“But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he rewards those that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

The OT and NT both are full of patterns for building faith.

Many will still say that there is no pattern or that any pattern is just a loose guide to be adjusted on the needs of the day.

But they really don’t mean that. They mean there is no pattern they desire to follow, and there is only a simile of a gospel plan of salvation which they have sanctioned as both movable and malleable. That there is not pattern of things that absolutely must be followed - whether for justification or for works of any kind. These typically follow after particular theories and doctrines of men and insist that there is nothing much needed to be done to become a Christian; and that are no “works” that must be accomplished in order to please God. They throw everything they define as works into the same basket — and accept nothing given in God’s book unless it happens to suit them.

In what we read in Hebrews 8 we have information that God demands that the church, the assemblies of this end of the ages, should also be built according to the instructions and out of the pattern that the Lord God Almighty has provided.

The apostle said that the things recorded had been listed as examples. That was done so that the first people of God, their lives and conditions and their story might be of benefit. Israel’s bondage is given there as a type of the Corinthian’s (and therefore our own) bondage in sin. Moses the deliverer was then a type of Christ, who is the antitype by example.

The ages where God gave his hand of power and his word for our direction are over; and we are among “those upon whom the end of the ages are come” just as surely as those Corinthians Paul wrote to had been. Two covenants requiring complicity have been forged on the hot anvil of God’s will and under heaven’s mighty hand, and only two. When that second one was completed the bellows were shut down and the fires were quenched for all time.

To begin this second effort, let’s refresh ourselves to some thoughts from the Word of God.

The apostle Paul stated of the things the Hebrews and Israel went through and which are recounted in the Old Testament, “Now, all these things happened to them for examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” (1 Corinthians 10:11)

This is where we will begin our examination of patterns in Christianity.

“And I brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)

It is not my job, it is not my design, it is not my intent, and it is not my purpose or our purpose here to stun or stupefy. There are here, as was true with the early disciples, and as the apostle stated, no cunningly devised fables being concocted; there are no tricks, there is no craftiness employed and there is no deep magic or numbing mystery to what appears in the Word of God or in the things discussed on this site.

I will read for you verses four to eight in the 45th chapter of Genesis:

“I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be grieved, and let no anger be in your eyes because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to save life. For the famine has been in the midst of the land for two years. And there are still five years in which no plowing and harvest will be. And God sent me before you to put a remnant in the land for you, and to keep alive for you a great deliverance. And now you did not send me here, but God.”

In the 23rd chapter of Luke we have an account of the trial and crucifixion of the Son of God. This is recorded as part of that story in verse 32: “And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23: 32 – 34).

And it happened after many days the Word of Jehovah came to Elijah in the third year, saying, “Go, make yourself seen to Ahab, and I will give rain on the face of the earth.” And Elijah went to be seen by Ahab. And the famine in Samaria was severe.