Biblical Faith will be a Vindicated Faith
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Biblical Faith will be a Vindicated Faith
Hebrews 11:28-31
September 28, 2008
Series 3 Sermon 57
28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of
Introduction
One of the greatest misunderstandings of our day is the word faith. So many people think faith is some kind of force that will move God this way and that. Their faith will make sure they are healthy. Their faith will make sure they have enough. This conjured up force will make anything possible. And so in some people’s minds they have faith in faith.
Now I can understand and sympathize with how these folks arrive at this understanding. “If you have faith like a mustard seed you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
How many of you have seen not a spiritual mountain but a physical mountain move by the word of a person of faith? The problem is as sinful human beings we can not have biblical faith without the supernatural intervention of the Lord Himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. Even the faith that we have for salvation is a gift of God. You all can probably quote Ephesians 2:8-9.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Some people will readily admit that salvation is a gift of God where He responds to our faith in Christ. But Ephesians 2:8 presents salvation as the work of God and that salvation is accomplished as a single act of “by grace through faith” which Paul plainly says is the gift of God. And it is not our own doing. The Holy Spirit of God must do a work of grace in our dead (that’s Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead….) hearts and saving faith will be implanted in the heart of a sinner and then they most willingly and happily come to Christ as Savior.
If God Almighty does not do the work of salvation I would still be lost and so would you. So when the Lord places faith in the heart of a sinner and he or she is now redeemed that faith is acted upon. It is not some latent force ready to come out and show itself at any moment. The whole life is transformed. The life of a Christian is a life of faith.
And somehow in our day that has gotten really confused. If you think about this with me for a few minutes I think I can press upon you the shallowness of much of Christianity today. Preachers and teachers say what sounds biblical but there is an emptiness to their words. They talk about faith and really do not understand very much of what the Bible says about faith. They encourage their people to go out and round up more people telling them to have faith in Christ and leading them in meaningless prayers when those folks really do not understand the nature of faith.
Because of this meaningless of words in our culture faith can mean anything in people’s minds. How many times have you heard an outright pagan tell you that they are a person of deep faith? We have people of “faith” that have the spotlight in our day that live nothing of a faith filled life. But as long as they say they have faith that is okay and we must believe them, right? Wrong. And the Epistle of James has a lot to say about that.
Biblical words have meanings. Christianity has always and true Christianity will always be concerned with the meanings of these biblical words. Grace, faith, regeneration, justification, sanctification, sin and a host of other biblical words should mean something to us. They are not catch phrases or talking points. These words are words that God Himself has given us and we should find both comfort and conviction in these words and seek to know what these words mean and mean for us as God’s people.
Don’t let the theological emptiness of our day keep you from learning the character of God in the Words of God. God has decided in His infinite wisdom that He will communicate to His people through the medium of words. These words are written and they are spoken and if we miss the meaning of these words then we have missed what God wants us to know.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews we begin in chapter 1 and verse 1 with the affirmation that God has indeed spoken. In the old times He spoke to us through the prophets but in the eschaton, the last times or the times of all things being fulfilled, He has spoken to us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the final authority and His Words are the Words of God. Through Christ God has spoken to us through the Apostles who wrote down the words of Christ in the Gospels and the explanation of those words in the Epistles of the New Testament.
And in the Epistle to the Hebrews that we have been studying God has decided through Christ to give us an entire section of this letter that deals with one very important Biblical word, faith. I don’t know a more important biblical word than this word faith and the sad thing is many do not have an inkling of what faith is.
I hope that does not describe you this morning. Because what God has given us in Hebrews 11 is a theological word that is not just defined but exemplified in the lives of fallen, sinful humans who have had their hearts changed by a sovereign God.
What we have to fight off is the mindset in our day that faith can be defined any way we choose. We live in a very generic day and what we must understand is our God is not generic but very specific and wants us to be very specific in our understanding of what He demands from us. And what He demands from us is faith.
The call to salvation is repentance from sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But what does that look like? What does the person who has true saving faith live like? What do they act like? What do they think like? Can we say that a person of faith is radically different from a person who does not have faith? Or is faith some kind of private matter that only is noticeable by the person who has faith?
Let me tell you why this is so important to understand. Real faith in a real Savior will be the driving force for all that you do. Real faith will be played out in what you watch on TV. It will be played out in what you look at on the internet. Faith will be the driving force for your relationships. Faith in Christ for salvation will affect how you approach your job. Whether that be in the secular workforce or if your calling is the high calling of wife and mother. Your faith or lack there of will dictate how you approach these things. Faith will dictate how you worship. Faith will dictate how you approach your job as a father. Faith will also show you how to come into the presence of God.
So we can not separate faith from life. If a politician has a genuine faith in God then that will most definitely affect policies that they put forward. Faith and the life of a believer is intertwined. You can not separate the soul from the body and still have a living body anymore than you can separate faith from life.
Context
For the benefit of those who have not been with us through this whole epistle and for the benefit of those who have I want to remind you of what we have seen thus far in chapter 11. Let me remind you that the end of chapter 10 told us that we were getting ready to understand what a people of faith look like. They are opposite of those who shrink back or fall away. Look starting in verse 1. As a side note I would encourage you to go to our website and download the previous sermons on chapter 11 so that you can have a full orbed understanding of where we are. Look at verse 1.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
I told you that were here that this is not a definition of faith. Faith means belief in its simplest form but here we have the layout of what faith looks like. To those who do not have faith it looks strange. Assurance of things hoped for and the conviction, your translation may say evidence but I think conviction is a better English word to capture the Greek, it is the conviction of things not seen. In other words faith is evidenced in believing the promises of God which will play an important role in understanding our text this morning. Verse 2 states that by the type of faith mentioned here the people of old received their commendation and by way of chapter 10 so will we. Look at verse 2.
2 For by it the people of old received their commendation.
So far everyone is on board but the writer starts getting very specific about real faith in verse 3 and people who would call themselves Christians start abandoning ship right here. A whole lot of people who call themselves Christians are going to have a bigtime problem with verse 3. What verse three tells us is that if you are going to claim to have faith then you must believe not just some of the Word of God but the whole thing. Look at verse 3.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Creation is the first part of the Bible and if you do not believe that then according to the writer of Hebrews you can not have real saving faith. If you think you can then what you have is faith in a god of your own imagination. This is sin. Paul said in Romans 1:18 that men hold the truth in unrighteousness and therefore the wrath of God is upon them. What Paul is saying is that sin is truth turned upside down. Go through the commandments and what you will discover is that worship is good and right but sin is worshipping the wrong object. So not having faith is really not faithlessness but rather having faith in the wrong object and in many cases people have faith in something other than Christ and that is sin and a sin that will send them to Hell.
In verse 4 the writer turns his attention to the whole concept of worship. God commands us to worship Him and He also gives us instructions on how we are to worship. That is the difference between Abel’s sacrifice being accepted and Cain’s being rejected. Look at verse 4.
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
In the examples of Enoch and Noah we see two men who walked with God and Noah who was obedient to God even in things he may not have completely understood.
In verses 8 through 12 we see the faithful examples of Abraham and Sarah who left their homeland for the land that God had promised them and they trusted God for the offspring that He had promised also. Then verses 13 through 16 tells us why they trusted God and also makes clear what people of faith are looking for. Look at the verses with me.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 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.
Verses 17 through 19 teaches us that real faith is a tested faith and trusts in God in those times of testing.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
Then in verses 20 through 22 we saw through the blessings of Isaac on Jacob and Esau and the life of Joseph that real faith is a multigenerational faith.
In the life of Moses we saw a man who had real faith and that faith led him to forsake
24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of
And this week we turn our attention to verses 28 through verses 31. Look with me at those verses.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of
At first the reading of these verses may seem a little disjointed. After all you have over forty years of biblical history encapsulated in these four verses. So what is the writer of Hebrews telling us in these four verses? After all in the previous verses he told us that Moses had endurance and that he viewed the reproach of Christ as more valuable than the riches of
But here he tells us what we already know. We know that the Passover was instituted so the destroyer would Passover the Israelites. We know about the dry land in the bed of the
What the writer of Hebrews has done is now turn his attention away from the first part of verse 1 to the second part. Look at verse 1.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
In the first 27 verses we have examples of people with the assurance of things hoped for. They are looking for a city that God has built and not men’s hands. They have forsaken
14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 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.
What is hoped for is God’s city. Now the conviction of things not seen is the ultimate arrival there. And what is not seen up front is the path in which we will take to get there. It may be through a Passover type of experience where the world around you is judged as the Lord has mercy and grace on you. It may be a
Let me illustrate that. I bet the people in Noah’s day thought he was a fool for building that giant boat until it started raining and the waters from the earth broke free. The Egyptian people probably thought the Hebrews were very weird for smearing all that lamb’s blood on their doorposts until the next morning came. The Egyptian army must have thought Moses a terrible tactician as they had them pinned down between the
Point
So what is the point? Here it is. Real biblical, saving faith will be vindicated. Or we could say it another way. God will vindicate His people in His own time and in His own way to show His power in them. This is what verses 28 through the end of the chapter is all about. It is about the reality of the future vindication of our real faith. False faith will be judged and real faith will be vindicated.
Purpose
My purpose this morning for preaching this message is so you will understand that God will vindicate real faith. Real faith, not false faith, will be proven by God to be true.
PNP
And what we have in verses 28 through the end of the chapter is four examples of faith being vindicated in a mighty way by the Lord. So over the next two sermons we are going to see these four ways that real, biblical, saving faith will be vindicated. Let me give them to you and as always I will give them to you again.
This morning we are going to see that:
1. Biblical faith will be vindicated in the obedience of God’s people.
2. Biblical faith will be vindicated in the judgment of the wicked.
And in two weeks we will see that:
3. Biblical faith will be vindicated in the victorious lives of God’s people.
4. Biblical faith will be vindicated in the suffering of God’s people.
Think about this for a moment. True Christianity has always been ridiculed. Real faith has always been mocked. From the people who first received this letter who were told that Christianity was not even a real religion and then thrown into prison and sometimes killed because of it all the way down to our day when people are ridiculed for belief in Christ as the only way for salvation in our pluralistic society where truth is privatized and what is true for you may not be true for someone else.
Real faith cuts across the grain of humanity’s desire to be God themselves. And it is a threat and therefore it is persecuted. So people of faith will be vindicated by their Lord.
I want you to understand this morning that God is not vindicating faith just for your sake. He is doing so because of His glory and ultimately all that the person of faith does is because the Holy Spirit of God has indwelled them and empowered them to do so. One of the most enlightening passages of Scripture I our understanding of vindication is Ezekiel 36:22-27. Listen as I read.
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
RPNP
So let’s look at our passage and see these two of four ways that God vindicates real faith.
1. Biblical faith will be vindicated in the obedience of God’s people.
Look at verses 28 through 31.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of
What we have in these verses is four examples of Biblical obedience that led to the faith of those people being justified. The first is Moses. Moses gave the orders for the institution of the Passover and it was through this obedience to the command of God that
For a long time the people of God had been mistreated in the
The imagery is striking here. Death comes to all but upon those who have the command of God and act in faith, death passes over them. Do you think Paul was picking up on this when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:54-58:
54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
We could camp out right here this morning but it would be this evening by the time we get to our second point. There is other instances of obedience here. Look at verse 29.
29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
With water on both sides the people of
Look at verse 30.
30 By faith the walls of
The Titanic of city walls stood in the way of
But God had other plans for His people. And I am sure to the people of
The faith of God’s people was vindicated. It was not by might nor by force but by the Spirit of God. This is the way God’s people are called to fight. We are not to use the weapons of this world or the ways of this world in order to do what God has called us to do. We use His weapons and His methods to show ourselves a people of faith and God will vindicate His great name.
I think the Apostle Paul understood this story full well and captured the imagery very well as he dealt with some problems in the church. So many people really on business models for the church and they incorporate the ways of the world in the church. All this shows is their lack of biblical faith. Listen to 2 Corinthians 10:3-6.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.
Folks, our whole lives are battles. And in the midst of that battle the Lord has called us to obedience to His Word. This is in all of life. We do not mime the world and its ways but we look to the Lord to do things His way.
Let me tell you why this is so important. God is going to be glorified. In everything that He does He is going to get the glory. Let me say a word of encouragement here to the church. The temptation in our day is to incorporate the things of the world into the church so that we can “reach” more people. After all we have been given the Great Commission and the church’s message today is that we must fulfill this Great Commission. This is the success mentality of our country pressed upon the Bible. God has not called us to fulfill the Great Commission He has called us to obey the Great Commission. In our obedience He has also given us the weapons for that warfare that come and it is not in church growth strategies and evangelistic programs where you learn the so called ABC’s of faith. The Bible has told us to proclaim to the world that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent and unless you repent from sin and have faith in Christ you will perish. The Bible says nothing about asking someone if they want to go to Heaven when they die.
So today’s church has incorporated the ways of the Philistines into the church in order to grow bigger churched and have more people and programs when the Lord Jesus made the promise in Matthew 16:18 that He will build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. What is wrong with a whole lot of churches in our day is that they have taken up the sword of this present age that we live in and put down the sword of the Lord and in this compromise have become like the world.
So how do we avoid falling into that same snare and begin to think like the world instead of like God wants us to think and that is biblically? Let’s use the examples that we have seen thus far. First, instead of waiting on the Lord we can try to do things ourselves. What if Moses would have decided to take up arms against Pharaoh instead of waiting on the Lord? It would have been a disaster. So Moses had to learn patience and so do we. In our situation we can do all kinds of things to “grow” but only growth that God gives is genuine growth. So Moses waited and obeyed and knew that God’s timing was the best timing and then God gave the Passover and vindication.
The same could be said about the Red Sea and also the battle at
After all it is the Lord who works faith in the heart of a dead sinner. It is the Lord who calls people to salvation. It is the Lord who makes the vilest sinner and clean and the only thing the Lord has called us to do is to live like real people of faith and proclaim His Word to all that will hear. How does faith come? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.
So what God has called us to do as individuals, as families, and as a congregation is to be faithful to His Word and He has taken the responsibility of the salvation of sinners upon Himself. Folks, God is the greatest of all evangelists. And we see this in the example of Rahab. Look at verse 31.
31 By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
I told you just a minute ago that the reason that God will vindicate His people is because of His great Name. Rahab is the biblical example of a sinner turned saint and all because of God vindicating His great name. What was it that Rahab understood? I want you to listen to Joshua 2:9-14.
"I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. 10 "For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 "When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. 12 "Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father's household, and give me a pledge of truth , 13 and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death." 14 So the men said to her, "Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the LORD gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you."
Everything that Rahab mentioned happened over a span of forty years. But God used His work to bring about the conversion of this women and I am sure that you noticed that she is listed right here in Hebrews 11 with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, and Moses.
Why? Because God will vindicate His people in their obedience?
Do you believe that? Have you adjusted your life and said that no matter what the situation you will obey God and not man and leave the consequences to the Lord? Have you set out on the path the to follow the Lord’s leading in all that you do and no matter what the people of Jericho or the Egyptians say to you or about you, you will continue on a steadfast journey of faith?
You see these decisions are made before you get to the
And the glorious thought this morning is that God is in the business of saving wretched people like Rahab and like me and like you and He will do so because of His great name.
We will see the second point next time, but let me ask you this morning in closing, do you have this kind of faith? Do you have an obedient faith that God will vindicate ultimately to bring glory to Himself?
If not, then go to the source of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ and plead with Him to allow the Holy Spirit of God to do a work of grace in your life and enable you to have this kind of biblical, saving faith that God will ultimately vindicate.
Let’s pray.
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