Continuing with our thought:
I’m always emphasizing, that it's not easy. We see it in cult people or we see people that are just so totally indoctrinated in a legalistics religion, or the name it claim it thing, easy belief, prosperity gospel, love gospel, and a host of other sicknesses that are out there and this makes it is so hard to just break away and say, "You mean, I don’t have to do anything but BELIEVE?" That’s exactly right! And of course a lot of people just can’t accept that. But, "if" Christ finished the work on the cross, and because it was finished He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, then we have to take His word for it. Jesus said many times that we're to walk in His foot prints and there's no getting around it they all lead us to the cross, the grave, burial, resurrection and His ascension back to the Fathers right hand side in Heaven. Because God was in Christ doing the work and speaking His word to us through the God Man, Christ Jesus. And as the God Man He demonstrated in open view how to operate in His faith as our forerunner. For He is the author and finisher of all that is know of FAITH! He's the captain of it. There's noting glorious in that it requires an attitude of self-sacrifice and the willingness of a little child to let go and then to let God do what only He is able and more than willing to do.
This doesn’t mean that we just simply say, "Well, I believe" and then continue right on with our same old lifestyle (study Luke 21:34-35, 36 closely). No, we have to realize that when we become a believer of that finished work, or what we call Paul’s Gospel, that mandates a change in our lifestyle. And as the reference to scripture shown above for study we are not to be surfeiting, and in drunkenness caused by life's many distractions. We’re going to live lives, full of hope, and pleasing in His sight. And we’re going to seek His will in every aspect of life. And that’s all a follow-up to our believing and then being receptive of Him and His divine activities within us, again. And so I never want to leave folks with the idea, "Well, as long as I believe, I’m all right." Well, don’t take advantage of that because there are responsibilities that follow our believing. We're not bone idol or slothful or just standing still neither do we sin willfully nor draw back, we're held in account of the revelation when we've been given it and are under compulsion to share the truth to every one who will listen. Hoping that we may with Paul convince a few to accept Him and then do accordingly in the Light. And OH! by the way this change is or has nothing to do of us, in others words God alone does the work of perfecting this change all we are to do is to remain receptive.
But nevertheless, Hebrews, now as a main theme, is directed to the Hebrew-Christians who were having a hard time making a break out from religious legalism and the pressures of nationalism and maintaining this glorious Age of Grace. Consequently, as I’ve said over and over, you don’t find the plan of salvation as we present it, in the Epistle of Hebrews. In other words, if you’re leading someone to the Lord, you don’t go to the Epistle of Hebrews to show them how to be saved, it’s just not in here. But, like the Old Testament, all of these things are for our learning, our teaching. And for the believer now to come into the Epistle of Hebrews, we get all of this reinforcement of our trusting in His faithfulness and that’s the whole thrust.
All right now then, let’s continue our study in Chapter 11 - "the faith chapter", as it has been dubbed but is so much more when we truly listen to what it is saying. And again, it’s just to show us that these Old Testament people walked and lived and were saved by trusting Him because the majority of them knew Him even as we are too. But, here’s where we have to be careful. They didn’t place their trust in a finished work of the cross; it hadn’t happened yet. So what did they believe? What God said to them! It was God’s Word to them. And we’ve already covered the pre-flood people. And Noah is a good example. But before Noah there were a few in Seth's lineage who knew God and walked with Him because they taught Noah the ways or things of God. I need to build a time line which shows the overlapping of peoples lives because each generation overlapped the next and at times two or three and this is what we don't see in the scriptures. Even the prophets overlapped each other in fact we could say that there was a log jam of them at one point in time. But, the reality is that these people saw the end of days ie..Christ, only in a figure or shadow as the culmination of the things not yet seen as a present reality.
What did God tell Noah? "There’s going to be a flood. I’m going to destroy the human race. Build an Ark for the saving of yourself and your house." Now believing what God said, what did Noah do? He built the Ark. A box or coffin. So all the way up through the Old Testament it has always been by trust and obedience, but not in that finished work of the cross as we experience today (and what God tells us to believe through the Apostle Paul’s writings), but rather in the Old Testament they believed what God told them in that day. He still requires our trust and obedience when we receive the inspiration of revelation of His word spoken to us through His Son who is our High Priest-King.
All right, now then as we come into verse 8, and like I said, this great epitome of faith, the man, Abraham, who was surrounded by idolatry which was all around him (though he himself did not bow to the idols that were in his fathers house nor did he have anything to do with the forms of religion) down there in the lower end of the Euphrates River. Remember, Joshua tells us his whole family was idol worshipers. The whole city was given over to idolatry, and God goes down, and I think person-to-person, like He did with Abraham more than once, confronted him. God said, "Abram I want you to leave all this, I want you to get away from this pagan environment. I want you to get out of your pagan family and go to a place that I’ll show you." He didn’t tell him that it would be Canaan. He just said, "Go to a place that I will show you." And what did Abraham do? He left. Why? Because he believed what God said, plus nothing. He wasn’t circumcised. There was no Law to keep. He just simply obeyed what God said and God counted it to him for what? Righteousness. See? He didn’t repent. He didn’t grovel. He just simply believed God and God reckoned him a righteous man. For he saw himself as a sojourner (ambassador) looking forward toward a land of promise who's designer and builder is God. And this what the Hebrew children did not understand because they did not see as their forefathers saw, IN Christ. The very thing they weren't allowed to speak or even write about in simple language. For if they did they were told to seal up the book or to eat the book. And it was this forward looking that Paul is here speaking of and calls faith looking toward the promised land, as not yet seen. Now verse 9.
Hebrews 11:9
"By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:"
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