Moses made the right choice. That's the choice that faith makes. It puts its trust in God and says, "I'm willing to let go of the world." It puts its trust in God and says, "I'm willing to let go of the pleasures of sin." And what do we get? The Bible says, "Pleasures forevermore, eternal joy." Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I am your host, Phil Johnson.
You might think it would be easy to obey God if He asked you to be the CEO of a large corporation or a big-time professional athlete, or to honor Him with great wealth. But what if God called you to a life of obscurity, years of hardship? How about four decades of wandering in the desert?
Well, as John MacArthur will show you today, that is the kind of calling God had for Moses, and the way He obeyed. Is a model for how you and I should obey and honor God. Today's lesson is part of John's study titled "A Faith That Pleases God." With the message now, here's John. I draw your attention to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter eleven.
We're going to look at verses twenty-three to twenty-nine. Twenty-three to twenty-nine. It's a brief portion of Scripture that sort of encompasses. The salient characteristics of faith that are indicated in the life of one very, very well-known Old Testament figure, the man Moses. The man Moses then is added to the others.
In studying Abel, we learned how one comes to life by faith, and that is through sacrifice. Abel showed us then how to live by faith. Enoch then showed us how to walk by faith, and Noah showed us how to work by faith, and Abraham showed us the pattern of faith, and then the other patriarchs last time showed us. The victory of faith in facing death with hope, for they were given the recitation of the Abrahamic covenant, but they never saw it come to pass. And yet Abraham died in faith, and so did Isaac, and so did Jacob, and so did Joseph.
So they are all models of faith to one degree or in one facet or another. And now we look at Moses, and he shows us how faith acts in terms of the decisions that it makes. And that's a that's a basic way to look at life. Life is a series of choices that we make.
So Moses trusts God to reward and fulfill, and accomplish his purpose in his life. He. Literally rejects what he has in hand, the prestige and power of Egypt, and he takes the reproach of his people. He rejected the world's pleasure. Look at verse twenty-five, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.
The old author I said the pleasures of sin for a season. Sin is fun. Sin is pleasurable. Amartyas, Apollasus, the enjoyment of sin. There was plenty of it in that Egyptian culture.
Plenty of it. You can indulge all your lusts at will. Especially if you were the prince, nothing would be held from you. No sensory desire would be unfulfilled. No lust would go unmet.
Moses had to be willing to turn his back on all the pleasures of sin, and they were replete in the position that he was in in Egypt. He was called to give it up, to give all of it up, to become, as it were, a slave with his people. Moses made the right choice. That's the choice that faith makes. It puts its trust in God and says, "I'm willing to let go of the world." It puts its trust in God and says, "I'm willing to let go of the pleasures of sin." And what do we get?
The Bible says, "Pleasures forevermore, eternal joy." Not only the world's prestige and the world's pleasure, but let's just call it the world's plenty. Verse twenty-six, considering the reproach of Christ. Greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. He considered, in the Greek, he judged, he made a judgment. This is not a rash conclusion.
This is a very careful consideration. He had prestige to the max. He had pleasure to the max at his fingertips, and he had treasure to the max. But faith rejects all of those things. True saving faith.
He considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he was looking to the reward. the The implication there is to the final reward, to the divine reward, to the eternal reward. Not just what does he mean by the reproach of Christ?
Well, there's a wonderful thought there. It would be a reproach that was similar to that which Christ endured. Although Moses didn't know about Christ, didn't know Christ, he knew that there was the promise of a coming deliverer. But we know, and the readers of Hebrews know. That he was willing to take a reproach to move from having everything to to basically having nothing, from being honored to being treated with scorn and disdain, as was Christ.
He who was rich became what poor. Speaking of Christ, wonderful thought. He bore a reproach, the kind of reproach that is characteristic of Christ, who was infinitely rich, infinitely privileged, infinitely satisfied in the presence of God, and set it all aside to do the will of God, to come down, to suffer ill treatment. On behalf of the people of God, he is in that sense like Christ. There's one other thing that I think we can say without exhausting this particular portion of Scripture.
Let's just say this: He rejected the world's pressure. He rejected the world's pressure. You can be pretty sure there was some pressure on him, serious pressure. If you want to know how serious, look at verse twenty-seven. By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured seeing him who is unseen.
If you ask, how could he be willing to give up all the treasures of Egypt? To become a reproach. The answer, because he considered that the pathway to greater riches than anything Egypt had to offer. How could he then, in verse twenty-seven, not be afraid of Pharaoh? How could he do what he did, kill an Egyptian?
Which would go back to the pharaoh, and his life would be then on the line. They would come after him. He would have to flee for his life, and that's exactly what he did. And you remember, he fled to Midian, where he had to stay for forty years. How could he not feel the pressure of what was liable to happen to him under the powerful pharaoh when he took the life of an Egyptian?
Answer. He endured because he saw the one who was invisible. He knew his life was in the hands of the invisible and eternal God. What it actually says there in verse 27 by faith he left Egypt. It's a it's a stronger word than that.
Kata lipo. It can refer to a simple departure, but it really is a deeper word. Especially here, some commentators have said it means a heart renunciation. In the Greek, both here in Hebrews eleven and also in Luke, they forsook all to follow Jesus. It's the same verb, forsook.
So it has the idea of not just simply physically leaving Egypt, but renouncing Egypt. He rejected Egypt as having any power over his life. He rejected the power that Pharaoh supposedly had over his life. He rejected the fear of man, to borrow the words of Proverbs twenty nine twenty five. And you know, not everybody had been so strong.
Certainly, Abraham hadn't right. He wound up calling his wife his sister because he feared the king. Forty years he'd been living in the land of Midian as a shepherd, and now he walks back into Pharaoh's palace. He's got no army. He's got no weapon.
Egypt's court is ready to to arrest him. And he's facing a proud, haughty, pagan monarch who reigns over the greatest empire in the world, and everybody knows it's been passed down that this man who was once the prince in the palace murdered an Egyptian and has been gone for forty years. And in boldness, he walks right into the face of Pharaoh and makes his demands. And he tells Pharaoh, "He better respond, or it's not going to go well." And it doesn't take long. First, the waters turn to blood.
Then the frogs come. Then the dust and the gnats. And then the dog flies and the blood-sucking insects. Then the death of domestic animals. Then the ashes, the dust, the boils, the hail, the fire, the locust, the darkness, and verse twenty-eight would indicate.
The final plague, the death of the firstborn, and he goes nose to nose with Pharaoh, and warns him about all of this. This is a man of faith, and where did he get this kind of faith? Where did he get this kind of courage? Where did he get the Jewish would say this chutzpa, this macho? He endured as seeing him was unseen, seeing him was invisible.
He saw a greater King with the eyes of faith. Right? He believed God. The man made the right decisions. He chose to reject the world's prestige, to reject the world's pleasure, to reject the world's plenty, and to reject the world's pressure.
And in each case, it was monumental. We're talking about more prestige than you would have anywhere else on the planet in Pharaoh's palace. More pleasure than you might find anywhere else. More treasure than you might find anywhere else, and more power against you were it to be set against you than you might find anywhere else. And in the face of all of that, he makes the right decision.
What I love about it is when you might assume that Moses would be a model of the legalist, Moses is a model of a man of faith who believed the word of God, and thus he was accepted by God. Let's kind of turn the tables and and make some suggestions about. Since we know what true faith rejects, and at the same time, obviously we know what it accepts. It accepts the word of God, even though the fulfillment is yet unseen. But let's look a little deeper into what it means to accept the word of God.
Let's ask the question: What does true faith accept? First of all, the Lord's plans. The Lord's plans. Back to verse twenty-three.
Some interesting things. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. It was after that period of time that they floated him down the river and then got him back and kept him for for years. His father's name was Amram, and his mother's name was Jocabed. A little bit of background: The Pharaoh had made a decree to kill these Hebrew boys, and they fearlessly hid the child, and they protected the child.
And the only thing he tells us about it is this: because they saw he was a beautiful child. You say, "Well, that's that's every parent's thought. Everybody thinks nobody's got an ugly child. Everybody's child's the most beautiful, most intelligent." What is this?
Well, the word "beautiful" is a very, very interesting word. In Exodus two two, it appears in in the record there. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. In Acts, it also Describes him in similar language as to what we would assume was his looks or his form, but certainly there's more here than than just that. He was a lovely child, it says in verse twenty of Acts seven.
This is Stephen, lovely in the sight of God.
Now that tells us a little more, doesn't it? Oh, so beautiful in Exodus, and even beautiful in Hebrew means lovely in the sight of God.
Now we're getting to something far more important. Literally, ice teos to theo, goodly unto God, fair unto God, beautiful unto God.
So it isn't just that his parents thought they had a cute baby and wanted to protect him because he was just such a cute baby. God had set his sights on this child. They knew this child was God's child; that he was fair in God's eyes. It was not their human attraction to his looks or form that caused them to hide the newborn. Of course, they loved him, but all other parents love their children.
Of course, they thought he was a beautiful child. All other parents think their children are beautiful, but this is a child who was special to God, fair to God. They knew that the child had a divine destiny. They trusted God then that they could protect that child and they could put that child in a basket and let that child go, and God would bring about the destiny that He had planned for that child.
So this is how faith acts, not just with Moses, but we back up to Amram and Jacobbed, and we learn that faith accepts the plan of God, or if you will, the promise of God, or if you will, the purpose of God. They were so confidence, or if you will, the providence of God. In the fact that God had a purpose for this life, that this little boy of all little boys was special to God, we don't know how they knew that, but certainly it had been declared to them and indicated to them. And so Moses' parents are models of faith. Who trusted the plan of God?
Do you think that after Pharaoh's daughter found the little baby and Miriam said, "By the way, if you'd like a Hebrew mother to nurse the baby, I know of a perfect one." And the baby went back to Jacobeth and stayed there for years and was developed. Don't you think that the responsibility of Moses was clarified to him in those years that his parents said, "You've been specially called by God," and so that by the time he went back to Pharaoh's court as a as a teenager, if so, or early before his teenage years, he had already known that God had a special plan. For him, this is maybe where the unfolding of that calling originally began, and maybe was reiterated to him as he grew through those forty years. And the whole time he was being exposed to the Egyptian wisdom, he never deviated from what he knew was his calling. And so his faith was like his parents', and that is what is behind the fact that he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He refused the prestige. He he refused the prominence. He refused the treasure, the power, the pleasure, the pressure. None of it had any effect on him because early on it was pretty clear to everybody in the family, conveyed to him, I'm sure, that he was special to God. He knew it.
He believed it, and he acted on it. Chapter two of Exodus, verse eleven. It came about in those days. That is when Moses reaches his forties. He had grown up.
He went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
So he looked this way and that, checking to make sure nobody's looking. And when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The Bible doesn't doesn't say this is the right thing to do. It's not the right thing to do. It's a sinful thing to do, but it does indicate that he was willing to make the choice to pay the consequences to be identified with his people.
He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other. And he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, "Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Uh oh!
Now he knows the words out. He was afraid and said, "Surely the matter has become known." But isn't it interesting that he went out the next day and he acted like he was in charge of people's behavior? Why? Why did he presume to do that? I think he'd been well informed of the plan.
He didn't know how the plan was going to unfold, and it unfolded the way God wanted it to unfold. The slaying of the Egyptian was an important turning point in his life. And the deed cannot be condoned, but it did express his deep and profound identification with the purpose of God and the people of God, and his total rejection of everything that Egypt had to offer. But even his own people rejected him because they were afraid that the Egyptians come and kill them all. He was forced to leave the land for forty years, live in the land of Midian.
While God shaped him into the leader He wanted him to be, and for those forty years, He knew He was Israel's deliverer. I'm confident of that. He bore the reproach of of an anointed one. He knew what He was to do, and when the time came, and He had been prepared by God, He waited forty years, and then went back, commissioned at a burning bush. Sent back, boldness personified walks into Pharaoh's presence, pronounces divine judgment on him, calls him to let the people of Israel go.
True faith accepts the Lord's plan. Secondly, it accepts the Lord's provision by faith. I love this. He kept what. The Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
The last plague was the angel of death is going to come and kill all the firstborn, unless the blood is splattered on the doorpost. And the little you can read about it: Exodus 11, Exodus 12. Moses did it because he knew that was God's provision for their deliverance. He didn't try to make it on his own. He didn't try to develop his own strategy.
He accepted God's provision. You will be spared if you do this. Took God at His word. He accepted the Lord's plans and the Lord's provisions and the Lord's promise by faith. Verse twenty nine.
He and all the people of Israel, as many as two million, passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land, and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. That is a stunning act of faith. It is really a stunning act of faith to stand there as you lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and to see. This massive body of water part, just leaving a pathway through the middle. The people felt trapped.
That's Exodus fourteen. People felt trapped. They're up against the sea. Pharaoh's breathing down on them. They're full of fear.
They look at the waters. The army coming behind. And Moses gives him a command. He says, "This stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah." That's a lot of faith. I mean, he was believing God for a massive miracle.
Now he had some experience with miracles, admittedly, right? In the plagues. But faith takes God's word, God's promise, and moves right into the fury.
So if you're waiting for a ferry boat, forget it. God's going to do something miraculous, and that's what He did. He split the Red Sea, and they all walked through on dry land. And when Pharaoh tried to follow, you know the story, right? His entire army was drowned.
Really, the story of Moses is not the story of law; it's the story of faith, isn't it? Amazing, amazing story of faith. Faith makes all the right choices. Father, thank you for giving us a really a bird's eye view, an overview of this. What a model of faith!
The faith that chooses to follow the plan that you've laid out, your purpose to see it unfold, the faith that is bold to move ahead in confidence of promise to be fulfilled, and we live in that faith, Lord. We we love the one we haven't seen. We have a hope for a heaven we've never seen. And an eternal reward that we've never seen, and fellowship with you, the unseen God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we love though we have not seen Him. We thank you for the gift of faith, and for giving us this kind of faith that says no to the passing world and yes to what is eternal.
We give you praise and gratitude in the name of Christ. Amen. You're listening to Grace to You with the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current series is titled "A Faith That Pleases God." Well, friend, with what John said today about the Lord's provision in mind, I have a letter here from a listener who told us how God provided him with hope and peace through Grace to You when he was in a remote and hostile location. Here is what Chuck told us.
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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast part of your day. Be back tomorrow as John MacArthur shows you how to avoid wasting your life. He'll do that by showing you two Old Testament saints who each exemplified a life well lived. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
