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The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus be with you. This afternoon, our investigation will be to discover what it means to be a believer. We shall be addressing that question in particular to the chapter 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews. So let's begin our investigations by turning to that in our Bibles, chapter eleven of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and reading there the verses down to verse twenty two. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen.
For therein the elders had witness born to them. By faith, we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gift, and through it he being dead yet speaks. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death.
And he was not found because God translated him. For before his translation, he hath had witness formed to him that he had been well pleasing unto God. And without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him. By faith, Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, for which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to save.
By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith, along with Sarah, he received power to found seed when she was past age, since he counted him faithful who had promised.
Wherefore also there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own, and indeed, if they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
Now they desire a better country, that is a heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. By faith, Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac, yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son, even he to whom it was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead, from whence he did also in a parable receive him back. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come.
By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave commandments concerning his bone. And so may God give us good understanding of this portion of his words. We ask then this afternoon, what does it mean to be a believer? The first answer that our passage will give us this afternoon is, being a believer means in the first place believing certain fundamental doctrines of the faith, and not only believing the doctrines, but living and acting in accordance with them.
From the early verses of this chapter eleven, I point out four of those basic doctrines, which it is the part of a believer to believe. First of all, there is creation. Look again at verse three. By faith we understand that the worlds were made by the word of God. Number one, absolutely fundamental doctrine that all believers are called upon to believe, is that the universe was made by God and made by the word of God. Were it not for that, if that weren't true, we could cease all our other inquiries.
Second doctrine is what I call redemption. Verse four: by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. And when we examine it, we shall come round to the old interpretation that we are here in the presence of redemption. For creation has gone wrong, and it needs to be redeemed. What does it mean to be a believer? It means believing in creation by God. It then means believing in redemption, its necess- necessity and its purpose. And thirdly, verse five: by faith Enoch was translated, or if you like, transferred, that is, some moved from earth to heaven, so that he should not see death.
It is a charming and remarkable story in the book of Genesis that a certain man by the name of Enoch, who, as the Hebrew puts it, walked with God, that is, he lived a life pleasing to God, was one day literally, physically, bodily transported from to heaven without dying. And if your faith finds that a little bit difficult to cope with, the notion that somebody could be walking on this earth one five minutes and the next five minutes find himself transported to glory without dying, well, be assured you're something even more difficult to believe, uh, presently, because the New Testament says that all those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ will one day likewise be transported to heaven.
Those who have died, says one Thessalonians four, died in Christ, shall be raised when the Lord Jesus comes. Then remarkable. We who are alive and remain, still walking the streets of Invercargill may be, when the Lord comes and the sound of the trumpet is heard and the voice of the archangel with the trump of God, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. That's the third fundamental of the faith that believers are called upon to believe. And the fourth, you might look at verse, um, seven.
by faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house. This is the story of the flood, and you will know quite well how that in the New Testament, second Peter chapter three draws the analogy that as in Noah's day, God overwhelmed the the earth with a flood and used the constituent part of creation, water, part of creation. God used the constituent part to destroy earth with by a flood. Next time he'll not do it with a flood, but he will use the constituent atoms of this earth to destroy it.
And the heavens shall melt with fervent heat, and the elements shall be dissolved. That is the end of the world. That is number four that we as believers are called upon to believe. So then, what does it mean to be a believer? It means believing certain facts, certain doctrines, fundamental doctrines of the faith, and we shall observe living accordingly. For each of these doctrines has practical implications. I'm glad the Bible starts there. Sometimes we make the matter of being a believer depend so much on emotions, don't we?
On feelings, instead of founding our faith first, in the first instance, in the person of Christ, and then in the great doctrines that he teaches us. By faith, then, come to the first one. By faith, we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God. That is the great doctrine of creation. I confess to you, when I was a young gentleman, well, I was a young man, I better put it, eh, to say, I, I found a little difficulty with this verse. It embarrassed me a little bit. I said to myself, all right, I'm a believer, I believe in creation, but, uh, wouldn't it be nice if it, it didn't have to be by faith, so to speak, you see?
Uh, I mean, wouldn't it be far better if we could prove it? Seemed to me that the scientists had the better deal, you see. They claimed they could prove their theories. They didn't need faith. It was all proof. Well, I said to myself, wouldn't it have been far better if you could have proved that God created the world? Why do we have to take it on faith? Well, it was a long while ago that I felt like that. I don't feel like it now, of course. But one thing I've discovered is that science also is built on faith. If that hasn't crossed your mind yet, get hold of this bit.
Science is built on faith. You don't want to believe me, believe Einstein. He's a sizable science. You'll see he made the remark that true science is right religion, based on faith. Science is based on the faith that the universe works according to order. If the universe didn't work according to order, you could study it by your physics, you'd get nowhere, it would be a shambles. You could be certain of nothing. It is the basic faith that the universe works according to fixed, uh, and constant laws that even makes science possible.
Listen to your Einstein telling you that science, like religion, is based on faith. Of course, it has to be, doesn't it? You can't prove anything without taking certain things for granted, can you? I mean to say, I, I say to you, statement A, right? You say, prove it, old chap. Prove that A is true. So I have to refer to B, some other second fact, B we'll call it. And I offer you B as a proof that A is true, but you're a very clever chap, and you're not going to be content with that. You say, prove B. Oh. Oh.
So I, I have to do another fact, that's number C. Uh, uh, uh, and I say, well, C will prove B, and B will prove A. Ah, but you're not to be so easily satisfied. You say, prove C. Well, here we go. We should never come to an end, should we? If we tried to prove everything, you can't do it. Let the mathematicians tell you. If we're going to prove anything, you'll have to start by assuming one thing at least. You'll assume it because that thing, not being able to be proved, is self-evidently true. Oh, do get hold of that. Don't let your school teacher, if you have a school teacher, but then you would not in respectable New Zealand, but tell you that science is true based on proof and religion is only faith.
That's nonsense. Science equally has to start by assuming certain things, taking them as self-evident without being able to prove them. Yes, but somebody says, um, surely, uh, wait a minute. Uh, they've proved evolution, haven't they? Isn't that true that, uh, whereas, um, belief in creation is, uh, what you might call a religion, a philosophy, but evolution is science, they they proved it true. No, they haven't, of course not. You should be aware that evolution is based on a prior philosophy.
It's based on the philosophy that we technically call materialism. Atheistic evolution, that is, begins by assuming that there is no God, that there is nothing but the material universe. But of course, you can't prove that there's no God, can you? Nobody's managed to do it yet. They assume it. Now, if there's no God, then you've got to account- try and account for this vast universe, well, I suppose that evolution is the best theory on the market. But you don't have to start by assuming there's no God, do you? And then if you do, and you try to explain things by evolution, then there are certain big difficulties.
Let me quote you one or two scientists who are thoroughgoing evolutionists. You'll see. You will know that the theory of evolution says that everything has come to be without God, without any plan. Everything has evolved out of the first protoplasm or something by mutation, that is slight changes inside the cells, leading to differences in the, uh, particular things and animals, and then natural selection has selected, automatically selected, those changes which produce a stronger, uh, things, you see.
So it's by mutation and then natural selection. It is part of that theory, as Darwin first saw, that things have evolved very gradually. Uh, so, uh, fish evolved into birds, you'll say, if you like, only by tiny little gradations, tiny little changes. And that meant Darwin saw that if that were so, in the fossil record, if you examined it carefully, what you'd find is remains of all these tiny little differences all the way up, millions of tiny little differences leading from one form of creature to another form of creature.
And now, for over a hundred years, paleontologists have been searching the fossil record to find what were originally called these missing links, all the tiny gradations between one form of life and another. And in searching to find them. Now, let me read you the statement of some of the leading paleontologists of pres- the present day. The first of them is Professor Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard. He is a world famous paleontologist, and of course an atheist at the same time. And he's talking about all these different tiny little, uh, differences between the forms of life.
And he says, the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. What does he mean? Well, I almost hope he doesn't mean what he says, because it sounds, uh, doesn't sound very scientific to me. He says that when we paleontologists look at the actual record and try to find these endless missing links, they are extremely rare. So they are, of course. Yet he says that we've kept it a secret. We in the trade don't want the world to know that.
And so the fact that they are exceedingly rare, it persi- it persists as the trade secrets of paleontology. Meaning that the school teacher tells the children, oh, you'll see life has evolved by little gradations, and it's in the fossil record, and the fossils prove it. All the while, the boys at the top know it doesn't prove it at all, for the missing links are missing. They're not there. Well, let's think, uh, let's listen now to another one, Professor Niles Eldridge of the American Museum of Natural History, also a paleontologist and an atheist, of course.
We paleontologists, he says, have said that the history of life supports the story of gradual adaptive change. That's what we've said it does. We've said that knowing all the while it does not. You think of that. That's honest, isn't it? Go- he goes on to say, when we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, that's in the rocks, studying the rocks, and you've got one low form here, and then you suddenly find a new bit you hadn't been before. And how do you arrive at that? By all tiny little gradations of steps. Now, this is what he says.
It usually shows up with a bang. Uh, he has a busy language, haven't he? And often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere. They didn't evolve here, they were imported from somewhere else. Evolution, says he, cannot forever be going on somewhere else and not here. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution. Now that's being honest, isn't it? For he believes evolution, a leading paleontologist. He says when you look for the missing links, they're not there, new forms suddenly arrive, and if there is a bit of an evidence, it's you're normally not here, but somewhere else that you'll have to import it from.
Can't always be happening somewhere else, he says, look. So why doesn't it happen here, and why, why not the evidence, and where is the evidence? Or if I'm talking to young, young folks whose school teachers teach them that evolution has been proved, and you can prove it by the fossils, please listen then not to your teacher, but to the expert evolutionists who tell you that the evidence just is not there for gradual change. Why do such scientists then hold to the theory of evolution, if in general the evidence isn't there. Well, the short answer is they hold it in light of their faith.
Their faith is that there is no God, that all there is is the matter of the universe. And so if that is, that's your faith, then of course you'll have to look for some explanation, how did the universe come to be? And the best evil explanation you'll come up with will be evolution, but it's based on your faith. And if you think that's this preacher talking to you, and he's biased because he believes in creation, he doesn't believe in evolution, well, that's true. Let me quote you another leading evolutionist. This comes from a recent article, a very recent article by Professor Richard Lewontin. He is a geneticist.
He comes again from Harvard in America. And listen to what he says. It's rather a long bit, but we'll take it slowly, and, and, uh, you might be rewarded eventually with a cup of tea, I don't know. Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense, he says, is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. He's saying that they accept claims, scientific claims that are against common sense. Why do they accept such claims?
Well, he said, you better understand why. It's the key to the understanding of what the real struggle is between science on the one hand and the supernatural, that is God Creator, on the other. We take the side of science, he says, in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs. Ah. In spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories. What will the man say next? Do you know what just so stories are?
Well, let me give you one. How did the elephant get his trunk? Well, uh, he stuck his nose where it shouldn't do, and a monkey got hold of it, and he tried to pull it away, and then the nose stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched. That's how the elephant got its trunk. You wouldn't take that as a scientific explanation, would you, Otto? That's a just so story. And here is Professor Lewontin saying that some of these so-called scientific theories are unsubstantiated by the evidence. They are just so stories. This isn't me pondering the evolutionists. This is one of the leading evolutionists talking.
Hm, let him go on. We accept them. Why do they accept them? Because we have a prior commitment to materialism. So now the cat is out of the bag. We accept these unsubstantiated just-so stories because we start off by believing in materialism, that's a philosophy, believing that there is no God, there is nothing but matter in the universe. We've got to do our best to try and explain it, and if our explanations are like just so stories, unsubstantiated by the facts, well, we accept them because we're not prepared to believe in a God.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world. No, the, the, the, the, the methods and institutions of science don't force you to believe in evolution, says the professor Lewontin. Well, why do they, why do they, uh, uh, embrace it then? On the contrary, we are forced by our a priori, that's our prior adherence to material causes, to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
That's a host of large words to have before tea, isn't it? But what it means is this. How do we come up with these, uh, explanations, do you see? They don't sound sense, they sound, uh, crazy, you'll see, against common sense. Is it science that, um, forces us to it? No, he says, it's because when we do experiments, we start the experiment and we construct it in such a way that it will produce atheistic This explanations. explanation. So their very, uh, presuppositions upon which they construct their experiments, says Professor Lewontin, are designed to exclude any evidence that there was a God who created things.
Designed to make sure that the explanations we come up with are materialistic and atheistic. Moreover, he says that materialism, that basic philosophy that we embrace, that there is no God, there's nothing but matter. That materialism is absolute. That is, we will not budge from it. We're going to stick by it whatever happens, evidence or no evidence. We must stick by it. That is our pious faith. Why do they stick by it? Now listen to this. It is absolute for us, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.
We mustn't give God an inch to get his foot in the door of our scientific explanation. We're determined to keep it out. Therefore, we frame our experiments on that basis, so that they shall come up with solely atheistic explanations. Well, that's enough for that, isn't it? I quote it to show us that, yes, Christianity starts by believing in God. We believe in God by faith. It isn't that we start looking for God, and we do our science, and we find out certain bits of, of a science that we can't find an explanation for, so we drag God in.
We don't believe in a God of the gaps like that. We believe in a God who has revealed himself, and we respond to him because he is self-evident. Yes. We understand by faith. But it isn't that, uh, the scientist proves his atheism. He starts with faith too. Listen to the Professor Levantine. He starts with the assumption, the determined assumption, that there is no God, and frames his experiments so that they shall come up with the result that there is no God. By faith, then we understand that the worlds were made by the word of God.
Of course, once one has got older, one sees how marvelously agreeing with scientific discovery is belief in a creator. The world was made, it says, by the word of God. It's a very interesting phrase. The Bible repeats it. John chapter one verse one: um In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, that is by the Word. Creation by the Word. He upholds all things by the word of his power. And when we consider that, we say, yes, God brought the world into being by his divine word of command.
He said, let there be light, and there was light. It was a divine word of command. And now modern science helps us to see that it was more than that. By God's divine word of command, not only did matter come to exist, but into matter was placed information, what we call information. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, let me use an illustration. Uh, just a few of you ladies, perhaps here present, would be old enough, like me, to remember the first automatic washing machines.
Marvelous contraptions they were. I don't know if you had them here, but we had them our way. They were big tubs, you see, and you put the clothes in the middle and things went on inside somehow. At the top of the machine, generally at the right hand corner, there was a slit, and you had a piece of plastic, a square piece of plastic, and around the plastic there were notches on the side, different notches, different patterns of notches on the different sides of it. Now, if the good lady wanted to wash the linens, she got this bit of plastic with these notches and selected the right side of the trip to notch and put that in the slot, and that set the old machine going, you see, at the right speed to do the linens.
Then if she wanted to do the woolen, she got the bit of plastic, turned it around the other side with a different lot of notches, put that in the top of the machine, and that sent a different program going, you'll see, which was suitable for the woman. Now, if I got that piece of plastic and showed it to you now, and I said to you, what is that? That's plastic. Oh. But nothing other but plastic. You said, that's plastic all the way through. Nothing but plastic there. So it's only plastic. Well, in one sense, it's only plastic. What do you suppose those notches are doing? They're plastic too, you see. Ah, the engineer has put information on that plastic.
So that's a kind of a code, but when it goes into the machine, the machine somehow reads that bit of information, and it turns on the machine to the right program. The engineer wanted the machine to do this program. Well, how did he tell the machine to do it? He arranged for this, these notches, a kind of mechanical information that goes into the machine to control the program process. You wouldn't think that piece of those notches on the plastic came accidentally, would you? You say that's evident design, that is. Uh, when you see the doctors do their work and the machine responds, you say somebody designed that.
Of course they did. There had to be intelligence behind that. Didn't just happen accidentally. No, of course not. And in these last decades, scientists, as you know, studying, say, the human cell, they found out what Darwin never knew. He thought the cell was a bit of jelly, you know, jello or something. Uh, the scientists have found out that inside the cell there is a DNA code. That DNA code controls the development of the embryo in the mother's womb, right from the start. It has all the information in that DNA, uh, strand, all the information to control the development of that infant from the first zygote all the way through.
No good having things developed in the wrong order, is it? To have a heart without a body to put it in, to have an eye without a head to have it in. Controlling the order of it, controlling the length that is in the womb, controlling the time it will be born, controlling it thereafter, how it will grow, and controlling the system until the system dies. Of course, the linguists join with the biologists and say, look at that. That is a startling bit of information put onto matter. Where did the information come from? I'll tell you something else about it too. That information was carried by, uh, the twin cells, one from father, one from mother, and they joined.
The information was carried by those chemical substances. The information is passed on and passed on and passed on. The baby inherits it. The original bits of stuff that carried the information perish, but the information carries on. Now on the stuff in the infant, and he eventually goes up and he passes on the information to his children. Same information, different stuff. So the information isn't the physical stuff, it's just the, the physical stuff is carrying the information.
That's a very difficult concept. Oh, wait a minute, you're used to it, aren't you? You write a cha- letter to your, your friend way there in, uh, Christchurch, please come and spend a holiday with me and we can play football. The information started in your head, eh? So then you get a pen, perhaps, and put it on paper. You use ink and paper to carry the information, but the information is not made up of ink and paper. Information starts inside your head as a mental concept. And your friend gets a bit of paper, and he sees the ink, and he gets the information from it, and he closes the thing, puts the letter in the waste paper basket, but he's got the information in his head now.
Huh. Information is interesting stuff, isn't it? It's invisible, you know. It isn't made of stuff. It's a mental concept. It is, in fact, a spiritual thing. You know, this is getting dangerous, isn't it? If human beings are built of information carried by the genes, you have to ask where the information comes from, and what was the information to start with? Well, it wasn't stuff. Information is not stuff, it's invisible. It's mental. And the information by which this universe was made came from God, who is spiritual.
Yes, by faith we understand. But then you see, and you start with God, and then you look at creation. You will say, well, the most realistic explanation of the, the, of the universe around us is the uni- is the explanation that traces it back to God. There's very good reason. I don't know if you are addicts of, um, uh, thriller novels, you know, detective novels. The ability to be a good detective is a scientific ability, of course, but it has a special thing. You face, you start with the crime, there's the body on the floor, there's the gun, there's the wounds, and this, that, and the other, and the detectives have to, uh, look at this and decide.
What was the cause of this? What is the most likely explanation of this state of affairs? And of course, at first they keep an open mind. Was it he was shot? Was the gun there to make it look as if he was shot, where in fact he was poisoned? Was there any motivation? Who was around at the time? And they work back from the incident to the most likely explanation. So do we when we come to the universe around us. If we have open minds, we shall work back to the most likely explanation. Now, when it comes to information, we know of no information on Earth that doesn't come from an intelligent source originally.
And when we find the information codes in the DNA and much more besides, then inferring what is the most likely cause, we come back to a cause that is intelligent, namely God. By faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God. Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, this is what it means to be a believer. We must not play fast and loose, believing in God in church, and then when it comes to our time, taking a virtually atheistic viewpoint.
To be a believer means believing in God as creator. Second basic doctrine, the doctrine of redemption. By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, uh, through which he had witness formed to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gift, and through it he being dead gives peace. Now, I said that this takes our mind to redemption, but I'm aware of all the theologians who are the experts in these fields, and I as an amateur must be careful what I say. It used to be that the old preachers preached to us about Abel, didn't they?
And they said he was accepted because he brought to God the way of forgiveness, the sacrifice, the shedding of blood with which there is no forgiveness. He brought the true sin offering, whereas Cain came to God on the basis of his work and brought the fruit of his own hands. But in more recent times, people have qu- questioned that explanation, haven't they? And they said, no, that's not the story. The offering that Abel brought to God is not said to be a sin offering. It's said to be a present, a tribute offering, in Hebrew, mincha. And it's simply that A- Abel was accepted because he was a righteous man.
He was behaving rightly, his works were good, and because he was a good and upright and uh, uh, uh, uh believer in God and living a life suitable, then God received his gift from his hands, and the very fact that God received it is evidence that Abel was living as he should. Whereas when Cain came with his sacrifice, God said, no, thank you very much, Cain. Why? Because Cain was an evil man, full of evil deeds, eventually murdered his brother, and God was not prepared to take a present from the hands of a murderer like that. So that is what for many now they say the thing means. I'm not so sure myself.
I notice that it says that by faith... What did Abel do by faith? It doesn't say that by faith Abel did better works than Cain did, does it? And therefore God accepted him. What Abel did by faith was to offer a better sacrifice. I take he offered a sacrifice that God could accept, and when God accepted it, it showed that God regarded Abel as a righteous man and approved of the way he lived. So Abel, uh, it was by faith then that he offered this sacrifice.
What does the Bible mean when it says by faith? We need to get that clear, do we not? When the Bible says somebody does something by faith, as in a context like this, it means that they are responding to the word and will of God as it has been expressed. That is very important. There are folks, you know, who, if you were to ask them, now come, tell me, when all comes to all, are you sure that you're going to be in heaven, that God will accept you? They will say, well, we hope so. You say, well, what are you trusting in? Oh, I'm trusting in this, you know, that if we, if I do my best, if I leave the world a better place than I found it, God will accept me.
And they say, I've got great faith in that. What a pity they have, because that's just their own idea. And when they say they've got great faith in it, they're putting their faith in their own idea, but their own idea is wrong, actually. They looked at the Bible, they'd find the Bible says the very opposite. It's not by doing the best you can that you find acceptance with God. And to have great faith in doing the best you can is a form of impertinence. Disaster. True faith is not just have a feeling of confidence. True faith is a response to the word of God. When Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain, he was responding to God's word as to what kind of a sacrifice to bring.
Had God spoken on such a topic? Well, the evidence that we have in Genesis, that is when Adam and Eve sinned and were convicted of their guilt and shame before God. God pointed them the way, an animal was slain, the skin was taken, and they were nakedness was covered by the s- the skin of that slain animal. The first time blood was shed in Eden's garden. From that they doubtless learned what the way is to oppose God. How can a sinful man of a fallen race approach God and his offering be accepted?
It must be according to God's revealed will and word. And Abel came that way. And God accepted the gift because God had ordained such an approach. And in accepting it showed that Abel was righteous. Now notice, it doesn't mean that Abel was sinless. It means that Abel was right with God, and his s- his way of living was accordance their words. It is still true, the way of approach to God must be by faith in the great sacrifice, the great redeeming sacrifice of Christ. If we put our faith in that redeeming sacrifice and thus come to God, God will receive us.
And the glorious statement is, if we come that way, God will justify us and count us righteous. And being justified by faith, we shall find the grace of God to live in accordance their will. Cain was the opposite. He brought his work of his hands to God, and God rejected it. Why? Because there was no repentance. Cain was a wicked man. Because when we read this story, as I said at the beginning, what a lovely thing it reminds us of. There was Enoch one day, as the Hebrew frankly puts it, he walked with God. A lovely phrase, isn't it?
That's a metaphor in Hebrew for keeping company with God, living life in the company of God, and speaking to God, and having fellowship with God, and walking in the ways of God. Enoch was a believer. One day, as he walked with God, God took him, took him bodily to heaven, so that he went without dying. And I say, if you find that difficult to believe, well, let me give you something more difficult. That's good homeopathy, that is. It was a, let's face what the New Testament says clearly. This is the confirmation of the believer's hope and salvation. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.
And the dead in Christ shall rise first. We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Oh, shout hallelujah in your heart, if not outwardly, because it's so glorious, isn't it what? The Lord is coming. When he comes, this is what will happen. Let the world dismiss it as apolo- ap- apocalyptic nonsense. Let them do what they like. This is not just a sort of a, well, a theory that you could attach to Christianity if you like to. This is an integral part of the gospel. What does it mean to believe?
It means to believe in God the Creator. It means believing in the fall that necessitated redemption. It reme- it means believing that you can be redeemed and forgiven and accepted by God through faith. And it means to believe in the coming again of Christ. That is an integral part of the gospel. The Thessalonians, when they heard the gospel, says Paul, they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. This is an integral part of the Christian gospel. We are to believe it. If you can't believe it, well, then you've got some hard thinking to do.
But what it means to be a believer is to believe in the second coming of Christ. Notice the interesting thing. Uh, by faith Enoch was transported from this world to the next without dying. By faith he was, because how do you know it was, he was a believer? Well, because, uh, he had this record before he was translated that he pleased God. He walked with God, he pleased God. And says the writer, you have to know it as a basic principle. You can't please God without faith. If he not pleased God, he must have been a believer.
Well, how can you be so sure? Did you talk to him? I didn't talk to him. I watched the way he lived, you see. Saw how he pleased God. And the conclusion must be, he must be a believer if he, if he lived like that, you see, because you can't please God without faith. So if he pleased God, he must have been a believer. Important that, isn't it? You see, you hope one of these days, my good friend, when the Lord comes, if you're still alive, to be caught up to meet him. Yes, I'm looking forward to that. Well, I hope to be caught up, certainly I do.
I see. How, what grounds do you hope that? Well, I'm a believer. Oh, you're a believer? How would I know that? Do I have to guess it? The only way I could know it, that you're a believer, is watching the way that you live, isn't it? Watch, as the Bible puts it, how you walk, and to see a life well pleasing to God. You see, everyone that has this hope within him, says John, that when the Lord comes, they're going to be taken, and they're going to be like the Savior, for they shall see him as he is. Everyone that has that hope purifies himself or herself.
That's not an exaltation, that's a fact. Every person that hopes to be taken when the Lord comes, to be like the Lord, for they shall see him as he is. Everyone, as a matter of fact, does purify. The man or woman that says, oh yes, I hope to be like Christ when he comes, you see. I'm not particularly interested in behaving like him now, of course. This is a difficult world to live in. I have to live like the world lives. But of course, when the Lord comes, then I'm going to be like him. I'm not interested in being like him now. That man hasn't got the real hope, has he? Everyone that has a hope purifies himself.
Paul speaks a very powerful word to us in two Thessalonians in chapter one. He says, you know, when the Lord comes and gives believers rest from their persecution, and he takes them out and gives them rest and takes them home to glory. Then it will be evident to the world that that was just. That was the just judgment of God. You say, what does that mean? Well, suppose the Lord came tomorrow, my dear self, and you were taking home to glory. What would the world around say about you? Would they say?
I'm sure they would, wouldn't they? Ah, well, we didn't think much of his religion, but we must say this, he was sincere, and he lived what he preached. Oh, fair enough. That's all right if God has taken him home to heaven, that's that's fair enough, because yes, he was true to what he believed and stuck up for his principles, and he wouldn't do the shady deals that we did, and we laughed at him and we mocked him, but he stood his ground. And I said, fair enough. Or if the Lord came tomorrow and he were to take me home to glory as a believer, what would the world say? Hmm. Surprised to find out that he was a believer. Ha.
He a believer? He'd never lived like it. Just lived like we did. He thought his religion was just a facade. We believe the Lord is coming, and when he comes, we shall be translated, transported to heaven, and be like him. And the implication of a faith like that is that while we're here, imperfect though we are, we shall seek to walk with God and to please God and to purify him ourselves, so that when the Lord comes and takes us, it will be evident to the world that the Lord is fair and just in taking us to be with himself.
Finally, the third basic doctrine that we have to, um, uh, hold as believers is the doctrine of the end of the world. We're reminded of it by what is said here of Noah. By faith Noah, moved with fear about things not seen as yet, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. He condemned the world thereby and became the heir of the righteousness which is by faith. So by faith Noah believed what God said, that there was coming a flood, and the world would be destroyed by water.
And the interesting about no- interesting thing about Noah is that when God told him that, Noah didn't say, well, that's very interesting, God. Uh, that's very interesting doctrine, that is. Well, of course, I, uh, it'll be a long while yet, so it doesn't make much difference to us. No, indeed not. When God told Noah that the world was going to come to an end through water, Noah did something about it. Good old Noah. That's faith. Well, also, if he believed that the world was going to be flooded, his natural, uh, uh, uh, immediate reaction, what about my family? Will they be saved? What must I do to see my family are saved? He prepared an ark for the saving of his house, because he really believed that the judgment of God was going to fall.
If we really believe that this world is coming to an end, we should do something about it, can't we? Of course, you already do a lot, tremendous. It's a big world. There are millions yet that need to be saved. It is a joy and rejoicing to my heart, if I may so, I'm not flattering you to say, that all around this world one can find missionaries from New Zealand. It's a marvelous thing to behold. Not all nations are like it. Not all Christian nations are like it. Some send very few missionaries. New Zealand sends a vast proportion of missionaries. But if we're real and we believe the end of the world is coming, we should do something about it.
It's ain't very hard to believe the world's going to come to an end, is it? The scientists say the same thing, don't they? In my youth, middle age, or whatever it was, the scientists were saying that the world is going on forever, the steady state theory of physics and cosmology has gone by the board now. The predominant view is the world's coming to an end. So if you can't believe the Bible, believe the physicists. You say it wasn't going to happen for a long time. Well, so what? The implication is that this world is a temporary place. It never was intended to be permanent. It is but a stepping stone to eternity. And if we believe that, then we shall see to it that our life here on earth is a preparation for the great eternity that is to come.
Noah, in making an ark, saved his house. He simultaneously condemned the world. We must be prepared for that same kind of logic. There are some folks around who say, well, we believe in Jesus Christ the Savior to be saved. Trust Jesus Christ and he will save you. And then if you ask them, what about those who reject Christ, all they say, well, we wouldn't like to say anything really bad will come to them. We think God is so loving. That's nonsense. If we need to be saved, we need to be saved because of the judgment of God will one day fall. If God has provided a savior to save us from that judgment, those who trust him will be saved.
Those who refuse him, no good pretending it'll be all right with them. He that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. That's what it means to be a believer. The four great cardinal doctrines, therefore, and all else are implied in them. Our Lord's deity and his humanity implied in his redemption. Our Lord's deity and humanity implied in his coming again.
Our Lord's deity and humanity is the final judge implied in the final judgment. And our Lord's deity implied because he was the agent, the word through whom creation was made. So there's a start. Being a believer will mean much more than that. We shall have to think about those things this evening. But God help us to have gone over the foundations once more and to grasp them with a firmer hand, determined to believe them, to live accordingly, and to stand as a witness in our world, in our home, in our towns, in our cities, in our schools, in our offices, or wherever else we go, stand as believers in God.
Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for the examples of these stalwarts of the faith in ages that are gone by. And as we think about them, we find a kindred spirit in our own hearts, and we thank thee for leading us to the Savior, for showing us the true God and his son Jesus Christ. We pray now, Lord, that as believers, we might ever more clearly clarify in our minds what it is thou dost call upon us to believe, and believing it, live consistently with it, and living consistently, dare to be witnesses for thee in this world around us until the Lord comes and take us home to be with himself.
Bless then our study and the time yet we shall spend together through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
