Faith is Better Than Keeping the Law sermon of the Better: Key to Understanding the Old Testament series teaches us that faith, simply believing in God and taking it at His Word, gives us understanding.

Key verses:
Hebrews 11:1-3

Amen. I ask you to take your Bible and turn to Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11. I want to read tonight the first three verses. That’s all we plan to look at are the first three verses. There’s a great deal in those first three verses that I think will help you. We’ve talked about the theme of the Book of Hebrews being “better.” Tonight, we’re going to talk about another one thing that is better, and that is that faith is better than the law. Let’s read verses 1 to 3 of Hebrews 11:

Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:2: “For by it the elders obtained a good report.”

Hebrews 11:3: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

The whole theme of Hebrews chapter 11 is faith. Now, there is a teaching that’s around today, and it’s been around since Paul’s day, that people in the Old Testament were saved by works, and people in the New Testament are saved by faith. This chapter totally disproves that idea. By the way, that’s the reason that Paul wrote the Book of Galatians was to tell people that there’s no salvation by works. It has to be by faith. It’s the whole theme of the Book of Galatians.

Then there are those who say, “Well, yes, you can be saved by grace, but if you don’t keep the law, you’re going to lose your salvation.” That is a lie. That is a lie. Then there are those who say, “Well, you know you need a little works to help your grace.” No, you don’t because you can’t help your grace. Because if you’re trusting the Lord, then it’s all Him, and it’s none of you.”

All right, we’ve said some of these things before, but this is all born out here. We’ve been seeing such things throughout the Book of Hebrews. But here, in chapter 11, it’s so abundantly clear.

Does God Exist?

Let’s start with the first verse:

Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Let me ask you a question. Does the being whom we call God exist? Yes. Okay, I tell you that He does. Logic and reason indicate that there is a God. There has to be a first cause. There has to be an origin to everything else. History indicates that there is a God. Human beings, great and small, throughout history, have professed not only to believe in God but to have personal experiences with Him and to have their lives changed by Him.

Then, as we’ve already hinted, creation demands a Creator and a Creator must be a designer. There is order in the universe. There’s order, and this order indicates an intelligent designer. One who could design and then create the universe would certainly meet the definition of God.

Then, the scriptures proclaim that there is a God and only one God. The scriptures have been proven to be true by fulfilled prophecies and other means. There’s the preservation of the scriptures that we can read. The same words in our language, to be sure, that people read thousands of years ago.

I think one of the greatest evidences is the life-changing power of faith. Now, those of us who have been born again know what it means to truly be a new creature in Christ. If, then, we conclude that God does exist, wouldn’t it be a good idea to know Him? God has revealed Himself, and if you go back to chapter one, He reveals Himself in these last days by His Son. God has revealed Himself through creation, through the scriptures, through personal experiences, through answered prayer, through changed lives, and through His Son.

Now, if there is a God and if He has revealed Himself and we can know Him, then it’s our duty to know Him. Wouldn’t you say? Alright, so, if we can know God, we can have a relationship with Him. And that means He wants us to draw closer and closer to Him, to know Him better. More than that, He wants us to be growing to be more like Him.

What Is Faith?

Now, verse one again, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Substance is something you can touch. Substance is something you can see. So, “faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Let me give you an illustration. You order something, an item from an Internet catalog or maybe from another catalog, and you’ve not seen the item. You’ve seen a picture of it, and you’ve maybe read a description of it, and so, you think it’s something that you need or something that you want, something that would be good for you, and so you order it. Now, you order it. It is usually shipped to you, and they usually give you a time for shipping. Depending on whom you order it from, they may give you a charge for shipping, but what do you do then? Do you check the mail? Do you check the delivery services? Do you track it online to see where it is, to see if it’s coming to you yet?

Does anybody here do those things? Yeah, always. You know why? You believe it’s coming. You ordered it and you believe it’s coming, and so you’re looking for it. Therefore, you have hope. You have hope that you’re going to receive that which you ordered. But all of that is based on faith. Do you see that? Faith in ordering something. Having faith? Yeah, you have faith in doing that. That’s an illustration of faith.

Is that going to save my soul? Absolutely not. But faith has to have an object. So, faith is the substance of things hoped for. That item that you ordered is going to be delivered, and it is “the evidence of things not seen.”

Now, that’s an interesting statement. There are many things that I’ve never seen but I believe in. I believe in air, though I’ve never seen it. I believe in sound, though I’ve never seen it. “Say well, you’ve heard it.” But I haven’t seen it. I believe in North Dakota. I’ve never seen that either. I believe in rhythm. Did you ever think about that? You’ve never seen rhythm. “Yeah, I have. I see somebody tapping and or playing.” You see what rhythm produces. You haven’t seen rhythm. You see evidence of rhythm, just like you see or hear evidence of sound. Do you understand what I’m saying?

But you don’t see those things. There are so many things in life that we don’t see but believe in. And we ought to believe in these things. So, faith is the evidence of things not seen. So, you have evidence through what you can see, but you trust in what you can’t see.  Then, in verse two, it says:

Hebrews 11:2: “For by it the elders obtained a good report.”

“For by it,” – by what? What’s the “it”? Faith. Yeah, absolutely. “For by it the elders obtained a good report.” They had a good report with men, to be sure, but most importantly, they had a good report with God. Can I share something with you? Verse two by itself, if this were the only evidence we had, and it isn’t, there’s so much more, but verse two by itself would disprove this idea that people in the Old Testament were saved by keeping the law and people in the New Testament are saved by faith.

Well, look at the elders referred to here. You understand when this is written when Hebrews was written, the New Testament hasn’t been finished yet. Nobody’s walking around carrying copies of the New Testament.

So, who are the elders he’s talking about? He’s talking about those of the nation of Israel who lived before them, the ones he’s talked about in the first 10 chapters and is going to talk about in this chapter. And he names, name after name. We’ll get to that, God willing, later on. But, “For by it [by faith] the elders obtained a good report.” They’re in good standing with God because they kept the law, right? No. Because they had faith.

Let me give you some evidence of that. By faith the elders, those of the old time, obtained a good report with God. Genesis 15:6 says of Abraham:

Genesis 15:6: “And he believed in the LORD; and he [the Lord] counted it to him [Abraham] for righteousness.”

Now, those same words are very similar words found in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23. Psalm 2:12 says:

Psalm 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

Who’s the “him”? The Son. And that’s Psalm 2:12. You read up a little further in that same Psalm, and it’ll tell you the begotten Son of God.

Through Faith, We Understand

Now, verse three:

Hebrews 11:3: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Now, some people are going to read that and say, “I don’t know what that’s talking about, but you do if you stop and think about it. You really do. The things which are made, the worlds, were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen, that you see right now, were not made with things which do appear. It’s talking about creation. It’s talking about how God created ex nihilo out of nothing. That’s what it means. “Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

In other words, God didn’t do like a lot of us would do. Well, there’s a little of this over there that I need, and there’s some of this over there, and, oh yeah, I could use some of that up there and start putting it together. Started with nothing and designed the worlds.

Now, verse three again says, “through faith we understand” that. Why does it take faith to understand that? You and I weren’t there, and nobody else was there. No matter what they tell you, nobody else was there, not even Adam and Eve, nobody else was there. And so, we have to take it by faith.

So, Hebrews chapter 11 is often called the Great Faith chapter or Faith’s Hall of Fame. I think that’s a good title for it, and for good reason. The subject of the chapter tells us what faith is, what faith does, and examples of those who live by faith and that salvation by faith are clearly presented in this chapter.

It’s been wisely said that faith must have an object so as not to be blind faith. Now, that makes sense. Our faith has to have an object. It’s fine to talk about “have faith.” Have faith. But your faith needs to be in someone. It cannot just be, “Well, I believe something’s going to happen, so it’s going to happen.” Now, the world sometimes teaches you that. You know, the world sometimes teaches you that if you just believe hard enough, things will happen. You know, what does that mean? Believe in what? Believe that things are going to happen, and then it happens? On what authority?

See, we need to believe in the person who makes the promise. So, faith has to have an object. We need to believe in the person who makes the promise to see what is delivered. So, again, back in verse one answers the question: What is faith? The substance or the substantiation for things hoped for, things that have been promised but haven’t happened yet. But you have to have faith in the one who promises, and that is the evidence or reason to believe in things that we have not yet seen. Verse two:

Hebrews 11:2: “For by it the elders [ancients] obtained a good report.”

And again in Romans 4:3-5:

Romans 4:3: “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

Romans 4:4: “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.”

Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

And then, in verse three:

Hebrews 11:3: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Isn’t that great? Through faith, we understand. It’s a wonderful statement. Faith, simply believing in God and taking Him at His Word, gives us understanding. Sometimes, you’ll hear something said, or you’ll read something, and right away, you know that’s right. How do you know? It’s right because you know it lines up with what God’s Word says. Sometimes, the opposite happens. You hear something, or you read something, and right away, you know that’s wrong. It doesn’t take you a long time to figure it out because you know it goes against what God says.

So, we need to have faith to understand creation because you and I were not there. Again, as we said, neither was anyone else. So, we understand these origins because we believe what God has said.

Scientific Evidence

I’m going to read you some material that I got. I like to give credit where credit is due. The source for much of this material is the Answers in Genesis Organization. So, what about scientific evidence?

In 1992, John Searl, professor emeritus of the philosophy of mind and language at the University of California Berkeley – now, remember, professor emeritus of the philosophy of mind and language at the University of California Berkeley – wrote regarding the evolutionary theory of biology, and said, “At present, the evidence is so overwhelming that they are simply not up for grabs.” They are simply not up for grabs. In other words, he’s saying the evidence for evolution is so strong there’s no reason to even talk about it. Nothing to even discuss. All the evidence points in that direction.

Now, he states that the evidence is overwhelming, but he doesn’t cite any of the evidence and doesn’t present any of this overwhelming evidence. Well, you would assume that he feels that it’s so overwhelming that everybody knows about it. I guess that’s what he was thinking. It seems logical, but note also that the professor is not the type of professor you might think would be dealing with the subject. “What do you mean?”

Well, in 2008, an American theoretical physicist, Steven Weinberg, admitted the following, “The world view of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature, our emotions and love are made possible by chemical process in our brains, and they are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance.”

Did you hear that? You have your emotions because of chemical reactions that act upon chance. Can I interject something here? I’m going to read more to you in a second, but the fact that you can think about that and come up with that thought ought to tell you that that statement is not true.

But he went on to say these chance mutations over millions of years, living without God isn’t easy. Professor Weinberg is not a Christian. I know that shocked you. He is not arguing here for the existence of God. He’s simply admitting that living without God presents certain problems that don’t seem to have answers.

And then David Masci, writing for the Pew Research Center in 2015, gave five facts about evolution and creation.

Number one: At least three popes have accepted or at least not objected to evolutionary theory. Well, that sets my mind at ease, doesn’t it yours? I mean, if at least three popes believe in evolution, that ought to settle it. I don’t think so.

Number two: A minority of Americans fully accept the scientific explanations for the origins of life. Well, that ought to tell you something, too. If it’s only a minority of Americans who accept the scientific explanations of the origin of life, why is it the minority? Why not the majority?

Number three: 33% of U.S. adults say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. I read that somewhere. Oh, that’s right, that was in Genesis.

Number four: About 26% of American Catholics say that they do not believe in evolution of any kind. Guess they didn’t know about those three popes.

Number five: A series of court decisions prohibit the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in public schools. Now, some of those decisions have been challenged. And in some places, it depends on where you are, and we’ve told you this so many times, but in this country, the laws are different depending on where you live. Some things are legal in one place and not in another place. So, in some places, you can teach intelligent design in school, but you have to check with your local laws.

So, my point is that there is clearly not overwhelming evidence that has convinced the majority of people to believe in evolution as opposed to God the Creator. So, it is philosophy, politics, and attorneys that claim to prove this view.

Scientists are divided on the question, and they are. You’ll find scientists say oh, absolutely yes, evolution has overwhelming evidence. You’ll find others say no, hold on. Evidence points in a different direction.

So, as we’ve said two or three times already, none of us were there in the beginning. So, through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. God spoke, and the universe came into existence. God said, and it was so. So, that is the introduction to this chapter.

Beginning with verse four, we have a list of people and examples of how they lived by faith going back to Abel, one of the first children of the world, sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. So, we’ll see Abel, God willing, when we come back to Genesis chapter 11.

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Let’s pray. Father, thank you so much for blessing us. Thank you for what we have in our hands: the very Word of God. Thank you that by faith, we can find the answers, and that doesn’t mean we ignore facts that are around us. It doesn’t mean that we are in opposition to science. It simply means that we understand that science is all about understanding what you have done and trying to learn how you did it, how you are doing it, and how your creation works.

Lord, let our faith be strengthened. Let us realize that faith is better than the law because by it the elders found their salvation.

Now, bless us as we go our separate ways. Bring us back together again, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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