Abel: Faith Filled Worship, Part 2 (Hebrews 11:4)

Hebrews 11:4 and the Faith of Abel

And now please turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 for the scripture reading, or for our reading, I should say, before the message. We're gonna read together verses three through seven.

From Hebrews 11, beginning at verse three.

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. Oh Lord, we ask your help and assistance today as we look at your word. We pray that we may behold you in what you have revealed in scripture, seeing your purposes, your grace, your mercy, your provision in Jesus Christ.

We pray that you would grant us understanding in your word and cause your word to shine upon our hearts and our minds, that you would be glorified through not only our understanding of your word, but through our obedience to it.

We ask your blessing upon this time for Christ's sake, amen. From the very instant that sin entered into a perfect creation, Adam and Eve knew the effects of sin. In Genesis three, they could see it. And even though they hadn't yet died, they had started to die, and death was immediately evident to them when God killed the innocent victim and provided clothing for them.

So right up front at the moment of sin, from the very first minutes after sin, God demonstrated what the cost of sin was gonna be when an animal was killed and Adam and Eve were clothed by that animal.

They saw that for them, forgiveness could only come through the shedding of blood and the covering for their sin could only come through the death of an innocent victim. So they saw death straight away.

And animal sacrifice and the death of an innocent victim was a stark and stunning object lesson to Adam and Eve. And if you think that the idea of an animal sacrifice is somewhat distasteful to you or somewhat offensive to you, if that's unsettling, imagine what it would have been like for the very first man and woman, Adam and Eve.

For us, we are used to the sight of dead animals. You see them alongside of the road, you see them out in the woods, you see them on your barbecue. We are used to the sight of dead animals. That doesn't bother us.

For some of us, the sight of a dead animal just reminds us of dinner. This is not at all distasteful to us. But imagine that you had been in a world where there had been no death and then you sinned and all of a sudden there is a sacrifice of an animal right in front of you.

You have to deal with the reality of death. You see death, you see the cost of sin and all of its horrific consequences. This would have been more unsettling for Adam and Eve than it has been for anybody since Adam and Eve, including their children, who only had grown up in a world that was racked by sin where death was a reality, where disease and deterioration and decay had now entered into an otherwise perfect creation.

All that Abel and Cain would have grown up with was the realization that they lived in a world where death plagued it. They would have seen animal sacrifices as Adam and Eve offered animal sacrifices to appease God and to propitiate for their sin.

They would have been familiar with that. They had been raised on that. They understood that death is the penalty for the sinner. And if you're sitting here today and you object to the idea that your sin deserves or calls for your death, you are not yet ready for a savior because you have not yet come to understand just how grievous, how hideous, how offensive even one act of disobedience is to a righteous and holy benevolent king.

It is only when we understand the depths of our sin and our depravity that we can look at our sin as it is in God's sight and say, yeah, that deserves death. Well, Adam and Eve understood that death required, that their sin required the death of an innocent victim for them to have fellowship with God and for their sin to be covered.

They would have raised Cain and Abel with that same understanding, that same recognition. They would have grown up with that. And they would have learned that lesson. One of them, Abel, obeyed God by faith and believed what God said concerning atonement and sacrifice and blood being shed for the remission of sins.

And in Genesis chapter four, he offered such a sacrifice in obedience to the command and the expectations of God. Cain, Adam and Eve's oldest child, did not believe what God said concerning atonement and sacrifice and offering to God blood so that his sins could be forgiven.

And instead, he approached God on his own terms, on his own, in his own way, being outwardly pious, outwardly religious, keeping up the form and the show of an outward belief in God and coming to God and trying to be accepted by God, but he did not come on God's terms, and so God rejected him.

That was what we looked at last week in Genesis chapter four. Both men's actions revealed the condition of their heart. Cain's sacrifice of the fruit of the ground demonstrated that what Cain believed about God's word, that he didn't believe what God said concerning how God was to be approached through the sacrifice of an animal.

Abel's sacrifice of the first fruits of his flock demonstrated that he believed what God said concerning how God was to be approached through an animal sacrifice and through a blood offering. Abel believed that, and he offered in faith, because he believed that, he offered an animal sacrifice.

Cain rejected that truth, and in a lack of faith, he turned away from what God had said. Abel's example of faith leads off the list of heroes here in Hebrews chapter 11 that we just read. It's in verse four.

By faith, we, sorry, by faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, and that's what we looked at last week. We looked at Cain's sacrifice, and we noted that there are three very notable elements or aspects of this example that Cain gives to us.

The first was his sacrifice. So last week, and all of that was just review, when we went back to Genesis four, we looked at the sacrifice that Cain and Abel offered, why they offered it, and a little bit of what God's response to that sacrifice was.

Abel’s Righteousness by Faith Alone

Today, we're looking at the second and the third notable things about Abel's example, namely his righteousness and his testimony. You see it there in verse four. Through which, that is, through the sacrifice, he obtained the testimony that he was righteous.

God testifying about his gifts, that is, Abel's righteousness described there in those words, and the last part of the verse describes Abel's testimony. Through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

So Abel's sacrifice, his righteousness, and then his testimony, what the lessons are from Abel. So let's look first of all here at his righteousness. Verse four speaks of Abel's gifts, and when verse four describes the gift that he gave, God testifying about his gifts, he's talking about that animal sacrifice.

That's what's being described. God said something about Abel's animal sacrifice that demonstrated that Abel offered the sacrifice in faith. We looked at it, or I should say we read it briefly last week in Genesis chapter four, but I didn't camp on it, knowing that we were gonna be returning to that this week.

In Genesis chapter four, the Lord came, or Moses records that the Lord, after the sacrifices were made, said this, and the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard.

The Lord had regard for the offering of Abel, but for Cain and his offering, the Lord had no regard. That is simply Moses' way in Genesis of telling us that at the moment and at the place that those two sacrifices were offered, the Lord in some way, in some fashion, demonstrated that he approved of and accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and also in some way demonstrated that he had rejected the sacrifice of Cain.

Now how did that happen? We don't know, and the text doesn't tell us. Genesis four tells us nothing other than that the Lord had regard for Abel's sacrifice and no regard for Cain's sacrifice. But both of those men obviously knew at that moment when they brought their sacrifice there to the Lord, there was something that happened that indicated this sacrifice is unacceptable and this sacrifice is acceptable.

Something happened that indicated that. Was it an audible voice from heaven that stated God's approval? That could have been it. Was it that fire came down out of heaven and consumed one sacrifice and not the other?

That happened also in Scripture at various times. We don't know what happened there, but both of those men at that moment knew what was acceptable and what was not acceptable. For God approved one and reproved the other.

Abel was approved because of his faith, and Cain was disapproved or reproved because of his faith. Both men knew that. In fact, in that moment when God had no regard for the sacrifice of Cain, it says that Cain's countenance fell and he became angry.

He was angry that God had rejected his sacrifice. And the author here in his description in verse four is going back behind the controversy between these two men. He is going back behind the sacrifices itself.

He's going behind, as it were, whether it's an animal sacrifice or a vegetable sacrifice. He's even going past the murder of the one by the other. He's going past all of that and getting to the heart of the issue, which was that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith and Cain offered his sacrifice without faith.

Now, if Cain had offered an animal sacrifice just as a matter of perfunctory obedience without any faith or piety or at all, it would have been just as unacceptable as Cain's sacrifice. But instead, Abel offered a sacrifice in obedience to God, obeying what God said, believing in his heart, God's revelation, that on the basis of that sacrifice, on the basis of a blood offering, Abel would be acceptable in God's sight.

And so God certified Abel's sacrifice by approving of it. He gave some sort of visible, audible, public approval of Abel's offering and rejection of Cain's offering, and this caused Cain to be angry and before God, Abel was accepted.

God certified that Abel had faith by embracing and accepting that offering and approving of it. That was God's testimony. Abel obtained the testimony, verse four, that he was righteous because God was testifying, saying something about Abel's faith by approving of Abel's sacrifice.

And so, through that, Abel obtained the testimony that he was righteous, that is his righteousness. Now, when we say that Abel was righteous, we need to make sure that we all understand what we don't mean by that because this can be misunderstood.

When we say that Abel was righteous, we do not mean, I'll give you three things, we do not mean that Abel had never sinned or that he was sinless, okay? He may have been only one generation into a fallen creation, but he was still fallen.

He may have been the very first generation of fallen parents, but he was still a sinner. So, it doesn't mean that he was sinless or that he had never sinned and thus he was righteous. You see, if Abel were sinless and he had never sinned, then he would have had no need to bring an animal sacrifice, right?

If we say that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins, well, listen, without the committing of sin, there's no need to shed blood. If Abel had never sinned, he would have been able to enjoy fellowship with God face-to-face on his own terms and be accepted into the presence of God on the basis of his own innocence, his own moral perfection, and his own lack of any kind of sinfulness.

But obviously, Abel needed forgiveness. He understood he was a sinner. He understood that he had to approach God because God was holy and he was not, and so he had to approach God through an animal sacrifice.

Abel is confessing all of that by offering the animal sacrifice. So, his righteousness does not mean that he had never sinned. It doesn't mean that he was innocent. It actually, his sacrifice demonstrates that he was guilty and he knew he was guilty.

Now, I don't know exactly what type of corruption Abel would have demonstrated in his day-to-day life from the fall. I sometimes wonder, we look at our world and we think it's getting more and more sinful with every generation, right?

Is it because we're getting more and more fallen? We're not. We're just as fallen as Adam and Eve were when they were kicked out of the garden. But the expression of sinfulness, does it get worse with every generation?

See, I don't know that because I've only lived through one life. We're not reincarnated. I don't believe in reincarnation. I did in a past life, but I don't in this one. So, I don't know if previous generations were less sinful than we are, expressed it differently than we do.

So, I don't know exactly how much sin Abel would have expressed that first generation after Adam and Eve. I don't know that, but I do know that he was a sinner and that he knew he was a sinner. So, Abel's righteousness does not mean that he was sinless.

Second, Abel's righteousness does not mean that his sacrifice made him righteous. And this is key. In offering the sacrifice, it is not the sacrifice itself that made Abel righteous. If the sacrifice made Abel righteous, then Abel did some good deed, some act or action.

That act or action then contributed to his righteousness. If his sacrifice made him righteous, then Abel did something to acquire righteousness. That becomes a work. And we are not saved on the basis of our works.

Where does righteousness come from? For you. Where does righteousness come from for you? What is the source of that righteousness? Does it come from within you? Does it come from good deeds which you have done?

Does it come from any act that you can do that pleases God on the surface or in the heart? Does it come in any of those ways? It comes on the basis of faith. So, if you are justified or declared righteous on the basis of faith, if that is true for you, that is true for the previous generation, the previous generation, and this is not just something that is true since the Reformation of the 1500s or since the death and burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is something that is true since the beginning of time, from Adam and Eve's very first expression of faith, being kicked out of the garden when they came to God with an animal sacrifice. This was true then just as much as it is true today, that one is declared righteous on the basis of faith and faith alone, not any meritorious deed that you have done.

So, Abel's sacrifice did not add to him righteousness. It's not like he got a dose of righteousness every time he made a sacrifice until he was finally righteous to be accepted by God. That's not how it works.

That's not how it worked for him. That's not how it works for us. So, the sacrifice didn't make him righteous. How is it that you are declared righteous? You are declared righteous by faith. Where does that righteousness come from?

For you. If you can say today that in the sight of God, positionally before his throne, in terms of your guilt before him, that you are completely righteous, whose righteousness do you have? Is it your righteousness?

No, it's Christ's righteousness, right? This is the heart of the gospel, that he takes our sin upon himself and all of his righteousness he imputes to us. So, our sin is credited to him. His righteousness is credited to us.

This is an exchange that takes place at the moment of faith. Faith is the means by which we experience this exchange where we change our dirty robes of our own self-righteousness for his robes of perfect righteousness so that all of our sin is credited to his account, paid for by the Son of God in that sacrifice, and all of his righteousness that he earned through a perfect life lived here in this world is credited to our account.

All of that is imputed to us on the basis of faith and faith alone. Well, if Abel was righteous, whose righteousness did Abel have? There is only one source for all of humanity for righteousness that will avail before the throne of God.

Whose righteousness did Abel have?

His own?

It wasn't Adam's and it wasn't his. It was likewise Christ's righteousness. So that when Christ died, he paid the price for Adam and Eve and Abel and all of the righteous men who had faith through all of human history.

He paid all of their sin prices and ours, if you're trusting in Jesus Christ, and the righteousness that Abel had also comes from Christ. That righteousness of Christ is imputed all the way back to Abraham.

So Abraham stands before God in the same righteousness that you and I do. Not our own righteousness, but only the righteousness of God, of Christ, which is through faith. That is what is meant in verse seven when he talks about Noah becoming an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

There's only one righteousness which is according to faith, and it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now, Abel would not have understood that. Everything I've just laid out for you. Abel wouldn't have understood that.

Babel understood this. I'm unrighteous and I must stand before God who is righteous, and in order to stand before God who is righteous, I need to be credited righteousness. Abel would have understood that.

He would have understood that if I offer to God an animal sacrifice as God has directed, that God will accept me on those terms. If an innocent victim dies in my place, in my stead, and bears that punishment, then God will credit me with righteousness, he will consider me justified and righteous, and I can stand in his presence.

Abel would have understood at least that much, that righteousness comes only through faith because God testified of Abel, you're righteous. There's righteousness there for Abel, and it is the righteousness of Christ.

Man can never please God by his own works, so if any man has ever gained God's approval, it must be by faith and faith alone because nothing that we can ever do and nothing we can ever contribute ever adds anything to our righteousness.

We have no righteousness in ourselves. So Abel's sacrifice then served the very same purpose as the good works do in James chapter two. See, Abel's sacrifice didn't give him righteousness. Abel's sacrifice didn't make him more righteous.

It wasn't the thing that brought him righteousness. His faith brought him righteousness. The sacrifice was an expression of a righteous heart. Abel was righteous because of his faith. Before he ever offered the sacrifice, the sacrifice was the evidence of a faith-filled heart because it was faith-filled worship.

Cain's sacrifice was evil deeds and evil works which flowed out of a faithless and rebellious heart. That's the difference between those two men. Third, Abel's righteousness does not mean that his righteousness was of himself.

And I covered this just moments ago. His righteousness was not his own righteousness. He's not doing things that are going to earn him righteousness. He was born with the same need that you and I are born with.

We're sinners and we're born with a need for someone else's righteousness. Something else to clothe us in the sight of God so that we are not consumed on judgment day. And the only righteousness that can avail, the only righteousness that is acceptable in the sight of God is the righteousness of Christ.

Infinite in its supply, infinite in its power, infinite in its value, it is applied to those who have faith. It is applied to the faithful at the moment of their salvation so that when those who have faith stand in the presence of God, God sees them not as a forgiven sinner but as a righteous individual because the Lord sees not our righteousness but the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So Abel's righteousness was not of himself. It came in the same way that you are made righteous by faith and it is the righteousness of another. And before we get off the subject of righteousness, this is not in my notes but this is very important.

Since the righteousness that you have by faith in Jesus Christ is not your own righteousness and since you did nothing to gain it, you can do nothing to lose it because it is imputed to you on the basis of faith.

That righteousness can never be tarnished. It can never be minimized. It can never be taken away, clouded over, polluted in any way because that righteousness is not based on anything that you do. Now that should never motivate us to go out and sin and say, well then, I'm as righteous as I'll ever be.

I'm as righteous as Christ. I will just sin with license. No, that's not how it works. The one who understands what imputed righteousness is says, I don't want to sin against that righteousness. I want to live a holy and righteous life in obedience to God because he has declared me to be righteous on the basis of the work of another.

Righteousness can never be taken away. It can never be tarnished. Nothing you ever think and nothing you ever do will ever take away that righteousness because you don't have it on the basis of anything you've ever thought or done.

It's not your righteousness. So Abel had faith and by that he was pleasing to God. Hebrews 11, six says, 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 diligently seek him.

This is exactly what Abel did. He believed that God is, he knew that God is. He trusted that what God said concerning pursuing him and coming to him was true and he approached God and came after, pursued God, diligently searched for him in the very way that God said to do so.

And he believed that he would be rewarded, that is accepted before God on the basis of diligently pursuing him and so Abel did it. And he was righteous. Jesus affirmed that Abel was righteous in Matthew 23, verse 35.

When Jesus was announcing judgment upon the religious leaders of his day, he said in Matthew 23, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah, the son of Brachiah.

He said Abel was righteous. So Abel gained God's testimony. God testified concerning Abel that he was righteous by accepting his sacrifice and then Jesus, of course, said Abel was righteous. That's Abel's righteousness.

Abel’s Blood That Speaks Better Than Abel

Now look at his testimony. This is the third notable feature of Abel's example. He sacrificed his righteousness and then his testimony. This is at the end of verse four. Through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

Now that's something that can be said of every person that's mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11. We could say that of Abel, of Enoch, of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Joshua, et cetera. Every person listed here, we could say that even though they're dead, they still speak.

There's some lesson to be learned. There's some example that they have set that is still of value to us and they still speak to us in that sense. But there's another way in which Abel is said to speak here and I wanna get into that.

The language here in using this of Abel right at the very top of the list, this is true of everybody, but the language seems to suggest that the author has in mind something said back in Genesis chapter four that we read last week but I didn't comment on it.

Genesis 4 .10, after Cain killed Abel, the Lord approached Cain and said to him, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.

Abel's blood was speaking after Cain slayed him and killed him, Abel's blood was still speaking and God says that blood is crying out to me from the ground. Now in that context, what the Lord meant and what Moses meant by that was that Abel's innocent blood was crying out for vengeance.

It was crying out for justice. It was crying out for a payment for that. Somebody has to pay for that innocent blood. I believe it is true that all of the innocent blood shed on the earth cries out for such justice and vengeance all of the time.

God takes it very seriously when innocent blood is shed. Abel's is no different. So what the Lord meant by that in Genesis 4 was that Abel's blood was crying out, demanding justice. That innocent blood demands justice.

A payment must be made, justice must be satisfied, vengeance must be taken, something has to be propitiated on behalf of this innocent blood. And so the Lord says your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

Now, I don't think that, that was not an audible voice. It's not like if you had gone to the scene of the murder, you would have heard blood crying out from the ground. You understand that? There's a metaphor here that is being used to say that in some sense, Abel's blood was crying, we need justice, we need atonement.

This needs to be satisfied. Vengeance must be taken. This has to be dealt with. This type of a sin cannot be just let go. Something has to be happened to satisfy the demands of God's justice. That is what Abel's blood was crying.

I think that there are a number of lessons to be learned from Abel's blood and how it cries out to us and what it says to us. I'll give you three of them. First, there is, I think, a prophetic symbolism in Abel's death, a prophetic symbolism.

I'm not the only one that thinks that Abel's blood says something. The author of Hebrews, back in chapter 12, look at chapter 12, verse 22. Chapter 12, verse 22 of Hebrews. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the myriads of angels, to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

There is a sprinkled blood which speaks something better than the blood of Abel. In other words, Abel's blood was speaking. Abel's blood says something. There is a lesson here. There is something that Abel's blood says, and I think it's an interesting statement that the author uses there.

He's describing the blood of Jesus, inaugurating the new covenant, and saying that we inherit or receive all these blessings of the new covenant, salvific and eschatological, all of those blessings are ours but what has secured that is a blood, the blood of the mediator of the new covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, which speaks something, says something better than what the blood of Abel says.

The blood of Abel says something. Jesus referred to Abel as a prophet in Luke chapter 11. This is a parallel passage to the one in Matthew 23 that I just read a few moments ago where Abel is called righteous by the Lord Jesus.

Jesus said this in Luke 11, so that the blood of all the prophets, since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah. Jesus refers to all the prophets, and then he says, Abel was a prophet, Zachariah was a prophet, so that all of the bloods by all of the prophets shed will fall upon this generation, that was a pronunciation of judgment upon the wicked rulers of the nation of Israel, and he charges against them and that generation and those spiritual leaders the blood of Abel, who was a prophet, and the blood of Zachariah, and all of the prophets in between, all of those innocent men who died.

Now, in what sense is Abel a prophet? Because we go back to Genesis four, Abel never said anything. There's not a word from Abel's mouth ever recorded in scripture. So in what sense is Abel a prophet?

Old Testament prophecy didn't just come in terms of words that were spoken. Symbols could be prophecies, events, ceremony, people. These could all have a prophetic significance. You see that all the way through the Old Testament.

So I would suggest to you that it is not something that Abel said that was a prophecy, it was something that Abel suffered that was a prophecy. It wasn't his words, it was his blood. You see, with the entrance of sin into the garden, into humanity, meant physical death, human death.

Abel's was the first. He was an innocent man who was righteous in God's sight, who suffered and died and shed his blood on the ground. I think that there is a prophetic symbolism to that. As a prophet, his blood speaks of a later blood that would be shed from a righteous man who has shed his blood on the ground as a sacrifice for our sin.

It was a prophetic foreshadowing. The blood of Abel cried out for atonement, for justice, for vengeance, for payment. And the blood of Jesus, which speaks something better than the blood of Abel, provides that atonement, that justice, that vengeance, that satisfaction for sin.

Abel's blood showed that sin had to be dealt with. Jesus' blood showed that sin has been dealt with. That makes the blood of Jesus better than the blood of Abel. Abel's blood did cry out in a prophetic way that eventually there would need to be blood shed to atone for that sin.

There would need to be blood shed to cover over and to pay the price of sin, and Christ's blood does that. Second, Abel's death reminds us of the lot of the righteous in this world. Abel's death reminds us of the lot of the righteous in this world.

Abel pleased God and was righteous, and Abel was murdered. That is a foreshadowing, I think, of what the righteous can expect in every age since the garden. That is what we ought to expect. Sometimes in this life, those who please God, those who have faith, those who are righteous, those who are obedient, they suffer.

They suffer in this world. Abel's death is a foreshadowing that the righteous in every age will suffer. This is a, it's a tale as old as time. It's Cain and Abel. It's Ishmael and Isaac. It's Jacob and Esau.

It's the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It's a tale as old as time. It goes back to the very beginning, that the righteous in this world will suffer, and there's no cognitive disobedient, there's no cognitive disconnect between those two statements that Abel was righteous and Abel was murdered.

You are not going to be able to fit both of those statements into your Joel Osteen best life now theology or your prosperity gospel, but you better have room in your theology for both of those statements, that Abel was righteous and Abel was murdered, because sometimes in this world, God allows the righteous to suffer.

Sometimes God in this world causes the righteous to suffer for his own purposes. Abel was righteous and Abel suffered death. This has been true in every age, it has been true, that the wicked persecute the righteous.

There will always be in every age, those who are outwardly pious, outwardly religious, who follow after the way of Cain, worshiping God according to their own dictates, who will hate, hunt, persecute, and yes, sometimes even murder those who are actually righteous.

If you are righteous, you can expect persecution, you can expect opposition from the wicked in this world, you will be scorned and opposed and rejected and disparaged and slandered and spit upon, hated, reproved, and yes, if God should permit,.

Murdered is the way of Abel.

Could God have protected Abel? Could have, God didn't protect Abel, did he?

He didn't.

Abel reminds us, his blood reminds us of what the righteous are going to face in every age, because the reason that those without faith, the reason that the wicked hate the righteous, is because those who think that they are accepted by God on the basis of their works, that's Cain, will always hate those who are accepted by God on the basis of faith, because those who are accepted by God on the basis of faith, remind them that nobody is accepted by God on the basis of works.

And the righteous life of the faithful, obedient, righteous people, their life is a living, breathing condemnation of the unfaithful, disobedient, and unrighteous or self-righteous people. And so they hate it, and that's why they hate it.

And this is an important reminder for these early Christians and for us, that if you have suffered a great conflict of suffering, and you are suffering because you are righteous or even while you are righteous or are suffering in your righteousness, you are one of a long list of godly and good men and women who had the favor of God, who also suffered in the very same way, sometimes the very same things.

Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, the whole long list, those are your kin, those are your brethren, those are the ones who also suffered for being righteous. And Abel heads that list, and he suffered, not just suffering, but he suffered the worst of all suffering, and that was death.

He was taken, even in his righteousness. And if you suffer in your righteousness, you are in very good company. Your company is Abel and Enoch. That's some good stead. Third, Abel testifies of the necessity of faith, and this is certainly in keeping with the entire context of Hebrews chapter 11.

He testifies of the necessity of faith, that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Abel was accepted to God, not because of the sacrifice, the sacrifice was evidence that he had faith. He was accepted by God, not on the basis of his own works, not even because of his act of obedience, none of that made him acceptable to God.

What made him acceptable to God, what made him pleasing to God, was his faith. It wasn't the outward action of the sacrifice, it was the heart of faith. And the one who believes what God has said concerning how he is to be approached, will approach God only through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The one who believes what God says is going to, without any questions whatsoever, reject all of their own attempts at their own self-righteousness, reject all of their attempts at good deeds and pleasing God in the flesh.

The one who believes what God says in his word is going to come in humble recognition that they are a sinner, that they are without any righteousness, that they are without hope, that they cannot cure their position, that they are hopelessly lost, helplessly depraved, helplessly wicked, and unable to please God in themselves.

They will come to God on those terms. And further, they will come to God on those terms, glad and thankful for and embracing the one sacrifice that God has offered and provided, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, which is able to atone for all of their sins and give them the righteousness that God demands.