exodus – Grace Still Amazes

Faith for the Impossible, the Irrational and the Immoral, part 1 (Hebrews 11:29-31)

John Gardner once wrote: “We are faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” Have you ever felt like you’re in an impossible situation, with no solution in sight? Now, that word “opportunity” is definitely not my favorite word to use to describe a challenge.

Our text over the next few lessons comes from Hebrews 11:29-31, with one verse focusing on the Exodus and the other two verses focusing on the battle of Jericho. Each of them presents a “disguised opportunity” which seemed almost impossible, yet they were opportunities to trust God and watch Him do wonderful things.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jim Cymbala, pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle and author of several books, leads a prayer meeting with several thousand people on Tuesday nights, and he said in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, “I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.”

I hope that you have that desire as well. I hope you desire to see God “show himself mightily in your behalf,” to come through in an impossible situation. For that to happen, first you have to be in an “impossible” situation and second, you have to cry out to God for help and then believe that God will help you.

Listen to our author, in Hebrews 11:29-31…

29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. 31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Today we’re going to look at verse 29 and the exodus from Egypt. The children of Israel here in verse 29 face an impossible situation. Here, in Exodus 14, they had the Red Sea before them and the Egyptian army pursuing them. They were truly “between a rock and a hard place,” an impossible situation.

Faith Attempts the Impossible

Although Moses is the one leading the people, the emphasis of verse 29 is that it was the faith of the people that provided the reason for God parting the Red Sea and allowing Israel to pass through on dry land.

This may seem somewhat surprising given that the author of Hebrews has consistently viewed that generation of Israelites as “evil and unbelieving” (Heb. 3:8-12) and Paul says that “God was not pleased with most of them” and most of them died in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:2, 5).

But, we’ve already seen how generous God can be in describing even the best of the patriarchs as being people of faith, even though they didn’t always act that way. Perhaps the best way to interpret this is that “by faith” refers to a believing remnant and that faith is then generalized to refer to the whole nation—that is, the faith of a few is seen as characteristic of the whole nation. There is a similar situation in the New Testament when everyone on the ship with Paul was saved because of Paul’s faith, even though they did not believe God.

Israel is in an impossible situation, caused by their exodus from Egypt. Pharoah, despite having the nation and his own household devastated by the plagues, decided he didn’t really want to lose his workforce and so he took off after the Hebrews. Israel had been on their way out of Egypt when God told Moses, ““Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon” (Exod. 14:2). This would, according to verse 3, cause Pharoah to think that Israel was just wandering around confused…ripe pickings. Not only that, but God would once again harden Pharoah’s heart. Why? So that Yahweh can “gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” (Exod. 14:4). So Pharoah mobilized his army and “pursued the Israelites and overtook them” (Exod. 14:9). The Israelites “looked up,” saw the army and “were terrified” (v. 10) and then characteristically said, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?” (Exod. 14:11).

One of the things we will notice in both verses 29 and 30 of Hebrews 11 is that faith does not exempt us from going through trials and difficulties. Even though they idealized their past, in believing that Egypt had been “so great,” in reality it had been very difficult living.

Here they harp against Moses, but it was God who had led them there. So here they were, with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptians hotly pursuing them. It was an impossible situation and unless God intervened, they were doomed. Of course, this was God’s plan all along, to save them in such a dramatic and miraculous fashion that even the Egyptians would have to admit that Yahweh was the supreme God.

Israel needed to learn that salvation is completely from God, that salvation “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 8:3), which Jonah had to learn. He said, “What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD,’” (Jonah 3:9). There was absolutely nothing they could do to save themselves. There was no place to MacGyver the situation and make an escape. God led them into this desperate, impossible situation so that they would have to trust solely in him.

That is how God grows our faith today. Sure, we know in our heads that we need to trust Him totally, every moment, but we don’t believe it in practice until He throws us into the deep end, into situations where there is absolutely no way out unless God comes through for us.

God delights in turning our overwhelming impossibilities into exhibitions of His might. John Flavel once said, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” During the day of extremity, there is an opportunity for God to do what He does. To deliver. To save. To bring good out of bad and order out of chaos. Trials are like the gymnastic apparatus that makes the muscles of our faith grow stronger.

Here was a situation in which Israel’s enemy thought that they had an easy victory. But God did miraculously what was impossible. With God all things are possible. He piled the waters on either side, allowing Israel to walk through on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-22), then he allowed the Egyptians to confidently pursue them.

The Red Sea is also called the Sea of Reeds, and we are not sure of the exact location where the Israelites crossed, but it clearly took place at a point where there was plenty of water. I think it is humorous how some liberal scholars will say that the place where Israel crossed was just a few inches deep. Not only is that not the way the Bible describes it, but then you have to deal with a completely different miracle. How did God drown the entire Egyptian army in just a couple inches of water? You can’t have it both ways!

Surely the Egyptians should have noticed the trap! Water piled up in towering walls alongside them ain’t normal. But John Owens observes, “There is no such blinding, hardening lust in the minds or hearts of men, as hatred of the people of God and desire for their ruin.” The Egyptians abandoned all reason and rushed to their own destruction. And thus a helpless, defenseless, disorganized band of two million slaves were delivered from a powerful, well-equipped army. Nothing is too difficult for God Almighty!

The particular lesson of faith we learn from the crossing of the Red Sea is this: When you are trapped by impossible circumstances, trust in God’s miraculous deliverance. Don Moen wrote the song “God Will Make a Way.” In it he writes:

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

Now, come back to the reason that God delivered them. Our author says that it was “by faith.” But after expressing their desire to return to Egypt (Exod. 14:12), “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exod. 14:13-14).

Up to this point it was really Moses who, up to this point, had faith. They were full of fear. He comforts the people and then this eventuated in Moses’ preeminent display of faith when he stretched his hand out over the Red Sea, and the Lord drove back the waters with a strong east wind, and Israel passed through as on dry land (cf. Exodus 14:21, 22).

Both the book of Exodus in the Old Testament and the book of Hebrews in the New Testament stress the fact that the Israelites crossed over the Red Sea on dry ground. The Israelites did not have to swim or wade across. They didn’t even get their feet wet! God pushed the waters back, and the Israelites crossed over on dry ground. Now that is a miracle.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians followed them into the sea and immediately started experiencing problems. Their chariot wheels were jammed and they had difficulty steering their chariots. Then “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived” (Exodus 14:27-28).

The end result is that “That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant” (Exodus 14:30-31).

One man’s faith, which led to God’s action, resulted in the people “putting their trust in [the LORD]. What a sublime fact we have here! One man’s faith can be so authentic and effectual that it can elevate a whole people and secure their deliverance! In lesser ways we have seen this in the lives of such people as Martin Luther and John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. This truth holds great promise for us. Vibrant, authentic faith can elevate our families, churches, and communities. Because Moses believed, the Israelites believed.

Now, it’s important to understand that the way God opens up for you will still require faith on your part. Notice God did not just pick the Israelites up and deposit them safely on the other side of the Red Sea. Exodus 14:22 says, “and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

God created a passageway for them through the Red Sea, but they still had to walk through that passage believing that God would protect them. I would imagine it took tremendous faith for them to step onto the dry bed of the Red Sea with those walls of water towering above them on the right and on the left. Only God was holding those great walls of water back, and if He chose to let go at any moment, there was nothing anyone could do to stop that water from flooding back in.

When you are trapped by circumstances, God will make a way for you. But that way will still require faith on your part, again proven by obedient action. Sometimes the way God opens up for you involves making hard decisions or taking great risks in order to do that which is right. Sometimes it requires confession of sin, not only to God but to the person you sinned against. Sometimes it means letting go of some things that you hold dear in life. God never promises you an easy way, but he does promise to make a way if you will follow him in faith.

And most important of all, when you do follow God, God promises to go with you. You never walk the path of faith alone. When you go with God, God promises to walk with you every step of the way. God says this in Isaiah 43: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you” (Isa. 43:2). That is exactly what happened with these Israelites. The rest of the verse says, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze,” which happened to three Hebrew young men who trusted God and refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol.

Why does the LORD do this? Look at verses 3 and 4 of Isaiah 43: “For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.”

First, I am “your God” and “your Savior.” You belong to me as my people and as your God I will save you. He specifically says here. “I give Egypt for your ransom.” That was the redeeming price for saving Israel. Second, we see God’s affections. He is loyal because we belong to Him, but He is also affectionate towards us. He saves us because we are “precious and honored” and “because I love you.” Therefore, God will deliver them from other nations throughout their history.

Notice that what God did for Israel He did not do for the Egyptians. He saved Israel and destroyed the Egyptians, even though they also went into the Reed Sea. However, the difference, beside the fact that they were not God’s people, is that they didn’t enter the Reed Sea by faith, but by presumption. They just presumed that if Israel could do it, so could they.

But it is dangerous to presume upon God and faith is not like that. Faith is based upon God’s revealed promises. The Egyptians had no promises to go on. They acted on the presumption that nothing bad would happen to them. The Egyptians had as much (or more) courage than the Israelites, but they didn’t have the promises. So let’s not be like the Egyptians, presuming upon God when He has given us no assurance through revealed promises.

A. W. Pink notes: “”There are three degrees of faith. There is a faith which receives, when as empty-handed beggars we come to Christ and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour: John 1:12. There is also a faith which reckons, which counts upon God to fulfill His promises and undertake for us: 2 Tim. 1:12. There is also a faith which risks, which dares something for the Lord.”

None of these degrees of faith are effective and beneficial to us unless they are backed by God’s promises. We can receive nothing by faith unless God has promised to give us something. We cannot reckon on something being true unless God’s Word tells us so. And we dare not take dangerous risks unless God clearly tells us to do so.

The test of faith is trusting God when all we have are His promises. When the waters are piled high all around us and problems and dangers are about to overwhelm us, this is when faith is tested, and when the Lord takes special pleasure in showing us His faithfulness, His love, and His power. When we have nothing but His promise to rely on, His help is the nearest and His presence the dearest to those who believe. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 358)

So faith overcomes enormous obstacles, enduring by seeing the unseen God. “But,” you may be wondering, “what about Peter Cameron Scott and all of his fellow missionaries that died young while trying to take the gospel into Africa? Their faith did not deliver them!”

John G. Paton (1824-1907), who left his native Scotland to take the gospel to the cannibals of the New Hebrides Islands, answers that question well. As he was getting ready to leave, an elderly friend repeatedly sought to deter him. His crowning argument was always, “The Cannibals! You will be eaten by Cannibals!”

Paton finally replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is to be soon laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or worms. And in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer” (John G. Paton Autobiography [Banner of Truth], p. 56).

When Paton finally received his external call at age thirty-five and landed in the region in 1859, he was quickly “stunned by the dreadful loss” of his first wife, Mary Ann Robson, to fever (John Paton, John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography, ed. Rev. James Paton (Geanies House: Christian Focus Publications, Ltd., 2009, p. 60), Their newborn son, Peter, followed three weeks later. His ministry was undergirded by this reigning thought: “This is strength; — this is peace: — to feel, in entering on every day, that all its duties and trial have been committed to the Lord Jesus, — that, come what may, He will use us for His glory and our own real good!” (Ibid, p. 101).

Let’s join Paton and Scott and Moses as people of overcoming faith, who endure by seeing the unseen God!

Faith Values the Greater Reward from God, part 4 (Hebrews 11:27-28)

Today we will conclude our study of Moses as he is presented as a man of faith in Hebrews 11. We are picking up at vv. 27 and 28 today.

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.

Both of these verses remind us that Moses’ choices, at least in these cases, was driven by faith. Here the author explains that Moses’ another forty-year separation from Egypt in the land of Midian. Here again the author references the second half of his description of faith in verse 1: “Now faith is . . . the conviction of things not seen”— visual certitude.

Moses’ choice to side with the Israelites is explained for us in Exodus 2:11-15a:

11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian.

While it may seem that Moses left Egypt because Pharoah “sought to kill Moses” (Exod. 2:15), our text in Hebrews 11 said that he was “not being afraid of the anger of the king,” in other words, that was not the cause of his departure. The cause is that “he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Philip Edgecombe Hughes remarks, “… it was not personal fear of Pharaoh but the awareness of his destiny as the deliverer of the covenant people that caused him to take flight. Had he remained [in Egypt], at that juncture, this destiny would have been thwarted, humanly speaking, by his execution; and so, impelled by faith in the divine purpose for his life, Moses took refuge in Midian” (A Commentary …, p. 499. Cf. Dods, 4:361).

By the way, some believe that verse 27 is not referring to Moses’ first departure from Egypt, but the departure of the Exodus. If so, Moses’ boldness and courage was very pronounced in that case.

A. W. Pink observes, “Faith and fear are opposites, and yet, strange to say, they are often found dwelling within the same breast; but where one is dominant the other is dormant” (Exposition of Hebrews [Ephesians Four Group, CD, p. 804). Moses probably had some butterflies in his stomach as he prepared to go before Pharaoh. Martin Luther fought off anxiety at the Diet of Worms as he appealed to Scripture and said, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.” Faith in God enabled these men to obey Him and overcome any fear.

Whether or not it was the first departure or the second, the key to Moses’ response is that he “endured.” “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured – he persevered – as seeing Him who is unseen.” In other words, it wasn’t basically fear that caused Moses to leave Egypt, it was “endurance.” Endurance?

In what? Endurance implies a chosen path of difficulty that you are tempted to forsake but you hang in there and “endure.” What is the writer referring to when he says in verse 27 that Moses “left Egypt . . . for he endured . . .”? What path had Moses chosen that required endurance to stay on and even led him out of Egypt for 40 years before he came back to rescue his people?

The writer expresses the dangerous, painful path Moses had chosen in two ways: First (in verse 25) it is the choosing of ill-treatment with the people of God over the passing pleasures of sin. Second (in verse 26) it is the choosing of reproach for Christ (the Messiah) over the treasures of Egypt. Now don’t miss this! The choice was made before the threat of Pharaoh. The bridges had already been burned between Moses and Egypt. It had happened in his heart. Not yet geographically, but spiritually and morally he was gone already. Do you see that? (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/liberated-for-love-by-looking-to-the-reward)

Faith is a hunger for God that triumphs over our hunger for the pleasures of this world. And so faith unleashes radically God-centered, risk-taking, people-loving behavior.

The source of Moses’ courageous endurance was the fact that he was able to see “him who was invisible.” The paradoxical phrase “seeing him who is invisible” does not mean he saw God with the naked eye. Faith’s eye saw what the physical eye is incapable of seeing. But there did also come a time when God was so pleased with Moses’ spiritual vision that he graced him with physical vision of a part of God’s glory (cf. Exodus 33:18–23) and spoke to him face-to-face (cf. Exodus 33:9–11; Numbers 12:7, 8).

Kent Hughes argues that this is not extraordinary, but should be the normal experience of every believer. Elisha’s prayer is just as relevant today for the church as it was when he prayed it over his anxious servant: “Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).

David speaks of beholding God’s beauty in the temple (Psalm 27:4) and had beheld God’s “power and glory” in the sanctuary (Psalm 63:2). But what David saw and what we see is not visible with the naked eye, but rather with the eyes of our heart.

There are verses which say we cannot see God (1 Timothy 6:15-17, 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 John 4:12; Exodus 33:20; Deuteronomy 4:12), but other verses which say that we can, such as “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). We cannot see God physically, but we cannot even see God spiritually without divine intervention. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

This is what kept Moses from fearing the wrath of Pharoah, because he could see that God was with him. Like David in Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” When we know that God is with us and for us, we can have peace in the midst of the most difficult, even terrifying, circumstances.

William Lane points out that Moses’ “seeing” of God was not a one time event, but a constant, habitual practice: “The emphasis … falls not on endurance but on continually seeing, as it were, the unseen God … The reference is not to the awesome event at the burning bush … as if to say that Moses saw one who is invisible, but to a fixed habit of spiritual perception. … From the pastoral perspective of the writer, the firmly entrenched habit of Moses in keeping God continually in view establishes a standard for imitation by the community in its experience of fear and governmental oppression” (Hebrews 9—13, p. 376).

“Looking to the reward” in verse 26 corresponds to “seeing him who is unseen” in verse 27. He had, by faith, burned the bridges in his mind (by “the assurance of things hoped for”), and then, by faith, he burned them in his flight (by “the conviction of things unseen”).

Now remember, Moses left Egypt after having protected a fellow Israelite from an Egyptian taskmaster. I can imagine that in some sense he envisioned himself as a liberator, which God would eventually confirm. But this is not the time, and possibly not the way in which God wanted Moses to liberate Israel.

Maybe this let the air out of his balloon and he sulked a bit upon leaving Egypt. He may have thought of himself as a failure. If he had the gift of foresight, he could have realized that this was merely a speed bump in God’s plan for him, that there was more preparation to do on Mose’s character before God would use him mightily.

Doesn’t that seem to be the way when God wants to use a man mightily? Joseph, Moses, David, Paul all spent years waiting for God to promote them to their divinely appointed task. God uses everything we go through to teach us and equip us. Every humbling and exhausting experience either prepares us for the next humbling and exhausting experience or prepares us for a mountaintop experience where we appreciate God’s sovereignty in a whole new way.

The last of the ten plagues that secured Israel’s exodus from Egypt was the destruction of all the male firstborn of both man and beast (cf. Exodus 12:12). But God provided a way of escape for his people. God told them through Moses to slaughter a lamb, take some hyssop and dip it in the lamb’s blood, and daub the blood on the top and sides of the doorways of their homes. Homes so anointed would be under God’s protection, and the destroyer would not be permitted to enter (cf. Exodus 12:21–23). Thus, our text reads, “By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (11:28).

Moses had just endured the wrath of Pharoah by faith, now by faith he must lead the nation in escaping the wrath of God.

The point is that Moses and Israel so believed God that they obeyed God to the letter. As Raymond Brown notes:

The instructions were strange, the demands costly (a lamb without blemish) and the ritual unprecedented, but they did precisely as they were told. In simple faith they kept the Passover. They relied on the God who had spoken to them through his servant: “Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (Exodus 12:1–3, 28).

Obedience is an act of faith. Abel obeyed, Abraham obeyed, each of these men and women obeyed God because they trusted Him and His Word.

But what is even more remarkable is that the phrase “by faith he kept the Passover” actually means that he instituted the Passover (perfect tense). Moses actually instituted the Passover “as a statute forever” to be done year after year (Exodus 12:14)—which means that Moses never doubted in the least that the people would be delivered from Egypt! He had nothing to go on but God’s word, but he believed it implicitly. Moses’ strong faith liberated Israel!

Moses told Israel…

21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25 And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

Israel did not celebrate Passover every year, but Moses instituted it in faith that God would not only deliver their lives on that night, but also bring the nation out of enslavement to Egypt. Notice the emphasis in Exodus 12:28, “then the people of Israel went and did so; as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.” They obeyed God by faith, believing that they would be delivered from the destroying angel if they obeyed.

Those who did not believe, and therefore did not obey by applying the blood of the sacrificed lamb around the doorpost, would be destroyed. They did not trust in the blood of the sacrificed lamb. We read about that in Exodus 12:29-30, “At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”

Of course, this should remind us how important it is that we trust in the blood of the Lamb that was slain in our behalf on the cross. The New Testament is clear that Christ is our Passover Lamb who was slain (1 Cor. 5:7). John the Baptist proclaimed to his disciples, upon seeing Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Peter tells us “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:17-21) Only a Lamb without sin is able to take away our sin.

R. C. Sproul notes:

[Jesus] made satisfaction for our debt, our enmity with God, and our guilt. He satisfied the ransom demand for our release from captivity to sin. However, there is another significant word that is often used in descriptions of the atonement: substitution. When we look at the biblical depiction of sin as a crime, we see that Jesus acts as the Substitute, taking our place at the bar of God’s justice. For this reason, we sometimes speak of Jesus’ work on the cross as the substitutionary atonement of Christ, which means that when He offered an atonement, it was not to satisfy God’s justice for His own sins, but for the sins of others. He stepped into the role of the Substitute, representing His people. He didn’t lay down His life for Himself; He laid it down for His sheep. He is our ultimate Substitute.

The idea of being the Substitute in offering an atonement to satisfy the demands of God’s law for others was something Christ understood as His mission from the moment He entered this world and took upon Himself a human nature. He came from heaven as the gift of the Father for the express purpose of working out redemption as our Substitute, doing for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/jesus-our-substitute)

I want to close this lesson with a story about Adoniram Judson the very first American Protestant missionary to renounce and walk away from his life in America . . . he would give away everything to spend his life in the land of Burma, just north of Thailand. Before he embarked on his journey, he had fallen in love with wealthy young lady who also loved Christ, as did her parents. So he wrote a letter to her father, and this is what he said…

“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influences of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you – for the sake of perishing immortal souls – for the sake of heaven and the glory of God. Can you consent to all this, in the [promise of] meeting your daughter in the world of glory with a crown of righteousness, brightened by the acclamations of heathen now saved, through her means, who will there be praising her Savior? / Jesse Clement, The Life of Rev. Adoniram Judson (Reprints from the collection of the University of Michigan Library), p. 25.

That is the kind of faith that Moses expressed, and we can too!

Faith Values the Greater Reward from God, part 1 (Hebrews 11:23-28)

Stephen Davey opens our discussion of our next hero of faith, Moses, with this story:

In a recent publication I was given, I read the fascinating story of the history of the automotive industry and the personal fortunes that were won and lost in the early 1900’s.

One of the most interesting characters among them was an entrepreneur by the name of William Durant.

Billy Durant was the owner of a carriage business in the 1880’s and he built it by controlling everything that it took to put a buggy together. And that’s exactly what he did later with his engine-powered buggies – and a corporation he called General Motors.

In 1905, he rescued financially a car maker from bankruptcy by the name of David Buick.

Billy would form a partnership with Buick and together they would create an empire by buying out smaller car companies – also named after their founders; names like Ransom Olds – of the Oldsmobile; a man named Walter Chrysler.

Durant teamed up with a French auto maker named Louis Chevrolet. Then a French Canadian joined the group who’d named his company in honor of his ancestor’s last name – Cadillac; the same ancestor who founded the city of Detroit, Michigan in 1701.

At one point, Henry Ford agreed to sell his young automotive plant to Billy Durant, but Henry Ford refused stock options in General Motors and insisted on cash, instead. They finally agreed on a price, but Billy Durant missed the closing deadline and Henry Ford changed his mind – which, of course, changed the course of automotive history.

Over the next few decades, Durant and his partners made a fortune. In fact, I read that more than 70 men became millionaires by joining or supplying General Motors – and that was in the early 1990’s.

But Billy Durant would lose his fortune and regain it and then lose it again. His last attempt at car making ended in bankruptcy on the eve of the great depression (Adapted from Orrin Woodward, Resolved: 13 Resolutions for LIFE (Obstacles Press, 2011), p. 269).

In 1936, this ingenious creator of a billion dollar industry, was penniless, managing a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan. In fact, before he and his original partner, David Buick, died, they were both too poor to own one of the tens of thousands of automobiles they had actually created.

That’s what you call going from riches to rags.

Frankly, that fall from fame and riches to obscurity and rags is nothing compared to our next hero of faith.

And you’ll discover one of the key differences between Moses and Durant – and most everyone else – for that matter, will be the fact that Moses walked away from it all – willingly . . . in fact, he walked away, because of his faith.

What motivated Moses to do this? It was because he evaluated his options and decided to go with the rewards that God had promised, rewards which could not be seen, choosing pain over pleasure, eternal treasures over temporary gains. Moses believed that God’s reward was worth sacrificing for.

23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 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 was considered to be Israel’s most famous prophet (Deut. 34:10-12; Numbers 12:6-8) and when he talked with God, his face shone from the glory of God. Moses was the great lawgiver—bestowing on Israel the five books of the Pentateuch. Thus, he was also Israel’s greatest historian, grounding their history in the patriarchs going all the way back to creation. He was the greatest saint. When challenged by rebellious people, God recorded for all posteriority that Moses was the most humble man on earth (Numbers 12:3).

Thus, the book of Hebrews had already said of Moses that he “was faithful in all God’s house” (Heb. 3:2) and was “was faithful in all God’s house as a servant” (Heb. 3:5). Thus, Adolf Saphir says, “Of all the great men whom God raised up in Israel, there is none whom the nation regarded with a more profound veneration than Moses” (Saphir, The Epistle to the Hebrews: An Exposition, 2:620).

Significantly, in regard to Moses’ deliverance of Israel from Egypt, his liberating work was a huge act of faith from beginning to end. And this is what the author of Hebrews focuses on in verses 23–29 in the great Hall of Faith.

Our text tells us of two choices that were made that literally changed history. The first choice was relatively routine at the time. Two slaves in ancient Egypt chose to defy the king’s edict to kill all male Hebrew babies by hiding their son. That son turned out to be Moses, the great deliverer of his people.

The second choice was that of Moses himself, and it was more difficult. He chose to give up his position of influence and wealth in the Egyptian court in order to side with the enslaved people of God. Both choices were motivated by faith and their lessons have eternal consequences for us. Both choices teach that choosing eternal blessings often involves short-term pain and loss.

Here we have the anatomy of a faith that delivers others and sets them free. This insightful teaching had special relevance to the ancient church suffering in its own inhospitable “exile” in the Roman Empire. But it also shows us today that we are likely to face times when we have to give up present pleasures and treasures in order to gain what is truly lasting and genuinely best.

First, we see in this passage that the choice of Moses’ parents to obey God by faith resulted in short-term suffering, but also in eternal blessing (11:23). The initial faith we are shown is not Moses’ faith, but the heroic faith of his parents: “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (v. 23).

Both parents were from the tribe of Levi (cf. Exodus 2:1), and Exodus 6:20 tells us that their names were Amram and Jochebed and that they also later had another son—Aaron, who would be high priest. They also had a daughter—Miriam, the prophetess, who was their oldest child.

Amram and Jochebed were living in a very difficult time in Israel’s history. There had arisen a new king “who did not know Joseph” (Exod. 1:6) and fearing that Israel was growing rapidly and could become an internal rebellious enemy, began to make life hard on the Israelites. They were afflicted with “heavy burdens” (Exod. 1:11) in building cities and buildings, ostensibly to make them too exhausted to engage in normal sexual relations. But instead “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad” and so the Egyptians were filled with even more dread (Exod. 1:12). “So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service” (Exod. 1:13-14).

So the new king decided on Plan B—kill all newborn male children. So they instructed the Hebrew midwives “”When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live” (Exod. 1:16). Some believe, ironically, that Pharoah was asking these women to toss these newborn boys into the Nile to become crocodile food.

This is the difficult situation into which Moses was conceived (Exod. 2:1). Interestingly, Josephus says the pregnancy was accomplished by Amram’s obedience to a vision in which God told him he would have a son who would deliver his people. Says Josephus:

These things revealed to him in vision, Amram on awaking disclosed to Jochabel(e), his wife; and their fears were only the more intensified by the prediction in the dream. For it was not merely for a child that they were anxious, but for that high felicity for which he was destined.

Although Josephus’ writings are by no means inspired Scripture, was something like this what engendered faith in Amram and Jochebed?

However that may be, when baby Moses came, his parents’ faith was in full force: “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful.”

Does that sound odd to you, that this was the reason they believed God and acted to preserve their son’s life? Doesn’t every parent think their child is “beautiful”?

Obviously, there was something about him that was more than beautiful. Possibly there was something unique about his presence that confirmed God’s word. John Calvin wisely remarked:

It seems contrary to the nature of faith that he says that they were induced to do this by the beauty of his form. We know that Jesse was rebuked when he brought his sons to Samuel in the order of their physical excellence, and certainly God does not hold us to external appearances. I reply that the parents of Moses were not induced by his beauty to be touched with pity and save him as men are commonly affected, but there was some sort of mark of excellence to come, engraved on the boy which gave promise of something out of the ordinary for him.

Stephen (Acts 7:20) calls him “beautiful to God” (literal translation). John Calvin points out that since Scripture forbids us from making judgments based on external appearance, Moses’ parents must have seen something in this baby boy to make them hope that he would be the promised deliverer of his people (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Heb. 11:23, p. 292).

They saw something in the child. Maybe they could see destiny in this young child (like Mary did with Jesus), something extraordinary that sparked their faith, some indications that God had great things in store for this child.

A. W. Pink offers another alternative, since “faith comes by hearing.” He says, “Most probably the Lord made known to these parents that their child was to be the promised deliverer, and furnished them beforehand with a description of him.” Stephen seems to be saying (Acts 7:25) that Moses grew up seeing himself as Israel’s future deliverer.

By the way, notice that Amram and Jochebed regarded God’s will concerning the sanctity of life as more important than obedience to the state, when national law required disobeying God’s will (cf. Acts 4:19). God honored their faith.

So Moses was born, but the Hebrews midwives feared God and didn’t do as instructed. So chapter two opens with Jochebed, saying “The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months” (Exodus 2:2).

Now, we might ask ourselves, why did they do this if they were “not afraid of the king’s edict” (Heb. 11:23). Steve Cole reminds us “Faith is not opposed to using prudence. Trusting God does not mean taking reckless chances. While they did not fear the king’s edict in the sense that they defied it, they no doubt did fear not only for the life of their baby boy, but for all their lives. If Pharaoh’s guards had caught them, they would have executed the entire family for insubordination to the king. So their “by faith” choice to hide their son exposed the entire family to the risk of death” (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-40-faith%E2%80%99s-choice-hebrews-1123-26)

Imagine the tension. If you saw the movie Silence, where an alien creature could hear even the slightest of sounds and find you, you know the anxieties and terrors that must have seized their heart when their boy began to cry. Who knew if state police were not out on patrol?

She cannot hide him long at home, so “she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank” (Exod. 2:3). Miriam kept watch among the bullrushes.

In God’s providence Pharoah’s daughter came down to the river and was bathing. There she spied the basket with Moses in it. She saw that it was “one of the Hebrews’ children” (Exod. 2:6) but took pity on him. Miriam offered herself and her mother to look after the baby. So Jochebed got her son back and nursed him.

The end result is found in Exodus 2:10: “When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, ‘Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.’”

So Moses was preserved by his parents’ heroic faith. But there is more, for he was also nurtured by their faith. There in the slave hut of his parents Moses was surrounded by the pure atmosphere of faith. There he became aware of his own origins. There he was taught to fear God. And there he was made conscious of his call to deliver his people. Stephen informs us in his great sermon (Acts 7:25) that when Moses made his first attempt to defend his people, “[Moses] supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand.”

So Moses’ parents obeyed God by faith, believing that preserving Moses’ life was necessary not only for their sakes, but for the sake of the nation. Moses would grow up to be the greatest leader in Israel’s history, to be their deliverer from enslavement to Egypt. He would author the first five books of the Bible, foundational books for the Jewish people. The seemingly small choice to save this one little life had huge consequences for world history! We may never know what eternal blessings will flow from our choice to obey God by faith.

R. Kent Hughes applies this to our lives today. He writes:

What encouragement there is here for any who are attempting to try to raise a godly family in today’s secular desert. Moses was preserved by his parents’ faith. Their faith, their prayers, their bravery, and their creativity saved him. And more, he became a great man of faith through their faith. His experience was exactly that of the preacher who gave his mother the tribute, “My mother practices what I preach!” Moses preached and practiced the faith he saw at home as a child. Those of us who are parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and teachers not only have great power, but also immense responsibility to the children in our lives. Israel’s deliverance began with an obscure couple believing God in the midst of darkness. Think what a faith like that could accomplish today!

Charles Spurgeon was the most phenomenal pastor of the 19^th century. Thousands packed his church each week. They measured attendance by how many were turned away! Thousands came to faith in Christ under his preaching. Hundreds of pastors were trained at his pastor’s college. Orphans were cared for at his orphanages. He has more books in print by volume than any other author in history, and God still uses them greatly. What preacher wouldn’t want to be a Charles Spurgeon?

But Charles Spurgeon was the son of John Spurgeon. Who was he? He was a faithful pastor in a small English town. If he had not been the father of a famous son, John Spurgeon would be unknown in history. There have been thousands of godly, faithful pastors like him, but only a few like his son.

So I hope you parents will take heart. You may never become famous, but perhaps your child will. Build into them a life of faith, courageously believing what God has promised and living faithfully. Do what you can to prepare them to live in a world that is alluring and dangerous, and launch them into a life of ministry where they can be “beautiful before God.”