All right now then, let's continue our study in Chapter 11 - "the faith chapter." And again, it's just to show us that these Old Testament people walked and lived and were saved by faith even as we are. But, here's where we have to be careful. They didn't place their faith in a finished work of the cross; it hadn't happened yet. So what did they believe? What God said to them! It was God's Word to them. And we've already covered the pre-flood people. And Noah is a good example.


God didn't tell Noah, "Now believe that I'm going to die on a Roman cross and be raised from the dead." No way. But what did God tell Noah? "There's going to be a flood. I'm going to destroy the human race. Build an Ark for the saving of yourself and your house." Now believing what God said, what did Noah do? He built the Ark. And so all the way up through the Old Testament it has always been by faith, but not in that finished work of the cross as we experience today (and what God tells us to believe through the Apostle Paul's writings), but rather in the Old Testament they believed what God told them in that day.


All right, so now then as we come into verse 8, and like I said, I know we touched on it in the last part of our last program, but his great epitome of faith, the man, Abraham, who was steeped in idolatry down there in the lower end of the Euphrates River. Remember Joshua tells us his whole family was idol worshippers. The whole city was given over to idolatry, and yet God goes down, and I think person-to-person, like He did with Abraham more than once, confronted him. And God said, "Abram I want you to leave all this, I want you to get away from this pagan environment. I want you to get out of your pagan family and go to a place that I'll show you." He didn't tell him that it would be Canaan. He just said, "Go to a place that I will show you." And what'd Abraham do? He left. Why? Because he believed what God said, plus nothing. He wasn't circumcised. There was no Law to keep. He just simply obeyed what God said and God counted it to him for what? Righteousness. See? He didn't repent. He didn't grovel. He just simply believed God and God reckoned him a righteous man. Now verse 9.


Hebrews 11:9a

"By faith..." By faith; by just simply believing what God had said, now I can comprehend that it was probably easier for the man to believe something when he had seen God, Who I'm sure came down in human form, as He did in Genesis 18. I think you're all acquainted with that chapter. When the Lord and two angels came walking up the path and Abram ran to meet them, what did he do? Killed the fatted calf and they had a meal like you wouldn't believe. And they ate. That was the Lord Himself in what we call a theophany - God in human form. And that happened periodically in the time of the Patriarchs.