Heb. 11:4 ... "By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous ... and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks."
For what does a person's life count? A baby is born into the world, one of millions in a given year. He learns to walk, talk, and play. Then at age five or six he begins his education, which he continues for the next dozen or more years. Marrying and having a family, he enters upon some line of work whereby to support his dependents. He buys a house, furnishes it, and owns a car or two. Beyond his job and domestic life he interacts with several friends, indulges in leisure time activities, and may give a little of his time to some civic groups. Finally, he grows old and retires from work. By now his family has disintegrated and reformed as two or three other families with the marriage of his children. At last he dies and disappears from the earth. For what has his life counted? His place is taken by someone else, and within a generation he is well nigh forgotten.
Sadly, it appears that most people accomplish little in life beyond occupying space, reproducing their kind, consuming products to others' profit, and helping to produce or market those products with no reward other than financial. Is it necessary that a person's life should be so routine, so bland, and so anonymous? Is it meant for the human condition to be little more than existential, with little to raise it from a state of being flat, or color its characteristic paleness, or give any permanence to its transience? There are those who say not, who see life as essentially meaningless, and who interpret the human condition as being absurd. Mark Twain, the noted American humorist, also had a dark view of life which he expressed in the statement that death is "the only unpoisoned gift" that earth ever gives to anyone. When the psalmist contemplated the vastness of the sky above him, he exclaimed, "What is man that You take thought of him?" (Psa. 8:4). And Job in his misery saw only hopelessness in his future and said, "Why did I not die at birth? ... For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest," (Job 3:11,13).
Hebrews 11:4 points our thinking away from the pessimism that is easily produced by the inequity, failure, and suffering which life deals out to all of us. A life that is lived by faith in God counts for something that endures and does not lose its power at death. It can turn inequity into advantage, failure into success, and suffering into joyful comfort. Having first been established within God's grace, it shall continue forever within that grace. We are told in Eph. 2:8 that "by grace you have been saved through faith." The name of such a person is recorded in the "Book of Life" in heaven to be remembered in the Final Judgment, (Rev. 3:5; 20:15). But, even during the course of this world, the faith directed life continues to exert a beneficial influence even after the mortal body is destroyed. Abel, who lived by faith, has been dead since the dawn of human existence, yet his name is remembered with praise, and his deeds still serve as a good example.
The chapter giving tribute to Abel, the first martyr for righteousness, testifies to the enduring impact for good of those who lived by faith in ancient times. Such people give back to society by trying to uplift the lives of people through noble thinking, pure speech, and virtuous behavior. They enrich human experience by emanating the glory of love, peace, good will, kindness, altruism, courage and hope. As they pass through the lives of others, they leave behind an influence for good that lives and acts for a long time after they themselves are gone. The places they have been are better because they were in them, and the people who shared life with them are better because of the association.
