Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1,
wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the
sin which doth so easily beset, and let us run with patience
the race that is set, the race that is fixed, the race that
is ordained before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him, set, fixed, appointed before him, endured the cross, despising
the shame, and there's the third usage of that word, set, is set,
fixed. He's appointed to sit down at
the right hand of the throne of God. Let's see God's face again. Look upon this group of people
with mercy. We read in your word, you're
plenteous in redemption. It is to your glory that you
save unworthy sinners like ourselves. And Lord, by your spirit, you're
pleased to dwell with us. And as we gather together this
evening in this building, we ask that your Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of our Lord Jesus, would be with us and bless as we gather
together. Oh, how we would long to praise
you tonight, to give unto you the glory that is your due. And Lord, to thank you, to thank
you for the gift of that one who is your darling son, that
one who is ever with you, that one you sent into this world
to save your people from their sins by his obedience unto death,
even the death of the cross of Calvary. We thank you, Father,
for the joyful message of redemption accomplished, for the delightful
truth of salvation finished, for that glorious, glorious gospel
truth of righteousness brought in and established for every
sinner in whose stead Christ Jesus suffered, bled, and died.
And this one who is our great Savior, who laid down His life, He took
it again. And He ascended back to glory,
to a set throne. And there He sits. He sits as the reigning sovereign
He sets as the friend of sinners. He sets as our mediator, as our
go-between, Father, between us and You. Our souls make our boast in Christ
Jesus. We long to know more of Him,
to love Him more, to bless Him more, And, O Father, it will
be the very glory of heaven to be with our Savior, to see Him
face to face. Give us a precious time of worship
this evening. May your Spirit take the Word
of God and make our hearts joyful in Christ. Lord, increase our
faith increase our hope, increase our
love, and increase our anticipation
of the coming of the Lord Jesus. These things we ask in His name
and for His sake. Amen. My subject this evening is taken
from a statement there in Hebrews chapter 12 in verse 1, so great
a cloud of witnesses. That's the name of my message,
so great a cloud of witnesses. Let me try to answer a couple
of questions. We'll try to get right into the
message here. Question number one, who are
these people referred to as a great cloud of witnesses? Well, they're
the people of chapter 11. They're the people who are listed
as folks who believe God. Somebody called chapter 11 of
Hebrews the hall of faith. not the Hall of Fame, but the
Hall of Faith. And yet, not only these who are
called by name, but many others whose names aren't listed here,
but whose names are listed in the Lamb's Book of Life, written
in that book before the world ever began. They are appointed
to be heirs of God and join heirs of Jesus Christ in the eternal
purpose of God. These also are the children of
God. They are not known to us, not
like Abel is known to us, or Enoch, or Noah, these men who
are more well-known, like Abraham and Isaac, who we've been studying
about on Wednesday night, but men and women that we don't know
anything about, except that they were given the gift of faith
to believe God. And one day when we get to heaven's
glory, I'm fully persuaded we'll know all the people of God. It's
our family. They're our brothers and sisters
in the Lord Jesus. And together, as our Lord said,
we shall sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob and all the other saints of God. and we will worship our
Savior forever and ever. Indeed, several of the saints
of God are mentioned in chapter 11. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and though their names aren't mentioned,
the parents of Moses, Amram, and Jochebed, Moses, and of course
the Lord's remnant within the nation of Israel, who through
faith kept the Passover, who through faith went through the
Red Sea on dry ground, who by faith marched around the walls
of Jericho. There's Rahab, She's identified
as the Harlot, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David,
Samuel, all the prophets of God. And these who are also mentioned,
though not by name, who subdued kingdoms. Look at verse 33 of
chapter 11. who through faith subdued kingdoms,
wrought righteousness, obtained promises. They stopped the mouths
of lions like Daniel. They quenched the violence of
fire. They escaped the edge of the
sword. Out of weakness they were made strong. They waxed valiant
in fight. They turned to flight, the armies
of the aliens. Women received their dead raised
to life again, like that widow of Sarepta, to whom Elijah appeared
and Elijah said, fix me something to eat. She said, well, I'm about
to run out of meal, but I'll fix you something. And she fixed
him something. And she had food. the rest of
the days of her life. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. If you'll deny the Lord, we'll
let you go, the authorities would say to them. They said, you can't
deny the Lord. They wouldn't accept deliverance.
They had a greater deliverance than man could ever give them.
They had the deliverance of their souls from their own sinfulness
through the faithful obedience of the Lord Jesus. They did it
that they might obtain a better resurrection. Verse 36, others,
well, they had a trial of cruel mockings, scourgings, yea, moreover,
of bonds and imprisonment. A lot of them were stoned. They
were sawn asunder like Isaiah. They were tempted. They were
killed with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, destitute. afflicted, they were tormented by this world. But he says in verse 38, this
world wasn't worthy of them. Many of them wandered in deserts,
in the mountains, in the dens and in the caves of the earth. But they had this same characteristic
They believed God. Oh, they had difficult times
in this world. They had trials just like all
men have. Many of them had to go through
diseases like all mankind has to face, sicknesses and that
sort of thing. I woke up early. I usually do. Woke up early the other morning.
Yesterday morning, I turned on the television and I saw this
guy preaching. Seemed to be preaching with great
authority, it would appear. And he's preaching a health and
wealth salvation. And he said, if you'll give $58,
that's all I'm asking, $58, God will multiply a thousand
fold. These people who were destitute
in this portion of Scripture, they didn't know a thing about
that kind of stuff. God's people who are sick, they
still believe God. Many of them He's not pleased
to heal. There in John chapter 5, that
man who was lame for 38 years, he was one of a multitude of
people who were waiting for the troubling of the water. They all of them had this in
common. They had some ailment for which
they wanted to be healed. If you had asked them, how many
of you want to be healed, they'd look at you like you were absolutely
crazy. Because that answer, we wouldn't
be here if we didn't want to be healed. And our Lord Jesus
passed by. He healed one man. That's the
sovereignty of His grace and of His power. One man, out of
all, they all would have loved to have been healed of all their
afflictions. Well, what man doesn't? What
woman doesn't want to be healed of their aches and pains? I was
talking to a fellow the other day, and he said, my arthritis
is just awful. Well, I know a man who would
love to be healed of arthritis and any other itis that he might
happen to have. But that man there at the pool
of Bethesda, he's the only one Christ healed. And there may have been some
of the people of God there. I don't know. Nobody knows. He is pleased every once in a
while to heal somebody. We pray for them. Lord, if it's
your will, heal them. If it's your will. but even faith, faith in the
Lord Jesus, faith and confidence in our God. That doesn't mean
He's going to heal us. The fact of the matter is we
must grow weak and we must die. That's just the way it is. That's
what sin has done to us. God says, My strength is made
perfect in your weakness. I'll give you grace to stand.
I'll give you grace to believe Me. Even when your body is wracked
with pain. He will say, the writer will
say to these people in the book of Hebrews here, to these Hebrew
professing believers, He's gonna say to them, look down at chapter
12, verse four. He says, you haven't resisted
unto blood yet, striving against sin. You think you've got it hard?
Do we think we've got it rough? I don't see anybody in this nation
killing people over the gospel, do you? I don't see anybody being
tortured because they said, I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
see anybody tormented because, at least not yet, because they
say homosexuality, sodomy, is a horrible, ungodly thing. It may come to the day, the day
may come when we'll be, they'll try to put us out of business
for preaching the truth, but that day hadn't come. We ain't
suffered under blood yet. These people here in Hebrews
11, most of them, they knew something about tough times. We don't know
about tough times. God forgive our bickering. We
get so upset at the providence of God. What, you think that
you ought to have a flower-strewn pathway all the way to glory?
These folks didn't. Why should we be any different? God gave them faith, faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in the Heavenly Father.
He gifted them with the gift of believing God. Believing God
is a gift. We're not gonna brag on Abel.
We're not gonna brag on Enoch. We're not gonna brag on Noah
and Abraham and all the rest of these folks listed here because
the faith that they had, God gave it to them. And if you believe,
we're not gonna brag on you either. And if God brings you to Christ
Jesus, if He saves you by His grace and you come to me and
you say, Jim, I want you to baptize me because the Lord has saved
me. He's shown me I'm a sinner and I need the Savior and Christ
Jesus is the Savior that I believe. I'm not going to hug you and
say to you, well, congratulations, you finally made the right decision.
I'm gonna say, I love you, brother, sister. I thank God for what
he's doing for you. This is all the work of God. You see, the faith of these people
in Hebrews 11, their faith was a gift from God, just like our
faith is. Not all men have faith. Not all men are gonna be made
well. Not all men and women are gonna
be made wealthy, just a few. And that's in the purpose of
God. This guy, they preach about sowing the seed, sowing the seed. Expecting a harvest, a big harvest. Lazarus over there in the book
of Luke, who sat at the rich man's gate begging for something
to eat. He is a child of God, do you
know that? He believed the Lord Jesus. He didn't go to glory
because he is poor. He went to glory because Christ
died for him. He went to glory because of the
grace of God. He went to glory because God
wrote his name down in the Lamb's book of life before the world
began. And in Christ Jesus, his surety,
he was accepted in the beloved. That's why he went. But he is
poor. He didn't have two pennies to
rub together, much less two dimes. He was poor. But God gave him faith. That means he is rich toward
God. He had the riches of Christ Jesus. I tell you, this matter of believing
God, it's a gift, a gift that God has to give, and he doesn't
have to give it to any of us. It's just totally a gift. Nobody can create faith in the
Lord. You know, our children and our
grandchildren, we want to guard our children and hedge them about
as best we can. Certainly we do. Keeping them
from the influence of the world as much as possible. Teach them
the Word of God. Absolutely. but you can't educate
them into the kingdom of God. That's an impossibility. They've
got to be born of God and gifted with faith. There are some people I think,
who believe that, you know, if we do teach our children the
gospel and teach them the Word of God and maybe catechize them,
let them go through a catechism like Spurgeon's Catechism or
some other good catechism, that they'll then be more likely to
believe. That's not true. That's not true at all. And if you're not careful, people
who believe that way, they're going to raise little Pharisees.
That's exactly what they're going to do. The best thing that can
happen to our children and our grandchildren, and I love my
children, I love my grandchildren, but the best thing that can happen
to them is that God show them they're a sinner and they need
a Savior. And I say, whatever it takes
to bring that to pass, though it may bring grief to my heart,
and though it might hurt real bad, that's the best thing that
can happen. God saved Rahab. She was a harlot. Well, you don't
want you. offspring, your grandchildren,
you don't want your daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters
to go down that road, do you? Well, certainly not. But, if
God in His infinite wisdom has determined that's how they're
going to find out their center. And let me just kind of hitch
up my breeches and deal with it. And accept it. If God would teach our children,
our grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, that they're sinners and they're
ungodly before a holy God, they've got to have a Savior. They've
got to have a perfect righteousness. And they can't get it anywhere
else unless God gives it to them. It's the work of God. It's the
work of God. You can't educate a child into
the kingdom of God. Not one of your grandchildren
either. See, these people of chapter 11, they lived as other
men lived. They lived in sin by nature. They enjoyed the pleasures of
sin, but God crossed their paths with the gospel. Like he did Rahab. She found out about the God of
Israel. Yeah, she sure did. She believed that God. I've heard
your God, she told those spies, your God delivered his people. I want him to deliver me. I'm
going to put this red cord out. Blood of Christ Jesus. God saved her. God saved her. We've got to find out we need
Him. And all of these people did. In Luke chapter 15, you've got
100 sheep, 99 of them were self-righteous Pharisees. One was lost. The
Lord went out and found the lost one. He left them other fellows
in the wilderness. Dry, barren wilderness. A woman
had ten coins, lost one of them. She goes searching. She gets
the searchlight. Spirit of God searching for that
one lost coin. And just like the shepherd who
found the one lost sheep, rejoice with me. Half the sheep is lost. He didn't know which way to go.
That poor sheep is as dumb as a dumb sheep. That's one characteristic
that all of God's sheep have by nature. We're dumb sheep. And He comes and finds us. And
we're like that coin. We fall into the dust and the
dirt and the filth. We don't even know it. Because
we're dead in trespasses and sins. And that man had two sons. One of them was a prodigal son.
The other one was a self-righteous religionist. He pictured the
Pharisees. See, those 99 sheep, they pictured
the Pharisees. Those 9 coins, pictured the Pharisees. That older son who got upset
when the father threw a party, threw a celebration for the prodigal
who came back home, That older son pictured the Pharisees. He didn't rejoice. He didn't
rejoice. That prodigal was wasteful, reckless,
unrestrained, wayward, sinful. He demanded his inheritance and
then he wasted all of it. The other son stayed with his
dad. He's a good boy. He's good and he knew it. Didn't
mind telling anybody about how good he was. I didn't leave home. I didn't demand my inheritance.
I behaved myself. Yeah, you are self-righteous
Pharisees, what you are. Ain't no mercy for you. And here's
this poor prodigal, wasted his money on riotous living, and
the Spirit of God caused him to come to himself. I'm going
home. I'm going home. I'm going home to the Father.
It's like a sinner. The Spirit of God wakes him up.
I'm going home. I'm going home to God through
Christ. And that poor prodigal memorized a speech of repentance. And when he was yet a long ways
off, the Father saw him, and the Father got up and ran to
him and hugged him. That's God the Father and His
infinite, sovereign, effectual love and grace. And He embraced
him. And He kissed him. And He said,
I'm going to put a ring on your finger. The ring of sonship.
I'm going to put shoes on your feet. and I'm going to put a robe on
you. That's the righteousness of Christ. Well, what happened to the prodigal?
He found out he's a sinner. He found out the hard way, and
I tell you, most of us, we learn lessons the hard way, don't we? Experience is the best teacher. I say, whatever it takes to show
you that you're a sinner, Well, that's what I pray that God will
bring to pass. And then he'll gift you with
faith. With faith. These people in Hebrews 11, they're
examples to us. They're examples of faith. There are examples for us to
study and examples for us to follow. I know sometimes we say, I'm
not going to follow any man, I'm only following the Lord.
You know what the Apostle Paul said? Follow me as I follow Christ. That's what he said. And I'm going to be a little
bold here, but I'm going to say to you, follow me as I follow
Christ. And if I stop following Christ,
don't follow me anymore. I want to follow the example
of these people. What do we know about these people?
They believe God. That's as simple as you can get.
Their life is summarized with one word. Faith. Faith. They believed the Savior who
hadn't come. And they were saved. How are
we saved? We believe the Savior who has
come. We're saved. They were justified
by imputed righteousness that the Lord Jesus would work out
when He came into this world and suffered unto death. We're
justified by imputed righteousness too. Same way that's saved. See, here's the problem I've
got if you happen to have a Scofield reference Bible. And I grew up in a denomination
that insisted you have a Scofield reference Bible if you don't
have one. And I heard my preacher say this a lot, sell your boots
and buy you one. Because it was full of dispensationalism,
but in the book of John, chapter one, I think it is, in his notes,
he says, in the Old Testament, people were saved by legal obedience. Whereas in the New Testament,
people are saved by grace. I've got news for that fella.
People in the Old Testament, they're saved by the same grace
Alan was saved by. Ain't that right? Same grace.
They weren't saved on a legal basis. By the deeds of the law,
there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. That's what the
scripture says. They were justified and perfected
by Christ, not by law. We're justified and perfected
by Christ, not by law. They were forgiven by the power
of the blood of the Savior. We're forgiven by the power of
the blood of the Savior. They weren't forgiven by the
power of the blood of animals. I quoted this morning out of
Hebrews chapter 10, the blood of bulls and goats can't put
away sin. They were accepted in the beloved,
just like we're accepted in the beloved. What's the difference? They had
the Savior in picture and in promise. We've got him in person. and in reality. That's the difference. They look toward the cross. We look back to the cross. But
we all of us look to the same Savior who died on that cross
to establish righteousness for His people. Look again at verse 40 of chapter
11. Verse 39, these all died having
obtained a good report through faith, but they received not
the promise. Oh, they believed the promise
of God concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus, but they didn't
live to see the fulfillment of it. But bless the name of God, there
were a few people who were alive when Christ was born, And they
believed Him. And I'm thinking of Simeon and
Anna, there in Luke chapter 2. Boy, old Simeon, he sure was
happy to see Him. He'd been looking for Him ever
since God regenerated his spiritually dead heart, looking for the Savior. And the Spirit of God just kind
of whispered into his heart, hey, you're not going to die.
until you see Him with your eyes. Joseph and Mary brought in the
Lord Jesus. And Simeon saw that baby, took
Him in his arms. He said, well Lord, I'm ready
to die now. I'm ready to die now. I've seen
God's Christ. And my friend, you're not ready
to die unless you've seen God's Christ. You don't want to die
apart from seeing God's Christ. He said, my eyes have seen thy
salvation. He didn't see a plan of salvation. He saw an infant. Isn't that
something? He saw an infant. and believe
God, this infant is gonna grow up. This is my savior. This is
Messiah. This is the son of God. This
is the one who's gonna redeem me. This is the one who's gonna
put away all my sins. Don't you know, he wept for joy. And Anna passed by and she said,
oh my, he's here. The Savior has come and she went
around and she talked about the coming of Christ to everybody
who was looking for redemption. But I don't read that they lived
to see Him die. Well, they did or not. But they
believed Him because God gifted them with faith. Well, these witnesses, seeing
we're encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
what do these witnesses do? That's the second question. In
what way do they witness to us? We now know who they are. All
these people in Hebrews, the people who believe God, in what
way do they witness I know the word witness can mean
spectator. That's one of the definitions
of it. But I believe that's a wrong interpretation of this passage
to say that we're encompassed about with so great a cloud of
spectators. Well, they're all watching us,
you know. You think so? All those folks who've died in
the Lord Jesus, they're keeping a lookout. upon us. They're watching our lives. You
don't want to disappoint them, do you? Let me tell you something. They're not looking at you. They're
not eyewitnesses of us. They're not spectators of what
we're doing. The former things are passed
away, is what the scripture says. They have eyes for the Lord Jesus. That's who they're looking at.
They're gazing on Him. No, they're not interested in
looking at us. That's just not the way it is. Well, then, in what way do they witness to
us? They witness to us. Listen, folks,
this is what they witness to us. God is faithful. That's what
they tell us. God is faithful. They witnessed to us of the sufficiency
of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. They witnessed to us
of the keeping power of God. They witnessed to us of the continual
work of the Holy Spirit within, causing us to look into Jesus
the author and the finish of our faith. They're witnesses of the faithfulness
of God to keep us from falling. That's what they witness to us.
That's what they tell us. If we had ears to hear the testimony
of all of these saints of God over here in Hebrews chapter
11, if our ears were tuned to their
testimony, they'd be saying this, believe God and rest easy. You don't have anything to worry
about. He'll see you through. Abel will tell you, here's what
I want to witness about the sufficiency of the Lamb and His blood of
sacrifice. That's what Abel witnesses to
us of. Noah. Well, before that, Enoch. Enoch witnesses it to us. What
does Enoch witness to us? What's his testimony? You're
not going to die. Enoch didn't die. Are you a believer? You're not going to die either.
Your body's going to fall asleep. That's what it's called. Them
that sleep in Jesus. How does Noah, or in what way
does Noah witness to us? He tells us, there's an ark of
safety for poor sinners. Christ the Lord. And he tells us, Noah testifies,
he witnesses to us and he says, listen, just like I was in that
ark when the storm of God's judgment fell on this world, I was in
my Savior when the wrath of God poured out on Him. I was in Him.
I was in Him! Never touched me, Noah said.
Didn't get a drop of water on me. because there's no judgment
to them who are in Christ Jesus. Abraham, in what way does Abraham
witness to us? He'll tell us, God's grace is
effectual. Abraham could say to us, here's
my testimony. I live in an earth of Chaldees.
What a place of idolatry. And I was quite satisfied worshiping
them false idols. And the God of glory, The God
of glory pulled me out of that mess. He pulled me out of false
religion. That's my testimony. That's what
I would witness to you tonight. God pulled me out of false religion.
That's the testimony of several people here. And really, all
of God's people have that same testimony. God pulled us out
of false religion because by nature we believe if I do good
for God, God will do something good for me. That's false religion. God is gracious to us sovereignly
and effectually through Christ our Savior. And I just go right
on down the list here. They all testify of the goodness
of God and the grace of God. They're witnesses of the faithfulness
of our Lord. Every last one of them. Thank God for the gift of faith. I do believe that doubt, I believe
that unbelief is the sin that so easily besets us. That's common to all of God's
people. That's another thing we've all
got in common. Unbelief. Lord, forgive us. But you know what the Word of
God says? If we believe not, He abideth faithful. Isn't that wonderful? He'll never
break a promise to you. He never will. He'll never say
something and then go back on His Word. You can believe God. Oh, to believe Him more. And thank Him if you believe
Him at all. Because the natural man, he doesn't
have faith. And you didn't have faith until
God gifted you with faith. He had to give it to you. And
having given it to you, He gave you the ability to exercise it. The Lord caused our faith to
grow and mature. I don't like doubting Him, do
you? I don't like that. I don't like unbelief. It's a
burden to my heart, my own spells of unbelief, seasons of doubt.
I just hate that. Lord, increase our faith. And
I like that fellow in the New Testament who said, Lord, I believe.
Help, help thou mine unbelief. It gets me so often. It does. Well, let's pray. Father, thank
You for the Gospel, the good news of salvation in the Lord
Jesus, the good news that The names of your people are
written down in your Lamb's Book of Life. We're secure in Christ. You gave us to Him before the
world began. He is our eternal surety. He's our everlasting Savior.
He's the shepherd of your sheep who came and redeemed us. And
by His Spirit, He seeks us and finds us at the appointed hour.
and brings us to faith in himself. Lord, we know salvation's of
the Lord, has to be, can't be of us. And we know that faith
is a wonderful gift. And we ask, oh God, enable us
to believe you more fully. And forgive us for our doubts
and fears. Forgive us for those seasons
that we go through and we forget your promises. Those times when, like Jacob,
we just say, all of these things are against me. That's what he
said. We're well-named the sons of
Jacob. But everything wasn't against
Jacob. All things were working together
for the good of Jacob. And all things are working together
for the good of all the sons of Jacob too. Help us to believe
and forgive our doubts and fears. And we're thankful that though
we believe not, Father, you're always faithful to your word. Oh, how we bless your name. how
we thank You for never forsaking us, for never leaving us to ourselves. And it shall be our joy through
the eternal ages to praise Your Son, the Lamb of God, who took
away our sins, who washed us in His own blood, and robes us
in His righteousness. We bless you, Father, and ask
that you'll take these things and help us weary pilgrims as
we continue to make our way through this world. For Jesus' sake,
I ask these things. Amen.