Heb No.22 By Faith Ch11

A little boy came up to me, he wouldn't have been more than five years of age, last Sunday morning. He'd been to the Sunday school and obviously was brought in by his mother for the communion service. And he said on his way out as he shook my hand in a very thoughtful fashion, I would like to say, mister, it was a bit long for me.

Well I trust that trying to get through forty odd verses of scripture will not be too long for all of us here and indeed as is obvious to you if you've had chance to glance through our outline notes, it's not my intention to try to work through this passage verse by verse, though I almost convinced myself earlier on today that in the not too distant future I'd like to take Hebrews 11 as a successive series of studies on a Sunday morning because this chapter is just chock-a-block with good things and it will be very easy, or at least it is very challenging to preach the Old Testament and the impact of the lives of many of the people mentioned here through this particular passage of scripture. However that for future days as God leads. I had a couple of days free when I was in Mexico City.

And I spent them by looking around some of the historical landmarks of that delightful, fascinating metropolis, one of the biggest cities in the world with upwards of fourteen or fifteen million people packed into it. Right at the heart of Mexico City there's a vast park, something like but larger than Hyde Park. And in the center of the park there is a hill, and on the top of the hill there is a castle called Chapultepec Castle.

And I went into that castle, having paid the entrance fee, and I managed to find a party which was being conducted around with an English speaking guide. And as we went down one corridor after another we were introduced to the fascinating story of Mexican history. And there's one particular room which I'm reminded of this evening, in which several of the great men that were used to gain independence for Mexico itself had their portraits suspended on the walls.

One could almost trace the story of Mexico, certainly of modern Mexico, from just being in that large rectangular room. And what I suggest this evening, as we look into Hebrews chapter 11, is this, that you are going down a gallery in which you will find many portraits of great men and women of God of Old Testament days. Some are named, some you will not recognize because they're not specifically mentioned, though they are referred to in the Old Testament and some of the historical books to which I made reference a moment or so ago that are not in the Bible.

But these great people have all one thing in common, and as you go down the gallery and you look at each portrait, you cannot but grasp the message that these were folks full of faith who hazarded their lives in the name of the Lord God. Now I don't believe that the faith gallery of righteous people start at the end of the Old Testament. It goes on into the New Testament era.

And I believe it's a challenge, so to speak, for every Christian person to live a life that qualifies them, if you please, for their portrait also to be hung in such a gallery because the gallery goes on almost endlessly, certainly until the terminus of human history. And men and women who name the name of God are called to live in such a fashion that faith is the most dominant characteristic in their lives. Again, if I can go back to my trips, my recent journeys abroad for a moment.

In America, that is the United States of America, you might know from having seen a dollar bill that there is an ascription to deity on the currency of the Americans. I don't know of any other currency in the world, there may be such, but I don't know of any such notes in the world that have a comment about God on them. The Americans have on their dollar, in God we trust.

In God we trust, and whether it's a $100 note or a $1 note, you will find that particular maxim. Now I want to say that if there are such things as spiritual dollars, then it's that currency that men and women of faith trade in. The whole of their life is given over to a faith concept.

And that's what God calls you and me to. To live lives of faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. But why is it that some 40 odd verses in this epistle are given over to the explanation, at least by illustration of what faith really means? Well, you get the answer to that question by going back to the final few verses of the 10th chapter, where you remember there is that great declaration, quoting Habakkuk, and in the A.V. it is rendered, the just shall live by faith.

Or as it's put in the N.I.V., my righteous one or my righteous people will live by faith. And it goes on to say, if he, if they shrink back, I will not be pleased with him or them. Who's speaking? God.

Speaking of whom? Well, of people who have put their trust in him. And the Lord is here declaring that folks who please him are those who have invested faith in him and take his word as being his bond. How do you please God? Well you please him by trusting him.

At the earthly level, how do you please your friend? How do I please Rowena? How does she, my wife, please me? By exercising faith and trust, the whole of marriage. Any relationship, marriage or otherwise, close, glorious relationships which we enjoy as Christian people, they are all welded together by faith, by trust in each other. A father gets great delight in the thought that his lad, his lass, knows that he is dependable and that he can be trusted in every situation, in every circumstance.

And we get that desire to be trusted from God himself. Indeed, we're told in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6 that without faith, quoting the A.V. here, without faith it is impossible to please God. Alright, those who will bring pleasure to the heart of the Lord are to exercise an absolute confidence in him.

But the writer of the Hebrews epistles knows that the majority of people are not schooled in theology and philosophical concepts. And he knows because of the example of our Lord Jesus that the best way to teach is through illustration, and particularly through biography. And so we get an excursion into Old Testament history, and it's a pretty thorough one because he starts with Abel and he goes all the way through the Old Testament right to that intertestamental period and he gives us examples of men and women who warmed the heart of God because they showed faith, trust, confidence in the living God.

And as we see their examples, so we ourselves are stimulated to live lives that please God. I can hardly tell you just how much the impact of the life of Jim Elliot made upon me as a young man. For the uninitiated, let me tell you that Jim Elliot was one of, I believe, four brethren missionaries who gave his life in Ecuador, South America for God in 1954.

He was butchered at the hands of the people that he came to save, the Alka Indians. And his wife wrote a book, and in the book she incorporated many a comment that Jim Elliot had put down in his diary when he was at Wheaton Bible College in the United States. And one of the things that Jim Elliot said that so gripped my young life was this, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.

I might refer again to that particular quotation if time allows later on. But the point is this, my life was challenged through the biography of Jim Elliot. And I learned a lot of theological concepts, a great deal of the life of faith through reading what the wife of that man had to say about her husband.

And so as we move through Hebrews chapter 11, we're stimulated to be those who engage first gear and move into top gear, who accelerate down the motorway of faith. We don't shrink back, we don't go into reverse. We're not those who bring displeasure to the Lord, we're encouraged to live a faith life because of these many, many saints of old who live such a sterling testimony before God.

Well then, just for a moment or two, let's ask ourselves, because there are some theological concepts obviously dealt with in Hebrews 11, what faith is? And I deliberately this evening read from the NIV version of the Bible because I cannot apologize in saying that I believe that chapter 11 and verse 1 is wrongly translated in the authorized version of the Bible. The AV puts it like this, now faith is the substance of things hoped for. Better, the NIV puts it, now faith is being sure of what we hope for.

Faith itself is independent of the object in which trust is placed. The AV says faith is a substance of things hoped for, but it can't be. I hope for God.

I have trust in God. But I don't make God come into realization, I don't make him into some substance simply because I have faith in him. Faith doesn't describe God.

Faith describes the attitude of heart, the affection that I have to a God who always exists independently of my faith. So here we have perhaps a better translation, certainly more accurate from the original. Faith is being sure of what we hope for.

It's being sure of the affection of God, of the love of God. It's being sure of a God to whom I commit myself. I don't bring God into existence by exercising faith, but rather God and I are connected up as a result of the faith attitude that I have towards him.

What is faith? Well, I give it you by the way of an example in my handout notes. Faith is like the little boy who perhaps during the last world war, let me say because I can remember such an occasion, who will jump down into the darkness of an air raid shelter when he, like I was, was absolutely terrified of the dark. The Nazi bombers up above the steel city of Sheffield, that hurried rush down the staircase of our home, out through the back door, across the garden, and there was that hideous air raid shelter which terrified me.

And dad would go in first and he'd say, jump. And to jump for me would have been absolutely impossible without that intuition that he was there and that his voice was speaking to me. And because of that, the voice and the intuition, I would jump into the darkness that otherwise would terrify me, for I was only a little fellow of just a few years of age.

That's faith. Committing oneself to God, not in an irrational blind way, but because your own intuition tells you that God must exist. Behind this world, behind creation, there is a creator, and God speaks through a reasonable word, the word of Scripture, and those two evidences, that of my own realization that I made in the image of someone who is great and someone who is loving, and my knowledge, however inadequate of his word, that gives me the ability to make a rational faith commitment to God.

That's what faith is. It's believing in God and committing your life to God, even though some of the things that he asks you to do seem to be a little bit extraordinary. Without faith, says our writer, again I'm going back to the sixth verse, it's impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I couldn't have fallen into the embrace of my father in those days in the Second World War, unless I jumped. I couldn't have had the blessing of the salvation, so to speak, of our air raid shelter, unless I committed myself to him in the darkness. And neither could he have had the pleasure of giving security to his son, unless his lad had been prepared to make that leap of faith.

So, faith is being sure of what you hope for, and certain of what we do not see. This is well illustrated, says Hebrews, by the ancients. Verse two, that is the elders, the patriarchs of the Old Testament, that catalog of names which he's going to enter into.

It doesn't matter where you take up the reading, they all illustrate this point, that they can take, and have taken, a leap of faith. They've committed their way to the Lord. Not a suicidal leap, not a suicidal risk, not the conviction of imagination, but rather the conviction that God himself, by his spirit, and through his word, will not in any way allow them to make a mess of their lives, but rather in committing themselves to him, they will find the best route through this earthly pilgrimage.

Take, just for example, those two characters of Noah and Abraham. These were people who made a faith commitment. Or take, if you like, Abraham and Moses.

These also made faith commitments. Abraham, you remember, he left his home. He left the security of the Ur of the Chaldees.

Moses, he left the good job that he had, so to speak, in Egypt. Both of these men let go on things that normally cause us to be rather fearful of exercising faith, security, and home. And they did so simply because they believed that God had spoken to them.

And what these men did, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, so we are called to do. Are you saying faith brings with it risks? Yes, it brought with it risks for Moses. It brought risks for Noah.

It certainly brought tremendous risks for Abraham. Take Noah. What was the risk that he had to put up with? Well, the risk of being made a fool.

You see, if you go into the seventh verse and then backtrack in the Bible to the corresponding chapter in Genesis, you are made aware that Noah was the idiot of his day. As far as those people were concerned who listened to him, look at this man building a boat. If you're going to build a boat, it's best to start by the beach.

But Noah lived a long way from the sea. Noah, why are you building this boat? Well, it's going to rain. Rain, Noah? What is rain? The whole thing is so absurd.

But God called Noah to do something that was irrational, and he does it. He takes the risk. And he preaches that there's salvation.

Salvation through what, Noah? Salvation through the ark. Noah, you must be mad. But is Noah any more mad than we are counted to be in these days when we tell folks that the whole of this world will one day be involved in a terrible conflagration, tremendous wars, hopelessness on every fear, on every hand, men calling to the rocks to hide themselves, wishing that they could be devoured or plunged into the bowels of the ocean.

And they laugh. And you say to sophisticated 20th century men, there's only hope in the cross. The cross? You're back again with the gospel of the slaughterhouse.

They ridicule, they laugh. You see, risks are involved in faith. But ultimately, faith vindicates itself.

Because faith is not applied in a vacuum. Faith is applied, attached to an object, none other than God Himself. Faith, I repeat, does not bring God into existence.

But faith is the link between a man and God. And when man operates on the basis of what God has said, when he exercises trust and confidence in the living God, then he's vindicated, as Noah was. And indeed, as Abraham was.

Was ever there a man who might well have had as an epitaph on his tomb by faith than Abraham? You come across it there, don't you? In the ninth verse. And in the following verses that tell us in far greater detail than allusion is made to the story of Noah, how Abraham became a man who climbed the whole of the Himalayan mountains of faith. And when he got to his Everest, he was still climbing and climbing strong.

And he reached the summit. There was no man on God's earth apart from our Lord Jesus, who has exercised such supreme faith in God as Abraham. That's why Abraham is called a friend of God.

That's why God revealed his secrets to Abraham. He only reveals secrets to his friends. But on what basis do I become a friend of God? On what basis do I become a married man? On what basis do I treasure precious relationships here amongst many of God's children in the tabernacle? Well, on the basis of faith.

On the basis of trust. On the basis of confidence. This is what God is asking of us.

The same thing as we ask of one another, but heightened to an absolute measure. Abraham took risks. Abraham, get out of your tent.

Move away from Ur of the Chaldees and come to a land that I'll show you. Do you imagine what the people said in Abraham's day, back in pagan Ur, when Abraham told them that he was going to make a departure? Where are you going, Abraham? I don't know. But Abraham, you're a merchant man here.

You're a businessman. You've made tens of thousands of shekels. You're one of the richest men.

You must be going to some great complex where merchants meet and where you can do tremendous business. Abraham, let us in on the secret. Where are you going? I don't know where I'm going.

I often wonder what Sarah said when she woke up one day and found that Abraham was pulling the tent pegs out of their dwelling, for they lived as Bedouin tribespeople. What are you doing, Abraham? Well, we're moving. Where are we going? I don't know.

Who's told you? God has told me. And Abraham, on the basis of God's Word, will look absurd in Sarah's sight. It's an interesting comment in the Old Testament when God says, I called Abraham alone.

I've often wondered what Sarah's reaction was. But Abraham will move out with God even if his wife doesn't understand, even if his colleagues back in Ur of the Chaldees think that he's beside himself. Abraham will take risks.

He'll take risks throughout his life. He'll take risks in believing that when he's an old man, beyond the years when a person generally fathers a child because God has spoken, Sarah's womb will be quickened. And he and she will be proud parents of Isaac, who brings pleasure to his heart.

And when God says to Abraham, take that young boy up the mount and sacrifice him, Abraham will do so, not because he's a cruel father who wants the death of his child. Abraham comes to terms as an emotional fight in his heart as he moves steadfastly towards Zion itself. How can he offer this boy? But dare he go against God? Can God break his word? Of course he can't.

And Abraham comes to that majestic conclusion. Oh, we look at it back through the pages of the New Testament and we don't realize what splendid naked faith this was. Abraham, patriarch living thousands of years before the Christ comes, draws his own conclusion that if he kills his child, God is bound to raise Isaac from the dead because God's word is reliable.

God's word is absolute. Faith calls men and women to take risks. You go down that catalog, open up the scriptures from the Old Testament as it amplifies the stories.

Read into the book of Maccabees about those faithful religious Jews and how they overcame the hostility of pagan forces and still believe that God would somehow or other, even in the most dire situation, come to their help and vindicate their testimony. The man of faith is not the weak-kneed person that some believe Christians to be. The man of faith is not made out of jelly.

He's made out of stronger substance than the rock of Gibraltar. And when God sees faith, then he's pleased. But faith means colossal risks.

Like the surgeon who leaves a high-paid job in the metropolis of London and flings himself out to the backwaters of Bangladesh and Thailand in the 20th century. It takes faith, it takes risks to do this. To believe that one can spend one's life working in the name of God for a gospel that many, many contemporaries in the medical situation ridicule.

Ah, but God will one day vindicate the risks of faith that men of that description have taken. Well, of course, it could be argued that the examples I've cited so far this evening, Noah, Abraham, Moses, are really inadmissible in as much as many of these men, not only those three, but the others in this chapter, they saw some tangible evidence of the reward of faith. After all, Abraham was rewarded in as much as Isaac was born, and as much as in one sense he received Isaac back from the dead.

He saw tangible evidences of God's response to the faith that he exercised. And it might be said, but that's not the case with many a person today. We exercise faith in God and we don't always see God vindicate the testimony.

I mean, can you explain why those OMF missionaries died in, where was it, Thailand, just a couple of years ago? Can you explain why it is that though some are delivered from prison, there are still thousands of Christians in the Soviet Union and in other lands where there is repression against gospel proclamation, and they're incarcerated, they're withering, they're dying in their cells. Can you explain all this? Faith calls us to make risks, yes, but the vindication as Abraham and Moses and Noah received it in their day isn't always so obvious in the 20th century. Well, my friend, let me remind you of this, that first of all, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the rest, they didn't have full vindication of their faith.

You see, we're told very, very clearly in Scripture that Abraham was looking for something more wonderful than Canaan. Abraham was looking for a city whose maker and whose builder was God Himself. Says the 12th and 13th verses, they did not receive the things promised, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.

And it goes on to tell us in a later verse, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. You see, Abraham and Moses and the rest, they were not materialistic. They recognized that in the promised land and in all the material provisions that perhaps God did grant to them, these were but tokens.

These were but symbolic of what God had in store, not just a tract of land in Canaan, not just something in Mother Earth, sin-stained earth, but Abraham was peering forward to a greater day, to a time when God would be all and in all, when God's eternal purposes would be brought about in this world. And Abraham, he never lived to see that day. He never even saw physically the day of Jesus Christ.

He entered somewhat into the purposes of God, but the final fulfillment, that he never saw. The reward was still in the future. And some of these men who are listed towards the end of our chapter, they were not physically delivered by God, were told that others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection.

Some faced jeers and flogging while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, as was claimed to be the case by tradition of Jeremiah. They were sawn in two, as according to tradition happened to Isaiah.

These were men who went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, ill-treated. Of such, the world was not worthy. They never saw the vindication of faith during their earthly life, but they still believed that ultimately God would work out His purposes.

How does God work out His purposes? Let me tell you that in the closing moments of my study this evening. And come down again to the 39th and 40th verses. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

God had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect. What does that mean? It means simply this, that the faithful of the Old Testament era and the faithful of the New Testament era will be one great people together who will benefit by the blessings of God. You say, what was God's great plan? That these people never live to see fulfilled, and yet one day will enjoy the blessings of along with ourselves.

Well, God's great plan, of course, was to reconcile all things to Himself in and through our Lord Jesus. That's what we read in Ephesians chapter 1, that God sent the Lord Jesus Christ into this world to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. The men of the Old Testament were looking forward to the ministry of Jesus.

And when Jesus comes, we're told that all the promises of God are yes and amen in Him. Now many of us here, unlike the Old Testament faithful, we've inherited the promises of God. Yes, we're saved.

We have the fullness of the Spirit. We know something of the greatness of the blessings of redemption. But there's yet a lot in store.

That city whose maker and builder is God, that has not yet been inaugurated. That has not yet become visible. These bodies of ours are still subject to decay.

This universe is still stained by sin. And yet in the future, the consummation of all that Jesus Christ has achieved will be seen in terms of a rejuvenated heaven and a renewed earth. And what's more, a renewed humanity.

Abraham was looking forward to that. Moses was looking forward to that. The early disciples of the Christian era were looking forward to that.

And we, with them, and the Old Testament saints, have that as our ultimate inheritance. This is what God has planned. Something better than this world has ever known for all of us.

Entry into that city whose maker and builder is God. That city which is built, so to speak, on the gospel of Jesus Christ. How do you get in? By exercising faith.

The same sort of faith as Abraham exercised and all the patriarchs. The same sort of faith as Paul and all the apostles exercised. The same sort of faith as missionaries and pastors and ordinary Christian people have exercised down the years of Christian history.

Faith in the living God. Taking God at His word. Embracing His promises.

And trusting Him to deliver your soul eternally into His kingdom. Because Jesus bled and died. And without faith, I couldn't have entrusted myself as a little boy into the care of my father in the darkness of the nights in the north of England during the Second World War.

But I had intuition. And I heard His voice. And I committed myself.

And I had the blessing of the safety of His arms and our shelter. And He had the pleasure of giving me security. It's on that basis that Abraham lived his life.

It's on that basis that Paul committed himself to God. It's on that basis that God asked commitment from you and me. Faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel.

And that faith, wonder of all wonders, pleases the God of glory. And that's what Hebrews chapter 11 teaches us so very clearly. Amen.