Book: Hebrews

Full Transcript:

Let’s take our Bibles to Hebrews 11:20-22. Before I begin, let me read Hebrews 11:17-22:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; ¹⁸it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” ¹⁹He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. ²⁰By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. ²¹By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. ²²By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

Let’s pray:

Lord, I ask You for the spirit of God to take hold of me to speak to Your people Your very word. Help us to hold Your word up in high regard, higher than anything else, and take it seriously. Lord, let us not only be hearers of the word, but doers of it every day of our lives. Lord, especially in these verses, let us be people who live by faith, and there is plenty evidence to prove that we do so. I ask this, in Christ’s name, Amen.

In the Honor Roll of Faith, I have been giving you a picture of God’s great dead. We have seen God is faithful by believing and putting their faith into action, displaying to us what faith is, and then what faith does. Biblical faith is living and full of works just as James tells us in his epistle in James 2:26:

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Before I go on further, there is a point I would like to highlight from Abraham. He is the great central figure of faith. Not so much the faith that saves, but a faith that believes God all the way and right to the end. In fact, in our Scripture, we read about faith in the resurrection. Believing that out of a dead body and womb, God could and would bring to life that which is dead.

In the case of his only son, Isaac, God can raise people even from the dead. If Isaac died when Abraham was going to offer him up, then God would raise Isaac from the dead, not only raise Isaac, but raise the dead. Thus, God’s power to raise the dead upheld Abraham’s faith and everybody else’s faith after him.

The resurrection of the dead is our great hope. There is something that Jesus said in the Gospel of John that gives us a peek into what Abraham saw when, by faith, he offered up his only son Isaac. John 8:56:

“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

When Abraham was offering up Isaac, he was seeing Christ. He saw Jehovah, who spared not his own son. Second, instead of Isaac, a representation of the great substitute who died so that men might live, which is Christ Jesus. In fact, look at John 8:57-58:

So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

Jesus, here, directly claims to be the eternal God. You can’t get around that one, brethren. In fact, what would the response be if Jesus was claiming to be God. It says in John 8:59:

Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

They thought He had committed blasphemy since it was a man claiming to be God. There is a third thing that Abraham saw that day. I mentioned last week, from the Old Testament passage of Scripture and from Hebrews 11, Abraham saw God’s name more fully revealed that day. On that day, Abraham understood that God was Jehovah-Jireh, the God who sees, will see, and will provide.

This was a step-in advance to anything else he had known before, but this is the great significance of faith. In fact, when you live by faith, God gives you more of Him. When you live by faith, God gives you more understanding of Himself. This is important to know because only a life lived by faith is the person who shall be better instructed in the things of God and the nature and character of God.

If you do not live by faith, you will not know anymore of God than you know now. It is the walk of faith that begins to open the curtain of who God is more and more. Do you think God is going to give you all at once? No, He is not.

Doubt is the great enemy of faith. If you have lingering doubts in your mind about the existence of God or the resurrection of your body because Christ is the first fruits, then you will not know anymore than that. However, if you live by faith, you will go right until the end of your last breath knowing way more of God and wanting to be in His very presence because of what you have been knowing all those years.

As we consider the faith of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the thought of the faith that believes God all the way becomes an important one to remember. It has a reach beyond death to the eternal. There is a common thread that runs through the faith of these three men that we will cover in these verses.

This is the common thread that makes mention of their faith at the end of their life. This is the people who finished after they had gone through all the sufferings, adversities, confusion of life, testing of their faith, and endured right up until the end.

When you live a life of faith and you come right up to the end of your life, how did their faith fare? Was it nonexistent? Was it laden with anger and bitterness? As I have seen people standing by their bedsides dying, they were filled with bitterness, anger, and regret. Was it tainted with hopelessness, despair and depression? So many people are tainted with that.

For them, faith was a victorious adventure. Faith was the proving of the unseen. Faith is the way by where people find out whether there is a God, a spiritual world, and forces other than what we can see. Please turn to Genesis 27 where there are three men at the end of their life. At the end of our life, maybe we can be just like these people, and the point is to be like them, do what they do, and to end the way they end. Genesis 27:2:

Isaac said, “Behold now, I am old and I do not know the day of my death.

This is where Hebrews picks it up. Then, in Genesis 47:28-29:

Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the length of Jacob’s life was one hundred and forty-seven years. ²⁹When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness. Please do not bury me in Egypt.

Again, Jacob came to the point where he was dying, and that is where Hebrews picks it up. Then, in Genesis 50:24 and Genesis 50:26:

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob…²⁶So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

All these men, Hebrews picks up at the end of their journey and at the end of the adventure of faith. It was Shakespeare who retorted:

How oft, when they were at the point of death, have men been merry?

Others have made mention of death in this way, and it was Jean de La Fontaine who said this:

Death never takes the wise man by surprise. He is always ready to go.

Leonardo da Vinci said:

While I thought I was learning how to live, I had been learning how to die. As a well spent brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings a happy death.

Usually, people die with regret, bitterness, and hopelessness. However, you don’t find that with these men. There is nothing that comes close to those things. Remember, Biblical faith lays hold of what is promised, and therefore, hoped for as something real and solid though unseen.

Biblical faith is not a blind leap in the dark. It is immersed in the nature and character of God. It is immersed in objective truth and historical realty. The people of God lived and died by faith. They did not shrink back to destruction but knew that they were in a long line of those who had finished, run the race successfully, and had gone on to heaven. They were looking forward to the same things.

What Hebrews calls people to is a great adventure of faith. It calls people to prove the declarations of the unseen by stepping out in obedience. Already, in Hebrews 11:6, he says:

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

God is opening the door to a moving vessel, which is to someone seeking Him and moving towards Him, who wants more. When Jesus was being criticized as to where His authority and learning came from, he said this in John 7:16-17:

So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. ¹⁷“If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.

In other words, Jesus is saying to do the thing He tells you, and in doing it, find out whether it is true or not. That’s why calling someone to salvation is a call to obedience. It’s not a call for you to decide. It is a call for you to come when God commands you to come. When the Gospel goes out, it’s a command to come, and then see if God is good. I haven’t met one Christian yet, who has come to Christ, and says that God is not good and wants to turn back to where they came from.

They don’t want to go back, but they want to go forward. They realize that once they take the adventure of faith and step out in obedience, what God says is true and who God said He is, He is. They know that, and they know it by faith. The Lord doesn’t tell His people to believe intellectually or to be convinced intellectually alone before becoming His disciple.

Instead, He says to follow Him, obey Him, and see for yourself whether what He says is true. Do you think the Lord is going to give it all out to you? No, He’s not, which is why we need faith. When we live by faith, we discover that it is true. Would the new world ever have been discovered if there had not been one man fanatical enough to sail and to sail until he found it?

Someone will argue that it was already there. If it were not there, he could only prove it by the same action. In sailing, he would see that it is not there, but he found it. In unseen things, people say things are not there, but how do you know? You cannot deny it until you have made the great adventure to discover it yourself.

The testimony of the centuries of those who lived by faith is the person who follows the Lord, makes the adventure, and discovers the unseen things to be seen. When there is a failure to believe, hope dies, the fight ends, and the work is abandoned. That is why the writer of Hebrews is setting up this whole chapter in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The things hoped for are always future, and the things not seen are not future, but present. They build us up to see that it is true, so the future becomes such a reality that no one could convince us that what God says will not happen. So, why did these people, in Hebrews 11, make it to the end of their earthly life with a stronger faith than when they started?

Well, they kept discovering that God is faithful and true. Their understanding of death was also clear because they knew God was in control there. In each case, death was never a hinderance to their faith. It seems to be just a blimp on the radar screen. Biblical faith removes the usual hopelessness and despair that surrounds death and defeats it.

Biblical faith is a faith to live by and it is a faith to die by. In the end, it lays hold of the eternal life. It is the kind of faith which is necessary to endure. It is faith that leads to the well-pleasing walk with God and that should be the goal of every single Christian.

Unbelievers cannot please God. There is nothing they can do to win God’s smile of approval. Apart from Jesus Christ and His redeeming sacrifice, they are utterly unable to do anything that pleases God. However, we’re talking about believers here, so please ponder with me three characteristics of the faith of these men.

First, Biblical faith passes the baton of blessing coupled with a future hope. In Hebrews 11:20, Isaac was the son of Abraham, the son of promise who led a life of faith. As the promise was given to him, he, in turn, would pass on the promise to whom it belonged, which is the covenant promise given by God to Abraham. Genesis 26:4-5:

“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; ⁵because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.”

Now, Isaac grows old where he is at the end of his life, and now it is time for him to bless his son Jacob with a hope of a future to come, that God could be trusted, and what God says will come to pass. Thus, he gives a blessing. To these patriarchs, patriarchal blessings were partly prayers and partly prophetic predictions. In Genesis 27 is the blessing that he gives, and he includes three things in the blessing, especially of what God will provide and do for them. He says in Genesis 27:28:

Now may God give you of the dew of heaven,
And of the fatness of the earth,
And an abundance of grain and new wine

That is daily sustenance, so he is saying that God meets your needs daily and as to what you need in your life such as food, clothing, and a place to live. Second, in Genesis 27:29, there is national recognition:

May peoples serve you,
And nations bow down to you;
Be master of your brothers,
And may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be those who curse you,
And blessed be those who bless you.”

In other words, God provides the best way to live and worship. Compared to any of the nations around you, God has the right way, and it should be seen in the people. It should be seen in how they worship, how God responds to them, how God blesses them, and how God does things for them that He does for no other nation.

Also, how He gives them a sacrificial system where they can approach Him, and His presence is in their midst, so other nations would be jealous because of the way you live, which is part of the blessing.

Then, in Genesis 27:29, God says that He will give covenant security, so God provides protection. There is the blessing that Isaac is passing on to Jacob. He is saying that He asks God and blesses you, so that you would maintain the uniqueness that you are as a nation before all the other nations. For what reason? The salvation of the other nations and honor of God. King James says, “We’re peculiar people.”

There is something different about Christians. We have different goals and desires. God is changing us. We look at life differently, and we have a world view that has totally been transformed. We’re not putting out stock in politics, money, wealth, or things.

We once did, but we are letting go of those things because we’re realizing that it is only for now, and that they are only the needs God is providing to get us through on this adventure of faith until we get into the Celestial City with Christ.

Only a life lived by faith can know that God blesses His children. If God blessed our spiritual ancestors, why should he not bless us the same way? Blessing meaning that God accepts us. We know we are accepted in the Beloved because of Christ. He helps us, He gives us His spirit, He gives us His word, and He protects us. We are immortal until God is done with us. Unless, you want to live a foolish life. Then, a fool has his own destiny.

For someone who lives for the Lord, you will live every single second God wants you to live until He is done. If you are living a life of faith, you’ll do everything God wants you to do until you breathe your last. See, it is an adventure!

God accepts us, helps us, and protects us while remaining faithful to us by giving us a future. I am looking forward to the resurrection of the body, and I am looking forward to what Hebrews will say about the Kingdom, an unshakeable kingdom that cannot be destroyed, removed, or attacked by another nation. It is unshakeable because God rules there.

That is the hope, part of the blessing that we have, and what keeps us going. Although the storms beat against us, they can never destroy our position before God, in heaven, because our souls are securely anchored in God’s inner sanctuary. Through Jesus Christ, our High Priest, is where a believer’s hope is safe, secured, and anchored in heaven.

If the anchor is down and the wind is blowing, the ship is not going anywhere. You may get blown a little bit, but if your anchor is in heaven, you’re not going anywhere but heaven, which is the point he is making to us. Therefore, faith is exciting and such an adventure.

The second characteristic of the man of Jacob, son of Isaac, is that Biblical faith passes the baton, which is the analogy I am using. If you have ever ran a race where you had to run as fast as you can, with all your strength, reach out until the next guy took the baton, and you are a team running together to the goal, then that’s what the Christian faith is. We desire to pass the baton to the next generation faithfully. We have something to pass down to them, especially since we have lived by faith and know it is true. Thus, Biblical faith passes the baton coupled with the example of lifestyle of continual worship.

There is a future, and now we see, in Jacob, worship. Hebrews 11:21:

By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

If you are keen with your Bibles, then you know that there are two things mentioned in this verse: Jacob blessed each of Joseph’s sons and he worshipped as he leaned on his staff. However, the keen bible study student knows that in the Old Testament, they don’t occur in that order. In fact, in the Old Testament, the second is recorded before the first. Genesis 47:31:

He said, “Swear to me.” So he swore to him. Then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed.

That is the first thing he did. If you don’t remember, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. You will find those names changed around in Scripture, but they are referring to the same person. Then in Genesis 48:1-2, the first took place later:

Now it came about after these things that Joseph was told, “Behold, your father is sick.” So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him. ²When it was told to Jacob, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel collected his strength and sat up in the bed.

Hebrews highlights the account of the end of Jacob’s life and what he did when he was dying, which are three things. First, he was an active faith. Jacob put Joseph in charge of his burial in the land of Canaan, not Egypt. Remember, when the drought came about, Joseph was already in power in Egypt. His father, Jacob, was in the land of Canaan, and the drought was so severe that they had to move to Egypt. In the passage, he stayed in Egypt for seventeen years, and Joseph took care of him. Jacob said to Joseph that when it came to him dying, he was to not burry him there, but to take him back to Canaan. In Genesis 47:29-30, it says:

When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness. Please do not bury me in Egypt, ³⁰but when I lie down with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.”

This was an act of faith about God’s promise concerning his descendants. God would always give them the promise land. The second act of faith, in Genesis, is that Jacob did worship. Genesis 47:31, he swore to him; then, Israel bowed and worshipped at the head of his bed.

At the end of his life, this shows that he was obedient and humble before God, he took that posture before God, and displayed this before the Lord every day. To him, God was real and spoke to him, and he spoke to God. He was a friend of God and worshiped the One living. At his death, he still walked with God, trusted Him, and followed His voice as the Shepherd, which shows up in His words and deeds at the end of his life.

God was his wealth, strength, exciting joy, and a happy child with such a Father as that. In Genesis 48:15-16, we see the third act of faith:

He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

¹⁶The angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless the lads; And may my name live on in them, And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

There was the promise that God gave. At the end of his life, we see in the faith of Jacob that he continually worshipped God. While he was living by faith, his relationship kept growing and growing. God was his Shepherd, who led him, fed him, and took care of him all the way to the end.

This is important because only a life lived by faith can adequately prepare for the end of life knowing that the mercies are all the sweeter by realizing they have always come from the hand of the great Shepherd. With God, you are as sheep with a Shepherd being cared for, guarded, guided, fed, led, and your end will be peace without end. That is the promises that God gives.

For the meantime, our desire would be because God has blessed you, taught you, expanded your faith, and shown you great and might things, you will want to bless others, you will want others to see what you see, and you will want others to come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior. God forbid that we should dam up the waters that will nourish future generations downstream. You don’t ever want to do that, but always giving out what God has given us.

Biblical faith lives for God to pass down to their children the blessings that come from worshipping the Lord, Jesus Christ. Thus, we have a future hope, and as we grow in faith, we keep worshipping God. God becomes near and dear to us than ever, and our desire is going to want to be with Him. The relationship gets so close that you just want to go home.

Lastly, Biblical faith passes the baton of blessing coupled with constant anticipation. All the divine promises will be fulfilled. Hebrews 11:22:

By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

Joseph encourages his brethren to remain faithful to the promises by becoming the exemplary person of faith in Scripture. First, he reminds them that God is faithful and will take care of them in Genesis 50:24:

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”

Remember, the people were going to enter four hundred and thirty years of slavery. Every time you see a prophetic message given in Scripture, God is always giving something to people that they really need, but they don’t know it yet. Joseph is coming to the end of his life, but they went on for a while in Egypt.

However, there came a point where the Israelites multiplied so much, which made them a threat to Egypt, so Egypt made them slaves. When Joseph is dying, he says to them that God will take care of them, take them from this land, and that He will give them the promise by the oath that He gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What God says will come to pass, so keep your faith in him.

No matter how hard it gets, no matter how severe the slavery gets, and no matter how much the persecution gets, don’t give up. Keep worshiping God and keep hoping for the future because it will come to pass.

Secondly, he makes his brethren swear that they will not leave him in Egypt. Joseph always felt as a sojourner in Egypt even though he rose to second in command and had more authority than the man on top of him. However, no matter what he had or how much God gave him, he knew it wasn’t home, so Joseph had a strong desire not to miss the day God’s people would enter the promise land. He says in Genesis 50:25-26:

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.” ²⁶So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten, and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt. If there was any other place that Joseph died, they wouldn’t have been able to take his body the way it was prepared in Egypt. In fact, there probably was a place they built for him and kept him in, and the Egyptians were big on that kind of stuff.

When it came time for the Israelites to leave, they went and got his bones because he didn’t want to stay there. He was dead already, but he wanted to give the people the hope. After four hundred and thirty years of bondage in Egypt, God raised up Moses, and Moses kept Joseph’s request recorded in Exodus 13:19:

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you.”

He did, but there was a problem. Moses could not enter the promise land. He was forbidden to, so Moses went to Mount Nebo. Joshua, who was given the mantel by Moses to take the people to the promise land, took Joseph’s bones and buried them.

That was an encouragement to the people. That is what he laid before them for them to continue in their faith. God would take care of His people, keep His promise, and make them a great nation. It is recorded in Joshua 24:32:

Now they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the piece of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of money; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons.

These are all acts of faith at the end of their life, passing the baton to the next generation, and saying, “God is real, His word is true, and His promises will come to pass.” It is by faith that you hold to them, and someday that faith turns to sight.

Only a life lived by faith lives with a growing anticipation that we will be completely delivered from these bodies of death. It is our turn to live on earth today, endure by faith, believe the unseen, trust God’s promises, to wait, and to hope expectantly with great anticipation that our great God and Savior will bring all He has promised to an ultimate fulfillment.

My question is: how will you die? How you live will have a great deal to do with the answer to that question. The first question is: how will you live? Then, the next question is: how will you die? If you live by faith, you will die in faith.

I pray that it will be a faith, which death cannot weaken or destroy, and that it would be a faith in Christ that passes the baton to your children coupled with a future hope, joyous worship, anticipation, and expectation of the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. That we will pass from this little blip on the radar screen into the presence of God with no difficulty.

God doesn’t have a problem with death. He has no problem with raising you from the grave. It is all going to happen, and that is the message to us. Live right to your last breath with this kind of faith, and you are going to affect and infect your children, grandchildren, and generation that you have something to do with. You are going to pass the baton to them as a runner stretching out with all your might so that they get it and continue.

That is what we’re called to do, so will you be that person? I believe that is what these three men are teaching us. In the life and in this world in which we live, it is going to take that faith to endure until the end. Let’s pray:

Lord, I Thank You once again for the awesomeness of your word and for the design of Scripture. I Thank You, Lord, for these three men. We know that I didn’t go into the details of their life, but, Lord, they have hard lives, which were much harder than any of us. Yet, Lord, they came out the end hoping, worshipping, and anticipating Your great promises to them. I pray, Lord, we would be made of the same stuff as our trust in Christ and His word, as the spirit of God indwells us, and every day and week we hear the word of God preached and taught. Lord, make us these kinds of people. I pray the gold of the world would grow dim, and be lit of Your wonderful face. We praise You, Lord, for what You will do in our lives. For, we know we cannot live this way without Your power, Your strength, Your spirit, and Your word. Keep us faithful, in Christ I pray. Amen.

Full Transcript:

We’ve been looking at The Honor Roll of Faith where Abraham is our subject, and we’re looking at the final episode that Abraham is going to be involved with in his life. Remember, I don’t want you to get the impression that any of these people, who are on The Honor Roll of Faith, are in any way perfect. They are struggling, striving, and sojourners upon this earth. They are Christian pilgrims who desire to become more like Christ as they long for heaven in their heart and to be with Christ.

Remember, it is never the perfection of your life, but the direction of your life. Make it the direction of your life to please God, to love the Lord, to obey His word, and to strive to walk by faith. Ultimately, make Christ dearer than anything else in your heart. When the eye of faith is fixed on the goal, which is Christ, then the faith of that person becomes visible in what they do and how they live their lives. You can see someone who has faith in Christ since it almost drips off them wherever they go or whatever they say.

In the lives of those who are recorded on The Honor Roll of Faith, are examples of what it means to have faith and live by faith. After he has laid out ten chapters of doctrine on what it is to even know Christ, he gives us a little peek into the life of these people. Abel, who lived by faith, was worshipping God in an acceptable manner. Enoch was living by faith by walking with God in a pleasing manner. Noah was obeying God’s word in an unquestionable manner.

We have learned that what makes any person well pleasing to God is faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Thus, Abraham is no different, and his example highlights, in some way, the meaning and essence of faith, which I have already laid out for you. In Abraham’s life, living by faith is obeying God in a patient manner. He is a very patient man, and he believes God completely and totally.

From the Old Testament, all the generations up until Abraham, provoke the Lord and closed their ears to the truth. Yet, this one characteristic that was unique about Abraham is that he listened to God. When God called, he went out obediently and his patient trust was seen in his careful listening and pursuit of God through difficult situations, long periods of time, and with an inward longing in his heart to go home with work to be done before he gets there.

Last time we met together, we looked at a third characteristic of Abraham’s faith that surfaced, which was a patient trust that carefully rested in God’s faithfulness. As I mentioned before, the NIV did the best job in handling this verse in Hebrews 11:11:

And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.

According to the Greek, we get:

By faith Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because He considered him faithful, who had made the promise.

In the last message, the great distinguishing factor of Biblical faith is that it can distinguish between good and evil, between the eternal and temporal, and to see and choose God’s way. The foundational reason for such discernment is that the tests of faith will develop in us a deep conviction that God may be patiently and safely relied upon with all that we have. God is true, and His word of promise is sure forever.

In this last episode in Abraham’s example of faith, this becomes very clear where his faith is put to the test. We see the essence of Biblical faith coming together in our passage of Scripture. Meaning, the essence of Biblical faith included faith that rested solely upon God’s word. Secondly, a faith that rests entirely on the character of God. Thirdly, a faith that recognizes God’s power to bring to pass everything He has and will promise.

Really, that is what it means when we begin to grow in faith. We grow in deep conviction about who God is, our relationship with God, what God has done, and what God is able to do. Now, we come to this last episode in Abraham’s life, which is significant and recorded in Scripture. We see three things that come to the surface about Abraham’s faith being tested. When our faith is tested, those three things are also evident in our own lives.

First, Biblical faith will be tested always as to its obedience. Hebrews 11:17:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

Brethren, if our father Abraham was tested, be sure that your faith will be tested also. Maybe not to the intensity and extent of Abraham’s faith, but it will be tested. All who come to faith in Jesus Christ, your faith will be tested as to its obedience. In our passage, the very phrase, “he was tested,” implies that God tested him, and it carries the meaning to inflict difficulties upon someone to prove their character and steadfastness of their faith.

In this passage, our greatest need concerning faith is endurance. Even when you don’t feel it, to continue when there are no visible results of anything before your eyes and when difficult times are pressing you. The test of faith is going to come to show you where you stand with God, if your faith is genuine, and if God has given His spirit, which indwells you to persevere until the end. You must know that, so God will give you assurance of your relationship with Him by testing your salvation with these tests of faith.

We will consider obeying the Lord even when He asks us to sacrifice on His behalf such as our careers, relationship, dreams, or comforts that we had. In Hebrews 12:1, it says:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

We must lay aside both sin and things that are not sinful but hinder us from running the race. Many of the times those things that hinder us from running the race are things that we like and love to do. Sometimes those things that are dear to us, we must lay aside on this side of eternity to serve God and grow in our faith.

To show his obedience, Abraham offers up a sacrifice. In Hebrews 11:17, the language is precise because it uses the same word in two different verb tenses. The first one is the perfect tense where it says, “He offered up Isaac.” Meaning, he intended to take his son, put him on the alter, and sacrifice his son on the alter. In his heart, Abraham decided that this was what God wanted him to do and he was ready to do it.

Then, the Bible uses an imperfect tense in this passage of Scripture and highlights the interruption of Abraham’s action. Again, he uses the word was. In other words, his action had begun, and he intended to carry it out, but it was interrupted. His action to stop the sacrifice of Isaac were not prompted or initiated by Abraham himself. In fact, the ESV translates Hebrews 11:17 as:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son.

He was in the act of it, and he was going to do that, but he was interrupted by God. This shows a sense of how determined he was in his faith. He was going to do exactly what God said to do. Brethren, what God says to do is very hard. I don’t think our faith will ever be tested like this, and I think it would be helpful to turn to Genesis 22:1-2:

Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”

Remember, the burnt offering did not get developed in its system until later. Here, there are four purposes that are developed in Leviticus concerning the burnt offering. First, someone who is going to bring the burnt offering had to approach God as a Holy God, reverently, and show his trust for God. As it says in Leviticus 1:10:

But if his offering is from the flock, of the sheep or of the goats, for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without defect.

The worshipper was to bring the offering to the alter, kill the offering, and watch it go up in smoke right before their eyes. The alter would be the place of slaying. The worshipper was convinced that something very significant was going on between himself and the God in whom he worshipped.

A second thing that was included in the purpose of the burnt offering was to be accepted by the Lord. In fact, a serious threat came by prophets for anyone who fringed upon bringing and offering in a proper way. If they did, God would not accept that offering. God told Jerimiah the prophet in Jerimiah 14:12:

“When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence.”

If Abraham did not come before the Lord in the way he did, then he would have brought a curse instead of a blessing, and we would have received the curse instead of the blessing. However, he came approaching God reverently, believing in His word, and wanting to be accepted.

The third reason for the burnt offering was to please the Lord. When you read the Old Testament, you will find that there is something connected to the burnt offering that is not connected to the other sacrifices. When the burnt offering was offered before the Lord by fire, it would be a soothing aroma to God.

As God saw the worshipper approaching and the burnt offering was done properly, then God would be smelling that aroma and be pleased with that person. It was a pleasing thing to God. In fact, the word means to soothe the Lord, not man. In Leviticus, though man was unchanged in His sinfulness, God’s attitude to man was altered thanks to the burnt offering.

A fourth reason for the burnt offering is to make atonement. As we will see in our story, Isaac never became a human sacrifice. That would be left to another day. On this day, God provided a ram, a substitute sacrifice. This is all a picture of that day when our perfect sacrificial lamb became the substitute sacrifice for all who come to faith and obedience, and rest on that sacrifice of Christ to be accepted before a holy and just God.

Concerning Abraham offering up Isaac, the clearest clue to the purpose of the burnt offering is that the burnt offering makes atonement for sin in a more general sense. Meaning, God’s attitude to man is reversed by the burnt offering. Then, the focus of the attention concerning the burnt offering is the animal’s burning carcass and soothing aroma it produced. This sacrifice was designated to appease God’s anger, so that God would look upon sinful people in a kind manner and in a manner that He was ready to receive them.

In the early stages of sacrificial offerings, all these purposes are included and shown in the heart of Abraham. Genesis 22:3-14:

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. ⁵Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” ⁸Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. ⁹Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹²He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” ¹³Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. ¹⁴Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”

This is where the term Jehovah-Jireh comes from. Meaning, the Lord will see and provide also. In fact, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Abraham called the name of the place The Lord has Seen. Today, they might say on the mount that the Lord was Seen. The very act of God was seen that day on the mount in front of Abraham and his son Isaac.

In other words, it was the place where God shows up to provide a substitute atoning sacrifice on the behalf of someone else. In fact, we know that this is Mount Moriah, which is occupied by the Muslim mask, The Dome of the Rock, where it presently sits. Someday, it will be the Lord himself that will sit on the throne there in Jerusalem, and He will be displayed as the Lord of lords and King of kings. Notice in Genesis 22:15-18:

Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. ¹⁸“In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

This is the test of faith, and the test of faith is: will you obey God? In the simple things of life, will you obey God? Living by this kind of faith means giving God our dearest and best and obeying the Lord without questioning, resisting, and resentment. As soon as we question something that is clear in God’s plan, resist what He asks us to do, and develop a resentment in our heart towards what God wants us to do, then we are saying to ourselves that we know better than God.

Faith squeezes out all doubt and all intention of what God means. It relies solely upon the word of God. We are saved by faith alone, through grace alone, and in Christ alone. Therefore, those doctrines, we depend on to know that we have eternal life, that our sins are forgiven, and that we have a place in heaven.

All those things are by faith, and that’s why no one can ever get saved by works. It is by faith that we are saved. It is by faith that we walk each step. It is by faith that we breathe in and out. It is by faith that we know where we are heading. It is by faith that we trust God and all that He says in the word of God. Thus, our faith will be tested as to our obedience.

Secondly, back in Hebrews 11:18, Biblical faith will be tested as to its understanding:

it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.”

If God is going to say to Abraham, “Abraham, go offer your only son on the alter as a burnt offering,” then this is what will come to your mind: did I originally hear and understand God incorrectly or correctly? God seems to contradict Himself. The command ran counter to the highest human affections, and again, to what God asks seems certain to ruin the fulfillment of what God promised.

God promised to Abraham and Sarah a long-awaited son. He was finally born, so his survival was dependent upon the fulfillment of God’s promise. The writer of Hebrews is quoting from Genesis 21:12:

But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.

If we get the intended meaning of the authors, then we will get the correct understanding of Scripture. Yet, when doubts come in and seemingly contradictions appear before us, we will be able to knock every single one of them down because we go back to the word of God, we see what God has promised, and we stand on the promises of God, which is what faith does.

Living by this kind of faith means accepting what we cannot understand and obeying the Lord without grumbling, whining and complaining. You don’t ever see that in Abraham’s attitude. He patiently relies on the word of God. He entirely rests on the character of God, which is where you see him growing in his faith.

Our obedience and our understanding will be tested. Thirdly, Biblical faith will be tested as to its convictions. Hebrews 11:19:

He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

How would the tension between God’s demand to offer up Isaac and the promise to make him a great nation be reconciled? It is amazing that Scripture never records the inner-turmoil within Abrahams heart when God asked him to sacrifice his son. Wouldn’t you think that would be an important and helpful highlight?

Instead, Scripture gives the impression that the tension must be resolved by God and by God alone. In other words, Abraham understood, in his conviction, this is God’s problem and God will solve it. This is the same thing when we come to hear the Gospel. We hear the Gospel preached to us, and someone says, “do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Then, you come, repent of your sins, and follow Him.

In a very real way, there seems to be a tension or a problem there. Theologically, how can God forgive a sinner and satisfy the justice of God? There is tension there to its simplicity. Yet, salvation is God’s problem. Here, in Scripture, he was so sure that God would perform what He had promised that he, in the perfect tense, attempted to sacrifice Isaac.

In Hebrews 11:9, the Greek word for considered means: the cause of his courage was based on a firm evidence leading to an inward conviction. We need people today of conviction. Conviction is based on the truth of God’s word and the character of God’s word.

Abraham had sufficient courage to offer up Isaac, his only son that was irreplaceable because of his conviction. Abraham’s faith looked past the human impossibility of a thing to the source of the one who promised. In other words, Abraham took his impossible situation and weighed it against a greater impossibility. Would the God, who made the promise, break the promise? At this point, could God renege on His promise?

The key to him becoming a great nation depended on his only son Isaac, so the only conclusion is that faith could rest solely upon God’s word, His character, and His power. In Hebrews 11:19, it says that God can raise people from the dead. It doesn’t say that God is able to raise Isaac from the dead. Meaning, if Isaac died, God was able to raise Isaac from the dead.

However, in our text, it is not only saying to raise Isaac if he was killed, but He was able to raise any dead. God’s power to raise the dead upheld Abraham’s faith. Though, Abraham never saw this power, but he believed the unseen. Remember, when Jesus says to his disciples in Mark 10:25:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Then, the disciples said in Mark 10:26:

They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?”

Jesus said in Mark 10:27:

Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

That is the sense here. Again, in Hebrews 11:19, the word type is the term parable, which is something that is place on the side of another or it’s a comparison made of one thing to another. In other words, Isaac is a type of Christ here. What was nearly done in the case of Isaac was done by God when He offered up His only son. Then, took Him back in raising Him from the dead. Paul told the romans in Romans 8:31-32:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Again, Jesus said to Martha in John 11:23-25:

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.

Only faith can believe that, but not faith that jumps out into the dark. It’s faith that has tons of evidence underneath it. Our resurrection is dependent on Christ’s resurrection. We will never rise, but he rose. If he rose, we will rise. If we die, we will live. John 11:26:

and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

There is always a tension that our obedience is going to be tested by God, our understanding of what He already said is going to be tested by God, and our conviction is going to be tested. Are we going to live based on the convictions of our heart, God’s truth, God’s character, and God’s power? Are we going to trust God that way?

Thus, Isaac becomes the picture of what’s going to be. In a very real sense, Isaac could not have died that day. God leaves that story for some other place because Christ is going to be the only human sacrifice that would die in the place of sinners.

Christ being perfect, so all those who come to Him, by faith, may be saved, forgiven, and made right with God. Then, when the spirit of God indwells us, we are radically changed. Our desires and affections are changed and bent towards God’s desires and will.

Living by this kind of faith means trusting God, who does the impossible. He makes a roadway in the wilderness and a river in the dessert. God will make a way where there seems to be no way. In fact, that is the only way we can get saved. If it wasn’t for that, we would never be able to be saved. Yes, He is the God who raises the dead.

In other words, the promise is still intact. The promises to Abraham that He would make him a great nation is still intact. In fact, we benefit from what God did with Abraham. We are part of that fulfillment in the sense that all the nations of the world would be blessed. The word of God would go to the gentiles, and they would be included in the promise of God too. 2 Corinthians 1:9-10:

indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; ¹⁰who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us

We trust in the God, who cannot change or alter His promise no matter what. It was John Pipet who said:

In the moments of questioning, the sustaining strength of our faith will come reasonable from a history of finding God real and His word trustworthy in our lives. We will see Christ shines through His word with such compelling authenticity that I have healed myself to Him. No other way of seeing the world answers as many questions as the Christian way. There is a spiritual life God has given me so that I love Him, Trust Him, and I hope to be with Him more than anything else. In this way, we give expression to the reality of 1 John 5:11, and the testimony is this: God has given us eternal life and this life is in His son.

From this text of Scripture, be sure that your obedience will be tested, your understanding will be tested, and your conviction will be tested. As Abraham, let’s be found faithful. Let’s pray:

Lord, I Thank You for the word of God. Truly, Lord, this is a word that comes not from the hands of human beings. We know the very source of the word of God is God Himself. We praise You for that, Lord, and we Thank You, Lord. When You did write Scripture, You moved upon holy men as if blowing wind into mass ship along, and You move them to write Your word. They put it into print for us, so it can teach us, edify us, build our faith, and make us strong in Christ Jesus. I pray and Thank You, Lord for the example of the faith of Abraham. I pray that we would be found as faithful as he in all that You ask us to do. Help us to trust You, Lord, even when it doesn’t seem possible. Help us to trust You, Lord, when we must give up the dearest things to our heart. Help us to trust You, Lord, when the trials of life squeeze us in and we lose the sense of your presence. Help us to trust You and go back to Your word until Your word clears up any doubts or misunderstanding. Until Your word, Lord, establishes us in our obedience. Until Your word, Lord, helps us to know that we serve a God who does the impossible, and accomplishes all He has promised in its totality. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for all that You have and will do in our life. In Christ’s name, I pray this. Amen.

Full Transcript:

Let us take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 11. We are going to be looking at Hebrews 11:11-16, which is in the chapter on faith. We are looking at the honor roll of faith. Please do not get the impression that the people included here are perfect. They are saved by grace, but still sinners who are being sanctified day by day as they struggle and strive as sojourners on this Earth. They are Christian pilgrims who desire to be more Christlike as they long for Heaven.

But it is never the perfection of our life, but the direction! Is the direction of your life to please God? Is it to love the Lord, obey His Word, and strive to walk by faith in a way that really honors Him? When the eye of faith is fixed on the goal, then the faith of that person becomes visible to other people in the way they live their lives.

So far, each example of what it means to have faith and live by it actually gives us an idea on what it really looks like. It helps us to see what living by faith actually is and what it is able to do for us in an acceptable manner. The only way to approach God is through this way, this sacrifice.

Enoch living by faith is walking with God in a pleasing manner. He walked right into Heaven and did not even die. Living by faith is obeying God’s Word in an unquestionable manner. For example, in the story of the Flood: eventually judgment did come with the flood but God saved Noah and his family who already learned that what makes any person pleasing to God is faith and that without it, there is no possibility at all in pleasing God.

Abraham is no different, his example highlights some part of the meaning and essence of faith. It helps us to gain a clear understanding about how we may live by faith so as to please our Lord. For Abraham, living by faith is obeying God in a patient manner. All generations up until Abraham provoked the Lord and closed their ears to God’s Truth. This is one of the characteristics that was very unique about Abraham, that he listened to God.

When God called, Abraham hearkened to His commands. In other words, Abraham obeyed and went on his way patiently and obediently. So far, I would like to highlight two characteristics of his faith. It is a patient faith that trusts fully and listens. It is a patient trust that carefully perseveres through difficult circumstances through long periods of time with an inward longing for home, which God is building in us.

Today, I want you to not another characteristic about Abraham’s faith. That is that he had a patient trust that carefully rested in God’s faithfulness. Look at Hebrews 11:11, and I want to show you what it says here:

By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.

The problem here in understanding this passage is trying to figure out the subject. Is it Sarah or Abraham? Most of our translations has translated it as Sarah. But according to the Greek, I disagree. If Sarah was the subject of the passage, it would not be faithful to the Greek construction. If she is the subject, this is how it would read:

By faith even Sarah herself received ability to [cast down seed].

“Casting down seed” comes directly from the Greek but that is alone a male function. The woman has the egg and the man has the seed, according to anatomy. In fact, the word here is spermatose. So the result of casting a seed into a woman is that she conceives! The product of the seed and egg coming together of course is a baby.

Sarah cannot be the subject! Abraham has to be the subject here in this passage. He remains the focal point of this passage and there is no good reason for him to be removed from being the subject. The translation would then be:

[By faith even Abraham himself was able to have a child, even though Sarah was barren and he was too old, he believed.]

Actually, it is the New International Version that handles this passage the best. This is what Hebrews 11:11 reads as in the NIV:

By faith Abraham, even though he was past age–and Sarah herself was barren–was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.

Now Abraham is still the main subject in all of this Scripture. Both had no ability to bear children. Not only when they were young, were they unable to bear children, but also, they were past age! Abraham was ninety-nine and Sarah was ninety years old and biologically that makes it impossible to have any children. The main point of our passage is not that since she considered but he considered Him to be faithful of the promise. That is the point of this passage, that Abraham considered God to be faithful.

Abraham’s faith looks past human impossibility to the source of the One who promised. In other words, Abraham took his impossible situation and weighed it against a greater impossibility. It is that God who made the promise could actually break the promise. But He can never break a promise. That is what Abraham is banking on.

Here is where Abraham’s faith really shines brightly because he knew that God could be safely and patiently relied upon. Faithfulness is so essential to the divine character of God, that for God to be unfaithful is to deny Himself. As Paul told the young pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:13:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

For God to be unfaithful to the Word of His promise means that He would cease to be God. He would be just like us, for we have a hard time keeping promises. The circumstances of life bring us to a place where we cannot keep the promise even though that was our intention. God does not have any of those problems. To be like Abraham would be to accept the faithfulness of God and then act upon God’s faithfulness just as in Hebrews 10:23 where it says:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

This goes back to the Old Testament, that He cannot lie, and He cannot deny Himself in any way. If He did not keep His promise, He would deny His very nature, and that is not possible.

Making promises today does not seem to carry the same weight it once did. Even on the level of humanity. Arthur Pink commenting on faithfulness said, “Unfaithfulness is one of the most outstanding sins of these evil days. In the business world, a man’s word is, with exceedingly rare exceptions, no longer his bond.” We need at least a hundred pages of legal documents to make sure that we do what we have to do.

In the social world, marital infidelity abounds at every turn. The sacred bonds of wedlock are broken with as little regard as discarding an old garment. In the Ecclesiastical realm, thousands have solemnly covenanted to preach the truth but have no scruples now about setting it aside and attacking and denying it.

In the church realm, those who started off listening to the Word of God are now dull of hearing and have some how stopped listening to sound preaching. They have started looking for talks that suit them better and that suit their consciences. Scripture surely affirms the rarity of faithfulness.

I went and did a little study of this and found three passages of Scripture that are very pointed on this. For example, the question is, whether or not there is any faith out there. This is what it says in Psalm 12:1:

Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases to be, For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

Proverbs 20:6 says:

Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, But who can find a trustworthy man?

In Luke 18:8, it says:

I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?

It is rare to see this quality of faith in people. It ought to be found in the people of God, it is communicable attribute that He has given us. We are to be holy as He is holy and faithful as He is. If we were not faithful in the past, we ought to be from today on if we are a believer in Christ Jesus. God is working in us the desire to be faithful but also to trust the One who is faithful.

In fact, when faithfulness is identified, it is highlighted even by the Lord Himself. Let us see in Luke 7: 1-10 when Jesus meets up with a Centurion officer. He found in this officer a characteristic worth noting.

When He had completed all His discourse in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum. And a centurion’s slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, “He is worthy for You to grant this to him; for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue.” Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. “For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

Jesus is looking for people who have this kind of faith. He highlighted and identified it and made sure people knew what to look for! This is the character of the people that ought to follow Jesus.

Dwayne ran across a story that he told me a couple of weeks ago. It was called One Crazy Gringo, and I just had to read it. It is about a guy named Doctor Cameron Townsend, co-finder of the Wycliffe Bible Translators. He went to Peru and had a conversation with José Jiménez Borja, a leading government official, in order to ask for permission to do carry out his ministry. This conversation went like this:

Mr. Townsend, who is going to do all this work?

It will be done by trained linguists-young men and women with college degrees who are willing to spend their lives among the indigenous peoples.

This is a difficult task. How many are willing to go?

None, yet. But when I go back to the U.S. and challenge them, many will volunteer.

 

The jungle is impossible. How will you get those people out to the villages?

I plan to use airplanes to land on the rivers and airstrips that can be cleared in the jungle.

How many planes do you have?

None. But when I share the need, God will give us enough planes.

Who will fly these planes?

Hundreds of young people, seasoned pilots and mechanics will volunteer.

How many pilots and mechanics do you now have?

None, but God will send them along.

There is much disease in the jungle. How will you stay healthy?

We’ll have clinics staffed by doctors and nurses.

How many doctors and nurses do you have?

None, but God will supply them.

Who will finance all this? The U.S. government? A wealthy foundation?

No. I’ll go home and tell the people of the United States about this plan. God will supply. All the workers will raise their own support.

At this I stared at the strange man and told him, “When all that comes to pass, come back to me and I will bless you.”

He got up, gave me a big hug, and said, I’ll be back soon.

“When Mr. Townsend walked out of the door, I

turned to my secretary and said, ‘Alla va el gringo mas loco que jamas he visto.’ (There goes the craziest gringo I’ve ever seen in my life.)

“A few months later, Mr. Townsend was back and ready to start! Now, 25 years later, all he dreamed has happened, plus much more. Only God could do such a mighty thing.”

Townsend’s vision turned into the largest movement of Bible translation in the world! This is a God-sized task, which always takes faith. God wants the Word to go to the world and to be translated in other languages, so He will provide, and He is still providing because He is faithful.

Usually when a promise is made, it is only as good as the character and integrity of the person who makes it. It says in Psalm 36:5:

Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Faithfulness is one of the glory perfections of His being. Psalm 89:8 tells us:

O Lord God of hosts, who is like You, O mighty Lord?

Your faithfulness also surrounds You.

God is a God who never forgets. He never fails, falters, or will forfeit His Word. The point is our God may be patiently and safely relied upon. Numbers 23:19 says:

God is not a man, that He should lie.

That is what Abraham knew, He could not deny it. That is a faith that patiently trusts God. Considering the faithfulness of the One making the promise is the principle means of strengthening faith in the promise. I believe God, because of His character, must bring to pass the things He has promised.

The problem we struggle with every day is that God delays His promises. He has given us the promise in Word. We have in some way experienced the promise by hearing the Word of God and seeing what He does in the church and with the gospel. We know that the Spirit of God is transforming us and making us new, but still daily there is a challenge to live by faith. Especially when our eyes are dimmed with tears of sorrow and grief. Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world and so many voices vying for our attention.

Our passions to achieve great plans in our life fall apart, when friends fail us, and even when brothers and sisters in Christ betray us, it seems that God’s presence is hidden from us. We have a hard time synthesizing God’s frowning providences with His gracious promises.

There is the struggle we have. We live right there. But does it mean that God is unfaithful? No. He already told us we are sojourners and aliens and that we do not belong here anyway. We belong somewhere else, but we are here to accomplish God’s work. God must fulfill His promises even though His people feel this delay. That is why we need faith. For example, in Genesis 15:13-16, Jehovah declared to Abraham:

God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

Because God’s promise is based on historical timing, and when a long time passes like 430 years, Abraham’s descendants groan under Egyptian bonding, did that mean that God forgot His promise? For this is what the Scriptures record in Exodus 12:41:

And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

At God’s precise moment, they were delivered through a man called Moses. Many years later, God promised through the prophet Isaiah a deliverer, one greater than Moses. It says in Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

This would not happen for many hundreds of years later. Does that mean that God has forgotten His promise? No! Galatians 4:4 says:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.

Through Jesus the Messiah, even we will be made the recipients of the blessing of Abraham. That is what Galatians also tells us in Galatians 3:8

The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in You”

God made this covenant with Abraham, that He will make him a great nation. Also, that He will bless those that bless him, and curse those who curse him. That is what God blessed Abraham and all who believed in God would also be blessed because of Abraham’s faith. It says in Galatians 3:9:

So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

A believer is someone who trusts completely what God has said. Then it says this in Galatians 3:14:

In order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

That is the new covenant. He is bringing all of these together and the point is that our God may be patiently and safely relied upon because God is true and His Word of promise is sure.

Let us look now at Hebrews 11:12 and see the results of living a life of faith in God. I am not going to spend a lot of time here because it is a sandwich. If you look at verse 12, it says:

Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

It basically means that living by faith does not mean that you have the ability to accomplish anything. Living by faith does not mean you have all of God’s promises fulfilled now. It does not mean that the place you live now is the place you will live forever.

It does mean that those who live by faith and patiently rest in God’s faithfulness and ability, because He fulfills His promises and He will bring us safely to the heavenly country. He has already made peace with us through Christ Jesus.

In verse 12, it is saying that he lived without having ability but by faith, accomplished things through God. He accomplishes the unfathomable. God made a great nation out of one. He also accomplished the impossible, and he as good as dead to produce any offspring. God gave the ability and the power to have something that was previously impossible. God accomplishes also the innumerable.

Abraham lived by faith without receiving the promises. Look at Hebrews 11:13:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

We can either die in sin or in the Lord. Or you can die in vain. You can until the last minute of having breath, believe in God. In fact, today is one year since my father passed away, March 6. It just came to my mind right now that he died in faith. Past seventy years old but trusting Christ. He died in faith! Do you know how much joy that brings to know that someone died in the Lord and in faith? My father died without receiving the full promises, but he knows about them now! More than we do!

Faith sees because God said that this is what will happen. Secondly, look at what faith does. It welcomes! They saw them, and they put their eyes upon them and moved towards them and received the promise and expected to receive all of it. Faith confesses. The saints responded to the promise and agreed with God that this is the best way to bring about the result of the promise and the sending of the Messiah to be crucified. This was God’s plan all the way, and they confessed that God’s plan is the best plan and there is nothing better to save a man’s soul and to provide all the promises that God said He would promise. Next look at Hebrews 11:14:

For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

They were looking for a country not here on Earth, but that which God promised. They were looking it as their own. You may not have wealth on Earth, but you have more than you can imagine in Heaven. We are joint heirs with Jesus Christ, that means that everything He owns we also own.

We are very wealthy in the sense that we are seeking a country that is our own. In verse 15, look here to make sure you do not mistake what was said:

And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.

In other words, when they left they never wanted to go back once they understood the promises. If you believe in Christ, you cannot look back. Once you put your hand to the plow and look back, you are not worthy for the Kingdom of God. Faith brings someone to the point of no return. That comes from an aeronautical jargon that refers to a plane taking off. The pilot knows he cannot turn back and go where he came from because he does not have enough fuel. He knows he has to keep going forward and land. That is the point of no return. It brings us to a place where we know we cannot go back to the world and our sinful practices. We have reached by faith the point of no return. We can only go forward, even though there will be persecution and suffering on all kinds of levels.

If there was nothing at the end of the race, we would have nothing to live for. But God had placed for us something great. Look at Hebrews 11:16:

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

This is the ability that faith has to distinguish between good and evil, between the eternal and the temporal, between the permanent and the perishable, and to see and choose God’s way and be happy about it. That is what they desire and want. But here is the best of all, that not only did they have faith without ability and without receiving the promises and country. But also, without receiving shame. Look at what it says in the rest of the verse:

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

There is no shame that we have before God because of what Christ has done. This is the best of all, that God is not ashamed to call you His children! There is nothing to keep you away. Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12:

For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.

Until that day, you and I are face to face with God. When that day comes, there is no shame because of our sin. There is only joy upon joy because of what Christ has done. Everything moves out of the way and we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. What we have to look forward to is nothing but joy.

You may notice that this is exactly where the New Covenant is heading. Just to remind you, in the New Covenant will have a new heart, complete, and final forgiveness of sins. Everyone will have the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit God and everyone will have the law inside their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33 says:

I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

God is not ashamed of us. The New Covenant people get to dwell with God in the city of God that He has built for them. It is because they are saved through Jesus Christ and what He has done. He has removed the wrath and satisfied the justice of God. What does that sound like to be free? Turn to Revelation 21:1-6:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.”

In other words, Revelation gives the summation of the New Covenant and where God is heading. He gives the invitation to know Christ as Lord and Savior. The Spirit of God may cause a thirst in you today for the water of life! All you need is to come to Christ with your sin. The full and final glory which is intended for people and by God is made available and secure for those only through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God Himself applies the Word of God with special power to the chosen.

For the ones who have desire see themselves in this way, they must believe in Jesus. He must be trusted because He is the only way to be made right with God. They must actively repent of sin and turn to Him and then of course be awakened to a changed life and confidence in Christ. Then the covenant purpose will be known to them and fulfilled in them when they shall be saved from the wrath to come. That is what God does.

Jesus is inviting all who have not yet come to enter glory through Himself. Ephesians 2:8 says:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Brethren, that is where we are heading. God has prepared us so that when we are in front of Him, there will be no more shame. But those who do not know Him will want to run from His presence. With the Great White Throne Judgment, God’s books are accurate, infallible, and He makes no mistakes. They will have to pay for all eternity for the great, unplayable debt for their sin and offense against God. That is why we need Christ and He is our prize. We need to look at these Scriptures and the challenge is to be like Abraham. We need to be people of great faith, and carefully listen to God’s Word, persevere until we get home. We need to rest on the faithfulness of God, because that is what we have to rest on. Remember, God is faithful. He cannot deny Himself.

God has proved Himself to us throughout history. What God says must come to pass and will come to pass. And all God’s people said, Amen. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, this morning as we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s Table, the focus is on Your death on our behalf. I praise You, Lord, with the examples of faith that are before us and that are in Scripture. I ask You, Lord, to build in us a faith that is strong and that completely rests in You. I pray Lord Jesus, that You may use our life to bring forth the light of the gospel to those who have not yet believed. When this world is out of control, I pray Lord that people would see You as in control. This world gives no hope, and I pray that You would use us to show a message of hope being lived out. I pray that You would use Your people and church to go into this world and bring the only message where a person may be saved. And I pray that You would use us in that way. This morning, Lord, we give You glory and praise for all that You have done and all that You will do. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

In looking at the Honor Roll of Faith, we will come to Abraham. Already, I have mentioned and want to stress that faith is trust in the unseen, not in the unknown, which is very important. Biblical faith is a faith that is certain that what it believes is true and what it expects will come to pass. Reason being that what we believe is based on objective, historical truth, and it is founded in the very character of God, who cannot and will not lie. Therefore, Biblical faith is grounded in what we cannot see, but know is true.

The faith that lays hold of what is promised and hoped for is real and solid. You can die with this faith knowing that even though you have not seen completely everything that God is doing, you know His promises will be true. These Old Testament examples lived with trust in the unseen, and they lived by faith. Faith is the ultimate assurance and evidence of things not seen being actual realities.

If we didn’t know what God said was true, then we could not persevere or go another step, and we live in a pluralistic society where one person’s truth is as equal as another’s person truth, which is not true. God’s word is true, and it cannot be changed by anyone of us.

Now, we come to the Honor Roll of Faith, and so far, each example of what it means to have and live by faith has their peculiar corner on showing us in looking for help in understanding faith and what it means to live by faith. When we looked at Abel, living by faith was worshipping God in an acceptable manner. When we looked at Enoch, living by faith is walking with God in a pleasing manner. When we looked at Noah, living by faith is obeying God’s word in an unquestionable manner.

Already, we have seen that what makes any person well pleasing to God is faith. Without it, there is no possibility of pleasing God. Of course, Abraham is no different, and his example highlights some part of the meaning and essence of faith, which is helpful for us to gain a clearer understanding on how we may live by faith to please God.

For Abraham, living by faith is obeying God in a patient manner. In Hebrews 11:8-10, Abraham plays a significant role in God’s plan of redemption, and he is given more attention than the other characters. From Noah to Abraham, ten generations had passed. In that whole time, you don’t see much going on except people rebelling against God.

The only display that we see of the character of God is God’s long suffering with people. God bares along with people so that they may come to repentance, and he is still doing that today. Up until Abraham, all the generations provoked the Lord and they closed their ears to God’s truth, which may be why Abraham is highlighted.

There are two essentials to Abraham’s faith that are brought out in Scripture. First, his faith was a patient trust that carefully listened to God. Hebrews 11:8:

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.

The root word obeyed in Greek is akouo, which means “I hear” or to listen. We get the word acoustic from it, and acoustic relates to hearing sounds. For example, this room has good acoustics, and it was built like that since it had no amplification. The wall behind me is designed that way so that the voice would proceed out. Anywhere you stand in this building, people can hear you since it is designed that way.

Nonetheless, the word in this passage for obey means to hear. When it comes to hearing the word of God, for some it sounds just to be words, and no real understanding, meaning, or personal application comes to them.

In a passage of Scripture, Jesus is talking with those who thought they were children, descendants, and related to Abraham, and who knew all about Abraham. However, when Jesus brings them to the truth, he pinpoints a characteristic in them that shows that they were not Abrahams children at all but had another father. John 8:39-40:

They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. ⁴⁰“But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.

In other words, Abraham did not kill God’s messenger, but listened to God’s messenger. If you are going to do the works of Abraham, then listen to what God says. Let’s continue in John 8:41-43:

“You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. ⁴³“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.

There, the word saying is the word lalia. In other words, why can’t people understand the way Jesus speaks, who speaks on behalf of God. Then notice in John 8:43, He says that they cannot hear His words, or logos. In other words, they had no power or ability to hear God’s word and believe it. The only desire they had was to listen to the lies of their father, who spins them to sound like truth. However, they have no power to discern whether they are truth or not. John 8:44-47:

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵“But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. ⁴⁶“Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? ⁴⁷“He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

 

 

Meaning, to hear utterances in which God, through someone, declares the mind of God, which means the prophets. In this case, Jesus declares the mind and will of the Heavenly Father. Therefore, the key about Abraham is that he listens to the way God speaks and hears him.

It becomes a unique characteristic of Abraham. In fact, it is the characteristic of all descendants of Abraham, who follow God spiritually. Abraham listens to God, and when God called, Abraham harkened to His command. In other words, Abraham went out obediently. John 10:3:

To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Before his listeners stoned him to death, Stephen said to the religious leaders in Acts 7:2:

And he said, “Hear me, brethren and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran

In other words, he is saying to them, “Here me, a representative of God’s word, since you didn’t hear them nor listen to Abraham, so you better listen to me.” Rather than listening to Stephen, they stoned him to death.

People have a spiritual hearing problem, and even in this passage of Acts, we see that the whole Gospel message starts with the glory of God. The God, who causes things to happen and is involved in the acts of men, is the God of history. When we read the word of God, it is God’s story.

Remember, man started out with knowledge of the true and living God right in the beginning with Adam. However, man fell from that knowledge, which is the history of man. Constantly, they stopped listening to God all the way up into Abraham; then, Abraham listens.

In a very real sense, God sought out a man by appearing to a pagan idolater named Abram. God moved forward, spoke to him, and he listened. Back in Hebrews 11:8, God called Abraham, and by faith, Abraham obeyed. From Scripture, we glean several things that point to the relationship Abraham had with the Lord, God.

In each one of those points, the relationship of his physical descendants shows that they didn’t have much relationship since they did not listen to what God said. When God said to leave, Abraham left. In fact, it was said again in Acts 7:3:

and said to him, ‘LEAVE YOUR COUNTRY AND YOUR RELATIVES, AND COME INTO THE LAND THAT I WILL SHOW YOU.’

When Abraham lived in Mesopotamia, some considered him to be a moon-worshiper. It was Joshua who informed us about Abraham’s family idolatry. Joshua 24:2:

Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.

The Scripture is saying that all of Abraham’s family were idolaters. By that time, the people in the generations after Noah were making their gods up. They were carving gods, molding gods out of metal, and they didn’t want to listen to God. When people don’t listen to the true and living God, they find some idol to form and create in their mind to worship.

However, Abraham seemed to be dissatisfied with the idolatry of his people. He was searching, wandering in his heart, and when God came along, he was somewhat ready to go out into the unknown. God told him to go west and leave the security of his home and family. At that point, his faith was tested with a huge amount of uncertainty.

Faith never tells us everything that is going to happen next. In some real way, that is why we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. God didn’t give us that information, and no one is privy to that kind of information. However, God did give us his overall program and to know the end goal and where it’s heading. Until you get there, there is going to be rough waters, uncertainty, and insecurity.

Yet, in Hebrews 11:8, it says that Abraham went out not knowing where he was going, and God told him to go out and be a wanderer in the world. Also, it tells us that when God said go, he went and was sent by God to the country preached in the book of Acts, which is the very promise land that Abraham didn’t see when he had his faith. Also, God promised, and Abraham trusted.

In the mindset of the people then, an inheritance meant you had to have children or a family. Abraham didn’t have any children, so it was a huge amount of faith to simply listen carefully to God’s word and do exactly what He said, which is what makes Abraham so different.

While people remain stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears by resisting everything God says, then people are doing the same thing as before when God spoke through prophets, who were persecuted and killed for their message from God. Acts 7:51-52:

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. ⁵²“Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

Meaning, God raises up people to speak through them His message. On the other side of the message, it must be the person who listens. If they don’t listen and resist it, then they are on their own. When people hear a message from God and do not listen, they are doing the same thing by persecuting the visible representative of God and killing its message, and sometimes they kill the messenger too. Now, how can you be like Abraham?

When you are a person who truly listens, you will become familiar with God’s voice as He speaks through the word. You will recognize His voice from all other voices, and you will follow Him along. There are a lot of voices buying for your attention.

When you truly listen to God’s voice, you will regularly trust Him, which goes next. When you truly listen to God’s voice and regularly trust Him, your faith will be strengthened, and your hope will increase. When you truly listen to God’s word, you will understand what He is saying, and your belief in Him will become more definite. God made a covenant with Abraham, gave a sign of that covenant, and reminded Him that God keeps His promises.

When you are not like Abraham, you are not listening. It is like when a parent says to their kid, “you’re not listening to what I’m saying.” When you stop listening, you become ignorant of what is good and evil, and you stop acting like Jesus. When you stop listening, you lose hope in God’s promises and take too much security in this present, temporal world, and you stop looking forward in faith. When you stop listening, you lose sight of God’s glory and shrink God down to a manageable size, which is idolatry. Psalm 115:8:

Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.

They become like their idol since that is what they desire. Bottomline, if you don’t listen to God’s word anymore, you won’t look like Jesus, you won’t act like Him, neither will you know what He wants you to do. You will not live by faith, and the consequence of that is that you will not please God. The cure for that is to be like Abraham and listen. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. To refresh your memory, in Hebrews 10:36 it says:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

In the present, we have a great essential need, which is to continue in endurance. Remember, endurance means perseverance. Absolutely and emphatically persevering to hold fast to one’s faith in Christ, which means under misfortunes and trials. Trials force us to depend on God, mature us spiritually, develop in us a proven character, and cause us to long for heaven.

All these things are preparing us to run the Christian race, to reach the goal, to finish, and to receive our reward. Bottomline, the key to successful endurance is faith. Now, there is a kind of faith that does run well but is soon hindered and doesn’t obey the truth anymore or listen to God. That is not the faith to which the promise is given, nor the faith of Abraham. The faith of God’s elect continues and abides forever. What God started in you, He will complete.

Secondly, Abraham’s faith is displayed as a patient trust that carefully listens and perseveres. Once you listen to God’s word, you need to do God’s word and continue to do God’s word, which is exactly what happens with Abraham. However, notice the circumstances in which that happens. In Hebrews 11:9 is says:

By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise

In other words, he had a patient trust that carefully persevered through difficult situations. The difficult situation is that God promised Abraham the promise land, an inheritance, and to make Abraham a great nation. All these promises are in Abraham’s heart, yet when he gets to the promise land, he finds something that he didn’t expect there. He finds that he would have to live there in that land of promise as an alien.

Two things come to mind when we think of that. One, he had no citizenship, and an alien in the land has no citizenship. In fact, an alien means to dwell beside someone else in one’s neighborhood. In other words, to dwell besides people, who are citizens of that land, but you are not.

When he arrived in the land of promise, he found that it was still in the hands of others. All his life long, by means of faith, he dwelled as an outsider in the land of promise. Abraham never owned the land but was only permitted to remain there as an alien. As far as we’re concerned, what was God doing to Abraham?

Secondly, in Hebrews 11:9, he would have no permanent settlement in the land. The KJV uses the word sojourner to describe an alien. Though, this term helps us to understand the non-permanent status one experiences in a foreign land. The word sojourn means a day. Meaning, to stay in a place day by day.

In fact, a tent is something that has no foundation and it is not meant to be permanent. It is designed to be taken down, and only to be put up on another day somewhere else. When he went to the land of promise, he was called to pitch tents there, break the tents down when God said to move somewhere else, and put them up somewhere else. Therefore, he was just there day by day, and his faith learns to live in the temporary with patient boldness and trust in God.

Secondly, his patient trust that carefully perseveres was not only through difficult circumstances, but for long periods of time. In Hebrews 11:9, he is saying that Abraham didn’t receive it, Isaac didn’t receive it, and Jacob didn’t receive it. They were all tent dwellers. In fact, Joseph didn’t receive it and Moses didn’t receive it.

Moses went as far as Mount Nebo, and God allowed him to see the promise land, but not enter the promise land. Only Joshua was able to go and take the people in there. Why did God do that? In Acts 7:5 it says:

But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and yet, even when he had no child, He promised that HE WOULD GIVE IT TO HIM AS A POSSESSION, AND TO HIS DESCENDANTS AFTER HIM.

Abraham dwelt in the land of Palestine, did not possess the land, but held it only as a promise from God to him and his descendants. God blessed Abraham when he had no land, no children, no citizenships, no place to worship, but only had God and His word. Abraham was fulfilled and had a full life. They all lived a long time as foreigners and died having nothing but faith in the promise. Hebrews 11:13:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Have you confessed that yet? Have you come to the place in your life, as a believer, with this understanding: confess to God that you are only a stranger and exile on this earth. That is all you will be, which becomes important for us.

Once we become Christians and followers of Christ, we quickly sense that we are nonresidents in this world. We are tent dwellers and sojourners. 1 Peter 2:11:

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

Our stay on earth is a short time. We are living in a foreign land, which we are not citizens. We don’t have citizen’s status or rights. 1 Peter 1:17:

If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.

Have we considered that we only have tents and that they are temporary? We have no permanent residence here on earth. We are not citizens of this earth. If you really want to be, it will show where your desires really are. If you really want to be citizens here and stay here because you like it so much, then maybe you are not a believer at all.

We are not citizens of earth, which is what Abraham understood. He understood that he was a citizen of heaven, and citizen of the city of God. We don’t need to think that we are going to receive all God promised here on this earth. That is not even a biblical truth. We are to look beyond what we cannot see. We are to look beyond the uncertainties, insecurities, and hazards of life to the city in which God built. That is where our hope and promises of God are fulfilled.

As citizens, we are under the government of heaven with Christ, our King, who reigns in our hearts. As citizens, our names are written in heaven, giving us full assurance of access to the city of God. As citizens, we have a common right of all the property of heaven because we are joint heirs with Christ. In other words, everything in heaven belongs to us. As citizens, we enjoy all the delights of heaven and of Gods presence. Philippians 3:20 concisely says:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

Do we realize that we are pilgrims and sojourners on this earth? At the same time, we have this longing for being with Christ. It is in our heart, and it happens when you become a believer. If it does, and it is happening to you, then you have much in common with Abraham. In this sense, we should also share the longing he had for his permanent dwelling place.

His tent life is now in the word of God, and that non-permanent characteristic of tent life is contrasted with the stable settled existence in the city, but not any city. His patient trust that carefully persevered, and first listened, created in him an inward longing for home. This is what gets Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and even the people of the promise land through when they realize that there was much more than the land. Hebrews 11:10:

for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Abraham looked far beyond earthly things and displayed a longing for the heavenly city. Architect is the word we get technician from, so this word architect or technicians means God’s plan. God is the desire of the higher and eternal course of all things, especially the city. Then, the second word is the word that has to do with the execution of the plan, and that God is the framer or builder of the higher and eternal city.

Believe me, brethren, it is faith alone that can make the prospect of an eternal city built by God real, so we fix our eyes upon it just like Abraham did. Meaning, the city God builds has a foundation. Those who dwell in it have permanent dwelling places. They are permanent citizens, and find themselves to be truly safe, secure, and fulfilled in the city of God. This is one thing that must be noticed by us, and that the Holy Spirit of God is doing this in us.

We desire something better and beyond this world. If you haven’t learned that yet, I pray that you would learn that this world and what it offers can never truly satisfy you in a long-lasting way.

Thus, why God had Abraham dwell in tents, and that’s why God had Abraham stay in the land of promise as an alien, especially since he had to learn that. If he didn’t learn that, then he would find all his security in the promise land or in the things that were around him.

Faith must go beyond that and to the One who is the very architect and builder of the city, the one who dwells in the city. When you were dead in sin, a dead world may have satisfied your dead heart with the husks and empty vanities, but no longer.

By God’s grace, you have received nobler desires. When you become a Christian, your desires become way stronger, sharper, and passionate than they were before. You want more than what this world could ever offer you. Hebrews 11:16:

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

In that passage, the word desire had incredible, rich meaning to it, and it means to stretch oneself out to touch what you desire. That is a perfect example of the Christian race, or a runner. A runner starts leaning forward for the goal and reach out because he sees it. He is not there yet, he must do everything he can to reach it, but that’s what he does.

The desire is that we desire a better country, a heavenly one, and we’re reaching out for it the rest of our Christian walk. God gives us desires that draw us toward heaven and desires that keep us stretching out for heaven and His presence. At the same time, he draws us away from the world and its glitter. We begin to see that the world has nothing to offer us. I’m talking to those who have truly come to Christ and have known something of better things and brighter realities.

In this world, we have no home. We have no home for our spirits. Our home is yet beyond. We are looking for our home among the unseen things. We are strangers and sojourners as those believers who have gone before us. We are dwellers in the wilderness just passing through into our reach of our perpetual inheritance in the city of God. I hope that these Scriptures begin to stir your heart a little bit to make you homesick beyond this earth.

As a pilgrim, you will never feel quite at home here on earth. As a Christian, you will never feel quite comfortable here on earth. You will groan in your soul for your heavenly dwelling. As you grow more and more like Christ, your desire will be to be with Him in the city of God.

For the Christian, our final home is not this world, but in the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God. The Bible is telling us that such a place is only given to those who are true believers in Jesus Christ, and those who have believed in His sacrificial death on their behalf and his glorious resurrection, and He has given them life. Revelation 21:10 gives us a glimpse concerning the city:

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God

This says several things to us about the city. Number one, the city of God is secure because the source of the city is God himself. The city, coming down out of heaven from God, is not at all tainted with the old world or anything of its remanence. It is new, and that’s why Hebrews says to desire a better country, which is a heavenly country. Of course, that country’s builder and architect is God himself, and God is preparing a city for us.

Secondly, the city of God is secure because the city permeates with God’s presence. Could you imagine a place where God permeates everything and everyone? The city has been prepared by the Father, which comes to the new earth, filled with people in resurrected bodies, and made ready and able to dwell in the glory of God for all eternity. Then, the city of God is secured because the city walls allow only Gods own to enter. Revelation 21:12-13:

It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. ¹³There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west.

The gates promise protection and free access. Its walls stand as a visible reminder that all people do not have access to God. The walls are described here as great and high, and it is obvious that high walls will not be needed to defend it because the city has no enemies. The walls will be symbolic of God’s protection and security and exclusion of all that is evil. In fact, in Revelation 21:8, it says:

“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

In other words, they don’t have access to the eternal city. Christians are the only ones who have a win-win situation. Christians have the best of both worlds: we can have fellowship with God here and fellowship with God there. That’s the city of God, so do you call it home? Are you anticipating your heavenly dwelling? As a pilgrim, do you ever sense that there is more to life than meets the eye? Do you ever experience a sense of inner-groaning in your soul? A groaning focused on your real home, for your heavenly dwelling. As one person said:

In heaven, my affections are there. In heaven, my Father is there. In heaven, my Savior is there. In heaven, my inheritance is there. In heaven, my name is there. In heaven, my citizenship is there. In heaven, my heart is there. In heaven, my life is there. In heaven, my treasure is there. In heaven, my brethren are there. In heaven, my God is there.

Therefore, according to God’s word to His children, our permanent dwelling place is not the earth, and it was never meant to be. If you feel a little bit uncomfortable here, a little bit like you don’t fit, or a lot like you don’t fit, then good. That is exactly what is supposed to happen as a Christian because we are made for heaven. We’re going to leave our tents here and all the stuff that goes with having a tent, and we’re going to go to our permanent dwelling place where we will spend that with God forever.

Consequently, we must go, we must prepare to go, and we must want to go. That is what made Abraham persevere to the goal. He desired it, reached out for it, and he wanted it because he knew that was exactly what he was created for. Him, as a creature created by the Creator, was to live with his creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, for all eternity.

All of this is a test of faith. All our trials are a test of faith. All the uncertainties we go through is a test of faith. It is to show you where you are with God, what you really desire, and what you long for. Everyday, Christians have an opportunity to go back to the world. In fact, you are tempted everyday to sinful pleasures and idolatrous practices, and you would go there quickly as you came to Christ if it was not for God keeping your feet.

If it wasn’t for God holding to you and keeping His promise of what He began in you, He will finish, then we would surely return to the passing pleasures and sinfulness of sin in a minute. These opportunities to return and leave the faith only prove to us whether we are a follower and soldier of Jesus Christ. By these, you will know whether you are Christ’s or not Christ’s.

If you do not return, you shall prove to yourself and everyone who looks on your life who you belong to. You will show, and you will prove what you desire. You will show your faith on what you understand. You will tell me who you are listening to. That is what you will tell yourself and everyone else, and that is what is going to increase your faith. Here’s a short antidote:

Two men are going along the road. There is a dog following behind them. I don’t know to which one of them the dog belongs, but I shall be able to tell directly. They are coming to a crossroad. One goes to the right and the other goes to the left. Now, which man does the dog follow?

The one the dog follows are his master and owner. When Christ and the world are mixed together, you cannot tell which you are following. If you can part with the world, its enticements, its pleasures, its promises, and keep with Christ, then you are one of His and we know where your desires are. The opportunities to go back try our faith to see whether we are indeed the Lords or not.

Mark this down, faith that is never tried is never true faith. If you are a Christian and you have never been tried by God, then your faith will be tried, and it will be tried more than once. Your loyalties will be tried, and your desires will be tried by God. You need to know as much as I and the church needs to know that you are following Christ.

We must live by faith. You must have this patient faith that endures through tribulation for a long time longing for our eternal city, which is what it means to be a Christian. That’s what it means to persevere. Abraham looked out and saw, in a distance, the city of God, and he kept going. It is the same for us. We look out and we see the city of God.

In fact, he didn’t have the book of Revelation 21 to read, or anything to read. He just had to listen to the words of God. We have a whole lot of evidence for us to continue to press-on than Abraham did. For Abraham, living by faith is obeying God in a patient manner, a patient trust that carefully listens, a patient trust that carefully perseveres, and he does that through difficult situations and feelings that he doesn’t belong where he is at.

He feels like an alien, yet he does it for long periods of time. All the way along, he has an inward, growing desire to leave it all and go to be with the Lord. That is what it means to be a Christian, and I pray that is happening in you and that is your desire. Are you experiencing some of these things?

If you are, then thank the Lord. Those very things are going to grow you to be stronger and stronger in your faith. You are the ones who are going to take the baton and pass it to the next generation, the next person sitting next to you, and the next person in your family. Let’s pray:

Lord, Thank You, for these very things that were before us in Scripture. Lord, I praise You, that we are also looking for a city, which has foundations. No longer will we need tents. No longer will we feel as aliens and sojourners but will be in a permanent place. We will be in a place that cannot be destroyed, broken down, or broken into because it is built by You, Father. You are the architect, You are the technician that planned it, You are the one who executes the plan, You are the one preparing the place for us, and where You go, You will come and take us with You. Thank You for those promises. We need them, Lord. Please increase our faith. Lord, if our faith has been shaky and cold, please revive us today. Make us, in our heart, desirous to what You have given us and promised us. I pray, Lord, that we would live our life with great gusto. For we know, Lord, that You have promised us a full life here, and a life of promise and fulfillment in the next. We give you glory and praise, Lord, for all that You have done and accomplished in our life. I ask you, Lord, to build us in our faith. Whether trials come, that we would depend on You, mature spiritually, and that You would develop our character. When trials come, You would make us long for heaven, and we will praise You, Lord, and Thank You for what You will do. In Christ, I Pray, Amen.

Full Transcript:

In Hebrews 11:4-6, we will look at the honor roll of faith. As we move into these verses, don’t forget that it is because Jesus has opened for us a new and living way to approach God by His one-time sacrifice on the Cross, which we can endure in this race that we are called to. It is by His death, and what it has accomplished, that we can press-on and have a firm assurance of those eternal realities, which are invisible to the outward eye.

By faith, we can look backward and see how faithful God has been. In hope, we look forward and maintain a steadfast hope and faith in Him and in His promises. As we have already seen in Hebrews, He saves us to the uttermost and to the very end. Like the saints that have gone before us, who had a forward-looking faith and won the approval of God, let us follow their example and live by faith to also gain the Lord’s approval in our daily walk.

When we get to Hebrews 13:20-21, we will see the most glorious thing of all. In the New Covenant, in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit has not only put the law in our mind and hearts, but He is ever working in us a disposition to favor it, desire to keep it, and He gives us power to do so:

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, ²¹equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

In other words, He is talking about someone who has genuine, real conversion that God has put in one’s heart. By the Spirit of God, a desire to do God’s will and please God. If you remember the promise of the New Covenant, everyone in the New Covenant will have a new heart. Jeremiah 24:7:

I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

Secondly, everyone in the New Covenant will have forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 8:12:

FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE.

When the sin is removed, the relationship with God is now intact. Then, everyone in the new covenant will have a permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. Ezekiel 36:27:

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

At real conversion and when the Spirit of God is in you, you want to do God’s will. Yes, you feel the weakness, that you are vulnerable, that sometimes you are a complete failure, yet, at the same time, God is working in you to will and to do His good pleasure. Everyone in the New Covenant has the law in their heart. Hebrews 8:10:

FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE

In the New Covenant community of believers, people would obey God not because they must. God doesn’t want you to believe or obey Him because you must, but because you want to. He has given us the power to obey Him. That is the uniqueness of being a Christian.

Now, we come to this passage on faith, and we have already gained somewhat of an understanding that trials God puts us through are proof that we are indeed sons of God when we come through them. We bare them still wanting to serve God. In those trials, we know that they produce in us something that is firm, steady, and that causes us to endure to the next step and end of the race that God has called us to. Not to go back to the old ways, religious systems, or old philosophies that God has saved us from. Instead, we are filled with hope to press-on and finish what God has started and set before us to go right to the end.

So far, in this great chapter about faith, we have endeavored to wrestle down what is the essence of Biblical faith, which is a faith that rests solely on the word of God, relies entirely on the character of God, and recognizes God’s power to bring to pass all that He has promised. In conclusion, faith is the evidence of that which is not visible now, but what shall become visible by the powerful word of God as God moves through history and concludes His plan of redemption.

Before us, we see the examples of faith. In some ways, the definition is inadequate. I want to see the proof, so let me see your faith by the way you live, the way you speak, by what you do, and by how you think. Let me see that you believe this God and that something is different in your life.

When we come to this passage of Scripture, we will see what it means to have faith, to live by faith, and sometimes to die by faith. At the end, to obtain life. Therefore, the essence of biblical faith bleeds out from the examples given in Hebrews 11. We should take heed also, especially since it is the same kind of what is necessary for us to endure until the end. These are the same kind of people that we are. If we cut them, they would bleed. If we wound them with our words, they would feel hurt. It is the same people, just different times.

If you were to pick an example of Biblical faith, who would you pick? Would you pick Paul, Peter, John the Baptist, Moses, or maybe Job? Well, the question is: where does the author of Hebrews start? The author starts in the book of beginnings, which is Genesis. One commentator said:

Examples are set in historical sequence, to provide an outline of the redemptive purpose of God advancing through the age of promise until at last, in Jesus – faith’s pioneer and perfecter – the age of fulfillment is inaugurated.

God has been working right from the beginning. Not only did He create the world and man, but He has been working with them all along by teaching them, giving His word, communicating with them until today. These examples that he gives are something in which we can look at and say, “I want to be like that. In fact, that’s the way I should be.” Until we wrestle down the meaning and essence of faith, we find that it’s not enough, so let’s see some examples of what it means to have faith and live by faith.

In Hebrews 11:4, we will look at two examples. First, it is Abel. Living by faith is first worshiping God. We are saved to worship, so Abel is the first example, which is an example of a faith that worships God. He worships God in an acceptable manner, not in a self-styled manner or acceptable to you, but in a manner that is pleasing and acceptable to God. Genesis 4:3-5:

So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. ⁴Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; ⁵but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.

Now, Hebrews 11:4 says this:

By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

One of the first things he identifies is that by faith, he brought a better sacrifice. Now, what made Abel’s sacrifice to God more, in the sense of superiority, then that of Cain’s? Some have answered that question in this way: Abel gave a blood offering. Blood always stood for life, so Abel gave to God the most precious of possessions, which is life itself. Therefore, Abel’s sacrifice was more acceptable before God because it was a living creature.

That may be included, but the core emphasis in Hebrews is that both men had been told what God demanded for a sacrifice, but only Abel accepted that on faith. God demanded a sacrifice of shed blood, the blood of an innocent lamb. However, the focus of our passage is not sacrifice.

In Hebrews, it is Abel’s faith and Cain’s lack of faith. Abel had faith that God would keep His word if he obeyed with the correct sacrifice. However, Cain chose to place his faith in his own efforts, schemes, and way to worship God, which is apart from what God required. Simply, Cain went his own way.

To the world, it looks reasonable to say that Cain had a different way of looking at life, so he took his own path and decided to worship God in his own way, which is not the same of what Abel did. Abel heard the word of God, Abel believed the word of God first, which is where it always starts, and Abel did the word of God. Then, he gained God’s approval because of that.

Even though the Old Testament never specifically mentions Abel’s faith, there is an enduring connection between divine approval and faith. God doesn’t just look at our gifts, but what is behind them. He looks for our confidence and conviction to trust Him even when we don’t have the answers or what the result will be. We know that we can trust what God says.

A person of faith has worked to backup their faith. Abel trusted God before he ever did anything. Many times, that’s what it is when we come to Christ. When we believe, we don’t know everything about the cross, what happened at the cross, and all what God did from Genesis to then. When we believe, we believe that this is the message that saves the soul.

When we step out in faith by the Lord giving us that faith, then we learn everything else and the rest of our life we’re unpacking what God did on the Cross. When we get to heaven, we will learn much more about what God did on the Cross, especially since we’re a bit limited here in this world.

Before anything ever happened, Abel trusted God, and his sacrifice and gifts were marked evidence of his faith. According to Genesis 4:7, Abel did well. Scripture tells us:

“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Abel did that which was well and right in the sight of God. Again, the Apostle John brings it up in 1 John 3:12:

not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.

Faith has evidence, and evidence proves someone has been made right with God by obeying the Lord and trusting His word. Being righteous is predicated on the one who has responded to God in faith. Faith proceeds and produces the fruit of faith. Therefore, Abel was declared right by God and had the evidence to prove it.

You say you’re a Christian, so let me see your evidence of what God has done in your life, the difference in your life, and of where the desires of your heart are going. All those things are included when we think about our relationship with God.

Another thing concerning Abel in Hebrews 11:4 is that through the example of his faith, he still speaks. Though very dead for a very long time, we see that the power and duration of a faithful example transcends time. His voice speaks to us through Scripture of the only acceptable way to worship God, which is why it starts with Abel.

That acceptable way is God’s way and no other way, and we come by that sacrifice of blood. We cannot come to God without a sacrifice, and our sacrifice is Jesus Christ. If you can’t come to God without Jesus Christ, then you cannot do it, especially since that is God’s acceptable approach to Him.

Faith is about worship that is directed to God, not worship done to make people feel good, but rather worship that pleases God and that He will approve. We give up our way by faith, so that we may do it God’s way. Being fruitful to God is a powerful testimony. In fact, it may be the most powerful thing you can pass on to your kids, family, and friends. No one can argue with that person who lived for God. Even when they die, people will talk about how they lived for God. They can put on your tombstone, “You lived by faith,” and what a testimony that would be.

If you live by faith, you have a lot of evidence to show people that you believe God, and you believe it against the trends of the world and even against your own education and college where all your professors told you that there was no God. Therefore, Abel’s voice urges us to like faith, so our examples can resonate in life and beyond the grave.

There’s nothing like reading biographies and autobiographies of people who were just faithful through God, and usually through very unusual and different circumstances where they came out the other end shinning brightly. People still write about them and talk about them because they lived by faith. Truly, they were regenerate, born-again, they desired to obey God, did so, and fruit came out of their life.

As a parent, we can fail many times and we can hope that certain things will happen with our kids, but the greatest thing you can do is to just be faithful to God and to live for the Lord, which they cannot argue. They may be able to condemn you with that, but that’s a good thing to be condemned by.

Even though Abel is dead, he still speaks, which is his testimony. When you die, maybe you will still speak as well by the very faith you had in God. That is powerful. Dying as a drunkard, drug abuser, or plain-old sinner is nothing. However, dying for Christ and dying in faith is something. By doing so you are simply saying, “against everything, I believe God.” God worked in you and produced something in you that you could not do yourself.

Now, looking at Hebrews 11:5, it’s about Enoch. I believe there is a progression here. Enoch is someone who lives by faith in walking with God in a pleasing manner. Thus, Abel is someone who lives by faith through worshiping God in an acceptable manner, so for Enoch, living by faith is walking with God in a pleasing manner. Hebrews 11:5:

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

Pleasing to God includes close intimacy and fellowship. Faith is described as walking with God in Genesis 5:21, 24:

Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah.

²⁴Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

In the Old Testament, the metaphor walk suggests actions. Biblical faith is not a dormant thing. To walk with God, as suggests R. Kent Hughes, means that there must be agreement between those who walk together. The prophet Amos suggested in Amos 3:3:

Do two men walk together unless they have made an appointment?

Any two people, who come together and walk with each other, must come to agreement. Otherwise, they will be fighting with each other and going in opposite directions. Of course, agreement includes three things. First, it’s destination: are you going to the same place? If you are going to be walking together, you must be heading in the right direction.

Secondly, it’s the same path. If you are going to be walking together, then you must not only be heading in the same direction, but on the same road. If not, there will be great difficulty that takes place. Lastly, it’s done at the same pace, so that you are not running ahead of each other or lagging.

Rather, you are keeping up with each other. In other words, you are staying in step with each other. To walk with God means that there is agreement that you are going to stay in step with God. Enoch, being translated to heaven, did not skip a step with God. The next step he took, he was in heaven.

In addition, pleasing God includes faith that is steadfast, consistent, and forward looking. Genesis 5:22:

Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.

Before the flood, people lived very long, and Enoch lived for three hundred and sixty-five years. Most of us don’t even make it to one hundred years, so Enoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years of righteous living even during terrible times of evil. In fact, he lived before the great white flood. If you remember the wickedness recorded upon the earth before the flood, then that is when Enoch lived. Genesis 6:11-13:

Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹²God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. ¹³Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.

He lived prior to the flood and in the wickedest of times on this earth, so there was no where to go. Meaning, even in the wickedest of times and places, it is possible to live with an enduring faith that pleases God. Really, what is going on around you has nothing to do with it, and where you live has nothing to do with it. The sin that is blasted on our T.V. sets and media we are bombarded with everyday has nothing to with it unless you let it.

If Enoch can do it, then we ought to do it, especially since this is an example for us to follow. The necessary condition for pleasing God and walking intimately with Him is faith itself. Without it, then it will be impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6:

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Be sure of this: God cannot be pleased unless a righteousness that comes from God, through faith, is first there. Philippians 3:9:

and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

We must be justified by faith before God, and before we can live by faith in God. Someone who is not a believer cannot do these things or live by faith like this unless the Spirit of God indwells them. In Scripture, Abel and Enoch were justified by God. Therefore, to support what the author means concerning faith, three necessary things are included before we could ever begin to live day by day by this God in a way that pleases Him.

First, in the middle of Hebrews 11:6, we must approach and believe God. It’s the person’s approach and necessary condition that must be in place to please God. The phrase is, “he who comes to God.” Here, it means to draw near to God to do something, seek His grace, and His favor. There is a clear reason why the person is coming or drawing near to God.

Thus, he is approaching God in believing. He who comes must believe, which is the necessary condition to not only be saved, but to live by faith. Already, Hebrews has said a lot about the proper way to approach God. Hebrews 10:21-22:

and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

We must approach God in a manner that is pleasing to Him, which is the picture we get with Abel. Now, we must believe God. Also, there are several things we must believe about God. He who comes to God, must believe that He exists. He has personality and is a person. In fact, the Greek term is eimi, which means I am. Meaning, God is.

Again, when Moses said, “who shall I tell, Pharaoh?” God said, “I am who I am.” Exodus 3:14:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.

He is being, and He has personality. In other words, He is real. We don’t possess being because of ourselves. We possess being because God himself is the great I AM. Remember, in Acts, Paul was talking to the philosophical pagans, who were interested in the topic of being. He said to them in Acts 17:28:

for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.

Something must possess the power of being itself before anyone can have being. Therefore, we get our being and personality from who God is, and God is the self-sufficient creator, who has the power to create and give being to humans. Does not the Bible teach, in the book of Genesis, that God created man in His image, which makes human beings unique among all the other created things?

In fact, God spoke everything into existence except for man. God formed man from the ground. God made man very personal, and in there, God made that connection with man right from the beginning. Thus, we see that the true creator God called us into being – made us, preserves us, keeps us, and treats us as His offspring.

If we are going to believe that He is, then we believe that He is one as He has proclaimed himself. There was never a time that God did not exist. He did not have a beginning and He was not created. He has always been alive, He has always been, and will always be the same. There never will be a time when God does not exist. He will never die, and He cannot die. When we come to Him, we must believe that He is.

Also, we must believe that He is the founder and maker of the world. All over Scripture it mentions the God who made the world and all things in it. Almost every book of the Bible says that God is the creator. Nothing came into being without being created by Him, and the universe is ruled by God himself. Acts 17:24:

The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

God is the originator and giver of all life. Acts 17:25:

nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.

He is the one who made His will known to the fathers through the prophets. He is the one who has spoken in these last days in His son, which is what the whole book of Hebrews is about. We must believe that He is, that He has being, and that He has personality. Therefore, we are responsible to this God, which includes all humanity.

Because of His nature, God is greater than the universe itself. Thus, He cannot be contained or controlled by men in any way, shape, or form. To do so, would be to worship in a self-styled manner, which is idolatry. Therefore, we come to God, approach Him in the right manner, and believe that He is.

In several places of the Bible, doesn’t it say that the fool has said in his heart that there is no God? When someone says that there is no God, the Bible talks about that person, and the Bible says that you are a fool if you think that way, which is true. Anyone who says that there is no God, no creator, or that there is no design to this universe, is totally blind and dead. They cannot see since they have their head in the sand.

For us who believe, we could never engage long in conversation or debate on whether God exists in the sense that we might be doubting. Faith already believes, holds to it, embraces that, lives by that, and knows that God is real. When they are with Him, they will see God in a way they have not seen God before. Moses’ desire was to see God’s glory. God showed him a little bit but could not show Him everything since it would have killed Moses.

Someday with resurrected bodies, in the presence of God, we will enjoy God in His fullness. We will see Christ as He is, and that is what faith is about. We embrace this by faith. We know God exists, and we’re looking forward to seeing Him.

In Hebrews 11:6, another important thing is that you must believe the personal generosity of God. The phrase, “those who seek Him,” is a phrase that you must look at in the original language. It has the idea of a personal interest such as pleasing and worshiping God, so this person seeking knows who he is seeking. In fact, the very word means to seek the favor of God and find it, which is the point.

Someone who already believes God exists know who they are seeking. They know that they are on a quest of a faith that is always successful. In other words, Enoch came to God regularly and daily believing that He was alive, He was God, and He had personality, so He spoke with Him, He walked with Him, and He stayed in step with the Lord all through the three hundred and sixty-five years that he was on the earth.

Also, he found God responded positively and abundantly to those who seek Him. When we walk by faith, we are seeking God. When we hear His word, we are seeking God, and we want to know more about Him. Paul says in Philippians 3:10:

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

The grandness of what the Bible says about God is mindboggling. Thus, Enoch found that God responds positively and abundantly to those who sought Him, and that God is a rewarder. In other words, God became to him a rewarder to the ones who approach the Lord reverently with a desire in their heart to know. The word rewarder means that God pays the wages by rewarding the one who seeks Him in a proper manner.

By God’s reward, he means that the faith of man reaching out to God is never left to itself but is met by real satisfaction. Can you imagine someone seeking for something and never finding? You cannot get satisfaction like that, which is frustrating. Here, it is saying that if you seek, you will find, and if you seek, you will be satisfied when you find it. When you find Him and gain more knowledge of Him by faith, then it will satisfy your soul like nothing else can satisfy your soul.

Bottom line, you cannot really know that He is a rewarder of those who seek him unless you already rely on Him as the only true, living, and almighty God. You already trust that He will fulfill all His promises and give you the eternal inheritance and full salvation that He has promised in Christ Jesus. Then, you will find Him the source of your deepest satisfaction.

From Enoch’s example of faith, we understand that real believers desire God as their companion. They seek to please Him where ever they go and in whatever they do. For such desire, Enoch was rewarded with seeing God. Spending eternity with Him was Enoch’s reward, which is also our reward.

If you don’t really know that God exists or if you don’t really desire God now, then why would you want to go to heaven to spend eternity with Him? In our hearts, the Spirit of God is laying off the old stuff that is dragging us down for the reward. Nothing becomes so precious in this life that you don’t want to leave it to be with the Lord. God told Abraham in Genesis 15:1 (NKJV):

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Isn’t that our promise? God will bring us where He is to fellowship with Him and be with Him forever in the New Covenant. In the revelation, new heaven, and new earth, the New Jerusalem comes down to earth since there will be no more separation between God and man. God and man will be dwelling together, with each other in fellowship, desiring it, and enjoying it. However, that desire and enjoyment must start now.

If it is not there, then you are not even a Christian or believer. If you don’t desire God but desire everything else, then you are not a believer. In your heart, the Spirit of God is making you like Christ. He is giving you a desire to want to be with Him, to serve Him, to approach Him in the right manner, and to walk with Him every day of your life.

I don’t think anybody can step up to Enoch and say, “Listen, I’ve got something on you.” We only live maybe sixty, seventy, eighty, or one hundred years. Nope, Enoch has got it, and that is why God took him. However, it is the picture of God not leaving us alone. He will come to get us, and where He is, we will be there with Him also, which is what He told His disciples when He left. That is the same promise we have, and God is our reward.

Remember, Biblical faith learns how to please God. It is not by acting in a self-styled manner or living like the world. Rather, it is knowing what pleases God, what He requires, and desiring to do it to please Him. The person with this kind of faith is strong, and practices not to waver in their trust in God, in His plans, purposes for them and for redemption.

Therefore, we have Abel approaching God in an acceptable manner, through Christ. Then, there is Enoch walking and fellowshipping with a real, personal God in a pleasing manner with hope to spend his eternity with God himself. Thus, this is where faith brings you, and that is what it is to begin to venture in walking by faith.

Today, examine yourself and where you are. Ask yourself: what kind of desires do I have for life? What is important? Am I going to leave a legacy of faith for my family, neighbors, and children? Is that what I truly desire? Do I truly want to walk with God every day when I wake up? Ask yourself these questions, especially since these are the kind of things that show that you have faith. Let’s pray:

Lord, Thank You again for the awesomeness of Your word. I pray, Lord, that today may be the day that if someone doesn’t know You as their Lord and Savior, then that they would come and believe. They would believe that You are who You say You are, and that they would approach You in the right manner, which is by faith in Christ Jesus. I pray, Lord, that those who do know You, that their faith would become stronger because of Your word. That they would examine themselves as to what needs to be put out of their life, so that they could continue to walk by faith, on the same path with You, on the same road with You, and at the same pace with You. I pray, Lord Jesus, that You would give us a desire to want the reward. I pray, Lord, that the hunger and thirst for You would grow every day. We praise You, Lord, for what You will do in these days in our life. Let everyone of us be a legacy of faith to those who watch us. Protect us, Lord, from falls. Protect us, Lord, from the sin that so easily besets us. Lord, rescue us please by the power of Your spirit and the sanctifying power of Your word. I pray this, in Christ Jesus’ name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Hebrews has been addressing those who had an experience of justification and is continuing to show how to grow in holiness within the sphere of Salvation. Here, he is talking to believers, and he is confirming them. Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

When one becomes a believer, the need for faithfulness is vital, especially to hold on to the Gospel and its message. For the present, we all have this great and essential need. Hebrews 10:36:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Remember, endurance is a word that means to persevere. However, it means more than just perseverance, but to persevere absolutely and emphatically. Meaning, to persevere through the misfortunes, trials, and afflictions of life. While going through those trials, we are to hold fast and never let go of the faith in Christ, which becomes the essential motive and drive to everything you do as a believer.

Already, we have learned that trials force us to depend on God. Trials are for our spiritual good. God is not trying to hurt us in trials, but He is going to bring out of us the very character traits the Spirit of God is building in us. Also, trials cause us to long for heaven. We start letting go of material things, wrong desires, and want to go to heaven.

As you grow in Christ, the desire to want to be with Christ should grow greater, and you want to let go of this world and go on and be with Him. In the believer, trials develop a proven character, which shows that you are a believer. It’s not just a profession of faith, but proof that you are a believer. All these things that befall us are leading to the goal of glory, which also prepares us to run the Christian race. Therefore, the followers of Jesus Christ are to run the Christian race to reach the goal, to finish, and to receive the reward.

Up until this point, the key to successful endurance is faith. Being a Christian means that we have been given a new way to look at life. It is the end of life that makes this present Christian progress toward the goal important. Our text has been telling us that only those who endure until the end will be saved. Real saving faith causes someone to persevere to the end of their life. Those who came in faith will continue in faithfulness.

Our breakdown of our passage: Jesus is returning soon, the saved will persevere by faith, and the lost will shrink back. Hebrews 10:37-38:

FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. ³⁸BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.

Last time, the point I made is that you can be confident that if there is evidence that a genuine work of grace has taken place in your heart and you have been growing in the evidence of a lifestyle of faith, then you can shout with these believers in Hebrews. We are of those who believe, are saved, and know it.

Finally, we come to this great chapter about faith. In our time, we will endeavor to wrestle down the essential of Biblical faith. We will see examples of what it means to have faith, live by faith, and sometimes to even die by faith. In the end, we obtain life. He teaches us the kind of faith that is necessary to endure. Already, I have put before you some of the ingredients of this kind of faith that endures until the end.

Remember, faith is not mere consent to proposition about God revealed in Jesus Christ as His son. People can mouth and believe that He died, rose again, and He is coming again, but mean nothing to them when it comes to their personal everyday life. However, to a real believer, it means everything.

In fact, it is the opposite of swelling pride and self-trust. Rather, it is a humility before God, readiness to conform to His will, and a conviction deep in your heart that God cannot lie because of what the word of God says and how He cannot fail in what He has promised. It is a reliance on Him despite outward circumstances. Too many times, that is where we get discouraged. Faith doesn’t look at the circumstances, but beyond the circumstances.

According to Webster’s dictionary, who was also a believer, faith is defined as the ascent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another resting on his authority and veracity without other evidence. Then, for the Christian, faith is believing that the promises of God are true simply because God says they are true. Because faith is the chief characteristic of a righteous person, which links us to Christ, then we ought to know something about how to live by faith.

We will look at the meaning and essence of Biblical faith, and there are three ingredients. First, Biblical faith accepts God’s word. Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The translators had a real problem with this word: hupostasis. This word can also be translated in the Scripture as expected, evidence, and substances. If you go through several different translations, you will find everyone of those words. In the New American Standard Bible (NASB), assurance does not mean a faith lacking substance. In other words, the faith we are talking about in Hebrews 11 and throughout the whole body is a faith that has substance.

In fact, hupostasis is really a word that means foundation, something that is form, or that which has existence, substance, or a real being. It is a word used in Hebrews 1, but in a different way where it is talking about Christ. The theological term hypostatic-union is where the union of the flesh and Spirit of Christ both come together as nature comes together. Really, Jesus Christ declares who God is, so He is the firm real being that gives us substance to who God is in the Old Testament. Hebrews 1:3:

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

The New King James Version uses the best translation of Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If viewed in this perspective, faith is something objective. In the here and now, it gives the things hoped for substantial reality, which will unfold in Gods appointed time. In other words, it gives faith substance. God is not asking us to take a blind leap in the dark. Here, faith that we have has substance. In the Old Testament, God spoke, and God has been working in history. God raised eye-witness testimonies for us, written in the word of God, so that we may build a foundation for our faith. For example, Hebrews 1:1-2:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, ²in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.

Hebrews 2:3-4:

how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, ⁴God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.

In other words, God has done all these things to boaster up and firm up what we are to believe, so we are not believing in the vacuum or taking a jump into the dark, which is not even in the definition of Biblical faith. Therefore, it is the substantial quality and nature of a thing.

In this case, it is faith with all the evidence that goes underneath it to hold it up, so when we live by faith, we are not living by some thing that we don’t know what we are doing. We are living by the very truth of what God has said, the very history in which God has said it and spoke throughout the ages, the very testimonies of reliable witness, and even the miracles of Jesus Christ. Christ is telling them that there is something substantial to believe in John 10:38:

but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.

What is the difference between faith and hope? In adjusting your understanding of biblical faith, biblical faith is a faith that has absolute certainty. What it believes is true, and what it expects, or hopes, will come to pass. In some sense, faith looks to the past and sees what God has done while hope looks to the future based on what God had done in the past. If God was trustworthy in doing all these things in the past, then that same God will be trustworthy to take care of things we have not seen. Therefore, faith is looking backward and trusting what has already taken place.

Faith is not substance-less faith, and it is not a “hope-so” faith. When hope is used as a verb, hope and faith are virtually synonymous. As a noun, hope refers directly to the promises of God. The promises already given in Hebrews: a world to come in Hebrews 2:5:

For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.

A promise of an eternal inheritance in Hebrews 9:15:

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Also, the second coming of Christ, the promised eternal salvation resting in almost the whole chapter of Hebrews 4, and an unshakeable kingdom. Hebrews 12:28:

Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.

These are the things that we hope for, and we don’t see them yet with our eyes. However, we hope in the promises of God that have not taken place, but surely will take place. Personally, it was not easy to study on faith. In fact, this was the hardest passage I had to deal with on Hebrews.

Someone who has faith, has hope. In Ephesians, it tells us that the person who has no faith set on Christ has no justifiable hope for the future. Ephesians 2:12:

remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

If you look at the world, people have all kinds of hope. They hope they will get married, make a lot of money, have a good life, or get an education. They have hopes and dreams, but those hopes are not substantiated on anything. They are not given any guarantees, but the one who believes in Jesus Christ is guaranteed eternal salvation, eternal inheritance, and a promise of an eternal kingdom that is unshakeable, which you will occupy someday. In the word of God, throughout history, and the holy men of God, God has already proved himself of this promise.

The verb hope speaks of our response to God’s promises. In other words, He offers us hope, so we can hope. We hope in Him and His guarantees, which we can believe them with confidence and expectancy. We can hope in them because they have some substance. Therefore, the hope here is not an, “I hope so,” or, “I hope it happens.”

We don’t go around saying, “I hope Jesus is coming back,” or, “I hope when I die, I get a resurrected body.” On the contrary, that is not what the word of God is bringing across when it talks about biblical hope. A biblical hope looks forward with utter conviction, and what God says will happen. It’s not a hope mingled with uncertainty and doubt.

That’s how God wants us to live, so you must get past the doubt and wondering. You must get to the real biblical faith in Scripture. Those who live in doubt, the opposite of faith, are essential denying that hope that God is true. Charles Spurgeon, a great preacher from England said:

I would recommend you either believe God up to the hills or else you believe none of it. Believe this book of God, every letter of it, or reject it. There is no logical standing place between the two. Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the depth of divine revelation. A faith that paddles about the edge of the water of a pool is poor faith at best. It is a little better than dry land faith, and it’s not good for much.

Hope depends on faith, and faith on the promises. If one’s faith in the promiser is absolute, then faith creates a conviction of things not seen, but guaranteed by the promises already made by God. Therefore, faith is not focused on what is seen.

In Hebrews 11:1, the word conviction means that which is proved or tested. Faith is not focused on the seen things of the world, but rather looks to the unseen promises of God, our hope, and lives accordingly. Hope is a result of faith. If there is not faith, there is no hope. Our faith must be established in the substance and undergirded by truth, testimony, history, what God spoke, and what God did.

As we understand these things, it gives us hope that what God did here, He will do there even though it has not happened yet.

For the believer, we have the conviction regarding the unseen, which is faith in its essence. We are certain it exists despite us not seeing them. We are certain of the unseen things as if we saw them. We are certain that we will be resurrected someday. We are certain that there will be a final judgement someday. We are certain that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We don’t see them, but our faith in God and in His word has given us the foundation to have a deep conviction to know it will be and that we will be there. R.C Sproul said:

Faith is generated by the acts of God, in history, that are visible, audible, and empirical.

We have empirical data, and God is not bypassing our senses. Faith is something you can see, touch, and feel. Faith is real, and it has evidence.

This book is a record of the tangible activity of God in the theatre of history, which is why it is so important to know the word of God. The word of God boasters your faith, makes you strong, and teaches you what God wants you to know about Him, what He is going to do, and what He has said He will do. We’re still in the process of history unfolding, so we’re living in exciting times.

As believers, we are confident that those things that we have not seen yet will come to pass because we trust God. Some people might not be satisfied with that, especially someone who doesn’t know Christ. However, a Christian is quite satisfied with that, and that’s where they live.

Certainly, it is not always easy to trust. Doubt, despair, and fear continually work their way into our lives, and often through our personal trials. Even Jesus’ disciples were constantly rebuked by the Lord. God wants us to grow in a faith that is sure about Him.

Instead of giving into doubt, we can stand on God’s promises. Instead of succumbing to depression or worry, we can trust Him. Instead of being disheveled by what we see going around in this unstable world, we can be grounded in what we can’t see, but what we know is true. Isn’t that what it is to be a Christian? Missionary, Hudson Taylor, in poverty said:

We have twenty-five cents and all the promises of God.

When faith lays hold of what is promised, then we have something that is real and solid, yet unseen. In the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego gave to king Nebuchadnezzar this answer and refused to serve his gods or worship the golden image which he has set up, and the king stated that if they didn’t do it, then he would throw them into the furnace. In Daniel 3:16-18, they replied:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. ¹⁷“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. ¹⁸“But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

That is a firm faith, a faith we should want, and a faith that the spirit of God wants to work in us. It is a faith that can face anything such as kings and fiery furnaces. Whether they lived or died, they are still on the victory side because they knew who their God was, His ability, and His character. Only that kind of person can give that kind of answer so firmly and confidently. In our society, they would be considered insane, and this is insanity at its highest level.

Afterward, the state traps, governs, kings, and high officials gathered around and saw, regarding these men, that the fire had no effect on their bodies. Their hair wasn’t even singed, their trousers weren’t even damaged, and the smell of smoke was even on their clothing. As a result, Nebuchadnezzar says in Daniel 3:28:

Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.

Though they violated the kings commanded and yielded up their bodies so as not to worship any gods except their own, the king recognized their faith and said in Daniel 3:29:

“Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, inasmuch as there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”

Man, what a testimony faith is before an ungodly world that has no hope. Missionary, George Mueller, understood quite well God’s promises and what it meant to live by faith and said:

The life lived by faith is a walk with God just right outside the gates of heaven.

The essence of biblical faith is a faith that rests solely on the word of God. Matthew 5:18:

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Luke 16:17:

But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.

1 Peter 1:25:

BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.” And this is the word which was preached to you.

The first ingredient: a biblical faith is a faith that accepts God’s word. In the meaning and essence of biblical faith, the second ingredient is that a biblical faith gains God’s approval. Hebrews 11:2:

For by it the men of old gained approval.

The phrase, “gained approval,” speaks of the public witness of a person’s character. In Greek, this is called the divine passive. Meaning, it doesn’t mention God in the passage, but we know that God is speaking. God is the one who is looking at your life and testifying to your faith and understanding.

Everyone who has gone before us had to live by faith. When they lived by faith, someone recognized it, including God himself. The ancients had this enablement to endure through all kinds of difficult circumstances and situations until the end of their life.

To live in this manner, assumes that they have a knowledge that they know how to gain approval from God in the first place, and from the God in whom they serve and know. It is not a shot in the dark hoping you will hit the target with a whimsical faith. Here are people who knew whom they were worshiping and knew how to please the one they were worshiping. What satisfaction it is to know God is pleased with you.

In your circumstances, you are not living to gain human approval anymore, or living simply to get satisfaction anyway you can. In your present situation, you are beginning to discern the activity of the invisible God in your life, on your family, and on your job. Whether in adversity or prosperity, you desire in your heart to do the will of God and receive divine approval. When people are devoid of that trust in His word and in His son Jesus Christ, whom He has sent to us, God cannot be pleased. Hebrews 11:5-6:

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Because Enoch walked with God, he was taken up by God. Enoch pleased God, God bore witness of that, Enoch passed right through death, and God took him. Thus, biblical faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Rather, it is immersed in the nature and character of God in objective truth and historical reality. The people of God lived and died by faith. They did not shrink back to destruction. They knew that they were getting in a long line of those who had finished the race and had gone into heaven before them.

There a lot of people that have gone before us, so look to them, especially since they knew how to please God. Find out how they did it, and then live that way. We have a lot of people that have run the race, finished it, and went into the presence of God. In this time, it is our turn to live today by faith, to endure by faith, to believe the unseen, to trust God’s promises, and to wait and hope expectantly that our great God and Savior will bring all He has promised to an ultimate fulfillment.

When you live like that, it changes things. Hence, the essence of biblical faith is a faith that rests entirely on the character of God. Somebody who has a good report from God knows who God is and knows how to please Him just like a child knows how to and how not to please their parents.

Unfortunately, it’s the latter part first by trying all the unpleasant things, and when it gets too hard, they take the pleasing way. As we grow in Scripture, we understand the character of God, so we are learning how to please God. While in prison for his faith, Richard Baker wrote on the 103^rd Psalm:

In His righteousness, He promised, and by His faithfulness, He will keep His promise.

The last ingredient of biblical faith recognizes God’s power, which is linked to His word and character. If God did not have the power, how could he pull off the promises? Not only do you need to believe God’s character and His word, but you must believe that God is able to carry out to completion everything that He says in His word, especially since it has everything to do with us. Hebrews 11:3:

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Biblical faith has a spiritual perception that the universe can been seen, but not its origins. We cannot see the origins of the universe but believe that the origin of the universe is God. However, what is problematic in this passage is the invisible source. In our day, people have said: is it the visible that has come into being where nothing existed before? Meaning, creation out of nothing, so there was nothing there before and God created it out of nothing. Nevertheless, this is not the emphasis of our context on faith.

Secondly, is it that faith that reaches beyond the world of phenomena to the unseen ground of true being? Meaning, someone who has faith can see way beyond things. Truthfully, it is not used in this way either in the context of faith. Therefore, the best way to understand this passage is to take what cannot be seen parallel to the word of God.

In other words, God’s powerful word is an invisible power that produces visible results. For example, when we look out at creation, isn’t it there and can you see it? From the word of God, we know the source is God himself. Therefore, the invisible power can produce results that when God speaks, it comes into being.

The source of creation is God. Personally, I tell people all the time that I am a firm believer in the Big-Bang Theory. With a puzzled look, they look at me and I reply, “God spoke and bang!” The universe came into being and produced visible results, which we can see right now.

With all the math, physics, science, knowledge, schooling, and degrees, you still cannot explain how it got here, so it got here because God spoke because He is powerful. When He speaks, His powerful word produces visible results. We don’t see that we have a resurrected body, but God is going to speak, He will call us in the resurrection, and there will be a reality of a resurrected body.

Also, we don’t see a new heaven and earth, but God is going to take care of this old universe and earth, give us a new one, and He will speak it into existence. It will be there, and we will see visible results. We don’t see that we have eternal life, but we know that we have it because God says we do.

The essential of biblical faith is a faith that recognizes God’s power to bring to pass all that He has promised with visible results. What is formed, came into being. The universe can be seen, and creation speaks of the power of God. Romans 1:20:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

When I became a believer, creation opened to me. I began to recognize things I had never recognized before, and I began to reference what I saw to what God has done, which boasters your faith. If God can do all of this with this kind of creative power to bring all different kinds of animals, colors, shapes, the universe, and all the stars in it, and He knows everything going on, holding it together by His power, then what else can He do? This mentioned is nothing to God. God is so grand and great.

A biblical faith accepts God’s word, rests on God’s character, and recognizes God’s power. Then, faith is the evidence of that which is not visible now, but which shall become visible by God’s powerful word as He moves through redemptive history.

In say thing, defining the essence of faith is inadequate. Merely defining faith is not enough, so Scripture provides us a long list of examples of people who lived by faith through redemptive history, who finished the race, and went to be with God. In many passages, they went without receiving the promise. By faith they had the promise, but they did not see it yet. However, if they have gone on, they have seen the promise.

In this chapter, it is setting up for us this context where we will see incredible people living regular lives by faith. Also, you will see that in that faith, you can recognize their acceptance of the word of God, their resting upon God, knowing the character of God, and that God is able to pull it off way far beyond what we could ever imagine. Therefore, why should we fear?

The Bible will give living examples of faith, but are there any living examples of faith today? I came across a pastor, who lived in this area, and he got diagnosed with cancer. He pastored for most of his life, and as he read Psalm 40, he said:

It has been a great encouragement to me as I have sought to walk with the Lord. He is so wonderful and has been so faithful to me.

On August 4^th, he was told that he had days or maybe weeks to live. He was not afraid of death, just of the pain, and he said:

I can’t wait to see what heaven looks like. I am so excited. God made it for us to enjoy, and I want to go there.

That is faith. How else would he know there was a heaven? How else would he know he would go there? He continued:

I am just trusting in Jesus, who had forgiven my sins and made me His child. I know beyond the shadow of doubt where I am going, and I want everyone else to know Jesus, so they can go there too.

He went on to be with the Lord. Years of growing in faith produces that kind of response in the face of death, and that’s what God wants us to do. That is how we please Him. Without faith, it is impossible to please the God we say we serve. Let’s pray:

Lord, I ask You to help us. We all need greater faith. I pray, Lord, that you would deliver us from the indictment that we have too little faith. Lord, establish in our heart the very things that are needed to make our faith strong, firm, and steady. That it cannot be moved one way or the other because we have been established in the very things that Scripture teaches to make our faith what it ought to be. Lord, make us people that when You observe our life, we are pleasing to You and have a good report. I pray, Lord, from this day forward, our faith would get stronger and stronger, and greater and greater than ever before. I pray, Lord, like the ancients of old and this local pastor, that we too, when faced with adversity, trials, and even death, we can be confident that we know where we are going, we know what You have done and promised, that we simply rest and trust in You character, believe in Your word, and know that Your power is so great that it pulls off all that You say. I pray, that we would live there. Thank You, Lord, for such a book like this. Thank You, Lord, for challenging us today in faith. I pray, Lord, if there is someone who doesn’t know You as their Lord and Savior, then today they may come, confess before You their sin, and believe in You as their Lord and Savior. Please always do that, Lord. I pray this, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Let us take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 10. We are looking at verse 35 until the end of that chapter along with some other Scriptures this morning. Let me have a word of prayer, specifically for two people this morning. Shaji’s father died, and he went to India to attend the funeral with his brothers and hopefully have a conversation with them. He said his father is a very strong Christian and died at 84 years old. He is now with the Lord. Funerals are a great opportunity to share the gospel with those who do not believe. Cheryl Freuh’s mom is sick so she is with her there in Florida.

Lord this morning, I do ask You to be with our brother Shaji as he is traveling to India with his brothers. I pray that You would give him safe travels and a great opportunity there to be a witness and testimony, and that his father’s funeral would be a shining light to the gospel of Christ. To everyone that he speaks the Word, I pray that You would fill them with God’s Spirit so that the Word of God can go forth clearly and so the gospel will reach hearts, and raise spiritually dead people to life. I also pray, Lord, that You would be with Cheryl as she ministers to her mom. Give her opportunities to share the gospel with her and to be an example an a comfort to her. Bring them both back safely and accomplish Your will by them being there. Lord, we praise You this morning for the Word of God. Use it as You see fit in our own personal lives and hearts, that we would be sure about our standing with You. And that we would live for You. Use it to encourage us today in that way. I pray in Christ’s Name, Amen.

We are looking at this morning in Hebrews 10 an encouragement with an appeal to persevere in the faith. He is saying here in Hebrews, “if you did not shrink back from Christ, and the doctrines concerning so great a salvation that you received, and if you did not shrink back from the fellowship of believers in your former trials, you will not shrink back if it happens again.” Every trial and situation that comes into our lives after becoming believers, are used to strengthen us and make us stronger believers and to allow us to let go of this world. We are to let go of our own security and trust fully in Christ. This is something God has to teach us, it does not just happen.

I quickly told the story about a man named Doug Herman. He and his wife are both strong believers. They were having their first baby and go to the hospital. He is joyously holding his baby in his arms, everything had gone fine. His wife lost a lot of blood, however, and had to have a blood transfusion. The blood was tainted with HIV. Two months later, he finds out that his wife is going to die and his baby is going to die, and his grandfather who has been a stronghold in his Christian life is going to die. In a period of two months, they all died. The question is of course, why? Things happen like that, but the why may not be answered. The promises of God are still going to be the same and He is going to bring salvation to completion no matter what circumstances you or I will be a part of.

Even if we have heart wrenching stuff going on, we can still trust God. Even if we do not have all the answers, we can trust Him, that He is going to bring it to pass and finalize and sign and seal salvation forever. This is the hope that we have. Make sure that you know when you perish, that you will be with Christ!

He is saying here to them, after listening to the preacher you should seriously consider what the Lord has actually been doing in your life in the middle of trials and sufferings. After a closer examination of those sufferings, you come to realize that the Lord, your great High Priest was maturing you spiritually and developing a proven and Christ-like character. The tribulations manifested spiritual fruit that God was producing in His newly blood-bought children. God kept them through the use of their tribulations.

We are called to think about what we gain in Christ and what we just lose if we shrink away. To think about this correctly, we are called to consider the great paradox of the Christian life. As I mentioned last week, it is that the Lord’s children can be in the midst of trials and tribulations and humiliations and be weighed down, depressed in Spirit, and at the same time have a heart of great rejoicing! It is a paradox, we do not really understand it. It is only what the Spirit of God can produce.

In these difficult circumstances, we grow spiritually, mature in the faith and we do that the most probably of any circumstances that we find ourselves in. Every time we go through something, we must examine those times closely; times of tribulation that the Lord has and will again bring into us and through. These include affliction, sickness, suffering, humiliations, and problems in our lives. It is there that we begin to see with the eyes of faith, and we learn at that point that we can trust God. That is what it is all about, it is all about trusting God. This whole last section of Scripture is about just that!

For these believers, when they reviewed their past sufferings and looked closely at them, six things came to the surface. When they were brand spanking new believers the first thing that came to the surface was that they had light and were no longer in darkness. The second thing is that they gained endurance, they endured great suffering as it says in Hebrews 10:32.

The third thing is that they had a deeper appreciation of the church and the body of Christ, and that they could not live their Christian lives alone. Especially during times of tribulation and suffering. We need to pray for each other, hold each other up and encourage one another. We have to do whatever we can to make sure that we are growing to make sure we are growing stronger.

A fourth thing that we gain is sympathy. They showed sympathy to the prisoners; they gained in looking at people the way they ought to. People need spiritual help the most and to have sympathy and come in beside someone is needed. Of course in this case, they were showing sympathy to those in prison who could not get help from anywhere else but the church.

A fifth thing is that they gained joy right in the middle of affliction. They started letting go of temporal things where it says in Hebrews 10:34:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

There property was taken away but their joy was still intact. They could not take that away from them! The joy that God gives us in salvation and that surpasses all understanding cannot be taken away. But if you lose that joy or give it away, it is because of sin. Confess your sin and gain back your joy!

A sixth thing they gained was a promise of heavenly realities. Look at Hebrews 10:34:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Once these things have been reviewed, they gained a greater appreciation of what Christ was doing in their lives. The conclusion was that it would have been so foolish to throw away so previous and valuable a gift of salvation and of a relationship with God where now all the barriers are fallen. We can approach Him anytime as His children because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, accomplishing all the work on our behalf.

The logical imperative is, therefore, do not throw away your confidence which has great reward. That is where we are heading today. We are heading to the place where we are understanding the fourth and fifth approaches to God.

The fourth approach to God is that there followers of Christ are to keep near with confidence. The one we are going to look at this morning, the fifth one, is that the followers of Christ are to keep pressing on with endurance. That becomes the main focus of this section, but there is another focus that comes in the end, that I will look at in a minute.

Here is the situation for us this morning. There is encouragement that we are to gain by looking at our trials and situations is the first one to keep on going and not let go of your confidence. This is in Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Other people have observed evidence of the work of God’s grace in your life. You have not trusted anything else but the one time sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, there is evidence of God’s work of grace in your daily struggles. That is where it is seen the most, in your struggles, trials, tribulations. That is where it becomes evidence that God is doing something in your life. He is strengthening you like nothing else can. If you did not shrink back then when you were just babes in Christ, you will remain steadfast now because you know more and you have grown more. You stuck with the church, teaching, and the Apostles’ doctrine. You stuck with the fellowship, partaking of the Lord’s Table, listening to the Spirit of God, etc. and you have grown in the Word of God. Just like what it says in Hebrews 2:1:

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

What is happening is that their ears perk up now because they are listening to the details of God’s Word. They are not listening to their neighbor sitting next to them, to someone who should be sitting there but is not, they are listening to themselves. They are putting themselves in the equation and have grown. Also, their souls have become stronger because of tribulations. Their understanding of God’s love for them has become more clear. Just like it says in Psalm 138:8:

The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; do not forsake the works of Your hands.

If tribulation comes, it does not mean that God’s love has left you. It is everlasting! It is not going to change because your circumstances or feelings or anything else that might change. God’s love does not change towards us! It is consistent and regular and always dependable. We have to learn that because we deal with in the human realm with a fickle love. Like, she loves me or she loves me not.

We can be secure in the realm that God loves us. It even says in 1 John, God is love! That is all you have to say. It is His character! We grow in that truth, especially in tribulation and understanding that God keeps you by His power. That should be more obvious because of tribulation. I should have thrown in the towel but the smoke cleared, the bullets stopped flying, and I am standing and still trusting God. You do not do that by your own will power because your understanding has grown that what God has started, He will finish. It says in Philippians 1:6 says:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Your understanding that you have a great High Priest who intercedes for you in Heaven. He is preparing a place for you and will bring you where He is. There is an understanding that we do not want to shrink back no matter what tribulations or trials come to us. We have an assurance that the Lord has given to us, so we hold fast to it. We do not want to let it go or let anyone to take it from us. Turn to Acts 14:22 where the Apostles encouraged the saints through many trials:

[They strengthened] the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

God did not promise us a rose garden. Expect tribulation to come, but also be ready for it. Be strengthened by it when it comes, knowing that God is not going to let you go. Trust the Lord until it becomes more regular and practical, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 37:24:

When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

How do you know when someone has received the grace of God? What kind of evidence do you look for? In Acts, Barnabas is in the church at Jerusalem, and news came back that there were a bunch of Gentiles that were trusting in Christ. So they sent Barnabas to go and find out what was going on. Look at what it says in Acts11:22-23:

The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God.

The word grace here points to the exceptional effects produced by divine grace that God was gaining and granting the free gift of salvation to sinful self-centered pagans. They were changing and repenting of their sin. They were laying down their idols, following Christ, and understanding the Word of God and obeying it. That is how you know grace has come to them. In fact, there is also evidence he gives them in that same passage of Scripture where he says in Acts 11:23:

He rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.

A resolute heart is one that places something or someone before anything else. He was encouraging them that the purpose in their life is to leave their former sins and walk in righteousness and remain true in the Lord. He said that because there are many temptations to go back to the old way of living. There are many tests of our faiths. There are many launchings of the fiery missiles of Satan against true believers to get them to drift off course. He is warning them not to allow that to happen. You just keep walking with the Lord because we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and we are to appear as lights in the world.

A divine work of grace in your life is the first encouragement to keep on going. Have others seen such a change in you? Especially when you come out of a troubling time, that God is holding you? You should realize that God has to be first in all things. God begins to prioritize your life and you put Him where He ought to be, and you serve Him with a faithful heart. It is to your spiritual benefit and growth when these things get arranged during times of trouble.

There is a second encouragement, turn back to Hebrews 10:35 for this one. It says:

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

The second encouragement is an offer of a reward. As maturing Christians, we have come to understand the reason for not casting away our assurance in Christ. Reward really is a unique Greek word, it means “pay to give” and “be in full.” In other words, “do.” Other translations translate this section like this: the ESV says “great reward,” the NIV says “rich reward,” and another one says “remember the great reward it brings you.”

In other words, it literally means “a paid gift due” that God is going to reward us for enduring. He is going to reward us to endure in order to throw away the great gift of assurance, of pay, which God intends to give in full to us. The true Christian’s confidence has a great reward, which is already mentioned in Hebrews.

The incomparable glory that awaits all who are faithful to the end. In Romans 8:18, it says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

There is the imperishable inheritance prepared by God for His redeemed people, where he says in 1 Peter 1:4:

To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

Then there is the crown of righteousness which is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:8:

In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

All who have lived their life in light of Christ’s coming at any moment, and ready for Him to come at any moment. The gold of the world grows dim in the light of His glorious face and wanting to see Christ. If you abandon the struggle, you also abandon the prize. You will see that the fullness of the promise is in the future.

All these things are preparing us for the future race and are leading us to the goal of glory that the follower of Christ is to run the Christian race in order to reach the goal, to finish, and then to receive their reward. No runner reaches the goal without endurance. No runner reaches the goal without practicing, being in the race, eating, sleeping, and thinking about the race. That is what the Christian life is! A race! That is why Hebrews 11 talks about such a great cloud of witnesses.

The author talks about laying down the things that weigh us down so we can run! The master will pay you the reward for your work, the reward for the righteous. God has promised us these things but the fulfillment of these promises are still in the future. We have evidence of grace in our lives and a future of rewards set before us. That is all an encouragement.

But why we are still here and living, we all have this great essential need. Look at Hebrews 10:36, which says:

For you have need of endurance.

This word endurance means to persevere. It means that quite emphatically to persevere under misfortunes, trials, and to hold fast to one’s faith in Christ. The best single example of endurance that I know of in Scripture is Job himself. Even in James 5:11 it says:

We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Job was a righteous man but in every single trial and the conclusion of this book is that trials is the school of trust. This is where you learn to trust! It is not always chastisement, but it is always educational. Trials educate us to what God is doing in our life. Job tells us that in all these things, he did not blame God or sin with his lips. And then in the last chapter, God restored the fortunes of Job twofold. But the greatest example of endurance is found right here in Hebrews 12:2, which says:

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Christ is our greatest example of endurance. Our greatest need right now on this Earth is to endure in order to run the race. But Satan desires to embitter the saints and misunderstand God’s providences. Satan sometimes uses physical ailments to try and draw people from God. He wants to draw you away from the race and sit on the bench. But believers should not allow any providence to dissuade or discourage himself from service to God, but instead should be emboldened to persevere in God’s way.

Trial is the school of trust. Much distress is a blessing in disguise if it drives one to Christ and teaches the power of faith and prayer.

Overall, God is infinitely wise. Maybe for the child of God, He has ordered it and is in the trial. You cannot just pray your way out of a trial. Just trust yourself to God. Ask Him to show you what He is doing in your life to make you what you ought to be as a believer in this world, so you can be a person who is conformed to the image of Christ. God is infinitely wise. He will do everything that is for your best. Wherever we find ourselves, we should reference Him and should patiently wait for what He is doing in our lives. We all need endurance to hold fast to faith in Christ.

Let us look back to Hebrews 10:36:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Notice that the way Scripture captures what is before the followers of Christ is that it is packaged as a promise given in the past. Then look at Hebrews 9:15 which says:

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

This is the ultimate promise that the Lord gives us, which He promised in the past. No one can change or reverse that. Christ espoused that promise only on faith, on those who trustfully and patiently endure in a way that please God. The will of God is to live by faith. If I ask a bunch of people to define what it means to live by faith, would you be hard pressed to define it and could you give me an example of it?

What does it meant to live by faith? That is a tough question but we ought to know if the Bible is calling us to it. I am talking about faithfulness, after already being in Christ. Faith is not mere consent to propositions about God as revealed in Christ Jesus, the Son of God. It is not just believing that Christ died, was buried, and that He rose again and is coming back. We ought to hold to those and believe those but that is not what it is specifically talking about here in Hebrews.

It is the opposite of swelling pride and self-trust. It is humility before God, a readiness to conform to the will of God, that is why it talks about doing the will of God here in the verse. It is the willingness not to conform to what you think you ought to be, but to what God says. That is faithfulness. Your faithfulness, what God says, and what His will is maybe totally contrary to everything you ever knew. Every feeling you ever felt and every thing the world says about life.

Faithfulness is also a conviction that He cannot lie or fail. It is a deep conviction that God cannot lie to you or fail you. He has to accomplish His promises and finish what He started. It is also a reliance on Him in spite of outward circumstances going on around you.

Christ bestows His promise of eternal salvation on those who are faithful, not on those who shrink back. It is not the prize for human merit or self confidence. It is a continued confidence in God and the only merit in which the Christian trusts is the merit of Christ and Christ alone. It is at this very point that he says we need endurance. But what fuels endurance?

Look at what it says in Hebrews 10:37. It is referenced from an Old Testament prophet named Habakuk. We are going to read some of the things that He says. This is really a major section of the point he is trying to make. The Hebrews passage is this:

For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

This is quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. In this book Habakuk is in two difficult circumstances. He is burdened by the unchecked violence in Judah that the people of God are sinning and their sin has contributed to a violent atmosphere on the human level. He is really troubled by it. He cries out to God and God says to him that He will use the Chaldeans as an instrument of punishment.

In other words, God is raising up the nation of the Chaldeans and He is going to use them to punish Judah for their sin.We will look at Habakuk 2 in a second because there is a second problem here. The Chaldeans are more wicked than the Judeans. In his mind God had to raise up wicked Chaldeans to go against wicked Judeans. It does not make sense. But this is how God answers him the second time. He says this in Habakuk 2:2-3:

Then the Lord answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.”

This is the quote he is bringing from the Old Testament and he uses some different wording than what is in the Old Testament, but he is saying the same thing. The prophet is simply telling the people that if they hold fast to their loyalty, God will see them in their present situation. Victory only comes to those who hold fast to what God says. It only comes to the person that is faithful to what God says.

The one who has faithfulness, which must be exercised in relation to someone or something. In this case, the individual is to be faithful to God, to His Word, and to His promises. He must rely firmly upon them and have a deep trust in God Himself, that is His character.

Habakuk lays down a principle instrumental to bringing about the well-being and security of the people of God wherever they live. It is simply faithfulness, that is humble and steadfast and relies upon God’s Word. If he perseveres in faith, he will gain his life. If he shrinks back, he will prove according to Hebrews to be a reprobate.

There is a difference though that I want to point out. The Old Testament passage of Scripture says something in Habakuk 2:4:

Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by his faith.

It uses the phrase “proud one” to distinguish the person who shrinks back in Hebrews. That is what is replaced there. But the phrase “to shrink back” is actually without discrepancy from the phrase in Habakuk. It defines for us and helps us understand what shrinking back actually means. The same person that is puffed up and proud, who with self-sufficiency is blind to the need of trustful patience and endurance in God’s Word. God promises to deliver him but doesn’t say when He will deliver him.

Habakuk says in response that the proud person is the person who does not trust God. He is the person that believes that God does not know what He is talking about. He does not know why they should wait for anything. In fact look again at Habakuk 2:4:

Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by his faith.

Notice that his soul is not right within him. In other words, he is not right with God. He is proud. He does not need God or His Word or His salvation or His promises! But on the other hand, look at what it says about the righteous person in verse 4. The righteous person will live by faith, or faithfulness. The righteous person is is counted as righteous before God because his soul is right with God. Something is changed in that person. Because he has a new nature, this person will live by his faith. Here is a person who has abandoned every pretention of self-sufficiency and whose whole life is one that trusts wholly in God.

Thank the Lord that Habakuk was the kind of prophet that believed God and was right with Him in his heart. He was not proud or a prophet that shrinks back because the circumstances look so bad that there was no way he could be delivered from a human standpoint or human intervention. He saw wisdom in God’s promise.

As a matter of fact, this is how his faith is displayed. Look at Habakuk 3:17-19, which he sings when he is without hope. It says:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines. Though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet. And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

It is a song in the midst of suffering, sorrow, tribulation, and affliction. He is saying that there is no visible blessing anywhere he looks but that God’s promises are still true and that he rejoices in Him only. Habakuk trusts in Him for the right moment and timing. With certainty, He will bring to pass his deliverance. That is how the Hebrews author uses Habakuk.

So to shrink back is to renounce the life of faithfulness. God has no pleasure in this type of person! The great faith chapter of Hebrews will inform us when we get there, that without faith it is impossible to please God! Doubt does not please God. Shrinking back definitely does not please God. In fact those who shrink back in Hebrews shrink back to destruction and through eternal perishing. They have cast off the God of salvation and found no point of rejoicing in His plan because it was too hard to wait. It did not seem like any wisdom at all to wait. Faith is now the life of the heart for the believer, not sight like it would be in Heaven. Faith sees God’s promises coming. Faith becomes the life of the heart until He comes, who will give life to both soul and body. That is the promise that we have. The key to successful endurance and perseverance is faith in God and His promises and salvation. That is the key!

Being a Christian means we have been given a new way to look at life. It is the end of life that make this present Christian process towards the goal all important. This is what our text tells us in Hebrews. Only those that endure to the end will be saved. Those who sit down on the track do not make it to the finish line.

Those who came in faith also continue in it. That is a real believer and that is the point of this passage in Hebrews. I want you to see the structure of the text before us. Look at Hebrews 10:37, which says:

For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.

So is He returning soon? Where is the evidence? Where is God in the world? There are things going on in Egypt, there is turmoil in the Middle East and destruction all around us. The economy has its bottom dropping out, we may lose everything!

Everything is changing so rapidly that no one can keep up or knows what to say! Has God’s mission changed? Is Christ still coming back with certainty? We know this by faith. God cannot lie and whatever He starts, He completes. We know this because God is true. He is not a liar and will not fail. Can I prove it at all? No! But I am also not called to do this. I am called to trust God.

In Hebrews 10:38, it says:

But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

Here is the characteristic of the true believer, they keep going! Here is the perseverance of the saints. Although they get knocked down, they do not get knocked out. Though they are on the mat looking at the ceiling, they also get back up. Christians can say this because they have the Holy Spirit of God in them. They have been listening to God and growing and becoming stronger. They have been taking spiritual weights and pump steel.

Whatever comes their way, they are ready for their enemy, the devil. They take whatever Satan says to them and repeat back what God would say! They can detect the lies. They learn to be a spiritual father, someone who walks by faith. They learn to trust God in all the little things. They see the providence of God in everything.

God is involved in Christians’ lives. They shall live by faith because they have a certain trust in their God. They rejoice in Him no matter what. Regardless of where God calls us, He will also give us the grace to endure at that time and live by faith because our promises from God transcend this life. We have an eternal inheritance and salvation.

Look again at verse 38:

[The lost will shrink back.] And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

The lost will ultimately lose the race, even if they have once made a profession of faith. I am a believer and a Christian but when the trials and tribulations come, they are out. Because we know that He who promised is able to keep that which we entrusted to Him and bring it to pass right to the end, the finish and the goal. This is our great God! That is why we can sing and rejoice!

You can be confident that if there is evidence in your life of a genuine work of grace, and you are ever growing in the evidence that your lifestyle is one of faithfulness. God is telling us to rejoice with these Hebrews. Look at what he says in Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

That means that we have eternal life. Just like it says in 1 John 5:13:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

What could they possibly take away from you? Your house, car, job? But not your soul and eternal life. That is what it comes down to. In the world we live in, it may come to that sooner than you think. For Christians, objective truth enables us to enter into God’s presence with confidence and those who profess faith in Christ will remain faithful and that gives us evidence that those who are believing are members of Christ’s church, household, and are citizens of Heaven.

Hebrews 11 will continue telling us about this with the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us and are now with God. This is how they lived and what happened to them. We are to do the same thing. Continue to endure until the end because God is faithful.

Let us pray. Lord, I ask You this morning to strengthen us and our faith. We know how You do it. We pray that you would enable us to endure. We need endurance and allow us to grow in faith so we can be faithful and that person who understands that faith is something that You are pleased with. It is something that is opposite of pride and self-trust. It is humility before You to do Your will. It is a conviction that You cannot lie or fail. It is a reliance that despite how our circumstances look, You will bring to pass all of Your promises.

So Lord, make us strong in the faith so we can please You in all things. Come hell or high water, we will stand firm and not let go of our confidence in Christ Jesus and the so great salvation that You have given us. We praise You for it. I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Let us take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 10. Most likely we will be looking at Hebrews 10:32-35. We are looking in Scripture at an encouragement with an appeal to persevere. In our text, there is sandwiched between an exhortation to believers to worship God. And last week I looked at the warning intending to provoke fear, and then there is an appeal to believers this morning in Hebrews 10:36 which says:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Now the three things that I have already mentioned that need to be included in our approach to God are first, that followers of God need to enter the Holy place with confidence. The challenge was for prayer, that it would be the highest expression of a believer’s lifestyle of faith.

The second thing is that a Christian should draw near with sincerity, an honest and cleansed heart.

The third thing is that followers of Jesus Christ should hold fast the confession of faith together. That includes the responsibilities to hold fast yourself, and also to mutually encourage others to hold fast in the body of believers, in the gathered assembly.

These responsibilities are also included in the exhortation in Hebrews 10:25:

Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

This is an admonition that is given very strongly. The failure of some to continue attending the gatherings of the community is cast not just in the realm of neglect but also wrongful abandonment. That is the first step in which people are letting go of truth, doctrine, profession and moving away from God’s program to sanctify His people and to make them like Himself.

No matter what the condition may be, believers are to stick with Christ’s local church. We should also exhort others to continue attending faithfully, especially in the light of the Lord’s soon return. The Lord is coming and we know that, just not when. Part of being ready is being faithful to the gathered assembly and to constantly be growing in truth. It is going to benefit you and be a reward to you!

This brings me to the fourth and fifth things that needs to accompany our approach to God. The fourth thing is that followers of Jesus Christ are to keep near with confidence. In Hebrews 10:32, it says this:

But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings.

Then also look down to Hebrews 10:35:

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

There comes a message of encouragement after the strong warning passage, coupled with an appeal to persevere. I want you to notice back in verse 32 what he is saying to believers, the gathered assembly who are to carry out his appeal, which is packaged here as an imperative. Now an imperative is a command. Here is the command that he gives them. In Hebrews 10:32, it says:

But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings.

Remember is the command. It points to something that happened in the past. The author wants them to call to mind something. The word actually means “to weigh something.” We would use it to say that something is heavy. Whatever is being said has weight to it. When we are talking about the glory of God, we are actually talking about the weightiness of the awesomeness and greatness of the God who has created Heaven and Earth. Anything that has great weight to it must be considered in our minds seriously. That means that it will benefit us to think about what he is telling them.

He is basically saying, “Remember well and weigh the period of persecution that you went through not long after you received the light.” Right after they received the light, Christ, they were baptized and persecution quickly followed. Why is the author of Hebrews with his pastoral spirit asking them to seriously review their past, cruel circumstances. He is asking them to review their past, painful circumstances. Usually we do not want to think about things that are painful or hard. But he specifically asks them to go back and review what happened because it is going to give the confidence to persevere in the faith. The reason why he asks them because if they look closely enough to the times of trouble and suffering and humiliation after becoming a believer, we will discover things and learn what we can learn no where else in our Christian walk. He is asking them to look closely because there are two important facts that come to light when they look closely at their persecution.

The first thing is that it proves their confession of faith to be genuine. Hebrews 10:23 says:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

They did not waver but held fast. These are brand new believers and they are holding fast. A second thing shows that they had gained much more because of the persecution than they could ever lose here on Earth. They had gained a proven character in persecution. Persecution matured them spiritually. It is very similar to what Paul taught the Romans in Romans 5:3-5, when he says:

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

We find out that God really loves us while we are going through trouble and in the pressure cooker, after conversion. They are called to think about what we gain in Christ and what we must lose if we shrink away. To think about this correctly, there is a call to consider the great paradox of the Christian life. The Lord’s children can be in the midst of trials, in the middle of tribulations and under great humiliation, be weighed down and depressed in their spirits, and at the same time have hearts that greatly rejoice. It is in these circumstances that we grow spiritually and grow in the faith more than anything else.

That is why we are to examine more closely the times the Lord has and will again bring us to and through times of suffering, tribulation, and humiliation. It is there that we begin to see with the eyes of faith and learn what we have gained by being in Christ. It is not just a profession of faith. It is a relationship with God that goes on every single day.

If we are to know anything in our lives, we are to look in suffering and trouble, when the bottom drops out. It is when you are faced with something way bigger than you and you realize that that tribulation and suffering and humiliation is doing something. It is challenging your profession of faith in Christ.

When those past sufferings are looked at more closely, six things in this passage become more evident regarding what they have gained. Look at Hebrews 10:32 for the first thing that we gained, which is light. It says:

But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened.

This word means to be enlightened spiritually and to be instilled with the saving knowledge of the gospel. He is saying that before they came to know Christ, they were all in darkness. They were dead with no spiritual hunger, no desire for the bread of life, or for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There was no thirst for righteousness. Everything with regard to God’s grace and all spiritual things were dead, leaving them spiritually unresponsive.

Then they were born again and the light of the gospel shown brightly in their hearts. Eyes were open to condemnation before a holy God. The only One who could save them is Jesus Christ. They were born again in God’s family and made alive to the things of God. There was spiritual movement in spiritual life. The proof is that they knew something they did not know before. The Word of God becomes alive and they know that they passed from death unto life. This is evident because they love the brethren, as we can see in 1 John. They were pulled from darkness into , ekklesia, which is the gathered assembly. This word means to come out of something into something else. That is what the church is in essence!

I like to point people to the fact that once someone gets saved, becomes a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ, they also walk into a spiritual realm in which they will experience spiritual conflict. Different things in this realm will challenge their faith, profession, what they believe and how they are living their lives. When Jesus gave the parable of the Sower, He said in Matthew 13:20-21:

The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

It is the persecution and affliction that is going to test your profession, whether or not you are a believer. He says further in Matthew 13:22:

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

At every step, our profession in Christ Jesus is going to be challenged. For this challenge, believers will need endurance which is different from willpower or having a stiff upper lip. This is spiritual power to live your life because in tribulation and suffering, something will be experienced. It is the ability to supernaturally persevere and live for God in the middle of suffering and trouble. It is not giving any thought to give up the profession of faith because the troubles did not exist before. We need endurance because the Christian walk, if you have not discovered yet, is a struggle and a battle and a fight for the faith. Paul said, “He ran the race and fought for the faith.” It is going to be a struggle.

The first thing that is gained in Christ is the light to see. But the second thing under that light is being in that spiritual realm and needing endurance. The second thing that the writer of Hebrews wants people to see is that they were given this endurance. Look at what it says in Hebrews 10:32:

You endured a great conflict of sufferings.

The second thing gained was endurance. They gained endurance as to a struggling athlete that is striving to reach the goal. His motive and desire is to reach the goal, not to sit down on the bench. It is like a soldier in battle. His desire is to win the battle, take the hill, and be victorious in the war. That is the sense given here.

It is the ability to endure great conflicts of suffering. It is the word which means to remain or tarry under ill treatment. This ill treatment came upon these believers as a direct consequence of embracing the Christian faith when they become followers of Jesus Christ. The Epistle of James also gives the sense of trials and endurance, and what these things play in our Christian pilgrimage. James says in James 1:2:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials; knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

There is a third thing they gained in their endurance. They realized that they cannot endure alone. It is not just the Spirit of God upon them, but they realized that they cannot endure without the Church body. These believers became involved in spiritual combat. It says in Hebrews 10:33:

Partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

In both cases, the church body became the place of strength and encouragement. The phrase to become sharers, means to share in the conflict of someone else in the body. The Greek word is a very familiar one, it is the one we have heard often, koinonia, which means fellowship. Here it is in the plural sense. It means that you are to be sharers together in this suffering.

Those Christians who were most likely not part of their local congregation, and even the Jews who were followers of Christ, are all to enter into fellowship with those who for their sake of faith, were reviled and abused and sent to death. Even so, they all willingly practiced koinonia, and entered into their suffering while they were outcasts and down trodden. Their confidence is building because in their suffering, they did something supernatural and something they never would have done before.

They could have looked the other way when seeing someone else who is suffering. But they did not. They not only looked at their suffering, but entered into their suffering with them. Their whole world view is holistic and includes everything they did not have before they received the light. They were self-centered and selfish. They avoid trouble and persecutions at the highest cost, so they manifested their real and vital appreciation of the unity of the body, and these Hebrew Christians had been given proof that the unity of the church must be gained by acting together and by the power of the Spirit.

It is just like what Paul said to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 12:25-26:

So that there may be no divisions in the body, but that the members may have the same care one for another and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Only God’s Spirit can do that and that proves that God did something in your heart. That proves in your normal and abnormal circumstances, that God is doing something and He is keeping you. He is making you mature in the faith, because that is not something any one of likes to do, enter into someone else’s suffering. They did it as a church because one of the members of the body was hurting and the whole church felt that pain and suffering. So they pursued it and did something about it, and that is supernatural. It is not just my profession, God is working in me and He is doing something in me to make me new! All things have passed away and have become new! This is part of the new me in Christ Jesus.

There is a fourth thing that goes along with this that they gained. It is sympathy. Look at what it says in Hebrews 10:34:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Remember what it says in Hebrews 4:15:

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

God meets our weaknesses through the body of believers. He gives us, by the Spirit of God, the ability to have compassion on people.

We talked about compassion this morning. One of the first things for real evangelism is to really care that someone out there living in darkness is heading for hell, if they do not come to Christ or receive Him. So you should be moved with compassion on their souls! We have the answer, the Truth, the Word of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to tell them! There is a sense that the affections are inwardly moved, that others are more important than yourself. With the in-flow of the love of God in your heart, it cures your self-centeredness and selfishness. There is grace to gladly share the burdens and trials of others, though you know that it will cost you.

Any time you enter into the burdens of others, it will cost you your time, money, and your sense of peace. But you realize that it is worth it and you are actually being moved by the Spirit of God. Turn to Hebrews 13:3, where the author says this:

Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.

He is talking about the people who have an appreciation for the gathered assembly of believers because there is strength there to go out and help those people who are hurting and being persecuted and imprisoned. He says to them to remember these prisoners as though they were in prison with them. It is easy to forget about someone who is locked away, out of sight and out of mind. The Holy Spirit is not going to allow you to do that, and that proves that you are converted. God is doing something supernatural in your life.

A fifth thing that is gained is found in Hebrews 10:34, it says:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

If someone came to you and knocked on your door and had the authority to take everything you had, would you endure that joyfully? In the flesh, no. In the Spirit, yes. Your worldview has changed and you do not think anymore just about your own material things.

In other words, there is joy unspeakable and inexpressible going on within you when they come to take away your earthly possessions. That joy is there because you have calculated that what you gained by being in Christ could not measure up to any materialistic gain or temporal pleasure that anyone could take away from you.

Basically he is saying that if you do not renounce and reject Christ, you can have your home. But if you do not do that, everything will be taken away. Anyone can look around and say that they do not know if they can handle that.

But the whole of life is different in Christ Jesus! That life is short in light of eternity. The things we have are only temporal and only for this world. We should not be living for them or storing up treasures on Earth. Rather, we should be storing treasures in Heaven!

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says in Matthew 5:12:

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Peter also says in 1 Peter 1:6-7:

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The way we think about life has changed. Life is short and eternity is long. We can see the truth and what is going on in the world with the light. We can pour our lives out to make a lot of money, but we see that it all falls away. So I conclude that it is not worth giving up Christ for temporal things, possessions, money, prestige, or power. All those things are temporal and are going to pass away with the Earth. But God’s Word will never pass away! Our salvation and faith are eternal in Christ Jesus! This is what gives us confidence! Here is the question, what got you through this time of conflict and suffering without losing your confidence, confession, and joyful demeanor. He explains it in Hebrews 10:34 in the last part of the verse:

You have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Knowing this here is to know positively. We know that we are the owners of things that are permanent. We know that we have treasure far better than the best on this Earth, where moth cannot destroy, where rust cannot decay, and what a robber cannot take away. And that is my faith and relationship with Jesus Christ. Only believers can respond to the whole of life like this. That is because when this comes, if you are not a believer, you are going to high-tail it out of there! However, a believer perseveres, knowing that his good Lord has sovereignly chosen theses sufferings to mature him, make him strong, build in him a sympathy for other people, and show that there is a joy that nothing or no one can take away. Even though you are suffering outwardly.

It is just like when sailors realize that when two bodies come together, there is usually a very strong top current and underneath there is a very strong under current. One goes one way and the other goes the other way. The two currents do not collide but go on top and below each other.

It is like the Christian. Everything is wrong on the surface but underneath there is the under current of the joy of the Lord. There is rejoining in the Spirit and the great things given by God in salvation. This affliction, suffering, and humiliation is good for you! And it will only be for a time! The Lord will get you through it, build character in your soul, and give you endurance to continue to press on to your Heavenly calling.

The sixth thing that is gained is the promise of a Heavenly reality. Notice what it says at the end of Hebrews 10:34:

Knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

In other words, one that does not fade away, does not rust, and cannot be stolen from you. I recently read a short story by a local church pastor. It was about a young girl named Margaret who attended his church and truly bore witness to God’s grace. The pastor said she was confined to a wheel chair for most of her adult life, and that she lived in a body that was contorted and misshapen, ravaged by multiple sclerosis. She spoke softly and often slurred her words, with many audible grunts. She drooled constantly and was in pain for most of her waking hours. She loved Jesus and she never missed church. Sunday mornings and evenings, mid-week prayer meetings, and special gatherings, Margaret was always in attendance in a neatly pressed dress.

One night, the pastor was conducting a forum and facilitating a dialogue with about twenty people. He asked the people to tell their favorite Bible verse or passage that was personally meaningful to them. Several people offered verses and then Margaret let him know that she wanted to say something. Most of the people recited the verses from memory or opened up the Scriptures and read them. Since Margaret could not read or speak, the pastor looked up the verse that she wanted and read it for her. This was the passage in Psalm 119:71:

It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.

Margaret smiled broadly and nodded her head. Her wheelchair and her life was a testimony to God’s grace and to someone who sees very clearly with the eyes of faith.

Hebrews 11 is all about faith. Do you think that you would ever grow in faith without being in the circumstances where you had to trust God? There is no such thing as faith without trusting God in a circumstance that looks to be impossible or something you have to endure and do not want to go through.

The very truth that is going to get you and I through every conflict, tribulation, suffering, and humiliation and bring us to Heaven is the promise that our great God who tells us the truth and cannot life. It says in Hebrews 9:15:

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

And it says in Hebrews 11:16:

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Brethren, only believers can respond to the whole of life like this. Only those who have said this, which is from 2 Timothy 1:12:

I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.

If you want to have assurance of salvation, it is not going to be apart from suffering or trouble. I want you to turn to another passage, 1 Peter 1:3-4. The Apostle mentions the grand comfort of the Christian while being sore, stricken, and depressed. It it so sweet to hope that whether living or dying, we can have joy. Look at what it says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

This is how a person who is in this state shakes off his heaviness and begins to sing, like from the hymn On Jordan’s Stormy Banks. “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, / And cast a wishful eye / To Canaan’s fair and happy land, / Where my possessions lie.”

The Bible is telling us that we live with the thought of Heaven and what is coming, what God has promised to us. We live this by faith! Someday our faith will turn to sight. Look at what it says in 1 Peter 1:5:

Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In other words, we are not kept by our own power, by the power of God. He is not leaving us to keep ourselves. We are kept by the most High God. What a comforting thought! When we are under the pressure of times like this, and even when know all the theology behind it, we still have trials, tribulations, and humiliations. These prove to us what we know and what we have and what we are. No one can take that from you.

That is why people can die for their faith. That is why people can suffer for their faith or go to a foreign country and leave all their possessions to go and serve Christ. They know there is a greater weight of glory for them. They know that without a shadow of a doubt.

Now turn back to Hebrews. If you seriously consider what you have gained by being in Christ, you will conclude that it would be utterly foolish to throw away so precious and valuable a gift as salvation. Here is the logical imperative in this Hebrews 10:35:

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

That is why he told them to consider the weight and the details of the sufferings they have been through so they know that is why they should not throw away their confidence or confession, and all of what the Lord has been doing in their lives. If anything gives you confidence, it will be Christ-likeness that you even can see in yourself. You may not have responded like that a year ago, but now you want to respond the way God wants you to and also please Him!

Brethren in Hebrews 10:36, where we will pick up again next week, it says:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

I encourage you to search and look at this matter more seriously. Look into your own lives since you have received the light of the gospel. What family troubles, work troubles, or those in your own soul have you gone through since you have received Christ?

I say to people before I became a believer, I did not even know what depression was. I was a happy, go-lucky kid! But when I became a believer, I was hit with this deep valley and it made me think that I was not even a believer. God brought me back to Scripture and taught me that He was building me. Out of that deep time of depression came very serious decisions in my life. I know that for me depression is almost like a prophet. That is what Spurgeon said; God is always teaching us what sins should be out of our lives!

Spiritual depression is real! Because we have an enemy against our souls! We have the world and our own flesh against us. In the middle of suffering, there can still be rejoicing because God is doing the good work in you. He is going to perform it and finish it in Christ! He started your book and will write the last chapter. Jesus is the Author and Finisher of your faith! That is where we are headed in Hebrews. But there will not ever be a chapter that does not include suffering.

I am not going to ask you to say amen to that. But I want to say this to real believers. You are on this Earth and on this path that leads to the consummation of your salvation. Do not wander off and do not stop, keep going. Keep showing godly diligence in the hope that God will show His promises and preserve you until that final day. That is why when I get to this passage, the author says this in Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

This is what real believers are! Secondly, to those who do not know where you are at yet. I tell you to search to see whether you are right in your spirits and whether it is well with you to venture into an eternal state as you are right now, possibly doubting whether you are a believer and whether you have repented of your sin. I pray that God gives you grace, that you would feel the need for a Savior, and that you may see Christ and lay hold of Him and become a child of God today. If you have done that, then the next step is to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism, to make it public before the whole congregation that you have confessed Christ as your Lord and Savior and that you desire to follow Him your whole life. Then you will enter the body of believers. There are no secret disciples, only those who are functioning and growing in the body.

When that day comes when you may go through deep, troubling waters, you will not be alone. You will do it with the whole body behind you, and with people praying and sympathizing with you. Why? Because some of them have been there, but overall they understand in the Spirit and want to grow with you. This proves that our confession in Christ is real and true. We become strong and no one can take that away.

Let us pray. Lord, thank You this morning for Your great people. Thank You for Your great Word. I know Lord that if it was not for Your Word, we would not know what You really want. We would not know what to really experience. Especially Lord, we would not know how to deal with suffering or where to hang it. But because of Your Word, we understand clearly. We pray, Lord Jesus, that You would help us with every circumstance that we are going to come into contact with in our lives. I pray that we would get through it by the glory of God and that we would bear it like soldiers. You have a hold on us and You have given us the church body and promises for the future that we will not receive in their fullness until we are in Your presence. So Lord, we thank You for telling us these things so that we can live life with joy intact and with a strong testimony and perseverance that You are building into us by Your Spirit. We give You the praise, honor, and glory for all that You will accomplish for the greatness of Your Name. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Hebrews 10 is the most frightening passage of Scripture in all the Bible, and it is meant to be frightening. It’s a harsh warning to the whole church, not unbelievers. The fourth thing that needs to accompany our regular, consistent, and confident approach to God is in Hebrews 10:35-36:

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. ³⁶For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

In the middle of that, there is a warning passage, and it’s brought to bare upon the consciousness of those who gather. So far, there are three things that must accompany our approach to God. First, followers of Jesus Christ are to enter the Holy place with confidence. The first two messages included a challenge for prayer, and prayer is the greatest expression of the Christians lifestyle of faith, which is depending on God in prayer both private and publicly with the assembly.

Second, in accompanying our approach to God, followers of Jesus Christ are to draw near with sincerity, which includes drawing near to God with an honest and cleansed heart. Thirdly, followers of Jesus Christ are to hold fast their confession, and they are to do that together. In fact, that includes two responsibilities: hold fast for yourself and together. Hebrews 10:23:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful

In other words, we have a responsibility to mutually encourage others to hold fast. These responsibilities also included this exhortation in Hebrews 10:25:

not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

This admonition is put forth very strongly. The failure of some to continue attending the gathered community is not cast simply as neglect, but as a wrongful abandonment. In fact, the Greek term used for forsaking is found one-hundred-and-seventy times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for when Israel reproached God. They had abandoned the Lord, His ways, His covenants, His laws, and commands. Therefore, it is a very strong word, and the New Testament church is not to abandon or get into a bad habit of skipping meetings together. Rather, it should be a very high priority on your list.

Why is it that some would forsake the assembly? Well, some may have abandoned because of persecution, affliction, or suffering. Some falsely assume that Christ has delayed His return, so they left in disappointment. To return to the old religions, some stop attending. Remember, Hebrews has a specific audience of Jews. Therefore, they wanted to go back to the synagogue, temple worship, its rituals, and ceremonies.

Back to any system, in which a person tries to establish a righteousness based on their own good deeds and works, not accepted by free grace. When tested for their faith, some did not want to hold fast. They concluded that it wasn’t something they signed up for, so they didn’t want to hold fast to profession of faith in Christ. As a result, they became rebels to the way and the work of Christ by giving up all belief in Christ.

For whatever reason someone would stop attending, it discredits their faith, especially knowing that the Word of God teaches that the church lies at the very center of the eternal purposes of God. We have been called out from a dark world to gather to hear the apostles teaching, fellowship with one another, take the Lord’s table, and publicly pray with one another, which is all God’s plan for us.

Today, the thinking is still very much alive, and it is still possible for a man to think that he is a Christian, yet abandon the habit of worshipping with God’s people, in God’s house, and on God’s day. It’s like the person who boasts, “I’ve been in church two times in my life. The first time they sprinkled me with water, and the second time they sprinkled me with rice.” Someone retorted, “and the third time they will sprinkle you with dirt.”

Personally, I have met and know people, who are very close, that think that way. Today, to darken the door of a church is almost an anthem. However, at this very juncture, the fourth warning passage is injected into this message, and abandoning the gathered assembly of believers is linked to the first indication of potential apostasy, a falling away from God.

In other words, someone who decides that they don’t need church is the first indication that they are leaving the faith. If they persist and continue in that year after year, shows that they don’t think God’s word is important or needful for them. Brethren, no matter what the condition might be, believers are to stick with Christ and the local church. We should exhort one another to continue attending faithfully, especially in the light of the Lord’s return and the shortness of life.

The Bible is a big book, so we must learn God’s mind to grasp the great glory of God. God will always remain big to us, the plan of God will always remain special to us, and we will always think that we are so privileged to be a Christian. There is no greater privilege than to be in the family of God. To live with that in your mind, is very much in the mind of the writer and pastor writing in this book.

In our text, here is sandwiched in between an exhortation for believers to worship God, and along that exhortation, three things are included to corporately worship God. When you see a sign that says “WARNING,” you stop and consider: why am I being warned and what danger lies ahead of me that I should be warned at this point?

On the other side of the sandwich in the warning, there’s an appeal for believers to persevere. In Hebrews 10:36, when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. In the middle of these is sandwiched a warning passage concerning God’s judgement on willful disobedience, a warning that is intended to provoke fear. Before looking at the details, here is the main warning: those who have attended and heard the truth might spurn the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Even the thought of that should provoke fear throughout the whole body. Therefore, corporate worship is important.

To neglect worship gatherings or withdraw from the Christian assembly, leads to either or both these things: deliberate and despicable behavior. If you get away from the teaching of the Word of God, the fellowship of believers, breaking of bread, and public prayers, then you start to live in the flesh, by the world, and within the realm of Satan’s place. Then, you start going down.

Secondly, there is the liberate rejection of God, in this message, spoken through the Son. Here is a warning to avoid a sin that is fatal. The text before us, shows what this sin is, how it is committed, and the inevitably consequences of committing this sin. Those who are inclined to fall into this sin are not just temporary backsliders, who lost interest in the things of God for a time. Neither are they believers, who are in despair about spiritual failure or temporary floundering they found themselves in, nor are they believers sinning unintentionally or in ignorance.

In this passage, the response of these people is inappropriate all the time before the Lord. At all costs, it should be avoided by us, which is the point of the warning. Therefore, don’t commit this sin. The warning doesn’t mean anyone of his hearers have committed this willful sinning yet, but some could be close to falling over the edge of the cliff, which is always the warning.

The warning is: don’t go that way and don’t drive down a road that the bridge is out. This is the warning for the church, and it is to be taken seriously. It is a warning in which you should have your ears on and your mind engaged. It’s a warning that you should examine the way you have been living your Christian life. It is a warning for you to reconsider the importance of the church, and the gathered assembly.

We will be looking at the description of the one who is committing this fatal sin, or who could commit this fatal sin, which could be anyone. First, they despise and release the truth of God. Hebrews 10:26:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins

Only used twice in Scripture, willfully means to have an inner, voluntary will or to have a compulsion to do something. Here, it is voluntarily sinning. Notice, this person voluntarily sins after receiving the knowledge of the truth. After they have received the full message of the saving truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are sinning deliberately. If anyone does that, what is left?

If a person hears the whole message of the gospel, receives it, and rejects it, then what is left for them? It doesn’t mean that such a sin cannot be forgiven, but there is a larger argument here that Christ sacrifice is God’s full revelation and provision for sin. Anyone, who knowingly rejects that sacrifice, is without hope and mercy. In Hebrews 10:26, this willful sin is the defying rejection of the sacrifice of the Son of God after hearing and grasping the whole message of the Gospel.

Here, the great concern is that the effects of Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t extend to so called, “believers,” who sin persistently or willfully in this manner. If they reject Christ, what else is there to save their souls? Their repudiation of Christ and His sacrifice leaves them with nothing. If one spurns God’s mercy, all that is left is God’s judgement. Hebrews 10:27:

but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.

In other words, this person, who once believed and once professed, has become God’s enemy. The phrase, “expectation of judgement,” means right here and now, they will be hunted by the fear of hell, not only in the end when they truly suffer. Zephaniah 1:18:

Neither their silver nor their gold
Will be able to deliver them
On the day of the LORD’S wrath;
And all the earth will be devoured
In the fire of His jealousy,
For He will make a complete end,
Indeed a terrifying one,
Of all the inhabitants of the earth.

In their willful sinning, the first thing this person does is letting go of the truth, especially since they are not in the gathered assembly to hear the truth. Therefore, they begin to let go of it, and the truth is replaced with something else. Secondly, they despise and reject the Son. Hebrews 10:29:

How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Meaning, they treat the son as having no value. In fact, this word is used in other passages of Scripture. Where it says, “trampled underfoot,” is used in Matthew 5:13:

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

A salt that is not salty is useless, so throw it on the ground and let people walk over it, which is how they’re viewing Christ. Matthew 7:6:

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Again, pigs have no understanding of the value of pearls. If you throw them on the ground, they will walk on it just like they walk on anything else. Therefore, he is saying that they treat the Son as having no value or anything special. Then, in Hebrews 10:29, they make a gross miscalculation.

The New Covenant inaugurated by the sacrifice of Christ provides definite forgiveness for consciousness, brings us into a sanctified and holy relationship with God, and wins us eternal redemption, which they consider and calculate His sacrifice as unclean. In other words, it is unfit and ceremonially impure, which is how they view and calculate Christ.

A Christ without value is not the Christ in Scripture. Brethren, do you believe that the salvation the Lord has acquired for us is indeed a great salvation? That Jesus’ priestly and sacrificial work is indeed magnificent as the beginning chapters of Hebrews laid out. In Hebrews 1 and Hebrews 2, concerning the son Jesus Christ, the Son is the inheritor and creator of all things. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the representor of God on earth, the sustainer of all things, the savior of all the redeemed, and He is the finisher of all things. When He died, he was exalted to the right hand of God, who is there making intercessions for the saints.

In these passages, Jesus has been displayed as the apex of divine revelation, in which Jesus fulfills the office of prophet, priest, king, and is a finisher of all. God has spoken; therefore, the incarnate Son is the superior revelation of God. God has spoken in His son. It is His ultimate communication to humanity, and it is the final word on everything. O, the superiority of the Son, that Hebrews has established before we get to this point. How could you treat Jesus in that way? Obviously, you did not understand something.

When you get lost in the grander of this so great salvation, you will indeed conclude that it is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to you. It is the most supreme gift that could be received, by God, on this good earth. You will not want to let go of the grandest gift that could ever be bestowed by God himself into your care, which is the gift of salvation.

When you understand the salvation and implication of salvation to you, it is not small, but it is great, grand, and huge. You didn’t receive something small, but something so great it’s even hard to define. This is what we need to communicate to our family and friends. The greatness, the grandness, the vastness, and the excellence of the way of salvation through Christ Jesus. When you gather together for worship, with that in mind, you’re going to worship and blow the roof off!

Now, you understand that you don’t deserve what God has given you. He elected you to salvation, He brought you into His family, He wiped out your sin, and He put his righteousness on your account, so what more could be greater than that? Instead of this person counting Jesus as Messiah, this person concludes Him to be an imposter. Considering Christianity as the true way of salvation, they conclude it was a conning, devised fable. Instead of concluding that salvation through Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is the revelation of God and the will of God, they concluded that it is a hellish delusion.

They commit a fatal sin of no return, and this sin could be committed by someone who comes to church, sits in the pew, and they just let it all run off them, not through them. You never understood the greatness of salvation, or the fatal sin that could be committed with that kind of thinking. At first, these may have been converted to a group, then converted to a church or likeability of a group, but they were never converted to Christ. When you are converted to Christ, everything changes.

People don’t realize that there is yet a third thing in the description of this willful sinning, and this is where the coffin is sealed. In the last part of Hebrews 10:29, the unmerited favor extends to the guilty, who deserve damnation of justice. If that mercy extended to them, by the Holy Spirit, is rejected after having full knowledge of the truth, what then?

Since they heard it all, the problem is not ignorance. In the full light of the truth, they reject Christ and they commit what some have called the unpartable sin. Matthew 12:31:

Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.

To reject what the Holy Spirit has offered is to have no hope. Here, this sin describes against the persons of the God head. A rejection of Christ’s sufficient sacrifice means that all that is left is punishment. Therefore, God will hold them responsible, especially since He is a just judge. Hebrews 10:28:

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Here is an illusion to the Old Testament of those who had sinned under the lesser covenant and the consequences it brings, so there is a lesser argument, in Scripture, for those more aware of the grander. This is an argument from strength, the lessor to the greater such as when Jesus said in Matthew 10:29-31:

Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹“So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Sparrows are less valuable than we are to God, so it is the lesser to the greater. Here, the lesser is the covenant as mediated through Moses. As in Hebrews 10:28, anyone who has set aside and forsaken the law of Moses, dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Deuteronomy 17:1-6:

“You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep which has a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.

²“If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns, which the LORD your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, by transgressing His covenant, ³and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded, ⁴and if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the thing certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, ⁵then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death. ⁶“On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. ⁷“The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

In other words, he is saying that if you find this sin going on in the camp, you identify, you investigate it thoroughly, and then those who are the two witnesses are the one’s who throw the stones first. Make sure you are right, right? Then, the whole congregation throws the stones.

If those who violated Moses law died without mercy, under a lesser covenant, then what do you think God will do to those who violate a greater covenant, the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:29 gives a picture of those who sin under the greater covenant and its consequences. Before looking at the verse, here is the argument: if God was steadfast on how He held people responsible to the law under the Old Covenant, which acted as a signpost pointing to God’s final revelation, then how much more will He hold people responsible after He has given His final revelation in Jesus Christ in the New Covenant?

The writer of Hebrews lays down this quote from the Old Testament, which is concerning God’s character. In other words, the sinner will get full justice. In this passage, the Lord assumes personal responsibility for taking vengeance on those who become His enemies. Since God is the witness, He casts the stone. If God has thoroughly investigated, then there is nothing else to investigate. Apostates are enemies of God. Hebrews 10:30:

For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.

Deuteronomy 32:35:

Vengeance is Mine, and retribution,
In due time their foot will slip;
For the day of their calamity is near,
And the impending things are hastening upon them.

In due season, they will slip, and they will be found out. When they are found out, God will take personal responsibility to hold judgement on them. There is a terrifying nature to God’s judgement. Hebrews 10:31:

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

To fall into the hands of someone means to fall under their power. To come under the power, not of a dead idol or a fictitious God, but under the power of the living God, who keeps His promises and executes His threats and judgement. No one can escape, and He knows the ones who have committed this sin. The warning to the church: don’t commit this sin.

Make sure you are found in the assembly, under a constant washing of the Apostles doctrine, fellowshipping with one another and with the Lord, praying together, trusting God, and partaking of the elements of the Lords table, which emphasize His death and His shed blood. Don’t be like a person who steps back and steps out of God’s assembly, who is left to possibly commit this sin.

This willful sinning gives its first indications in the abandoning of the gathered assembly. Confronted with some who have made a profession of faith, and formerly have visible signs and marks of being truly committed to the Christian faith, but by their refusal to gather, grow, and continue in the faith, they now give fruit that they were not genuinely born again by the spirit at all.

At one time, they may have convinced others that they were believers and persuaded even themselves that they belong to Christ, but their so called, “conversion,” proved to be counterfeit. When the test of their faith, persecutions, and afflictions came along, and because of the Word of God, they didn’t want to hold on.

Remember, this is in the context of holding on. You are holding on while God holds you, but to continue to grow, these are the means of grace God has given us to grow. When the test of faith came, they didn’t want to hold on, but became rebels to the way and work of God. Therefore, it is appropriate for all believers to genuinely examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith. It is appropriate, for all believers, to honestly examine whether they are living the life of faith.

From time to time, ask yourself: am I storing up, in my mind and heart, the truth of God’s word? Do I desire God’s word? Do I desire to be in the fellowship of believers? Do I desire to hear the preaching of the Word of God? Do I desire to put it into practice? Am I living by what I am hearing? Have I developed an appetite for more food and spiritual growth? Am I progressing or has my growth been arrested by the destructive weeds and thrones of anxiety, self-centeredness, and materialism? Am I faithful to the gathered assembly?

In reading the book, Why We Love the Church, by two young guys, they said:

No Christian conferences, no Christian books written, bought, or published, but just Bible reading, prayer, and church attendances. No more reading about doing community. No more incubation for social change meetings. To be fair, no more books on discussion groups. Simply, reading the bible, praying together, and church attendance.

What do you think about that? I think we can close every single Christian book store and club, especially since a lot of books are written around the Bible, not about the Bible. We have all these books, and we have an addiction to books, but have you read through the Bible? The vital question we need to ask: how have you been faithful to the simple things God asks us to do?

A good vision statement: reading, praying, church. We can do that. Don’t do any other thing except read your Bibles, come to church, fellowship with one another, and pray with one another. If we do that, we would learn to love the church more. Hebrews 10:38-39:

BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.

³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

That’s the church. We don’t shrink back or give away the truth. We keep holding onto it no matter what happens in our country, our families, or our lives. Because the Spirit of God is in us, we persevere in the faith until we die. Then, God takes us to glory where we will enjoy ourselves. That doesn’t mean we cannot enjoy ourselves now, but it takes the mind of Christ to enjoy ourselves, and you get the mind of Christ through the Scriptures. Through prayer, you depend on Christ. By reading the Scriptures, you will know more about God. Let’s Pray:

Lord, I Thank You for warning us. It is a frightful passage of Scripture, Lord. Not only today, but tomorrow and the next day, it is needed. I Thank You that You place in front of us warning signs just like the warning signs of possibly knowing you may have a heart attack. Thank You that You give us a warning not to go to a certain place, or to not take seriously, Lord, our Christian walk and faith. To take seriously the Word of God, the gathered assembly, and the things we do as a church. To take seriously prayer. Thank You that You warn us. Lord, keep all of us from this sin that we wouldn’t even hear of anybody committing it because they take the warning and desire to live for God through thick and thin. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for warning us. Help us now to consider, more faithfully, our own Christian walk, Your church, Your word. Lord, that we would take it seriously in a way that we have not before. Lord, Thank You for what you will do in our life. I pray this, in Christ’s name, Amen.