Unseen

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand the the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Much of life involves acting on things that we don’t see with our eyes. We trust the skill and training of the engineers of the vehicles we drive. We trust that they didn’t build into the system a self-destruct timer that will go off halfway through our commute this morning. Who knows, maybe they did!

We trust the manufacturers of the medicine we take that quality controls prevented rat poison from ending up in our capsule. We trust the growers of our food without knowledge of the extent to which their drive for profit might give them excuses for using carcinogenic compounds to increase yields. We still eat our breakfast.

I love this eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, the “faith” chapter. In each and every case of faith, they trusted in something they could not see, something in the future, something that even went against their knowledge. They had heard from the LORD and that propelled them to trust, to have faith. And their actions followed that trust.

This chapter is about the history of God’s people and their journey of faith. It starts with trust in the creation account in Genesis. Out of nothing. That is how the LORD created. He didn’t start with some basic ingredients and then tweak them. He created the elements and then caused them to follow His design.

So if we reject this most basic of facts, that He is the Author of the Universe, then our faith has a shaky, and I would say untenable foundation. But the author doesn’t stop there. He even validates the murder in the First Family. Cain and Able’s tragic story is the object of the author’s faith. He trusts the Scriptures. They form the basis for his trust in the LORD.

What the author does in this chapter is to firmly anchor the reader’s faith in the accuracy and validity of the Old Testament record. Point by point the author details the faith in the unseen that these saints exhibited throughout Jewish history. And each time faith we exercise, the LORD was faithful to bring about the promised results.

The lesson is simple: trust in the LORD’s Word. We can trust the details, just as the author did. This has been the foundation of the Christian faith since the beginning.

But the chapter closes telling us that all these people who trusted did not receive the fulness of what was promised. They continued to look toward the future for the fulfillment of promise they had received. To put it another way, they were empty-handed and yet completely at peace.

We can look back that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. These are the facts. But we still look forward, just as those who have gone before us. We look forward to His return and the establishment of the new Heaven and new Earth. We will walk with Him and He with us, and He will be our God and we will be His people.