Some years ago, I was in Tennessee, passing through Gatlinburg, and as I was passing through, I noticed that there were several rather unusual billboards advertising a rather unusual tourist attraction. Along with billboards advertising restaurants, fishing ponds, and amusement centers, there were several billboards that advertised HELL. This of course, was unusual for many reasons. One does not normally see an advertisement for Hell, nor does one expect to be invited to visit Hell. It was especially unusual in this case, because the billboards gave Hell a street address in Gatlingburg.
Approaching the city, I began to see bumper stickers that said something like, "Go to Hell, Admission $5." Others said, "While in Gatlinburg and Go to Hell."
Sure enough, as I entered Gatlinburg, I saw a huge building that had a big sign that proclaimed that this was Hell. Apparently, for those passing through Gatlinburg, Hell was nothing more than a tourist attraction. Now I can avoid most tourist traps. On that particular trip through the mountains, I had avoided such attractions as Blowing Rock, Ghost Town and Rock City, but there was something irresistible about going to Hell, especially since I assumed I’d be able to get back out.
So I paid my $5 and went through the doors, over which was yet another sign, declaring, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here."
Now I don’t know what, in Hell, most people expected in their visit, but what I found was a wax museum, and one display after another of the greatest sinners who had ever lived. Or at least some of the best known. This wax museum was actually operated by own of the churches in Gatlinburg and portrayed these great sinners as suffering in Hell. Much of it was rather biblical; a lot of it was speculation. I suspect that the church was trying to woo tourists into heaven by scaring them out of hell.
I am reminded of my $5 tour through hell and of those sinful souls on exhibition whenever I read the New Testament lesson for today, Hebrews 11. Not because this chapter has anything to do with hell, or because this chapter has to do with the greatest sinners of history, but rather, because this chapter is the exact opposite of my experience in Gatlinburg.
Rather than a tour through hell, this is more like a tour through heaven. Rather than seeing on exhibit the souls of the reprobate, we see on exhibit here, the souls of the faithful.
The one characteristic that these souls on exhibit in Hebrews 11 have in common is their faithfulness.
Faith is an elusive experience in Christianity.
It is difficult to define.
It is difficult to recognize in others.
It is difficult to develop in ourselves.
It would be difficult to point to historical figures and to say who is faithful and who is not. If I were going to open up a wax museum and have a hall of fame of the heroes of the faith, I would have a difficult time deciding who should be in it. Not because history is not full of people who have faith, but because it is difficult to define exactly what faith is and what it is not.
It is a whole lot easier to pick the worst sinners of history and to decide who should be on exhibit in a wax museum named Hell that it is to decide who is good enough to be on exhibit in a Hall of Fame of the Faithful.
If I were in Gatlinburg Tennessee, opening up a wax museum called Hell, I would have picked many of the same exhibits that were actually in the museum, Blackbeard, Hitler, Benedict Arnold.
But if I were given the task assumed by the author of Hebrews -- if I had to select souls to be on exhibit in a Hall of Fame of the faithful, I’ve got to confess, I would not have picked these souls that are in Hebrews 11.
I mean, just take a look at them.
There’s Noah. Sure, he built an ark. He was a good man. But what does he do when he gets off the boat? He goes out and gets drunk, passes out and lies there with his face on the floor and without a stitch of clothing.
If Noah was up for an appointment on the Supreme Court, the Senate Judiciary Committee would have a field day with that kind of behavior.
You’ve got the entire nation of Israel mentioned in this list of the Faithful because of their stroll across the parted Red Sea. But keep an eye on where those people go to next, and what you’ve got are a bunch of people who turn their backs on God the first chance they get. While Moses is up on the mountain conversing with God, these faithful people build an idol of gold and start worshipping it.
Then there is Rahab, a prostitute. Surely the officers down at the local Vice Squad wouldn’t have put her on the list of faithful women.
I’m not sure whom I would pick, if it were up to me, but I’m sure that a lot of the names on this list would not be my first choices to be on exhibit in a Hall of Fame of the faithful.
Maybe one mistake that many of us make is that we erroneously equate being faithful with being righteous.
We think of having faith as being good. And perfect. And that is not true.
I didn’t have anything to do with putting this list together in Hebrews, but the author who did put this together selected some interesting characters. I suspect that one of the reasons some of these particular people were selected was because the author wanted us to see that to be a person of faith does not mean that we somehow rise above and beyond our humanity.
Noah was faithful when he built the ark, but he was very human in the way he celebrated.
The people of Israel were faithful when they walked through the Red Sea, but they were very human when they turned from God.
There is a wide spectrum of souls on exhibit in this Hall of Fame of the Faithful. But all of them were human. They had good moments. And they had weak moments. They all served God well, but they also failed him miserably.
The first and most important thing that you can say about this list of the faithful is that there were human.
With all of the potentials, and with all the frailties that our humanity brings to us.
Faith is not something that only the superhuman people of God are able to have. It is something that we are all capable of experiencing.
If a boat builder with his face on the barroom floor can have faith, then so can we.
If a group of people worshipping a chunk of gold can have faith, then so can we.
And if a woman of ill repute can become a woman of faith, so can we.
The only question is -- how? How do we get this kind of faith?
We march through and see these souls on exhibition -- There’s Enoch and Moses. Noah. Rahab. Samson. David. One after another. These folks were as human as I am and as you are. If they can have faith, so can we. But how? How do we find faith? How do you get it? How did they get it?
The author of Hebrews devotes all of chapter 11 of his book to listing the great heroes of the faith. He does not put these souls on exhibit simply so we can gawk at them, but so that we can be encouraged to become like them -- faithful.
We look to them so we can learn from them and in turn be added to the list of the faithful.
Now if you look carefully at the lives of these people, what you find is that they all lived their lives in expectation of God’s promise.
For each person, the promise of God might have been different, but they all lived in expectation of something that had been promised to them by God.
For Noah, the promise of God was Judgment of the world, and salvation of his family. So in expectation of that promise, Noah built an ark.
For Abraham, the promise of God was land and a nation of children, so in expectation of that promise, Abram packed up his camel and headed out without so much as a map, and before a single child had been born, he changed his name from Abram, to Abraham, which means Father of many nations.
For Moses, the promise was the Promised Land, so in expectation he led the children of Israel through the wilderness.
Each of these people, and all of the others in this list given to us by the author of Hebrews, lived in expectation of God’s promise. God had promised something, and from that point on, their lives were governed by that promise.
Noah received the promise off God of a coming flood. Had he not lived in expectation that the promise of God would be fulfilled, he would not have built the ark, and had he not built the ark, Noah would not have been faithful.
But he was faithful.
He was given a promise.
And he lived his life in expectation of the fulfillment of that promise.
If we are to have faith, we need to live our lives with a sense of expectation.
Most of us, tragically, lack that sense of expectation that God can and will do what He claims he can do.
A little over a century ago, there was a famous French tight-rope walker and acrobat. His greatest fame came in 1859 when he accomplished one of his greatest feats. He walked on a 1100 foot tight-rope suspended 160 feet above the waters of the Niagra Falls. This man went onto repeat this act several times. Each time he did something unusual, to give it a dramatic flair.
Once he even made the walk pushing a wheelbarrow.
When he reached the other side, he asked the spectators – “How many people believe I can do this again?”
They all cheered, “yes, you can do it.”
Then he asked the spectators, “How many people believe I can do this with a person sitting in the wheelbarrow.”
The crowd went crazy, “Yes, you can do it, you can do it.”
Can I have a volunteer?
Silence.
(This story comes from… D. Greg Ebie, from a sermon “When Life Gets Tough . . . Turn to Jesus!” sermoncentral.com)
There is a difference in saying you believe, saying you have faith, and actually having enough faith in God to let him lead you, carry you, direct you where He wants you to go.
It’s easy to say we believe in God, but to actually believe with expectation that God can do what he says he will do – that’s faith.
Do you have the faith? Do you live in the expectation that God will fulfill his promise.
Do you have faith? Living with an assurance of what we hope for.
Do you have faith? Living with a conviction of believing what we haven’t yet seen.
As we march down the hall of fame of the great heroes of the faith found in Hebrews 11, every one of them lived in expectation of a promise. God had said he was going to do something, and they believed it. They trusted.
They had faith.
Do we? Do we have faith?
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Written by Maynard Pittendreigh
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