(Hebrews) ch.11:1-22 — Zac Poonen

Hebrews 11:1–6 — Faith Beyond Intellectual Belief

We come now to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1. In the last three verses of Hebrews chapter 10, we saw something of what faith involves. It involves a patient endurance, waiting expectantly for the coming of the Lord, being willing to endure until that time to receive the promise.

Hebrews 10 verse 36. And not drawing back, not shrinking back, but willing to go all the way in the footsteps of Jesus. And continuing on the same theme of living by faith, which is spoken of in chapter 10 verse The righteous one shall live by faith.

This is a quotation from the Old Testament, Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 3 and 4. If you read the Old Testament, you know that this matter of faith is very little mentioned in the Old Testament. But we have this promise in Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 3 and 4.

My righteous one shall live by faith. And that is quoted three times in the And here in Hebrews 10 verse 38. The righteous one shall live by faith. It is by faith that we are made righteous. But to understand what that faith means, we must see what is mentioned in chapter 11.

Perhaps some of the most commonly misunderstood words among Christians today are the words grace and faith. And yet we cannot afford to misunderstand these words, because we are told in Ephesians 2 8, it's by grace we are saved through faith.

Our entire salvation is by God's grace and through our faith. So if we misunderstand these two words, we stand in great danger of not experiencing the salvation spoken of in the New Testament. Take the matter of faith.

So very much misunderstood. Many people think of it almost as though it is just an intellectual belief in certain facts. It's almost as though God takes people into heaven merely because they intellectually believe certain facts, irrespective of the way they live.

This is a tremendous travesty, a gross travesty of the teaching of scripture. This is what false prophets have done throughout centuries in Christianity, coming under the guise of evangelical Christian preachers and leaders, have turned the grace of God, like Jude says, into license.

It's almost as though people are taught, well, you can't but sin, but the grace of God is there to forgive you. This is a travesty of God's grace. This is the very thing that James speaks against. He says, your faith is no better than the devil's faith if all you have is an intellectual belief in certain facts.

If you believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world, the devil believes that. If you believe he's the son of God, the devil believes that. You believe the Bible is God's word, the devil believes that.

All these things that you can have in a doctrinal statement, the devil could sign every one of those statements because he believes it. He believes it more than most Christians do, but it doesn't save the devil and it won't save anybody on earth, because faith does not mean merely intellectual belief.

Yes, we need to know what God has done. We need to know the facts of Jesus having died for our sins, etc., but faith is more than that. Faith is, verse 1, chapter 11, Hebrews 11, verse 1, the assurance, the substance.

It's not imaginary. It's not vague. It is real. It's an assurance. It's the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And then he goes on to say, it was by faith that the men of old gained approval, obtained a testimony before God.

By faith. It was not by anything else but by faith. And he goes on to say in chapter 11, verse 6, without faith it is impossible to please God. And that begins with the time of Adam. No one could please God, even under the old covenant.

Right from Genesis to Revelation, the story is the same. No man is accepted by God who does not have faith, which is more than intellectual belief. When it speaks about Abel having faith in verse 4, it's not certainly intellectual facts about God that Abel believed.

No, he did something. What about Enoch, whose faith is mentioned in verse 5? It wasn't that he intellectually believed certain facts about God, but that he did something. He walked with God. Noah, by faith, he did something.

He built an ark. Abraham, verse 8, by faith, he obeyed. He did something. And like that, right down the list in Hebrews chapter 11. And you find one thing, right through Hebrews 11, that in none of these cases is faith a passive intellectual acceptance of certain facts.

That is as far removed from genuine biblical faith as hell is from heaven. And a mere intellectual acceptance of facts is found even in hell. By the devil and all his legions of evil spirits, and by the multitudes of deceived Christians, who've been deceived by professing evangelical preachers, who've themselves gone there and led others into an eternal hell, because they thought they could live as they like, and merely intellectually believe certain facts about God and about the Bible.

No, dear friends, faith is manifested in obedience. Abraham is the father of faith, and it's said about Abraham in verse 8, by faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed. That is the mark of faith, and that's what James is at tremendous pains to prove in his letter.

Faith without works is dead. That's the type of faith the devil has, he says in James chapter 2. The very worthwhile study, to read the last few verses of James chapter 2, James 2, 14 to 26, where he says that that type of intellectual faith is exactly the same as the faith of the devil.

But he contrasts the faith of Abraham in that passage and says, Abraham's faith was manifested in the fact that he obeyed. When God asked him to do something, to offer up his only son, Isaac, he did it.

He obeyed. And therein the scripture was fulfilled, which said Abraham believed God and was accounted to him for righteousness. It is this type of faith that's spoken of in Hebrews 11. It is the conviction of things not seen, is that which alters the course of my life in relation to a conviction based on things not seen.

For by this type of faith the men of old gained approval. They did not gain approval by believing certain facts, but by acting on the conviction of facts that they knew. By faith, verse 3, 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.

Faith and Creation

How do we know how creation came into existence? How do we know whether creation is true or this commonly accepted hypothesis of evolution? It's not by intellectual argument, it's not by studying rocks, it's not by scientific arguments to defeat the hypotheses of evolution, but essentially it's by faith.

It's so clear. By faith we understand, verse 3, that the worlds were prepared by the word of God and that what is seen was not made out of things visible. How do we know how a man was made? By faith. As we read Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3, the Holy Spirit quickens faith as he gives us revelation and understanding of what's written there.

And we believe. And it's very clear that the natural mind cannot understand this. For it says in 1 Corinthians 2, 14, the natural man or the natural mind cannot understand, cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God.

They are foolishness to him. What's written in his IQ may be because he needs revelation. It's by revelation that we know that evolution is false, it's a theory of the devil, or that creation, as mentioned in 1 chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Genesis, is true.

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. God grant that our faith will be genuine. And verse 4, commencing from this verse and on through to the end of the chapter, the writer is speaking about men of old who gained the approval of God by their faith.

This is what is mentioned in verse 2. By faith the men of old, that is those who lived in Old Testament times, gained approval. Now even though the word faith itself is hardly ever mentioned in Old Testament, yet Hebrews chapter 11 shows us very clearly, beyond any shadow of doubt, that even under the Old Covenant, even from the time of Adam right through to the time of Christ, people were accepted by God on the basis of their faith.

It was faith which made the difference. It was not that under the Old Covenant people were accepted because of their righteousness. No, Isaiah himself, one who lived under the Old Covenant, saw very clearly, as he says in Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6, our righteousness is like filthy rag.

And certainly Isaiah was under no illusion that his own righteousness would be accepted by God. No, not at all. He was sure that his righteousness was like filthy rag. It was by faith. He himself says, the Lord God, Isaiah 61, clothed me with the garments of righteousness and of salvation, the robe of righteousness.

He knew what it was to be clothed with a robe of righteousness. Abraham believed in God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Righteousness came even to men under the Old Covenant by faith. That's what Paul points out in Romans chapter 4, that even David speaks of the blessedness of the man whose sins are forgiven.

He knew it was by faith. So with Abel, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain. What was it that made the difference between Abel's offering and Cain's offering? Abel's sacrifice and Cain's sacrifice to God.

Abel was a keeper of the sheep, Cain was a tiller of the ground. We read in Genesis chapter 4 that they both brought an offering to God, one of the fruit of the ground and the other of the first fruits of his flock.

Each brought the best of that in which they were engaged. The Bible says, honor the Lord with your substance. Cain's substance was the fruit of the ground, Abel's substance was sheep. It was not in the thing they brought before God that there was a difference.

Abel, Brokenness, and Acceptable Sacrifice

What was it that made Abel's sacrifice a better sacrifice? We read in Psalm 51, Psalm 51, that the sacrifices of God, Psalm 51 and verse 17, are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. That is the eternal word of God.

It was true when David wrote it, a thousand years before Christ. It was equally true four thousand years before Christ, for God never changes. And in the time of Abel and Cain as well, the sacrifices of God were a broken spirit.

Verse 16 of Psalm 51 says, thou dost not delight in sacrifice. Thou art not pleased with burnt offerings. He does not want bulls and goats. That's not what he's looking for. He's looking for a broken spirit.

Verse 17, and a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. And when that is there, then, verse 19, thou wilt delight in sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering, and whole burnt offering.

When, when there is a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart, then, verse 19, young bulls or sheep or cattle can be offered on the altar. So the thing that made Abel's sacrifice acceptable was not the fact that he shed blood, the blood of a lamb, but that he had a broken and a contrite heart when he came with that offering.

Because we read in Isaiah chapter 1, of people who offered offerings unto God, and God says in Isaiah 111, I've had enough of the burnt offerings of rams. I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.

Why? Because there is sin in your life. Verse 16, wash yourself, make yourself clean, remove the evil of your deed, learn to do good, and then he can accept the offering. We must remember this, because otherwise we shall be deceived by the false teaching, which says that all that we have to do is come before God and plead the blood of Jesus.

And the example used is of Abel, that the thing that made him acceptable before God was he slew a lamb. And it's almost as though it doesn't matter whether you've got a broken or a contrite heart, it doesn't matter whether you're broken in spirit, it doesn't matter whether you're humble, it doesn't matter whether you've got faith, all you do is plead the blood of Jesus with an intellectual acceptance of the fact that Jesus died on the cross for your sins.

Dear friends, this is a great deception. The devil comes as an angel of light, and his ministers claim to be ministers of righteousness. They will have a bible in their hand, they will claim to be evangelical, but the evidence of their false teaching will be that they do not cease from sin, and they do not lead you into a life where you cease from sin.

It's almost as though you can live in sin and plead the blood of Jesus. Then you have considered the blood of Jesus an unholy thing. This is the very thing that we've been warned against in chapter 10, verse 29.

You count the blood of the covenant as an unclean thing to sin willfully, but Abel didn't come before God like that. It says in verse 4 very clearly, by faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice. What was it that made his sacrifice better?

Very clear, the answer is right there, his faith. His brokenness of spirit, without which we cannot have faith. His emptiness, his total lack of confidence in the flesh, and his utter dependence upon God.

That is faith. No confidence in the flesh, acknowledging our emptiness, in brokenness of spirit before God, and saying, Lord, I trust in you. That faith made Abel's sacrifice a better sacrifice. If Abel did not have faith, dear friends, listen to this, if Abel did not have faith, even if he had killed a lamb, it would have been like those people who killed lambs in Isaiah's day, about whom Isaiah had to say, God says, I'm not interested in your sacrifices.

There's no faith, there's no brokenness of heart, there's no turning from evil. By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice, and through that he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, through his faith.

Yes, it is only through faith that people are declared righteous. Verse two is very clear, by faith people had a testimony from God, and by that faith he obtained testimony that he was righteous. And God testified about his gifts.

Yes, his gifts are acceptable because they came from a heart of faith, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. What does he speak to us? The first man declared to be righteous by God, the absolute necessity of faith, that humble dependence upon God that comes in brokenness of heart and spirit, that God will never despise, but will always accept.

Enoch and a Life Pleasing to God

We come now to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse five. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God took him up. For he also, like Abel before, whom we considered last week, verse four, it's written about Enoch too, he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.

God didn't take him up merely because Enoch believed certain intellectual facts about God. It's not enough that Enoch believed that God created this world, that there is a God up in heaven. That was not the reason why God took Enoch up.

No, it's very clear in verse five that he obtained the witness, a testimony from God, that his life had been pleasing to God. God gave a testimony concerning Jesus with Jesus' baptism, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

God was pleased with Enoch's life. Why? Because it says in Genesis 5 and verse 22 and 24 that Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and he was not, for God took him. God could take him because his life was pleasing to God.

There were a lot of other people who lived in Enoch's day, and from the testimony we read in the book of Jude, the people who lived in Enoch's day were ungodly, evil, living for themselves, living in licentiousness, speaking wicked things, doing wicked things, and Enoch was a man who walked with God, and not only walked with God, but testified against all that evil we read in Jude verse 14 and 15.

He testified about the Lord's coming, his second coming, and he said that God would judge all ungodly people of their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Their speech and their actions were evil. In the midst of that evil world, Enoch walked with God by faith, and so God took him up. It's a picture of those who in the last days will walk by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, walk with God in the midst of ungodliness, testifying against the ungodliness there is in the world, testifying about the Lord's coming in judgment, who will also be taken up without seeing death, and so Abel and Enoch, who head the list in chapter 11, are symbolic of two categories of disciples.

One, those who die in faith like Abel, and the other, those who do not die like Enoch, who are taken up alive to meet the Lord in the air, but both of them have a testimony while they are living on earth that their life was pleasing to God.

They had that broken, contrite heart and spirit that enabled them to walk with God, enabled them to offer up sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We are commanded to offer up sacrifices that are acceptable to God, and the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

Having said that about Enoch, it says in verse 6, without faith it is impossible to please him. Whatever else we may have, if we don't have faith, this verse settles it. It is impossible to please God.

We may have a hundred and one other qualifications, but it is impossible to please God. Think of that rich young ruler who came to Jesus. We read in the book of Acts that he kept all the commandments, and Jesus did not deny that fact.

Jesus loved him. He was a rich man, he was a young man, he was earnest to seek eternal life, but there was one thing he did not have, and that was faith. He did not have faith, he did not have that broken heart of emptiness, no confidence in the flesh, forsaking of material possessions.

If he had that, then he would have had faith, and the manifestation of that faith would have been that he would have gladly given up the riches which Jesus told him to give up, and he would have taken up his cross and followed Jesus.

When a man has faith, James says, the evidence of it is he has got works. This man did not have works, he was not willing to give up his riches, he was not willing to take up his cross and follow Jesus as Jesus asked him to, in Mark 10 verse 21, and that was the evidence that he did not have real saving faith, and so he could not follow.

He went away grieved, for he had many possessions, sorrowful, and Jesus was sorrowful too, that this man would choose his riches rather than choose eternal life. And with how many people the Lord is grieved today, and sorrowful that they choose the temporal things of earth that pass away instead of eternal life.

Faith, Obedience, and Seeking God Diligently

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Take the case of Zacchaeus, whom we read of in Luke chapter 19. Salvation is by faith, and that was true even before Zacchaeus' time. We read in Hebrews 11 about all these people who lived before Zacchaeus lived.

They were saved by faith, and so if salvation was to come into Zacchaeus' house, it was only going to come by faith. And when Jesus came into the house of Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus said, Lord, to paraphrase his words, what he said to the Lord was, Lord, I've been a cheat.

I've cheated people of a lot of money, but I've turned from that now, and I'm going to give back fourfold what I have taken, and I'm going to, first of all, before that, give half of my goods to the poor, and give fourfold what I have stolen from others.

And Jesus said, behold, salvation has come to this house this day. Why? Because Zacchaeus had faith. How do we know he had faith? Because of his works. He was willing to make restitution. He was willing to give back what he had taken wrongfully.

He had faith, and therefore his life pleased God. How do we know Enoch had faith? He did not walk in the way of ungodly people. He walked with God. How do we know Abel had faith? Because God accepted his gifts.

He had a broken and a contrite spirit that came and offered up a sacrifice to God. He didn't have the jealousy and envy and anger that Cain had in his heart. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

For he who comes to God must believe that God exists, and that he's a rewarder of those who seek him diligently. This is the evidence of faith, that we seek God diligently with our whole heart. The promise in the Old Testament was, you shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart, Jeremiah 29, verse 12 and 13.

When we seek God with all of our hearts, we find him. Otherwise, we don't find him. And to that degree, the words of Hebrews 11, 6. He is a rewarder of those who seek him diligently. That's the evidence of faith, that we seek him diligently.

If we don't seek him diligently, it's obvious we don't have faith. And this is the reason why multitudes of Christians do not enjoy the promises of Scripture. They don't have faith. They think they have faith.

When they are sick, they try to work up a faith for healing. But they cannot have faith, because they do not have a humble broken heart, which is the only soil on which faith can grow. They have not forsaken all their attachment to material things, and so they cannot have faith.

Whereas all the people mentioned of here had faith that led to obedience. Faith that led them to walk with God, to offer up to God a sacrifice that was acceptable, a broken and a contrite heart. Remember this word.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. You can't please God by your righteous activities. You can't please God by attending meetings and reading the Bible and saying prayers and 101 other things that the Pharisees did, for example, typing, fasting.

If you don't have faith, an all-night prayer meeting, for example, there's absolutely no use if there's no faith. Five minutes of prayer with faith is far better than 12 hours of prayer without faith.

It's faith that makes the difference. Jesus said, it's faith that brings results. All things are possible to him who believes, and nothing is possible to him who does not believe. Oh, how important it is for us to have a proper understanding of what biblical faith is.

Noah and the Work of Faith

We turn again to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 7. We have looked at Abel in verse 4, who by faith offered a more excellent sacrifice. And there we find the sacrifice of faith, or the offering of faith that is acceptable before God.

Then we read about Enoch in verse 5. By faith, Enoch was taken up, and he had this testimony before he was taken up, that he was pleasing to God. He walked with God. And there we have the walk of faith.

And now we come to verse 7, Noah, and we have the work of faith. So in these three people, Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who head the list in Hebrews 11, we have that which should characterize our own Christian life.

First of all, beginning with the sacrifice of faith, we begin our relationship with God only as we come on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, offered from a broken heart of faith.

And we go on from there to walk in the footsteps of Enoch, who walked with God, a walk of faith. The sacrifice of faith is to lead on to the walk of faith. And it is from the walk of faith that we can have or do a work of faith that we see in the life of Noah.

By faith, Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen. You see, Abel offered up a sacrifice, and his broken heart, which people could not see, was accepted before God. Enoch walked by faith in a God whom people could not see.

Noah believed that there was going to be a flood which he could not yet see. But in fear, in reverence, he 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.

How did Noah condemn the world? How did he testify to the world? I have no part in your wickedness, because by standing aloof from them and being different, building that which would remain even after the flood had come and gone.

That ark of salvation is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's also symbolic of his church, which we are to build today. Salvation is only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And Noah demonstrates faith in the fact that what God had said he would perform, what did God say?

There was going to be a judgment upon all sin. And Noah was a preacher of righteousness. We read that in 2 Peter chapter 2, that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. What did he preach? He preached righteousness.

2 Peter 2 .5. God preserved Noah, it says, a preacher of righteousness along with his family. And it was that righteousness that the world around him did not have and did not want and did not accept when Noah offered it to them.

They did not want to turn from their sin. But Noah was not only a preacher of righteousness, he was a practicer of righteousness too. He practiced righteousness in his own life. He and his family stood aloof from a world of ungodliness, alone.

Think of that, dear friends, when you feel you're alone and you don't have much fellowship. Take courage from the example of Noah. Take courage from the example of Daniel, who stood alone in the midst of Babylon, alone for God.

Take courage from Noah, who stood alone for God in the midst of an evil generation, alone with his family. After years and years of preaching righteousness, nobody was converted outside his own family.

And I believe that even his own family would not have been converted if they had not seen righteousness in his life. If Noah's children had seen that Noah only preached righteousness but he was unrighteous in his home life, they would have turned away.

That's the condition of many preachers today. Their children turn away from their faith because they see that their father only preaches righteousness but never practices it at home. But Noah's children saw that he not only preached righteousness, he practiced it at home.

And he was wholehearted about building the ark. He preached that this ark which I'm building is the only thing that's going to save you. This is the only thing that will take you right through the flood.

If you want to be saved, get into this ark. And so we preach that salvation is only through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the antitype of that ark of salvation that Noah built. And we preach Christ and him crucified and him risen from the dead, who is today building his body.

That body is also called the Christ in 1 Corinthians and chapter 12 and verse 12. And we preach that it's only as you come in proper relation to the head, the Lord Jesus Christ, that you can be saved and thus you become a member of the body of Christ, the church.

This is what we preach and this is what we are to live for if we believe what we preach. If you really believe that this is the way of salvation then you will give all of your life for the building of the church.

That does not necessarily mean that you leave your job and become a full-time worker as it is called. No, you can support yourself like the Apostle Paul did. The Apostle Paul was a businessman. He was a Christian businessman.

He made tents and supported himself. But he preached the gospel. He was an apostle. But he didn't live on the offerings collected in the church. No, he supported himself and served the Lord. And we can follow in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul.

He says, follow me, follow my example, he told Timothy. And I'm sure Timothy followed his example. And he tells us today, follow my example. We can follow his example of not being dependent on others, but supporting ourselves, but giving our whole life, everything for the building of the church, for the preaching of the gospel, for building the church, for preaching the gospel to every creature, for making disciples in every nation, and building the church.

This is what gripped Noah. And this is what should grip us if we really have faith. But if a man says he has faith and does not have works, James says, can that faith save him? The answer is no. Faith without works is dead.

Here is the work of faith, that we give ourselves for the building of the church. We give ourselves for walking in righteousness and preaching righteousness. We do not give ourselves for great numbers.

Noah saved his family. There were only eight people who were saved. Jesus said, the way to life is narrow and few there be that find it. We don't make the narrow gate broader so that we can push a few more people in.

Think, if Noah had lowered the standards, if he had lowered the standards of righteousness below God's acceptable standard, he could have got a few more people in, but they wouldn't have got inside the ark.

God wouldn't have taken them in. They would have been judged, and Noah himself would have been judged for lowering the standard, and nobody would have been saved. But Noah stood firm. He stood true. He kept the standard as high as God intended it to be.

He made the narrow gate as narrow as God said it should be. The result was only eight people got in, but they were all saved, not half saved. How different from preachers today, who broaden the gate and get multitudes in, but only half converted, and the result is they all end up in judgment.

It's far better to get eight people in, thoroughly saved, than to get a multitude in, half converted, who will all end up in judgment. The work of faith, where to follow the example of Noah, was a preacher of righteousness, a practicer of righteousness, who built what would endure even after God's judgments had come.

Abraham's Obedient Pilgrimage

We turn to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 8. In this chapter we read of the great heroes of faith in the Old Testament. We've seen Abel, Enoch, and Noah, and now we come to Abraham. By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Now here we read of the obedience that characterized Abraham's faith. We've seen in verse 4 the sacrifice of faith, and in verse 5 the walk of faith that Enoch had, the work of faith in verse 7, Noah building the ark.

Now we come to Abraham, concerning whom it is said, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance. Obeyed, and that is the thing that's spoken of concerning Abraham's faith even by James, in James chapter 2, where he speaks of Abraham our father being justified by works, James 2 .21, when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar.

God told him to offer up his son Isaac, and he obeyed. And it says there in James 2 .22, you see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected. Verse 24, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And so it says here too, in Hebrews 11 .8, that Abraham's faith was characterized by obedience long before he offered up Isaac on the altar. He started with God calling him in Ur of the Chaldees to leave that country, to leave all his relatives when he was 75 years old, and to go out into another land, to sell his property there, and to go out to live as a pilgrim.

And we read here that Abraham obeyed. And verse 9, by faith he lived as a pilgrim, as an alien, as a foreigner in the land of promise, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.

For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He had revelation concerning the city that God was building, the new Jerusalem that we read of in Revelation 21.