In this sermon, the preacher discusses various topics related to faith and obedience to God. He mentions the story of Noah and the ark, highlighting how God's plan was perfect and how people ridiculed and snarled at it. The preacher emphasizes the importance of holy character and how God can work through flesh and blood to magnify Christ. He also references the book of Hebrews, specifically chapter 11, which discusses the excellency, life, and achievements of faith. The sermon concludes with a reminder that trusting and obeying God may not always be easy, but it is necessary even when faced with opposition.

...but for all our lives, I'm sure, is the sixth verse. Without in faith it is impossible to please him or please God, for he that cometh must believe that he is. He is. If we get that deeply entrenched in our minds and hearts, we'll have no difficulty believing God. When you get one of these papers, you'll see that, what he is able to do. Hebrews 2.18, he's able to succor. Hebrews 5.7, he's able to save from death. 7.25, he's able to save to the uttermost. 11.19, he's able to raise up. Jude 24, he's able to keep. 1.21, he's able to save souls. And I would say, to back all that up, I think we should, at least I'm doing this, I'm soaking myself more and more in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, to see who this God is, his vastness, his majesty, his power. Faith is a substance. Without toying with this too long, substance. Actually, it comes from a Latin word, sub-stance. Sub, you know, the subway goes under, submarine goes under. Substance. So, sub is under and stance is stand. So then you say, it means to understand. No, it doesn't. It means to stand under. It means to get under all these things in our lives or in the Word. Get under them with what? The Word of God. How firm a foundation he is saying to the Lord, it is laid for your faith. The more deeply we sink into the Word of God, the more immovable we are. I remember the first time I was in New York, I went downtown and saw men peeping through some boards. What's happening is, look, I look, and there, I believe the whole of Manhattan is on one great sheet of rock. And in order to go up 65 or 100 stories, you've got to go down to that bedrock. They didn't stop halfway. They went, hit until, they worked until they hit the slap of rock, and then they can go up and up and up and build the Empire State Building and those other marvelous buildings there. So, same with us with the Word of God. If the Word of God is something that God has given to us that we may build on, then we need to know all the foundations. Yes. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I think that the actual translation of that is faith is confidence, a conviction of things not seen. You can believe easily, pretty easily, things you can see. But so many of these people have to reach out into the unseen. If I can see, why do I need faith? If I have faith, what do I need to see? Mercifully, we get to both things sometimes. Through faith, we understand that the worlds or the ages were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear, by faith able. Have you ever wondered why Adam and Eve are not mentioned before Cain and Abel? I've read biographies of, not everybody, but hundreds, I think, of people in the Bible. Some are good, some are imagination. But nobody says anything about Adam and Eve. Where did they disappear? Did they repent? Did they build an altar? Not that we know of. The first character here, it is by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Now, you know, what we need to do is go back now to the foundation story of this. Let us go back to Genesis chapter 4. Chapter 4, verse 1, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought, and it really means he came forward with an offering. He came forth with an offering. He came forth with what? In the process of time, it came to pass, Cain brought forth the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord. I don't find any distinction in the characters of Cain and Abel. They were very much alike. But there's a distinction, of course, in the way that they came with their offering. Cain brought forth the fruit of the ground and offered it unto the Lord. Abel also brought forth of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel. Look at the next verse. Cain came with his offering, but God had not any respect for him. Now, why? Well, I think for the simple reason that there's something fundamental here that Cain had ignored. Abel brings a firstling of the flock. Now, there's a sign at the sign, at least in my Bible, of that word flock. Actually, in the Hebrew, it means sheep or goats. A flock of sheep or goats. Well, the prototype, obviously, must be a lamb. Because it said he separated. Abel also brought the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof. Now, that's very much symbolic of sheep, of lambs. They're very, very fatty. They're not like the ordinary cattle. But he brings an offering, and the Lord had respect unto it. Why not a respect of the offering of Abel? Because he brought the fruit of the earth, which was cursed. What does it say there in verse 17 of the previous chapter? Unto Adam he said, Because thou hearkened unto the voice of thy wife. Now, watch it, we're in trouble here. When he listened to the voice of his wife, he got into trouble. The exact same thing is said of Abraham in Genesis 16. Now, if you find me shot during the week, you know it's a woman that did it after this. You listen to the voice of your wife. When I commanded thee, thou shalt not eat of it. Abraham did the same thing. Goes to his wife and says, We're going to have a child. Oh, mercy. What? Well, come on, come on. You're a hundred years of age. I made it. We're going to have children? Yes. Oh, wait till I write home and tell my mother about this. What will she say? You should never have married a preacher. They're crazy anyhow. But he hearkened to the voice of his wife. She said, You know the custom around here? You know, when you're in Rome, do as Rome does. It's an ordinary thing for a man whose wife cannot bear children to take a servant girl, who he really owns, and have a child by her, which he did. And if you think that hasn't been a headache, what do you think of the Arabs today? By one man, disobeying. I'm not saying a man shouldn't listen to his wife. They should counsel together. That's part of the joy of living, I think. But you see, it says here distinctly in this 17th verse, Adam, he said that because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and eat of the tree of which I commanded thee, cursed is the ground for thy sake. See, he brought what? Did he bring? He brought the fruit of the earth. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, verse 4. But the earth was cursed. Now, why did Abel bring an offering of a lamb? Remember, the first shedding of blood in history was done by God, not by man. It was done by God when he slew the animals. Verse 21 says, And to Adam also, to his wife, did the Lord make coats of skins and clothe them. What had they done? They'd try to make a covering for themselves. They took leaves and made themselves aprons. But God says you can't cover yourself with aprons. There's only one way to be covered, and that's through the precious blood. Well, this man Abel, he, uh, Cain, pardon me, he ignored that. He'd had the example, and yet he preferred to do it his own way. Oh, well, God won't mind. I am bringing an offering. I mean, I've worked hard in the fields. I thought about him and said, Not the labor of my hands can fulfill my Lord's demand. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the crowd I click. Abel, verse 2. Abel was the keeper of the sheep, but Cain was the tiller of the ground. In the process of time he came to pass, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock. The firstlings. That reminded me of a statement here, where is it? In Colossians 1.15, 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. Jesus was the firstborn. This man brings the firstling of the flock. It wasn't some old haggard lame sheep. It wasn't something that wouldn't cost him anything. One of the precious things. How many sheep did he have? Was one of the reasons why Cain didn't make an offering economic? Oh, there's not many cattle around here, many sheep. I don't think the Lord will mind if I just bring something of my own. But the Lord has already set the type again in covering, in slaying the beasts and giving them the skins to clothe them. What happened? How does faith come? By what? Hearing. Well, you say, well, did this man hear? Oh, I can think of a hundred dozen things he heard. I can't think that Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the Garden of Eden without Abel and Cain hearing. It must have been one of the most amazing things because after all they didn't have the revelations we have that God would speak in the way that he spoke. Chapter 3, verse 1 says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said unto the woman, Are Cain and Abel listening? I don't know, but I suggest that they were. He said unto her, Hath God said? I think that Cain and Abel overheard God speaking to their father. Faith cometh by hearing. It germinated in one man, it did not germinate in the other. Hath God said? The woman said, Verse 2, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. They did as they were not supposed to do. Okay. Verse 7 says, The eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons and they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the cool of the garden, cool of the day. Verse 9, And the Lord said unto Adam, Who art thou? Do you think he was terrified? Do you think he hid behind the bushes? Do you think Cain and Abel were saying, Oh, what's going to happen now? Dad didn't expect that God would come back again. But he says, Where art thou? He said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. Verse 13, The Lord God said to the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all Catiline, above every beast. On thy belly thou shalt go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. What does it say in Romans 16, 20? The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. I'm still believing that these young men, surely they were full of curiosity. They had no traffic to watch. They hadn't all the things round about that you and I have. And there in the beauty and glory of the garden, they must have listened to father and mother talking. And one is grasping hold of the truth and the other is ignoring it. Faith cometh by hearing. They'd heard the voice of God. They'd heard the voice of Satan. They'd heard the voice of their parents. And yet again, I'm kind of holding on to this. Because they had heard, and faith cometh by hearing. It's very much the same today. You sit in a congregation, someone goes out and says, boy, I didn't get anything out of that meeting. Well, if the first thing, of course, of any meeting is what God got out of it. Not what you got out of it or I got out of it. But then someone else says, you know, that was just so illuminating to me tonight. One person hears, the other people hears, and the other person doesn't hear. Here is the promise of God. Verse 16, And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. We should all write that out and send it to Mrs. Farrow. She doesn't know much about that. But that's God's order. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat, cause it is the ground for thy sake. Next verse, it's thorns and thistles. And so forth. And verse 19, By the sweat of thy face. Now let's go to 21 again. Adam also, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Skip down a minute into chapter 4. Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And she bear his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. But notice, they were not born in paradise. Adam and Eve had been kicked out of paradise before they had children. If they'd been born in paradise, we might have said, Oh, there's something very exceptional about them. They didn't wear shoes, so they didn't have to take their shoes from off their feet. But I'm sure that every inch of paradise was holy ground. God walked there. Inconceivable to us, I'm sure. Verse 24 says, He drove them out of the place. He drove out the man, and he placed them east of the Garden of Eden. And cherubims with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. It's significant to me that the first character that's mentioned in the long line of faith is a man who is worshipping. It all begins there. He couldn't do any other. Why was he bringing an offering? Why was he bringing a sacrifice? Notice there's no priest here, there's no altar here, there's no temple here, there's no tabernacle here. This is an original. I suggest to you the reason that there's cherubim here with flaming swords. Cherubims always defend. Where are the cherubims mentioned? They're mentioned in the Garden of Eden, in the tabernacle, and in the temple. Seraphim is only mentioned once in the Scriptures, as far as I remember. In the 6th chapter of Isaiah, where it says, he saw the holy beings and the cherubims were there, the seraphims were there. Seraphims are always in the holy place. I think there were seraphims in the garden, I can't prove that. But cherubims are always there defending. What are they doing? They're with the flaming sword, so they won't dare to transgress and try to get back into the presence of God in their sinful condition. If they'd done that, they would have died on the spot, in my judgment. So God keeps them away. Here are these flaming beings with swords. How do you think these folk felt? The cherubims had flaming swords, which turned every way to keep them away from the Tree of Life. If they'd eaten of the Tree of Life, apparently they would have perpetuated their iniquity. It would have gone on and on and on and on. Now, Abel brought the firstlings of the flock. Again, it doesn't say built an altar. I do not know if it's seen his people pray. It doesn't mention Adam and Eve even praying, or worshipping. But I don't think they could have done any other, as I see it. If day by day they heard the voice of God and God walked in the garden, do you think they did not worship? I believe they did. And yet they brought no sacrifice. There's no evidence that they ever repented, is there? That's one of the mysteries we'll have to solve when we get into eternity. He had no respect unto the offering of Cain. What was wrong with Cain? God said, you remember, in Romans 5.19, that by one man's sin many were made sinners. Didn't take long to prove that, did it? Adam and Eve have sinned. Immediately their offspring sinned. I go back to verse 5. But Cain, unto Cain and to his offering, he had no respect. And Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. There you are, you've got anger. I suggest to you this man was boiling on the inside all the time. The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou hast not done well, sin. There's the first time it's mentioned in the word of God. It isn't even mentioned in connection with Adam and Eve, though they sinned. At least it's not mentioned here in the exact Scriptures, the first chapter. If thou doest well. If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Cain talked with Abel his brother, and he came to pass it as they were in the field, and he rose up against him, and he slew his brother. And number one problem was his anger in verse 5. Number two problem is sin in chapter 7. Sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that he rose up against him and his brother, and he slew him. The Lord said, Where is thy brother's keeper? He said, I know not. So he goes from anger to killing his brother to being a liar. Isn't it easy once you start slipping? Don't we always try to cover one sin with another sin? I don't know where he is. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground. You know, I found that a fantastic thing. We used to go through a city in England, the city of Lichfield. It has twin towers of the cathedral, beautiful red brick being there hundreds of years. We never passed through that town, but what I remember that George Fox, the great founder of the Quakers, came to that city one day and he said, My feet began to burn. I took off my shoes and put them under the bushes. And the Lord said, Walk through this city, raise your hands and cry at the top of your voice. Here is a strictly Protestant Episcopalian church with a famous bishop, and he has to go through a crowded bazaar. It was market day, shouting, Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. He walked right through the market with everybody gazing at him. When he got out of the market, he said, I thank God for strength to do as he told me. But then he said, the Lord said, Well, you've got strength to go back. Go back through the city. Oh, that's dangerous. He said, People came out of the apothecary shop, what we will call a drug store, and the food stores. Everybody was crying, Behold this madman. But he said, I went through the city and cried, Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. Isn't it easy to sing here nice and sweetly in a nice warm room? Trust and obey, there's no other way. But what about when you have to trust and obey by yourself? When you have to fight the in-laws and the out-laws and everybody else who says you're nutty. God doesn't expect that of you. Just because he's not asking it of me, can I say he's not asking that of you? He walked back to the edge of the city and he said, I found my shoes, I put them on, my feet did not burn, and I had great peace. Typical of a Quaker. A couple of years after he was eating in the house of a very rich Quaker. We always say the Quakers are rich in England anyhow. They own lots and lots of wonderful businesses and so forth. As they had supper, waited for supper, he went to the library and pulled down a book and it happened to open, it was a book of history, it happened to book about an incident in Lichfield, two hundred years before, where two hundred Christians had been murdered in that city, massacred. And as soon as he read it, the Lord said, your feet were burning? You cried won't, didn't know what? The blood of the martyrs was crying through you. Crying, what's going to happen in the great day? When the blood of all the massacred people around the world begin to scream for justice. Nobody's going to escape. We give big medals and pensions to men like Eisenhower or British admirals and so forth. But one day they're going to be held accountable to God for every precious drop of blood that they've shed because blood is life. My brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and thou art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened a mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tellest the ground, it shall not yield strength unto thee. Here it gets so interesting to me. Cain said unto him, my punishment is greater than I can bear. But I don't think, I don't notice that he made any offering for it. He's concerned about his feelings, he's concerned about his guilt, he's concerned about his guilty conscience, he's concerned about his brother's blood, but he doesn't repent. How dumb can we be? How blind can we be? How deaf can we be? There are millions of people who go to church every Sunday and they recite scriptures or they sing hymns about the blood. It doesn't mean that much to them. Any more than it does to people at Christmas singing in a tavern. Hark the herald angels sing. Mild ye ladies, glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. And here they're going and drinking their way to hell. They haven't that much interest in the Christ that they're singing about. I'm staggered by this. Since his brother's offering had been received, wouldn't you think he would have run for a lamb or something and didn't necessarily have to build an altar? He would have shed the blood. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. This is a prototype of what's going to happen later. It was the blood of a lamb. What was the cry of John Baptist? The first cry, they kill him if he goes back today, even in churches. He cried repent. That's a dirty word in evangelism. The more dirty word after repent is what? Restitution. Who preaches restitution? I saw a precious red-haired man kneel in a street one night in England. His hair went everywhere you can imagine. And both his eyes... When I was down in the corner, everybody in the family was cross-eyed. He joked about it. He said, we were so cross-eyed in our family, we ate off each other's plates. Now he said that, I didn't say. But he knelt there. The worst man in town. His sister owned the Ring of Bells, a big tavern at the corner. Prostitute house too. That man got miraculously saved, delivered from a thousand snares. He'd been a con man. He'd robbed people. He'd done every perverted thing you can imagine. He got saved that wonderful day. He'd been walking with God about 15 years and I said to him, Bill, I'm going back to America. I wish you'd come with me. I'd like your company. He was a tremendous man of prayer. Boy, you could hardly get your feet or what his heart used to burst like a volcano. And tears would come down his eyes. They're lost, lost, God. They're drunk. If it was Sunday, he'd say, Lord, they got a headache as big as the whole nation. I've been through that, God. I know the craving, a spark of hell in my throat that all the liquor in the world could never, all the beer in the world could never quench. I said, come and give your testimony in America. Boy, you've got a testimony. I took him to that great church in Toronto. Dear old Oswald Smith was the pastor there. Oswald said to me, he's got some testimony. Let's call a special meeting Sunday afternoon. Normally we don't have one. Well, I mean, it's not a star figure like some that were converted in Billy Graham's meetings. He'd had some star. I said, he's just a little Englishman, a rebel, a sinner. But he does know God. He said, I've heard him pray. I heard him pray yesterday. That man touches God. He has one hand on the throne and the other on lost people when he prays. I said to him, Bill, come with me. He said in his Yorkshire dialect, hey lad, I can't afford to go to America with thee. I said, you could. I said, after all, you own that big business on Main Street. You take a truck round the towns and you sell, it goes with a bell and rings and they come out and buy their fruit. And then you stand in the main market on, you've got bags of money. He said, you're like my wife. She thinks I have. He said, Len, for the first 15 years I was in business, I robbed every person that I served. I put a scoop in and say, hey look, there's so many pounds of apples here. And when I handed them to the lady, she said, I've got my elbow on and pushed two or three off. Did the same with potatoes. Sold a dozen flowers. I took one out, made a separate pile here. I robbed everybody systematically. But he said, listen lad, it's nearly 15 years since I was saved. Do you know it's taken me 15 years to pay everybody back? Every time I weigh a pound of apples, I say, all right, Sissy or Mary, whatever it is, and I grab another big one and stick it on, an extra one. Potatoes I put two or three on. Flowers I put 13 instead of a dozen. I have tried conscientiously to repay every person I've stolen from for 15 years. It took me 15 years to rob them. It's taken me 15 years. So he said, Len, I don't have much money. And he said, my wife goes in the till. I knew she did. I've seen her go in the shop and grab a bunch of pound notes and stick them in her purse and off she goes. She was very, very extravagant. But I'll tell you what, that man's testimony in town, you could talk about hypocrites and everybody would say, listen, I don't reckon much to so-and-so and so-and-so and that big preacher and that deacon, but I'll tell you there's one lad in this town that's a real Christian. You tell him some woman had lost her husband in the coal mine. He'd save some money and take it to her. She's going to flit, as they say, or move out of one part of town to the other. Well, lass, I hear you're flitting. Yeah. I want to tomorrow night, if I can get somebody to give me, to move all my stuff for the right price. Don't worry, lass. He said, I'll get a couple of lads to help me and we'll use my lorry, as he called it, my truck. I need to go and move them from one side of town to the other. He was just as full of good works as he'd been of corruption. He became a living monument. As the good book says, we're living epistles. As somebody said, they don't read these epistles, but they read the living epistles. If you want to know the standard of Christianity, ask some drunkard. Don't ask somebody in church. The drunkard knows what we should be. We should be righteous. We should be holy. Our speech should be clean. Our lives should be clean. We should be as upright as it's possible to be humanly. Out of us there should flow, as I try to say, Sunday rivers of living water, rivers of mercy, rivers of compassion. Not looking for every opportunity to beat somebody over the head and bring condemnation. I said to him one day, I said, Bill, you know, you're a wonderful guy. I don't know anybody I love more than you, but I wish you'd come to church early Sunday nights. Did you see that lass I brought in Sunday night? I said, yeah. She's one of the best known prostitutes in town. He said, I recently made a deal with God. He said, I said, God, if you keep me as you've kept me for the past few years, I promise you I'll never go to church by myself. So I get up and give out my text and wait, wait for it, Len. Wait, that door's going to open. And sure enough it did. Ten minutes after he got preaching, he comes in with somebody bruised and beaten up from fighting the night before because taverns were not open on Sundays. He brought derelicts. He brought person after person that had been abandoned by everybody. The moralists, the police, nobody wanted to touch them. The psychologists, nobody. And he'd say, you know, lad, there's one text I love above all in the Bible. It's Hebrews 7.25. He's able to save to the uttermost. And he said, Len, doesn't that mean the guttermost too? I said, it does. It means the uppermost, the uppermost, and the guttermost. The redemptive work of God in Christ was made so real in his life that the man became a living epistle walking on two legs in the city that's called the city University of Gambling, one of the lowest cities in the whole of England. But God's redemption was worked out in him. Don't keep my eye on the watch. I'm a transgressor. I'll have to repent. Cain said, my punishment is greater than I can dare. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid. Now listen. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me, come on, there's only four people in the world out there. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, one's been wiped out. Everyone that, who's going to kill him? His father and mother? Is he going to commit suicide? I don't know how this was worked out, but I read some years ago that at the time he said this, there were already 11,000 people in the world. I don't know how in the world they knew that. But there's something here that, you know, these other guys skip up. Only four people in the world. Cain, Sluw Abel, his brother. So there's only Adam and Eve left, and Abel, and Cain. No, he says, lest anyone that findeth me, shall slay me. Oh, well, that's his opinion, is it? Go down into the end of chapter, verse 15. The Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be upon him sevenfold. The Lord set a mark upon him, lest any finding him. Any finding him. It's repeated, for emphasis. There's a population. They're going to ask, well, where's Abel? You didn't hear? His brother killed him. Can you imagine the shock of Cain when he saw his brother's blood spilled? There'd never been any blood shed before. Nobody had ever been mutilated. I don't know how he killed him, whether he beat him to death, bashed him to death, or what. But he killed him effectively. When you think it would shock him enough to drive him to repentance, and go to his parents and say, pray for me, help me. He doesn't do this. Lest any finding him should slay him. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bared Enoch, and he builded a city. See how soon he got lost in materialism? He didn't say, dad, mom, do you think there's some way we could really get back? Oh, I remember the nights when the glory of God came down in Eden, and you talked with God, and my brother and I used to sit there and listen. Here I am. I'm a lash with conscience. I can't sleep at night. I see my brother's battered body there. Doesn't do a thing about it. Doesn't repent. Doesn't ask for prayer. He just goes his way. What does he do? He says he built a city. Somebody said God made the country, man made cities. What does it say? Cain built a city. What does it say about Abraham? He looked for a city. What does it say about John? He saw the city. What class are we in? Are we still building cities, building little kingdoms? We don't have to look. We don't even have to look for a city. Like Abraham. We know the city, and we know who lives there. The city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. A city that hath no corruption, no violence. Everything that's idealistic, everything that we'd like to see to the world and never will see, except in the millennium, is seen in that glorious city, the city of God, and yet people have gone blindly to hell. God has thrown every conceivable roadblock in the way of men and women. They won't have a word to say in hell. They may complain about hypocrisy, but look, this word is enough to stop men from going to destruction. They don't anymore consider the spires that go up that seem to point men to God. They don't take any notice of the outpouring of grief that there is often in our prayer meeting as well as others. They don't think of the millions of tracts that are given out. They don't think of the radio voices every day. God is doing His utmost to redeem it, but they're deaf and they're blind. They don't want it. They love their own way. What is it saying there in Jude? Look at that little book. Jude is really an epitome of the whole of the word of God. Let's start at verse 7. Oh, verse 6. The angels which kept not their first estate, that left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to judgment. You know, I used to think that those angels that were cast out of heaven were the evil spirits in the world. That's not true. Every angel that was pitched out of heaven is reserved in hell, in chains. Where do evil spirits come from? Ask someone else at the Bible school here. But the angels that kept not their first, what a price they've paid. They've gone down to perdition. They're going to stay there forever and ever. They're reserved in chains under darkness unto the great day of God. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, going after strange flesh, and set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, does not bring against him a rallying accusation, but said the Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of these things which they know not. But what they know naturally is brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves. Now here it is. What did Cain do? Well, he built a city. He went his own way. He says they have gone after the way of Cain. The next step they run greedily after the error of Balaam. And they perished in the gain saying of Coray. Progressive degeneration. Once you leave God out of the picture, once you leave this book out of the picture, all we do is go to destruction. All right. Let me step back a minute here and say about this chapter. I worked this out today on Hebrews 11. Verses 1 to 3 are introductory. They set forth the excellency of faith. That's what the chapter's about. Verses 4 to 7 shows the life of faith. Verse 8 until the end of the chapter shows the achievements of faith. God accepted the sacrifice of Abeloi. I think there are five reasons I can think of. He was saying that God is righteous to drive fallen men out of his holy presence. Number two, he was owning himself as a guilty sinner. Number three, he was owning that God was holy. Number four, he was showing that God is merciful. Number five, he was seeking acceptance with God. The way of Cain is the way of self-will. I can do it my way. God says not. Again, God has set the pattern. He has shed blood. He says your covering isn't enough. Those fig leaves you have are not sufficient. They do not hide in any shape or form. Anything that you do will not hide, will not cover us from the guilt we have. It will not cover us from condemnation. It will not cover us from the wrath of God. And therefore he slays those beautiful beasts and he makes coats, he makes coverings. They're the complete coverings. But the cost is the precious blood, typical of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our covering, at the price of the most precious blood the world has ever known a thing about. And without the shedding of blood there is no remission. The whole epistle of Paul, maybe it's Paul again, to the Hebrews is about sacrifice and about blood, about redemption, about finding a way back to God. I just wish he told us a little more about Abel when he made his offering. What kind of a jubilee he had when he found his acceptance, when he found assurance. But faith came by hearing. He had heard. I'm sure again he'd heard the voice of God. He'd heard of the promises of God. He knew that God was going to intervene somewhere in the history of man. You know, in this epistle to the Hebrew, in chapter 11, everybody has one thing. They have the same thing to a different degree. They have faith. But God doesn't deal with them all in the same way. Again, one of the greatest tests in the life of the Christian is patience, isn't it? God doesn't ask me to go the way of Brother Dale or Dale to go the way of Brother Ray there or Ray go the way of this brother here. What is the will of God for Abraham? Oh, I want to make a drawing of that someday. Get, say, a familiar of the Chaldeans and we'll go right up and see where he comes to. God started working on Abraham when he was 70 years of age and he finished working on him when he was 75. He finished working on him when he was 175. So cheer up, you have a long way to go. A hundred years God was molding the character of that man who became the friend of God, not over the weekend. Tribulations, distress, denials, sacrifice. Give me your precious only son. Oh, he made his blunders, he fooled, he got into trouble, he got a girl pregnant and the whole world knows the answer. After that he lied when he got under pressure. Oh, no. Oh, his wife must have been a beauty, wasn't she? She's 80 years of age and the king says, hey, who's the blonde you brought round? Blonde, that's my wife. Oh, she's adorable. Yes, but she's my wife. No, no, no, he didn't say that. What did he say? She's my sister. Oh, boy, what a sister you've got. Oh, isn't she gorgeous. Oh, that's why I keep her with me all the time. She's so lovely and understanding and I always feel happy when she's around. And there he is, they put the woman in a harem and everything goes wrong. The king says, bring that man back. Who is that woman? Everything's gone wrong since she came. Is that your sister? No, it's my wife. Would you think a man who'd gone through all the trials he'd gone through would lie? Hmm? We need that warning there, don't we, all the time. Lest I've been preached to others, I myself become a castaway. That'll mean lost for eternity. It means put off for a season. Put out of commission. Because I'm grieving the spirit. Oh, I can go, I can preach mercy. I can preach in my sleep. I can do all the gesticulations. I can quote illustrations. I can quote scriptures. But wait a minute, I still might be a castaway in my spirit. Come on, you work and labor and toil and go through perils and difficulties. Have trouble with the old man. Have trouble with the new man. Have trouble through rebel territory. Have trouble with your friends. And he goes through it all. But God doesn't ask Noah to do that. He does it another way. He says, Noah, build an ark. He says in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, you've needed patience after you've done the will of God. Don't you think he needed patience for 120 years when everybody says, Hey, old boy, could I have a reservation? I'd like a stateroom for two of us and we'd like the best quality food and everything. By the way, when's this? What did you say it's going to do? Holes in the sky, it's going to... Have you noticed there's never been any rain? They never see the rain showering in the existence of the world. The earth had been watered by dew. But he said, this old gray head there, old beard, he says water's going to shoot up from the ground and water's going to come through the sky and the two waters are going to come together and they're going to float, float that great big thing he has. He noticed it had no motors. It had no sails. It wasn't made to sail. What was it made to do? Float. And science says it was the most perfect thing, its proportions were the most perfect for the job that it was made. God never made anything imperfect. But nor is there day after day, year after year, everybody's conning, ridicule, snarling at him. Oh, and the best wine until the last. What was the cherry on the cake? Sit in the ark for seven days and let them yell their heads off. Hey, you said it was going to rain. You know, my old dad died before it happened and I think I'll die before it happens. Well, I guess they wish they had a little while after. Come on, say, tell me this. How many people do you think worked at union rates to help build that thing and yet perish, never got in it? How many people print our Bibles and never read them? How many people print our hymn books? I read through my Methodist hymn book partly today. Read some of those great old hymns of Isaac Newton's. Not Isaac Newton's, John Newton. You know, he wrote some of the best glorious things that have ever spoken. And what's a very popular one? The Methodist, no, it's the Baptist. Yes, that's right, Amazing Grace. That's the Baptist's national anthem, I call it. He wrote a whole bunch of those things. People write our hymn books and if they believe them, they go to heaven because it's the truth of God's Word. Wesley's hymns are really Wesley's theology set to music by his brother. You can't sing a hymn like, And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain? For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? He left his Father's throne above, so free, so infinite is grace, emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race. Tis mercy all immense and free for, oh my God, it found out me. You could be wrecked on an island with another hymn book, a good old hymn book, and get saved through it. God would use it. But they write those wonderful hymns and never get saved. They print our Bibles and go to perdition. They build our churches and thank God for how nice they are, but never enter them once they've finished putting the knob on the door or something. Isn't it appalling that while there's a hundred ways back to God there isn't one way out of hell? I remember the first time I realized that. There's a man praying. Do you know they pray in hell? They pray in hell. Some of them have been praying there a thousand years. Have mercy upon me, Father Abraham. He prayed from the wrong place, he prayed to the wrong person. Abraham can't do any more for him than a dog can do. Have mercy on me. No mercy for you. Send a messenger to my brothers. They've had the law and the prophets. It's really something. You know, people say, you know, if God would just let one person come from the dead, it would make all the difference. Forget it. Hogwash. Jesus came from the dead. He went to hell and declared his victory. He led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Do they believe? Not on your life. If I could raise somebody from the dead now, they'd say it was fake or wizardry or black magic, superstition or witchcraft. He cries from hell. I'm tormented in this flame. He spent his life with liquor and now he can't even get a drop of water. It's significant. I'm not preaching on that. This is just a transgression here. Isn't it interesting? He says the rich man died and was buried. The poor man died and was carried. What a difference. He didn't go to hell because he was rich. He went to hell because he disobeyed God. He may have heard Jesus preach a hundred times. He may have seen every miracle Jesus did. He wasn't moved. Oh, who's he? Nobody can prove who he is. Anyway, he's illegitimate. Everybody knows he was born of a single girl. He's been a problem ever since he... He's been a thorn in the side of the church. Every time he goes in the synagogue, there's a row because of him, the scripture says. There was a division because of him. We think Jesus brings people together. I've seen Jesus split families clean in two. In World War II, we were in the city of Bath. The Germans bombarded London and blasted the naval headquarters. So they transferred the navy to the city of Bath about 140 miles away. Lord Haw Haw, that rebel that... You remember that was a traitor to England. He came on the TV radio that night. He said the British Admiralty was moved from London to Bath but we'll be there tomorrow night and sure enough, they came. One of the young ladies, a very, very beautiful young lady, came and knelt at the altar one night. I had the privilege of praying with her. A society girl. I think she danced in Buckingham Palace and I don't know who she hadn't danced with and lived the life. She got saved. Gave up her cocktail parties. Gave up her dancing. Gave up her smoking. Gave up her high living. Her mother came to see me one day. Oh, you are responsible for my daughter, aren't you? Not that I know of. I said, I think God's responsible. God? Well, she said she knelt and you prayed with her. She knelt in the sawdust. My daughter, kneeling in the sawdust? I said, you've got a problem. What was I saying? She's a sinner. She's a communicant in the Church of England. She's taking sacrament all her life. She's going to hell whether or not I ask her. She was till she got saved. Do you know she got what lots of people get? She won't play cards with us now. She won't go to our dances. We bring all the nice country people and all the society people. And she's snobbish. She won't take a cocktail and she won't smoke and she won't dance and she won't play cards. Do you know she's distressing our family? Do you know she split our family in two? I said, no, she didn't. Sinners split your family in two. You ought to be glad your daughter's living a clean, pure, holy life as you admit her life is so wonderfully transparent. I used her in an illustration speaking in a meeting just near Westminster Abbey a few years after. Didn't give her name. I said how she was saved and she went to one of the poorest hospitals, a Jewish hospital in London which is the poorest hospital in the nation. Today I guess it gets government help. It didn't get government help. She went up there and signed up. She took all her training and became a super nurse and then she left and went as a missionary to India. To Afghanistan actually. When I spoke about this young lady a lady came to me afterwards and said, pardon me, could I ask you the name of that gorgeous lady you spoke about? I said, yes, her name was Mary Barton. It was? Yeah. Have you met her? She was my roommate at the hospital. She always said, please give me the hardest jobs to do. Please give me the dirty things you don't like to do for old people. Please let me do what Jesus would do if he was here. She would always work an extra hour without complaint. She would give some of her money to nurses and others that had need. And you say she was a society girl? She knew people in royalty? Yes. One of her aunts is a duchess? Yes. She's in the upper crust of English society? Mr. Raymond, she never mentioned one of those things to me. You said she studied music in the conservatoire of Milan. She studied painting under one of the great modern masters in Belgium. She's an all-round genius kind of thing. But she did, oh, she said, I'm so embarrassed now when I think I would complain. And she would say, well, dear, I'm not just doing it for the sake of the hospital. I do it because I think it's a thing that Jesus would do. And she said there was never a complaint from her lips at all. She said the beauty of God was in that girl's life. Well, isn't that better than being number one evangelist or number one something else? When somebody sees him walking in flesh and blood like I said the other day, I reverse my opinion that Paul was driven by the fact that he knew the terror of God or the judgment seat of Christ or the love of Christ. I believe it was all summed up in Philippians 1.20 that Christ may be magnified by my body. Not by my ministry, not by my miracles, not by my epistles. By my body, my demeanor, my attitude, my gentleness, my love, my quietness, my peace. My willingness to go the second mile. You know, there's nothing more beautiful on God's earth. I love beautiful things. I'd like a house filled with those beautiful ancient vases and things. I'd like some of those pictures, you know, with gilt frames about this depth. I'd like marvelous real chandeliers, not these plastic things that are out. They look good, but they're plastic. I like beautiful things. I married the most beautiful woman in Ireland a few years ago, so I think she's still beautiful. But you know, there's nothing more beautiful than holy character. God is the genius. He can work with flesh and blood, that Christ may be magnified by my body. What does he say? You Romans, I beseech you Romans, you're so athletic. You win so many prizes. Remember they had the Olympics 400 years before Jesus was born. I want you to come, you men, and I want you to strut and show these young men your muscles and show them how you walk. What did he say? He said, I want you to present not your brains. I want you to present your body, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is only a reasonable service. I love that great American hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee. I preached once in that great north church on the north side of Boston Common, when Dr. Harold Ocking here was the pastor. I went in nervous fear and trembling. He's such a brilliant preacher. But he sat at the side of me. Somebody said, when you talk to him, he's an iceberg. I found him so warm and gracious and loving, and we discussed preaching. I said, well, could you do one thing for me? He said, yes, Dr. Ravenhill. I got my first doctor, about 3,000 since then. But anyhow, he said, what could I do? I said, would you please sing the hymn that was written here? My faith looks up to thee. Oh, we'd be happy to do it. We sang it. It was written by a member of the church. The tune was written by the organist of the church. I felt so wonderful in that church as we sang it. My faith looks up to thee, thou Lamb of Calvary, Saviour divine. Now hear me while I pray. Take all my guilt away. Oh, let me from this day be a holy thing. May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire. This is a nitty-gritty to me. As thou hast died for me, so may my love to thee, pure, warm, and changeless, be a living fire. That's what he wants from me every day. I preached one night on Romans 12, away there in England. A man said to me the next day, Mr. Raymuller, I do that every morning when I get up. I present myself a living sacrifice. Do you do that? I said, no. Well, you should. I said, no, I shouldn't. I said, look, friend, look, if this is the altar, and this is my body, and I present my body a living sacrifice, my body, my brains, my mind, my will, my desires, my emotions, every part of me. I put it all, it's all in my body. There it is. I lay it on the altar this morning. How can I give it to God tomorrow morning? There's only one way. Take it off the altar during the day. The Greek bear is in the Aries tense. It means to do a thing like once and for all. Present your body unreservedly, ungrudgingly, without any conditions. Here I am. I'm your love slave. I'm not a beast on the altar to be killed like we shall find some of the sacrifices. I'm a living sacrifice. God takes no delight in the flesh and bones and blood of beasts, but he takes delight in us. Quite a bit of a hem by Isaac Watts. No, I can't. It's making my mind numb. But the essence of it, again, is what he wants is, he wants my complete, unbroken, consistent devotion. The only thing I can do, I can't take myself off the altar, but I'll tell you what, I can bring more things to the altar. If my rich aunt dies, I don't know where she is, I've quoted her a hundred times, but she never turns up. She may be already in the ground and forgot me. She didn't leave me that money. Supposing she lent me $100,000. Oh, I'd love that $100,000 tomorrow. Do you want to test me? I'd give it all to missions. I sure would. I can bring different things to God. I can't take anything away. I don't want to. I've yielded everything I have. My spirit, my soul, my body, my mind, my will, my desire is all his. And it's going to stay there. Not that I have my own, I call. I hold it for the giver. My heart, my strength, my life, my all are his and his forever. Aren't you glad of the blood of the everlasting covenant? Sure, this fellow shed blood, but he didn't shed it for his father or mother even. It's no good for his brother. And none of this nonsense people are about praying for the dead. Again, this man prays from the wrong place, hell, to the wrong person, Abraham, at the wrong time. And he got the wrong answer. No, we can't do anything. You've got five brothers? Well, let them repent and meet God where they are now. They won't go. If we sent Moses or somebody from the dead, they wouldn't accept it. You know, when people say, oh, you know, if we had real starvation in this land, we're so fat. If we had starvation, what would happen? Oh, people would turn to God. They don't. They haven't done in Russia. They've been starved for years. They're not doing that in that terrible country there in Ethiopia where they're starving. There is no substitute for the blood of Christ in redemption. There is no substitute for the Holy Ghost in conviction. When he is come, he convicts. And you can argue whether a woman delivering a baby has more pain than any man ever knows, or that cancer is worse than birth pain. I'll tell you something. Agony of soul is worse than a woman having a baby or a man eaten up with cancer. It's the convicting power of God where he nails us down and says, hey, you are, you're lost, you're corrupt, without God, without hope. Plead to God for refuge. We're going the way of Cain fast, aren't we? Trying to make fig leaves to cover our iniquity. Building cities, building everything for self-satisfaction, gratification. So we go from that to the way of Balaam and from that to the gain of Corre. Down, down, down we go. Well, I'm sure you haven't got the blessing out of this I got as I prepared it, but I sure thank God for the things he opened my eyes to again. When you think of all this innocence in the beginning, when you think of all that we have today, the whole plan of redemption, and yet who avails themselves of it, even in this land where we have so much opportunity. We still prefer the way of Cain, the way of flesh. Build our own cities, go our own way, satisfy our own desires. Persuade ourselves that there is another way of salvation. Church membership, the ritual of Walter Baptism. I know a man that will not miss communion Sunday mornings for anything in the world, but boy, he's very, very far from being a godly man. Let's try and walk before him in all the way of holiness. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for exposing to us the folly of men like Cain and the simplicity and obedience because your word says he gives the spirit to those who obey him. O Lord, help us to throw aside every foolish imitation, everything which looks good but has no good, no life in it. We thank you for the priest, the great high priest, the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God. This Lamb availed apparently just for the sin of one man, innocent and pure. We think of the one who of holy rise and to behold iniquity. We don't understand how God became man, less do we understand how he became sin for us, but he did. And because of that we're free through that precious blood. We're guarded by your promises, the holy word, and we're aided by your Holy Spirit. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.