Thank you for joining me today in our study of this great epistle, or better put “sermon of exhortation,” which we call Hebrews. We started last week discussing Moses as an exemplar of faith. In particular, we looked at Hebrews 11:23 which spoke of the faith of Moses’ parents.
Today we will begin looking at Moses’ own faith in Hebrews 11:24-28.
24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.
Moses expressed faith in a greater reward, which allowed him to turn his back on the privileges of being high up in Egyptian society (“called the son of Pharoah’s daughter”) and choosing to eschew the “fleeting pleasures of sin.” Why? Because he was “looking to the reward.” Moses willingly chose mistreatment and the reproach of Christ because he wanted to, because he longed for the reward that was “greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.”
Faith is what allowed him to do that. Faith allowed him to see something that was invisible, to long for something that was yet future (cf. Heb. 11:1). His faith in something better and more lasting caused his heart to long for that rather than the pleasures of this life.
What about you? Do you say “no” to sin because you fear the consequences, or because you feel external pressures from family or religious associations? Or do you gladly say “no” to sin because you long to be holy, because you value it as better and greater than the pleasures of sin?
Years ago, and then again just recently, I read this illustration in Sam Storms’ book Pleasures Evermore. What Sam was doing was illustrating the difference between saying “no” to sin because we have to and saying “no” to sin because we want to. Or, another way of saying it is saying “no” to sin because of external restraints and saying “no” to sin because our heart is captivated by something better, what Scottish pastor Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection,” a higher and better desire.
He illustrates with two stories from Greek mythology. Don’t let that put you off, because the principle is actually quite biblical.
The story concerns two men. The first is Odysseus, also known as Ulysses. Ulysses was a devoted husband to his wife, Penelope, adored his son, and agonized at leaving his home of Ithaca. But he was also a Greek, and duty called.
Paris, the prince of Troy, had stolen away Helen, the woman “whose face launched a thousand ships.” She was the wife of Menelaus, the King of Greece. He, together with his brother Agamemnon, Ulysses, and a mighty Greek army undertook the daunting task of recapturing her and restoring dignity to their beloved land.
To make a long story short, hidden in the belly of a huge Trojan horse, Ulysses and his men gained access to the city, slaughtered its inhabitants, and rescued the captive Helen. But the return voyage to Ithaca, which lasted nearly a decade, would prove to be far more challenging.
People are intrigued by Ulysses’ encounter with the witch Circe and his careful navigation between the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis. And who can forget his blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, god of the seas?
My fascination, however, has always been with the infamous Sirens. The Sirens were, for lack of a better way of describing them, demonic cannibals who disguised themselves as beautiful women. Countless were the unwitting sailors who, on passing by their island, succumbed to the outward beauty of the Sirens and their seductively irresistible songs. Once lured close to shore, their boats crashed on the hidden rocks lurking beneath the surface of the sea. The Sirens wasted little time in savagely consuming their flesh.
Ulysses had been repeatedly warned about the Sirens and their lethal hypocrisy. Upon reaching their island, he ordered his crew to put wax in their ears lest they be lured to their ultimate demise. He commanded them to look neither to the left nor right but to row for their very lives. Ulysses had other plans for himself. He instructed his men to strap him to the mast of the ship, leaving his ears unplugged. “I want to hear their song. No matter what I say or do, don’t untie me until we are safely at a distance from the island.”
The songs of the Sirens were more than Ulysses’ otherwise strong will could resist. He was utterly seduced by their sound and mesmerized by the promise of immediate gratification. One Siren even took on the form of Penelope, Ulysses’ wife, seeking to lure him closer on the delusion that he had finally arrived home. Were it not for the ropes that held him tightly to the mast, Ulysses would have succumbed to their invitation. Although his hands were restrained, his heart was captivated by their beauty. Although his soul said “Yes”, the ropes prevented his indulgence. His “No” was not the fruit of a spontaneous revulsion but the product of an external shackle.
Ulysses’ encounter with the Sirens, together with his strategy for resisting their appeal, is all too similar to the way many Christians try to live as followers of Jesus Christ. Like him, their hearts pant for what Hebrews 11:25 refers to as “the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Their wills are no match for the magnetic power of sensual indulgence. Although they understand what is at stake, they struggle through life saying No to sin, not because their souls are ill-disposed to evil but because their hands have been shackled by the laws and rules imposed by an oppressive religious atmosphere. It is the extra-biblical taboo that comes thundering from a legalistic pulpit or a long-standing denominational prohibition that accounts for their external complicity. Their obedience is not the glad product of a transformed nature but a reluctant conformity born of fear and shame.
I have no desire to live that way. Neither do you, I suspect. So, is your “obedience” the expression of your deepest heart-felt joy? Is it the product of a passion that spontaneously and urgently springs from the depths of your being? Or are you firmly bound to the mast of religious expectations, all the while yearning for the opposite of what you actually do? What is the most effective scheme for confronting the sinful sounds of Sirens?
Jason, like Ulysses, was himself a character of ancient mythology, perhaps best known for his pursuit of the famous Golden Fleece. Again, like Ulysses, he faced the temptation posed by the seductive sounds of the Sirens. But his solution was of a different sort. Jason brought with him on the treacherous journey a man named Orpheus, the son of Oeager. Orpheus was a musician of incomparable talent, especially on the lyre and flute. When his music filled the air it had an enchanting effect on all who heard. There was not a lovelier or more melodious sound in all the ancient world.
When it came time, Jason declined to plug the ears of his crew. Neither did he strap himself to the mast to restrain his otherwise lustful yearning for whatever pleasures the Sirens might offer. But this was not the reckless decision of an arrogant heart. Jason had no illusions about the strength of his will or his capacity to be deceived. He was no less determined than Ulysses to resist the temptations of the Sirens. But he chose a different strategy.
He ordered Orpheus to play his most beautiful and alluring songs. The Sirens didn’t stand a chance! Notwithstanding their collective allure, Jason and his men paid no heed to the Sirens. They were not in the least inclined to succumb. Why? Was it that the Sirens had ceased to sing? Was it that they had lost their capacity to entice the human heart? Not at all.
Jason and his men said No because they were captivated by a transcendent sound. The music of Orpheus was of an altogether different and exalted nature. Jason and his men said No to the sounds of the Sirens because they had heard something far more sublime. They had tasted something far sweeter. They had encountered something far more noble.
Here’s my point. Ulysses may have survived the sounds of Sirens. But only Jason triumphed over them. Yes, both men “obeyed” (in a manner of speaking). Neither succumbed. Neither indulged his desires. Both men escaped the danger at hand. But only one was changed.
The vice-grip the pleasure of sin exerts on the human soul will be broken only by trusting God’s promise of superior pleasure in knowing Jesus. The only way to conquer one pleasure is with another, greater and more pleasing pleasure. Whether it’s the sound of Sirens in ancient mythology or the all-too-real appeal of contemporary society, the principle is the same. Our only hope is in maximizing our pleasure in God.
These are the options. Like Ulysses, you can continue to fight against the restrictive influence of religious ropes and the binding power of fear, reprisal, and guilt, while your heart persists in yearning for what your hand is denied, or, like Jason, you can shout a spontaneous and heartfelt “No!” to the sounds of Sirens because you’ve heard a sweeter sound! Either you devote your time and energy to demonstrate the ugliness and futility of sin and the world, hoping that such will enable your heart to say No to it as unworthy of your affection, or you demonstrate the beauty and splendor of all that God is for you in Jesus and become happily and joyfully enticed by a rival affection.
So let’s examine how Moses came to make this decision, to say “no” because he could see greater joy and happiness and satisfaction and contentment, even pleasure and treasure, in God’s will and ways, than in the treasures and pleasures of Egypt.
Between verse 23, which speaks of Moses’ birth and his parents’ faith, and verses 24-26, which presents Moses as an adult making a choice to identify with his Jewish ethnicity, forty years have elapsed.
His identification began with a negative choice: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (v. 24). First, Moses said “no” to being called “the son of Pharoah’s daughter.” He had a choice and he could have said “yes” to what was a great privilege and something he had been immersed in for 40 years.
Moses was known by the royal designation “son of Pharaoh’s daughter”—a title of self-conscious dignity that is emphasized here in the Greek by the absence of definite articles. A modern equivalent might be Duke of York.
To be such during Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty would have meant immense prestige and wealth. Any pleasure that the oriental or occidental mind could conceive of was his for the asking. Like being a sports celebrity today, this could be intoxicating. A man could have anything, or anyone, he asked for.
Such privilege and prestige could be delusional, as Boris Pasternak observed of the Russian aristocracy in Dr. Zhivago when the doctor remarked that wealth “could itself create an illusion of genuine character and originality.”
But Moses suffered no such delusions. Fortunately, although the “son of Pharoah’s daughter,” he had been raised by a godly Jewish mother and had learned the stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. He had heard about their faith and the courageous decisions they had made. Now he was an adult and it was time to define himself.
So Moses publicly refused the title, which would be a grievous affront and insult to Pharoah. Kent Hughes says, “True faith will announce its discord whenever God and conscience call for it. Believers can love their culture, and there is much to love in most cultures, but they will refuse to be identified with the godless zeitgeist or spirit of the age.”
The “world,” in Scripture, is one of our three adversaries, along with our own flesh and the devil himself. Of course, we acknowledge that this world was originally created “very good,” but since the Fall creation has been infected with pride, lust, and all manner of ungodliness. The world’s fallen systems have no love for God and in many cases will be decidedly anti-God.
The apostle John told his disciples at Ephesus:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world–the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions–is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
And James writes in his epistle, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
John MacArthur, in his commentary on Ephesians, writes:
[The “world” is the system] which men are in basic agreement about what is right and wrong, valuable and worthless, important and unimportant. Sinful men have many different ideas and standards, but they are in total agreement that the network of things in this world is more important than the divine perspective of God. In this most basic world outlook they are of one mind. They resolutely work to fulfill the goals and values of their system, though it defies God and always self-destructs. Sinners are persistent in their rejection, and the worse their system becomes, the more they try to justify it and condemn those who speak the Word of God against it.
And pastor Randy Smith says…
The world is the system of every age, the philosophy that opposes the things of God. The world is forever brainwashing, seeking to squeeze people into their mold. If the Bible calls for something, most often the world will be against it. The world will persecute people that oppose its standard. Nobody opposes the world more than Jesus. In biblical times confessing Jesus would put you out of the synagogue. Now confessing Jesus will put you out of the good graces of politics, Hollywood, the press, academia and personal acquaintances.
This almost unconscious, inexorable pull away from God was present in Egypt’s culture as it is in ours today, and as Christ followers we have to be aware of it and fight against it. Moses showed faith when he let God chart his destiny instead of allowing the values of Egypt or raw ambition for Egypt’s values to do it.
And that choice came freely from an imagination, and then a heart, that was captured by a greater vision, a more beautiful song, a more appealing story. That motivated Moses’ heart to choose another course of action rather than going with the flow of culture and “enjoying” the pleasures and treasures of Egypt.
Moses “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” so that he could say “yes” to something better and more satisfying. Just like Jesus told his disciples that they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27). We say “no” to ourselves so that we can say “yes” to Jesus Christ and follow Him.
Moses decision to renounce his relationship to Pharaoh’s daughter was the turning of his back on immeasurable wealth, unending pleasures, and unspeakable power and glory. Who would do that?
Only those who by faith grasp that greater treasures and pleasures, even more abundant power and glory, are available to those who choose Christ. The only way to liberate the heart from servitude to the allure of this world and the passing pleasure of sin is by cultivating a passion for the joy and delight of beholding the beauty of Jesus.
Try to imagine the kind of life that is available to the billionaires of the day and the world leaders of the day. That is what Moses gave up. He surrendered all that pleasure and treasure and power and glory only because he considered “the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Heb. 11:26).
And I hope you will too.
Grace Still Amazes 