Be Faithful, For the Faithful One Controls the Future

The year is 1810. You are one of the parents of four daughters; your youngest, Ann, nicknamed Nancy, is 21. One day you receive a letter from a young man you met only one month previously, asking to begin a courtship of Ann.

That’s not surprising – she is attractive, outgoing, and highly intelligent. But no parent has ever received a request for courtship quite like this one. Let me quote:

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next Spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory with a crown of righteousness, brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from the heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair? (emphasis added)

The request came from Adoniram Judson. Ann’s parents were John and Rebecca Hasseltine.

If you were John or Rebecca: How would you respond? Would you say no? Why? Would you say yes? Why?

How does faith in God – the God of the promises – influence your answer?

Every day we make decisions – on big, important matters, like marriage, and on small, seemingly trivial matters, like what to say to the checkout clerk at the grocery store.

Scripture tells us:

  • Make every decision, even trivial ones, to the glory of God.
  • Make every decision, even trivial ones, on the basis of faith in the promise-keeping God.
  • Make every decision, even trivial ones, by faith and not by sight.

So following Scripture – by faith, not by sight, to the glory of God – what answer would you give Adoniram?

This is our fourth sermon on this great eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews. This chapter highlights how God has worked through the centuries to fulfill His promises, how He has raised up men and women of faith to trust in Him, to trust in those promises; how He has used them to advance His great plan of redemption, all culminating in Jesus – who Himself is the supreme man of faith. If we have faith in Him, we will join all these mentioned in Hebrews 11 at the culmination of God’s plans when Jesus reigns over His eternal kingdom.

Last week, we began discussing Abraham and Sarah. God calls Abraham to leave comfort, security, and family, to go he knows not where. God promises Him that in his offspring, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Later God elaborates: Abraham’s descendants will be as many as the stars in the heavens. God had earlier promised the first woman, Eve, that her descendant would crush the head of the serpent, Satan. Abraham’s descendant will fulfill both promises.

So, by faith in God, trusting in God’s promises, Abraham goes out – and never has a permanent dwelling again.

But He has promises of God – and he makes sure those around him know: the world not his home. God will bring him to a homeland, an eternal city – with foundations!

As time goes on, Abraham and Sarah must believe the seemingly impossible promise that a 90 year old woman way past the possibility of getting pregnant will give birth to a son.

God does give them their son Isaac in their old age. And God does fulfill the promise to Abraham and the promise to Eve through Isaac. For Jesus is Isaac’s physical descendant. Satan’s power is broken at the cross and the empty tomb, and Jesus will crush that serpent’s head on the last day. God is bringing those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation to His family by faith in Jesus. All those in Christ are Abraham’s children through that faith. Isaac is the child of the promise.

Today we consider an event that takes place when Isaac is about 13. God tells Abraham once again to leave his home and go where He will show him – but the problem this time is not in what he must leave; it is in what he must do. “Offer as a burnt offering your son, your only son, whom you love.” John and Rebecca Hasseltine were asked to say goodbye to their precious daughter, knowing they likely would never see her again. But Abraham had to raise the knife to kill his beloved son: “By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac” (Hebrews 11:17).

We’ll consider our text – Hebrews 11:17-22 – under three headings:

Faith in God’s Promised Future (verses 20-22)

Radical Obedience that Comes from Faith (verses 17-19)

Five Exhortations

Faith in God’s Promised Future

By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. (Hebrews 11:20-22)

Isaac blesses his twin sons Jacob and Esau in weird circumstances, as recorded in Genesis 27; Jacob in turn blesses his grandsons through Joseph after worshiping God, as recorded in Genesis 47 and 48; the dying Joseph speaks of the exodus from Egypt, asking that the Israelites take his bones with them when they leave.

We see clearly that Abraham can only offer Isaac as a sacrifice by faith. But in what sense are these acts by faith?

We all wish our children to be blessed. We all pray for our children to be blessed. Some of us make requests for what becomes of our bodies, or our ashes, after we die.

So what’s unusual or different about what Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph do? Why does the author of Hebrews mention them here, in this way?

Because they are not just stating wishes. They are not just making requests. They are not simply praying. They are trusting in the God who has promised!

Remember, God reiterated his promise to Abraham to both Isaac and Jacob: God promises Isaac: “I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 26:4). So by faith Isaac entrusted that promise to Jacob. God promises Jacob: “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14). By faith, Jacob entrusted part of that promise to Joseph’s sons.

And what about Joseph? Remember, the entire family want to Egypt during Joseph’s day. Joseph says to his brothers:

“I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” (Genesis 50:24-25)

How did Joseph know that the Israelites will leave Egypt?

Back in Genesis 15, God had said to Abraham: “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out” (Genesis 15:13-14)

Abraham undoubtedly had passed that promise down from generation to generation. So Joseph knows that though he is the second most powerful ruler in Egypt, his descendants will be oppressed. And one day, hundreds of years in the future, God will bring them out. So he – the one who brought the family to Egypt – wants his remains to leave Egypt. God has promised. The exodus will come about.

Recall Hebrews 11:1 and 6:

“Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen” (CSB). “Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Furthermore, “It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18).

So: Isaac could bless Jacob, Jacob could bless Joseph’s sons, and Joseph could speak of the exodus and his bones because God had promised. They had faith in the God Who promises, Who fulfills every promise.

What is equivalent for us? What does this type of faith look like for us?

We can hold just so surely to the promises God gives us. Indeed, we can bless children and grandchildren in a similar way. Sure, we can pray for health, for marriage, for happiness, for career success for them. But we don’t trust in those by faith, for God does not promise anyone healthy, successful lives.

But what does God promise?

  • He promises that In Christ, He will provide everything needed for them to fulfil His purposes and to become like Jesus.
  • He promises that in Christ, He will be our shepherd –we need fear no evil, for He will be with us
  • He promises that In Christ, He is our strength and our shield –men who will die can do nothing against Him
  • He promises that In Christ – He will work all things together to glorify Himself through us, to conform us to His image, and to bring us safely to His eternal Kingdom

As the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20, by faith, we know that all the promises of God are yes in Christ Jesus. So we can pray for these and other promises to be fulfilled in our children, by faith confident that God will fulfill them all if those children are in Christ.

God controls the future. His promises reveal how He will act in the future. Nothing can divert Him from fulfilling those promises. So we can speak to others of these promises with confidence.

Let’s now see how these ideas inform our understanding of Abraham’s offering of Isaac as a sacrifice.

Radical Obedience that Comes from Faith

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered (or “reckoned” or “reasoned”) that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (Hebrews 11:17-19)

Abraham not only received the promises (verse 17), he “embraced” them (NIV). He loved them. He reminded himself of them. They were most precious to Him.

Like Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in verses 20-22, Abraham knows that God controls the future and that He has spoken of the future. Abraham trusts in the promise of the promiser.

Furthermore, God has proven Himself faithful to Abraham. God has already done the impossible, granting new life in a dead womb, just as He had promised. And God had told Abraham in Genesis 17:19, “I will establish my covenant with [Isaac] as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.” So when God says: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Genesis 22:2), Abraham “considered,” “reckoned,” or “reasoned” thus: God brought Isaac into being when there was no human hope for a child; He can bring Isaac back to life when he is dead. We see this confidence in Genesis 22:5, when Abraham says to his servants, “I and the boy will … come again to you” (emphasis added).

You see? There is no way that the God who controls the future, the God who is faithful to His every promise, will let Isaac remain dead. He has promised Abraham as many descendants as the stars through Isaac; He has promised to bless all the families of the nations through Isaac. So Isaac must have descendants. Isaac must live.

God’s promise to Abraham was that certain. So Abraham displays this radical obedience

What about you and me? How do we display similar radical obedience by faith?

Five Exhortations

The first provides the foundation for the other four:

1) Know God’s promises

Know what God has promised. Know what He has not promised.

Many in the worldwide church think God has promised what He has not. When He then does not fulfill what He has not promised, many lose their faith in what He has promised.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph knew what God had truly promised; by faith, they acted on those promises. We must do the same: Know the promises from Scripture; memorize the promises; hold fast to the promises; act, trusting in those promises.

2) Trust God’s promises

We can know God’s promises and yet not trust them. We can say, “Yes, God works all things together for the good of those who love Him,” and the next minute get angry and upset because someone cuts us off in traffic.

So trust – that God is my shepherd; I shall not lack anything pertaining to life and godliness. I need fear no evil, for He is with me. Goodness and lovingkindness will pursue me all the days of my life. I will dwell in house of Lord forever. God will supply all my needs in accordance with His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

3) Help one another to trust God’s promises

This is one key purpose of the church, one key way we spur one another on to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). Remind one another of the promises; encourage one another with the promises; tell one another of God’s faithfulness to His promises.

4) Like Abraham: Follow God even when it makes no earthly sense– because you can trust in His promises

That’s the radical obedience that comes from faith.

5) Follow God, trusting in His promises today

If we look ahead to next week and next year and future decades, trusting God can seem overwhelming. We can imagine all sorts of problems, dangers, and disappointments that might occur.

But God doesn’t give us the grace today to trust Him tomorrow. He gives us grace today to trust Him today. Indeed, we can’t trust Him for tomorrow today; we can only trust Him for today today.

So Jesus tells us – don’t worry. Ask God for what you need for that day. His mercies are new every morning. Seek first His Kingdom, and know that all you need for that Kingdom will be added to you. Don’t be anxious for tomorrow; trust God today for today’s troubles (see Matthew 6:24-34, Lamentations 3:22-24).

Conclusion

We left John and Rebecca Hasseltine with the decision: Do they allow Adoniram Judson to court their youngest daughter Ann?

They gave their consent. Adoniram and Ann were married about 18 months later, and almost immediately sailed for India, eventually ending up in Burma.

Ann never returned. She never saw her family again. Indeed, during the next 13 years, Ann and Adoniram suffered horrible hardships. They were blessed with children, but all of them died in infancy. Ann and Adoniram were separated almost as much as they were together, frequently not knowing if the other was still alive. Adoniram suffered a lengthy imprisonment in terrible conditions; he would have died had Ann not come and ministered to him in the prison.

Then, during one of their lengthy separations, Ann became ill and died. She had not seen her husband for 3 1/2 months. Four weeks passed before news of her death reached Adoniram.

Was God faithful to His promises?

Adoniram and Ann knew that He was.

Go back to Adoniram’s letter asking for permission to court her. He didn’t downplay the dangers and hardships – rather he enumerated them. He asked for John and Rebecca’s consent for the sake of Jesus, who sacrificed Himself, for the sake of immortal souls, who would come to faith in Jesus, for the glory of God, in the hope of their meeting Ann again in that promised Kingdom, after she had been used by God to bring others to faith.

God fulfilled those promises.

Ann Judson’s life was hard – exceptionally hard. And God glorified His Name through her. He remained her ever present help in trouble. He fulfilled His purposes in her. He brought her safely to His heavenly Kingdom.

God works the same way today – for all those in Christ Jesus.

So believe in Jesus. Believe in the God who promises. Believe – and, trusting, step out in radical obedience.

For He controls the future.

[This sermon was preached November 8, 2020. The audio of the sermon and video of the entire service are available at this link. The recorded service is available via Youtube at this link. For more on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, listen to these two sermons from 2004 on Genesis 22: first, second.]

 

 

 

The Faith to Rejoice

A unseen virus spreading around the world. Millions losing their jobs. Uncertainty about whether or not we can ever get “back to normal.” Will tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions die of this disease?

What are your thoughts about God in these times? Are you praying? If so, how? With tears? With anger? With a broken and contrite heart?

Habakkuk 3:17-19 contain words of great hope. But we won’t understand those verses unless we see the depth of despair that faced the prophet writing them.

The immediately preceding verse reads:

I heard and my inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, For the people to arise who will invade us. (Habakkuk 3:16)

Habakkuk sees God as a consuming fire, pure and holy. In chapter 1 he called out, “God, why don’t you give us justice! Punish these evildoers!” By 3:16 he sees the enormity of that punishment – the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. And he trembles.

Seeing the horrible end coming to his country, the prophet writes our text::

Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord GOD is my strength, and He has made my feet like the feet of a deer, And makes me walk on my high places. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Let’s consider these three verses in turn:

Verse 17: I’ve Lost Everything!

The economy of Judah at this time was based almost exclusively on agriculture and livestock. Agriculture could be divided into permanent crops – fruit trees, olive trees, grape vines – and annual field crops, like wheat and barley. According to this verse, what parts of this economy have failed?

  • The first three items: figs, grapes, and olives – that is, all the permanent crops.
  • The next item: fields – that is, the annual crops, the staple foods, the source for most of the calorie supply. So neither the permanent nor the annual crops have yielded anything
  • Final two items: Flock and cattle – that is, sheep, goats, and cows. All their livestock are dead.

So do you see what he is saying? “Even though I’ve lost everything; even though all my income disappears.” We might say, “When I lose my job and the unemployment insurance runs out; when I can’t work and am denied my disability claim; when we’re sick and can’t pay our medical bills.”

But really Habakkuk’s situation is worse than anything we can imagine in this country. For in Judah there is no social services agency, there are no homeless shelters, there are no food stamps – and during the destruction of Jerusalem there are no well-off relatives. Emergency rooms that serve the indigent don’t exist. No income for Habakkuk means starvation. It means death – first for the weakest in the family, the old and the young, and eventually for everyone.

So in this verse Habakkuk says: Though it looks like all God’s gifts have been taken from me.

How does Habakkuk respond to this situation?

Verse 18: Yet I will Rejoice!

Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

Note here three reactions Habakkuk avoids:

  1. He does not lash out at God in anger: He does not say, “God, you have no right to destroy your people! You are a faithless God!”
  2. He does not pretend that the evil won’t happen. He doesn’t withdraw into a fantasy world, saying, “That’s too terrible to think about. I will close my eyes and think of something else. I’ll watch Netflix all evening and get distracted.”
  3. And, note carefully, he does not even say, “Despite all this, I will endure! I will keep a stiff upper lip and stick it out! I will still wait for the Lord! I will remain faithful!”

Instead, what does he say? “I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!”

Habakkuk not only foresees the possibility that he could lose everything; he foresees the certainty that the world as he knows it – along with everything and everyone he loves – will be destroyed terribly. And in this extremity he says not only, “I won’t accuse God of being unfaithful,” but, “I will rejoice in God.”

How can he say that? Looking ahead to the terrors of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege, how can Habakkuk rejoice in God? He answers that in verse 19:

Verse 19: For God Led Me Here

The Lord GOD is my strength, and He has made my feet like the feet of a deer, And makes me walk on my high places.

Consider three questions that arise as we try to understand what he is saying: Why does he say his feet are made like those of a deer? What is implied by “high places”? And what does he mean by He “makes me walk”?

(a) “He has made my feet like the feet of a deer.” If Habakkuk had lived on this continent, he might have said, “like those of a bighorn sheep.” Many years ago, Beth and I hiked for a week in Montana’s Glacier National Park. Frequently we would look up at a rocky, seemingly inaccessible peak – and there near the top we would see bighorn sheep. They would climb to the uppermost crags and run over rock fields as easily as we would run on the beach.

Why are bighorn sheep able to do this? Because of their feet – their tough, cloven hooves. These hooves aren’t hurt by sharp rocks; rather, they are able to grip even small outcrops. God designed their feet for climbing. They don’t slip. They don’t fall.

Note that the point is not the power of the sheep, but the design of the sheep’s foot. Habakkuk uses the word for the female deer, not the male, to emphasize this point. The female deer too is able to climb to the highest heights, to run over rocky fields, because of her special feet.

So Habakkuk rejoices that his feet are made like deer’s feet, like the feet of bighorn sheep – designed by God to travel over the most difficult ground.

(b) “My High Places”

For many of us today, the phrase “walking on high places” connotes recreational mountain climbing: Go out on a beautiful day, climb to the highest peak, experience a great view, exercise your body, get back to nature. But these are recent ideas. In Habakkuk’s day, no one exercised for the sake of exercise. Recreational mountain climbing was still a few millennia in the future.

Instead, in his time, “high places” connotes a difficult, challenging place. A place one would not want to go unless it is absolutely necessary. You might climb to a high place to gain defensible ground in a battle, but you only go there if you can’t avoid it. So “high places” here means a difficult, challenging place.

(c) “Makes me walk on my high places”

The NIV translates this, “enables me to go on the heights.”

Most English translations use two verbs here: the NAS, “make” and “walk”, the NIV, “enable” and “go”, the ESV, “make” and “tread.” But in Hebrew, there is only one verb, the usual verb for “walk”, with a stem change that indicates the subject is caused to do the normal action of the verb. So in this case, the phrase might mean:

“He leads me to these high places; He makes me go there even though I don’t want to.”

Or, it might mean (as the NIV interprets it):

“He enables me to walk on places I could not go without his help.”

I think both ideas are present. Habakkuk is not talking about a pleasant afternoon of rock climbing. He dreads what God has in store for him; he knows the path is very challenging, very dangerous. In that sense, God is leading him to a place he does not want to go. Yet God is his strength, and Habakkuk is confident that God will enable him to do what he could never do on his own.

And that is why he is joyful! God led him to this very spot. And though there is pain and difficulty here, he knows that God will either rescue him from the danger or allow him to die. But even death is controlled by God; that will come about only if God directs.

So why rejoice? God is good! He is wise! He is in control! And He knows what He is doing!

Lessons for Living By Faith

Let’s draw two lessons that may not be obvious from what we have said so far:

(1) By definition, walking by faith is harder than walking by sight

Habakkuk chapter 2 presents us with lessons about how not to live by faith. The proud one searches for satisfaction, security, accomplishment, and honor. All of us desire these things. The natural response to these desires is to seek them directly: to try to satisfy ourselves, to try to establish our own security, to try to accomplish great things, to aim to bring honor to ourselves. The natural response is the easy response.

But to the one who lives by faith, God says, “Don’t pursue these directly! You will not find them that way. I know, that’s the natural thing to do. But I tell you: Trust in Me! Delight in Me! And I will give you the desires of your heart. You will find true satisfaction, true security, true accomplishment, and true honor in Me alone!”

So you say living by faith is hard? That’s no surprise. Walking by sight is easy. Walking by faith is hard. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be walking by faith.

(2) Living by faith means loving God, instead of loving God’s gifts.

Habakkuk sees all God’s gifts disappear. Now, the question is: Will he love God?

Think of a parent who lavishes gifts on a child. The child says he loves his parent. But isn’t the child’s reaction to the ending of those gifts the real test of his love?

Or consider a young man who loves a young woman; he gives her many gifts, he writes lovely poems for her, he sends her flowers daily. She takes his gifts, reads his poems to others – but then ignores him.

How easy it is for us to act that way toward God! To love His gifts, to delight in His gifts – and to become angry if those gifts disappear.

There is a great deal of difference between, “I love what you do for me” and “I love you.”

Living by faith means loving God Himself! We indeed must be thankful for His gifts – but God is our delight, He is our portion, He is our treasure, and nothing we desire compares to Him.

So as God opens Habakkuk’s eyes to the coming of one of the most terrible events in human history, the prophet – knowing that God will bring this about –can delight in God, who enables him to walk on the high places.

What about our sorrows today, our worries about this virus?

All pain and suffering in the fallen world results from sin, beginning with man’s initial sin in the Garden. And God is dealing with sin. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, He has rendered death powerless. He has promised to end sin, to end rebellion, to fulfill His every promise for those in Christ.

So rejoice! Not because of the pain and sorrow, but because you can be confident that our God Reigns! He is sovereign over the affairs of men. He will be exalted by your joy in the midst of sorrow. He will stand by you and enable you to walk over those high places.

Once this particular pandemic ends – and it will end – what other high places lie ahead for you? Will he enable you to have great victories – playing a key role, perhaps, in the Third Great Awakening in this country? Or in establishing a church planting movement among an unreached people group? Or to have such career success that you give millions in funds to advance the Gospel, to provide for the poor, to change the culture?

Or will your high places be more like Habakkuk’s, more like those described in Hebrews 11:35-38: Mocked, beaten, imprisoned, poor, destitute?

Whatever your high places might be, know that God has guided you there. He will enable you to endure, He will enable you to rejoice. Trust Him. Delight in Him. Throw yourself upon Him. And love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

[Much of the material in this devotion is taken from a sermon preached in 2001. You can read the entire sermon – which is about twice as long – here.]