During the first week of September the Presbyterian congregations of Annalong, Kilkeel and Mourne gather together for 6 evenings of Bible teaching, delivered by Rev David Johnston. The text for the week was Hebrews 11, looking at Heroes of the Faith.

Sunday evening concluded our teaching week with our consideration of Faith's Reward as seen in Hebrews 11 v 29-40 (ESV). The book of Hebrews is about making a sad story better! This better story is always in Christ. Those spoken of in this chapter of Hebrews are credited as having faith in God, even though they did not see him, nor did they receive what the promise in their lifetime.

So our conclusion of this teaching series, looking at faith's reward, draws our focus to,

- faith triumphs,

- faith's trials,

- faith's trust,

- faith's testimony, and

- faith's terminus.

Ultimately we conclude in the great image of being welcomed home by the Saviour who takes us by the hand and leads us into the heavenly kingdom forever as we live by faith him Christ and in him alone.

You can watch the video of this talk at https://youtu.be/NJBb2z4E3Xk.

Find out more at www.annalongpc.org/heroes.

As the Reverend Bingham said, we've been.

Blessed by joining together as three congregations this week.

We began the week in Anna Long.

Then we moved up the road to Kilkeila and finished here in Morne.

But it's a delight to have the.

Ministers of all three congregations taking part.

Tonight I'm going to call upon the Reverend David McCullough to come and to read God's Word to us.

Our scripture reading this evening is from Hebrews chapter 11 and reading from verses 29 through to 40.

I do encourage you to have your Bibles open as we read this together and then come to look at it later in our time together.

So beginning at verse 29, Hebrews chapter 11.

By faith the people crossed the Red Sea, as on dry land.

But the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.

By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

By faith, Rahab, a prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient to because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

And what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephet, of David and Samuel, and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.

Amen.

This is the word of God.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 133.

Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.

And this week has been a week of unity in the Gospel between the three congregations who have united for this teaching week.

And I want to thank the three ministers of the congregations for the invitation to come and to occupy the various pulpits in Annalong, Kilkeel, and here now in Morn.

This has been a bit of a marathon, and I'm now beginning to feel the strains of a marathon runner and yet it's been a joy and a privilege to come and be with you.

And so, five years later, here we are for this teaching week, as we've been turning night by night to Hebrews chapter 11.

And tonight, as you will see, we're going to make it to the end.

A longer section tonight, but in some ways, this section draws the threads of the whole week together.

And I hope that will be what you will find, even if you haven't been before that, even through this talk tonight, you'll get an overview of what we've been doing.

So let's bow together in prayer.

Let me encourage you to take your Bibles also and turn again to Hebrews, chapter 11.

Our gracious God, this is the day that you have made.

And as your people, we are able to come together and rejoice in it.

And as we are here together now, gathered in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, once again we ask that your written word would be our rule, that your holy spirit would be our teacher, and that your greater glory would be our chief concern, through Jesus Christ, our lord.

Amen.

The inspiration behind it was the breakup of John Lennon's marriage to Cynthia.

He was just five when Cynthia and John separated because of John's relationship with a Japanese artist called Yoko Ono.

The following month, Paul made a surprise visit to Cynthia and Julian at their home in Weybridge.

And on the journey, he began composing a song in his head with the intention of producing something for Julian as he went through the pain of his parents divorce.

The song's original title, therefore, was hey Jules, but Paul changed it to hey Jude because he thought that sounded better.

And as for Julian, it was only 20 years later, in a chance meeting with Paul in New York, that he learned that the song was actually for him.

Hey Jude don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better the song starts out as a solo, but it then builds up to a crescendo where the opening lines are repeated in the last verse before finishing with the line.

Then you'll begin to make it better, better, better, better, better, better Five betters.

And that in turn leads into an extended coda as they begin to sing over and over again.

Na na na na na na na na na na hey Jude.

A line which is much better sung than said.

Now, you may be wondering what a Beatles song has to do with Hebrews, chapter 11.

But the reason I thought of that song in relation to this passage is because there's a sense in which the story of the Bible is the story of God taking a sad song, namely, the sinfulness, the wickedness, and the brokenness that characterizes a world which is turned away from him and making that sad song better.

And if you read through the book of Hebrews, and I trust you will, you will find that one of the writer's favorite words is the word better.

And in the course of his letter, he uses the word not just five times, but 11 times.

He speaks of better things, things that belong to salvation, of a better hope, a better covenant, better promises, better sacrifices, a better possession, a better country, a better life, of something better that God has for us, and of the sprinkled blood of Jesus, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

But the way in which these better things are received and appropriated is by.

By faith.

And the phrase by faith occurs some 20 times within the space of this one chapter, beginning in verse three.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.

Verse 4.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.

Verse 5.

By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death.

And so it continues by faith, Noah by faith, Abram by faith, Sarah by faith, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses.

And this faith, he says, verse one, by which these people received their commendation, is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

That doesn't mean that faith is blind, because there are good grounds for believing God and for trusting in his promises.

And but there are things that God has promised that we don't yet possess and that we can't yet see.

And therefore we walk by faith and not by sight.

And this chapter instructs us as to how we're to live the life of faith here on this earth until that day when faith is turned to sight and we behold the glory of God and see the Lord Jesus as he is, as we join that innumerable multitude made up of people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, who were standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb and crying out with a loud voice.

Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.

And as we consider in the closing part of our series what that life looks like, we begin with Faith's triumphs.

Look first of all at verse 32, and what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets.

The writer, as we've seen, has already told us about Abel, Enoch, and Noah.

He's related the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses.

He then goes on verse 29 to speak about the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea as they left Egypt and entering the Promised land and taking the city of Jericho.

And all of these people, he says, including Rahab the prostitute, verse 31, who hid the spies in Jericho because she believed the promise of God.

All these people, he says, exercised faith, and he could very easily have kept going.

But he doesn't have time, he says, to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.

And so he just summarizes what they did when he says verse 33, the first part.

Through faith, they conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, and obtained promises.

And that's what judges like Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah did.

And together with David and Samuel and the prophets, they obtained specific blessings that had been promised by God to his people.

And then he says in the second part of verse 33 that there were those who stopped the mouths of lions.

And here you can think of Daniel, who was cast by King Darius into a den of lions because he continued to pray three times a day to the God of Israel in defiance of the king's edict, which had ordered that prayer be made only to him as king and to no other God or man for 30 days.

But God shut the lion's mouth so that Daniel was not harmed.

And then he writes verse 34 of those who quenched the power of fire.

And here he's undoubtedly thinking of Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow down to the golden image, probably of himself, which Nebuchadnezzar had set up on the plain of Jura in the province of Babylon.

And the penalty for them was to be thrown into a burning fiery furnace.

When they were brought before the king, he offered them a second chance.

He said if they would just bow down and worship the image, they could draw a line under the whole thing and all would be well.

But they refused, and they were immediately taken and cast into the furnace that was then heated seven times more than its normal temperature.

But God preserved them even in the flames, so that neither their hair nor their clothes were singed.

And then he writes of those who were made strong out of weakness.

We don't know exactly who he has in mind, but we might again think of Gideon, who was from the weakest clan in the tribe of Manasseh and was the least in his father's house.

But God turned his weakness into strength, so that he defeated a Midianite army with just 300 men and became what the writer of the Book of Judges calls a mighty man of valor.

David, likewise, was the least and the last of Jesse's sons, but God chose him to be king over Israel and made him strong in battle.

And there are many other examples in the pages of the Old Testament where weakness is turned into strength.

And then at the beginning of verse 35, he refers to women who received back their dead by resurrection.

And here, most likely, he's thinking of what happened during the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, who were prophets in the northern kingdom of Israel.

Elijah was staying at the home of a widow in Zarephath, outside of the borders of Israel, who provided for his needs when Israel was experiencing a severe drought.

She had one son, but her son became ill and died.

She remonstrated with Elijah.

He then took the lifeless body of the little boy to an upper room, and there he prayed that the boy might live again.

And he did.

The same thing happened during the ministry of Elisha.

This time it was the only child of a Shunammite woman.

Again, she and her husband had provided for the needs of the prophet.

At that time, they had no child.

But Elisha promised they would have a child.

And a year later they did.

But some years after that, when the child had grown up and was working one day with his father in the fields, he became ill and died.

Elisha was sent for, and just like Elijah, he brought the dead boy back to life.

And what the writer of Hebrews is telling us here in these triumphs of faith, where kingdoms were conquered and lions mouths were shut and fire was quenched and weakness was turned to strength and women received back their dead, what he's telling us is that God can and does accomplish amazing things in the lives of his people when they call upon him in faith.

And this is not just something that belongs to the past and is restricted only to those whose stories we read in the Bible, because God still can, and God still does work in similar ways today.

It was a place to which many students came to ask questions about faith and life and the Bible and truth.

And Francis Schaeffer, both through his work at Labri and through the books he authored, became one of the leading Christian thinkers of the 20th century.

But the plane wasn't airborne for very long until two of its engines went down.

The aircraft rapidly lost altitude until they could actually see the water under them in the darkness.

As they were coming down, Francis Schaefer prayed, but at the same time, unknown to him, his wife had heard on a radio broadcast back in America of a transatlantic plan plane that was coming down.

And so she gathered their three little girls together, and they too began to pray.

By this time, writes Schaeffer, we could see that we were about to hit the water, and everybody was ready for the crash.

But just as the aircraft was about to plunge into the water, the silent motors began droning.

The propeller started spinning.

The plane steadied and climbed high into the sky.

When it is safely landed, the pilot came to speak to the passengers, but was at a loss to explain how the motors had started again, because he said, when two motors stop on one wing, as they had, they just don't start again.

I can explain it, said Schaeffer.

The pilot looked at him quizzically.

How?

He said, my Father in heaven said, schaeffer, started them because I was praying.

The pilot said nothing and just turned away, silently, dismissing such an explanation.

But God had been at work, and he delivered Francis Schaeffer from what would otherwise have been certain death.

And he did so through faith, the faith that was being exercised in prayer both by him and by his wife and children back home in St. Louis.

Does that then mean that God does the same for every Christian believer who's on a plane when the engines fail?

No, it doesn't.

Because what God does with one individual, he may not do with another.

And that's the complementary truth that we're going to come on to in just a moment.

But just because God doesn't do these amazing things in the life of every Christian, it doesn't mean he cannot and does not do them.

And is it not the case that some of you are here tonight in this building because of the way in which God intervened in your life to preserve you or to protect you, or to deliver you in some way or another that cannot be be explained apart from his divine power.

And you have rejoiced in that deliverance and still do.

But if we're going to get the full picture of the life of faith, we must set alongside faith's triumphs, faith's trials.

This is perhaps most clearly seen in the contrast between verses 34 and 37.

If we can just go to the next slide.

In verse 34, we read of some who escaped the edge of the sword.

And again, a number of Old Testament figures spring to mind.

There's Elijah, who escaped the sword of Queen Jezebel, and then there's Jeremiah, who was delivered from the sword of King Jehoiakim, even though the priests and the prophets were calling for him to be put to death.

But in verse 37, we read of others who were killed with the sword.

Elijah may have escaped the wrath of Jezebel, but other prophets in Israel at that time did not and were put to death.

The prophet Uriah, who was a contemporary of Jeremiah, fled to Egypt to escape King Jehoiakim.

But the king sent men to hunt them down, and when they brought him to the king, he struck him down with the sword and had his body dumped in a common grave.

But the point is that none of these people lacked faith, even though in one set of circumstances they were delivered from the sword, whereas in another set of circumstances, they died by the sword.

And what that means is that for God's people seeking to live faithfully for Christ in this world, there will be trials as well as triumphs.

Some will be healed, others will not.

Some will be rescued, others will not.

Some will live until they are a hundred.

Some will die when they're 25.

Because God does not always deliver his people from the mouths of lions or from a burning furnace, or from a prison cell, or from the edge of the sword, or from a terminal illness, or from a lethal virus.

And faith, therefore, is no guarantee of immunity from severe trials or terrible distress.

And if you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you have to face the fact that in the exertion of his will and in the mystery of his sovereignty, God may not deliver you from those trials or those sufferings in your lifetime.

In fact, you may even find your life cut short, at least in human terms, because of those sufferings, those trials.

But that's the contrast that's been brought out here, you see, between those who escaped the edge of the sword and those who were killed by the sword.

And in the life of faith, these two things stand side by side.

Faith's triumphs and faith's trials.

But that now brings us thirdly to faith's trust.

And what I mean by that is that whether God chooses to deliver me from the particular trial I'm going through, or whether he chooses instead to sustain me in it or even bring my life to an end through it, I can take comfort from the fact that it is not my faith that is the determining factor in what God does or doesn't do.

That's what I mean by faith's trust.

Job, who is described as a man who was blameless and upright and someone who feared God and turned away from evil in the midst of the most awful tragedy in which all his children were killed, comes before God, and he says, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return.

The Lord gave and the Lord is taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And what that tells us is that it is God and not us, who decides when and how we die, or how and when our loved ones die.

Daniel's three friends understood this as they stood before King Nebuchadnezzar with the threat of the burning fiery furnace hanging over them.

Here's what they said.

If we're thrown into the blazing furn, the God we serve is able to save us from it.

And he will rescue us from your hand, O King.

But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

You see what they're saying?

We believe our God is able to deliver us because he has the power to do so.

But if not, he's still God.

And whether we live or whether we die, it's not our faith that determines the outcome, it's God's sovereignty.

First, he was a Christian, and during his time at Cambridge, he served as the President of the Christian Union.

During that time, he became fluent in Arabic, and when the Second World War broke out, he served as an Arab liaison officer and did a lot of work in counterintelligence.

After the war, he returned to London to lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where he became professor of Oriental Laws.

He was a respected scholar, and because of his expertise in Islamic law, he was an advisor to the Foreign Office as well as to non Western governments.

He was also the author of a number of Christian books on the uniqueness of Jesus and on world religions.

I had one of them on my shelves when I was at college.

And he was a regular speaker at student conferences in Britain and around the world.

But what many people don't know is what happened to Norman Anderson's family.

He and his wife had three children.

The first was a girl who became a doctor and then medical missionary in West Africa.

But in the upheaval that transformed the Belgian Congo into Zaire, she was gang raped.

She was brought home to recuperate, and as she began to recover from her ordeal, she decided to go to California to pursue further medical studies with a view to going back to Africa.

But in California she tripped, fell down some stairs, knocked herself out and choked to death on her own saliva.

The second child, again a girl, also met with an accident and, like her sister, died.

Tragic circumstances.

The third child, a son, followed in his father's footsteps and went up to Cambridge.

He was nothing short of brilliant.

He became the president of the Cambridge Union.

He appeared to have a glittering career in politics ahead of him, but he never graduated because he died at the age of 21 from a brain tumor.

Six cabinet ministers attended his funeral.

Some years later, Sir Norman's wife Pat, developed Alzheimer's disease.

And for the remaining years of his life he worked with her and cared for her and loved her.

During that time, he was invited to speak at a large student conference in Wales.

He was then in his 80s, and he said he couldn't do it because his powers of concentration were declining.

But he would be happy, he said, if they were agreeable, to come and answer questions.

And for almost an hour he was interviewed in the presence of 2,000 students by a young Anglican curate in his late 20s.

He talked with him about his life and experience.

And then he posed this bold, if somewhat insensitive question.

He said to Norman Anderson, when you look back over your life and reflect on the fact that you've lost all your three children and now your wife of 60 years no longer recognizes you, do you ever ask the question, why me?

To which Sir Norman replied, no, I've never asked the question, why me?

But I have asked the question, why not me?

For I am not promised just because I'm a Christian that I will be delivered from all difficulties in this world.

I am, however, promised that in the midst of difficulties, God through Christ will be present with me.

And will give his grace to help me cope with the difficulties.

Bear witness to him.

And that, I suggest, is an example of faith's trust, faith's triumphs, faith's trials, faith's trust.

But that brings us fourthly to Faith's testimony, verse 35.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release by renouncing their faith so that they might rise again to a better life.

Better in what way?

Well, better, because in the case of the little boy whom God brought back to life in response to the prayers of Elijah, that little boy, when he became a man, would still have to die.

It was, of course, good to have him brought back to life, and it brought great rejoicing on the part of his mother, just as it was good for Martha and Mary to have their brother Lazarus raised from the dead by Jesus.

But Lazarus would also have to die again.

And for that reason, the testimony of faith is that there is something even better for the follower of Jesus than the miracle of being brought back to life in this world.

Listen to how David expresses this in Psalm 63 when he writes, O God, you are my God.

Earnestly I seek you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory, because your steadfast love is better than life.

My lips will praise you, I will bless you as long as I live.

In your name I will lift up my hands.

And it's that phrase in verse three, you see, that is the testimony of faith.

Because faith loves God more than life.

Faith loves God more than work.

Faith loves God more than retirement.

Faith loves God more than the big promotion.

Faith loves God more than the dream house.

Faith loves God even more than husband or wife or children.

And the testimony of faith is that knowing God and loving Jesus is better than anything life can give to us and better than anything death can take from us.

She was 94 years old and enjoyed a ripe old age.

But in her latter years, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and it became necessary for me to accompany her to her various medical appointments.

She got on particularly well with her GP in Colerain, who couldn't have been better to her.

He would invariably open the conversation each time he saw her by asking her how she was, and she always had the same answer.

Doctor, she would say, I have neither pain nor ache.

I have great health for my age.

And isn't that the most important thing?

And I knew, of course, what she meant, and so did the doctor.

None of us wants to be sick, none of us wants to be ill. And my mother appreciated her physical health even though she was losing her mental faculties.

But thankful though we are for these gifts when God gives them, we need to understand that health and strength are not the most important things.

And in our health obsessed society, we need to embrace this countercultural biblical truth.

Just over five years ago, when the country was in lockdown because of COVID I read a very intriguing article in the Spectator magazine by Alexander Pelling.

Bruce I don't know anything at all about him.

I can't even find a photo of him online.

I've no idea what he believes, but here's what he we are worshippers at the altar of health, the surest sign of a sick society.

And those words have continued to haunt me because it seems to me that what is true of society as a whole can be equally true of the church and of Christian believers.

For we too can become worshippers at the altar of health, not realizing it as a false God which cannot save us.

But here In Hebrews chapter 11 faith says that whether God treats me tenderly or whether he gives me over to torture, I will love him.

Why?

Because he is my reward.

Verse 6 He is the designer and builder of the city to which I'm looking forward to he is the treasure that outstrips and outlasts all the riches of Egypt, verse 26 and he is my better and abiding possession.

Chapter 10, verse 34 and that's faith's testimony.

Paul expresses it like this In Romans chapter 14, when he says, if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's face triumphs, face trials, face trust, face testimony.

But I have one last T pushing the boundaries of alliteration, and that is faith's terminus.

It's a word that was once used to describe the end of a railway line or a bus route.

And in the days of the Belfast and County down railway, the terminus in one direction was Bangor and in the other direction was Newcastle.

And we find that terminus here in our passage in verse 39.

And all these, whether in triumphs or trials, though commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

What's he saying here?

He's saying that all these Old Testament believers lived their lives of faith in anticipation of the coming redemption.

They didn't therefore receive what was promised, but we, along with those to whom this letter was addressed, we live in the time of its fulfillment.

Because Jesus has now come, and through his sacrifice and offering, he has become the source of eternal salvation for all who come to God through Him.

And that includes all those Old Testament believers who are cited as examples of faith in this chapter.

Because God's purpose was verse 40, that those believers who lived before the coming of Christ would be made perfect in the same way as Christians believers are today, that is, by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.

Which is why in chapter 12, verse 2, he's described as the founder and the perfecter of our faith, and of theirs too.

The life of faith may involve the experience of a remarkable deliverance as God intervenes by his power to do what would otherwise be impossible.

But the life of faith may also mean the endurance of a severe trial.

But in that trial, God is not absent and faith is not futile.

Because for those who walk by faith, there's something better even than life, and that is to be with Christ.

That's why Paul was able to say in his letter to the church at Philippi, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.

Yet which shall I choose?

I am hard pressed between the two.

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

And that's faith's terminus.

The book is called the Saint's Everlasting Rest.

Baxter wrote it at a season in his life where he was suffering from a life threatening illness from which he didn't expect to recover.

It's a difficult read because it's long and it's written in Old English.

But it contains the most glorious truth expressed in the most profound way.

And one example is where Richard Baxter contemplates the moment of his death.

And he says this to his readers as believers in the Lord.

O see how the judge doth smile upon you.

There is love in his looks.

The titles of Redeemer, Husband, Head, are written in his amiable shining face.

Hark, doth he not call you.

He bids you stand here on his right hand.

Fear not, for there he sets his sheep.

O joyful sentence pronounced by that blessed mouth.

Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world.

See how your Savior takes you by the hand.

Go along.

You must.

The door is open.

The kingdom is his, and therefore yours.

There is your place before his throne.

The Father receiveth you as the spouse of His Son.

He bids you welcome to the crown of glory.

Never so unworthy.

Crowned you must be.

This was the project of free, redeeming grace, and this was the purpose of eternal love.

I must say, I find that thought of the Savior taking us by the hand and bringing us through the door into his eternal kingdom especially comforting.

We know from his own lips that the Lord Jesus has prepared a place for us in the Father's house.

We know, too, that this means leaving behind those whom we've known and loved.

And that's a painful thing.

But we also have the assurance that for all who are in Christ Jesus, the separation is only temporary, since there will one day be a great reunion when we shall months more be together with Him.

And that will be truly glorious.

The television silent series Silent Witness has been running now for 28 years.

It focuses on a team of forensic pathologists and their investigations into various crimes.

The most recent series aired last February.

This time I didn't watch it on live television, but watched it later on BBC iPlayer.

And in the closing scene of the last episode, the two leading characters, Nicky Alexander and Jack Hodgson, were having a conversation that was so striking, I actually paused the program, rewind it, and listened to it again.

Here's what Jack people don't commit to anything anymore.

We have no faith, no belief that the tree we plant will bear fruit.

Now, I don't know what, if anything, lay behind the scriptwriter's words, and I may be reading too much into it, but it is a reflection, is it not, of what life has become for so many of our contemporaries, where there is no faith and no belief that the tree they plant will bear fruit.

And of course, in the absence of faith, there can be no assurance of things hoped for.

In the absence of belief, there can be no conviction about things not seen.

And the result is that life then becomes devoid of meaning and lacking in purpose.

But that's never the case for the man or woman of faith, because for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who walk by faith the tree that you plant will bear the fruit of eternal life.

Life.

And that's the message of this entire chapter, from start to finish.

Because what the writer wants us to know is that there is something better at the end point, something perfect at the terminus.

And if you belong to Jesus Christ this evening, I never assume that everyone, even at a church service, belongs to Jesus Christ.

But if your faith and trust is in Jesus, you have an assured future.

You really do.

Because in Jesus, you have a better sacrifice.

In Jesus you have a better hope.

In Jesus you have better promises.

In Jesus you have a better possession.

And when you run the race that is set before you, you will rise to a better life and a better country where there's no more death, no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain.

And there, in the holy city, the new Jerusalem, you'll experience unending joy in the presence of the only God, our Savior, to whom be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen.

Let's bow together in prayer.

Let's just take a few moments of quiet together.

And if you're one of those people who hasn't yet put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, perhaps the Spirit has been prompting you this week and this might be the time to make that response.

So let me remind you of a couple of verses from an old hymn that might help you to be able to do that just in the quietness.

Just as I am, without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come.

I come.

Just as I am.

Thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve.

Because thy promise I believe.

O Lamb of God, I come.

I come.

Our gracious God and loving Father.

Grant us that faith which rests in the finished work of your Son who loved us and died for us.

Grant us that faith which perseveres, whether in triumphs or in trials.

Grant us that faith which lives continually on the brink of eternity and rejoices in the hope of glory.

And so may we know the blessedness of those whose strength is in you and in whose hearts are the highways of heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.