4287 — What Country Is Meant?
Kindly explain Heb. 11: 15. What country referred to? What lesson for us?
F. O. O. Heb. 11: 15 reads, "And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned." The thirteenth verse, speaking of individuals from Abel on down, says they have "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." The fourteenth verse states that "they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." The sixteenth verse says that the better country they are seeking is the heavenly. Therefore the apostle is comparing this earth, with its transitory and fading conditions, with the heavenly country, which is permanent; and many scriptures unite in showing that the heavenly country is the new earth that is to be given to the redeemed. The lesson for us would be to devote all of our time and energies in this life to serving God, so that we may enter that heavenly country. Careful study of just what the Scriptures say enables the student to grasp their clear meaning. That is the one great secret of all true Bible study. It is not to seek to know what the Scriptures mean, but to seek to understand clearly what the Scriptures say. The individual who acquires the habit of studying to know just what the Scriptures say, is the one who is in the path for gaining true Bible knowledge.