I. Introduction
A. We have now come to one of the most remarkable chapters in all the Bible.
B. For ten chapters now the author of this epistle has been urging his readers to keep running the race of faith and not give up. he has used many different arguments to make his point.
C. Today, he begins to urge them on in their journey of faith by means of inspiring examples from the OT. It’s as if the author is saying to them, “I’m not the only one who’s cheering you on. This road of faith is a well-traveled road. Many have born burdens which seemed unbearable. Many have stared into the darkness and refused to stop believing in the light.”
1. Many tears have been shed on this road.
2. Many have felt like they were going to die on this road.
3. Many have endured more than they thought possible on this road.
4. And in Hebrews 11 the author begins to point out historical markers on the sides of the road: historical markers about Enoch, about Noah, about Abraham and Moses and others:
a. This is where Joshua and Caleb had to look giants in the face and say, “With God’s strength we can conquer them!”
b. This is where Jochebed pushed the basket which held her beloved baby Moses out into the river, entrusting his welfare and Israel’s deliverance into the hands of the One who gave him to her.
5. In v.4 it says of Abel that “through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
a. These people are speaking to us: “Do not give up!” “He is faithful!” “You will see, He will come through for you! Just keep trusting Him!” “Let me tell you the wonderful things He did for me!”
II. Explanation of Hebrews 11:1-7
A. 1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
1. Last week we talked about how God calls us to live by faith, even when He makes us wait to see the fulfillment of what He promises. Now the author defines faith for us in these very terms: faith is being sure of things promised but not yet given, faith is knowing for sure what you haven't seen.
2. (“hoped for” here doesn’t not mean that we imagine something and then trust God to give it. This is a common but very mistaken assumption. In English hope is the best English word to translate the NT word ELPIZO. However, the English word hope usually implies a degree of uncertainty. But in the NT ELPIZO is certain.)
3. Knowing without seeing? Why yes! We all do that everyday. We all walk by faith in many ways. In fact, a large percentage of what we believe is not based on what we’ve seen, but on trusting someone we deem knowledgeable.
4. Examples of walking by faith (things we have to accept on faith without seeing it ourselves first):
a. There is going to be a comprehensive exam at the end of the semester that will count for half your grade.
b. This is the antivenom for the snake bite you received.
c. A tornado has been sighted in your area, headed in your direction.
B. 2 “For by it the people of old received their commendation.”
1. He has been urging them to press on. Now, to inspire them, he introduces what he’s going to do next: give them examples of people of old who did press on in faith.
2. You see, faith draws God’s commendation. It pleases Him. It moves Him. Think about Jesus. Think about what impressed Him. Almost always it was people’s faith. Think about His interactions with the Syro-Phoenician woman with the demon-possessed daughter in Matt.15:21-28. He put her off at first, but she persisted in faith and in the end, Jesus was compelled by her faith to give her what she asked.
3. Why does God reward faith? People who act in faith place their confidence in God. They trust in His goodness and in His sovereign rule over everything. They don’t take Him lightly, but recognize that He is bigger than all the troubles they face.
C. 3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
1. The series of historical examples in Hebrews 11 is generally chronological, so the natural place to begin is in the beginning.
2. Not only is creation by God’s command declared in this verse, but creation ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) is clearly spelled out here.
3. God doesn't ask us to believe in divine creation ex nihilo on the basis of science, but on the basis of eyewitness testimony from the only One who was there. (Remember God’s rebuke of Job in Job 38:4, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”)
4. Heb.11:3, of course, is referring to Genesis. In other words, we are expected to know about God’s creation ex nihilo already from Genesis 1. This shows us that God expects us to take at least this part of Genesis as historically accurate.
5. Most of the rest of the examples he uses are taken from Genesis as well. Implicitly he verifies the historical trustworthiness of Genesis.
D. 4 “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
1. You know the story of Cain and Abel from Genesis 4:1-16. Both brothers offered a sacrifice to God. Cain’s was composed of grain, since he was a gardener. Abel brought an animal from his flock, since he was a shepherd. But God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s.
2. There’s some debate here over why God rejected one and accepted the other.
a. Was Abel’s sacrifice just offered with faith and a good heart, while Cain’s was not, there being no significance of the different between animal offering versus plant offering?
b. Or, did Abel offer an animal because he was putting his faith in another instead of in his own works? (Sacrifices for sin in the Bible were always animal sacrifices, because they were substitutionary by nature. Animals are beings who can be seen as substitutes in a way vegetables cannot.)
c. I.e. either way we have to presume something:
(1) Either that Abel’s heart in sacrificing was good and Cain’s was evil, but in God’s eyes the sacrifices were equal.
(2) Or that God had given instructions to the first humans about sacrifices, specifying that people could be forgiven only by the ceremonial transfer of guilt to a substitute. (Like it says in Heb. 9:22, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.”)
E. 5-6 “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
1. In Genesis 5:24 we are told that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”
2. The Greek translation of the OT puts it this way: “Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and he was not found, because God translated him.”
3. There are a number of things which are confusing about v.5 until we realize that v.6 is given to explain them. The things Enoch was famous for were being near to God and pleasing God. And those are the exact two qualities mentioned in Heb.11:6: “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
4. Genesis does not tell us that Enoch was a man of faith, but the author of Hebrews argues that Enoch had to be a man of faith because Genesis tells us that he pleased God and no one can please God unless he has faith (“without faith it is impossible to please him”).
5. We may not know much about the details of Enoch’s faith: What did he do by faith? What difficulties did he face which necessitated such faith? What promise of God did he believe that brought about this commendation?
6. But the author of Hebrews reasons that since he was close to God, Enoch must have believed in at least two things: “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
7. And rewarding those who seek Him is that’s exactly what God did in response to Enoch’s faith: He rewarded Enoch for seeking Him by snatching him up into heaven without going through the painful, scary and ugly process of death.
F. 7 “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
1. Noah believed what God told him about the coming flood, and also that they could be saved by building an ark: “being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen.”
2. Think about how hard it must have been for Noah to believe God! There was no visible sign that a great flood was coming. No one else believed it. In fact, they probably thought he was crazy.
a. He had to either believe God or not. He had to build the ark or not.
b. He had to choose whether to believe what everybody else believed: that life was found on this earth, or to believe what God said: that life was found in that ark.
3. “By this he condemned the world” — What does this mean?
a. It seems that what’s in mind here is that Noah was vindicated by the flood while the world was shown to be wrong. He’d been saying all along that on account of human sin, a great storm of judgment was coming, and that the only way of escape was to build and inhabit the ark. Not only did his neighbors, we presume, ridicule what Noah was doing, but they ridiculed the idea that God was displeased with them and on the verge of wiping them off the face of the earth.
b. When the storm finally came, Noah was shown to be right that the world was ripe for condemnation. Noah’s doing the right thing exposed the sin and guilt of the world.
4. Noah was justified (counted righteous) by faith. Noah believed what God told him about man’s sin and about the coming judgment, and about the salvation God was providing.
a. “Justification by faith” is synonymous with “God rewards those who seek Him.”
b. We are justified by faith just like Noah, by believing in our impending condemnation if we do not put our trust in His salvation.
III. Application
A. The Hebrew Christians were in a crisis of faith.
1. It looked more and more to them like the promises of Christ were not coming true.
2. Were they going to believe the gospel of Jesus or were they going to go back to the ideas of first century Judaism? Were they going to believe in the Substitute who sacrificed Himself for sin, or were they going to trust in their own works to save them? Were they going to believe what Jesus told them that there was a great storm of judgment coming, and that the only way of escape was to climb into the Jesus ark, or were they going to believe their old friends who were pressuring them to return to Judaism, claiming that there was no great storm coming and that the structures of their old life were sufficient to keep them safe?
3. The author masterfully goes back into the story of the OT, the Bible of the Jews, to show how the great heroes of old faced the same kind of dilemmas, and by their example urge us on today to put our faith in the Lord Jesus and not give up when it gets hard to believe.
B. The road of faith is hard. We’re tempted to think: “Maybe it’s not true! This is so hard, it sure doesn’t feel like the right path. Surely that wide road over there must be the right way. Most of the people are going that way. And it’s definitely a lot easier.”
1. But in Matthew 7:13–14 Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
2. Some of mankind’s worst decisions were made out of an attempt to escape from pain. (That’s where the author goes in Hebrews 12.)
C. God calls us to live a life of faith.
1. Faith is not just being a good person. Faith is believing what God says. Now if you believe what God says, you will do what He says to do, so obedience is the fruit of faith.
2. Do you really believe in Jesus? Do you really believe in a judgment day? Do you believe that there is no other name by which you can be saved other than the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12)? Do you really believe He’s ruling everything in your life for your good – that He has chosen all the trials, all the frustrations, all the burdens, all the disappointments, all the dilemmas? Do you really believe that God stores up your tears in a bottle (Ps.56:8)? Do you really believe that Jesus calls to those who are weary and heavy-burdened and invites them into His rest (Matt.11:28-30)?
D. How do you obtain faith?
1. Well, the Bible tells us that down deep, everyone knows about God. (Romans 1:18-23) But that’s not faith, is it?
2. Faith is a gift. (Eph.2:8)
a. My atheism: I didn’t choose to believe any more than a person chooses to believe in lightning when it crashes right in front of him.
b. This means that if you want it, you know where to get it. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:23-25)
3. Also, the Bible tells us that faith comes from hearing the word of God (Rom.10:17).
a. So, if you want faith, then put yourself in the place of hearing God’s word.
E. Mothers of young children
1. We’ve been looking at old models of faith which speak to us today. But there’s another angle to this. We are old models who by our example speak to the next generation.
2. We’re speaking to those who come after us, whether we like it or not.
3. What message do you want to leave for your children?
4. How do you want your life, your choices, your example to affect the loved ones you leave behind?
5. The most important thing you can do for your children is live a life of faith.