Now, we'll be in Hebrews again this morning.
Hebrews 11, 24 to 27.
By faith, Moses, when he was come to
years, refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with
the people of God than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the
reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures
in Egypt.
For he had respect unto the recompense of
the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the
wrath of the king.
For he endured, seeing him who is invisible.
Now, there in those four verses, there is
the story of what faith did to and
for Moses.
And I would take a pencil and underscore
the words to and for, because faith not
only does something for us, but faith does
something to us, if it's real faith.
Faith is not a passive, sit-down quality,
but as the old Lutherans said, faith is
a perturbing thing.
If you have faith, you're perturbed until your
faith finds its object in Jesus Christ, and
then comes peace.
But it's first greatly disturbing, though it is
also a glorious and saving thing.
It says, By faith Moses.
Now, Moses, you know, was an Israelite of
the covenant son of Abraham, indeed.
But here was his condition at the time
the story opens.
He was out of the land of promise.
God had given to Abraham what we now
call the Holy Land, and Moses was supposed
to be in the Holy Land where God
had told him, told Abraham, his father, ancestor,
that he would have him.
But Moses was out of that land, down
in Egypt, and he was disassociated from his
people, altogether disassociated.
He was down there, and they were somewhere
else, and it didn't look good.
He was in the court of Pharaoh, and
his people were out scattered throughout the land
of Goshen.
So he was disassociated from them, and out
of the land of promise, and apparently cut
off from the life of the blessed covenant
which God made with Abraham, and living among
the heathens, surrounded by false gods.
Now, I don't know where Moses got his
awakening, but it says, When Moses came of
age.
The day that Moses came of age mentally,
or spiritually, one day he became strangely troubled.
He had, as they say, a good thing
going.
He was supposed to be the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, and he enjoyed all of the
luxuries of the court.
I suppose that he was dandled on the
knee of many a king in potentate as
he grew up, and he had all the
royalty he could afford there in Egypt, one
of the greatest, if not the greatest country
in the world at that time.
And he could have taken things for granted
and grown old and fat and finally died
in Egypt, still the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
But he came of age, he came spiritually
awake one day.
I don't know how it happened, it doesn't
tell us here.
But it started, I suppose, almost unperceived by
him, and then it grew and it deepened
until finally he kept saying to himself, What
am I doing luxuriating in the court of
a heathen emperor when I belong with my
own people because I'm a Jew?
I don't know who told him he was
a Jew.
Maybe his mother slipped the word to him
when he got old enough to be able
to understand it.
I do not know, I say, and since
I don't know, there wouldn't seem to be
any reason for my guessing about it.
But he awoke to the fact that he
wasn't where he belonged.
It was a great awakening for the man
Moses.
A vague but real hunger came to the
man, and I like to say to you
that it's a great hour for any man
when he has a spiritual awakening.
Now here's something we ought to take into
account.
The vast multitudes of people that go and
come and build and plant and reap and
sow and marry and give in marriage and
travel and work and sleep and play and
eat and laugh and swear and do all
things that human beings do, most of them
have never had any awakening at all.
You ought to remember that.
Most of them have never been awakened by
any inward voice.
They are simply as Adam created them, only
a little bit worse.
Or God made them, I suppose, but they
came through Adam anyhow, descended from Adam.
And they are about the way they were,
with a little education rubbed on for a
veneer.
But there has been no spiritual awakening, and
this man Moses had such a spiritual awakening.
He came to knowledge of who he was,
and before that he had just gone along
with things.
He had accepted everything that was as what
should be.
It was perfectly all right, and so he
went along with it.
But now suddenly it came to him what
he could be and what he was not
and what he was that he should not
be, and I say that's a holy day
in any man's life, to see through the
pretenses of the world.
For the world runs a confidence game, don't
forget it.
The world out there is running a confidence
game, fleecing and skinning and cheating and duping
and damning, finally.
And most people never see it at all.
They are taken in by it just as
innocently as a lamb is led to the
slaughter.
And some few people, by the grace of
God, come awake, they come of age, and
they get sick of their own sins.
Many people are saved on a moral rebound.
One of the pleasures I had when I
was in Ottawa was meeting a man.
He was a Hollander, born in Holland, born
in the lowland of Holland.
And he was 27 years old now.
He came to Canada when he was 14.
That makes 13 years he spent in Canada.
And according to his own testimony, he spent
a good many of them in Canadian jails.
He is 6 foot 5 inches tall and
weighs 280 pounds.
And one time some people got to praying
with him and reading the scripture with him
in one of the Canadian jails, where he
kept shuttling in and out, you know.
They'd throw him out and then he'd do
something and throw him back in.
He knew he was wrong.
But I met this big tall fellow, and
he came to my room and we had
talk and prayer together.
It was worth going to Ottawa to get
to see this great big handsome Dutchman who
speaks English without a trace of an accent,
good English, after only 13 years in Canada.
And now he'd been converted, marvelously, wonderfully converted.
He'd been a wrestler in the ring.
I told him I'd hate to have him
get a hammerlock on me.
Just blowing on me would be enough for
me.
Just looking at me real hard, I'd collapse,
a fellow that size.
But here he was.
And when he got converted, it wasn't just
one of those easy oozing into the kingdom.
He came in, all 280 pounds of him,
with all he had, and now he's a
happy Christian, going to Bible school with his
wife, planning to become a preacher.
I gave him some good advice and recommendation
about books and a few other things, and
we had a nice time together.
Well, you see, what I'm trying to say
here is, this boy was converted by a
moral revulsion.
That is, he got sick of himself.
There was a moral rebound.
He told about coming in Christmas, mind you.
His father was a minister, and he was
out drinking.
Coming in on Christmas Eve and falling dead
drunk under the Christmas tree.
Can you imagine a poor preacher with a
son like that?
Well, after the Holy Ghost enlightened him and
he came of age, he got sick of
that.
And sometimes people are better because of the
distance they've gone into sin.
It's like a rubber band.
The further you stretch it, the faster it'll
come back, and the further it'll go the
other direction.
And he had been so bad that when
he was converted, the rebound was the bounce
he came back with, led him far, far
out into the kingdom of God.
And after only three years a Christian, it's
amazing what penetration he has and what spiritual
insight.
I expect the world to hear from that
young man, for he stands up tall and
speaks beautifully.
I believe he'll be a great preacher.
But he was saved on a moral rebound.
Some people are so nice, they just never
feel the need of being converted.
The Canadian people are unusually courteous people.
I think I never was treated except here
with such utter kindness and courtesy as with
those Gideons in Ottawa.
I didn't deserve all that.
But you know, you can be so nice
that you either never get converted, or if
you do, it never takes much.
It just doesn't do much for you.
You take anybody that knows his sin and
sickens himself with his sin, when he gets
converted, the rebound is likely to take him
way out far beyond the border.
That's what happened to Moses.
He got sick of himself.
He said, Here I am, here I am,
living on the fat of the greatest land
in the world and going on false pretense,
claiming to be an Egyptian when I'm actually
a Jew, and trying to act like the
daughter of a queen when actually I'm no
prince, I'm just a Jew from the loins
of Abraham, and everything wrong and mixed up.
He came of age, thank God for that.
And I suppose he began to hate the
world and hate Egypt and hate that court
with its cheap humor and its hollow pretense
and its lying promises.
And he said to himself, I believe there's
more hope in God than in the God
of my father Abraham than there is here
in the court of Pharaoh.
So he refused any longer.
He came to a day and he marked
it on the calendar and he put an
X there and he says, Today I stop
pretending.
Today I'm no longer from here on going
to pretend I'm something I'm not.
Today I say goodbye to the court of
Pharaoh.
Now, Pharaoh's daughter was his supposed mother and
she would have been the only mother he
had.
And I'm quite sure it wasn't easy for
him to leave her.
I'm quite certain it was hard to leave
his friends there because he had friends and
he owed to Pharaoh and his people a
great deal.
And it was rather hard to walk out
on them.
But there comes a time when you're either
going to walk out on some people or
you're going to perish.
It's one or the other.
And this man refused any longer to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He was caught in the meshes of the
world and the only way he could get
out was by a determined rebellion.
The only people that get to heaven are
conquered rebels.
That's all.
The only ones that make it are conquered
rebels.
They're people that have rebelled against their sin
and rebelled against the world and the flesh
and the devil and have rebelled against Pharaoh's
court and all the pleasures of sin.
But when they go to God, then they're
conquered.
Their rebellion is over with.
Their rebellion is not against God.
It had been against God, but now it's
against the enemy and against the sin and
the world.
I don't like to see a person converted
too easily.
I've said that before and I'll repeat it
now.
A man that can be converted too easily
can be unconverted rather easily.
But a tough customer who comes hard, when
he gets converted, usually that's it for the
rest of his life.
Paul was tough.
When he got converted, he never even looked
back once.
He went right on.
So Pharaoh's grandson, supposedly Moses, was suddenly converted,
and he said, I will no longer be
a slave to the devil, and I will
no longer be a victim of sin, and
I will no longer let the world victimize
me, and I will no longer bow down
to the world, so I'll say goodbye to
mother.
And if Pharaoh's daughter was still alive, as
she probably was, he had to go and
bid goodbye to his mother.
And I'm sure she didn't understand, and I
can picture a crying scene in which she
said, haven't we done all for you, everything
for you that possibly could?
What could you have?
You're dressed in the finest of silks.
What could we do more for you?
And he would have had to say, mother,
I know.
And I don't want you to think I'm
ungrateful, but I have other blood in my
veins, and I am not an Egyptian, and
I claim my share of the covenant with
my father, Abraham, and if I stay with
you, I have to give up the covenant,
and I won't give it up, mother.
I think that he probably kissed and hugged
his old mother goodbye and then walked out
and never went back until God sent him
back to deliver Israel.
Later, when God sent him back, he knew
all about it, knew what to do, knew
what door to enter, knew where to find
the old king, and knew everything, because he'd
grown up there and had run around there
when he was a lad.
He was the right man.
God certainly picked the right man to send
back and say to Pharaoh, let my people
go.
Nobody else could have done it as well
as the boy who was brought up there,
and then recognized as soon as they saw
him coming that here's that boy.
He's older now, but here he is.
He knew the place.
He said goodbye to his mother, and he
chose.
Now, this is one of the big pivotal
words in religious life.
He chose, and this was his triumph.
He chose and not only renounced, but he
chose.
Let's not be too negative about it.
There must be a renunciation, but that's always
a negative thing.
You're not saved by what you renounce, you're
saved by what you embrace.
And so he not only renounced, but he
embraced.
He chose the Jesus Christ as he understood
it, of course, looking forward, looking ahead as
Abraham had to the day of Christ.
He chose the covenant.
He chose redemption.
He chose it.
He chose to go along with the people
of the covenant.
He chose to pray whatever it cost him,
and he chose to suffer affliction with the
people of God rather than endure the pleasures
of sin for a season.
I want you to notice that it says
the pleasures of sin.
We usually make sin out to be a
great burden on us, but sin is often
a very pleasurable thing, I tell you.
That's why it can become so very dangerous.
But he chose the pleasures of the kingdom
rather than the pleasures of sin.
The affliction of the kingdom, he chose it
over the pleasures of sin.
Esteeming what did he esteem?
Ah, he esteemed the riches of Christ, the
reproaches of Christ, greater riches than the treasures
of Egypt.
And God said to him, Moses, if you
stay in Egypt, you'll be rich, you'll have
treasures here.
And if you come with me, you'll have
reproach.
Which will it be, reproach with me or
treasures with Pharaoh?
And Moses said, O God, as the son
of Abraham, I choose reproach with the people
of God.
And so he united himself with the people
of God and identified himself with them rather
than to continue with the pleasures of sin.
And he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath
of the king.
That little phrase thrown in there seems to
indicate that when the king heard he was
gone, he raised heaven and earth.
He was trying hard to get him back,
but it didn't work, because this man was
esteeming.
That is, he set certain values.
You're going to have to do that, men
and women.
You're going to have to set certain values
on things, or values on certain things.
You're going to have to say, now, is
this worth its cost to me?
Is this worth the trouble?
When you go shopping for something, you say,
if it's just a trifle, it wouldn't count.
But if it's anything that costs a serious
amount of money, you do some esteeming and
you don't grab the first thing and run.
You set values and you say, can I
afford this?
Well, I think maybe I can afford this,
but I can't afford this.
You're values on things.
And Moses, the man of God, had to
do that.
And there were some valuable things around there,
don't you think there was?
Imagine his lying down at his ease, taking
his son in a barge on the river
Nile, while some slaves paddled him up and
down, another slave rubbed him with oil, and
another one powdered him.
You know, it was something.
That was the son of a king.
They had that.
That's the way they lived in those oriental
courts, I'm telling you.
When he got tired of being powdered and
oiled and rubbed, and floating around on the
Nile River while he got on a horse
or something and had himself a gallop, he
was just a playboy.
And that was valuable to anybody that wants
to live there.
So he had to decide, now, Moses, make
up your mind.
Is this the way you want to live,
or do you hear a voice calling you?
And he said, I hear a voice, God.
The voice, it's thy voice.
It's the voice of Abraham's covenant and the
voice of Isaac and Jacob, the voice of
my people.
I'm a Jew, and I have a covenant
claim, and I'm wasting it all down here.
All right, God said, now make up your
mind.
Is it loaf around and play and be
at your ease with everybody bowing to you,
or is it joining my people, a minority
group, where you will be reproached for your
faith?
And I don't think Moses made up his
mind in five minutes on that.
I think he might have said, God, give
me a day to think it over.
Maybe give me a week to think it
over.
And it grew on him as he thought
about it, and he placed his value.
There was a day when he said, I
can't afford to bear reproach.
And then when he got straightened out, he
said, I cannot afford not to bear reproach.
And then there was a day when he
said, I can't afford to leave Egypt.
And then there came a change, and there
came a day when he said, I cannot
afford to stay in Egypt.
You see, his values have changed.
So now he goes out and leaves the
place of pleasure for the place of reproach.
But wonderful paradox, he finds the reproach more
pleasurable than the pleasure had been before.
And that's always the way with Christians.
I think there are hundreds of thousands of
people everywhere that won't become Christians because they
fear reproach.
The Bible hasn't anything sympathetic to say about
them.
It says that the fearful shall have their
part in the lake that burns with fire
and brimstone.
And the man that is afraid to follow
the Lord because he's afraid of reproach, he'll
suffer loss.
God can't possibly do anything for him.
But the man who will follow Christ, regardless
of the reproach, he'll be saved.
So it says he forsook.
There's no salvation without abandonment, though the abandonment
is not the salvation, as I've explained.
There's no salvation without renunciation, but the renunciation
is not the salvation.
The forsaking, the abandoning, the renunciation, they are
necessary before we can turn to the Lord.
It seems like a reasonable thing, a sinking
ship.
Nobody stays on a sinking ship.
When it's obvious it's going down, falling plane.
The boys of the RCAF, when one of
their planes goes bad on them up there,
they don't stay and ride it to their
death.
They're taught not to do it.
They're taught, jump out, pull your string and
come floating down and what, another day and
try it again.
But the only way to be saved from
a falling plane is to get a parachute
open.
The only way to be saved from a
burning house is to get up and get
out of it.
So he forsook, and he endured.
He endured to seeing him who was invisible.
No Christians are odd people.
They see things that can't be seen and
hear things that can't be heard and talk
to people, to a person that's invisible.
They're strange people.
And that's why we suffer reproach.
They say, well, they're odd.
They're too religious.
Say, you're fanatic.
You just go to church once a week.
Nobody thinks anything about it.
You're a good citizen.
But take yourself seriously, and they'll say you
ought to see a doctor.
One of my little side bits of fun
is to read Dear Abby in the paper.
Somebody wrote to Dear Abby here the other
day and said, Dear Abby.
Incidentally, they're Chicago people, those two girls, Ann
Landers and Abigail are sisters from Chicago.
I didn't know them there, but I like
to read their stuff.
One of them wrote and said, Dear Abby,
my mother has had something happen to her.
She was a good, sensible woman up to
recently, and now she wants to read her
Bible all the time, and she wants to
go to church all the time.
What's the matter with her?
She reads her Bible and marks it, she
said, and goes to church.
Do you think I ought to take her
to a doctor?
Do you know Abby's reply?
Yes, take her to a doctor as soon
as you can.
Now, she meant that.
Somebody had gotten converted and loved her Bible
and took a pencil out and marked on
the promises, and she said, get her to
a doctor.
Well, God bless Abby.
She gives some pretty good advice, but she
doesn't know it all, and she sure missed
that one.
That's what happened to me, and I didn't
go to a doctor.
I started reading my Bible and marking it
and going to church and not wanting to
go anywhere else, and I never was blamed
for being anything but sane.
Nobody ever said that I'd lost my mind.
Abby didn't know me in those days.
But now I say to you that you've
got to endure seeing him who is invisible.
There are days, there are times when not
even your friends round about you can be
trusted.
Now, not that they're false, but that you
don't know who quite to believe.
So you do what my good big friend.
Coincidentally, that big man I told you about
has a name, John Baptist.
John Baptist, my big friend is my new
made friend.
He told me about a situation that was
developing in the church where I used to
belong.
I wanted to know what he should do.
That's why I wanted to see me.
And he said to me, looking me in
the eye, he said, I'm not going to
allow those people to tear me down.
I said, brother, you said the wisest thing
I've heard for a long time.
Don't you let anybody tear you down.
You don't pay any attention to what other
people do.
See him who is invisible.
Keep your eye on God and his son,
Jesus Christ, and you'll come out all right.
But if you start saying, I don't see
how sister so-and-so can do what
she does and be a Christian.
I don't see how brother so-and-so
can act the way he does and be
a Christian.
Well, there's a lot of them I don't
either.
But on the other hand, they're not going
to cause me to stumble because I am
not converted by looking to my brother or
my sister.
I'm converted in order that I may look
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my
faith, and he'll never disappoint you.
There'll never be a day when you will
say, I don't see how the Lord does
this.
You will always say true and righteous are
his judgments and his ways, beautiful beyond finding
out.
So let's endure as seeing him who is
invisible.
And like Moses, we'll come out all right.
And the glory of God will be our
reward.
Amen.