"A Heavenly Land" Hebrews 11:8-10 Henry DeVries

Introduction:

Henry DeVries was a man of the Land. He loved being a farmer.

He actually was an engineer and had created a series of specialized pumps.

He had his own company at one time and eventually sold it to go farm the land.

His good friend Rich VanTill recently said of Henry, “farming was in his blood.”

He worked hard his whole life. He was a strong man as if you were a man you knew this when you shook hands with him because he had an incredibly firm hand shake.

Many of the men of the church know this and we have talked about it among ourselves. But it is interesting that none of the women of the church knew this.

I found this out over the last few days. He was gentle with them. I think he did this to the men to see if he could make us cry.

Of course watching Henry and Ms. Elaine walk around church holding hands like they never stopped being high school sweethearts was a beautiful thing to see.

Henry loved his family. Andrea he often told me about you and your Job and articles that you had written on the healthcare industry.

Henry loved relationships with others. And he loved to fellowship over a meal with friends.

And certainly Henry DeVries loved his God and the church of Jesus Christ.

He served here in many capacities but most notably he served for many years as a ruling elder and eventually was made elder emeritus here at Crete Church.

As I have reflected on Henry’s life over the last several days I couldn’t help but think about him and the parallels of his life with the life of Abraham as Hebrews 11:8-10 describes him.

Abraham was a man of the land too. And he had been promised land by God that he would receive and Abraham would actually live in that land. We see these words in Hebrews 11:8-9:

I. The Land He Lived In (8-9).

Abraham was called to go to the land of promise by God. And God told Abraham that He would show him this land and take him to it. Now we need to understand that this was way before google and GPS.

All Abraham had was a promise and his faith in that promise to follow God’s direction and trust that God would providentially direct him to that place.

We are told in the Old Testament that the land that God took Abraham to as the land of his inheritance, was lived in by others. It actually belonged to other people but yet God had promised it to him to be his possession.

This is why Hebrews 11:9 says that Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land. All he had was a promise and by all appearances it would seem like an impossibility in his lifetime.

You see this was a land of prosperity. The Old Testament describes this land as a land flowing with milk and honey. That picture is one of a land that is prosperous and able to sustain life with some of the finer delicacies of life.

So it is easy for us to imagine why the people in the land may not be ready to give it up. I mean for Abraham to announce upon his arrival in the land that their land had been given to him by God and they needed to vacate the premises or start paying rent was an argument that would have been met with great opposition.

But what we need to see this morning is that this dilemma that Abraham had did not create a spiritual crisis in his life. He simply realized and reasoned by faith that if God made a promise that it is impossible for that promise to fail because God doesn’t lie and nor can His purpose and plan fail to come to pass.

So the only logical conclusion was that this land in which he lived in as a squatter in tents at this time and place was not the fulfillment. Abraham new that there would be another time and another place for the fulfillment to come to pass. And that is why we see in Hebrews 11:10 that Abraham lived in the land of promise but he was longing for something else. Hear the words of verse 10:

II. The Land He Longed For (10).

Abraham saw the promised fulfillment as being a city and set in a future time. And that the future prosperity in that city went far beyond simply just milk and honey flowing.

Abraham knew that this kind of restoration that was to come included dwelling in the presence of his covenant faithful God. Abraham knew that one day the dead would be raised and that the effect of man’s fall would be reversed. And that man would once again dwell in the presence of God as he did before the fall.

I believe he saw it as a city because he new about the offspring that the promise of God would produce for him and his descendants. Yesterday at the graveside service I read from Revelation 21:1-7 where it describes a new heavens and a new earth and the new Jerusalem, the Holy City of God coming down out of heaven as a bride prepared for her husband.

And the old order will give way to the new order and there will be no more crying or pain or death. This is what Abraham was looking forward to. This is the fulfillment of the land of promise.

And this is the same hope that Henry DeVries had. It isn’t that he didn’t love life on earth with wifey and all his other friends and family. It wasn’t because he wasn’t prosperous in this world in his occupations and in his love for the land. No, Henry DeVries was blessed by God in countless ways! He was gifted by the Lord! All those things were true.

It is simply that he wasn’t ultimately created for all those things and all those relationships. Oh they were all part of his life as he was blessed by the hand of God. There is no doubt that is true. But Henry was made for God and he was redeemed through Jesus Christ to be with God and Henry DeVries was looking towards and longing for a city whose designer and builder was God.

Conclusion:

Henry knew something about designing and building and he also knew something about milk and honey. Today you will see some of his design work and a jars of honey that have copies of his original label on it. When you look at them don’t dwell so much on this physical land where Henry was but dwell more importantly where Henry is.

For some it may cause you to reflect with great assurance on your eternal home too through your faith in Jesus Christ. That’s great! It should be that way.

But for Others it may cause you to ponder where you will spend eternity. Is this world it? What about eternity? God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is the God of the living. Everyone will be raised in the end. But it is through Jesus Christ ,who fulfilled all the demands of the law and laid His life down as a sacrifice for sinners that salvation comes.

May we all trust in Him and find hope for eternity in that Heavenly Land. Let’s Pray!