Created from Nothing (Hebrews 11:3)

Hebrews 11:1-3 and the Meaning of Faith

Hebrews chapter 11, and we're going to read together the first seven verses. Hebrews 11, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts and through faith though he is dead he still speaks.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death and he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please him for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

By faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we ask your help today in understanding your word. We pray that you would use your word to increase and bolster our faith, to encourage us in the truth, to give us the confidence that we need in things that we have not seen so that we may live in the midst of a hostile world.

We pray that our time here today would be well serving to you, well serving to us that it may edify and equip your people and it may glorify your great name. So we pray your blessing on this time and for us to understand it to that end we ask in Christ's name, amen.

Well there's a challenge that I'm facing as I'm preaching through Hebrews chapter 11. I shouldn't say that I'm facing it, actually all of you are facing it because though I'm preaching you're along for the ride, so whatever's challenging me is going to be a challenge.

To you as well.

But the challenge is this, it is knowing how far to trace the Old Testament references that we find in Hebrews chapter 11 and going back to those references, how deep do we dive down that rabbit hole as it were.

You may have noticed as we've gone through Hebrews, the book of Hebrews that every time that there is a citation from the Old Testament, we've taken the time to go back to that Old Testament citation and see how the original author and the original audience would have understood that and then to transport that forward into the New Testament context so that we can see what the New Testament author was meaning when he made reference to those Old Testament texts, trying to be faithful to the author's intended meaning and the original audience's understanding of that text and its context.

That's a very…that's a very essential element of what we have been doing and we've done it with some frequency in the book of Hebrews because Hebrews, of course, is loaded with Old Testament references.

When we get to Hebrews chapter 11, it is just one long list of Old Testament characters and events and places and things and illusions that are going to draw us back into the Old Testament. So the challenge is as we go back and look at some of those characters, which we have to understand some of the things going around those characters to understand what the author of Hebrews is trying to teach us through them, the challenge is going to be how far down that rabbit hole do we go?

Because I could take Abel and Enoch and Noah and do a little biographical sermon series on each one of those men. And so at what point does…at what point would this cease to be a study of Hebrews 11 and become just a series of biographical messages about Old Testament characters who happen to be mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11?

Do you know what I mean? So it's going to be very difficult for me to keep my foot in both of those worlds, as it were. And I don't even know exactly what this is going to look like in the weeks ahead.

I'm hoping to figure out what this is going to look like in the weeks ahead really soon. But as of right now, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to try and strike that balance, and we'll just maybe figure it out as we go.

But this dilemma is something that we face even as we get to the very first example of faith that we have in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3, by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen is not made out of things which are visible.

Now, you may not realize it at first, but there is a little mini-series of sermons, a little mini-series of issues there that we can unpack in those verses. You may not realize it at first glance, but there is an apologetic argument that's being offered there, particularly, and by apologetic we're talking about the defense of the Christian.

Faith.

There is a philosophy of apologetics that is presented in verse 3. It is actually presupposed, that's why we call it presuppositional apologetics, but there is a whole methodology there that's sort of packed into that verse.

It would take a good lengthy sermon to unpack that. It is by faith that we understand these things. That's a presuppositional approach to truth. It presupposes certain things are true. There's also something in those verses about epistemology.

Do you know what epistemology is? Epistemology is the study of knowledge, particularly how we know what we know. How do we know what is true? Can truth be known and how do we know truth? Is truth discovered by the human intellect?

Is truth something that exists outside of us? Is truth something that we make up? How do we know that what we know, we know we actually know? Do you know that or what you know, do you simply presume it?

Do you assume it? Is it an opinion or is it fact? Is there anything that is actually true? And what makes something true? And what makes us able to know that we know what is true? A hundred years ago, we knew certain things were true, and in the last hundred years there's dozens and dozens of those things that we now know were not true, and we know now that what they knew, they didn't really know.

So that's what epistemology is. How is it that I know that all of creation came into being? Was I there? How can I know what is true?

How do I know?

Am I justified in what I think that I know? That's the study of epistemology. There's also here a lot of detail about the doctrine of creation itself that would be worthy of an entire series of messages.

Those are just the various rabbit holes that I'm tempted to chase this morning. I'm not going to chase any one of them very far. We're really going to focus this morning, and we're not returning back to verse 3, but we're really going to focus this morning just on what verse 3 teaches us about faith itself, the role that faith plays in helping us to know things that we have not seen.

And we're going to unpack here this morning what we understand by faith about the agent of creation and his agency, namely God and his power. That is the agent of creation, the one who created it and how he created it, by the word of his power.

We're going to look at that. And then we're going to look at the nature of creation itself, that what we see, that which we see in creation was not made out of things which already appeared. By faith we understand these things.

So that's our outline this morning. Before we get to that, I'm going to chase a couple of these other rabbit holes just to sort of set the table for when we actually get into this verse. It's very interesting how the author introduces the list of examples of faith.

He starts in verse 3, not by pointing to an Old Testament example. He takes us back to the Old Testament through creation, but the illustration or example that he gives is actually an illustration or example of faith that you and I have.

It's we who have this faith. We understand that by the Word of God, all of creation, all of the worlds, all of the universe and the cosmos, all of it was formed and prepared. It's God's Word who did that.

We understand this. We know this by faith. Now his reason for referring to our faith, his purpose in doing that, is not to suggest that you and I have earned our place amongst the list of Hebrews that we find in…or list of heroes that we find in Hebrews 11 by virtue of our faith in the God of creation.

His point is simply to say that the type of faith that he is describing with all of these other characters from Hebrews chapter 11, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc., that kind of faith is not some unique faith.

It's not some special faith granted, given, empowered just to a super select group of spiritual people. You look at those heroes and you think those men are heroic men. Abraham, Moses, Noah, Enoch, Abel, those are great men.

They must have had some super special secret faith that the rest of us do not have. They must have achieved some extra level, some next plane that is…the rest of us are excluded from that special plane.

And the author's answer is no. The faith that these men had, it's the very same faith that allows you to begin reading at Genesis 1 .1 and say, I believe that. That's the faith. It's the same faith. If you can read Genesis 1 .1 and say, I believe that in the beginnings God created the heavens and the earth just as He has described it in the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.

If you have faith to believe that, that kind of faith, the trust in that kind of unseen thing is the same…is a faith of the same quality, the same nature, the same substance as the faith of Moses who said, I'm willing to turn my back on all the treasures of Egypt for the sake that I might have Christ or the Messianic cult that is to come.

It's the same faith that Abraham had when God said to him, leave the family, leave your land and go to a land that I'm going to give to you and your descendants. It's the same faith. So the point in looping us into this is not to say that these men…it is to remind us that these men do not have a certain special level of faith.

It's the same faith. It's the same faith. Your faith may be stronger, your faith may be weaker, your faith may be equal to these men, but it is the same kind of faith. He's not appealing to us to have some extra special level of trust in God that is available only to a select few.

He's taking us back to the beginning because this really is a perfect example of what faith.

Is.

He is asking us or He is actually telling us that we believe. When we accept and embrace the doctrine of creation, the first chapter in Genesis, we're going right back. And that faith that is required at the very beginning is the same faith that saves us, it's the same faith that sustains us, it's the same faith that pleases God.

It's that faith.

If you have that kind of faith, the kind of faith that accepts God at His Word regarding things that you have never seen and you were not present for and you do not witness and cannot be repeated and cannot be tested in the laboratory, if you will believe what God says concerning those things, that is the kind of faith that pleases God.

The type of faith we're talking about, you cannot even begin reading your Bible and understanding it and knowing it and embracing it unless you have it. Does that make sense? It goes right back to the very beginning.

It's verse 1. This is foundational, this is elemental. We believe and accept the testimony of Scripture concerning the creation of the world and this is the very kind of faith that He is talking about.

The one who does not believe this, by the way, does not have that kind of faith, but he does have a firm conviction or a faith of sorts in another thing. There is a difference between the creationists and the naturalists, the creationists and the evolutionists.

You see, both of us are convinced of things that we have never seen. I'm convinced of something that I have never seen. I'm convinced that the God who is described in Scripture spoke the entire universe and all of the cosmos into existence roughly 6 ,000 years ago, and He did all of this in six literal 24-hour days and then rested on the seventh, and that everything following that is literal history, just as it is laid out and spelled out in the book of Genesis.

That I am convinced of. Have I seen that?

No.

Can I test that?

No.

Can I repeat that?

Nope.

I mean, I can't repeat the experiment or the act. I can repeat what I just said, but I can't repeat the experiment or the act. So it's unrepeatable. And I've never seen it. I wasn't a witness to those things, but I am absolutely convinced that that is true.

The naturalist, the atheist, the evolutionist is utterly convinced of things he has never.

Seen.

He has never seen an ape turn into a man, but he is convinced that it happened. He has never been able to repeat that process, but he is convinced that it happened. He is not able to duplicate it and make it again.

He was not there to witness it. He is accepting at face value the word or testimony of other things, be it a scientist or Darwin or a science paper or a science teacher or whatever it is. He is embracing and accepting all of that on the basis of faith.

He believes the testimony or word of another concerning things that he has not seen. That is what our faith in the creation or the Creator is. It is a belief in something that we have not seen, but we are believing and trusting in the word of one who is reliable, who was there, who did witness it, who could repeat it, who in some sense in the future will repeat that very thing, and we are trusting his testimony.

We are both accepting these things at face value. See then, the creationist and the naturalist, we don't have different sets of evidence. We have presuppositions that we bring to the table. In other words, there is not a bucket of evolutionary evidence and a bucket of creationary evidence,.

Right?

And the goal is to just fill those buckets up with as much evidence as we can. There is no such thing. There is just evidence. You see, we all live in the same creation, don't we? The atheist, the evolutionist, the creationist, the naturalist, the materialist, the supernaturalist, and the immaterialist, we all live in the same creation.

We all observe the same thing, the same stars, the same dirt, the same fossils, the same processes, the same natural laws, the same laws of logic. We all have access to the same things. We just bring different presuppositions to the table.

The atheist evolutionist brings the presupposition that there is no God and that everything leapt into existence out of nothing, that there was nothing, and then suddenly there was everything exploding and expanding, and that all of that, according to natural laws and processes, all organized itself and information came from nothing, order and design came from nothing, and that there's really no purpose or teleos in any of this, but that it all exists and it all functions as it does, and it is going nowhere, and eventually it's all going to burn out.

We're all going to suffer and die from ultimate heat and motion death at the end of time. The sun's going to burn out and everything's going to cease to exist and suck back down into one principle point of nothingness, and then the whole process will start itself all over again.

That's the presupposition. So then they take that. I mean, that was a long presupposition, wasn't it? But they take that, that's their framework, and then all of the evidence, they plug it into that, and they say, here how we interpret all the evidence in light of that.

I begin with different presuppositions. The atheist evolutionists have their presuppositions, that is, things that they presuppose bringing.

It to the table. You do too.

Everybody has presuppositions. It cannot be avoided. Everybody has them. You have to acknowledge them, identify them, and examine the presuppositions to see if they're justified. So as a creationist, I have a certain set of presuppositions.

I presuppose that God exists and that He has spoken and that He was there and that He created everything and that it bears His mark and that He has a purpose and intelligence and that all of these things exist because God has a purpose for all of them and that you and I are created in the image of God.

That's my presupposition. Now, I take all the evidence that we have. It's the same evidence that the evolutionist has and I dump it into my presuppositional paradigm and I can evaluate it in those terms.

That's how the game is played and there's no way of avoiding that. And I'm not going to belabor the point here, but I just want to point out there is nothing in science that contradicts creation, nothing.

That should be patently obvious to us since we've had two spring conferences, one with Paul Taylor and one with Jason Lyle. There is nothing in science that contradicts creation.

It cannot.

Now, scientism contradicts creation. Scientism is different. See, scientism is a religion.

It's a faith.

It's a presuppositional approach to evidence that has certain presuppositions. Materialistically speaking that begins with God doesn't exist and all the other things I just spelled out for you a few minutes ago, that's scientism.

Scientism is a rationalistic approach to truth. It is a progressive. It is part of the progressive, atheistic, secular, God-hating philosophy of the age, the spirit of the age that now dominates everything.

And some scientists are scientismists. I could say that some scientists are materialists, but some scientismists is a lot funner to.

Say.

Try it. Not now, but later on. Scientismists. Some science are scientismists. That is that they have adopted the religion of scientism. And one of the challenging things in our age particularly is knowing how it is that we distinguish when somebody is speaking to us, how it is that we distinguish between what is science and what is scientism.

There are certain things that science can say and tell us. Scientism is a whole philosophy that is often grouped with that. And so then they will say things like, we just need to believe the science or the science is settled.

Believe the science. The word science is used as a dog whistle, a trap, a trap door to the belly of hell itself, I would say. That word comes loaded with all this baggage that is attached to it by which they sneak into us all of the presuppositions of the spirit of the age and all the atheistic, secularistic, God-hating, man-denying truths of creation that we know to be true.

Science becomes the Trojan horse by which all of that is snuck into us. And they say, believe the science. Just believe the science. Well, that's usually something that's screeched by the high priests and priestesses of the secular progressive religion spirit of the age.

And they say that and what they mean by that is embrace whatever God-hating, secular, progressive, atheistic narrative that is currently being belched up out of the bowels of hell, whatever that is, and it'll change tomorrow.

You need to believe it and you need to accept it because that's the narrative. That's what they mean by that. Distinguish between science and scientism. There's nothing in creation that is contradictory to science.

I said I wasn't going to belabor that. I guess that's what it looks like when I don't belabor something. Now, in a sense, these are all connected to the list of heroes that we have in Hebrews chapter 11.

The kind of faith that we have in a God who created things even though we have not seen that event or we see the effects of it, but we have not seen the event. We did not watch it happen. We did not see His power.

We did not hear those words, but we believe the testimony that He has handed down to us because He was there and He wrote and communicated to us exactly how He did it. We must rely upon Scripture to tell us those things, and by faith we understand that those things are true because human philosophy cannot tell me anything about creation.

Human philosophy cannot tell me why I exist. Human philosophy cannot tell me how everything came to be. Human philosophy cannot tell me how everything is supposed to work together, what the purpose of it is, what the end result of this is, where it's going, where it came from, or even why we're here.

Then we wonder why would anybody even listen to a philosopher if they can't answer any of those questions, but they can. They can't tell me…philosophy can't tell me anything about the God who created it.

It can't tell me anything about how I am not related to that God who created it or how I can be related to that God who created it. It can't tell me anything about how God created anything. Philosophy is unable to do any of that.

Human reason cannot tell you anything about how God created anything or about the God who created it. Now, human reason can tell me, can demonstrate to me, according to Romans chapter 1, human reason can tell me that there is a God because we know that from nothing, nothing comes, so human reason can tell me that there is a God.

Human reason can tell me that every effect has a cause and that whatever caused this effect known as the universe must be greater than the universe, outside of the universe, and more powerful than the universe, and older than the universe.

Human reason can tell me all of that, but human reason cannot tell me that that God who created all of those things, that being, that His name is Yahweh and that He loves me and that He sent His Son to die on a cross and that I am a sinner and that I violated His law.

Human reason can't give me any of that information. So philosophy is unable to answer any of those questions. Human reason is unable to answer any of those questions. Science cannot tell me how things were created.

Science can tell me what exists. Science can tell me how the things that exist relate to one another. Science can tell me what will happen to the things that exist if I want to make them not.

Exist.

Science can tell me all of those things, but science cannot tell me how it came into existence. By faith, we know all of this. By faith, we know how God created. We know why He created. We know what our role is in creation, what He expects of us, why we were created.

We know our destiny. We can understand creation. We can understand its fallen state. We can look at creation now. And by faith, because we accept God's Word, Genesis 1, 2, and 3, 3 being the fall of creation after it was created perfect, because we understand that, we know exactly why it is that there is sin, disease, death, destruction, and deterioration in the world that exists.

Why everything that we read about in Genesis chapter 1, which God said is good and very good, why we look around now and we say, this doesn't look good or very good. We know those truths because we have embraced by faith the testimony of Scripture which describes to us exactly why it is that these things are so, why they are the way that they.

Are.

By faith, we understand who this Creator is and how we can be related to Him. These truths, these are the most important truths in all of creation, and these truths are inaccessible to those who rely upon philosophy, human reason, or human intellect or science because none of those disciplines can tell me the ultimate meaning of any of these things.

You and I, we, because we embrace by faith the testimony of Scripture, we stand in the light of truth of these things. Those who reject the testimony of Scripture and begin with human reason, philosophy, or science, they stand in darkness and they do not understand these things.

To us, who are in Jesus Christ, who embrace God's Word by faith, to us, the mysteries of creation have been revealed. The ultimate purpose, the ultimate design, the ultimate aim, what happened in the past, what is going on now in the present, and what will ultimately happen in the future, all of that has been revealed to us.

We know these things. We know things that the most intelligent and educated philosophers on the planet have never hoped to be able to understand. They admit that they cannot understand. You and I understand and know these things.

Why?

Because we're smarter? Because we have a better education? You have more degrees on the shelf than the other guy? Is it your staggering intellect? Is it your good looks? What is it that allows you to know these things that philosophers and scientists and kings have never understood?

It's because it's been revealed to you. And when you embrace by faith what has been revealed to you, then you know and understand truths that they cannot even begin to apprehend. Stephen Hawking, brilliant man, I think we would all say.

But he lived and he died in moral, intellectual, spiritual, ethical darkness. There are 10-year-olds in this congregation who know more about the important issues of life than Stephen Hawking could ever grasp.

10-year-olds. Now, I'm not saying there are 10-year-olds in this congregation who know more than Stephen.

Hawking.

Stephen Hawking knows more about the functioning of an atom or a ray of light than all of us put together in this room. He knows more about all of those things. There's no 10-year-old in here whose training, whose knowledge base is equal to Stephen Hawking.

But Stephen Hawking can tell you how an atom works, a 10-year-old can tell you why the atom exists, because God created it. I need to know what the 10-year-old knows and not what Stephen Hawking knows.

It's not that what he knows is not valuable to us. It's not that what he knows does not advance human condition or human flourishing or any.

Of that.

But it's that by faith, we understand things that the mightiest intellects amongst our entire society cannot understand. Now when we say by faith, and I'm getting to the text itself, but still chasing a couple of rabbit holes.

Let's be patient with me because each of these could be whole sermons, but they're not. These are just like snippets or reviews of sermons that I had in my mind all week long. Faith doesn't make these things true.

Understand that. When we say by faith, we understand it, what we're not saying is by faith, these things become true for me in some subjective sense, because that's how the culture would understand.

This.

Well, that's your, you believe that by faith, well, then that's true for you. But that's not what's true for me. What's true for me is something different. So you believe that by faith, therefore, it becomes true for you.

No, we're saying that these things are objectively true, and the only way that we can understand them is by accepting and embracing divine revelation. And my faith does not make something that is untrue, true.

My faith allows me to know and understand as true that which is true. Do you understand the difference between those two things? My faith doesn't make it true. My faith doesn't, there's this whole philosophy now that says that you embrace something by faith and it becomes your own lived experience, or your own lived experience becomes what you know as true.

If you have lived this experience, then that's true. I was listening to a podcast this last week where it was an unbeliever who was being interviewed, and she twice mentioned the lived experience. First, this is my lived experience, and then second, this is the lived experience of someone else.

Lived experience. Is there ever a stupider phrase ever invented in the course of human history than the phrase lived experience? You're hearing it more and more, and you know why? Because our culture is getting dumber and dumber, that's why.

Lived experience, is there any other kind of experience other than lived experience? Did you experience World War I or II? Did you experience the Civil War? You just didn't live through it, but I experienced it?

No, you see the phrase lived experience is supposed to put whatever they belch up as true as unassailable, so it becomes sola experientia. Nothing else matters. Not sola scriptura, not scola fide, nothing else.

It's sola experientia, and they can say this is my experience. You say, well, this is my experience, I had this happen to me. Oh, well, this is my lived experience. Oh, if it's your lived experience, well, then I'm supposed to just genuflect before you, and I can't question anything you say, because that's your lived experience, therefore it is above critique, or above analysis, or whatever it is.

No, we're not saying that by faith, these things become our lived experience, or our unlived experience, or any other stupid colloquialism that people want to drum up. We're saying that by faith, we understand that these things are true, because they are.

True.

And they would be true if I never existed, and if I never had faith, they would be true even if nobody had ever heard the name Jim Osmond. These things would be true if I had never been dreamed up, they would still be true.

Because that truth is true regardless of me, the subject. It is objectively true, therefore it is outside of me. These things are true, we don't make them true by our faith, we understand the truthfulness of them by faith.

That's different, faith becomes the eyes through which I see that which is unseen, and I don't make it true, I understand that it's true. So that is why he says in verse three, finally, back to the text, by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what was seen is not made out of things which are visible.

Yes, that is a philosophical, apologetic, a presuppositional, scientific statement that's being made there, a statement about the agent of creation as well as the nature of creation. So now let's dive into verse three, and we will get through all of verse three today, I promise.

I have to tell you that at the beginning because you might be thinking, well, there's two things there, that's going to be next week. No, we're going to get through all of verse three today. It is by faith that we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God.

The word translated worlds is the Greek word I own, and it encompasses far more than just this world. It's far more actually than just a collection of worlds or a collection of planets or even our galaxy or even just the universe.

It's far more than just matter itself. In fact, the ESV and the NIV translate that as universe. By faith, the worlds were prepared, sorry, the universe was prepared or made by the word of God. So they translate that word I own as universe, and that's getting closer to it because it does involve not just all that is matter, all that is physical and all that exists, but it involves actually far more than that.

The word doesn't describe just physical matter, but all the things that relate to physical matter. So, for instance, sometimes this word is translated in Scripture as time, as era, duration, eternity, beginning of time, ancient time, forever and ever, and three forevers there, it was hard to keep a comma between them, forever and forever and ever.

Sometimes this word is translated in that way. It is referring not just to what exists that we see, but I own refers to everything that exists and everything that goes on with what exists. It is an all-encompassing word.

So in Hebrews 1, verse 2, when we say, when the author says, in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world, that's the word that's used there, the world.

He's not just referring to this planet, He's referring to everything. This then is the universe, it is space, it is time itself, it is everything in time. It is not just the world or all the world, but it is the galaxies, and not just our galaxy, but every galaxy.

It is the entire universe, the space in which it is hung. See, God didn't just create things to fill space that was there forever. He stretched out the space and created the space and then put everything in that space.

Can you even comprehend how magnificent that is? You know how many light years it is from here to the nearest galaxy? I don't know off the top of my head, but it's lots, it's a big number. Light years, not traveling miles per hour, but miles per second, hundreds of thousands of miles per second.

It's an enormous accomplishment. It's the space and everything in it. He created the laws of logic, time itself, the laws of nature, and the physical laws, the scientific laws, the laws of physics. These are all derived from him.

It is impossible to understand why any of these things exist and why anything exists rather than nothing existing. It's impossible to understand any of that or even begin to comprehend it or even begin to discuss it without presupposing that this God exists and that he created it according to scripture.

You have to begin with that presupposition. This word describes not just the physical universe, but the operation of the physical universe. It is the idea of what he communicated back in Hebrews 1, verse 3, when he says, Christ upholds all things by the word of his power.

And upholding all things by the word of his power doesn't mean that he just keeps everything intact so that it doesn't just go out of existence. But the idea is that he carries along. He upholds all things.

And that word has to do with carrying something along from point A to point Z to its appointed.

Goal.

He created it all and he carries it all along, bears it all, so that he carries it to its appointed end. There is a goal that is in view in everything he has created, and he is faithfully, by the word of his power, carrying us toward that ultimate goal.

That's the idea.