We have been reading why the Jewish converts to Christianity needed to move on from the ‘Old Covenant’, with it’s concentration on the Law, priests, and Temple Worship, to fully embrace the ‘New Covenant’ which was entirely based on faith in Jesus.
Read Hebrews 10:36-39
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For, ‘in just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.’
38 And, ‘But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.’
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
‘we . . . belong to those . . . who have faith and are saved.’
Such an encouragement! And it leads us perfectly into Chapter 11. But as we read of the great people of faith, we can also be encouraged by the fact that they too failed – some spectacularly. But that was no reason to give up, they still remained faithful, and so must we. And as we have just seen, our salvation depends solely on the finished work of Christ, not on any merit of our own.
Read Hebrews 11:1-3
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
If I asked you to give examples of faith in action you may well reply that you exercise faith when you turn on the television to watch the news. You have faith that there will be a supply of electricity, that the production team will have been busy, that the newsreader is fit and well-trained and the autocue is working.
But that is actually more like trust, based on sight. You have seen it before, so you expect it again. And actually you would not be very surprised if for many reasons the news did not appear when you wanted it.
We trust and expect because of our past experiences.
Look at verse 1 again. Is this faith something altogether different? Can you describe it?
True faith cannot be based on any previous experience.
Faith is when we choose to believe something with strong conviction but without any tangible proof.
So let’s look at some examples from the Old Testament, starting with Genesis:
Read Hebrews 11:4
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
Would this have been your first choice for an example of faith in action?
Perhaps we’d better Read Genesis 4:1-12
1 Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.’ 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 But Abel also brought an offering – fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.’
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field’. While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’
10 The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.’
Also read Hebrews 12:24
to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Some have tried to make a distinction – they say that Abel’s was a sacrifice and Cain’s just an offering but the words used here are actually the same. (Hebrew minha: ‘offering’.)
Some time ago I ordered online some plants for the garden. When the plants arrived I was a bit upset that many of them were just roots! But I planted them and waited.
Eventually of course, they grew. One of them was a Catananche.
I thought it was a beautiful flower and was quite proud I had grown it. Just a minute –
Who had grown it?
All I had done was put it in the ground. Where was my recognition that it was God who had designed and created and grown everything in the garden?
I think that Cain was thrilled when what he had planted eventually produced a good crop. He even picked some of the best and had the first Harvest Festival.
What happened to it then? I guess it was probably eaten. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been thrown away.
So what made Abel’s offering different?
God did not give permission to eat any animals until after the flood. To kill any animal at that time must have been so counter-intuitive that to do so must surely have been prompted by God. Notice too that it wasn’t just one animal (Genesis 4:4).
So for Abel to kill some of the firstborn of his flock and to present them to God as an offering must have been very significant, and costly. We can of course try to read motives into the narrative that are not actually there. All we can do is accept that we are told he presented his offering by faith, and on that basis God accepted it.
It is impossible to know what motives other people have, but God knows. Do we need to consider our motives as we seek to bring our own offerings (even sacrifices?) to God.
We continue:
Read Hebrews 11:5–6
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: ‘He could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Again, we’d better look at the passage in Genesis 5:18-24
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
What else does the Bible tell us about Enoch?
Actually nothing; all we know is that he ‘walked faithfully with God’ (v22). The fact is that until Noah, no-one else was recorded as having a faith worth mentioning, so here he is introduced as someone special. So special in fact that God simply took him away – like Elijah. Hebrews tells us that he pleased God and so was given this privilege, not as a reward for his good works, but for a life of faith spent earnestly seeking God.
Remember from our last study that we set out the criteria for true faith. We said:
True faith cannot be based on any previous experience. (Although it can be strengthened by our experiences!)
Faith is when we choose to believe something with strong conviction but without any tangible proof.
Look out for this kind of ‘TRUE’ faith in the examples that follow.
Read Hebrews 11:7
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
So again, we need to read Genesis 6:9-17
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
15 This is how you are to build it: the ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
Here we meet someone who had spent a lifetime ‘walking faithfully with God’ (v9) while all around was corruption and violence. And his faith would have been tested much more when in obedience he began building the Ark.
Would his neighbours, wife or children have shared in his conviction, his faith?
Was this ‘TRUE ’ faith?
Read Hebrews 11:8–12
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Where had Abraham’s family come from?
Ur, was once a coastal city by the Persian Gulf on the mouth of the Euphrates in Sumer (in modern-day Iraq – the coastline has silted up and it is now well inland.). His father, possibly more a trader than a farmer, had then decided to move the family to Canaan. They set off north-west up the Euphrates to Haran (in modern-day Turkey) but they got no further, and settled there.
It was there that the Lord spoke to Abraham, telling him to set off on a journey of over six hundred miles to the south ‘even though he did not know where he was going ’ (v8).
Was this ‘TRUE’ faith?
Was it an unshaken faith? (verses 9-10)
Now look back at verse 11 and perhaps Genesis 18:10-15. Would you agree that Sarah had ‘TRUE’ faith?
She certainly doubted at the beginning, she knew from a lifetime’s experience that what God promised was physically impossible. But then it is not for us to judge the sincerity of other people’s faith and she must have reached the point when she truly had the faith to believe.
Read Hebrews 11:13–16
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Should we feel that we are ‘foreigners and strangers on earth’?
‘This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through’ (Jim Reeves)
Do we have faith to believe that God has ‘prepared a city’ for us too?
Read Hebrews 11:17-38 (Perhaps several could share this)
17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.
23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched round them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated – 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
It is possible that the final passage in verses 35-38 brought the list right up to date and referred to events of the last 40 years. Hebrews was written before the Roman destruction of the Temple in AD 70 (as the sacrificial system was obviously still in use), and this passage may refer to the miracles of Jesus and perhaps the Apostles.
What we have read about these people of faith are not old myths about superheroes; they are describing people just like us and should be our inspiration. It is also worth remembering that many of the people listed were flawed characters too.
Read Hebrews 11:39-40
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
This world, with its corruption and failings would never be the place to receive the promises that God had set before the people of faith. Something better had been prepared and it would only be when Jesus comes again that there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth (Isaiah 65:17) and we will all be made perfect!
For your encouragement I have added a brief list of ‘better’ things that we have touched on so far in Hebrews
Better Things!
Hebrews 6:9
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case – the things that have to do with salvation.
Hebrews 7:19
(For the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
Hebrews 7:22
Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.
Hebrews 8:6
But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
Hebrews 9:23
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Hebrews 10:34
You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
Hebrews 11:4
By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
Hebrews 11:16
Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Hebrews 11:35
Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.
Hebrews 11:40
Since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Hebrews12:24
to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
