Well I'd like you to turn again
to Hebrews chapter 11 and we're going to look at the first 16
verses but if I have a text it's verse 6 particularly. Without
faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God
must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. And I've called this message
the faith that pleases God the faith that pleases God we've
been thinking about faith for a number of weeks now because
what Paul has been showing these Hebrews to whom he was writing
is that it isn't angels or their temple worship or all of these
other things that will get them close to God it's the fact that
in the Lord Jesus Christ you are in the very holiest You're
in the very holiest, and it's not by apprehension of physical
symbols, of animal sacrifices, of altars, of all of these things.
but it's by faith that sees that which the natural man cannot
see faith which sees the one true sacrifice of God that pays
the sin debt that establishes righteousness that brings satisfaction
for there must be satisfaction we read at the end of chapter
10 in verse 38 A verse that comes from Habakkuk, and it's quoted
several times elsewhere in the New Testament. The just shall
live by faith. The justified ones. Not those
who are just in themselves, because there is none who is just in
him or herself. Not one. All are sinners. None are righteous. All have
gone out of the way. but those who are justified,
because the Bible talks again and again of those who are justified,
those whose sins are paid, those for whom satisfaction has been
made in the justice of God. These shall live by faith. It's as Paul says to the Galatians,
he says, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not
I. And the life I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God, of Jesus Christ, who loved me
and gave himself for me. It's a life lived by faith. A life, just like you say, how
do you go somewhere on a dark night? You get a torch and you
shine a light on the path. And that light enables you to
walk and live and go that particular direction. God gives this gift
of faith to those he justified, listen to me, from eternity. God justified his people in Christ
from eternity. From eternity. How many times
does it say God gave you this gift before time began? Or he
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He justified
his people in Christ from eternity. In the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. in eternity always slain from
the foundation of the world of course he had to come in time
and of course there was no salvation but for the fact that he came
and went to the cross of Calvary and endured the wrath of the
justice of God against the sin of his people but he justified
them in time at the cross and he gives spiritual sight to apprehend
that reality to see it, to grasp hold of it, to know it's true,
to count it as real. It's the reality of the heavenly
hope that you have as a believer. You have a hope of heaven. This
isn't it. This Babylon in which we live
is not it. You know what a desperate situation
we'd be in if this was it. But you have a heavenly hope
if you're in Christ. You have a hope of glory. You
have a hope in the promise of bliss. You have a hope of things
which are unseen. The things of salvation. The
things of eternity. And by faith, they're real to
you. You grasp them. They're real
to you. Faith isn't a work that you do. and God credits you with righteousness
for doing it. That's what so many teach. That's
what I was taught for a long time. Faith, you know, there's
this really harsh law that you have to keep and you can't keep
it but here God's come up with an alternative. There's a dead
easy work that you do. It's called trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ and you do that work and all of that sin and
all of that law breaking that you've done, he'll just sweep
that out of the way and he'll count that believing as so much
righteousness because you've done such a good work. So many
think that. That's not what the scriptures
teach. That's not the truth of God. Faith isn't a work that
you do and God credits you with righteousness for doing it. Not
at all. It is the God-given sense by which you experience that
you are righteous in Christ. That's what it is, the God-given
sense by which you experience the fact that you are righteous,
not by what you've done, but by what he has done. Faith sees
what the natural man is unable to see. And this is the key point
this morning. Faith acts upon what it sees. You know, you see something and
you act upon it. You're driving down a road, you
see something happening, you act upon it. If you've got any
sense, you don't just go careering into the confusion that's ahead
of you on the road, you do something about it. You either stop or
you turn off or you turn round, you do something about it. Faith
acts on what it sees. And what do I mean by that? It
lives differently. It prioritises life differently. It behaves differently. Look
on the back of the bulletin. I got this this week because
it was in Tom Harding's bulletin, I think. You know, I'll freely
admit to plagiarism in our bulletins. Some of you that get bulletins
from our friends in the States will often have seen the pieces
that I put in here already, but if you haven't, look at this,
The Effects of True Faith by Henry Mahan. What is true faith?
Well, true faith throbs in a person's pulse, looks out of his eyes,
lights up his countenance, softens his touch, mellows his voice,
bows his head, bends his knee, opens his hand in generosity,
humbles his heart, curbs his tongue, orders his steps, opens
his ears to the word, forgives and forgets the offense and gives
his conscience peace. Isn't that a lovely little summary
of what it does? Faith works. True faith changes
the way you act. It fundamentally changes the
way you act. Faith is what leads to understanding. We read that in verse 3 of chapter
11. Through faith. How do you understand that God
created all things? Through faith. Through that God-given
gift. You see, what so many people
teach and even if they don't teach it they behave as if this
is true what so many people teach is this you've got to get people
to understand about creation that it wasn't evolution but
that it was creation and then once you've given them understanding
then they'll be much more likely to come to faith because you
see the thing that's stopping them from coming to faith is
that they think that God isn't true and that things evolved
and that creation wasn't there so give them understanding and
then they'll come to faith that's not what the word of God says
The Word of God says its understanding comes by faith. Christ is made
unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption. He is the wisdom of God to us
by faith. By faith comes understanding,
not understanding by faith. By faith, we understand creation. We understand providence. He
walks with me. He talks with me along life's
narrow way. We understand salvation. People say, what are you talking
about? Salvation from what? You ask a man who's drowning,
who's fallen overboard from a ship on a stormy night, if you could
get near him to ask him. You ask a man there, are you
interested in salvation? He'll tell you he's interested
in salvation. Any who know the sin of the human heart and the
judgment of God and the judgment to come and that terrible, terrible,
language in the scriptures of the lake of fire, of the wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Then, then people will understand
what it is to cry out for salvation, to see what a blessing it is
to be saved. No, by faith we understand these
things. We understand the righteousness
of God. the sanctification and redemption that is in Christ.
And without it, verse 6, it is impossible to please God. It's
impossible to be accepted by Him. It's impossible, here it
is again, Job's question, how can a man be just with God? How
can a man be counted righteous? How can a man be counted as having
the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, Without
Christ it's impossible. We must have that righteousness
of Christ and we have it, we experience it, and you haven't
got it if you don't experience it, you experience it by faith. it's impossible to be pleasing
to god and acceptable to him to be justified with god without
this faith in john chapter six verses twenty eight and twenty
nine the pharisees the jews said to him what shall we do that
we might work the works of god you know what what's a copy good
to your name give arms to the poor and all do all of the didn't
units Fast so many times a week. Do all of these things and then
you'll be acceptable. Jesus didn't say that. Jesus
said this. He said, this is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. Because being right
with God, being acceptable to God is all through faith. in Jesus Christ and through the
faithful work of Jesus Christ. And it's the work of God as well. Yes, you must do it, but it's
the work of God. This is the work of God. God
gives that faith to his people. And then they do that work of
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the work that is
acceptable. Romans 14, 23 says this. Whatsoever is not of faith
is sin. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter
how good it is or how well intentioned, whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. You can only please God in the
one who alone pleased God. There was only one. This is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Paul said, I want to
be found in him. I want to be found in him. in him, not having my own righteousness
which is from the law but that which is through faith of Jesus
Christ. And only by faith uniting you
to Christ are you a partaker, an experiencer, a taster of his
righteousness, of his atoning work. Now here we have In these
sixteen verses we have seven examples of faith. Now, I know
I could have spent a sermon easily on every single one of them,
but that isn't what I felt was the message for you. The message
I want you to get is that this true faith that pleases God fundamentally
changes the way you act and behave. These examples are able, could
have easily gone on for several sermons on Abel and Cain because
it's so fundamental. On Enoch, on Noah, on Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Sarah. Learn this first of all. The
Hebrews revered these patriarchs. They looked back and they said,
Ah, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of these patriarchs,
Sarah even, all of these, oh they had something so wonderful,
oh we bow down and worship before them, where's their tomb, let's
go and have pilgrimages to their tombs and let's really revere
these patriarchs. What Paul is showing us here
is this, that even today, in 2012, If you're a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, you are on exactly the same ground that these were
on. Abel stood on exactly the same
ground that you stand on. He was justified before God on
exactly the same basis that you are justified before God if your
faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he's saying. This
is what he's showing them. All of them did what they did
on the basis of what they saw. What they saw by the revelation
of God concerning his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, people
would say, ah, look, he's got that wrong. Doesn't he realize
that Christ wasn't born? for several thousand years, he
didn't come till later, they trusted Christ. They trusted
the Christ of God. They believed on him. He was
all their hope. Look what they did. Abel, first
of all. Look at verse 4. By faith, by
this sight of the soul, by this spiritual apprehension that the
natural man doesn't have. In that way, Abel offered unto
God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts,
and by it he being dead yet speaketh. Abel has been dead for millennia,
and yet he still preaches a sermon to us all the time. He being
dead yet speaks. He offered a more excellent sacrifice
than his brother Cain. Cain was the first one born to
Adam and Eve after the fall. Cain was born. Eve said, I've
gotten a man. from the Lord. She thought that
this was the promised one that was going to come and be the
Redeemer, the one promised in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman
who would come. I've gotten a man from the Lord,
but it wasn't. Cain was sinful. Cain was self-righteous. Cain sought to worship God. Cain sought to worship God. Don't
think he didn't. He did. Cain sought to worship
God. but on his own terms, and on
his own basis. But Abel offered a more excellent
sacrifice. Why was Abel's sacrifice more
excellent than Cain's? It's simple. The answer is this. Blood. Blood. It was a sacrifice
involving blood. It was on the basis of blood
that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. Abel kept sheep, and
he brought of the fur slings, of the fat of the flock. He didn't
just bring any old one that would have done. He brought the best.
He brought the best because it pictured, looking forward, God
had already killed an animal to clothe his parents, Adam and
Eve, in the garden. There's already been blood shed.
And we read in Hebrews chapter 9, without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. Abel knew he had to have the
remission of sins. He knew that his sins were a
burden that would crush him in the judgment of God. He knew
that God's judgment would be altogether righteous and he had
to come in a way that was acceptable and he looked by faith to that
sacrifice that would take away his sins, that would remove his
sin, that would purge it away the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ the Lamb of God and as
a token and as a symbol of that he brought to God look I'm looking
to him and here's the symbol of it because the pattern had
already been given here's the symbol and the pattern of it
and what did Cain bring? Cain brought bloodless vegetables
as Don Faulkner said in his book you can't get blood out of turnips
you can't There's no blood in turnips, and therefore there's
no remission of sins. No remission of sins. What was
Cain's offering? Cain's offering was the works
of his hands, the fruit of his labours, tilling the soil. Nobody's
saying that it's wrong to grow vegetables, don't get any stupid
ideas like that. Of course it's good, it's all
gifts of God, but to bring it as an offering to atone for sin?
Absolutely not. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission. Abel pleased God and was counted
righteous by the atoning work of Christ to which his sacrifice
looked forward. Cain What did he do? He looked only to his own worth
and his own works, and you know, we read in Genesis 4, Cain was
angry with God when God rejected his offering. Cain was angry.
Who does God think he is to reject this? I've brought this in good
faith. I'm sincere. Surely that counts for something.
And God rejected it. And God said, look, you know,
sin lies at the door. He resented God finding his offering
of no value in paying his sin debt and counting him righteous
before God. And in anger, he rose up and
he slew his brother, Abel, the first human blood that was shed. It's exactly the same today.
There are still only those same two religions, the religion of
Abel and the religion of Cain. And all the world, I don't care
what it calls itself, is gone in the religion of Cain. The
religion of self-worth. The religion that says, I'm good
enough for God. The religion that says, if I'm
not good enough for God, and I've heard people say this, if
I'm not good enough for God, I don't want to know anything
about that God. Have you heard people say that? I certainly
have. What an arrogant thing to do. To shake your fist in
the face of God, basically. No, Abel brought that which God
ordained, that which God specified, that which God said to look to.
The religion of Cain, the religion of Abel, as Jude says, they're
all gone in the way of Cain. Talking about the false presentations
of the gospel around us, all gone in the way of Cain. Exactly
the same today. Do you remember the account of
the rich young ruler coming to Jesus? Do you remember the account? You see, what makes the difference?
Because based on the religion of Cain, this rich young ruler
came to Jesus. And what must I do to be saved? Well, he took him to the law
and said, what was the law saying? He thought he'd done it all until
Christ pointed out his covetousness of heart, which was fundamentally
contrary to the law of God. And Jesus said to the disciples,
he said, It's harder for a rich man, a man who loves his riches,
who cleaves to his riches, who trusts in his riches, who hopes
for his riches, it's harder for him to enter the kingdom of heaven
than it is. Now, it's a good metaphor, isn't
it, if that's the right word. Or maybe it's a simile, I can't
remember now. But he said it's harder than it is for a camel
that great big beast with its humps on its back to go through
the eye of a needle. Now you would say, now that is
genuinely impossible. And it is genuinely impossible.
And they all said, well, who, Lord, can possibly be saved?
Who can be saved? It's absolutely impossible, isn't
it? And Jesus said, with man, and
with the religion of man, and with the religion of Cain, yes,
it is absolutely impossible. But with God's true religion,
with the faith of Abel, it is possible. Because in the faith
of Abel, the object of that faith is one who is able to take away
the sin. Secondly, Enoch. Look at Enoch.
Verse five. By faith, Enoch was translated
that he should not see death and was not found because God
had translated him. For before his translation, he
had this testimony. that he pleased God. This word
translated here, it's not like translating from French to English,
it means passing straight away into eternity as a complete man,
body and soul, without going through human death and decay.
And there was him and there was Elijah, several thousand years
later, who were translated, they passed straight without dying
a human death. And why did they do it? Well,
I think it's just to show us the promise, the reality of the
promise of God that he's people. There will be those, it might
be us. If Christ comes again while we're still living, those
who are in Christ will not see death, will be caught up with
him in the air to meet the Lord. All will be resurrected, those
who have died will be resurrected, but there will be some who will
be alive, who will not see death. It's a forerunner, or a guarantee,
or a proof of those things, the reality of them. Enoch was translated,
and God took him straight away. People saw, oh look, there's
Enoch, he lives quite differently to us. He's so in tune with God. He's so walking with God. He
pleases God. God just took him straight away.
Took him to glory, to eternity, to absolute bliss straight away. He was a preacher. We know that
from the New Testament. Jude verse 14 tells us about
Enoch preaching against sin. And he must have in that preaching,
he must have preached substitutionary atonement. And he walked with
God by faith. And what he looked to in Christ
was the work of God that Enoch did. That was it. The work of
God, you know, we read earlier, this is the work of God that
you believe on him whom he has sent. Enoch's looking to Christ,
that was the work of God in Enoch, that pleased God. That was what
pleased God. All around followed Cain's religion,
all around him, just like the natural heart of man is so inclined
to do. But Enoch looked to Christ by
faith, and he was taken straight, translated straight into glory,
directly there, the forerunner of believers when Christ returns.
Death is defeated. In Christ, a grave, where is
your victory? The sting of death is sin. But
as an example, he was taken straight to glory without suffering the
corruption, the decay of death. Look at Noah. Look at Noah in
verse 7. By faith, Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared
an ark by the which he condemned the world and became heir of
the righteousness which is by faith. Why did Noah build an
ark? Why did he build an exactly the
same reason that Abel brought a blood sacrifice. That's the
reason. God told him to do it. This was
the pattern. It was a pattern of salvation. It was another
pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ. When all around Noah were filled
with evil and wickedness, it says the very thoughts of their
hearts were altogether wickedness. Noah, unlike the rest, Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. God came to Noah. And he found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And by faith, he saw what the
natural men around him cannot see. But to their own condemnation,
they deliberately, willfully refused to see. He saw God's
view of sin. Noah did. He saw God's view of
sin. He saw the certainty of God's
judgment, because God had told him and God had promised. He
saw the only escape from this judgment in God's ordained Savior,
which was pictured in the ark that God told him to build. That
ark is such a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he preached
righteousness. Peter tells us that. 2 Peter
2, verse 5. I think it was, wasn't it 125
years? Something like that. Whilst he
was building that ark, he preached righteousness. What's the righteousness
he preached? The righteousness of works that
ought to be done? No, he preached the righteousness
of God by faith of Jesus Christ. That's what he preached. That
justifying righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ.
And only eight out of the whole world, only eight were saved
in the ark when the judgment come. All the rest were gone
in the way of Cain, as Jude says, verse 11. All the rest were gone
in the way of Cain. Let's look at Abraham. Verse
8. Abraham, well we'll lump these together. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac,
and Jacob. By faith, Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing
whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a
child when she was past age. She was ninety years old. because
she judged him faithful, who had promised. Contrary, what
is it about them? Contrary to all the physical
evidence, but based on what God had revealed to him by faith,
Abraham left his home in Ur of the Chaldees. He was probably
very comfortably situated, very prosperously set up, with a family,
with its establishment and its traditions and its wealth and
all of those things. He was in the most comfortable
of situations. But God revealed something to
him. God showed him, God gave him faith to see the righteousness
of God. And the only way to have that
righteousness of God, God showed him, bit by bit, he showed him
that what was necessary, he confirmed it to him. Abraham was a sinner
just like we are. Abraham lied, Abraham deceived,
Abraham did what sinners do in this flesh, but Abraham had that
sight of the soul. that is the gift of God, to see,
and God confirmed it in pictures. He told him to sacrifice his
own son. When that son of promise was
born against all of the physical evidence, he told him to sacrifice
him. Because in that, God showed him
that he himself would provide a sacrifice. What did Abraham
say to Isaac? Isaac said, Father, I see the wood and the fire,
but where is the sacrifice? And Abraham said to his son,
God will provide himself a sacrifice. He went out. He went out of the
security of all those familiar things. Why? Because he looked
for a city not of this world. Verse 10. What's the city he
looked for? Zion. City of our God. Glorious things of thee are spoken.
Zion. City of our God. The new Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven. That's what he looked for. He,
Abraham, however many thousand years ago it was, was looking
for that city. It has foundations, not which
man trying to build the Tower of Babel had built. but that
which God had built, whose builder and maker is God. He went into
a foreign country, living in tents with no settled abode.
He went there looking for these things because, verse 1, The
gift of God is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. He couldn't see it physically,
but by faith he looked to it. And he acted upon what he saw. He acted upon it. He went out
of all that was comfortable, all that was security, all that
was certain in his life. He went out totally trusting
God. People talk about stepping out
in faith and leaping out in faith. Basically, often it's just a
blind hope. This wasn't that. This was the
action of those that really see the gospel of grace in the Lord
Jesus Christ and act upon it. He saw his life in this world. They all did. Isaac and Jacob,
they saw their lives in this world as but a journey to eternal
glory. Is that how you see your life
now? Or is this everything? oh Lord let me have a bit more
of this, oh I want to enjoy a bit more, no it's a journey to eternal
glory and they saw the means they saw the means as the sacrifice
that God would provide himself of getting them to glory they
saw that God's lamb would come and Abraham saw this, Abraham
saw this because God promised God's lamb would come from his
loins by genetic descent that the man, Christ Jesus, would
be descended from this man, Abraham. And this line would be preserved,
from which the Saviour would come. By which, can a man be
just with God? Yes. In the Saviour that God
has provided. Yes. It would come from Him.
And His body, as good as dead, it says in verse 12. As good
as dead. He's an old man. He's past it.
He's had it. He's finished. but yet from his loins would
come the one who would be the Savior. And likewise Sarah believed. She was so well past the age
of childbearing and yet she received strength to believe because she
counted him faithful who had promised. She judged him faithful
who had promised. They were all the heirs of the
same promise. Heirs of the same promise, Isaac
and Jacob. They lived in tents, they wandered
around, but they saw what God had set before them in the future. They didn't experience them fulfilled
in their lives, but they saw them far off. Look at verse 13,
they all died in faith, not having received, not having experienced
what they saw far off, in reality, they didn't see the Lord Jesus
Christ come into the world, but having seen them far off, and
were persuaded of them, They embraced them and confessed that
they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. So what does true
faith do? Let's just finish with this.
This is what I wanted to get to. Verse six, look at verse
six. Without faith it is impossible
to please him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him. Without faith it is impossible
to please God. Those who have true faith come
to God in faith, seeing, seeing his sacrifice, seeing the perfect
atonement that is accomplished for his people in the Lord Jesus
Christ. They believed God's word. They
must believe that he is. They believe God's word about
who God is, about what he's like, about his sovereignty, about
his absolute electing choice of sinners, about his determination
to save a people for his own glory. about his truth and his
righteousness and his judgment. They believed him. They believed
his word. They trusted and acted upon it. They must believe that he is,
and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
He's got something for them. He's got eternal life for them.
And they diligently sought him. They're diligent. They came meaning
it. It wasn't just head knowledge. It was heart knowledge. It was
heart knowledge that led to action. They did things based on it.
They trusted. They acted upon his promises
concerning eternity, concerning justification. They looked for
an eternal reward. They diligently sought God. They
got the knowledge of his word, because this is where it comes
from. It's his word. They got the knowledge of his
word. True faith involves knowledge. You must have some knowledge
in your mind. You can't have faith in something
which is so airy-fairy that you can't state what it is. It's
based on fact. We believe God created the world,
that God did the things that he did, that he sent his son
into the world, that he actually came, that he actually died on
the cross, that he rose again from the dead. We believe his
word. We believe that his spirit moved
and established that church and that gave his word by his apostles
and prophets. We believe these things. It's
based on facts. There's no such thing as blind
faith in true faith. True faith is seeing faith. And
they assented to its truth. They said, yes, we agree. This
is truth. They trusted in its reality.
Do you know what it is to trust? Let's say you've got to cross
a gorge with a raging river running underneath it, and there's a
rope bridge across it. If you trust that bridge, you
step out onto it. You believe that that bridge
will support your weight. You believe that that bridge
will not give way. You trust it. That's what it
is. You trust your soul. to the eternal keeping of God. You say, as we quoted last week
with Paul, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I've committed to him against
that day. I don't know much. There's so
much I don't know, but I do know this. I know whom I have believed
and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've
committed to him against that day. And you act upon the significance
of it. Look at verse 10. He looked for
a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,
and so do all who have the faith of God's people. We look for
a city. Our affections are set on things
above where Christ is. Colossians 3, 1 and 2. Seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand
of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. Oh, hard to do, isn't it? hard
to do. I have to ask myself again and
again, am I too attached to this world? Are the things of this
world too attractive to me? No, set your affection on things
above. Verse 11, Sarah, she judged him
faithful who had promised. True faith, those who have the
faith of God's elect, judge him faithful who has promised. Ephesians
3.20, him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think. He can do it all and he will
do all he said. When you were listening to Cliff
earlier talking about the judgment of God to come, was your rebellious
fleshly heart saying, I don't really believe it's going to
be like that? I don't really think it would be like that.
Or were you saying, thus saith the scripture, if God has said
it is, so it is. Are you judging him, faithful,
who's promised these things? Verse 13, persuaded, persuaded. But in the middle of the verse,
and were persuaded of them, they saw them afar off. You see the
coming again of Christ afar off. Well, we don't know. Could be
today. Who knows? Who knows? No man knows. But
you see it not yet happened. And you judge him faithful. Who
has promised? You judge that it's going to
happen. You trust on the fact of it. You lean heavily upon
it. And verse four. Abel offered a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain. You bring God's sacrifice. That's
it. Your only grounds for reproach
is God's sacrifice, which is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's that that speaks peace with God. And verse 5, you live
looking only to God's sacrifice. You walk every step of this life,
in your work, in your family, in everything that you do, with
an eye to the fact that it is God who is in heaven, who has
shown you these things and has done these things. In verse 7,
Noah prepared an ark. He obeyed God. He prepared an
ark. to God's pattern, to save his house, and also to condemn
the world. This is what he did. And by faith,
we say, the gospel of God's grace is the only hope for fallen man. Verse eight, by faith, Abraham
went out to a place that he didn't know. He forsook his earthly
comforts. He trusted God's promise. He
obeyed God's voice. I can tell you, he keeps his
word. He honors, he blesses his people
who hear his voice who obey his voice, who go even if all the
physical evidence would scream out to the contrary. They do
what God tells them to do. This is the faith that pleases
God. This is it. because it's the
vital union between the saved sinner and the God who has saved
him. It's faith that unites you practically. That's how you know. This is
how you experience. Do you have this faith? Do you
have the faith of God's elect? It's the only faith that pleases
God, and without it, it's impossible to please God. Don't say that
you have it. And I say this to myself. Don't
say that you have it and then order your life as if you're
no different to those who don't have it. Because true faith acts
upon what it sees. It makes a difference. It makes
an absolutely crucial, fundamental difference. Think of the others.
We'll come to them. Think of Daniel. Oh, how much
easier it would have been just to conform. to the Babylonian
society. What a nice easy life you would
have had. But no. No. I see something you don't
see. I'm going to act in a different
way. Well, think on these things. Amen.