Abel and the Life of Faith
Hebrews 11:4
We come to chapter 11 and verse 4 in our study, and ah, as we're going through this 11th chapter of Hebrews we're just going to take probably one of those characters each evening, ah, we may get a little further than that as we get further on in the chapter, but especially on this subject of Abel we wanted to spend some time even though our text is only one verse, let me read it to you. "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh." We might entitle this message, "The Sermon from a Dead Man."
Moffatt once wrote these words, "Death is never the last word in the life of a righteous man." When a man leaves this world be he righteous or unrighteous he leaves something in the world. He may leave something that will grow and spread like a cancer or a poison, or he may leave something like the fragrance of perfume or a blossom of beauty that permeates the atmosphere with blessing. Man leaves, he's either a Paul or a Nero. Dead men do tell tales. They are not silent, they speak. Witness the end of verse 4, "he being dead yet speaks." And that is said of Abel.
Now if Abel is still speaking, what is he saying? What is this individual who was the second generation of - of, of men since the creation, the dawn of the existence of man, what does he have to say to the 20th century A.D.? What does he have to offer to me? This man who lived only when the earth was new and born and there wasn't anything like there is today, what does he have to offer me? Certainly the economy of God in his day was different that it is now, God cannot deal with us as He dealt with them. What does he say to me? What is this chapter saying? This chapter is talking about one word, what is that word? Faith, and that is the message that Abel wants to give to you tonight. The theme of the 11th chapter of Hebrews is the subject of faith. And the message of Abel is the message of faith.
Now just for a moment of background, in the Book of Hebrews the writer establishes the superiority of Christ and the new covenant, you're well aware of that, if you get nothing else out of this series you will never forget that, because we have repeated it so many times. He is establishing the superiority of Christ and the new covenant. Then he goes on to say the only way that a man can come to the new covenant is by faith. That the old system of ritual and so forth and so on is no longer in vogue, but men come only by faith there is not necessarily any prescribed form any longer. And you will of course remember that even in the Old Testament men were justified by faith but their faith found its obedience in a very prescribed form. But here in the new covenant it is a simple matter of faith in Christ, no longer continual sacrifices, one sacrifice. No longer a multitude of priests, one great high Priest. No longer no access to God but access to God through Christ. All the things the old covenant couldn't bring the new does and, and so he presents the superiority, then he says the only way to enter into the new covenant is by faith, and that means to believe. To believe that God is, to believe that Christ is God in flesh, to believe that Christ died, that He rose again, that He lives today and that you can only know Him through faith. That is to believe, and to bank your life on it.
Now it's one thing to tell people to believe, it's something else to define faith, and so having in verse 38 and 39 introduced the subject by saying, "Now the just shall live by faith," he goes on in chapter 11 to explain what faith is and how it operates. if he's going to demand a response of faith, if he's going to urge men to faith, to personal faith in Christ then it's important that he explain faith in detail. Because you see the Jews to whom he spoke in the first century were works oriented. Their whole concept of religion was founded upon a works system or a merit system. They, they had the idea wrongly so, they had perverted their own Testament, but they had the idea that God kept score, and if you had more Brownie points than negative points you got in. And if you were sort of good then that was all God expected if you followed the prescribed ritual. And so when he's talking to them about faith it's really a commodity that don't quite understand. They don't quite see, watch this, the absolute independence of faith from works as a way to God, do you see? They may have understood a mixture of faith and works but that's abominable to God. They had to understand the absolute isolation of faith apart from works as a way to God. Now faith having been pure will produce works, but faith mixed with works as a way to God is invalid. And so they needed to understand very clearly the absolute character of faith, that it had nothing to do with works in any way, shape or form, that none of their ritual and none of their ah, ceremony and none of their prescribed feasts or festivals had anything to do with satisfying God, only by believing in Jesus Christ could that satisfaction come and therefore could they participate in the new covenant.
Now last time we looked at verses 1 to 3 and we saw four features of faith, we saw just a basic kind of char...ah, characterization of faith, and here are the four things we studied last time, we determined in the first 3 verses that faith gives a present reality to things in the future. Verse 1 says, "It's the substance of things hoped for." Faith actualizes the future into the present. And we talked about the man who's dreaming about his vacation, and he's so involved in his dream that he's sitting in his chair and he's watching the fish being reeled in and he's loving the sunshine and so forth and so on and he's almost transported himself right into the middle of Colorado or wherever it is he's going to be. And that kind of, that kind of, of hope and confidence is what actualizes the future into the present and that's the - that's the essence of faith. Faith takes that which is unseen, which is yet in the future, the promise of God to be fulfilled and actualizes it in the present.
The second thing we saw about faith is that it furnishes sufficient conviction so that a man banks his life on it. And that we saw ... it is the evidence of things not seen. It is the assurance of these things to the point where you not only believe it but you bet your life on it. And faith is somewhat less than full faith when you only believe it but you're not willing to bet your life on it, see? That's like the lady who was flying in the jet and somebody asked her how she liked it, she said, I hated it and I never put my whole weight down the whole trip. There must be a ... if faith is to be legitimate it is not only I believe it, it is I stake my life on it. Okay.
The third thing we learned about faith is, faith secures for men the approval of God. And the only people who will ever enter into God's presence are those whom He approves of and the only way to get His approval is by faith, verse 2, "For by it the elders receive witness." Or approval. By faith men receive the approval of God. Verse 2 indicates that that is the case, and as you well know the Bible says, "without faith it is impossible to please him," and that's over in verse 6.
Fourthly we saw that faith also enables a man to understand what logic does not allow him to understand, verse 3, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." You
see what the philosopher can't discover and the scientist can't discover, faith discovers, that is that God created the universe out of nothing. Faith enables us to comprehend that which is not visible to the senses. So then we've seen a definition of faith, it gives a present reality to a future fact, it furnishes enough conviction so that you bet your life on it, it secures the blessing and the approval of God and it enables you to understand what the philosophers and scientists of the world cannot understand, it enables you to perceive the things that are not open to the senses.
Now so much for the stated character of faith he's going to now give some illustrations, and the illustrations have kind of a purity about them that kind of definitely isolates faith from works because this is what he must do with the Jewish mind. And so to begin with he starts with the first man of faith, and that was Abel. Now we say that because Adam and Eve in the purest sense were not people of faith. And I say that because they did not hope in what they had not seen. They walked and talked with God in the cool of the day in the garden, they had the presence of the shekinah glory, they had an experience with God that was, that was real. It was on earth but nevertheless they saw the manifestation of God in a personal way, they had a personal kind of communion with God and they knew God before the fall in the fullest sense of knowing God. Therefore there was little faith involved in the pre-fall situation, so he doesn't choose to use Adam and Eve as illustrations of faith. Abel was born outside of Eden, so he never had the opportunity to know God in the personal way that his parents did, therefore when he believed God it was an illustration of faith in much more positive sense than was that of Adam and Eve, and you do not find the indication of faith in relationship to Adam or Eve.
Now it's important then to understand that Abel is a man of faith, and he's the first man of faith. I think it's also important to understand that Abel's faith had to do with his personal salvation, and it thus is a perfect illustration for the writer of Hebrews who is encouraging his readers to get to the place where they're personally saved. Now notice verse 4, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness," there's that approval again, because he had faith, "that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaks." He's still speaking because he's preaching the sermon of faith.
Now for Abel this was something, for Abel to have faith was amazing. He was the first man to really exercise positive faith in God. He not only believed he bet his life on it.
Now this text is divided into three progressive points and I want to share these with you tonight. Abel's faith led him to do three things, number one, to offer a more excellent sacrifice, number two, to obtain righteousness, number three, to openly speak though dead. Because he believed God he did those three things, and they're progressive. Because he believed he offered a better sacrifice, because he offered a better sacrifice he obtained righteousness, because he obtained righteousness he is for all the ages a living voice saying, righteousness is by faith, do you see. So it's progressive. Let's look at the first point, "by faith Abel was able," and we'll be saying that over and over again, "to offer a more excellent sacrifice." That's point number one, to offer a more excellent sacrifice, he was able to do that on the basis of his faith.
Now to understand this we must turn to Genesis chapter 4 and so I want you to do that and just kind of ah, go all the way back and don't worry about Hebrews chapter 4, you know what that verse says now let's go to Genesis. And we - we come at this point back to the history of the origins of man. You remember how the creation went, God created man on the last day and then He rested. And then He created Eve and nobody rested, right? But anyway God created man and he created woman as a help meet for man, and as we approach chapter 4 the children of Adam and Eve are born. Verse 1, Genesis 4, "And Adam knew his wife;" and there's that word know that has to do with ah, the sexual relationship that produces a child, it is an intimate word, "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord." Now this is interesting. Now this man that she had his name was Cain, and it's very difficult to trace back ah, the study of words, etymology, but if we go back far enough ah, most Hebrew scholars would say that the word Cain comes from Qana, which would be translated Q-a-n-a, and it means to get, to get something. Now you'll remember that Adam and Eve had been thrown out of the garden. They had been thrown out of the garden because of sin, God said if you're going to live in rebellion to Me you're not going to be able to occupy My garden, My paradise, nor are you going to be able to maintain your fellowship in My presence so you're finished, get out. And He booted them out of the garden. But before He shot them of there He activated His grace, and He promised them that they would be won back to Him, that He would make provision for redemption, that God would make a provision by which these individuals who were thrown out of the garden could come back into relationship with Him. Now that provision is indicated in the 15th verse of the 3rd chapter, and here's what God says, and He's reciting of course the beginning of the curse or the beginning area within the curse here, part of it, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now let me read that again and I want you to understand it this time. "And I will put enmity," or division or strife, "between thee and the woman," and He's talking to Satan here, keep it in mind, talking to Satan, "and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now to Eve that said one thing. The woman, some woman or woman in general, whatever, woman is going to produce a seed who is going to be the antagonist of Satan and Satan's offspring, Satan's seed. Now that's talking about a redeemer, God provides that the woman will produce a man who will be the victor over Satan, oh yes the man will have his he ... heel bruised, but He will bruise Satan's head. Before God then ever acted in, in the final kind of judgment He displayed His mercy by giving them the promise. And though Satan had brought the fall of man God answers that one shall come and bring the fall of Satan, and He says by woman came sin, by woman shall come the Savior, by woman paradise lost, by woman paradise found. The Lord of glory was to be the seed of the woman. Now medically speaking or whatever way you want to look at it from a physical standpoint the woman does not possess the seed in childbirth the man does. There's only been one woman who ever lived in history who possessed the seed apart from its being planted by a man and that woman was Mary. And it was the Holy Spirit who placed the seed within her and thus it truly was the seed of the woman which gave birth to Jesus Christ, and in the 3rd chapter of Genesis, the first Book recording the history of man God made a promise that the Savior would be born of a virgin. A marvelous promise. That He would not have an earthly father. Now of course Eve didn't understand all of this concept, and she didn't have any kind of books on medicine so she wouldn't known what was going on anyway and since nobody had ever been born yet I'm not sure she understood the process. But this is a prophecy of the birth of Christ, but Eve was a little bit blind to that. And it's interesting if you look at chapter 4 there's a kind of a play on words, Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore to get, saying I have gotten. She called him to get because she got him, see? But it's interesting, a man from the Lord. And if you want the re, the real expression of Cain, if you want to take the term to get and put it in its...in a sense that makes it kind of obvious what she's saying, she really names the baby, he is here. I have gotten he is here. You say, what's she trying to say? She's trying to say, probably, that perhaps this one is the deliverer who will open up the way back to God. The Lord has given me the one promised. But she was wrong. Perhaps she thought, we don't know, perhaps she thought this was the one that would take them back to Eden into the presence of God, but he turned out to be a murderer. Adam and Eve could never produce a deliverer. The Bible says that which is flesh produces flesh, as in Adam all died. They couldn't produce a deliverer, only by the special creation of God could a deliverer come and that had to be Jesus Christ, born of a virgin.
Well not only did she possess Cain who didn't turn out to be a man from the Lord, but verse 2 says, "She again bore his brother, Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." Now here's Abel and it's hard also to know the etymology of this word but it may come from hevel which means a breath or weakness or vanity, and it has the - idea of a very brief thing and a, and a very lamentable thing, and maybe the idea of the name sort of foretold the briefness of his life and the sad tragic ending to it. Now it says that Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was a tiller of the ground. One was a shepherd, the other was a farmer, both were sinners, both were conceived after the fall, both were born outside of Eden, so they were born in sin. These are the second men who ever lived on earth. And I want you to notice something, they function in all capacities as men function. They function in all the capacities that you and I do, they are not so mechanized as we are, they are not so ah, earthly educated as we are but they are in capacity at least the equal. They do not resemble in any way missing links. Neither did Adam and Eve for that matter.
Now evolutionists always are telling us that Genesis can't be true. They - the liberal theological line, the typical higher criticism line is that Genesis cannot be true because the offspring of the first man couldn't have done what they did. So it has to be a forgery. The offspring of the first man would be a blubbering, barbarous, animal type man who would have no tools to plow the ground, no skills by which he could grow things, eating only wild berries and whatever stuff happened to be growing, and killing animals and tearing them apart and eating them with his hands, grunting and saying, ugh, while hitting his woman on the head with a rock and hauling her off to a cave by the hair. And that would be the definition of the second man, if he had in fact advanced that far. But that is absolutely incompatible with the Bible which teaches that in seven days God created the earth, that the first man, Adam and Eve ... the first man Adam himself was extremely intelligent, you've got to be pretty sharp to name all the animals, which he did. The indication by the time you come to Cain and Abel is the fact that they lived in a civilized home where they both had knowledge, where they both had the tools to domesticate and slay animals, to till, plant and harvest their seed, and do all of those things. The evolutionist says Abel could never have had vessels to carry milk, and incidentally whenever you read about ah, like it says Able was a keeper of sheep, implied in the word sheep is also the idea of goats, they were ... the two were inseparable, and he would have taken milk from goats, but they said he couldn't of even invented a bucket to carry the milk. Nor would they ever have had a means of shearing or killing sheep, nor a means of spinning thread, that Cain could never of had a hatchet to cut and fashion timber, nor could he have ever invented a plow to plow the ground. He would never of been able to devise a mill or something to crush the grain to grind it to what he wanted, he would never of had the skill to preserve the crop until it was harvested, he wouldn't of known how to harvest it and he wouldn't know what to do with it after he harvested it. But the strange thing is they did know. The indication is he was a keeper of sheep, not that he stumbled around through a herd of sheep but he kept them. The other man was a tiller of the ground. He cared for it, he stirred it up and he planted in it. I, I don't think ah, Cain and Abel were the first ones with this information, I think Adam knew a lot. And it's very likely that Adam may have unloaded the information that he had gotten directly from God to them. Because in 2:15 of Genesis it says, "The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it." So the first man ever made knew how to handle the garden. And as I said in chapter 2 verse 20 you have the indication, I think it's verse 20 there, just double check, "And Adam gave names to all cattle, the fowl of the air, every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help fit for him." But here he is naming all these animals. He is not some kind of howling, drooling, hairy, peanut brain wild man stomping all over Eden. There are no missing links in, in God's history. In the little book "Countdown" which is so interesting, Hardy who's the scientist who wrote it says this and I'm going to quote. Listen to this, "The search for the missing link is Mr. Hyde at its best. If the evolutionist was using a scientific approach he would be looking for at least three million missing links. For that is estimate of how many are needed to prove his theory. Dead or alive they cannot produce a single scientifically acceptable trace of intermediate life. Their very able press agents have some well concealed skeletons in the evolutionist closet." Listen, "The Nebraska man, said to be a cool million years old, scientifically built up from one tooth and found later to be the tooth of an extinct pig. Number two, the Colorado man, (some evolutional pro...) same evolutional process as the Nebraska man only a different tooth, this time related to the horse family. Three, the Colorado ape man, a worthy cousin to the Colorado man, his skull turned out to be that someone's pet monkey. The Piltdown man, scraping the bottom of the silicate one million years deep, exhibit number one missing link." The Piltdown man, we all remember reading about it. "Recently has been shown to be a deliberate fake that fooled the experts for 40 years. Mr. Piltdown somehow had borrowed the jawbone of a modern ape. The Heidelberg man, just a young gaffer of three million years old, handsomel