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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 3 (Hebrews 11:23-28)

We are talking about the faith of Moses, a faith that allowed him to give up a position of privilege and power, where he could have every pleasure and treasure his heart desired, opting instead for the yet unseen, but definitely real, “greater wealth” of the heavenly reward. Like the patriarchs before him, he didn’t experience the greater treasures and pleasures in this life, but in the life to come, in the heavenly city (Heb. 11:13-16).

So turn with me again to 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.

We noticed last week Mose’s negative choice of “refusing to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter.” Today we will talk about his positive choice in verse 25, “choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

By the way, this was a permanent decision. Warren Wiersbe tells the story about the mayor of a large American city who moved into a dangerous and decayed housing project to demonstrate the problems and needs of the minorities. But she also kept her fashionable apartment and eventually moved out of the slum. He concludes, “We commend her for her courage, but we have to admire Moses even more. He left the palace and never went back” (The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament, p. 836)

So Moses chose to be mistreated rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin.

Let’s see, pain or pleasure, which shall I choose? Few of us would willingly choose pain over pleasure, but Moses did. Moses chose the pain of mistreatment rather than the pleasures of sin.

Ultimately Moses’ potential sin, had he chosen these “fleeting pleasures” would have been to abandon his faith in God as he became more and more immersed in the mindset of godless Egypt, much like Solomon’s heart was turned aside from God because of his pagan wives. There was constant exposure and then pressure there to engage with the world’s system and pleasures, which could have turned his heart against the God of his fathers.

Moses knew that to go God’s way meant persecution and pain “with the people of God.” It is fascinating that in the next verse our author shows that Moses thought of this as “the reproach of Christ.” Somehow he connected his own sufferings to the sufferings that Jesus Christ would experience in his humiliation. Maybe this was an unconscious connection on his part but the author shows that it is a real connection that any saint has with Jesus Christ when we suffer for his sake. It is very similar to what Paul talked about in Philippians 3 when he says, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” (Phil. 3:10).

Paul wanted to know Christ, not just intellectually, but experientially. Because Christ was no longer alive and walking about on earth Paul didn’t have that firsthand interaction with Jesus. Nevertheless, Paul had experienced and wanted to experience more, “the power of his resurrection,” but Paul knew that to experience resurrection he had to go through death, so he longed, strangely enough to our ears, to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

Paul Miller discusses this fascinating idea in his book J-Curve. The J-Curve is Jesus dying and rising. Of course, positionally we die to sin and rise to God (Rom. 6) because we are united to Jesus by faith. Also, we will one day die physically and ultimately we will rise physically.

But Paul Miller also shows that we can experience the J-Curve through suffering, repentance and love. In suffering, we die to something. It can be our health, a marriage, a loss of a loved one. But if we perceive it as suffering “with Christ,” it turns what is wholly negative into something positive (an experience of deep fellowship and ultimately resurrection). So see your suffering as “with Christ,” as engaging in His sufferings, and then expect and look for mini-resurrections.

The J-Curve also happens through repentance. Here the evil is not outside us, perpetrated against us, but inside us. We acknowledge that something needs to die, some sinful desire that we have, but when we give up that sin and experience fellowship with Jesus, we will experience the resurrection of joy and holiness and love.

Love is another J-Curve. In this case we die to ourselves, our agenda, our pleasures, so that we can meet the needs of someone else. We “put to death” some desire we have for our own pleasure, so that we can meet the needs or desires of someone else. The result? That relationship gets better and better!

This is what Moses was doing. He didn’t know Jesus fully yet, but He knew God well enough to know that if he gave up the “fleeting pleasures” of sin for His sake, then something immensely more satisfying would be his in the future.

Disgrace suffered for Christ’s sake Moses valued as priceless honor. Yes, Moses knew about Christ. He himself said so in Dt 18:15 when he urged Israel to look for and listen to that greater Prophet who was coming. Jesus also said so when he told the Pharisees in Jn 5:46, “Moses wrote about me” with the eye of faith Moses saw the coming Christ and identified with him by joining his people. (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 143)

Notice how Moses viewed these pleasures, and it may shock us into realizing how we need to view our own worldly pleasures. First of all, they are the “pleasures of sin” that we “enjoy.” We sin because we enjoy it. We sin because it is a pleasure. So let’s not deny that sin can be a pleasure. That is the only way Satan can tempt us. If it were a pain, we would avoid it. If we got shocked every time we sinned, we would stop sinning.

But again, a shock is like Ulysses being tied to the mast. It may stop us from sinning, but we still want to, we still long to. We would just seek ways to get what we want without being shocked, like the addict who hides his addiction so that no one can see him and rebuke him.

John Piper recognizes the danger in the pleasures of sin, saying, “The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable. (John Piper, A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer, 14)

Disobeying had many attractions. Among other things, it would have been a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable in the short run. It is hard enough to stop seeking worldly things. It is even harder to give them up once we have them, and Moses had a great many of them by the time he was forty. We have no reason to believe that he was ever involved in any immoral practices, but he enjoyed the pleasures of an extremely comfortable life. He had the best food, the best living quarters, the best recreation, the best of everything that his age could provide. These were not sins in themselves. Joseph had enjoyed the same pleasures in the same place, while being perfectly obedient to God. But they would have been sin for Moses, had he decided to stay in the Egyptian court, and he forsook them for the sake of God’s call. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 352)

Second, notice that these pleasures are “fleeting,” or some versions say “passing.” They are temporary. They don’t last. You’ve experienced that. You gave yourself to some illicit pleasure when you were all alone in the dark and it felt good…for a moment, for a brief moment. Then, if you are fortunate, you began to feel guilty. This is not the repressed conscience bequeathed to us by the Puritans, but rather is the precious gift of God.

The point is, Moses knew that these pleasures were real pleasures that could be enjoyed, but that they were also “fleeting.” God’s reward is permanent, not passing; it is forever, not fleeting.

Remember that next time you are tempted. Remind yourself: “I’ll feel good for a moment or two, but it won’t last.” Then tell yourself that God’s way offers a better, more lasting reward.

As a family member in Pharaoh’s court, Moses enjoyed whatever pleasures anyone could seek. He lived in luxury (picture the splendor of King Tut’s tomb!). He ate the best food available. He dressed in the finest clothes. He could have any Egyptian beauty his heart desired.

Yet because he believed in a better reward—pleasures and treasures that were bigger and better than anything Egypt (or the whole world) could offer—he said “no.” He chose rather to become an object of scorn and contempt along with the people of God.

Why? Because by faith he believed in a better reward awaiting him. Why would a man knowingly choose such suffering? Was he a masochist? Was he insane? No, actually he was quite shrewd. Like the man who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46), Moses gained something better.

The “treasures of Egypt” were something that many coveted. Discoveries such as the tomb of King Tutankhamen, who lived only a hundred or so years after Moses, have shown us how vastly rich Egypt was at its peak. Moses had access to a great deal of wealth, and likely had much in his own possession. He had all the things the world holds dear. He must have been strongly tempted to hold on to them; but he did not. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 353)

Moses shows us that men are known by their choices. We make our choices and then our choices make us. John MacArthur says, “Christian living involves making right decisions. You can note the maturity of a Christian by the decisions he makes. Holiness is making right decisions, carnality is making wrong ones. Our Christian living rises or falls in maturity and holiness on the basis of the decisions we make. When Satan tempts us, we decide either to say yes or no. When we have opportunity to witness, we either take advantage of it or we do not. We decide whether or not to take time to read the Bible and to pray. It is not a matter of having time but of taking time, and taking time requires a decision. In business we often have to choose between making more money and being honest and ethical, or between getting ahead and giving enough time to our families and to the Lord’s work. Virtually everything we do involves a decision” (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 346). He goes on to say, “Right choices are made on the basis of right faith. Often we cannot see the consequences of our choices. Satan tries to make his way seem attractive and good and God’s way seem hard and unenjoyable. When we know God’s will in a matter, we choose it by faith. We know it is the right choice because it is God’s will, even before we see the results. God’s will is the only reason we need. When we choose God’s way, we put up the shield of faith, and the temptations and allurements of Satan are deflected (Eph 6:16). . . . The opposite of choosing God’s way is always Satan’s way, and not believing God is believing Satan. Whenever we sin, we believe Satan; we believe that his way is better than God’s. We believe the father of lies above the Father of truth” (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 347)

From the worldly standpoint, he was sacrificing everything for nothing. But from the spiritual standpoint, he was sacrificing nothing for everything. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 350). Or, as Jim Eliot said, the missionary martyred by the Waorani Indians of Ecuador in 1954, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

God has designed this Christian life so that we would be motivated by rewards. The emphasis in the Epistle to the Hebrews is: ‘Don’t live for what the world will promise you today! Live for what God has promised you in the future!

People at Grace Bible Church have heard me quote this statement from C. S. Lewis often:

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. (C. S. Lewis; THE WEIGHT OF GLORY; Preached originally as a sermon in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford ‘, on June 8, 1941)

Moses knew that all the pleasures of Egyptian nobility would last only a short season, if he became ruler of Egypt himself. But the reward of God, on the other hand, he believed to be eternal. So it was a matter of trading the temporary for the eternal. To him, the shame of being identified with the coming Messiah (Christ), was greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt.

What were some of the blessings that Moses traded the “treasures of Egypt” and the “pleasures of sin” for? Well, first of all, the company of God’s people. Moses chose “to be mistreated with the people of God.” Admittedly, they were not much to look at. At the moment they were sweaty, dirty, poor slaves. Certainly not the “in” crowd. Later, these would be the very people that would give him a lot of trouble, grumbling about the conditions that he led them into. Some would challenge his leadership. Eventually their grumbling frustrated Moses so much that he sinned by striking the rock in anger, so that the Lord kept him from entering the promised land. But in spite of all the problems he experienced with them, they were “people of God.” Moses saw it as a far greater blessing to endure ill-treatment with them than to live in the worldly, superficial society of Pharaoh’s court.

Sometimes the “people of God” are not easy to live with, but Christian community really is a blessing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his little book Life Together, written during the early days of the Nazi regime in Germany: “It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible fellowship is a blessing. They remember, as the Psalmist did, how they went ‘with the multitude . . . to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday’ (Ps. 42:4). Let him, who until now has had the privilege of living in common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we’re allowed to live in Christian community with Christian brethren.”

Second, as we’ve already mentioned, Moses participated in “the reproach of Christ.” He was able to experience, through his reproach, the reproach of Christ; through his sufferings, the sufferings of Christ. It allowed him to rejoice in a deeper experience of Jesus Christ.

Finally, he would gain eternal reward in heaven. Like the patriarchs, Moses looked ahead, looked to eternity. The reward that he looked for was, “the better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:16). When Moses appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with Elijah and Jesus, it was his first time to set foot in the promised land. But I have a hunch that he was thinking, “OK, this is nice, really, but when you do think we could get back to heaven?”

And he did it all by faith. He made these choices because he believed in God’s promises of something better ahead.

Faith Values the Greater Reward from God, part 2 (Hebrews 11:23-28)

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.

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.

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.”

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 3 (Hebrews 11:16)

We are in Hebrews 11, verse 16. Let me read this whole passage about Abraham’s forward-looking faith.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

We have noticed throughout this passage that it is faith produced by grace that redirects our affections from this world to the next, from earth to heaven, from now to them.

This is basically one way we can determine whether we are practical atheists. I’m not talking about theological atheists, who argue that there is no god, but rather Christians who live like there is no god. They value man’s authority over God’s authority, they believe more in the material world than the spiritual world, and they value this life more than eternity.

Abraham wasn’t like that. He took God at His word, by faith saw the rewards of heaven, and lived his life for eternity.

And this leads us to our second point in this text. First, faith produced by grace redirects our affections. Second, faith produced by grace also arouses God’s affection for us.

Look at verse 16b, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

“Therefore,” on the basis of this kind of faith that focuses our hearts and minds on God’s future, heavenly rewards, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.”

This is so incredible! To think that God not ashamed to be referred to as my God. It doesn’t bother him that I claim him as my God, rather it delights him!

When I served as a hospice chaplain I would sing hymns to my hospice patients. Over the years I sang many of the hymns in The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration. I found six hymns, and I never would have expected this, that talked about God’s smiling face.

For example, the hymn Jesus, I Am Resting Resting by Jean Pigott, begins the fourth verse with “Ever lift Thy face upon me As I work and wait for Thee; Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus, Earth’s dark shadows flee.” Yes, when we see His smile all the pain and heartache of life begins to disappear.

Or take the hymn He Keeps Me Singing, by Luther B. Bridgers, where the third verse joyfully exclaims: “Feasting on the riches of His grace, Resting ‘neath His shelt’ring wing, Always looking on His smiling face—That is why I shout and sing.” You can shout and sing and claim the sweetest name of Jesus because you keep your eyes focused on “His smiling face.”

In the hymn O That Will Be Glory by Charles H. Gabriel, he talks about the joys of heaven: friends will be there, joy will overflow, “Yet, just a smile from my Savior, I know, Will through the ages be glory for me.” That smile will be our joy and delight throughout eternity.

Other hymns that have that concept—the smile of God—are Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts, Sunshine in My Soul and Trust and Obey. Look them up and let these songs edify your heart.

Far too many Christians feel that God’s countenance towards them is a frown, not a smile, laboring under the false supposition that God in his wrath is about to rain down lightning bolts of anger toward them. Nothing could be further from the truth as a Christian.

There’s no doubt that God’s heart must be grieved by sin and evil in our world but that is not the main headline! God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son for us!

The image of God’s smiling face first appears in the priestly blessing of Aaron mentioned in Numbers 6:24-26: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

The image of God’s face shining upon someone paints a picture that signifies God’s divine favor. Like warm rays from the sun, God’s favor is shining upon his people. When we read “the Lord make his face shine upon you” it shows God’s radiance warming our lives with love, grace, compassion, guidance, joy, and all other attributes that flow from him. Again, we see the abundance in which God blesses his people.

To “be gracious to you” shows that this isn’t something we deserve; rather it’s unmerited grace that God is giving us. Because God loves us, he gives us what we need and not what we deserve. That’s grace.

God was not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, even though Abraham faltered and failed numerous times. In fact, God later proclaimed to Moses, “I am [present tense] . . . the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). The most notorious weasel of them all was Jacob, and God delighted in calling Himself Jacob’s God. And did you know that God refers to himself three times more often as the “God of Jacob” than of Abraham or Isaac?

“Not ashamed” (cf. 2:11) is a litotes implying that God is willing and happy to be called their God. Our author uses this figure of speech in the negative “not ashamed” to emphasize the more positive: God is proud to be my God. He delights in associating His name with mine.

No higher tribute could be paid to any mortal. But God proudly claims whoever trusts and obeys him, and they can humbly insert their name in the divine proclamation, “I am the God of __________!”

We all have seen or heard of family members who turn their backs on a member of the family that is erring and rebellious and who has caused them shame. Do you realize that Jesus would never, never do that of you? He would NEVER do that to you.

Jesus said to Mary, after his disciples had all abandoned him, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Did you hear it? “Go to my brothers…” My brothers! Even though they had abandoned Him in His greatest time of need, he still regards them as brothers. Back in Heb. 2:11 we read that Jesus Christ was “not ashamed to call us brothers.”

It is faith, not perfect obedience, that brings pleasure to God. It is our dependence upon Him, recognizing that we are weak and needy and powerless. It is trust that does manifest itself in obedience and endurance, but it is primarily the faith that pleases God. Remember Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].” So the reverse is also true: God is pleased with our faith. That is what delights his heart.

On what basis does God delight in calling himself my God, or Jesus calling himself my brother? The answer is right there in v. 16. Notice that God “has prepared for them [and for us] a city” (v. 16b). This is the New Jerusalem that will come down upon the New Earth. This is a reference to our eternal home.

And what was their response to this marvelous promise of a New and Glorified City that would be established on the New and Glorified Earth? They “desired” it! The word “therefore” in the middle of v. 16 points back to the first half of the verse. In other words, it is because these OT patriarchs “desired” a better country that God is not ashamed of them. Faith focuses the heart and the mind on those future promises of God.

So how is it that God is not ashamed of us when we are so often ashamed of ourselves? It has to do entirely with His grace! I remember reading a few years ago about a pastor in his early 30s who was diagnosed with cancer. After many tests, the doctors gave him the worst possible news. He was dying of cancer—sooner rather than later. It turned out exactly as the doctors predicted. He lived for a few more years and then he died. But as long as he was able to preach, he spoke to his people about what he was learning. The young pastor was given an insight that he shared with his congregation. It went something like this.

Twenty seconds—and the clock is running!

When you begin your Christian life, you realize that you have a long way to go, but you think to yourself, “I’ve got a lifetime to grow in grace.” Even though you know that you’ll never reach perfection in this life, you assume that over the years, you will grow much closer to God. And while you struggle with various sins, bad habits, and a long list of negative tendencies, you think, “Someday I’m going to be a better person.” After all, when someone points out a weakness to us, what do we usually say? “I’m working on that,” which means, “Give me time and I’ll get better.”

But what if you don’t live long enough to make even the elementary progress that you planned on making? That’s the dilemma this young pastor faced, knowing that he didn’t have much longer to live. And it was precisely at this point that he gained wisdom from God.

He realized, “I’m not going to live long enough to get any better. I’m going to have to die the way I am right now.” That’s a shocking and sobering truth! Suddenly you look up at the scoreboard and where you thought you were in the middle of the second quarter, with plenty of time left in the game, to your dismay the clock shows 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter. And the clock is running!

What do you do then? It’s either the grace of God or it’s nothing at all. The young pastor shared with his congregation a fresh insight from Romans 5:8, a verse we normally use in our evangelistic efforts with the unsaved, the Romans Road: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Did you notice the word “still”? “Still sinners.” Jesus gladly gave His life for us while we were “still sinners.” That word “still” comes from a tiny Greek word—eti. Christ died for us while we were “still sinners.” You and I, we were and still are “sinners.” The dying pastor got up and said something like this: “I realize for the first time that I’m going to heaven because of that little Greek word eti. I am still a sinner, and I don’t have any time left to get better, and when I die, I’m resting my hope on the fact that Christ died for me while I was still a sinner.”

Near the end, William Jay visited his friend John Newton (the composer of Amazing Grace), who was then barely able to speak. He wanted some advice on being a pastor, a successful pastor. But Newton said: ‘My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.’”

That is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what “being saved” really means. That is our entire hope of heaven.

All of us who believe in Jesus Christ, even the very best among us, have so far to go that we’ll never live long enough to measure up on our own. Someone else has to do the work for us. And the good news is that Jesus Christ did. He lived a perfectly obedient life and then died a sacrificial death in the place of those who did not and could never live that perfectly obedient life.

That is why Paul says, in Philippians 3:4-8, that all those things he had counted on and depended upon for righteous standing before God before, he now counted “as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [and then notice verse 9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith… (Phil. 3:7-9)

That is what pleases God, our faith, our total dependence upon His grace and goodness towards us. It is this kind of total dependence that brings a smile to God’s face.

And why is God smiling? What makes God proud to be called my God? He gives two reasons, one at the beginning of verse 16 and the other at the end. We’re going to look at the latter one first.

“God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he has prepared for them a city.” As John Piper says, “The first reason he gives why he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has done something for them. He made them a city—the heavenly city “whose architect and builder is God” (verse 10). So the first reason he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has worked for them. Not the other way around. He did not say: “I am not ashamed to be called their God, because they made for me a city.” He made something for them. That’s the starting point. The pride of God in being our God is rooted first in something he has done for us, not vice versa” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

We also called that “city” heaven, or the New Jerusalem. God has prepared it, but not for everyone, only for “them” who live and die in faith. All preparations have already been made, as Jesus promised His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3) It’s a “prepared” room in a “prepared” city” in a “prepared kingdom” (Matthew 25:34). It’s just like C. S. Lewis said, in The Last Battle, everything prior is but the title page. From the time of death or the rapture everything will just get better and better from this time forward.

But such is not the case for all people. For those who refuse to believe a different prepared ending occurs: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41)

And that brings us back to the first reason why God delights in being called our God.

It goes like this: “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.” “Therefore” signals that a reason has just been given for why he is not ashamed. The reason is their desire. They desire a better country—that is, a better country than the earthly one they live in, namely a heavenly one. This is the same as saying they desire heaven, or they desire the city God has made for them.

So two things make God unashamed to be called our God: he has prepared something great for us, and we desire it above all that is on the earth. So why is he proud to be the God of people who desire his city more than all the world? Because their desire calls attention to the superior worth of what God offers over what the world offers.

In other words, the reason God is proud to be our God is not because we have accomplished something so great. But because he has accomplished something great and we desire it. (John Piper, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

Heaven has been prepared for you and God delights in being your God IF you believe that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is sufficient for your forgiveness. If you go back to trusting in yourself and your own goodness, then it is not heaven that is prepared for you and God will say, “I never knew you.” If you don’t possess this kind of faith, then cry out “Help my unbelief.”

Let me summarize four lessons from this paragraph in Hebrews 11:13-16: First, see God’s promises fulfilled in the future tense. Bank on them. Second, embrace your foreignness on this earth. Remind yourself that this is NOT YOUR HOME. Third, redirect your conscious thoughts and yearning desires toward heaven. And fourth, revel in God’s delight in you…and delight in Him.

Each example of faith that the writer has cited so far is a positive one involving a believer who kept on trusting God and His promises in spite of the temptation to stop trusting. That is what the writer was urging his readers to do throughout this epistle: Keep on trusting and do not turn back. In every case God approved and rewarded the continuing faith of the faithful.

Faith for the Impossible, part 1 (Hebrews 11:11-12)

Nothing strengthens us so much as isolation and transplantation. What do I mean by that? Well, let a person be thrown upon their own resources and like McGyver and he or she will be forced to develop ingenuity and powers that would never have developed and of which there would have been no trace under the ease of home.

This is also true of faith. So long as we are quietly at rest amid favorable and undisturbed surroundings, faith sleeps as an undeveloped sinew within us. But when we are pushed out from all these comfortable surroundings with nothing but God to look to, then faith grows suddenly into a monarch oak. As long as the bird lingers by the nest it will not experience the joys of flight. As long as the trembling boy clings to the bank or toes the bottom, he will never know the delights of swimming.

Abram would never have become Abraham, the father of the faithful, the mighty exemplar of faith, if he had always lived in the comforts of Ur. No, he had to journey into the unknown and march off the map so that faith could rise up in all its glorious proportions in his soul.

It may not be necessary for you and me to withdraw from home and friends, but we will have to withdraw our dependence upon all earthly props and supports if we are ever to learn what it is to trust simply and absolutely on the eternal God. It seems, in the life of most Christians that there arise occasions when God benevolently takes away what is precious, even necessary to us, so that we might more fully recognize Him as our most precious possession.

Job knew that God both “gives and takes away.” He might take away our business, possessions, friends, our influence, our spouse or parent or child, our health—all in an effort to help you find Him to be more precious than it all. He is most precious of all. This is the conclusion Asaph came to in Psalm 73. Looking around at all the good things in life that the wicked were enjoying, he became envious. But ultimately he “understood their final destiny” (Psa. 73:17, NIV) and came to realize that the nearness of God was his highest good (Psa. 73:28). Here’s what he says in vv. 25-26, some of my favorite verses in all of Scripture:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

But we don’t often come to this place of valuing God above all things until we have faced the loss of some of life’s good gifts. Abram left the comforts of Ur, left most of his family behind and all of his friends. Whatever “job” he had there was a thing of the past. After 75 years of comfort and ease, now Abram was marching out with nothing but the promises of God—promises for a future destiny with many sons. As yet he had none.

Developing faith in Abram was important. Both obedience and faith are vital, but for different reasons. Jerry Bridges, in his book Trusting God, says: “It is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him. When we disobey God we defy His authority and despise His holiness. But when we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness. In both cases we cast aspersions upon His majesty and His character. God views our distrust of Him as seriously as He views our disobedience” (Trusting God, p. 18).

So God made Abram into a man of faith. He wasn’t that always. He became a man of faith by taking away “all earthly props and supports so that Abraham might learn to trust completely in God alone.” (F. B. Meyer)

There is an old poem by that prolific author Anonymous that goes.

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.

This is what God did with Abram and what he will do with you and me to help us become men and women of faith.

Abram’s faith and obedience, remember, were based on God’s grace. It was God’s grace that produced such faith in Abram, just as he does in our lives. It is a faith that by grace displays itself through obedience and endurance.

“The root and the sap of the Christian life are hidden; but the fruits of this life must be manifest before the world.” (Donald Bloesch)

What does this faith look like?

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen that it is a faith that obeys. So surrendered to the word of God that he didn’t pause to make sure everything made sense for his future. When a sinner is transformed by God’s grace and given eternal life as a free gift when a person believes, it is now his heart’s disposition to be devoted to Jesus Christ, to give his complete allegiance, which means following his orders.

That great old hymn by Charles Wesley says it well: “Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed Thee.”

When faith is the product of grace, it doesn’t misuse its freedom to live for oneself, but rather it obeys its new, benevolent master, Jesus Christ.

We also noticed that faith produced by grace endures, year after year after year, even through a whole life of not receiving what was promised. Verse 9 showed us that Abram still lived like a wandering camper even though this land had been promised to him. The land promise wasn’t even fulfilled in the lives of his son or grandson, not even in Joseph’s life, not for 500 years!

So why didn’t Abram just wash his hands of this thing and pack up the camper and go back to Ur? The reason is that the land prefigured something else, something greater, it was the “land of promise.” Abram looked forward to something he considered more sure than the very ground he trod upon.

And that points to the third thing we learned in v. 10 about Abram’s faith, faith produced by God’s grace, is that it is forward looking, it looks heavenward. That aspect will be developed in even more detail in vv. 13-16. Abram’s faith was not just tied to the geography inhabited by the Canaanites, but to all the benefits of eternity in the heavenly city. This was the secret to Abram’s “long obedience in the same direction” in the words of Eugene Peterson.

Genuine, biblical faith is forward looking. It anticipates the fulfillment of God’s promise. Luther says “faith is the wedding ring by which we have pledged ourselves to Christ.” It is more what we would call an engagement ring, something given in anticipation and surety of the best that is yet to come!

Now, in vv. 11-12, we find that genuine faith is a faith that relies—that stakes its confidence on the character of God revealed in the promises of God.

Having explained how Abraham’s faith worked in relation to the promise of the land, the writer now begins to explain Abraham’s faith and the obtaining of a promised son:

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Some other translations along with the ESV make Sarah and her faith the subject of verse 11—for example, the RSV: “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive. . . .” But this is implausible because the phrase “received power to conceive” literally is “power for the deposition of seed/sperm” (dynamin eis katabolen spermatos), a patently male function. Thus, Abraham has to be the subject of the sentence.

Most believe the misunderstanding is due to a wrong accent mark in the Greek that incorrectly renders “Sarah herself” as a nominative and not as dative. The corrective dative translation gives the right sense: “By faith he [Abraham] also, together with Sarah, received power to beget a child when he was past age, since he counted him faithful who had promised.”

The NIV reads, “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

This view also alleviates another problem, namely, that in the account in Genesis 18, Sarah is rebuked for her unbelief rather than commended for her faith. When the Lord confronts her, she denies, rather than confesses, her unbelief. Probably, in spite of her initial doubt, she eventually came to believe God’s promise as Abraham did. But if Abraham is the subject of 11:11, then the emphasis is on his faith, not on Sarah’s faith.

The point is, it was biologically impossible for Abraham, as well as Sarah, to be able to conceive a child at this time. Abraham was 75 years old when God first promised him a son. Eleven years later, Abram tries through self-effort, to gain a son for himself through Hagar, but God told him that this was not the son of promise. And then finally, 13 years later, at age 99, God says, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (Gen. 18:10).

The impotence of Abraham was not the only issue. Sarai had always been barren. Menopause had come and gone. Sarah herself says, “I am worn out, and my lord is old” (Genesis 18:12). These were two major problems!

Abram had been expressing some faith way back when he was 75 because he did believe God’s promise for a son even though he knew Sarah was barren. But now that Abraham was almost a hundred years old and Sarah almost ninety, the promise seemed totally out of reach.

Sometimes God stacks the odds, just like when he trimmed Gideon’s army down from 32,000 to 300, making it even more impossible to face the mighty Midianite army. Why did God do that? So that the Israelites could not boast that their might had defeated the Midianites (Judges 7:2). And think of the time when Jesus and His disciples received word that Lazarus was sick and dying. Instead of rushing to his side Jesus waited…and Lazarus died. In fact, when Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been in the grave four days. Jewish folklore held that a person dead four days was REALLY DEAD! But Jesus used this to show His miraculous power and raised Lazarus from the dead.

The assertion that he was “as good as dead” (perfect passive participle) in verse 12 is exactly the same in the Greek as in Romans 4:19, where Paul said that Abraham “considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.”

But God had made promises to Abram. In Genesis 15:5 God told Abram:

5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

And notice Abram’s response: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

In Genesis 22, after God tested Abram’s faith by asking him to sacrifice that one and only Son, that promised one that he loved so much, God said, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,” (Gen. 22:17).

Later that promise was fulfilled, but not in Abram’s lifetime. So, what sustained his faith as he saw each year clip by? 5-10-15-20-25 years. With each passing year the possibilities were dissipating.

What sustained Abram’s faith? Not just the fact that there was a promise, but faith in the One who made that promise. Abram knew God well enough to know that he was trustworthy, that He was faithful. Notice how verse 11 says that Abram “considered him faithful who had promised.”

You and I can always trust God to keep his promises.

Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in England back in the late 1800’s, had this great insight. “If God had meant to run back from any promise, he would surely have run back from the promise to give his only begotten Son; but having fulfilled that, what promise is there he will ever break?”

Thus, Romans 8:31-32 reads: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” In other words, if God has already done for us the thing that would have been the hardest for Him to do—sacrificing His own Son for sinners—then we can believe that He will fulfill all His promises and plans for us.

Sure, Abram was a man just like you and me, prone to doubting. It took time for his faith to grow strong (Romans 4:20). That promise of a son was first incredible, but over time it became “impossible.” However, when Abram refocused the eyes of his heart upon the God who had made that promise, all difficulties disappeared.

The word “considered” indicates that Abram came to this conclusion after much thought and careful search. It wasn’t a leap in the dark. According to Paul in Romans 4 Abraham “faced the facts.” He considered the obstacles that were in the way. And his conclusion didn’t arise based upon any external circumstances or in his own ability to figure out how things might work out. As Jerry Bridges explains: “God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand” (Trusting God, p. 20). It was still a mystery to Abram but after weighing all the evidence—both the biological impossibility AND what he knew about God, he trusted God that He would and could do it.

Abram weighed the human impossibility of becoming a father against the divine impossibility of God ever being able to break his word and decided that since God is God, nothing is impossible. In other words, he believed that God “exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6b).

Faith that Marches Off the Map, part 3 (Hebrews 11:8-10)

We’ve been talking about the faith of Abram, a faith that first obeyed.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Secondly, we see from this passage about Abram’s faith that it was a faith that endures.

Abram had been told that he had “an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8) in this land that he was going to. It was a “land of promise,” promised to him by God himself. God had said: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Now, the promise that Abram’s descendants would inherit this land didn’t come until Abram was already in this Promised Land. Because Abram had responded to God’s Word with believing obedience, God tells him in Genesis 13:14-15, The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” It was reaffirmed to him along with the promise of an heir (Gen. 15:18-21), and again after the bestowal of the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:8). The divine bidding was sufficient for him at his first call, and he went out, “not knowing where he was going.”

But that was never fulfilled in Abram’s lifetime. He waited all his life for God’s land promise to be fulfilled and it never was. He waited twenty five years for a son, and that promise was finally fulfilled. The point is, Abram waited, a long time, for God to fulfill His promise.

Waiting is never easy. We don’t like to wait. We don’t like slow lines or traffic. We don’t like waiting for appointments. I don’t like waiting. I find, however, that no matter how short the line I choose for check out, it always takes longer than I wanted.

But I’ve never had to wait 25 years, or never to have received something I waited for. Some of you have. Some of you have prayed and hoped and waited for healing of some sickness for a long time, or have prayed and hoped and waited for a mate, and it never happened.

I hope you can find something in Abram’s example to encourage you.

Isaiah, in writing to a nation in exile, who may have thought the day of relief would never come, gave them these encouraging words: “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).

So, Abram enters the Promised Land armed with this promise from God. But do all the pagan Canaanites show up at Abram’s doorstep once he settles in and offer him the keys to their cities? Absolutely not.

There was…

No “Welcome Abram” sign.
No discount coupons from the merchants.
No housewarming party.
No visit from the Welcome Wagon. Is that even a thing anymore?
No mayor offering the key to the city.
No band playing “Happy Days are Here Again.”
No ticker-tape parade.

Nobody expected him. Nobody cared that he had come. Nobody gave him anything. Instead,

9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

By divine right this land was his, but he lived in it “as in a foreign land.”

Notice that “by faith” Abram turned his back on Ur and left his homeland. But faith didn’t stop the moment he stepped into the land of promise. Like our lives after the faith that receives salvation, we still need faith as we await the fulfillment of all God’s promises.

In fact, going to the promised land thrust Abram into more severe tests than he had experienced just from leaving Ur. It was going to be harder to live in the land of promise, to live in anticipation of a dream that wouldn’t come true right away. Somehow, when you know that something is yours, waiting for it becomes even harder.

Imagine that God has promised to you the land of Guatemala. So you pack up your camper and head south. But when you arrive there you receive no reception. You can’t speak the language, use your currency, or eat the food. All you have is your camper. That’s where you have to live. And in this camper you have to move from one place to another. Your children and your grandchildren also have to buy and live in their own campers too.

But this is your land. God has promised it to you.

You read Genesis and you see that Abram is always on the move. “He lived in tents,” symbolizing the transitory, impermeant lifestyle of Abram. Isaac and Jacob lived the same way, even though they were “heirs of the promise.”

I know lots of people who like to camp out on vacation, but I don’t know anyone who likes to live in a tent as a permanent resident. All of us have a natural desire to settle down someplace and create a nest of our own.

But 5-10-15, 20, 30 years later, Abram is still living in a camper.

In many ways this is even more remarkable than him leaving Ur in the first place. As long as he was on the road traveling across the desert, he could dream about his future ranch and his palace. When he actually got to Canaan, all those illusions disappeared.

Had Abram misheard or misunderstood God?

John Calvin asks, “Where was the inheritance which he had expected? It might have indeed occurred instantly to his mind, that he had been deceived by God” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], Hebrews, p. 279).

This is quite a natural response that we have when we step out in faith and then don’t receive what we thought we would—when deciding to follow Christ makes life harder than it was before, or not receiving the answers to our prayers for months and even years.

Some of the promises God eventually did fulfill in Abram’s lifetime, but not this one. This promise for a place to call his own never happened. When Abraham died, all he owned was a little plot on which he buried Sarah.

Stephen, in Acts 7:4-5 says “Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.”

Still, Abram held on to the hope that it would one day be his, that it would one day be enjoyed by his children. Jacob and Joseph, at their deaths were so sure that this land would one day be theirs, that they told their descendants to take their bones back to that land to be buried. It wasn’t theirs yet, but they were assured of it.

Again, it proves Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

John Calvin points out that just after Abraham arrived in the land of promise, there was a famine that drove him from the land. But later he returned and lived in the land by faith alone.

Abram could have thrown up his hands and said, “Why don’t we move back to Ur? All our friends are there. We loved the food. Our money bought things. They have so much more in the city.”

But when faith is the product of God’s grace, it is willing to endure any inconvenience and wait for God to fulfill His promises.

If the decision had been made on the basis of economics, he would have stayed at home. If the decision had been made to secure a better quality of life, Ur would have won hands down. But if the decision was being made on the basis of what was best for Abram’s eternal wellbeing, the Promised Land proved to be the best option.

Faith says, “though I cannot see it now, I stake my destiny and its fullness upon God’s Word.” Elisha Coles once said, “Faith is your spiritual optic.” In other words, faith allows you see something that isn’t there yet as if it already exists.

A faith that is the product of God’s grace endures when obedience to the Word of God requires persevering.

Faithfully persevering in a difficult marriage when other options become attractive occurs only because we believe God’s promises.
Faithfully enduring as a Christian single when men entice you into sexual relationships is only possible because you hold on to God’s promises.
Faithfully holding on as a Christian student when the academic world seeks to undermine your faith demands that you must have a firm grip on God’s promises.
Having a resilient faith as a Christian businessman when opportunities to make more money by compromising your integrity, is only possible by holding out for the better promises of God.

A faith that is the product of grace endures when obedience to the Word of God requires persevering.

How do you know if you’ve experienced God’s saving grace? How do you know if you’ve been transformed by the sovereign grace of God? Because you will have faith that obeys and obeys enduringly.

Kent Hughes summarizes:

The word for Abraham’s existence was dissonance —he never fit in. His religion was different and far above that of the land. He was a monotheist, and his neighbors were polytheistic pagans. His standards of morality were rooted in the character of God, while theirs came from the gods they themselves had created. His worldview invited repeated collisions with that of the inhabitants. He was always living in conscious dissonance.

What a lesson for us! The life of faith demands that we live in dissonance with the unbelieving world. A life of faith is not anti-cultural, but countercultural. Thus, a vibrant faith is always matched with a sense of dis-ease, a pervasive in-betweenness, a sense of being a camper. This does not mean, of course, that Abraham was separate from culture. To the contrary, the Genesis record reveals he was deeply involved in the politics of the land. But there was always that dissonance. He was never at home!

The parallels between Abraham’s experience and that of the Christian are easy to see, because the Christian has the promise of an ultimate land. In fact, every believer is called to step out in faithful obedience and to follow Christ as he leads on to that land. All of us are, by faith, to obey and go as God directs, though we do not know where the path will take us. All of us are, by faith, to become willing sojourners, living in constant dissonance with the world as we await our final inheritance. It is a dangerous thing when a Christian begins to feel permanently settled in this world.

Have we stepped out in obedience to our individual call? Are we living in such a way in this world that there is the discomfort of dissonance?

As Peter says, we are “sojourners and exiles” in this world. We will not easily “fit in.” Oh, we might try to live like the world, but we won’t be comfortable doing it, not if we are true followers of Jesus Christ.

Actually, Lot did choose to go out and live like the world. It didn’t really work out for him, though, did it?

As believers, our homeland is in heaven, and our thoughts and affections should be regularly directed there, as Paul says in Colossians 3.

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Like Abram, we need to keep our eyes on the heavenly city and allow these future promises to produce in us the holiness that pleases God. Several of the New Testament writers speak of the impact our belief in future promises have upon our current life.

11 Since all these things [heavenly bodies and the earth, creating the new heavens and earth] are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be [today] in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God [like Abram we wait], because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3)

Or think of what the apostle John said in 1 John 2 and 3. At the end of chapter 2 John encourages us to live righteous lives…

28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Who wants to shrink back from Jesus in shame at his coming? Wouldn’t we rather be excited at His coming and welcome Him with open arms? If we prefer not to shrink back in shame, we better watch over our lives now and live in a way that he would be pleased to catch us doing what is right and good and loving when He comes.

Then in chapter 3 John says…

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

When Jesus Christ appears we will be suddenly transformed and become like him in righteousness and purity. But having that hope means that we will purify ourselves now, today.

So let your future hope of being someday with Christ excite your heart to become more and more like Him today.