“When Tried, Faith Obeys God”

Hebrews 11:12-19

12) Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

13) These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

14) For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.

15) And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.

16) But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

17) By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.

18) Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:

19) Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

Introduction

I

t is vital to our very existence that we accept the importance of faith. Through the years, the concept of faith has become distorted, as have most of the things of God. What faith is not “for” is “getting” something from God with no accompanying change. The purpose of faith is that the individual might change.

Most of the time, Man fails to live saved because there is something that he is attempting to understand. When one attempts to “grasp the meaning” of salvation is spiritual, rather than natural, and so, defies natural understanding.

No matter how one might feel, or what he might think, the “bottom line” is that the Bible says that “the just shall live by faith.” Therefore, there is no question as to what is necessary if one would be “just.”

When we express the judgment that there is something that God has commanded us to do, but we do not know how, we hope that this will be enough to “deliver” us from the responsibility of carrying it out. The truth is that a human being would never know “how” to do as God says, for what He commands is spiritual.

Main Thought

When “faith” is tested, it “obeys” God. What does this mean? It means that when one is tested and does not obey, “faith” is not what is exhibited. What comes out of one can be “self-protection,” “mistrust,” “fear,” “denial,” or “stubbornness” (among other things), but it is not faith.

Faith does not look for a “way out.’ We are being forced to confront the fact that when it comes to the Lord, we will look for ways out of “bearing up.” Though we have the assurance that if we will look to Him, He will support and deliver us, we attempt to preserve ourselves.

One will know that he operates in faith when he accepts the Word of God as true—even while not understanding it. You see, a human being asks why he must go through tests and trials, but if he would simply listen, he might her the Lord say, “Because I love you that much.”

In that we have a skewed, confused, and just plain wrong concept of love, too often, we fell that being shown love from God means being given no tests. We think that love from God means him allowing us to have a nice, comfortable life with everything going “our way” and all working in our favor. Well, the Lord does not do it that way. We know from scripture that if He loves us, He will chasten us.

We suffer from being unaware of how to benefit from what God has done. You would think that after we receive direction concerning what we must do and the accompanying blessing from doing it that we would “jump” to do as He says. But, we don’t. And we don’t because we dislike and disagree with the plan that He has authored. It is within our will to do so, however, it will not change what we will have to do if we would receive the blessings. We conduct ourselves as if we really believe that it is proper to obey God through untried times, but equally as “proper” not to obey Him in the test.

Perhaps the second most tragic thing that we can do is to allow ourselves to be “limited” by “self” (The first thing is to allow ourselves to miss heaven). We have to accept that the limitations come from us, for God being Spirit, is limited by nothing! We can and will be “as great as our faith,” but only if we are willing to work at it. Not in the sense of “works,” but in the fact of being unwilling to endure the “press” of testing against our flesh and being willing to “press” our way through the flesh—no matter how much it might hurt or cost.

As long as we know where we are trying to go, we have no excuses concerning what we are to do for God. We have individual goals of what we want to have accomplished by certain times in our lives, and the amounts of money that we want to make. However, if God would dictate the plan as to how to go about accomplishing our goal, and guarantee us triple the amount of money, would we do it?

Our reluctance to obey God could only make sense to a human being, for we know from our own lives, as well as through instances in the Bible, that he never ask us to do that for which we are not prepared. The problem that we have is not accepting that preparation.

It is evident that sometimes, we forget that it is not God Who came to us, but rather, we to Him. And, if one will serve the Lord, he will have to acknowledge that He waits for us to come to Him, and then, invests us with all that is needed to live for Him. This “cements” our “bond” with Him through love, for we are forced to acknowledge always that our “bondage” is voluntary.

We might as well not worry concerning where, when, or how we are going to be tested, for it is going to happen. The only question is one of what we will show about ourselves. Will it be faith, “or”?