It is Possible If

Hebrews 11:36-40

One day as Jesus is hanging out with the twelve guys who we call the disciples, the conversation turns to the cost of being a follower.  This is what Jesus had to say on the subject, “If anyone (that seems to be all inclusive) would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?  Or what shall a man give in return for his life?   Often I ask the question, “Is it unbelief or have we been taken captive by the schemes of the enemy?  Are you and I so polluted by this world system, and the lust of our flesh, that we ignore what Jesus has spoken in Matthew 16:24-26? 

The apostle John tells us not to love the world or the things in the world, that to do so will make you an enemy of God.  And the apostle wants us to understand that the world is only temporary, at best it is like a moment compared to eternity.  In first John 2:17, “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”  I’ve come to this conclusion we are not that stupid, so it has to be ignorance, unbelief, or the enemy of our soul has sold us a bill of goods. 

With that back-drop, look at what Hebrews 11:36-40 has to say about those who had only the promise of God and they were willing to deny themselves, they were willing to be tortured, others suffered mocking and flogging and imprisonment.  This is what the Bible has to say about them: “They were stoned; they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword.  They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated -the world was not worthy of them.  They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.  They were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.  God planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

I am not being paranoid, we are being watched, and not just by angels and demons, but also by a great cloud of witnesses, and many of them are the ones talked about in God’s hall of fame.   Hebrews chapter twelve gives us some great instructions on how to live this life in the fullness that was God’s plan for us.  It’s a must read, and let me give you a hint, it is only possible if we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Strength out of Weakness

 

Hebrews 11: 32-34

As you read the Bible you must set your mind on this command; “think on these things” how else is the Holy Spirit of God going to get our attention?  To ponder is to think about what you have read in a careful way over a period of time.  Often, it is how my morning begins and today is no exception, and my hope is you also will ponder this Scripture.  “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets – who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”

My first thoughts were that they only made honorable mention in God’s Hall of Fame, and these were great men of character who had one thing in common: through faith they were made strong out of weakness.  That fly’s in the face of how most of us were taught, do you remember a dad, coach, or drill sergeant telling you this line; “When it gets tough, the tough get going.”  What I find so different from our culture is that these men of valor were not confident in their ability or skill-set, they by faith believed the God who they had not seen with human eyes, but had come to trust and obey His voice and commands.

To make that point we should look at the first one on this list, Gideon, a son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh, and at the time the angel of the Lord spoke to him he is hiding out from the Midianites in the winepress beating out wheat.  You and I would not look to this man to deliver a nation, but God is not like us, God is not like our culture, and there in lies our problem.  It is so important for all who are in Christ to believe what God has said to us and about us, look at what he said to Gideon: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”  (Judges 6:12)  Now the angel of God has just called him a mighty man of valor and listen to Gideon’s reply; “And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all of this happened to us?”  (Judges 6:13 a)  Gideon goes on asking why this had all happen when he is told by the Lord; “And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you.”  (Judges 6:14)  So Gideon jumps up and goes to war with the Midianites, wrong. 

At this place in the story I can identify with Gideon; “And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel?  Behold my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”  And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” (Judges 6:16)  Often I have the same kind of faith in a big God as Gideon, I need or want a sign, and like Gideon, often I need it to fall in the impossible.  Gideon’s first assignment was to destroy the altar of Baal the false god that the people were worshipping.  Now when God calls a man to such a task, it is not going to be accepted by the idolaters, and in Gideon’s case they came to kill him.  But God put into his fathers heart words something like these; (if Baal is a god, let him defend himself) and the people gave Gideon a new name; Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar.

Often when a man is young and goes from being regarded as unimportant to importance in his on sight, and the eyes of his neighbors or community, they often believe the press clipping.  But God has a way of keeping his man on point, and to make sure Gideon knew it was God who defeated the Midianites.  God did a simple act of reducing his army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred.  And after winning the battle, the people ask him to rule over them, but he refused in chapter 8:23, “And Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.”  What a wise man, but it only came about from his understanding that through faith, they were made strong out of weakness.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Are you in the box business?

 

Hebrews 11:31

Moving from Houston to the Canyon Lake area of Texas, I discovered that moving requires many boxes, and it is always the box that you do not have, that is needed.  Now that I think about it, life seems to be all about boxes, those who are in ministry go into a box, those who provide services that we need go in another box, our family and friends go in another box, and government goes in a box that is full of all kinds of junk.  And what about God, do we have a box for Him?  My answer is for many years I did have Him in a box; it was a Baptist box, and it was for a god who I could understand, he was a very small god, but he fit into my Baptist box.

In that box a good Christian looked like Mary the mother of Jesus, or maybe Billy Graham, but not me.  I had no doubt that God was loving and merciful, but I also believed that He put up with people like me.  So what box do you think I put the Easter and Christmas Christians in; you are so right, it was a very small box.  And when it came to law- breakers and prostitutes, the box was so small that only by the grace of God could anyone get into or out of that box.  Oops, now you might call this a box exposer, or a conflict of faith, because it was by grace through the faith that God had extended to me, that I came to know Christ.  So what must I do with all these boxes?  It required the same action as the move from Houston, those boxes went in the trash, and the ones in my mind also needed trashed.  Romans 3:22-24, and 1 John 1:8-9, confronted me, so many boxes that needed removed from my life.

In my Baptist box there was no place for Rahab the prostitute, but as a character in a Bible story, you might say she was more of a fill-in character or stand-in but not in the lineage of Christ.  One small problem I encountered was Matthew’s gospel, the first chapter gives the genealogy of Christ and verse five gives this account: “and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.”  Rahab the prostitute is in God’s hall-of-fame, because she acted on the faith that had been given her by God.  Hebrews 11:31, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

It has been sometime since I attempted to put God into that Baptist box, and this I know; God is not containable, His thoughts are higher than mine, His ways are not my ways, He is the Creator, and I am the creation.  So my question is: are you in the box business? 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

And the Walls came tumbling Down

Hebrews 11:30

You may want to think about this today, the walls of Jericho were two walls thirty-foot high, they ran nearly parallel and circled the summit of the mound.  They were made of sun-dried brick some four inches thick and varied in length from one to two feet.  The inner wall is from eleven to twelve feet thick and is constructed on the foundation of an earlier wall.  The later outer wall is about six feet thick and stands on the edge of the mound.  The space between the two walls varies from 12 to 27 feet and at frequent intervals the two are tied together by brick walls.  How do we know this; it was excavated by Charles Warren (1868), Ernst Sellin (1907-11), John Garstang (1929-30), and Miss Kathleen Kenyon (1952-58).

Jericho is the first city captured by the Israelites under Joshua’s command and this is what the people did; they listened to their leader, Joshua because God had given him this word; “And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor.” (Joshua 6:2)  This is like Mexico attacking the United States of America, with one exception; Joshua had a promise from God.  Now it may be of some importance to explain that God’s instructions in taking this great, fortified city were not in keeping with standard practices.  This rag-tag bunch of Israelites walking around those thirty –foot high walls for six days and on the seventh day they were to do it seven times, and the priests blew the trumpets, and when the ram’s horn was sounded, all the people shouted with a great shout, and the walls of the city fell down flat, and the people went into the city and took it captive.

Did I tell you that the ark of the Lord was being carried around the city and the armed men walked before and after it and the trumpets blew continually?  For the people of Jericho it was the biggest show in town, they were on top of the wall and wondered why would anyone fear this group, yet they had heard about Israel’s God, and what they had heard about Him gave them cause to fear. 

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a way that people did not fear you, but they feared your God?  To live in nations that had this motto on its money, (In God we Trust) and all the nations of the world knew that you as a people believe that motto.  That is why this rag-tag army was feared; it was their faith in what God had spoken to Joshua and because of that act of faith, they were put into God’s hall of fame, chapter 11 of Hebrews, verse 30, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had encircled it for seven days.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

God's hall of Fame

Hebrews 11:23-29

Your faith is amazing!  Have you ever given thought to the amount of faith that is yours?  It would be impossible to live life without faith, each day you get up and by faith believe that the electricity is going to work, that the essentials for life, your coffee pot will make coffee, and the car will start.  You, by faith, believe that the bus driver who takes the children to school will keep them safe, and that your home will not be destroyed while you are gone.  You believe that a white line in the middle of the road will keep the on coming car that is only feet from you from crossing it and having a head-on- collision.  By faith you trust in the pilot of the airline to get you to your destination.  Yes, faith is required to live life, so in that we all live by faith, it is not faith for faiths sake that is of great value; it is the object of that faith.

Hebrews 11 is about people, who had great faith, and they made God’s hall of fame, they became celebrities in heaven and on earth, because they made God the object of their faith.  Moses was such a person, and we have his “Hall of Fame “ account found in verses 23-29.  It begins with parents of faith in God, who believed in God more than they feared the king of Egypt.  Moses by faith refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and chose to be mistreated with God’s chosen people.  He was looking to a greater reward than the treasures of Egypt; he was looking to Christ.  We are told in verses 27-29, “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the King, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.  By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.  By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as if on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.”

As stated above, we all live by faith, we put faith in so many things that we have little or no understanding of, like electricity, we put faith in political parties, but that is not the kind of faith that brings you into right standing with God.  If we back-up a few verses in Hebrews 11, to verse six we find the answer to walking in victory, no matter what is going on around you.  Verse six; “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The favorite Child of the father

 

Hebrews 11:22

I believe with total surety that my path has never crossed anyone like Joseph, the son of Jacob.  You recall how his brothers sold younger Joseph into slavery, and why?  He was

a favorite child of his father, he was also young and somewhat foolish in that he told dreams to his brothers that pointed to him being the head of the family.  But as a very young man in a foreign land, he had this kind of character; he was a godly influence, he had business integrity, he resisted temptation, and he honored the God of his father.

I have no doubt that you have read the account in Genesis chapter 37 of Joseph’s life and his encounters with his brothers.  Only Benjamin and Joseph had the same mother, and if you look at the blessing of Jacob’s sons before his death, it is interesting to compare the blessing given to Benjamin and Joseph.  These blessings are found in Genesis 49, and how they distinguish the character of these two brothers of the same mother.  Jacob’s blessing of Joseph, “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall.” (A bough is a large main branch of a tree, from which smaller branches grow.)  You may want to read the full blessing, and in it is seen how the hand of the Lord set Joseph apart from his brothers.  We must not forget that these blessings of the father have derived from the actions, the performance, or we might say the character of these brothers.  Benjamin was the baby of the family, and after Josephs reported death to his father, Benjamin took that very special place in the heart of Jacob.  But Benjamin’s blessing was not what one would have expected, in fact, it has much to do with the future of the tribe of Benjamin.  This was the blessing; “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.” (Genesis 49:27)

After the death of their father, the brothers began to worry what Joseph would do, you might say they began managing themselves.  When people manage themselves, they always ask this question; what would I do in Josephs place, and there in lies the test of character.  So the brothers came up with a story; “Your father gave this command before he died, ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’  And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”  (Genesis 50: 16-17)

 Again we see what made this man stand out from his brothers and most men; “But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?  As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.  So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.”  Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.”  (Genesis 50:19-21)

Many years later, Joseph is 110 and he calls his brother and makes them promise to remove his bones when God visit them.  We must understand that Joseph held to the same promise that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had look forward too.  Verse 24, “And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”  Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”  It is 300 plus years later when the Exodus takes place and Joseph’s bones left Egypt with the people of the promise.  What a faithful God!

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Crises of faith

 

Hebrews 11:17

Reading the account of God testing Abraham’s faith, is one of the most frightening things a dad could read in the Bible.  I must insert, that I have some understanding about God’s attributes, He is all knowing, He is always present, and He is infinite, and men are foolish when they act as if they have total understanding of Him.  In fact, this past Sunday my pastor used this verse from Deuteronomy 29:29 in his sermon; “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”  For me the prophet Isaiah proclaimed a truth that has great comfort; “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8)  From heavens view, or God’s, there was never any question of the outcome of Abraham’s faith, so why put him through such a horrible experience?

God did it for you and for me, and He did it for Abraham and Isaac and all that came after them.  The apostle Peter gives this account, beginning in 1Peter 1:10-12, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the suffering of Christ and the glories that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.  Even angels long to look into these things.”

For many this command from God to make a burnt offering of Isaac would have been the end of any relationship with God.  Abraham and Sarah had waited and waited, and waited, for this promised one, and God had promised that through Isaac His promised people would come.  What would you have done?  Real faith comes to the surface often in the middle of our worst nightmare, when our world is turned upside down.  That is when me must go back to the basic belief that God is all knowing, that He is not like us, that His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and that He loves us beyond our understanding.

I believe that is where Abraham and Isaac found themselves.  They had a promise, and that is all they had, but they had found that the One who made the promise was faithful; so they by faith believed, and this is the rest of the story.  “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.  He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even thought God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”  Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead.”  (Hebrews 11:17-19)  My prayer is that Abraham’s faith in God’s promises will be of great help to you and me in our crises of faith.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice