The Necessity of Faith – Part 2
Hebrews 11:1-7 (4-7)
October 1, 2017
Last time we met we started looking at this 3rd Sola,
Which is the understanding that we are justified through faith alone.
And again, just to make sure that we are clear, it is important to understand that this was THE CHIEF ISSUE of the Reformation.
If you lose this one, you lose them all.
If you add anything to the requirement of faith for justification
Then you instantly lose grace alone and Christ alone,
And of course then by necessity you lose the glory of God alone.
If I must do anything (however insignificant) to achieve salvation then:
• We cannot say it was pure grace…
• We cannot say Jesus did it all…
• And God cannot receive all the glory…
Since my actions and efforts are clearly part of the process.
But ultimately the main reason we believe
That man is justified by faith alone
Is because that is the undeniable message of Scripture.
That being said, we have begun looking at this wonderful doctrine.
And we have started simply with the basics.
We are looking now at what we are calling “The Necessity of Faith”
Of course that is made obvious to us because in verse 6 of our text we read:
(6) “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
I don’t really know how much clearer you can make it than that.
What we are seeking to do is
Understand why the writer of Hebrews came to that conclusion.
And to do that we are looking at these first 7 seven verses of Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11 is a chapter which serves as an illustration.
The writer is encouraging his audience to walk by faith and not to shrink back.
And in order to encourage them,
He takes them on a tour through this faith hall of fame
Where his audience can learn how important faith is to their walk.
What we want to see is the necessity of faith
And this we find in the first 7 verses.
We started this last week by looking at our first point.
#1 THE NATURE OF FAITH
Hebrews 11:1-5
That is to say, we must understand what this faith is.
I told you that Reformed Thought has identified this with 3 Latin words.
• NOTITIA – (Notes) the actual gospel information
• ASCENSU – (Ascent) the cognitive intellectual belief that the information is true.
• FIDUCIA – (Trust) the leaning upon that truth and making decisions upon it as true.
These mark the difference between a profession of faith and actual faith.
These mark the difference between faith and “saving” faith.
For while many make a profession of faith,
Not all who make that profession are saved.
We are not saved by making a profession of faith.
We are saved when we give God genuine faith.
There is a difference.
Now Reformed thought sought to define this faith, and as helpful as that is, we still desire to LOOK TO SCRIPTURE for the ultimate definition.
And we saw last week that:
(1) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
• We learned that it all starts with man hoping for something he does not actually see.
• And then that person has to come to a decision as to whether or not he will believe it, even though he doesn’t see it.
• Because he must make this decision, he runs a test (the word “conviction” actually means “to prove with a test”)
• And we found that all he can possibly test is the character of God. (A promise is only as good as the one who makes it)
• The believer comes to the conviction that God is trustworthy and therefore chooses to believe what he does not see.
• This faith then results in “assurance” that his hopes will be fulfilled.
And if assurance was the only consequence that alone would be worth it,
But what we found is that this type of faith actually comes
With an even greater consequence than just assurance.
(2) “For by it the men of old gained approval.”
And let that sink in for a moment.
It was way back in the book of Job that Eliphaz asked:
Job 4:17 “Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?”
Job later said:
Job 9:2 “In truth I know that this is so; But how can a man be in the right before God?”
Bildad also asked:
Job 25:4 “How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman?”
We are talking about sinful humans who have wronged God
and fallen short of His perfect righteous standard…
Then what can these sinful humans do in order to gain God’s approval?
What can they do to make it all right between them and God?
And here the writer of Hebrews reveals that answer: FAITH
(2) “For by it the men of old gained approval.”
And after making this statement the writer is about to illustrate his point.
This is where we LEFT OFF LAST WEEK,
But the writer is about to give us two examples:
Abel and Enoch – let’s look at them.
(4) “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.”
Certainly you remember the story of Cain and Abel.
Adam and Eve had blown it in the garden and after being removed
The Bible says that they had two boys.
Cain was the oldest, Abel the second.
What is clear (though unexplained) is that Cain and Abel both realized
The need for acceptance from God.
So we find the boys doing is going before God with an offering.
Genesis 4:3-7 “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
I have no intention of preaching this text again, you can go back to our Genesis study.
But the basics here are important.
• There was no Law yet
• There was no command yet
Neither of these boys could have possibly known that
God required blood or that God required a first fruit
(those are the common explanations as to why God accepted Abel, but not Cain)
No, the explanation is made in Hebrews 11.
Namely that Abel brought faith and Cain did not.
Abel’s offering was through faith
That made his offering better than Cain’s
Which was merely an attempt to appease God through his works.
• One boy came trusting God,
• The other came seeking to appease God through his works.
• God was pleased with the one who brought faith.
• God did not accept the one who brought works.
Perhaps that helps you understand then why Cain was so angry.
He had worked hard for that produce, he had battled the sin curse directly to bring fruit from the ground.
Imagine the time it took to clear the land, break the soil, prepare the soil, plant the seed, care for the field, and harvest that crop.
When God said it wasn’t enough, Cain was livid.
The frustration of Cain is the frustration of every person in religion
Who works tirelessly and vigorously at some religious routine
In order to make God pleased.
How frustrated they will be when they find it is not enough.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
That was certainly the frustration of the Pharisees who tithe mint and dill and cumin; who broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments; who give and pray and fast like clockwork.
Imagine their frustration with Jesus, who told them that despite all their labor they weren’t good enough to inherit eternal life.
It’s no wonder they killed Jesus.
That is all the frustration of Cain.
He tried to bring works and God would not accept him.
But Abel brought faith.
And when he brought faith to God,
Scripture says, “he obtained the testimony that he was righteous”
Scripture says that God testified “about his gifts”
Which is what Genesis said, “the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering.”
God didn’t just accept the gift, God accepted Abel.
Abel brought faith and God declared him righteous.
And then the writer says, “and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.”
That is to say that
You can still learn about salvation from the life of Abel.
Leaving Abel, let’s move on now to the second example: ENOCH.
(5) “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; And he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.”
There are those two all-important phrases again.
“he obtained the witness”
“he was pleasing to God”
Enoch was a lot like Abel.
He offered God faith and God was pleased with him because of it.
But as I said it is important to understand
The relationship of their faith and their works.
Abel’s faith was that he “offered to God a better sacrifice”
What was Enoch’s faith?
TURN TO: GENESIS 5
Chapter 5 is a very important chapter in Moses’ preaching.
Moses is making an unmistakable point.
“The wages of sin is death”
The chapter details 9 generations from Adam
And about 8 of them Moses emphatically says “and he died”
But in glaring contrast Moses introduces Enoch.
Who of the 9 was the only one who did not die.
In fact, instead of death the Bible simply says that (24) “God took him.”
Enoch was raptured.
The obvious question:
WHAT DID ENOCH DO THAT ALLOWED HIM TO ESCAPE DEATH?
No one was escaping death, why Enoch?
(24) “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”
The writer of Hebrews described it like this:
“he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.”
• Enoch lived a life that was devoted to God.
• Enoch lived in a pleasing manner.
Do you have any specifics?
Jude 14-15 “It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
Enoch was a preacher of righteousness and judgment.
He was clearly one who spoke against the corruption of his culture
And chose instead to seek God.
• Enoch sought God
• Enoch walked after God
• Enoch trusted God
AND HE DID THIS IN THE MIDST OF A CULTURE THAT DID NOT.
And Scripture says “he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.”
That is what faith does.
Faith pleases God.
It actually allowed Enoch to skip death.
• Now that doesn’t mean if you will just have faith that you won’t die.
• We just covered Abel who died for his faith and said that it was worth it.
Keep your eye on the proper reward.
• The reward is not ease in this life.
• The reward is not some temporary pay off.
• The reward of faith is that God is pleased and He declares the people of faith to be righteous.
This righteousness allows them to dwell with God forever.
THAT IS THE NATURE OF FAITH.
• What it is – a conviction that leads to assurance.
• What it does – pleases God.
But the nature of faith is not the only thing the writer wants you to understand here.
#2 THE NECESSITY OF FAITH
Hebrews 11:6-7
After making the statement that Enoch, became pleasing to God
The writer wants you to understand what a big deal this was.
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him”
Please let that sink in for a moment.
Think of all the things that you could offer God.
Think of all the things people in pagan religions offered their gods.
• Bring Him an animal sacrifice…
• Bring Him even your firstborn…
• Bring Him your crops…
Or perhaps it’s a specific behavior.
• Maybe you could take a vow of poverty.
• Maybe you could take a vow of chastity.
• Maybe you could treat your body severely with markings and cuts.
• Maybe you could make some sort of difficult voyage in God’s name.
• Maybe you could go on some sort of mission.
• Maybe you could fly an airplane into a building.
• Maybe you could go to church every Sunday.
• Maybe you could read your Bible daily.
• Maybe you could be baptized.
• Maybe you could fight for your country.
• Maybe you could adopt orphans.
• Maybe you could give to charity.
• Maybe you could cure cancer.
• Maybe you could feed the hungry or clothe the naked.
Surely if you did those things God would be pleased with you.
And the answer is “without faith it is impossible to please Him.”
None of those things please God if they are not united in faith.
Listen to what Paul said about Israel.
(hands down the most religious people ever)
Romans 9:30-33 “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”
All God wanted was faith and all they offered was works.
(Go back to the illustration of Cain and Abel)
Listen to Paul in Romans 8:
Romans 8:5-8 “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
I’ve often made the statement (and received very confusing looks)
That people like the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses
Whose religion is based upon doing good works to your neighbor
Have NEVER done anything that pleased God.
I know Mormons especially have great commercials. They do good to their fellow man, they are moral, they vote conservative, etc.
And people see the good and say, “Surely God is pleased with that.”
NO!!!!! “without faith it is impossible to please Him”
Their work is nothing more than the work of Cain,
Or the work of a Pharisee.
Regardless of whether you think they are good works or bad works,
In the end they are all merely works of the flesh,
“and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
In fact Paul said “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God”
What does that mean?
It means it resents God’s unachievable standard
And it resents God’s proclamation that salvation is only achievable through grace and faith.
Go again to that story of the Prodigal.
Do you see the hatred of that older brother?
• He demanded that pleasing the father come through merit and when the father opted for it to come through grace, the older brother was livid!
Ever hear someone say, “I don’t want your charity! I can do this on my own! I don’t want any help!”?
Do you know what that is? It’s pride
(and incidentally our world praises such pride)
But until that pride is broken you won’t come to Christ.
He only accepts broken beggars.
Those with no spiritual worth who come
And ALL THEY HAVE TO OFFER IS FAITH.
But that is the only person God accepts.
If you don’t come to God in faith you will not please Him.
Why?
“for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
What the writer lists there is
The most absolute and basic principles of faith that there are.
• To believe that God “is”
• To believe that God “is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
And I do want to speak to that a moment.
Today sometimes faith gets a little misconstrued in our culture.
Our “name it and claim it” friends
Have done a great disservice to what faith actually is.
They seem to think that faith is when you tell God what you want
And you believe He’ll give you what you want until He finally does.
• They see faith as some sort of magic formula that somehow strong-arms God
into giving you what you want.
• They seem to think that God wants you to claim the impossible and put Him to
the test until He does it.
That is not what the writer mentions.
According to Hebrews God simply wants you to believe that “He is”
• Like when the world is clamoring that God is not real.
• Or like when your circumstances feel like God is absent.
• Or like when you’re having difficulty seeing His presence in your pain.
At those moments God is simply asking you to believe “that He is”
You know the “conviction of things not seen”
And then God wants you to believe that in following and seeking Him that there is a reward; “that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
• He’s not asking you to name your reward.
• He’s not asking you to claim your reward.
• And remember that most in this chapter never saw an earthly reward.
He’s asking you to trust that the reward He has for you will be worth it.
You know the “assurance of things hoped for.”
The writer here is NOT telling these suffering Hebrews
That they need to rise up and claim a victory
And believe that God will deliver them from peril.
He is telling them that in the middle of their peril,
When it feels like God is absent or silent,
That they still need to believe that He is God
And that trusting Him will be worth it.
That is faith.
That is what God requires.
In fact, if you don’t offer Him that, you won’t be able to please Him at all.
And you will never become and heir of the righteousness you need.
Believe that God is and that God is a rewarder.
AND TO FURTHER EMPHASIZE THAT TRUTH
The writer gives yet another illustration.
Enter the man we know as NOAH.
(7) “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
Noah was also a key figure in Moses account of Genesis.
• Moses used Abel to demonstrate how to avoid God’s displeasure.
• Moses used Enoch to demonstrate how to avoid death.
• Moses uses Noah to demonstrate how to avoid destruction.
And again the answer is “By faith”
In Noah’s day God had finally had enough.
Genesis 6:5-8 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”
So the whole world is so corrupt that God has decided to destroy them all,
And yet one man was found to be pleasing to God.
Moses was obviously putting a magnifying glass on Noah.
You are supposed to read that and ask, “Why was Noah so pleasing?”
Genesis 6:9 “These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.”
There it is again.
That’s the same thing Enoch did (walked with God) (i.e. TRUSTED GOD)
Apparently Moses is making a point.
• Abel, Enoch, and Noah all lived in a day of sin.
• Abel, Enoch, and Noah all faced scorn from those around them.
• And yet, Abel, Enoch, and Noah still believed that God was real and if they would reject their culture and strive to please God that they would be rewarded for it.
They didn’t know how, they just believed.
And God was pleased with this simple faith.
And if you want to see Noah’s faith, it is really quite remarkable.
The writer says that he was “warned by God about things not yet seen”
In short, Noah had never heard of a global killer.
Noah had never seen rain.
But God said it was going to happen.
Genesis 6:11-14, 17 “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch…”Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.”
God told Noah the earth was wicked and He was going to flood it
And Noah should build a boat.
Genesis 6:22 “Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.”
The writer of Hebrews said that Noah “prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world”
And incidentally the word there means that Noah “cautiously prepared that ark”
He was meticulous and careful
In short, he really believed he would need it.
It took Noah 100 years to build that ark.
Do you think he caught a little flak from the corrupt work around him?
• “Hey Noah, how much rain did you get last night? Bahahah”
• “Hey Noah, seen the forecast lately?”
But Noah kept right on building and the decision proved wise
For Noah saved his family from the flood.
But listen to the writer.
The reward of Noah’s faith was NOT that he didn’t drown.
The reward of his faith was that he “became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
Sure God saved Noah from the flood,
But even more than that God saved Noah from sin.
God declared Noah righteous.
AND THIS IS THE POINT OF THE WRITER OF HEBREWS.
GOD REQUIRES FAITH.
• He requires you to believe He’s there even when you don’t see Him.
• He requires you to believe serving Him will be worth it even when you don’t see how.
We see that the writer of Hebrews came to the conclusion
That faith is necessary because he could not find a single Old Testament character who ever pleased God without it.
Today we have more revelation and we understand that
The specific faith God wants
Is for you and me to trust in the saving work of His Son Jesus.
John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
And that is what the writer wants these Hebrews to understand.
YOU MUST HAVE FAITH
• Not so that the hardships will stop.
• But so that God will be pleased with you.
And that is really the first step of our journey.
I simply want you to understand THE NECESSITY OF FAITH.
• It is not as though it is optional or that you can come to God with any other thing or in any other way.
• You must have this genuine saving faith that is convinced of what it does not see and sure of what it hopes for.
Now from there we will move on
To another very important point about faith which is:
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FAITH.
That is, I want you to see how good it works.
