“We Have Here No Continuing City” 

Heb 13:14

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.  NKJV 

The Hebrew writer uses the word “better” several times. 

A better covenant than that one given on Mt. Sinai.

A law made perfect by the coming of the Lawgiver.

A greater revelation revealing the very nature and heart of God.   

The leadership of the Son is superior to the leadership of Moses who led the people out but could not lead them in, and superior to Joshua who led the people in but could not give them rest. 

The priesthood of the Son is superior to the priesthood of Aaron who had to offer sacrifices continually for the sins of the people, whereas the Son offered up one offering one time for all the sins of everyone. 

In chapter 11, that great faith chapter, we discover men and women who by faith yielded to the claims of truth and thereby accomplished great things in the economy of God. 

They saw themselves moving forward toward the establishment of a city.   

In it we find that the march of all these people of faith, their pilgrimage, their warfare, their passion, were inspired by the vision of a city, a city established, a city of perfect order, a city Whose Builder and Framer is God. 

By faith Abel offered, Enoch walked, Noah prepared, Abraham obeyed, left, and lived in tents, and waited for the city of God. By faith Isaac blessed, Jacob worshipped, Joseph instructed.  By faith walls came down, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, along with all the prophets subdued, worked, obtained, stopped, quenched, escaped, received strength, were valiant, and caused their enemies to flee.   

This great chapter closes with the declaration, that while these people of faith saw the city afar off, set their faces toward it, were determined to reach it, fought opposing foes on their way, yet they never reached the goal toward which they ran, never saw the city built except through eyes of faith.   
 
 
 

Heb 11:39-40

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

But don’t stop there. The thought continues in the mind of the writer. 

12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  

I believe in Heaven.  I believe that we will one day be with Jesus in our eternal abode in the Heavens.  However, the context of our text and of the passages does not pertain to Heaven.  Heaven is not the pilgrimage toward which we are to move. Heaven is not the warfare for which we are to fight.  We are not fighting to build heaven.   

What then is this pilgrimage, what is this warfare?  What was the consuming passion of their faith?  What should be the consuming passion of our faith?   

Stated briefly and simply:

Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us beyond.  His business is to prepare a place for us.  Our business, with the power of the Holy Spirit, is to prepare a place for Him here.   

The city which Abraham went to seek was not a city postponed beyond this world; but the city of God established on the earth; the city of God, the symbol of the whole wide world subdued to the Kingship of God.  Toward that the men of faith have always moved.  Toward that city the men of faith of today are moving still.  The supreme passion of faith is not the selfish desire to win heaven, but the self-emptying desire and devotion to win the earth for God. 

In every human being there is a sense of the city, and the desire for the city.  The first city the Bible names was built by Cain, a murderer, a self-centered man, whose offering was refused because he was refused. And every since that first city there have been cities built by man: Sodom, Babylon, Nineveh, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco; a long, continuous building of the cities of man, cities expressing the failure, the sickness, the disease, the horrors of fallen man, man without God or His government. 

“We have not here an abiding city.”  Why not? 
 
 

The first essential element of the Christian character is the death of self; not the destruction of self, but the death of self.  The self that is alive and well thinks only of itself and makes the outside things serve its own well-being and advancement.  The Lord begins by saying to men, “if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself…and follow me.”  That is the central fact of Christian experience, denial of self. 
 

Whatever city we go into, throughout the world, we will find the same disaster, the failure of man.  Why?  Because of the man who builds, because the man attempting to build is self-centered and not God-centered, and because at the heart of city life there always sits enthroned the individualism of selfishness.     

Listen to our advertisements: “Have it your way; you deserve a break today; come to Marlboro country, it’s springtime; biggest sale of the century; bigger, better, faster, richest, largest, pleasure, relax and enjoy; these are all signs of the cities of man; built by man and for man’s pleasure and enjoyment. 

“We have not here an abiding city.”  Why not? 

Because there can be no harmony between the principle of the death of self and the principle of selfishness; between the method of sacrificial service and the mastery of covetousness.  These two philosophies constantly and habitually contradict each other.  With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  The flesh, the selfishness must decrease, starved to death, in order for us to be free from the yoke of sin. 

We have here no continuing city for we are men of faith; men who believe in God and in holiness, purity, and love.  The cities of earth are built by men of sight, attempting to do without God; who speak of sin as though it were a disease which does not very much matter and which nothing can be done about it.  The thought is this: I’ll just live with this addiction, this habit, this selfish nature.  After all I’m just human.  Not if you are a child of God.  You now have the Spirit and He requires for you to die to self and enthrone Jesus as King, Lord, in your life, over all your desires, dreams, goals, and life’s vocation. 

Here we have no continuing city. 

The preserving needs are absent in the cities of man; the things that corrupt are rampant.  We may pull down our barns and make bigger ones but if God only comes into the life by an after-thought of what use are our barns, our houses, our things whereby we boast, “Look what I have done.”     

Here we have no continuing city. 

Because the men of faith are a continuing people, those who are to put on incorruption, cannot dwell in corruption.  Our citizenship cannot be in a city that will not endure.  It is only when the elements of corruption are eliminated, and the leprosy of sin is dealt with in human life, that the city of God will be built.  “Here we have not an abiding city.” 

We men of faith having no continuing city here on earth, yet we seek one that is to come.  Not a city that lies beyond the grave, but we, the men of faith, discontented with things as they are, seek the city of God, always moving towards it. 

Whatever the future may have in store for us, today we have no abiding home on earth as a people.  I am fully convinced that the first lesson a Christian must learn is that of the separation from the world’s system and its cities and a joining, becoming an active pilgrim, warrior, builder with the heavenly forces and the saints of old and the church of today to assist in building the kingdom and the city of God.   

Abraham had two things which he utilized while here on earth; the tent and the altar.  Abraham left the Ur of the Chaldees and went forth to seek a city.  What were the signs of his attitude?  The tent and the altar!  The tent; easily pulled up, easily carried, easily pitched, and easily pulled up again.  A traveler! A stranger in a foreign land!  The tent is the symbol of the life of the man of faith; always ready to be disturbed by the Divine government, always ready to respond to the command to move away to bear witness somewhere else.  A tent—ready to move when God says move.  A tent—ready to stay until God says go.  

The altar!  Wherever there is a tent there was the altar, a place of worship, a place of the recognition of God, a place to which to come for the renewing of vision and the communication of virtue.  These two things are the symbols of the life which leads on to victory. 

The measure of the separation of Christian men from the methods and ways of the cities of men is the measure in which they are able to correct the things that are wrong; to destroy the forces that destroy; to construct the city of God.   

There is much to be done while we travel here in our tents.  We will have to pray for Lot and for Sodom; we must go out and fight for the rescue of Lot.  However, there will always be Melchisedek, the Priest to meet us on our way, and minister to our needs. 

The first lesson to learn is that of the tent, side by side with the altar. 
 

The Church of God—speaking now in more general terms—can only help the nation, the city of Marianna, as the church is made up of men and women who are pilgrims, warriors, builders of faith who dwell in tents, and erect altars, and work with sword and with trowel for the building of the city of God.   

Our only true content should be in our living discontented with everything that is unlike God. 

The measure in which we sit down in the city, and are content with it, and rejoice over it, and are satisfied with is as it is -- is the measure in which we have lost our vision of the City of God, and personal fellowship with the God of the city. 

Pilgrims, warriors, builders, “We have here no continuing city.” 

Do you see yourself as a pilgrim today, a traveler in a foreign country?

Do you see yourself as a warrior battling opposing forces that would stop the coming of the city of God? 

Are you a builder today?  Or have you laid the tools aside and said the work, the journey, the fight is too hard.  The journey is indeed filled with obstacles and perils along the way but the rewards are out of this world.  Seek the city that is to come.  The battle will be won, fight on!  The building of the city will be complete because it is God who is the Builder and Framer of His city.  God needs men and women of faith to journey to the promised land, fight the foes while on the way, and build with God His city.  AMEN! AMEN!