Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hebrews 11

Great Examples of Faith


TOPIC: How to walk closer to God.



  1. Acknowledge sin, ask forgiveness, accept Him.

  2. All else flows from faith.


(1) *Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us *assurance about things we cannot see.


*Faith – “pistis” in Greek. Also means “belief”.


**Assurance = “hupostasis” in Greek = “stand under” = “substance” in the King James = foundation.


Ephesians 2:8 (NLT): God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.


Romans 10:6-11,17: But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven’ (to bring Christ down to earth). And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead’ (to bring Christ back to life again).” In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”... So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.


(2) Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.


(3) By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.


Colossians 1:16: for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.


(4) It was by faith that *Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long **dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith.


*Abel – Abel is the 1st example of faith. Adam and Eve walked by sight – like doubting Thomas. Abel means “exaltation”.


**dead – What will we “speak” after we’ve died?


   How did Abel know what God required? Adam told him and he had Adam’s example of bringing animal sacrifice to the guarded entrance to Eden.


Genesis 4:2-7: Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a *gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a **gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.


*Cain's gift: Cain didn’t even bring the first fruits or the best. Why did Cain even bother? Not done in faith, but ritual. Cain’s way today leaves out Christ, denies His resurrection and divinity & saving power. Cain’s way is “liberalism” and ritualism”. It led to even deeper sin – jealousy, anger then murder. Proverbs 14:12 There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.


**Abel's gift: The first born; the very best. Abel’s faith recognized his sin and his need for forgiveness – Hebrews 9:22 In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.


   Abel's faith is put first because he believed God as to the first great fundamental truth that comes before all others: peace with God; access to God; worship of God; and all this through the blood of an accepted substitute. Abel and Cain must both have heard what sacrifice they were to bring.


   Why did God allow the righteous Abel to die? So, he’d be a witness through the ages. All religions in the world, may be reduced to these two – God’s way and man’s way.
These two words sum up and embody the two ways -- "DONE" and "DO."


   How did Abel and Cain understand that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and not Cain’s? Because God lit the fire on Abel’s altar. Examples in the OT:


Leviticus 9:20-25: He placed these fat portions on top of the breasts of these animals and burned them on the altar. Aaron then lifted up the breasts and right thighs as a special offering to the Lord, just as Moses had commanded. After that, Aaron raised his hands toward the people and blessed them. Then, after presenting the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, he stepped down from the altar. Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle, and when they came back out, they blessed the people again, and the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole community. Fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground.


Judges 6:20-21: The angel of God said to him, “Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock, and pour the broth over it.” And Gideon did as he was told. Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and bread with the tip of the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all he had brought. And the angel of the Lord disappeared.


I Chronicles 21:26: David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. And when David prayed, the Lord answered him by sending fire from heaven to burn up the offering on the altar.


2 Chronicles 7:1-3 When Solomon finished praying, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple. The priests could not enter the Temple of the Lord because the glorious presence of the Lord filled it. When all the people of Israel saw the fire coming down and the glorious presence of the Lord filling the Temple, they fell face down on the ground and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!”


I Kings 18:30-39: Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here!” They all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel, and he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around the altar large enough to hold about three gallons. He piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood. Then he said, “Fill four large jars with water, and pour the water over the offering and the wood.” After they had done this, he said, “Do the same thing again!” And when they were finished, he said, “Now do it a third time!” So they did as he said, and the water ran around the altar and even filled the trench. At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.” Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The Lord—he is God! Yes, the Lord is God!”


   God made faith the condition for salvation and being made righteous because unbelief was the cause of man’s fall! See Genesis 3. Only by believing God can the sinner be acquitted and pronounced “not guilty” and, thus, made “righteous”.


   How does Abel speak to us today? His faith tells us that there is no substitute for faith. His faith tells us that you can’t add to faith. It is not works. It is not feelings. It is not experiences. It is not repentance. It is not love. But it is faith and faith only.
It is believing what He has told me about myself, not only as a ruined sinner but as a ruined creature; not only about what I have done, but what I am. It is believing what He has told me about Christ, the Savior Whom He has provided, and anointed, and given and sent; and that this Savior is able to save. Note that Cain was religious, but his sacrifice was not acceptable. How can we apply the lesson of Cain’s faith to ourselves?


(5) It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.


(6) And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.


(7) It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.


(8) It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.


(9) And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.


(10) Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.


(11) It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise.


(12) And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead—a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them.


(13) All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.


(14) Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own.


(15) If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back.


(16) But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.


(17 It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac,


(18) even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.”


(19) Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.


(20) It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.


(21) It was by faith that Jacob, when he was old and dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and bowed in worship as he leaned on his staff.


(22) It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left.


(23) It was by faith that Moses’ parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king’s command.


(24) It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.


(25) He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin.


(26) He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.


(27) It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.


(28) It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons.


(29) It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians tried to follow, they were all drowned.


(30) It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days, and the walls came crashing down.


(31) It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.


(32) How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.


(33) By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions,


(34) quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight.


(35) Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.


(36) Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons.


(37) Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated.


(38) They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.


(39) All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.


(40) For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.



Bibliography/Works Cited:


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