You want to turn to the book
of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. It is my
aim to finish this chapter today. So I want to begin by reading
a couple of verses. One of those verses in chapter
12. and another in the book of Matthew. So when you get to chapter
11, just hold your place there. Let's pray. Father, we're so
thankful for the grace you've shown to us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a Savior. And by your great
grace, you have endeared him to us and you continue to make
Him more precious day by day. We don't find it in ourselves.
We don't find this grace and preciousness at all in ourselves,
but He seems to increase as we find such unworthiness and weakness
in ourselves. What a Savior, that He would
save us from our sins. And so we pray, Lord, that You
would make Him great in our eyes today and give us this faith
that we long for this precious gift of faith in Him, to see
Him, to trust Him, to hope ever in Him, to come to Him to pray,
to ask Him, to find our all in Him, and to ever come for it
from Him, and help us in the end to find that He Himself is
all that we need, all that we've ever longed for, all that you
have to say to us, the glory of God and our Savior. In His
name we pray, amen. Hebrews chapter 11. If you look
at verse 1 of Hebrews chapter 11, the first verse of Hebrews chapter
12, did I say 11? I meant to say 12. First verse
of Hebrews chapter 12. We'll find here the title of
today's sermon. It says, And that means looking
back on everything that he's just said in the immediate context
of chapter 11. Wherefore, seeing we also, like
them, we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Those people that have just been
given by God, the Holy Spirit, through the writer to the Hebrews,
Concerning that period of time they lived and all their circumstances,
and in particular the faith God gave to them, that is our great
cloud of witnesses. Considering them that we also
are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
throne of God." So the Lord is setting before us here large
company of believers in order to encourage us, to direct us,
to do what they did. And he puts the pioneer, that's
the word author in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2, the author, pioneer,
the one who first sets foot on the land, who marks it out for
those that follow, who discovers all the ways you can get hurt,
and discovers all the ways you can live there, like the early
pioneers did in this country. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who ran the race first and foremost. He has the preeminence
in all things. And he endured the cross. That
was the result of the faith that he had in his God and Father. And not only that, but in his
trail, we all believe him. we all look to God and come to
God through him. And that is this great cloud
of witnesses spoken of in chapter 11 of Hebrews. Notice, I will read the last
part of chapter 11. He says in verse 32, what shall
I more say? Having given you a catalog from
all the way from creation, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Sarah, and on down the list, Joseph, and Moses, Rahab,
Samson, Gideon, Jephthah, all these people, Barak. He says,
what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to
tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, and David
also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. Notice what he says,
who through faith subdued kingdoms. They didn't just overcome, the
mayor of their city. They subdued kingdoms. I'm not
saying we should overthrow the mayor or anything like that.
But the kingdoms that were opposed to God's people and the promises
he had given them, they overcame those kingdoms. They subdued
them. They wrought righteousness. They obtained promises. They
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness, were made strong,
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight. The armies of the
aliens, women, received their dead raised to life again. They
did what was humanly impossible in all these things. Notice,
and others were tortured. not accepting deliverance that
they might obtain a better resurrection, and others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, that means they were cut in half. They were tempted,
were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom
the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these
all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that
they, without us, should not be made perfect. And what is
that better thing? The book of Hebrews tells us it's the gospel,
it's the new covenant in Christ's blood, and all of God's promises
fulfilled in Christ. All of God's promises fulfilled
in Christ, given to his people, declared in the gospel, and now
we have this great faith. They had it, we have it, and
we live by it. Look at also the book of Matthew,
the book of Matthew in chapter eight. This to me is very helpful, which
is why I'm bringing you here. You'll see the pattern that Hebrews
11 sets out, all of scripture really, but it's very clearly
stated here in Matthew chapter eight, and I'm gonna start in
verse five. It says, when Jesus entered into
Capernaum, there came to him a centurion beseeching him. A
centurion was the captain of a large number of Roman soldiers. I'm not sure exactly how many.
Centurions suggest a hundred, but I think it was more than
that. Anyway, this man of importance, this man of authority came to
Jesus and notice what he's doing, beseeching Him. You know the
posture, the posture of beseeching? It's a posture of begging. A
man of authority in great need. and saying, Lord, my servant
lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. Here's
a man who cared for his servant, an important man who cared for
his servant. That's a noble person, isn't
it? And he was concerned because his servant was grievously tormented.
And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. What a word
that is. I would have stopped right there.
I have everything I've asked for now. But no, he goes on.
Notice his attitude. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but
speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man
under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this man,
go. And he goeth. And to another,
come. And he cometh. And to my servant, do this. And
he doeth it. What he's saying by that is that
whenever he spoke as a man, a centurion, his servants did what he said
they to do. Do this. And they did it. He
was a man of authority. And he's saying that because
he's telling the Lord Jesus, I understand authority. you have
all authority. If you just speak the word, it
doesn't matter how far away my servant is, because your word
has authority as far as you intend for it to reach. Whatever you
mean by that word, whatever you say by that word, that is what
will be done. That's faith, isn't it? He trusted
Christ, he trusted his word that he had this authority. See, the
essence of faith is seeing Christ in his authority, in his power,
in his ability. It's not finding ability in us,
it's finding his ability. And so he comes to him, and the
Lord Jesus said, I will come and heal him. And he said, no,
I'm not worthy for you to come to my house. Just speak the word
only. And Jesus said, in verse 10,
when Jesus heard it, he marveled. The Lord Jesus marveled. and
said to them that followed, verily I say to you, I have not found
so great faith. No, not in Israel. Now he was
obviously not an Israelite. He was a Gentile. In fact, he
was in the Roman army, the Roman military, and they had the rule
over the Israelites. So the Israelites would have
looked down upon him in that regard. So Christ lifts him up
because he says, this man, greater faith than I've ever found in
all of Israel. And he said, I say to you that
many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the
children of the kingdom, in other words, those born to Abraham
by physical birth only, shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. He gives a warning. What a warning. But notice what
Jesus said here. This is the verse I wanted to
get to. And Jesus said to the centurion, notice, go thy way,
and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his
servant was healed in the selfsame hour. So what has happened here? What this man believed about
Jesus Christ is what the Lord did for him. It was true. That's why he did it. He didn't
believe something that wasn't true. He didn't say, well, I
believe the Lord's going to give me a new Cadillac. The farthest
thing from Christ's mind is to give you a Cadillac. That's not
what we believe him for, is it? That's not what his name means.
We believe him not only to be willing, but able to save us
from our sins. That's his name. That's why we
come to him. He's the Lord of all things. Therefore, whatever he says,
whatever he does has total authority. And we trust him for that. And
we come to him by faith, believing what God has revealed about him.
And in so believing what God has revealed, that's the truth.
By God's grace, we believe him. And the Lord says, you have.
what you believe. That's the principle here in
Hebrews chapter 11. And I felt that that was a way
of expressing it very clearly. And you go back to that and you
think on that, ask the Lord to give you that faith. Don't you
want that faith this man had? When I hear about the Lord commending
someone's faith, I say, Lord, I want that. I want that. I want
to believe you. Because there's no virtue in
our faith. The virtue is in Christ. The
virtue is in Him. And that's the whole point of
faith. Faith ascribes all virtue to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
I want to ask you a few questions about faith. Things that may
hopefully and are intended to help us to understand and to
to see what true faith is. First thing about faith I want
to ask you is, is faith a work that we do in order to
get things from God? And the answer cannot be that,
because it says in, for example, Galatians 3 verse 12, that the
law is not of faith. Our personal obedience to God is not the way we come to God,
we come to Him by faith, which means we're relying on His grace
alone. There's a verse in Romans 11,
verse five and six that says, and if by grace, if we're saved
by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is
no more grace. You can't be saved by grace and
by works, that's what the Lord is saying. And he says, but if
it be of works, then it's not of grace, otherwise work is no
more work. So in that one text of scripture, the Lord shows
us that you can't have it both ways. Something is either true
or it's not true, but things are not both true and not true. God himself uses that so we know
that's the way it is. You can't have salvation by God's
grace to be true and then also have salvation by our work to
also be true. They're both opposed to each
other. One would cancel the other. Do
you see? And God uses this principle of
contradiction. You can't have it both ways.
Grace means grace, works means works. The two don't go together. We're not saved by what we do,
but we are saved by what Christ did, and that's called grace,
you see. So no, faith is not a work we
do in order for us, so that we can get God to do things. And
faith isn't something that we bring to God in order to influence
God to do things for us either. Because that begins with our
faith, And then it makes God downstream dependent upon us. Because where does faith come
from? Does it come from us? Does faith
start with us? No, faith, according to Ephesians
2, 8, 9, faith is not of yourselves. It doesn't come from you. Well
then, if it doesn't come from us, where does it come from?
It has to come from God. It comes from God. And if it
comes from God, does he give it in reward? No, it says faith
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So
faith isn't from us, God gives it. He gives it as a gift, therefore
we can't earn it because it's all of grace. And then in Romans
4.16, it says that it is of faith that it might be by grace. to
the end, to this purpose, that the promise would be sure to
all to see. So faith ensures that salvation is all of grace.
That's why God made it, so that in believing we would be saved.
The centurion looked at Christ through God-given faith, and
he saw all authority and power to heal his servant. In fact,
in another instance, the man came to Jesus and asked for his
son to be healed. He was already dead. And he told
the Lord, he says, come heal my son. In fact, he's already
dead. So all of the power the Lord Jesus had to save and to
raise from the dead was in him. It wasn't in the centurion or
the father of the boy who died. And they understood that. They
saw that this to do what I need is in Christ alone. And that's
what faith is. Faith finds all strength, all
grace, all the work needed is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
those things are fundamental. So faith is not a condition that
the sinner meets in order for God to then do his part. And these are things that are
fundamental and revealed in scripture. But religion twists it because
we cannot, in our natural selves, we cannot let go of this fundamental
false doctrine that God responds to us and therefore we get what
we need. He doesn't. Remember, all that
God does, he knew what he would do before the foundation of the
world. Known unto God are all his works from the foundation
of the world. And everything that God does is according to
the counsel of his own will. Ephesians 1 verse 11. Okay, so
if there is anything, that God is going to do. And we know salvation
is of the Lord. It's His work, right? It's His
work alone. By Himself, Christ purged our
sin. Therefore, God knew it before
the world began. And if God knew it before the
world began, where were we to influence Him? We hadn't been
created. So salvation is of the Lord to
such an extent that it is eternally from Him in His heart. It came
from Him entirely and in time it was worked out by Him and
it goes to His glory in everlasting ages. We contribute nothing. We are made to see it. We are
made to know it, and we are made to rejoice in it and find our
salvation in what God says He did in Christ, just like in creation,
and the principle is given there. After God created all things,
what did He do? He looked at all that He did,
and what did He do? He said, it is very good. How do we know that He did this? He said He did it. How do we
know it's good? He said it was good. How do we
know God saves his people by the Lord Jesus Christ? Because
he said it. And how do we know that it was enough? Because he
said it's enough. He raised him from the dead.
Christ said it is finished. And he said he has by that one
offering perfected all those that he died to save. So these
are things, faith is the eye that God gives us to see what
he has done, to see Christ in his saving power, in his purpose
of grace, his will to save. The will to save comes from God. The reason to save comes from
God. The merit to save comes from
Christ provided by God. The ground, the basis, the legal
reason for God justifying us is in Christ alone. But faith
is the gift of God to us to allow us to see it and to receive what
is already accomplished. and enter into the peace and
joy of it. Faith doesn't accomplish salvation, faith sees it accomplished. Okay? So those are some of the
things. Is faith righteousness? Is faith itself righteousness? That's another question. No,
it's not, because when scripture talks about believing unto righteousness,
faith and righteousness are two different things. Righteousness
is doing what's right. according to what, well, it's
the obedience that result to what's right in order to establish
a righteousness. Faith didn't obey God. Faith
doesn't produce that obedience. Faith doesn't take away our sin.
Faith doesn't do anything except ascribe to the Lord the righteousness
that He views and by which He justifies His people, you see? Faith sees righteousness. Faith
lays hold on it, saying, that's mine. Because God has said, look
unto me. The Lord Jesus Christ said, look
unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth. So faith is
not righteousness, but faith believes unto righteousness in
reference to Christ's righteousness. We trust the righteousness of
Christ, don't we? We trust his precious blood.
What is righteousness anyway? Well, I already alluded to it.
Righteousness is the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ in shedding
his blood, in obedience and submission to God. That's righteousness.
How do you know? Second Corinthians 521, for he
hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made righteousness, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. God's righteousness is what?
What Christ did, shedding his blood. That's God's righteousness,
and that's with which he justifies us. We're justified by what Christ
did. So no, faith is not righteousness,
but we believe unto righteousness. And faith is not a work, we believe
in Christ's work. Faith is not of ourselves, it's
of God, it's his gift, and it comes to us by his grace alone.
All right, so now that we have some sense that faith finds all
of its value, and faith, in fact, faith abandons, faith relinquishes,
faith denies any merit in itself, but ascribes to Christ all merit,
all power, all strength, all grace. We come to the Lord Jesus
Christ for faith itself, don't we? If it's not of ourselves
and it's a gift of God, Jesus told the woman at the well, if
you knew the gift of God, then you would have asked Him and
He would have given you living water. That's the whole package. And faith receives it. So we
would ask Him for faith. The disciples prayed in Luke
17 5, Lord, increase our faith. They understood faith came from
the Lord. Jesus said, told Peter, I have
prayed for your faith. Remember in Luke 22, 32? And the father cried out, Lord,
I believe, help my unbelief. So not only is faith a gift of
God, but we come to him for it. That's what faith does. Faith
comes to God for everything and finds everything in Christ and
comes to him for it. By him, by Christ, we believe
on the Lord, on God. 1 Peter 1, 21. So all these things
teach us that faith in itself is not the object of our confidence. It's not. What is? The blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Because that's when we say His blood, we mean He gave Himself. And it's He gave Himself in total,
in His blood, in His life. He gave His life, a sacrifice,
an offering to God for our sins, to bring us to God. Okay? So that's what faith sees. The
father, I mean, the centurion of this sick servant, he saw
that in the Lord Jesus Christ, there was power. In his word,
he could do whatever he wanted by just simply giving the command.
And if he gave the command, then he knew as the Lord of glory,
it would be a righteous and holy and just command. And so when
we confess our sins, we say, he says in 1 John 1, 9, if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, right? God doesn't do things
part way. When he does it, it's eternal
and nothing can be added to it, Ecclesiastes 3, 14. And he does
it and he gets all the glory because only he did it. And he
does things that for men are impossible. And that's what faith
says. That's what faith sees. Now look
at Hebrews chapter 11. Let's go back through the catalog
real quickly here. In Hebrews 11, in verse 1, he
says that faith is the substance of things hoped for. We don't
have anything else. If you look at our foundation,
what are we standing on? We're standing on what God said.
Faith relies on what God said. How are things? Whatever God
said. Like the little boy, I gave you this example before. As I
know as a little, as a young child, I thought this way. Whatever
my dad said, that's the way things are. They go to school. Oh, that's
not what my dad said. Well, my dad would have said
this. That's the way it is. You stand up to your teacher
at school, but my dad said, you know, that's what faith said. It's what dad said. My father
said, and that ends it. That's the only truth. That's
the complete truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It's what my father said, right? That's what faith does. There's
no other foundation needed because that's the only foundation that
upholds this universe is the word of God. Because God and
his word are inseparable. You can't separate them. If God's
word fails, God fails. And the only reason his word
doesn't fail is because God cannot fail. And so he says faith is
the substance. It's what we have now. We don't
have those things God said are ours, not in our experience.
But we have faith, don't we? And having faith, it's as good
as ours. It is ours. And we experience
it in believing it. Even though I don't see this
glorious body given to me yet. I don't see sin completely eradicated
yet, do you? I don't see even my faith perfected
yet, but I see my Savior. I know that He can do it, and
I'm confident He will, because He saves for His name's sake.
He's not gonna let His name go in disrepute. He's gonna fulfill
His word. He can't fail. He cannot lie. And so faith says, that's it,
that's my substance, God's word, and faith is resting on him. So faith is a substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. How do you know? God
said it, I believe it. My faith didn't make it so, God
said it, that's what made it so, and he gave me the grace
to believe it. And now I'm persuaded of it.
Now I embrace what he said is true. And then in verse two of
Hebrews 11, for by it the elders obtained a good report. God speaks
well of those who trust him. Why not? They are conscribing
everything to the Lord that he said and it is true. They're
just saying what he said and they believe it. So he gives
them a good report. He gives them a good report because
in what he said, he tells them about what he did in order to
make that report good for them. It's all in Christ. Look at verse
three. Through faith we understand. You can't verify the worlds were
created by God, can you? You can't deny it. You can't
prove it wrong. Men like to. There's a big bang.
Prove it. Can't. Well, things evolve. Prove it. You can't. Neither
can you prove creation. But here we have it. As a little
child, dad said so. And I understand, I believe what
God said. Therefore, I understand how it
really happened. I really understand how it happened.
And I can't prove it. I don't need any proof because
I'm convinced of it. God said it. In the beginning,
God. God starts there. Does he prove
himself? No, he's the unprovable axiom
and his word is the axiom that proves that he is there. God said it. In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. I'm so happy with that. If we tried to find something
more fundamental than God's word, that thing itself would trump
God's word. Nothing's gonna happen. God has elevated his word above his
own name, it says. I can't remember exactly the
words from Psalm 138, I think. Anyway, we understand what happened. We can't verify it because we
believe God. Verse four. He says, by faith
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice. Not only
do we start with this point that whatever God says is true, therefore
we understand the way God thinks. We understand the way things
are because God said it, right? And someone asks you at school,
how do you know God created the world? I believe it. God said
it, I believe it. That's as far as I need to go.
But well, yeah, but I don't believe it. I don't believe you. You
said God didn't create the world? I don't believe you. I believe
you're yourself deceived. because you're denying the very
truth God has shown you. He says in his word, and I believe
his word more than I believe you. You see, we don't have to
argue with them. We just state it like another
sinner to a sinner. Don't you understand? The Lord
is true. He declares it. He declares the
truth to us, and then he gives us grace to believe it. So here
he says, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain. What does faith start with here? God shows us our justification
is in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith comes to God
knowing God will accept us on the basis of the sacrifice He
provided and required and accepted. What is that? It's Christ. And
so when Abel offered his lamb, he looked to Christ through faith.
In that lamb, seen in that lamb, God accepts me because of the
substitute Christ. and his sacrifice of himself
in blood to God for my sins. And God is pleased with that.
And then he goes on. He says that he was considered
righteous. He obtained a witness that he was righteous. God testifying
of his gifts. God looked at his gifts. Yes,
I see righteousness there and it's yours. God gave it by grace. And then he says in verse five,
Enoch, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death.
for before his turn, I mean, because God had translated him.
Before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased
God, but 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. Enoch walked by faith. He anticipated and expected and
looked for God to do all that he said, and he relied on His
confidence was in all that God had said he had done and promised
to do. So he lived by faith. He didn't
live by his works, he lived by faith. Though his faith did have
this work, faith always works. Faith always works. For example,
when God says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word
of God, we may wonder, how am I going to know that I'm saved? Jesus says, whoever believes
on me has eternal life. How am I going to get this faith?
If you believe God, what are you going to do? Knowing that
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You're gonna
hear the word of God. You will give yourself to hearing
it. Lord, give me this faith. Show
me the gospel. Show me what Christ has done.
Show me that he by himself was able to do this because he's
the son of God and the anointed son of man and came in my nature
and fulfilled all God required to save me from my sins as all
of my righteousness. Show me this. Convince me of
it. Turn my wicked heart to think
your thoughts. Right? Lord, I am a sinner. I need your grace. And here,
I want to encourage you, because as we were singing that song
earlier, Jesus I Come, I was thinking how precious the Lord
is. How precious and more precious
he's become through the years. And when I think those thoughts,
I realize that sense of his increasing preciousness in my life is not
because I see an increase of righteousness in me, farthest
from it. It's actually seeing a greater
dependence upon him to save me from my sins and knowing he has
committed himself to do that. We didn't come to Christ because
we were coming with our contribution so that he would then forgive
us. We come starting with the fact that he has declared he
cleansed us from our sins in his own blood. He forgives us
by the redeeming blood of Christ. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. We start with what he has done
and what he has obtained. He obtained our eternal redemption. He told a woman taken in adultery,
what did he tell her before she spoke? Neither do I condemn thee. Has she done something? Had she
repented? Had she even believed? He told
the blind man, do you believe on the Son of God? Who is he,
Lord, that I might believe? It is He that's speaking to you. You've seen Him, and it's He
that speaks to you. Lord, I believe. You see, faith
always comes as a result of the declaration of Christ and who
He is and what He has done for us. It's not because we come
with faith and therefore God gives us something. God declares
to us in that declaration, He intends His word with power as
light in a dark place and He persuades us of it and gives
us that life to believe Him, you see. Our life is because
of His righteousness and faith comes from that life. So if we
find ourselves trusting Christ, like Manoah's wife told Manoah. Remember Samson's parents? If
the Lord was pleased to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted
a sacrifice from our hand or shown us these things or told
us this. So when we hear of Christ being the one who saves his people
from their sins and we're drawn as sinners to trust him, would
the Lord have told us this to damn us? Would He be pleased
to show us these things if He meant to kill us? No, we are
actually coming in the confidence of His Word that He shows Himself
to be the Savior of sinners. We're trusting Him to save us
from our sins, like Rommel said earlier. and there's nothing
more comforting, nothing more strengthening in our confidence
and assurance as a sinner, the Lord promised to do this. He
is able to save them to the uttermost who come to God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make intercession for them. If by it we were now
being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him. For if when we were enemies,
if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Now, all of that is putting,
it's rolling the whole matter of our salvation on Christ from
God's word and God's persuasion of that in our heart opens our
hearts and says, I'm the object, I'm the sinner, the Lord Jesus
needs to save and we come to him for that. Lord, give me sight. Lord, raise me up. Lord, deliver
me from the wretched man that I am. It's always coming to Christ
for salvation. It's coming for him to do what
he has said, what he said he did, and now gives us the victory. We're more than conquerors through
him that loved us. And so Christ always gives us
the victory. So Enoch walked with God in these
things. I'm sure that Enoch day by day
was trusting Christ to deliver him from his sins, to bring him
to glory. And guess what? He was translated.
And it's showing us that all of us who trust Christ will be
translated. That's the promise here. All
of these witnesses, these great cloud of witnesses are showing
us the just shall live by faith. These guys live by faith. From
the beginning? all the way to Christ, who is
the pioneer, the finisher of our faith, the one who completed
the work of our salvation, all lived by faith. Every one of
God's people were saved in this way. They lived this way, and
they received the promises this way. Many of them overcame. They overcame things that were
humanly impossible. Some of them, lots of them, died. But even in their death, whether
life or death, Christ was glorified in their bodies because they
looked to Him. Remember Philippians 119-21? The Apostle Paul said,
whether by life or by death, I'm confident Christ will be
glorified in my body. For me to live is Christ, to
die is gain. And so he says these things to
us to encourage us. Don't go back to depending on
your own personal obedience to God's law. Haven't you heard
the witness of God's law? You're guilty. You cannot be
justified that way. Do not attempt to come to God
by anything found in you that may be called yours. You come
to God by everything that he provided and finds in Christ,
period. It's what God thinks of him.
That's what his word says. That's the way he saves and receives
sinners. That's the way he justifies them,
what he thought of his blood, what he hears in his prayers,
what he did by his faith. And we just simply lay hold on
him by faith. God-given faith gives us, we
receive to ourselves what God has said, like the centurion.
As you have believed, so even so be it unto you. Do you believe
the truth? If you don't, then you won't
receive anything. If the truth is what God has
said about our salvation in Christ, and we believe it, guess what?
We have the salvation, we have Christ himself, the one we believe. That's the promise here. Now
Abraham, by faith, obeyed. He obeyed because he trusted
God was going to give what he promised. He was fully persuaded
that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And
God says in scripture, imputed it to him for righteousness.
The one he believed, God imputed to him for righteousness. The
promise of Christ coming and justifying the heathen by his
precious blood. That's what Abraham believed.
That's my righteousness. That's everything. And so Abraham
believed God. Abraham trusted him. And Abraham
went out. He was a stranger all of his
life. All of his life. He was content
to be a stranger because he looked for another city, another land. Another world. He looked for
a city, and all of these, Sarah herself received strength. You
see, what was that phrase over here in verse 34? It says, women
received their dead, he said, out of weakness, they were made
strong. Sarah is one of those. She was
dead to having babies, and she heard God say, you're gonna have
a baby next year. She laughed, but she believed God. She received
strength to conceive seed when she was past age. Why? Because
she judged him faithful who had promised. You see, that's what
faith does. It puts the whole thing on him.
Lord, it's your word. It's your name at stake here.
I'm the one who needs this. You told me I need it. You've
described me, none righteous, no, not one, a wretched man. I'm the object. I'm the ungodly. I'm the sinner. I'm the enemy
in my mind and my wicked works. Lord, you came to justify the
ungodly when we were without strength. So save me. And we
look to Christ. We come to him to do for us like
the centurion. You can do it, Lord, and I trust
you to do it for me. Is there any reason why you wouldn't
trust Christ? Well, I don't know, though, if
I trust him enough. Why are you considering your
faith? Well, I don't know. I mean, I
don't think I can hold out long enough. Why did you ever consider
what you could do in the first place? Aren't you just a great
sinner and nothing at all? Isn't Jesus Christ all in all? Do you believe that? If you do,
then you have what you believe. You have the one that you believe
for salvation as your savior, you see. So Abraham and Sarah, they believed
God because he said it and he would do it. They believed he
was able and they had. what they believed. They had
the strength to conceive seed, to bear Isaac. They looked for
Christ. They're justifying righteousness. He came in time. And so Isaac
and Jacob and Joseph, they all followed him in this. Moses,
Moses' parents, they saw he was beautiful to God. They weren't
going to let the king, they weren't afraid of the king's commandment.
They hid him. Faith does things. Faith takes
on challenges that are humanly impossible. Can you save a sinner? And yet don't we declare the
gospel to sinners, knowing that God can and believing that he
will, expecting him to apply his word to their hearts and
to raise them from the dead? That's humanly impossible. And
yet we're convinced it's exactly what the Lord Jesus did. He did
it to us. He can do it for you too. That's
why we declare the gospel. And that's what we believe. We
trust the Lord. We don't for a moment think that
our eloquence or wisdom or knowledge or strength or fidelity or anything
about us is ever going to save anybody. No, the Lord will do
it all. We're confident of that. And so all these witnesses bear
down upon us, and he gives us this list here. Let's just walk
through it quickly. In verse 33, who subdued kingdoms. What
is the kingdom they subdued? Well, in those days, it was these
kingdoms that we could see with men and kings and that sort of
thing. But in our days, what is this
subduing kingdoms? By the word of Christ. By the
word of Christ, we were translated from the kingdom of darkness
to the kingdom of his dear son. Christ's church shall be built. Nothing, not even the gates of
hell, shall prevail against it. And we go forth with the gospel.
And the kingdom of Satan, we're taken from it, and we hold to
the word of, it says in Revelation 12, verse 11, they overcame him
by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony,
overcame Satan and his kingdom. We were delivered from it. Christ
took us right out of it, like strong men, holding down that
man who thought he was strong, and just, here, I'm gonna let
my captives go free. And it says they wrought righteousness.
How do we work out righteousness? Well, in those days, you would
see Samuel, for example, hacking Agag, or you would see David
killing Goliath, or you would see any number of things that
were righteous judgments on their enemies. What is our righteous
judgment? It's what Christ did. And by
faith, we hold to what the Lord Jesus did as our justifying righteousness
and the overcoming of the kingdom of darkness. And so we also work
righteousness. We follow Christ. We see his humility. We see his
meekness. We see his love of righteousness.
We see how he glorified his father. We want that, don't we? We want
to, we want to be meek, we want to be humble, we want to forgive
like He, we want to love our enemies like He did. Because
He loved us. And so we ask Him to do that
in us. Stop the mouths of lions. They
obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions. They obtained
promises because they trusted that the Lord who promised would
do what He promised. And they received what they believed.
They stopped the mouths of lions. Samuel, I mean Samson, Tore the
lion up. Daniel, the lions are hungry. They're vicious. He's cast into
their den. And all night long, they just
sit there. Their mouths are stopped. And who is the lion whose mouth
is stopped? It's Satan. How is he stopped?
Christ's blood. Christ crushed his head. He can't
open his mouth against us in accusation. He can't do one thing
against us. Our Savior sits on the throne
of glory. They quench the violence of fire. Remember Nebuchadnezzar?
Cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in. The Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, is in the fire with them. And the fire doesn't even
singe their garments or the hair of their head. Not even the trace
of smoke is smelled on them. Nothing the enemy intends to
bring come against us will come against us because Christ is
with us. He endured it for us. They waxed out of weakness, were
made strong. It's not because we're weak,
but in our weakness, then we trust Christ and see him to be
our strength. That's the way God works in our
lives. In the absence of strength, we say, the Lord has to be my
strength. So going on through this, it
says, they waxed valiant in fight. A believer, though in our flesh
we're intimidated, There's a strength in us, which is Christ in us,
that will not compromise the truth of our salvation. Don't
you know it? The greatest struggle is when
we feel the guilt and shame and weakness of our own sin, and
this tendency to think, well, I have no reason to trust God,
no reason to hope that He can save me. But then the Lord overcomes
that, and we wax valiant and fight. If God can deliver me
from my sin, myself, and Satan, He can deliver me from anything,
and we're confident. And people will say, well, you
need to consider these other things, do these other things,
too. No, the Lord's enough. And we wax valiant in fight.
We are not intimidated by the enemy because Christ is on the
throne. He says women receive their dead
raised to life again. How many times in scripture did
that happen? Others were tortured. Some were saved out of their
problems. Others were saved through their problems. In every case,
faith was the victory. We overcome by faith. And so it goes on. Others had
trial of cruel mockings. Just look at all these things.
We think it's bad when someone accuses us of something falsely
or truly. These people endured mockings
and scourgings and bonds and imprisonments and were cut in
half and stoned and were tempted and slain. Faith endured, faith
in Christ. The world was not worthy of them.
because Christ was their Savior. They were Christ. The world was
not worthy. But notice, God having provided
some better thing for us, they didn't obtain what they hoped
for, but they had it by faith. And the Lord didn't give them
The salvation that He revealed to us, not in the clarity of
it, not in the consummation of it, not in the accomplishment
of it until Christ came. Because all who believe Christ
receive the same salvation by the same Savior. And so the New
Covenant was put into force in Christ's blood and it happened
in the New Testament. The Kingdom of Christ was announced
and He came, the King came. And that's when we all receive
this. The consummation of our faith came when Christ cried,
it is finished. And now we look back and they
look forward and God always looked to Christ for us. For us, we
look back to what God did in Christ. For them, they look forward
to what God promised He would do in Christ. And for eternity,
God looked upon His Son, received His people in Him, and blessed
them for His sake. And that's the way it will be
from now on, because Christ endured the cross, despising the shame,
because He's the pioneer and the completer of our faith. Let's
pray. Lord, thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thank you that he is willing
and he is able and he cannot fail to keep his promise to save
us to the uttermost who have been given this grace to come
to him by faith and trust him. You've made him known to us.
We would never have imagined this. You've kept us. We could
never have kept ourselves. And we pray, Lord, that today
And tomorrow and every day of our life, we would always call
upon him and worship you because of him. In his name we pray,
amen.