THIS WORLD AND THAT WORLD
It will be noticed that this chapter in Hebrews from which we have read is concerned with faith, and it is important that every one of us should have faith. It says, “But without faith it is impossible to please ... God”. That is a very strong expression, “without faith it is impossible to please him”. Therefore, we want to make sure that we have got faith. Faith here is not confidence in God, which is more an element in piety, it is rather that we have, in our souls, the light of what is unseen; as it says here, “faith is the substantiating of things hoped for”— things that have not yet come to pass, but made substantial in the soul by faith—and it is “the conviction of things not seen”. You may say, Faith is the gift of God, and can I be held responsible if I have not faith? Our responsibility is to obey the word of God. God’s side of the matter you leave with Him; our side of the matter is that we have to obey what is presented in testimony by God. So that it presents this idea of faith as that which has been existent in the world ever since the days of Abel. It is a remarkable thing, that ever since the days of Abel there has been faith in the world. You might say, Why does he not go back to Adam, for, no doubt, Adam had faith? But the Spirit of God goes back to Abel because faith was called into necessity, if I may so say, by sin having come into the world and death by sin. It was impossible that that condition should be perpetuated, death reigning by one man—“by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”; and it says death reigned. It was impossible that that condition of things should be perpetuated, it would not be consistent with what God is in Himself that that condition of things should be perpetuated. You may say, It has not been set aside yet—perfectly true—but then the glad tidings brings to us the light that God is working in relation to another world, a world beyond death, and the glad tidings is in this world as that by means of which God is calling people out of this world to have part in that world. In Luke 20, He says, “The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage”, v 35. So the Lord in contrast with this world, speaks of that world and the resurrection, and that is clear evidence that what one has said is right, that God is working in relation to another world that lies the other side of death. The pledge of that is that Christ who came into this world as Man has passed out of it by way of death, and has been raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father, and now Scripture speaks of Him as “the beginning, firstborn from among the dead”, obviously implying that there are others who are to have part with Him in that condition of resurrection from amongst the dead.
Now we want to see whether we have the light of these things in our souls. I feel profoundly sorry for the man or woman who has no light in his soul beyond this world. But God has come in with light, and as the light that God gives enters into your soul, as it is received on the principle of faith, it becomes power in you. Now it begins by saying that “By faith we apprehend that the worlds”—not only this planet on which we are but the worlds—“were framed by the word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear”. That disposes of evolution at once. “We apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God”, that really brings us to God, and that we must get back to God, and that is an important feature in the preaching, that we must get back to God in our exercises, and that is why I read those verses in Psalm 33, where it says, “Let all the earth fear Jehovah; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him”, and the reason given is that “he spoke, and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast”. This light that is brought to us that the worlds were framed by the word of God is intended to have the result of putting us in awe of God. It is intended to bring about in our souls the fear of God, that you have to do with One who is immensely greater than man. Man cannot create anything. I know in the boastfulness of present-day human language people talk about creating this and that, and call themselves the creators of this or that, but that is just the boastfulness of human language. Man does not create anything, he can only deal with what is here, the substance that is to hand, or it may be the powers that there are in the creation, set there by God. But to “apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God” is intended to have the effect of making us fear God. That is an important matter, because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, Prov 9: 10. A person has not really begun to be wise if he is not marked by the fear of God. “The fear of God”, it says, “is the beginning of wisdom”, the beginning of it, and you get nowhere in the direction of wisdom if you do not start with the fear of God. So that is a kind of foundation laid in this remarkable chapter, Hebrews 11, and you will find that it is a chapter in which the truth is built up by one thing upon another. The statements are not made promiscuously, they are made sequentially, one thing following upon another, and what is in view is to bring out the lines upon which God is building up the world of which we have spoken, that world and the resurrection. Let it be clearly in your minds that God has another world before Him, which He calls ‘that world.’ The Lord Himself called it that, “The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage”. And so it is a question, therefore, whether you have clearly before your minds that there is that world, and it lies the other side of death. Now obviously if you or I are to have part in that world the penalty of death that lies upon us in relation to sin must be met. How can you and I have part in resurrection from among the dead unless first the penalty that lies upon us as the result of sin is removed? Hence immediately the contemplation of these things brings us to feel the necessity of a Saviour, someone who can deal with the matter of sin and death. We cannot deal with it ourselves, that is quite certain, because, “without faith it is impossible to please God”. If I attempt to deal with things myself, that shows that I am not marked by faith, I am not looking outside of myself, whereas faith looks outside of yourself.
And so it immediately comes to Abel. Abel is a most striking figure in history. He was, as we know, a son of Adam and Eve. Cain was also a son. It is thought that Cain and Abel were probably twins, but that is neither here nor there. At any rate Cain was the elder and Abel was his brother, both sons of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, as we know, had been involved in disobedience, and as a result of that disobedience had become conscious of being guilty in the sight of God. The first evidence of conscience was after sin had come in, and when God caused His voice to be heard in the garden of Eden, the result being that Adam and Eve hid themselves behind the trees of the garden. Indeed conscience had evidently worked before that, because it says, “and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”, that is to say, they realised, as Scripture says, that “all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”. They realised that they had to do with God, and their conscience came into activity and they did their best to remedy the situation, so they made themselves aprons of fig leaves. Well, that was not faith, there was no faith in that, and God very quickly delivered them from having any confidence in that. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and what did they do? They went and hid themselves in the midst of the trees of the garden. They showed by their actions that they thought they had done their best, and, no doubt, were perfectly sincere in doing it, but once they heard the voice of God, once they were conscious that they had really to do with God and that He was drawing near to them, they realised that they could not place any confidence at all in what they had done. I do not need to go over all the detail of chapter 3 of Genesis to which I have been alluding; no doubt, the detail of it is well known, but in final result, after God had addressed two questions to Adam and one question to his wife, it says, “And Jehovah Elohim made Adam and his wife coats of skin, and clothed them”. That is, God provided, in type, a righteousness for them that was founded on the death of a substitute. You do not get coats of skin without killing an animal. Some animal’s blood was shed, pointing forward, of course, to the blood of Christ, which is the great basis on which God establishes redemption for eternity. On the basis of the death of a substitute God provided a righteousness for those two guilty sinners, two sinners who were conscious of their guilt.
Now that was light from God, and faith is really light from God in the soul, and Cain and Abel are tested as to how they are going to react to the light God had given. Every one of us is tested. If anyone hears a gospel preaching in which the truth of God is presented, they are immediately tested as to how they are going to react to it. And Cain and Abel were tested. Cain moves first; he elects to draw near to God and brings to God an offering of the fruit of the ground. That is to say, he did not pay the slightest attention to the light that God had given. God had given light that only by means of the death of a substitute could they be accounted righteous before Him, and Cain dismisses that as of no value and chooses his own way of having to do with God in preference to it. Now that at once raises a further challenge to Abel. First of all Abel is challenged as to the light God had given to his parents, and now the test is increased by reason of the fact that his brother had taken a different line, and the point is, is he going to be affected by what his brother had done, or is he going to allow himself to be governed entirely by the light God had given? That is a very important matter because there are lots of people in this world who are not governed by the light God has given and yet God has given it in such a way that it is available to all. I suppose there is not a country in the world who has not had the Scriptures, and a country like this has had preachings in abundance, so that it has been within the range of everybody to know something of the light God has given, but how many there are who disregard it! Indeed Cain started a way that Scripture calls “the way of Cain” and it speaks of those who go in the way of Cain and it says, “woe unto them”. So Cain initiated a way which leads to eternal perdition. Solemn thing, that the first of Adam’s sons to move initiated a way that leads to perdition.
But as I was saying, Abel was now faced with another test, and there may be those who are faced at the present time by the test as to whether they are going to allow natural affections and natural relationships to influence them in their course, rather than being simply governed by the truth of God. There may be some here who are facing tests of that kind. Now Abel was the first to face and answer to a test of that nature. He disregarded the lead that his brother Cain had set; he, so to speak, said, I am going to be governed at all costs by the light that God has given and, therefore, he brought to God an offering of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. God knew what that meant. Abel may not have been intelligent as to it, but God knew that that pointed on to Christ—the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, the firstlings meaning that God must be considered for first, and the fat thereof speaking of the exceeding excellence of Jesus, as it says in Scripture, “A lamb without blemish and without spot”. Think of that, not only without a blemish but without a spot; “a lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but who has been manifested at the end of times for your sakes”, 1 Pet 1: 19. That is what Christ is, and it is in the value of the death of Christ that forgiveness is announced, justification is open to us from every charge, through faith in Him who has delivered up Jesus for our offences and has raised Him again for our justification. So Abel approached God the right way. He brought an offering that spoke of Christ and the death of Christ, and therefore it says in Scripture that God looked upon Abel, and on his offering, but upon Cain and on his offering he did not look. That is to say, the two are now poles apart: one starts the line of faith, the other starts the way of Cain, to which woe, eternal woe, attaches.
We know what happened to Abel, that his brother murdered him. Terrible thing that the first son to be born should be a murderer. He was of that wicked one, it says in the epistle of John, and slew his brother. That is the first principle that is opened out in this remarkable chapter, that God having in view another world, a world that lies beyond death, He must deal with the matter of sins, of guilt attaching to us, and of death, the penalty resting upon us. And so it has been well said that if God justifies, as He does, He justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ, He justifies in view of another world. That is the simple truth of the matter. It is another world that God has before Him, and He justifies people in this world, in view of that world. Let everybody here understand who through faith in Christ has received forgiveness of sins and justification from every charge and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and enjoys thus peace with God, that God has justified you in view of another world, not in view of your building up something in this world. Now in the light of the death of Christ and His having paid the penalty in death that attached to us on account of our sins, God is able to take people out of death, or indeed even to take them to Himself without their dying at all, and that is what Enoch represents. You can see how the truth is being built up in these persons mentioned in this chapter. It says, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God”. God intervened in the case of Enoch. We are told in another scripture that he was the seventh from Adam, so that before the human race had gone to seven generations and before seven generations successively had died, God intervened and showed that He had the right, based of course on the death of Christ, which He knew would take place in due course, to take people to Himself without their dying. So Enoch was translated that he should not see death.
There are only two persons whom we read of in Scripture who have been taken to heaven without dying: Enoch and Elijah. We read of two wicked men in Scripture who will be cast into the lake of fire without standing before the great white throne, a very remarkable thing; two men taken to heaven without dying, Enoch and Elijah, and two wicked men, the beast and the false prophet, who will be cast into the lake of fire without standing before the great white throne; the only two wicked men, as far as I know, who will never stand before the great white throne, but I say that by the way. God takes up two as a kind of witness, the beast and the false prophet will be taken in open-handed opposition to Christ, when He comes in His glory, and so they will be dealt with in that summary way, no trial, no need to try them, taken in open-handed opposition to Christ when He comes in glory, and therefore they will be taken alive and cast alive into the lake of fire. But Enoch and Elijah, although the only ones so far as we know, who have as yet been taken to heaven without dying, are not going to be the only ones by any means; Scripture gives us light as to that, “the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord”, 1 Thess 4: 16, 17. So the translation which appeared in Enoch’s case and took effect also in Elijah’s case, is shortly to take effect in regard of all the myriads who, having faith in Christ, are alive at the moment when the Lord comes. But in Enoch God shows that He has the power, and will exercise His right to do it. But then there is a moral basis for what He does, and that is an important matter, dear brethren, if I may speak to my fellow believers, as I suppose nearly all, if not all in this room are such, that if we are going to be translated, it is for us to see that there is a moral basis for our translation; that is an important matter. So it says here, he “was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God”.
There has been a good deal of exercise of recent months, as to being practically pleasing to God, involving separation from things that are not pleasing to Him. Let us keep that in mind, that that is an essential element entering into the fact that we are about to be translated, that if God is going to translate certain people, He looks for a certain moral basis in them, that justifies their being translated. He found that in Enoch, he had the testimony that he pleased God. Have you ever recalled the history of Enoch; how it says that Enoch lived for sixty-five years and begat Methuselah and then it says, “Enoch walked with God after he had begotten Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters, and he was not for God took him”? Evidently a change came into Enoch’s life at the birth of Methuselah and from that time onward he walked with God. You might say he was converted. It may be that he was a godly man before, I do not know, but at any rate, from that time onwards there was a change in his life and he walked with God for three hundred years, and you will find his life is measured in days. Think of that! Think of the perseverance called for to walk with God day after day for three hundred years! Think of the number of days involved, every day with its own exercises. We all know that in one sense no day is like the one that preceded it. There is always something fresh, some fresh test arises and yet Enoch went on perseveringly for three hundred years walking with God. They were not easy times in which Enoch lived. We can read from the epistle to Jude what the character of the world was in Enoch’s day, how he prophesied of how the Lord was coming in regard of the ungodliness that characterised his day, so, as I say, Enoch afforded God a moral basis on which to translate him, and we should now be concerned as to that, if we have not been before, that as our translation draws near, what God is looking for is that there should be a moral justification for our being translated. I know that everything is based upon the death of Christ. At the same time, it is clear that God found in Enoch a moral basis for translating him because it says, “for before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God”.
Well now, we read of Noah. He also walked with God; Enoch walked with God, Noah walked with God. We find in the book of Malachi that Levi walked with God, too. We are apt to think that Enoch and Noah were the only two men of whom it is said that they walked with God, but it is not so, because Malachi says that Levi walked with God. Enoch’s walking with God seems to be connected rather with what we might speak of as the enjoyment of eternal life, but Noah’s walking with God seems to be more connected with the way he brought up his house in a world of increasing evil. It says, “By faith, Noah, oracularly warned concerning things not yet seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house”. We do not read of Enoch being concerned about the saving of his house—I do not say he was not concerned, I expect he was, but Scripture does not mention it, but Scripture mentions specifically that Noah was concerned as to the saving of his house. I think that is a matter that enters into the exercises of fathers; every intelligent Christian father nowadays is surely concerned as to how his house is going to be saved. If he understands the matter he sees to it that his children are baptised, that they are baptised at the earliest possible moment; that the house is committed to the Lord in baptism. Household baptism is a most important element in the bringing up of a family, and Noah constructed an ark for the saving of his house. We were speaking this afternoon of the ark as typical of the assembly, and I have no doubt that it is typical of the assembly, but here we may view it as typical also of the way that an intelligent Christian father orders his house and brings up his family, consistently with the truth of the assembly, of course, but at the same time it represents the particular exercises that he goes through so as to hold his house for the Lord. And so it says, he “prepared an ark for the saving of his house”. It is usually understood from the way Scripture puts things in Genesis that the building of the ark took something like one hundred and twenty years, and that may well be the case, if Noah had to do it with nobody to help him but his sons. We do not know whether he did or not, but at any rate, while the ark was preparing, the world was getting worse and worse and we read from Peter’s epistle that there were mockers in those days. You can well understand how they would mock. This old man with his sons building a tremendous ship on the land far away from any water, how they would mock! And yet, dear friends, you see the line of faith takes a way that the world will mock at. But at the same time it is the way that is governed by the light of God, governed by the truth of God, and the very fact that you take a way different from the way of the world around, is itself the condemnation of the world, and that is why people either mock or else get worse and become hostile. But then, that is part of the testimony. They mocked the Lord and they became hostile to Him. They said, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon”, and again, “He has a demon and raves”, John 8: 48; chap 10: 20. Think of such things being said of the Lord Jesus, said to His face, and, therefore, we need not be surprised if people say terrible things about the saints as they go on in faithfulness, in separation from what is around them.
Noah built this house, built this ark for the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world. There is nothing so condemns a thing as to maintain absolute separation from it, refusing to touch it, and God intends that there should be this testimony of condemnation of what is around us in the walk of His people. The way their families are brought up and their houses are conducted, are all to be condemnation of the world that is around. So God will not bring in judgment upon the world, without the world having had abundant testimony. Let us remember that; the testimony is in the saints in what they say, it may be, but not only in what they say but in what they are, and in the course that they pursue themselves with their families.
And now it goes on, “By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed”. That is an important matter. Scripture speaks of the obedience of faith; the gospel is preached for the obedience of faith. “Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going”. That is to say, as you are governed by the word of God you only have light for the next step. That was said many years ago, that God gives light for the next step. He does not show clearly before you all the detail of the path, but He gives light for the next step. The great point is to obey. Abraham is called in Scripture, father of us all. Everyone knows in a family that if the father is what he should be, he becomes one to whom the children look up. They look to him for guidance, they look to him for example, and Abraham is presented in Scripture as father of us all. That is to say, believers are to take account of Abraham. And so it says of Abraham that “being called”, he “obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going”. If you turn to Genesis 12 you will find that God called Abraham out of his country and his kindred and his father’s house. Notice that, first of all his country—patriotism is usually very strong in the heart of most people until the power of it gets broken by the glad tidings. He called him out of his country and then out of his kindred—that is coming closer home, and then from his father’s house—that is coming right home to him closer than ever. That is what Abraham was called out of. And so, dear brethren, if we find that the truth is involving exercises, necessitating separating from those near and dear to us, we can understand that it is nothing new in the ways of God. Abraham had to know what it was to cast Ishmael out of his house. Ishmael was Abraham’s son just as much as Isaac was his son, and Abraham had to face what it meant to cast Ishmael out of his house, and then later on he had to face the requirement of God that he should offer up Isaac whom God called his only son, “whom thou lovest”, he was called upon to sacrifice him. Not that he actually did sacrifice him in the end, as we know, but at the same time, he was prepared to. He was called upon to do so and was prepared to do so. And, therefore, the sacrifices that the truth may call for now are nothing new, they are just part of the ordinary ways of God, and because He is working in view of another world, not governed by the principles of this world.
So then we read, “By faith he sojourned as a stranger”—God calls His people out. Christians understand that they have been called, they are said to have been called with a holy calling, they are said to be partakers of the heavenly calling; the calling of Christians is said to be the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. It is a heavenly calling, it is a holy calling, and it is a calling on high, that is to say, it is morally elevated, a calling on high in Christ Jesus. But whatever it is, we are called, called out, we are called because the gospel, as made effective in us by the Holy Spirit, attaches us to Christ. That is the whole point now. Things are much more personal now than they were in Abraham’s day. One who receives the gospel now, becomes attached in heart to Christ, and therefore, you have to ask yourself, where is Christ? Where is He in relation to this world? Cast away as worthless; that is where He is, cast away as worthless as regards this world. You can easily test things in that way. Where does Christ stand in relation to things; where does He stand in relation to this world? Cast away as worthless. Where does He stand in relation to that world, with God chosen, precious, and to you therefore who believe is the preciousness, see 1 Pet 2: 4, 7. That is to say it is contemplated that Christians are in accord with heaven, and that they are prepared to give to Christ the place in their hearts that God has given to Him there, and not to give Him the place that the world has given to Him here. And so Abraham was called to go out, and having gone out he “dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise”. That is, he did not settle down to make himself comfortable here, he was content to have the character of a pilgrim, which his calling involved. And that is an important matter too, he “dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise”, he had the moral power to impress the character of things that marked himself upon his son and his grandson. And then we find the reason is given: “he waited for the city which had foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”. The allusion is to the city of Babel which comes in just before the history of Abraham commences. Men said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which may reach to the heavens. They had a city in mind, something with which they could connect their own name and which could be established for their own glory. Now Abraham was called out of all that. “He waited for the city which has foundations”, that is to say, it has a moral foundation for it, “of which God is the artificer and constructor”. We know what that city is, it is the heavenly city. The assembly is being formed now, and the heavenly city will comprise all those who belong to the assembly.
Now just one thing more as to Sarah, because she represents what we often speak of as the subjective side of things. That is to say, the things of God are not simply presented as light—that is what we call objective—but they have in view the formation in those who receive the light of that which is substantially in correspondence with the light, and that is an important matter, that God is working in us. He wants substance in us, indeed the heavenly city is marked by great substance, the measurements of it that are given in Revelation 21 show that it is of immense substance. Now what God is working in our souls is morally of Christ, nothing else. We want to be concerned that the Spirit of God is allowed unhindered way with us to carry on His formative work. But then you notice it is by faith. That is to say, that although it is the subjective side of things it does not make you introspective, you are not to be always looking at yourself, because there is no profit in that. The great secret of what was formed in Sarah was that she had been promised a son, Isaac, so she had an object outside of herself, and that is the whole point in subjective formation in the saints that it goes on just in the degree in which Christ Himself becomes an object for their hearts. That is an important matter, because, after all, all that God is forming in us is in moral correspondence with Christ. Now, how do we stand in relation to these things? It is all a question of faith. Have we faith? Faith is the gift of God. In final result all goes back to God. All is of grace and all is of faith, faith is the gift of God and yet we are called upon to obey the glad tidings. If you do not resist the glad tidings, if you are prepared to obey it, God will see that you have faith. But it is an important matter to see that it is the principle of faith that governs this present moment, it is the day of faith, and things are received on that principle of faith, but as they are received they become more and more substantial, more and more real; you find that you belong to the assembly of God where things are known in the power of the Holy Spirit, and you find increasing substance, and increasing satisfaction and confirmation in the truth as you go on day by day. May the Lord bless His word for His Name’s sake.
CROYDON
24th June 1962
From The Word Proclaimed, 1962
____________________