The Faith Factor: Part Two
Hebrews 11: 1- 3
In the fall of 1940 during World War II, the German Air Force, with an average of 200 planes per raid, bombed London for 57 consecutive nights. Many nights after the raids Prime Minister Winston Churchill could be seen in his suit and derby picking his way through the crowds, encouraging his countrymen.
Following VE Day in 1945, Sir Winston was asked what he had done during those interminable nights of the bombing. He responded that he had retired to his bomb shelter below Piccadilly Square and there before a map of Europe planned the invasion of Germany.
That is faith. He was making plans for victory while the enemy was at once building weapons for a siege by land and reigning terror from the sky. Maybe that is where you are now! You may have been driven into your own bomb shelter by fearful circumstances and doubt, a wonderful time to plan your spiritual victory.
Adversities besieged the Psalmist when he wrote:
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.” (Psalm 119:71) Wooo! He continued: “I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.” (Psalm 119:75)
That is faith applied where it hurts — when it helps.
Our word substance comes from the Greek “hypostasis.” A scientific term opposite of theory or hypothesis. It is used to describe a chemical which settles to the bottom in a test tube. It is the primary element in a formula. Thus, faith is seen as primary to all of life. Substance also means “the title deed.”
Faith is the evidence of things to come. Evidence means proof. Our faith is in the unseen, but not the unknown. A photon illustrates this. Scientists believe in photons. Yet, they have never seen one. They only exist when traveling at the speed of light, 185,000 miles per second. At that speed they have never been photographed. Though unseen, scientists still believe in photons.
Also, we see the world, but not that of which it is made — atoms.
Evidence translated “elegchos,” a legal term for that which is necessary for conviction. Faith convicts us that God will keep His Word.
This expression carries the first one further. It is the outward evidence of the inward assurance. Our life is committed to what the mind believes.
Unbelievers are like a blind man who refuses to believe there is such a thing as a light because he has never seen one.
We live by faith. We drink water from a faucet, eat in a cafe, place our pay in a bank, fly in a plane, undergo surgery and take medicine by faith.
Man has become the measure of all things. Everything outside man’s experience or understanding is denied. Do you understand how a sheep, cow, pig, and goose can eat grass in the same field and one grows wool, another hair, another bristles, and the other feathers? Do you understand how a brown cow can eat green grass growing out of black soil and give white milk? No! Yet, we believe it.
God’s word is far more assuring and deserving of our faith.