Every Picture Tells a Story (Part 1 of 2)

The ever needed courage to keep spirits up during troubling times. Not alone. Hebrews chapter 11 was written to spur on early believers who were overwhelmed by their circumstances today on Truth for Life. Alastair beg teaches us four key lessons that emerge from the inspiring accounts of faith described in this passage. Hebrews 1117 I got a wall in my house. Given over simply to pictures I don't have one. We have a couple places that approximate but I like just have a wall for pictures. Some of you do. I know because I've been in your houses and indeed there was one memorable hold where the couple have now moved since I conducted the funeral service for the lady years ago, but I can never going to this home for the first time and being struck by the way they had taken a huge area of the house and turned it over simply to portraiture. It wasn't that the husband and wife were stuck on themselves.

There were very few photographs of them actually they had photographs that when way back down through the corridors of time, grandparents and great-grandparents and then they had come all the way up to the contemporary life of their own grandchildren and there was profit in simply standing there and having them recount various details of why a picture was there and what it meant and who that person was and where this scene had unfolded and that is particularly the case of courseware the individuals whose photographs are pictures appear, there have been individuals of faith because every picture literally tells a story that we do well to pay attention to. I did is in one sense that here in Hebrews chapter 11 we have one of those walls. Is it where where the writer has given us these wonderful portraits of individuals, down through time, God has determined which one should appear in exactly what place and the purpose of the writer is that we might attend to this gallery of portraiture and that we might learn by observation. He is particularly concerned because those to whom he writes are in danger of throwing away their confidence.

They are in danger of being so overwhelmed by the circumstances that they face that they may capitulate to the culture around them and give up some of them had been tempted simply to lie down as it went on the grass to take the baton of faith that they were supposed to put in the hands of a subsequent generation and throw down on the ground and say I'm finished and the writer has been encouraging them by various means to ensure that as he says at the end of chapter 10, we are not those who shrink back and are destroying but we are those who continue and are saved. And he is about in chapter 12, to encourage them to turn their gaze not to the portraiture of Chapter 11 to turn their gaze to the only ultimate place where it should be mainly focused on the Lord Jesus himself but for the time being.

He says let me take you down through the corridor here and let's pause before each of these paintings because they are essential for our own edification and encouragement and as we view them back in Austin dealing exploits and the encourages to patient insurance because the fact is that despite the passage of time, in the geographical separation between the initial readers and ourselves. Many of us come to worship this morning in a similar experience to those to whom the letter was first written, tempted, buffeted try discouraged, fearful, wondering if we can make it through another week. I'm looking very much to hear from God himself. A word of direction. A word of encouragement toward strengthening a word of rebuke, whatever it might be that of course is why we turn to the Scriptures so went on a field trip as it where we parked the bus came in the gallery there will be a bunch of snotty kids in the back there won't be any attention to it. It's all there.

Always, there always fiddling with with wrappers and and candy and stuff. No matter what the teacher says to them, they never pay attention despite the fact you tell them there will be a test on this. They never take any notes.

And they always get close to the swats of the back of the bus later on so they can find out what you're supposed to know so they can write up the paper afterwards. Although they never paid attention to any of now, none of you are like that you're not those who shrink back and do those things you are those who continue and receive. So you gonna pay attention with me to these various pictures and what I want to do is to stop briefly at each one and if I'm taking too long and hopefully it will become apparent to me and I'll move you know like the guide said let's let's pick it up let's move along.

There are others coming behind and it may be that someone will have to do that for me will wait and see. But the first picture here in verse 17 and following is grounded in Genesis 22, and indeed it would be helpful for you to turn to Genesis 22 to see just exactly what it is that the picture contains Genesis 22 and verse nine when they reached the place God had told him about Abraham built an altar there and arrange the wood on. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood that he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Picture number one.

I tried visualizing just in your minds eye for a moment. You have the words in front of you, but just trying to think about what this would look like and you can you see the altar made out of rough stone in the wound being placed on the way that wood needs to be placed in order that when it is kindled it will burst into flames. You see this son who is now grown to manhood being bound hand and foot, and placed on top of the altar, and can you look and see the way the artist is captured is where the glint of the sun on the blade of the knife as it is poison the hand of Abraham ready to drop down into the very lifeblood of his only begotten son.

That's the picture now wiser therefore what is the point of emphasis that we need being absolutely no doubt about that because the writer to the Hebrews gives as the common tree notes in much the same way that you get notes when you go to a gallery, especially if they're trying to sell you the painting and have a little description as to what is there and the significance of the scene tells us that the real issue here in this dramatic scene was not the moral incongruity of the father, about to kill his son. In other words, the response to this scene is not supposed to be. First of all, a responsive sentimentalism old dear little dear what a dreadful situation to get oneself into our oil fields are dreadfully sorry for the father and for the sun that is a different consideration altogether. The issue before us here is the issue of Abraham's faith now in Genesis 21 God has said to Abraham.

It is going to be through your son Isaac that all of your seed will be reckoned with, being interpreted means that Isaac is the key to the promises I have made to you. What were the promises that he had made to he had promised Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed here promised Abraham that his posterity would be as numerous and as uncountable as the sands on the seashore.

That was his promise. Now here comes his command. Take your son, your only son to the place that I tell you and killing now is that not a direct contradiction here is the key to the future of my promises. Here is the promised son, for whom you've waited all this time. Now when you dictate this same son I want you to kill and the fulfillment of God's promises dependent upon Isaac survival. If Isaac was to die.

How could the promise be fulfilled, but Abraham to Ken and was about to do with him.

What God told him to do.

He refused to allow his obedience to the command to cancel his trust in the promise he didn't say oh well I guess that puts an end to all the other stuff.

No, by faith, he said God has a plan in this is promises that through Isaac. All the nations of the earth will be blessed in his seed will be all the posterity of the future. God wants me to kill and find you must be going. The resurrection they must have a plan to raise him up from the dead, how do we know that's the case because if you read in Genesis it. He says the the servants were with him, now you guys of come fat enough if you will stay here. Isaac and I will go forward, and when we done our business.

We will return to you that not an expression of faith from the lips of an individual who knows that the reason for his journey onto the hillside is in order to take a knife and drive it through his son. Now I don't want to make more of this than it is but I don't want you to miss the point when the command was given to Abraham he said about obeying it and although it was in direct contradiction to the promise God made. He did his business and he determined to let God do his loved ones. That is true, and so many junctures in our life is hardly a week passes that somebody hasn't come to me and say, is it true that God elects people to salvation. Yes. Is it true that he is promised to save his own yes is it is true, isn't it true that we are supposed to preach the gospel and that is a result of our preaching of the gospel. Men and women will come to repentance and faith. Yes all well they say is not a bit of a problem that God's promise to do this and he commanded us to do that is the promise fit with the command, the answer is that's not my problem and is not yours, either.

Our problem is obeying the command leave God to fulfill the promise and indeed he has purposed that in our obedience to the command that is a very fulfillment of the promise by faith standard looking up this scene and you looking there a man who waited all these years for the gift of his son who changed his whole life on the basis of God's word to go into a place that he would tell them all and the fulfillment of the promises before them on all these sticks and his hand was above him to kill him and he is about to do it because his faith is such that he reckoned that if he were to kill them.

God would raise him from the dead, nowise in here it's here for the encouragement of the readers. Their faith is faltering.

What is your faithfulness faltering made strong by looking in on itself. No, not at all.

No more than plants get strong by digging in the ground and pulling them up and seeing how the root structure does is no help to the mentally Ocala we going to get in the ground to see if you still have a faith. You know you have faith, God granted it to you.

You are stimulated in your faith by looking at the examples of others who are holding the course along the journey. Obey the command trust. The promise is portrait number one let's move quickly to the second one. Isaac and his sons. We stand here and we look by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to the future, not nothing to delay on these because we dealt with them in their studies in Joseph but for those who may be unfamiliar.

Genesis 27 is where you need to look, and indeed you can read the whole wonderful story.

There Jacob getting the blessing that was due to Esau and if you remember from Sunday school. Jacob was a smooth man and a Esau was an Haley man as it says in the King James version and they got up to a little bit Diggity Paul Henry by making Jacob appear hairy although he was very smooth, and so on. And that whole story unfolds in Genesis 27 with is looking at it and saying my my, this is more to do with the deception and the deceit of Jacob. What a rascal.

Jacob and I don't really fancy his mother that much either goodness, what, what up here they were when they got together and get what is a say in the commentary notes here in Hebrews 11 just simply records and when you read the story in Genesis 27. Isaac does not weekend of his blessing going to Jacob.

He doesn't change his mind.

He doesn't change his plans. He recognized that Esau as his firstborn should have received the blessing Jacob by his deceit receive the blessing, and God used Jacob's deceit to accomplish his ultimate purpose whose deceit was Jacob's was God responsible for not an iota did Jacob and his mother cook it up the absolutely did it to God by surprise. Not for an instant, it actually unfolded the eternal plan of God. Human responsibility divine sovereignty and amazing mercy all into Walden in the unfolding package of his purposes.

The wonder when Paul pondering such things.

In Romans chapter 11 comes to the end of it. He says all the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and is passed beyond finding out Raymond Brown, who was at one point, the principle of Spurgeon's College reflecting on this has the most choice sentence to sentence is actually that I want to read to you. Although Jacob was so desperately unkind to his father so pathetically misled by his mother so astonishingly jealous of his brother. Yet God helped him Houston and blessed he was desperately unkind to his dad pathetically manipulated by his mom.

Astonishingly jealous of his brother and God says I want to blessing, help them and use it then says Raymond Brown, God's blessings are given not because we deserve because we need them when to be dreadful. If we only receive God's blessings on the basis of our deserve.

How much blessing with her be in your life that will be much in my but God blesses on the basis of our need not on the basis of our deserve. Look at the next picture quickly. Jacob and his grandsons. You can see this in Genesis 48. He has the boys on his knees and then he takes the boys off his knees and then they bow down before him.

It is a wonderful scene. He's now an old man.

If you were painting this you paint them as an old man with a weak frame, his face would be wizened. His shoulders would be a little crumpled all the lines of life will be increased into his face by one of those punk dogs and all the sand of the desert. Whether them and beaten them over time or I wish I could paint.

If you could paint you never painted religious pictures, paint Hebrews 11.

Here's a series of religious portraits that will be fantastic but if you could paint this picture you would paint this old man when you and somebody would say to you know make sure you get his staff in there. Make sure you get that thing that he's always caddying around with because he had with them. In Genesis 32 when he crossed the Jordan and make sure you get something of the picture of his blessing is that where graphically descending upon these his grandson again.

Remember, you would get this picture of his hands crossed power again. It is in this great mystery of God's providence. Jacob fiddled it so that he would get the blessing that was to be Esau's and now he switch his wounds on his grandchildren's heads and in the protest of his son loses dad you're putting a wrong hand on the wrong head.

He says don't you worry about that. I'm doing what is right to do, it will become apparent.

What a wonderful blessing to be a grandpa and bless his grandchildren what a wonderful privilege to have had such a grandfather.

Some of your children here this morning and you go to grandpa's house you made memories and if in the grace and providence of God that I memories like this in your environment then you will one day be thankful. Even if today you wonder we gotta keep moving, next portrayed. We stop and look at Joseph and his bones, Joseph and his bones. By faith Joseph, verse 22 when his end was near.

Can read of this in Genesis chapter 50 Joseph spoke about the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and give instructions about his bones. Why did he mention this way mention this because it's within his purpose. The people of God were buffeted they were getting ever smaller number. It would seem they were saying to themselves. I wonder if there is a future, and so he says listen, there's a future Abram says there is. Isaac says there is Jacob says risk and there is a future as well. Joseph says so because those people were trapped, those people could see no way ahead and Joseph said God will take you up and when you think you ought make sure you take me up, so don't put me in a very elaborate tomb here in Egypt which I could obviously have but just keep my bones in the box.

So in the years to come.

The people would ask why the bones in the box and they said the bones are the most because were going to the promised land and Joseph wanted us to be reminded of that and he reckoned that by his faith. He would speak in this way, and you perhaps recall our studies then we talked about preparing for death. Let's pause for a moment before these five pictures of Moses, which begin in verse 23.

First of all, we have Moses in a basket.

That's the first picture. Actually, you could do a picture not of Moses in a basket, but of Moses in a cupboard because when you read in Exodus 2 it says that his mom and dad sequestered them away and kept him out of sight hidden for three months and when he could no longer hide him for three months. Then he put them in a basket and put in diamond by the bulrushes is a great story. If you haven't read it for a while. I am rated I have it in my mind from Sunday school but I reread it and I was just walking up and down. I was so jazzed by such an amazing story. If you think about it, the king says it needs establishes a needy Brown all the Hebrew boys keep the Hebrew girls so they have a baby that is Amram Amram and Jekyll bed. Unfortunate names, but nevertheless these this Mr. Mrs. have a baby and they look on this boy and there's just a stamp of something on him and so the evening says you've gotta kill them drown and they said forget that we really keep in work even in height, so the Heideman for three months he managed to keep them in the house. Then they put them in the basket, put them in the bulrushes send his big sister to cannot stand around the bulrushes while Moses is in the basket she stand around the bulrushes down from the big entourage out of the Egyptian head orders and suddenly she's in the company of Pharaoh's daughter Pharaoh's daughter pokes her nose around over the basket. Find the boy says all I like to take him home with me.

Quick as a flash, the big sister says hey, how about this how I get a Hebrew woman to nurse him. Also, Pharaoh's daughter. That's a splendid idea, so she runs home gives Moses little mother to be his nursemaid. She looks after Weems and gets into the position where he needs to be. Then he goes into the custody of Pharaoh's daughter. God is so good as he takes care of all the details, baskets and cupboards and bulrushes and mothers and sisters and stepbrothers and all these things under his control, lying awake in your bed, worrying about everything overly new and where were going will listen lacks lie on the floor and ranks in the fact that your father knows best. He moves in a mischievous way, his wonders to perform the deceit of Jacob Jacobs own deceit is in the unfolding. The strange experience in the bulrushes part of his purpose. That's the first little picture that we have and it is a picture not Moses faith but the faith of his mom and dad. That is a reminder in passing how important it is for us as young families to establish the parameters for our kids in such a way that they grow up with this kind of history.

There is a lot for us to learn from these remarkable stories of faith and will continue tomorrow in part two of this message listing to Truth for Life with Alastair Bragg if you're enjoying listening to the current series titled fix our eyes on Jesus, we want to encourage you to make the complete study of the book of Hebrews your own. We have a USB drive that covers the entire book of Hebrews, you can visit Truth for Life.org/store to find out more about the USB or find the study on the to complement the series today were recommending a book titled God does his best work with empty book is written by Nancy Guthrie and she explains of the book how we are to view our feelings of emptiness in a positive light. Nancy writes that emptiness provides the perfect platform for God to teach us to fill us with his spirit and then to accomplish his purposes through us.

Each chapter in this book recalls how God has provided for his children. Throughout history, they could trust in his promises.

These are promises that still hold true for us today.

You will appreciate the tremendous encouragement you will find in the book God does his best work with empty requester copy when you donate to Truth for Life today. Online giving is quick and easy can visit Truth for Life.org/donate Bob Lapine thanks for joining us can listen tomorrow as we find out why faith will sometimes call us to leave what is secure and comfortable as we focus on the portrait of Moses the Bible teaching of Alastair Bragg is furnished by Truth for Life where the learning is prolific