We’re going to continue our study concerning worship.

there are some lights that are not turned on.

I’m gonna let y’all take care of that.

Seeming dark in the entryway, it’s seeming dark in here.

And I’d hate for y’all to be in the dark.

Anyway, all right.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 1.

We’re just going to use this as a launching point for our study this evening.

But let’s begin with a word of prayer, and then we’ll get into our study.

Our gracious Father in heaven, we come before your throne grateful for the day that you’ve

blessed us with, grateful for all that you do for us on a daily basis.

We’re grateful for the

weather, we’re grateful for the sunshine, the rain, the things that provide the

nourishment and the nutrients to the ground that this earth might continue to live.

And Lord, we know that you have knowledge concerning what this world needs, what it has,

and what you designed it to do, and we give you all the glory and all the honor for that.

We

Pray that you will be with this nation and with the world and all of its leaders, that

they might make choices that are beneficial to your kingdom and right in judgment in both

matters of mercy and justice, in matters of uprightness and morality.

Lord, we pray that you help us to be what you would have us to be as a people and as

humanity.

Lord, we pray that you forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Genesis chapter one, Moses’ law, given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Peter specifically draws out that the revelation, the prophecies of old time, were not

given by any personal interpretation, but were.

given by the Holy Spirit and God breathed as Paul uses the terminology concerning

inspiration in Second Timothy chapter three.

As Moses writes concerning that which he did not witness, he wasn’t around when Genesis

one’s events occurred.

He wasn’t around for what another twenty five hundred years after the events of Genesis

one verse one occurred.

But yet he wrote the details of that with perfect clarity, with perfect accuracy, the same

way that the Apostle Paul will speak and quote Jesus in a quotation that nowhere else is

found in the Gospels when he quotes Jesus as saying, It is more blessed to give than to

receive.

And specifically states that Jesus said it while he was on this earth, yet Paul was, by no

indications of the text anywhere, ever present in Jesus’ vicinity.

So here you have a man who quotes a man who he never met in person while that individual

was on the earth, and he potes he quotes him with complete and perfect accuracy.

How?

Because the Holy Spirit told him what Jesus said.

The same way that you have.

Moses giving what happened on day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six,

and day seven.

Because the Holy Spirit, who was there, told him what happened.

And by the way, Moses quotes the Lord.

Because if you notice at the end of each day, and he said it was good.

So you either believe.

That Moses was inspired, and if you believe that Moses was inspired, and if there is

sufficient evidence to understand that Moses is a is in was inspired, and he was, and if

you understand that the biblical concept of inspiration is not just a thought idea.

Moses had the idea I should write vaguely about creation, but rather that God gave Moses

the very words that Moses

put down in the Hebrew language concerning the creation, if you understand that that is

exactly what the biblical position is, then the question of did it happen the way Moses

wrote it down is really somewhat of a ridiculous conversation.

Because Moses didn’t write it down as myth.

He didn’t write it down as theory.

He didn’t postulate it as a general idea of what might have happened.

He began with the words in the beginning God.

And if you doubt all the words that come after those four, we have a real problem with

everything in Scripture.

Because Moses predicates everything that he will say and the factual basis of everything

that he teaches on in the beginning God.

And as a foundation of human thought, human knowledge, human understanding, and the

ability to function in this world, either those four words are true or they’re not.

And if they’re not, we can use the same line of argumentation that Paul used in First

Corinthians chapter fifteen when he spoke concerning the resurrection and made the point

that if Jesus Christ is not raised, then we, Christians, are of all men most miserable.

We should throw the scriptures away and go out and enjoy our lives, live carefree, eat,

drink, and be merry, because tomorrow we die.

And if that’s the case, none of it matters.

So either the first four words of Moses’ first writing in the form of the scriptures is

accurate, and if the first four words are accurate, then the rest of it is or they’re not.

And if they’re not, let’s go home.

And if they’re not, and if someone believes and lives as though they’re not, they should

go home.

Now, why are we talking about Genesis so much?

The answer is because the relationship between God and man is fundamentally described and

articulated and visualized in the beginning of Genesis.

It begins in Genesis chapter one, verse.

26, then God said, Let us make man in our image, and according to our likeness, let him

have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over

all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.

God designed mankind, designed humanity as a that which

resembled was made in the image of himself.

Now that does not mean that our physical representation, our physical manifestation in

this physical world and this atomic world, is a visual representation of the Lord.

Rather, that our nature is one that is representative of God.

So God created man with a living soul and breathed into man the breath of life and created

man as that which would have dominion.

In other words, man has derived authority from God.

We’ve used that terminology in the book of Revelation a number of times to speak

concerning the beast, can speak concerning Satan.

uh And the idea of derived authority.

It is authority passed off from one person to another, and the person who receives the

authority can never have more authority than the person that got the authority from.

Okay?

God said he made man to have authority over the physical world.

When no, sometimes I use them quite often in illustrations, but when Elon goes and shoots

off a rocket and then returns it back to a pad and catches it before it ever touches the

ground.

And we look at that and I I think Trump was quoted as saying when he called Elon, who who

else can do this?

No one, sir.

True but false.

Who else can do it?

Well, no other engineering firm yet on the planet could do it.

But God can make an animal wake up in the morning and give birth to a bird and a few v

days later that bird’s gonna be flying.

And it consumes a whole lot less fuel and propellant to do it.

And God has comets that traverse the universe with such accuracy that one can go by and

hundreds of years later people will know exactly when it’s going to show up again.

Beat that one, Elon.

And then put it on autopilot.

And then uphold it by the word of your power.

We’re not there yet, guys.

But the premise of this is when someone does that, that’s just God, or sorry, that’s just

mankind doing what God created mankind to be able to do.

Have dominion over the earth.

And he established laws of nature that are consistent, that are

verifiable that are demonstratable that make all of those things possible.

Can you imagine what it would be like to try and launch anything into outer space and then

bring it back down and catch it if the laws of physics were in constant flux?

If the laws of gravity applied one minute and didn’t the next?

If the laws of propulsion and atomic reaction didn’t occur the same way at all points

across the Earth when that’s going on?

You know what?

Tomorrow might just be that these particles don’t bind together anymore.

Could we function as a species if that wasn’t the case?

If God didn’t create it that way?

The answer’s no.

So all of that leads back to who created man?

What did God create man to do?

And therefore, who is worthy of worship?

Man or God?

Because our discussion is about worship.

But our discussion ought to first undergird this idea that God is worthy of worship in a

way that there is no one else.

Anywhere at any point in time or ever will be who is worthy of worship like Jehovah.

So then go to chapter three.

If we’re familiar with the text, we understand that God will have Adam name the animals,

demonstrating to Adam that there is no one like him and that there is no one comparable to

him, and then God will bring a s state of sleep to come across Adam.

He will take from him a rib, he will make Eve, and he will present Eve to Adam as a

helpmeet.

To him, God will bring them together in marriage.

God will ordain marriage.

It is a God given uh union.

It is that which Jesus, by the way, again quotes what Moses said.

So Jesus’ authority backs up Moses’ factual accuracy.

if it is the case that Adam and Eve were not in the garden, if it is the case there was

never a garden.

If it is the case that Adam and Eve were not given in marriage, then Jesus is

misunderstanding history, and therefore Jesus is inaccurate, and therefore we can all go

home.

All of those things are true.

I if Jesus doesn’t know what God did in the beginning, if Jesus is misunderstanding the

factual accuracy of Moses’ writing when in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus said.

Do you not know that he that made them in the beginning made them male and female?

And then quotes Moses, then we can go home.

But in all of those events, God and Adam are interacting, woman is made, God establishes

the uh principle of procreation, and then we read chapter three, verse one.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made,

and he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the

garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but

of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not

eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like

God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes,

and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

The very first temptation from Satan to mankind.

Was the temptation to do what?

Be like God.

It is so ingrained in humanity’s history that you go all the way back to the very first

sin, and the very first sin is the desire to have a position like God that God didn’t

authorize.

So Eve sees that the fruit is desirable to make one wise because Satan is saying, listen,

you do this, and you’re going to be like God.

Now he couches it in fact factual accuracy.

You’re going to know good and evil.

Does God know good and evil?

Yes.

So he establishes his statement in a predicate of this is exactly what God said this would

do.

But don’t you want that?

Don’t you want to be like God?

And many throughout history have answered that call with an absolute affirmative.

Yeah, I want to be like God.

Matter of fact, I kind of would like to dethrone him and take his role.

And so Pharaoh says, over in the book of Exodus, Who is Jehovah that I should hear him?

And Israel says, God doesn’t see, God doesn’t know.

And Jeroboam takes the worship of the Lord and replaces it with his own ideas and with his

own interest because he wants to protect his authority.

All of these are just mere examples.

of individuals who decided that they should be honored or they should hold positions that

allowed them to deny God’s authority.

Or be like God.

You go forward to the Tower of Babel, just a few chapters forward in the book of Genesis,

and what do you find?

You find all of humanity unified in one purpose.

To establish that humanity can touch God, that humanity can reach the pinnacle of who God

is as long as humanity does it together.

And God says, Hmm, not gonna work out the way you think it’s gonna work out.

Why don’t you all learn how to speak another language?

So that you could communicate with one another again.

Because right now, none of you can speak the language of your neighbor.

And suddenly

we are faced with a brand new scenario, humanity that is, and a new understanding of how

little we know.

Interesting question.

All of the languages that all of the people post Tower of Babel spoke, who created all of

the languages?

Goddamn.

And interestingly, as you pay attention to language and the history of language, you can

find where languages connect and languages have similarity and languages have have kind of

a a root seemingly a root language and divergences, and yet we also see that in the

creation.

You see all these different species out here that look like some sort of tree.

And across the entire planet.

And even under the ice in Antarctica, you see trees.

And you see all different types and all different but are they all the same?

Are they 100% interchangeable?

No.

Do some produce different fruit and others produce other things?

Yeah.

And yet they all have one creator.

Same thing with languages.

Some of them come forth for a little while and then vanish away, they go extinct.

Some of them live on, some of them have long storied histories, some are like English.

We just steal from everybody.

The Anglicans were like, mm, I like that word.

It’s ours now.

We’re gonna change the meaning, keep some close association, but it’s ours now.

And they morph and they shift, but the reality is God, starting at Babel, took all of

humanity and said, here, there’s a whole bunch of languages, go figure it out.

And the reason is because humanity, by all indications of the text, had clumped all in one

location and wouldn’t move.

It was like there was one city, nobody’s moving anywhere else.

And God said, no, I’ve got a planet to fill.

Y’all need to spread out.

Guess what?

When you can’t understand anybody around you, you start looking for a reason to find

somebody else you can understand.

Anyone who’s traveled overseas for very long to like to countries where you don’t

understand the language, and then you end up the only one around you who understands the

language?

Find that out real quick.

There was a tech podcast back in the early days of podcasts that I used to listen to that

some of the the the brothers in the church put on.

And one was in Tennessee and one was in Colorado, one was in California, and there were

some guys who would get on and listen because they recorded it live, it was audio only,

and it would stream, and there were some guys from overseas who were missionaries that

would get on and listen.

And one day they asked, you know, hey, why are people listening?

Just curious, what brought you here?

And one of the missionaries responded, I just need to hear English.

Because every day he was surrounded by people who didn’t speak the language he speaks, and

he just wanted he’s like, I’m just I’m just here to hear people who speak English and some

witty banner because I need it.

That was the relief valve for him.

It’s hard to live amongst a group of people who do not speak a language you even

understand, let alone you can speak.

So what did the world do?

The world segregated into

Oh, you speak this language?

We don’t have a name for it, but you speak this language, so do I.

Let’s go.

Why is that valuable?

Why is that important?

Because it reminds us there is a God who spoke all of them.

So often we think of God as delivering the scriptures in Hebrew and in Aramaic and in

Greek, and God delivering that through the prophets of old, but turn to Hebrews chapter

one.

Hebrews chapter one verse one God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time

past to the fathers by the prophets.

is that our is it our understanding that when the Hebrew writer writes that he’s

exclusively and only speaking of the Hebrew fathers by the Hebrew prophets?

It shouldn’t be.

Of what nationality was Job?

I don’t know, but I know he wasn’t Hebrew.

How do I know he wasn’t Hebrew?

By all indications, he lived before Isaac and therefore Jacob.

And the Hebrew nation is a descendant of Jacob.

So there were no Hebrews before Jacob.

Not Hebrew.

Did he live before Noah?

Don’t know.

Probably not.

Did he live after Noah?

Could be.

Some suggest that he lived in a similar period of time as Abraham.

That’s a possibility.

There’s some good s good reasoning behind that idea from textual statements that are made

within the book of Job.

But

No indication he’s a descendant of Abraham.

Quite often we get in this mindset because of the story of history, we try and we think of

the story, we think of the account, we think of the history, and we try and shove every

interaction of God with mankind into the story.

Except we know that that’s not accurate.

We know it because God sends prophets out of the nation of Israel to go speak to other

nations.

We know it because God brings prophets from other nations to speak to Israel.

We know it because when Jesus is born, who shows up?

Wise men from the east.

What was their background and interaction in relationship to the prophecies and the

knowledge concerning the birth of the king of Israel so much so that they were looking for

it when Israel wasn’t?

Don’t know.

Be a good exploration for a discussion with a few people when we get to eternity.

But at this side of eternity we’re not gonna have an answer.

Here’s what we do know.

All we back in the days of Abraham.

And all the way back in the days of Noah, and all the way back in the days of Enoch, and

all the way back in the days of Shem, and all the way back in the days of Abel and Cain,

God spoke with mankind.

And in the days of A Adam, God spoke with mankind.

What language did Cain speak?

No idea.

Completely unimportant.

Probably the same language everybody at Babel spoke.

What language was that?

Don’t have a clue.

It wasn’t English.

That gives us great hope.

eh There’s hope for humanity because English is not the end all to be all.

So we have a God who created.

We have a God who gave humanity something that resembled himself and gave humanity the

role of having authority and dominion.

But did not make humanity equal with him.

And then we have a God who established that humanity could become more like him, but it

would be the desire to do that that would be humanity’s continual downfall.

Then we have a God who gives the beauty of language into the world.

And yet it’s just one more struggle because humanity constantly wants to be in the

position of being God.

And yet all along the way, God is speaking to the fathers by the prophets.

And he has in this last day spoken unto us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all

things, through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and

the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he

had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having

become so much better than the angels.

As he has by his inherit has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

So we have a God who not only has done all of those things, who not only has interacted

with humanity all throughout history, not only been able to provide them what they needed,

but be able to provide them the things that will keep humanity in check, resulting in

humanity still being here, by the way.

But he cared enough to send his son to die for us, to live for us, to reign, so that we

Have a savior.

and demonstrated that Jesus is greater than the angels, that he is worthy of this his

position, that he is worthy of his authority.

And that he reigns.

Alright?

Turn to, if you will, Deuteronomy chapter thirty.

Deuteronomy chapter 30, you are in a period of time where Moses is presenting the choice.

Presenting the choice between good and evil, between God and not God, between serving the

Lord and serving self, serving that which is in this world.

And we read verse 11 for this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious

for you.

Nor is it far off.

It is not in heaven that you would say, Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to

us that we may hear it and do it?

Moses, as he delivers this through inspiration from God to Israel, says, Listen, I didn’t

make this so hard that you couldn’t grasp it.

I didn’t make this otherworldly.

I didn’t make this so difficult that you would have to go find.

Some spiritual being to go up ascend up into heaven and and bring down the special

knowledge so that we might know how to be obedient to God.

He says, But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do

it.

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.

In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his

commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply.

And the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess, but if your

heart turns away, so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and

serve them.

I announce to you today that you shall surely perish.

You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and

possess.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today.

That I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life,

that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you

may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of

your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give them.

Moses as he closes out this second giving of the law, this Deuteronomy, the second giving

of the law to the second generation of Israel, he says, I didn’t make it too hard for you.

Let me boil it down really close to home.

You obey God and you worship Him and you choose life.

You rebel against God and you worship anything else.

And you choose judgment.

That’s it.

I go.

Essentially.

Or maybe perhaps better stated, Moses is saying, I’m 120 years old.

I’m fed up and I’m done with you people.

Here it is.

You choose.

I’m out.

I’m gonna go walk up a mountain.

You won’t see you again.

He does the same thing.

At the end of his life Choose you this day who you will serve, whether the gods here it

is.

He’d had his forty years too.

Now, here’s this thread that keeps getting pulled by the Old Testament, by the New

Testament, over and over and over again.

Because you notice what Moses said.

Moses said, verse 19, I call heaven and earth as witnesses.

That’s the it is more than just a metaphorical statement.

It is more than just saying, you know what, you’re all witnesses, and everybody who’s

alive in heaven is witness.

We began last week with this singular concept that creation declares the glory of God.

That God is worthy of worship because what He created spends its existence declaring His

glory.

Moses is doing more than just saying, you know what, everybody on earth and everybody in

heaven’s gonna be a witness to what you No no, he’s not talking about everybody.

He’s talking about heaven and earth, the creation that daily honors and glorifies God

because it fulfills what He created it to do.

Psalm nineteen.

He says, I’m going to call the very heavens and the very earth as a witness against you

because they do what God made them to do, and we’ll see if you do.

God is worthy of worship.

Because God is glorified by all of creation.

Not by everything that humanity does, but by everything that God made and said, it is

good.

It is good.

It is good.

It is good.

It is good.

It is good.

It is very good.

Now let’s go back to Genesis real quick.

I guess it’ll be quicker than maybe I thought.

Back to Genesis chapter four.

We’re considering worship.

We’re establishing the foundation for it.

Foundation layer number one is God is worthy of worship because everything that God made

declares God to be the creator and God is the one with authority and God’s authority to be

unsurpassed and infinite and unmatched.

But then consider number two God is worthy of worship because of command.

In Genesis chapter four, now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain and

said, I have acquired a man from the Lord.

Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of

the ground to the Lord.

What did Cain do?

Tilled the ground, it brought forth fruit, and he brought an offering, which we would

describe as what?

First fruits, more even more generically, the word we’re studying, worship.

He brought an offering, he brought worship to the Lord.

He brought an offering of the uh fruit of the ground to the Lord.

Now, I’m gonna I’m gonna take a little bit from your all’s e knowledge and experience.

Is there ever a time where a

An offering or worship that is of plant based material or the fruit of the ground is an

acceptable offering anywhere in scripture?

Sure.

All through the Old Testament, there’s a whole bunch of commanded offerings concerning

things that are grown from the ground.

There’s absolutely an appropriateness to this.

So we’re gonna have to dig a little deeper than just say, well, that was a fruit of the

ground, and this was this, therefore that was not acceptable, and this was.

All right?

So notice what the text says.

In the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the

ground.

Also, uh Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat.

And the Lord respected Abel and his offering.

But he did not respect Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry, and his countenance

fell.

Here’s Cain and Abel, generation two of humanity.

Our long track record of success, not all that good.

Generation two, one of them’s offering the fruit of the ground.

One of them is offering the first fruits of the flock.

One of their offerings is unacceptable, one of them is acceptable.

Why was one accepted and the other not?

All right, turn to Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things

which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

By faith

Interestingly, before we get into the whole chapter on faith, the Hebrew writer goes

straight to creation.

Says let’s establish something.

The world that we live in is made up of things we can’t see.

The existence that we have is made up of things we can’t see, and we know it.

So then he says, By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,

through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and

through it he being dead still speaks.

The defining picture and the defining illustration of the Hebrew writer in this entire

chapter.

Is this singular idea?

There is a person who acted and performed something in some way that was motivated by

their knowledge that God exists.

And because they knew God exists and because they knew he was worthy of honor and glory

and author and his authority was universal.

They took action.

Finding separation between an offering of worship in Abel and his sacrifice that was

acceptable to God is, as the Hebrew writer points out, it was motivated by faith.

And Cain over here, who offered a sacrifice, and the clear separation is Cain’s sacrifice

was not offered by faith.

It was not motivated by a knowledge of who God was and his authority and his worthiness to

be worshipped.

Because we see people who believe but they just choose not to do it God’s way.

Now I know that then comes back to if they really have faith in God they will do it his

way.

But every person in Hebrews 11 who acted acted after they received instructions from God.

So they had God’s word or God’s message.

So is it possible that Cain knew what he was supposed to do?

And again, even though he knew who God was, he chose to act in his own manner, like even

the garden, like at the Tower of Babel.

So Cain offered worship because he believed God shouldn’t be worshiped, but he believed he

could do it his own.

Way similar to John 4 when you have to worship in spirit and in truth, both of them

together.

So my the exception to that and and be honest, I used to look at the by faith closer to

that way, except there’s one exception to that idea.

Because everywhere, almost everywhere in the book of sorry, in Hebrews chapter eleven, you

have illustrations of people who are given a command, they follow the command.

Except verse thirty one.

By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had

received the spies with peace.

And you have Jephthah, and you have others.

You have examples towards the end that draw in more of a picture, not of a singular idea.

God commanded it, I obeyed it.

Go further.

Verse twenty three By faith Moses.

When he was born was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a

beautiful child, as they were not afraid of the king’s command.

Now notice it was not Moses’ faith that caused Moses to be hidden, was it?

No, he was an infant.

He he th the faith didn’t exist in Moses yet.

He was an infant.

Whose faith was it?

His parents.

By faith, there’s nowhere in the text that indicates that they had a specific verbalized

command from the Lord to go hide Moses.

Rather, they recognized the gift of God that Moses existed and was as a child and went and

hid him.

They honored God in their protection of Moses.

But go further.

By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s

daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the

passing pleasures of sin.

Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, he looked to

the reward.

Where do we have any indication of the text that indicates that God gave some sort of

verbal statement or command to Moses to refuse his position in Egypt?

We don’t.

But what do we have across the entire chapter?

And this does not diminish the imperative in worship that if worship is not condoned by

command, it is a violation of God’s law.

Okay?

Doesn’t diminish it at all.

I’m just saying that’s not the Hebrew writer’s point with chapter 11.

The Hebrew writer’s point with chapter 11.

In example after example after example after example is here are people who understood God

exists.

They could not see him.

They had no physical, tangible knowledge of God’s existence in their human interaction

with God in the sense of the way they would another person.

And yet

Their complete assurance of his existence motivated every aspect of what they did in these

examples.

It motivated Rahab because Rahab would testify that the entire nation was and the entire

city was trembling at the name of Jehovah because of what he had done in Egypt.

That she was doing what she was doing because.

of the name of Jehovah and what he had done in Egypt.

Her actions were motivated by faith in God.

Not by command, but by faith.

Again, does not diminish at all the principle of command and obedience.

Just saying that doesn’t establish all of the examples that the Hebrew writer uses.

Ahab could have been seeking him without a command to do something, but because she had

heard of him, same way Moses, as he knows who God is, he is now striving to do what’s

pleasing to him.

uh

And he is desirous in his actions, in his support of Israel, in his giving of alms, in his

prayers, to have a relationship with the God who he knows exists.

And ultimately and finally the angel shows up and says to Cornelius, Your your alms have

been brought as a memorial before God.

And you need to send a Japah to go find out what you must do.

It’s interesting that in all of these examples, eventually in all of them, there is a

command.

And just the same way Rahab was told listen, if you don’t obey the command, you’re dead.

And everybody who’s not in your house, dead.

You don’t obey the command?

Faith’s not gonna save you.

But chapter 11 is this corpus of examples of people who say, I know he exists, and because

I know he exists, I know what I have to do.

You go back then to the first example of worship in the book of Genesis and man

worshiping.

All right, we’ll get into that a little bit more in terms of sacrifice later.

But Abel, if we use that idea of Hebrews 11 and what the Hebrew writer is telling us, Abel

was motivated by this singular thing.

I know God exists, and I’m going to honor him.

in a way that is appropriate for what I have been told concerning his existence.

And Abel’s sacrifice was accepted.

And when Cain is confronted with the fact that his sacrifice was not accepted, what is his

reaction?

Anger, rebellion, rejection of God, kill his brother.

All of those things.

Demonstrating the heart behind the worship.

Okay?

So

You cannot when you when you get to worship, you cannot separate God from worship.

You just can’t do it.

Yes, Philip?

You know, God told Cain, he gave him a chance.

And and he told him there at the end, he said, You’ve got to rule over sin.

That’s it.

You gotta you’ve got to rule over it.

Just like people today, you have the choice.

You have to rule over it.

Yep.

Yep.

Absolutely.

All right, thank you for your attention.