The Book of Hebrews 11:1-3 What faith is
Hebrews 11:1-3 · Vern Peterman · Mar 16, 2014
Hebrews, No. 45
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492642153115

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning, we're going to proceed into this passage that Randy just read for us here, Hebrews chapter 11, verses one through three. And one of the things we're going to be focusing on, it was actually introduced at the end of the last chapter. But this is definitely the faith chapter we're going to be looking at today. And for actually a few weeks as we proceed through the chapter, faith is going to continue to be a theme throughout the chapter here.

Faith, we want to point out, is essential for our salvation and for our walk. It's not an optional item. It is absolutely essential. For our initial salvation, we are saved how? We are saved by believing that Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. We are justified by faith. Paul makes that clear, as he writes in Romans and in Galatians.

We are saved by grace through faith, Ephesians 2.8. The message couldn't be more clear. Faith is essential for our salvation.

It isn't a matter of, you know, gee, if God grades on the average, I guess I'll probably make it in, right? Or most people, according to one survey I saw, most people think they're above average in terms of acceptability to God. I don't know how that works out mathematically. No, the only way you will be saved is by faith, okay? That's it.

No brownie points, nothing. our ongoing walk once we have been saved. Once we have been saved, faith is essential, for we walk by faith and not by physical sight. We walk instead by spiritual sight. Our day-to-day living out of the life of Christ is by spiritual sight, not by what we see or feel here in the physical realm. Now, faith is universal, not just for those who are religious.

This is something we'll return to as a theme, but I want to introduce the idea. Human beings will always place their faith somewhere. Somewhere. It's the nature of human beings to place their faith somewhere. Even the so-called scientific materialist who places his faith in all the presuppositions of modern science. And they also place their faith in other places.

The Christian believer has placed his faith in Christ, the Son of God, who has died for his sins, been buried, and rose again on the third day. That's what is required to be believed in order for a person to be saved. Now we need to talk about what faith is and what faith isn't. Faith is not believing something you know isn't true. It's not believing lies. That's not faith. Faith is not meritorious. You get no brownie points according to God's supposed measuring scale by having faith. There is no counting system. It doesn't merit us anything. Our faith is not our assets.

It's believing in Him and what He has done and what He will do and what He is doing. It's believing Him, not faith that gives me merit. It is His merit, not mine. It's not something we add to what God is also contributing. We don't put our part in, God does his part, and together that gets it done. Right? It's not that. Faith is not claiming something on pure presumption and then expecting God to fulfill that presumption.

This is common among those in Pentecostal and Charismatic groups, to claim something and then to say, I'm believing God for that. I had that issue come up with a fellow over in Uganda, who called me up towards the end of the year. He says, I'm going to believe God that he's going to provide for our big New Year's rally. And I said, you can't believe God for that.

He didn't promise it. You're presuming it. What you're doing is actually not faith. It's sin, which of course was stunning. But claiming something on pure presumption and then expecting God to fulfill that presumption is still presumption. God didn't promise it. It's not something we should be expecting. It is not a blind leap. Faith is not a blind leap. We just kind of jump out there and dive in and do that. Never take a blind leap. It could end up real badly. That's the same way it is physically. Jumping into the fog is probably not a good idea.

Faith is dependence upon God's revelation, what is revealed in His Word, God's accomplishments as declared in His Word, and His declared resources that He's made available to us, which by the way are infinite. God's resources are not skimpy-wimpy. Faith is dependence upon everything God has provided. That's what faith is, not these other things.

It is easy for Christians to kind of go off track and mixed up with an improper and incorrect understanding of what faith is and then end up a train wreck or a shipwreck because of it. We need to understand this is what faith really is. Everything else is fake faith. Anybody go for fake faith? That's not what God intends.

Now Hebrews 11.1 reads like this, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

If you have a King James Bible, that'll say something a little different. We'll talk about what each of these words mean so that it becomes clear. Now we have it in your handout on page one. We've broken it down into a kind of a brief poetic form. Faith is, and here you have two lines, the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Those two are together. These two lines of verse one are a small Hebrew poetry pattern. That is, one is restating the other. In Hebrew poetry, what they will often do is say the same thing, but use different words for all or part of it. Essentially use synonyms or equivalent descriptions. Together they help us understand what the author of Hebrews is going to give us in the Sundays ahead when we look at them, in the examples of the kind of faith he's talking about among Old Testament saints.

So we'll be looking at that in the weeks ahead. You also have this slide from our study of 1 Corinthians 13, 8-13. We won't go into that. That would be a huge rabbit trail. You're free to do that, however. That's online, both the handout and the audio, when we studied that. What I want to point out is that faith has an ending point. Faith has an ending point. We said faith is essential, but there is a time when faith will end. Faith is for here and for now.

It's absolutely essential, but there will be a time when it ends. Both faith and hope fall off because they are fulfilled when we see Christ face-to-face. So it is an absolute essential now while we're here on planet Earth, both to be saved initially and in our ongoing walk until we go home to see the Lord face-to-face. It's absolutely essential, but it falls off.

So people will be shocked when I say there's no faith in heaven. Because we will see them face to face. It's because the faith and hope are fulfilled. The one thing that remains, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, is love. Love remains. Why? Because while faith and hope are essential here, love is a part of God's eternal character. That's why it remains and doesn't go away.

Now, this word assurance that's translated here, assurance was a word that was used for various things in New Testament times, but one of the things it was used for was a title deed to property. The particular Greek word here was used for a title deed to property. So, a title deed gives a person a certainty that the property is actually owned by that person.

It's not any more wishful thinking, it's not just a feeling, or I had the impression that I own this place. You can imagine if you're home one day and all of a sudden somebody starts moving into your house. You'd say, hey, wait a minute, what's going on? And if they told you, well, I had the impression that I own this place, you'd say, wait a minute, where's the deed? The deed says I own this, right? And so this is assurance. This is what that word is here.

Further, the person that holds the title deed has the confidence to act on it and behave like an owner would, right? If you don't have the deed, you don't have the confidence to act like an owner and begin cutting trees and adding onto the house and updating the appearance, etc. Now there's this pair of words, hoped for, in the same way that the kind of faith the author of Hebrews is writing about has certainty. And I think this is something I want to make clear. I mean, certainty as opposed to being uncertain. That person has certainty. The hope in verse one is a hope that is quite certain and not just a hope of possibilities and probabilities.

I hope it turns out this way. And we oftentimes do that as human beings. We will hope for this kind of an outcome, or that kind of outcome, or maybe negatively, we hope this doesn't happen, or that doesn't happen. And that's the way we speak of hope. But this is a hope that is absolutely certain as to the end result. This kind of faith has full assurance and a title deed kind of certainty regarding the spiritually based things that are hoped for confidently.

Not hoped for as I hope so, or I hope not. Hoped for confidently, even though those things cannot be seen with physical eyes. Now we have the line conviction of things not seen. Conviction in this context has nothing to do with crimes in the courtroom, and that's good, but rather to do with being convinced of something to the point of certainty.

That's the intent of the word here. When we have a fixed hope with certainty, an absolute hope, for something that is not yet visible or reality, we are willing to act on the sure hope even though we've never seen it fulfilled before. And that's the nature of our hope. So the faith is a certain faith and the hope is a certain hope.

Biblical faith is the opposite of an optical illusion. That's very important. Biblical faith is the opposite of an optical illusion. How many kinds of animals do you see in this picture? An optical illusion, you can't believe what your eyes are seeing, or you have a difficult time believing it. With biblical faith, you can believe what your eyes aren't seeing.

You see the difference there? Now, you may look at this and say, well, that's an attractive lady in this picture. It's just that the picture is upside down. Well, if that's what you're thinking, think again. Maybe not. What they've done is, when they turn it upside down, the eyes and the lips are all turned upside down, and she doesn't look quite as attractive as she did that way. So, it's an optical illusion. Your mind is playing tricks, so you can't believe what your eyes are seeing. Here's another one. It looks like this soldier's about ready to, you know, eat a couple of his little buddies, right? But actually it's a matter of one's in front and one's far behind. Here's another one with some paint. They painted up an elevator so it looks like it has no floor.

Makes people hesitant to walk in, I'm sure. It's an optical illusion, okay? You can't believe, your eyes can't believe what they're seeing, right? With an optical illusion you can't believe what your eyes are seeing, but with biblical faith you can believe what your eyes aren't seeing. See the difference there? Biblical faith is the opposite of an optical illusion.

Now one of the things we want to point out is all kinds of people have faith. There's all kinds of people having faith in all sorts of amazing things. When I went to Uganda, it was a very interesting Experience the last time I was there. I first went to the Czech Republic where most of the people are atheist and Then I went to Uganda where most of the people are Christian of some variety and then there's about 11% Muslim, but there's still the ancient witchdoctor religion there as well. But when I told the people in Uganda that the people in the Czech Republic are mostly atheists, they said, what's the matter with those people? Right? Okay.

Biblical faith is placed in who God is and what God has said and what He has done and is doing and will do because He said so in His Word. That's biblical faith. People can place their faith in all kinds of places. But this is biblical faith. Biblical faith has a certainty that seems inexplicable because it hopes with a certainty for what has never been seen. My great hope is that the Lord, whom I have never seen, will come for me, I hope it's today, and take me to be with Him in a place I've never been. And I have a certainty about that. Isn't that amazing?

Now, let's look at Hebrews 11.2. Brief verse for Byatt.

The men of old gained approval. And actually, that men of old, I would carry it over as the old ones, because it's not necessarily talking about just men. The old ones. They're Old Testament saints, and they're both Gentile and Jewish. That's a pattern that we'll see. Both Gentile and Jewish. We'll look at the old ones here as we proceed through Hebrews chapter 11 and we'll take a few different weeks in the future here to do that. These old ones are not all men. They likely include some surprises. Rahab the harlot who ended up being in the lineage of David is mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 also by the book of James.

One thing we will also see is that living by faith often does not make life easy, but it makes it harder. Christians will sometimes encounter some difficulty, and then they'll get mad at God. They'll get mad at God, and they'll say, God, this isn't what I signed up for, and guess what?

It's exactly what you signed up for. Living by faith doesn't make things easier, necessarily. It may make some things a lot harder. You don't become a Christian to make it easy. If you do, you're a fool, or very deceived. You don't sign up to be a Christian to make it easy. That's not what it's for. And it isn't God's job to make your life easier. If that's God's job, He's doing a terrible job, right?

Okay. The old ones gained approval. This part of the verse tells us that God approved of the faith of these Old Testament saints. Now, just because God approved of the faith of some of these Old Testament saints, doesn't mean He approved of everything they did. Sometimes He did not. So he approved of the faith, not necessarily everything they did.

Though we live now in different times than all these Old Testament saints did, we have much more revealed to us at this time than they did. Well, I don't know, imagine what was available in the way of a Bible for Noah to read. Not much, eh? Not much. Maybe the first several chapters of Genesis might have been it.

What is done by faith is still what God approves. What is done by faith is still what God approves in the life of the believer now. And that's why these examples are relevant to us. And that's why they're valuable to us. Because we see what they did by faith.

So here is Hebrews 11.3, By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that which is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Now, here are the seven days of creation shown graphically. The first day, of course, let there be light, and then God is bringing about the earth into more like the present form. And you find on the fourth day is when God does the solar system in astronomical creation. So that's interesting. The way it ordinarily goes in secular studies is it's what happened on the fourth day was the first thing to happen. But no, biblically it's the fourth day. And on the fifth day, creating the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air. And on the sixth day, land animals and man. And on the seventh day, God rested, which doesn't mean that he was tired. It doesn't mean that he and Adam were so exhausted because God created the woman. It doesn't mean that. It means that God just stopped creating.

Now, by faith we understand. So by faith in the written word of God, we understand that the spoken word of God brought the physical world into existence. God spoke things into existence. That's how they came about. Included in that statement is the creation of plants and animals.

God created male and female humans as well. However, there's a distinction. The creation of a male and female human was a matter of speaking between the persons of the Godhead, the Trinity. Let us, it's plural, let us, communicating between the persons of the Godhead, let us make mankind, in our image, male and female.

Now, we have to make a distinction here because the phrase, the Word of God, is used a few different ways in the New Testament. There's the Word of God, and then there's the Word of God, and then there's the Word of God. And those are different. You got that? All right. Now, here's the difference. The word, the Greek is logos, the Word of God that is written is the Bible.

That's in Hebrews 4.12. We saw that several chapters back. The Word of God, also Logos, and by the way, it's not Logos, it's Logos, and if you went to school in Texas like I did, it's Logos, right?

Anyway, so the Word, Logos, of God, who is the Living One, is Christ, so that you see in Revelation 19.13, right?

And this word here, the word Ramah of God, in this verse is the spoken word of God. So as God speaks, that's the word of God. So that phrase means different things in different contexts and with different words behind it. In this case, Ramah is the word.

When God created, He spoke things into existence. He spoke things into existence. Here is, and you have this on the top of page 3 in your handout, creation by speaking. And it's abundantly clear, you see the repeated pattern in Genesis chapter 1, in verse 3, then God said, let there be light, and there was light. Let there be light, and it was.

Verse 6, then he said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters. Let there be a separation. In verse 9, God said, let the waters below the heavens, and he went on to separate the waters. In verse 11, then God said, let the earth sprout vegetation.

So we have plants coming up. And then in verse 14, then God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens. Now here's something that's real interesting. Plants, with some interesting exceptions, plants generally need light in order for photosynthesis to take place. But God waited until the next day to create the various things that bring about photosynthesis.

Okay, verse 20, then God said, let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the opening and expanse of the heavens. In verse 24, God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures. And then in verse 26, he began what we referred to earlier. God said, let us make man in our image.

When we went through our Genesis study, we went into more detail about what that means to be made in God's image. Image and likeness. And by the way, that pattern of image and likeness is carried all the way into the New Testament. So the image and likeness of God is a theme that's consistent in Scripture. Now here's a Psalm, Psalm 33, verses 6 through 9, which also tell us much the same message. So here again is the consistency of Scripture.

So Psalm 33 6 begins like this, So the word of the Lord and the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers up the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps and storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. God spoke things into existence. Scripture is abundantly clear on that. He spoke things into existence.

Even when Jesus comes again, and He will bring us with Him when He comes again, Possibly as soon as seven years from now. When He comes again, how will He take on the enemies? His enemies and the enemies of Israel. How will He take them on? He will speak. He will speak judgment and it happens. He won't need to come and say, you know, hey Bob, would you take this sword and make sure you take out those guys over there. We're going to have Morgan, you're going to have this spear and make sure you heave it off that direction. No. None of that. We will come with him, but all he will do is speak, and judgment takes place.

So, what's eternal? This is a key issue. In the Greek pagan world, the universe was often thought of as eternal, and the Greek gods might come and go. Some modern-day cosmologists think this world is eternal, but deny God. Oh, this world is eternal because we had this big bang, but before that we had this big collapse. And then it keeps doing the cycle.

That's how they describe it. Problem. Nobody's ever observed that. That's not science. That's speculation. Right? Genesis 1, supported by the rest of scripture, because scripture is consistent on this point, has the God of the Bible as eternal, creating a physical world that has a beginning. And we've just read through the description of that in part. and an end.

2 Peter 3.10, Revelation 21.1, have it ending. So this world here that we live in and rely upon for our physical existence, it's going to end. Possibly as soon as 1,007 years from now. It's going to end. This isn't going to last forever. It had a beginning and it will have an end. It will have an end. God is going to create a new heaven and new earth And this world is terminal.

God in the spiritual realm, and He is a spiritual being, is the source of the physical realm. And that's one of the things that the Bible makes clear. We understand from the Word of God that God in the spiritual realm is the source of everything in the physical realm.

So what does an atheist believe? And by the way, God doesn't believe in atheists. What does an atheist believe? That the physical realm, the material world, is all there is, and the spiritual realm does not exist. So the biblical picture is the spiritual realm is what will continue to exist from eternity past on into eternity future, and is the source of this physical realm. So certainly the belief is opposite, not just in terms of spiritual belief, but also in terms of this physical realm.

We understand that, not from science, but from the faith in the revealed facts, the Word of God itself, by which God revealed it. We know these things because God revealed it. We say that those are revealed facts, and we put our faith in those facts. That's how we understand.

That is why the Apostle Paul, when he spoke to unbelievers in Acts 14 and Acts 17, those are the two longest discourses to unbelievers in the book of Acts, took them back to Genesis 1 through 11 in both cases. Why? The philosophers that he was talking to, as well as the people he was speaking to in Galatia, in both cases, chapter 14 and chapter 17, the people had a worldview problem. And that had to be corrected for them to understand the gospel. They got that? They had a worldview problem, and that had to be presented in order for them to understand the gospel.

All viewpoints on origins are also based on faith. So if somebody says to you, oh, but science says this, and the Bible says that, and that's just religion, and then somehow look at science as superior, that's a mistake. All scientists hold the ten basic presuppositions that are the foundation of all science that cannot be proven by observation or logic. Scientists, for at least those ten, put their faith in those ten presuppositions. They cannot prove them. They cannot arrive at them by logic. You cannot observe them. They have to be assumed before beginning the practice of science, and that's in any field of science.

We have a handout that goes into the details of what those ten are if you're interested. I'm warning you it's a little heavy on things like philosophical terms and science and math and things of that sort, but you're welcome to it if that's of interest to you. Now those scientists who study the unrecorded past have additional scientifically unverifiable presuppositions, that is assumptions made before you begin practicing, about the past. So there are ten that all scientists use, and then there are additional unverifiable presuppositions, that is, assumptions before you begin practicing science, that those use who deal with the unrecorded past.

I'm talking about fossils, I'm talking about looking at the history of the earth, the history of the universe. All science is based on faith, and some fields of science require even more faith than others. to hold that this physical universe is all there is, is not a known and established worldview, it is a faith viewpoint. It's a faith viewpoint.

Let's talk, for example, about the evolution of bats. That's just one I'll give an example. The bats are generally regarded among those who believe that this world came into existence accidentally and purely by material chance from a rodent-like creature.

There have been some proposals that it was also a primate-like creature that's not been well received over time, and that that eventually evolved step-by-step into what we now call bats. So they develop from little rodent feet into larger and larger and larger structures and eventually got bat wings. And the echolocation that bats use to determine their orientation, avoid obstacles as they're flying, the echolocation that they use to determine the size and shape of the object that they're going after for their prey, all that was supposed to have developed from this rodent that didn't have it, right? They additionally, on top of the echolocation, and not all bats have it, and it's not all the same in all the bats. In addition to that, the bats have an instant toxin sensing capability built in, so that when they approach something that looks like it's food, they will test it first with their sensing mechanism and be able to tell if it's toxic, and if so, they'll fly away and leave it. That was all supposed to have developed by pure chance, and the only record that that rodent, or a primate, according to some theories, evolved into a bat, the only record would be the fossil record. Now, yes, how many fossils do we have between rodents and bats? Nada. Yep. Nada one. Not a one. So guess what? If you believe that rodents or primates, if you want to, evolved into a bat, it is not on the basis of science, it is on the basis of faith. Faith. There is absolutely no evidence.

On page 174 of the book, The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins, the famed atheist, He writes, as the giraffe's neck slowly lengthened over evolutionary time, and he writes in there, an okapi, which is what you see is the smaller creature there, evolved into a giraffe. So that's what he talks about. Now, guess how many fossils show the transition from an okapi-like creature into a giraffe?

Zip, then nada. Zilch. Nothing. So, if you believe that a copy-like creature evolved into a giraffe, that's not on the basis of science, it's on the basis of faith. It's a faith belief, not a scientific belief. So don't let anybody come at you and talk like, well, this is science and that's faith. No, they have faith that the evolution actually took place even though the fossils, just like with the bats, are not there at all. None.

I could go on with other things, but you get the idea. Now, let's talk about faith versus doubt. I'm in some interesting conversations with people who live in different parts of the country and even different parts of the world about some of these questions. They're Christians who have kind of drifted into skepticism, and so I'm talking to them. I started last summer, and another one just this last week. So it's interesting. So here are believers who have kind of drifted off being influenced by guys like Dawkins. And now there are Christians who will say, well, I'm doubting my faith.

Let's talk about that. About faith versus doubt. What if someone is having doubts? What does that mean? Scripture itself has examples of doubts and even opposition. But faith can bear up, biblical faith can bear up to close scrutiny. Close scrutiny is fine. And so you can look at that. Here's Thomas who was the doubter.

For a week, even though ten of his fellow disciples kept telling him, I tell you, we all, all of us together saw Jesus resurrected. He would not believe it until he saw Christ himself. A week later, guess what? He saw Christ himself and was willing even to die for him, which he did.

The Apostle Paul was one who was not just a doubter, but one greatly in opposition to the point, he says at the end of Acts, whenever I had the chance, I voted for death. He didn't want to just slap their hands. He wanted those Christians dead. And then he came around where he then preached the gospel, where he then wrote roughly half the letters in the New Testament.

He came around and testified that Jesus is the Christ and he was resurrected. James and three other brothers, James, the brother of Jesus, half-brother I guess you could actually say, was not only a doubter He did not believe, John chapter 7, he and his brothers did not believe in Jesus until after the resurrection, and then they believed. And James also died for his faith.

So we have examples of doubting, we have examples even of opposition to the faith. Faith needs to end up being the kind of faith that we saw described here in verse 1. Faith needs to end up being the kind of faith that brings assurance and conviction so as to be a faith of trust and of action based on a fixed and certain hope. Not an I hope so hope. So that's the direction that a believer needs to head.

And that's why I'm taking the time to talk to these believers who have kind of drifted in the area of skepticism. There are things they don't understand. I eventually end up talking with one fellow, and he said, Richard Dawkins does not tell the truth. He's not a reliable witness. Faith versus doubt.

In the end, we need to have the kind of faith that Hebrews 11.1 describes.

Full assurance. Not an, I hope this is the outcome, but I have a fixed and certain hope, and I'm counting on it. I am absolutely certain. And what we'll see here in the rest of this chapter is men and women who lay everything on the line because of their faith and because of their hope. Absolute certainty. Absolute certainty.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage. We see very clearly what faith is and what it isn't. And we also see that really everybody has faith. It's just a question of where they put it. Even the person who doesn't believe that you exist or that is not sure that you exist. They're putting their faith somewhere, always. And we just thank you that you've made it clear where and in whom. We ought to place our faith and our trust and confidence. We thank you for that. Thank you for the clarity that you've given us in your word. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.