Abraham's Obedience

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:08, NKJV).

Verse 8 of Hebrews 11 begins the faith saga of Abraham, the Friend of God and the Father of the Faithful. Like Genesis, which covered the history of the world from Creation through the Flood in 11 chapters, and then spent the next 12 chapters on the life and family of one man, Abraham, so chapter 11 covers the chronology from Creation to the Flood in 7 verses, and then spends the next 10 on this same one man.

Abraham is important. He is the top of the human funnel that, from the entire population of the planet, filters down to the divinely decreed lineage of Messiah. He is also the very first illustration of the way of salvation in a Fallen world, for Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness (Ro 4:3; Ga 3:6; Jas 2:23). Do you see the significance of that?

Human redemption is exemplified in the simple, thrice-repeated proclamation that Abraham was saved by faith, and in being the first, he became our father in the faith. We who believe are all spiritual descendants of this one man who was the founder of many nations, Jew and Gentile, and through his Descendant (singular), all the nations of the world shall be blessed.

From the perspective of Hebrews, this man is characterized by obedience. The fact that the call to go out to his actual going out after his own father died spanned many years does not even enter into the picture. Yes, it took him awhile in this instance, but Hebrews 11 is a "bottom line" exposition. 

In the end, he obeyed, much like Jesus' parable of the two sons, the fawning hypocritical liar, and the rebellious one who refused his father's command, but then complied.

To be sure, later on in Abraham's walk of faith, his obedience became immediate, but this starting point was slow to come to fruition, and for all his descendants by faith who struggle with instant obedience to God, his example should be both illustrative and encouraging. 

Far from perfect, especially at the start, and even after walking for years with his Lord he stumbled, but in the end, he became the shining example, the foundation, of justification by faith.

Why? Because his heart was wholly toward God and he refused to fall away. When he stumbled, he regained his footing and returned to his Lord.

Know that this is God's perspective with all His children. It is the "bottom line" that matters in the end, and this is both good and horrible news. Good because no matter how badly we stumble or backslide, if our hearts are truly with God, we will return and He will restore.

It is horrible because no matter how holy the outside of our lives appear, it is the inside that matters, and it is only from the inside that we endure to the end.

And while any disobedience, however transitional, costs us blessing and peace that otherwise would have been God's delight to bequeath, it is only those who have been made new by faith alone who are truly coheirs with Christ.

Spiritual adornment, holiness and faithful living should not be outward only, nor is it a grit-your-teeth-and-get it-done kind of effort. It is, instead, the result of a humble acquiescence of a human soul and will to Christ's transformative purposes, no matter what it takes on His part to make us like Him.

For Abraham, it took blessing and testing, riches and loss, joy and mourning, and a nomadic life fraught with peril. For each one of us, absolutely unique Creations of an all-powerful Deity, it may take more of less of these same things.

But the essential prerequisite, however imperfectly implemented, is a willing and obedient heart.

Without that, all the outward holiness and lip-service in the Universe will not provide escape from Hell.

With it, no matter how tattered, erratic, or clumsy our walk may be, in the end, He makes us His forever.

Again, to be sure, the goal is to live in obedience as exemplified by the man Abraham in his later years, but our inevitable failures in no way justify giving up the attempt...

…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; (Philippians 1:6, NKJV).

Noah

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. (Hebrews 11:07, NKJV).

Despite all the objective evidence confirming a global catastrophe in the fairly recent past (see here for starters), belief in Noah, the Ark and The Flood is considered, in many circles, equivalent to belief in The Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus, with this exception: The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are more acceptable because they are not Biblically based. 

Believing in a literal Genesis in this modern culture makes you all kinds of backwards and nasty things, even in some churches. The fact that the Lord Jesus Himself held The Flood to be a real historical event apparently holds little weight. The teachers and leaders in such churches can presumably take that up with Him on that Day. As for me and my house…

Regardless of your Noahic view, we have here in Hebrews a picture of faith exemplified in a man who found grace in the eyes of God in an era when every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Noah was righteous because He believed God, even in the face of massive popular pressure to do otherwise.

What precisely did he believe?

He believed that God is, so he listened.

He believed that can, so when warned he took the commanded actions.

He believed that God meant what He said, and was moved with godly fear.

By his unprecedented actions of faith, he condemned the world just prior to divine judgment finally being executed. The timing was no accident, but was orchestrated by God to teach what it means to live by faith, and used in this superlative chapter of Hebrews to provide us with yet another concrete example of life according to the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Noah and his household were an extremist minority. Ultimately, there were only eight of them, and they believed and acted upon things NO ONE ELSE would dare. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a hallmark of faith, but when taken in the context of his entire life, word and deed, it is a profound proclamation of where he put his trust. Or more precisely, in WHOM he put his trust.

When divinely warned of things not yet seen, he responded. In Noah's time, what had not yet been seen was rain as we know it (the ground was still being watered with a nightly mist), and flooding, especially a Flood that would cover all the mountaintops of all the earth. In reality, Noah had even less reason to believe than we do today, but believe he did, and he moved with godly fear, prepar[ing] an ark for the saving of his household.

The Ark itself was a massive project which took over a century to complete. In building it, his allegiance to God was undeniable, and undoubtedly subjected him to the scorn of his contemporaries. ALL of his contemporaries, save those in his own household. He had NO SUPPORT outside his immediate family for believing and doing what he did.

Do you sometimes feel that way?

Now exclusivity of belief, in and of itself, is no proof of anything, but taken in the context of his entire life, it spoke volumes of his faithfulness.

And these are the key take-aways from this man's godly example.

His entire life was lived in acknowledgement of, and submission to, the living God of the universe. The fact that he and his family were the ONLY ONES at that time is secondary to the foundational truth of his faith.

But despite the fact that he was vastly outnumbered, he obeyed the One in whom he believed. He did not allow social pressure in all of its pervasive forms to alter his personal conviction. Or actions. He was a man of steadfast belief, and lived out his faith in very conspicuous ways. Not because that was his, but God's choice.

His consistency and integrity served as an example to his sons, so that they followed their father's leadership with no hint of question or rebellion. We read nothing of any dispute among them, or of any disparagement of their father's faith. Family dysfunction only occurred well after the Flood, and then only because Noah lapsed into drunkenness, and one of three sons succumbed to a rebellious impulse.

Noah was not perfect, but he was a man of faith. Just like believers today.

He is an extreme example, and by extreme I mean undeniably obvious.

Sometimes, maybe most times, faithful obedience to the Lord can be done quietly and inconspicuously.

But there may be other times when God decrees otherwise. When, like in Noah's day, the coming judgment was scoffed at, scorned, and ridiculed, and the means by which God instructed Noah to survive the ordeal was anything but subtle.

In one sense, we have it easier today. As far as I know, no one is being commanded to build the modern-day equivalent of an Ark.

Plus, we have the record of The Flood and other judgments objectively recorded in writing for our learning. 

Nevertheless, our struggle is the same as Noah's in this sense: it flies it direct opposition to the ways of the world, and is a source of contempt and calumny from the worldly-minded.

Yet, as with all the other heroes of the faith, Noah became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

That is the only goal that counts in this life: faithful obedience.

Anything else is just vapor.

Believing That He Is

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:06, NKJV).

In the Western world, for generations, families have gone to great lengths to convince children to believe in all kinds of myths, like King Arthur, Merlin, Magic, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Christmas Elves, the Easter Bunny, Evolution and the Tooth Fairy.

The primary danger in this is that when the inevitable awakening to the truth occurs, and these cherished beliefs are determined to be false, the child learns to equate all such believing in things not seen as equivalently false, and the integrity and truthfulness of the caregivers in the family are rightly called into question.

As quaint traditions to enliven Holidays and family get-togethers, or to celebrate rites of passage or exercise the imagination, these myths, if presented as myths, can either be benign or serve a greater purpose as a contrast to Biblical reality, but there is a grave peril in teaching children to falsely believe something that isn't true.

It can inoculate them against faith, poisoning the well of what C.S. Lewis has termed, Mere Christianity. Recall this ancient text:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, (1 Peter 1:6-8, NKJV).

Children have an inherent ability for faith. It's built-in, part of their original equipment. Don't be fooled into thinking this innate ability is something evolution magically concocted to enhance survival. From the physical perspective, belief itself has very little survival value.

In fact, the young of all "higher" species get by pretty well without the ability to believe things that cannot be seen, for as far as we know, human children, constructed in the image of God, are the only ones who are born with the capability to perceive 3-dimensional reality and superimpose on it another qualitatively different reality. Call it what you will - the Spiritual Realm, the Supernatural, the World of the Imagination - its only earthly pioneers and explorers are human.

And human children are its most stalwart adventurers. That is part of the reason Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now, entering the Kingdom of Heaven is synonymous with coming to God. To do either, you must first believe that He is, and further, that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

According to the latest global surveys, more than 75% of the world's adult population believe in some Higher Power or Supreme Being. But that percentage is shrinking yearly, especially in Europe. Indeed, some countries, Denmark and Sweden, for instance, boast that between 46% and 80% of its residents are either agnostic or atheistic.

What is surprising, however, is that the percentage of belief in God remains so high, given the almost constant barrage of negativity in the world's news, opinion, higher education and entertainment media regarding religion. 

This persistence of belief is intensely frustrating to the increasingly aggressive proponents of humanism. But these men and women willfully forget that arrayed against the Ivy League, New York, Hollywood, Europe and all the other realms of worldly humanistic propaganda and intellectual elitism, is the God of the Bible. 

The God who is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. The God who has bridged the gap between Fallen man and holy Creator by declaring that faith in His Risen Son will achieve what no amount of human performance can achieve - access to His throne of grace. 

He can, and does, ensure that the avenue of faith remains open. At least for now.

Coming to God entails believing that He is, even in the face of propaganda and popular opinion to the contrary. Or more precisely, especially in the face of such global misinformation, for that makes the exercise of faith that much more significant.

Further it entails believing, as a necessary subsequent step, that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Why else come to Him in the first place?

But what does diligent seeking involve, exactly? 

Most importantly it means seeking Him as He has revealed Himself to be in His Word. Who knows what God the 75-percenters believe in? Is it the God of the Bible, or the God of their own vain and futile imaginings?

You cannot diligently seek Someone of whom you have no clue or information.

Fortunately - providentially - He has left us with all the clues we need, written down and preserved for millennia so that His light shines in the darkness, illuminating the path to His throne, His grace, and Himself.

Our task is to find and follow that roadmap, something He empowers and assists us to do if only we ask.

If you seek Him with your whole heart, mind and soul, He will be found. He guarantees it.

And He will reward your diligence in ways impossible to anticipate or comprehend, both in this life and in the life to come.

First you will get God Himself, as inconceivable as that may sound, for that is exactly what He promised Abraham so long ago.

And in getting Him you will get everything else, for …as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9, NKJV).

Pleasing God

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:06, NKJV).

…for whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23, NKJV).

For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV).

If it were not for faith, there would be no hope for human beings. None.

We would be born in this fallen world, live a life chasing futile satisfactions, involved in ephemeral relationships doomed for separation, either before or at death, and facing an inevitable demise only to discover that the worst of earthly life was heaven itself compared to what awaits in the torments of Hell.

Make no mistake, though, it is not merely faith itself, but faith in Christ that saves us from our otherwise default destiny.

And it is not faith in the Christ of our own imagination or convenience. It is the resurrected Christ who came first as the Suffering Servant, but who will return as the Executor of Judgment.

It is the Christ of the Bible that saves, not some New Age avatar or Ascended Master, not some Cosmic Consciousness or Pantheistic Force, not some red-headed, long-tressed, broad-shouldered Shepherd that could just as easily adorn the cover of some pulp Romance Novel.

It is He who was from the beginning.

It is the Captain of the Lord's Host.

It is He who treads the winepress of God's wrath, who will execute judgment on an ungodly world, who will slay the wicked with a word, and will shed their blood, bridle-height, in the Valley of Armageddon.

It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the Living God, best by far to become His by faith, so that rather than fall, as a unbelieving rebel, He embrace you in His arms as a beloved child.

There are two fatal errors - and I mean eternally fatal errors - about faith.

The first is that it is yours to grit your teeth and drum up, like its the result of some spiritual pep rally. It is not that at all. It is first a gift of God, dealt to each one by measure, and can be left to languish like a vestigial organ, or exercised by volitional and humble dependence on God as who He is, not as you might like Him to be. 

It is mostly private and always individual, meaning that it cannot be inherited or passed down by tradition or practice. It must be activated by a sincere decision of a person's will and mind. 

The second fatal error is to view faith along the lines of this ancient and deceitful cliche: God helps those who help themselves.

This is a subtle and brilliantly effective lie from the pit of Hell itself. It is a statement that appears Biblical, but is, in fact, its antithesis. It is the essence of human-centric legalism, and is quite close to denying the existence of God itself. Or at least implying that He should allow room on His throne for you.

Until you realize that there is nothing good in you, that you have no intrinsic value to God in and of yourself, you are helplessly mired in your trespasses and sins. You may be a shining example of the best that human beings can offer, but you are nonetheless fodder for the fires of Hades.

This is because you are not intrinsically good, but the opposite. You are defective goods. You were born that way, conceived in sin and brought forth to die in sin.

Unless you are remade, you are far worse than useless. You are worthy of judgment.

Harsh but true.

That is why faith is so, so important. It changes all of that. Faith in Christ remakes you. It regenerates you. It kills you on His Cross and makes you alive again in Him.

It is your only hope.

And by exercising that faith in a momentous act of acknowledged helplessness, you enter from death into life.

God has decreed faith to effect your pardon. It pleased Him to do so.

But for that pardon, He had to send His Son to die in your place. He who knew sin became sin for us, and propitiated God's wrath against sin forever by making Himself a substitutionary sacrifice.

For you and for me.

But there is only one way to have that sacrifice credited to your account: faith. It is the currency of salvation. Nothing else will do.

By believing, you take full receipt of that unspeakable gift. Otherwise, Christ's death was of no effect for you, and you trample it under your feet and put Him to an open shame.

Thus you can see why faith is the only way to earn God's pleasure. He enables it in you so that you can give it back.

He has decreed what saves, and then provided you with the very thing that meets the single requirement.

When you acquiesce humbly to His gracious way of escape, He rewards you as if you were someone completely new and sinless. He sees in you His precious Son.

And that pleases Him, indeed.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10, NKJV).

Enoch

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:05, NKJV).

Presented in chronological order, the succinct and profound journey through the annals of the faithful in Scripture now brings us to Enoch, the seventh from Adam, whose name means, teaching.

If Abel is a representative of the Spirit-led Old Testament believer, Cain a picture of the bitter and self-worshiping religious hypocrite of all ages, then Enoch is a brilliant symbol of the New Testament church.

Precious few words are written about him, only a brief passage in Genesis, here in Hebrews, and finally in Jude. All emphasize his righteous walk of faith, speaking nothing of his actual deeds, but only of his heart - a heart that walked with, and pleased, God.

In fact God was so taken with him, that He took him - raptured him - into His presence without death, just before the global flood of divine judgment.

In all of existence, all its permutations and convolutions, all its decisions, priorities, and potentials, there is NOTHING that matters beyond your relationship with your Creator. Get that right through faith, and EVERYTHING else falls into place. Get that wrong through unbelief, and regardless of whatever else happens, your life is a tragic waste.

God has decreed this to be so. He created humanity - with its will, emotions, spirit and mind - for unique and everlasting fellowship with Him. The rest is either just icing on the cake, or a downward rebellion spiraling into eternal torment.

Enoch so pleased God by faith that He spared Him from judgment in the most conspicuous and unexpected way possible. He snatched him from the face of the earth. Before that, Enoch was bestowed a son, and chose a name for that son based on his role as one of the first ancient prophets. He called the boy, Methuselah, whose name signifies, his death shall bring.

This boy became the longest lived person in the antediluvian world. At his death, the Flood came and destroyed all but the eight humans preserved through the judgment in the Ark. But Enoch was taken before that in a marvelous act of grace.

The chronicle of Enoch, like Abel before him is presented with the formula By faith…

Having personally memorized Hebrews, I can attest that this chapter was perhaps the easiest, and certainly the most lyrical to commit to memory because of the formulaic preface to each episode, building into a verbal crescendo of glory after glory. The repetition of By faith, By faith, By faith along with its precise historical chronology is so very effective and powerful. It is a joy to recite, precisely because of its pattern and content.

And the lesson it drives home is simple, yet life-changing.

Faith, that substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, is the nuclear furnace of life, provided that it is centered upon the living God of the Bible.

It the crowning achievement of Fallen man. Without it, every other achievement is worthless, full of gas and vapor.

With it, even the smallest act becomes a cause for triumphant celebration, and lavish praise from the Lord of the Universe.

The ultimate reward of a life of faith is God Himself, as He declared to Abram in Genesis 15.

Yes, we obtain righteousness by faith. Yes, it is faith that enables us to be adopted into the family of God and live forever. Yes, it is faith that defeats Satan and conquers death.

But above even these marvelous things, faith gives us Jesus, in intimate, heroic, and noble fellowship. And fills the otherwise empty void of life that without Him, is vain futility ending in everlasting torment.

God has decreed that faith, not our own works of righteousness, earns His pleasure.

And that decree is the foundation of His greatest mercy and grace.

Exercise that gift of faith now, while there is still time, and become His beloved child, and like Enoch, you will be spared the coming judgment.

Abel

By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks. (Hebrews 11:04, NKJV)

The second murder in history took place at the dawn of the planet when a bitter, resentful and prideful brother committed premeditated fratricide. He followed the precedent set by Satan himself, the one who was a "murderer from the beginning" and the "father of lies", who, through his deceitful seduction of the woman, Eve, caused her husband, Adam, to willfully rebel against God, thus causing them both to die.

It is clear that Abel, the second from Adam, knew something of God's atoning provision for sin: the shedding of innocent blood. He killed the firstborn of his flock and offered it as a sacrifice, while his elder brother, Cain, offered the fruit of the ground.

We are told that God respected Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's, and like the self-centered, arrogant, and bloatedly prideful man he was, Cain's countenance fell.

In modern parlance, we mistakenly refer to this as sibling rivalry. It was not. First, there is no indication in the text that Abel competed with his brother on any level. In fact, when Cain invited him out to the killing field, it looks like Abel went willingly, trustingly.

The facts appear to shout these truths about the killer Cain: he had no objection to violence; he was a cheapskate (what did it cost him to offer to God what God himself had nurtured - the fruit of the ground?); and he could not tolerate criticism, implied or otherwise.

In short, Cain was a highly functioning self-worshipper; a man who considered all his thoughts and impulses as golden, and not to be denied. When he couldn't revenge himself against God, he did what in his mind was the next best thing - he sought and achieved vengeance against his godly brother.

Cain is indistinguishable from most members of human society since that time.

Don't be mislead by the simplicity of this historical vignette in Genesis 4. It highlights merely the pertinent details of the crime, and leaves much of the background information unreported. And here in Hebrews 11, the core of the matter is laid bare even more concisely.

It's this: Abel's offering, founded on faith, pleased God. It wasn't that his was blood, and his brother's produce, though that did speak to the comparison between their respective investments of time and effort.

In stark contrast, Cain merely went through the motions to look good. His heart was filled, not with gratitude and reverence for God, but with festering self-adulation.

God honored Abel's sacrifice, and even now, witnesses to the righteousness of the man through his act of faith, thus memorializing forever both the man, and the single path to redemption: faith.

Cain too is indelibly etched in history, as the quintessential symbol of human evil.

Think about it. The motive for the murder did not entail love or money or fame. The motive for the murder was the most banal and primitive imaginable. Cain was offended.

It takes an enormous sense of self-entitlement to go down the senseless path that Cain chose. There are many forms of the same response to offense prevalent today, though most fall short of actual physical murder (but refer to the Sermon on the Mount for the true definition of murder from God's perspective).

His heinous act accomplished nothing but further exile, and an eternal place in infamy, symbolized forever by the mark of Cain.

The man's response when discovered? Whining self-pity, the very opposite of repentance.

The man's legacy of evil: his descendants were even more psychopathically self-centered than was he himself.

I submit that this was the most senseless and evil act of murder in human history. Not only was it the first human-on-human violence, but it was the most puerile and useless.

Above all, it illustrates the root of all sin: pride.

Cain was a selfish monster, a goblin, a fiend - pure and simple. He deprived his brother of life because Abel's continued existence was an insult.

As such, Cain is rightfully held up as the progenitor of all human violence since the dawn of human history.

In the end, Cain, not Adam, is our most vile forebear.

We all inherit his dreaded mark, and only faith in Christ can remove the stain.

The God Particle

By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. (Hebrews 11:03, NKJV).

How did the "primitive and unscientific" writer of Hebrews know that subatomic particles exist? How did he know some 2000 years before the latest particle accelerator went operational in Europe?

Recent media attention has been paid to the search for the elusive "God Particle", that thing which gives all other subatomic particles mass, and without which neither matter nor energy would exist, hence the rather presumptuous name.

A few years before, physicists were excited by the search for the so-called gluon particle, that mysterious entity that was supposed to hold all the rest of the universe together.

Operational science is one of the most useful studies known to mankind. Through it, the human race has advanced in knowledge and technological abilities quite rapidly, especially in the last few generations, when we have gone from horse-and-buggy to interplanetary and extrasolar exploration. We have also progressed from geographic isolation to worldwide network connectivity, from telegraph to satellite phones, and so on.

Popular media loves to paint Christianity as anti-science, primarily over one facet of study: origins. But in reality, it was Christian scientists who began the scientific revolution, who studied the world because they believed its Creator was real, knowable, and a lover of order and logic.

Even today, unbelieving but honest scientists have penned surprisingly spiritual odes to the wonders and incredible complexities of the universe, and by their study have come right up against the idea of Design and Creator, without having whatever it takes to go beyond their worldly presuppositions into the realm of the true Reality behind reality. 

Hence the overhyped search for the "God Particle" - reduce the Creator and Sustainer to a thing, and then you can have a few more nights of sleep untroubled by the nagging suspicion that there is more to everything than mere science can ever know.

Whatever the physical manifestation, the substance and evidence of faith teaches this ineffable truth: the worlds were framed by the word of God.

God spoke and other than Himself began to exist.

Think about what that means for just a second and be awed.

Our self-existent God, utterly complete and all-powerful, uttered the Universe into existence. He used words to manifest His incomprehensible creativity and, with seemingly very little effort, formed out of absolutely nothing, absolutely everything… except Himself.

He spoke light and energy and matter into causality. He spoke all the laws of physics, thermodynamics, mathematics, and biology into reality.

And He did so for the express purpose of making for us, His ultimate creation, a place to be and grow and live and enter into relationship with Him.

That is what faith teaches, and whatever else this God Particle may be, underpinning its function and purpose is, very simply, the Word of God.

I cannot conceive of a more effective presentation of God's divine attributes, His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, than to have these encapsulated in these three reality-making words: "And God said…".

Consider all the human and natural demonstrations of power in whatever form you choose: dictatorships, presidents, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, nuclear detonations, etc. Each require whole systems of interrelated components in a preexisting configuration in order to achieve anything. Rulers require nations and infrastructure, nature requires climatology, hydrology and the physical realm. Weapons of mass destruction require science and technology, and all the foundations upon which these are built.

But only a Being of all-conceivable power could speak into the nothingness and by His very words not only move all heaven and earth, but create them in the first place.

Why choose words rather than gestures or something else?

I can think of three possible reasons, none of which are exhaustive, and all of which are speculative, for in the end, God chooses simply because God chooses.

Nevertheless, His creative power manifested in and by words instantly and intimately unites Him with the only elements of His Creation made in His image: us.

Words are what differentiate human beings from everything else. We are the only living creatures we know of who would understand even the concept of verbal and written communication, let alone the content of the communication.

Secondly, impersonal force and the use of words are oxymorons. It is unimaginable for mere energy to communicate in anyway. Nuclear explosions do not speak. There would have to be a controlling intelligence behind the use of words, and by definition, intelligence requires personhood.

And finally, there is nothing more representative of sovereign power than a command immediately and inalterably obeyed. As a symbol of divine authority, the Creation account is unmatched by any conceivable alternative.

God needed neither machinery, nor matter, nor energy, nor infrastructure, nor wealth, nor institutions of knowledge, nor anything else… but Himself.

God said… and it was so.

A Good Testimony

For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. (Hebrews 11:02, NKJV).

The it here is the weight and solidity of faith. By faith, and faith alone, good testimony is obtained before God.

The phrase is used twice in Hebrews, both in Chapter 11. It is a derivation of the root from which we get our word, martyr, and literally means to bear witness of a positive nature. 

It is instructive to note that the three other instances in the New Testament (so, 5 in all) refer respectively to the man who ministered to Paul's blindness in Damascus (the Ananias of  Acts 22:12), to the qualifications of those in church leadership (2 Timothy 3:7), and to Demetrius, an acquaintance of the elderly John whom he mentioned in his last epistle (3 John 12).

In each case, it is the unsolicited, voluntary report of a good and decent person from an eye witness. In that sense, faith is our character witness.

Whatever we do NOT from faith is therefore sin (Romans 14:23), and acts as a witness against us at the Judgment Seat of Heaven.

This means in turn that all our "good" deeds on earth, if not fueled by faith, no matter how vaunted and beneficial from the human perspective, serve not as recommendations, but indictments.

Are you generous and charitable because it does something for your self-image or self-esteem? Then keep your treasure for God is not fooled, nor mocked.

Are you diligent in religious activities, studies, and practices because you believe it earns you credit in Heaven? Then you are wasting your time, and treasuring up for yourselves evidence of hypocrisy.

Do you stumble in sin daily, and grieve because you know that such behavior breaks your Lord's heart? Do you go to Him as a trusting child to implore forgiveness? These are acts of weighty and solid faith, achievements of substance that please God far more than any outward piety or righteousness (Luke 18:9-14).

Any "good" thing done for reasons other than loving and obedient gratitude to the Creator and Savior is likened to a whitewashed tomb, adorned on the outside, but on the inside full of dead men's bones and corruption.

This both complicates and simplifies a life of faith, doesn't it?

The complication comes from ruthlessly weeding out any thoughts of self-righteousness and self-worth (a remarkably difficult task in this era of culturally promoted self-worship) and simply allowing the Spirit of God to work in and through you each and every waking moment, motivating, directing, and empowering. The self-surrender involved here is hard and takes long and diligent practice. 

Children do it far better than adults; humble people better than the proud; those poor in spirit better than those who think highly of themselves.

In fact, the more worldly success you've experienced, the higher the regard you receive from worldly neighbors and worldly family and worldly friends, the more control you think you have over your own destiny, the harder it is to live by faith.

On the other hand, it simplifies things because neither your own plans nor power nor position amount to a hill of beans from the heavenly perspective. A true life of faith is, in this respect, one spontaneous adventure after another. 

Spontaneous because the directing force comes from above, not within, where you have to grit your teeth and strive and obsess. It is an adventure because the outcome is not up to you, but in the hands of Someone far greater and better than you.

And while some adventures may not be safe, all adventures change something fundamental inside the adventurer. And adventures under the loving hand of God change you in the direction He wants you to go, for your good and His glory.

In reality, the Christian walk of faith is not the staid and safe and colorless tedium portrayed by popular wisdom. It is the diametric opposite.

Sometimes it means heroically walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes it means purposefully taking the hard, rather than the easy path. Always it means putting all your trust in Someone you have not seen, not as a striving or work, but as a simple act of devotion.

For remember this above all else:

...without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV).

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10, NKJV).

Solidity and Weight

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:01, NKJV).

Faith in Christ is transformative. It was meant to be. 

Faith, we discover, is the only way to please God. 

Faith is the differentiator between a life worthy of condemnation and one worthy of divine commendation.

Hebrews 11 is the one place in Scripture devoted almost entirely to what faith is, and what it looks like lived out in the world.

Read it and tremble. Memorize it and have the pathways in your mind re-grooved. 

I dare you. 

For when you finally see what a life of faith may entail, you will quickly see that it is NOT a nice, neat contractual agreement between you and God. You will see that it is NOT one of the things on a list that you agree to do, or have, that enables you to pass the citizenship test of Heaven.

It is, in fact, what you BECOME as a child of God, and it changes you fundamentally, like radical surgery. Often, those around you will not like the results. They will see you as somehow disfigured, unfit for continued association. You become a pariah, an outcast, sometimes from your own family and household.

When this reaction is caused by your own sense of supposed superiority, the stench of that is hard to bear by anyone, even your staunchest former allies. But when it is caused by your sincere desire to put Christ first in your life, to become like Him, then in some sense you join the long list of those "hated for Christ's sake." 

The popular conception of faith in Christ is characterized by the "pie in the sky by and by" dismissal. All the cool kids know better, and if you believe in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross for your sins, and live your life surrendered to Him, you are as far from membership in the Cool Kids Club as you can get and still be a resident of the planet. 

The polite condescension heaped on you is even more unbearable than the open contempt. And many of the most rabid Cool Kids believe you need "an intervention", and if they had their way, you'd be forced into state-sponsored rehabilitation.

The reason a life of faith invokes such hostility is because it threatens the very foundation of human pride and self-sufficiency, and unflinchingly declares that we are not our own - that we are accountable for our choices, actions, and priorities to an Omnipotent Judge.

The very idea sends a lot people through the roof; they go ballistic and their missiles of rebuke and ridicule are fueled by an endless supply of "HOW DARE THEY BE SO _____" (fill in the blank).

It's tiring and damaging and to be expected. Jesus Himself warned of the consequences of following Him.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. (John 15:18-21, NKJV).

But remember, it is God's opinion that counts, not the world's, and a heart of faith knows this because of the substance of things hoped for, the solidity and weight of the promises of God.

If I promise you something, the degree to which you can rely upon those promises being carried out are directly proportional to my integrity and power. My past track record and my control over the circumstances of life are what any thinking, rational person would focus upon to determine the likelihood of my fulfilling my word.

To trust me in that regard requires an investment of time and personal experience. Only a fool trusts someone they don't know. Consequently, if you don't know me, or if my track record is spotty, or if my promise is unrealistic in relation to the power required to carry it out, the substance upon which you base your trust in me lacks solidity and weight. It's just so much vapor and gas.

Such is NOT the case with God. If He is who He says He is, then His control and power over circumstances is absolute. He can do what He promises. And if you have experienced His gracious transforming power in your own experience, and seen the impact of His beloved Son on the history of the world, and on the individuals submitted to His care, and have spent time in fellowship with Him through His word and prayer, then you are in a position to judge His track record. You understand it is flawless.

The solidity and weight of His promises are off the scale. It would take work to disregard or dismiss them.

Add to that the incontrovertible evidence of things not seen, and you have an iron-clad argument for the rationality of faith.

What evidence?

How about the Goldilocks Principle of Cosmology - everything in the Universe "just right" for that thing we call life?

Or accurately fulfilled prophecy from a source obviously "outside of time" - the reemergence of the Nation of Israel after nearly 2000 years of dispersal; the eerily prescient description of the history of mankind in general and the Middle East in particular? 

Do you really believe it is a quirk of fate that the eyes of all national governments are focused on a part of the world that serves the energy needs of most of the modern global economy? Is it merely coincidental that 2500 years ago that very thing was written down ahead of time, and has played out just as described? 

Or the amazing declarations in Scripture of how the underneath of all things are put together - "so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible…".

If these evidences leave you unmoved, what about the changed lives of the men, women and children who have come to faith in Christ? Murderers become missionaries; slavers become emancipators; warmongers become peacemakers?

The transition from degenerate sinner to regenerated saint is inexplicable without the ingredient of faith. Postulate what you will, but name me one life changed for the better by committed atheism, or one nation becoming the vanguard of human decency and uplifting without its people motivated by belief in Christ.

You can't. Not honestly.

And honestly, once you consider the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen in this light, faith must be admitted to be something real. Something substantial you can sink your teeth into and upon which you can base your destiny.

But in the end, faith is by definition unprovable in this age. It is a matter of the human heart. mind and will, and that is a good thing, because once faith becomes sight, as the prophecies tell us will happen, then it will be too late to exercise faith.

That opportunity to please God in the only way fallen human beings can will be gone… forever.

So take heed and consider now, before it is too late.

Instead of contempt, put on humility and teachableness.

Instead of being dismissive, try honest investigation.

Instead of falling for propaganda and cultural stereotypes, try looking at people as unique individuals and taking the time to find out what truly makes them tick. 

Instead of indiscriminately swallowing lies, seek truth.

Do you really have your life so under control, and the world so neatly organized that you can afford to overlook these things? If so, for your sake, I hope time does not pass, because no matter what you believe, the future has a way of unravelling your nice, neat package of what is and isn't true.

And maybe, just maybe, if you try these things you will be surprised by the grace of God, and come to see His Son and His people in a different light.

A light that gives life to the world.

To the Saving of the Soul

Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: “For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:35-39, NKJV).

Two different words are translated as confidence in the two places they appear in Hebrews. As always in Scripture, the distinctives are significant. 

In 3:15, (For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end), hupostasis [hoop-os'-tas-is] is used, and it speaks of a foundational substructure or of that which actually exists. Here, it is parrhesia [par-rhay-see'-ah], and literally means cheerful boldness of action. Do you see the difference? The first is a state of mind, the second is the response to the state of mind.

Put another way, the hallmark of of truly believing in something is acting upon it. This is exactly the message in James, where a great distinction is made by the Lord's half-brother between professed faith and actual, living faith. One is dead and incapable of saving. The other is living and powerful, and saves.

Both kinds of confidence are essential components of saving faith. In fact, you can't have the second without the first, which makes perfect sense. You won't walk across a building's foundation, for instance, if you have no confidence the cement will bear your weight - if you are unsure that it is actually what it appears to be.

But you can't stop at the intellectual aspects of the first either. You must go on to the cheerfully bold response to that faith - live it, speak it, jump up and down on it. And this second ingredient of saving faith, built upon the first, is the easiest to cast away. You can just stop being Christian. If you do, the writer of Hebrews warns that you forfeit a great reward - that enduring possession of previous verses.

Look, it is clear you can hold intellectual assent to the fact of God and Christ, you can believe that they exist. But even the demons believe and tremble. But that is not salvation. In fact, that serves to increase condemnation. If you do not allow the Lord to move you beyond that intellectual assent into saving faith, you are just as doomed as those who scorn even the existence of God.

This is solemn and dangerous territory which the book of Hebrews ploughs through head-on, providing dire warning after dire warning. Can you lose your salvation? I believe the answer is a resounding NO. Can you deceive yourself and others about being saved? With equal conviction, I believe the Bible answers, tragically, YES.

Now, one of the identifying characteristics of saving faith is endurance. “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22, NKJV). Forms of the same Greek word are used in Matthew and above. It is not that endurance in this regard gets you into Heaven. It is that by enduring you have proven your citizenship. In truth, there are only two choices, enduring, or drawing back.

I have seen little children with a 1000 times more endurance than an adult. I have seen elderly and frail men stand their ground more firmly than Olympic athletes. Endurance is a God-given ability bequeathed through humble acknowledgement of where strength lies. Those who truly endure in the faith understand that strength is from God, not themselves.

Inevitably, those who trust in themselves, or on their circumstances, or in their bank accounts, human relationships, earthly achievements, intellect, popularity, or ANYTHING ELSE but God, do not endure to the saving of the soul. And like the irresistible force of gravitation, those who do not endure are drawn back into perdition - like matter sucked over the event horizon of an inescapable Black Hole.

Perdition is that state of eternal destruction. It is not once-and-done. It is an endless crushing obliteration in the cold, black fires of Hell.

The heavenly perspective of saving faith is summarized this way: “For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”  Note that. In comparison to eternity, even a hundred years of earthly suffering is yet a little while. Note also that the heavenly measure of a successful life is that it be lived by faith. Not by sight.

Human accomplishments done in human strength are abominations to God. Pure and simple. It is equivalent to atheism.

But a life lived by faith, even if no visible earthly achievements result, is a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice to God. Remember that the next time you, like Nebuchadnezzar, pat yourself on the back for all you have accomplished without attributing your success in your heart to the God of Heaven.

From the Lord's viewpoint, a successful life is a life of faith leading to salvation. Everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE, is a potential distraction leading to Hell.

But take heart beloved, if you are truly His, you are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

An Enduring Possession

But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. (Hebrews 10:32-34, NKJV).

First illumination, then struggle, sufferings, humiliation, reproaches, tribulations, and being plundered - the life of a Christian on earth while he or she awaits the redemption of the purchased possession. If anyone promises you something different, they are trying to sell you something. Don't buy it. You already have an enduring possession beyond price.

Illumination is literally given light. The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2, NKJV). It is no accident that the Lord Christ is repeatedly associated with light. Among His many evocative titles is the Light of the World.  He is that which obliterates darkness, especially the darkness of sin and death, the very things He came to destroy and conquer.

Struggle is the same Greek word from which we get athlete, and means, simply, fight. And it is characterized purposely as a great struggle. Again, as believers we are in a war declared by the world upon God. As His, we are enemy combatants, and our battlefield is everywhere, even inside us. 

There is no shelter, except in Him, and there is no place to retreat, since we are already behind enemy lines. Indeed, that is where we were recruited in this ubiquitous battle between light and dark. He provides full armor and weaponry, but we must purpose in our hearts to use it and stand firm, not to obtain that better and enduring possession, but because we know, deep down in our renewed hearts, we already have it.

Sufferings, another word precisely chosen by the divinely inspired writer of Hebrews, derived from the same root from which we get pathology - having to do with fighting disease. We live in a world that, if we pay any attention at all, often makes us sick. We suffer over sin in the same way that Christ did, in the same way that Paul writes of in Romans. Having been given deep and intimate knowledge of the true goodness of Christ, the contrast with its opposite in the world is literally, sickening.

Spectacle is theatrizo (theh-at-rid'-zo), an action involving being put on a stage as a laughingstock, for conspicuous and public derision and contempt. By far, the worst of this is when it is done within one's own family and household, but it is also a common and prevalent practice in the world at large. Mockery is an ancient and effective strategy to undermine an enemy's cause, if not in the enemy himself, at least in those who are part of the audience.

Today, the more despicably Christians are portrayed in popular cultural media, the more "edgy" and avant grade the "artists" involved. In reality, they are participants of one of the oldest strategies in existence - a tactic that plays upon the unthinking and naturally twisted human tendency to rebel against its Creator by calling good evil and evil good. You see and hear it everywhere, and the goal is to make you SHUT UP! But don't listen, for you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. The world is neither your friend, nor your home. If you are Christ's, you can do nothing to earn its lasting regard.

Reproaches are acts of contemptuous dismissal, symbolized primally by being spit upon. It is what happened to Christ as He was forced to carry the means of His own murder through the streets of Jerusalem. It involves a sneering, and hostile devaluation of you as a person, and is routinely accompanied by a crowing sense of superiority from the one who spews the contempt boldly in your face. It hurts the worst when it comes from so-called loved ones (a typical Satanic maneuver), when the deceptive mask of condescending tolerance is ripped away to reveal the seething hatred just beneath the surface. 

It happened to Jesus within His own town and family. Do not be surprised when it happens to you. It is part of what you signed up for when you put your trust in Christ, but it is OK, because you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

Finally, we come to tribulations. Appropriately enough, this is the same thing that happens to olives in a stone press which, through the application of intense pressure, causes the oil to be expelled from the husk so that it can be purified through repeated straining. It is the oppression at all levels of existence and sensation that the Christian experiences in the hands of the enemies of God, including his own fleshly nature. It is never fun, but it is always purposeful.

And therein lies the core of the matter: the purposes of the Father in allowing His children to remain in, and be transformed by, this life. His purposes are good. Our lives have meaning that the world can NEVER take away. It is why a Christian in the throes of these things can joyfully accept the pressings and plunderings that come our way because we know - we KNOW - that He works all things together for good.

What the world means for evil, God allows for our good and His glory. It may not seem that way in the midst, but that is precisely when the eyes of faith must be opened so that we can see that enduring possession.

And what is it that we already own by inheritance? What is it that can never be taken away? What is it that rust cannot destroy, or that thieves can not break in and steal?

It is our life in Christ - eternity in the Presence of God, not as amorphous, undifferentiated spiritual energy, but as solid, thinking, emoting, unique individuals knit together in our mother's wombs by the hand of God Himself, and transformed into the Son's masterpieces by faith, forever being transformed into His image.

Ultimately, it is God Himself that we possess. As He promised to an old man so long ago:

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” (Genesis 15:1, NKJV).