Chapter 6: More Examples of Pistis

01/26/2024The Angry Preacher

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Faith is the subject. 

And as I’ve said, Hebrews 11:1 does not define faith. In the bible, to the readers and writers of the time, it needed no definition. 

If you understand the New Testament, the Greek word pistis, it was an axiomatic word, that once learned, was never again never buried in its definition like we have to do nowadays held hostage by the very language we speak. 

That’s all faithing is. 

You had to have belief, You had to have confidence, as described by an emotional ability, inspired by the belief that the will had to be added to, in order for the New Testament word for faith to be in motion. until you hung the body in an act. Or you don’t have New Testament faith.

Now There are lots of things you can hang on that are not secure in that manner, I’m going to get into that in the next chapter. 

Faithing is the force of creation. It’s the shadow given to us of the light of God’s image of Creative Power. Just like charity is the shadow of the force in the universe of Grace.

Faithing is nothing more or less than the core of our relationship with God.

5 chapters so far have been spent laying a foundation for taking a grip on God’s word. We have a much better set of promises brought to us by a much better oracle than anyone in the Old Testament.

I think they had a better word than we get in the Greek New Testament. The Old Testament word for trust had two descriptive meanings to it. One was to literally flee for refuge under the shadow of a rock or under the wings of an eagle. 

The other Old Testament word translated to a trust described by leaning upon a staff and to lean with enough of your weight and enough of your safety as to either splinter it if it was a bad staff or find the supporting strength that would allow you to lean on it if it was a good staff. There is no faith in God’s word without action.

And if the word delivered by angels and by prophets, every jot and tittle of it was fulfilled by Jesus, How much more so to us having received the living word by the mouth of his apostles, confirmed by many signs of the apostles, how much more will God back it up? 

Now I’m going to look at those who have gone before and had less to go on than we have today on which to hang their body. 

Faithing substantiates hope. Literally, it’s ‘transubstantiates Hope’ is the way the first verse opens, It’s past tense when this action makes God’s faithfulness in regard to His word, which is the object, is turned loose on the world, which is the result, not the action. The hope given by God’s word is literally transubstantiated. 

And behind the faither is left something concrete. Real evidence. Something already worked out in the seen world. Pragmaton, is the Greek word, where we get the word pragmatic. What was only seen as a promise becomes a fact. 

We now look to the record. Although we have discussed that Abel was the first record of faithing, the truth is that God is the ultimate first. In the opening verses in complicated language, it is explained that the foundation of faith in God’s word is based on God’s own action. From nothing, He spoke and everything came into existence. 

So his word is more real than what his word created. That’s what it means. Every time you read it, that’s the point, the reason those verses about Let there be light is in there. His word holds it together and will cause it to pass away. 

So let’s go to the record of the heroes of faith. The flesh and blood people, everyone just like us now, who is in the bible to teach us what faithing means and how it is carried out, and the more we look at them, the more we are aware that had modern Christianity done the choosing, coming out of the current religious frame of reference, they likely would have picked somebody else. 

Abel

Abel had but a shred of the record we have now. We rather delicately elsewhere have shown the basis for his story being included in this list of faithers. Cain and Abel weren’t just floating around raising sheep and growing crops and thought, I think I’ll go and sacrifice some of my food to see how it goes. In between the lines, in the footnotes of the bible you can find if you pay attention, is a record of God leaving a knowledge, a word of direction for a place, a time and a manner of sacrificing that would bring acceptance. God doesn’t abandon us even one day after throwing us out of Eden, just a little bit of light to the children of banished parents. 

One of them couldn’t believe it. So he would show God something better, he would try it his way. He took the little slim hope of coming to that eastern side of the garden where the Cherubim guarded the place of entrance, for a sacrifice could be offered there for the faithful that followed His directions could have a relationship with God. 

Now, I’m sure if you haven’t heard someone explain these comments on Abel, then I’m raising more questions than I’m answering. 

But we very intricately through God’s word showed that God left a method, a place, and a time. Abel obeyed. He hung his body in simplicity. And we know he died, his reward for faith was to get murdered. 

That wouldn’t sell as a blessing point in today’s world. “Have faith and get killed.” 

But God’s record says Abel is the one whose sacrifice He responded to. 

This first record of faithing is a simple following of directions. If you follow the directions you’re sacrifice is accepted. Not necessarily rewarded as we understand and use the word. Follow directions, like baking a cake. Leave something out and you get a mess no one wants to eat.

I get tired of everybody focusing on the murder. Every movie and story that comes out thinks the point is the murder. It’s a simple following of God’s direction in your relationship with God. He sets the terms, we don’t get to negotiate. The one who tried to negotiate was the murderer. That’s kinda like a moral of the story too.

Enoch

Then there’s Enoch, He didn’t have much word from God either. There were no 666 laws of Moses yet. He had very little more than Abel to go on according to the record. There were thousands in his day who had the same general basis. He just had one little extra word of revelation. He was in his sixties, and a child was born. God told him to name the child and then then told Enoch that when the child dies the world will come to an end. The flood. You can read it in Jude, next to the last book of the Bible. 

We don’t know if what Jude is referring to is the same Book of Enoch we refer to today, but Jude had some access to it whatever it was. He said that the seventh from Adam, Enoch, also prophesized of these saying, behold the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints. 

He lived so close to this concept his whole life all the way to the end that all of a sudden, God took him. You might say, well, maybe that’s supernatural woo woo or something. No, it wasn’t. If it was you receiving this message from God, every time you looked at that little kid becoming a boy, becoming a man, and growing older, think about how you would act knowing that when that child’s last breath came, it was the end. Enoch walked through his life like it might be over at any moment because if the child became a man, died, and quit breathing, it was too late. You better be ready while he’s breathing, so Enoch was faithful in obedience for 300 years that child lived, and then Enoch walked with God. Finally, he just went. God just took him. Then Methuselah became the oldest man in the world, he kept on living because God wanted to keep the door open a little longer. But it was not going to be too much longer. 

Enoch shows us that it’s necessary for faithing to practice an awareness of the presence of God throughout life. Second lesson: God’s there no matter what you’re doing. Try to live like it. Every choice you make, every breath you take.

Noah

Now Noah: It had never rained. God says it’s gonna rain, build the boat. It was the stupidest activity in the eyes of his neighbors that they had ever seen, but he did it. He didn’t care what the other church members thought. He ignored how the other small group members might’ve looked at him. He hung his body on it, and that marked him in God’s eyes. 

Faithing requires you to ignore the appearance in the eyes of others. Jesus said you must hate your mother and father. That’s not a contradiction to honor your parents. It’s an allegory to how seriously you have to take it. Nobody’s opinion can be more important when you’re faithing on God’s word.

All of these stories are shadows and archetypes of the hero’s journey, the story of Christ. 

Abraham

Then Abraham: he had a lot of courage. He changed his name from Abram because of his faithing. That’s a huge deal. Abraham’s parents left their home faithing and traveled to Haran. They had no idea where they were going. They weren’t like those who pack up and get the hell out of California. And after they halted then the Lord had said unto Abraham, get thee out of thy country and from thy Kindred and from thy father’s house unto a land that I will show thee. The second generation taking off without knowing where he was going. His father’s land was comfortable and safe and he trusted God more than his own benefit. He started, just like Elijah, where we can all start.

If you got to have it all worked out before you’ll take a move from safe subjective reality you’re never gonna become a man of faith. God didn’t appear until after Abraham acted. This is the first appearance of the Lord to a man since the Garden and it followed the obedience of the word. If you’re waiting on a special revelation you aren’t paying attention. 

The journey from Haran to Canaan was over mountains and rivers and wilderness, without GPS mind you, and the bible just says ‘they came’. That’s gotta be the greatest understatement in the bible. But, that’s all that matters. It was great faithing to stick to it for however long they did, but what got recorded was a little before and a little after. That’s it.

With Abraham and Sarah, we get to see their humanness better than most any other story in the Old Testament. They even laughed at God’s promises. But in the long run, they hung in there, and out of many things that might have been picked out of their life by modern churchgoers, it was their action to hang their body on a further promise or revelation of God that put them on this list. 

I could do a dozen of these videos on these heroes of faith and Abraham would probably get half of them. What I want to point out is the doing. The going.

If you notice when God speaks he’s usually just saying GO.

No matter how crazy it might sound to you, faithers just do it. Immediately. God gives them enough time to get their stuff together, the scripture details what they took with them, but he took the promise and went.

Isaac

Then comes Isaac, the old well-digger, meat-eating, soup-loving guy. He condoned and cultivated the flesh. But he had one bright moment of faith. In that moment which you can go read, he lifted himself from the ordinary realm and became a hero of faith. 

Then Jacob that old heel catcher. Who in his dying or almost dying words toward the end of his life, he talks about the God that fed him all of his days, he talks about his father and his granddad who walked before God, he knew he hadn’t done it. just in case God wasn’t there he always looked out for himself, but when he was dying, he took a step that defied reason. 

 Jacob in a burst of faith could seize the promise of his grandfather. And in circumstance-defying faith, he would bless those two grandkids the least likely to leave Egypt and give them an inheritance in the promised land. 

I don’t want to get too deep into this story, I’m going to be doing so in the next chapter. I just want to point out you don’t ever want to judge anyone on their faithing just because of their past. God writes the rules, not the congregation, not the spiritual gift quizzes, and not anyone on YouTube. He does with whom he wants what he wills. Faithing doesn’t allow for self-pity or discrimination. Don’t let your feelings about your life stop you one bit. Faithers fail all the time, and if you’re paying attention to Elijah, that’s when God gives you an angel food cake.

Joseph

And then Joseph, who’s probably one of the purest men ever to live. But none of his righteousness, none of his sweet-spiritedness, none of his bearing up under persecution, merited the mention in this chapter’s list. Joseph faithed when he died, hung his dead bones on what God’s promise said, ‘take them out’. When you study the life of Joseph, he’s one of those men where God’s sovereignty just took control of Him. He’s one of those that the Calvinists can look to and prove their point. 

Now, I can find some evidence for the non-Calvisits too. But he’s one where God entered in with sovereignty and directed his every step. 

Give him credit for staying sweet under God’s plan, but he really didn’t choose any of his path. He didn’t choose to be sold into bondage. He chose morality and he’s got to be commended for that. He chose to worship God and keep God ever in view and stay sweet in his spirit, even as his life was ripped away and he was sold by his very beloved family members, the ones he was always nice and loving to.

He wouldn’t survive two weeks in the dating world today.

But God just moved him around. Psalm 105 says that God sent a man to Egypt. In his last act where he said, you take my bones out, that was an act of faith. That was something God wasn’t going to make him do. 

Moses

Then there’s Moses. Moses’ life has been examined and told more than anyone else in the Old Testament. We all know it. 

Moses started by Faithing. When he was born his parents hid him for three months. 

There came a king who knew not Joseph. When Genesis ends, the Israelites with Joseph were in charge. When Exodus begins they were slaves. What the heck happened? How many years are between in that gap? Nobody knows for sure. They’re still arguing about the date for the Exodus. For years they said it was 1400 BC, then somebody comes along and lays out the evidence that it was closer to 1200 BC in a great brilliant piece of research, and I keep looking for a brother or sister that even knows about it.

Apathy.

I’ve been hanging out with seminary students for nearly 20 years now and they all complain the problem with this country is biblical ignorance. You can go on the message boards and other sites and see them still talking about it right now.

It’s not. It’s biblical apathy.

The Bible is just one more story among a buffet of spirituality right now. Wait another 20 years and if something doesn’t happen, it’ll be re-written and reintroduced with a false message. History and science don’t debunk the bible. Go study it sometime. Stop listening to the idiots who say it does, who heard it from someone else who said it does. The country right now is filling up with people who think being a skeptic means you are intelligent and don’t know the first thing about being a skeptic. There’s a difference between skeptic and scoff-tic. They don’t even investigate it.

They’re not qualified to be a skeptic.

Do you have any idea how much garbage I had to read through and study just so I could be honest with myself about my beliefs? Christians should never be afraid of skepticism. Get out there and study it.

I won’t even tell you to be careful who you listen to, or what sources to pay attention to. God’s in charge.

But Moses’ parents hid him for 3 months when he was born. Why? Because Egypt, which used to be governed by Joseph and his people, had revolted and enslaved all the Israelites that were left. It had to have been at least a couple of generations because the new king didn’t know anything about Joseph. That’s like saying we have a leader and a bunch of people in the land who don’t know anything about Martin Luther King today. I think that’s about the same time frame.

But even after being made slaves by this new king and the new regime, the people of God still prospered. What a pain.

The king’s soothsayers told him of the vision Abraham had years before, that a deliverer would come in 4 generations. Everybody knew one was coming. So the king said kill all the male babies.

So they hid him for three months.

Under the threat of death, they hid a newborn. Do any of you have kids? How successful have you been in keeping newborns quiet? 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they had to keep that kid quiet, or all of them would be killed. Do you think any of the other parents would be trying to hide their babies?

I’m sure the Pharoah set up a task force: “It is such a problem we need a special task force, and I’m gonna put the vice Pharoah in charge of it.” 

His parents had to know the bloodline and heritage of their child, coming from Levi. It says when they saw he was a proper child they did not fear Pharoah. 

The faithing started there.

So see that mother and that father hiding him, sitting up, keeping him from crying. “It might be the deliverer”, hanging their body to the risk of their life on God’s promise.

They hid that child. And then the very Nile river which the king said was to be the place of death, they trusted that very river to be the means of deliverance. Talk about faith. They knew Pharaoh’s daughter went to bathe at a certain time or to play there at the river with her ladies in waiting as they would wash in the Nile, and so they put this child in this basket. 

You know the story and sure enough, their faith was honored.

Now he grows up. You who have read the history of Moses know he became a mighty warrior. Succeeded where many others had failed in winning a victory for Pharoah, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, and capable of ascending the throne. 

Human reason would say, as he looked upon his kinfolk cowering in bondage or seething under it, depending upon the status of their spirit. 

“If I could move to the throne, I could help them. I as pharaoh could make it well for my brethren.”

I simply cannot believe such thoughts did not come to Moses.

Feelings go by the wayside, appearance goes out the window, and circumstances notwithstanding, Moses by faithing when he came to his years refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 

There is no sense to that apart from faithing on God’s word. Over and over, I try to teach that each and every one of these saints started where you and I can start.

Esteeming the Reproach of Christ

There are very few of us who could stand at the Red Sea and say fear not, see the salvation of the Lord, raise a rod, and expect the waters of the sea to roll back. How many of you want to tackle that tomorrow? I’ll follow anybody who thinks they can do it. I might practice my breath-holding just in case you can’t hold it back very long. But I’ll take the first step if you will just split that water. 

He didn’t start there. He started where any man in Israel could have started. He simply did what he could do to hang his body in alignment with ‘thus sayeth the word of the Lord‘. Despite what circumstances said. That’s what anybody could do.

Choosing. That’s a choice. 

Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

he chose between this world and the promised one. Despite the pleasures, and being the prince who was a hero veteran, and best educated in the land. He would’ve been a rock star if he’d stayed.

Moses made a choice. He had much less to hang his body on; one experience that some people might describe as a bad dream Abraham had.

He thought the time was immediate and the prophecy of Abraham and the promise of God was 400 years and 400 years had passed. That’s why he went off and killed an Egyptian. He chose the right side. He chose to go with God’s promise. 

And that’s what Christianity is. 

There is no way you can bring heaven down here. There is no way Christianity can be justified on what I get down here. We are pilgrims in an alien land headed for a heavenly city. We are Children of a heavenly father. We are citizens of that Heavenly land and this world is not our home. We’re pilgrims. Sometimes I think we’re like spies behind enemy lines. Feels like I face death if I’m found out, sometimes. 

Then he says this funny line: Esteeming the reproach of Christ.

Christ wasn’t even born. Why does the Old Testament say ‘the reproach of Christ’?

Do you know what Christ translates to in Greek? It’s the word for Messiah. Do you know what Messiah means? Deliverer. Moses was not esteeming the reproach of the Christ. He was not esteeming the reproach of Jesus Christ. 

He didn’t even know about it, even envision it. But he esteemed the reproach that went along with being a deliverer of God’s people from their bondage with the things down here. And if anybody doesn’t think there’s a reproach attached, try doing it. 

He valued the greater riches of that reproach from being a deliverer than all the treasures in Egypt.

It will cost you something to deliver your family or loved ones. Deliverance is not just from, it’s also to. To pay the price of keeping yours, your home, and your family from being subdued and captured and claimed and bound by this world, it’ll cost you. Takes faith for a father to look at a kid and believe he leaves that child a better heritage if he leaves him with an example of faithing rather than a fortune that will make him pray you’ll die so I can get it in your old age.

He Endured

He forsook Egypt. 

Oh, there was a price for not fearing the wrath of the king. He could have become feral. He could have figured out a way and argued ‘Oh, make sure you get the riches that go out greater than when you came in. I’ll make Abram’s promise come true. ‘

No, he wanted it. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. 

And here is the outstanding line: For he endured. 

Endured. 

That word means against all obstacles, under all kinds of pressure, despite every stress, he just hung on.

He endured. 

On this basis can we please demystify spiritual things? 

As seeing him who is invisible, he endured. 

Because God gave him happiness every day, gave him a euphoric glow of healthy skin, increased his bank account, and had him fly over the people. So they say, How great thou art! He had all the people pumping him up every day. 

No, he endured. 

He couldn’t even get them out of Egypt on their faith. 

Isn’t it interesting? His faithing was so overpowering that he alone gets all the credit for the Passover. Have you ever noticed that before? He, through faithing, kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood.

That miserable bunch didn’t act in faith. 

They acted in fear and last-chance investments. They were ready to kill Moses because the plagues that came on Egypt brought more pressure on them. 

By his faithing, he pulled the whole bunch out. What a challenge for a father in a home. What a challenge for a businessman in a business. What a challenge for a preacher or a teacher of a class.

The Faithless Generation

Then by faithing, they passed by that great sea after he opened it up with God’s help. They passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, which the Egyptians are said to have drowned when they tried it.

They had one simple act of faithing after Moses parted the Red Sea. They walked through it.

They faithed. You might say, ‘Well, did it take all that much faith after God had stacked the water up as a result of Moses stretching the rock?’ 

Well, knowing that bunch when they got halfway in, I imagine if it hadn’t been for the Egyptians pursuit, they would have started going back the other way. 

But that one act of faithing got God’s attention. Through the Red Sea.

If you can find any action between the drowning of the Egyptians and the walls of Jericho, 40 years later, with those two and a quarter million of the most favored of God’s people ever alive, then I’m a liar. 

The Red Sea parted for him. Firstborn spared. Plagues in Egypt. Laden down with riches as God delivers them. 

That faithless bunch had one simple act of faithing after Moses parted the Red Sea. They walked through it. Then there’s not another act of faith recorded from the whole bunch until they died. It’s the next generation that God comes to when they go into Canaan and march around Jericho.

Find one.

Why did that whole band get lost in the wilderness? All they showed God was apistis. In the Greek, if you want to put something in reverse, you put an a in front of it. 

And when God tells them, he’s gonna stroll their carcasses through the wilderness, He says, all you’ve given me is unbelief. 

Moses’ faithing carried them.

What’s the relevance to Moses? Did he endure by seeing the wonderful results of practice and faithing? 

He was on all of Aaron’s talk shows. Of course, he was preceded by a few commentators about all the football games they missed in Egypt.

He had a sister who could shake that tambourine on the stage with God’s musicians.  

And Aaron? Aaron can work miracles. Just give him a bunch of earrings and rings and he’d throw it in the fire and do nothing else. Oh, out comes a calf.

Who wouldn’t endure with all the help and results like that?

He’s got a faithful church committee. 

He’s got a know-it-all father-in-law. He’s just looking out for Moses, says, ‘too much for you to do this for yourself.’ 

I’ve heard it quoted for years as though God said it. God never said it. His father-in-law said it. It’s too much for you to bear this load. 

All they did was create messes for Moses to unravel, the worst thorns in his flesh ever conceived. 

Pastor Moses takes too much on himself.

But that was not what kept him enduring. And it didn’t keep the bunch with him either. 

All those things, pillars of cloud, fire, manna, water from a plenty rock, water being sweetened in a desert place? No faithing is required.

Miracle after miracle, none of that caused them to endure, only Moses. And he did not endure because of that. He endured as seeing him who is invisible.

The End of The Trip

Now this is the end of the journey, 40 years in the wilderness after he forsook Egypt, delivering them out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea with 40 years of no faithing on the part of the people. 

He’s at the end of the journey, he’s on Mount Pisgah. He’s looking across the Jordan rift and he sees Canaan’s land.

God told him he was not allowed to go into that promised land.

God had told Moses to strike the rock to bring forth the water, and Moses had struck it, then a moment of doubt and he struck it again. I don’t think the number was important, I think it was about where those people came from.

God had to start them off right.

He just had to get rid of an entire generation that never faithed once after the Red Sea and he wanted them to start off right. God knew that over time they’d start shifting their faithing from the authority of God to themselves.

Just like we do. Every time.

So he wanted to start them off in the faithing that is the definition of our relationship with Him without any question. He wanted them to know He does what He says He was gonna do. He wanted these people to act on the belief that what God says, He will do. Just like Abel. Just like Enoch and Noah and Abraham. 

But beyond that, God gave Moses a gift by refusing him. He made Moses an archetype of a deliverer, which means Messiah, which means Christ. God put Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus needed counsel before His death. And like I’ve said before: That’s high credentials. 

And God kept it in His book to show us today the meaning of Faithing that we can see in every story of the Old Testament.

The entire bible is about Christ.