Living by Faith: The Faith of Abel

In Hebrews 11:4. The author writes, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” I don’t want to spend a lot of time on Abel but I do want to point out one thing. 

Specifically, the thing that separated Abel from Cain was not the particular sacrifice he offered or the amount he offered or anything so mundane as these. Rather, the thing that distinguished Abel’s offering from Cain’s offering was Abel’s faith. Abel loved the Lord. Abel trusted the Lord. Abel offered his offering to honor and give thanks to the Lord. The Lord then saw this and declared him righteous by faith not by works. And since Abel was commended for his faith, he is still speaking to us today even though he died a tragic death. Friends, his brother killed him in a passionate act of violence but his brother could not kill his witness to the world! 

Do you know why that is? Years ago the Lord taught me a lesson from this verse: the fruit of faith endures as long as the object of our faith endures—ponder that. Therefore, when we have faith in God, the fruit of our faith endures forever because God endures forever. If we trust in earthly kingdoms or riches or things, our faith will have a very short life. But if we trust in God, our faith, like Abel’s, will testify forever simply because God lives forever. 

Abel’s faith is not about Abel, it’s about God. He trusted in the faithfulness of God and found God to be faithful, even in death. Now his life cries out to ours and says, “I bid you to trust in God as well, for he who promised is faithful. God is the hero of my life, so trust in him, hope in him, cling to him.” This is the testimony of Abel to us today, and I pray that we’ll have ears to hear. I pray that we’ll learn to put our faith in the God who lives forever and who is forever faithful!