II. Faith Works

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II. Faith Works

“¹⁴ What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, ¹⁶ And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? ¹⁷ Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. ¹⁸ Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. ¹⁹ Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. ²⁰ But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-20)?

The fact that real saving faith works is equally true of sanctifying faith.  In Hebrews chapter eleven, Abel is the example of saving faith.  Enoch is the example of sanctifying faith.  The action verbs of sanctifying faith are reckon and yield (Romans 6:11-13).  Sanctifying faith is a life lived in cooperative synergism with the indwelling Holy Spirit.  The Bible word for this synergism, or partnership in holiness, is “fellowship.”  Without these two verbs of sanctifying faith, the Christian life is reduced to a legalistic form of will-power sanctification produced through the power of the “flesh.  This is the opposite of a life of grace through faith.  Therefore, reckoning the “old man” to be “crucified with Christ” is necessary before a believer can yield to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. 

When the believer’s life is consumed with knowing God and living for God, the rotting scales of worldliness will begin to fall away from our lives.  This spiritual dynamic is a matter of focus.  Focusing upon getting rid of worldliness is like trying to disengage a fishhook embedded deep in the flesh by pulling on it as hard as possible.  The result of doing that will increase the damage already done.  The solution is to cut out the hook, not rend the flesh.  If we want worldliness removed from our lives, we need to change the desires of our hearts to wanting to know, serve, worship, and walk with God more than anything else in our lives.  This demands a kind of faith that transforms the human will.  Before this will ever happen, our faith in the reality of God must increase through the knowledge of God’s Word. 

This world is filled with millions of professing Christians who are baptized, confirmed, and who have become members of local churches.  They attend church services, but for most of these people, the reality of their profession of Christ will seldom get beyond the church-house doors.  They are not working at living pure and righteous lives.  Neither are they intent on studying the Word of God in order to know and do God’s will.  Most of these people have no real desire to reach the lost and make no real effort to reach the lost for Christ.  Their profession of saving faith never transitions into the manifestation of life transformation in working/ministering faith.  This anomaly is a contradiction against the supernatural effect of saving faith. 

The reality of faith that understands the eternal condemnation of a soul and the eternal salvation of a soul is discovered by asking one simple question.  “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul” (Matthew 16:24-28).  Notice that the question is not asking about the value you put upon an eternal soul.  Everyone believing in an eternal Hell would say a human soul is priceless.  The question is really, what would you GIVE for one soul, especially if it was YOUR soul?  The reality of faith is tested by answering this question. 

In Matthew 16:21-23, Jesus had just told His disciples that He was going to go to Jerusalem and there He would be killed by the Jewish Sanhedrin.  Peter rebukes Jesus for consenting to this death when He could avoid it.  Jesus rebukes Peter with some remarkable words; “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:23).  Peter yet did not understand the necessity of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the redemption price of lost souls.  The price being paid was unfathomable!  Jesus was establishing His answer to the question, “what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  Jesus was willing to GIVE His life.  This is what Jesus is addressing in Matthew 16:24.  Real faith understands the value of an eternal soul and is willing to pay whatever price is necessary to bring ONE to Christ.  We will never understand this until we have learned to give out of our poverty rather than out of our abundance.  When the money is gone, what then can you give? 

“²⁴ Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. ²⁵ For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. ²⁶ For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? ²⁷ For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. ²⁸ Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom (Matthew 16:24-28).

          Real Christianity is where real Christians live a real faith in the give and take of a real world.  James continues to bring us before the never lying mirror of God’s Word for self-examination.  We would be foolish to have God bring us to the never lying mirror of God’s Word for self-examination and not respond to the convictions of what that mirror exposes about the real us.  This is the warning regarding the possibility of an artificial faith spoken of in James 1:23-25.  If we bring what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-28 into the context of what is said in James 1:23-25, we add a great deal of depth to what James is saying.  Real faith works as defined by what price we are willing to actually and personally GIVE in exchange for a soul. 

“²³ For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: ²⁴ For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. ²⁵ But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:23-25).

          All true teaching of “the faith” requires that we take a long and hard look at our spiritual reflection comparing the reality of what is seen with the expectations of God revealed in the Word of God.  We must carefully compare what we see with any discrepancies or contradictions to what God’s Word says.  In doing so, we are looking for a living faith.  A living faith is a working faith that walks the walk, not just one that talks the talk.

There is a story of a little boy who came home after church services one Sunday morning puzzled.  He asked his daddy, what is a Christian?  His dad put him on his knee and carefully explained what it meant to be a Christian.  He said a Christian was a person who had trusted in Jesus Christ to save his soul from having to go to hell by calling on Jesus to be his Savior.  He said a Christian was a person who read and studied the Bible every day to discover God’s truth so he could live for God and obey Him.  He said a Christian was a person who talked to God and believed God would meet his every need.  He told him a Christian was a person who tried to love all people the way God loves them, even those people that hate you.  He told the little boy that loving them meant making any sacrifice necessary to get people saved and help them to become Christians too.  After the father finished, the little boy’s eyes grew big in amazement, “Daddy, have you ever met one of those kinds of people?”

Biblical “faith,” like biblical Christianity, is defined by what we do, not by what we know. The point of James 2:20 and 26 is that knowing truth, without doing truth, is dead faith.  Paul deals with the same issue in his confrontation of the continuing carnality in the lives of the Corinthian believers.  “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.  Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (II Corinthians 13:5).  Paul is saying, the change in the way you live will prove if Christ is really living in you.  Lives lived to the contrary of God’s revealed will in God’s Word reveals a contradiction to saving faith.  In fact, reprobation is the danger (II Corinthians 5:17).

Faith is the certainty (a real possession) of the spiritual things we hope for.  Faith is the proof of the reality of the spiritual things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1).  Therefore, faith comes:

1. By hearing the Word of God regarding an invisible spiritual truth

2. Resulting in a conviction that the truth is real (owning it)

3. Implying a pledge of fidelity to that spiritual truth

4. Resulting in obedient action that corresponds with that truth (living it)

Without anyone of these elements, neither saving faith or working faith is real.  Hebrews 11:4-40 gives detailed illustrations and personal examples of those who acted upon the truths of God as a reality (true working faith).  Faith holds the title deed to do what God promises and acts upon that title deed as if the property in question already belongs to the believer. 

Biblical faith deals only with truth and reality as defined by the Word of God.

1. By the Word of God, we know what is real

2. By the Word of God, we experience what is real by acting upon the Word

3. By the Word of God, we possess what is real because it is the immutable promise of God

God honors living faith (Hebrews 11:2)

“For by it {faith} the elders” {Hebrews 11:2; all the generations of faithful believers before us; both men and women, some of who are listed in Hebrews chapter eleven} were honored by God.  As we look at each of these people, we will see that God honored them by honoring His promises to them.  He looked after them, cared for them, corrected them, directed them, and gave them victories over their enemies and the world around them.  God has historically honored faith.  We can believe He will historically continue to do so. 

True life transforming saving faith expresses itself in moral obedience to God’s Word and in ministry to others in a working faith.  That is what James means by the use of the word “works” (ergon).  It can also be translated doing. In James 1:23, the word “doer is from the Greek word poietes (poy-ay-tace’), meaning a person who performs what he professes.  Faith without “doing” is self-deception about its reality.

“²² But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. ²³ For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: ²⁴ For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was” (James 1:22).

          James is not proposing that “works” (doing) is a means of salvation, but rather that it is a product of (and proof of) a real and living faith.  This is the evidence of the kind of faith that really saved a person.

    Any professed faith in Christ that continues in resistance to God’s will (as revealed by His Word), in rebellion against God’s will (by selfish disobedience), or that continues to reflect an attitude contrary to God’s Word, must question its own hypocrisy and its own reality.

 

     The groundwork of introduction to James 2:14-20 is verse 13.  “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”  Just as mercy is the inevitable response of real and true biblical love, verses 14-16 show us that works, a working faith that does what God says, is the inevitable response (action) of a real, true biblical saving faith.  When you take a real, living faith before the mirror of God’s Word, that which is reflected is an action of life that images a “doer of the word.”

Anonymous comments will not be allowed. 
Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/ 
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist. 
He has served the Lord for over 40 years.

Faith Works

Faith Works

         

Faith works!  These are two simple words with profound significance.  Real saving faith changes the way we live our lives including the focus and priorities of our lives.  The fact that real saving faith changes the way we see life in our relationship to God is the evident reality of the four examples of continuing faith in Hebrews chapter eleven. 

Abel – saving faith continues in the purity of worship of God

Enoch – saving faith continues in the purity of walk with God

Noah – saving faith continues in diligent work for God

Abraham – saving faith continues in consistent witness for God

Real saving faith will be evidenced by continuing in these four areas of faithfulness.  Real faith understands that we live and exist before the omnipotent and omniscient presence of God.  He knows all that we are, sees all that we do, and hears all that we say.  There is nothing about us that is hidden from God.  There are no secret sins of which God does not know intimately.  There is no place we might harbor our secret hatred or the wickedness of unforgiveness.  God knows the “thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).  God has saved us through faith, recreated us “in Christ,” and miraculously given to us all that we need for a living faith.  Peter, Paul, and James write explicitly regarding the supernatural inward transformation of life and priorities in the transition from real saving faith to real working or living faith. 

“¹ Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ {the impartation of the righteousness of God and Christ in the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit}: ² Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge {intimate, full, personal, practical, relational knowledge; not just intellectual knowledge} of God, and of Jesus our Lord, ³ According as his divine power {now dwelling within us in the Person of the Holy Spirit} hath given {once for all; perfect tense, passive voice; participle} unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him {intimate, full, personal, practical, relational knowledge; not just intellectual knowledge} that hath called us to {dia – denoting the channel of an act through which something flows; therefore through or by God’s} glory {to live with godly dignity in constant praise and worship of God} and virtue {the significance here is the believers works with God as partners and is not merely commanded to do what God says to do apart from God’s help}: ⁴ Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be {potentially dependent upon choice} partakers {partners} of the divine nature {the God-life has been breathed into the believer}, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (II Peter 1:1-4).

Salvation of the soul through saving faith is merely a new beginning of a life of faith – faith that works.  We must be careful to distinguish between the corruption of salvation through faith in “the works of the Law” (Galatians 2:16) and between the “works” that come forth from a regenerated life enabled by the indwelling Spirit.  Confusing these issues has corrupted the doctrine of salvation “by grace” (Ephesians 2:8) and the doctrine of grace enabling (Galatians 3:1-5) in more ways than we could possibly explain except in a general way.  Trusting in the “works of the Law” is to corrupt salvation “by grace” creating thousands upon thousands of false testimonies of salvation and false Christians.  Trusting in the “works of the Law” to be sanctified before God apart from a grace enabled life is to corrupt the operations of the Spirit of God in more way than we can imagine.  This is the substance of Ephesians 2:4-10. 

“⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, ⁵ Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) {perfect, passive, participle} ⁶ And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: ⁷ That in the ages {the Kingdom Age and the New Heaven/Earth} to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace are ye saved {perfect, passive, participle} through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is {salvation} the gift of God: ⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:4-10).

          Ephesians chapter two begins with the word “and” revealing that this is a continuation of chapter one.  However, the emphasis changes from what is available to the believer-priest from God’s blessings to the responsibilities of the believer priest in his vocational calling (Ephesians 1:18 and 4:4).  We are immediately confronted with a syntactical inconsistency (anacoluthon).  Ephesians 2:1 begins with “you” and then shifts in the syntax from singular to the plural (“ye”), or to the collective of believers, through the rest of the text down through verse ten.  This is critically important to our understanding of Ephesians 2:4-10.  The syntax of Ephesians 2:1 shows that salvation is viewed individually.  However, once a person is saved, a believer moves into a family relationship with God and is viewed within a collective perspective from that point forward in his life.  This collective perspective is specific to the vocational ministry (Ephesians 4:1) of the priesthood of all believers under our High Priest Jesus Christ.  This is critically important to all believers as we see our vocational moral responsibilities in the “work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:12) from God’s perspective united together as a spiritual family unit in a local church.  The local church is the medium (green-house) in which saving faith is intended to grow into a vibrant living faith, which is the substance of Ephesians chapter four.  

          God’s whole ministry of redemption is an outworking of His love that provides His loving and enabling grace first works in the salvation and regeneration of sinners “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).  Therefore, the priesthood of every believer demands that all work of the ministry be a continuum of that loving grace as the believer proclaims the love of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Every believer-priest is a walking miracle of New Creation.  Every believer-priest has been “created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”  The “good works” of Ephesians 2:10 must be the supernatural overflow of the filling of the Spirit of God (Ephesians 5:18) manifesting the overflow in the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23) – “^22b love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, ²³ Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

“¹⁴ For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷ That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted {implying the necessity of stability} and grounded {having foundations} in love, ¹⁸ May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; ¹⁹ And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19).

          There is no stability in any relationship that is not “rooted and grounded in love.”  This is certainly true of our intimate and personal working relationship with God.  Without the grace of love, the first conflict that comes along dissolves the relationship with the acid of bitterness and resentment.  God-kind love, or self-sacrificing love, understands the constant potential for failure because we are by nature fallen and corrupted beings.  Therefore, God-kind love understands the absolute necessity of giving forgiveness.  The very nature of forgiveness is the loving gift of a new beginning to someone that deserves it no more than you deserve God’s grace.  This is why God describes “the love of Christ” as an act of grace that “passeth knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19).  The love Christ gives is incomprehensible because we cannot possibly understand the holiness of God.  Therefore, it should be much easier for us to understand the gift of love in giving forgiveness because we need God’s forgiveness so often.  How dare we not give forgiveness to others as freely as God gives it to us? 

“¹ I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, ² With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; ³ Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; ⁵ One Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. ⁷ But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Ephesians 4:1-7).

          There is no excuse for being unloving or unforgiving.  “Every one of us is given grace” (Ephesians 4:7).  Every one of us has God’s indwelling Spirit and His supernatural enabling to be as loving and forgiving as is God.  Every one of us is to forbear “one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).  The word “forbearing” is from the Greek word anechomai (an-ekh'-om-ahee).  It simply means to put up with.  However, the qualifying term is that we are to love while we are putting up with that brother or sister “in Christ” that gets to our flesh.  Certainly, this does not merely mean to tolerate someone.  Loving someone speaks to the issues that annoy us or cause the tension, which leads us to the next good work in the admonition in Ephesians chapter four –we are to speak “the truth in love.”

“¹¹ And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; ¹² For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: ¹³ Till we all come in the unity of the faith {doctrine, purpose, and practice}, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: ¹⁴ That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: ¹⁶ From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).

          Love without truth is like sugared medicine without the medicine.  Truth without love is like the sickening taste of the chemicals in medicine without the sweeteners that make it palatable.  Granted, truth has value apart from love, but it is often rejected because of the way it is presented.  If I were lovingly convinced that I was dying, I would gladly take a medicine that would save my life regardless of how bad it tasted.

 

A person can be told that he is acting like a stupid jerk.  In doing so, the probability is that such a person would just act more like a stupid jerk.  Or, a person could privately be told that he is being very offensive and that people will reject him if he does not change his mannerisms.  Even how he is informed of that is important.  There is a difference between a head-to-head confrontation and a come alongside confrontation.  There is a difference between a finger-in-your-face confrontation and a gentle, reasoning appeal to consider your admonition.  True biblical love is ALWAYS a “fruit of the Spirit,” – produced through the filling of the Spirit.  We are not talking about man-kind love.  We are talking about God-kind love.  This is a major part of a working or living faith.  

          Secondly, according to Ephesians 4:10, the connecting spiritual dynamic to local church unity, and local church growth is God-kind love.  “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure {individual provision} of every part {individual Christian}, maketh increase of the body {the local church} unto the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16).  The word “edifying” is from the Greek word oikodome (oy-kod-om-ay').  It refers to a domed or crowned temple referring more to the architecture or structure of something.  This term is used to describe local churches made up of living stones of “born again” believers (and ultimately to the Church in prospect, which is the Church of the Kingdom Age).  The “increase of the body” is the building up of the spiritual temple of God with living stones through evangelism and discipleship (shaping of the stones).  This “work of the ministry” MUST be done “in love.”  Only through the spiritual dynamic of supernatural God-kind love produced as fruit of the filling of the Holy Spirit can individual Christians be used of God to build God’s oikodome (oy-kod-om-ay' – living Temple.

          In Ephesians 5:1-2, Paul introduces the all-encompassing commandment recording biblical love.  “¹ Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; ² And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”  The word “walk” is from the Greek word peripateo (per-ee-pat-eh'-o).  The word is present tense, active voice, and imperative mood.  It might be translated as you are walking around doing your stuff, maintain an attitude of self-sacrifice.  The imperative mood means it is a command from God.  To fail to maintain an attitude of self-sacrifice is to be living in disobedience.  God is concerned with our hearts – what motivates us in our obedience.

The book of James was probably one of the first epistles written.  It defines and answers the basic question of Christianity - what is faith?  Real faith is always a faith that acts upon what it believes.  In this sense, it can be said that real faith works.  The right kind of “works” reveal true faith.  For instance, real saving faith acts upon the Gospel it believes through five verbs – repentance, believe, confess, call, and receive.  Faith that does not act upon the Gospel through these five action verbs is not saving faith.  Saving faith is the faith that justifies.  These five action verbs are the substance (Hebrews 11:1) of saving faith. 

 

However, James 2:14-20 is teaching about working faith once a person is “born again” as an expectation of the reality of salvation.  Saving faith is a living faith and a living faith manifests itself through works; ministry in truth and through sacrificial love!  There is a transformation of the will and the priorities of life that accompanies real saving faith.  In other words, there must be the same types of definitive substance to living or working faith as there is with saving faith. 

 

“¹⁴ What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, ¹⁶ And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? ¹⁷ Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. ¹⁸ Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. ¹⁹ Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. ²⁰ But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-20)?

The fact that real saving faith works is equally true of sanctifying faith.  In Hebrews chapter eleven, Abel is the example of saving faith.  Enoch is the example of sanctifying faith.  The action verbs of sanctifying faith are reckon and yield (Romans 6:11-13).  Sanctifying faith is a life lived in cooperative synergism with the indwelling Holy Spirit.  The Bible word for this synergism, or partnership in holiness, is “fellowship.”  Without these two verbs of sanctifying faith, the Christian life is reduced to a legalistic form of will-power sanctification produced through the power of the “flesh.  This is the opposite of a life of grace through faith.  Therefore, reckoning the “old man” to be “crucified with Christ” is necessary before a believer can yield to the indwelling Spirit of Christ.  

Anonymous comments will not be allowed. 
Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/ 
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist. 
He has served the Lord for over 40 years.

Examples of Continuing Faith

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Examples of Continuing Faith

 

How, and with what, we worship God is an expression of our faith.  Worship is particularly an expression of what we believe about salvation and about God.  Worship without devotion to Who and What is God is nothing more than illusive self-deception in false Pietism.  False beliefs regarding the Person of God (His defining attributes and character) will always end in false worship.

 

As believers grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, worship is purified of everything and anything that is worldly.  As a believer’s faith, what he believes, is purified of everything unscriptural, his worship is purified of everything unscriptural.  This process of purification is what defines personal holiness.  Personal holiness is the purest form of worship in that the believer who pursues holiness is pursuing to restore the image of God in his life.  To pursue holiness is to pursue godliness. 

The greatest form of honor we can give another is to seek to be like that person.  When being godly is that pursuit, such pursuit is worship.  When being like another person becomes our goal in life, that person has become an idol.  We must be careful even in following the spiritual leadership of men lest we make of them some form of idol worship.  Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1).

Ignorance of God breeds corrupted worship of God.  To understand that God is perfectly holy is to understand that anything worldly that is used to worship Him corrupts that worship.  From the beginning of time, professing believers have been integrating the work of their hands into the worship of Jehovah.  Since God was invisible to them after the curse, men began to make images of God to aid them in visualizing Him and worshiping Him. 

The earliest form of approved worship was the sacrifice of a lamb upon a stone altar upon which the sacrificial lamb was slain and upon which the blood was poured.  The altar had to be a natural, unhewn rock or stone (Exodus 20:25; Deuteronomy 27:5).  The first form of corrupted worship was in what could be offered to God corrupted by the idea that the offering was food for God.  The next form of corrupted worship was in the corruption of the altar made with hewn stones, later exalted by steps, and then upon hilltops (High Places in the Bible).  The work of man’s hands can never correct the condemnation caused by the sin of man’s hands.  The nature of the sacrifice of a lamb as a form of worship is pure in its representation of two things. 

1. Mankind’s guilt of sin that brought death and the curse into the world through sin. 

2. Death of an innocent One was the only way eternal separation from God (death) could be removed from the curse upon humanity as descendants of Adam. 

We can see the early development of corrupted worship in Cain’s offering to God.  We can also surmise how Cain’s corrupted view of worship could evolved into seeing such a sacrifice as food for God and how this corruption could lead to Pantheism and paganism in idolatry where hewn rock altars began to be given shapes representing a visualization of God’s presence.  These corrupted gifts of food sacrifices believed God’s wrath was appeased giving the worshiper a sense, or feeling, of momentary security from fear of God.  All these forms of visualization and feelings centered worship have morphed into all the corrupted forms of worship of modern day Christianity.  Worship has become more about the worshiper that the One worshiped. 

Faith is more than just what we believe – right doctrine or orthodoxy.  Faith defines a relationship with God.  Therefore, faith is more than just dutifully doing what God commands because we fear God.  Faith is doing what God commands because we love God and want to please Him as loving children want to please and find the approval of their parents.  Moral duty just dissolves away into devotion with this kind of faith.  This is true orthopraxy.  Herein lays the real difference between the faiths of Cain and Abel.  Cain’s faith was corrupted before his worship was corrupted. 

“⁴ 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. ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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 that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:4-6).

Abel’s continuing testimony of faith was that he maintained pure worship per God’s ordained pattern (Hebrews 11:4).  We are told in Genesis 4:2 that “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.”  God had already established that man’s approachability to Him must be preceded by faith in the death of a substitute.  Abel maintained purity of this faith/belief and worship by strictly following this pattern directed by God.  This pattern has never changed.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

          Cain on the other hand abandoned this idea.  Cain tried to approach God with the fruit of the cursed ground and the produce of his cursed hands.  Why was Abel’s offering “more excellent”?  It was “more excellent” because it was offered based upon continuing faith through a strict application of God’s instruction regarding the nature of the typical offering of an innocent substitute and the satisfaction of wrath by the typical offering of innocent blood to propitiate God’s judgment.  The typology reflected a faith understanding reflected in worship through the offering of the typical Substitute. 

This is the continual warning of Hebrews; “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation (Hebrews 2:3).  Abel is the positive example of continuing faith.  Cain is the negative example of reprobation in abandonment of God’s ordained way thereby exemplifying falling away from true faith.  Would Cain have ever offered the sacrifice he offered if he ever really understood the typology of the offering of the innocent Lamb? 

The warning of Hebrews chapter six is addressed to those that are thinking of abandoning faith in the finished sacrifice of Christ by returning to the continual offerings of the Mosaic Covenant and the Mosaic priesthood.  To do so was to “fall away” from faith in Christ’s finished sacrifice revealing that they had no real grasp on the reality of that accomplished and “once for” sacrifice of Christ.  Would anyone return to offering continual sacrifices if he understood the once for all (Hebrews 10:10, 12, 14, and 18) nature of the sacrifice of Christ?  This is a hypothetical situation presented in the warning of Hebrews chapter six. 

“If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:6). 

Abel’s continuation in the practice of “the faith” was manifested by the appropriate sacrifice he continually offered.  Right worship and right faith existed in Abel’s head in the form of right doctrine regarding the gift of salvation before it ever came forth in worship from his heart.  Approved worship always comes forth from a right head through a right heart directed in praise to God.  Therefore, an important point in worship approved by God is that such worship ALWAYS reflects orthodoxy regarding the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith (John 4:24).  By Abel’s orthodoxy regarding the doctrine of salvation, Abel obtained witness (God’s testimony) “that he was righteous” in the substitute typically portrayed by his offering (Hebrews 11:4).

There was no difference between Abel and Cain as far as each being sinners before God (Romans 3:22-23).  The difference was in their faith.  Either Cain was never taught the Gospel in the Substitute Sacrifice (Genesis 3:15), he did not understand it, or he rejected it in unbelief.  Whatever happened, Cain’s faith was corrupted with false beliefs which then generated corrupted, false worship.  Real faith is anchored to the revelation of God’s Word and never gives up on the promises of God.  Real faith sees those promises as certainty (Hebrews 11:1). 

The word “testifying” in Hebrews 11:4 is from the Greek word martureo (mar-too-reh’-o).  The interesting thing about this word is that it is in the present tense.  In other words, God is still giving witness to the superiority of the sacrifices (“gifts”) of Abel, and by that continuing witness of God, Abel, though now dead, continues to speak to us as well (Hebrews 11:4).  Abel was righteous, not based on his character, but based on his gifts of sacrifices manifesting the object of his faith – the coming Messiah.  God keeps this kind of testimony alive, even though the original testifier has died. 

“And by it” (Abel’s continuing faith) Abel continues to bear witness after his death to the “certainty of God’s promises” (Hebrews 11:1).  Had Abel quit at any time in his life as did Cain, Abel would have manifested a false faith.  Cain, after God rejected his offering, “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Genesis 4:16).  Cain’s offering reflected an abandonment of God’s way “by grace through faith.”  The conclusion must be that Cain never truly understood the Gospel represented in the Lamb sacrifice, so he was never really saved.  If Abel had done that, He would bear no continuing witness.  The idea of the text continues the emphasis that the only way to approach God is found in and through Jesus Christ as the substitute sin bearer (propitiation) and the imputation of God-kind righteousness (justification). 

Abel is our example of continuing faith in the purity of worship of God.  Common, worldly, or unsanctified things must never be used to worship God.  Genuine salvation is the first prerequisite to any one’s worship being acceptable to God.  Genuine sanctity is the second prerequisite. 

“¹⁶ Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. ¹⁷ I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. ¹⁸ If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: ¹⁹ But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. ²⁰ Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me” (Psalm 66:18).

Enoch is God’s chosen biblical example of continuing faith in the purity of walk (sanctification) in fellowship with God (Hebrews 11:5-6).  No other person in the Bible history had this testimony (except perhaps John the Baptist).  God gives no record of any failure in Enoch’s life.  Sanctification is not about a sinless life.  Sanctification is about a continual consciousness about the reality of our sinfulness before God and a constant humble attitude of remorse and repentance.  To be able to cultivate that kind of attitude about sin is no small accomplishment. 

“²¹ And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: ²² And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: ²³ And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: ²⁴ And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:21-24).

Enoch walked with God for three-hundred and sixty-five years of his life and God took him home without death.  Why did God bless Enoch with a blessing no one else in history has ever been blessed with?  The answer is because he “pleased God” (Hebrews 11:4) by maintaining perfect fellowship with God, he “walked with God.”  This is the testimony that God gives about Enoch. 

We often speak of giving testimony for God.  Telling people about Who God is and what He is doing is what people of faith do about the God we love and serve.   Yet, how often do we consider the fact that God bears testimony about us; glory!  Within the constant barrage of Satanic obfuscation of truth and the corruption of the faith of men, God brags on His faithful children.

“⁶ Now there was a day when the sons of God {angels} came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. ⁷ And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it {causing trouble, sowing seeds of discord, and corrupting the faith of men}. ⁸ And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (Job 1:6-8)?

The book of Job is a whole book, forty-two chapters long, about God bragging on one of His children.  God reveals more about Himself in the book of Job in His personal conversations with Job than anywhere else in the Bible.  Nowhere else in the Bible do we have a record of God having this kind of long, intimate, personal conversation with one of His children.  God chose His best to fight against Satan’s accusation that all men have fickle-faith; that if God does not bless them, they will not worship Him.  God believed in Job! 

Job lived in the land of Uz (or Huz).  Huz was the son of Abraham’s brother Nahor.  Lot was the son of Abraham’s brother Haran.  Therefore, Job live around the same time of history as Abraham and Lot or shortly thereafter.  Yet Job has his own unique historical record apart from Abraham.  This is important because Job’s faithful historical testimony of faith in God is different from anyone’s.  Job’s record is that of a man chosen by God to fight against the onslaught of Satan to establish that there are men who will maintain the integrity of their faith in God regardless of what happens to them in this life.  Like Enoch, these types of people are an extreme rarity.  There are not many people God can trust with these kinds of temptations and testing of their faith.

 

Hebrews 11:6 continues to exemplify the faith of Enoch with the all-encompassing, time transcending statement, “But without faith it is impossible to please God.”  Was Enoch sinless (Romans 3:23, 5:12)?  If not, what about Enoch then made him different?  God says Enoch’s faith made him different.  Enoch continued where he began for all his life.  Enoch, like all after him that wanted to please God, “came to God.”  He believed God was Who He said He was.  By faith, Enoch believed God would reward those “that diligently seek him.”  There is no record that God ever appeared to Enoch.

There is no record that God ever spoke with Enoch.  Enoch was remarkable because he believed simply by the testimony of others about God.  That simple faith moved him to pursue a relationship with the God in which his faith rested.  The example then is in the answer to the question, what do you suppose Enoch (a man of faith) did as the result of that belief?  Enoch diligently sought God until God was so pleased with him that God just translated him to heaven from off the face of the earth.  Enoch’s one desire was to walk and talk with God and God gave Enoch the desire of his heart.  Enoch’s desire should be the consuming desire of the faith of every believer.

The words “diligently seek” are from the Greek word ekzeteo (ek-zay-the’-o).  The word means Enoch had an insatiable craving to know God.  Enoch’s life was consumed with a desire to intimately know God and live and walk in fellowship with Him.  This is how God defines the kind of faith that pleases Him (Hebrews 11:6). 

Quite frankly, we should not be concerned how anyone else defines the kind of faith that pleases God other than God.  Perhaps this definition is why only one man in the history of the world has the testimony that Enoch had.  Genesis 5:22 and 24 tells us that “Enoch walked with God.”  Hebrews 11:5 tells us that because “Enoch walked with God,” Enoch “pleased God.”  In other words, Enoch had the kind of faith that wanted to know God, be with God, talk with God, and live for God.  This “pleased God.” 

“⁵ 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. ⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is {exists}, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:5-6).

God provides a juxtaposition between the faith of Abel and Enoch.  Cain murdered Abel because Cain was jealous of Abel’s favor with God.  Abel was murdered by Cain for his faithfulness, but nonetheless ended up in heaven with God bearing an eternal testimony to all generations after him; “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” (Hebrews 11:5).  Abel did not live long, but as long as Abel lived, he continued to hope in God’s promised as manifested by the fact he continued to offer the appropriate worship sacrifices.  Both Abel and Enoch have wonderful testimonies of faithfulness.  They both ended up in heaven!

Enoch’s life might be described as a life of faith consumed with God.  However, when a person’s life is consumed with knowing and serving God, uniquely this person’s life is not consumed.  Instead, such a person’s life is expanded exponentially to its fullest, possible extent.  Enoch’s physical life was expanded to such a degree that for him to have more of God than he had in this life, God had to take him into eternity.  Enoch had an insatiable desire to know God and live with Him in perfect fellowship.  God blessed that desire by rewarding Enoch’s faith by just taking Enoch home to Heaven to live with Him. 

Noah is our example of continuing faith in the purity of work or service (Hebrews 11:7).  God continues to maintain the testimony of people of real faith.  Sometimes the work God asks us to do can be tiresome and thankless.  For the unbelieving world, serving God and preaching the Gospel seems foolish and is deemed ridiculous.  In Genesis 5:29, God says of Noah, “And he {Lamech} called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.”  The word “Noah” means rest or comfort. 

“⁷ 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” (Hebrews 11:7).

Satan’s greatest deception has been to convince the clear majority of people that he does not exist while convincing the same people that God is to be blamed for everything Satan has done and is doing. 

In Genesis 6:9, God says of Noah, “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”  Like Enoch, Noah “walked with God.”  In Genesis 6:22, God says of Noah, “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

According to Hebrews 11:7, God tells us that Noah was “moved with fear” of God and did what God told him to do.  Why was Noah’s service of faith so great an example of continuation in service?  In Genesis 7:4 God said to Noah, “I will cause it to rain upon the earth.”  That does not seem like such a remarkable statement to us today.  What makes it remarkable is to understand that, according to Genesis 2:5, it had never rained before.  Here you have a man building a giant ark for floating a zoo and preaching that God was going to destroy mankind with something called rain.

“⁵ And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. ⁶ But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” (Genesis 2:5-6).

Can you imagine the ridicule Noah receive from those to whom he preached and warned during the one-hundred years he spent building this giant floating zoo?  Yet he did not quit “according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (Genesis 6:22).  Notice also that Noah did not argue with God about the size of the ark he was instructed to build.  Logic and pragmatism would argue that the ark was going to take a long time to build and eventually thousands of people would heed the warning and need accommodations inside the ark.  Noah built according to God’s omniscient vision of the need in the size of the ark.  God understands the wickedness and unbelief in the hardness of the hearts of apostates.  Although God in grace preaches to them through Noah, He also knows none of them will repent and believe.  The test was of Noah’s faithfulness!

         

     Abraham is our example of continuing testimony of faith in the purity of witness (Hebrews 11:8-19).  God had given Abraham the promise of a land and a people (nation).  Can you imagine stopping Abraham after he had left his home and family at Haran and being able to ask him a few questions?  “Where are you going Abram?” Abraham answers, “I don’t know, I am going someplace where I will receive an inheritance.”  We ask, “Who told you that and how will you find it if you don’t know where it is?”  Abraham answers, “God told me! He will show me!”  We ask, “Which God do you worship Abram?”  Abraham answers, “I worship my God!”  God spoke and Abram obeyed.

          The point is that Abraham knew very little of the specifics about what God told him.  Abraham just moved by faith per God’s instruction believing God would lead him.  Abraham did so all his life.  This is Abraham’s testimony.  We need not understand everything God asks us to do.  There is an aspect of faith that will not understand what God asks of us until these things are finally realized in glory.  We just need to do what God asks us to do in the way God directs us to do it. 

“⁸ 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. ⁹ 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: ¹⁰ For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. ¹¹ Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. ¹² 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 sea shore innumerable. ¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off {through the eyes of faith}, and were persuaded of them {convinced in their hearts they were real}, and embraced them, and confessed {testified to others} that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth {Heaven was their real home}. ¹⁴ For they that {including all faithful believers} say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. ¹⁵ And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. ¹⁶ But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore {because of their faithfulness in their vison of their future existence} God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. ¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, ¹⁸ Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: ¹⁹ Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead {this is what Abraham believed manifesting the reality of his faith in God and the reality of his justification before God}; from whence also he received him in a figure” (Hebrews 11:8-19).

The world would shake their heads in amazement over a man wondering around in the desert looking for a land of which he know nothing of its destination, believing in an unknown God.  Yet Abram continued looking (Hebrews 11:9).  Why did Abraham continue?  Abraham continued because faith saw certainty in the promise of God (Hebrews 11:10). 

Abraham’s continuing testimony of faith in his purity of his witness is twofold:  land and people (Hebrews 11:11-12).  Did Abraham quit believing God for the son he was promised?  He waned in his belief, but never quit.  He was ninety-nine years old and Sarah was ninety years old when Isaac was born.  Jacob would not be Isaac’s son until sixty years later.  By faith, the land of promise was his possession (Hebrews 11:9), although Abraham never possessed it except by faith. 

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Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/ 
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist. 
He has served the Lord for over 40 years.