Message 12/20/2018
Jack Abeelen
Growing Thru Grace
Hebrews 11: 4-6 Abel & Enoch
Two Examples: Abel & Enoch
Doctrine finishes 10:18, then we come into practical examples...
Every example He gives us, you can add to your understanding of what persevering Biblical faith is. One sentence explanation of what they add to the picture of persevering Biblical faith that pleases God.
"By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice....and through it, he being dead still speaks...."
First example is Abel.
One thing for sure, faith is the only thing that God has ever responded to from the lives of the people.
In the OT and the New, faith has always been the way to life with God, not works. Works are just evidence of the faith that you have.
It was true for Adam, and it was true for Eve. Adam & Eve had seen the face of God, but they still had to decide if they would obey by faith or if they would turn to their own ways.
Their children were the first to have need of faith in the fullest sense of having to stand without the benefit of seeing God. They had to learn as Paul wrote: we used to know the Lord according to the flesh, we don't know Him that way anymore because now the walk is by faith....so it was for the children of Adam & Eve.
Even as Adam and Eve were put out of the garden and in their unbelief, Adam & Eve were given a promise by salvation that could only be received by faith.
Then He brought them the clothes from the animal skins that spoke of the suffering and the blood that would be shed. Even in His judgement, mercy was found.
4,000 years between Abel and Jesus...every man in that time would have to look forward in hope to the truth that God's promise of a redeemer would prevail....through the painful childbirth, through the labor, through the certain death, God's promise.
They could look forward to God's promise as a redeemer would prevail. They would have the certainty of God's promise to look forward to. All would have to look forward to the certainty of God's promises.
Their children were the first to be born in the natural way, the first to be born in sin, 2nd generation.
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Kain and Abel, Mateo Orozco, 1652, public domain
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By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice...
To do anything by faith, requires that you know what God wants because faith having God as its object demands that you respond to His revealed will; if you don't know what God wants, you cannot respond by faith.
Once you hear God's word, and then in obedience as you respond....through faith...
Faith comes by hearing...hearing by the word of God.
Genesis 4:3 "and in the process of time it came to pass..."
Over the process of these boys growing up, not covered in history, God has not seen fit to give us insight, clearly reveal to both of these boys how they were to come to worship Him. How they were to come, when they were to come. He feels it is clear in that they both showed up at the same time. They were aware of God's desires.
Cain might have been 129 years old when this took place. They had plenty of time to learn what God had desired, what God had revealed. When the worship of God was demanded by God. Both men arrived as sinners, both men had access only faith, but they had to come in the manner that God had revealed.
One had his gift received and the other did not. Why would be the question. Why was one gift received and one not?
Some commentators think it's obviously about Abel's blood sacrifice. An animal sacrifice is required in the OT. There is no where in the context of these scriptures we are told it was a sin offering that they were bringing which would require the shedding of blood. The law had not been given. Even then, there were plenty meal offerings that were perfectly acceptable (wave offering of grain, clause in law that if poor, could bring a meal offering).
Re animal sacrifice--blood spoke of death, and the animal blood couldn't cleanse anyone from anything. It was only good in that it was typical; it pointed us to the one whose blood could. The type of offering that Abel brought is missing the lesson. Not emphasized in any of the scriptures we were given...
1 John "This is the message we've heard from the beginning, love one another, not like Cain who being of the wicked one murdered his brother....because his works were evil and his brother's were righteous."
Pro 15:8 The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord.
His heart was wrong, and the sacrifice can't really cover a wicked heart.
Religious observations which are made by people not in accordance with the will of God that is revealed are both foolish and unacceptable to God--despite how sincerely, even if they were meant well.
There are examples throughout the Bible where intensity in heart cannot be substituted for obedience in faith.
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| Cain and Abel Make Offerings, Phillip Medhurst |
Saul....switches out plan on God re fighting the Amalekites.... God loves obedience more than sacrifice. Faith obeys God's will.
Abel came in a manner that God prescribed to Him. It was the heart, not the sacrifice although they very well have lined up. Faith is interested in learning to do things God's way.
Abel came as God wanted. Cain came as he wanted and concluded that God should be glad he came at all.
Lots of people these days who say they love God but develop own terms and begin to tell you what God should be happy with..."let me tell you what I have done for Him." Cain had a general belief in God or else he wouldn't have bothered to come at all, but he didn't obey him.
Cain is the father of all false religion. He comes in any way except the prescribed way.
Proverbs 14:1 There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is death.
For Satan there is always another way and there is always another name.
Peter--there is only one name given by which man must be saved.
v. 5 Cain's response to God's rejection of the offering was unrepentant. It was the beginning of Satan's religious system--self will, pride.
Did Cain repent? Did he ask for clarification? No. He just said fine. He was defiant, hateful, angry, soon directed it toward his brother.
Abel had an entirely different heart---brought the best of his flocks, brought it joyfully, by faith being obedient to the Lord. God had respect for his offering and his person. It was more excellent because it was brought by faith, by obedience.
Under the guise of religion who reject God's clear direction and come on their own manner, their own way. Jude wrote about false teachers of his day "Woe unto them, they have gone the way of Cain..." Whether Kora or Baalam or Cain, they all have their own way Faith demands I trust God and do what He says. Whether I understand or agree.
Paul wrote those he loves in Romans who have "a zeal for God but not according to knowledge...."
It's important we know what it is....
Cain gave the appearance of wanting to worship but when called him on his heart, God found him angry. God asked, "Why are you so mad? If you do well, will you not be accepted? Sin crouches at your door and its desire is for you but you should rule over it."
Come as God has revealed, be obedient. Cain's mother had been talked into sin, Cain couldn't be talked out of it. He just stuck with the program. He was angry. He was going to rebel, He was going to get even. He would turn, and he would kill his own brother because he was righteous and his deeds were righteous, and his were wicked.
According to....
Jude- Cain represents going your own way
John--Cain represents the hatred of man out of fellowship with God
Genesis--Cain in the process of time should have known better and did not
Hebrews--Cain's failure was that he didn't come the way God intended; he didn't come by faith.
But Abel did, he offered to the Lord a better sacrifice.
And...biblical faith brings obedience to God as God prescribes, and it produces an authentic righteous life.
Hebrews 12:4 "through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts...and through he being dead, still speaks."
How God spoke well of Abel's offerings, we are not told. We have no record of how the Lord made it clear to both of them that one's offering was respected and the other's was not. We are just told of its results and the anger of Cain and his unwillingness to be corrected. Some commentators think fire came down and consumed Abel's offering---great guess, he just doesn't know.
But he does know:
1. both knew what God wanted
2. Abel knew he was approved. Cain knew he was not.
Abel came by faith.
Abel was used by Jesus as yet another example of the wicked's unfaithful response to God. Matthew 23 speaking to the Pharisees and the history of the rejection of the prophets,
"The righteous blood shed on the earth began with righteous Abel..went to Zachariah being murdered between the temple and the altar." Every generation has the responsibility of being righteous.
The Lord used Abel as an example of a righteous one who's blood was shed.
But death is never the final word for the righteous....He's dead but he's still talking, 6,000 years later he's still speaking.
*Biblical faith comes to God in God's prescribed method.
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