Portrait Gallery of Faith (Part 1 of 3)

Hebrews chapter 11 is like a portrait gallery of men and women from different times in different places who all had one thing in common. They all exercised extraordinary faith and were used by God to make a difference in their generation.

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg begins a new series and tells their remarkable stories to encourage us. If the writer of this letter had gone from the thirty-ninth verse of chapter 10 to the second half of the first verse of chapter 12, it wouldn't have been surprising. We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but we're those who believe and are saved. Therefore, let us throw off everything that hinders and run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us. It would have been a logical and an obvious transition.

But he doesn't do that. Instead, he pauses to take his readers through, as it were, the portrait gallery of some of the ancient folks whose lives were commended on account of their faith. And his pause is purposeful, because he wants his initial readers to derive strength and encouragement by reflecting upon the way in which God had helped and honored his servants so that they in turn—and we as later readers—might also become men and women of faith. And indeed, he says in verse 2, these ancient people were commended on account of their faith. Of all the things that were true of them, of all the things that might have been written of them, the one unifying characteristic which finds them in this portrait gallery is the fact of their faith and trust in the living God. These individuals had nothing to go on except God's promises. They took God at his Word, and they regulated their lives accordingly. They regarded, as verse 1 tells us, the future as if it were present, and they viewed that which was invisible as if it were actually visible to their gaze.

They believed what God said, and they lived their lives accordingly. And by doing so, they made a radical impact in their day. And we want to make sure that we do not miss the wood for the trees.

And pause for a second and say, the same is true in our generation. Whenever an individual, a couple, a family, a church, a community is prepared to take God at his Word and do what God says, that individual—family, group, community, church—will make an impact in their generation. And for this reason, we want to pay careful attention to what they were doing so that we might emulate the pattern that they've established for us. The historical sequence which is here in these verses runs all the way through into chapter 12, leading up to the one who is described as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, recognizing that in the unfolding plan of God, all of this was moving, so that although God had spoken, as he says in the opening verses of chapter 1, in all kinds of different ways as of old, in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son. And all these individuals who were welcomed by God through faith were brought into the company of the redeemed in prospect of the sacrifice which Christ would make for sin. And we who look back upon Calvary are brought into the company of the redeemed on the very same basis—on the basis of what the Lord Jesus has accomplished by his atoning death. Now, one of the possibilities in coming to this kind of ancient material is that individuals would be saying to themselves, at least under their breast, well, what has this possibly got to do with me?

After all, these folks lived a long time ago, they lived a long way away from here, and I've got to go back to the office in the morning, or I have to get out of town tomorrow, I need to return to school, I'm facing new challenges and changes in my life. What does this possibly have to do and say to me? Well, in verse 3, he makes it clear that he is answering that question. He says, I have defined faith to some degree in verse 1. I am reminding you that the ancients, whose names and lives are about to appear before us, were commended on the basis of their faith. And he says it is by faith that we understand present tense—that our present experience of who God is and what he has done is impacted by the truth which I now convey. In other words, this lesson from history carries with it a sense of practical immediacy. It has relevant application to the life of the agnostic who is saying, I am not sure that there is a God. It has immediate application to the life of the fearful who are saying, I'm not sure that I can continue along this journey much further.

It has application to every dimension of our lives. And he says it is by faith, verse 3, that we recognize that it was by God's power, or at God's command, that the universe was formed. I believe that Genesis 1 gives to us the origin of the universe.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why do I believe that? I believe it by faith, because God's Word says it. I recognize there are another number of options which I may choose to believe as a relatively rational man, but I, by faith, choose to believe this. If you, of course, want to roam the universe looking for another explanation, then spend your time wisely.

The probability of life originating from an accidental explosion somewhere is comparable to the notion that your unabridged Oxford dictionary resulted from an explosion in a print factory. It just so happened to form up alphabetically and with all the various bits and pieces necessary. Those of you who enjoy Shakespeare plays, as a few do, and have learned from time to time some of those soliloquies, have also read the history which says, Was there really a man called Shakespeare who did all this? But no one's in any question that there was someone who did all this stuff. Unless, of course, you choose to believe that somebody went up in a small single-engine plane carrying millions and millions and millions of pieces of the alphabet, and they had them all in big bags. They went over a flat part of the Sahara Desert—if that is not tautology—and dropped them all out, all a bunch of As and Cs and Bs, consonants and vowels, and just flipped them out at about four or five thousand feet. And then they went down and landed the airplane and started to walk through and looked down and came to one section, and it said, If music be the food of love, play on. She said, My, my, so that's where we got Twelfth Night from, is it? Turned further around a corner, and it said, To be or not to be, that is the question. He said, That's totally ridiculous.

Why are you even wasting your time with that? Do you think it's any more ridiculous than the idea that your children and your grandchildren all emerged as a result of two pieces of sludge introducing themselves to one another in some slimy pool somewhere in a primordial experience? DNA woke up and found itself.

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. Now, this is the background to the trip through the gallery, and what we're going to do is take a look at some of the portraits that are hanging there, and the first one has the name Abel above it. Now, you should turn to Genesis chapter 4 to get the context for the appearance of Abel in this portrait gallery.

What was going on? Well, Adam and Eve had got together. They had some children, Cain and Abel. And in Genesis chapter 4 and verse 2, we're told that Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. And in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.

And God had clearly instructed that there should be these offerings brought, and Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. And the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. And then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

Why is your face downcast? 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 master it. So we're told three things. If you turn back to chapter 11 and verse 4, we're told three things concerning this fellow Abel and his sacrifice. Number one, that he offered by faith a better sacrifice than his brother. That's the first sentence in verse 4. Number two, that by faith he was commended as a righteous man, and this righteousness was somehow related to this better sacrifice that he offered. And thirdly, that he still speaks by faith even though he is dead. And the very fact that we are here all these centuries later, considering this individual Abel, is a recognition of the fact that he still speaks even from his death. Now, one of the things that emerges from the study of this verse, especially when you get in home Bible studies, is the rambling off into the mists of speculative theory concerning why it was that God accepted Abel's sacrifice and didn't accept Cain's sacrifice. And if your mind immediately goes that way—which is a justifiable way for your mind to go—and you're hoping that I'm going to wander through some of the labyrinths with you this morning, prepare for a minor disappointment. Because it's not within the sphere of reference of what the writer is doing here in Hebrews 11, he is addressing the issue, he is stating facts, and there are certain assumptions which are there, and I want to go with that this morning. When we do Genesis 1–11, then I can guarantee you we'll pause and we'll deal with that stuff.

But for the time being, feel free to get a commentary or a number of commentaries and read it for yourself. Every good teacher does not provide his students or her students simply with a series of pat answers to pat questions. Those are just adequate teachers. They prepare you for going through certain hoops. They'll ask you A. When they ask you A, answer B. They ask you C, answer D, and so on.

That's easy. That's not teaching. The good teachers do not allow you to grasp under their instruction the totality of all that is there, but they create within you a passionate longing to go and expand your own horizons by your own further study. I hope, in some small measure, to be that kind of teacher of the Bible. So that you don't come here and you get pat answers to pat questions that you can write in a little notebook and go away, press button A, press button B, but rather that you come and your own heart and mind is stimulating, you say, I'm going to become a student of that book. I'm going to go, and I'm going to find out.

I'm going to emulate my teachers. In my Sunday school class, in my Bible study, whatever it might be, from the pulpit, I'm going to become a student of the book. And so let the very question which is raised here be a stimulus for those who have ears to hear. Suffice it to say that at the very heart of what we're told, this fact is unequivocal. The sacrifice that is acceptable to God is acceptable not on account of its material content but is acceptable insofar as it is the outward expression of a devoted and obedient heart. I think the issue is—and it is the issue that runs through the whole of the Old Testament into the New—that when it comes to offering sacrifices to God, God is not concerned first about material content, but he is concerned that what is done regulatively and externally will be the expression of a devoted and obedient heart.

John Calvin says the same thing, and therefore I find myself to be in good company. He says, Abel's sacrifice was prepared to his brothers for no other reason than that it was sanctified by faith. For surely the fat of brute animals did not smell so sweetly that it could by its odor pacify God.

In other words, God was not jazzed, as it were, as a result of the fact that there was the smell of burning bacon, you know. The Scripture shows plainly why God accepted his sacrifice—that is, here in verse 4, spoke well of his offerings. It is therefore obviously to be concluded that his sacrifice was accepted because he himself was graciously accepted. But how did he obtain this acceptance save that his heart was purified by faith? The distinction was not in the sacrifices offered. The distinction was between the sacrifices. And God has to say to Cain, If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you don't do what is right, then sin is crouching at your door, as opposed to Abel, who clearly was doing what is right. So in other words, Abel's sacrifice was the outward expression of his own personal obedience and faith.

And it is, therefore, in concurrence with what, for example, God says through the prophets in the Old Testament. He says, You know, your sacrifices are a stench to my nostrils. I'm not interested in all the bleating of the calves and the goats and the lambs. This is of no interest to me.

I don't desire this. I desire obedience more than sacrifice. If you want to rely on these works as a means of making yourself acceptable to me, I want you to know it will never happen, because it is without faith it is impossible to please God. And so we know that if Abel pleased God in his sacrifice, he did it from the perspective of faith and not from the perspective of offering it somehow as a means. No right work can proceed from us until we are justified before God. Because without faith it is impossible to please God.

Now, here's another rabbit trail to go down on your own. I think this gives us something of the key to answering the question that is raised in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Are Christians the only ones capable of good deeds?

No. Pagans do good deeds. Some of them do very, very good deeds.

Some of them do a lot better good deeds than Christians do good deeds. Well, then, are pagans accepted by God on the basis of their good deeds? So what is it that makes deeds glorify God as opposed to deeds that don't glorify God? It is that those deeds which glorify God are offered from the hands and lives and lips and feet of those who have been justified by faith, and their deeds are an expression of their acceptance rather than a means to acceptance. Not all good deeds glorify God.

And good deeds don't put us in a right relationship with God. And therefore, Abel didn't get accepted because his deal was a better deal than his brother's deal, but it was on account of the fact that Abel operated from the principle of faith. And Cain clearly didn't. Okay, well, let's move around the gallery a little further, and we come to the portrait that is marked Enoch. And if you want to read about Enoch, you need to turn to Genesis chapter 5. You'll find in verse 21 of Genesis 5, When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him away.

What does it say about this guy? Well, it says that he walked with God over a long period of time. In other words, for Enoch, faith was no flash in the pan.

It was no burst of enthusiasm, followed by periods of chronic inertia. It was not a little stimulus every so often, whereby he got excited about God things and then drifted away from that and continued along the journey of life where, regarding it, is an irrelevancy. Enoch's faith is an illustration of the fact that faith brings us into a relationship which is vital and relevant in every circumstance of our lives. For Enoch, faith was both a decisive act and a sustained attitude. And it is clear from Genesis 5 that there was a time in Enoch's life when faith began. In fact, we're told when faith began. When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah, and after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God.

After Methuselah showed up, he started to walk with God. Now, there's some significance in this, I'm sure. The fact is, we're not told just what it is, but I think I might know. Because I've heard it in testimony from some of your lips.

We hear it with relative frequency in our baptism services. Couples that, like myself, were brought up in the sixties, and you embraced the God is dead stuff. You were convinced that the bells and the smells and the flowers in your hair was what it was all about. And you went down that journey to freedom, and you found that it was a bondage.

But you were okay, because you were making progress. You had a garage door opener, and you were in process of getting a second car. And you were beginning to live the American dream. You felt a little bit weird about it, because as a hippie you weren't supposed to believe in it, but now, in a hippie and pinstripes, you were actually enjoying it.

And still, there really was no interest in religious things. Every so often you had a thought to it, but by and large, nothing. And then you're there in the hospital, and your wife produces a little one.

You gather the little one together up in your arms, and you look into the tiny little thing. You say, Where did this come from? You say, Well, we know physically where it came from, but where did it really come from? You just triggered something in your mind. You said, You know, I wonder if that God is dead stuff is true. And then you listened as they began to form their little words. And then as they began to form their words and as they began to take their early steps and run around through the little jungle of their own world, you started to look at this child and say, What am I going to tell her? What am I going to tell her when she asks me about the big questions of life?

In fact, do I have any answer to the big questions of life? And then, so as to preserve your own sort of sanity and distance from it all, you said, You know, although I personally have no interest in faith or in believing in God, maybe it's important for little Jamil here, you know. So what we'll do is we'll go find a church, and we're not really interested in it. Maybe we can push her in one end and bring her out the other end, and you pushed her in one end, and you sat down, and you began to listen. You went in a Sunday school class, and you met other couples like yourself. You began to open your eyes, and your ears began to become unstopped. And now, when you testify to the change that has been brought about in your life by grace through faith, you date it actually almost directly, as with Enoch, from the time that Methuselah was born. Because the responsibilities, the privileges, the challenges, the opportunities were so demanding that you began to look around and said, I'm not sure that I have the answer to these questions.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to cope in the way that is necessary to be a parent. Children are a gift from God. They're a sober responsibility.

They quickly reveal our inadequacies. They reveal our need of wisdom and of grace. Presumably, that's the significance of it in the case of Methuselah. But one thing we know for sure—there were at least two volumes in his life. Volume 1, sixty-five years, absent any faith in the living God. Volume 2, faith in the living God.

Do you have two volumes in your life? You would say, Here is twenty years, thirty years of my life, and I lived without faith in God at all. And as of this day, I began to live with faith in God. See, faith is a decisive act.

You don't simply drift into it. There has to come a time where you stop believing in yourself, and you start believing in God. Where you stop depending upon yourself and things you can do to make your acceptance to God, and you say, I can't make myself acceptable to God, and therefore I can't do anything else other than what the ancients did, and that is take God at his word and regulate my life on the basis of it.

It's a decision all of us face. Will we live by faith in God? You're listening to Truth for Life and Alistair Begg with the first message in our study titled Fix Our Eyes on Jesus. This is the third and final volume in this series. It begins with chapter 11 in the book of Hebrews.

If you'd like to catch up with Alistair's previous messages from this study, we put all of the volumes together on a single USB. It's a total of 32 messages covering the entire book of Hebrews for only $5. Look for it on our website, truthforlife.org slash store.

Again, it's called Fix Our Eyes on Jesus. And today is the final day for you to request the book Alive, How the Resurrection of Christ Changes Everything. You may have heard me mention this book. It presents overwhelming evidence that Jesus' resurrection is not a myth, but an historic reality. The book Alive lays out overwhelming evidence for the resurrection, and it's presented in a way that's easy to understand and easy to explain to others. Request your copy when you donate to Truth for Life. Just click the image in the app or go to our website truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Alistair continues his teaching tomorrow with a portrait of Noah, a man who preached a message that has not changed, even after all these years. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.