Well, we'll take as our text this evening, the summary of the parts of God's word that we read from Hebrews 11, verses 21 and 22. Hebrews 11, 21 and 22. We read there by faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph. and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. This evening, we would like to look at the dying faith of Jacob and Joseph, the dying faith of Jacob and Joseph. I suppose we might more accurately say it is the living faith of the dying men. the living faith of the dying men. And really when you look at this part of Hebrews 11, and you see what the writer focuses on for Jacob and for Joseph, it might come as a surprise. Maybe we would think that the writer would have said something like, by faith, Jacob wrestled with the angel and prevailed. or by faith, Joseph resisted Potiphar's wife and became second in command in Egypt. Yet the Holy Spirit, the apostle here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit certainly has reasons for emphasizing what he does here. One thing it certainly shows us in highlighting the faith of these patriarchs at their death is the way in which their faith has persevered. their faith has endured all the time up to the point of death. The same faith that tells us by which the saints live is the faith by which the saints die. The faith that we need for death is the same faith in the same promises, in the same savior that the believer in life has. And the faith that this chapter commends is a faith that enables a person to die well. Well, these, that's what it says, doesn't it? These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. So here we have the living faith of these dying patriarchs. We want to see five things, fairly briefly, each one of them, about this faith. We want to see it is faith that is established on the word of God. It is faith that is established on the word of God. It is faith, secondly, that expects the fulfillment of every promise. It is faith that expects the fulfillment of every promise. It is faith that endures through death. It is faith that exalts God in worship. And it is faith that encourages others. So these five things then briefly here this evening. Firstly, this living faith of these dying men is faith that is established on the word of God. Now, that's something that's true with all the heroes of faith and with every person who has believed. It's true of faith at its very essence. This indeed is what faith is. It is taking God at his word. You can go all the way back in Hebrews 11 here to Abel, and Abel is told by God through his parents, no doubt, that in order to come to God, you must sacrifice, there must be blood. And so by faith, he offers a sacrifice to God that is more acceptable than what Cain brought. You could go to Noah, and Noah is warned of God, of a flood. So unbelievable to the people around. Where is the promise of his coming? Where is the water that is going to descend and bring a worldwide flood? What an incredible thing to say. And yet being warned of God, the word of God coming to Noah, he prepares an ark by faith. to the saving of his house. Abraham is called by the God of glory, as we saw a few weeks ago, to leave his country, to leave his past, to leave the opportunities that he has in Ur of the Chaldees, to go where he doesn't know, but he was told by God, the word of God, and by faith then he obeys and he goes out. Joseph had dreams. dreams that came to him from God. It was God speaking to him, and though, again, absolutely incredible, dreams that got him into so much trouble at a human level, and yet God said so, and so he believes it. You see, faith, faith always has reference to the word of God. Faith takes the word of God and believes it is true, it is established. on the word of God. And now then we have Jacob and Joseph at the end of their lives. And they're both speaking into the future. They're both speaking about things to come. Things not seen as yet. And they're both making statements again at a human level that you would say are absolutely unbelievable. Where is the evidence for this? Where is the likelihood or what is the likelihood of this? Here's Jacob, he's an old man, he's dying, he's almost 150, he owns almost nothing except a small piece of land in Canaan. And yet here is Jacob saying the whole land of Canaan All of it, every square inch of it. You will own it all. You will have Canaan's land as your possession. All of it, an incredible statement. at the human level. And he has come down into Egypt with 70 people, 70 souls, that's what it tells us, came with Jacob into Egypt. And yet here's this old man saying of the seed that will come, that from our seed, from this seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. He's speaking about a king that will come out. And a line of kings, the scepter he speaks about will not leave Judah until Shiloh comes. He speaks about the gathering of a great company of people to the king who will come from out of Judah. What a statement, what a claim to make this old man Jacob is making. And Joseph too. Joseph is speaking about an exodus, and Joseph speaking when he sees the people more established in Goshen. We're now 50 plus years on since the death of Jacob, and the people are doing well in Goshen. The people are blessed in Goshen. The people are settling in Goshen. Goshen is treating them well. And yet, Joseph, when he comes to die, Hebrews tells us he made mention of the departing of the children of Israel. He is certain, he is sure it will happen. He is so certain and sure that he makes them swear by an oath that you will bring my bones with you. Speaking again of a length of time that will pass. But what gives them this confidence? How can they make these kinds of claims? How can they be so sure? What is there in the circumstances around them that would give any plausibility to these claims? Where's the evidence? Is this not simply wishful thinking? No, this is not wishful thinking. All the evidence is this. God said so. God said so. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It is when God says something, that is evidence. And that is the most certain of evidence and the most sure of evidence. And that is what Joseph and that is what Jacob are basing everything on. This is where their faith is established. God said to Abraham, I suppose you could go all the way back to what he said to Adam and to Eve concerning the seed, but certainly to Abraham, surely in blessing I will bless you, God says to Abraham. God brings him outside and asks him to count the number of the stars and the sand by the seashore, count it if you can. "'So will your seed be. "'I will give your seed the land of Canaan,' he said to Abraham. "'Kings will come out of you, and in your seed, "'all the nations of the world will be blessed.'" And faith takes that, and faith believes it because God said it. And faith then gets this incredible sight. What an incredible, no, that's the wrong word. It's not incredible. It's absolutely credible. What an amazing sight faith has. What a tremendous vision faith gives. You see, here the patriarchs, they're dying, but they're seeing beyond the land of Canaan. They're looking for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They're seeing beyond the seed that's coming from out of their own loins, and they're seeing the seed. Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day. He saw it and he was glad. He is the king. He is the one who will hold the scepter forever and forever. This is what faith is seeing because it is established in the word of God. But can't we ask you, what is the basis of your faith, Christian friend? Do you not speak and believe great things? Can people not come to you and say, where's the evidence? Is it not all wishful thinking? These are great claims that you are making for yourself. Yes, for your own bones too. You speak about forgiveness of sins through unseen blood. You speak about a free justification being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. You say that death is not the end. You speak about a resurrection of the body, your own bones, the mortal becoming immortal, the corruptible putting on glory, the dead becoming alive and a spiritual body that will see God. You say that in your own flesh, years, millennia perhaps from now, you will see God with your own eyes, that he will stand on this earth in the latter day. You speak, don't you, of the heavens being rolled away like a great scroll and the heavens melting and the elements melting with fervent heat. You speak about Christ coming on the clouds of heaven and every eye seeing him and they who pierced him. You speak about a great white throne that is set up in the heavens. You speak about the dead coming out of the graves. You speak about Christ appearing in glory. You speak about yourself appearing with Him in glory. You speak about a new heaven and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. Are these not tremendous claims? What's your evidence? Is it not all fanciful? Where is the promise of His coming? Oh, my dear friend, you have more evidence for these things than all the scientists with all their science and with all their reason put together from all ages could ever give you for anything. The Word of God is more real than all that. This faith, this living faith of these dying men is established on the word of God. The question for us is, is that the basis of our faith? In the beautiful words of Psalm 130, my hope is in thy word. But let's move more quickly here now and secondly to the fact that faith, it is a faith that expects the fulfillment of every promise. It expects the fulfillment of every promise. It tells us about these men that they are dying in Hebrews 11. It's the same words in Greek, when they are dying, when they were dying. But when they're dying, yes, they both realize that they will not see Canaan again with their physical eyes. They both realize they will not see with their physical eyes the promised seed. Joseph certainly has a foretaste and a down payment, if you will, At the end of Genesis 50, verse 23, we realize that Joseph sees Ephraim's children to the third generation. He sees his great, great grandchildren. He sees also Manasseh's children. But they know they won't see the fulfillment of these things with their physical eyes, but again, their faith can see things spiritually, really, and what a sight it gives them. Jacob says, or Israel says to Joseph, Genesis 48, 21, I die, but God will be with you. and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. And then the same faith that Joseph shares tells his brethren in chapter 50, 24, I die and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land and to the land which he swore to Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. And you see here again, where their expectation comes from. It's the fact that God will be with you. God will surely visit you. To put it as succinctly as possible here, God said it means God will do it. God said it means God will do it. God is able. God is faithful. There's no obstacle that can come in the way of God or of his power. We make promises that we can't keep. Sometimes we make promises that we don't end up wanting to keep, but not so with God. All the promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. There's a story, children of a of an airplane that is, there's a lot of turbulence and the airplane's going up and down and the people are terrified inside, there's people screaming. And there's this little girl who's sitting very calm. by herself. People come to her and ask her if she's okay, and why are you so calm? And her answer was, I'm calm and I'm not afraid because my daddy is the pilot. She had confidence in her father's ability, her father's willingness, the fact he would do anything and everything for her, and she was trusting in her earthly father. But how much more is that not true? When it is our Father which is in heaven, that is, as it were, the pilot, the author and the finisher of faith. We trust in him and he will not fail. And here, Every promise will come true because of who it is who promised. And so faith expects the fulfillment of every gospel promise. How can I expect the forgiveness of sins, which are so many? How can I expect that God will receive me, that all my sins will be whiter than snow? How can I expect that it will be true that when he looks on me at the last, that all my sins have been cast away behind his back, that as far as east is from the west, he has removed all my transgression from me? How can I expect that? that he will say of my sins, your sin and your iniquity, I will remember no more forever. Faith not only believes it in the mind, faith expects it because God said so. He is faithful who has promised who will also do it. But thirdly here, not only does it Not only is faith established in the Word, not only does it expect the fulfillment of every promise, it also endures through death. By faith Jacob when he was dying, by faith Joseph when he died. Now with Joseph here, we know that at the beginning of his life he had many trials. When he was 17, with his brothers and then into Egypt with Potiphar and his wife and then in the prison all these years. And yet we're told, there in Genesis that he was brought out of prison, he was exalted to this high place in the kingdom, second in command only to Pharaoh, he was revered, and from really the age of 30 then to the age of 110, these 80 years, the majority of Joseph's life is actually spent in this position of great power, this position of great prestige, of honor, of luxury, really, of everything. He has the freedom of Egypt. And what this is telling us here is, by faith, Joseph, when he died, really it's a beautiful thing to know that that the faith he had as the teenager and the faith he had in his 20s and the faith he had when he's 30 is still there now, after all these years. And he needed to have faith. He needed faith in the prison, certainly, but he needed faith in the palace. Remember, Edgar's prayer, don't give me poverty, don't give me riches, give me food convenient. Edgar recognizes there's danger here and there's danger here. There's danger in prosperity as well as in adversity. And for all these years, 80 years, he has all the pleasures of Egypt at his disposal. He has all the wealth, the fame, and yet what this is telling us is that he was not influenced by the wicked and godless environment. He served an idolatrous king, in an idolatrous court, in an idolatrous country for 80 years, and yet he keeps his garments clean. And at the end of his life, he is still a man of faith. At the end of his life, he has not become an Egyptian. He still identifies with the people of God. At the end of his life, this is what is true, and this is what the Spirit of God wants to impress upon us. This, by faith, Joseph, when he was dying, he was not asking for a pyramid. Why? Because you can't take a pyramid with you to Canaan. He doesn't want a pyramid. He doesn't want his name forever etched in Egypt because he doesn't identify with the Egyptians. He identifies with the people of God, with the people of the promise. And this is showing us then by faith, Joseph, when he died, that he has been kept. by the power of God through faith unto salvation. And he believed in his death that he would receive the promises that God had given. Not the literal land, but the reality that he saw behind it. Faith was showing him the heavenly Canaan. Faith was showing him the Christ of the promise, the seed of the woman, that God would be with him in death and through death. Isn't it a wonderful thing to go into death? Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to go into death, being able to lay hold upon, Not the pyramids and the gold and the fame and the opulence and everything that the world can give you, but being able to lay hold by faith on the covenant promises of Jehovah, all of them, the totality of them. All things are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's. And that's what Joseph is laying hold of. He makes mention by faith of the exodus, of the departing of the children of Israel. His hope is in the promises of Jehovah and in the promises that are there in Christ. And so death, as George Lawson, the commentator, says, was not his destruction. He died, he says, that he might live a better life than he could live on earth. Joseph was envied, no doubt, by many, if not most, if not all of the Egyptians. But he died that he might live a better life than he could live on earth. He left the Egyptians that he might live with the angels. He left his brethren on earth that he might dwell with his fathers in heaven. We did not need to be informed of him as we were informed of the poor man Lazarus that he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. Was it not in addition to the happiness of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to receive Joseph into their celestial society? We have some idea, Lawson goes on to say, of the joy that Jacob would have had when he saw Joseph again, when he came off that chariot in Goshen. Oh, what joy, what tears of joy Jacob would have had. My son, I thought you were dead, but you were alive again. But what joy does Israel have when he sees, as it were, Joseph carried by the angels and the chariots into Abraham's bosom? to see him never again to depart. Oh, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. And it's this faith that they have in the promises and in the Christ of the promises. You don't have to look around. The believer, the Christian, the one in Christ does not have to look around at the time of death for another faith. You don't need to search for better promises. You won't need to look for something that will support you better in death than that which supported you in life because this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith. And if you can say for to me to live is Christ, then to die is gain. Do we have the faith that enables us to think of death with confidence. Very briefly here, fourthly, this is a faith that exalts God in worship. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. He bows, he worships, He leans, he takes a posture of worship. That's the idea. He takes a posture of worship. He leans on his staff or on his bed. He has assurance. He sees the promise. He's given assurance that he will be brought back as God promised to him. Don't be afraid to go down into Egypt. I'll go down with you. I'll surely also bring you up again. He has this assurance that he will be brought up. He sees the fulfillment of God's promise and he worships. Well, dear friends, that's always the effect of saving faith. The effect is to make you a worshiper. Why did Christ die? Why did he suffer the just for the unjust? That he might bring you to God. This is why Christ died. This is the purpose, to turn his people from idols to God, to serve, to worship the living and true God. And when we ask ourselves, is my faith real? Is it alive? Then the question really is, does it exalt God? Does it lead you to God? Are there desires? We heard in the prayer how difficult we find it to worship, how often we feel our souls bowed down and unable to worship. But is there something in us that goes out to God saying, oh, he is worthy. He is glorious in himself, he's worthy of my praise, he's worthy of adoration. Christ is worthy, Christ is beautiful, Christ is glorious. Christ is worthy that every tongue would praise him, that everything that has breath would praise his glorious name. This is what faith does. It sees the promise, really it lays hold of Christ, and when it does that, it worships. When it lays hold of the Savior, when it lays hold of the blood of atonement, it worships. That's where worship happens, friend, when you have a sight of Christ by faith. When you see something of his beauty and his glory and his sufficiency and his death, his blood, You bow and you say, oh, how worthy he is and you worship. And faith then lastly encourages others. We see that more particularly with Joseph. He makes mention of the departing of the children of Israel and he gives commandment concerning his bones. He makes mention. of the departing of the children of Israel. You see what he's doing here? He's bringing the promises to their minds. He doesn't draw attention to himself. Oh, how he could have done that again at the human level. but he's not drawing attention to himself. He's not making mention of what he has done in his life. He's not making mention of what they did to him in his early days. He's not making mention of his purity in chapter 39 of Genesis. He's not making mention of his faithfulness. He's not making mention of what he did in building the barns and the wheat. He's not making mention of the salvation that came by God through him. No, he is making mention of the gospel. He's making mention of the departing of the children of Israel. And there is nothing better that we can do for those who are under us, our children, our people, than to point them to the gospel, to point them to the Word of God, to the promises of God, to the covenant of God. He's bringing the word to bear upon them. He's seeking that the faith that he has, that they would have it too, that their trust, their focus, their thought, their attention would not be upon him and what they would lack when he is gone. No, he says, God is here. God is still true. God's covenant is as firm with me gone as with me here. That is irrelevant. Look to this. And so as Robert Bruce says in his sermon, he wanted them to catch a glimpse of the jewel of faith that was concealed in his own soul. He wanted them to catch a glimpse, and so he makes mention of the departing, the promise, the gospel, the exodus. And all that, again, it shows us where his heart is, and that itself is an encouragement. When you see a godly old man, a godly old woman, a grandfather, a grandmother, and you see them dying, and where's their focus, where's their attention? Well, it's on the promises, it's on Christ, it's on the gospel. Oh, how that encourages, how that enlivens the faith of others. His desire is not in Egypt. He's saying that he is more a pilgrim in Egypt than a prince. He makes mention of the departing of the children of Israel. But why mention his bones? I think really it's a practical way to help them. It's really a pledge. It's something that will strengthen their faith I don't even want my bones here, he's saying. This is not the land of promise. Look for the promise deliverance. Don't return to Egypt. Maybe he saw the potential for superstition, like with the mummies in Egypt, and people saying, well, Joseph's here, and we're staying here. And he goes, no, no, no, take my bones, take my bones too, and we're all going to go to this promised land. And so he wants to strengthen the faith of others. Those who have faith, desire faith in others. They desire to strengthen, to help the faith of others, especially those who are younger in the way. We're indebted to those who have gone before us. And we should be seeking to encourage those who are coming after. We should be saying, come with us and we will do thee good, for the Lord has spoken good concerning Israel. Well, may the Lord give us this faith of Jacob and Joseph and all the patriarchs. It's a faith that will bring us through life and it's a faith that will bring us in and through death until the time when faith will give way to sight. Amen, let us pray.