Recently, we began a series looking at the question and the answer: Why Jesus? And the answer that was given is He's better. And we've spoken for the last couple of weeks from the book of Hebrews, and we'll be there again this morning, at least starting out. If you want to turn to Hebrews chapter 11, because we're gonna talk about Jesus bringing a better reward. In our next lesson, we're gonna talk about; He brings a better resurrection.
- Why Jesus? He's Better (Prophet, Priest & King)
- Why Jesus? He's Better than the Angels
- Why Jesus? He Brings a Better Hope
- Why Jesus? He Authored a Better Testament (He is our Mediator)
We have the inspired word of God that we can look to for all the answers that we need in our spiritual life and in our physical situations that we encounter as we live, and understand how we can best satisfy those situations and be right with God at the same time.
Because of those things that we've previously listed, we need to look concerning this idea of a better reward.
Jesus Offers a Better Reward: Contrast Old and New Covenants
We have to contrast a little bit the reward of the Old Testament, the reward of the old Covenant versus the new covenant. When we do that, we're gonna be able to see why the new covenant is and has a better reward.
“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.” — Hebrews 11:16
We speak in the context of Hebrews chapter 11 concerning the great members that are named of the Hall of Faith as we commonly classify the chapter. And there verses 10 to 16, we're talking about Abraham who was called out of the land of his father by God to a land that God would show him.
- Genesis 12:1-3
And Abraham and his family—Sarah in particular, his son yet to be received through the promise, Isaac—to a place that God would give to him and his descendants. Really his descendants. It was never given to Abraham as the promised land, but it was promised to the descendants of Abraham that the land that Abraham would walk in would be given to his descendants by promise of God, which meant it was sure that it was going to happen.
- Hebrews 11:10
But it talks about there in chapter 11 of Hebrews about verse 10, that Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Question: what kind of house did Abraham live in when he sojourned throughout the promised land that would be given to his descendants? Was it a nice two-story brick and mortar house that he just put on carts and took with him everywhere that he went? I have one. Yes. It was sarcastic. No, that is not what happened.
He's a man and his family and those bond servants that were with him and eventually Isaac and Jacob and their descendants—they lived in tents.
How many have tent camped for any length of time? One night to a week or two weeks? Good number of us over the years have done that. I enjoy it. I enjoy—here's what I wouldn't enjoy: 75 years plus of living in a tent. You're gonna go through a few in that timeframe, right?
That's what Abraham did. And he didn't receive the promise, but he's looking for something better than what he's in now. He's looking for a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.
Verse 16 says, God has prepared a city. That's what we're gonna look at this morning: the Old Testament reward system. We're gonna have to notice that first. What makes the new testament reward that Jesus provides through His new covenant better than what was given in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament Reward was Earthly in Nature
First of all, the Old Testament reward was very earthly in its nature.
- Genesis 12:7
We talked about from chapter 12 how God said He was going to take Abraham to a land that He was going to show him, and He's going to cause Abraham to walk all of the promised land. He's gonna see it all. He's going to observe all of the land that's going to belong to him.
In this process, Abraham goes down into Egypt. Now, Egypt wasn't their promised land, but he goes down into Egypt. He goes into areas outside of that particular land of promise. But I say all of that to say he started in the northeast. He travels all the way to the southwest where Egypt is, and the land in between there was going to be given to his descendants as a promise.
- Deuteronomy 8:7-10
Part of the promise of the Old Testament, part of the promise of the land, of the time of Moses—the law of Moses—was a very physical land promise, and it's one that some people will say God never fully has given them the land promise because there's still fighting and there's still wars that happened there.
Well, we could look back through Old Testament history and realize and understand why there's still wars there. We can understand why there's still other nations there that are not supposed to be there anymore.
You remember the instructions that God gave to the children of Israel as they left Egypt and headed toward this promised land that Moses was taking them to, and they were promised the land was theirs. All they had to do was what? Drive out the people that lived there. Because their iniquities had come up before God and they were not going to repent. Not that God hadn't given them ample opportunities to repent. They refused to repent before God, and their punishment was they were going to be driven out and the promise was then going to be given to the seed of Abraham.
Now, that was the promise. What was the reality? The Israelites—they don't go in the first time. They have to spend 40 years in the wilderness as a penalty, as punishment for disbelieving the promises of God.
And so then when they go up the second time, Joshua now leads them because Moses was not going to be able to enter into the promised land. Joshua now leads them and the promise is still the same. This is your land. All you have to do is drive out the people and account after account in Joshua, you find where they didn't drive all the people out, but it says they received the promise of God. They were given the land that was specifically given to them for an inheritance.
Longevity and Protection in the Old Reward
Another aspect of the Old Testament promise was longevity. Long life—they were able to stay in that particular land for a while.
- Deuteronomy 8:1
If they did the things that God wanted them to do, the result was going to be they were going to live in that land for a long time. They were gonna have longevity in that Old Testament promise in that Old Testament reward—that old system. There was longevity.
- Exodus 20:12
We see this echoed in the pages of the New Testament.
- Ephesians 6:4, 1
It was given by promise that they would live longer if they heeded the words of their parents, and they honored them in so doing.
Another tenant of this Old Testament reward was they had protection given to them by God. If they were obedient to what God had instructed them, then God would physically protect them and they would not be driven out of the land.
- Leviticus 26:3-12
What a promise that God makes to the children of Israel and says, I am physically going to protect you and cause you to have plenty and all you have to do is follow my commandments.
We might think that's a pretty good promise. We might think that, Hey, why can't we have one of those kinds of promises today where God's physically gonna take care of us? All we have to do is do what He says.
How hard or how easy was it for the children of Israel to fulfill their end of this particular promise and do the things that God said do? It was very, very difficult. They didn't do—in fact, they chose not to do it quite often, sometimes more than they chose to do it, which is part of the reason why we needed a new covenant, a new reward.
But this Old Testament reward was a national reward. It was a national covenant at that time.
Leviticus chapter 26 and verse three, which we just read: “If ye”—speaking in the plural sense—“if ye continue to walk in my statutes,” and this is what's going to be the result.
The Nation of Israel shared in blessings and they shared in cursings. If something happened in one area, it was affected by the entire—it was felt by the entire nation.
And you say, wait a minute. Weren't there individuals that suffered certain things that others didn't suffer? Yes, there absolutely were. But you think back to a passage like 1 Kings chapter 14, it says that Jeroboam caused Israel to sin.
- 1 Kings 14:16
That's just one man—in one man made all of Israel to sin.
Now, what are we talking about? When you go back to chapter 12 of 1 Kings. And Jeroboam has given the 10 Northern tribes of Israel to be the king over those 10 tribes, and it's not very long into his kingship, and he receives commandment of God even before he becomes king.
And God promises to give him these 10 nations to be under his rule, and that if he would follow after the commandments of God, He will establish a covenant with Jeroboam and his descendants that He'll be a king and his family will be a family of kings, much like David.
But yet Jeroboam does not follow God. He begins to change various things, and we might think they're subtle, but they weren't subtle to God. He changed the place of worship. He changed the object of worship. He changed who was supposed to offer worship. He changed how often they were supposed to offer worship. And in so doing, it says there in 1 Kings chapter 14 in verse 16, that Jeroboam made Israel to sin.
It's an interesting phrase, “made Israel to sin.” You look it up as a phrase—it's found 17 times, 17 times in the Old Testament. And every single one of those times, it's made in reference to a king of Israel who followed the same example of Jeroboam. Every single time.
- Joshua 7:1
You turn to Joshua chapter seven, and in Joshua chapter seven and in verse one, you're gonna find another phrase that “Israel hath committed a trespass.” And this time it's put on the back squarely of one individual: “for Achan hath taken of the accursed thing.”
Now you'll recall that in Joshua chapter six was the great taking of the city of Jericho. And because they were faithful and did what God had instructed them to do, the walls of Jericho fell. And the stipulation that God placed upon the people was they could not take any of the spoils from that battle for themselves because it all belonged to God. Every bit of the spoils of that first conquering within the promised land belongs to God.
But Achan didn't follow that particular command, and he took the things that he saw that he wanted, and he buried them in his tent. And because of that, Joshua chapter seven, the Nation of Israel—part of the Nation of Israel—goes after the little city of Ai and they lose. Hm, because there's sin in the camp, because there's iniquity there that hadn't been removed and it caused punishment for the entire nation.
So this was a system that, if one individual committed sin—like in the case of Achan or Jeroboam—it could be felt for an entire people. It could be felt for many generations until that sin was removed and the sacrifice had been appeased to God for them.
Afterlife Language in the Old Testament
The Old Testament reward also had very different language in it, especially concerning the afterlife.
You think concerning words that you find in the Old Testament—the Hebrew word Sheol is a very predominant word that appears 65 plus times—just a few more than 65. 31 times it's translated in our King James Bible as the word hell, 30 times it's translated in our King James Old Testament as the word grave, three times it's translated as the pit.
There's very little that you can read in the Old Testament that directly relates to heaven. That directly explains much about heaven itself as largely unspoken of directly.
Now there's references—sure, there's multiple hundreds of times that you're going to read the word heaven in the Old Testament. Nearly all of those references in the Old Testament to heaven are simply of the sky. The sky that is above us, where the birds fly and so on. Very few have any direct impact or representation on heaven as an eternal reward.
The word heaven is found 327 times in the Old Testament. Very few have any reference to an eternal place. It is acknowledged that God lives in the heavens, but it was not often understood that the heavens were meant beyond what they could see and feel within our atmosphere.
The Better New Testament Reward: Individual and Eternal
Now, let's make a comparison between that and the New Testament so we don't fully run out of our time.
The New Testament reward is very individual. It's individual—it's not based on nationality. New Testament reward is individual and it's also eternal. Two very drastic things that we've already looked at.
- Matthew 6:20
We can lay up in store for ourselves treasures in heaven. That means there's things that you and I can do as the children of God that will guarantee we have a reward in heaven. And it's not going to be taken away from us. It's not going to be something that we can have stolen away from us.
- Matthew 19:21
This was spoken to the rich young ruler as we commonly classify him, who says, “Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus says, well follow what the Old Testament law tells you to do. He says, well, what? Jesus gives him a list of Old Testament commandments. He says, “I've followed those from my youth up,” and Jesus says, “there's one thing that you lack. Go and sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me.”
You know the account as well as I do. The man turns away from Jesus and he walks away sorrowful because he has great possessions. The one thing that would keep him from eternal life was the one thing that he was not willing to give up, but our reward is eternal if we're willing to accept it on God's terms.
- 1 Peter 1:4
- 2 Timothy 4:8
Paul, at the end of his life as he is writing his last epistle—he's writing it to his young son Timothy in the faith. Young is a very generous term. Timothy's not young as you and I might think anymore—and he says there's one thing left that I haven't quite gotten yet. There's one thing waiting for me, and it's a crown of life that's not going to be taken away. It is reserved in heaven for him.
The New Testament reward—there's security that is found in this New Testament reward, and we need to notice that just for a moment.
Our New Testament reward—heaven is our eternal home—is not something that is going to be lost because we go into exile. It's not something that we're going to lose because we lose all of our possessions. It's not something that's going to be removed from us because our nation gets taken over by another nation.
These are some concerns that some people have even today. We need to hold this land that we have more precious than anything else because there's a promise associated with it. There's a better promise than the land in which we put our homes and our houses and where we walk.
There's security there. It is a place that is reserved. 1 Peter one in verse four—we mentioned a moment ago—reserved for us. The faithful child of God can rest assured knowing that there is a place for them when this life is over. They can't get much more secured than that.
The Reward of Heaven: A Real, Spiritual Place
Now, wouldn't you like to know the place that we're talking about? I think you've probably figured it out by now, haven't you? Very simple word that we have in our English language called heaven.
It is a spiritual place. It's not a physical location like you and I must think it or that we reason in.
There was one astronaut—I can't remember what—he wasn't American. I wanna say maybe Russian. He was sent up into space and he looked out the window and saw no evidence of God. God wasn't there. He went looking for God in the solar system. Heaven is a place far outside all of the universes that we could see through a telescope. Anything that Hubble sends pictures of that we can look at—and they're amazing galaxies by the way—means heaven is beyond that because it's a spiritual location. It's a spiritual place that you and I cannot see with our physical eyes.
I want you to realize for sure and for certain this morning—we're going to prove this here in just a moment—that heaven is real. There's some that don't believe that. There's some that want to believe that they'll say, well, I believe that there's a heaven, but I don't believe that there's a hell. Unfortunately, you can't have one without the other, but heaven—heaven is real.
Notice a few descriptions of heaven. First of all, Acts chapter one and in verse 11, heaven is described as a place where Jesus ascended to when He left this world.
- Acts 1:11
It's described as a place where Jesus would go to.
- Philippians 2:9
Their souls that are there, that are going to be there.
- Revelation 4:2
- Matthew 5:16
It's a real place, but it's not a physical place. It's not a place that's ever going to be inhabited by flesh and blood. It's not a place that's ever going to be inhabited by matter, which is why you and I, when this life is over, our bodies get changed to a spiritual body—1 Corinthians chapter 15.
And it is going to be for those who are righteous. It is going to be a glorious body. Why? Because it's going to be in the likeness of Jesus Himself, and it is a body that is going to withstand eternity.
Now there's another body that we could receive as well—a body that is not going to be made in the image of Jesus, but one that is going to withstand the punishment of hell forever.
There's two bodies, two possible locations for our soul when this life is over. Our soul could go to a place called Heaven that is sure and steadfast and certain to exist, that it's promised for those that are faithful and is reserved. It is a city that is prepared by God for those that are His.
It's one reality that we could receive, but hell is also a reality. It's just as real as heaven is. If heaven is real, then hell also has to be real and it will last as long as heaven remains.
And we can receive a body that will endure everything that hell has to offer for eternity.
The choice is yours. Which body would you like to have? There's a body that's going to—that you will receive when you die. You have the opportunity right now as you live and breathe and are animated in this world. You get to determine the body you'll receive when you die.
Do you want one that's made in a likeness and image of God that is going to last forever in the presence of God and in that place where God resides, or one that is going to be fit—which means suitable—for the punishments of hell that will never pass away, will never be annihilated as some would suggest, outside of the presence of God?
If we can assist you this morning, we would encourage you to come in faithfulness to the truth of God's word, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, repenting of your sins and confessing your faith in Him as deity and washing away your sins in baptism so that His blood can forever cleanse you of your past sins, and you can be one who will receive that crown of righteousness that Paul talks about—2 Timothy chapter four verse eight.
If we can assist you in any way, we would encourage you to contact us. We would love to study Jesus' amazing reward with you.
