Comment:
God, by wisdom; Omniscient Wisdom, established ‘faith’ as the only ‘criterion’
that pleases Him. Hebrews 11:1-12 is a mandatory read for all to understand
that faith is personal with God, One on one. Note the last verse of this
section of scripture. But first, the subject of Hebrews 11:1-12 is the personal
faith of humankind down through the centuries to the time of Abraham. Now this
is important so do not miss it. In the first part of this scripture, these
people; Abel, Enoch and Noah are the Gentile elders who personally believed God
by faith. Now do not be naïve, many gentiles walked by faith, Noah’s family is
an example. As God moved through time and established Israel as His chosen
nation, the personal faith of Abraham was responsible, verse 12 – Therefore from
‘one’ man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky
in multitude – innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
Devotional: So, all the Gentiles and Jews had
opportunity to believe God by faith, just as we do today. “Faith is the
substance (realization) of things hoped for, the evidence (confidence) of
things, not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By (personal)
faith we understand that the worlds (lit. ages) were framed by the Word of God,
so that the things which are seen were not made with things that are visible.”
In
chapter 8, the discourse between Jesus and the Jews regarding His defense as
the Son of God begins in verse 13. His Word was effective in that by verse 30
many believed Jesus and their personal faith in Him was encouraged by the LORD
through verse 36.
As
Jesus reached out to the remaining leaders. His words were pointed directly at
their faith as He reveals that He knows they are descendants of Abraham, still
they are not children of the faith of Abraham, but are children of the devil.
These religious leaders continue to reject the LORD even to claim that He was
born out of wedlock, John 8:41. So it is plain to see that, even though they
were fully aware of the birth of Jesus; these religious leaders did not believe
by faith that the virgin birth is Truth.
John
8:48-59 – As the discourse between Jesus and the Jewish leaders continues
regarding Abraham’s children of faith, personal faith is revealed by the LORD,
but ignored by His listeners. “most assuredly, I say to
you, if anyone keeps my Word, he shall never see death.” The response of
the Jewish leadership is not one of faith, but of religion. Verse 53, the
Jewish leaders plainly say to Jesus, “who do you think you are, are you greater
than our father, he is dead and you saw him. You are not yet fifty years old!
Faith
always looks beyond – Faith is the substance of things unseen! And Jesus again,
points them to the truth, “most assuredly, I say to
you, before Abraham was, I AM.” This statement was fully understood by
these men because they knew at this point that Jesus was claiming to be God so
remaining in there unbelief they picked up stones to stone Him to death, but He
being God escaped their attack. The evidence of Jesus as the Messiah was not hoped
for by them, so He disappeared out of their sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment