Hebrews 11 and we're going to start in verse 8 and then we'll read down to verse 16 and then we'll pick up in 20 and read down to 22 as we look at sort of the biblical theology of the patriarchs in relationship to Jesus and redemptive history. Let me pray for us before we read. Father we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is Light and life. We thank you Lord Jesus that the words that you spoke in all of the scriptures are spirit and life and We need them and we need them to deep to think deeply into our minds and our hearts to sink down into our ears and to Be laid up in our hearts that we might not sin against you our God. We pray that you would increase our faith make us Obedient children walking in faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ and love towards your saints. Father, have mercy on us. You are so kind to bring us to a place where we would hear about your son tonight. We pray that we would grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We pray these things in his name. Amen. Hebrews 11.8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age. Because she promised she judged him faithful who had promised therefore from one man and Him as good as dead Were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude Innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore these all died in faith and not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better. That is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. for he has prepared a city for them. Then let's get down to verse 20. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph in worship, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones. As we've already seen a little bit about the history of Abraham and God's covenantal dealings with Abraham and how all that's preparing us for the coming Redeemer and redemption. So the history of the patriarchs following Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and his brothers going into Israel and then leading into the Exodus, the Egypt Exodus account, which is really the gospel in the Old Testament. All of the patriarchal history is preparing us for the Redeemer too. And it's doing it in a number of ways. And on the surface, it might seem that we would miss all of those things because there are these thematic threads that run through the patriarchal theme. One of those threads, for instance, would be God's preservation. God is constantly preserving the patriarchs. They're always facing a danger. Their wives are about to be taken by some powerful ancient Eastern king. And they know that they're going to be killed. Waiver at a point and lie about their wives being their sisters and and yet God is preserving and God is keeping Isaac from marrying the wrong woman he's keeping Isaac from marrying a pagan woman and they're always in danger of intermarrying with the Canaanites or going back to her on they're always in danger of perverting what's in front of them by going and mixing or turning back and they are They are moving as pilgrims and strangers to the land that God has promised that he's going to give them. And they never have a resting place. They have nowhere to lay their head. And so the writer of Hebrews is picking up on that theme specifically on them being pilgrims and strangers. So you have God's preservation, but you also have their sojourn. They are exiles in a foreign land. And then you have this idea of their hope, this hope that has to do with their burials and their bones. All this stuff about them dying and these things that happened to them, these deathbed expectations and pronouncements and covenantal dealings from Genesis 23 all the way really till the end of the book. And as I said already, it's impossible for us to go and read through all of Genesis 23-50 and everything leading the patriarchs into Egypt. What we can do is we can consider a little bit about those three themes, God's preservation for redemptive history. the patriarchs sojourning during redemptive history, and then their deathbed expectations in redemptive history. And those things are really interwoven. They're all interconnected. And what's in front of them on the horizon is a city that has foundations. What's kind of overarching those three themes, God's preservation, their sojourning, and their deathbed Bad experiences what's overarching that is the horizon of a city that has foundations And that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying that they are moving as sojourners by faith looking forward to the city that has foundations whose builder and maker God is and I think it's instructed to us because it sets the pattern of for every believer, not just those that lived in nomadic, ancient, near-eastern lands, but you and me. It sets the pattern for you and me. But, as we'll see tonight, it becomes the prototype of the experience and saving work of Jesus. in all of those three categories, deliverance, sojourning, and death experience covenantally. And Jesus really becomes the anti-typical patriarch. He becomes the anti-typical, the fulfillment of what they were doing as the one who is a stranger and a foreigner, interestingly, in the same land that Abraham was a stranger and a foreigner. Jesus is moving through Israel and he says the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Now, the writer of Hebrews is going to develop this idea out, obviously, under the teaching on saving faith and what saving faith looks like and what it enables people to do. And the writer of Hebrews is going to say that Abraham, in verse eight, went out, he obeyed by faith, he obeyed. Faith is not obedience. Faith produces obedience. Faith is a receiving and resting on Christ. That's what Abraham's doing, is receiving and resting on the promised Messiah. And he's looking forward to the benefits of that Messiah, but he is obeying because he has faith in that Messiah. And so, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to God to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. Now remember, there's that theme of faith is the substance of things not seen, evidence of things not seen, things hoped for, the substance of things hoped for. Everything in Hebrews 11 is, God is invisible, the heavenly city is invisible, everything God promises can't be seen in the visible, tangible, existential, empirical reality in front of you, but God's Word has said it, and it's sure and it's certain, and so walking by faith is going out, trusting the promises of God, even when we don't see. that in front of us physically, tangibly. And notice what the writer of Hebrews says, and he loves this theme. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country. That's a remarkable statement that the land of Israel, which God had already endowed to Abraham, Abraham dwelled in as if he was in a foreign land, as if everything was not his, as if he was just passing through. Foreign country, unfamiliar territory, it was not home for Abraham. And the writer of Hebrews says that he went out He dwelt in the land of promises in a foreign country dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob The heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God now it's interesting that God wanted the patriarchs to endure what they endured. God could have said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all right, I'm taking you to heaven, heavenly home, heavenly city, heavenly land. Here we come. But God wanted to show Abraham that he was defender and provider and that he would bring them to the place that he had promised them. And so they're sojourning and they're exile as it were. They were exiled from their home to a foreign land as it were. that that pilgrimage and that sojourning was God's way of showing them, I will provide, I will guide, I will lead, I will protect. And you see it, don't you, in the Genesis account. Every time God is protecting. Even Joseph, when Joseph gets thrown in the well and then sold into slavery and then thrown into prison in a foreign land, literally in Egypt, God is protecting, God is providing, God is defending. And that really marks off the patriarchal narrative that God is not going to fail. Why is it important that God is providing and protecting and defending? Who has to come? Jesus has to come. The seed has to come. The seed hasn't come. If they die before God brings them to the point where they carry on in their lineage, Jesus doesn't come. God fails. The city is void. The promise is void. Nobody gets an inheritance. So the protection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they're interacting with the Bimelech and all these other kings, as they're moving through the Canaanite areas, God's protecting them. God's even blessing their enemies. Their enemies even get blessed. Abraham digs wells, and all these things happen where these other nations benefit from God's blessing on the patriarchs, but God is concerned about bringing the seed, Jesus Christ. And so everything that happens to them happens for that purpose. It's not just a nice story to tell you that God's there for you in hard times. That's true. We glean that from that. We love that. We hold on to that dearly. But it's there to tell us that God is faithful to his covenant promise and the defense and protection of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as they dwell through the foreign land as sojourners is to show us that God is going to fulfill that promise. Now, when we come to the fulfillment of that promise in Jesus. Interesting. His first sermon in Nazareth. He preaches. He makes everybody mad. Because he tells them it's about election. And that God chooses some and not others. He chose Naaman the Syrian, even though there were many lepers in Israel. He chose a Syrian leper. He chose a Gentile. There were many widows, but he only sent Elijah to the one. He preaches this sermon basically saying, why don't you believe that I am the one that fulfills all these things and today this is fulfilled is because God chooses one and not another. And what do they do with them? They take them to the cliff and they're about to throw them off and he walks to the midst of them. And God is doing the same thing with Jesus as he did with the patriarchs because his time has not yet come. You see that constantly in the Gospels, don't you? That as Jesus is making his sojourning, the time has not yet come. Now, I think also, though, it's instructive that God is teaching the patriarchs that this is not their home. That that sojourning is to remind them, okay, now pick up your tent and go over here. Now pick up your tent and go over here. And God moves them sometimes through famine and sometimes through conflict. Or sometimes tells Abraham where he wants him to go. And God appears to Abraham at these different places. Bethel, he appears to Jacob with the stone and the ladder that comes down from heaven. That's pointing forward to Christ. And he manifests his covenantal presence with the patriarchs. But God is teaching them that they are to learn that this is not our home. That God has prepared something better. That's the big theme of Hebrews. God has prepared a better country, a better city. better than the nicest places you could ever imagine. And there are many nice places on this earth. It's better. And that becomes a paradigm for us, doesn't it? That we are pilgrims and strangers. I often think about how Peter addresses the church in 1st Peter. He says to the exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father for sanctification of the Spirit and Sprinkling of the blood of obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ and that that the way the New Testament Church is spoken of is exiles We've been we are exiles in the world. This is not our home. So just like the patriarchs now what's interesting is is that the greatest sojourner in the Bible is not Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or you or me. It's Jesus. I want to read you this because this is amazing. There's several writers that have pointed this out, and I've been incredibly blessed by this. Let me read to you what Bill Dennison says about this idea of Jesus as the sojourner. Listen to this. How could it be that these sojourners of faith, these pilgrims of the former age, could see the end of their journey so confidently and so steadfastly to possess that final end, that Rastafari? How could it be? Could it be that they were reflections of the pilgrim of pilgrims, the sojourner of sojourners, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, the one appointed from the foundation of the world to be a pilgrim as they were, to be a sojourner as they were, the one who would incarnate a Hebrew's life, the one who would sojourn in flesh and blood, though he was from all eternity not flesh and blood, but eternally very God of very God. The one who would display his blood in Abel's lamb, the one who would reveal that he is the son of the Hebrew Abraham, bound over to death by his father, yet raised from death because he is the Hebrew with eternal life, with the power of an endless life, the one who would be revealed in the blood of the lamb upon the doorpost of his mirror-reflection pilgrims, aliens in a stranger land, bondservant sojourners of a land of death, this one bearing in his pilgrimage his descent into Egypt, the reproach of their bondage, laying his lifeblood upon their pilgrim hovels so that they could travel with this lamb, the Passover lamb, travel with this lamb to the land of milk and honey, travel with this one tabernacling among them, accommodating himself to be their pilgrim, drawing them unto his everlasting self by pilgrim sacrifices, pilgrim priests, a pilgrim tent of meeting, mirroring himself in priesthood and sacrifice in tabernacle and veil." Now, that's a lot to take in, but I think Denison's right. I think that Jesus is the pilgrim of pilgrims, the sojourner of sojourners. He left the glories of heaven and pitched his tent in this world for our salvation, literally. And he said, the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. He moved from place to place, always moving. He was having all these interactions with people. His life was always being threatened. But He was moving in order to open that heavenly home for us. He said to His disciples in John 14, I go to prepare a place for you. I think that's the cross. I don't think He's in heaven preparing a place for us. I think He did at Calvary. He says, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and go to my Father from there, I will bring you to myself that where I am there you may be also. I actually think you can defend this from Hebrews 12, because when we come to Hebrews 12, right after this long, great faith chapter, in Hebrews 12, we're told this. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that before us, looking unto Jesus. Now, he is going to call him the author and finisher of our faith, but notice what he says. who for the joy set before him, just like they had the joy we'll talk about in a second, for the joy set before him endured the cross. He went, he sojourned till he was exiled at Calvary and he did it for the joy set before him. Same motivation as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sojourning to their desired end. Now they would not endure the cross, he would. I think the writer of Hebrews is drawing this biblical theology out in so many words by saying, just like they did all these things, your Savior did all these things. And that means he entered into every experience that they experienced and that we experienced. But to accomplish salvation, we enter into it in union with him. To lay hold of that salvation that he has accomplished for us. Now, I want to read to you one other little poem that I love that I think captures this idea of Jesus as sojourner. This is either a hymn or a poem by Henry Van Dyke. Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger, exiled from heaven by love at thy birth, exiled again from thy rest in the manger, a fugitive child amid the perils of earth. Cheer with thy fellowship all who are weary, wandering far from the land that they love. Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary, safe to its home in thy presence above. You can see that Henry Van Dyke understood this theme, this biblical theological theme that Jesus is. in the most ultimate sense, pilgrim and sojourner who was himself exiled. Exiled from heaven, exiled at the cross, receiving the covenant curses, cut off from the land of the living, going into no man's land of God's wrath, even, to open the glories of the heavenly city that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and we look forward to. I think that helps us as we go through hardships. It's not just that our Lord sympathized with us, but that He sympathized with us to accomplish for us what we are aiming for. Does that make sense? A lot of people say, well, remember, your Lord suffered. You can suffer. And they leave out, He suffered to save you. Not only did He suffer so you can suffer, He suffered to save you so you can suffer and enter into that glory. So if you leave out what makes Him different, from us that he sojourned to the cross, it's not an adequate parallel, but if you leave out that he sojourned and was helpless and homeless and wandered, it's not adequate. Now, there is there's one other thing that I want to talk about tonight, and that is when you come to the death narratives, when the sojourn is over, when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are done moving, you have these death accounts and. They're not arbitrary. They're not just nice endings to a biography. They have a theological meaning. Abraham only gets one little piece of the physical promised land, and that's a tomb that he gets from Ephron. the Hittite Ephron, Heth, the son of Heth, that he gets from the Hethites, I guess, he gets one little tomb for him to bury Sarah, her bones, right there in the midst of people in Canaan, he buries her bones, and then he's buried there, and then one of his sons, Isaac, is buried there, and Rebekah's buried there, and then Jacob's buried there, and Leah is buried there. Those six are in that tomb. And you have these burial accounts that very explicitly talk about the bones of these sojourners, these pilgrims. And if we didn't have Hebrews 11, we may not be able to actually do what we're about to do and say what we're about to say. But Hebrews 11 very explicitly says that even Joseph, notice this in verse 22, By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones. Now, there is no other reason that we could even speculate why Joseph would tell Israel to take his bones off, except he was expecting a resurrection from the dead. There is no other reason. that we could explain why Abraham secures this little plot of land, the only thing he ever comes to possess in Israel, incidentally, which shows the insignificance of the land, ultimately, that all he gets is a little burial pot for his bones, his wife's bones, second generation and third generation, except they were hoping in a resurrection from the dead. And they were They were even dying with faithful expectation. They were dying with full of faith-driven expectation that God was going to raise them from the dead. Remember we read last week that Abraham concluded that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. Well, when he buries his wife, and he's buried, and then his actually great grandson talks about the importance of his bones. And then notice what actually the writer of Hebrews says before that verse about Joseph in 20 and 21. Notice that you have these two covenantal blessing sections. Isaac blessed Jacob. That's the covenant blessing that Esau forfeited, but God had chosen Jacob, and so Jacob received it, the covenantal blessing. He blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come, and then 21, by faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed. It was the covenantal blessing. He blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped leaning on his staff. Now, the writer of Hebrews is telling us that there was a response to God's word in what Isaac did to Jacob and Esau, and there was a response to God's word in what Jacob did to his sons in Genesis 48 with the blessings there. I want to try to find something for us and read this to us. If you give me just a second, because Jonathan Edwards actually wrote what I think is the most intriguing biblical theology of the death. Yeah, these death speeches, if we can call them that we could maybe call them death speeches. Let's see if I can find this. Is the staff synonymous with the cross? Um, I don't know if I would want to. I think he was just reading. Did you see anything? I think it just denotes that he was trying to garner enough strength that this was so important to him that what he's about to say is not an insignificant thing that he would garner enough strength in his. I mean, he's maybe 100 years old, garnering enough strength to give this blessing. Here's what Edward says. He says in Genesis 48, 21, Israel said to Joseph, behold, I die. but God will be with you." Jacob said to Joseph, I die, but God will be with you. So Joseph, when he was near death, said to his brethren, his brothers in the same manner, I die and God will visit you and bring you out of this land unto the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now listen to this. Thus, the blessing of the presence of God with the children of Israel in his favor and salvation is by the death of Christ. So what Jacob promises Joseph, and what Joseph promises his brethren, that God will be with you, is secured in the death of Jesus, ultimately. The presence of God is secured by the death of Jesus. And this is what Edward says. He says, Jesus, when near death, I want you to listen carefully, Jesus, when near death, said to his disciples, it is expedient that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you. You see what he's doing? He's saying there was something about Jacob's death and Joseph's death, and for that matter, Isaac's death, and what they were doing with those covenantal blessings of God's presence and goodness, mirroring what Jesus does with the disciples when he says, I go away, but I will come to you. I'll send another helper to you. That they were typological. And what they were saying was foreshadowing what would happen in the resurrection of Jesus and ascension of Jesus. And so Edward says, Isaac and Jacob's blessing their children before their death. as it were, making them over to a future inheritance may probably be typical of our receiving the blessings of the covenant of grace from Christ as by his last will and testament, the final covenant of grace represented as his testament. Jesus in the 14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John does, as it were, make his will and conveys to his people their inheritance before his death. particularly the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, which is the sum of the purchased inheritance. Now, if you didn't follow all that, that's OK. What Edwards is saying is what Jesus does in John 14 through 16, as he faces his death at the cross for his disciples and for us, is the same thing that Isaac and Jacob were doing for their children in the covenant of grace. They were doing it in an anticipatory way. He was doing it in the fulfilled sense. He is the greater Isaac, giving his blessing to us. He is the greater Jacob, giving his blessing to his children. He said to them, he didn't have riches, he didn't have a house, he didn't have an inheritance to give them. He said, peace I give you, my peace I leave with you, not as the world I give you. Let not your heart be troubled. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. It's better for you that I go away, because if I don't go away, the Holy Spirit won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you, the helper, the comforter, God with you. The Holy Spirit is as much God with us as Jesus was. So the death and the resurrection of Jesus fulfills the covenantal blessings of Isaac and Jacob to their children, the last words of Jacob and Joseph about God being with them and giving them the inheritance, typically the land promise in the Old Testament, spiritually and eternally heaven for us and for them.