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Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a warder to them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob and heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which had the foundations whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to receive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky 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 afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country that is unheavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. By counting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob when he was dying blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith Moses when he was born was hit three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses when he was come to years refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather the will of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt for he had respect under the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land which the Egyptians are saying to do were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah and of David also and Samuel and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in a fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women received their dead race to life again and others were tortured not accepting deliverance they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were saunasunder, they were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth and these all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise. God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect. Let's pray dear Lord God, thank you for every soul here right now Lord I just pray that you bless this service Lord. Please bless our pastor Lord and fill him with the Holy Spirit as he preaches unto us Lord and that us in the congregation can take these truths from your word and apply to our lives. Lord we pray this in Jesus name, amen. Amen, okay we're in Hebrews chapter 11 and we're nearing the end of our Bible study in the book of Hebrews. Let me make a quick comment regarding what I said something in the, or something that I said in the beginning of our Bible study of the book of Hebrews and that is that I believe and I can't prove this dogmatically, obviously this is a theory. I am simply kind of just throwing this out there is the fact that you know based upon my study on this and based upon what I'm reading it almost sounds like from chapters one to chapters 10 it's actually a sermon that the Apostle Paul was preaching and I gave a couple reasons a couple sermons ago as to why I was explaining the fact that a lot of what's written in chapter one and chapter 10 seems to be in a preachy type of a way. That's one of the reasons why I believe it but also because it's just written to a very specific group. Most of the epistles that we see in the New Testament are directed to a person, they're directed to a specific church whereas the book of Hebrews is just to Hebrews right? Which seems kind of odd, it doesn't seem to fit the narrative or the consistency of whom the recipients of the other letters were for but if you think about it you know the Apostle Paul in the beginning of his ministry and throughout the book of Acts you see him going to where? Synagogues and there's instances when he would go to a synagogue and he would be preaching to Hebrews, he'd be preaching to Jews so it's possible that from chapters one to chapters 10 it's actually just a full length sermon of the Apostle Paul preaching whether it was written on the spot by someone who's helping him write it or he wrote it later on but you can see some of the elements that are found within those chapters that kind of indicate that it is kind of like preaching and one of the telltale signs in my opinion is in chapter five where he's talking about Melchizedek and as he's talking about Melchizedek he's like we have many things to say unto you seeing that you're dull of hearing and then all of a sudden he just switches from talking about Melchizedek and just talking about the fact that they're dull of hearing and as a pastor that kind of resonates with me you know what I mean? Because there's instances when I'm preaching about something and then you kind of see you're losing the crowd a little bit you know what I mean? They're just kind of wandering off and I'm like I got a lot of things to say about that but obviously you're dull of hearing and then he just starts ripping on the crowd a little bit and then he gets back on later on in Hebrews chapter six and so forth but another reason, the last reason I believe this from chapters one to chapters 10 is actually a sermon by the Apostle Paul is because of the fact that it has a very strong theme a narrative that Jesus Christ in the New Testament is superior to the old and that is carried all the way through up until chapter 10 and it seems as though like the end of chapter 10 is basically where he stops and it's possible that chapters 11, 12 and 13 were written afterwards and he's kind of piggybacking off of the very last statement in chapter 10 and then he begins you know because he's a lot nicer in chapter 11, chapter 12 and chapter 13 it's more extra tative if you've read those chapters whereas chapters one through 10 he's just ripping it's very systematic in doctrine he's just getting on the Hebrews but then he kind of encourages them in chapters 11, 12 and 13 now I'm not dogmatic about it but I do believe that's the case if you were to just kind of look at the overall book here that's probably what's taking place now chapter 11 is what's commonly referred to as the hall of faith right and I'm sure you've heard that before and of course it's a chapter that mainly focuses on the patriarchs of the Old Testament a lot of people of the Old Testament and how God used them in a great way because they had great faith in God and it's possible that the reason he's even bringing this up is because in chapter 10 he is admonishing the recipients of this letter, the sermon that they should not backslide they should not count the blood of Jesus Christ they should not trod on the blood of Jesus Christ and just get away from God because they'll be punished and then of course in chapter 10 he tells them that they have need of patience he says after they have done the will of God ye might receive the promise in verse 36 of chapter 10 so he's kind of encouraging and say look you need to stick it out in the Christian life no matter how hard it gets make sure you keep doing the will of God you're gonna receive the promise God has a plan for you he has a purpose for your life don't give up right is what he's telling them so then in chapter 11 he starts going through all of these stories of the Old Testament of people who were of like passions and when we read them they resonate with us because we've been through some stuff and if you've been alive for any length of time you've been through some stuff and you see how much people in times past have gone through difficult situations and trials and tribulations but yet they exercise faith in God and were able to obtain promises and God blessed them in the long run so it's a beautiful chapter highlighting the faith of the individuals that we see in the Old Testament so let's start in verse number one he starts talking about first and foremost the substance of faith so he kind of defines what faith is in verse number one he says now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen now that's a great definition of what faith is right because what it's saying is that faith is something that it's basically our belief in something even though we can't tangibly hold it or we can't physically see it with our eyes because if you could see it if you can hold it if you can touch it then it doesn't require any faith and what he's telling us here is that faith is the substance it is the evidence for the things that we do not see referring to the supernatural you understand what I'm saying you know think about it our entire lives revolve around someone we've never even met face to face you know none of us have ever met Jesus Christ face to face we've never seen God the Father we've never even verbally heard him speak to us we don't know what he looks like you know we've never had him speak to us audibly we've never seen his features he's never revealed himself to us in the sky or in a dream or something and in a vision but yet we believe him right we believe in him and in fact we literally live our lives for him we're literally called Christians because our life is that's how we identify ourselves is by the life of Jesus Christ even though we haven't seen him he said then you know if you haven't seen him you haven't verbally heard him then you know why even live this way what's called faith and here's the thing folks it's not blind faith either because it's a faith that's based upon the word of God which is our final authority and so he's telling us here first and foremost that our faith is the substance it is the evidence and then he says in verse number two for by it the elders obtained a good report now I believe when he says the elders he's probably referring to these patriarchs that we're gonna look at in just a bit and this verse can mean one of two things he's either saying by it these patriarchs they obtained a good report in the sense that God is honoring them he's giving a good report of these men and women who exercise faith he's essentially exalting them in the scripture showing them to be examples to the believers or it's stating that by it referring to faith these patriarchs gave a good report of God and the reason I say that that's that might be the case as well as because in chapter 12 it says seeing that we were compassed about so great a cloud of witnesses and the witnesses that's being referred to there are the individuals that we see in Hebrew chapter 11 so a lot of the people that we're gonna read about these are people who declared the knowledge of God they preached about God they proclaimed the knowledge of the word of God they gave a good report of the Lord which is why you know the Bible calls this or not the Bible this is why we call it the hall of faith these are people who exercise faith and proclaim their faith he says in verse number three through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God and so obviously it's not blind faith it's not like we have this belief in God and this belief in Jesus Christ and all the doctrines that are found there and just because it's a fairy tale and we just decided to believe it you know oh it's just like an idea that someone came up bunch of Jews in the desert came up with one time and we just ran with it or something like that no it's based upon the word of God meaning that this Bible is God's word all scriptures given by inspiration of God these are the words and the thoughts of God these are the ideas of God and so when we believe the things such as what we see in verse three the creation we're not basing it off of scientific proof archeological discoveries what is it based off of? The Bible because the Bible says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and that's all I need right obviously there's other evidence that can prove to a creator and we see I preached about in Romans chapter one the fact that the heavens declare the glory of God and these things are revealed unto us by nature that there is a creator but at the end of the day if I was blind and I saw none of those things but I heard the word of God and I heard Genesis 1 one that's sufficient to tell me that God made the worlds right in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth you know by him all things consist the Bible says the Bible says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made okay well how do you know you weren't there? Well it's because I have faith in the Bible that it's telling me the truth and you know what you know people who mock that you know their belief system is funny too you know what I mean? If that's the route they want to take because they believe in evolution and so it takes faith to believe in evolution as well the only difference is is that this is actually true and evolution is fake okay but it tells us that faith helps us to understand by the word of God that the world were framed by the word of God and in fact in the beginning of the book of Hebrews that says God who has sun-dried times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son by whom he made the worlds so we know that the world the universe the galaxies the solar systems that exist out there were created by Jesus Christ himself okay because he is the word of God and you know what you don't need scientific proof for that it's great if you have it but you know what if we were absent of that concrete evidence it's okay because faith is the evidence faith is the substance the word of God is the evidence well how do you know the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true that's how well that's circular reasoning yeah I'm all for it then because it's so authoritative if it says it's God's word you're like well that's kind of like blind faith is it not well obviously there are certain parameters that we can use to determine if it's God's word one of them being the most obvious is does it contradict itself because anything that man creates will have errors it'll have contradictions it'll have discrepancies whereas the Bible doesn't there are no discrepancies or errors in the Bible it has withstood the test of time because it's God's word and that's why books yeah were removed from the Bible even though those who placed them in the Bible understood that we're not God's word that they're apocryphal fictional writings okay and they're removed because they're inconsistent with the rest of scriptures because anybody can read them and see okay this is obviously not written by God because it sounds stupid okay it sounds very dumb it doesn't sound powerful it contradicts doctrines in other areas of the word of God therefore we're not gonna run with that that's not the word of God and obviously I'm referring to the apocryphal writings such as the book of Enoch okay but it says there through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear what is it stating? It's stating that everything that you see come into existence came out of nothing because God created it out of nothing in other words it was a supernatural creation you understand? Made by a supernatural being known as God through Jesus Christ so it's kind of given us the introduction of how powerful faith is it's capable of creating a universe, worlds and different things there and in fact everything that we have was created by the word of God and the belief in that is called faith he's gonna go on and talk about some of the exploits of the patriarchs of the Old Testament and how they exercise their faith look what it says in verse four by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh now hold your place and go to Genesis chapter four if you would just briefly we're gonna read this story in Genesis chapter four who's being spoken of here? Cain and Abel are obviously the physical offspring of Adam and Eve Cain being the older brother and Abel being the younger and in Hebrew chapter 11 is telling us that Abel presented a better sacrifice than Cain so when they both came to worship God they came with distinctly different types of worships one was accepted by God and one was not let's look at the story verse one it says Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived him bear Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord and she again bear his brother Abel and Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought to the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord and Abel he also brought to the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect and Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell so follow me here what's taking place Cain and Abel come to worship God one does it on God's terms the other does it on his own terms now what are we talking about well Abel brings an animal sacrifice and it should come as no surprise because you know he's in pretty close proximity to the fall right and it was at the fall where God provided an animal sacrifice in order to clothe his mother and father and so therefore Adam would be able to hand down pass down that information to his sons what is the proper way to worship God and the proper way to worship God is through the animal sacrifice okay keep in mind that this is not a time where there's a bunch of religions where people can get confused right it's just like you know you got the you got those who are you know planting trees and fruits and they're competing with those who are you know raising livestock and doing animal sacrifices it's like there's only one religion at this point okay and that's God's religion so like false religion did not exist at this point you know now it's just like you could understand why people could be deceived right because there's so many different types of religions so many sects of Christianity that are false so many heresies that abound you know that the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith given heat seducing spirits and doctrines of devils well that was not this point right here in Genesis 4 okay everyone knew how to worship God at this point you understand what I'm saying so Cain willingly even though he knows what type of offering to bring him to the Lord decides not to worship God in that manner and decides to bring a vegetarian type of worship okay which is not sanctioned by God and so what happens God respects Abel's offering and he does not respect Cain now we don't know exactly what that looked like you know in my opinion it's just like he actually observed and accepted the sacrifice of Abel but he probably didn't even regard Cain so probably didn't even pay attention to Cain he didn't respect it he didn't honor it he didn't look upon it because it's not the way God wanted him to worship so Cain takes offense with this and he gets mad he's very upset and then of course the Lord rebukes him and says in verse six the Lord said unto Cain why art thou wroth wroth means he has wrath he's angry and why is thou countenance fallen now what does that mean that means like he was like this countenance is your face right and so he's moping okay so it's not like you know he's picking himself up Cain is like well this vegetarian offering was stupid let me go find an animal real quick and do it the way God wants me to do it he's just like you know like little kids sometimes they can throw a fit and you know if they don't get their way or something like that they're just like you know sometimes adults do the same thing they kind of throw a fit their countenance falls right they allow their face to droop he wants God to know that he's upset he wants everyone to know that he's upset he's wearing his emotions on his sleeve he's beating I'm just gonna I'm just leaving it at that okay verse seven says if thou doest God's like if thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted if thou doest not will sin lieth at the door and unto thee shall be his desire and thou shall rule over him so God gives him he tells him look fix what you're doing do well and then you'll be accepted right pretty easy and obviously Cain just completely disregards that information verse eight says and Cain talked with his brother Abel and he came to pass and when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him so instead of actually worshiping God the way he wanted the way God wanted him to worship him he's like I got a better idea I'll just kill my brother because I'm so mad now the New Testament tells us that the reason he did that was because he was of that wicked one referring to Satan himself and this essentially sets the stage of that division between God's religion and everything else okay and in fact when talking about false prophets in the book of Jude it often likens the false prophets as going the way of Cain you understand meaning creating your own belief system your own way of worshiping God hey make no mistake about it if we're gonna worship God we gotta do it the way God wants us to do it and not just bring some offering that we think is cute and he should just accept me how I am and accept my type of worship no we need to worship God on his terms and in fact if we're gonna worship God we must worship him in spirit and in truth the Bible says the truth of the Bible we need to worship him through the Lord Jesus Christ not through some false deity that exists out there or some false ideology that goes against the Bible we need to use the Bible to worship God amen and so Cain kills his brother because he's upset he's wroth he's of that wicked one and the New Testament also tells us that he killed him not only because he's of Satan but because Abel's works were righteous and his were evil you understand what I'm saying verse 9 says the Lord said unto Cain where is Abel thy brother and obviously he's asking him this not because he doesn't know God is omniscient he knows all things what he wants is a confession just like when he went to Adam he says where art thou it's not like God didn't know he wants Adam to confess and he said I know not I mean what are the stupidest answer you can give right like I don't know you God's asking you where's your brother and you're gonna say you don't know you know what I mean it's just like yeah it's just kind of like Cain you're not that smart I know not am I my brother's keeper so to add insult to injury he's giving him lip he's like I don't know am I my brother's keeper am I in charge of my brother yes you are and he said what is thou done the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground now go back to Hebrews if you would I'm gonna get to that point in just a bit go to Hebrews chapter 12 if you would Hebrews chapter 12 very next chapter now in Hebrews 11 it says that Abel's faith was great and it tells us that he offered a more excellent sacrifice than his brother why is that? well because Abel's sacrifice was excellent because it foreshadowed Jesus Christ so based upon the offering that he made that form of worship it was an indicator that he believed on the Lord you understand? because anybody who offered an animal sacrifice did it knowing that it symbolized the future Christ that would come and sacrifice himself for the sins of the world you understand? they believed on that future lamb of God who should take away the sins of the world so it was far more excellent it excelled in worship it excelled in redemption because it testified that he was a saved person okay and at the end of the day Abel carried out God's prescribed form of worship that's why it was excellent and the fact that Abel chose to offer an animal sacrifice really testified that he'd already placed his faith in the Lord of course not Jesus because he didn't know the name of Jesus but Jesus is the Lord so when people believed on the Lord in the Old Testament they're believing on Jesus Christ okay now look at Hebrews 12 because it mentions Abel once again regarding the fact that he speaks things from the ground we see that in Genesis chapter four Hebrews 12 24 says and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel so in Hebrews 11 it says that Abel being dead yet speaketh Genesis 4 God testified and says your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground and Hebrews 12 says that Jesus Christ's blood speaks better things than that of Abel now what is that referring to well what it's talking about the fact is that Abel's blood in Genesis chapter four cries out for revenge okay whereas the blood of Jesus Christ speaks of redemption understand so one speaks of revenge whereas the other speaks of redemption and we know that it speaks of revenge because God does punish Cain and even people thereafter who commit murder and commit those types of crimes you know God wants to execute vengeance upon them whereas the blood of Jesus Christ actually reconciles it actually brings redemption it brings remission of sins understand so even though Abel's blood you know he was a righteous person even though he had a more excellent sacrifice you know his blood could only speak revenge whereas the blood of Jesus Christ far more excels that which of Abel because it's there to redeem the sinner back to the Lord go back to Hebrews 11 and verse number five so we see the faith of Abel you know he's essentially the first man to kind of display that type of faith by worshiping God as prescribed by God himself but also because he sets forth the tone thereafter as being someone who obviously believed in the Lord based upon his offering there and by the way he's the first person to go to heaven by himself you know for a while okay he added to himself for a long time and he's been there ever since and so you know he's probably just like man he's been there the longest actually right you know God created when the Bible says that God created the heaven and the earth it doesn't say heavens by the way okay because the modern versions will say heavens and they'll often declare that they'll often state that that's referring to the sky the stratosphere and so on and so forth but it actually says heaven which is referring to the place where God dwells so God created that place where he currently dwells he created that in Genesis chapter one verse one okay and a lot of people get confused about that they're like wait what do you mean he created the place where he's gonna dwell well God's always been eternal but he created heaven knowing that one day redeemed people would be inhabiting that place understand and it should come as no surprise because he's gonna make a new one later on in the future as well it's called the new heaven right and the new earth look at verse five it says by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony that it pleased God but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them to diligently seek him so now we fast forward to the patriarch Enoch and Enoch you know not much is said about him regardless of what the book of Enoch says he's spoken up very sparingly throughout the Bible but what is known of him is pretty powerful right and one of the reasons why is because in Genesis chapter five where he's mentioned in verse 24 it says that Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him okay and if you only had Genesis to work off of you would think oh he died because most of the time when the Bible says that someone was not it's referring to the fact that they died okay and it says that God took him but the New Testament sheds light on that right this is why it's important not to be a Torah observer you're only sticking to the first five books of the Bible you need the entire word of God okay and we love the first five books of the Bible but we see them as just as important as everything else and in fact we would even see the New Testament as more important than the old superior to the old now the New Testament why? Because the New Testament actually sheds light on all of these cryptic enigmatic passages because the New Testament tells us that when it when Enoch walked with God it means that he pleased God and when it says that God he was not for God took him it means that Enoch was raptured he was translated translated means he was transported from here to heaven so he was essentially the first person to be raptured in the Bible now he was not raptured with a glorified body because Jesus Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection so he is currently in heaven and is still you know a pre-flood body okay now this is obviously a unique story here and it kind of goes to show you that when Enoch walked with God the fact that he fellowship with God he loved the Lord so much that God was so pleased with him that basically he never saw death okay he was just like let's just skip all this earth stuff and just take you straight to heaven because Enoch obviously is a man who loves the Lord and you know apparently it shows us here in Hebrew chapter five or it's Hebrew chapter 11 that he came to God believing and it's almost as if he knew that he could get translated or he could go to heaven because he just kept diligently coming to God because it says there without faith it is impossible to please him in its context for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him now given you know Enoch had a lot of time to walk with God okay but regardless you know he walked with God with the limited knowledge that was already given to him during that time because they didn't have the 66 books of the Bible I mean the book of Genesis wasn't even written at that point they had very limited knowledge of God at that point God was still revealing himself you know through visions and through prophets and such and so whatever he did have to work with I mean that's how he walked with God that's how he pleased God now what can we learn from the faith of Enoch? well you know what we can learn is the fact that don't take your walk with God lightly you know what are we talking about when we talk about the walk with God? well obviously today when we talk about walking with God it's more specific and that is that we need to read the Bible and pray we need a fellowship with the Lord we need to be reading the Bible every single day that's what it means to walk with God and that's not a term that's just found with Enoch I mean the Bible says that Adam walked with God in the cool of the day and it's not like they're just taking a stroll it's referring to the fact that they are in one accord they're speaking to each other can two walk together except they be agreed so when someone walks with God they're coming into agreement with God regarding his precepts and statutes and this is something that we have to do every single day right? we wake up in the morning we open up the Bible we read the word of God and what are we doing? we are asserting that what God is saying is true we agree with the Lord you understand? and folks don't take your your Bible reading lightly I hope all of you are reading your Bible sometime throughout the day preferably in the morning because it's the most important part of the day and you say well you know it's just hard because I don't have time then make time for it make time to walk with the Lord make time well I listen to preaching though that's not the same it's not the same at all and in fact you're doing yourself a disservice if you're only listening to preaching but you're not reading the Bible because preaching is supposed to supplement your Bible reading your daily Bible reading you understand? and in fact walking with God and reading the Bible enriches preaching it makes it even better actually you say why is that? well because of the fact that how many of you and I'm sure there's many of you hopefully all of you experience something like this you know you read the Bible you come to church you hear a sermon and you're like well I just like read that or he's talking about something that I just learned about or you know God was dealing with me in this particular when I was reading the Bible and then you just all of a sudden just came up with it or something it's not because I'm special it's because I'm preaching the Bible that is special and it's the Holy Spirit working in you just kind of showing you how powerful the Word of God is it's working in your life you're walking with God now make no mistake about it hearing the preaching of God's Word is part of walking with God because you read the Bible on a daily basis but then you come to the house of God to hear the pillar of ground and truth the Bible says to hear the Word of God and then you're just supplementing your walk with God that much the more you're reinforcing beliefs because obviously if you're reading the Bible on your own you're going to be learning things but you know what preaching kind of helps streamline a lot of your learning too you know because you could be stuck on learning something specific on your own time but you need me to help you broaden your horizon of learning when it comes to the Bible right because I might talk about a subject you're not really interested in or a sin you know you may not be thinking about but you need to hear it though and so you know the preaching is like the sides to the main course you know to your ribeye your New York steak you know your meaty portion there the side the preaching is like the mashed potatoes it's the corn you know I'm hungry it's the what else is on the sides there rice, mac and cheese, cornbread put a little bit of butter on you know it's the biscuits but you can't just survive just eating biscuits though it's good but you know you need the meat of the Word you need to be walking with God yourself and don't misinterpret what I'm saying I'm not saying that if you walk with God closely enough God's going to rapture you tomorrow but hey you know what God is going to rapture you if you're saved though it's just not going to be some special rapture only designated for you okay that's only for Enoch and it's there to inspire us right the testimony of Enoch's faith is there to inspire us to walk with God to know the Lord you know the Bible tells us in Jeremiah you know he that glorieth listen to this he that glorieth let him glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me he says don't let not the rich man glory in his riches or the mighty man in his strength he said let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me if you're going to boast about anything boast about knowing the Lord you know don't boast about how strong you are how much money you got how good looking you are obviously none of us are going to boast about that got nothing to boast about you know he says if you're going to if you're going to brag about something brag about the Lord you say well what if someone you know boast about knowing God but they don't really know God then they can't really boast because in order to boast about knowing God you got to talk about the things of God and I'm not talking about like I just love God and he's just so beautiful and wonderful and I just you know just you talk about him like he's your boyfriend or something like that that's like that modern day you know TikTok Christianity out there let's talk about God the way he wants us to speak about him that he's magnificent he's powerful he's full of terror amen he's omniscient he's God almighty he's Jesus and so this should inspire the faith of Enoch that we see the fact that he walked with God and was not for God took him should inspire us to walk with the Lord in like manner and you know what knowing full well that your personal walk with God is not in vain because it says that he is a rewarder of them to diligently seek him and I know this to be a fact because I remember years just you know walking with the Lord and you know whether it's it was being defrauded or being wrong being shortchanged and always recognizing you know at the bottom of my heart that when I would read my Bible in secret in quiet it would pay off in the long run knowing the Lord will pay off in the long run it always does why because the Bible tells us that he's a rewarder of them to diligently seek him so no matter you know what happens in your life or you know who comes out the winner in the short term if you're diligently seeking him and walking with him you come out on top in the long run God rewards you for that in the long term and so he's like I don't know about that have faith right that's what it's about because without faith it's impossible to please him he says in verse seven let's go let's go on to the next patriarch here it says by faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith this is obviously referring to the flood Noah's ark and the flood and what we see here is that Noah's faith caused him to prepare an ark in light of a judgment that he had never seen before because it seems to indicate that it just like never rained during that time in such a fashion you understand where like the whole world is flooded and everyone dies but yet God warned him and he moved with fear even though he'd never seen something like that and not only did he move with fear the bible says that he prepared an ark to the saving of his house and he simultaneously did what condemned the world what does that mean it means he was a preacher so you know he's preparing he's making sure his house is his household is saved he's moving with fear and he's preaching the word of God he's condemning the world he's like you guys are gonna you guys are gonna die everyone's gonna be destroyed and you know what he probably got some converts but they probably didn't move beyond being converted to getting saved because no one else joined them on the ark everyone else stayed out stayed outside the ark but isn't that how sowing kind of is though you can preach to thousands of people but how many of those thousands of people actually come to church right you know out of the hundreds of people that you have seen saved outdoor knocking i'm saying let's just talk about door knocking where you're preaching you know a whole there's a lot of times people don't come to church from those door knock doors being knocked but that's how no you know that's how Noah's ministry was he got his household saved he condemned the world but in the long term he became the heir of righteousness because of that now how does this apply to us well you know the bible says knowing therefore the terror of the lord we persuade men now what terror we're referring to hell but here's the thing i've never seen hell i don't know what it looks like i mean i can give you a description by faith right based upon what the bible says you know i can i can describe all the details of heaven as though i've been there even though i've never seen it i can describe hell to a t even though i'll never go there and i've never seen it by faith right and so it's kind of like noah where he's preaching about a judgment and destruction that he's never seen before but he did it by faith because god told him this is what i'm gonna do and it's not noah's not like wow but you've never done that before though so i don't know but i don't know about that you know i think you never really did that before no he believed god and so he's like putting the ark together so he's like building the ark as he's preaching i mean the man's putting in a lot of work okay and by the way let me just say this don't get caught up in this whole ark at mount out mount ararat and there's like a satellite the saw of the ark or whatever and they found those are no they didn't someone built that thing and put that thing there well how do you know folks let's just use common sense here think about this okay after the flood noah gets off you think they're just like i see ark and then he's just like how are we gonna how are we gonna make a fire he's like gee i wish i would i wish there was like wood somewhere that we can burn or how are we gonna build shelter i don't know i wish there was just like wood available somewhere that we could just reuse do you know of any wood dad if only we had like you know like gopher wood or something folks common sense says that they probably use the wood from the ark for just everyday things right making weapons spears to kill animals shelter wood to burn the ark is gone and that ark doesn't even matter because our ark is jesus christ so don't get so caught up in the physical things of the old testament where are they now you know it doesn't matter because at the end of the day we have a better ark you understand we have a better sacrifice jesus christ is our ark which is exactly what the ark pictured because they went in the door closed and they were saved okay physically speaking it pictures salvation spiritually but the point is is that we as noah preach righteousness and we're also preaching the word of god but we're preaching about a judgment to come even though we ourselves have never seen judgment on that scale we've never beheld hell with our eyes we've never seen what it's like to weep and well and gnash your teeth and to have no rest day nor night day nor night that's something that we could imagine based upon the word of god and we preach that every single by faith i mean we go to doors and say yeah if you die you'll descend into a place called hell where they'll be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth the bible even gives us a list of people who are going to go there let me read it for you i mean we're like compelling we're trying to tell them like you have to believe this in order to be saved and if someone told me well have you seen it i'd be like never seen it never want to see it but it's there and you know what probably people probably mock noah it's got that in oh yeah oh rain oh yeah water's gonna come from the sky and we're all gonna die or whatever you know a loving god wouldn't do something like that right a loving god would never do something like that and now they're just like drowned in the water but you know it's the same arguments people make today well a loving god wouldn't send people to hell well you're not going to go there and you're going to see the love of god if you just get saved and stop being so prideful and arrogant about it but there is a judgment to come flee from the wrath to come you know i can describe the wrath for you even though i've never seen it but i'm describing it by faith based upon the bible and so you know we can definitely you know we we could agree with noah and we we know that we're men of like passions because you know noah throughout his life he's preaching and like this he probably got people saved but you know what he probably wanted to see people in church too and it was just him and his family the entire time that's it i mean what a traumatic experience people don't really think about that like everything you've ever known is gone it's just you and your family eight of you that's it everyone dies everything is drowned every animal other than the ones you and then you're on a boat for 40 days and 40 nights with all these animals i mean just imagine how smelly that thing was and it just you know i get seasick so i'm just like man that's like probably terrible but hey you know what he did it by faith and because of that humanity was preserved let me read to you from second peter three three it says knowing this first that there shall come in the last day scoffers walking after their own lust and saying where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation for this they are willingly ignorant that by the word of god the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished and i don't think it's saying this on accident i think it's comparing noah with modern times because it's telling us that people probably scoffed at noah they probably made fun of him they probably said where is the promise where is this rain that you're talking about you know and they didn't believe him and then they suffered the consequences of their actions it's the same thing today folks and so go back or you're in hebrews 11 look at verse eight here's the last ones we're going to cover i'm actually going to break this up into two parts because there's so many uh patriarchs to cover here verse 8 by faith abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whether he went now this is talking about genesis chapter 12 where god comes to abraham this is prior to him being called abraham he was called abram at the time and he told them get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred from thy father's house unto a land that i will show thee so according to the bible this is why abraham's the father of faith by the way man had a lot of faith it's like i want you to leave your home your country and just go to a land that i'm going to show you he didn't even tell him where he was going either just go and it's not like can i get a map can what's it like he's like to a land that i will show thee that's a lot of faith obviously he's referring to we know because we have the bible he's referring to canin land it says verse number nine by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with isaac and jacob the heirs with him of the same promise of course the promised land canin land is referring to israel not yeah i guess modern day israel but what would become israel verse 10 says for he looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is god so i want you to notice that even though he was in that promised land abraham had the maturity of understanding this isn't what i'm finally looking for though now can someone explain that to our fundamental baptist brethren right because he's just like he's obeying god he understands this is a physical promise that he needs to go to that physical place but he's like i'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is god though what is he saying he's his affection is in heaven and let me just tell you that if you're saved you might be physically a citizen of the united states of america although there might be seeing some illegal people here i don't know you might be a citizen of mexico or something you know but at the end of the day you're truly a citizen of heaven though that's actually the most important thing and we need to be aware of getting so political in our ideologies as christians the you begin to be more heavy on your rights as an american and we need to keep these immigrants out of here and you need to weigh more heavily on the fact that you're a citizen of heaven especially this year because at the end of the day we're all illegal citizens in this world this world is not our home the bible says that we are pilgrims and sojourners in this world you know if if someone asked me for my green card i would not have it here spiritually speaking i do have my i don't have a green card because i was born here uh i promise i was born here that was good in case someone's watching on the internet uh but you know the spiritual green card i don't have that though so someone like told me like oh you know are you you know for america and you know god i'm like i'm a citizen of the new jerusalem not the old definitely not the old one the new one and you know i'm a citizen and you know what that's not popular with a lot of republican conservative christians but i don't care okay and i know it's not popular with some of you in here i know that once you know later on the year comes around you're going to be voting for your savior trump and hoping everything goes back to normal you know i get that whatever but at the end of the day i'm just kind of bringing you back this is my job here is to help you to understand like hey we're citizens of heaven okay so don't get your priorities mixed up and you know instead of fighting the immigration issue okay why don't you fight actually getting people saved instead and people could get caught up in that stuff okay and i get it you know there's bad people coming from across the border murderers and rapists and pedophiles but let me let you in on a little secret though you you may not know this they've been coming over for a long time murderers rapists have you guys ever heard of ms-13 you know that's that's happened a long time ago okay and let me just say this is that if we were to compare this biblically what god often does to punish a nation is he allows immigrants to come in and take over yeah that's what he does did you know that so in order for god to punish the united states of america you know for all the bloodshed all the millions of babies that are being aborted i know things that's stuff that you don't really like to talk about okay god has to punish that and he's not going to overlook it just because it says in god we trust on the dollar bill and just because you know pledge allegiance to the flag and all that and because you mentioned god every once in a while god has to punish that and so part of it according to the bible he allows foreigners to come in and take over now you can either spin your wheels trying to fight that issue or you could actually go somewhere spiritually and just focus on getting people saved okay because at the end of the day no christian and i know a lot of people don't agree with me on this but again i don't care i'm the pastor here you know at the end of the day uh you're not gonna christians will not succeed politically here in this world until the millennial reign and in fact in my opinion the millennial reign is a testimony from god that the issue has always been a spiritual issue because everyone's always fighting like oh man let's get it back to a christian nation again and you know institute biblical laws well first of all that's never gonna happen you're you're living in a dream it sounds great though okay i would love for biblical laws to be instituted but you know when jesus christ rules and reigns here for a thousand years there's still people who are like bucking him during that time and committing crimes because the issue is not who's in power or if there's a democrat ruling it's literally a sin issue and it's not until sin is completely removed from the picture it's not until death and hell are cast into the lake of fire it's not until satan is just permanently thrown into the lake of fire do we have total peace total christian world that's the only time but even when jesus is ruling the reign here we don't have that and so i say that to say let's be like abraham because abraham you know he actually got the promised land and i wish abraham can preach in the pulpits of the old ifb and tell them like hey you guys are fighting the wrong battle you guys are fighting for the wrong land i don't even want that land i guarantee you if abraham was there he'd be like i don't even want that land i don't want it and in fact when i first stepped foot in the promised land it was just like it's foreshadowing right the promised land but people are so fixated on the item or the person or the thing that foreshadows the figures of the true that's always what it is i want to see the arc of the covenant forget the arc of the covenant there's like it's literally not even that important there's a better one in heaven i want to you know i just we want we got to get israel forget israel that thing is sodom and gomorrah in god's eyes it's literally called spiritual sodom and gomorrah it's the capital of sodomy of the world yeah but so many biblical sites there just to see i got a better better biblical site it's called heaven and you can talk about jesus there and people aren't going to get mad at you anyways let's move on here little last point okay i'll talk about sarah real quick through faith look at verse 11 also sarah herself received strength or conceived seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore sprang there even of one referring to isaac and him as good as dead so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable now sarah's faith is incredible because of the fact that she was able to have a child in her old age and we don't have time right now but the story is actually really funny okay because if you go back to genesis 18 where god visits them god is telling abraham like hey you're gonna conceive your wife's gonna conceive and then you know um sarah's like behind the tent and you know she's kind of like eavesdropping she's being a metiche as they say in spanish you know and she's just kind of listening and then she hears that god tells this to abraham and then she laughs in her heart she's like because she's she's old and so the time of her uh i forgot how the bible words it the time of a woman has passed or something like that i can't remember the exact wording basically she can't have children anymore and then god you know confronts abraham and she's just like why is sarah laughing and then sarah's like oh i didn't laugh and then god's like nay but thou didst laugh and then sarah didn't say this is the funny go back to genesis 18 and read that story it's so funny because she laughs in her heart which is by the way god knows it just kind of testimony that god knows what's going on in your heart she laughs in her heart and god's like why is is anything too hard for god because that's what he says like is anything too hard for god what's so funny and then she's like oh no lord i didn't laugh he's like nay but doubt this lie it's like sorry yeah i did laugh you know she should have just admitted it then and there so she laughed in her unbelief but then she actually ended up having isaac and you know when she didn't she laughed again but this time it was because like wow god actually he did this so it's like a different type of a laughter you understand what i'm saying and often you know we laugh at the what's what what god says is possible to happen in our lives we're like i don't think i can do something like that and then later on you laugh at your unbelief when god actually comes through god actually like answers your prayers he shows himself strong on your behalf and then you just laugh at your past self like i was so dumb like for not believing like my faith was so small then god did it so the laughter of sarah is very telling because it really represents us sometimes that we laugh at the promises of god not in a disrespectful way but just like can that really happen like seriously you really think that's going to happen you know abraham's like a hundred years old and he's going to have a son but then it happens just like oh man i guess it did happen and then you and then you become your own joke you become the punchline god's punchline go to romans 4 and we're done i just want to read these verses here from romans 4 because this works well in conjunction with hebrews 11 talking about sarah and abraham and it just shows how great faith they had because you know it took a lot of faith to believe that and just keep in mind that god promised him not only a son but just to be like like a lot of kids right as the stars and as the sand of the sea and they're just like we're old how we can we just have one now let me say this is that when they had isaac they did not see the fulfillment of that of that promise so they died not seeing the total fulfillment of that promise they didn't receive the promise but they did receive the promise they just didn't receive it in a lot of time and you know what we have to come to peace and to terms with the fact that there's certain promises that we're just not going to see in our lifetime we will see some but there's some that we will not see and we just gotta have faith that we will see it just not in our lifetime look at romans 4 verse 16 therefore it is a faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of abraham who is the father of us all as it is written i have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed even god who quickened it the dead and call it those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which is spoken so shall thy seed be and being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old neither yet the deadness of sarah's womb he staggered not at the promise of god through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to god and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform powerful so he's just this old guy like i still think god's gonna do it he's got like isaac but he just never saw listen to this he never saw us because we're the children of abraham he's got a bunch of kids like the fulfillment came like hundreds and thousands of years later and here we are and abraham is still spiritually having kids because anybody who gets saved is automatically spiritually a child of abraham and so you know it kind of shows you that sometimes you see the payoff later on and the payoff is huge big enormous a lot but it doesn't come immediately and so you know i hope this inspires you to just step out in faith a little more often than not to believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them to diligently seek him don't stagger at the promises of god you know in unbelief be fully persuaded that what he had promised he's able also to perform in spite of you being a hundred years old in spite of the deadness of sarah's womb and against all odds against all hope just believe it well i just don't think is anything too hard for the lord though nothing's too hard he created the universe just leave it at that let's pray father we thank you so much for your word and thank you lord for doing the impossible in our lives lord and uh and the individuals in our church and our church just in general lord and our families with our spouses with our children help us to be a people of faith and we don't talk about faith enough i feel just on my end it's important for us to just believe lord uh and and to step out in faith and work and be faithful in spite of the overwhelming opposition that we may face in our lives and help us to base our faith on on you and on the bible help us not to stagger at the promises of god through unbelief help us to be fully persuaded and i pray to you bless this as we go on our way we're so thankful for all these patriarchs who were an example to us and give us a great weekend of many people getting saved and bless our services on sunday we love you we thank you pray these things in jesus name amen we turn your bibles to song number 389