12 May What Has Enoch, Abraham, And Noah Taught Us About Faith?
Faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is in the hope of what one cannot see. If I can see it and place my hand on it, that is not faith, because there is evidence already
present of its existence. True faith, God faith, is the hope in the things that are not seen. There is no evidence of it. Romans 8 24-26: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one
still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” God is able to create out of nothingness. There does not need to be a pre-existing pattern or form that he needs to draw from in order to create it.
The world, meaning the universe, was not patterned after one that was already in existence. The universe was created out of God, needing no pre-existing architecture to draw from. He is the starting point for all
things. They are formed out of him, as he is the source. The sun formed out of him, as did the moon and the stars. Scientist looks for pre-existing beginnings to try to understand where things began. How things come to be in existence. A God does not come to exist. He is an eternal being that has always been, and he is so good at his job, most of us cannot fathom the concept behind him having no beginning. Because to us, all things have a beginning. Our lives had a beginning. Going back to our parents. And they have a beginning, going back to
their parents, our grandparents. And they have a beginning going back to our great grandparents. And the chicken has a beginning, going back to when it was an egg. And the automobile has a beginning, going back to drawings, sketches, and before that an idea.
We are a creation that understands beginnings. Our lives on a day-to-day basis operate around this scientific understanding and our human intellect. God operates outside of all our understanding and human intellect.
He operates in the areas we cannot understand. In the things that are not “evident”. In the things that cannot be “seen”. It takes faith to believe that he is. It takes faith to believe he created anything, since before him creating it, it did not exist. We walk with God, not because of the things we see, but because of the things we cannot. Those how follow satan are controlled by the things that they see. The things that are evident. The current matters are their main concern. We are controlled by the things in which we cannot see. Believing God’s word on what we will be invited to when we leave this present life.
“By faith Enoch was translated so as not to see death”, Hebrews 11:5. Genesis 5:21-24, tells us he
walked with God for 300 years, and then was no more, for God had taken him. One thing we know about face, is that it is not short stint of activity. It is a sustained action over long periods of time. It is not a year or two. Not 3 or 4. Not even 10. It spans decades and centuries for those in the Old Testament.
Three hundred years of hardships, setbacks, disappointments, failures, victories, unanswered questions, closeness, loneliness, rejections, afflictions, tears, sufferings, comfort, relief, stress, frustration, patience,
impatience, long-sufferings, and all the other things this life offers the human experience. Enoch had to endure through all these things. That is the only way to walk with God for 300 years. If his motivation for doing this is in the things he could evidently see, once received, the motivation to continue in God would have been lost. Resulting in him being delivered up as a backslider. But his faith had been tested for 300 years. He had been put through the crucible of all of life’s hardships and unknowns. The unpredictability of what’s next.
The disappointment of unfulfilled expectations. Self-seeking ambitions crashed against the rocks like a ship in the middle of a tempest. Leaving you emotionally shipwrecked. He had endured them all and continued on. After 300 hundred years, there was nothing left for God to see. His faith in God survived it all.
God does not set us up to fail. He brings us along at the rate that we can handle. His careful with us, like precious cargo. He does not seem like it when we are facing hardships. We feel like we are breaking on the
inside. We cry out loudly for his intervention. But things that break are often times rebuilt with more solid materials, to withstand the prior force that broke it in the first place. We have bridges and buildings that are being made with more sturdy material today, then yesterday. A lot less susceptible from floods, hurricane winds, tornados, even bomb attacks. A building made of fragile materials is a building that cannot withstand any sort of adversity coming up against it.
Adversity and affliction are the calling of the believer’s burden. How can he withstand it, if his faith is fragile? Faith is built, sustained, and enacted over long periods of time. And through various seasons of our lives. Loss of loved ones, loss of finances, loss of relationships, loss of jobs, loss of expectations, loss of health, through all seasons.
Hebrews 11:6 says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God”.
We can see why that is reading the previous text. It takes faith to walk with God. Without faith, you cannot walk with him. You cannot be led by him. You cannot believe in him. You cannot hear him. Our faith is what
connects us to him. And we usually do this through a lens that we can interpret through our human intellectual capabilities. But this type of faith gets us to a point where it becomes ineffective, because it puts God in a box. But God cannot be put in a box. He creates the box that all other things sit in. He does not need to fit inside of the box in order to bring forth his will. He will simply make the box fit his will. So, remember this as we next
move to Noah: that faith is sustained over a long period of time, and not short stints.
HEBREWS 11:7 – NOAH
“By faith Noah, having been warned by God of things not yet seen”
God tells Noah that he is going to destroy every living person, animal, mammal on earth. He tells Noah to build an ark to God’s specifications, and in it he will preserve Noah’s family in the ark, along with
the land animals, bringing them in by twos, male and female, in the ark with him. What would make this word from God particularly fascinating is the way in which God flooded the earth. There had never been rain fall before. Water had never fallen from the sky. So Noah might have assumed that the oceans and the seas would exceed the boundaries God had placed for them. Allowing them to run onto all the land until everything was under water. But God did not do that. Instead, he did something that had previously never been done. He caused water to fall from the sky to flood the earth. Killing all land air-breathing beings. God was very specific on how Noah was to build the ark. He was thoroughly explicit with his instruction. God is intentional, and God is deliberate. He was building an ark for something in which there was no evidence at all to support the construction of it. All he had was God’s word. When that is all you have, that is all you need. God is asking him to believe in something that is to come, in which there is no evidence to support it. This is why God chose Noah. The Bible says without faith, it is impossible to please God. No one else was privy to the word that God spoke to Noah. To provide water to plants and tree and the ground, God will cause amidst to rise up from the ground. There were no rain or thunderstorms in recorded history at that point. God is again exhibiting what faith is, by asking Noah to believe in something that has no historical context or evidence. He is asking him to
believe in something that has never been done or seen. And Noah began constructing the Ark. Believing God and taking him at his word. Having a fear and reverence when he spoke.
Taking his human intellect captive and tossing it aside. For God does not reside in human intellect or logical reasoning. He takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. So human knowledge finds no
footing with him. Noah relied on God. Those around him relied on their own understanding, and that’s what kept them from entering into the ark. It is estimated it took Noah between 75 to 125 years to complete it. And no one entered in besides him and his family. That shows you that sin and unbelief is hard code to the gene pool of humanity. Unable to shed the stripes it was born with, unless a more powerful force is able to break the stronghold of unbelief.
Hebrews says Noah became the heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. It was his faith that gave him such an honor. Not the construction of how the ark looked after he made it, but the faith to even
construct it, when there was no evidence that it was needed. And the time it took to build the ark. 75 – 125 years. Ample time to quit and give up. Ample time to tell God this is taking too long, and doubt whether this thing will even come to pass. Think about your life, and how long you have been working at something God gave you by faith. At the fruit your laboring has not yet come yet. Maybe God did not tell me to write this book. Maybe he did not tell me to start this ministry. 3 Years and I see no progress, and even worse, I’m starting to feel like what I’m doing doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter one bit, and not helping anybody. But I want to remind you that only Noah and his family entered into the ark. While everyone else perished. God repopulated the earth out of a few. God can do much with just a “few”. Never look at the “few”, as too little. If he populated the earth with
just a “few”, he can take the few he has given you, though it may be just a few, and he can grow a nation out of it. Your “few” that God gives you will bless thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps millions. He is faithful to do it! We need to be faithful enough to build it. And to continue to build it, when the season is dry, and no rain has fallen. This is what faith is.
HEBREWS 11:8-9 – Abraham
“By faith he lived in the land of promise as a stranger”
Abraham, the father of our faith. Believed God when he spoke to him, telling him to leave his home, his place of comfort and familiarity amongst his people, for an unfamiliar place. Asking him to uproot himself from amongst his people, and to take his wife away to a foreign land. Abraham believed God and obeyed the instruction by faith. And when he arrived, he entered into the land. And it was occupied by others. And he did not take control of the land, but lived in the land like a stranger, and not has one who possessed the land as a possession. God appointed it to his descendants. Descendants in which Abraham never lived long enough to see. In fact, he had died not seeing that promise at all, but followed God believing that he would do all that he said he would.
God, in his wisdom, gave him a son, out of a womb that was dead. He resurrected Sarah’s womb, and it did bring forth life again. This is hard evidence that God can and will do all that he said it would, and Abraham and Sarah died believing in God’s word. Abraham, believe God, not because he saw, because he there was no evidence. Only Gods word. The land was inhabited by Canaanites. Abraham and his family slept in tents as strangers. But he believed God at his word. He did not look to see “first”, then trust. He trusted God at his word. Because everything God does, starts with his word. It starts with “the word”. At that word was enough to bring into the existence all that we see in what we call the universe.
So when we wait to see and only believe what we see, we ready ourselves to be fooled by those who are good at deception. This is why we are so easily misled. We believe more what our eyes see than what God has spoken. But Abraham did not see what God spoke. Nor did he understand when God instructed him to kill his son, Isaac. Heart broken by the instruction. Wombed emotionally by the ask. Three days mourning internally on a 3-day journey to a mountain to sacrifice the son God had promised him. Believing even then, if God kills my son, he is still able to bring him back to life, and fulfill his word in giving the promise land to my descendants. The Bible says he believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He did not believe some of what God said, he believed all that he spoken to him.
His willingness to sacrifice his son of promise was the confirmation of that. But God did not desire that. Instead, it would be he who would sacrifice his son for Abraham and Abraham’s descendants, all the way down to this present day.
If we seek a sign first, we will not see one. Those who need signs first to trust God, don’t know God. They have no relationship nor understanding of him. The word comes before the external manifestation. It is the results of what was already spoken. The people drowned in Noah’s day, because they were waiting for a sign. When the rain drops came, it was too late. The ark was shut, and they could no longer enter. Faith is not the sign, or the object. Faith is the word God has spoken, and us responding to it, even when there is not yet an external manifestation of what he has spoken.
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