We begin our study today of Chapter 11, which is often called "The Hebrews Hall Of Faith". In this chapter the author mentions many famous characters of the Bible who were ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things because of their faith. We should be greatly encouraged by these stories, because if God was able to do extraordinary things through these people of ancient times, He can do extraordinary things through us today. The only ingredient we need is faith; God will do the rest.
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for." (Hebrews 11:1-2) It doesn't take any faith to believe in something we can see with our very own eyes. When evidence is right in front of us, it's easy to believe a thing is true. But it takes an act of faith to believe in the God we cannot see, to believe in promises that haven't yet been fulfilled, and to trust in Christ for salvation even though we never knew Him when He walked the earth. This is why the people of ancient times received God's approval for believing in and honoring Him. The Lord knows how hard it is for human beings to believe in what they cannot see, yet these people willfully and purposely decided they were going to believe anyway. It's no wonder the Lord Jesus said of people who never knew Him while He lived on earth and who never witnessed His miracles, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29) You and I are the recipients of a blessing even greater than the blessing the disciples received, for we believe without having witnessed the things that Christ did. It takes more faith to believe in what we have not seen with our own eyes, so the Lord Jesus took care to speak words that apply to you and me today in 2019.
Were we there when God began His work of creation? No, so it takes faith to believe that God was the master architect of everything that exists. "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." (Hebrews 11:3) Do you believe that God created the universe? That's faith!
The author now begins all the way back in Genesis and begins naming people who had faith in the God they could not see. "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 11:4) There are a couple of major differences in the offering Abel brought and the offering his brother Cain brought. First of all, Abel brought a blood offering, which is an offering of atonement. In bringing this offering, Abel was acknowledging his status as a sinner and he was asking God to forgive him and to allow the blood to cover his sins. Cain brought an offering from his harvest, a firstfruits offering. This type of offering is a thank offering to the Lord for providing the harvest. There's nothing wrong with a firstfruits offering, but the Bible never mentions Cain bringing an offering that acknowledged his status as a sinner or his need for redemption.
Second, we are told that Abel's offering was made by faith and Cain's was not. Abel believed in and wanted to serve God. I think Cain likely believed that God was real, for he was living too close to the dawn of creation and too close to the expulsion of his parents by God from the Garden of Eden not to believe God exists. But something in his heart was far from God. I think he felt no desire to serve Him. He brought a firstfruits offering, but was he truly thankful to God or was he simply going through the motions? Does the fact that he didn't bring an offering for atonement mean he wasn't sorry for his sins? Does this indicate he had a prideful and self-reliant spirit? All we can say for certain is that Abel's sacrifice was accepted by God because it was brought in faith, but Cain's offering was rejected by God because something was lacking in the heart of Cain. This example clearly tells us that the only acts we perform which are acceptable in the eyes of God are acts of faith. Do you believe that the blood of Christ is able to cleanse you from your sins? That's faith!
"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." (Hebrews 11:5) The Bible tells us very little about Enoch, but it tells us enough: he was a man of faith. He was a man of faith during a time when wickedness was rampant on the earth. His faith caused him to swim against the stream in a time when it would have been much easier to go with the flow. He was present in the world when the state of the human heart had grown so sinful that we are told, "And the Lord regretted that He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled." (Genesis 6:6) But out of this pre-flood generation we find a man who stands firm for the Lord, and the Lord takes him out of the world before the judgment of the flood falls on it. But Enoch left a legacy of faith behind for his family, for his great-grandson Noah would serve the Lord. No doubt Enoch had a great deal of influence of Noah, so much so that when God told Noah to build an ark in order to survive the coming flood, Noah didn't question Him. He set about building an ark in a world where it had never rained. If he had not had a great-grandfather of faith, Noah may not have been a man of faith himself.
Faith not only benefits us, but it benefits those around us. Seeing us walk by faith encourages others to do the same. Our faith lives on long after we are gone from this world; it lives on in those whose lives we have touched and influenced. What extraordinary things might your great-grandchildren do because they observed how you lived by faith? Whose souls might be saved by Christ because people around you saw the power of Christ in you? This is why the author of Hebrews can say that the faith of those who have passed on "still speaks". When you and I are long gone from this earth, what will our faith say about us?
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