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 Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

We have noted before that ”better” is a key word in Hebrews. It is used many times (1:4; 6:9; 7:7, 19, 22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16, 35, 40; 12:24). It can also be translated ”superior”. Everything about Jesus and all He brought in is ”better” than anything enjoyed under the Old Covenant.

In today’s reading we run into the idea of a ”far better country”.

My mum was a big fan of the country singer Jim Reeves. I remember she had an E.P. (45 rpm!!) of Jim singing:

”This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

I think it is fair to say that the heroes of faith described in Hebrews 11 lived in something of that spirit. When they died, they were still believing that God had something ”better” for them.

It takes me back in thought to the C.S. Lewis quote we considered recently:

”If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

Tim Keller said: “All death can now do to Christians is to make their lives infinitely better.” This is Biblically true.

Following Tim’s death in May of this year, Carey Nieuwhof shared certain insightful observations. Here is one that stays with me:

”David Kinnaman and I interviewed Tim in 2021, a year after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I asked Tim what he was thinking about day-to-day in light of his diagnosis.

Tim’s honest answer is worth reading and re-reading:

I would say that as a man who was 69 years old, I actually was pretty unfocused because the reality is it doesn’t matter whether you have cancer or not. When you’re approaching 70, you should actually know the time is short. You don’t really have decades anymore. You’ve got years anyway.

And so I should have been more focused, but I was tending to do whatever anybody asked me to do….You’re a nice person, you’re a minister. So you do whatever anybody asks you to do.

And I had no focus. I really didn’t. I wasn’t saying what do I really —if I finally had one year left, two, three, four, five years—what should I be doing? I didn’t have that focus. Now I do.”

All these people were still living by faith when they died. 

These words remind us of the inevitability of death. ‘Death is the ultimate statistic: one out of one dies.’

But they also speak to us regarding the invincibility of genuine faith. It does ‘keep right on to the end of the road.’

As we have seen repeatedly, these Hebrew Christians were tempted to ”shrink back” (10:39). Under the pressure of persecution, they felt the pull to return to the old Jewish religion, and they needed to be severely warned about the spiritual danger they were in (e.g. 10:26ff), and to be exhorted:

”You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (10:36).

Jesus warned of a coming time when, He said:

”Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will wax cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12,13).

” Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest; humility grows when we refuse to be prideful; and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up.” Rick Warren.

PRAYER: Lord God, please help me to keep walking by faith and not sight until that day when faith becomes sight.

And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹² And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

The highlighted words above show that Abraham and Sarah were facing double-trouble. It wasn’t just Sarah who was infertile. They were both biologically incapable of having children.

One of the celebrated heroes of the Christian faith said,

‘The borderline of human helplessness is the borderline of divine miracle.’

‘Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries: It shall be done!’ Charles Wesley

‘Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?
Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible
and he will do what no other power can do…

…God is the same and his word is dependable
He’ll make a way through the waters for you
Life’s situations by him are amendable
Mountains and hills he will part for you too.’

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
    and who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut
    and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
² look to Abraham, your father,
    and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
When I called him he was only one man,
    and I blessed him and made him many.” (Isaiah 51:1,2).

This is an example of what can happen when God’s promise and power encounters our barrenness at the borderline.