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Faith Looks Into Eternity: The Choice of Moses · (Un) Common thoughts of Christ

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We call this podcast Refusing and Choosing The Faith of Moses.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Today, let us spend a few moments considering Moses.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not particularly Moses as the great lawgiver or Moses leading Israel through the wilderness, but something that took place much earlier in his life.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God gives us a remarkable summary in Hebrews chapter eleven, verses twenty four through twenty eight.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are really three movements in this passage that we might consider together.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: First, Moses refused and chose.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Second, Moses forsook Egypt, enduring as seeing him who is invisible.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And third, Moses kept the Passover and sheltered beneath the blood.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there is one expression connected with every one of them.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: By faith.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Faith changed Moses' estimate of everything around him.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 7 tells us that Moses was forty years old when it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen says there, and Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Think for a moment of what Moses possessed.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: He had been born a Hebrew child under the sentence of death.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh had commanded that the sons born to the Hebrews should be cast into the river.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But Exodus chapter 2 tells us that Moses' parents hid him, and eventually his mother placed him in that little ark among the reeds by the river.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh's daughter found him.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: She heard the baby cry.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her heart was moved toward him, and ultimately Moses became her son.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We read in Exodus 2, verse 10.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses grew up in Egypt.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: He knew its education, he knew its wealth, he knew its culture, he knew its power, he knew the palace, and he knew what Egypt could offer a man.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yet when Moses reached forty years of age, something changed.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews tells us, By faith Moses refused, and then choosing rather, those are very simple words, but they tell us a great deal about faith.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Faith refuses something because it has chosen something better.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was not simply giving things up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Something else had become greater in his soul.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He chose, as Hebrews 11 25 states, rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Notice that Scripture does not say there is no pleasure in sin.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It says those pleasures are for a season.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: They have an ending.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses began to look beyond the season.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Faith brought eternity before him.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The things that appeared so great when measured merely by time suddenly appeared very different when measured in the light of eternity.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that gives us something to consider for ourselves.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: What are we using to measure the things around us?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we measure them only by today, many things can appear very important position, possessions, reputation, acceptance, comfort, the approval of others.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But faith looks beyond today.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Faith brings God into the calculation, and faith brings eternity into the calculation.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is what happened with Moses.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews continues in the eleventh chapter, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: What an extraordinary statement.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Moses knew something of the treasures of Egypt.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yet when he placed those treasures on one side, and what Scripture calls the reproach of Christ on the other, he called the reproach of Christ, greater riches.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Faith had completely changed his values.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is almost as though Moses had placed these things into a balance.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: On one side, the treasures of Egypt, the palace, position, recognition, the favor of Pharaoh, everything that the world around him could offer, and on the other side, the people of God, reproach, affliction, and ultimately Christ.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses chose Christ's side.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was looking forward.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a beautiful answer to this in the New Testament.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Many centuries later we come to Luke chapter 9.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus goes up into a mountain with Peter, James, and John.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: There he is transfigured before them.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Luke writes in the ninth chapter and verse 30.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: What a scene! Moses had once turned away from the glory of Egypt, and now we see Moses in glory with Christ.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The man who chose identification with the despised people of God is now found in the company of the Son of God himself.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Was Moses poorer for his choice?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Faith had made the correct estimate.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Egypt's treasures were temporary.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Christ was eternal.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that is one of the great lessons here.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: When Christ becomes precious to the heart, things which once seemed enormously important begin to become smaller.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is not merely that we are told to give something up.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something better has come before the statement in Hebrews 11 27.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then we come to the next statement.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here we find the secret of Moses' endurance.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was much that Moses could see.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: He could see Pharaoh, he could see the throne, he could see Egypt's armies, he could see the power of the king.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: He could see the consequences of turning his back upon Egypt.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But faith saw something that natural sight could not see.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: He saw God.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: He endured as seeing him who is invisible.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: That expression is worth lingering over.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps many of our difficulties become overwhelming because the visible things become too large before us.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: We see the circumstances, we see the opposition, we see the people involved, we see what might happen tomorrow, and gradually those things fill our entire field of vision.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But faith looks beyond them.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Paul expresses something similar in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, 18.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Moses endured because his eye was upon someone greater than Pharaoh.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty had not disappeared, but God had become greater than the difficulty, and that is a wonderful principle for the Christian pathway.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We do not endure merely by becoming stronger.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: We endure by having an object before our hearts, Christ Himself.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then Hebrews 1128 brings us to one final and very important point in Moses' history.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Moses had refused Egypt.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had chosen the people of God, he had forsaken Egypt, he had looked toward the reward.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there remained another matter.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Judgment was coming upon Egypt, and God provided a lamb.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: In Exodus chapter 12, the Israelites were told to take the blood of that lamb and put it upon the two sideposts and upon the upper doorpost of the house.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then God said in Exodus 12 13, When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Woolston draws attention to something very important here.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was not enough that the lamb had been slain, the blood had to be applied, the blood might have been in the basin, but it must be placed upon the door.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings the truth very near to us.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is a difference between knowing that Christ died and personally resting upon the one who died.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist said of Jesus in John 1 29, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter tells us that we have been redeemed in his first epistle, chapter 1, with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Passover points us forward to Christ, and there is something especially precious in the words of Exodus.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I see the blood, the Israelite inside that house might have been trembling, another might have been completely calm.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But their safety did not rest upon the strength of their feelings.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It rested upon the blood outside the door.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: God did not say, When I see how strongly you believe, or When I see how peaceful you feel, he said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The security was found in what God Himself had provided, and so it is with Christ.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our peace does not rest upon our feelings about his work, it rests upon the value that God places upon his work.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus could say upon the cross, It is finished, the work has been accomplished.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, returning to Hebrews chapter eleven, perhaps we can gather these thoughts together.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Moses refused, Moses chose, Moses esteemed, Moses forsook, Moses endured, and Moses kept the Passover beneath the shelter of the blood.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And over each movement of his history, the Spirit of God writes these words by faith.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Faith taught Moses that the pleasures of sin were only for a season.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Faith taught him that the reproach of Christ was greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Faith enabled him to endure because he saw him, who is invisible, and faith placed him beneath the protection of the blood of the Lamb.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the simplest way to close is with those first two thoughts refusing and choosing.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every true choice involves both.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are things we refuse because something better has taken possession of the heart.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Christianity is not merely a life of refusing things, it is the heart, discovering that there is someone infinitely better, Christ himself.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Moses gave up Egypt, but he gained something far greater.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: He left Pharaoh's palace, but eventually we see him standing with Christ in glory.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: He turned away from Egypt's treasures, but he found greater riches.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: He refused the pleasures of sin for a season.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Scripture tells us of another kind of pleasure altogether in Psalm 1611.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: In thy presence is fullness of joy.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: May the Lord give us something of the faith of Moses, a faith that looks beyond the present moment, a faith that rightly values the things of eternity, a faith that endures because it sees him who is invisible, a faith that rests beneath the value of the blood of Christ, and above all, may Christ Himself increasingly become the one before our hearts.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: For when Christ fills the vision, the treasures of Egypt become very small indeed.