Commentary on Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 Bryan J. Whitfield "People get ready, There's a train a comin'. 3. if thou dost not love Christ thou dost not believe in him; for to believe in Christ begets love. Book excerpt: Get ready to make the book of Hebrews your new favorite book of the Bible with the help of Looking to Christ, an . We hear people talk about "minor points," and so on; but we must not consider any word of our God as a minor thing, if by that expression is implied that it is of small importance. He hath put all things under the feet of such a man as that, and crowned him with glory and honor in the person of Christ, and the angels themselves are ministering servants to such. In fact, they are not at an consistent therewith. How long a wolf-beloved habit lingers at the door after the heart has given it a bill of divorce! Henceforth, the man has turned aside from the faith, if not altogether in his heart, at least in his life. If they have such a separating effect upon our character in keeping us from the world, let us cultivate them much. Obedience what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! and if we are called to suffer for him, our weakness, in the case of most of us, is even greater: many who can labor without weariness cannot suffer without impatience. Into the unknown land he made his way; through fertile regions, or across a wilderness; among friends or through the midst of foes, he pursued his journey. It is smoothing the way to return to your old places. He did not know where his way would take him, but he knew that the Lord had bidden him go. When people persecute you and slander you, no marvel. There were a number of young men that I had played cards with, that I had sinned with, and transgressed with: the first thing I did was, to go to their houses to see what I could do for their salvation, nor could I rest until I had the pleasure of seeing many of them brought to the Saviour." He intends that the faith which he gives should have its test, and should glorify his name. You can suffer no need, for everlasting supplies await the hand of prayer: "Ask, and it shall be given you." "By faith he obeyed," and to the end of his life ho was never an original speculator, or inventor of ways for self-will; but a submissive servant of that great Lord, who deigned to call him "friend." They dwelt in tents--Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob--but he has prepared for them a city. So sure as our faith is real, it will want to bring others in. If, as a decided believer, he takes his stand, and if he is firm and steadfast for his God, he will make a man, and his after years will be bright and useful; but if he begins to give way a little, and if he tries to trim his sail to the wind, he will never attain to a holy character. Here we are tent-dwellers, but the tent is soon to be taken down. THE APOSTLE COULD NOT AVOID mentioning Noah; for in him faith shone forth eminently. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Hebrews 11:1-13 ; Genesis 11:27-32 ; Genesis 2:1-9 . My sister, my brother, have faith in God in your hidden sorrow! They will take other cities before coming to Jericho; and, besides, the Canaanites are mighty, and the Israelites are only a parcel of slaves; they will soon be cut in pieces, and there will be an end of them; therefore, do not harbor these spies. Next, we must have faith in the rightness of all that God says or does . Thou art no intruder! Don't wonder, don't wonder if you have discomforts here. I would sooner have the faith which obeys than the faith which heaps the altar of God with sacrifices, and perfumes his courts with incense. God does not create useless things. Hebrews 11:4 Commentaries: By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. He answered, "What were you thinking about me for? The evidence of things not seen. ", May God grant to us grace to be Daniels, even if the lions' den should threaten us. Come, now, my hearer, are you willing to be one of the separated? "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a plane which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went." Brethren, as believers in the Lord Jesus, we are called to two things, namely, to do and to suffer for his name's sake. I cannot see my Lord, I cannot enjoy his presence, and though it may be a little thing to desire, let me say a good desire is more than nature ever grew. Such a sublime life recompensed a thousandfold all the sacrifice he was led to make. III. Oh, fly to him. His image passes across the page of history rather like that of a spirit from the supernal realms than that of a mere man; he is so thorough, so childlike, and therefore so heroic. wouldst thou touch with thy hallowed fingers foul and bestial debauchery? It may be that this entails the scoff and scorn of all who know them. This shall be our last removal, to dwell for ever with him we love, to dwell in the bosom of God. If we doubt God's Word about one thing, we shall have small confidence in it upon another thing. If he had not believed the threat, he would not have prepared an ark, and so would not have received the promise. Then you can set almighty forces in operation. You cannot miss your way, for you shall be guided in answer to prayer. God gave his Son, equal with himself, to bear the burdens of human sin, and he died a substitute for sinners, a real substitute, an efficient substitute for all who trust in him. said one who heard it, "the Lord have mercy on your miserable stingy soul, for if you had been saved you would not have been con tent with a cent a year"--a halfpenny per annum! Our Puritan forefathers reeked little of property or liberty when these stood in the way of conscience: they defied exile and danger sooner than give up a grain of truth; but their descendants prefer peace and worldly amusements, and pride themselves on "culture" rather than on heroic faith. I will show you that it is so; for, if I should hear a voice, how am I to know that it is divine? Indeed, in the text it seems to me as if the word "opportunities" were not in our case nearly strong enough. We want to have more outspoken, downright utterances of truth and appeals to the conscience, and until we get these, we shall never see any very great and lasting reforms. "Whither away?" He did not say, "Lord give me a little time: I will go in a week. Our expectations are our largest possessions. We can see that the procrastinator halts, but it were hard to guess how long he will do so. "His honor is engaged to save The meanest of his sheep; All that his heavenly Father gave His hands securely keep.". We need not wish to have any strength of our own, for by faith we can reach to any degree of power in the Lord. You are not allowed to halve the Scriptures, and to believe what you please; you are not allowed to believe the Scripture with a half-heartedness, for if you do this wilfully, you have not the faith which looks alone to Christ. Thus we have Abraham before us; may the Holy Spirit make us like him. As a dog, which is chased away from the house, returns again and again to its former master, so does an evil lust turn again even to the soul that loathes it. I have had to mourn over Christian men--at least I thought they were--who have grown very poor, and when they have grown poor they hardly felt they could associate with those whom they knew in better circumstances. Yes, this is a chief ingredient of heaven that we shall see the face of our Lord, and serve him day and night in his temple. Where Jesus died, there you shall live. Look at this preparation just a minute. Man cannot please God without bringing to himself a great amount of happiness; for if any man pleases God, it is because God accepts him as his son, gives him the blessings of adoption, pours upon him the bounties of his grace, makes him a blessed man in this life, and insures him a crown of everlasting life, which he shall wear, and which shall shine with unfading lustre when the wreaths of earth's glory have all been melted away; while, on the other hand, if a man does not please God, he inevitably brings upon himself sorrow and suffering in this life; he puts a worm and a rottenness in the core of all his joys; he fills his death-pillow with thorns, and he supplies the eternal fire with faggots of flame which shall for ever consume him. In the conflict with evil, we would overcome it early, and put it to the rout at the first attack; but it may be that God will allow error to proceed further, and let it seem to triumph, so that by its own presumption it may place itself where it may be the more effectually crushed, never again to afflict the church. He knows better than we do when to strike for victory. -- Hebrews 11:15-16. We cannot think that religion can be true if such a man is a hypocrite. I must not dwell on this theme, delightful as it is; I want a few words with you, my friends, direct and personal, before I close. No, no child of God can be, whatever he may find in this world. We want the religion of hands and feet. If you truly believe a man, you believe all that he says. You need not even appeal to friends for consolation. If you conceive that by your good works you shall enter heaven, never was there a more fell delusion, and you shall find at the last great day, that your hopes were worthless, and that, like sear leaves from the autumn trees, your noblest doings shall be blown away, or kindled into a flame within you yourselves must suffer for ever. a. Did it answer Abraham's purpose? The old fable speaks of the Augean stable, foul enough to have poisoned a nation, which Hercules cleansed; but our sins were fouler than that. Of course they must go up higher toward the fords; and then Jericho will be for a long time secure. He that can fly, can faint. You would not have dreamed that sober Noah should be found drunk; nor that righteous Lot should commit incest; nor that David, whose heart smote him when he only cut off the lap of Saul's garment, should be guilty of murder; nor that Peter, who said, "Though all men should forsake thee, yet will not I," would have denied his Master with oaths and cursing. 1. Set this up as your standard, and henceforth be this the epitome of your life "By faith he obeyed." I reckon that many of you in business are quite content to get written orders for goods, and when you get them you do not require a purchaser to ask you in person, you would just as soon that he should not; in fact, you commonly say that you like to have it in black and white. The obedience of faith springs from a principle within, and not from compulsion without. I will just have a little talk with Rahab this morning, as I suppose old Unbelief did commune with her. There has never been a revival in the church that has not witnessed to the value of our psalmody. Had my voice been strong enough, I could have enlarged, for it is a subject upon which much might be said extremely interesting to the spiritual mind. watch, lest ye be mindful to return to the place whence you came out. Do the young men refuse to be advised? Still, he never does discountenance them, and he proves that he is not ashamed of them, for he calls himself their God. will you not now sue for mercy?" and in a mournful degree I felt what I preached, as my own cry. To the genuine believer the eternal is as much above the temporal as the heavens are above the earth. Both in doing and in suffering, if we are earnest and observant, we soon discover our own weakness. Beware of the high places: they are very slippery. Viewed as they are, they are such a rabble in many respects that it is marvellous he is not ashamed of them; and yet he never is; and to prove that he is not ashamed of them we have this fact, that he calls himself their God, "I will be your God," and he oftentimes seems to speak of it as a very joyful thing to his own heart. She, and she alone was delivered, a solitary one among a multitude. The Pastors' College Conference Address, 1891. Cast yourselves upon his love and blood, his doing and his dying, his miseries and his merits; and if you do this you shall never fall, but you shall be saved now, and saved in that great day when not to be saved will be horrible indeed. He is in very fact a brother, born for their adversity, able and ready to redress their grievances, he is not ashamed to call them brethren. At times you and I are assailed as to our faith in the Bible, by people who say, "How do you make that out? 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