1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:1-3
By faith we understand
There are two popular assumptions concerning faith, both are false but both are held in our society…The first one is this: that in matters of religion we have to deal with faith, but in all the other realms and activities of life we base our decisions and our actions on knowledge. The matter-of-fact practicalities of life are faced not theoretically, or philosophically, or theologically, but they are faced really and actually—just the same as we do in the realm of religion and the Christian faith. Whether the man is a religionist or not, their lives are alike, the believer and the unbeliever. Both of them live by faith, and without faith it is impossible to live this life. We meet it in every day, in every matter, in every road. It is a common thing in common life that faith is the basis upon which all life is lived.
There is a great insurance company that every time they advertise, and every picture they publish of their company has a tremendous rock in it and on it, the Rock of Gibraltar. And they use that great rock as a persuasive sign that their company is one in which you can have illimitable trust. You can have great trust in the steadfastness of this insurance company that uses a picture of the Rock of Gibraltar. There is not a bank of any consequence but that has in it a “trust department.” In fact, when you go to looking at a bank, you will find in it the same nomenclature, the same language, that you will find in a church; they are exactly alike, a trust department—and the words they use to describe what they do.
You don’t live without faith.
You cash a check by faith;
You make a deposit by faith;
You pay an insurance premium by faith;
You undergo an operation at the hospital by faith.
You hire a babysitter by faith.
The farmer sows his seed in the hope and the persuasion that somebody up there will make it sprout and grow. All trades, all business, all government, and all life is built upon faith. And any time you assume that in religion we are dealing with faith, but in practical life we are dealing with knowledge, you have fallen into a most cleverly employed assumption that is untrue—far, far from the truth. One of the great, brilliant astronomers of our generation is professor A. S. Eddington of England. And in his book, The Nature Of The Physical World, he insists that it takes faith even to walk through a door. Now he’s an astronomer and a scientist, and he’s going to talk about atoms and the speed of this world around the sun and all. So you watch him now as he talks about it, that it takes faith just to walk through a door. Now I quote from him: “I am standing on the threshold about to enter a room. It is a complicated business. In the first place, I must shove against an atmospheric pressure of a force of fourteen pounds on every square inch of my body. I must make sure of landing on a plank, traveling at twenty miles a second around the sun. I must do this while hanging from a round planet, headed outward into space, and with a wind of ether waves blowing at no-one- knows-how-many miles a second. The plank has no solidity of substance. It is a veritable hurricane of moving atoms. To step on it is like stepping on a swarm of flies. Surely I could fall through.”
Just better take it by faith, open the door and step on the plank, rather than wait to solve all of the scientific difficulties involved. You don’t live a life of faith in religion as though that were different from any other kind of a life that you live. Both of them, whether religious or irreligious, are lived by faith. The second popular idea is this: that in religion you live according to a creed, and you have faith in a creed, but in science you don’t have any faith, and you don’t have any statement of faith. It takes great faith for a man to believe that dead, inert matter could create mind, and soul, and personality; that out of the deadness of the rocks, you were born in frame and walk in the earth. I say, you have a great capacity for faith to believe that. And you have great, infinite capacities for faith to believe that there is no meaning to life. It’s a story told by an idiot: it didn’t come from anywhere; it doesn’t mean anything now; and it’s not going anywhere. It takes faith to believe in the creed of an infidel, just as it takes faith to believe in the creed of a Christian. I copied from Bertrand Russell, the famous English philosopher of atheism and infidelity—he expresses the creed more eloquently than any man I ever read after. In his A Free Man’s Worship, Bertrand Russell says, and I quote: “That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs are but the outcome of the accidental collocation of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no antipathy of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the noon-day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins; all these things, if not beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of despair can the soul’s habitation henceforth be built.”
Or to say with the apostle John in 1 John 3:2: Brethren, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.
It’s just which group of assumptions you want to receive, but it takes faith to believe in either one of them: the creed of the infidel or the creed of the Christian. You listen to me: don’t you ever fear, and don’t you ever be timid about standing up and giving the answer of a Christian to the facts of life. For to me—and to my ability to reason and to think—to me, there’s only one answer that can confront all of the facts of life, and that is the answer of the Christian religion.
The apostle Paul said in the closing verse of the fourth chapter of the second Corinthian letter, “For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” [2 Corinthians 4:18]. We come to know God and have communion with God with the eyes of the soul, without which we are blind. We come to take from God with the hands of faith, without which we have no grasp for eternal things: to deny faith is to be blind; to deny faith is to live impoverished. The man that has no faith has no hope, he has no communion, he has no fellowship, he has no destiny, he has no answer. He is like a stone! The only thing that differentiates man is his capacity to know God. And we know God through faith [Hebrews 11:1-3], and to destroy that faith is to destroy the soul. And every answer that we seek, that really matters in this earth, through faith we understand. All of the meaning of this universe and its intricacies, where did it come from? Through faith we understand the genius, and the power, and the hand of God. But through faith we come into a relationship with Jesus, known to the trusting and the believing heart. And to turn aside from that trust and from that faith, to turn aside is to live a life of despair and of deceit: we weave nets for our own entanglement. A crowd on a city street had gathered, and the fellow down the way, looking, asked a man in a nearby building what the excitement was about. And the man said, “A man just jumped off of that tall building and committed suicide.” And then the man replied, as if thinking to himself, “Well, you know,” he says, “when you lose God, there ain’t nothing left but to jump.” Now this faith that is described so eloquently here in the Bible, and presented so beautifully, that faith through which we understand—faith is not inoperative. It’s not theoretical; it’s not philosophical; it’s not intangible; it is not ephemeral, but faith is very positive, and very active, and very dynamic. Faith is a tremendous, actual motion and power in human life.
Faith is conviction grown courageous; faith is vision plus valor. Faith moves, faith does, faith acts, faith inspires, faith lives. Faith walks, it talks, it grows, it moves. “By faith, Noah, warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear” [Hebrews 11:7]. He says that’s faith. When God said, “One hundred twenty years and I am going to destroy this world” [Genesis 6:3, 7], Noah believed God, and he built an ark [Genesis 6:12-22]. All the rest of the people laughed at the judgment day of God, but Noah was afraid because he believed God. That’s faith! [Hebrews 11:7] Then he illustrates it again, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing. He went out not knowing” [Hebrews 11:8-9].
That’s faith! He moved out! He went out, he obeyed, “not knowing whither he went.” By faith, he moved [Hebrews 11:8-9]. He illustrates it again and again. Here in the life of Moses, he says, “Moses chose rather to be with the people of God” [Hebrews 11:24-25], with the people of God! It’s association that makes this demonstration of his faith. It makes the church, it makes the congregation. “Choosing rather to be with the people of God”; that’s faith! [Hebrews 11:25]. But it is a dynamic, moving, challenging, calling thing to which a man that’s got it responds. “Here I am.” Phillips Brooks defined it, “Faith, forsaking all, I take Him”: F-A-I-T-H—Forsaking All, I Take Him. “Obtained promises, out of weakness was made strong” [Hebrews 11:34]; That’s faith! Faith moves! Faith lives! Faith glorifies God! Faith fills the church. Faith runs to Christ. Faith is the faculty by which we come into the understanding of the great presence and purposes of God. “Without faith, it is impossible” to know Him, to come unto Him. “For he that cometh unto God must believe that He is” [Hebrews 11:6]. All of this we understand through faith. And God asks no other thing of you than what you give to the common causes of the world. I believe in the bank, I believe in the insurance company, I believe in the pharmaceutical product, I believe in the doctor. “I believe, I believe, I believe” and all of life is lived in that faith. I also believe in that upper, and spiritual, and better life in heaven. I believe in God, I believe in the Book, I believe in Jesus. I believe in the holy congregation. I believe in the destiny and purpose of God’s people in the earth. I believe that He loves me. I believe that He knows my name. I believe that He can speak to my heart and that I can answer Him. By faith, we understand [Hebrews 11:3].
You and I are people of faith…believe in Jesus or not , we all act on what we believe. There are beliefs that lead to death and hopelessness. Nothing to live or die for. But there is a faith, not empty of reason, that leads to life everlasting. Today each one of us, if there is any value in our lives, are living with faith. Some of us maybe so confused and torn with a decision to have God come into your life because He might ask you to do something you don’t want to do. Fear causes you to retreat into a meaningless life.
But if you are looking for a fulfilling, meaningful life, you can only find it in him.
Today, by faith you may know him.
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