Seeing The Unseen
A lot of skeptics laugh at Christians because they say that we have blind faith. We cannot see God and yet we believe in Him. We believe in souls, angels, Heaven and Hell yet we have not seen any of these things. Skeptics and Atheists say that they only believe in what they can see, but are they really looking? They even use an invisible pink unicorn argument against us. Wouldn’t it be interesting that if at the final judgment they would see pink unicorns at the foot of the throne? We are told that there are many things that the "eye hath not seen nor the ear heard" in Glory. Maybe pink unicorns are one of those things. It would be like God to have them there and like the devil to tell Skeptics and Atheists a partial truth while denying the rest to condemn them. As the old song says maybe they are blind until by God’s grace they will see.
Heb 11:1-3
11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith or trust is the support or foundation of things hoped for in our lives whether it is in the natural world or the spiritual realm. When someone tells us something we believe or disbelieve more often than not based upon who told us rather than the presence of cold hard facts on paper or physical manifestations of the concepts shared. One of the reasons I tell people not to have their children believe in Santa Claus is because they are taking their child’s natural trust lightly by telling them such a lie about a fake supernatural person only then to tell them later about the truth of God. Only God knows how many skeptics became so because of that myth. Once you hear that someone has purposely told you a lie it does make the foundation of trust shaky after that. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the Easter bunny while we are on the subject of well meaning lies.
Trust is very important in any relationship. It does not matter whether the act or words that caused mistrust were intentional or accidental. If the trust is broken it will take time to reestablish that trust. Don’t tell your child you are going to take them somewhere or get them something and not do it. It will lead to mistrust. They may understand once in awhile that something came up that changed things but do it too often and you will breed a skeptic and a cynic.
I try not to make too many promises because I find that I cannot plan even three days ahead without the plans being subject to change. Many people say, "I’ll try" when they really mean they won’t or no. I say that because that is just all I can do is try since my time is often not in my control. I would wear out the buttons on a phone with all the changes so I don’t do it. I am never sure I will be somewhere until I actually arrive. Therefore I make very few promises so that I do not disappoint people or cause them to mistrust me.
When people trust you they count on what you say. They believe that you will do a specific thing even if it is months in the future. It is their evidence or proof of the thing not yet seen. If I say that I will be somewhere and the person knows that I have been consistent in doing what I say then they consider it a done deal. Unless I die or I am in some other way hindered I will be there fifteen minutes ahead of the time they need me to be there. In their minds, they already see me at that place and time no matter how far into the future the event may be. They have confidence and hope in a thing yet unseen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Trust has always been the issue since the Garden. God only asked that Adam and Eve trust him about one thing. Sadly, with everything they had to see God as loving and trustworthy it took only one added human thought to His command to become the basis for suspicion of that trust. Satan had his opportunity and when he exploited "the touch not" error Eve’s trust was weakened and broken. We aren’t certain what actually broke Adam’s trust. Was it because he did not immediately see any change in Eve’s wellbeing as he may not have understood death having never seen it or did not understand that it would be a process since in the Hebrew it is "dying ye shall die"? Did he not trust God to hear his plea for Eve and he wanted to die with her? We can only speculate the cause but we know his trust of God was broken as well. When he ate mankind fell. Broken trust can only cause a separation and restored trust brings about reconciliation.
The elders or all the Old Testaments saints obtained a good report or testimony by their faith or trust in God. It certainly was not by their works. The only one where we can say that it is hard to find a flaw in him was Joseph. All the rest have had flaws and some severe ones.
Abraham, though it was really Sarah, tried to figure out a way to help God with His promise of an heir. He trusted God for a son but thought God could only work through the natural not the supernatural and hence we have the battle between Isaac and Ishmael to this day. In the beginning, he trusted God to leave his homeland at what we would call an advanced age but lied about his wife for fear of the people. Yet, he trusted God enough to where he would have sacrificed Isaac and thus he obtained a good report for his faith or trust in God even when it was weak or practiced in human logic.
Moses tried to deliver his people in his own flesh because he believed God said that was his role. Yet he had to be forty years in the wilderness before he would learn to trust God to perform it through him rather than Moses performing it. He missed out on seeing the Promised Land due to anger, but he still had great faith and thus his good report.
David had great faith in God and yet severe human flaws. Still, David trusted God to put him on the throne and rejected the standard way of ascending a throne by assassinating his predecessor. His flaws and sins caused him great sorrow in his life but it was his trust in God that made him great and gave him his good report.
In the New Testament, we have many that made a good report or witness by dying for their faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ. The word witness and this word report in Hebrews is marturo in the Greek from which we get our word martyr. They literally trusted God unto death. They believed in a place unseen called Heaven and counted on being there because they trusted in the Cross of Christ!! Job trusted in God even to point of saying that if God killed him he would still trust God. Oh, my Brethren, if only we would learn to trust Him that much!!
If we want to have a good report among the brethren and the unbelievers we need to exercise our trust in the Lord. We have about us a great cloud of witnesses from Genesis to Revelation as well as the martyrs and great people of faith in the past two thousand years. God has proven Himself worthy of our trust. He is trustworthy. Let today be the day that we start obtaining our good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. KJV
This is a passage that could not really be comprehended until Anthony Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) perfected lenses and a microscope that could see bacteria. Until then, it was pretty much trust. Many may have had some idea as to the full meaning of this passage but now we speak of DNA and RNA as the building blocks of man and every other living thing. We can see protons, neutrons, and electrons. However, we still cannot explain why the center of an atom is composed of protons that should repel each other and yet are bonded together. Well, Scientists cannot but I can.
Col 1:16-17
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (KJV)
The word consist comes from a Greek word meaning to set together or constitute. Jesus Christ holds all things together because He created all things. We think splitting the atom is a wonderful thing, but when Jesus comes back, He will let go of the atoms in his enemies at Armageddon and their eyes will melt in their sockets. Peter described the end of the Millennium saying that the elements will melt with fervent heat long before anyone even knew what an atom was let alone an atom bomb. God’s Word can be trusted! Hiroshima’s blast will look like one of those firecrackers you can hold in your hand compared to when God no longer allows this old world’s atoms to consist.
Why do people only trust what they see anyway? Our eyes deceive us constantly. We miss stop signs. We don’t actually need vowels. I saw a paragraph written without any vowels and yet could read it perfectly. My eyes didn’t see any vowels, but still I "saw" in order to read the paragraph. We miss the the duplicates of words when we read. People believed that there were only 6,000 stars until Galileo’s telescope. We never saw a virus or bacteria until the microscope. Often we don’t see what we should and see things in the shadows that don’t exist. We miss speed signs when they change if we have been seeing the same speed limit for long miles or hours. We don’t catch the change because our eyes or mind lies to us.
We don’t have the right sight for the spirit world, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Remember Elisha and his servant? The only thing his servant saw were troops surrounding the city but Elisha saw the greater force around him and asked God to open his servant’s eyes. When God opened his eyes or gave him the right sight he saw that there were far more for them than against them. (2 Kings 6:17)
What if there is something smaller than the smallest life we have found? Indeed, on that smallest creature there may be smaller ones and even smaller ones on them. After all, for most of man’s history man did not see a lot of things we see today. Why must we insist on trusting in only that which we see when clearly our eyes are limited and often fail us?
We know today what Paul knew two thousand years ago that the things we see are made of things, which do not appear without an aid to our sight. If the things we see are made of things that we cannot see then why is it so hard to believe that we cannot see the Creator without the proper lenses? We can see Him by all the wonder that we see if we will just trust Him by His works and His Word. Faith is the microscope and telescope of the soul. We may not see everything we want to see but we can see what we need to see.
We can have a hope or confidence in things yet unseen by what we have seen of God’s trustworthiness. We have not seen Heaven, but we know it is there. We know we will be there because God has said that if we place our faith or trust in Jesus Christ for the payment of our sins we shall be there because He is preparing a place for us. He came the first time as He promised and based upon the fulfillment of that promise we can be confident that He will come again and receive us unto Him.
2 Cor 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) (KJV)
As we walk in that faith, my Brethren, we will give hope to the unbelieving as well. They see us trusting in God and see what God does for us. We obtain a good report among men and before God. That is our goal to let our light of trust and good works so shine that they may glorify our Father in Heaven.
Unbeliever, the Lord wants to give you that hope and confidence as well if you will only put your trust in Jesus. The invisible pink unicorn folks have a lot of faith but it is misguided. One day, the Lord may be laughing at them as He strokes a pink unicorn on Judgment Day. (Psalm 2:1-5) It doesn’t matter whether there are pink unicorns in Heaven or not but it does matter if you are not there. Why not let the Lord open your eyes that He might show you great and mighty things, which you do not know? (Jer 33:3) He loves you. He died for you. Won’t your trust Him? Maranatha!
