If everyone could turn to Proverbs 23, there is a verse there that I want to start with, a couple of verses actually, and then we are going to go somewhere else. I think this verse is important for understanding why we are going to look at all the other verses we are going to look at today. In Proverbs 23:17-18, it says:
Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of JEHOVAH all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
This is written for our benefit. It is addressed to the people of God, because all of the ungodly, or the unsaved people of the world, which are billions of people, will be cut off. Their expectation will be cut off. It will be finished on May 21. They will have five months after that, but their life will be over completely. Whatever their dreams or hopes or desires for the future are, whatever they are thinking in their minds and in their hearts, their expectation for the coming days will be done; it will be finished and cut off.
But God is speaking to the child of God and He is referring to the end of time, the end of the world. He assures us that “thine expectation shall not be cut off.” The question is, what is our expectation? What is your expectation and my expectation and God’s people’s expectation for things to come following May 21 and into the future? What does the Bible tell us? What are we looking forward to?
This is why I want to turn to Hebrews in order to answer that question. We will go to Hebrews 11, which is the great chapter on faith. God repeatedly speaks of faith in this chapter, which is a synonym for the name of Christ, the Lord Jesus. Every time we read “faith” in Hebrews 11, we could read “Christ” or “Jesus.” Hebrews 11:1 says:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Jesus, we could say, is the substance. Or, go down to Hebrews 1:7:
By faith…
By Christ:
…Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
By Christ. This language of “heir” is used of a person who is in line to inherit a fortune. You inherit from your father or your family if you are an heir of the family. Let us say that you are a son of a father who is rich and he dies and leaves you everything. You have received it because you were an heir.
I especially wanted to look at verses 8-16, and I will read them now. Hebrews 11:8-16:
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
I will stop reading in verse 16. Besides the word “faith,” did anyone notice any other word that was used a few times in this passage that I just read? The word “promises.” “An inheritance” was also mentioned. But look at verse 9 again:
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise…
And the end of verse 9:
…the heirs with him of the same promise:
Also, verse 11, speaking of Sarah:
…she judged him faithful who had promised.
And verse 13:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises…
The promises of God are an expectation, right? What God has promised, His people expect for Him to fulfill it, to make it come to pass, to fulfill His Word—whatever He has promised, and He has promised quite a bit. He has promised His people an enormous amount of blessings, rich spiritual blessings in Christ that go on for eternity future. Actually, the promise is being fulfilled for ever and ever into eternity.
In terms of sorrow and contrasting that with joy, if someone is cast down, meditate for a little bit upon the promises of God for His people, the promises of eternal life, eternal happiness, an eternal Kingdom.
There are tremendous Scriptures that God has given us that do declare that whatever is going to happen after May 21, 2011 for the elect of God is going to be super wonderful, super glorious, and tremendous for God’s chosen people.
Well, I just want to look at a few things here in this passage. For one, it speaks of Abraham in Hebrews 11:8-9:
By faith…
By Christ:
…Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
Let us go back to Genesis 17. This is found in several places, but Genesis 17 is a good start or a good spot to look at. It says in Genesis 17:1-8:
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, JEHOVAH appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
I will stop there. Again, God came to Abram and changed his name to Abraham and spoke of blessing him and making him very fruitful, the “father of many nations.” He also promised him the land of Canaan to be an “everlasting possession.”
Is that the land that is over in the Middle East, which the Jews and some of the Arab people that live over there are constantly fighting over? Is that the land that God is referring to when He says that He is going to give to us this land “for an everlasting possession”?
This is one of many verses in the Bible that teach us that we have to be careful when we come to a verse and that we cannot look at a plain, seemingly simple statement that the Bible is making. Instead, we have to check it out with all Scripture to understand it.
It is impossible for Israel in the land of Canaan to be in view as this everlasting possession. Why? Because it is going to be burned up very shortly. God is going to destroy the whole earth. He is not going to destroy 99% of the earth and leave the land of Canaan floating out there in space. No, He is going to destroy the whole world, including the land of Canaan and national Israel. This is why we must look for the deeper spiritual meaning, for the hidden truth of what the Bible says.
Actually, it is very obvious to the believer whose eyes God has opened. It is not obvious to many people who are thinking that the Jews will continue to live in the land of Canaan, that they are the people of God and they are the ones that God has spoken these promises to, and that land is very important because God makes statements like this. This is why there is a great deal of support, politically, for the nation of Israel over in the Middle East. Of course, we do not care anything about politics, but this is what is underlying this tension. This is why there are so many Christians who want to help Israel. It is because they misread statements in the Bible about the land and about the people of God.
The land of Canaan, the physical land, is not the land that God has in view. He has in view the New Heavens and the New Earth, which Canaan typified. The Promised Land is actually referring to the new creation. Likewise, the references to God’s continued blessing upon the Jews forever are not speaking of the physical Jews that are in the Middle East (although it could apply to them as well as to anyone else, because God is no respecter of persons and He can save Jew or Gentile).
Here is what God says in Romans 2:28-29:
For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Here God has explained a whole bunch that should cause us to get our thinking right; therefore, we should be corrected and able to understand that spiritual Israel comprises all people from all lands. When God saves someone, they are circumcised in the heart, they are born again, their sin nature is cut off, and spiritually they become a Jew. They become that seed—well, “seed” singular is referring to Christ—but they are in the line of Abraham. He is the “father.” The promise of the son was given to him as Isaac was born, and all who live by the promise of God follow.
Let us go to Galatians 3. This idea is found here in this chapter, beginning in verse 13. In Galatians 3:13-16, it says:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
And then verse 22:
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
And verses 27-29:
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Do you see what God is doing? He is defining what He means by the “seed” and who the rightful heirs are.
This is always important when there is a death and a will is read. They want to make sure that the rightful heirs are the ones who receive the inheritance. It would be horrible if it was to be given to the wrong people; and so they are very careful, in legal terms, to make sure that whoever it is who gets the inheritance is the dearly departed’s heir.
God is the One who has named them in His will and testament. He wrote their names down in the Lamb’s Book of Life from the foundation of the world. They have already been selected, all the work has already been finished for them, and now it is a matter of God giving the promise and fulfilling the promise to them.
By the way, all those people of old, like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and Isaiah and Elijah, all the men of old received the promise but not the fulfillment of the promise.
Look at Hebrews 11, in the last couple of verses of that chapter, verses 39-40. This is the same chapter we were in, Hebrews 11, which is dealing with the faith that saved God’s people, and that they live by. It says in Hebrews 11:39-40:
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith [Christ], received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
They received the promise, just like we received the promise, but they never received the completion of the promise. Yes, they became saved. They had a new heart and a new spirit. God was with them. They walked with God and they received tremendous blessing in this life. But what is the full promise? What is the complete promise that God has promised? God made this promise to people who before were just rebels and enemies of God and unworthy of anything, yet God has decided to give them the Kingdom. What then is the full promise of God? The full promise is a New Heaven and a New Earth to dwell in with God in His presence and eternal life.
There is much more involved with all of this, but the completion of the promise will come, when? May 21, 2011 will be 99.9% of the completion of the promise. This is because at that point we will receive a new resurrected body. We will go to be with the Lord and serve Him day and night before the throne for five months.
But there is a waiting period until October 21, 2011 before God destroys this earth and then recreates a New Heaven and a New Earth for the absolute fulfillment and completion of everything that God has promised His people. From that point on, everyone turns their sight to the future of forever and eternally being with God and in His presence, with all that the Bible tells us this means.
These are the promises of God, and we are at the very doorsteps. Many saints of old would have loved to have been in our shoes and to be right at the very point where God is going to fulfill all things that He has written. All Scripture that He has given concerning things to come is just about done and ready to be fulfilled.
Since we have been in Galatians, let us also go to Galatians 4 and look at verses 21-23. Galatians 4:21-23 says:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
God came to Abraham a year before and said, “According to the time of life…Sarah thy wife shall have a son.” He made a promise and then He fulfilled it historically by giving them Isaac as a child. But really, this was looking way into the future to when the Lord Jesus would be born into the world.
Then it goes on to say in Galatians 4:24:
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Then it goes on.
Look also at Galatians 4:28:
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
This is a name for God’s people. We are believers, we are Christians, we are saints, we are the elect, and we are “children of promise,” the children of the promises that God has given concerning His salvation plan.
Let us turn the page, at least in my Bible, to Ephesians 1. In Ephesians 1:13-14, it says:
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
The “holy Spirit of promise,” this is what is dwelling in the child of God, in the believer. It is “the earnest of our inheritance.” What does this mean?
If you plan on buying a house and you see a house that you really like, it requires a down payment. That is the earnest money. So you have to put down an amount, which differs from house to house, in order to purchase that house. To make sure that it will be yours, you have to put something down on it.
This is exactly what God is saying that He has done for us, His people. He has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment, a down payment to assure us that the rest of the “money,” so-to-speak, is going to come, that everything following, all the other promises of God, all the other truths that the Bible has spoken of, will come to pass. God’s people know this. They know it.
Now, of course, there are struggles and, at times, doubts. But God’s people know that they have the Spirit. Because they have the Spirit, they know that the Bible is true, that what we read about in the Bible is true, and that it is the earnest of the Spirit:
Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession…
The word “earnest,” if we go to 2 Corinthians 1, I just want to look at a couple of verses that have this word. In 2 Corinthians 1:20-22, it says:
For all the promises of God in him [Jesus] are yea, and in him Amen…
Which means “truly.” Truly or definitely, amen. It is something that God is going to do.
…unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
God has sealed it like a king would seal a document, verifying it. Also, if the kings of the Medes and the Persians set their seal to something, it was not to be changed, it was not to be messed or tampered with in any way. This is what God is saying. He has sealed it and He will certainly fulfill all promises in Christ.
By the way, the word “earnest” is a transliteration from the Hebrew word that means “pledge.” It is arrhabon, ar-hrab-ohn’. You can go back into the Old Testament and look up that word. It is found especially in Genesis 38, where we read of Judah who wanted to go into a woman who he thought was a harlot but she was his daughter-in-law. He promised her a kid (goat). In order to put a down payment on the fact that he would fulfill his promise to provide her the kid, he gave her a pledge of different items. That word “pledge” is the basis of the word “earnest” in the New Testament. This pledge later saved her life because after she was found with child by whoredoms, Judah said, “Let her be burned.” When they brought her forth to burn her, she said, “I am with child by the man who gave me these.” So the pledge, the earnest, saved her from being burned.
This is exactly as it is spiritually in our case. The Holy Spirit whom God has given us and indwells us prevents us from coming under the judgment of the Law of God and of being destroyed by fire on that last day when God burns up everything forevermore. So it is the earnest of the Spirit that delivers us, that protects us.
Also, go to 2 Corinthians 5. This is interesting for its context. It is speaking of the “earthly house.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 says:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly…
This is not the same word for “earnest.”
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
There is a desire in the child of God to leave this world and all its troubles and sins behind and to go to be with the Lord. The Apostle Paul was moved to write about that, and yet he said that it was God’s purpose and more needful for him to remain in the flesh.
Then in 2 Corinthians 5:5, it says:
Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
This is the same word. The down payment of the Holy Ghost is indwelling the Christian, indwelling the true believer.
And look what follows after verse 5 in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8:
Therefore…
Because we have the earnest of the Spirit, this is the result:
Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
How could we rephrase this? We could say that we are willing to die.
When there was the time of Reformation, there were many Christians, maybe most but not all, who were holding to the Word of God. They wanted the Bible in their own language. They just simply wanted to read the Bible and know what God was saying in the Bible. As they learned more of the Scriptures, they realized that the Catholic mass and many of the things that the Catholic Church was teaching were not faithful and true to the Bible, and so they began to share these things. Of course, the Catholic Church became very upset and held trials in order to convince these people of their heresies to try to get them to repent. Time and again, they refused to repent. They refused to deny the truth they had learned in the Bible, and they went to the stake. They were burned to death.
We have accounts of this; however, I do not know how trustworthy something is when we are dealing with man’s mind and man’s recollections of the things that man sees and thinks, which are not always accurate and definitely not as trustworthy as the Bible. But we do have accounts of people who went gladly to the stake to be burned, because they believed God, they trusted God, and they knew that they had “the earnest of the Spirit.” They had the Holy Spirit. They knew what God had said in His Word about the future, which for them was going to come very shortly. After the fire did its work and they were burned to ashes, they knew that they would live, just like Job who knew that he would be resurrected. God’s people know this.
Unfortunately, those who are not God’s people do not know this. They cannot know it because they do not have the Spirit; therefore, they are none of His. They do not have this testimony of the Holy Spirit as a down payment, so how could they trust the rest?
But God’s people do have salvation. They know that God has worked tremendously in their lives in many different ways, that He has always been faithful, that He has always fulfilled everything that He has said. He has been Someone who can be leaned upon and trusted; of course, they learn to trust Him for all things.
As far as “the redemption of the purchased possession,” let us just go to one verse in Matthew 13, Matthew 13:44. Referring back to Ephesians, we read about the “Holy Spirit of promise” in Ephesians 1:14:
Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession…
What is that “purchased possession”? We read in Matthew 13:44:
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
“The field is the world,” and Christ purchased the world in order to redeem His people. But He also purchased the whole world; therefore, He is going to redeem the world, this creation. He is going to destroy it and make it anew. There will be a New Heaven and a New Earth. This is what God is saying. We have the down payment of the Holy Spirit “until the redemption of the purchased possession,” this creation, the New Heavens and the New Earth will be redeemed and recreated and made new.
There are so many verses and I do not want to miss any. Let us go to 2 Timothy 1:1, which says:
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
This is real life, not what the world calls life, not what the world defines as living, which is to fulfill an evil heart’s wants and wishes. They would never say it that way, but that is the world’s definition of living, “Get all you can, while you can; go after it and make yourself happy,” and they fail at every point. At the end, they may have a stuffed belly and they may have enjoyed many things in this world, but we know that it is vanity and empty, that it means not a thing and that it vanishes away. Starting on May 21 and for five more months, the world will be here; but after that, it will be gone.
Let us also look at 1 John 2:25, which says:
And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
This is one of many beautiful promises that God has given us—eternal life. Not 100 years, not even 969 years, the longest any man had ever lived, not even 1,000 years twice told, but eternal life without end into the future.
Is there any comparison? Is there anything that we could ever look at in this world and say, “You know what? This is more valuable. I want this other thing instead”?
Actually, when we do look at everything in this world, no matter what it is and no matter how great it appears through the deceitfulness of sin, everything amounts to no more than a bowl of soup, just like Esau as he traded his birthright and his blessing for a bowl of soup. You know, if we think the Indians made a bad deal in selling Manhattan, how much of a worse deal are we making with our life because we stubbornly and arrogantly and rebelliously want to do things our own way, just for the fact that we do not want to do it God’s way? We are giving up the greatest thing imaginable, which is eternal life.
I know that we previously thought for a long time that God’s penalty was eternal hell. Some people say, “It is only going to be five months of torment; then you are destroyed and that is it,” which is all that they are looking at as the penalty for sin; but this is huge. The loss of eternal life is huge, to lose eternal life, to not be there in God’s presence and in the fullness of joy with all the things that the Bible speaks of forevermore. Instead, to just be held in everlasting contempt and annihilated, to be nothing, like a beast—this is a very shameful and a terrible thing for any person created in the image of God.
Let us go to Titus 1. Titus is the book right before Philemon and Hebrews. Titus 1:1-2 says:
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
Not only has He promised it, but we also know that He must fulfill it. He has to fulfill it because He said it.
He is not like you and I. No, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” We can lie. Surely, we do lie; but God does not lie. It is actually an impossibility for the One who is “the Truth” to lie. His Word is true. It cannot be found to be wrong or to be in error or to be a lie.
God promised it and God is going to fulfill it. This is a fact. It is guaranteed that He is going to completely give what His Word has promised to His people.
Let us turn back to Hebrews 6. It says in Hebrews 6:11-18:
And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
What does “immutable” mean? It means that it cannot change. He put a seal to it, like something that the king of the Medes and the Persians has sealed. It cannot be altered and it cannot be changed. It is immutable.
That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
This is our expectation. Our expectation is guaranteed “by two immutable things.” God said it. In His character, His person, it is an impossibility for Him not to say the truth and not to perform the doing of it; that is one thing. The second thing is that He even took an oath. He swore, like a man who goes to court and puts his hand on the Bible. Why do they do that? Because they are trying to make sure that this person realizes that whatever they say must be the truth. It is not business as normal in the world when people can lie at the drop of a hat. If you lie after swearing and taking an oath in court, you could face a penalty. This tends to make people a little bit more honest, but not always. Taking an oath is guaranteeing that what a person is saying is true.
God did both. He condescended to us because He knows our frailty and our weakness and our ability to take our eyes off of Him and off of His Word and off of the promises of God and to turn to other things in the world. He is assuring us, as much as we can possibly be assured, that what He has said is going to happen. He is going to fulfill the promise.
If anyone is a father or mother, sometimes your children come up to you because they want something. They are really pushing you to do something and so you say, “Okay, okay, we will go there. I will take you there.” Then they say, “Promise?” They ask this because, well, we do tend to not fulfill all promises. Sometimes it is not because we lie but something comes up. Things happen and we get busy, and so they want more assurance. Giving a promise means, “You are not going to allow anything to come up are you, Dad? You are not going to allow us not to go to the park on that day at that time, right?” We realize this and so we say, “I promise that I will take you.” Yet still, since we are men, we can even fail in this because some major emergency might happen, but not with God. God has promised and sworn. He has sworn that it is a true promise.
Let us turn to Revelation 21. This might be a summary. If it is possible to summarize the promises of God, this passage might be the closest thing that we have. Revelation 21:1 says:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
This is October 21, 2011 when the New Heaven and New Earth will be created.
“There was no more sea.” We wonder why God would say this because, of course, when He destroyed the world, He destroyed the seas along with it. But “sea” in the Bible at times represents hell, and “death and hell were cast into the lake of fire” and were ultimately destroyed. So He is saying that there is no more hell. All of the sinners, all of the rebels, are gone. The world that they wanted more than God is gone along with them.
Then it goes on in Revelation 21:2-7:
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
Here is the inheritance. The child of God—the heir of God, the seed that is in Christ—will receive things beyond their wildest imagination. It will be so wonderful and so stupendous that our minds cannot really grab hold of what is to come and how great it is going to be.
Let us look at one last verse in Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4:1 is a sober warning for each of us:
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
God has promised but He is also indicating that we are to watch out, that this is not for everyone, that this is not for every human being. God does not love the whole world in the sense of loving every sinner. He has a specific people in mind—His chosen, predestinated people, those chosen to salvation—and anyone else who is not one of His elect will definitely fall short.
This is the same word that we find in Romans 3:23, which states:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
This is the same word that we have concerning the promise. If you fall short because you are a sinner, keep in mind that it is in God’s hands. He is in control completely. He is the One who must bestow grace and mercy. He is the One whom we have to go to, to beseech Him that we might be counted as one of His elect.
Hebrews 4:2 goes on to say:
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them…
That is, the Israelites also received the promises; the ones in the wilderness also received the promises, just like us.
…but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith [Christ]…
Again, “faith” is a synonym for “Christ.”
…not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
We need Jesus to do the work of salvation—the work that shows His faith and demonstrates His faith—in order for us to enter into the joy of the Lord and into the fulfillment of all His promises that are coming in about twenty months. That is why May 21, 2011 is so extremely important. Just as the first coming of Christ was extremely important, now God is going to wrap it up and finalize His salvation plan and fulfill it all, and it is short at hand.
Let us have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we do, once, again, thank You for Your grace and mercy and compassion and for your goodness and gentleness and Your love, because all of these things are involved in Your salvation. These are all characteristics of You. You are the One whom we can trust. You are Someone who is not like an unjust judge. You are a very righteous judge. If an unjust judge would hear the prayers of a widow woman for her continual coming, how much more You? If an unjust father would not give his son a stone or a serpent when he asks for bread, how much more would You, the righteous Father, give the Holy Spirit to them who ask? Father, this is our prayer for our children and for any who do not know You. As faith comes by the Word, may You use Your Word to bring the entrance of Your Spirit into our souls, into our hearts, so that we can then know, because then we will have the earnest of the Spirit that all that the Bible says is true. Then we can know that we have a great future, no matter what is going on presently and physically or emotionally with us, no matter what poverty we may have in this world where so many things go wrong and afflict people and try people and weary people. But Father, we know that the earnest of the Spirit is the Great Comforter and Consoler, that You can help us today and every day hereafter by Thy Spirit. We do pray that You would bless according to Your perfect will. Father, we pray that You would go with us now as we turn our attention to other things on this, Your Holy Day. Help us to do things that are pleasing in Your sight and to walk in faith. Without faith, no one can please You. Father, we pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.
(There was no question and answer session pertaining to this study.)