Faith is believing what God has said simply because He has said it, and in particular believing Him about what He says about a relationship to Him, that it is available to those who repent of their sin and put their trust in His grace and His mercy. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. What do you do when you obey God but things still don't go your way? What do you do when you can't think of the last time you knew for certain that God was at work in your life?
In times like those, when trials pile up and God feels distant. How do you persevere in your faith? To find out, stay right here as John continues his study of faith that pleases God, with a look at how you can have a courageous, conquering, and persevering faith, and with a lesson.
Now here is John MacArthur.
Well, we have the opportunity tonight to look again at Hebrews chapter eleven. Hebrews chapter eleven. We have come to the end of this great faith chapter. It is monumental for a number of reasons. It is a monumental case laid for a relationship with God based on faith and not works.
It is monumental as well because it gives us a kind of summary of the Old Testament. It kind of sweeps us through from the family of Adam all the way through the prophets. Which brings us virtually down to the New Testament. It is somewhat like the sermon of Stephen early in the Book of Acts, where he summarizes the history of God's working in Israel. Here, similarly, there is this summary, and the emphasis is on the necessity of faith to have a true relationship to God.
Let's read the verses that we'll be looking at again tonight. Verse thirty: By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace. And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel, and the prophets.
Who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword; from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection, and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourgings. Yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned.
They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated. Men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground, and all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect or complete.
Now, as you know, if you've been with us, and if you haven't, I'll try to give you enough of a summary to catch you up. The Holy Spirit in this wonderful epistle to the Hebrews is making a concentrated effort to convince the readers and anybody else who will read this through history of the necessity of faith as the only way to God. There are only two possibilities. Either you come to God by faith alone, or you don't. Fair enough.
And if you don't come by faith alone, then you come some other way, and you're left with some form of works system. You either are saved by faith alone apart from works, or you're saved by some degree of works. The Bible rejects all works as a way of salvation. And leaves us only with the concept of faith. Faith is believing what God has said simply because He has said it, and in particular believing Him about what He says about a relationship to Him, that it is available to those who repent of their sin and put their trust in His grace and His mercy.
Even in the Old Testament. People to be saved had to acknowledge their sin and then come to God and plead for the mercy and the grace which He promised to offer the penitent sinner. At any point in redemptive history, salvation is always by that kind of faith. Even before the cross, they were believing God that He would give forgiveness and mercy and grace to the sinner who repented and believed in Him. Even though they did not yet know the reality of the cross on this side, our faith embraces the work of Christ in His death and resurrection.
But it is still faith.
Now here is the dilemma: in the New Testament period, as you know, the gospel breaks on the scene in Israel. Most particularly, it is antithetical to the religious establishment and the established religion. Judaism, by the time of our Lord, and really long before that, had become a works system. It had been embellished with all kinds of man-made rules by the hundreds, and people were under the illusion that you work your way to God. It's not apart from faith, but it's faith plus your own efforts.
You believe in God. You believe in what God has said. But that doesn't complete the transaction. You have to accomplish certain things, achieve certain things, morally, spiritually, and even ceremonially. When the gospel of grace and the gospel of faith came along, the Jews heard it as if it was an alien message, because they had been so well trained on works.
To come along with this idea that salvation is by faith alone, and that reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sin, and entrance into the kingdom of God and the hope of eternal heaven is a matter of faith and nothing more, seemed to them to be a corrupted message. They were convinced that your works and keeping of the law, therefore a kind of legalistic system, was the way into God's kingdom. And so, when the gospel came along, they were offended by it. And the more invested they were in the work system, the more offended they were. And the most invested were the leaders of the system in Israel, and therefore they were the most hostile to Jesus and the gospel of grace and faith.
Well, of course, the New Testament unfolds the significance of salvation and reconciliation with God by faith alone. There are still some Jews who are having trouble getting the point, and the writer of Hebrews understands that because this letter is written to a community of Jews, presumably somewhere in perhaps in the land of Israel. It is to show them that the way of faith is not an alien message. It is not a new message. It is a very old message.
To be reconciled to God, you must abandon your works and you must come by faith alone. Faith willingly admits inability and comes to God, believing that He is merciful and will save the penitent sinner who believes. In Him and in His grace and mercy.
Now, how can the writer of Hebrews prove the point that salvation has always been by faith and never by works? Answer: Go back to the very beginning of redemptive history, of biblical history, of human history, and look at what we find. He starts with the family of Adam in verse four. And talks about the faith of Abel, and then in verse five, the faith of Enoch. Two familiar characters in the early chapters of Genesis.
Still in the early chapters of Genesis, in verse seven, he talks about the faith of Noah. Still in the early chapters of Genesis, he talks about the faith of Abraham. And gives a rather extensive treatment to Abraham's life, and then he talks, starting in verse twenty, about the faith of Isaac, and in verse twenty-one about the faith of Jacob, and in verse twenty-two about the faith of Joseph. Those are the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And they take up the the book of Genesis.
Then you come into the book of Exodus, and he refers to the faith of Moses. And of course, Moses' story sweeps through the Book of Exodus. Moses then also becomes the author of the Pentateuch, the opening five books of the Old Testament. Then he comes, having left behind the patriarchs in Genesis and Moses in the Book of Exodus and the rest of the Pentateuch, he moves to the next group, starting in verse thirty. This group of people moves us into the book of, if you will, Joshua and Judges, and begins the trek through the books of history in the Old Testament.
And he points out here that by faith the walls of Jericho fell. By faith Rahab, you remember the harlot in Jericho, was not terrified by the threat against her life if she hid the spies. But believed in the true God against very, very challenging potential circumstances, and then he moves on from there to what we're going to look at today in verse 32 and following, and that's where we left off. Here we sweep through the basically the history of the Old Testament all the way to the end. We start with the judges: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah.
We touch on the kings: David. We touch on the first of the prophets since Moses, really Samuel, and then we sweep through the prophets with just an identification of the prophets, and then following that, there are all kinds of statements made about the kind of suffering that they endured, and in every case, their faith stood the test.
So the point of the writer is to show us that redemptive history has always made clear that salvation is by Faith. the The intensity of the chapter is starting to ramp up.
However, when we look at Abel and Enoch and Noah, and we look at Abraham and we look at Moses, we look at Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. We look at the children of Israel at the walls of Jericho. We look at Rahab. There are significant events going on in which they demonstrate their faith, but when we get into chapter eleven, verse thirty-two, there's a level of intensity that is added because their faith is now tested in the crucible of a life and death situation, a life and death situation. And what I read you from verse thirty-two to verse forty indicates that.
This is life and death kind of faith. This is where faith is tested at its highest level in the crucible of severe threats.
Now, backing up a little bit before we go into the text, years before this letter was written, the gospel of Christ had come to this group of people. We don't know how many years. We don't know what group of people it is. It's a group of Hebrews, obviously. But years before the letter was written, and we don't even know who wrote the letter, the gospel came to this group of people.
And if you go back to chapter two, and verse three, we learn there how the gospel came to them. Verse three of chapter two: How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard. In other words, this gospel was given to this community of Jews by the people who were with Jesus. This is a.
First-hand eyewitness account of the gospel passed on to these people, and they weren't just people who were with Jesus. Verse four says their testimony was accompanied by signs and wonders and various miracles.
Now, who would they then be? Who would the preachers be?
Well, according to Second Corinthians twelve twelve, signs and wonders and miracles are the signs of an apostle.
So here is a community of believers who have. Been with Christ, who have been commissioned by Christ, who in fact are the apostles of Christ, who have come to this community of Jews and preached to them the gospel of Christ, and the preaching has been attended by signs and wonders and miracles and manifest gifts of the Holy Spirit. These people then were the recipients of a powerful presentation. To be sure, some in this Jewish community, wherever it was, this Jewish town, some had believed.
Some believed and opened their hearts and received the message of the apostles and received Christ as Lord and Savior. And we can even assume that their experience with the apostles was after the cross and after the resurrection.
So they heard the full message of the new covenant gospel.
Some of them believed it.
Some of them fully, genuinely embraced it and formed a church, a ecclesia. There were others who were impressed. Intellectually convinced, who understood the gospel to some degree, who were drawn to it, who were attracted to it, who associated with the church. This would be consistent with what our Lord said that the wheat and the tares would grow together. Right, you would have believers and non-believers in the same environment that would be very difficult to separate.
There are people who are interested but not genuinely converted.
So there were these people associated with the true believers who had not truly left their works system behind. They had not come all the way to faith in Christ.
Well, this little group of Jews that formed this church, this community, both genuine believers and those. Associated and interested non-believers apparently came under persecution, which we know to be the case, right? Jesus said it. In this world, they'll have tribulation. Don't be surprised if they treat you the way they treated me.
Don't be surprised if they hate you the hated me.
So we understand that persecution certainly broke out against these communities of believers very early, even in the age of the apostles. In fact, even to the point that the apostles were martyred.
So when this group of Christians and associates became persecuted, that raised the stakes on being a Christian. The true believers had the faith that endures. The true believers were hanging in there, but the superficial. Non-believers, those who were merely associated and attracted but not genuine, were in danger of leaving. They could be described, I think, pretty easily by the rocky soil or the weedy soil of our Lord's soils parable.
There was an appearance of life, but it wasn't going to last, especially when the persecution started. They were in danger then of going backward, back into their Judaism, and so throughout this letter there are repeated calls to them not to do that. And I just read you one back in chapter two, verse three: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" In other words, don't neglect. You've come this far. Don't.
Neglect this salvation, which was preached by the apostles, confirmed by miracles. That's the first warning. They're warned again in chapter three, verse seven. Just as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your heart, as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me and tested Me, saw My works for forty years. In other words, don't be like that recalcitrant, unbelieving group of Israelites who were stuck in the wilderness for forty years because of their unbelief.
Verse twelve: Take care, brethren, Jewish brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving Heart that falls away from the living God. You want to be a true partaker of Christ. Verse fourteen, holding fast, firm to the end.
So these are warnings. There are more such warnings in chapter four. The most familiar warning comes in chapter six. In chapter six, verse four. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened—that's to have your mind illuminated, to know the information, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come.
Now let's just stop there. And what is this? Who are these people? Who is he describing? Who has been enlightened?
Who has tasted the heavenly gift? Who has been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit? Who has tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come?
Well, please notice: none of those terms are ever used anywhere in the Bible to describe salvation. None of them doesn't talk about regeneration, new birth, conversion, justification, salvation, sanctification. These are the words used to describe the experience of those who heard the apostles and saw their miracles and signs and wonders. In that sense, they were enlightened. In that sense, they tasted the heavenly gift.
They they tasted the powers of heaven. They were made partakers of the power of the Holy Spirit coming through the apostles and the signs and wonders and gifts of the Spirit. They tasted the good word of God, and they. Tasted the powers of the age to come. That is all those miracle powers which one day in the age to come the millennial kingdom will be in full display.
They were tasters, not consumers. Can we put it that way? The warning comes then in verse six. If you have then fallen away. It's impossible to renew them again to repentance.
In other words, if you have heard the apostolic gospel, if you heard the message of Christ, you have understood it. You are enlightened. You you've seen the power displayed by the apostles and the power of the Holy Spirit. All of that is in your experience, and you turn your back. You can't be renewed to repentance.
Why? Because you can't have any more exposure. Revelation than that, so the warning is: don't turn your back on it. You'll become an apostate if you reject full revelation, and you'll be guilty of again crucifying the Son of God and putting him to open shame. There's another warning in chapter ten, and verse twenty-six.
If we go on sinning wilfully, and the sin, wilful sin here is unbelief. If we go on sinning willfully, we Jews, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, if you know the truth, you know it fully. You've seen it. You've seen the display, the undergirding display of Holy Spirit miracle power that attests to the validity of the message preached by the apostles. If you go on in your sinful unbelief willingly, then there is no longer any sacrifice for sins.
There's no other salvation, right? What else can be done? Nothing. You have nothing left, verse twenty-seven, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. And listen to this, verse twenty-nine.
Your punishment will be worse. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? Your your punishment will be worse because. You had full knowledge and rejected it, and for that person, verse thirty-one says it's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You don't want to know the full truth and walk away from it.
In chapter twelve, the last one, I'll refer you to in verse twenty-five. See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if those who did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven. And his voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." If you don't listen to the word of the Spirit of God and the word of the Son of God through the apostles, all that awaits for you is judgment.
Now, with that, we can go back to chapter eleven. The truly saved. Let's pull it together. The truly saved were in danger of trying to lessen their persecution by drawing back. Into old Judaistic patterns, customs, worship, maybe even reconnecting with the priests.
They are reminded all through Hebrews that Jesus Christ is a better priest who offered a better sacrifice and who is the mediator of a better covenant. Don't go back to the old priesthood, the old ceremonies, the old sacrifices, the old worship. That that's the message to the truly saved. Don't go back and pick up those pieces of the old religion. The message to the non Christians is, come all the way to Christ.
Come all the way to Christ. Chapter six says, let us go on to perfection. Perfection is a term used to refer to salvation by the writer of Hebrews. Come all the way to Christ. Now.
How does one come to Christ by faith, and so that's what the emphasis is in chapter eleven. This is to help the the Christians, the true Christians, hold on to the reality of faith by seeing it as the only way ever to come to God from Adam's family on, and this is to encourage the non Christians who are a part of that community and. Feeling the pull back away from Christ, turning their backs on the gospel, to come all the way to faith because faith is the only way. The way of law and legalism and works will only condemn and damn. Father, thank you again for a wonderful day of worship and fellowship, and we have been so greatly enriched tonight to be swept through the ages.
They're wrapping our minds around these great pinnacle people, these heroes of the faith, these great men and women who endured so much for what they couldn't see. Blessed are the ones who have not seen and yet believe. May we run this faith race as they did. For while we have seen. To the eyes of biblical revelation, the full record of Christ and His death and resurrection, we have yet not seen the future.
We have not seen what God has prepared for them that love Him. May we endure in faith. May our faith be a real and genuine saving faith, an unwavering, enduring faith, tested and proven true. Strengthen our faith, we pray, through these examples in Christ's name. Amen.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current study is titled "A Faith That Pleases God." Well, friend, John has been in Hebrews chapter 11 for nearly three weeks now, and there's still so much to learn about that amazing portion of Scripture. And of course, that's true of the entire Bible. You'll never exhaust the riches of Scripture. And to help you glean even more from God's Word, a great tool is the MacArthur Study Bible.
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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for listening today. Join us again tomorrow as John MacArthur shows you how you can grow strong in your faith through any and every trial. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on grace to you.
