Hebrews chapter 11. I'm just
going to read a few of these verses we've already read through
this. It says, Now faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it
the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By
faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death, and was not found
because God had translated him. For before his translation he
had this testimony that he pleased God. 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. Now, Paul has moved from the tenth chapter
where he has been setting forth the superiority of the gospel
and the work of Christ to the Mosaic law and to the actual
faith which the Jews claim to hold on to. Of course, this book
is primarily written to Jews, and it is set forth that he would
show Christ as being the sum total and the substance of that
which is acceptable to God. And he closed out the tenth chapter
with this verse, but we are not of them who draw back into perdition,
but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. And he had
set forth just before this a scenario, he said, that if you sin willfully
after you have received the knowledge of the truth, then there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sin. So that if a man turns away from
that which he has set forth as the substance of the gospel,
then he does not have anything left to hold on to. And so he
goes through a scenario that we might consider a hypothetical
one. He said, you know, if a man turns
aside, and in comparison to how men were treated under the law
who disregarded the law, how much greater Should a man be
thought worthy of punishment, if he comes to the gospel, which
is the revelation of the truth of God, and he turns his back
on that, he is in worse shape than even those that despise
the law of Moses. But then he says this, and we
just read it, but we are not of them that draw back to perdition. come in trying to scare people
into believing. We are not trying to scare people
into keeping on believing. But what we are seeking to do
is to exhort the people of God to continue on in that which
they have professed. And we are not of them that draw
back. If we be in Christ, we are not
of them that draw back. We are not here today and gone
tomorrow. But if we be in Christ, He will
keep that which is His, and that's what He says. But we are not
of them, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul, because
faith is the substance of things hoped for. Now, faith is a persuasion. It's what a man is convinced
of. A man is persuaded of something. Now, how does a man get persuaded? He is either persuaded by men,
he is persuaded by himself, or he is persuaded by God. And there
are plenty of all types. You do not have to look far to
find people that are persuaded by men. You know, there are great
teachers that have gone out into the world and they have taught
their things, and there is not a false prophet on the face of
the earth that has not found the following. You understand
that? I mean, every false prophet has
a following. There's no question about it.
Every false prophet has a following. And it will be that way until
the time of the end. Some people are convinced by
other men. Some people are convinced of
themselves because they just decide, well, that's just what
I want to believe. That's what I'm persuaded of.
Now, most times it's because they have read things other people
said. But a lot of people, as Brother Al and Sister Sheila
have been sharing about some of their relatives, they make
this boast of decrying the writings of men, and yet they get their
ideas from having read books that other men have written. Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes,
there is nothing new under the sun. Do you realize that all
of the ideas that people have, have been around from the beginning?
Now, they take on different forms, obviously, but all of the ideas
as far as philosophical thoughts, nobody has come up with anything
new. David knew it. He said, the fool has said in
his heart there is no God. Basically, what he said was,
there is no God for me. That's not a new concept. I mean,
atheism didn't arise in the last century or something. There have
always been people that have come upon it. Would you say that
an atheist has faith? Sure he does. Atheists have faith. He's persuaded, is he not? He's
persuaded that he's right. Now, how did he get that way?
I don't know. I mean, I don't know how he got
that way. He got that way, he was probably
born that way. Maybe not, I don't know. Maybe
he read a book and some guy appealed to him. Well, that sounds good.
I run across people, you know, a lot of times kids that are
raised hearing the truth because of the natural rebellion that
is in them, they seek out things that go contrary to the things
they have been taught as a child because it is natural in people
as we grow up to think that our parents do not know anything.
I mean did you grow up thinking that your mom and daddy were
the smartest people on earth? No, you'd grow up thinking, well,
ain't they stupid? I mean, if they just would listen
to me, things would be better. And that's just the natural way
of the flesh. So sometimes kids, We'll go off
to college or whatever and they'll read some of these people, and
that sounds good, and because it's contrary to what they have
been taught, they think, man, I'm going to show them, you know,
I'm going to be smart, and I'm going to show them what the truth
is. And so they'll adopt these ideas of things that they don't
really believe in, that they're not really convinced of, but
they convince themselves that they're convinced of these things.
And of course, sometimes they are. But nonetheless, faith is
the persuasion. It's being convinced of something. And only God can convince a man
of the truth as it is in Christ. A man can't come up with that
on his own. Now, he can learn some things
about The Bible, and he can say some things, but you see, to
become convinced of these things, that is so that it is that which
is the substance. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. That is the very foundation. It is the woven in there. It's the basis, the foundation
upon which these things stand of things hoped for. That is,
things that we can't see. Now, who can prove that God exists to a man that's persuaded that
He doesn't? You can't. You can't convince
a man that the Bible is the Word of God. You can't do it. I mean, you can come up with
some good arguments and there's plenty of logical reasons why
we can come up with believing that the Bible is the Word of
God, but when it all settles out, that's not the reason why
we believe that. Why? Because it says here, it's
the evidence of things not seen. For if the things that a man
sees, why does he yet hope for it? I mean, if you saw the Lord
Jesus Christ take clay and put it upon a man's eyes that was
blind from birth, and then the next few moments you saw that
man be able to see, there's a certain measure which you'd be convinced
that he was able to do that. Now, that doesn't mean, though,
at the same time, that you would love him, does it? Now, a lot
of people say, Oh, brother, I believe. If I could just see Him, the
miracles. Well, listen, plenty of folks saw the miracles in
His day, did they not? Did they all believe? No. In
fact, the Scripture says that there came a time when more of
them went away from Him than were coming to Him. There was
only a handful left whenever the day came that He went to
the cross. Because you see, it's not by the things that men see
that faith rests. The hope and expectation of God's
people. For by it, that is by faith,
the elders obtained a good report. Or that word obtained there means
they bore witness. They had a good report. They
manifested a good report. Now, he goes on to say in the
next chapter, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses. Now these witnesses of the faith
are not standing in the balconies of heaven looking over at us
and saying, go get them, as I've already described. We're surrounded
by this cloud of witnesses. No, the cloud of witnesses is
that men such as these who are mentioned here in the book of
in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, that's the cloud of witnesses. And how do they witness to us?
Because they believed God. And that testifies to us, if
we've been given faith, that this faith upon which we stand
is indeed true. That's how we're compassed about.
For by it the elders manifested a good report. They showed it. Now, they didn't obtain it, and
I've heard this, they got a good report card. God was checking,
He was waiting to see if when Abraham went up the hill to sacrifice
Isaac, He had the report card out, and when Abraham did what
he was supposed to do, God checked it off. God was wanting to see
what Abraham would do. Have you ever heard that? He
knew what Abraham would do. He knew Abraham wouldn't have
ever went up the mountain to start with if God did not cause
him to do so. Who would sacrifice their own
child? I mean, oh, well, if you had
faith, Well, brother, God's people will be willing in the day of
His power. And God is able to cause His
people to believe such things as He would have them to believe
and be persuaded of it so that nothing else moves them. Paul
said it didn't matter to him if he was going up to Jerusalem
to be Crucified. He didn't care if he was going
up there for his head to be cut off. He believed God would send
him there, and he went, knowing that these things were going
to befall him. But he went anyway. Why? Because
he was convinced that the Lord would have him to testify not
only in Jerusalem, but in Rome. And he went. You see, and he said, none of
these things move me. It doesn't make any difference
what happens to me. Now why was Paul able to do that? Was he just of strong stature?
No, God persuaded him of these things. Now will we be able to
stand in the day of testing and trouble? Somebody comes up to
us and says, I'm going to kill you if you confess Christ. Will you be able to confess Christ? You won't if the Lord doesn't
give you grace to do it. I guarantee you every one of
you I'll turn away tomorrow and there ain't nothing I can do
that can help you. I'll do the same thing. I'm not saying it'll
be you and not me, brethren. The only reason we'll stand is
because of the mercy and grace of God persuading us, giving
us faith. And it's by faith that we witness
a good confession. I mean, you can talk all day
about being a child of God. You can go to a lot of places
and you'll hear folks saying, Oh, I know I'm a Christian. Oh,
I know it. Well, how do you know it? Well,
because I made a decision. Well, if you made a decision,
you might make a decision not to follow Him. But I'll tell
you this, if God Almighty gives a man faith to believe and persuades
that man He is not of them that draw back unto perdition, but
of them that believe to the saving of the soul. You see, that's
the work of God in a man. It's the work of faith. Through
faith, we understand it, the world is framed by the Word of
God, so that things which are seen were not made into things
which do appear. Now, I said last week that this
was the, in my estimation, that particular verse right there
would overturn the concept of the Big Bang Theory. Because
the Big Bang Theory says everything started off with one thing and
then everything else was made out of the things that did appear. But the Scripture says that the
Lord spoke these things into being. And the tree didn't come
into being because the other plant life was created and then
it just morphed off into a tree somewhere. The same way with
all the animals and all of that stuff. They were made out of
things that don't appear. That's why a dog is a dog and
a cat is a cat. They have similarities, but they
have those things which are completely different as well. Why is that? Because God made them out of
things that do not appear, that were not seen by men, can't be
understood by men. Now, the academic community would
tell us, well, that's foolish. Well, we know better than that
Well, we know that the oil is in the ground because the dinosaurs
died and they all rotted and went down into the ground and
made oil. That makes good sense. We know
it. That is how it happened. By faith we understand that the
world was framed by what? The Word of God. Now how do we
know that? Because we're persuaded of it.
Why are we persuaded? Did we figure that out? I can't
tell you why I believe that God made the world. I can't prove
it to you. But I can't believe anything
else. See, this isn't a multiple choice
test. This is the work of God. And
by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word
of God, so that the things which presently are seen were not made
of the things which do appear. God just made everything, is
basically what that is saying, every molecule. Now all the molecules
are not the same, are they? I mean, all atoms are not the
same. All the particles are not the same. They are all different. How did they get different? Because
God made them that way. You see, we believe God made
every atom, that He made every molecule, that He put it in its
place, and that the grains of sand stirred up by a wave crashing
into the shore move in just as much of a prescribed orbit as
do the planets as in their traverse around the sun. Now, that's weird,
isn't it? I mean, anybody believe that?
Plum crazy. Huh? I mean, come on. Listen. If God made the world,
He certainly controls it, does He not? I mean, if he brought
it into being, he's the one who's absolute sovereign over all things. Now, can you convince a man of
that? Not at all. But you know, it's an amazing
thing when God shows that to a man. He can't believe anything
else. He can't help it. That's just
kind of the way we are. By the grace of God, we can't
help it. I can't help it. I mean, they may have to shoot
me or something one day, but I can't help it. I can't believe
anything else. Now, somebody might put me in
enough pain to get me to say I believe something else, but
as soon as the pain is over, I won't say it. Because, see,
you can't quit believing that which God causes you to believe. It's impossible. That's what
He said here. Through faith we understand that
the world was framed by the Word of God, so the things which were
seen were not made of things which do appear. It is not that
which can be explained by men in all their wisdom. And there
are some smart people in the world, very smart. I mean, I am glad that there
are some smart people in the world. But you see, it is not
by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. And
that scripture you quoted there, God has chosen the foolish things
of the world, confound the mighty. You know, a man in his great
learning, he's often offended at how simplistic people are
that believe the Word of God. I mean, that guy who once had
the debate, creation guy and the science, Bill Nye the science
guy, you know, and he just thinks that all these people that believe
what the Bible says, well, they're just crazy. They're just stupid.
They're simpletons. They're idiots. And such is the
way of the modern intellectual. I mean, it's really what's happened
in our school system. When the concept of creationism
is just, oh, we don't want to talk about that. We're just going
to talk about how these things all happened over millions of
years. And it all got in the ground
by dinosaurs dying. Now, I mean, that just makes
sense. That's the smart thing, isn't
it? But anyway, moving on from that. Through faith we believe
these things, and faith is a persuasion. I am persuaded, Paul said, that
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
that day. Now, I am persuaded. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Why is that? Because I'm
persuaded. And I bear witness that I am
persuaded that that is true. And so he begins here in these
different illustrations and witnesses that he brings forth. These are
the witnesses for the defense. I'm not sure if this is the defense
or the prosecution, but nonetheless, it's the witnesses that are brought
forth here And he said, here's the first one, he said, by faith,
by persuasion, because he was persuaded that this was that
which was pleasing to God, by faith Abel offered unto God a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Now was Cain sincere in
bringing his offering to the Lord? As sincere as a man could
be. He was sincere. Do we have any indication before
this that Cain was going around doing a bunch of wicked stuff? No. We don't know. We just don't know anything about
it. But the Scripture says, by faith Abel offered unto God a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain. said the sacrifice of Abel
is more pleasing. Now we know as we study the Scriptures
that the offering of Abel was primarily more acceptable to
God because of one reason. Abel was accepted by God. The Lord loved Abel and he said
this is acceptable. But secondarily, Abel offered
a sacrifice that was more excellent than that of Cain by which he
obtained witness that he was righteous. Now look at it. It
says he obtained a report. He gave witness that he was more
righteous. He didn't become more righteous
because he gave the offering. Now sometimes you'll hear people
say, well, Abel brought a blood sacrifice and therefore God accepted
Abel's sacrifice because he offered blood. Now there's an element
of truth in that, but you don't want to get the cart ahead of
the horse. Because it was a blood sacrifice, it was pleasing unto
the Lord. But the reason that Abel offered
it was because he was persuaded by the grace of God that this
was a suitable offering to be offered unto the Lord. But again,
the Lord didn't pull out the report card and say, check off
for Abel and say, well, he brought me the right kind of sacrifice.
I'm going to check him off. He did right. No. Abel moved
in faith. He was persuaded. Now, I don't
know what the Lord had taught these men. I don't have any way
of knowing that. I kind of think that there was
a knowledge communicated to men quite early that the Lord was
pleased with the sacrifice such as the one that Abel brought.
And Abel brought it believing that God was Satisfied with it. Now Cain, for whatever it was,
the Lord wasn't pleased with that sacrifice, was He? Primarily
why? Because He wasn't pleased with
Cain. But just so that the Lord might
teach that the children of the flesh will always persecute the
children of the Spirit, Cain slew Abel. Did he not? and showing that this faith that
Abel had, this persuasion that Abel had, was of more value than
that which Cain had. Now, you know, in the realm of
human ideas, one idea is about as good as another. I mean, if
we are just speculating about things, your opinion is as good
about it as mine, is it not? I mean, if we said, There's life
on other planets. And I gave you the opinion that
I think there may be. And you gave me the opinion that
you don't think there is. Now, what ground do any of us
have to stand on other than that's just our opinion about things?
We're just thinking about things. And so in that realm, the ideas
of men are all the same. But you see, when it comes to
dealing with this matter here, it is very plain that there is
a difference between that which is acceptable unto God and that
which is not. And that which is of faith, not
the faith of men, See, sometimes people say, well,
you've just got to have faith. It doesn't make a difference
what it is, just your faith. You know, you've got your faith
and I've got my faith, but the thing is that God, He's just
happy to see us have faith. No, God's not happy to see you
have faith. Because just having faith does
not work two cents. The object of a man's faith is
that which is the basis upon which his faith is built. And
if the faith of a man does not rest squarely on Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, then it does not matter what else he may believe. He has gone down the wrong path.
Now, whether you like that or you don't, it doesn't really
make any difference. It is the facts. And it's illustrated
here in the matter of Abel, Abel by faith. It doesn't say Cain,
by faith, offered a sacrifice, but it says Abel did because
he had the proper object. In view, he had the persuasion
that was proper, and he gave testimony that he was righteous. You see, there is a work of God
in a man that causes him to believe. God testifying of His gifts,
and by it He being dead, yet speaking. So the Lord has set
forth Abel as the one who offers a good sacrifice that He might
set forth for us what it is that is acceptable unto God. He being dead, He bears witness. Then it goes on to say, by faith
Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was
not found, because God had translated him. For before his translation
he had this testimony that he pleased God." Now again, some
get the cart ahead of the horse, and they say, well, Enoch was
taken out of the world because God checked off his report card
and he filled it out and got all A's and the Lord just was
so happy with what he was doing that he just took him on out.
No, the Lord would manifest the faith that he gave Enoch in that
which he was pleased to do with Enoch. Now, he's not pleased
to do the same thing with all men. Everybody didn't... What happened in Enoch didn't
happen that everybody did it. It's appointed unto men once
to die, and after this the judgment. I mean, that's the normal course
of events for mankind. There's only one other fellow
that we know of that had a similar experience as this, and it was
Elijah. The Lord took him up in the clouds. out of the sight, and he was
seeing no more. And so, by faith, Enoch was translated. Now, does it mean that he just
had so much faith the Lord translated him? No. It means that by that
which he was persuaded of, he was translated. The Lord gave
him faith And the Lord saw fit to take him, and the testimony
is that Enoch was a man of faith. Now, it's not that he got what
he got because he had faith, but the fact that God took him
testifies that he had faith, because God is not going to take
a man in that fashion who is not a man of faith, because God's
pleased with faith. See, he's pleased to give it
to men, and he's pleased with it. He's pleased with the fruit
of it. Now again, not like a report
card, but like the fact that he likes what he sees. And he
causes that which he desires to see to occur in those whom
he loves. By faith, Enoch was translated
that he should not see death. And so the scripture over in
the book of Genesis, it says, Enoch walked with God and he
was not. Now, of course, this has led
to a lot of speculation. Some people say, oh, well, that
doesn't mean that he didn't die. Well, I think you've got to kind
of have some creative thinking there to believe that This means
anything else other than the fact that he was taken out of
this world in some fashion without seeing death. It says that he
should not see death and was not found. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, when
he went to the cross, the Lord could have just took him right
on up into heaven, could he not? But in order that he might testify
to men, he died. Scripture says he was buried,
and the third day he rose. Now, the Pharisees were not persuaded,
were they, that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead. They
were, however, persuaded that his body wasn't in that tomb,
weren't they? Huh? So it was a different thing,
wasn't it? Now when Peter and John, when
they came up there and they saw that the Lord's body wasn't in
the tomb, buddy, that was something way different than the Pharisees.
They said, well, somebody has stolen Him away or something
has happened here. But you see, when the truth of
God is communicated to a man's heart, he is persuaded. What was it that transformed
the apostles into a bunch of fraidy cats who wouldn't even
hang around to see what they were going to do with the Lord?
And they ran and all forsook Him, the Scripture says, when
they came to get Him in the garden. What happened? I mean, if the
Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, And they took him and
put him in the ground and he said, on the third day I'm going
to rise again. And on the third day they went
into the tomb and he was still there. Or they said, well, we're
going to make this into a worldwide religion that people believe.
So let's take his body and put it somewhere so nobody will ever
know what happened to him. And we'll go and we'll die. for
His sake, and this will cause people in later years to believe
this, even though we know it's not true. Now, how much sense would that
make? It makes no sense at all, does it? No. You see, the Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world as a man, and He went to the
cross as a man, and He died as a man, and He was buried as a
man, and He went into the tomb as a man. and praise be unto God, he rose
from the dead as a man. And when those disciples saw
him in the upper room... Now you remember one, Thomas,
he said he wasn't there when the Lord appeared to him the
first time. He said, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. He said,
there's only one way that I believe it. He said, I've got to put
my hand in his side. And I've got to put my finger
in the palm of his hand whether the nails work. He said, that's
the only way I'll believe it. But see, he was wrong. Huh? He was wrong, wasn't he? Because
when the Lord appeared, and He said, Thomas, here's my side. Put your hand in there. Did Thomas
reach out his hand? No, he fell on his face and he
said, My Lord and my God. Why did he do that? Because he
was persuaded. He was persuaded, wasn't he?
I mean, he was giving faith, was he not? You see, the faith wasn't the
thing that he thought he would need to do in order to get it.
He thought he'd need to touch the hand. He thought he'd need
to touch the side. But you see, God who is rich
in mercy, He changed his mind just like that. He persuaded
him. And of course, you know, the
traditions of men, the history, the men I've recorded tell us
that all of the disciples were ultimately slain for the gospel
other than John. I think he supposedly died a
natural death even though he was crippled. They said he was
boiled in oil up to his waist, and so he was a cripple for the
last years of his life. But you see, all of these men
were persuaded, dear brethren, of those things. that the Lord
Jesus Christ did. Now, some of them believed without making all these big
statements and whatnot. But, dear brethren, all of them
believed because of the same power. Ever one. Just like the Ethiopian eunuch.
Now, what would make a man who, he's riding along in a chariot,
he's reading these scriptures, he's puzzling over them, and
a guy comes up to the chariot, I mean, this is kind of, I kind
of think of this a lot of times like with Balaam and the ass. You know,
the air spoke to Balaam, and Balaam spoke right back to him.
Just like it was the most common thing that could be. I mean,
you know, just have a conversation with your donkey. I mean, that's
just a normal thing. But here's this Ethiopian riding
in his chariot, or maybe he's stopped by the side of the road,
I don't know, but all of a sudden, here's Phillip up there, and
he says, I heard you reading. He said, do you know what you're
reading? And he said, how can I? Now somebody
shows me." And Philip opened to him the Scriptures. What did
he teach him? He taught him of Christ. He says he began at the
beginning and he taught him Christ. And you know what? An amazing
thing. A fellow, you know, he'd been
in Jerusalem going through all these religious feasts and what
not, and he was on his way back to Ethiopia. And you know how you
are when you've been somewhere. I don't care how good of a time
you had. When you're in your chariot and
you're headed towards home, you just want to get home, don't
you? Huh? But not the Ethiopian, because
when the Lord came to him and He showed him Christ, The last thing on his mind was
getting home in a hurry. He said, wait. He said, there's
some work. He says, I want to be baptized.
You told me that the followers of Christ are baptized. I want
to declare that I'm a follower of Christ. He said, well, if
you believe with all your heart, you may. He says, I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now, brethren, how could a man
know that? How could he know it? Except
God, who is rich in mercy, convinced him of it and showed it to him. And Scripture says he went on
his way rejoicing. And I guarantee you when he got
back to Ethiopia, he started telling some folks about what
happened to him on the way. And you know what most of them
probably did? They said, you are just about
crazy. You are a fool to think that
you could come to know the living God in such a fashion as that.
There's more to it than that. I mean, you've got to be faithful. You've got to do this. You've
got to do that. You better be religious. See, he was evidently
of a community of proselyte Jews, people who somehow heard something
about the truth of the Scriptures, because he went to Jerusalem.
He was on his way home. You know what? The others, probably
no doubt there were others that had gone down there at the same
time. But you see, God who is rich in mercy, He just found
this Ethiopian and He gave him faith. We're going to have to
quit there because we're about to run out of time. But let me read
this. I don't even know how I got off
on that. But verse 6, it says, But without faith it is impossible
to please God. to please him. But he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a reward of them
that diligently seek him." Do you believe that? Can you believe anything else?
If somebody comes along tomorrow and they tell you that God's
the biggest liar that ever lived, Jesus Christ didn't really mean
the things that He said. We've got a new and a better
way. We are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but
of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Why is that? Because of the mercy of God who
gives faith to those whom He loves. May the Lord help us.