Chapter 2
Scripture Reading: Heb. 11:4-6; Col. 3:1-3
This book speaks about young people who are strong and active. In the first chapter we spoke about those who live by faith. We saw in Hebrews 10:38 that we do not shrink back, we do not recede, we do not walk backwards. However, we are those of faith, those who live by faith. What is faith? What do you understand as faith?
We read in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “Because we do not regard the things which are seen but the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” When we talk about faith we need to realize that faith has an opposite. The opposite of faith is the things which are seen. You were born in a physical realm, visible, concrete, and during all your life you are used to seen things and believing things only after you see them. Right? There is a good example in the Bible: Thomas. What happened to Thomas? He did not believe that the Lord Jesus had resurrected. The problem was that he missed the “meeting” in which the Lord appeared to the disciples for the first time on the night of the day of His resurrection. That is why he said, “Unless I see… I will by no means believe” (Jn. 20:24-25). In the next meeting Thomas was there, and the Lord appeared once again to them and showed to Thomas His hands and His side and said, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen Me and have believed” (v. 29).
Young one, do you realize the difference? These are opposite sides. Every time we speak about faith, our old man wants to see something. We want to see in order to believe. Is this not true? However, the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), God is Spirit (Jn. 4:24), and He is invisible to the human eye. The Lord is in another realm; He is not in the physical realm seen by the human eyes, that you can touch with your hands, that you can hear with your ears. God is in another sphere. God’s realm is spiritual since God is Spirit. If we want to believe and to touch the Lord, if we want to have experiences with Him, it will not take place in a physical realm, but in an invisible, spiritual realm. Therefore, for this to happen, we need to exercise our faith.
The author of Hebrews wrote to the saints with the goal of transferring them to the spiritual realm. They were used to the physical things which they could see and also suffered outward persecution because they were seeking the Lord. The author wanted to transfer them from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, from the earthly to the heavenly, from the worldly to the holy.
Young people, what God wants to do to you today is exactly the same. You were born in a physical realm, you are used to the physical life, and when you come to the things of the Lord, it is not easy for you to believe, accept, and experience. However, God wants to make a transfer in your life. He wants to take you out of the physical realm and lead you into a spiritual realm, from the realm of what you see to the realm of what you believe. This will last for your whole life. The day you first believed, that day when you called on the name of the Lord, was the beginning of your transfer. Today you are in this transfer. Do you believe it? While reading this book, another stage of this transfer began. Every time you have one experience with the Lord, every time that you go to a meeting, that you pray, that you read the Word, that you read a spiritual book, that you share, every time you listen to a message, there will be a transfer from the physical realm to the spiritual one, from whatever you see to what you believe. Right now, the Lord wants to make a transfer in your life. All you need is to open up yourself to the Lord right now, open up your heart to him. Open up your spirit, make it poor, empty yourself, in order to receive what the Lord has to give to you, to be a little bit more transferred today. That way, when you finish reading this chapter, you will be able to say, “I was transferred a bit more.” Then, when you go to bed you will be able to say, “Lord, thank You because since the moment I woke until now, You have transferred me a little bit more. You have taken me a little bit more out of the physical realm, and You have made enter a little bit more into the spiritual realm. You toke me away from what I see, and You made me enter more into the realm of what I believe.”
That is why the author of Hebrews wrote, “But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul does not delight in him” (Heb. 10:38). The soul of God does not delight when we shrink back. What does “shrink back” mean here? Shrink back from what? When you believed in the Lord, you went forward from the physical realm to the spiritual realm. Now what you should do? Go back to the physical realm? No! Rather, you should keep going on until the Lord comes back. If you go backward, it will not please the Lord’s soul, but if you go forward, if you keep living by faith, this will please the Lord.
In verse 39 he continues, “But we are not of those who shrink back to ruin, but of those who have faith to the gaining of the soul.” Maybe you don’t know that when the author wrote this letter there weren’t verses or chapters; the whole letter was one single piece. So, right after talking about not shrinking back, he spoke about faith. What is faith? “Faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Again the author contrasted two things: believing and seeing. “For in this the elders have obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not come into being out of things which appear” (Heb. 11:2-3). You need to see that there are two things: what you see and what you believe. Then, in the chapter 11 there are a set of characters from the Old Testament that lived by faith. Therefore, in this chapter and in the following chapters we will see names of people that learned to live by faith, and they became examples for us. We were not born already knowing how to live by faith. We learn to live by faith. What are you doing reading this book? You are learning to live by faith. Until the Lord comes or until we sleep in the Lord, we will be continually learning to live by faith, to live not by what we see but by faith.
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