Hebrews 11:4 Faith That Outlives Death: Abel's Legacy

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, taking a little bit of time, probably from now
until Christmas is my guess.
Hebrews, chapter 11.
Christmas is my guess, hebrews,chapter 11.
It's known by many as the hallof faith and it's not
necessarily a listing of peoplewho are perfect If they were not
perfect, we'll see their flawsas well but it's a who's who of

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faith, those who live their lifeby faith.
And we found out in verse 6that, consequently, that life
lived by faith pleases God.
Without faith, it's impossibleto please God.
We'll find out a little laterin chapter 12, verse 1, that
those who live their life byfaith run this race of life with

(01:03):
endurance by faith, run thisrace of life with endurance.
And in verse 2, chapter 11, wesaw last week that these folks
who live by faith also obtain agood testimony Pleasing to God,
enduring in life and obtaining agood testimony.
It's those that live by faith,and we see a group of folks here

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in chapter 11, whose lifeshowed what faith looks like.
Verse 1, you'll remember fromlast week, is a sort of
definition by faith.
Now, faith is a substance ofthings hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen, and that's agood definition.
We looked at it last week forthe evidence of things not seen,
and that's a good definition.
We looked at it last week.

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But sometimes it's easier todemonstrate than define things,
and faith is one of those things.
For sure, it's a lot easier todemonstrate it than to define it
.
Today we come to verse four andonly verse four because we're
not in any kind of hurry and wesee Abel, the second son of Adam
and Eve, and his short accountfrom Genesis, chapter four we'll

(02:11):
look back at today.
We see here, though, that Abellived by faith.
Let's read it in verse four byfaith, abel offered to God a
more excellent sacrifice thanCain, through which he obtained
witness that he was righteous,god testifying of his gifts, and

(02:32):
through it he, being dead,still speaks.
So Abel here lived by faith,and, funny enough, he was the
first one to live by faith.
Now, adam and Eve were there,and we don't other than the fact
that they brought sin to all ofus.
That was kind of a big deal.
We don't read much else abouttheir life so much.
Did they have some faith?

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I'm sure they did, but theylived less by faith and more by
sight.
You remember Adam and Eve'sexample?
They would walk with God in thecool of the day, the presence
of God there with them.
They heard God speak, probablyin a lot different way than we
do, and yet they still jumpedright into sin there in chapter

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3.
They saw everything clearly.
They knew exactly how thingsstarted and what the truth of
life was.
They weren't really walking byfaith, and what little bit of
faith we wanted to see in theirlives.
We really didn't see much right, as they did exactly what God
told them not to do.

(03:35):
Well, cain doesn't live by faith, we'll see today, in contrast
to his brother, Abel.
But Abel here is probably, youcould say, the first truly live
by faith and his faith is seenin his worship and in the form
of sacrifice.

(03:55):
Notice there verse four.
He offered a sacrifice thereand you know the story.
We'll see it here in a second.
In fact.
Well, yeah, let's stay here fora second.
You know the story back inGenesis, chapter 4.

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He offered a sacrifice.
Well, we read here in verse 4that he offered to God a more
excellent sacrifice.
Now, that word excellent therein, if you have King James, new
King James, not actually therein the original Greek it

(04:36):
actually says he offered a moresacrifice.
We could say a better sacrifice, but it really is a more
sacrifice.
That's what Abel shows us ishis sacrifice.
Let's turn back.
There's no point in putting itoff.
Let's turn back to Genesis,chapter 4.

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We see this account in Genesis,chapter 4 and verse 1.
Now you'll notice probably,your heading there says that
Cain murders Abel.
That's the first murder we readin chapter 4.
But just kind of notice, forthe sake, how long does it take?

(05:22):
Notice it's chapter 4.
I mean, in most of your Bibleswe're looking at two or three
pages into a perfect creation.
We already have sin enteringthe world and now, in chapter 4,
we're going to have the firstmurder.
Look at verse 1.
We'll read just a little bit ofthis right now.

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Abel's story one.
We'll read just a little bit ofthis right now.
Abel's story.
Now Adam knew Eve, his wife,and she conceived and bore Cain
and said I have acquired a manfrom the Lord.
Then she bore again, this timehis brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep,but Cain a tiller of the ground

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.
In the process of time it cameto pass that Cain brought an
offering of the fruit of theground to the Lord.
Abel also brought for thefirstborn of his flock and of
their fat.
And the Lord respected Abel inhis offering, but he did not
respect Cain in his offering.

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And Cain was very angry and hiscountenance fell.
So the Lord said to Cain whyare you angry and why has your
countenance fallen?
If you do well, will you not beaccepted, and if you do not do

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well, sin lies at the door andits desire is for you, but you
should rule over it.
Now Cain talked with Abel, hisbrother, and it came to pass
when they were in the field thatCain rose up against Abel, his
brother, and killed him.
Now, sad, sad story here Cainand Abel first murder.

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But what can we tell aboutAbel's sacrifice from this?
Well, the part we were lookingat there in Hebrews, chapter 11,
verse 4, is that his sacrificewas more in some kind of way,
more excellent, yes, more of asacrifice.
Now, one thing we shouldn't getfrom this is that somehow we're
graded on a curve, right,because who is this compared to?

(07:30):
Cain is compared to Abel andhis sacrifice was more, but
we're not graded on a curve.
That's the way most of us lookat life, right?
If it were school, most of uswho were graded on a curve did
not do so well.
If it were school, most of uswho were graded on a curve did
not do so well.
But in life, if we were gradedon a curve, some of us would
think we do pretty good man,compared to the rest of the

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world.
I'm not that bad of a person.
I'm pretty good.
But that's not the way it works.
When we read here that Abel'ssacrifice was more, it certainly
wasn't just his comparison toCain.
It has to do with when.
First, when his sacrifice wasoffered there notice verse 3 in

(08:15):
chapter 4 of Genesis.
In the process of time, it cameto pass that Cain brought an
offering to the Lord and Abel,we read there, brought an
offering as well.
The process of time.
Now, we could look at that andgo well, just well you know,
time went by and they brought asacrifice, sure, but this idea
of the process of time has to dowith a completion of time, a

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very certain time.
Now we're not sure when thiswas.
It could have been the harvest,it could have been some time
established by God, determinedto and told to Adam and Eve when
to offer sacrifices, but insome kind of way it was a
specific time.
Notice also where the sacrificewas brought.

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Notice verse 3,.
Cain brought an offering of thefruit of the ground to the Lord
.
The sacrifice was brought tothe Lord and Abel did the same.
Where would that be?
Some speculate, justspeculation.
Some speculate that the wherethe sacrifice was brought was to

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the gate of the garden of eden.
Um, you remember there, and youcan look back in genesis,
chapter 3, verse 22, as adam andeve fell into sin, jumped into
sin.
God says this there in verse 22.
Then the lord said behold, theman has become like one of us,

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to know good and evil.
And now, lest he put his handand take also of the tree of
life and eat and live forever.
Therefore the Lord, god, senthim out of the garden to tell
the ground from which he wastaken and he drove out the man
and he placed cherubim at theeast of the garden of Eden and a
flaming sword.

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Which, so God sees a problemhere.
As man has now fallen, he saysthe problem is if he takes of
the tree of life, that othertree in the garden that God said
, go ahead and eat freely of it,the tree of life, he'll live
forever in this fallen state.

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And God says not going to letthat happen.
God intended to save humanityand he says so.
We got to block off the garden.
I don't get this.
I don't quite understand this.
But God there places twocherubim verse 24 of chapter 3.
Cherubim is the plural ofcherub.

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Right Now, don't think littlecherub.
You know Valentine's Day angels, these are some mean angels.
These are some pretty buffangels.
They can do a lot of damage andthey take care of things.
And God places these cherubangels at the gate of the garden
.
They got flaming swords to keepthings safe and secure.

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Many have pointed to this as apicture of perhaps the mercy
seat there on the ark, the arkof the covenant, you know
Indiana Jones, ark of thecovenant kind of stuff and there
were these two angels thatovershadowed the mercy seat of
that Ark.
It's also a picture of heaven,but possibly this was kind of

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that place of sacrifice.
It's speculation, it'sinteresting.
But here it was when God haddetermined it, because Cain
brought it there in the processof time and it was where God
determined it.
He brought it to the Lord andboth of them, cain and Abel,

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brought their sacrifices to thatplace.
But then we get to the whatthey sacrificed.
And this is where the mostdramatic differences are.
You'll remember and I'm goingto get a glass of water here for
a second, I'm getting dryYou'll remember that Cain

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brought some of his produce.
Cain was a tiller of the ground,nothing wrong with that Took
care of the trees and planted,and there isn't really, like you
know, maybe as much work as wewould have to do, but he did.
He worked the ground and hebenefited from the plants there,

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fruits and vegetables.
So Cain in verse 3, broughtsome of the produce of the
ground.
Abel, in verse 4, brought thefirstborn of his flocks.
Now, abel brought the firstborn.
That's one thing to see, it'sthe best.

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It's the first Cain, it's notso specific, he just brought
some.
But more significant, and youknow the difference here Cain
brought the fruit of the ground,abel brought blood sacrifice,
and that's what most would pointto the difference.
There is the blood sacrifice.
We'll consider that in a moment, but not just the what they

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brought, but the how theybrought it.
We see that here in chapter 4.
Abel brought it by faith.
That's going to be important, ablood sacrifice.
But then notice the heart right,it doesn't take long when Cain

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is not approved of his sacrificethat his countenance falls.
And you can picture that, right, when your countenance falls,
my wife always lets me knowthat's what she's really good at
Letting me know.
When my countenance has fallen,right, because you know whether
it's something I ate and Ididn't like it so much I can't

(14:04):
help it, my countenance falls.
Or when I'm just tense she goesI can feel it on you.
Right now I'm like, okay, allright, you do, but not everybody
does.
But your countenance falls,right, your attitude changes and
everybody knows it.
And here we read that Cain'sattitude just went downhill.
His countenance had fallen.

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And God warns him.
Here we read he warns him, cain, why?
Why is your countenance fallen?
If you do what's right, you'llbe approved.
And then God warns him.
We read Cain, sin is crouchingby the door of your house and

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its desire is to have you, tokill, you, to take over.
Cain, don't give in.
Isn't God good when he sees thelittle ugly things in our heart
?
And he says don't go that way,why are you doing this?
He tells it like it is right.
Here's Cain.
He's starting to plot how he'sgoing to kill his brother.

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He's so angry.
And God says Cain, sin is theone crouching at your doorstep.
You're going to crouch and tryto kill your brother.
Sin wants to kill you, cain, becareful.
But Cain didn't bring a pleasingsacrifice and that's really

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where he had the hard time.
His sacrifice wasn't pleasing.
Now, the biggest point thatmost people bring up is that
Abel's sacrifice was a bloodsacrifice.
Now, if you look throughLeviticus, bringing produce is
not a bad thing to do as anoffering, a grain offering, it's

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acceptable.
But a blood sacrifice tiestogether with our sinfulness so
many times.
Hebrews chapter 9, verse 22,pointing back to Leviticus,
chapter 17, verse 11, says thisand according to the law, almost
all things are purified withblood and without the shedding

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of blood there is no remissionor no forgiveness, right?
So, pointed out there, hebrews,pointing also back to Leviticus
17, without the shedding ofblood there's no forgiveness of
sins.
It's the way it was.
Now, how would Abel know that?
That's something to think about, because Moses came way after

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Abel, way after the flood, wayafter Abraham Isaac, jacob, all
that Way later Moses wrote downLeviticus.
So how would Abel know that asacrifice of blood was important
?
Perhaps through his parents?
In chapter 3 of Genesis, you'llremember, as Adam and Eve dove

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into sin.
As sin entered the world, theybecame aware of their nakedness.
Strange, before this point theydidn't have any clue of it and
somehow their mind is opened upand their eyes are opened up to
their nakedness.
I'm sure there's sort of anembarrassment amongst themselves
perhaps, but there seems to bethis embarrassment between them

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and God, because God comes inthe garden, like he always did,
and Adam and Eve hide themselvesin the bushes.
They've tried to clothethemselves with some leaves not
a good idea and God comes, thesame way he always did.
He says Adam, where are you?
Now?
That's not information that Godwas looking for.

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God knew exactly where Adam was, but Adam was hiding in the
bushes.
From God, adam, what are youdoing?
Is really the question there.
And God, from the get-go, beginsto take care of their sin and
the issues of their sin.
He makes a promise to him thathe's going to deal with it

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through the anointed one, theMessiah, who would come.
But he also then takes andmakes clothes for them out of
skins.
We read there in that lastchapter, verse 21 of chapter 3,
if you want to look at it, theLord, god made tunics of skin
and clothed them.

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And we look and we go.
Well, that's nice.
A little bit of leather, youknow, it's durable, keep you
warmer, it's good for you guys,god made them.
But the thing is that we findout that tunics of skins don't
just happen right, they comefrom an animal and, as far as I
understand, animals don't givethose things up freely.

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Right.
An animal, perhaps a lamb,perhaps a sheep, that would be
appropriate in so many ways.
God sacrificed that animal infront of them.
The skin came from that andthey realized this, whether God
said anything about it or not.
They realized that animal wouldnot be dying if it wasn't for

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me and what I did.
And so God established this wayof sacrifice.
That sacrifice, shedding ofblood, is essential to cover our
sin, and that's what sacrificesdid in the Old Testament.
They covered sin for a time,and so, as Abel offers a

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sacrifice, he understands theseverity of sin, and that's the
way God established it thatblood was required for sin.
Now, why does God require bloodfor sin?

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Is it because he likes blood?
Absolutely not.
He says it clearly in Isaiah111.
To what purpose is themultitude of your sacrifices to
me, says the Lord.
I've had enough of burntofferings of rams and fat of fed
cattle.
I do not delight in the bloodof bulls or lambs or goats.
It wasn't that God requiredblood because he liked blood,

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but because sin is serious.
It's a substitution for thejustice.
Sin has to be dealt with,sacrifice is needed, and the
sacrifice proves the painfulpoint that each one of us is
lost.
Now picture in the Old TestamentAgain people would bring

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sacrifices Every time they cameto worship God.
They had to bring a sacrificefor sin or they couldn't be with
God.
And what you would do is youwould take a sacrifice of lamb
and you would put your hand onthat sacrifice and you would
confess your sins.
So even more, there's this ideaof my sin is upon this animal.

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Then they would kill thatanimal, they would slaughter
that animal and it was vividright, a vivid description and a
show of what my sin did to thatanimal.
And so we'll cover it more in asecond here.
But Abel is saying a lot whenhe offers a sacrifice.

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He's telling everybody numberone that I'm a sinner, I need a
sacrifice.
But he's telling the world,which included basically Cain at
that point you're a sinner, youneed a sacrifice.
We've all sinned and fall shortof the glory of God.
Now, this is something that wereally just don't like to admit,

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that we're messed up, thatwe're sinners, and a lot of talk
of such things these days.
This last week has been prettyheavy, regardless of your
political opinion.
Somebody Charlie Kirk wasshocked last week, and your

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Facebook feed has had somemoments of let's honor his
memory.
And then you've also had somefriends from the past perhaps
that are saying some very uglythings.
He deserved to die.
He was a messenger of hate andso he deserved this.
And I'm not necessarily onethat's listened to a lot of his

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stuff when I look back and I'msure he's not perfect.
He was not perfect.
I'm sure he said some thingsthat he didn't mean or shouldn't
have said, but the thing I seeover and over again is he just
said what was true.
You know your lifestyle is notacceptable, your abortion is

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murder, your pride is not goingto make you a better person, and
he told the truth.
For the most part, I feel likehe told the truth, and this is a
thing that I see most people inmy feed saying he deserved it.
The amount of people that hehurt and wounded with truth,

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right, this idea that we're asinner, that we need a savior,
that God has other things for us.
It's important to realize.
I mean to be saved.
You have to realize all havesinned and fall short of the
glory of God and people say,well, it's not kind and it's not
loving to say that.

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But it's not loving not to saythat.
I mean really humorousillustration in a bad place for
that.
But when I was a kid we went ona road trip and I was maybe four
years old.
So I was always askingquestions Dad, dad, dad, what's
around the corner?
Anyways, you know, it's like afour or five hour trip.
So that got old, you know.

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And finally my dad said youknow what, actually around the
corner the road just drops offand we're just going to fall up
and that's it.
And he would smirk and that wasbig fun for him.
Traumatic for me.
But imagine if it were true,right, if the road just dropped

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off.
Well, I don't want to tell themthat they're in danger.
I don't want to tell them thatthey're going the wrong
direction.
Lovingness is telling the truth.
Yeah, you can tell the truth inlove.
But to not tell the truth isnot loving at all.
It's downright cruel ifsomebody's headed over the cliff

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, and we were all headed overthe cliff, and so Abel here in
his sacrifice.
It was a better sacrificebecause it told the truth about
sin and what the Bible shows us.
1 Peter 1, 18 and 19,.
1 Peter 1, 18 and 19, knowingthat you are not redeemed with

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corruptible things like silverand gold from your aimless
conduct received by traditionfrom your fathers, from your
aimless conduct received bytradition from your fathers, but
with the precious blood ofChrist, as a lamb without
blemish, without spot.
Abel's sacrifice pointed to thewickedness of sin, for sure,

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the price of sin, but it pointedforward to the sacrifice that
Jesus would make, the onlysacrifice that can forgive us.
Now let's go back with allthese things in mind.
Let's go back to Hebrews 11,and we'll really finish here
Hebrews 11, verse 4.
By faith, abel offered to God amore excellent sacrifice than
Cain, through which he obtainedwitness that he was righteous.

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So Abel found righteousnessthrough faith in this sacrifice,
really looking forward to whatJesus would do.
Now that is the truth for allof us, that the sacrifice of
Jesus is the only way to be maderighteous.

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We ought to realize that it'snot by becoming a better person.
It's not through taking out oldbad habits, but it's strictly
by coming to the cross.
That same sacrifice andrealizing my sin is upon him Now
.
Notice this, though, and Ithink this is appropriate too

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there you go, notice, all right,notice, you're right.
There's always critters aroundhere.
All right, notice.
Verse four, god testifying ofhis gifts, and through and

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though he, being dead, stillspeaks.
Now check it out.
Abel's sacrifice enduresthrough time and even death.
This is a durable sacrificeoffered by faith.
Abel's life speaks.
Abel's life speaks to us evenin our day, even though it's

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thousands of years later, eventhough Abel has been dead for a
long time.
Abel's life still speaks thistruth that those who desire to
live godly in this fallen worldwill suffer persecution.
Now check it out the spiritualclimate of Abel's world.

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A good percentage of the worldwas wicked.
Now there may have only beenfour people on planet Earth, but
Cain was sheer wickedness.
He persecuted the righteousEven in a world of four people.
Abel found persecution for hisfaith.

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He stood for righteousness evenwhen it wasn't popular, even
when it got him killed.
It's an encouragement to us tolive by faith, to point to that
sacrifice.
The truth of sin Sin is real,what God says is true, but what

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God has done for us is enough.
The sacrifice of Jesus isenough, and his life still
proclaims that faith message.
We're all sinful, in need of asavior, and we find that with a
lot of the people that we'llread about over the next few

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weeks.
And we find that with a lot ofthe people that we'll read about
over the next few weeks, peoplelike Noah.
Imagine that A world that mostwould say probably was the same
population as our world today.
And yet Noah was the only onewho found grace in God's eyes,
the only one who feared God andfollowed God.
That's rough when the rest ofthe world just laughs at you and

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goes their own way To be apreacher of righteousness.
We read of Noah, the prophetswe'll read about who told the
truth about sin.
Your idolatry is wrong, youradultery is wrong, your
immorality is wrong.
And they suffered for us, jesus, who told the truth about sin,

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the price of sin, and theykilled him for it.
It became the price, thepayment for our sin.
So Abel has a lot to tell usabout life in our world, but he
has a lot to tell us about lifein our world.
But he has a lot to tell usabout faith to believe in enough
to let it change the way youlive, to offer a better

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sacrifice.
And our faith does the samething.
It looks to Jesus, notice.
Lastly, here I think it appliesso many times.
We could say this abouteverybody in chapter 11, but
look at chapter 12, verse 1.
Therefore, we also, since we'resurrounded by so great a cloud

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of witnesses, people like Abellet us lay same endurance this
week.
Abel encourages us towards thesame endurance this week.
Abel says by God's grace, I didit.
By God's grace, each one of uswill run the same race in front
of us, by faith.
So, god, we need you in orderto live by faith, to understand

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our own lostness and sinfulness.
God, we probably wouldn't cometo that conclusion without you.
I just pray that you would helpus to realize that sacrifice
that we needed and thatsacrifice that you gave us.
God, we know that that's thesame word of hope that you have
for our friends this week, ourco-workers, the family, the

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people we might run into throughtown.
God, it's the same message thatthere's hope and freedom from
sin in what you've done for us.
So, god, help us to live thisout this week In Jesus' name
amen.