Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Hebrews 11

IDEA: Men and women in the Old Testament came into a relationship with God through faith in God's promise even though it may not have been at all clear to them how God would accomplish it.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand how people in the Old Testament before Jesus came could have had a relationship with God and how we have a relationship with God today.

Do you agree that the New Testament states that Jesus is the only way to God?

That raises a question: while that makes sense to us today, what about the people in the Old Testament? What about the men and women in Hebrews 11? How did they have faith before Jesus appeared on earth? Did they have another way to God?

Because Jesus had not yet come into the world, how were all these Old Testament heroes of faith forgiven? If they had faith, what did they have faith in?

I. God had always intended to bring men and women to Himself through their faith in what He would do through the Christ.

God has always intended to bring people to Himself through Jesus Christ. People in the Old Testament could see only from "ground level" what we can see more clearly today. They looked forward to what is now our history.

In the highlands of Peru there are some unusually giant lines that were put there by some ancient people. They consist of geometric shapes and stylized drawings of birds and other wildlife. What is amazing is that these shapes cannot be seen from ground level. From the air they can be seen very clearly. 

Do you think it was easier for people before Christ to look ahead or for people like us to look back on history? Why?

Is it easier for us to "make sense" of what is going on in the world today, or will it be clearer to people living fifty years from now?

II. We talk in the past tense about the cross and the resurrection, salvation by God's grace through faith, and many more topics. The people of the Old Testament looked at things more vaguely because the events themselves had not yet come to pass. Events like Isaiah's chapter 53 predictions were "shadows" of things to come.