, "If all is well, why am I like this?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.

^NKJ Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said to her: "Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger."

Now this is a clear statement of God's plan, that the older would serve the younger. In making this statement He's making it clear that His plan is for the older to serve the younger and for the blessing to go to the younger and not the older even though that contradicted the cultural norm of the law of primogeniture, which meant that the firstborn would receive all of the inheritance 

Now we read on:

^NKJ Genesis 25:24 So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb.

^NKJ Genesis 25:25 And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.

He was ruddy. His hair covered him and it was read so they called him Esau because he's red and ruddy. Immediately afterward his brother came out; and his hand was grabbing hold of his brother's hand (brother's heel) and so he was called the Yajaqob because he's the heel grabber. There's a play on words there indicating someone who's deceptive, someone is always trying to turn the tables on somebody else, always trying to take advantage of others. The idea there is he's grabbing the heel of his brother, trying to reverse that birth order there. So we have the birth of the twins, Esau the elder and Jacob the younger. This is when Esau is 60 years of age. 

We're told that they grew up and Esau was a man of the field. He loved to hunt. He loved to fish. He would take off and hike through the mountains. But Isaac liked to stay home. He was more interested in taking care of more of the domestic challenges around the house. I don't mean that in a in any kind of negative way. He was closest to his mother, but he was interested in doing things at home. You get the sense he is more responsible. But Esau is out there in the field wandering around, hunting and not taking on the responsibilities of taking care of all of the herds and all of the flocks.

The episode at the end of the chapter is that Esau comes home one day and Jacob has been cooking a red lentil stew. When Esau comes in, it hasn't been a good hunting season and so he is hungry and he's worn out. He smells the lentil stew and he begs for some. But Jacob's the heel grabber. He's the one who's out there to make a deal. 

So he said. "Okay. I'll let you have something to eat but let's trade for it. You sell me your birthright this day."

So even though I'm sure the boys knew the story of what God had said about the older serving the younger, Jacob is going to try to get it without waiting on the Lord. He's trying to manipulate the situation. He's going to do it his own way. Esau doesn't care which shows that he at this stage has no concern for God or what God has promised. He has no placed no value on the birthright. Birthright would relate directly to Abraham's promise, I mean of God's promise to Abraham related to the land, seed and the blessing. So Jacob made him swear, made him sign a legal, make a legal oath that he's giving him his birthright. He wasn't going to let him get anything to eat until he made sure he had the deal signed and sealed and he had the birthright. So he gave Esau then the bread and the lentil stew. 

Then we skip over to chapter 27 and we see the next stage in the drama when Jacob now wants to get the blessing. These two things went together: the blessing and the birthright. They're very similar words in the Hebrew and so there is something of a play on words, something of a paronomasia there.  The blessing is the berachah. The birthright is the bekorah. BKR are the three consonants in berachah. BKR and blessing is BRK. So it is just a reversal of the R and the K. Hebrew is a language where the roots of words are based on three letters so just a reversal of those two letters, the only difference between these two words, and so there's a play on words back and forth there. 

Now Jacob wants to get the blessing along with the birthright. These are legal concepts related to inheritance. By this time Isaac is old. His eyes are dim. He can't see as well. He can't make out which boy is which. Esau comes in; and Isaac asks him to go out and hunt, to get some good venison for him or something to bring in and make him a meal and that he would bless him before he died. This is passing on the blessing (the family blessing) for inheritance. 

But Rebekah is listening outside the door. She overhears this and she wants Jacob to get it. So she is more concerned about that and figuring out a way to manipulate the situation. So she calls to Jacob and she has got a plan. Her plan is to go out and to get a goat and to prepare it so that it tastes like a game. Then she is going to send this in with Jacob and have him wear some leather that still had the wool on it so he would seem to be hairy like his brother Esau. So he would disguise himself and fool and deceive his father. He pulled it off.  So he takes the food in there. Jacob is not sure who it is. When he feels him and he feels the hairy garment, he is convinced that it's Esau. He then will bless Jacob. 

We read about this down in verse 19.

^NKJ Genesis 27:19 Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn; I have done just as you told me; please arise, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me."

Then skipping down, we read:

^NKJ Genesis 27:27 And he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him and said: "Surely, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field Which the LORD has blessed.

^NKJ Genesis 27:28 Therefore may God give you Of the dew of heaven, Of the fatness of the earth, And plenty of grain and wine.

..talking about prosperity and agricultural productivity, plenty of grain and wine.

^NKJ Genesis 27:29 Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, And let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!"

Now what does that sound like? This sounds like the Abrahamic Covenant. "I will make you a great nation," God said.

Isaac said to Jacob in verse 29:

^NKJ Genesis 27:29 Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you.

Then in Genesis 12:3 God said:

^NKJ Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

At the end Isaac says to Jacob:

Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!"

So the blessing here is a transfer of the Abrahamic Covenant to the line of the seed, to the line of Jacob from Abraham. 

Then Esau comes in and Esau realizes what is taking place. He comes in and he tells his father who he is. Isaac becomes distraught because he has given the blessing; and he can't reverse it. It is part of the cultural realities. It was a legally binding contract.

So Esau then pleads with him in verse 34 to bless him.

^NKJ Genesis 27:34 When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, "Bless me -- me also, O my father!"

^NKJ Genesis 27:36 And Esau said, "Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and now look, he has taken away my blessing!" And he said, "Have you not reserved a blessing for me?"

In verse 39 Isaac blesses Esau. He says:

^NKJ Genesis 27:39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him: "Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, And of the dew of heaven from above.

…the outside.

^NKJ Genesis 27:40 By your sword you shall live, And you shall serve your brother; And it shall come to pass, when you become restless, That you shall break his yoke from your neck."

So this sets up a history of conflict between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob. Isaac though is deceived, but even in his deception he is trusting in the promise of God that the Abrahamic promise would be passed on down through him to his son. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

There is a reference to the reality that despite the deception, he is trusting God. He's trusting in the promise even though he never sees it in his lifetime.  He passes it on to his descendants.

Next time we'll see how Jacob passes it on when he is dying in Genesis 49. He passes the blessing on to the sons of Joseph. Again we'll see the same principle of the older serving the younger as Joseph tries to trick his father to bring the kids up in the right order so that his hands will come out and his right hand will be on the older and his left hand on younger. Jacob just his crosses hands and passes on the blessing. But they understood the principle that God may not answer your prayer the way you think He will, when you think He will, that the promise may be delayed beyond your lifetime. Jesus may not come back for another 200 years; but nevertheless we're not going to let that cause us to falter or fail in pursuing spiritual maturity. 

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer. 

Illustrations