The 11th chapter of Hebrews is
all about faith. We're gonna ask the Lord to be
with us now. Let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we
pray that through the Lord Jesus Christ, you would bless your
word to us today. We are sinners and we cannot
understand, we cannot come to you in the right way, but you
have in your word revealed to us the way that sinners do come.
it's by your work, it's by what you've done, and you bring us
to yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you make this known
to us by your Spirit from your Word, so that we are given grace
to believe you. Help us, Lord, now to receive
that grace from you, from your Word, applied to us by your Spirit,
exalt your Son in our eyes, and cause us to trust him. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen. I want to go through the 11th
chapter of Hebrews and take each of these cases one by one about
faith. The first 10 chapters of Hebrews
presented to us Christ and Him crucified. This chapter doesn't
deviate from that, but it shows us the result of that work. Grace
is given to us because Christ died for us. God sent his son. God therefore fulfills the work
that he accomplished by giving the blessing of that work to
us in believing the Lord Jesus Christ, sending his word to us.
And that's what this is talking about. Last week I asked questions
and tried to answer them about what is faith. And hopefully
you saw from that that faith in the biblical sense means believing
or relying on, taking what God has said as the way things are. Taking God at his word. When
we believe somebody, we trust them. We trust what they say
is true. They may disappoint us. Men will. In this world, we will be disappointed
because we put our trust in things that are untrustworthy. But God
cannot lie. He cannot fail. He cannot change. He tells us this over and over
again so that we will understand that we are saved, we come to
Him, are brought to Him by His work, by His faithfulness in
Christ alone. And this is meant to direct our
attention, to direct us away from all in this world and ourselves
to Him. And so that is what faith is,
it's taking God at his word. They believe the word that Jesus
spoke to them. That's what the scripture says
in John 2, verse 22. John 20, verse 31 says, these
things were written that you might believe. Hence, we believe God's Word.
In believing God's Word, we believe the One who spoke that Word,
God Himself. And we believe the message He
gave to us of Christ and Him crucified. The message of the
Gospel of John concludes with this. This is the reason God
gave His Word. These things are written that
you might believe. And hence, faith is taking God at His Word. concerning what he said about
Christ, his Son, and our salvation in him. Now, if we understand
that, we understand the necessary foundation for going on further
in this 11th chapter of Hebrews. He said in the last verse of
chapter 10, the just live by faith. Those who are righteous
before God live by faith. They have nothing but faith.
course that's by the Spirit of God, but they have nothing tangible,
nothing visual, nothing to their senses that they can lay hold
of except God-given faith in God's Word. The song that I think
Martin Luther wrote is What more can he say than to you he has
said, to you who have fled, or to Jesus for refuge have fled. And he says in the same song,
in the same hymn, that God has given us his word as the foundation.
So it's the word of God. Read Psalm 119, over and over
in that psalm, almost every verse, God speaks of his precepts, his
judgments, his word, his truth, his commandments, his statutes,
his ways, and his works. It's all pointing to him, to
what he has said. God cannot lie. He gave us promises
in Christ. Promises are what he spoke, what
he committed himself to fulfill. Our trust is in God, in the faithful,
unchanging, holy God of heaven and earth. And so we look to
him, and this is the way we live. We do not live our lives based
on what scientists say. We don't. We don't believe the
rules of life according to science. We don't discover salvation in
science. We don't discover creation in
science. We don't rely on science to teach
us God created the world. We do not do that. Now we've
made the mistake of trying to do that, and I hope we failed
in it, because we'll never find a foundation in science. If we
do, we've placed our trust in the wrong thing. We've placed
our trust in the wisdom of men, and God said he's going to bring
to foolishness the wisdom of men. And it applies across all
things. Politics. It applies across philosophies
of men. All these things together represent
the religion of this world, the idolatry of this world. There's
only one thing that's true in this world. It's the scripture,
the written word of God. And that has to be given to us
by God himself. When we want to know God, we
have to understand him from scripture. Don't take it by what a man says. Don't trust the best of men.
Men are liars. We come from the womb speaking
lies. The heart of man is deceitful
above all things. It's desperately wicked. This
is God's testimony. We can only rely on what God
has said, and this is the only place we'll find it. The Word
of God, the Bible, is the Word of God alone. Period. That's
it. If we have the Word of God, we
have all the wisdom of God revealed to us. All of the revelation
of God revealed to us. And God's Word is concerning
His Son. You see, all of the written word
points to the living word, and the living word is the one about
which that word is written. The one revealed in the word
of God is the word of God, the living word, Jesus Christ, the
Lord. Now, I harp on that because we're
so inclined to depend on our senses. We're so inclined to
depend on our intellect, on our circumstances, on what so-and-so
says. on what we can find in the Oxford
Dictionary or whatever. These things may help us in this
world to create cell phones and houses and bridges and things
like that and launch men into space. All that does is give
us a false sense of security. The world is passing away. but
the word of the Lord endures forever. That's the testimony
of scripture. The one who created this world
doesn't change, but his creation will be folded up. And we should
never put our trust in the things that we see. The reasoning of
our own minds, which are so corrupt and infallible, are infallible,
not infallible, but fallible. Okay, I don't want to beat you
up on that, but I say this to my own soul. Soul, soul, hear
the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God, period. That's it, that's the only way
to come. God has to reveal himself. We can't, who by seeking can
seek to find God? He has to make himself known.
These are the truths of scripture. So, I want to now get into this
first part here. I covered verse one last time. Let's go through verse two through
four today of Hebrews chapter 11. I'll reread verse one. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for. It's the thing we have, the only
thing we have. And all of our anticipation and
expectation of what God has promised is now only possessed in our
experience by God-given faith in what God has said and promised.
And those are in Christ. The substance is faith. All we
have in this world, we're strangers except God's word. I panted after
thy word. I thirsted like a deer after
the water springs for the living God from his word. Now faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. And he gives us an account from
creation to the end of this chapter of faith as it worked out in
the lives of God's people. From creation to the end of this
chapter is an account of faith working and operating in the
lives of God's people. And of the different ways it
does that. It is a God-given gift that functions in this way. It brings promised possessions
into present life. experience and enjoyment in peace
and joy so that we have confidence. Men can mock us and accuse us
and our own conscience and yet we have the word of God. And
the things that God has spoken that are true that we can't see,
we have faith to lay hold on that. And so he's gonna start
in this way. He says in verse two, for by it, by faith, the
elders obtained a good report. A good report from whom? From
God. How did they obtain a good report
from God? They were sinners. Because faith, God-given faith,
showed them where that good report from God comes from. It comes
from God in Christ. And that's what he's going to
lay out here. Verse three, for through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God. So if everything
that we know was framed, made, and has its subsistence in the
Word of God, then what does that say about the Word of God? Everything
is brought into existence and upheld by what God said. What
else do we need? If everything is brought into
existence and upheld by what God has said, then God's Word
obviously is the Original, it's the source of all things, isn't
it? It is, and so therefore we can
trust God's word in everything. And that's what he's saying here.
In fact, we would not know how the world was made unless God
gave us faith because through faith we understand things that
we can't see. The things that we see were not
made of things that we can see. That's what he says. Through
faith we understand that the worlds were framed, made, constructed,
and have their existence by the word of God so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear. God spoke, let
me read this to you in Psalm 33. I love these words in Psalm
chapter 33. We're talking about faith here,
what a gift. This is the way that we connect
in our minds to the truth of God so that his spoken word becomes
the way we see things and understand and are persuaded that they are.
Psalm 33 verse six, by the word of the Lord, verse six, by the
word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth Look at verse nine. For he spake,
and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. Verse 11. The counsel of the
Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. There it is. God spoke out of
the dark void and nothingness, the emptiness of creation, of
the lack of creation, God spoke. There was light. The land was
divided from the sea. The sun and the moon were put
in the sky. The very breath, the air we breathe was put in
place. The animals, the plants, everything was made by God. There
was nothing that God didn't make. And when did God, when did he
determine what he would do? Did he see, oh wow, that looks
nice. I think I'll also add to that. Did he see the light, that
it was good and say, now that I can see better, I'm going to
change things a little bit. No, this is very important too.
Everything God does, he determined to do before he started to do
anything. He brought all things into existence
by his word and that word was established before the world
began. In Psalm 119, I think it's around
verse 89, it says, forever, O Lord, thy word was settled in heaven.
Forever. It's unchanging. Did you know
that God's word never has to change? That God's mind never
changes? He never learns more than he
knew before? He never changes his mind about
things that occur in history? He never learns, he never changes,
he's always been God. He has always had this unchanging
will, this mind, the purpose that he has. And his word reflects
his mind, and his word doesn't change. It's bedrock, it's the
rock on which we stand. So, back to Hebrews 11, verse
three. Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God. God spoke and it
was done. He commanded it stood fast. Before
it was done, he spoke and whatever God says is done before it is
brought to pass because he said it. That's how certain his word
is. When in our lives, our life fails,
what are we gonna stand on? The Word of God. And if we don't
have His Word, then we are going to be fearful, we're going to
be uncertain, we're not going to know what's going to happen,
because we haven't put our trust in what God said. And so how
do we know that God created the world? God said so. and he's given us the grace to
believe what he said. This is the way things are. Let
me read one more verse to you before I get to verse four. In
John chapter three, the gospel of John in chapter
three, I mentioned this last week too, it says, John the Baptist in verse 27,
He says this, a man can receive nothing except it be given him
from heaven. God's gotta decide to give it
to you. That's the way we have anything. Your breath, the next
beat of your heart, the thought of your mind, anything that you
do is God's present active thought actively given to you out of
his bounty. to live and breathe. You owe,
what you are is God's. You owe your life, your thoughts,
your submission, your respect, everything to God who made you. He says in verse 28, you yourselves
bear me witness. This is John the Baptist talking
to the Pharisees. You yourselves bear me witness
that I said I'm not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
He that hath a bride is the bridegroom. That's the Lord Jesus. The bride
is his people. But the friend of the bridegroom,
which standeth and heareth him, that would be John the Baptist,
rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy
therefore is fulfilled. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, must
increase. It's going to happen. But I must
decrease. He that cometh from above is
above all. He that is of the earth is earthly,
and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all. But what he has seen and heard,
that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. Listen,
this is the verse I wanted to get to. He that has received
his testimony has set to his seal that God is true. That's
what faith is. We have received the word of
Christ as the truth, and now we have set it to our seal, God
is true. He's the one who speaks true.
He has spoken concerning his son, and this is what is the
way things are. Now, in verse four, Hebrews 11,
verse four, we're gonna start with this man, Abel. It says, by faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Cain was Abel's brother. By faith Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which, by the sacrifice,
he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of
his gifts. and by it, he being dead, yet
speaketh." All right, now turn to Genesis chapter 4. I want you to follow along here.
In order to understand Genesis 4, we have to actually go back
a little bit to get the context. In Genesis chapter 4, I'll read
just the first four verses, or actually five verses. He says, Genesis 4 verse 1, and Adam knew
Eve, his wife. And she conceived, and bare Cain,
and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. This is their
first child, a boy. And when Eve saw this boy, I
have acquired, I have received, I have gotten, God has given
me a son. from the Lord. That's true, isn't
it? And then it says in verse 2, and she again bare his brother
Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground. He was a farmer. So Abel
was a shepherd, Cain was a farmer. And in process of time, it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
to the Lord. I don't know what it was. Maybe
it was some flowers, some vegetables, some fruit, whatever it was,
he brought it. And Abel, he also brought of
the firstlings of his flock. and of the fat thereof. And the
Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain
and to his offering he had not respect." And Cain was very wroth
or full of wrath, and his countenance fell. He was very angry. Now
think about this. These are the first two children
ever born into this world. Cain was the first, Abel was
the second. What happened? Look back at chapter
three. Chapter three, if you were to
read this, you would find out that God had told Adam and Eve,
you can eat of every tree. Everything God has planted, you
can eat of every tree in the garden, except one. And that
tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You
cannot take of that tree. The devil came. The devil had
one purpose, to destroy the human race. And so, he said, and of
course, to usurp God's authority over them and to make himself
God over them. So he came and he deceived Eve.
That was the way. He didn't come to Adam. He went
to the wife and he tempted her. First question, you sure God
said? You see, he attacked the very foundations, God's word,
the way faith comes to us. And he said, are you sure God
said? He said in chapter three, Verse one, the serpent was more
subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had
made. He was crafty. And he said to the woman, yea,
has God said? He goes on, you shall not eat
of every tree of the garden? First he questioned, has God
even spoken? And second, is this truly what he said? You see,
it's always about that. It's always about what God said.
The object of our faith, what God said. Is that really true? You sure? I don't know, I've
been thinking about the way the world works. That doesn't seem
to be true to me. And the woman said to the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. That is
true. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither
shall you touch it lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman,
there's a flat contradiction. You shall not surely die. So now this shifted her focus
away from the truth that she was not to eat of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil to think that maybe if she did
she could get away with it and that she wouldn't really die.
She began to put her confidence in what the devil was saying
rather than what God had said. This is unbelief. Trusting in
her own reasoning. Trusting the word of another,
the devil. the one who came as an angel
of light. So you know what happened. And in verse five, for God does
know that in the day you eat thereof, this is the devil talking,
then your eyes shall be open, you shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. He's tempting her. You're gonna
know more. You're gonna understand good and evil, the difference
between them. Is that what God had told him to do? You needed
no good and evil? No. If God didn't give it to
you, do you need it? No. In fact, it's not good if
God didn't give it to you. Don't covet. Don't desire things
God hasn't given to you. Be content with what you have.
So he goes on, when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, at least she thought that that was true, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to
her husband with her, and he did eat. So the devil got at
the man through the woman. First he's gonna make the woman
fall, then he's gonna make Adam fall because of his love for
his wife. He would not leave her apart
from him. He had to have her. In his heart,
he had to have her. He could find no other way, so
he himself joined her in the transgression. He did it with
full knowledge, and we were there when he did it. We did it in
him. He was our federal head. as the
word goes. In other words, what he did was
counted as our action, our sin. God charged us with it. We died
when he died. This is the testimony later in
Scripture. In verse 7, the eyes of them
both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they
sewed fig leaves together, and they made themselves aprons.
What are the aprons for? to cover themselves. They were
naked. Now they were ashamed of that.
So what did they try to do? They tried to find a way to hide
their nakedness. What made them naked? Well, they
were naked before, but now they were spiritually. Their mind
was raw with the accusation of their sin in God's sight, and
they couldn't find a way to hide from it. Their mind, their own
mind made them feel, their conscience exposed before God in judgment
and condemnation. They were exposed and without
a covering, so they tried to cover themselves. And then they
heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden because that's what sin does, we hide. What will bring us out of that? The forgiveness of sins in Christ,
a covering. Verse 9, And the Lord God called
to Adam and said, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid
myself. That was true. And he said, the
Lord did. Who told you that you were naked?
Hast thou eaten of the tree, which I commended thee, that
thou shouldst not eat? Of course God knew the answer
to the question. He's getting Adam to confess,
isn't he? And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to me,
she gave me in the tree, and I did eat. Put the blame, shift
the blame, it's her fault. I mean, after all, it's your
fault, because you created her, the woman whom thou gavest to
me. This is what we do in our sinful deception of our own hearts.
We accuse God as being wrong in our sin. It shows the depth
of our twisted depravity, doesn't it? The God who made us somehow
is at fault. for our sin against him. Notice
how patiently and unswervingly the Lord speaks. And the Lord said to the woman,
what is this that thou hast done? And the woman now, she confesses,
the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. That's also true. It doesn't mean you're not without
fault. Verse 14. And the Lord God said
to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed. Above all cattle, above every
feast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity
between thee, the serpent, the devil, and the woman, and between
thy seed, the devil's seed, and her seed. The woman's seed shall
bruise thy head, and thou, the devil's seed, shall bruise his
heel. That's what verse 15, it's a
promise of God of what? The woman's seed would destroy
the devil. That's what he's saying here
in Promise. And what this is referring to is that Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, who would be born of a woman, would come into
this world and in His life In fact, by his death on the cross,
which would be the bruising of his heel, he would actually destroy
the devil, just like David did with the stone when he slung
it and it hit Goliath. It sunk into his forehead and
then he took Goliath's own sword and chopped his head off and
held it up. in triumph. The Lord Jesus Christ
did that when He hung on the cross. In His death, He put to
death the devil and all his works for His people. Now, go on. This is the promise. It was fulfilled.
I'm telling you in as simple words as I can what that promise
had to do with Christ and Him crucified. Let's go on. God pronounces
cursing and now, and look at verse 20, and Adam called his
wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Verse
21, and unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God made
coats of skins and clothed them. They were naked, remember? What
had they used? Fig leaves. Did it actually do
the job? No. Why? Because something was
needed more than just a plant. Blood had to be shed. What was
the first sacrifice ever made in this world in time? Right
here, verse 21, the Lord God made coats of skins and clothed
them. How? By the shedding of blood. Where did those skins come from?
They came from an animal. Who killed the animal? God did. Why? To cover the nakedness of
Adam and Eve. Why did God do that? Why did
God kill an animal and take the skins of that animal and cover
the nakedness of Adam and Eve? Because in his sight, they were
exposed in their uncleanness and in their sin, and only one
thing could cover them. That covering. that sinners can
stand before God and be clothed in, is the shed blood and righteousness
of Jesus Christ. And that's what the slaying,
the killing of this animal represented. It pointed to the obedience of
the Lord Jesus Christ in laying His life down, bearing our sins
as His own, in His own body, under the curse of God that should
have come on us for our sins. and then God taking that obedience
of his and imputing it to us, accounting it to us as our covering
and our cleansing of all our sins. That's what this pointed
to. You see, now when we get to chapter
four, this was in the mind of Cain and of Abel. And Cain went
out and he worked in the ground. But God had cursed the ground
because of man's sin. The ground would no longer yield
its fruit. And so the harder he worked,
the more sweat that dripped from his body in that labor, the more
difficult it was to get that fruit. But somehow Cain had persisted
and he had reaped the benefit of his labor. God had given the
increase and so he took, Cain took some of the results of his
own labor, which were again, the labor was also given a blessing
from God so that it produced this fruit. And he brought that
to God. The ground was cursed, and yet
somehow he worked in the cursed ground by the sweat of his brow,
and he brought forth an offering to the Lord. And he brought it. I know that he must have spent
hours, days, who knows how long, laboring and toiling and frustrated,
and yet he brought this fruit, and it must have been great.
Beautiful fruit. And God did not respect Cain. He did not respect his offering. And that ticked Cain off. He was mad because God would
not respect him. I have labored. I did my best. God even, he helped me. Look, he produced this fruit.
I'm simply bringing to you, Lord, what I labored to do. He expected
something from God and God didn't give what he expected. He was
entitled to some respect from God, he thought. Nope. No respect. God did not respect Cain. He did not. He's the firstborn,
the best that Adam and Eve could produce. But he labored in the
corrupt, cursed ground out of his own heart. to bring something
God could accept, and God, in His holiness, in His righteousness,
cannot accept anything from a sinner. Nothing from a sinner. In fact,
the only thing God can accept is what God does for the sinner. What God requires, God must provide,
and what He requires is blood Somebody has to die. In the day
you eat, you shall surely die. God's word will not fail. Someone
is going to die. And so what happened? Abel, understanding
what Adam, his father, had taught him, the only way that you can
stand before God clothed and accepted is if God provides the
sacrifice. If God himself clothes us and
covers and hides that very sin by which we rebelled against
Him from our heart out of our corrupt nature. God has to do
something and so that something was the shedding of the blood
of the Lamb. He understood the promise Who
was going to destroy the works of the devil? It was the seed
of the woman. Therefore, whose righteousness,
whose obedience unto death would God accept? The Lamb of God,
the Son of God in our nature. And according to what God had
already done in slaying that animal, Abel takes one of his
lambs from his flock, and he takes the best of his flock,
the firstling, the one without spot, and he offers it to God
with the whole thing, even the fat of it. And it says here in
verse four, Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and the
fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his
offering. He respected Abel. How could
God respect a sinner? because he respected the offering. Again, Hebrews 11, 4, By faith
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
by the which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts. and by it he being dead yet speaketh."
His faith, Abel's faith, was in the sacrifice, that God would
accept the sacrifice. God looked upon the sacrifice,
an excellent sacrifice. It's what God required. It's
what God provided. It's what God accepted. It pointed to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's what it was meant
until the Lord came. Jesus came into this world throughout
the ages of history prior to his coming. God required that
sacrifice. Everything pointed to him, to
Christ. And to come to God in any other
way, but looking to Christ through that sacrifice in those days,
the man was rejected. But if you came as a sinner,
because that's why Adam and Eve needed clothing, because they
had sinned. If you came as a sinner without hope, condemned and corrupt,
and knowing that God had required this, why? It seemed good to
him. He delivered up his son. In Romans
chapter four and verse 25, it says it this way. Romans chapter 4 verse 25, who
was delivered, Christ, for our offenses. God is the one who
delivered him. In Romans 8 32 it says that the
one who delivered up his son for us, the Father, God the Father
delivered up his son for us. He was delivered for our offenses,
delivered up to what? To the curse, to the judgment,
what we deserve. He took our sins, God delivered
him up to the curse, and God was satisfied. What's the one
issue? What is the one thing by which
God accepted Abel? The offering, the excellent sacrifice. What's the one thing by which
God accepts a sinner? What's the only issue here? Did God receive Christ crucified,
raised again, and so receive me with him? That's it, isn't
it? And so Abel came to God looking
only to Christ. All of his expectation for acceptance
with God was what God thought of Christ. And the animal simply
represented that when he offered that lamb He admitted he was
a sinner, otherwise blood would not have been shed. Someone had
to die. But if Abel would have endured
the curse himself, There's no way he could come to God. He
would have been isolated and separated for eternity. Someone
else had to stand in his place. And that's what God did when
he offered, when he killed that animal and clothed Adam and Eve,
he covered them with the skins of a substitute. So Abel brought
the substitute. He looked to the substitute.
It was all about what God thought of the substitute. Did God accept
Abel because of what Abel thought of the substitute? Or did God
accept Abel because of what he thought of the substitute, and
then therefore God gave to Abel a view of what he thought of
the substitute? We're not saved because of our
faith. God doesn't look on our faith
and save us because we believe. He looks upon Christ and gives
us faith so that we might see what is already done. And we
might rest upon it in faith. We might receive to ourselves
the peace and joy of what God has done. And so give God the
glory. Ascribe to the Lord greatness
because of what He's done. And this is what faith is. Faith
doesn't make happen what God promised God makes it happen,
but faith is persuaded that whatever God said is the way things are,
and especially, most particularly, because this is what all of the
scripture is directing us to, when it comes to our salvation,
that's the matter where we need to believe what God has said
concerning His Son. Because Abel was justified. God said he was righteous because
of the sacrifice. And remember, the sacrifice was
the clothing. And the clothing is the righteousness
of God. Look at Isaiah chapter 61. It's
the righteousness given to us to clothe us as God gave this
to Adam and Eve. Isaiah 61. We're familiar with
this, but we're going to connect it now. Isaiah 61, this is God's
word. Through hearing God's word, we're
given faith, and this is the object of our faith, Christ and
Him crucified as our covering, the way we come to God, our access,
our acceptance. Isaiah 61, verse 10, I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord, Jehovah. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for, here's why, he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation. He has covered me. with the robe
of righteousness. As a bridegroom decketh himself
with ornaments, this is a beautiful robe, and a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels, this is the same beauty Christ appears in.
The same beauty in which He appears before God, we appear. For as
the earth brings forth her bud, and as the garden causes the
things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord will
cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations. Now, I want you to consider this
last thing here with me. That's the faith. The warrant
of faith is God took the life of the lamb. God used the skins
of that lamb to clothe the sinner. And Abel came to God on the basis
of that. Now, I want you to consider this,
it says this, look at Hebrews chapter 12, a jump ahead of chapter
in Hebrews, in verse 24. We're not come to Sinai, not
to the law. We're not come to that covenant
that requires our personal obedience for God's blessings to be given. We're come to another one, listen
to this, verse 22. You're come to Mount Zion, to
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, that's the
church, to an innumerable company of angels, the elect angels,
to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, not just Jews,
but also the Gentiles, all in Christ, the Firstborn, we're
called the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, God put our
names there before the foundation of the world, and to God, the
judge of all, we come to the judge of all, And here's the
way we come, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to
Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and listen to this,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than
that of Abel. What happened when God accepted
Abel and rejected Cain? Well, it says, let me go back
and read it to you just briefly here, in Genesis chapter four,
This is the most instructive word here, Genesis 4, look carefully. He says, in verse nine, verse nine of Genesis
4, and the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, thy brother? Of
course, Cain had just killed him. And Cain said, I know not. A bald-faced lie. Am I my brother's
keeper? Yes, you are, actually. Verse
10, and he said, the Lord said to Cain, what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood
crieth unto me from the ground. That's interesting. Have you
ever thought about that? The blood cried to God. What did the blood say? Well,
the blood of Abel cried for vengeance, didn't it? The blood of Abel
cried out to God to take vengeance for his blood upon the one who
murdered him, didn't it? That's what his blood cried for,
and so God cursed Cain. He sent him out from his presence,
remember? Let's take a look at it here.
He says, verse 11, Because the blood of Abel, your brother cries
to me, now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her
mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou
tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee
her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt
thou be in the earth." You're going to be wandering around
and men are going to hunt you down and you're not going to
be able to get anything from the earth. That's where your
blood, the blood of your brother is. And Cain of course said to
the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Obviously, the
Lord's punishment is greater than we can bear, but we're going
to bear it, unless someone bears it for us. The blood of Abel cried, because
the blood cries to God. Now, Abel's blood cried from
the ground for vengeance, that God would satisfy his justice
against his murderer. But in Hebrews 12, 24, it says,
we're come to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than
that of Abel. What was it? What does the blood
of Christ speak? Well, the blood of Christ cries
not from the ground, but in heaven. It cries to God, not to take
vengeance on the murderer, but to justify the guilty. because
of the righteousness of the one whose obedience shed his blood
for the murderer." Now that's better, isn't it? The Abel's blood cried for vengeance
against Cain, but Christ's blood cries to God to justify his murderers. That's unbelievable, isn't it?
That is absolutely unbelievable. Jesus cried as they were nailing
him to the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do. He bore their sins for whom he
prayed. He didn't pray for the world,
but for those the Lord had given to him. He was wounded for our
transgressions. He was stricken for my people.
That's what the Lord says in Isaiah 53, verse 8. Abel's blood
cried for vengeance. It cried to God to uphold his
justice against the murderer, but Christ cried that God would
uphold his justice against his murderers by accepting his blood
for them for whom his blood was shed. Christ's blood cries for
forgiveness that the glory of God's grace might be made known.
Abel's blood, make known your vengeance, your justice against
my murderer. Christ's blood, make known your
grace to my murderers through my blood shed for them. Abel
was an unwilling victim. Christ willingly gave himself
into the hands of his murderers by the will of God. In Acts 2, verse 23, it says,
him being delivered by the determinate counsel and for knowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
And then he goes on to say, and yet it's by his blood we're justified,
all who believe on him. We could go on, Abel's blood
called for payback, Christ's blood paid the ransom back to
God. for the sins of his people. Abel's
blood condemned the guilty. Christ's blood justified the
ungodly. Abel's blood called for judgment
from the ground. Christ's blood calls for forgiveness
and justification in the very presence of God. Abel's blood
would not let the guilty go free. Christ's blood is redeeming.
It sets the guilty free because of his righteousness. Abel's
blood banished the guilty from the presence of the Lord, sending
Cain away. But Christ's blood reconciled
us to God and establishes our peace with Him. Abel's blood
highlighted the offense of Cain's sin against God and his brother. But Christ's blood highlighted
the act of God to reconcile the guilty sinner by the death of
his own son. Isn't that amazing? And I want you to consider one
more, we could just go on and on here, but Abel's blood called
to God to banish Cain forever from his presence. But you know
what Christ's blood calls for? Not only to reconcile us to God,
not only to remove his wrath and establish peace with us,
but to make us his sons. The one who was God's only son
was born of a woman as man and bore our sins under the curse
of the law, he was made under the law, in order that we might
be redeemed from the law so that the spirit of God's own son might
be given to us that we might say this, my father, my father,
God against whom I sin, in all my shame and helpless nakedness,
has clothed me with the blood and righteousness of his Son,
and he sees me as holy as his Son, for what his Son did, and
all by his grace, and he makes me his Son, able by faith, offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. By the witch, he obtained
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. And by that faith, he yet speaks. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
you would give us this grace as Abel had to believe Christ.
Help us to see that it was you yourself who ordained before
the world began to offer up your only begotten son. You knew what
we would do. You knew what we would be. And
so, even before we were born, before the world began, you preordained
and predestined your own son to bear the sins of your people
as his sins, to take away the promised curse in his death,
that the soul that sinneth, it shall die when he died. And so,
put death to death and bruise the head and destroy the works
of the devil in His own death, and He was raised again for our
justification. Lord, we pray that You would
give us this grace, direct our hearts in faith in Your Word
concerning Your Son, that You accept us in consideration of
Him alone, and help us to consider none but Him, and come to You
by Him, not staying away, but coming, and and seeking you,
asking you from your word to reveal yourself to us and give
us this faith. In Christ's name we pray, amen.