So why would a man “live in tents” when God had promised him he’d become “a great nation,” his “name would be great,” and “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” Genesis 12:2-3?

And then on arrival at the place God had directed him to, God also told Abram to look around as far as his eyes could see, because “All the land you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” So, “Go walk the length and breadth of this land, because it’s all yours” (13:14-17).

But what was Abram’s response to “all this land being mine,” and his own name becoming great because of the mighty nation God would build through him? His response was to be “a stranger” in the land, “living in tents” like a nomad, along with his son’s and grandson’s families too, “who were heirs with him of the same promise,” Hebrews 11:9.

So why didn’t Abram get to work, build his own city-state like all the other city-states in Canaan, set himself up as its king like all the other kings in Canaan, strengthen his army to defend his city if attacked, and expand his influence until Canaan became the great nation and himself a great leader as God had promised?  

Because instead, verse 10, “he was looking forward to the city founded, designed and built by God”. Which is understandable, because of where Abram had come from. He was born in Ur, a major Sumerian city-state so splendid that it even called itself “The City.” And in the true spirit of the Tower of Babel, built a few generations earlier – and only a few hundred miles away – Ur had also “made a name for itself” for its own babel-like ziggurats dedicated to various pagan gods, that were so impressive they’d even snared Abram’s own father into believing these gods were divine (Joshua 24:2). So Abram had firsthand knowledge of what cities built by the arrogance of men – who have no interest in the real God – were like.

In direct contrast to Ur, then, the first thing Abram did on pitching his tent in Canaan was to “build an altar to the Lord and call on the name of the Lord,” Genesis 12:8. The “altar” would be made up of a few rocks, not a gigantic ziggurat to a pagan god, as in Ur. And rather than seek to “make a name for himself,” Abram called on God’s name, openly stating his total trust in him. 

Which was a good start to his new life in Canaan – because he was about to find out that “God works in mysterious ways”….(next blog)

“By faith,” Hebrews 11:9, “Abram made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.” But it was only “LIKE a stranger.” Abram wasn’t a stranger, because God had promised this land to him as his inheritance (8) – and to the generations that came from Abram too (Genesis 12:7). Imagine being Abram arriving in Canaan, then, knowing God’s promise, but no idea how and when God would fulfill it.

It took faith to “make his home” there too, because at this point in time his “promised land” was overrun with Canaanites (Genesis 12:6), who were well entrenched in various tribal city-states ruled by kings. And when Abram finally settled “near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron” (13:18), along came a dangerous threat by the mighty Mesopotamian empire of Elam to the east and its allies, in retaliation against the Canaanite cities’ refusal to pay tribute (14:1-4), resulting in a major battle that had Abram’s nephew Lot taken captive, and all the city folk of that region and their possessions being dragged off (14:8-12).  

This was not going well for Abram’s inheritance. The equivalent of a World War One had been fought on his doorstep, involving empires and coalitions of powerful kings consuming people and territory alike, with many cities in Canaan already being throughly defeated (14:5-7). Was God’s promise to Abram really true, then?

But faith in God’s promise did something extraordinary to Abram. “When he heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out his 318 trained men and went in pursuit of the invaders as far as Dan (the northernmost part of Canaan),” Genesis 14:14. Abram didn’t hesitate. Despite the heavy disadvantage in his numbers of fighting men, and the head start the enemy already had, he caught up with them and in a bold night attack “he routed them” (15), drove them out of the region, and recovered everything they’d stolen, including his nephew (16). 

So, could this amazing victory – done with God’s help too (20) – be the how and when God was fulfilling his promise to Abram to “give the land to him and his offspring forever” (13:15)? If so, Abram could settle down and build a wealthy, powerful empire of his own. But instead, Hebrews 11:9, he and his family “lived in tents” as strangers still in a foreign country. 

And why was that? Because this was God’s project, not his own, so Abram was looking forward to what happens “When God is the architect and builder” ….(next blog) 

In Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” He was totally stepping into the unknown. 

Unlike Noah, Abraham had no idea what the future held – and nothing he could do to prepare for it either. Noah could get to work building a boat, with a clear goal from God at the end of it, the saving of his family, but all God told Abraham was, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).

Somehow, then, God got it through to Abraham (or Abram at the time), that he was real, and real enough for Abram to enact a swift exit. But not without God revealing himself as personal too, because – just as he did with Noah – God made a personal promise to Abram. With Noah God had said, “I will establish my covenant with you,” personally promising safety for Noah and his family from the flood (Genesis 6:18). With Abram, he promised in Genesis 12:2-3 to make him “into a great nation,” but also, staggeringly, that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram had this ringing in his ears – as he hurriedly made preparations to leave his homeland – that God was both real and personal, which enabled him to step fearlessly into the unknown doing exactly “as the Lord had told him” (4). He too, then – just like Abel, Enoch and Noah before him – “became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Their actions were all totally the result of faith.

The day came, then, when Abram – now 75 years old – along with “his wife Sarai and nephew Lot, and all the possessions they’d accumulated and people they’d acquired in Haran, set out for the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5) – 400 miles (640 kilometres) to the south. Which also happened to be in the opposite direction to the one Abram’s father had taken in Genesis 11:31, when he’d moved his family 600 miles (950 kms) northwest from the moon-god worshipping Mesopotamian city of Ur (in modern day southern Iraq) to settle them all in Haran (in south eastern Turkey). 

Abram was in Haran, then, when God got through to him, by which time Haran was very much Abram’s home, and the source of his wealth too. So why leave to become “A stranger in a foreign country”?….(next blog)  

Hebrews 11:7 describes Noah as an “heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” As an “heir” Noah was continuing what Abel and Enoch had done before him. All three men, therefore, illustrate what “the righteousness that comes by faith” means. 

It began with them having faith in two things about God: that he was real, and he was personal (6). And it was purely what faith in those two things did in the lives of all three men that had Abel being “commended as a righteous man” (4), Enoch “being commended as one who pleased God” (5), and “Noah finding favour in the eyes of the Lord” for being “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time” (Genesis 6:8-9).

So, what righteousness did Noah’s faith create? According to Hebrews 11:7, when Noah was “warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear he built an ark to save his family.” It was an extraordinary act by Noah, because it meant building a huge tub of a boat based on one premise alone, that God said he was going to drown people in a massive flood for filling the earth with violence (Genesis 6:13, 17). And with no visible evidence that such a staggering future was in store, Noah got to work and “did everything just as God commanded him” (22). Such was the righteousness that came by faith for him. 

And it was faith as defined by Hebrews 11:1 too, because Noah was so “certain of what we do not see” that “in holy fear he built an ark to save his family” (7). God clearly meant business, massive destruction was coming, so “holy fear” on Noah’s part was totally appropriate, but right after God spoke of wiping out all the evil people, he then told Noah in Genesis 6:18, “I will establish my covenant with you, and you (and your family) will be on the ark.” That’s because the other great gift of faith in Hebrews 11:1 “is being sure of what we hope for,” which in Noah’s case was knowing God would keep him and his family safe.

But what about the other bit in Hebrews 11:7, that “By faith Noah condemned the world”? Well, faith enabled Noah to remain “blameless” (Genesis 6:9) among people who were “only evil all the time” (5). Their ridicule bounced off him. He simply carried on, exposing their stupidity and arrogant disdain, not by arguing or calling them names, but by his steady day by day, year by year showing what faith in God being real and personal does in a human life. And then there’s Abraham who showed that “Stepping fearlessly into the unknown” comes by that same faith too….(next blog) 

Twice in Genesis 5 it’s mentioned that Enoch “walked with God” (verses 22 and 24). He was also “commended as one who pleased God” in Hebrews 11:5. So, based on Enoch’s “walking with God” tying in with “pleasing him,” what does pleasing God involve?

According to verse 6, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” So it’s faith that pleases God, but faith in what? Two things in that verse are mentioned: the first, “believing that God exists,” and the second, believing that “he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” 

For Enoch the first part, “believing God exists,” was likely easy, because “God” wasn’t a stranger to people back then. Following the birth of Seth (replacing the murdered Abel), “men began to call on the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:25-26). So God was openly spoken about, just as lots of people today openly speak about God – and believe he exists.  

Scientists and mathematicians, for instance, come to believe God exists based on the fixed laws of nature, and the amazing fine-tuning of the universe. Others come to believe in God because of the obvious contrast between good and evil, or because they grew up in a home and culture that took it for granted that God exists. 

But something else stirred in the mind of Enoch, mentioned in the second part of Hebrews 11:6, that “God rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  Enoch saw God in this light too. Which makes sense, because why would people “call on the name of the Lord” in Genesis 4:26 if they didn’t believe he was a personal God who responded to their call too?

So people back then didn’t stop with just believing God exists. His existence stirred something personal – just as it did in Abel, who gave God the best offering he could (Genesis 4:4), and in response “God looked with favour on Abel and his offering.” So instead of humans and God drifting further and further apart, a desire began in humans to please God, to which God responded with favour. 

Which led to Seth, Abel’s replacement, inspiring a growing tide of people turning to God, and God responding – and in particular Enoch who loved pleasing God in all his daily walk through life, to which God responded by personally sparing him from “experiencing (a typical human) death (Hebrews 11:5). To Noah next, whose own walk with God highlighted “The righteousness that comes by faith”….(next blog) 

Hebrews 11:5 gets into the strange story of Enoch, who “By faith was taken from this life,” and not only “did he not experience death,” he “couldn’t be found after God had taken him away” either. But the reason for all this happening to Enoch was that “before he was taken he was commended as one who pleased God.” 

And that was hugely important because, verse 6, “without faith it is impossible to please God. Anyone wishing to draw near to him has to believe he’s real, and that he rewards those who really put their minds to knowing him.” That pleases God, as we see in the life of Enoch who, for 300 years “walked with God” (Genesis 5:22, 24), his reward being that God took him early into his presence forever.

But why Enoch and not other people too? Because among all the descendants of Adam and Eve’s son, Seth (listed in Genesis 5:6 to 32), only Enoch is mentioned as “walking with God.” Which really does stand out, knowing the backdrop to Enoch’s story, because the violence and evil leading up to Noah’s Flood was already escalating. It had started with Cain murdering his brother, which God foresaw spiralling into further revenge killings (Genesis 4:15) – and seven generations later up pops a descendant of Cain, a vicious man called Lamech, who murdered a person for wounding him, and then wanted massive revenge too (4:23-24). 

It was into this sick world – and at the same time as Lamech too – that Enoch was born. But this is where Hebrews 11:4 comes to life, which tells of Abel “still speaking, even though he’s dead,” because when Seth was born to Adam and Eve in Abel’s place (Genesis 4:25), that’s when a shift away from Cain’s attitude began as people for the first time “began to call on the name of the Lord” (26). 

What followed from that point on, then, were two lines of people, those from Cain and those from Seth, with two completely opposite attitudes to God. But only Enoch in the line of Seth truly caught on to Abel’s attitude toward God, of seeing what God had provided to enable humans to draw near to him, despite having failed him. Abel knew: it was a blood sacrifice – which we now know pictured the blood sacrifice of Jesus enabling us to draw near to God too. 

It’s then in Enoch that we see what drew him near to God with a faith that really pleased him, described in Genesis 5 as “Walking with God”….(next blog) 

Hebrews 10:20 speaks of “a new living way opened for us through the curtain” – which in the tabernacle of old separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (9:2-3). No Israelite could go through that curtain into the Most Holy Place, except the high priest once a year, to “show that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed” (7-8).

But that changed after Jesus died and he became our high priest, because, thanks to him, we can now “confidently enter the Most Holy Place” (10:19-21) and see into “the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, entered on our behalf” (6:19-20).

So where Jesus is, we are too. And since he’s now “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven” (8:1), so are we. This new living way, then – that enables us to pass through the curtain and see behind it – means we are now with Jesus, in heaven.

Paul confirms this in Ephesians 2:6, that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms,” and in Colossians 3:1-3, that “since we’ve been raised with Christ….our life is now hidden with Christ.” So we aren’t limited to just this visible, physical world. Which sounds impossible when we’re so dependent on what we see as evidence of existence, but according to Hebrews 11, faith grants us hope and certainty in this other world that we cannot see too (verses 1 and 3).

Which was God’s intent from the beginning, because faith would have done the same for Adam and Eve. If they’d trusted what God said and not the word of a serpent, they would have stayed in the Garden of Eden, and had God’s world opened up to them. Instead, for their lack of faith, they were kicked out of the Garden, and the curtain to God’s world was drawn closed. 

But it wasn’t the end of faith. Amazingly, despite Adam and Eve’s abject failure in trusting God, their second son, Abel, “By faith offered God a better sacrifice than that of his brother Cain,” Hebrews 11:4. It was “better” because it involved blood. So, had God given Abel a glimpse through the curtain, that only a blood sacrifice – like that of Jesus later – would cancel out God’s judgment on humanity and open up his world to us again? If so, Abel got the message and believed it, and his faith got him “commended by God as a righteous man” (4). Which shows, as the next story about Enoch also shows, that “Faith pleases God immensely”….(next blog) 

What really pleases God, Hebrews 10:38, is his “righteous ones living by faith” (or “thriving on faith” as one translation phrases it), his reason being, verse 39, that “those who believe are saved.” In other words, those with faith get to experience what faith does in its saving power – with clues coming up in chapter 11 as to what that saving power of faith did in the lives of “the ancients who were commended for it” (11:2).

They were commended, as we are, for believing – or living by faith – in two things: the first one in Hebrews 10:36, “that when we’ve done the will of God we will receive what he promised.” And the second in verse 23, that we “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” So, in defining faith as “being sure of what we hope for and being certain of what do not see” in Hebrews 11:1, it’s being “sure” and “certain” in both what God promises, and in his absolute faithfulness in making his promises happen.

And the first hint we’re given in Hebrews 11 as to what that faith does for us, is in verse 3, that “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.” For us it’s no problem accepting that God spoke our world into existence, or that “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. For he spoke and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:6, 9). So here’s what faith in its saving power does: it saves us from trying to figure out how the universe began. It’s simple: God spoke its beginning.   

And continuing in Hebrews 11:3, “what we now see (in our universe) did not come from anything that can be seen.” Which makes sense, because if the universe came from stuff we can see, then where did that stuff come from? It had to come from something that had always existed. So again, here’s what faith in its saving power does: it handily saves us from trying to figure out how the universe came into existence from nothing – when we see It didn’t come from nothing; it came from an eternally existing God “appointing his Son as heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” – who now “sustains all things by his word” too (1:2-3). So God not only spoke our world into existence, he speaks it into continuing existence too.

We’re very fortunate, then, in not being stuck with just the visible. Faith, instead, has opened up the invisible to us as well. Or as Hebrews puts it, “We see through the curtain”….(next blog)

Twice in Hebrews 3 God is angry at the Israelites – for their “sinful, unbelieving heart” (12) and their “disobedience” (18) – resulting in God angrily stating they would “not enter his rest” (11). 

But why would God be angry? Was it because after “forty years of seeing him in action” (9), the Israelites still didn’t “know his ways” (10)? Well, yes, because they’d been on an amazing journey with “the living God” himself (12), who’d proved to them beyond all doubt that he was real, that he cared, and that in all his dealings with them he only had their good in mind, but instead of the Israelites happily and fully trusting God, they rebelled against him (7-8).

Which gives the impression that this was deliberate on their part. They weren’t acting out of ignorance or weakness, because the Greek word parapikrasmos for “rebellion” in verse 8 means provocation, and even exasperation. Their immediate assumption, for instance, that God didn’t care every time a new problem arose – when they knew he’d resolved every problem up to that point – sorely tested God’s patience (9).

Jesus expressed the same exasperation in Matthew 17 when a Dad with a demon-infected child said he’d gone to Jesus’ disciples to heal his son but they couldn’t do it (16). To which Jesus replied, in obvious exasperation, “You really are an unbelieving, obtuse lot, aren’t you? How much longer can I put up with you?” (17).

His exasperation was based on the same premise as God’s exasperation with Israel. The Israelites had seen and experienced God’s obvious power, just as Jesus’ disciples had seen and experienced their power to heal people with demons – and so far without fail too (Luke 10:17). So why not this time as well – when, just like the Israelites, they knew that God had resolved every problem they’d faced up to that point?

Jesus’ reply was simple in Matthew 17: “It’s because you have so little faith” (20). So instead of them believing in “the living God” who can resolve every difficulty without fail (the moving mountains bit in verse 20), this time the awful impact of the demon on the child was so great it froze their faith in God’s power to deal with it. And that exasperated Jesus, because they’d seen in his life, over and over again, what faith and confidence in the certainty of God’s power in all situations made possible. And not just in his life; their own Israelite history was full of people showing “What faith does” too….(next blog) 

According to Hebrews 10:20-21, this “new and living way” – opened up for us by Jesus’ sacrifice and his intimate care for us as our high priest – creates some real differences in how we think. Like, for instance, finding ourselves “thinking about how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” in verse 24. 

Which, in the case of those in Hebrews, was remarkable, because life had been tough for them, so wouldn’t their minds be more on their own worries? But here we see the power of the Holy Spirit at work – in “the love you‘ve shown God by the help you’ve given to his people, and are still giving” (6:10). They were, for instance, “standing side by side with those who were being publicly shamed and ridiculed” and taking the hits with them (10:33-34). And in “sympathy for those in prison” – whose very survival in the first century depended totally on friends providing food, water and clothing – they were doing whatever it took to keep their imprisoned friends alive, no matter what danger to themselves.

Hebrews gives a couple of reasons why this looking out for each other was so important too – the first being “to keep each other encouraged – especially as you see ‘the Day’ approaching” (10:25), which for those in Hebrews must’ve felt real, just as it does for us, as evil, deceit and twisting the truth infiltrate every aspect of our culture, filling it with ideologies that very cleverly counterfeit God’s Word. And how wearying it all becomes, especially when refusing to go along with it and being socially isolated and scoffed at for doing so. How pleasant it is, then, to get together with kindred spirits (25) and feel the Spirit’s power, love and wisdom soak into our minds instead. 

The second reason for looking out for each other is in Hebrews 3:13, that we “encourage one another every day – while it’s still ‘Today’ (not wait ’til tomorrow) – to make sure that none of us are deceived into straying from God.” The Greek word for “encourage” here has some ‘bite’ to it, because parakaleo (p-racka-LAY-oh) means exhort, suggesting it’s time for a serious one on one chat, and no delaying it either. Again, it’s the Holy Spirit inspiring such thoughts – in this case to help protect each other from drifting away and being “hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  

It gets really serious on this point back in Hebrews 10 too, because it dips into the touchy subject of “What makes God angry”….(next blog)