Tag: bible

Abram was an idol-worshiper graciously chosen by God to receive the wonderful promises of the Abrahamic Covenant.  There was nothing special about Abraham.  God just chose him.  But that choice, which gave birth to faith, became a faith that obeyed, a faith that endured and a faith that anticipates God’s greater reward.  We see this in Hebrews 11:8-10.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

So first, we see a faith that obeys.  Genuine faith always expresses itself in obedience.  So the person who has believed will yearn to obey.  Because we retain the vestiges of sinful flesh, that obedience will be imperfect (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 3:10), but the desire to do the will of God will be ever present in true believers.

Obedience is the inevitable manifestation of true faith.  Paul reminded us of this when he wrote to Titus that “to the defiled and unbelieving. . . . profess to know God,  but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:15-16). To Paul, their perpetual disobedience proved their disbelief. 

“By faith Abraham obeyed…and went out…”  Faith is the manner in which Abraham obeyed.  It was the impetus of Abraham’s obedience.  It made obedience possible.  The word translated “obeyed” was often used to speak of a doorkeeper, who would listen for the right signal and open the door to those awaiting entrance.  Obedience thus comes from hearing, just like faith comes from hearing God’s Word.

Faith and obedience are inseparable.  Abraham would never have obeyed God’s call if he had not truly taken God at his word. Abraham’s obedience was thus an outward evidence of his inward faith.  Genuine faith always obeys God.  We are saved by faith alone, but the kind of faith that saves is never alone.  By its very nature, it results in obedience.

F. F. Bruce says, “If the patriarchal narrative says in one place that Abraham was justified because he believed God, in another place God confirms to Isaac the promise made to Abraham because ‘Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge…’ (Gen. 26:5).  He would not have obeyed the divine call had he not taken God at his word; his obedience was the outward evidence of his inward faith” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 291)

Abraham demonstrated faith in three phases: when God called him to leave Mesopotamia (v. 8), when he reached the Promised Land but still had to live in it as a foreigner (vv. 9-10), and when God called him to sacrifice Isaac (vv. 17-19).

Note that Abraham’s faith-walk began “when he was called” (Heb 11:8).  His faith wasn’t founded on a subjective feeling about God’s will, a billowy cloud formation pointing like an arrow, or a vague message from a fortune-teller staring into a crystal ball.  The Bible says “the Lord had spoken to him” (Gen. 12:4), and “the Lord appeared to Abram” (Gen. 12:7).  This is where true faith rests—on the clear revelation of God (Rom. 10:17).  God’s calling to Abram was audible, objective, and specific.  He responded with faithful obedience. (Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary – Hebrews)

This word suggests that immediately upon hearing God’s Word, Abram obeyed.  One Greek scholar puts it: It’s almost as if Abram left while the sound was still ringing in his ears.  There is no lag time, no hesitation, but rather an immediate responsiveness to the Word of God.  God appears and speaks, and as a result Abram begins to pack his bags.

Now, remember, Abram first went as far as Haran with his father Terah and his family.  That doesn’t seem like immediate obedience.  But the author of Hebrews is focusing on the fact that Abram did leave for another land.

Apparently, Abraham obeyed God by leaving Ur, but he settled in Haran for a few years until his father died.  Then God issued the call of Genesis 12, and Abraham again obeyed by moving on to Canaan.

This was not Abram’s dream, it was God’s calling.

What did this mean to Abram?

First of all, Abram lived in a culture where nothing purposely changed.  Life offered few choices; everyone believed that their fate was determined and you could do nothing to change it.  There was no impetus to leave, to better one’s life.

Plus, people in those days didn’t travel to, let’s say, Washington D. C. for vacation.  In fact, most people in those days never traveled more than a few miles from their birthplace their whole lives, unless they made a living from trading.

Also, this would mean leaving behind people he knew and loved—his family and friends.  A man’s “household” in those days was his safety net.

It also meant leaving a comfortable homestead.  Whether or not it was an affluent homestead, it was his.

In addition, it meant leaving the only culture he knew—the music he listened to, the foods that he ate, the business associates that he worked with.  All that would change.

Finally, there would be no turning back.  There was a sense of finality in the command to “leave.”  This was no summer cruise, no short vacation from the routine.  This was final.

Thus, this was no easy choice!  We might not think of it as that difficult, but it would not have been easy to obey this calling from God for Abram.

You discover in Genesis 12 that Abram was 75 years old when God’s call came to him.  Abram was likely a prosperous, middle-aged man, successful by any human standard.

One ancient commentator says it like this: “Abraham departed the moment he was bidden.  Taking no thought for anything, either for his fellow clansmen or wardsmen or schoolmates or blood relations on father’s or mother’s side; or country or ancestral customs or community of nurture or homelike—all of them ties possessing a power to allure and attract, which is hard to throw off.  He followed a free and unfettered impulse and departed with all speed from Chaldea, a land at that time blessed by fortune and at the height of its financial prosperity.  He heard the call of God, he obeyed, he went.  No lag time, no hesitation, no pondering; that’s what faith does in response to the Word of God” (Philo, De Abrahamo, p. 66f).

By the way, it might be encouraging to us to notice that although Abram’s faith was immediate, it was not complete.  He didn’t leave every member of his family behind.  He took his father and nephew, Lot.  He didn’t go all the way to the Promised Land right away.  He stopped in Haran and it took the death of his father Terah, to move Abram from the halfway house all the way to the Promised Land.

My point is this:  Abram’s faith was not perfect.  We will see that all throughout his life.  But, he was responsive to the Voice.  And when he failed, he got back up and continued forward.  Our faith, our obedience, does not have to be perfect.  But it must respond.

One might wonder if Abram had any resistance to the Voice.  Could he, like Simon Peter, have initially responded, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man?”  Could Abram have doubted his own mind?  Could he have agreed with Lily Tomlin, who said, “Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?”  “Am I going crazy?

Well, the first step in any kind of life-change is responding obediently to God’s calling.  It often involves leaving something or someone behind to pursue something else.  For change to last in our lives we have to leave something behind.  We have to “put off the old man,” for example.

Consider marriage, for example.  In order to experience the depth of change a man must “leave his father and mother…” (Genesis 2:24).

In discipleship Jesus said we have to “deny ourselves,” we have to leave our own desires behind, so that we can follow Him (Luke 9:23).  Jesus calls his disciples to rise up, forsake all and daily take up the cross (Matt. 4:18ff; 9:9; 10:38f; 19:27ff).

What is God calling you to leave behind, to let go of?  What baggage is there that you need to jettison from your life?

All of this from Abram is quite amazing in itself, but then we find out “he did not know where he was going.”

You might have heard a conversation like this between Abram and his lifelong neighbors.

“Abram, are you moving?”

“Yes.”

“Why?  We’ve been neighbors for so long.  Are you looking for better quality of life, more acreage, better schools for your kids?”

“No.  I’ve heard a Voice.”

“Okay…where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Now Abram, think, is that really the responsible thing to do, the rational thing?  You sound like a radical.  How will we get in touch with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“I’ve heard a Voice and it promised me a place somewhere.  All I can tell you is that the Word of the living God has spoken to me.  Now all my ambitions which consumed me before have been replaced by one over-arching passion.  It is my desire to follow that Voice.”

Living by faith means stepping out for God and leaving the results to him.  It won’t always be clear what the end result might be.  It’s no guarantee of a long life and good success.  It is obedience “no matter what.”

Leaving is an act of obedience, but “not knowing where you are going” is an act of trust.

Martin Luther, in his commentary on Hebrews, says: “And this is the glory of faith, namely, not to know where you are going, what you are doing, what you are suffering, and, after taking everything captive—perception and understanding, strength and will—to follow the bare voice of God and to be led and driven rather than to drive.”

This is the kind of faith that is produced by grace.  It is the working of God; it obeys.  There is no greater miracle in the heart of a genuine disciple of Christ than simple obedience to the Word of Christ.  Abram heard the call “and went.”  Jesus told His disciples, “If you love me, you will obey my command.”  James 2:26 says, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

Obedient faith is the product of God’s grace.  The Christian loves to obey and finds his or her greatest happiness in obedience, because that obedience is in keeping with his transformed heart.  Like nothing else obedience brings him pleasure.  Like Eric Liddell said, “When I run; I feel his pleasure.”  A genuine disciple says, “When I obey; I feel his pleasure.”

If there is no desire or drive for obedience in a person’s life it betrays that there has not really been an experience of the sovereign grace of God regardless of how many aisles have been walked down.

Jesus very ominously warned us, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Jesus never knew these people, despite all their fantastic works.  Be careful never to invert the order:  The experience of grace is not the consequence of faith; the experience of faith is the consequence of God’s grace.

In Philippians 1:29 Paul says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.”  That word “granted” could be translated “gifted.”  In other words, both suffering and believing are gifts from God.  Most people are surprised that suffering could be considered a gift from God, but the greater surprise is that faith is also a gift from God.

Paul is saying the same thing in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  The gift is the whole experience of salvation by grace through faith.

Peter concurs in 2 Peter 1:1 when he says, “Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,  To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”  You obtain something that has been given to you.  You receive it.  Here Peter says that we have received faith.

Likewise, in Acts 13:48 Luke records: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”  They believed because they had been appointed by grace to believe.

I don’t believe and then get grace; God chooses to give me grace, which then enables me to believe and I actively put my trust in Him.

Again, Martin Luther expresses the depth of Abram’s obedient faith when he writes: “It was hard to leave his native land, which it is natural for us to love. Indeed, love for the fatherland is numbered among the greatest virtues of the heathen. Furthermore, it is hard to leave friends and their companionship, but most of all to leave relatives. . . . And then it is clear that with his obedience of faith Abraham gave a supreme example of an evangelical life, because he left everything and followed the Lord. Preferring the Word of God to everything and loving it above everything” (Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Luther’s Works , vol. 29 (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1987), p. 238).

Faith in God’s promises is why Abraham risked his entire future.  Faith in God’s promises is always how to deal with the uncertainties of life.  Abram didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know what the future held, and into that vacuum of uncertainties can rush all kinds of fears and anxieties UNLESS one holds on to the promises of God.

And that is what Abram did.  He is a strong example of faith because he marched off the map, going forward with God even though he had no strong indicators of where he was in reaching his destination.

The call which Abram received was not only a command that called him to obey; it was also a promise for him to believe, the promise of an inheritance on which he should fix his hope.  He did not know, when he departed, where that inheritance could be, but he believed God who said that he had an inheritance.

Here again, we have a striking illustration of “the assurance of things hoped for” combined with “the conviction of things not seen,” the two components of faith defined in the opening verse of this chapter.  “Abraham set out in faith, his destination unrevealed, but he also set out in hope, firmly grasping the promise of an inheritance.  The bare word of God was sufficient warrant for his going” (Philip Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 467).

Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the emperor who ordered his favorite general to embark on a dangerous mission to conquer new land.  Because that meant entering hitherto unknown territory, the maps stopped at the frontier of the previous exploration.  Many months later, after completing his mission, the general sent a message back to the emperor: “What do we do now?  We have just marched off the map.”

This was not the first time this had happened.  Abram and Sarah were planning their retirement when God called them to “march off the map,” to blindly go wherever He led them into a territory unknown to them.  Our text in Hebrews 11:8-10 tells us that Abram and Sarah went out “not knowing where he was going.”

Most of us like to be settled on our destination before we take off on a journey.  We get out our maps or GPS on our phone and look for the destination and the fastest or best way to get there.  But this is not always the way that God leads us in life.  He doesn’t always lead us in straight lines.  We don’t always “get there” the fastest way or the least difficult way.

My encouragement to you this morning is that God may want to intrude upon your settled, comfortable life and call you on a grand adventure that is beyond your wildest dreams.

A few years ago, I picked up a bargain book from one of my favorite authors, Gordon MacDonald.  This book is called Mid-Course Correction and it deals with the need of those in the middle to later years to be open to change.  It speaks to those who may have lost their vital optimism and their need for a mid-course correction to get back on track.  He identifies three movements for those who get back on track—leaving, following and reaching.  He uses the story of Abraham to talk about the importance of leaving.  At the end of the book he says, “Many of us are disappointed in our faith experience because we have not left” (pp. 233-234).

Abram was about 70 years old at this time.  For him, that was mid-life.

Our text says…

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

So far we’ve seen that every person identified (all males so far) has expressed their faith in active, tangible ways.  Abel worshiped God; Enoch walked with God.  Noah stood alone for God; Abram moves forward for God.  In every situation they obeyed God’s revelation to them.

Let me ask you this question this morning: “Does your faith in Christ compel you to obey Him?”  Or is obedience to you an option that you only rarely pursue?

Abraham, Moses and David tend to stand out in the minds of the Hebrews.  Abraham was the “father of the faith,” Moses the giver of the law and David the greatest king.  While Abel and Enoch are given a few verses in Genesis and Noah is given four chapters, Abraham’s life is on display in Genesis 12-25, a quarter of the entire narrative of Genesis.

Abraham’s faith was so celebrated in Old Testament times that the Levitical prayer of confession extolled God and lauded Abraham’s faith: “You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.  You found his heart faithful before you. . . .” (Nehemiah 9:7, 8).

Paul, in the New Testament, also highlights Abraham’s faith: “. . . just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ . . . Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:6, 7; cf. Hebrews 2:16).

And in Romans 4 Paul states:

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Regarding his belief in God’s promise that he would have a son, Paul writes:

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

James adds that because of Abraham’s faith, Abraham was called “a friend of God” (James 2:23).  Thus, Abraham was the undisputed example of faith and therefore we have much to learn from his life of trusting in God.

I love that definition of faith that Paul gives in Romans 4:21, that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”  That was what fueled Abram’s willingness to “march of the map” and go to a land he knew nothing about, his patience in waiting 25 years for God’s promise of a son from his own loins to come true, and his obedience in taking that very son to the top of Mount Moriah with the intention of obeying God’s directive to kill that promised, beloved son.  All of that, and more, was catalyzed by Abram’s conviction that when God makes a promise, nothing can stop him from fulfilling it.

That is faith.

Now, remember that faith calls us to step out and obey.  Paul even calls what saves us “the obedience of faith” in Romans 1:5.  Obedience and faith are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, they serve to interpret each other.  True gospel preachers call people to a faith that obeys; we call people to an obedience which trusts.

And this describes not merely the moment one believes, but the whole life of faith that starts at that moment and continues until the last breath.  The life of faith, from start to finish, is a steady obedience that fixes absolute trust on Christ’s saving merit.

Abram is a model of that obedience of faith.  Abram was not perfect.  His fallen humanity is on evident display throughout the narratives in Genesis 12-25.  This is why our author reminds us, after this chapter on people of faith, to “fix our eyes on Jesus.”  He is the only one to express perfect obedience and uninterrupted trust in His Father.  However, there is still much we can learn about a life of obedient faith from Abraham.

But, where did Abram’s faith come from?  Where did it originate?  Did it come from an incredibly pious father and mother?  Did he have ancestors who were believers?  Did he sit for some years under good preaching?  Was he homeschooled and learned good morals?  What was the cause of Abram’s faith?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about Abram.  He was a citizen of Ur, a prominent pagan city of about 300,000 located on the Euphrates River in what would today be called Iraq.  It was a world-class city, much like New York today.  It was probably also much like Las Vegas, “sin city,” today.

Ur was a cultural center for mathematics, trade and great religious activity.  The city was dominated by a massive three-staged Ziggurat built by Ur-Nammu during the beginning of the second millennium B.C. E ach stage was colored distinctively, with the top level bearing the silver one-roomed shrine of moon god Nammu or Na-na.  (I’m sorry if some of you grandmothers have adopted that moniker with your grandkids.)

This was a distinctly polytheistic culture.  Moreover, the royalty of that time were buried in death bins, accompanied by dozens of human sacrifices intended to accompany them on their journey to the next world.

This, this is the culture, the milieu in which Abram grew up.  He had no monotheistic background.  He was an idol worshiper.  He was not a “good man.”  He was no better than the average run-of-the-mill person of his day.  He was a pagan, raised by pagans in a decidedly pagan culture.  He went along with the flow.  Jeremiah 24 and Joshua 24:2 tells us that his family worshiped “other gods.”  In other words, they were not obeying Exodus 20:3-6 about worshipping the true God, Yahweh, exclusively and apart from any physical representation (idolatry).  Everything about his life was immersed neck deep in God-despising idolatry.

So how does a man go from rank paganism to being the epitome of believing obedience?

The same way it happens with you and me—by virtue of the sovereign display of the intervening grace of God.  God takes the initiative to take idol-worshipping, immoral sinners and call them to himself.

Listen to the way Genesis 12:1 describes it:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

We don’t know what Abram was doing.  Maybe he was involved in his business; maybe he was at home getting ready for supper with Sarah; maybe he was worshipping his gods at some temple.

But ONE THING comes and saves Abram—God’s word, God’s calling.  And that Word, like the creative word of Genesis 1, performs what it demands.  It creates in Abram a life that first trusts, and then obeys.

Notice the wording of Hebrews 11:8.  “By faith Abraham, when called…”  The Voice called out to Abram.  We don’t know if that Voice spoke loudly or forcefully, but it spoke effectively.  It called Abram to “leave” to “go from.”

Acts 7 fills this event out a little more fully.  Stephen says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham…” (Acts 7:2-3).  God made himself known both visually and verbally.

God told Abram, “go from your country.”  God had no plans to save the people of Ur, not even most of Abram’s family.  But it was God’s pleasure to call one man out of that cesspool of a city, Abram.

But why did God call Abram?  What it because he was on a quest for the one true God?  Was it because of his own free will he intuitively inclined toward the religion of Yahweh?  No text tells us that Abram was any better than any other person in Ur.  In fact, if we read the text carefully, we find that Abram did not immediately leave his relatives and go to the land God was directing him to; rather, he along with his father settled in Haran for a number of years until his father Terah died.  Eventually Abram did obey.  Genesis 12:5 says, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.”

So, don’t presuppose that Abram had anything to do with his calling.  It was God that initiated it. It was God who kept at Abram until he did finally obey.

Abraham did step out in faith, going to the place God promised him; but his faith was less than perfect.  This is seen by comparing Genesis 12:1-5 with Acts 7:2-4, where it is evident that Abraham first went half way to where God called him, and only eventually obeyed completely.  Yet thousands of years later, God did not “remember” the delayed obedience, only the faith.

Abram was a fallen son of Adam just like you and me.  God’s grace came to Abram.  He didn’t deserve it.  He could do nothing to earn it.  By this calling of Abram God not only reveals God’s grace to us, but in a far more profound way it illustrates for us the sovereignty of God’s grace!  Out of 300,000 people God chose one—Abram.  Why?  Simply because it pleased God to do so.

God works in salvation in the same way today.  God still today chooses people not because of their own goodness (in fact, we are “still sinners,” Romans 5:8).  It is totally and fully because of God’s sovereign grace.  God doesn’t choose us based upon foreseeing anything in us.  According to Romans 9:16 God’s choice “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”  It doesn’t depend upon our will, our choice one way or another; it doesn’t depend upon any exertion of action, either good or bad.  God chose us solely because He is a merciful and gracious God.

Saint Augustine was a man many consider the single most influential Christian thinker the world has ever known.  If you have ever read his Confessions, you know that his life before Christ was vile, self-centered and degraded.  Here is how he speaks of God converting him.

Who am I?  What kind of man am I?  What evil have I not done?  Or if there is evil that I have not done, what evil is there that I have not spoken?  If there is any that I have not spoken, what evil is there that I have not willed to do?

But You, O Lord, are good. You are merciful.

You saw how deep I was sunk in death, and it was Your power that drained dry the well of corruption in the depths of my heart.

And all that You asked of me was to deny my own will and accept yours.  But, during all those years, where was my free will?

What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to Your easy yoke and take Your light burden on my shoulders, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer?

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose and was now glad to reject!  You drove them from me, You who are the true, the sovereign joy.

You drove them from me and took their place, You who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, You who outshine all light yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, You who surpass all honour though not in the eyes of men who see all honour in themselves.

At last my mind was free from the gnawing anxieties of ambition and gain, from wallowing in filth and scratching the itching sore of lust.

I began to talk to You freely, O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.”

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions,  trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 181. (9.1.1.)

Did you hear that?  Where was my free will when sin and all its lusts dominated my life?  Where was my free will when my heart was enslaved to that iron cage of sin?

So, Augustine, if it wasn’t your free will to choose Christ, then what happened?

You drove them from me and took their place

This is what the Puritans called “The expulsive power of a new affection” (Thomas Chalmers) or what Quakers used to say about one’s salvation, “Have you been seized by the power of a great affection?”  It reminds us that our salvation is about being called into a relationship with Jesus Christ that is best described in the image of the bride and bridegroom.

My dear friends, true Christian faith, the kind of faith that we see in Abram is not the consequence of a man’s free will.  It is the product of the sovereign grace of God in choosing to manifest His selecting love upon us.  This is where faith comes from: it originates in grace.

When faith is the product of grace, it will display the same kind of attributes that we see in the faith of Abraham: a faith that obeys, a faith that endures, a faith that anticipates the greater reward.

And it is this kind of faith that we will look at in the coming weeks.