When you think of the great heroes of faith, How far back in history do you go? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah takes us all the way back to Genesis. to shed light on the vibrant faith of Abel. His story isn't a long one, but his faith continues to inspire believers even today.
Continuing his series, Ordinary people, extraordinary faith. Here's David with his message: a martyr for his faith. And thank you for joining us. This is Turning Point. I am David Jeremiah.
And today we're going to talk about one of the heroes of Hebrews 11. You know, we have all been overwhelmed by the events that have happened to us here in our nation with the death of Charlie Kirk. I've heard many people refer to him as a martyr, and in many respects he was. But martyrdom didn't begin recently. It goes all the way back to the book of Genesis.
And today we're going to tell the story of one of the first martyrs that we read about in the Bible. And It's a long, bloody trail from that man until today. Where people have given up their lives for For their faith. We'll get to that in just a moment, but first, let me just take a minute and tell you about our resource for the month of November. It's a book entitled Where to Go in the Bible.
It's a 270-page soft-cover book with many headings to help you find verses and thoughts that you need for the questions people ask you and for the questions you have yourself.
Some of the categories are adversity, emotions, direction, Christian life, family. It covers subjects like salvation, baptism, faith, church membership, the Holy Spirit. And this beautiful little book will be so handy because I remember growing up, we used to have books like this that you could just stick in your pocket or take with you where you went. We haven't done that for a long time, and I think it's time we get back to being. Mobile with our faith, and these little books help us to do that.
We'd love to send this to you as our way of saying thank you for your November gift to Turning Point. When you ask for this resource, we'll send it to you right away. Once again, the title of the resource is Where to Go in the Bible When. Obviously, friends, we count on your help. If we don't get your help, we can't do what we do because this is not.
Inexpensive to be on all these radio stations and television stations around the world, only possible because of the generosity and faithfulness of people just like you.
So, thank you for your gift, and this book will say thank you in a very tangible way. Here is part one of A Martyr for His Faith. One of the first heroes we meet is the first time. In the hall of faith is a man by the name of Abel. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:4, by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts. and through it he being dead still speaks.
Well, at first glance, when we read these words about Abel, the only words we have about him in the Old Testament. At first glance, he seems to be a rather strange candidate for the hall of faith. I mean, there isn't much about him in the Bible. In fact, there is not one word that he spoke recorded in the scripture. And it is hard for us to comprehend how.
He might have done something that would have allowed him to be the first person mentioned in the Bible as an inhabitant of the hall of faith. In order to find out more about him, we have to go back to the book of Genesis. And find out from the history of this man how he got included in this illustrious group. There in the book of Genesis and the fourth chapter, we have the story of Abel. and his older brother Cain.
and the sacrifices that each of them brought to God. And the only way we're going to understand why Abel got into the hall of faith is to find out why Cain didn't get into the hall of faith. Here are two brothers born to the first parents in the world. One of them makes the hall of faith, and one of them does not. And the record of what happened between the two of them and God is recorded for us.
in Genesis chapter 4. Listen to the first five verses of that chapter.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, And she conceived and bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Most commentators believe that Eve thought she had become the mother of the Messiah because in Genesis chapter 3 and 15, that was predicted. And Eve just believed that she might have borne the Messiah, the first one to be born into humanity. And then the Bible says she bore again, and this time his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, and Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and its fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain. And his offering, and Cain was angry, and his countenance fell.
Now The book of Genesis is the book of 1. In the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, You run into the first motherhood. You run into the first birth. You see the first family, the first murderer, the first martyr. And the first Fight between two brothers in the same family.
The initial part of Genesis chapter 4 is taken up with the story of these two brothers. Cain and Abel. One writer has asked us not to let the mist of history cover the simplicity of the story. And he has written that there was no doubt usual nursery squabbles. Here are two unregenerate sons displaying the lawlessness that they had gotten from their father.
The natural working of the law of sin in their little baby souls. No doubt there were good times too. And the writer tried to imagine what it would have been like to be Cain and Abel growing up in the family of Adam and Eve. No doubt there were good times like stories around the evening fire. Or plots of ground for each growing boy to till, or lambs and kittens, and calves to feed, and perhaps Picnics to the gates of the garden to see the cherub and the flaming sword.
And when they might have received instruction from the things of God. Then as these boys grew, They encountered some of the lessons of life with lots of hard work. Remember, part of the curse was: with the sweat of your brow, you will till the ground.
So that's kind of how it was for these two young men.
So they grew and they became young men. And Abel became a shepherd. And Cain became a farmer. They were well taught, these boys, among other things, they knew there was a God. And they knew that sin was an offense to him.
and they knew that God had to be approached. with a sacrifice.
Now, we might wonder how they knew all of this because there's nothing in the Bible right here in the context to teach us, but watch carefully. The answer is found in the fact that after the sin of Adam and Eve, which is recorded in the earlier part of Genesis. We are told that God came down and when Adam and Eve discovered their nakedness, they tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves and God, the Bible says, Genesis 3.21, covered their nakedness with the skins of animals. And the blood of those animals had to be shed in order to cover their nakedness. Oh, one other little bit of information that you ought to know going forward in this story is that when we read this story at first, and I think I remember the flanograph pictures that I saw when I was growing up.
These boys were usually looked at like maybe 17, 18, maybe in their early 20s. But if you do the homework on this and find out all the numbers You're going to be surprised to find that when the story took place, Cain was 129 years old. Just a young boy in the Old Testament system of things. 129 years old he was when this story happened.
So with this background to the story. Let's sort out why Abel was listed in the hall of faith. First of all, Abel had a revealed faith. By faith, says the scripture, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice.
Now, it's evident that both Abel and Cain were sinners because they inherited the sin nature of their father and mother. And both of them needed righteousness. And they were both born in sin and needed to be saved in the sense that we understand that today. Romans 5:12 says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, that was Adam. And death Through sin, thus death spread to all men because all sinned.
Well, here's the first generation after Adam. And we know from the standpoint of the Bible that Cain and Abel were sinners. They weren't sinners necessarily by choice, they were sinners by birth. They inherited the sin nature of their parents.
Some folks are surprised when you say something like this because they think that sin is an outside-in deal. But sin is not an outside-in deal, sin is an inside-out deal. It's sort of like the apple. Many times, when you see a hole in an apple, you decide, well, I'm not going to eat that. There might be a worm in that apple.
But the probability is if there's a hole in the apple, the worm is not in there because the worm is born in the center of the apple through the deposit of an insect. And the worm Grows and eats his way out of the apple. That's kind of how sin works in your heart. You're born with sin. And sin works itself out into the sinful things that you do.
I know it's hard for people to believe that. Little babies are born in sin. They're born with a sin nature.
Some of you think, well, that is impossible. If you feel that way, you're probably grandparents, but I promise you, you're not parents. You're not parents. Because we all know that little children exhibit their sinful nature quite readily, don't they? Selfishness, they want what they want when they want it, whether it's in the middle of the night and you haven't slept in a long time, they don't care.
And some of you ladies are just laughing because you know exactly what I'm talking about. You love those little babies, but you understand immediately they're not perfect. They have something in them that's not quite right. And that's called the sin nature. Both Cain and Abel were sinners by birth.
And the Bible says that Abel responded to his sin on the basis of faith. And Cain did not.
Now, what does it mean to do something by faith? Faith is responding to the revelation of God in obedience. Faith is listening to what God says. When he declares his will, And then by faith, even though you may not understand it, you do it. Let me ask you this question: do you think that Abel truly?
Truly understood why he had to go and kill an animal and bring a blood sacrifice to God? Probably not. But he did it by faith because God had instructed him to do it in some way that we may not ever know until we get to heaven. But this is what the book of Romans says: that faith comes by hearing, and what's the rest of the class? Hearing by the word of God.
So Abel had gotten instruction from the Lord concerning how he was to approach God. And while we do not have a record of the conversation that took place between the parents and their two boys, it is evident that they were not left to their own ideas to decide how God was to be approached. Cain and Abel had no doubt been told of the fig leaves. That had been replaced by the garments of animal skins. Genesis 3:21 says, For Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin.
And Clothed them.
So, these two boys now approach God, and let me read to you what Genesis said happened. Genesis 4, verse 3. And in the process of time, that means after they were older. It came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord, and Abel also brought of the first fruit of his flock and their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering.
And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. Abel had sacrificed a blood sacrifice to his God. In obedience to God's instructions, He believed God in faith and He acted. There's only two ways, and all of the faith and religion talk that has ever happened since Genesis 4 is wrapped around those two thoughts. The way of Cain and the way of Abel.
Say it with me. The way of Cain and the way of Abel. It's interesting, is it not, that here in these first few verses of the Bible, such an incredible truth is presented to us so that we cannot forget it. 1 John 3:11 and 12 says, This is the message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. The New Testament commentary on Cain is not kind to his reputation.
Now, because God rejected Cain, Cain hated his brother. And he killed him. Notice.
Now Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And God said, What have you done?
The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me. From The ground. Here is this strange and eerie thought. that Cain had discovered a new sin. Up until this time no one had died.
So that Cain should know how to kill. He had to figure it out. And it was Cain who introduced murder into the world. Cain became the first murderer, and Abel became the first martyr. If you want to find out Cain's condition of heart, An old writer Of commentaries, a guy by the name of Joseph Parker.
has suggested that you look at him After his religious service is over. He says, you know a man best out of church. The minister sees the best side of a man, the lawyer sees the worst side of a man, and the physician sees the real side of a man. If you want to know what a man's religious worship is worth, said Joseph Parker. Follow him out of church.
Cain killed his brother when church was over. And that's the exact measure of his piety.
So Abel gets into the hall of faith, first of all, because he had gotten a revelation from God about what he should do, and he had responded obediently in faith. Cain was rejected because he decided to do it his own way. Number two. Abel's faith was reverent. This is something that you don't see unless you read this two or three times and realize that after Abel believed God and decided to obey God.
He worshiped God. He brought his sacrifice to God, and the expression here is the expression of worship. An altar was set up, an altar of worship, and Abel brings his sacrifice to God, and there he worships. The Lord. It is interesting that the first hero inducted into God's hall of faith is a worshiper.
And Abel expresses his faith through worship, and God honors and respects his offering. This is a reminder to us that whenever We witness true faith. one of the first results of true faith will be worship. I know some of you have said to me over the years.
Well, Pastor Jeremiah, I know you're into worship, but I'm just not into worship. I know you don't mean it that way. At least I hope you don't. Because I don't see how you can be a Christian and not be into worship. Because worship is the basic response of your soul to Almighty God and what He has done.
And what Abel did when he heard God's voice. He worshiped God by bringing what God had asked, and he presented himself. And he did so. In worship.
Now we worship God when we come together in church, but hopefully that's not the only time you worship God. You worship God when you awake in the morning and you say, Good morning, Lord, and thank you for a good night's rest. Let me live for you today and honor you with my life. You worship God throughout the day whenever you have a chance. In fact, a case could be made for the fact that your entire life as a follower of Christ is an instrument of worship for the Lord God.
But worship must be from the heart. Cain came to God with an unrighteous spirit. But Abel came to God in a spirit of faith and integrity and honesty. How many of you know that if we're not careful, we can fall into some bad habits when it comes to worship? Let's just talk about what happens in church on occasion.
There's an old story about a man who dreamed that an angel escorted him to church one Sunday. And there he saw the keyboard musician playing rigorously, the praise team singing, the musicians playing their instruments with gusto. But the man Couldn't hear anything. There was no sound. He could see the congregation's lips moving, but there were no sounds to be heard.
And then the minister got up to speak, and his lips moved, and you couldn't hear anything. It was like somebody had turned the volume down on the TV set. And he was totally amazed because he was right there in the presence of all of this. And he turned to his heavenly escort and he said, What in the world is going on here? And the heavenly escort said, What you see is the way it is in heaven.
You hear nothing because there is nothing to hear. The people are engaged in the form of worship, but their thoughts are on other things and their hearts are far away.
So we only see their lips moving, but we do not hear their worship.
Now that's a story that obviously doesn't come from the Bible, it's an illustration. But it is sobering, is it not? That when we come to church and we're singing praise to God, if we're worrying about what we're going to eat for dinner, that probably doesn't get very far out of the room. Everybody go, hmm.
So maybe it's a good idea for us when we're worshiping the Lord to worship Him as the New Testament tells us to worship Him. How does it say it? In spirit and in truth. Genuine, authentic, heartfelt worship. And you know, you have to be proactive to do that because you bring all your cares and all your thoughts, you bring that all into worship, and you have to just somehow come in here and say, Lord God.
Help me to get rid of all those thoughts so that I can concentrate. my thoughts on you and worship you. By the way, did you know that worship is A New Testament sacrifice to God. Hebrews 13:15 says, Therefore, by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks.
to his name. When you worship God, you are offering a sacrifice to the Lord. Yeah. It's quite evident. That what Cain brought to the Lord was not an authentic act of worship.
You say, how do you know that? Because you read what happened right after he left. When God didn't accept what he brought, His true nature was displayed. His character came into view. It says that Cain was very angry and his countenance fell.
And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? Kate, if you had done the right thing, would I not have accepted you? And if you do not do well, Sin lies at the door.
And its desire is for you, but you should have rule over it. God warned Cain. About what he was about to do. God saw the hatred and anger in Cain's heart, and he said to Cain, Sin is like a wild animal crouched at the door of your heart. You're about to do something that you will never ever forgive yourself for.
Don't do it, you can rule over it. But Cain's anger was so intense and his jealousy of Abel was so green. that he couldn't help himself and in his fury He took the life of his own brother, and became the first murderer in history. If his offering had been made in the right spirit, We wouldn't read the paragraph we just read. It is an indication that Cain's problem wasn't just that he brought his works to God instead of a sacrifice.
What he brought to God was brought in the wrong spirit, in the wrong attitude. Abel had a revealed faith and a reverent faith, and here's one that's really interesting. He had a reverberating faith. Did you know that the faith of Abel in 11:4 of Hebrews is alive and well today? Let me show you what I mean.
Here's what it says: By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts, and through it he being dead. Still speaks.
Now, watch this. I told you earlier that there's not one word of Abel. in the Bible that he spoke. Not one recorded word that Abel ever spoke. But the Bible says, though the Bible doesn't record any words that he spoke, his faith is still speaking today.
All these years later, here, right in this culture, right in this service, the testimony of Abel is speaking to us today. The first man in history to express faith in God was Abel. And we revel in the story. It reverberates all the way down through history to us. his statement by his life.
Tells us That we can only be accepted by God when we come to God God's way. We don't get to make the rules. God has set the standards. and he's made it plain to us how we are to approach him. And we'll have more of this tomorrow here on Turning Point as we continue our study of the heroes of Hebrews chapter 11.
And we thank you so much for being a part of what we do. It is so much fun to meet together every day and contemplate the Word of God. I have just returned from the National Quartet Convention where I usually have a chance to speak and meet with people. We had a wonderful time together, and so many people came up and told me, Dr. Jeremiah, we spent a few minutes every day with you around the breakfast table, and they give me all these interesting things that they're doing or where they are when they listen.
But this is an appointment we have together. You and me, we study the Bible together every day, Monday through Friday. And it's such a blessing for me to be here and to encourage you. And I trust if God is using this to help you, you will reach out and tell others about this ministry and help us with what we're doing. We'll see you tomorrow.
when we talk about a martyr for his faith. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's newly updated scripture reference guide. Where to go in the Bible when. It's packed with biblical answers and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Versions. available in a variety of handsome and resilient cover options.
Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, on Turning Point.
