Hebrews 11:5-40

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Hebrews 12:2

Let us think of our intelligent plain man mentioned in chapter six coming for the first time to the reading of the Scriptures. He approaches the Bible without any previous knowledge of what it contains. He is wholly without prejudice; he has nothing to prove and nothing to defend.

Such a man will not have read long until his mind begins to observe certain truths standing out from the page. They...

In the dealings of God with men, hope has held a noble place. The expectation that Messiah would come cheered Israel in her years of victory and kept her from despairing in her periods of captivity and dispersal. Those who feared the Lord have often had rough going.

They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword: They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated--the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts...

For Reading and Meditation:     Hebrews 11:17-28

What is it that prompts some people to take more interest in the principles of godliness than in God Himself? I think one reason could be that we are more comfortable dealing in the realm of the visible than the invisible. We prefer to work with things we can touch or handle and apply so that we feel an immediate...

That is, they were tried; and the design of their enemies by these trials was, to draw or drive them from the Lord. Their trials were of the most cruel kind, but they found that as their day, so was their strength.

Brethren, we shall be tempted; Satan is not dead, no, nor yet asleep; the world is not reconciled to godliness; nor are we free from indwelling sin. It is not our sin to be tempted - this is our trial; but it is our sin if we yield. God has promised strength, wisdom and...

Behold the epitaph of all those blessed saints who fell asleep before the coming of our Lord! It matters nothing how else they died, whether of old age, or by violent means; this one point, in which they all agree, is the most worthy of record, "they all died in faith." In faith they lived-it was their comfort, their guide, their motive and their support; and in the same spiritual grace they died, ending their life-song in the sweet strain in which they had so long continued. They did not...

Faith is implicit trust in the Word of God. It is confidence in the trustworthiness of God. It is the conviction that what God says is true and that what He promises will come to pass. It deals primarily in the realm of the future ("things hoped for") and the realm of the invisible ("things not seen").

Whittier said that "the steps of faith fall on the seeming void, and find the rock beneath." But not so! Faith is no leap in the dark. It demands the surest evidence, and finds that...

The greatest of all investments is the investment of one's life for Jesus Christ. The important considerations in any investment are the safety of the principal and the rate of return. Judged on this basis, no investment can compare with the life that's lived for God. The principal is absolutely safe because He is able to keep that which we have committed unto him (2 Timothy 1:12). As for the income, it boggles the mind by its immensity.

In...

Peter reminds his readers that they are strangers and pilgrims, a reminder that was never more needed than today. Pilgrims are people who are travelling from one country to another. The country they are passing through is not their own; they are aliens in it. It is the country to which they are going that is their homeland.

The hallmark of a pilgrim is a tent. Thus, when we read that Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, we are to understand that he considered Canaan an alien...

A verse like this raises an interesting question. If we have not because we ask not, what great things are we missing in life simply because we do not pray for them?

A similar question arises from James 5:16, ""The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." If this righteous man doesn't pray, then does it not follow that little is accomplished through him?

The trouble with most of us is that we do not pray enough, or...

It is a great moment in a man's life when he ascertains that he does not know God. The next step is to ascertain that one ought to know God. After this a man may still go knocking at many wrong doors; but let us hope that he will at length reach the right door, even the Bible, and conclusively set himself to seek God therein.

If we want to know what it is to seek diligently, we need no dictionary; we need only look around us; in every community there are men who seem to have assigned...