Let's offer prayer before I speak.
Our Father, we thank Thee for the good
songs of Zion.
Thank Thee for the psalms.
Thank Thee for the presence of praying people.
Thank Thee for the life that enables us
to be present here and the health that
allows us to gather with the children of
the King in the house of the Lord.
Pray now Thy blessing, O Lord, upon us
as we hear the word expounded.
You remember Ezra, who read the word and
made them to understand the meaning of it.
Remember the words of Thy servant Paul, who
said, Preach the word, the instant in season
and out of season.
Now Thyself, O Lord, did say, Give them
their meat in due season.
O Lord, it is quiet and peaceful, and
there is no war, no epidemic, no tragic
accident in nature.
O man-made, we are very much at
peace here this morning on this corner, but
we live not for now, we live for
eternity.
We would speak and listen as those who
shall soon give account of the deeds done
in the body.
Help us, Father, we beseech Thee, through Christ
Jesus Thy Son, help us.
May the word come alive to our hearts,
may we obey and believe, bring ourselves into
harmony with the truth.
We ask it in the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.
Now, like a man who has found a
treasure, a treasure that is legitimately his, and
who returns to it a thousand times and
examines it and counts it and feels it
and looks at it, so do we with
these words by faith, by faith, by faith.
Here is the mighty triumph sound of God's
people.
By faith they did this, showing that faith
is not an imaginary thing, but that it
is dynamic and powerful and accomplishes things indeed.
Now note here how these people differed.
A whole list of them is given in
the passage I read, but a longer list
goes back to the man Abel in verse
4, followed by Enoch and then Noah and
then Abraham, and so on down the list.
Notice how they differed from each other.
One of the snares of the Christian life
is that we have a feeling that we
all ought to be exactly alike, that God
intended his people to be precisely the same,
whereas God made us very much different from
each other.
It is said, and I don't know whether
it's true, I have examined the mulberry tree
and I have found that on the mulberry
tree there are not any two leaves that
are alike.
I have examined them carefully more than one
time, and they say the same thing is
true of all of the trees of the
wood.
No two leaves are alike on any tree
in the forest anywhere.
Now, I suppose that if you were to
look at the roses or the tulips or
anything else, you would find that no two
of them were alike.
And I think that if you were to
look at the people of the world, you
would find no two are alike.
We had near to our church in Chicago
a couple of young girls, little girls, they
grew up to be big girls, and they
were identical twins.
That is, they were said to be identical.
The biologists know exactly what they mean when
they say that, but what we know about
identical twins is that they look precisely alike
and nobody can tell them apart, they say.
It was Irene and Eileen Booth.
Well, as they grew up from little tiny
toddlers that staggered around on the sidewalk in
front of their house, and I used to
see them as I'd go by and stop
and chat with them, I got so I
knew them apart.
They were identical twins, but I knew Eileen
from Irene.
I could tell them.
There are no two people alike in the
whole wide world.
No two people alike.
Some people that have never seen Chinese, say.
To the person who's never seen Chinese people,
all Chinese look alike for a while, and
after a while you get to see the
difference.
Same with the colored people.
You see colored people and they all look
alike if you've never seen them before.
But when you're around them a few weeks,
you begin to notice the distinctions.
Now, I've made a little case here for
the fact that the Lord doesn't repeat himself,
but that he is an artist and does
things in his own way and makes things
different from each other, and he makes people
differ to differ from each other.
So you won't find two people in the
Bible who are exactly alike.
Take, for instance, Abraham and his grandson Jacob.
I guess you couldn't think of two men
more widely separated in temperament.
Abraham was a fine, dignified old gentleman who
never vowed to do anything that wasn't proper,
and you'd like him.
He was a fine old gentleman, and you'd
like to have known Abraham.
But his grandson Jacob was quite another character
altogether.
He was the supplanter, and he was always
everlastingly doing sort of embarrassing things and things
that weren't nice at all and weren't good.
Until the Lord made him into Israel, he
was anything but a savory character.
And yet God puts Jacob along with Abraham,
because God was busy making Saints out of
both of them.
They were not alike, but they were alike
in one thing, in that they believed in
God and they had faith.
Then there was Joseph and Moses.
Joseph was one of the gentlest of all
men.
You can't find a man gentler than Joseph.
He didn't get angry with his brothers.
When they came down into Egypt, he wept
before them.
He was a gentle man, not a gentleman,
but a gentle man, a man of gentleness.
Then there was Moses.
Moses was not like Joseph at all.
Moses was a man of fiery temper.
He flew into a rage and flew an
Egyptian, and later on he smoked a rock
and said, Rebels!
He was a man that wasn't gentle.
But Joseph was a gentle man, and yet
God came to Joseph and blessed him, and
he came to Moses and blessed him.
Then we can come to Sarah and Rahab,
both mentioned here in the 11th chapter.
Sarah was a good woman, a woman against
whom there is not a blot, and Rahab
was a harlot.
And yet both had faith and both were
converted and both regenerated and both blessed.
So we have God working in his Spirit
to bless and honor the differences in men
as well as the likenesses in men.
God accepts different personalities and manifests himself to
them.
Just as on a Christmas tree you run
120 volts of electricity into the trimmings of
the tree, and you have red lights and
yellow lights and blue lights and green lights
and white lights, yet it's the same amount
of electricity flowing through the filament that makes
the light.
It's a different light, but it's the same
power.
So the Lord makes his people different.
And I'm glad we're not all alike.
We can talk enthusiastically about a brother and
love him and write his last story, but
we wouldn't want other people.
My wife and I are reading the letters
of Samuel Rutherford.
I refer to it sometimes.
I guess we're in about close to 500
pages now that we've read in it.
And he was a wonderful Scotsman, there's no
question about it.
But it seems to me that a church
filled with Samuel Rutherford's would be a bit
hard to live in.
And so with almost anybody that I know,
we can talk about Billy Sunday and Holy
Ann and so on, but when it's through,
it's variety that makes beauty and interest, and
not similarity, particularly not stereotype similarity.
So let's not try to be like our
heroes.
Let's not try to be like Moody or
somebody else.
I do hope that there won't be a
lot of young fellows who get the idea
that they can be like Billy Graham, because
in the days of Billy Sunday's great usefulness
and his big ministry, so many people were
trying to be like Billy Sunday.
And all they managed to do was copy
his eccentricities.
They never managed to get his power nor
his usefulness.
And so if I'm tempted to copy anybody
that I admire as a Christian, their natural
eccentricities never their spirituality.
So don't try to be like anybody, except
as we must all be alike, we're to
be different.
Now I notice here from what I have
read and in this whole chapter, that God
does nothing that he will not do again.
Anything he did for any of his people,
he will do for any of the rest
of his people if they'll only believe.
He will do in belief and faith for
us now what he did for anybody.
See, unbelief is very subtle.
You read the life of a great Saint
and you become discouraged because of the unfavorable
comparison between you and that great Saint.
That is one thing I keep away from
in some measure.
Sometimes I can be greatly harmed by reading
the lives of the Saints.
I do read the lives of the Saints
and I recommend biography, but you've got to
know how you do it.
Don't spend all your time reading the lives
of the Saints, because if you do, the
comparison between the great Saints and you will
be so unfavorable that you will be deeply
discouraged.
Don't become discouraged because you are you and
they are they.
And if your life was to be written
and they read it, no doubt they would
shake their heads and say, I wish I
could.
Well, put those weakening thoughts away, because faith
comes to persons morally different.
Faith came like a dove to the hearts
of men, of Abraham, but not Abraham only,
Jacob too.
Faith came to Moses and faith came to
Samson.
Faith came to Sarah and faith came to
Rahab.
The old little old song they used to
sing is, let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream.
All the fitness he requires is to feel
your need of him.
And if I feel my need of him,
I don't have to look at myself and
wonder if because I am not like D.
L.
Moody or A.
B.
Simpson, I am not going to be a
good Christian.
Some dear old Saints hinder pastors unintentionally, because
they've had a pastor somewhere.
There was a great Saint and they liked
him very well, and they appreciated him and
admired him and emulated him.
And then he dies or retires or moves
away and a new man comes in, and
the new fellow has an awful time.
Because the old Saints just can't pardon him
because he's not like the old fellow.
They learn through the sound of the old
man's voice and the scarcity of his hair
and the awkwardness of his motions.
And they came unintentionally and unconsciously to equate
spirituality with boldness.
Or gray hair, at least.
Then the young fellow comes in and he's
got nothing like that wrong with him.
He has all his hair yet and his
voice is smooth and he moves with a
lot of ease and grace.
No, he couldn't be spiritual.
He couldn't be because he's not like dear
old Dr. So-and-so.
Watch that, my brethren, because God blesses people
for their faith, not for the amount of
hair they have.
He blesses them for their faith, not because
they're older, because they're young.
He blesses them for their faith, not because
their voice is pleasant or gravely.
And so let's remember that and not get
in the way of the Saints.
You go to some Alliance churches and you'll
find dear old people who will come and
stare at you and announce, I heard Dr.
Simpson.
I've never said what I thought in a
case like that.
I've been too nice.
But sometimes I like to say what I
thought, really.
You know, somebody ought to give an answer
to that.
I heard Dr. Simpson.
I was at Old Orchard.
Oh, bless her.
She was at Old Orchard.
Well, there are Saints now as well as
there were then, and usually the ones that
are Saints don't call themselves Saints, except theologically,
and don't know that they are.
But they're a great blessing to people nevertheless.
You see, we can be in our day
what these old heroes were in theirs, and
they didn't know that they were heroes.
For instance, a simple little thing like this,
it's not to call myself a hero, we're
just together here as Christians, but it's to
say, a little thing you do, a little
thing you do, may bless people that you
don't dream of.
Now, I talked with, or rather he testified,
it was in a testimony meeting, he testified
in the Lutheran group up there.
There were quite several hundred of them, a
couple of thousand at night, I understand.
I didn't preach at night, I preached in
the daytime to have on the Holy Spirit.
And of course there were fewer people, but
there were still hundreds.
And one man said, a fine young chap
told me, he was 41 years old, Lutheran
pastor.
He said that he carried with him in
his Bible a little thing called the prayer
of a minor prophet.
I remember writing that, I guess, 15 years
ago.
The prayer of a minor prophet.
And he said, when I get discouraged or
get in trouble, I open my Bible and
I read the prayer of a minor prophet.
Well, now I suppose his idea of the
man who would write the prayer of a
minor prophet was very much inflated, far beyond
my wife's idea of the same man, or
my son's, or my own, or yours.
But he didn't know me, and he pictured
me as something unusual, because I'd written that.
And yet it was blessing him, it was
blessing him.
And if he wanted an illustration, no doubt
he'd talk about that man.
Just as when I wanted an illustration, I'd
talk about somebody that I don't know so
well, but that's blessed me and helped me.
Maybe if I knew him as well as
his wife, I'd be a bit more cautious.
But the point is, we can be in
our day what those Saints were in theirs.
And while the Lord wants us to be
holy and Spirit-filled, he doesn't expect us
all to look like Abraham, or play a
harp like David.
He expects us to have the same faith,
the same obedience, and the same love, and
after that we're on our own, more or
less.
One thing is sure, they are dead, and
one thing is sure, we are alive.
So remember, dear friends, that it is better
to be a living dog than to be
a dead lion.
Because the living dog is alive, but the
dead lion, though he be a lion, he
is dead.
And I would rather be the little dog
toser than to be the lion Abraham.
Because Abraham has been asleep these centuries, but
I'm still around, still able to testify, and
I start to sing, but you'll excuse that.
But at least I am able to pray
and witness and preach and labor and give
of my substance and help people and encourage
people and meet them and talk with them
on the phone, in person.
I am still here where Abraham sleeps, so
I would rather be me alive than to
be Abraham dead.
Better a living dog than a dead lion.
That's a proverb, as you know, from the
Bible itself.
So they fell asleep and they rest with
the honored dead.
Now, when the Lord comes, we'll not all
be rewarded the like, because there are some
people who deserve more than others under God's
grace, and they will get it.
But in the of faith, and if we
never rise to their level, and thank God,
at least we rose as high as we
did.
And it may be that some of God's
present-day people will rise as high as
some of the people here in the 11th
chapter of Hebrews.
And if another 11th chapter of Hebrews was
written, there would be people in it that
you would scarcely believe are in it.
People here with Abraham.
What was she doing in there?
She was a harlot, but she believed God
and turned hard to faith.
There was Gideon, and there was Barak, and
there was Samson.
He wasn't as perfect as he might have
been, but he believed.
So you'd find some people in that you
didn't think might be in, because the heroes
of faith are not all dead.
And if you will believe God in the
midst of an ungodly world and will walk
with the Lord in this time as they
walked with the Lord in their time, you
will deserve a place, too, when the Lord
writes his final 11th chapter of Hebrews, if
he does write another one.
One thing I'd like to have you remember
is that when these old Saints died, God
didn't die with them.
It says, And it came to pass, after
the death of Abraham, God said, God didn't
die, but after the death of Moses, God
said to Joshua.
And after the death of Joshua, God said,
after the death of his great hero, God
still lives.
He's living, and he's laboring, and he's working,
and he's hearing prayer.
And the God of Abraham lives today, and
the God of Rahab lives today, to encourage
every poor fallen sister off the street that
might want to believe on the Son of
God.
And Samson lives today to encourage every man
who's made his failures, but who is ready
to repent and come back.
And Jephthah, and David, and Samuel, and all
the rest of them, the God of these
men lives now.
And he will not let himself be without
a witness.
You can be sure of that.
He will have men and women in 1962
AD, the same as he had in 1962
B.C. Well, how do you know what
high, happy secret God wants to whisper to
your heart?
How do you know?
How do you know what God wants to
say, what high expectations he's entertaining for you?
How do you know?
If only you will listen.
If only you will do these three things,
put away sin, separate yourself from the world,
and offer yourself to God in faith, you'll
do those three things, you don't know what
God may yet do for them that trust
him.
God receives the poor in spirit, no matter
what kind of people they are.
If they have the dignity of Abraham, or
the embarrassed kind of way of living that
Jacob did, whether they be the pure old
sister like Sarah, whether they be the shady
character as Rahab was, whether they be the
man of a high temper like Moses, or
the humble, simple, meek man like Joseph, God
has his plans for you.
He will work in you, he will cleanse
you and deliver you from your temper, and
he'll deliver Rahab from her wickedness, and he'll
deliver David from his sin.
He's a deliverer, and he receives the poor
in spirit.
The only soul permanently blind is the one
who thinks it sees, and the only soul
incurably sick is the one who thinks it's
well.
The only soul hopelessly bad is the one
who insists it's good.
The only one that'll never be clean is
the one who insists it is clean.
The man who comes before the Lord God
saying, I am blind, O God, heal my
blindness.
I am sick, O God, heal my sickness.
I am unclean, O Lord, cleanse thou me.
He will find the Lord the sight-giver,
the healer, the cleanser, the purifier, and the
helper of his people.
So let's thank God for the heroes of
faith, and let's remember they're dead.
But they left their testimony behind them for
the next generation, and the next, and the
next.
You are alive.
Your generation is everywhere about you.
You must serve your generation by the will
of God before you fall asleep.
You can do that.
You can't serve theirs, you can only serve
yours.
Serve yours, and then leave your reputation and
your service in the kind hand of God.
And when the right day comes, he may
put your name with the heroes of faith
and say, by faith he, by faith she.
Whether he does or not, at least we
will have the delight of knowing we pleased
him and the joy of knowing we served
our generation.
May God bless his word to our hearts.
Amen.