You fail to address any of the arguments. Sadly, this is pretty typical when dealing with Dispies.
You need to stick to the Word - instead of what you have been taught. Heaven has been the believer's hope since Abraham. That is the hope of him and his offspring. His expectation of Abraham was not physical but spiritual, not earthly but heavenly. The Old Testament saints were exactly like us. Their hope was the same.
Hebrews 11:8-10 describes how our great father of the faith, the Patriarch, Abraham looked for that great heavenly city, saying, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
The Greek word for “strange” here (as in “strange country") is allotrios which actually means another’s, or not one’s own; by extension foreign, not akin, hostile. The earthly Promised Land was not the true home of God’s Old Testament people. It was not the place of true peace and rest. Many enemies resided within those borders, and much trouble and strife continued there even when Israel took her promised borders. The children of Israel were indeed “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” This world was not their home. Basically, they were strangers in a strange land.
Hebrews 11:8-10 is clearly talking about Old Testament earthly Israel. It is talking about the ancient promised land. The text is talking about the patriarchs’ sojourn in the earthly Canaan land. It notably describes Abraham’s experience there as “a stranger in a foreign country.” There is no other interpretation. It also chronicles his honorable son Isaac and grandson Jacob’s experiences to be the same as his own. This totally blows apart the premillennialist fixation with the Old Testament promised land. This shows that physical Israel and its ancient boundaries were never intended to be the true Promised Land or the eternal inheritance. It confirms that it was never envisioned to be the eternal possession of natural Israel or God’s people. It was clearly conditional and temporal land.
Hebrews 11:9 tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were “the heirs with him of the same promise” (Hebrews 11:9). What promise? The next verse explains: “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10). The Patriarchs eyes were on higher, better and longer-lasting things than Canaan. Their eyes were on the heavenly city that Christ is preparing for those that are His. Their eyes were upon eternal matters. Their focus was heavenly. Even though they were promised an earthly piece of real estate their hope was always heavenly. It says here that Abraham: “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” That city was clearly the New Jerusalem. The possession of this city has been the goal of every believer from the beginning. Abraham was looking forward to a heavenly country and to a city whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews 11:13-16 says, specifically speaking of the great Old Testament champions of faith, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 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.”
It wasn’t just Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that were strangers in their ethnic homeland; so were all the rest of the old covenant saints who populated national Israel. Hebrews 11:12 describes Abraham’s natural seed as “so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. the sand of the sea.” And even though most of them at some juncture populated the area promised from the Euphrates River to the River of Egypt, the Hebrew writer testifies to the fact that please quit Old Testament giants died “not having received the promises.” The Scripture say that they “seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them.” What is more, they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
Obviously the taking of the natural, earthly, temporal land was not the end-all and be-all of their existence. It was not what it was all about. There was something better, greater, higher and longer-lasting that was promised to them that would fulfil Israel’s deepest desires – something larger than real estate in the Middle East. It was the Messiah Jesus Christ and the perfected state that comes at His appearing in the form of the new corrupt-free, sin-free, death-free, wicked-free, eternal perfect earth.
