The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is one of the best known of the great chapters of the Bible. It has been called the Westminster Abbey of Scripture because the heroes of faith are enshrined here. Perhaps that is a misnomer, for I have been in Westminster Abbey and it gave me the sense of being in a tomb. There are a lot of dead people there, but there are no dead people in this chapter. These are all living saints, triumphant men and women who have lived life and gone on into a new relationship. I prefer, then, to call this The Parade of the Heroes of Faith.
In Hebrews there is an element which is regarded as absolutely essential to the development of the Christian life, and that is the quality of faith. It is what makes the Christian different from the non-Christian. That rather eccentric philosopher and nature lover of New England in the last century, Henry David Thoreau, once said, "If I seem to walk out of step with others, it is because I am listening to another drum beat." That is an exact description of faith: Christians walk as though listening to another drum beat.
This chapter centers on, and focuses upon, what faith is. There is need for clarity on this. I find this word, faith, is greatly misunderstood and there are many peculiar ideas of what it is. It might help to show, first of all, what faith is not:
Faith, for instance, is not positive thinking; that is something quite different. Faith is not a hunch that is followed. Faith is not hoping for the best, hoping that everything will turn out all right. Faith is not a feeling of optimism. Faith is none of these things, though all of them have been identified as faith.
Well, what is faith then? The first seven verses of this wonderful chapter answer that question, and the rest of the chapter tells us how it works. We will limit our thought to these first seven verses now. The author is not discussing faith in general, but faith in God. If this is important, then it is essential that we know what it is. In these seven verses:
There is a definition in which we see the ingredients of faith. This, by the way, is the only definition of faith in the Bible. The definition is followed by a deduction, in which we have revealed the significance, the implications, of faith. Then there is a demonstration, in which we see illustrations of faith.
The first and second verses and the sixth verse, taken together, help define faith for us. Here we see the ingredients of faith:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval. (Hebrews 11:1-2 RSV)
And without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 RSV)
Note how those verses indicate that faith begins with hope. Faith commences with "things hoped for," that is, it starts with a sense of discontent. You can never have much faith unless you are dissatisfied with the way you are now, and are longing for something better. That is its first note. If you do not feel dissatisfied with the way you are, it will be impossible for you to exercise any faith. That is why, all through the Bible, the great enemy of faith is a complacent spirit, an attitude of self-satisfaction with the status quo. But if you are dissatisfied, if you are looking for something better, if you are not content to be merely a cultured animal living out a life of eating, sleeping, and amusing yourself, and eventually dying, then you are in a position to exercise faith. Someone has described that kind of life this way:
Into this world to eat and to sleep
And to know no reason why he was born
Save to consume the corn
Devour the cattle, flock and fish
And leave behind an empty dish.
Perhaps there are many who would like to have faith, but are never ready for it, because they are not dissatisfied. They must demand of life more than the mere mechanics of living. You want more, do you not? You are looking for something better. Then that is the first note of faith. Verse 6 puts it, "he who would draw near to God." That is looking for more of life than is visible on the surface. Such a one is not satisfied to have life all surface, all length and breadth, but no depth. He wants to find something to deepen life, and that is the first note of faith.
Then comes "the conviction of things not seen" -- not only a desire for something better, but an awareness of something else: That is faith. It means we become aware that we are surrounded by an invisible spirit kingdom, that which is seen is not the whole explanation of life, that there are realities which cannot be seen, weighed, measured, analyzed, or touched, and yet which are as real and as vital as anything we can see. In fact they are more real because they are the explanation of the things which can be seen. We must understand there is a spiritual kingdom that exists.
This is so beautifully seen in the words and teachings of our Lord Jesus. He speaks of God the Father as though he were standing right there, invisible and yet present. He speaks of the world as a great family home in which there is a Father with a Father's heart welcoming us. He does not see the universe as an impersonal machine, grinding and clanking along, as science so frequently does, but he sees it as an invisible, but very real, spiritual kingdom.
Again Verse 6 says the same: "He that comes to God must believe that he is, that God exists." There are some who say, "That's the hard part, that's what is difficult." No, it is not. The easiest thing in the world to do is to believe that God exists. It requires effort to disbelieve; it requires no effort to believe. The interesting thing is that everyone in the world, without exception, starts out believing God exists. It is only when they are carefully trained to disbelieve that any come to the place of declaring God does not exist. Light from God is streaming in on every side and all we need to do is open our eyes to see it and know that God is there. That is why children have no problem with this. The concept of God ought to be one of the most difficult ideas for children to grasp, since God cannot be seen. But the amazing thing is, children have no difficulty at all in believing that God exists.
It requires long and careful effort to train the mind to reject this evidence and explain it on other terms. This last week I skimmed through Julian Huxley's book, Religion Without Revelation and was amazed again to see the tremendous effort he makes to explain away the evidence for the existence of God, and to find other explanations for it. It is only those minds, therefore, that have deliberately trained themselves that can claim to be atheistic. Even then, if they are not careful, they may suddenly refer to a belief in God, as the man who on one occasion exclaimed, "I'm an atheist, thank God!"
There is also a third ingredient of faith, "the assurance of things hoped for." Faith is the assurance that the things hoped for, the things you are longing to have, the better man or woman you would like to be, will be achieved by acting on the revelation of the things unseen.
Let us put it all together now. It begins with a longing to be something better, and an awareness that within the universe there is something else, and that something or Someone else has revealed itself. As we act on that revelation we shall achieve the things hoped for, the something better. That is the story of the whole eleventh chapter of Hebrews it is the story of faith. It will work for anyone at any level.
Here, by the way, is the answer to that persistent question we so frequently face, "What about the heathen who never hear the gospel?" They have the opportunity to exercise faith, for faith at its simplest level is, "he that comes to God must believe that God exists and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Any man who wants to be better, who believes that God exists and who will obey the revelation that he has, no matter at whatever level he finds it, expecting God to give him more as he goes along, will come to the place where he wins divine approval, the place of knowing Jesus Christ. Without that faith it is impossible to please God.
Verse 3 introduces us to a very amazing deduction which reveals something of the significance of faith, the implications of it:
By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear. (Hebrews 11:3 RSV)
That statement, remember, was made in the 1st century when the best scientific minds of the time felt that the ultimate breakdown of matter was fourfold: fire, water, soil and air. That was the explanation of all matter. Yet here in the 20th century, after two thousand years of human endeavor in exploring the secrets of the origin of matter, we cannot improve on this statement. This verse says that we can never explain the things which are seen till we come to grips with the things that are unseen. We must recognize the existence of things unseen.
I should like to place beside this verse a quotation I was given last week from the former president of the Stanford Research Institute. In a message on another subject he said,
Through the years I have struggled to gain a greater understanding of electricity and magnetism in order to help harness those forces for man's use. Even so, I cannot now give a lucid definition of electricity or magnetism, except to say that they are invisible forces which have real manifestations.
Is it not amazing that the man of faith arrived at exactly the same conclusion as the man of science, only two thousand years earlier? It has taken science that long to catch up!
That brings us to a very important deduction about faith -- that faith puts us immediately in touch with reality. That is the genius of faith, that is the glory of it, the value of it. Faith is a way by which we may overleap the tortuous windings of reason, the need to grope by trial and error, and lay hold of the basic facts of life immediately. Faith is a way of piercing the illusion that tends to distract us and lead us into chasing rabbits of thought all over the pasture, and bring us right to the point, to show us things as they really are. Do not laugh at faith. Faith is dealing with facts. Faith grounds one immediately on reality.
Science, for instance, cannot tell me how human history is going to end, but by faith I know. Science cannot tell me what is wrong with human life, what is the reason why I act the way I do, and you act the way you do (especially the latter), but by faith I know. Science cannot tell me what lies beyond the door of death. Even to the scientists it is an enigma, a mystery, but by faith I know what lies beyond. Science cannot explain the mysteries of my own makeup, and tell me how to fulfill my manhood, how to realize my dreams, but faith can. I have tried it and it works!
Someday, perhaps after painful centuries, when man's reason has slowly and tortuously worked out some of these answers and raveled it all out, mankind will find that it has been brought then to the very same place that faith could have many thousands of years before. This is why faith always pleases God, because it comes to grips with reality and God is the Ultimate Realist. God is never impressed with the phony. He has no time or patience for the false; God deals only with truth. He says that to trust his word as a plain statement of truth, ignoring all the mocking taunts of those who think they know better, will not be an easy path but it will be an absolutely sure one. That is what Hebrews 11 says to us.
Now let us look at the three demonstrations the author gives here to illustrate faith. There are more than three in this chapter, of course, but these first three illustrate what faith is, the rest reveal how faith works. I want to spend a brief moment with these three men who lived by faith and who chose to believe God when the world around believed something else. The result was that each one found reality, each solved the main problem of his life, each realized his deepest desire and gained the gift of righteousness, i.e., the approval of God.
The first is Abel:
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval as righteous, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts; he died, but through his faith he is still speaking. (Hebrews 11:4 RSV)
Here are the world's first brothers, Abel and Cain, sons of Adam and Eve. They lived when the world was young, when everything was much different than it is today. It was before the days of income tax, and smog, and clogged highways, and the terrible problems that we struggle with. Yet, despite the fact that they enjoyed what we call "the simple life," they longed for something better, they hungered after God. For no matter how good life is, it is never good enough if you do not have God. Man is never satisfied without him, and these boys hungered for God. Both had been told the way by which they could come to him, this is implied in the account.
But Cain chose to believe a lie, the lie that is still very evident today, that "one way is as good as another." He took the way that was easiest for him to work out and the result was, he was rejected, for, of course, it is always a lie that one way is as good as another. That never works in anything -- nature, life, or with God.
But Abel believed God and came the way God had outlined. When he believed God he discovered a great truth, the truth that man cannot have God's ability until he is prepared to recognize the poverty of his own. That is what a blood sacrifice teaches. There must be a life laid down before one can have the life of God, that is the point. You cannot have his ability for your problems until you are first ready to lay aside any dependence upon your own. That is the greatest truth that man can ever learn. If we learn that here, as some of us are learning it, what a difference it makes in life! Because Abel was the first man to learn that truth, the writer says he is still speaking to us -- and we still need to listen!
Then there is Enoch. Enoch was the seventh man from Adam.
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 attested as having pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5 RSV)
In the book of Genesis we are told that for 65 years this man lived like anyone else in his day, no different from the rest of his age. But at the age of 65, something happened. It was not that he got his Social Security, he found a deeper security than that. The record says he began to walk with God, i.e., he began for the first time to enjoy the continuous presence of an unseen Person, and he related his life daily to that unseen Person who was with him. When he did that he discovered a great reality, just as you will, if you try it. He found a fellowship that death could not interrupt. According to the record, he never died. He was one of two men in the Scriptures of whom it is recorded that they never died. He was "not found," that is all. God took him, the record says, without death.
I love the way the little Sunday School girl tells it. She said, "Enoch was a man who learned to walk with God, and they used to take long walks together. One day they walked so far that God said, 'Look, Enoch, it's too far for you to go back; just come on home with me.' So he walked on home with God." He became forever a picture of what death is to the Christian -- only an incident, hardly worth mentioning. That is the reality that Enoch discovered by faith.
Then there is Noah. Noah believed God in a unique way.
By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith. (Hebrews 11:7 RSV)
Noah believed that God was in control of history. All the things these men believed, we are asked to believe today; there is no difference. Noah believed that God was in charge of history. He believed when God told him there was coming a great flood. When Noah told this around everyone began to laugh, and say how foolish he was. But Noah went right ahead and built a boat. Now that is not unusual in these days, but he built it five hundred miles from the nearest ocean, a thousand times too big for his own family, and when he got it finished he filled it with animals! I am sure I know what they called Noah in those days: "Nutty Noah." But he anticipated history and thus showed how short-sighted the world is when it walks in the light of its own reason, alone. He was led on by his faith to become, as this text says, "the heir of the righteousness which comes by faith," i.e., in Christ Jesus, and he became part of the divine family.
That is what faith is:
Faith is believing there is another dimension to life other than those which can be touched, tasted, seen or felt. There is more to life than that. There is also the realm of the spirit, the invisible spiritual kingdom of God. All the ultimate answers of life lie in that kingdom.
Faith believes that God, in his grace, has stepped over the boundary into human history and told us some great and very valuable facts.
Faith believes them and adjusts its life to those facts and walks on that basis.
The world does not understand and oftentimes uses derogatory terms for those who walk by faith. Certainly they are not oddballs in every way, although in some way every Christian is, but, though the world does not understand why, the man who walks by faith wins the day because he has come in touch with things as they really are. That is the glory of faith.
Now, do you have faith? Are you a man or woman, boy or girl of faith? Is there a hunger for something better in your life? Is there a conviction that God is ready to answer your cry? In fact, he has already answered it, in Christ. Are you ready then to commit yourself to obey what he says, to accept his verdict, his viewpoint, as the true one despite the clamant cries that will pour into your ear from every side, saying this is wrong?
That is what faith is, and if you are that kind of a man or woman you can join this parade of faith in this unfinished chapter.
I read this last week an account of a dear Christian woman in Africa who died, and the village gathered to pay its respects at the funeral. There were many kind things said about her, but one of the most revealing was the comment, "If the Bible is going to be rewritten in heaven, this woman ought to be in it."
Now, the Bible is not going to be rewritten in heaven; it never needs to be rewritten for it is truth, and truth never needs to change. But one thing will happen to it. There are certain sections of it that will be extended because they are unfinished -- the book of Acts, for instance, and the eleventh chapter of Hebrews We are still following the same program. God is still calling men and women to live by faith. And if, by faith in what God has said, we conduct our life according to this revelation, we too shall someday have our names added to this parade of the heroes of faith, the men and women who have done the only great things the world has ever really known.
Prayer:
Our Father, thank you for this glimpse into the life of the past and this revelation of what faith is today. How we feel the need of it in this hour, as we live in the midst of a confused and bewildered society, a world that is troubled, uncertain, unstable, in the grip of lies that it thinks are truths, and rejecting truths that it regards as lies. God grant us the simple faith of a child by which we can trust thy love, trust thy word, and believe you have told us the truth. Teach us to live according to it, coming to know Jesus Christ our living Lord, by whom life can be changed and all that we hope for may be realized. Though it be through difficulties, through trials, through heartache and tears, yet we shall win the day, we shall arrive at the goal, we shall be what we long to be, in him. For his sake, Amen.
HOW FAITH WORKS
R.C STEDMAN
This past week I attended two graduation exercises for local schools. At each, able young orators with admirable self-assurance told us what was wrong with the world and what improvements we can expect when their generation takes control. Behind all the truly fine words there was evident one philosophy. It was that the human mind, educated to a high degree, was, in its collective manifestation, a completely adequate instrument with which to solve human problems. Now, the writer of Hebrews challenges that philosophy head-on. He says that man's reason, operating alone, invariably misinterprets the evidence, and that it was never intended so to operate; that reason is a beautiful instrument designed of God and excellently suited for the realm in which it was intended to operate, but that man's reason, as it exists now, is deprived of an essential dimension of life. That missing dimension is an absolutely necessary ingredient if we ever expect to solve our problems.
The writer goes on to point out, as we have been seeing all along, that God has spoken to man and has revealed basic truths about life. That revelation is quite different than what man's unaided reason feels is the explanation of secrets of living. If we accept the revelation and act on these truths (that is what faith is, accepting and acting on them) reason then will find its proper place and life will make sense as God intended it to do. But without faith we only struggle on in a confused cycle of bewilderment, boredom and frustration.
The writer has made clear that the revelation of God all centers in Jesus Christ; therefore the life of faith begins by an acceptance of him. Faith, as we have already seen, is a desire for something better. It starts with hope. Then it is an awareness of Someone else in life, an Unseen Someone who is nevertheless very real. Then faith involves an assurance resulting from this that obedience to that Someone will bring us to the something better. Faith, therefore, is a very practical thing, is it not? The writer is well aware that a living illustration always helps, hence this mighty eleventh chapter which is filled with the simple stories of men and women of like passion with ourselves, living in the kind of a world in which we live, confronted with the same kind of problems, who mastered their problems and overcame the obstacles and won their way to tremendous fulfillment by faith. This chapter hardly needs exposition as these accounts are self-explanatory but perhaps it may be helpful to point out five outstanding characteristics of faith manifest in this eleventh chapter. You can test your own faith by these, for here are the distinguishing marks of genuine faith:
Perhaps the most characteristic thing is that faith always anticipates, i.e., it moves toward a clearly expected event in the future. It was Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward." With that fact none can quarrel. But without faith, life must therefore be a blind march into mystery: We can not know where we are going; we do not know what is coming, we do not see what lies ahead. The future is an imponderable enigma to those without faith; anything can happen. Therefore there is always a sense of anxiety in trying to look ahead.
But faith believes that God has revealed something about the future; not everything, but something. And what he has revealed is quite enough for us to know. Faith seizes upon a revealed event and begins to live in anticipation of it. Therefore, faith gives life goal, purpose and destination. It is a look into the future.
See this in Abraham. We are told in Verse 9,
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, (Hebrews 11:9a RSV)
He dwelt there, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the promises, because
...he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:10 RSV)
Here is an illustration of the meaninglessness of time in the life of faith. It is amazing how far Abraham saw. As best we can tell, Abraham lived about two thousand years before Christ. We live about two thousand years after him. Yet Abraham, looking forward by faith, believing what God had said would take place, looked across these forty centuries of time and beyond to the day when God would bring to pass on earth a city with eternal foundations, i.e., life on earth would be lived after God's order. Abraham saw what John sees in the book of Revelation, a city coming down out of heaven onto earth. I think that is a symbol (perhaps it is a literal city, but I think it is symbolic) of that for which we pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," (Matthew 6:10). That is what Abraham longed for, an earth run after God's order, where men would dwell together in peace, harmony, blessing, beauty and fulfillment. Because of that he was content to dwell in tents, looking for that coming.
You can see this quality of anticipation also in Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Isaac and Jacob both knew that God intended to make nations from their sons, and their final prayers were based upon that fact. They prayed in anticipation of what God had said would come, and blessed their children on that basis. Joseph, when he was dying, saw two hundred years ahead to the coming exodus from Egypt, and he made arrangements by faith for a funeral service in the promised land. He did not want to be buried in Egypt. Thus he symbolized his conviction that God was going to do exactly what he had said. And in the course of time it happened exactly that way.
You can see how faith anticipates in the case of Moses' parents who, when he was born, saw that he was a beautiful child, a goodly child, and they decided to save him from the edict of the king that all male children should be slain, (Hebrews 11:23). This was more than the natural desire of parents to preserve their children (even an especially handsome child like Moses) from death. But these parents knew there was a promise of deliverance from Egypt for their people, and they knew that the time was near. God had foretold how long it would be. They were given assurance that this boy was to be the deliverer. They believed that promise and, acting on that, they defied the king and hid the child for three months.
Related to this quality of faith which accepts as certain a promise of the future is a second quality, that faith always acts. There is today a very common misconception that thinks of men and women of faith as so occupied with the future that they sit around, twiddling their thumbs, doing nothing now. There is a very trite saying concerning those who are "so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly use." That, unfortunately, is the common concept of faith. But that is not faith; that is fatalism! Faith works! Faith is doing something now, in view of the future. If you are folding your hands and waiting for the Second Coming you are not living the life of faith. The life of faith is that which "occupies till I come"( Luke 19:13), as Jesus said. It acts now in view of that coming event.
Take each example in this chapter and you will see that it is one of action. Without exception these men and women were set to work by their faith. Their faith made them act in the present. Therefore, faith is not passive, it is dynamic, forceful. Listen to the magnificent summary here of the actions of faith.
And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets -- who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. (Hebrews 11:32-35 RSV)
That is not poetry; that is history -- faith at work. The activities of faith have changed the course of history. Yet faith does not act blindly either, it is not just doing anything. It is made very clear in this chapter that faith evaluates, it weighs the possibilities, the alternatives. Perhaps we could just as accurately put it, faith risks! One characteristic of faith is, it gladly sacrifices present advantage in order to gain the future. It does not try to have its cake and eat it too. Therefore, it dashes head-on with the common philosophy of our day, "Get it now or you may never have another chance."
Recently in the Stanford Daily there appeared an ad in response to some of the advertisements put in by a fine group called Contemporary Christians on Campus. This ad originated with a group who signed themselves Contemporary Atheists On Campus. It said in flaming letters, "Deny God now; tomorrow may be too late!" There is an ironic truth about that, but the message they intended to convey was that it was necessary to lay hold of the present now because, at the end of life one may find there is no God and no afterlife and thus lose all opportunity to invest oneself in worthwhile enterprises now. That was their argument. But do you see how faith contravenes that? Faith says exactly the opposite.
These heroes of faith say to us, "Live now in view of the future, and you will gain both the future and the present!" Fling away the temporary now and you will gain both the future and, to your own amazement, find that the present has taken on fullness of meaning. It is given back to you, again and again.
You can see this in Abraham. We read,
"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go," (Hebrews 11:8 RSV).
That is rather unusual. Here is a man who left home and went abroad without making any reservations. He went out on a march without a map, leaving his friends and his influence behind. There must have been many who said to him, "What an absurd thing to do, to go out not knowing where you are going. What is your destination?" And Abraham said, "I don't know." He did not know where he was going, but he knew whom he was going with, and what a difference that makes. Because he obeyed, the land became his and his children's. Even to this 20th century hour we have ample evidence in the existence of the nation Israel in that self-same land that the promise God made to Abraham is valid, forty centuries later.
You can see how faith weighs and evaluates in the example of Moses. We are told that,
Moses, when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeing pleasures of sin," (Hebrews 11:24-25 RSV).
He weighed the wealth of Egypt and the prestige of royalty against the satisfaction of being an instrument of the living God, and an heir of the promises of God. He unhesitatingly chose because, we are told, he saw the unseen; he looked beyond the visible and saw the invisible, and he believed in him. He saw God at work and, because of that, Moses became the man, more than any other man in recorded history, who saw God doing things and learned to know God intimately.
You can see faith evaluating in the case of Rahab, the prostitute. She risked her life and forsook her pagan religion. Why? Because she believed in God and thus saved her life, her family's (Hebrews 11:31), and she gained God, as well. Faith is never something merely for the future, but faith says that if we invest in that future which God offers us, we shall gain both the future and the present.
There is another summary in Verse 36:
Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:36-38 RSV)
But perhaps the most striking quality of all is that faith dares. When God has spoken, faith ignores the contrary evidence even though it seems to be absolutely impossible. Look at Abraham and Sarah in Verses 11 and 12:
By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. (Hebrews 11:11-12 RSV)
Here were two people, a man and his wife, whose bodies were impotent. They had long since passed the age of childbearing. He was a hundred, she was ninety; there is not a gynecologist alive who would give them a chance to have a child -- but they went ahead, anyway. And the result was one little boy from whom came two lines of descendants, the writer tells us, a heavenly seed and an earthly seed. The earthly seed, the physical seed of Abraham, is the nation of Israel and the nations of the Semitic branches, including the Arabs. The heavenly seed are those who show the same kind of faith that Abraham did and win the gift of righteousness by faith, as Paul says in Romans 4. That heavenly seed includes many who are present in this congregation this morning, who have found Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham, and thus have become children of Abraham.
You can see it in Abraham again when he offered up Isaac. Think of that! His reason could see no solution to his problem. God had said to him, "Through this boy Isaac your descendants will be named." And now God was telling him to take the boy out and put him to death. Reason could never figure that out, but Abraham was not walking by reason but by faith. He believed that God had a solution to that problem, though man could not solve it. He believed God would raise the boy from the dead, if need be, to fulfill his promise, so thoroughly did Abraham believe that God meant what he said. As a result we have this amazing account of how Abraham, as it were, received the boy back from the dead, for in Abraham's mind he was as good as dead. But his faith triumphed and God gave him back the boy.
You can see the daring of faith in the people of Israel at the Red Sea and before the walls of Jericho. Here were two impossibilities. The waters were flowing before them and God said to go down and walk through it. They obeyed, not knowing what God would do. It was impossible from an earthly standpoint, but as they went forward God moved the waters back by a great wind and they went through on dry land. The Egyptians, trying to do it without faith, drowned. When the great walls of Jericho stood before them, 85 feet thick and over 100 feet high, impassable, impossible, they had only feeble instruments of warfare but in obedience to God they marched around the city seven times and the walls fell down. Faith dares. It pays no attention to impossibilities. As someone has put it,
Faith, mighty faith
The promise sees
And looks to God alone,
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries, "It shall be done."That brings us to the least spectacular but the most important aspect of faith. Faith persists, faith perseveres. Perhaps the most amazing statement in this amazing chapter is twice given. Though these people by faith obtained much from God, yet they all died without obtaining the promise they looked for.
These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16)
They were looking for more than their own personal satisfaction. They were longing to see God's purposes fulfilled on earth. They were not just hoping to go to heaven when they died. These men and women of faith were looking for heaven to come to earth. They were looking to God to bring to pass his will among men but they died without seeing it come to pass. There was a special reason for this:
And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40 RSV)
Think back for a moment over the names in this chapter and what the world owes to these men and women: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets. Our laws, our governments, our institutions, our ideals, our standards we owe to these men and women. They persisted in faith till the whole world was blessed. Had they given up, we would never have heard of them. But still they did not see the greatest thing of all and the reason was that God had arranged it that we, living in this 20th century, might share this race and have a part in the great prize for which they were looking. We are called to run the same race. We are called to judge the present by the future, to weigh the permanent against the temporary, the ephemeral. To dare to do the impossible against all the silken arguments of the world around about us and to keep on day after day after day, whether we are recognized or not.
Now the whole great argument of this chapter is lost if we do not read the first verses of Chapter 12:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2 RSV)
We are "surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses," he says. Now that does not refer to people who have died and gone on to heaven and are looking down on us from above. I know that is a favorite interpretation of this figure here, but I do not think that is what it means. It means that these people are saying something to us, they are testifying to us, they are witnesses in that sense. Their lives are saying that we ought to lay aside every weight, i.e., whatever hinders faith. You never say "Yes" to Christ without saying "No" to something else!
"And the sin which clings so closely." What is that? That is unbelief. That is the failure to take revelation seriously. That is the sin which is mentioned all through Hebrews And then, what? "Run with patience," with perseverance, with persistence, keeping on no matter what happens. How? By "looking unto Jesus," that is the answer. The others we read of here can inspire us, challenge us, and some of the men and women of faith who have lived since these days can do the same.
I read the life of Martin Luther, and what a challenge he is; and of John Wesley, and D. L. Moody, and of some of the recent martyrs of faith, Jim Elliot and others. How they have challenged my life and inspired me to make a fresh start; to determine anew to walk with God, and to follow their example. They challenge us to mobilize our resources, clench our fists, set our jaws and determine that we shall be men and women of faith in this 20th century. But if that is our motivation we shall find that we soon run out of gas. It all begins to fade and after a few weeks we are right back in the same old rut.
The secret of persistence is in this phrase, "looking unto Jesus." The word means "looking away unto Jesus." Look at these men and women of faith, yes, but then look away unto Jesus. Why? Because he is the author and finisher of our faith. He can begin it and he can end it, complete it. He is the pioneer, he has gone on ahead. He is also the perfecter of faith. He himself ran the race. He laid aside every weight, every tie of family and friends. Every restraining hand he brushed aside that he might resolutely walk with God. He set his face against the popular sin of unbelief and walked on in patient perseverance, trusting the Father to work everything out for him. He set the example.
But there is more than example in this phrase; there is empowerment. That is what I want you to see. We are to look away unto Jesus because he can do what these others cannot do. They can inspire us, but he empowers us. Moment by moment, day by day, week by week, year by year, if we learn to look to him we find strength imparted to us. That is the secret.
You can find strength to begin in Jesus, you can venture out and start this life of faith today in him. You also discover strength to continue. He is not "up there" somewhere. As this book has made clear, he is within us, by faith. If we have received Jesus Christ, he dwells within. He has entered into the sanctuary, into the inner man, into the place where we need strength, and is available every moment for me. Therefore, in Christ, I have all that it takes to meet life.
As Paul says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," (Philippians 4:13).
Prayer:
Our Father, thank you for a living Lord Jesus who, unlike these men and women of faith, is no distant person, one that we cannot know and talk to, and draw strength from, and fellowship with, and lean upon. But he is our Lord, our living Lord, granted to the heart that is ready to receive him by a simple invitation and who is ready to trust him through life to make available to us all that we need in every hour, whether of pressure or not. We thank thee for this great truth. Teach us to live by it. In Christ's name, Amen.
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