The Gift Of Faith

Gift of Faith: Job Ch. 23 v1-12

How many of us over the past week have gone to a square box normally situated in a corner of a room pressed a button and as a result been either entertained or received information . Mind you with all the soaps I hope you see through all the bubbles!

I shall never forget staying up in the early hours of the morning of the twenty first of July 1969 watching the live pictures of the first man to walk on the moon . To think if someone had persisted with, or even thought about such a ridiculous idea just a couple of centuries ago, they would have been burned as a witch of locked up as a lunatic!

Is there anyone here this morning who can explain in technical detail, how either Apollo eleven managed the journey or how live pictures can be transmitted 239,000 miles into a little wooden or now plastic box with out wires of strings attached . I couldn’t even begin to, but I do believe what happened was a fact, in spite that there has been some conspiracy theories.

Very few people in the world today would deny a man the ability to perform such remarkable feats. Especially in this day and age of virtual reality. I get amazed by what computers & robots can do now. Apart from all those games you kids love, we have realistic flight simulators and business software that can blow your mind away.

A television camera used to transmit such live pictures from the moon has about 60,000 photo electric elements which enable it in a limited sense, to see. But the man who operates it has an eye which is far more efficient with full automatic focus and up to a 137 million elements and a lifespan often in excess of 70 years. Yet how many people in the world truly believe in the designer and creator of the human eye or the human brain which enabled these amazing feats to take place?

I have many friends who have said “I wish I had your faith if only you could prove to me without a shadow of doubt that God exists”. I am no more able to prove in black and white that God exists than I can explain in technical detail how Apollo 11 landed on the moon and sent the live pictures back into a wooden box 239,000 miles away . But what I can do is tell people of my experience of God. You may remember me coming here before to share my testimony how my wife Maggie was bought back from the dead after this car accident and how this miracle revealed God to me.

I guess if God had chosen to reveal himself, to prove without a shadow of doubt his power and existence to everyone there would be no need of Faith. However if that were so I am sure that not only would we lose the awesome wonder of God but also take him even more for granted . Just as we do when we expect the TV to work without considering the cost and commitment of those behind the scenes who make it possible. For example, the producer, cameraman and other technicians involved in the making and transmitting of a program.

The evidence In the Bible Points to the fact that only one human person Moses. Was allowed to come face to face with God. In the book of Exodus we read that after each encounter with God his face shone so brightly, as it reflected God’s glory, he had to wear a veil over his face.

In our Old Testament reading from Job 23 We read that to a certain extent Job was like some of my friends about god. V3 “How I wish I knew where to find him and knew to go where he is.” Job wanted answers! Like we often do , how often do we say “Why god?” Yet unlike my friends in the rest of the reading, Job acknowledges that the work of God is all around him. Although there were things that he didn’t understand and certainly he suffered more than you and I probably ever will, Job remained faithful to God. Verse eleven to twelve “I will follow faithfully the road he chooses and never wander from either side, I always do what God commands; I follow his will not my own desires.” Wow! If I only I could say the same what a man of faith.

So what is faith ………..

The, Consise Oxford dictionary: reliance, trust, a belief Founded on authority . The Bible says in Hebrews 11 “ faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” I shall come back to these definitions later.