As always, it is a privilege to be with you and to preach God's word to you. If you would at this time make your way to Hebrews chapter 11, we are gonna be continuing our series in this great chapter. And this evening we're gonna be focusing specifically on verse four. Hebrews chapter 11, verse four. A handful of weeks ago, we began our series in Hebrews chapter 11, and during that first message, we looked at the author's intention to encourage and to exhort the Hebrews to persevere by faith, whatever suffering or frustrations may come, to persevere until the end. And we saw that he is doing that by giving us here a chapter worth of examples of saints who were saved by faith, just like Hebrews, and who persevered until the end by that faith. In the second message, we discussed what faith is. That faith is something that is given by God, and its object is Christ. We looked at how faith is like a pair of glasses that helps us to savingly see what is otherwise invisible to our eyes. We see by faith God. We see his mighty works. We see Christ. All of those things we see by faith. And we also discussed how faith is like the foundation of a house upon which we receive the things that are hoped for, which come from the promises of God. Because we have the foundation of faith, we can be blessed and strengthened by the promised present grace that Christ gives us and the future glory that still awaits us. And then in the last message, we looked at the one who is the object of our faith, the one who enables us to persevere until the end, because Jesus endured the cross. And it is because Jesus endured the cross that the Old Testament saints were saved by believing in him and were able to persevere until the end. Now we come to a turning point in our series where we will begin to examine the individual lives of the saints which are listed in this chapter. And as I mentioned last time, we are going to see time and time again the pattern of Christ demonstrated in the lives and witness of these saints. We're gonna see the pattern of his obedience, not perfectly, but we're gonna see the pattern of his obedience, his reproach, his martyrdom, and even some miracles. Because Christ was the object of their faith, these saints looked like him. So we begin this evening by looking at Abel. So read along with me here in verse four. By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. Having read our verse, let us now look to the Lord for his help and for his blessing on the preaching and hearing of his word. Oh Lord God, we are in need of your help if we are to see anything in your word rightly. So we do ask that you would please give us fertile soil in our hearts that would receive your word, sanctify us and make us look more like Christ, and save the poor sinner who is not reconciled to you. Do all these things by the power of the one who is the object of our faith. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. This evening I want us to consider the loudness of a faithful life. The loudness of a faithful life. Many of you can think of a godly saint who lived a faithful life and who continues to encourage you and to exhort you when you remember them. A person who is no longer with us on earth. Maybe it's a parent, maybe a close friend, maybe a mentor or a pastor. Though they are presently with God in glory, their witness still stirs you up to further faithfulness. And that is because the faith of a saint, the faith by which he or she did anything that pleased God, is a faith that cannot be silenced. It still speaks. My thesis for the message this evening is that Abel resembled the object of his faith. Abel resembled the object of his faith. And I wanna look at that in three points, each of which has a principle that I think we can glean from this text. The first one is that the fruit of faith is obedience. So number one, the fruit of faith is obedience. Number two, God commands the obedience of his saints. God commends the obedience of his saints. And then third, the witness of faith endures. The witness of faith endures. So let's start now with the first point. The fruit of faith is obedience. Let's read again the first part of verse four. It says here, by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. So I wanna first answer the question that almost anyone looking at this verse probably wonders, what is it that made Abel's sacrifice more acceptable? And to answer this big overarching question, I want to turn back to Genesis four, and I wanna first answer the smaller two foundational questions, what did Cain offer and what did Abel offer? So if you want to, feel free to turn along with me to Genesis chapter four. As a matter of fact, we're gonna flip back and forth a couple of times this evening. So first of all, what is it that Cain offered? Genesis chapter four, verse three, it says that in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of fruit of the ground. So pretty straightforward, he literally offered fruit, which he had collected. He, after all, was a worker of the ground, which we see in the verses previous to that. And so one might say that he did what was appropriate to his profession. He was a worker of the ground, he worked with fruit and with other things that grow, and so he brought some of those things to the Lord. According to some commentators, if we look at the substance of what he offered, this type of offering would fit under the Mosaic law as a thanksgiving or a fellowship offering, something similar to what the Israelites would later offer to God during certain times. So at first glance, what could be the problem with that? Well, Moses, I believe, is actually trying to get our attention here and show us what the problem is. And that actually comes across in the way that the Hebrew reads for verse four. Literally in the Hebrew, so we discussed what Cain offered, what did Abel offer, question number two. In the Hebrew, it literally reads like this. But Abel, He brought also an offering from the firstborn of his sheep and from their fat. So just in the way the Hebrew is structured there, there's a normal pattern in which things appear in Hebrew. Usually it's the verb first and then the subject following. Here you have the subject, Abel, appearing first, and then you have what comes after following, and you have the conjunction but beginning this. So Moses is trying to actually draw the original hearer's attention to this. There's something here that's not quite right. So what is it that we should have noticed? Well, Abel is not offering just a sheep. He's offering what? The firstborn. He's offering a firstborn of the sheep. Now some of you know that God later claimed the firstborn of the flocks and the herds for himself. We see that in Exodus chapter 13. Because of the mercy he had shown in sparing their own firstborn from the plague, they were to offer their firstborn to him, as far as their flocks and herds. In addition to that, it says that Cain, or Abel rather, offered from the fat. Some of you are also aware that the fat was a very important part of the sacrifices which were offered to God. In fact, God later told Israel not to eat of the fat because it, as the best of the sacrifice, was to be offered to Him. So we see that Abel has offered not just a sheep, it's the firstborn, and not just the firstborn, but also the fat of the firstborn, the best part. Some commentators think, and I tend to think that this is true, that he may have even offered more than one offering, and that may be why in Hebrews 11.4 in our passage this evening, it refers to Abel's gifts, plural. So it may be that it was more than just one firstborn. It seems to be something more than just that. Clearly, what Abel brought was a costly offering. So what are the answers to our two small foundational questions that we've discussed so far? One, Abel offered the firstborn and the fat of his sheep, which was the best of what he had, And number two, Cain offered fruit from the ground. And it was not even the best he had. It did not say it was the first fruits. It was just fruit from the ground. And I think that we can already see something of the heart motives of the brothers in what they offered to God. For Cain, it almost strikes me when reading what he offered, It's almost like his offering came with the, do I have to? Whereas for Abel, it seems like if his sacrifice could speak, it's like, how could I give anything less to so worthy of a God? He's my creator and my king. He deserves the very best of what I have to offer. Maybe you're not sold on that, but I think that there's clearly some big differences that we should notice in the text between those offerings. So let's go back to the overarching question, which I raised at the beginning. What is it that made Abel's sacrifice more acceptable? Answer number one is that Abel had faith. Abel had faith. Hebrews 11.4 says that it starts out by faith, by faith Abel offered this more acceptable sacrifice. So here we need to note that even the best of Abel's offerings would not have been accepted if he didn't have faith. So he did offer a good offering, but even that would not have been accepted if he did not have faith. Remember what Isaiah says, that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags, polluted garments. Faith is ultimately what made Abel's offering acceptable. And this is further confirmed by what the writer of Hebrews says in verse six. He says, without faith, it is impossible to please him. would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Abel believed this and he pleased God by faith. By faith, Abel knew God as creator and provider, even though unlike his parents, he hadn't dwelt with them in the same intimate way in the garden. And by faith, Abel trusted that although he was a sinner like his parents, God would reward him by sending the promised Redeemer because of his faith in him. So it's because of his faith that he wanted to please God. And whether or not he knew it, when he was offering that firstborn lamb to God, he was typifying the very sacrifice the merits of which would save him, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. So this faith is what made Abel's offering more acceptable than Cain's. But I think there's also another answer for what made Abel's offering more acceptable. I think answer number two is that Cain disobeyed God. So answer number one, Abel had faith. Answer number two, Cain disobeyed God. How do we know that Cain disobeyed? I believe there are at least two reasons. God's statement in Genesis chapter four, verse six is the first of these reasons. So let's go ahead and look at that. Genesis four, six and God's conversation with Cain. He says, why are you angry? And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. I believe implied in God's statement here is that Cain knew what to do and he didn't do it. 1 John 3.12 sheds a little bit of further light on this and says that Abel hated his brother and his righteous deeds. Why? Because his own deeds were evil. Abel was proven righteous in what he did. What he did showed his righteousness. Cain was proven evil in what he did, which I believe refers to his offering. And God is not saying something to Cain that he didn't already know. This is why he was so angry. Remember, again, in that text, God says, why are you angry? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? Isn't this like the conversation that we so often have with our children? Why are you mad that you're getting disciplined about this? You already knew the right thing to do, and you did this anyways. But Cain did not do what was right, and so when his brother did do what is right, and he was commended for it by God, he seethed with anger. The offering of his brother was like a spotlight that made visible his own sin, and he hated it. But then that moves us to the next reason why I believe we can say that Cain disobeyed God which is what A.W. Pink calls here the sermon of Genesis 3.15 and 3.21. So the first reason I think Cain disobeyed God is because of Genesis 4.6. The second is because of Genesis 3.15 and 3.21. So here we're gonna answer the question that some of you are wondering, what did he know to do that he did not do? Because it doesn't come across clearly in our translation. It doesn't come across clearly in the Bible. Many commentators agree here that there was precedent already set for Cain and Abel to bring offerings to God. As a matter of fact, some of the commentators have looked at the word used in the course of time. And some have argued that from that, you could see that This was not the first time that such a thing had happened. They had probably seen their parents do this on numerous times before. And perhaps now, as A.W. Pink thinks, this is maybe the first time that they did it on their own and offered their own sacrifices. Again, A.W. Pink notes that the first gospel sermon which was ever preached was known to Cain and Abel. That from Genesis 3.15 and 3.21. they knew that their parents had sinned. They knew that their only hope, their only hope was in what a future redeemer would do. They knew that God had killed animals in order to clothe Adam and Eve's nakedness. And in so doing, this reminded them of the wages of sin, which is death. and that blood must be shed in order to make atonement for sin. And likely, Cain and Abel had already seen and known from their parents what sort of offerings that they should be making to God, blood sacrifices. So imagine yourself Hearing this account for the first time as an Israelite, having the context of all of the other sacrifices that you know that God requires, what would be running through your mind as you're hearing this? Cain offered fruit from the ground to God. He offered what? Where's the blood? Where's the sacrifice? You're gonna offer that to God? Anyone can make a fruit basket. Cain, your parents brought sin and death into the world and God killed animals to clothe their nakedness and to signify his gracious forgiveness of their sins. Do you not think you have sins that need to be atoned for? For you to come before a holy God? Makes no mistake, brethren, when Cain offered fruit, not even the first fruits, from the sin-cursed ground, he was declaring to God, I don't need atonement for my sins. So what was it that made Abel's sacrifice more acceptable than Cain's? I believe number one, it's because Abel had faith Faith is what gave Abel both the desire and the ability to do what pleased God. And number two, Cain disobeyed God. Cain, because he did not have faith, did not desire to please God. And so he did not offer what pleased God. What applications do we have that we can see from this text so far? Well, the first one, I believe, is this. We are not saved by our works, but we are saved for good works. We are not saved by our works, but we are saved for good works. What Calvin once said about the world is also true for you as an individual Christian. Your life is a theater for those around you to see the glory of God. May you be exhorted by the witness of your brother Abel to shine forth Christ and be encouraged that that same faith that was given to him you also have and you have fuller revelation than he did at that time. Then another application we can make from this is that our good works done by faith will make us targets of the enemy. Cain could not stand the noise of his brother's loud, faithful life. It was irritating to him. It was obnoxious. It was maddening. Why? Because there was enmity put between serpent and the seed of the woman, and between his seed and her seed. There is enmity between the enemy and between Christ, and by extension, Christ's people. Cain looked at his brother, and he saw Christ. And he hated it. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, our relationships will suffer. And you may think, why is it that so-and-so is being distant? Why is it that so-and-so isn't responding to me anymore? Did I do something wrong? And it may be because you are showing them Christ. and it's putting a spotlight on their sin and they can't handle it. Then another application we can make from this is that obedience is only produced by faith. Obedience, true obedience is only produced by faith. So don't fool yourself into thinking that you can do what pleases God on your own. As a matter of fact, in the passage that Pastor Bernard opened up with this evening, Jesus says, what? Apart from me, you can do nothing. It is because of the death. of Christ and his obedience and his resurrection and his ascension and the sending of the spirit that you can do what pleases him. So you must look to Christ by faith in order to receive the strength to do what he requires of you. That brings us now to our second point, which is that God commends the obedience of his saints. God commends the obedience of his saints. So what does it mean that God commended Abel? Well, the first little review question that I'll ask and answer is something back from a couple of weeks ago. We already saw in verse two that the people of old or the Old Testament saints were commended by faith. What does commend mean? It means to give witness about or to testify about. Remember, we talked about the cloud of witnesses who, in a sense, are at the end of the race, declaring, witnessing what? That Christ is worthy. They're giving a good report. They're giving testimony about him. So what was then the commendation that God gave Abel in our text here? What it says here in verse 4, By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous. So God commended Abel as righteous. He gave witness, he gave testimony about Abel that he was righteous, that Abel was pleasing to him. pleasing because by faith he had trusted in the Redeemer to come. And because by this faith he had made this offering which pleased God and which also typified the Redeemer. But how exactly did he give this commendation? How did he give this commendation? The verse here says that he commended him by accepting his gifts. I'm going to turn back to Genesis 4 again and look at what's being referenced here. Second half of Genesis 4, verse 4 says, and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard. So this is what is being referenced here by God commending him and accepting his gifts. God had regard for Abel. One commentator pointed out here that it's instructive that the text says God had regard first to the person, Abel, and then to the offering. This is instructive because it reminds us that by faith, a person is accepted by God, and as a result, God accepts their offering. It's not the other way around. God first accepts the person by faith and then their offering. Now, God's accepting of Abel's gifts seemed to take place in some sort of public way because Cain knew it, and it made him angry. He knew that what Abel had offered pleased God, that he was commended and that he himself had not been commended. The majority of commentators that I consulted agree that this was probably the Lord accepting his gifts by consuming the offering with fire. There's certainly, we don't know that for sure, but there's certainly a lot of precedent for that in the rest of the Bible. We frequently see offerings that are given to God and then God shows his approval or his commendation by burning up the offering. So that's, I think that's very likely what happened here. Another possibility is that perhaps God gave some sort of audible word that this sacrifice pleased him. So what's the point so far? What does it mean that God commended Abel? The point is that God commended Abel publicly by accepting his gifts because his gifts were offered by faith. So he commended him publicly by accepting his gifts. What applications can we make from that? Firstly, you can also receive God's commendation for your obedience. It almost sounds kind of strange or not right to say that because we know it's by faith we're saved, right? Yes, yes, but we obey as a result of faith and that obedience does actually please God in Christ because of Christ. So you too can receive God's commendation for your obedience. Not only in the future when God will publicly declare before everyone that you are his and that he is pleased with you, but even now I think that there are at least three different ways in which God commends us as his saints for our obedience. And the first one is in keeping a clear conscience and maintaining a clear conscience If you know what God requires of you and you are striving to obey Him in faith, you can be sure that He is pleased with you because you're reading His Word to know what He requires of you and you are seeking to do that. So you can be sure that he is pleased with you as you are maintaining a clear conscience, as you're obeying him, as you're doing your duties, knowing that he accepts your obedience for his son's sake. He's not saying your obedience is perfect. It can't be this side of heaven, but he does accept it. He does commend you for it. So in keeping a clear conscience, in addition to that, in some sense, I think we can say even in him sanctifying us, because as we are pursuing obedience by faith, we are looking more and more like the one we're trusting in. And in that sense, he's, I believe, commending us as righteous because by faith, we are being transformed into the image of the righteous one, the one who did please him perfectly, who was commended by resurrection. And then there's one other way that I think we can also receive commendation from God, and that's through the church. In the words of brothers and sisters in the church, when we give verbal affirmation to brothers and sisters in Christ, and it's a valid affirmation for their faithfulness, We are voicing God's commendation for them. We are bearing witness for Him that that action or that character that they demonstrated or those words that they said were Christ-like. And I believe that we should aim as Christians to do this for one another. But perhaps you are hearing these words right now and you recognize that you are not obeying God and you recognize you're not receiving his commendation for your present lack of obedience and you know that you don't deserve it. Well, if this is you and if you are trusting in Christ, first of all, repent. It's never too late to do that. Repent. It's never too early to do that. Repent, but second, take comfort in knowing that God still accepts you as righteous in his son. Think of the names that he calls you in his word by which he commends you as his. He still calls you his son or his daughter. He still commends you as beloved. Then lastly, one more application is that your works, your prayers, and your worship, even though they are stained with sin, even though they are affected by weakness, they are accepted by God in Christ. He commends us for our worship of him. But now we come to our final point, which is this, the witness of faith endures. What does it mean? What does it mean that Abel, through his faith, still speaks? How is it? Let's break this up into a couple of smaller questions. How does Abel still speak? Let's go ahead and read the verse again, the last part of it. It says, and through his faith, though he died, he, Abel, still speaks. So how does Abel still speak? I think that the key to understanding this perplexing and much disagreed upon phrase is looking at what the author has just told us. Abel had faith by which he obeyed and by which his obedience was commended. It is this faith, this faithfulness through which that Abel speaks. So in what sense does he still speak through faith? Well, the author's focus seems to be that Abel speaks to us by means of his faithful life. That though he is presently in heaven and that his body is waiting for the resurrection, he speaks to us by means of the witness of the life that he lived by faith. In case you're thinking I'm going a little far off there into hypothetical mode, Joel Beakey also says this. Listen to this. He says, the sacrifice offered by faith, referring to Abel's, still speaks today. The word of faith transcends time. And then Spurgeon also had this to say. Oh, that all of us might so live that even out of our graves there might come a voice speaking for God. I think we already see this happening in the pages of the New Testament when our Lord Jesus refers to Abel. What does he refer to him as? Righteous Abel. So the Lord Jesus referred to him all these years later as righteous Abel. His faith still was speaking. And we have scripture by which we can learn about Abel's faithful life and this phrase about him in Hebrews 11. And so in that sense, he is still speaking to us by that faithful life. It's one thing to say, how does he speak to us? And in what sense does he speak to us through faith? But now let's answer the question, what does he tell us? What is he telling us? If he's speaking to us, what is he telling us through his faith? That you can please God by faith. That you can live a faithful life by faith in Christ, and you can receive his commendation. I believe we can see through his faith that obedience is the fruit of faith. He is telling us that in his life. And I believe he's also telling us that God commends the obedience of his saints. But in addition to that, I think there's also a couple of other things that, in a sense, he tells us through his faith. And one of these ways is that in his life, remember, what was Abel's occupation? He was a shepherd. I believe that in his life, we see a type of a better shepherd who also was persecuted for righteousness sake. So I believe that we have a type of Christ in Abel as a shepherd. And in addition to that, as I already mentioned earlier, I believe that in his offering, we see the type of a better firstborn lamb who can atone for all of the sins of his people. So what does it mean then that Abel through his faith still speaks? It means that through the witness of his faithful life, we still learn of the obedience which comes from faith and the commendation that God gives his saints for obedience. So let me now make a few closing applications. The first application is this. Death has no power over your faith, dear Christian. It cannot stop the noise of your life and the sanctifying influence of your life from long after you're gone. Death cannot stop the voice of your faith from crying out, Christ is my king and he is worthy. Should persecution come, what then? Can that silence your faith? They may cancel you. They may take your house and your earthly possessions, but they cannot take your faith. Moreover, they cannot make your faith stay silent. Then lastly, Abel had a covering for his sin by faith. Christians, praise God, we have a covering for our sin. Spotless Lamb of God is the cover for our sin. His blood hides all our transgressions from view. But if you're here and you're not a Christian, what is going to cover your sin on the day of judgment? What is going to hide you from God's all-seeing eye? There's nowhere else to turn and there's no one else to go to. except for the one who you have been rejecting. You have everything you need to be saved in the perfect person and work of Christ. And he offers to cover your sins with his blood. He offers to give you peace with God. He says, if you come to me, I will not cast you out. Let's pray. O Lord God, we are so thankful that you are a gracious God. You've given us faith. You've given us a wonderful Savior who endured the cross for us, who enables us to endure through this life. Help us, O Lord, to look more like Him. May the result of this message be that we would look more like Him. your word to stand and all human opinions to fall. But may your church be sanctified and may the sinners be saved. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.