Bible Studies
FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE: GOD'S TRIANGLE
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
We can liken faith and hope to the building of a house. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The substance of a house would be the wood, cement, windows, doors etc. You can have the substance to build a house piled up, but you do not have a house just the substance.
If you went to a contractor and said build me a house he would say “where is your blueprint?” If you told him you don’t have one you just want him to build you a house. He will not talk to you any more. The reason is your idea of a house and his may be two different things. The blueprint is a visual of what your idea of house is.
The Greek word translated hope literally means intense expectancy.
It literally is an inner image or blueprint of what you expect to come to pass.
This is evident in Hebrews 11:17-19 “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
The word figure is an inner image of what he planned to come to pass. He had an inner image of God raising Isaac right up out of the ashes. This was pretty good because all he knew God could do was make you rich and make you have babies.
FAITH - SUBSTANCE OF HOPE
HOPE – INTENCE EXPECTANCE – BLUEPRINT OR INNER IMAGE
When Jesus taught he would liken spiritual things to the physical to help people better understand for example the sower sowing the word. So that is what I will attempt to do.
I work in a chemical plant so I work with reactors. Now the word reactor sounds pretty cool, but it is literally just a tank.
It can be big- thousands of gallons or small- one gallon. Now they have a motor on top with an agitator attached to it. It has a pump with piping that allows it to be recirculated to its self and take it to other parts of the plant.
It also has a jacket on it which means it’s like a tank with in a tank. This allows us to run radiator fluid through the jacket to either heat it or cool it.
When we react chemicals one of the first things that go into the reactor is a solvent. Now this can be just water but many times it is flammable solvent like ethanol or methanol. We will also many times heat this up using the jacket on the reactor.
When you heat a flammable solvent up if it is in the presence of oxygen it can ignite which can create a very destructible force called an explosion.
When ever you have heat, fuel and oxygen you have the potential for an explosion. This is represented by a triangle.
If you can remove any one of the three side of the triangle you take away the potential of an explosion.
In the chemical industry they will always work with fuel and heat, but they are very much obsessed with getting rid of the oxygen. They will purge a reactor with an inert gas such as nitrogen to remove the oxygen limiting the potential of an explosion.
In the world of the spirit there is another source of power that can be represented by a triangle. In I Cor. 13:13 it gives the three components to make up this power it says “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
Now there abideth or if you will there remains faith, hope and charity. The word charity is the Greek word agape which means covenant love or I choose to love you no matter what you do.
Now if the greatest of these is agape or covenant love then it is the foundation so I put it on the bottom of the triangle.
Galatians 5:6 says “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”
According to this faith can only work by love. Which is interesting because Paul wrote in I Cor. 13:2 “…. and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” He will also achieve nothing because faith can not work without the presents of love or agape.
The third part of the triangle is hope or if you will intense expectance. These three together causes what the Bible calls power which is the English translation of the Greek word dunamis or dynamic self energized miraculous explosive power. It is the word we derive our word dynamo and dynamite from. Dunamis is the power of God.
In the chemical industry there is what is called fail safe mode. It is where if something goes wrong every thing fails to its fail safe position. Say if you were loading chlorine into a reactor. Chlorine is highly reactive with some chemicals it is also exothermic in other words it gives off a lot of heat when it reacts. The fail safe position of the chlorine valve is closed. If we were to loose cooling on a reactor the chorine valve would automatically fail shut to keep from having an uncontrolled reaction.
In the world of the spirit there is a fail safe mode also. If any one of those sides of the triangle love, faith, or hope is broken it goes into fail safe mode.
To better understand why this is we need to understand the dunamis power of God.
In the Old Testament the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of God contained the Glory of God. What we could call the Dunamis Power of God. God went to great lengths to keep the power from breaking through on the people. The curtain to the room was something like four inches thick. The High Priest could only enter once a year only after the right preparation. It was said that the High Priest would have rope tied around their leg so if he was not prepared properly they could pull the dead body out of the room.
Moses In exodus 33:18-23 is talking to God “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he said Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.”
From this passage it is quite evident that God went to great lengths to protect Moses from his Glory or if you will the Dunamis power of God.
The reason God had to protect people from his Glory is because God’s Glory is so good that it destroys sin. The problem was it also took along with it what ever flesh the sin was in.
It is also interesting to note in 2 Cor. 4:6-7 says “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
The Glory of God or the Dunamis power now resides in the born again believers in the form of the Holy Spirit.”
In Mark 11:23-24 it says “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Now for years you would hear people say “I wish God would turn the power up.” Well Jesus said to speak to the mountain to move and it would move. What if you got everything you said? “I am just thrilled to death”. And you just fell over dead.
You are driving down the road in your car and some one pulls out in front of you and you yell out “I wish my horn was a gun bang". The least you would do is blow them off the road.
It gives new meaning to what Jesus said in Mat. 12:36-37 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Our words are important.
God can not allow his power to be used unchecked. So in the world of the spirit there is a fail safe mode if you will. If there is not faith, hope and love there will be no display of dunamis.
In the scenario of the car to say “I wish my horn was a gun” does not proceed from love. Consequently faith will not work because faith worketh by love.
It would be of note that in Mark 11:24-25 Jesus is talking about prayer then all of a sudden he talks of forgiveness “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
The reason for this unforgiveness does not proceed from love. Christ knew this and if you want your faith to work you have to forgive.
When it comes to healing many would never dare say God does not heal, but when it comes to God healing me some times that is a different story. We may pray for healing but we may only have an inner image or intensely expect to remain sick. Faith is the substance of things hoped for or intensely expected. If you are intensely expectant to be sick God will not help you to use the dunamis power to make your self sicker. The system will go to the fail safe mode.
Faith needs hope to work it needs that blue print to bring things to pass.
Hebrews 11:3 talking about how God framed the worlds it says “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.”
When God said in Genesis “let there be…” He had an inner Image or blue print to What He planned to come to pass. He knew to the very last detail how it would look. The Word of God says that God took a grain of sand in his hand and measured out all the land mass of this earth and He took a drop of water in his hand and measured out all the water that is on the earth also. God knew to the very last detail how this world would be created.
Now some might say “how come we can’t create like God?” First of all we do not know how to create; secondly we do not have the authority to create again it goes into the fail safe mode.
The only authority we have on this earth is to agree with the Word of God. When I Peter 2:24 says “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
If God says in his Word” by whose stripes ye were healed” then we only have the authority and right to side in with the Word of God. If we choose to side against it then the system will go to the fail safe mode.
If you put faith, hope and love to work it will work 100% of the time but, if you have any one of them out of line the fail safe mode will activate 100% of the time. This is why what ever you are believing God for you need to find out what God says about it in His Word first. Again you only have the right and the authority to agree with the Word of God.
Now with that being said we will continue on. Many will say that the devil’s triangle is in Bermuda. I want to introduce you to the real devil’s triangle.
Now in life there is what is known as reciprocals. Now a reciprocal of something means it is the same but opposite. North and South are reciprocals of one another. They are the same in that they are directions on a compass but, they are opposite directions.
In the devil’s triangle hate, fear and despair are reciprocals of love, faith, and hope which we can call God’s triangle.
Love and hate are reciprocals of one another in that they are both spirits. You can have a spirit of love or a spirit of hate but they are opposites of one another.
Faith and fear are reciprocals. They are the same in that they are both faith. Fear is faith perverted if you are afraid of some thing then you have faith in that something’s ability to hurt you. You are either in fear or you are in faith you can not be both.
Hope and despair are reciprocals. You see there is no such thing as no hope you either have hope or you have a negative hope which is despair. Just like there is no such thing as non belief. You are believing something all the time. If you are a believer that means you believe in the bible. If you are an unbeliever that means you believe in something other than the Bible.
Hope and despair are both intense expectancy but, are opposite in that hope expects good to come to pass and despair expects evil to come to pass.
People who have a lot of their lives centered around the devil’s triangle will most assuredly end up dead early in life. It will end up being a very slow painful death. It does not happen all at once. It starts just a little at a time. You see death always starts with spiritual death.
Now Spiritual death for all intensive purposes just means separation from the life of God. That is how it began for Adam and Eve. God said the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surly die. They did not die physically right then Adam lived 930 years afterward but they died spiritually separated from the life of God which slowly led to their physical death.
These people are usually very mentally and spiritually draining to be around. They can be very unhappy and very bitter. A lot of times they will be divorced and remarried numerous times. Basically they might get away with trying to hide their true self for a time but, after the honey moons over look out.
Now these people are not unreachable, but it will take some one who has their life centered around God’s triangle, knows the Word of God and will intercede on their behave through intercessory prayer.
In conclusion we as believers need to understand how things work in the world of the spirit and how to keep our lives centered around God’s triangle. Then and only then can we successfully reach out to the lost. Those whose lives have centered around the devil’s triangle.
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Very good article. Actually it turned out to be a sermon and a very good one. Thank you for sharing this. I really liked your comparisons.
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