Let's open, return for the seventh week to Hebrews chapter 11. So we spent 23 weeks in the other 10 chapters, which were full of very profound truth. And now we're seven weeks in this chapter alone. And this morning we're going to be looking at verses 20, 21, and 22. Hebrews 11, verse 20, By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped on the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones. O Lord, give us understanding and move our hearts, Lord, as we look into this, Your sacred and inherent Word. I've entitled this sermon after Bouncing around with different possibilities as is usually the case. Faith in the hour of death. This morning we're going to see the faith of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Each one as they approached their death. Chapter 11, the writer declares, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He presents a history of the people in the Old Testament who responded to the gift of faith by believing God and trusting Him and living according to that faith. By faith, the writer tells us, men of old gained approval from God. For the Old Testament saints, particularly those in the days of the patriarchs, faith was a matter of belief in promises of blessings that had not yet been fulfilled. And yet each one, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, died still believing and still trusting that God would do as He had promised. That's what faith is. in the lives of the Old Testament saints. We see that faith not only saves us, which it does, but it's by faith that we live in this world. If you're thinking, well, hasn't he said that before? Yes, I've said it seven weeks in a row now. Because that's the point. That's the point of the writer's message. His message has been persevere in faith. Live by faith. Don't drift away. Hold fast to your confession of faith. In the words of my friend Mr. Roberts, finish well. Finish well. And all these three finished well. They were sinners along the way. They weren't perfect men. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died in faith. Faith in the promise that the Lord would give to their posterity, their descendants, the land of Canaan. And that God's blessing would come to the world through their seed. That God would raise up from them a Messiah. Give them eternal rest in Him. And that God had prepared for them a heavenly country. Was preparing for them a heavenly city. Now folks, none of them ever took possession of this land. None of them. But they believed God's promise. They believed He'd fulfill every word He had spoken. He had given them assurance of faith and they embraced His promise. They embraced it. They didn't just kind of make an intellectual ascent to it. They embraced it with their hearts. You know, God, when He spoke to Moses, referred to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And by using that name, He reminded their descendants of the promise that He had made to them. Now I want to begin with the promise that God made to Abraham. We have a lot of Scripture today. And if you get an opportunity, you're going to need to put a bookmark in Genesis 48. Because that was too long to add into the Scripture sheet. Most of these I was able to put in though. Let's begin by recalling what God promised to Abraham. Genesis 12, 2. Look at the promise. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I'll make your name great. You shall be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you. I'll curse those who curse you. And then look at this. What Paul called the gospel in Galatians 8 and 9. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed. There's the heart of the promise. Genesis 13 has Abraham go outside and look north, south, east, and west. And says, all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I'll make your descendants as the dust of the earth. Chapter 15, he says, look toward the heavens. I'll make your descendants as the stars of the sky. Genesis 17, in verse 4, he says, you will be a father of multitude of nations. Kings will come forth from you. Then he says this, verse 7, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. and I will be their God. Now that didn't happen during Abraham's life. It didn't happen during Isaac's life. It didn't happen during Jacob's life. And it didn't happen during Joseph's life. God made another promise. Genesis 17, 19 to Abraham. Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him. It's through Isaac your seed will be called. Genesis 22, 18. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. He repeats the promise of Genesis 12, 3. So there's three aspects to the promise that began with Abraham, was repeated to Isaac, and was repeated to Jacob. The land of Canaan, a multitude of descendants, including nations and kings would come from him. And third, a seed, a son, through whom people from every nation would be blessed. That's the promise of God. That's the promise we live by. God told Abraham the promises were going to be fulfilled through Isaac and his descendants. The salvation of mankind would come through a descendant of Isaac. Now we don't doubt, I don't think we have any reason to doubt that Abraham shared with his son Isaac the promises God had made. And whether he did or did not, God later expressly reaffirmed His covenant with Isaac. And then He reaffirmed it with Jacob. All three patriarchs received the promises from God Himself. Each one of them. Well, look at them here. Genesis 26, God said to Isaac, Sojourn in this land, referring to Gerar, the land of the Philistines. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven. Does that sound familiar? And I will give your descendants all these lands. Does that sound familiar? And by your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. All three parts. And during his life, Isaac, again not a perfect man, was richly blessed by God with earthly blessings. He reaped in the same year a hundredfold, we're told in 2612. He became rich. But God repeated the covenant promise to him in 2623 of Genesis. ...He went up from Gerar to Beersheba in the south. The LORD appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham. So he expressly ratifies the covenant with Isaac. But God also reaffirmed this covenant with Jacob. Genesis 35, 9. Now Jacob had been a less than righteous man. We'll look at his activities in a moment. But Genesis 35, 9, God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan Aram. That would be the area of Syria. And he blessed him. And God said to him, Your name is Jacob. You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name. And thus he called him Israel. And God also said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you. The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you. And Jacob set up a pillar there. And he worshiped there. He poured out a drink offering. And he named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel, house of God. Now the accounts of the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph comprise fully one half of the book of Genesis, 25 chapters. Here in the book of Hebrews, the life of each one is summed up in one sentence. One sentence. If you had to sum up the life of each of these men in one verse, what would you say about them? In each case, the writer here focuses on acts done and things said by Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph very near the times of their deaths. Very near their hour of their death. Looking at their faith in the hour of their death. And these are three men who had not received what was promised. So verse 20, by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. Notice he's forward-looking. And we cannot cover in one hour what Moses took 25 chapters to cover. He records that Isaac married Rebekah. And as was the case with Sarah, Rebekah was also barren. Genesis 25, 21, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. And the Lord answered him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her, and she said, If it is so, then why am I this way? So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from your body. And one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So God had decreed that the older son, who would be Esau, would serve the younger, Jacob. And he informed Rebekah of this. We may infer that Rebekah informed Isaac of this, what God had said to her. And when the twins were born, Rebekah favored Jacob. Isaac, however, he favored Esau. He was a hunter of game, an outdoorsman. He liked him better. He favored him. And Moses records, of course, how Jacob induced his brother, who when he was famished and hungry, to sell him his birthright, his firstborn son, for a meal of bread and lentil stew. Genesis 27 records the account of Rebekah and Jacob's scheme, their deception of Isaac. As he lay blind and dying, to trick him into giving a blessing he intended to give to Esau to Jacob. Genesis 27, 15. Here's the story. Rebekah took the best garments of Esau, her elder son. which were with her in the house. She put them on Jacob, her younger son, and she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. She also gave the savory food and the bread which she had made to her son Jacob. And then he came to his father and he said, My father. And he said, Here I am. Who are you, my son? And Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. This is a man here celebrated in Hebrews chapter 11. There's no sinless people in God's kingdom except the king. I'm Esau, your firstborn. I've done as you told me. Get up, please sit, and eat of my game, that you may bless me. Isaac said, How is it you did it so quickly? He said, Because the Lord your God caused it to happen to me. Lie number two. Then Isaac said to Jacob, Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not. He doesn't trust him. So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. And so he blessed him, we're told. And he said in verse 24, Are you really my son Esau? He said, I am. Lie number three. So he said, Bring it to me, and I will eat of my son's game, that I may bless you. And he brought it to him, and he ate. He also brought him wine, and he drank. And then his father Isaac said to him, Please come close and kiss me, my son. So he came close and kissed him. And when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. Now may God give you the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine. May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be master of your brothers. And may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you. Remember, we're told in faith, by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. Now later Esau went into Isaac. He also had prepared a savory dish for his father. He also was seeking his blessing. And Rebekah's scheme and Jacob's deceit were exposed. And Esau pleaded with his father that he would bless him also. Now if you look at 2739, this is the blessing that he received. Behold! Away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, and away from the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live, and your brother you shall serve. But it shall come about when you become restless that you will break his yoke from your neck. So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, The days of mourning for my father are near, and then I will kill my brother Jacob. This is not working out well at this point, is it? What's fascinating here in verse 20 is that the writer tells us it was by faith that Isaac gave these blessings to Jacob and Esau. And it certainly appears that Isaac blessed Jacob, not by faith, but because he was tricked into giving him the blessing. And what is called a blessing for Esau hardly sounds like a blessing, does it? So where does faith enter in? Well, we have to look at the blessing itself, what it contained. The blessing given by Isaac spoke of things that Isaac didn't have. It spoke of things hoped for, which were not yet in his possession. He had no land. He had no kingdom. He had no people. The possession of the land, the multitude of descendants, a multitude of nations were only contained one place in God's promise. They were all contained in the blessing which God had promised to him and to his posterity. Isaac had nothing in that land but a burial plot. Yet he blessed Jacob with these words. Let people serve thee, and tribes bow down to thee. He doesn't have anything to give him except the promise of God. That's the blessing he passed on to him. He didn't actually possess anything. His blessing depended entirely on faith. The only thing that Isaac had that he could pass on to his children was the promise of God. That's it. His faith is seen not in which son to whom he gave the blessing, but what he believed concerning the content of the blessing itself. The content of the promise of God. He believed that. That's what he was passing on. Yes, he was deceived into giving the blessing to Jacob, but he believed that God would do all that he had said he would do. He was even resistant and tried to manipulate God's plan. He was resistant to what God had told Rebekah before the twins were born. The older shall serve the younger. But he believed that God would deliver on what he had promised. in the middle of all of this bizarre story in so many ways. And after the blessing was conveyed to Jacob, look what happens. Isaac immediately yielded to God's will. And he immediately yielded to God's plan. Look at what Isaac then said and did, speaking to Esau. 2737, Behold, I have made him your master. All his relatives I have given to him as servants, and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son? The blessing was going to go through Jacob. Esau, of course, then threatened to kill his brother. Rebekah became fearful and decided to send him to Uncle Laban, her brother in Haran. And the idea was, she says, stay with him a few days until your brother's fury subsides. Well, a few days turned out to be 20 years. She told Isaac that she was sending Jacob to Haran to find a wife from among her relatives. Just as Abraham had done sending a servant to Rebekah's family to find a wife for Isaac. And now, knowing everything that had occurred, And knowing that he had been deceived into giving God's blessing to Jacob, Isaac now affirmed the blessing. And look at his words in Genesis 28, verse 1. So Jacob's about to go to Haran. to Rebekah's family. ...Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him and said to him, You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. And look at these words. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham. Well Isaac was now not only believing in God's promises, but he was now wholly surrendered to God's will. in the matter of the blessing of Abraham. He would have preferred it go through Esau, but God had decreed it would go through Jacob. And Isaac died in faith, knowing that God would send a Savior to every nation through Jacob. By faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph And we're told he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. Now Jacob, as we've already seen, lived a life of what can fairly be characterized as deceit and thievery. He stole from his brother. He stole from his uncle Laban, which we won't have time to cover this morning. But on his way back from Haran to Canaan, some 20 years later, at the River Yabok, God wrestled him into submission to Him. And at the end, Jacob died as a man of faith, just as his father had. Though neither he, nor his father Isaac, nor his grandfather Abraham had received any part of this promise. He died in faith. Where? In the land of Egypt. trusting that God would fulfill His promise to give them the land that Abraham had walked through. And as the demonstration of his faith, as he had in the case of Isaac, the writer also points now to a blessing conferred by Jacob near the time of his death. Now, this was not the blessing. That blessing ended up going through Judah, of course. Here's the background. We're going to find the blessing of Joseph's sons in Genesis 47 and 48. But the writer here is not recalling the blessing of Jacob's sons. That's in Genesis 49. He recalls Jacob's blessing two grandsons. Two sons of Joseph born in Egypt to an Egyptian mother. Here's the background. There's a famine in the land, as we know. And Joseph had already been sold into bondage by his brothers. He's raised up into a high position in Egypt. And there's a famine. And the family finally comes down after a series of events. In Genesis 47, 7, Joseph brings his father Jacob and presents him to Pharaoh. This is shortly after he'd arrived in Egypt. Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many years have you lived? Jacob said to Pharaoh, The years of my sojourning are one hundred thirty. Few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning. Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence. And Joseph settled his father and brothers and gave them a possession in Egypt in the best of the land, in Ramesses, as Pharaoh had ordered. Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all his father's household with food, according to their little ones. Now we pick up in verse 27 of Genesis 47. Israel, Jacob, lived in the land of Egypt in Goshen, and they acquired property, and it were fruitful. They became very numerous. Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the length of Jacob's life was 147 years. When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness. Please do not bury me in Egypt. ... Been there 17 years. That's not home. Doesn't own a thing in Canaan. That is home. When I lie down with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place. He said, I will do as you said. He said, Swear to me. So he swore to him. And then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed. Now the whole story of the blessing is contained in Genesis 48. And I'm going to ask you to turn there. came about after these things... This continues right from the last verse. ...Joseph was told, Behold, your father is sick. So he took his sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him. When it was told to Jacob, Behold, your son Joseph has come to you, Israel collected strength, he sat up in his bed. Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. And He said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and I will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession. Now he does something interesting here in verse 5. ...Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine... They're mine. ...Ephraim and Manasseh are mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. Your offspring who have been born after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the names of their brothers in their inheritance. ... Well when Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, Who are these? ... Now he can't see. ...Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me here. So he said, Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were so dim from age he could not see. Joseph brought them close. He kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face. Behold, God has let me see your children as well. Well then Joseph took them from his knees and bowed with his face to the ground. Joseph took them both. Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left. Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right. And he brought them close to him. Now he wants him to put his right hand on Manasseh and convey the blessing. ...But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was younger, and the left hand on Manasseh's head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. He blessed Joseph. He said, "...the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil. Bless the lads, and may my name live on in them." And of course, the name Israel lives on today. Today. in the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, it displeased him. He grasped his father's hand to remove it. He said, No, no, my father, this is the wrong one. This is the firstborn over here. Father refused and said, I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he. And he was. His descendants shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day, and he said, By you Israel will pronounce blessing, saying, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. And then he put Ephraim before Manasseh. And then he said to Joseph, Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. That's why it mattered who was getting what. I will give you one portion more than your brothers in the land, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow. Gives them a double portion, sons of Joseph. Ephraim ends up being the biggest. The nation, the ten northern tribes, end up going by three names. Samaria, Israel, and Ephraim. Writer doesn't mention the blessing of any of Jacob's own sons here. Isn't that interesting? And that's a wonderful passage in Genesis 49, which we're not going to look at. He only mentions the blessings of the two sons of Joseph. Why? The Messiah was not born one of their descendants. The Messiah was a descendant of Judah. Some suggest what's going on here is because they were born in Egypt, this was Jacob's adoption of them as his sons. And that was what was behind this blessing. But again, that kind of leads us off of the point. Because as was true in the case of Isaac blessing Jacob, what's important here is what Jacob believed. He believed all that God had said. All that God had revealed to him regarding the future. This is the question for us. If we are people of faith, we believe exactly what God has said regarding the future. And I don't mean we have to be able to untangle every event. We believe He's got a place for us in His presence for all eternity through the blood of Christ. So as He lay dying, this is what's on His mind. God's going to do what He said He was going to do. Having never received the fulfillment of any of this. It's been 200 years now since the promise was first made to Abraham. Abraham didn't get the land. Isaac didn't get the land. Jacob didn't get the land. Jacob's blessings of his sons reflected his belief in what God had promised 200 years before and still had not been fulfilled. And the tribe of Ephraim became the largest, became larger than the rest. And in this case, by the way, unlike his father Isaac initially, Jacob intentionally blessed the younger son. Notice all three of these sets of sons, trouble. Isaac with Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph with the whole bunch of his brothers who sold him into bondage, conflict. So here's Jacob intentionally blessing the younger son. I'm giving you this promise. A man who didn't believe might start to wonder. Now come on, he's had 200 years. Not Jacob. He said, when God brings you back to the land of Canaan, you bury me there. That's faith. 4929. He charged them and said, I'm about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in that cave that's in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that's in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought, along with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a burial site. Take me back there. When you go, take me with you. And there they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah. They buried Isaac and Rebekah. And there I buried Leah. Field and the cave that's in it, purchased from the sons of Heth. And when Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet onto the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. And Jacob's life ended, as the writer tells us here, with him worshiping God, leaning on the top of his staff. What's the significance of the staff? For the Hebrews, the staff is a sign of pilgrimage. He's still a pilgrim. He's still a sojourner. And he's worshiping God, trusting in the promise of entering into that rest. This final act of worship was an act of a man who had lived his life as a stranger and as a pilgrim in this world. And he still believed God's promise. What an inspiration. in the face of death. In the face of death, like his father, Jacob laid claim to a future through this demonstration of faith. And as Joseph approached his own death, he still held his father's words close to him. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, what's he talking about? The exodus of the sons of Israel. And what are you going to do with my bones when I'm gone? That's still a couple hundred years away at least. Of all of Joseph's recorded acts of faith, and they were many, his acts of obedience to God, it's this one that the writer draws upon to demonstrate his faith. Joseph believed that his father's descendants would be led by God out of Egypt to the promised land. Why did he believe that? Because God promised it. Because God promised it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so like his father Jacob, Joseph ordered that his dead bones be taken to Canaan. may recall after Jacob's death, his body was taken to that cave in Machpelah for burial. But there was a huge procession that Pharaoh sent up from Egypt. Huge ceremony, many days, many, many days of funeral and memorial. Joseph Bones were then going to remain in Egypt for at least a couple hundred years now until the time of the Exodus. Now, Joseph was a very different case here from his youth, from the time they sold him into bondage. And very soon after he came to Egypt, he was raised up to a prominent position. So from his youth until his death, he lived as an Egyptian, as the vice ruler, as the prime minister of the whole land. as Daniel did in Babylon. If Joseph had chosen, his mummified body would have been in one of those grand pyramids that we see. But Joseph had a grander wish. He wanted to be buried in the land of promise. That was a grander burial for Joseph. He wanted to be in the land where the salvation of the world would take place. And he made his brothers swear that they would carry his body to Canaan when God brought them out of Egypt. Genesis 50, 24 is here. Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but look at these words, God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. This is remarkable faith. And then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here. Joseph died at the age of 110, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. I hope your hearts are stirred by these accounts. Joseph, too, like his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, believed the promises of God. This is what faith is. It's receiving assurance from God that the things we hope for will come to pass. It's proof. It's evidence of things we can't see. And it is believing and living in response to and in light of that assurance. It's believing God. It was so simple, wasn't it? In Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed God and God reckoned it to him as what? As righteousness. He believed Joseph did all the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He believed they would all be fulfilled in Canaan, though this would be many, many years after his death. His faith was such he wanted his remains to rest in the land where the promise would be fulfilled. He believed God would bring his people to the promised land. And despite his high office in Egypt, he considered himself to be in exile there. Exodus chapter 13 recounts the story. Verse 19, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him. For he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you. In Joshua 24, 32, he records the burial of Joseph's bones in Shechem. He didn't seek to be buried in the great palace, in the great pyramid, the great tomb of Egypt. Didn't seek to be remembered for his great achievements as a ruler on earth, which were many. His eyes were on the future and he believed God. Neither wealth, nor luxury, nor power, nor influence made him forget God's promise. And it's for this reason that the writer of Hebrews commends Joseph's faith here. believing God, trusting Him to keep His promises, though they were still unfulfilled at His death. He finished the race in faith. Well over the last couple of few weeks, we've looked at four men. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. All sinners. We have instances of their sin recorded by Moses. But they had received faith. Eyes to see what they couldn't see with earthly eyes. And so they looked forward trusting God. The incidents spoken of here in Hebrew all speak of Old Testament saints looking forward to things which haven't yet occurred. Hebrews 6.12, the writer calls us to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. There's our application. Be imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. I can promise you this life will not be perfect. It'll be far from it. But you've got a promise from God, if you trust in Christ, that you will have a land that is 10 million times better than the land of Canaan could ever have been. Faith in Him, faith in His Word is what carries us triumphantly through this life and into the next. Faith. And we who now live after the cross, we've received so much more than these men did. They were called to believe in things none of which had occurred. The salvation has already taken place. Christ has come. Christ has proved who He is. He's died. He's been raised. He's ascended and He's been exalted. And not only have we received the knowledge of the truth, we've received the Spirit of God in our hearts. Is there anything more precious? Better not be. So let us live each moment in gratitude for the blessings already received, and like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, wholly trusting in the promise of blessings to come. Well, let's take just a minute and meditate on what God has said to us, and then we'll close in prayer.