39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
In these verses the author is giving us some eternal principles that are timeless and can be applied directly to us today.
In Hebrews 11 the author describes the lives of some of the people of faith from the Old Testament…listing the names of some of those while detailing the various trials and tribulations they faced.
Most of these heroes of faith remain unidentified but all were commended for their faith despite the…mocking…scourging…imprisonments…trials… tribulations…and death they faced…their focus was on God.
Each one believing God rewards those that diligently seek Him…BUT also noting they did not receive what had been promised them.
With respect to Christianity and our commitment to God we need to remember:
Faith trusts and obeys God, leaving the results to His sovereignty…
Charles Stanley puts it… “Obey God and leave all the consequences to him”.
That is easier said than done…this is a very intense commentary on how God deals with us on a personal level…FIRST…consider three reasons why obedience is critical to successful Christian life:
1. Obeying God in small matters results in receiving greater responsibilities.
Often, God’s greatest blessings come as a result of our willingness to do something that appears insignificant…unimportant…or irrelevant…the issue is are we going to be obedient to what God is asking us and to follow through.
As Christians we are stewards of what God has loaned us…God owns everything…we are simple managers or administrators acting on His behalf.
As we prove ourselves worthy of being good managers in small things God then entrusts us with greater responsibilities as stewards over larger areas of His holdings.
2. Obedience always benefits others.
God often rewards others as a result of our obedience…for example, when parents obey the Lord, the entire family reaps the reward of God’s blessings… when we live obedient lives around those who know us they will sense the contentment God gives us as a result of our obedience.
3. When we obey God, we will never be disappointed.
Obeying God is always the wisest course of action…perhaps you’ve been hesitant to obey God because you fear the consequences of your decision
but when he tells you to do something, and you choose to obey Him He will bless you because obedience always leads to blessing.
When we obey God…even when we don’t understand why God is asking us to do a certain thing…when we obey…Two Things…1) He will reward us…2) watch how He works in your life.
With regards to the possible consequences that may result from obedience…this is the ‘down’ side of obeying God:
…FIRST…when we obey God there is no guarantee that the outcome will be pleasant…BUT HOLD IT…didn’t I just say…when we obey God, we will never be disappointed? …that’s what leaving the results to His sovereignty means.
There’s a long list of names in Hebrews 11 whose outcome of obedience proved unpleasant…there are people all over the world today suffering ‘consequences’ of their decision to follow Jesus.
They willingly gave their life to Christ realizing the hardships that accompanies becoming a Christian…but did so leaving the consequences of that decision in God’s hands…trusting that whatever the outcome…it would glorify God.
…SECOND…God permits all sorts of awful things to happen – things that He does not approve of, but He allows them anyway…God allows things to happen in this world that He does not approve of…whether it’s in our private lives or in events around the world.
With respect to evil in the world…when wickedness is rampant, we wonder why God doesn’t stop it…looking around the world today… ‘Why would God allow terrorists to do what they did?’ / ‘Why does God permit these things to happen?’
God is fully aware of what is happening…some might say that’s not very loving …but it’s essential to understand that God did not create human suffering…
suffering came into the world through the sin / disobedience of Adam and Eve.
There was no suffering in the garden of Eden. It was only after the fall that suffering came upon humanity…and the introduction of man’s free will…so suffering originated from the actions of our free will…leaving ourselves…not God, to blame.
…THIRD…go back to the first explanation…when we obey God there is no guarantee that the outcome will be pleasant…nothing says you’ll live a life free from…financial worries…sickness…loneliness…being destitute…or that God
will keep us free from accidents.
I will never believe that God causes things to occur in people’s lives that causes them to be crippled or permanently maimed.
Read an article about a woman who believed God allowed her neck to be broken in a swimming accident because God saw a much bigger picture that she did…I refuse to believe that…accidents happen.
Romans 8:28 we know that in all things God works for the good is often misquoted to imply that if you’re a Christian whatever it is that you’re going through it’s all good…no it’s not…nothing good about being paralyzed.
The “good” that verse 28 mentions is not for your benefit…so you can lose the idea that God is obligated to make something good happen for you as a result of something bad happening to you…here’s how this works.
The “good” Paul was referring to is God’s conforming work in us…the good is His molding of our character and lives…despite the tragedies that occur in our lives God’s ‘good’ is that He’s working for our betterment.
Paul is trying to say that all that happens to us…not just the bad but also the good…is summed up in the last two words in verse 28: “His purpose.”
What is His purpose for us…that we might be conformed to the image of His Son …that is God’s purpose for us.
Does God allow or cause bad things to happen to people so He can use that to glorify Himself? …I don’t believe that…but God will take bad things and work them out to accomplish His purpose…what God did was take her situation and because she believed and allowed God to work in her life Rom 8:28 became a reality regarding how God wanted to use her.
… FOURTH…in His sovereignty people are given different talents and opportunities based on His purpose for their lives [Mat. 25:14-30] …that’s why we cannot compare ourselves with other people.
Some trust and obey God and He grants spectacular results…others trust and obey the same God but are subjected to endure trials…the difference is not in the people or in their faith but in God’s sovereign purpose in each situation.
In his sovereignty…God puts people in the right place at the right time to fulfill a give purpose…again that’s why we cannot compare ourselves with others.
…FIFTH…In His sovereignty God permits what He hates…the awful death of Jesus on the Cross at Calvary proves that…He took something bad…what He hated…and worked it out to accomplish His will for our benefit.
Then there’s the troubling verse ‘none of them received what had been promised’ that introduces the sixth statement regarding God’s sovereignty.
The author makes a troubling statement concerning the Jews who were faithful …none of them received what had been promised’ …so, what was the promise that these heroes of faith did not receive? …these men and women who stood so firmly in their faith unto the point of death.
The sixth point shows the necessity of being completely dependent on God’s sovereign timeline…the importance of waiting on God’s appointed time.
1. Only God can see the total picture…it does not benefit us to lean on our own understanding of situations that are often distorted by self-serving reasons and tunnel vision.
We want what we want when we want it but God’s perspective and actions are always rooted in perfect vision of the total picture.
2. God’s appointed time is often a function of His purpose for our life.
He has saved us and called us, according to his own purpose (2 Tim. 1:9) …there is an appointed time when His purpose for us will be manifested.
That’s the importance in waiting on the Lord…waiting on the Lord might seem tiresome and boring but God’s timing is crucial…if we delay…or…if we launch out to early we may miss His opportunity for our lives…He then may have to ask someone else to fulfill the purpose He had planned on you completing…the KEY is making sure we don’t lag behind or get ahead of God in implementing His purpose for our life.
God always has our best interest at heart…His responses to our prayers are always based on that reality. “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season [God’s appointed time] we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).
Going back to the troubling verse that despite being commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised…at first glance one might think their faith was in vain and God failed them.
Here’s the KEY… Faith lives with a Godward focus, not with a focus on people or things…the promise to these Old Testament saints was a promise of things they never saw…but they believed it even when they did not fully see it…that’s faith.
The evidence of their faith was in the way they lived their lives…they believed the promises of God and acted upon them in the way they lived their lives… for them, the reward of faith was one day seeing what they had always
believed in while waiting patiently for it to happen…isn’t that what we’re doing every day as Christians…waiting patiently for the Lord to return?
Here’s how that’s explained…he uses Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the examples…who were all looking forward to the city…whose architect and builder is God [11:10].
In short, the message of chapter 11 is: “Can you not see? Do you not understand? Something I’ve mentioned during our look at Hebrews a number of times…the importance of seeing with spiritual eyes and the mark of a Christian is understanding.
At the very end of the most glorious chapter on ‘faith’ the writer explains to his readers why this long list of men and women of faith who found favor with God did not receive the promises God made them [39] …the reason is Jesus.
God has provided something better for us, so that apart from
us – they would not be made perfect [40].
Strangely worded verse…when Jesus came, a completely new time came over the earth…previously they needed to come to God and bring animal sacrifices to get forgiveness for their sins…needing to come back again and again…But when Jesus came, then that which was impossible became possible through Jesus’ one time sacrifice on the Cross [Rom 8:1-4].
…He came with the gospel and the promise that we can be transformed and conformed to the image of the Son [2 Cor. 3:18 / Rom 8:29].
… that we can be indwelt with God’s Spirit–something that never happened until Jesus’s death.
…that we can partake of the fruits of the Spirit which are the very virtues of Jesus Christ.
These Old Testament saints never had the opportunity to enjoy these blessings because it was all impossible before Christ.
The promise to which they looked for was the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah of God…He was the One Who was to come to save people from their sins and bring in a glorious kingdom of everlasting righteousness…and although they never saw Him personally, they were looking to the future…to see God’s earthly fulfillment of His promises.
Hebrews 11:39-40 states that Old Testament saints who gained approval from God who lived lives of courageous faith…all died without receiving what God had promised them…that they would not be made perfect.
What does that mean… they would not be made perfect… in other words… they will not receive their glorified bodies ahead of the believers from the New Covenant… the time we are living in now…they were going to have to wait.
In the future, all believers who lived faithfully will be brought into Jesus’ kingdom at the same time…they will not receive what had been promised apart from us…they will not be rewarded ahead of us which means that they must wait for the Church to be resurrected first.
Eventually we will be together with them throughout eternity…here’s the key with respect to the resurrection….no one will be resurrected individually…we will be resurrected as part of our respective groups.
No one within a given group (the Church, the Old Testament saints, the Tribulation saints) will receive their new bodies apart from the rest of their respective group.
Here’s how this works…there are two resurrections…the first resurrection has importance for us…it has four stages:
The first resurrection is Christ (1Cor. 15:20)
The second stage of the first resurrection is believers who have died during the Church Age who will all be resurrected at the Rapture (1 Th 4:13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 1Co 15:50, 51, 52, 53, Jn 14:3)
The third stage of the first resurrection are the two witnesses who are killed in Revelation 11 who are raised (Rev. 11:11, 12).
The fourth stage of the first resurrection part ‘A’ is after the Great Tribulation… those believers who were martyred will be resurrected (Rev 7:9 Rev 20:5).
The fourth stage of the first resurrection part ‘B’ are the Old Testament saints (Daniel 12:1, 2, 13, Isaiah 26:19, Job 19:26).
It’s amazing when you think that every believer has the opportunity to gain the same rewards for faithfulness that Abraham…Joshua…Moses and David will receive along with these O. T. believers who also gained approval.
The promise remains of entering God’s rest…this rest is the inheritance believers will receive if they remain faithful during this life…we hold this in common with the Old Testament saints.
The greatest of rewards will be given to those who walk in faith…that is why their example is so relevant to us…each will be rewarded according to his faithfulness on earth.
In these two verses the author of Hebrews is telling those early Christians…and us…that the day of perfection has come…Jesus has come and inaugurated the age in which all the promises of God will finally find their ultimate fulfillment …this is the day the old covenant saints waited for.
If these saints had lived to see it, they would not be attempting to go back to the time before Jesus but would join with the new covenant saints in drawing near to God…again…the message of chapter 11 is: “Can you not see? Do you not understand? You are living in the age that these saints died waiting for.
If you really want to be faithful to God…if you really want to be true to the witness of those who have gone on before us…then press on…cling to Jesus even when it brings suffering.