Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 11:24

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;

24. refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter ] He refused the rank of an Egyptian prince. The reference is to the Jewish legends which were rich in details about the infancy and youth of Moses. See Jos. Antt. ii. ix xi.; Philo, Opp. ii. 82; Stanley, Lect. on Jewish Church. The only reference to the matter in Scripture is in Exo 2:10; Act 7:22-25.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

By faith Moses – He had confidence in God when he called him to be the leader of his people. He believed that he was able to deliver them, and he so trusted in him that he was willing at his command to forego the splendid prospects which opened before him in Egypt. When he was come to years. Greek being great; that is, when he was grown up to manhood. He was at that time forty years of age; see the notes on Act 7:23. He took this step, therefore, in the full maturity of his judgment, and when there was no danger of being influenced by the ardent passions of youth.

Refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter – When saved from the ark in which he was placed on the Nile, he was brought up for the daughter of Pharaoh; Exo 2:9. He seems to have been adopted by her, and trained up as her own son. What prospects this opened before him is not certainly known. There is no probability that he would he the heir to the crown of Egypt, as is often affirmed, for there is no proof that the crown descended in the line of daughters; nor if it did, is there any probability that it would descend on an adopted son of a daughter. But his situation could not but be regarded as highly honorable, and as attended with great advantages. It gave him the opportunity of receiving the best education which the times and country afforded – an opportunity of which he seems to have availed himself to the utmost; notes, Act 7:22. It would doubtless be connected with important offices in the state. It furnished the opportunity of a life of ease and pleasure – such as they commonly delight in who reside at courts. And it doubtless opened before him the prospect of wealth – for there is no improbability in supposing that he would be the heir of the daughter of a rich monarch. Yet all this, it is said, he refused. There is indeed no express mention made of his formaliy and openly refusing it, but his leaving the court, and identifying himself with his oppressed countrymen, was in fact a refusal of these high honors, and of these brilliant prospects. It is not impossible that when he became acquainted with his real history, there was some open and decided refusal on his part, to be regarded as the son of the daughter of this pagan monarch.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Heb 11:24-26

Moses

The power of a good life

At Rome there is a colossal statue of Moses by Michael Angelo–one of the greatest statues in the world.

He is represented with long hair streaming over his robe, and as you gaze on the awful statue you are smitten with awe; love and admiration are lost in dread. There is nothing attractive in mere human greatness; it is beyond our reach; but when greatness is but the attribute of goodness it instantly becomes refreshing. For goodness is in the power of every one of us, and is greater than any greatness. We are in some sense bidden to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and every human character who has been great in goodness helps us to live and strive after this ideal. To make the rivers flow swiftly across the plain they must have their springs high up amid the immaculate snows of the everlasting hills, and to make a man his faith and hope must be among the heights of heaven. Now this is the very force which moved those good men who inspire us with fresh faith in God, humanity, and ourselves. The race must be worth working for which produces such specimens. And then it comes home as a revelation to us that we, too, can be great as they were in goodness, and if we be great in goodness it matters supremely little to God or man how small we are in all things else. Every servant in a house, every workman in a factory, every member of an ordinary profession in his counting house, may, and is, called upon almost every day of his life, in a high or a low measure, to make the very same choice which has influenced the greatest lives. You will see, then, why I think it may be profitable for us to look at one scene in the life of Moses. Now, what was it which at the ripe age of forty altered his career? If we look at the paintings on Egyptian tombs we may see what he saw. One of our great painters years ago drew a picture, in which thousands of Jews are dragging along images of an Egyptian king; they are tugging at the ropes under the burning sun, and youths and men in the prime of life are punting, sweating, straining every nerve while their wretched slave women are beating cymbals, and over their backs falls the torturing scourge of their taskmasters. Such sights Moses saw. He saw them, too, labouring in the brickfields as in a burning fiery furnace, or treading at the water-mills on the banks of the Nile as Fellaheen of Egypt do now, with their monotonous chant, They starve us, they starve us, they beat us, they beat us; but there is One above. A sight of oppression, a sight of misery, a sight of manhood humiliated out of its natural dignity, and defrauded out of its indefeasible rights. And what was worse, this nation of slaves was contented in its misery. Moses pitied them all the more because they had, for the time being, sunk too low to pity themselves. The glory of the faith of Moses was that he still saw them to be men. The great sculptor looks upon the rough, shapeless block of marble and sees in it the angel whom he will hew out of it; the man of faith sees in the debased man the potentialities of a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people which should be to the glory of God, who had called them out of darkness to His marvellous light. That was the sight which Moses saw without. What did he see at home? He belonged to these slaves no longer; he was an Egyptian prince; his life was ranked among the lords of these labouring myriads. What should hinder him from enjoying pomp and pleasure, and becoming himself, perhaps, a conquering Pharaoh, and in due time having some vast, godlike statue reared to him, with some pompous inscription such as this: My name is king of kings; look on my works, ye mighty, and despair? Moses might have done this, and if he had he would have lived for a few years like other Pharaohs and passed away; and history, reclining half asleep upon a pyramid, might have muttered some name, and we should not have known what it was. Happily for Israel, happily for mankind, Moses chose differently. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Moses became the first founder of that religion which was the cradle of Christianity. What was it but pity for human misery that made John Howard leave a comfortable home to breathe the sickening atmosphere of prisons? What was it but pity for human misery that sent David Livingstone straight from the splendours and triumphs of a London season to face the scorching wastes of Africa, and to die homeless, wifeless, childless, in a negro hut? It is the same spirit of self-sacrifice, which is the most potent engine for good in all the world; it is this spirit alone which is adequate to uplift our lives from their vulgarity and sensualism, and to place us, each in our humble degree, by the side of those who preferred, to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Whence came this spirit? Came it not from Christ? Did He not make for us men the most infinite sacrifice? Ah! let us follow His footsteps, bearing His cross as Moses did, and as all of His servants have ever done, trying to escape averages, trying to rise from the vulgar herd and the false, worldly, sensual pleasure into the high service of the saints of God. Remember that this choice did not come only to Moses, or to some great man now and then. It comes to all of us, it comes practically whenever we are called upon to choose between the paltry action from which we gain, and the right action from which we lose; whenever we are called upon to yield something to our neighbour and disappoint him not, though it were to our own hurt; whenever we seek for strength, even at the cost of bitter tears. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

Moses the uncrowned king

I. WHAT DID THAT IMPORTANT CHOICE INVOLVE? HOW MUCH OF SACRIFICE AND OF SELF-RENUNCIATION?

1. Rank and royalty he thereby renounced the highest honour and the greatest power that earth can give–the very prizes for which men toil most zealously and pay most largely.

2. This decision also involved the renunciation of temporal riches. Let any man measure, if he can, the influence which the desire for a competency of worldly good has upon himself, and he may better judge how strong was the power of Egypts incalculable wealth, which failed to swerve Moses from his holy purpose.

3. And there, too, were the pleasures of a life amid courtly splendours, which he voluntarily renounced. Within his reach were all the sensual enjoyments that the mind could devise or the heart desire. He could have lived in an atmosphere of earthly pleasure, breathing the perfume of sweetest flowers of delight, feasting the eye with all forms of beauty, regaling the senses with every carnal joy. All honour to Moses, then, for his signal victory over this fair-visaged and subtle foe, who has taken captive so many of earths fairest sons, and led them by the silken bonds of a willing captivity to the bitter wages of death! And all honour and certain reward to every youth who, like Moses, will spurn the sinful pleasure, and choose the higher though hidden good! But in that choice was involved more than the renunciation of all these forms of worldly good.

4. With him, to reject them was to accept their opposites; and not less lustre is shed upon that decision by what he accepted than by what he renounced. Think of that race of bondmen whom henceforth he was to call his brethren: taking his place by their side, and sharing the reproach which belonged to them. There, too, were the envy and ill-will of this very people he sought to benefit. They would not understand him. They were sure to misinterpret his good intentions. All this he must have foreseen. And not only was there the dishonour of becoming the companion of these degraded Hebrews; he accepted also the reproach which attached to the worship of their God and faith in their promised Messiah. His former associates among the lords and princes, the priests and the philosophers of Egypt would look upon him with contempt for adopting a religion so despised in their eyes. Think of this, O youth of this Christian land, where the true God is honoured and worshipped by the learned and the great, and the religion Christ is admitted to be the one hope of humanity 1 And yet, you, perchance, hesitate to adopt this revered faith, to choose this infinite good, through cowardly fear of a few godless associates. Look on this princely reared son of fortune, turning away from rank and wealth, from honour and pleasure, from friends and genial pursuits, to humiliation and poverty, to dishonour and reproach, to uncongenial associates and the curses of those He would bless; and summon your fainting heart to a like worthy choice. Moses places on the scales of decision, on the one side the worlds best, on the other religions worst, and with deliberate judgment chooses the latter; affliction with the people of God, the reproach of Christ, outweighing a throne with its dazzling honours, the wealth of a proud monarchy, and the pleasures of a royal palace.

II. Turn we now to consider UPON WHAT PRINCIPLE AND BY WHAT INSPIRING MOTIVE SUCH A CHOICE WAS MADE. And here we are left in no doubt. The apostle solves the problem for us: By faith, etc. Standing on that summit of observation he looked not alone with the eye of sense upon the inviting scene before him, but with the clear and penetrating eye of faith he surveyed the whole prospect. And when you look upon earths most entrancing scenes with the eye of a clear-visioned faith, their beauty fades, their glory pales, their wealth vanishes, their pleasure dies. He saw thus that all this fair-promising good was more seeming than real–a tinseled glory that would not withstand the corroding atmosphere of adversity and death–pleasing to the sense but not satisfying to the heart. He saw by faith, also, that all this glitter and glamour of earthly treasures were but for a season–a flower of earth that blooms to-day and fades to-morrow; a summers day that wanes and darkens into deepest night; a song of tremulous joy that ends in a wail of despair; a transitory pleasure that while it might make life agreeable would make a death-bed terrible. Moses faith in God also gave him the assurance that the promises concerning His people Israel should be fulfilled; that however degraded they were then, they should be exalted, and a Delivering Hand should wrest them from the oppressors grasp. Faith brought to his view far more than the natural eye could compass. It was to him the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Go forth, and look with naked eye over the limited field presented to your view, bounded by the sensible horizon, and the seemingly not-distant arch of heaven shutting down upon it. Now place the telescope to your eye, and lo! the field of vision is enlarged, and distant worlds appear. Faith is such a telescope, and through this Moses looked. And what did he see? Fields more fair and fruitful than the fertile valley of the Nile; the river of life surpassing far the sacred stream of Egypt; riches infinitely transcending Egypts garnered treasures; a crown more effulgent than that of the Pharaohs; a palace whose splendour outdazzled that of the magnificent City of the Sun. There is but one way to conquer this world–and it must be conquered, or it will conquer you–and that way is to look from this, through the telescope of faith, to the other world. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith. If you would be a winner in the life-race, you must do as Moses did–take in the whole and not a part of life, sacrifice the present for the future, pleasure for principle, gold for godliness, wealth for worth, reputation for character, the blossoms of immediate promise for the golden fruits of the eternal years.

III. THE REWARD OF HIS ILLUSTRIOUS CHOICE. He was rewarded by being called to a mission of most distinguished service and resplendent honour. He became the leader and deliverer of Gods chosen people–a lawgiver in comparison with whom the names of Solon and Lycurgus lose their brightness; an author of the most illustrious books the world has ever read; a prophet with a shining record of glory; a hero whose fame has filled the earth. The honour that he renounced was but for season; the honour that he gained is lasting as the years of God. (C. H. Payne, D. D.)

The choice of Moses:

This chapter is a kind of gazette extraordinary of the holy war, a muster roll of the heroes of faith. Among these worthies stands conspicuously, Moses.

I. THE CHOICE. Egypts gold had lost its power to charm, and the treasures of Rameses and Succoth were esteemed as trash. Not that there is any necessary opposition between the present and the future. Man is a being formed for both worlds; what we want is, as it were, to strike the balance between the claims of each. I do not ask you when trouble comes; but when fortune is with you, when friends smile upon you, when you feel the flutterings of dear life within you, can you then give all up for Christ?

II. THE MOTIVE. The recompense of the reward. The reward of grace is certain, complete, and eternal. Irrespective of the illumination of Gods Word, the voice of conscience, the inequalities of providence, and the sanctions of law and human governments, all point to a state of future rewards and punishments; every promise breathes in balmier sweetness, and every warning rolls in deeper thunder by this thought, that you and I must give an account. Oh, it is a solemn thought! You and I have life upon our hands, and we cannot get rid of it. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.)

Moses decision

I. THE DECIDED ACTION OF MOSES.

1. Who he was that did this.

(1) A man of education.

(2) A person of high rank.

(3) A man of great ability.

2. What sort of society he felt compelled to leave. Jesus left the angels of heaven for your sake; can you not leave the best of company for His sake?

3. But I marvel most at Moses when I consider not only who he was and the company he had to forego, but the persons with whom he must associate, for in truth the followers of the true God were not, in their own persons, a loveable people at that time.

4. Consider now what Moses left by siding with Israel.

5. Consider yet once more what Moses espoused when he left the court. He espoused abounding trial, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.

II. Now what WAS THE SOURCE OF MOSES DECISION? Scripture says it was faith, otherwise some would insist that it was the force of blood. He was by birth an Israelite, and therefore, say they, the instincts of nature prevailed. Our text assigns a very different reason. We know right well that the sons of godly parents are not led to adore the true God by reason of their birth. Grace does not run in the blood; sin may, but righteousness does not. Neither was it eccentricity which led him to espouse the side which was oppressed. We have sometimes found a man of pedigree who has associated with persons of quite another rank and condition, simply because he never could act like anybody else, and must live after his own odd fashion. It was not so with Moses. All his life through you cannot discover a trace of eccentricity in him: he was sober, steady, law-abiding; what if I say he was a concentric man, for his centre was in the right place, and he moved according to the dictates of prudence. Neither was he hurried on by some sudden excitement when there burned within his soul fierce patriotic fires which made him more fervent than prudent. No, there may have been some haste in his slaying the Egyptian on the first occasion, but then he had forty more years to think it over, and yet he never repented his choice, but held on to the oppressed people of God, and still refused to think of himself as the son of Pharaohs daughter. It was faith alone, that enabled the prophet of Sinai to arrive at his decision, and to carry it out. What faith had he?

1. He had faith in Jehovah. He knew in his own heart that there was one God, one only God, and he would have nothing to do with Amun, Pthah, or Maut.

2. The faith of Moses also rested in Christ. Christ had not come, says one. He cast his eyes through the ages that were to intervene, and he saw before him the Shiloh of whom dying Jacob sang.

3. But then, in addition to this, Moses had faith in reference to Gods people. He knew that the Israelites were Gods chosen, that despite all their faults, God would not break His covenant with His own people, and he knew, therefore, that their cause was Gods cause, and that it was the cause of right and truth.

4. Once again, Moses had faith in the recompense of the reward. He said thus within himself, I must renounce much, and reckon to lose rank, position, and treasure; but I expect to be a gainer notwithstanding, for there will be a day when God shall judge the sons of men; and I expect that those who serve God faithfully shall then turn out to have been the wise men, while those who truckled to gain a present ease, shall find that they missed eternity while they were snatching after time, and that they bartered heaven for a paltry mess of pottage.

III. Thirdly, we are going to run over in our minds some of THE ARGUMENTS WHICH SUPPORTED MOSES in his decided course of following God.

1. The first argument would be, he saw clearly that God was God and therefore must keep His word, must bring His people up out of Egypt and give them a heritage.

2. Then, we have it in the text that he perceived the pleasures of sin to be but for a season. Oh that men would measure everything in the scales of eternity!

3. And, then, again, he thought within himself that even the pleasures, which did last for a season, while they lasted were not equal to the pleasure of being reproached for Christs sake. This ought also to strengthen us, that the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world, that even now we have more joy as Christians, if we are sincere, than we could possibly derive from the sins of the wicked.

I have only this to say

1. We ought all of us to be ready to part with everything for Christ, and if we are not we are not His disciples.

2. We ought to abhor the very thought of obtaining honour in this world by concealing our sentiments or by making compromises.

3. We ought to take our place with those who truly follow God and the Scriptures, even if they are not altogether what we should like them to be. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

The highest form of faith

As no two men are alike, so it may be said no two lives are alike, though the lives of all men have many things in common. That life is the most interesting which embraces the largest amount of experience, and by the varieties and extraordinariness of its experiences differs most from other lives. But in estimating the interest of any individual life, we must ever bear in mind the fact that each life is double–it has its external and internal form. A life of mental struggle and soul triumphs like that of Plato, may have no external incidents of any importance, and set be interesting in the highest degree. Other lives may consist almost exclusively of external ups and downs. The most interesting life of all is one which embraces these two kinds of motion, and assumes a variety of phases in each department. Estimated according to this rule, few lives are so interesting as that of Moses. His external life was one of special variety. His internal life was one of hopes and fears; struggles, failures, and triumphs; passion and peace; discovery and perplexity; adversity and success; lamentations and songs; and work and leisure. He was a great and a good man in combination.

I. THE GOOD WHICH MOSES REJECTED. Paul gives us a summary of the sacrifices which Moses was led to make at the shrine of principle in the words, He refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. This is mentioned as a real good which he abandoned.

1. This sacrifice involved the abandonment of wealth. It is a matter of importance to estimate aright the value of wealth. A man who has but little sense and less religion may desire to possess wealth for its own sake: but a man whose nature is refined and good finds no pleasure in gold or acres in themselves. He desires them simply as means–as instruments. To him they are of no value except as they help him to some higher good. Viewed in this light, wealth is a blessing, and like every other blessing it brings with it its own responsibilities, for in all things man is but a steward over Gods property. Wealth is the real property of God who gives it, and not of the man who has it in his possession. The offer made to Moses involved wealth–all the treasures of Egypt. In it itself he could care nothing for it, butas means to ends–as an additional talent to be used for mans good and Gods glory–it was a blessing to be eagerly grasped. And then there was this further consideration, that if he refused the offer, it would be made to another and accepted, and this other might actually employ the wealth of Egypt to promote evil and clog the wheels of progress. Moses might say, If this wealth becomes mine, I shall make good use of it. Money is a blessing though the love of it is a curse. If I reject it, another may take it arid use it to do evil. Here lay the force of the temptation.

2. This sacrifice on the part of Moses involved the abandonment of influence. A man who has lost the good opinion of his fellows can never hope to do them good, for our words have power as men have confidence in our wisdom and integrity. By rejecting the honour which the Egyptians proposed to confer upon Moses, he would lose their good opinion because they could not comprehend principles so lofty as those which led him thus to act. Then the influence which arose from his position as king of Egypt was immense. As king he could have purified the morals of courtiers by setting them a good example. He might introduce regulations, with the consent of the people, which would have crippled the power, in after ages, of tyrannical kings. He might even abolish slavery, and thus restore the Jews to their former splendour. His influence might go far toward the abolition of idolatry and the instruction of the people in the knowledge of the true God. Then, as the king of the mightiest nation then existing, his influence would be great in foreign states; and by means of the power which he derived from inexhaustible riches, and the influence which arose from his official position, and the place which he held in public esteem, the good which he might have effected would have extended to all nations and for ever. It required no small resolution to reject those means and opportunities of doing good.

II. THE EVILS WHICH MOSES SELECTED.

1. The mental anxiety which was inseparable from his position as the leader into liberty of a nation of slaves.

2. The many privations which must have been connected with the journey across Arabia.

3. The precarious prospects of his own family. What became of his children is not known, but their secular position proved very different from what it would have been had he accepted the crown of Egypt.

III. THE REASON OF THIS CHOICE. The sinful pleasures referred to in the text are not allied to those which are so called now. The pleasures of sin, according to modern notions, are pleasures of a gross or animal nature, such pleasures as could have had no attraction for a man of Moses refined culture and pure habits. Paul refers, it seems to me, to the things which Moses rejected. These were the pleasures of sin–wealth, honour, and influence, or what was involved in being called the son of Pharaohs daughter. But, it may be asked, is wealth, or honour, or influence a pleasure of sin? Is it sinful for a man to be rich, respected, and obeyed? Is it wrong for a man to occupy the throne of a powerful and civilised country? In certain cases it is sinful; in others, it is not. If riches are gotten by being screwed out of the flesh and blood of the poor, then are riches the pleasures of sin. If the applause of others is obtained by sacrificing truth, honour, and goodness, as they were sacrificed by Herod, Pilate, and Felix, then is replication a pleasure of sin. If a man climbs to a throne of state, as many have done, by trampling on the rights of others, by crushing mens lives and liberties, then does regal power become a pleasure of sin. Did any such obstacles stand in the way of Moses? Was he not offered the crown by those who had a right to bestow it? True; still must Moses have sinned had he become the monarch of Egypt. The kings of Egypt were both kings and priests. If the king did not belong to the sacerdotal class, he was adopted into that class at the time of his appointment, and instructed in the mysteries of the national religion. The king had to appear in the temple to offer sacrifices to the gods. He represented the national religion, premised to be faithful to the gods of his country, as well as administer justice to his subjects. It is evident, thus, that Moses in accepting the crown of Egypt, must have pretended that he was an idol worshipper. He was thus required to act, if not to utter, at least one falsehood. He was required to subscribe to what he did not believe–to promise to do, what, as a good man, he never could intend to perform.

IV. THE MAINSPRING OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. Moses acted nobly because he acted conscientiously. But the question suggests itself to us, What enabled Moses to act thus conscientiously when a sacrifice so great was required of him? What gave to his conscience such unconquerable power?

1. Moses seems to have had the most satisfactory view of heaven–the recompense of the reward. The blessedness of the future will not only be a reward, but also a recompense. All present evils and sufferings will be recompensed. The joy of the future will be in proportion to the sorrow of the present.

2. Moses, moreover, realised the presence of the invisible world, for the Greek means no more than this, or rather, it means all this–as seeing the invisible. It is a general form of speech which embraces not only the Divine presence, but the actual presence of all invisible things. Moses had other means of vision than the mere eye of the body, and that was the reason of his triumph over the trials of this life. (E. Lewis, B. A.)

The faith of Moses

I. The faith of Moses appears in REFUSING TO BE CALLED THE SON OF PHARAOHS DAUGHTER.

1. Pharaohs daughter is your mother. No; my mother is of. the people of God.

2. Pharaohs daughter saved your life. Yes; but my mother brought me into life.

3. Pharaohs daughter gave you education. Yes; but my mother taught me the things of God.

4. Pharaohs daughter made you a prince. Yes; but my mother taught me to become a child of God.

5. Pharaohs daughter brought you to court. Yes; but my mother brought me to the Church of God.

II. The faith of Moses was TRIED BY AFFLICTION. YOU will be afflicted with poverty, with labour, with taxes, and with contempt and persecution as a Hebrew; but you shall be looked up to and respected as the son of Pharaohs daughter. Be it so; I prefer the favour of God to the approbation of men.

III. The faith of Moses appears in ESTEEMING THE REPROACH OF CHRIST GREATER RICHES THAN THE TREASURES OF EGYPT.

1. In Egypt you shall have a splendid palace–that in which Pharaoh lives, in all its beauty and grandeur. My parents taught me that the Lord would give me a mansion in glory; I prefer it.

2. In Egypt you shall wear a very costly and beautiful crown, all sparkling with diamonds. My parents taught me that the Lord will give me a crown of righteousness in glory; I prefer it.

3. In Egypt you shall sit on a throne of the most magnificent and costly splendour, with all your courtiers about you. My parents taught me that the Lord will grant to me to sit with Him in His throne; I prefer that.

4. In Egypt you shall reign over the most extended and wealthy kingdom on the earth. My parents taught me that the Lord will give me a kingdom, prepared for me from the foundation of the world; I prefer it.

5. In Egypt you shall have all the enjoyment which this world can afford. My parents taught me that the Lord will give me an exceeding and eternal weight of glory; I prefer that.

IV. The faith of Moses appears IN HIS FLIGHT FROM EGYPT.

V. IN HIS KEEPING THE PASSOVER AND THE SPRINKLING OF BLOOD. (James Kidd, D. D.)

The faith of Moses and the faith of Christ:

As the son of Pharaohs daughter Moses would have at his command all that is called pleasure; pleasures of intellect and taste, besides all the pleasures of sense, the pleasures of the man of the world, and of the man of fashion. There never was a great man whose temptations were not as great as his gifts. I do not mean to say that his pleasures, those open to him in the position he held, were sins. By no means. In themselves and apart from duties with which they might chance to be incompatible, these things were pleasures, and yet not in the smallest degree sins. It was what made them sins to Moses which shows us what sort of man he was, what nobleness of character there was in him by faith. There is an exquisite simplicity in the story in Exodus concerning the change in Moses from youth to man, from Egyptian to Israelite, from courtier to patriot. The deed which he did was unpremeditated, the work of a moment. It was done not without alarm; but it marked the critical moment when his life passed into a higher and nobler phase. He went forth an Egyptian courtier; he came back a Hebrew patriot. After this, whatever they might be to others, the pleasures of Pharaohs court, were to him the pleasures of sin; the best and most refined and most innocent of these pleasures were sinful. To go on enjoying his old pleasures after this wakening up of his manhood, this recognition of the fact that there was an oppressed people in existence, and that that people was his people, was a crime of which he could not be guilty. There was in him that nobleness of nature which, besides tending to sympathy with the oppressed, revolts from all that is selfish and cruel; and this nobleness was stirred up in him, by seeing the state of his kindred, and comparing it with his own. This was his faith. Faith saved him from being content to be idle and useless, and gave him zeal and courage to play the part of a man and of a hero in the liberation of his people. Faith made him refuse idleness and luxury as sin, when he saw that there was work to be done and suffering to be endured in a good cause. Faith made him despise the honours of a court when, by identifying himself with the shame and sorrow of a race of slaves, he could help them out of bondage worse than death. In a word, faith, in the case of Moses, was another name fur manliness or heroism. Every man who fights for his country, not from fear or by compulsion, but freely and bravely; every man who sacrifices time, or comfort, or health, or ease, for the good of his fellow-men; every man who makes a stand for truth, fair play, honesty, against lies and meanness and treachery and wrong; every man who thinks himself despicable if he is idle and useless, and respectable if he has duty to do and does it; every such man has in him something of the faith of Moses. It was a marvellous faith which Moses exhibited in his long and eventful life. With one or two mysterious lapses he played his heroic part in the most heroic fashion. It was not what he risked, or what he suffered in the execution of his great task at the hands of the Egyptians or other enemies of his race; it was what he had to endure from his countrymen; it was their murmurings and backslidings, their servile spirit, the bondage to sense which they carried with them out of the house of bondage–it was this which tried what manner of man he was, and of what stuff was his faith. As with all the greatest, as with Christ Himself, his conflict was not so much with force as with stupidity and baseness–those ancient and indomitable foes which never fail to rise up against the man whose purpose is to elevate his fellows. To make a nation, a chosen nation, a peculiar people, a commonwealth of righteousness, out of a horde of slaves, was a noble task. But it was a task in which he who undertook it had to suffer as much affliction, and refuse as much of what is called pleasure, as could well be suffered or refused. Herein Moses, as the language of this passage suggests, connects himself with Christ. His faith was the faith of Christ. The choice which the son of Pharaohs daughter made in his time was the same choice which was made again when He who was rich for our sakes became poor. It is striking to notice the conjunction here of these two names, the greatest in the history of mankind. A superficial account can be and often is given of it, from which we get no lesson worth learning:–it is that, by a marvellous second-sight, Moses anticipated Christs day, and by faith in Christ as the Saviour of the world was enabled to make his choice. There is a sense, no doubt, in which it is true that Moses, like Abraham, saw Christs day and was glad. But it was not certainly in the way in which we see it, now that it has been or, rather, is. To fancy that the Old Testament worthies had substantially all the light we have concerning Christ is to fancy what, in the first place, is very incredible, and what, in the second, distorts and confuses the whole teaching of the Bible. Christs life is the perfect life. As far as any one in times before He came approached to that life, he was a Christian–he saw Christs day; he believed in Christ; he esteemed the reproach of Christ the greatest of treasures. Moses was not only a Christian before Christ; he came as near almost as a man can come to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus, inasmuch as, like Christ Himself, he had to be good and do good, he had to be a man, and live a mans true life, at the expense of having to count life-long afflictions great gain, and to turn away as from sin from all that common men call pleasure. It is a great thing to remember how old Christianity is–to remember that it is as old as Moses, nay, as old as man. Every true and noble life that was ever lived in this world, no matter where, or when, or how, was Christian. Above all, every hour of suffering that was ever endured in the way of duty to God and man was Christian. Nor does this make Christianity less or Christ less–it makes them greater. It is only an expression of the fact that Christianity is eternal truth gad eternal life. There are two remarks which I think ought to be made in conclusion.

(1) As to the relation of Judaism, of which Moses was the founder, and Christianity, which began with Christ. Moses, whose faith was that of Christ, did not found a system which was destined to put ages of no faith, or different faith, between himself and Christ. There is but one faith–that which Moses had, and which Judaism, in its own way, inculcated–that faith which is another name for love to God and man.

(2) Lastly, remark this as to the enjoyment of the world and what are called its pleasures. Many Christian people are much perplexed in their minds on this point. Where to draw the line between lawful and unlawful pleasure is a difficulty which they find great or insuperable. But there is one rule as to the enjoyment and the renunciation of what are called pleasures, which is good for practice, and it is that which is suggested to us here: we may safely enjoy pleasures, as long as they do not interfere with our duty as Christians–to be good and to do good; and if there are pleasures, as there are many, which help us to do this duty, we ought to enjoy them. Give up your pleasures and call them sins when they hinder you from doing Christian work. Till then enjoy them with a good conscience, giving God thanks for them. (J. Service, D. D.)

The great refusal

It is not meant that he was base and unthankful as not acknowledging her tender compassion towards him when he was ready to perish, or her singular love to him, and special care of him, manifested in his education and advancement. No doubt he did account her as his best friend under heaven, and his greatest benefactrix under God, and he did give her all respect and honour due unto her as his mother. His own natural mother might have been willing, but was no ways able, to do so much for him. This refusal therefore was no unworthy incivility, disrespect, or base ingratitude, but a free and noble act of his sanctified soul, whereby he being illuminated from heaven did see the baseness, uncertainty, and danger of that great estate of honour, wealth, power, and rare contents of the world; and did judge the enjoyment of it, if not consistent with, yet prejudicial to his spiritual and eternal happiness. And upon this account he was willing to part with them for a better end, and a great good. Whilst we are seeking the eternal bliss of heavens kingdom, we must be willing to part with and forsake all things, even the most delicious and glorious, though we affect them much. Man devoid of grace and heavenly wisdom is strongly inclined to the glory, honour, wealth, and delights of this world; they seem so glorious, and taste so sweet, that they much take the soul; they promise some rare content and perfect happiness. Therefore men seek and pursue them eagerly, hoping and expecting much from them; and if they once are possessed of them, and enjoy them, oh, how unwilling are they to part with them! They prefer them before heaven and the eternal felicity thereof. Hence it doth appear how highly elevated, and how excellently qualified, the soul of Moses was, who could so fully and freely refuse to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. This perhaps was not done without some great conflict, the issue whereof was a clear and glorious victory. (G. Lawson.)

The choice of Moses

I. IT EVINCED GREAT SELF-DENIAL, He despised the pleasures of a court for the still greater luxury of doing good; he relinquished the enjoyments of a fine mind, a cultivated taste, and a splendid imagination, cradled in affluence, for the still loftier rewards of morality and religion; he turned a deaf ear to the voice of ambition which promised him the crown. Nor can it be said of Moses, what has been sneeringly declared of Solomon by the disciples of Kant and the shallow imitators of Voltaire, that he renounced the pleasures of this world only when his infirmities unfitted him for enjoying them. He was now in the vigour of his youth, and in all the prime of his manhood. Have you the moral courage and the self-denial to do what Moses did? You cannot refuse, like him, to be called the son of a princess. But have you the self-denial and the moral fortitude of character to be perfectly satisfied with the humble station in which Providence has placed you? Is it your aim to use this world as not abusing it, and to devote to His glory those talents with which you are intrusted?

II. THE CHOICE OF MOSES DISPLAYS SINGULAR RESOLUTION.

III. THE CHOICE OF MOSES DISPLAYS CALM AND COOL DELIBERATION ON THE MOST PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH A CHOICE. He insulted the princess, he outraged the royal favour, and he poured contempt upon the whole courtiers of the land. And the wrath which would now run high against him would bear some proportion to the love which adopted him as a son. These were consequences which Moses could not overlook in coming to such a resolution, and they were every way calculated to excite the deepest regret. Instead of his conduct being imputed to the true motives, he knew that it would be traced to principles to which he was an utter stranger. Nor could he vindicate himself; he was gone, and vile ingratitude was stamped upon his character. Nor were these the only difficulties which would present themselves to his generous mind. He was offering his services to men who scarcely knew the sacrifices which he was making–who could not appreciate his exertions on their behalf. These were the immediate consequences of his choice; they were far too palpable for such a man as Moses was, not to perceive; and they were far too important for him not to consider. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he deliberately chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Such should be the principles by which you are actuated in making a profession of religion now. If your profession of religion is not founded on real principle, if it is not guided by solid information, and if it is not animated by love to the truth, then there is no stability in your character.

IV. THE CHOICE OF MOSES DISPLAYS EARLY ATTENTION TO RELIGION. The apostle here tells us that, when Moses came to years, he made this choice, which fully warrants us in concluding that he had given very early attention to this matter. He considered the subject in all its bearings, and he traced out its consequences in time and eternity. And the result of this investigation was the choice which is here recorded. We enjoy far greater privileges than ever Moses knew. We are taught to look back to the incarnation, the life, and the sacrificial death of Christ, as a part of recorded history, instead of a part of those prophecies which were darkly unfolded, or of those ceremonies which were imperfectly understood. In conclusion

1. Notice the great folly of those men who prefer the pleasures of sin to the enjoyments of religion.

2. Those men are wise who make the same choice that Moses did. (A. Gilmour.)

Moses choice

I. THE CHOICE OF MOSES.

II. THE PRINCIPLE WHICH INFLUENCED THIS CHOICE. That principle was faith; a firm and cordial, not a cold and cursory, faith in the revelations of that truth which constituted the patriarchal religion.

1. He concluded that to be associated with the people of God, though in affliction, was better than to enjoy the pleasures of sin; and he judged right. But what are the advantages of union with the people, the Church, of God?

(1) Instruction. The Church is the depositary of truth; and God perpetuates a people to confess it. He raises up ministers also to teach it.

(2) Worship. The people of God worship Him in religious assemblies, in the use of pure forms, and in spirit and in truth. The advantages of such a service are unspeakable. A holy and cheering influence from God is vouchsafed to those who thus draw near to Him.

(3) An interest in Gods covenant. The people with whom Moses chose to suffer affliction were the people of God. He had been merciful to their unrighteousness, cancelled their guilt, renewed their nature, and received them as a peculiar treasure to himself.

(4) The communion of saints. In Egypt Moses might have had communion with her princes, her philosophers, her artists; but they were of the world; and intercourse with them would have been very different in its effects from intercourse with the devout worshippers of God. One would have tended to produce hardness of heart, and a worldly spirit; the other, to elevate and purify the mind, and prepare it for God and heaven.

2. Faith enabled him to take a right estimate of the pleasures of sin. They are but for a season. But what are sinful pleasures?

(1):Every pleasure which arises from what God has forbidden.

(2) Every pleasure which, if not expressly forbidden, cannot be reconciled to the general principles of the Word of God.

(3) All such pleasures as weaken the tone of our piety, and dissipate our thoughts, so that we lose our taste and relish for Divine things. Such are the pleasures of gaiety, of unhallowed reading, and often those of imagination; and they are tacitly contrasted with those which spring from God, and which lead the mind to Him. They are but for a season, short-lived. They are so denominated because they are only occasional. Man must labour and suffer, and can only occasionally enjoy his pleasures. Besides, the appetite for them palls. Spiritual pleasures follow us everywhere, and are the perpetual sunshine of the breast. Sinful pleasures are said to be only for a season, because they are dissipated by reflection. This destroys them. Spiritual enjoyments are so far from appearing less desirable as we advance in life and knowledge, that the first prayer of the heart when God has been forsaken, and we are made sensible of our loss, is, Return, we beseech Thee, O Lord of Hosts. Come back, and restore to me the joy of Thy salvation.

3. His faith regarded a future world. He had respect unto the recompense of the reward. There is a two-fold reward mentioned in Scripture. One is a righteous reward to the sinner; the other is a reward of mercy conferred upon the man who has renounced all for God. Faith respects both; for it is the evidence of things not seen.

III. THE INSTRUCTION WHICH THE SUBJECT CONVEYS TO US.

1. We are taught that true religion is a reasonable matter of choice. All carelessness and sin God has stamped with the name of folly. In recommending to you the renunciation of the world and sin, and the surrender of yourselves to God, we challenge your reason.

2. We are taught that no man serves God for nought. No man loses by Him. Moses refused to be king in Egypt; and he became king in Jeshurun. He turned his eye from the splendours of Egypts seductive philosophy; and the Lord passed by, and showed him His own glory, and proclaimed tits name. Moses learned in that sight, he heard in those few sentences, more than the study of years in the schools of Egyptian philosophy could have supplied.

3. We are taught that, if we are come to years, we ought to make our choice; and we are also taught what choice to make. (R. Watson.)

Lessons from the choice of Moses:

1. A fine illustration of the power of faith in overcoming the world. Here is a victory infinitely more noble than the conquests of Alexander, won by Moses over his own spirit and an ungodly world.

2. True faith is an operative principle, manifesting itself in such victories as these. Try by this test what your faith is worth. Did it ever manifest itself in mortification of the flesh, in the casting away of sinful pleasures for the sake of Christ?

3. True religion is the result of deliberation.

4. Those sinful pleasures which the Christian is called to renounce are by him renounced the more easily, through the power of those glorious realities which faith opens up to his view; as, on the other hand, the trials which he is called to endure are by the same means more easily borne.

5. The worst of Christs cause is preferable to the best of the worlds–Christs reproach to the worlds riches.

6. It is a sight peculiarly grateful to witness a man exchanging the pleasures of sin for the service of God, while he might yet shine among the worlds votaries were he so disposed.

7. Christians may and ought to have respect to the recompense of the reward, to quicken them in duty, and strengthen them in the midst of difficulties and temptations.

8. Let us make use of the whole subject for encouragement in the good ways of the Lord. Are we called to suffer afflictions for Christs sake? Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory. Reproach? If we be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are we: for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon us. Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. (C. Brown.)

The choice of Moses

I. His RENUNCIATION.

II. His CHOICE.

1. Of the people of God as his associates.

(1) They are the wisest companions (Job 28:12-19).

(2) The most honourable companions.

(3) The most safe companions (Pro 3:23).

(4) The most useful companions. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise. Their conversation, their example, their influence, will prove beneficial to us.

(5) They shall be our companions for ever.

2. Of the afflictions of Gods people.

3. Of the reproach of Christ.

III. THE PRINCIPLE BY WINCH HE WAS INFLUENCED.

1. By faith he learned rightly to estimate the things of this world.

(1) Unsatisfying in their nature.

(2) Uncertain in their possession.

(3) Evanescent in their duration.

(4) Evil in their influence. By faith, therefore, he esteemed them not. Then, his faith had particular reference

2. To the recompense of reward. (or. Burns, D. D.)

Faith the means of overcoming the world:

I. A MAN SORELY TEMPTED TO CHOOSE THE WORLD.

1. Consider the strong reasons which would urge him to this.

2. Consider the fact which would appeal to him against these.

3. Consider the battle which thus raged within him.

II. THIS TEMPTATION VANQUISHED BY FAITH

1. Faith in God, the God of his fathers.

2. Faith in the Deliverer from sin.

3. Faith in the glorious future of Gods people.

III. THIS FAITH ABUNDANTLY JUSTIFIED IN THE SEQUEL. Think of the blessings that come from choosing God before the world

1. A good conscience, and this opens the way for satisfying communion with God.

2. Moreover, the character of God is the pledge that none can lose

381 by fidelity to righteousness.

3. And God has promised eternal reward to the conqueror. (C. New.)

Religious decision

I. RELIGION MAY INVOLVE GREAT SACRIFICE.

1. Rejection of the highest worldly alliance. This meant

(1) Forfeiture of the brightest prospects.

(2) Apparent ingratitude to a kind benefactress.

(3) Apparent contempt of Providence. His adoption was of Divine instigation.

2. Preference for a painful religious association.

(1) A transition involving an extreme change.

(2) Consciousness of the superiority of religious suffering to worldly enjoyment.

(a) The worthlessness of worldly pleasure. It lacks solidity; it is immoral; it is perishing.

(b) The value of religious suffering. It tests the genuineness, improves the quality, and reveals the helpfulness of religion.

(3) A display of personal freedom.

(4) A wise use of the great crisis of life.

(5) A deliberate estimation of religion at its worst being superior to the world at its best.

II. RELIGION WILL INFINITELY COMPENSATE GREAT PERSONAL SACRIFICE.

1. It will be in another world.

2. It will be valuable.

3. It is spiritually visible.

4. It influences beneficially the present life. (B. D. Johns.)

The self-denial of Moses

I. THAT NOBILITY OF BIRTH, AND ALL HONOURS AND DELIGHTS WHATSOEVER, ARE TO BE DENIED FOR CHRIST.

1. For first, though there be something in it, yet there is not so much as any should think it too great a thing to lay down for God.

2. But suppose there were ten thousand times more honour in it than there is, yet the denying of all were not a sufficient testimony of that respect you owe to the great and glorious God.

3. As God is worthy in regard of His infinite excellency, so it is due to Him, because whatsoever excellency and honour there is in the nobility of your birth, it is He that made the difference between men.

4. There is no such way to add glory to your nobility, as to be willing to use it or deny it for God.

5. If we be godly God hath honoured us with a higher birth than what we have by blood from our ancestors.

II. HOW EXTERNAL HONOUR AND NOBILITY IS TO BE DENIED.

1. By being willing to be employed in any, even the meanest, service that God calls to. We must think no work of God too mean for us, but willingly submit to it, though it darken our honours never so much in the eyes of the world.

2. They must deny themselves in being willing to join with those of lower degree.

3. We must deny ourselves by being willing to suffer the most disgraceful thing that can be put upon us for the cause of Christ.

III. How HONOURS, RICHES, AND ALL DELIGHTS WHATSOEVER ARE TO BE DENIED FOR CHRIST.

1. By going on in the ways of godliness in the strictness and power of them, though all these be hazarded.

2. Appear for God and His cause, His truth and His people, though the issue may seem to be dangerous, when none else will.

3. Let all go rather than be brought to commit any sin. We had better have all the world cast shame in our faces, and upbraid us, than that our consciences should cast dirt in them.

IV. WE MUST DENY ALL WORLDLY PLEASURES AND PREFERMENTS IN THE VERY PRIME OF OUR TIME, WHEN WE HAVE OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY THEM TO THE FULL. Necessity takes away the honour of an action. To do a thing when we must needs, when we are forced to it, whether we will or no, though the thing be good we do, yet the honour of it is lost in great part. Augustus when he was to die could acknowledge all the pomp of the world to be but a fable, but David while he lived could acknowledge all but as a dream. Commend him, and imitate him, says Seneca, who is not unwilling to die when he may live delightfully.

V. IT IS A SPECIAL ARGUMENT OF SINCERITY, THAT WHEN THE PROFESSION OF RELIGION PROVES COSTLY TO US, YET WE CONTINUE IN IT.

1. This argues great sincerity. Now the truth of grace appears indeed to he religious, when religion must cost us something. To profess the truth while we may live upon it, this argues no truth; but to profess it when it must live upon us, upon our honours, upon our profits and pleasures, and earthly contentments, this is a strong argument of truth: as to see the beauty of religion through troubles, through all outward disrespects, this is something: for to see the evil of sin through all outward glory, respect, and contentment in this world, when it may be enjoyed to the full, this is much; surely here is truth, here is a piercing eye, that is enlightened and quickened by the Spirit of God.

2. It argues the excellency of grace, that it raises and greatens mens spirits, it lifts them up above the highest of all these things, and so high above them as the things of the world, when at the highest, are looked on as under things, and appear small and contemptible in the eyes of such a raised soul.

3. It argues the power of grace. To resist powerful temptations is powerful grace. It is a strong stomach that can digest much fat, much honey, and sweet things, that usually clog weak stomachs; so it is a strong spirit that is not overcome with the sweet of much prosperity.

4. It is a testimony of dear love to the Lord, to deny oneself for His sake, when one is in the highest of enjoyment of all delights to the flesh. It is an argument, that God is indeed the proper place, the centre of the soul, when, although it hath never so much of the creature to give satisfaction unto it, yet it cannot rest, but works still to God through all and from all. As a stone, though it were in never so good a place, although it were in heaven, yet it would desire to descend, because the proper place of it is below; so let a gracious heart which hath God for the centre be put into any condition never so full of delight, yet it is not satisfied, it is willing to leave all that it may close with God.

5. This gives God the glory of all our prosperity, which shows we acknowledge it to be from Him and for Him, and that we have it not for ourselves, but for the setting forth His praise.

6. This gives testimony to the world, that surely there are wonderful blessed things, that God acquaints the soul withal in the ways of godliness, that there is much sweet and contentment to be had in those ways.

7. Thus to deny oneself is honourable, because wheresoever this is, there surely will be a holding out to the end; no troubles of adversity can ever make such a one to forsake any ways of God who can deny himself for God in the midst of the pleasures of prosperity.

8. This upbraids those who do greedily embrace the things of the world, and think that it is impossible for any to deny themselves in so great delights as they do enjoy.

VI. COMFORT TO THOSE WHO IN THE MIDST OF EARTHLY CONTENTMENTS HAVE THEIR AFFECTIONS SET UPON HEAVEN.

1. This is a most evident argument, that all the good things they have in the world come from the spiritual favour and love of God to them, and this is no small matter; there is more sweetness in this knowledge of the principle from whence the good things we have do come, than in anything that they afford of themselves.

2. This is an evident sign that God intends to use you in excellent services, for the honour of His name.

3. This is the highest improvement of all outward mercies that may be.

4. This self-denial is highly acceptable to God.

5. If you in the fulness of all your earthly contentments shall acknowledge Jesus Christ, and be willing to lay down all for Him, when He shall come in the fulness of His glory He will acknowledge you, and will put glory upon you, when He shall come with His mighty angels, full of majesty, to be admired of His saints; then He shall own you, and make you partakers of His own glory.

6. If ever you should live to come to any adversity in this world, surely it will be much sweetened to you if you be willing to give God the honour of the sweet of prosperity; though adversity may come, yet God will keep the bitterness of it from you.

7. It is so much the more honourable, and may be so much the more comfortable to you, by how much the more rare it is: God hath but few self-denying spirits in the world.

VII. REPROOF OF THOSE WHO GREEDILY PURSUE SENSUAL DELIGHTS.

1. Do you fear, are you jealous of yourselves, lest you should let out your hearts too far in them? Do you seriously consider that there is a snare in them? That there may be danger, yea, very great danger, if you take not heed?

2. Are your desires as strong in seeking God for grace, to use them for His honour, as your joys are in the use of them for satisfying yourselves?

3. Do you often examine your hearts and ways, for fear God should not have that honour from them that is infinitely due unto Him?

4. What does conscience say when you are in afflictions? when you apprehend God is calling you to an account for them, does it not tell you that your hearts have been let out too greedily after them?

5. Answer as in the presence of God, would you prize a less estate with more opportunity of service more than a great estate with legs opportunity of service, and are you more troubled when you are crossed in opportunity of service, than when you are crossed in your desires and delights in the enjoyment of the creature?

6. Lastly, if you have a care to use that prosperous estate you have for God, either God hath much glory from you in it, or else you have much joy in it; surely where there are great estates, there are great opportunities of glorifying God; but hath God great glory from you? Hath He more than from others in mean estates? If not, is it the grief of your souls that you should enjoy so much from God, and God have so little honour from you?

VIII. THE FULNESS OF CREATURES COMFORTS TO BE LAID DOWN AT CHRISTS feet. Are there not arguments enough from all Gods love and His merciful dealings with you to prevail with your hearts for such a thing as this? How hath God spared you in your greatest extremities?

IX. FAITH IS THE PRINCIPLE THAT MUST CARRY THROUGH AND MAKE HONOURABLE ALL A CHRISTIANS SUFFERINGS.

1. It is the primary work of this grace, wherein the very being of it consists, for the soul to cast itself upon God in Christ for all the good and happiness it ever expects; to make an absolute resignation of all unto Him, so as to betrust Him with all, and to commit all unto Him for ever. Now this implies the taking off the heart from the things of the world, for faith takes off the heart from itself, therefore much more from anything in the world; and where this is, sufferings cannot be very grievous, because the whole good of the soul is now in God (Psa 37:7).

2. By faith the soul comes to have a higher principle to enable it to see God in His glory and majesty, His greatness and infiniteness, His holiness, His justice, and goodness, than ever it had before.

3. Faith discovers the reality of the beauty and excellence of spiritual, supernatural, and eternal things revealed in the Word, which before were looked upon as notions, conceits, and imaginary things.

4. Faith gives the soul an interest in God, in Christ, in all those glorious things in the gospel, and in the things of eternal life.

5. Faith discharges the soul of the guilt of sin, and that dreadful evil that follows upon it; it gets a general acquittance from God, a pardon of all sin. The soul being made just by faith, is able to live in the midst of many troubles.

X. SIX MORE PARTICULARS WHEREIN THE POWER OF FAITH IS SEEN IN TAKING THE HEART OFF FROM THE WORLD AND CARRYING IT THROUGH ALL AFFLICTIONS.

1. Faith makes the future good of spiritual and eternal things to be as present to the soul and to work upon the soul as if they were present, and makes use likewise of things past as if they were present; and in these operations of faith there is much power to carry on the soul with comfort through sufferings, for present things are apprehended by the mind more fully, and work more strongly upon the will and affections, than things past or to come.

2. Faith is a raising grace, it carries the soul on high, above sense, above reason, above the world; when faith is working, oh, how is the soul raised above the fears and favours of men!

3. Faith is a purifying and healing grace (Act 15:9). Purifying their hearts by faith. It purges out base desires after the things of the world, and living at ease; base joys and delights in the creature, in satisfying the flesh; the fears of future evils that may come hereafter. Faith fears not hunger, saith Tertullian. If the heart be sound it will be strong; this purging of it makes it sound (2Ti 1:7).

4. Faith is a quickening grace, it sets all other graces on work, it puts life and activity into them all.

5. Faith is a mighty prevailing grace with God and with Jesus Christ, as it is said of Jacob (Gen 32:28).

6. Hence from all these it follows that faith is an overcoming grace (1Jn 5:4). In this victory there are three things.

(1) There is a conquering of the assaults of the world, so as they can do us no hurt, but we are able to repel the force of them.

(2) But this is not all, there is something further: namely, the making use of those things of the world for our good that would have undone us, that is a full victory, he is able to use the adversary to serve his own turn; so in this conquest of faith there is not only an overcoming of the temptations, of the pleasures, of the world, but ability to use them for God and the furtherance of our own good.

(3) But yet further, there is a third thing in victory, which is triumph: a believer can triumph over the world, over all his allurements and threats. As Christ did not only prevail against His and our enemies, but triumphed over them (Col 2:15).

XI. Most MEN ARE STRANGERS TO THIS PRECIOUS FAITH; THE TRIAL THEREOF DISCOVERED.

XII. NO WONDER THAT MEN OF GREAT PARTS (WANTING FAITH) DO FALL OFF FROM CHRIST AND BETRAY HIS CAUSE.

XIII. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HEAT OF MENS OWN RESOLUTIONS AND THE TRUE HEAT OF THE HEART BY FAITH IN SUFFERING FOR CHRIST.

XIV. How TO KNOW THE ROOT OR PRINCIPLE FROM. WHENCE ALL THAT WE DO OR SUFFER COMES.

1. Where self-denial is from natural principles it is but particular, not universal. In some eminent thing a natural spirit may deny itself; but upon examination it may appear that in other things it makes self its end, even in things where God requires self-denial as much as in the other; whereas if it came from faith it would not be partial, but appear in one thing as well as in another, so far as God calls thereunto.

2. Where suffering troubles come from a natural root the soul is not conscious to itself of its own weakness; it knows not the power of corruption in the heart, it understands not how self may be sought in denying oneself.

3. When it comes from natural principles there may be some appearance of self-denial in outward actions, and willingness to suffer, but there is little care of mortifying inward lusts; lusts within are suffered to swell, to rankle, and fester.

4. When bearing sufferings arise from natural stoutness and courage, such an one does neither begin nor strengthen himself afterwards upon Divine grounds and arguments, as the believer doth.

5. Where natural stoutness and courage is the principle, there the soul is not raised higher in its courage for God than when the cause only concerns itself; it discovers as much stoutness and courage in natural things as it does in spiritual. But this strength in sufferings, that comes from faith, is a strength far more raised in the cause of God and spiritual things than in any other.

6. The power of resisting sufferings, that comes from natural principles, is not a fruit of much humiliation, brokenness of heart, seeking of God aforehand.

7. If there be only natural strength to enable to a willingness to venture upon any way of suffering, there cannot be that confidence of a good issue that faith brings with it where that is the principle.

8. Natural principles cannot welcome afflictions with such joy and delight as faith can.

9. Where natural strength only enables, there the soul is not more humble after it hath gone through difficulties, but it is puffed up as having passed through hard things and done some great matter; but where faith is the principle, the soul knows that it was not from anything in itself.

10. If the principle be only natural courage, although such an one may be very ready at first in denying himself, yet if after he be crossed more than he expected, and finds worse success than he looked for, if he does not see some natural good coming in, he is soon discouraged, the heart sinks, as not having sufficient to uphold it and carry it out in that it hath undertaken. Yet further, such is the deceit of a mans own heart as a man may suffer much out of the pride of his heart; as a man may serve himself in serving God, so he may seek himself in denying himself in that which is the cause of God.

XV. COMFORT TO THOSE WHO HAVE TRUE FAITH.

1. If your faith be such as carries your souls to God as an universal good, so as you can satisfy yourselves in Him alone, then it is this precious faith that will do this that we speak of.

2. If your faith works a sanctified use of your prosperity, if your faith can carry you through the temptations of prosperity, it will certainly carry you through the trials of adversity; if faith can keep you from swelling in prosperity, it will keep you from breaking in adversity.

3. But especially, in the third place, if your faith can carry you through spiritual difficulties, it will be much more able to carry you through all outward troubles.

XVI. THE MEANS TO MAINTAIN AND STRENGTHEN OUR FAITH.

1. The first is the principle and ground of all, namely, the assurance of your interest in the covenant of grace that you are received by God into that free, rich, glorious covenant of life in Christ.

2. In the assurance of Gods fatherly love unto and care over you, in the sorest and hardest afflictions that can befall you.

3. In the assurance of the blessed issue of all, that all will be peace and comfort at the last. If faith be strong in these it will be able to encounter with all assaults whatsoever. (J. Burroughes.)

Worldly honours refused:

Other and inferior men have acted on the same principle with this eminent servant of God. When Napoleon assumed the imperial purple, he resolved to surround himself with a train of nobles in room of the ancient noblesse of France, most of whom had either fallen in the Revolution, or had adhered to the family that had been dethroned. What could he do to give dignity to this creation of upstarts? He learned that a descendant of the ancient and illustrious house of Du Plessis Mornay, which long before had been driven into exile on account of its Protestant principles, was a settler in the Dutch colony of South Africa. To him, Bonaparte made the offer of reinstatement in all the ancient possessions and honours of the family of Du Mornay, if he would return to France and grace the conquerors throne. The offer was refused; the good man was satisfied with his flocks and herds here, for he entertained the hope of a blessed hereafter. What could worldly rank or title do for him? He refused to be the first peer of France, as Moses refused to be accounted the son of Pharaohs daughter, because he had respect to the recompense of reward. (James Kirkwood, M. A.)

The choice of Moses

I. His CHOICE.

1. Moses made this choice in opposition to all the propensities of our depraved nature, and even to many of those inclinations and aversions which belong to us as human beings. It was a choice which involved the crucifixion in him of the love of eminence, of power of fame, as well as of wealth and pleasure–a choice which necessitated him to subdue feelings that enter into our very constitution, and patiently to bear what an ingenuous mind can least of all bear–disgrace and calumny.

2. Moses made this choice against all the influence of education and habit. What a trial was this! To renounce the views which he had imbibed from men whom he had been taught to venerate.

3. Consider the great sacrifices which Moses made.

4. Moses made this choice with all the sentiments of a martyr. He knew from what he had seen of the king, that, in adjoining himself to the

Hebrews, he would incur the royal resentment–deep and deadly. But even with death in his view he did not hesitate.

5. This choice was the result of mature deliberation. Under the influence of a capricious temper, or in some fit of enthusiasm, when their passions have been strongly roused, or from disgust and disappointment, some have done wondrous deeds of self-denial, deeds which, when the effervescence that produced them has subsided, they have deeply regretted. But such was not the manner of Moses choice.

II. THE INFLUENCE OF FAITH ON MOSES CHOICE.

1. By this faith Moses was satisfied that true blessedness would be enjoyed only in possessing the favour of the God of Israel, and in serving Him.

2. By faith Moses was fully persuaded that to be related to God and to serve Him constitute true glory.

3. By faith Moses was convinced that reproach and suffering for Christs sake are at once honourable and beneficial.

4. Through faith Moses had respect to the recompense of the reward. Future blessedness is denominated the reward to teach us the gracious respect which God exercises to the obedience and sufferings of His people. It receives the name of the recompense of the reward, to convince believers that future glory will more than compensate them for all their present losses and sufferings in Christs service.

III. THE WISDOM OF MOSES CHOICE.

1. Which yields the greatest present satisfaction?

2. Let us consider whether the pleasures and advantages of true religion in the most unfavourable circumstances, or those of the world in its best state, be most independent of the vicissitudes of life, and most permanent.

3. Let us consider, lastly, which has the best issue–whether a life spent in the prosecution and enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, or in the service of God.

Lessons:

1. This subject evinces the absolute necessity of faith.

2. Abide, Christians, by the wise choice you have made through faith, (James Stark.)

Moses suffering affliction:

And your affliction must be like his affliction if you are led by his faith.

1. The contempt of your enemies, the scorn of the world.

2. Again, you will be often unkindly treated by Gods own people: they will often suspect you:

3. You will have to live a life of hardships in some respects.

4. Again, you must, like Moses, give up many earthly comforts.

5. You will sometimes be unhappy; Christ will sometimes seem to hide His face; you will sometimes feel as if you had trusted a vain hope; Satan will tempt you, and you will be discouraged. This, then, is the example of Moses of the work of faith

(1) You must give up securing good prospects if they interfere with religion.

(2) You must expect to bear affliction, you must endure the reproach of the enemies of God. But, thank God, it is but for a season. (E. Monro.)

Happiness of the self-denying:

Religious self-denial is no such hard and painful duty, as it is generally thought to be. The testimony of the Bible and the experience of Christians concur in refuting the idea. Both these authorities declare that the happiest men in the world are the self-denying, and that they are happy in proportion to their self-denial, and because of it. Look at facts: Moses was a happier man than Pharaoh. Does any one doubt this? Daniel was happier than the Chaldean king. Paul was happier than the emperor Nero. Howard was happier than Bonaparte. And the paradox to the selfish mind is, that these men found their happiness in self-denial The purest, most unmingled happiness tasted on earth is by the men who most nearly approach the pattern of Him who, though He was rich, became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. True blessedness is in self-denial, not in avoiding it. He who shuns an obvious call to deny himself for Christs sake, shuns an opportunity of tasting the most exquisite joy permitted to man this side of heaven. Oh! the infinite number of turn-outs and by-paths from the path of self-denial, resorted to in the belief that they are pain-saving paths, when in truth they only turn the traveller off from the highway of joys unspeakable and full of glory.

Desiring and choosing:

What, then, is it that a person does when he chooses? Why is it that he sifts the myriad influences that are exerted upon him, appropriating some and rejecting others? There are a thousand things that come in to-day, and there are a thousand things that come in to-morrow, to affect us. Each hour shifts the glass. The world, like a glass, is perpetually turning. We are all the time seeing different combinations. And we learn instinctively to choose from among the things that rise up before us. We have taken the line of our life, and we say, All that I have must lie parallel with that line. I cannot take this or that at pleasure. And our life is a system of selecting and rejecting. In looking around we put our eye on this or on that, and choose it; and then we follow up that which we have chosen. A desire which is so much a desire that the reason, when it is true to its function approves it as rational, and that the will applies the means to the end, and that you prefer it, together with all the circumstances which are required for getting it–that is a choice. Choosing takes, not the thing alone, but the whole apparatus by which it is to be obtained. Choosing is not only desire, but the machinery by which desire becomes reality. Choosing always carries with it something more potential than mere susceptibility. So that when a man says, I choose such a thing, it is as if he said, I think that thing to be not only desirable, but more desirable than other things that are inconsistent with it; and so much more desirable that for its sake I will give them up, and will apply all the forces that are necessary to getting it. Such is choosing.

1. There are a great many young men and young women who desire very much to be cultivated and educated. They have some genuine tastes. They take pleasure in the finer aesthetic elements. They desire to have an education. And if you were to ask them, Do you choose to be educated? they would say, Certainly, I do choose to be educated. But no, they do not. They desire to be educated, but it is one of those desires which everybody is subject to. Myriads of desires we have which never ripen. Have you ever noticed what a profusion of apple blossoms there are every spring, and how few apples there are that come from them? There are a million blossoms to a bushel of apples. Just so it is with desires and choices. Men have a million of desires to a bushel of choices. So that when you say, I choose to be educated, you are mistaken. You do not choose it; you desire it–that is all. You have sometimes thought to yourself,

How nice it would be if I could speak the modern languages! but you did not choose to take the pains to learn the French and German and Spanish. You tried once or twice, and got stuck in the grammar the first thing, and gave up. When you saw what such a choice involved you did not venture upon it. Your choice was, Give me present pleasure; give me good prospects in this world; give me something to eat and something to drink and something to wear; give me a place where I shall be praised and where I shall be honoured, and I will let intelligence go, and I will pick up what little information I need to get through life with. And so it turns out to be nothing more than a fair dream which so many young persons have in early life when they say, I will be a knowing man. They desire knowledge, but they choose ignorance, or only partial knowledge.

2. There are men who desire to be rich, and make up their minds that they are going to be rich–that is, they say they are, until they begin to find out what it costs. This is the young man that came down to the city to be rich, but the moment he found that gaining wealth required self-denial, painstaking industry and integrity, the moment he found that it required that a man should rebuff the tempters on the right and on the left, and hold himself steadily to his purpose, he did not, choose riches. He chose self-indulgence, he chose the wine-cup, he chose pleasures, he chose companionship, he chose the present and let the future take care of itself. And when he came down to that which he had chosen–pleasure and its outcome–he was bankrupt and destroyed.

3. There are a great many men among you who choose, as you suppose, to so grow up that they shall have an established reputation, and the things which properly belong to a good character. There are many men who come into life, and begin life, feeling that they desire to have an honourable name. They do desire it, but whether they choose it or not we can tell when we see how they act. If they are circumspect, vigilant, and self-denying, if they take a high standard, if they steadily press their way up, if they buffet every temptation, if they are really forming themselves on a high model, and are seeking for honour or glory, then we say that they have chosen such a name. Otherwise we say that they have merely desired it.

4. There are very many persons who desire the happiness which comes from well-doing, and they also desire clandestine enjoyment of evil-doing. There is nothing in this world which more men are mistaken about than the possibility of being wicked underhandedly and having good on the top of it.

You cannot grind charcoal downstairs and keep clean upstairs. But many men are trying that which is just as impossible. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot obey Christ and Belial. You must choose between them, and take one or the other. And desiring is not choosing. When men are doing wrong, and they know it and regret it, as they often do; when wrong puts them into this or that misalliance; when they are filled with shame–which is Gods quickener of the conscience; when they come very near the verge of destruction, and are filled with fear; when they come to a sense of their danger, so that they desire to be free from their wickedness, they only desire it. They do not choose it. If they did choose it they could break their bonds and rise up and be free.

5. Rising from the question of morality to that of spirituality, there are a great many persons who, all their life long, have the impression that they should be Christians, and mean to be Christians, and hope they shall be. I talk with these persons and say, Do you not choose to be a good man? Yes; oh yes. Do you not choose to repent? Yes. And to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes. To rise up into the spirit of communion with Him? Yes. And to live by faith of Christ and love to God and man? Yes. And to purify your life with everything that is consistent with the Divine will? Yes, it is eminently desirable, you say. This, then, is precisely the ground on which you stand; you have the moral sensibility to see that it it desirable, but you have not moral stamina enough to choose it. (H. W. Beecher.)

Modern instances of a right choice:

The same principle which actuated Moses may be shown by the cabman when he gives back the sovereign that was given him by mistake for a shilling; by the orange-woman who shows you the bruised side of the orange; by the working man who comes home through a narrow street in order that he may avoid the temptations of the gin-palace; by the clerk who will not put anything in the gambling lottery in which all his fellows join; by the scholar who guides himself by his conscience; by the servant-girl who speaks the truth whether her mistress, is present or not; by the tradesman who will net have unfair prices or adulterated goods; by the Member of Parliament who will vote according to his conscience, though thereby he will lose his seat. (F. W.Farrar, D. D.)

A noble preference:

Never fearing to openly address a Quakers meeting, William Penn was soon on the road to Newgate You are an ingenious gentleman, said the magistrate at the trial; you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such simple people? I prefer, said Penn, the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked. (D. Bancroft.)

Choosing:

So did Origen choose rather to be a poor catechist in Alexandria than, denying the faith, to be with his fellow-pupil, Plotinus, in great authority and favour. (J. Trapp.)

Moses choice

When he was come to years, not only to years of discretion, but of experience. It was not the act of a child, that prefers counters to gold, but it proceeded from mature deliberation. It is an excellent thing for persons to be seriously religious when in the midst of worldly business and enjoyments, to despise the world when they are most capable of relishing and enjoying it. (Matthew Henry.)

The pleasures of sin

The pleasures of sin:

Let it be conceded, then, in the outset, that sin has pleasures. This must be true, otherwise men would not commit it. In every instance, at least in the outset of the sinners career, he is drawn toward iniquity by the belief that in some way or other it will minister to his enjoyment. Now my question is, What are the characteristics of such pleasure? Take it at its best, and suppose you have the greatest joy that it is possible for sin to furnish, of what sort is it, and what is it worth? My answer is that its value is what mathematicians would call a negative quality–it has the minus sign before it; that is to say, it costs more than it comes to; in the equation of life it does not add to, but rather takes from, the sum total of your happiness, and leaves you less truly yourself than you were before you enjoyed it.

I. THE PLEASURES OF SIN ARE SHORT-LIVED. In the expressive symbolism of Scripture, they are like water in a broken cistern which speedily runs out; or like the blaze of thorns which crackle and flame up for a little and then die down into a heap of ashes; and the experience of all who have indulged in them will corroborate this statement. There is in them, at best, only a temporary thrill which vibrates for a moment and needs to be reproduced again and again.

Pleasures are like poppies spread–

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-fall in the river–
A moment white, then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbows lovely form

Evanishing amidst the storm.

I make my appeal to yourselves. Have you got that amount of pleasure out of sin which you expected from it when you began to yield to it? You know you have not. Think not to say within yourselves that though your little indulgence in it has brought you only disappointment a greater would give you satisfaction. Can you change the character of sin by adding to its enormity? Depend upon it, the greater the sin the greater will be the disappointment. It is only when we come to Christ and find pardon and peace in Him that enduring happiness can be obtained. And we receive it from Him because He works a change upon our inner nature. Sin sends us out of ourselves for joy. Jesus gives us enjoyment by coming into us and supping with us and we with Him. Hence the true Christian carries ever his pleasure within himself. It does not depend on external things; but, itself an internal thing, it sends itself out throughout all his life. It is not an experience separate from everything else in his consciousness so much as an element entering into and pervading all his actions and emotions. As the stop in the organ is not itself a separate note, but gives its own peculiarity to every note which the player sounds for the time, so Christ in the heart is not there dwelling apart in a secluded shrine, but entering into all the experiences of the soul, elevating and ennobling them all. Weigh well this contrast, and I think you will have no difficulty in deciding which you will choose. Pleasure in sin is external and evanescent. Christian happiness is internal and permanent.

II. THE PLEASURES OF SIN LEAVE A STING BEHIND, AND WILL NOT BEAR AFTER-REFLECTION. There is guilt in them, and there never can be happiness in contemplating that. Yet when the brief hour of joy is fled the guilt is the entire residuum of the joy. Have you ever entered a banqueting-hall the morning after some high festival had been held in it, and while yet everything remained precisely as the guests had left it at the midnight hour? The candles burned to the sockets, the floor covered with the evidences of the nights hilarity, the dishes piled confusedly upon the tables, and the decorations which looked so gay in the brilliant lamplight now all withered and dishevelled! You can scarcely believe it is the same place as that which a few hours before resounded with mirth and song, or re-echoed with the applause of some orators address. It is deserted; nay, it is repulsive; and you turn away from it to moralise on the passing glory of all earthly things. But such an external contrast is nothing to that which is furnished by the history of the votary of pleasure when you compare what he is in the moment of indulgence with what he feels in the hour of reflection. There is no companion he more fears than himself, there is no sound to him half so painful as silence, and so he flees back to the society of his companions, and seeks in the noise of revelry renewed to drown the still small voice of conscience. But it will not be always hushed. Shakespeare has shown us how sin doth murder sleep, and that the stain upon the conscience will not out, though washed by all the waters of the ocean or sweetened by the perfumes of Arabia, but we must beware of supposing that his representation is true only of such unscrupulous ambition as leads to murder. What saith the wise king about the ruby cup? Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright; at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. At the last! at the last! Oh, that men would learn to forecast the future in this way, and to think of what must be at the last! In the powerful picture of Noel Paton, which he has styled the Dance of Pleasure, you see a motley multitude of young and old, and rich and poor, and men and women, rushing madly after the queen. They care not for each other. In the fury of their selfishness they strike against each other and trample each other down; yet still they follow on, and she is decoying them to the brink of an awful abyss, over which each at length must fall. But the painter shows only its dark and rugged edge, leaving suggestion to preach the warning. So I would only lead you to the border of the unseen state, and leave conscience to testify to the dreadful perdition which is the end of sin. How different from all this is the experience of the Christianly good man! I do not know if there be on earth a more beautiful thing than the old age of a Christian who in youth dedicated himself to God, and has spent his life in keeping that holy resolution. His conscience is peaceful, his heart is happy, his future is glorious. The traveller in Switzerland sees few more lovely sights than that which is associated with the descent of the Great Scheideck through Rosenlaui to Meyringen. The pathway runs now through thickets, and now through green pasture-land, enclosed by forest and enlivened by chalets and herds of cattle. As you move downward you see little or no splendour, and are hemmed in on every side with perpendicular walls of rugged rock; yet, ever as you turn to look behind, you are transported with the scene that meets your view. In the forefront the pine forest, swayed by the breeze, seems bowing its head in lowly reverence to the great Monarch of all, while in the background rise the snowy peaks of the Wellhorn and the Wetterhorn, tinted with the blush of sunset, and forming a battlement of mountain grandeur scarcely surpassed by the range even of Mont Blanc. Such a valley, I think, is the life of the Christian on the earth. As he descends the way seems commonplace enough. The yodel of the herdsmen and the lowing of the cattle are in his ears, and he sees nothing that is remarkable; but when he looks behind the retrospect is full of grandeur, and the grandest thing about it is that its gilded summits point him to the higher glories of the heaven that is awaiting him. Which, then, will you choose?

III. THE PLEASURES OF SIN ARE SUCH THAT THE OFTENER THEY ARE ENJOYED THERE IS THE LESS ENJOYMENT IN THEM. There is a wonderful harmony between Gods moral law and the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of man; for every violation of its precepts does, in the end, evoke the protest of all our powers. Sinful indulgence either palls upon the taste, or, by its reaction on the system, destroys the very capacity for continuing in it, in which case the craving remains, while the ability to satisfy it is gone. But with the joys of holiness it is quite different. The oftener we enjoy them they are the higher. The longer and better a man knows Christ the more happiness does he derive from Him.

IV. THE PLEASURES OF SIN ARE MOST EXPENSIVE. Here I refer not to money, though that is by no means unimportant; and when men are inclined to say that they cannot afford to be Christians, I would like them to sit down and calmly reckon up how much their sins cost them. But I speak now of the expense of the mans own nature. The Word of God says, Bloody men shall not live out half their days; and notwithstanding the existence of a few exceptions, I am persuaded that, in regard to vicious men generally, this will be corroborated by observation and experience. The sinner is old before his time. His physical power is gone. His intellect has lost its freshness. His will has become powerless. His conscience has become seared. In a word, he is a wreck. Did you ever look upon that wild sea-piece of Stansfields which he has called The Abandoned? The sky is dark and lowering, with a forked flash of lightning shooting athwart it; the ocean is angry, and all over it there lies a dreary loneliness that makes the spectator almost shudder. The one solitary thing in sight is a huge hull, without mast or man on board, lying helpless in the trough of the sea. The men who stood by her as long as it was safe have been picked up by some friendly vessel now entirely unseen, and there that battered, broken thing floats on at the mercy of the winds and waves. That is sad enough, but what is it after all in comparison with the condition of an abandoned man, drifting on the ocean of life all dismantled and rudderless, tossed hither and thither by every wind of appetite or impulse, and soon to disappear beneath the waters! And what then? I dare not trust myself to speak of that. Muse on it yourselves for a moment, and then say if you can calculate the cost of the pleasures of sin? Far otherwise is the experience of the Christian. His pleasure is not expensive. A little goes a great way with him, and the more of Christ he knows the more does he learn to use his body as a temple of the Holy Ghost, his intellect as an instrument of serving God, and his wilt in choosing to run in the way of the Divine commands. His faith brightens his mental powers, not at first, indeed, but through the stimulating influence of the truths which he believes. His love strengthens his will, and his steadfastness in well-doing softens the sensibility of his conscience, making it as quick to the presence of evil as the apple of the eye is to the least particle of dust. Christian faith, indeed, will not make a genius out of a dullard; but it will make the man nobler, physically and mentally as well as morally, than without it he would have been. So far from wasting his energies it economises them, and halos them all with the joy of its own happiness. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Sinful pleasures:

I. I am first to discuss a matter of casuistry, I am to inquire WHAT PLEASURES ARE SINFUL; nor, in fact, can this topic be too carefully explained. For while all, especially among the young, profess to revere the gospel, it is marvellous to observe how almost all so contrive to interpret that gospel as to spare their darling passion. And it is curious to see, too, by what directly opposite courses people manage to arrive at the same conclusion. If you listen to one half of the world the gospel is a system so relaxed that it really requires no self-denial at all. What harm can there be in such things? such indulgences surely cannot be wrong; a man certainly may be a good Christian and yet comply with these customs and enjoy these gratifications. That is to say, these people are resolved to live in pleasure and be wanton, to pamper every appetite, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life; and the gospel must be as pliant as their passions, as loose as their lives. The theology of the other half of the world is just the reverse of this. They magnify the severity of the gospel and exaggerate its demands. Now with regard to this latter class, I cannot but pause a moment to confess that they are not alone culpable when they describe religion as a dark and gloomy thing, frowning and scowling upon all cheerfulness and relaxation. Too many professed Christians thus represent it. But is this the religion of the Bible? And these same crabbed disciples, is it their religion which makes them sour and crabbed? Not at all, they would have been a great deal worse but for the little piety they have. The gospel has no sort of sympathy with such tempers as these. Jesus a hard man!–perish such impiety; nor was that libel uttered except by the servant who was hard and faithless himself. Besides its own peculiar joys, the religion of Jesus allows every pleasure which a rational being ought to desire. At present the danger is not from this, but from a very different quarter. Little fear lest people become anchorites and eremites, and not allow themselves innocent pleasures; the difficulty is to make them believe that any pleasures are not innocent. Hence the great importance of a correct casuistry as to the question, what pleasures are sinful? And the following maxims will, I think, be sufficient to guide us safely in the inquiry.

1. And first, any pleasure which is, in itself, a direct violation of one of the Ten Commandments, or which involves such a violation, is sinful, and, unless renounced, will be fatal to the soul.

2. Any pleasure which takes and keeps the heart from God is sinful, and, unless forsaken, will be fatal to the soul. My son, give Me thy heart; this requirement is an epitome of all requirements.

3. Our third maxim regards the disorders of the passions; any pleasure which increases or nourishes these disorders is sinful, and, unless abandoned, will be fatal to the soul. Our passions were originally given us for noble purposes, but depraved as they now are, they render life a long and arduous battle to the holiest. If, then, instead of retrenching these disorders we inflame them, what must be the result?

4. Our devotions suggest a fourth maxim. Any pleasure which unfits us for communion with God is sinful, and, unless relinquished, wilt be fatal to the soul. And apply this maxim to certain company. Good society, you say; very well, I highly value good society, but what is the influence of this society, which you call good, upon your soul? Do not its vanities dissipate your thoughts and estrange you from God? If Jesus was now upon earth would you find Him in this society?

5. A single maxim more. This points to our besetting sin. Any pleasure is criminal which confirms the empire of this sin. We every day hear people discussing the abstract nature of certain actions, but this is downright folly, since, whatever may be said about the general quality of such acts, these men know that to them they are perfectly disastrous. Fire is a very good thing, and gunpowder may be put to good uses. Very true. Nobody can question either of these propositions. But suppose a man should infer from these premises that he may safely sit upon a barrel of gunpowder and thrust a lighted torch into it. Not less foolish and fatal his reasoning who ventures upon indulgences because they are harmless to others, when he knows that they will inflame his blood and rouse within him passions defying all control. Certain friendships, you insist, a certain kind of reading and conversation–surely there is nothing wrong in these. Why argue this question when you know that–however others may not be injured by these compliances–to you they always proved most pernicious? But it is a mere trifle, a little thing. As well might you say, It is only a little spark which is about to ignite a train and spring a deadly mine slumbering beneath your feet.

II. Thus far I have been making a concession, and I desire to be very explicit as to this concession, FOR THE DECLAMATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT SOMETIMES UTTERED IN OUR PULPITS ARE REFUTED BY THE EXPERIENCE OF THE AUDIENCE, and, like all falsehoods, do much harm. Not that we ought to be surprised at such strong and sweeping assertions from the ministers of God. Sin can no more make its votary truly happy in this world than it can make him happy in hell, where its power will be complete and uninterrupted. Who can be surprised if, forgetting the few delirious moments, he regards the whole of his past life with unmitigated DISGUST, exclaiming, What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? However, sin has its pleasures. Though it be the gall of asps within him, yet wickedness is sweet in his mouth. If, then, you are bent upon a life of sin, vainly would I stand here arguing the ease with you. But, before you adopt this resolution, ponder the two warnings in our text as to sinful pleasures. The text mentions two offsets, and what are these? The first is, that these pleasures are the pleasures of sin. Revolve this truth in your mind, penetrate its fearful import, and then put the poisoned chalice to your lips if you can. Sin–that word ought to be written in a paragraph, a page, a book by itself, and written in blood. Men and brethren, what sin is I know not; I only know that when God would mark the heinousness of sin no adjective can be found sufficiently energetic but one borrowed from sin itself, and he describes it as exceeding sinful. I only know that, if God has a government, sin is treason against that government; if God is holy, just, and true, sin defies and outrages these perfections. Nor does sin only attack and insult God and seek to be a deicide; it is a homicide, and in the most dreadful sense; it is the author of all the woes, burthened with which the whole creation groaneth together. Wherever human forms pine with disease, or writhe with pain, the sickness and the agony are inflicted by sin. Wherever human hearts bleed and are torn with affliction and anguish the blow has been struck by sin. This is not the worst. Pestilence, suffering, death, are only cutaneous symptoms of the interior plague; they are really merciful, for they warn us of the blight within. Sin murders the soul. Enter now into these truths, unite them, think what sin is, what sin has done, what sin is doing, what sin will do in eternity–are you surprised that God pronounces them fools who make a mock at sin, and that we are exhorted to resist unto blood striving against sin? What shall we then say of him who not only sins, but finds his highest pleasure in a life of sin? But the text not only warns us that these indulgences are the pleasures of sin; it sounds another alarm, and bids us reflect how transient these fatal pleasures are. They are only for a season. Of what does this language remind us? it is the void, the cruel chasm which the pleasures of sin leave, no matter how successful their votary may be. If the whole of life could be one voluptuous exhilaration, still how brief the pleasing degradation. But, alas, few and short the moments of excitement, long and dreary the intervals of lassitude and disgust. The pleasures of sin for a season. Of what does this language admonish us? it is the sad interruptions which these sinful pleasures must know in such a world. Seasons will come when the sounds of revelry must give way to the sounds of weeping, when the house of mirth must become a house of mourning, when the prodigal will come to himself, when the daughters of music shall be brought low, when on the very spot where we had sat down and said, Come, let us deck ourselves with rosebuds, a grave opens, and one who we had thought could never die is laid there, and the shadow of this death is upon the heart and its bitterness fills the soul. And then, oh, then, how does a life of sinful pleasure appear? Earth, help thine own now. It is in these desolate moments that the promises and consolations of the gospel are ineffably precious; but where can the votary of sin turn in such an hour? The pleasures of sin for a season. This expression suggests a third reflection. It is a dirge-like warning of those periods when conscience will awake, and ring an alarm in all the chambers of the soul. Let no one hope that he can free himself from conscience. You know better, my dear hearer. No, sorrow dogs sinne. Vainly do the wicked ascend to a heaven of intoxicating voluptuousness, or make their bed in a hell of imbruting sensuality; vainly do they say, Surely the darkness shall cover us; or take the wings of the morning and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, seeking to dissipate their gloomy thoughts. It is all in vain. Conscience is still with them, and Will be ever with them. And this brings us to the last thought conveyed in the words for a season, the thought which the Holy Spirit designed chiefly to impress upon our minds. I mean death, and the retributions after death. These are at hand, these are rushing on, these incessantly cry, Prepare to meet thy God. Can it be that, with eternity rising in view, we will forget our souls, and waste our little span in a giddy round of sensual pleasure? (R. Fuller.)

Murderous though beautiful:

Beautiful, innocent-looking creatures are sometimes deadly in their influence. The Lucilia homini-vorax is rather more than the third of an inch in length; the head is large, downy, and of a golden yellow. The thorax is dark blue and very brilliant, with gay reflections of purple. The wings are transparent, yet prettily tinged; their margins as well as the feet are black. This innocent-looking insect is very beautiful, yet it is an assassin. M. Coquerel has informed us that it sometimes occasions the death of those wretched convicts who have been transported to the distant penitentiary of Cayenne. When this fly gets into the mouth or nostrils it lays its eggs there, and when they are changed into larvae the death of the victim generally follows. The larvae are lodged in the interior of the nasal orifices and the frontal sinuses, and their mouths are armed with two very sharp mandibles. They have been known to reach the ball of the eye, and to gangrene the eyelids. They enter the mouth, corrode and devour the gums and the entrance of the throat, so as to transform those parts into a mass of putrid flesh, a heap of corruption. What an emblem are these of the pleasures which, in an unsuspicious form, are apt to fasten themselves upon man–beautiful in appearance, yet ruinous in result. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

The poisonous lurking in the pleasurable:

Bees sometimes collect their honey from poisonous plants, and instances are recorded of persons having died from partaking of this honey. Kirby and Spence quote some proofs of this, such as that given by Dr. Barton, an American physician, who records that in 1790 many persons died in Philadelphia from eating honey. Inquiries were instituted, and it was found that the honey was derived by the bees chiefly from the flowers of the Kalmia latifolia. Xenophon in his Anabasis mentions that some of his soldiers were singularly affected by honey which they took in Asia Minor. Some of them seemed as if intoxicated, others were much excited, and others lay on the ground as if about to die. The poisonous lurks in the pleasurable, not only in matter, but in morals also. How often when enjoying apparently harmless pleasures, men unexpectedly become the victims of moral evil! Wickedness seldom comes to us in its essential bitterness. If it did we should shun it. It generally insinuates itself in some form of attractive sweetness, and frequently by means of unconscious agents as innocent as the bees. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

True goodness

The good soul will not break the hedge of any commandment to avoid any piece of foul way. (J. Trapp.)

Worldly pleasures:

Fabulists relate that Pleasure went to bathe herself: having stripped off her clothes and laid them by the water, Sorrow came, put them on, and departed. Hence, say they, the pleasures of this world are only sorrows in pleasures garb. It will ever be so, but if Christ be put on as the chief delight of the mind we shall find pleasure arrayed in the garments of joy. (W. Mason.)

For a season:

Father Taylor preaching on Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, dwelt largely on the last point first–the pleasures of sin. He said, Sinners, you have your fine horses and farms and houses; but it is for a season. You delight in your ruffled bosoms and gay apparel and gilt ornaments; but it is–for a season. You indulge in your unholy appetites and passions, running riot in pleasurable sin; but it is–for a season–for a season! Having rung these solemn changes for some time, until the audience was greatly affected, he turned to the Christian side of the parallel–suffering affliction with the people of God. You are despised of yourrich and sinful neighbours; but it is for a season. You are hated and persecuted for righteousness sake; but it is–for a season. You are cast out as evil, and trodden under foot of men; it is only for a season–for a season! (Life of Father Taylor.)

Faiths sight of sinful pleasures:

Faith made Moses leap out of the pleasures of the Egyptian court into the fire of affliction, because he saw them pleasures for a season. Should you see a man in a ship throw himself overboard into the sea, you might at first think him out of his wits, but if a little while after you should see him stand safe on the shore and the ship swallowed up of the waves, you would then think he took the wisest course. Faith sees the world and all the pleasures of sin sinking; there is a leak in them which the wit of man cannot stop. (W. Gurnall.)

Pleasure:

Pleasure is the one thing for which millions live. They differ, perhaps, in their views of what makes up real pleasure, but all agree in seeking first and foremost to obtain it. Pleasure and enjoyment in the holidays is the grand object to which a schoolboy looks forward. Pleasure and satisfaction in making himself independent is the mark on which the young man ill business fixes his eye. Pleasure and ease in retiring from business with a fortune is the aim which the merchant sets before him. Pleasure and bodily comfort at his own home is the sum of the poor mans wishes. Pleasure and fresh excitement in politics, in travelling, in amusements, in company, in books–this is the goal towards which the rich man is straining. Pleasure is the shadow which all alike are hunting–high and low, rich and poor, old and young, one with another–each, perhaps, pretending to despise his neighbour for seeking it–each in his own way seeking it for himself–each secretly wondering that he does not find it–each firmly persuaded that somewhere or other it is to be found. (Bp. Ryle.)

He had tried both

A careless man, a reckless sinner, was arrested in the midst of his wild career and brought to repentance. By the great mercy of God he was converted, and began to lead a new life. The great change of his habits excited the remarks of all his neighbours. Meeting with one of his old associates one day, the latter remarked, I hear you have given up all your pleasures. No, replied the other calmly, I never knew what pleasure was until now. And as I have tried the pleasures of sin and religion both, and you only one, I ought to be the best judge.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Moses himself was as eminent a believer as his parents, and a mighty instance of Divine faith. He who was so named and saved by the enemies of the church, and adopted as a son to a notorious one of them, yet being great in age and stature, full forty, Exo 3:11; Act 7:23, past the folly of childhood and rashness of youth, upon manly deliberation and a rational exercise of faith, notwithstanding he was by birth a poor Israelite, and saved from perisihing by a princess, the daughter of a potent king; nourished through her indulgence by his own mother, adopted as her own son, educated by her in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, preferred, owned, and honoured as her son, and might have been in a fair way to have succeeded to the kingdom; yet, not out of any disingenuity, or base ingratitude to his eminent preserver, but out of a Divine faith, he layeth down all his titles and honours, and renounceth his relation, for the enjoyment of a better title with, and a greater good in, God; and this he manifested by word and deed in his after transactions, Heb 11:25.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

24. So far from faithbeing opposed to Moses, he was an eminent example of it[BENGEL].

refusedin believingself-denial, when he might possibly have succeeded at last to thethrone of Egypt. Thermutis, Pharaoh’s daughter, according to thetradition which Paul under the Spirit sanctions, adopted him, asJOSEPHUS says, with theconsent of the king. JOSEPHUSstates that when a child, he threw on the ground the diadem put onhim in jest, a presage of his subsequent formal rejection ofThermutis’ adoption of him. Faith made him to prefer the adoption ofthe King of kings, unseen, and so to choose (Heb 11:25;Heb 11:26) things, the very lastwhich flesh and blood relish.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

By faith Moses, when he was come to years,…. Or “was great”; a nobleman in Pharaoh’s court; or when he was arrived to great knowledge, being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; or rather when he was well advanced in years, being full forty years of age, Ac 7:22

refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; by whom Moses was taken up out of the water; by whom he was named, and provided for; she reckoned him as her own son, and designed him for Pharaoh’s successor, as Josephus reports l: he refused all this honour, both in words, and by facts; he denied that he was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, as the words will bear to be rendered; for to be “called”, often signifies only to “be”; and by taking part with the Israelites, and against the Egyptians, he plainly declared that his descent was from the former, and not the latter: and this discovered great faith; and showed that he preferred being called an Israelite to any earthly adoption, and the care of the church, and people of God, to his own worldly honour and interest; and that he believed the promises of God, before the flatteries of a court; and esteemed afflictions and reproaches, with the people of God, and for his sake, better than sinful pleasures, and earthly riches, as in the following words. Of Pharaoh’s daughter, [See comments on Ac 7:21].

l Antiqu. l. 2. c. 9. sect. 7.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

When he was grown up ( ). “Having become great” (from Ex 2:11).

Refused (). First aorist middle indicative of , to deny, to refuse. He was of age and made his choice not from ignorance.

Son (). Predicate nominative with (to be spoken of, present passive infinitive, of ).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Faith was exhibited by Enoch in walking with God (comp. A. V. Gen 5:22, “walked with God,” and LXX, eujaresthse pleased God). Faith creates close personal relation.

Heb 11:6To please [] . The aorist gives the sense of at all, stating the verbal idea without time, as a universal proposition. Comp. Rom 8:8.

Cometh [] . See on ch. Heb 4:16. Must [] . An essential obligation. In the nature of the case. That he is [ ] . Faith in God involves belief in his existence although he is unseen.

Is a rewarder [] . Note the difference of the verb : not simply exists, but comes to pass as; proves to be, habitually, so that he who approaches God has, through faith, the assurance that his seeking God will result in good to himself. Misqapodothv rewarder, N. T. o. Comp. misqapodosia recompense of reward, ch. 2 2 (note); Heb 10:35; Heb 11:26.

Of them that diligently seek him (toiv ejkzhtousin aujton). Lit. unto them that seek him out. Comp. Act 14:17; Heb 12:17; 1Pe 1:10. The verb is used of seeking God, Rom 3:11. God ‘s beneficent will and attitude toward the seeker are not always apparent at the first approach. In such cases there is occasion for faith, in the face of delay, that diligent seeking will find its reward. One is reminded of Jesus ‘ lessons on importunity in seeking God, Luk 11:5 – 10; Luk 18:1 – 8.

He hides himself so wondrously As though there were no God; He is least seen when all the powers Of ill are most abroad. Or he deserts us at the hour The fight is almost lost, And seems to leave us to ourselves Just when we need him most. It is not so, but so It looks; And we lose courage then; And doubts will come if God hath kept His promises to men. ” Faber.

Noah. Genesis 6.

Being warned of God [] . Of God is not in the text. See on Mt 2:12; Luk 2:26; Act 11:26; and comp. Heb 8:5.

Of things not seen as yet [ ] . Const. with eujlabhqeiv, and rend. “by faith Noah, being warned, having reverent care concerning things not seen as yet, prepared an ark,” etc. Thus crhmatisqeiv warned is taken absolutely. 230 The things not seen were the well – known contents of the revelation to Noah, Gen 6:13 ff., as apprehended by Noah ‘s faith.

Moved with fear [] . N. T. o. Often in Class. and LXX See on eujlabeia godly fear, ch. 5 7. The A. V. gives the impression that Noah acted under the influence of fright. Rev. improves on this a little by rendering godly fear. The true idea is pious care, a reverent circumspection with regard to things enjoined by God, and as yet unseen, yet confidently expected on the strength of God ‘s word.

Prepared [] . Built and equipped. See on ch. Heb 3:3. An ark [] . Originally, a wooden chest Also of the ark of the covenant in the temple and tabernacle, as ch. 9 4; Rev 11:19 Of Noah ‘s ark. Mt 24:38; Luk 17:27; 1Pe 3:20 Larvax a chest is found in Class. in the same sense. Every classical scholar will recall the charming fragment of Simonides on Danae and her infant son Perseus exposed in an ark :

JOte larnaki ejn daisalea anesmov breme pnewn k. t. 50

Also of the ark of Deucalion, the mythic Noah.

By the which [ ] . By faith : although some refer it to the ark. He condemned the world [ ] . His faith was exhibited in building the ark on the mere strength of God ‘s declaration, while as yet there were no signs of the flood. By his faith thus manifested he announced the condemnation of the world to destruction. World is to be taken as in 2Pe 2:5. It is not used in Heb. in the ethical sense so common in John and Paul – the world as alien from God. The meaning of the statement is not that Noah condemned the conduct of his contemporaries by the contrast presented by his own faith, after the analogy of Mt 12:41; Rom 2:27.

And became heir [ – ] . This is not an independent clause, but is dependent on di’ h=v by which. It is connected by kai with the preceding clause, and the two clauses are parallel, describing the lot of Noah and his family. Became heir is practically = became partaker of. The literal sense of heir must not be pressed. Certainly not “inherited the righteousness of Abel and Enoch.” But righteousness came to Noah in virtue of his intimate fellowship with God. Of him as of Enoch, it is said that “he walked with God,” Gen 6:9. Because of this fellowship he was a son of God and an heir of righteousness.

Of the righteousness which is by faith [ ] . In the O. T. Noah is the first to receive the title of dikaiov righteous, Gen 6:9; comp. Eze 14:14, 20; Sir. 44 17. Kata pistin, lit. according to faith, comp Mt 9:29; Tit 1:1, 4. Paul has dikaiosunh and dikaiov from or out of faith [ ] , by faith [ ] , founded on faith [ ] , and of faith [] , none of which are found either in Hebrews or in the Pastorals. Kata pistin signifies according to faith as a standard; but the conception at bottom is not essentially different from Paul ‘s, unless there be imported into his conception the scholastic fiction of imputed righteousness. Paul, in Romans 4 is at pains to show that the Christian conception of righteousness by faith has its parallel in Abraham, and that the doctrine of justification by faith is no new thing. Faith is the ground and the germ of righteousness. Our writer here lays down the absolute and universal standard of righteousness for the men of both dispensations – according to faith. Hence, like Paul, he cites the words of Hab 2:4. See ch. Heb 10:38.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “By faith Moses, when he was come to years,” (pistei mouses megas genomenos) “By (the gift of) faith Moses when he was great,” mature, educated, a grown man -When he had come to be a person of responsible age – had embraced the faith of Abraham, made known to him thru the tender care of his parents from the time he was an infant, as his mother had by Divine intervention become his legal nurse, Exo 2:2-10.

2) “Refused to be called,” (ernesato legesthai) “Disavowed (refused) to be (or when he was) called; He would not identify himself as an Egyptian, an oppressor of the Hebrew people, to smite, torment, and enslave them; this deep conviction led or motivated him to kill an Egyptian who was mercilessly beating an Hebrew one day, Exo 2:11-12.

3) “The son of Pharaoh’s daughter,” (huios thugatros pharao) “An heir-son of Pharaoh’s daughter,” whose I adopted son he was because of strings of stigma and compromise and dishonor attached thereto. When two Hebrews fought together the next day, and Moses tried to break up the fight, one of them sarcastically asked Moses in the presence of a gang, whether he intended to kill him as he did the Egyptian on the previous day. The report came to Pharaoh who then sought to kill Moses who had refused to be called his daughter’s son, Exo 2:12-15; Act 7:22-30.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

24. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, etc. The example of Moses ought to have been remembered by the Jews, more than that of any other; for through him they were delivered from bondage, and the covenant of God was renewed, with them, and the constitution of the Church established by the publication of the Law. But if faith is to be considered as the main thing in Moses, it would be very strange and unreasonable that he should draw them away to anything else. It hence follows that all they make a poor proficiency in the Law who are not guided by it to faith.

Let us now see what the things are for which he commends the faith of Moses. The first excellency he mentions is, that when grown up, he disregarded the adoption of Pharaoh’s daughter. He refers to his age, for had he done this when a boy, it might have been imputed to his levity, or his ignorance; for as understanding and reason are not strong in children, they heedlessly rush headlong into any course of life; young people also are often carried here and there by unreflecting ardor. That we may then know that nothing was done thoughtlessly, and without a long deliberation, the Apostle says, that he was of mature age, which is also evident from history. (228)

But he is said to have disregarded his adoption; for when he visited his brethren, when he tried to relieve them, when he avenged their wrongs, he fully proved that he preferred to return to his own nation, rather than to remain in the king’s court: it was then the same as a voluntary rejection of it. This the Apostle ascribes to faith; for it would have been much better for him to remain in Egypt, had he not been persuaded of the blessing promised to the race of Abraham; and of this blessing, the only witness was God’s promise; for he could see nothing of the kind with his eyes. It hence appears, that he beheld by faith what was far removed from his sight.

(228) Literally it is “when he became great,” that is, in age or in years: he was, as it appears from Act 7:23, about forty years of age. The word “great,” both in Hebrew and Greek, has sometimes this meaning. “When arrived at mature age,” by Stuart, is better than “when he was grown up,” by Doddridge and Macknight.

It is said that he refused, that is by his conduct. He acted in such a way as to show that he rejected the honor of being adopted son of Pharoah’s daughter. The verb means to deny, to renounce, to disown. He renounced the privilege offered to him. Others are said to “deny the power” of godliness, that is by their works. 2Ti 3:5. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(24) Come to yearsi.e., grown up, when he was full forty years old (Act. 7:23). The words here used are taken from the Greek translation of Exo. 2:11, where we first read of Moses as openly Associating himself with his oppressed people. When Moses slew the Egyptian who was smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren, he in act refused to be called a son of Pharaohs daughter, and chose to suffer Affliction with the people of God. (See Exo. 2:15.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

24. Refused Not, probably, by any definite act of refusal, but by preferring the cause and the company of the bondsmen over those of the courtiers.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproach of the anointed one (Christ) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked to the recompense of reward.’

The same faith was found in Moses. Once he had grown up he had to choose between the privilege and glory of being Pharaoh’s daughter’s son, with all the glorious future that held for him together with all the pleasures that came with it, the pleasures resulting from sin (the sin being that of disloyalty to God), or being faithful to God and to His people, God’s anointed ones (Psa 105:15). He had to choose between what offered temporary temporal benefit, or what offered eternal reward. In a smaller way this choice faces all men and women.

‘Refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, (resulting in everlasting reward), than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.’ He made his choice by faith in the promises of God. He refused his high position and chose to identify himself with his oppressed people. Rather than being disloyal to God and enjoying the pleasures of Egypt, he chose to share his people’s mistreatment.

This would certainly seem to have in mind the time when he first visited his people and killed the Egyptian, thus rejecting his position of loyalty to Pharaoh, but that was not really a positive choice of suffering ill-treatment with the people of God. At that time nothing was probably further from his mind. That was thus not really such an act of faith. The act of faith came when as a result he fled and later chose (rather unwillingly, but in obedience to God which revealed his faith) to return to Egypt to live among his people and share their ill-treatment.

‘Accounting the reproach of Christ (or ‘of the anointed one’) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.’ This may be interpreted in a number of ways.

1) By translating as ‘the reproach of the anointed one’ with Moses as the anointed one. This might suggest that the writer is indicating that at God’s calling Moses chose to be leader of God’s people, ‘the anointed one’, sharing their reproach, rather than being a prince of Egypt. God’s people were called ‘the anointed ones’ (Psa 105:15). And those whom God chose to rule over them were anointed with oil to demonstrate that they were God’s ‘anointed one’ (LXX ‘Christ’). See Psa 2:2; 1Sa 2:10; 1Sa 2:35. So the concept of being an ‘anointed one’ (a ‘Christ’) was linked with being the chosen of God and leader of His people. The writer may therefore here be saying that Moses chose the ignominy of being God’s ‘anointed one’ (His Christ) over His people rather than the glory of being a prince of Egypt. He treasured reproach for God’s sake through being His anointed, rather than all that Egypt could offer him. Faith in God and His promises rendered all else comparatively unimportant, and he recognised no higher honour than to be ‘the one anointed by God’ as watcher over His people, even though to be over such a people could only bring reproach. (The language, of course, being the writer’s in the light of later Old Testament Scriptures and not Moses’).

2) That ‘the reproach of Christ’ was used in the sense that Moses deliberately chose to share the reproach of the nation from whom would come the Messiah, the future Messianic people. The people of God were God’s anointed ones (messiahs) – Psa 105:15). And they were in embryo the people of Messiah, the great Anointed One Who was coming. They were the ‘anointed’ people of the future hope, who looked ahead for the coming king promised by God (Gen 49:10), so that all raised up by God on their behalf to rule them would be His ‘anointed ones’ (compare Psa 2:2; 1Sa 2:10; 1Sa 2:35) until the final ‘Anointed One’ came. The idea is then that Moses, aware of this in part, chose to be within the Messianic line of promise and to suffer reproach for it.

This would indicate that it was Moses’ faith in the promises concerning God’s people, and his faith in God’s promise of a future Great King (Gen 49:10), (what we and the writer would call Messianic promises), that made him opt to choose leadership of the people of God rather than princely authority in Egypt. He did it because his faith was in the living God of Israel and His promises. So, like the Messiah would after him, he chose to bear reproach for God’s people as being God’s ‘anointed one’ (as David would be later), prefiguring what Messiah Himself too would suffer. He looked for and believed for the fulfilment of the promises through his suffering, and to the reward that would be his when his people were safely established in God’s inheritance, which would be a recompense for all that he had given up. For if God’s people ceased so would the ‘Messianic’ promise of Gen 49:10. That is why he could be said to bear the reproach of the Messiah (compare1Pe 1:10-11).

In the same way are the readers of this letter, having seen the actual fulfilment of the Messianic hope, to welcome the reproach of Christ rather than the commendation of the world, for it leads to a full recompense of reward (Heb 10:35).

3) That the thought is similar to 1) but with ‘the anointed’ being the people as a whole. Moses would share the reproach of God’s anointed (Psa 105:15), His firstborn (Exo 4:22).

4) ‘The reproach of Christ.’ The writer may however by this simply mean, ‘reproach similar to that poured out on Christ’, reproach for obedience to the will of God.

5) Or he may be seeing Christ (as God’s Son or as ‘the Angel of Yahweh’) as having been with His people in the Exodus and in the journeying through the wilderness (compare1Co 10:4) so that Moses was seen as serving Christ there and bearing reproach for His sake (see Exo 14:19; Exo 23:20; Exo 23:23; Exo 32:34; compare Dan 3:25: Jos 2:4; Jos 5:14 for a similar idea).

Whichever way we see it, the final purpose of the writer in this is to encourage those to whom he is writing also to bear the reproach of Christ because they believe God’s promises.

‘For he looked to the recompense of reward.’ What Moses had in mind was the future hope compared with the temporary pleasures of Egypt. From Moses’ point of view the recompense of the reward was the promise of God’s inheritance in Canaan. That was what motivated him. He looked to see the people of God established in God’s wondrous land flowing with milk and honey, under God’s rule for ever. But the writer sees further ahead to the Kingly Rule of God in Heaven, which Moses would enjoy, as would all who are faithful to Christ.

So the emphasis here is on what, because of his faith, he was willing to put aside and sacrifice, and what he was willing to endure, as he looked to the great recompense that would come from trusting and following God. This is now followed by emphasis on his boldness in facing up to the greatest power on earth.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Heb 11:24. When he was come to years, St. Stephen informs us, that Moses was forty years old when it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel, Act 7:23. At this age the apostle might well say he was come to years, or was become great as the expression in the original may be literally rendered; and as it is used in the LXX. version of Exo 2:11 and which is common among Greek authors, to express the time of manhood.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Heb 11:24-26 . Progress from the child Moses to the adult Moses. , namely, corresponds (comp. Exo 2:11 ) to the , Heb 11:23 , and is to be understood not of worldly power and honour (Schulz, Bretschneider), but of being grown up. Comp. Heb 8:11 ; LXX. Gen 38:11 ; Gen 38:14 ; Hom. Od. ii. 314, xviii. 217, xix. 532.

] refused or disdained to be called .

] not is placed (as Exo 2:5 ff.), since the author combines with into one single (more general) notion: of a Pharaoh’s daughter , i.e. of an Egyptian royal princess .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2326
MOSES CHOICE

Heb 11:24-26. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

IT is a great advantage to us to be conversant with the Holy Scriptures, not only because from them we learn the principles of religion, which can be derived from no other source, but because we see in them examples which have upon them the stamp and impress of Gods approbation, and which therefore we cannot presume to disapprove. Had any individual of the present day acted as Moses did in the instance before us, we should, I doubt not, have all agreed in condemning him as inconsiderate, enthusiastic, and unwise. Not knowing his motives, or not giving him credit for them, we could not have formed a correct judgment of his actions: but we are sure that the choice which Moses made, however absurd it might appear to those more immediately connected with him, was truly commendable. In bringing it before you, I shall endeavour,

I.

To explain it

Two things must here be noticed:

1.

His conduct

[He was, next to Pharaoh, the first man in the whole land of Egypt, having been adopted by Pharaohs daughter as her son, and being regarded as such by Pharaoh himself. All the pleasures, the riches, and the honours that man could possess, with the exception only of the imperial diadem, were within his reach, or rather he was in the actual enjoyment of them. Yet the whole of these did he renounce: and not at a season when by reason of youth he was unable to form a just estimate of them, or by reason of age was incapable of enjoying them, but in the very prime of life, at the age of forty, when he had arrived at full maturity both of body and mind [Note: Exo 2:11. Act 7:23.]: and when, from being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians [Note: Act 7:22.], he was able to relish them with a zest, which a vulgar and uninstructed mind knows nothing of, and which nothing but refinement can bestow. All these he sacrificed voluntarily and with a determined purpose, refusing to be recognised any longer under the august character of Pharaohs daughter, and choosing rather to appear in his own proper character as a child of Abraham.

Whilst Moses was in this exalted station, his brethren according to the flesh were suffering under the most grievous oppression. To unite himself with them, was to subject himself to all the reproach and cruelty under which they groaned. Yet he acknowledged them as his kindred: and voluntarily participated with them in their lot: descending thus at once from the highest eminence in the kingdom to the lowest state of degradation and infamy.]
To obtain a just view of this conduct we must notice,

2.

The principle from which it proceeded

[We are told that he acted thus by faith. By faith, he saw that the Hebrews were exclusively the people of God; and that, as such, whatever they might endure from man, they were and must be happy; since God, the God of the whole earth, was their God, and esteemed them as his own peculiar treasure. He saw too, that the reproach that was cast upon them was cast upon them for the sake of Christ, in whom they professed to believe as their future Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Had they chosen to intermarry with the Egyptians, and become one people with them, they would have suffered nothing from Pharaoh, but would have fared as the rest of his subjects: but, holding fast their regard for Abraham as their father, and their expectation of Christ as to spring from one of his descendants, they exposed themselves to all the injuries which an envious, cruel, and despotic monarch could inflict: so that their reproach was properly the reproach of Christ, Christ himself being the object of it, and suffering it, as it were, in the person of his people [Note: See Act 9:4. Col 1:24.]. He saw yet further, that the afflictions which they endured for Christs sake should in due time be recompensed; and, that all who participated in their sufferings, should partake also of their reward. As the patriarchs looked by faith to a heavenly city, and a heavenly country, so did Moses look to a heavenly reward; in the prospect of which he was willing to forego all that this world could give him, and to sustain all that his most potent and malicious enemies could inflict upon him. Indeed in this view he esteemed reproach to be riches, great riches, yea, greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.]

But as the wisdom of this conduct may be doubted, I shall proceed,

II.

To vindicate it

It may be thought that this measure was unnecessary, inexpedient, and absurd: but,

1.

It was not unnecessary

[Circumstanced as he was, it became him to act as he did. He was, I grant, greatly indebted to Pharaohs daughter: and he was bound to regard her with all the duteous affection which belonged to the relation into which he had been adopted by her. But his duty to the God of Abraham was paramount to every other: and he would have sinned, if he had merged his fidelity to God in his regards for any creature whatsoever. All the pleasures which he had enjoyed, however innocent in themselves, were pleasures of sin, as long as he continued to acknowledge the God of the Hebrews as his God, and the faith of the Hebrews as his faith. The neglecting to confess his God was, constructively, to deny him: and, if he continued any longer to deny God, he could expect nothing but to be denied of God in the day of judgment. The measure therefore which he adopted was not unnecessary, but absolutely necessary, both for his peace in this world, and his happiness in the world to come.]

2.

It was not inexpedient

[It might be supposed, that if he had continued, like Joseph, at the head of the Egyptian government, he might have mitigated their sorrows, even though he should never be able to effect their release. But he had a secret intimation from God, that the time of their deliverance drew nigh, and that he was to be the instrument by whom they should be delivered. And so strong was this impression upon his mind, that he engaged in the work rashly and prematurely, without any direction from God; and thereby reduced himself to the necessity of fleeing to a foreign land, to avoid the punishment to which his own unwarrantable temerity had exposed him [Note: Act 7:24-29.]. The question in his mind was, What duty to his God required? and he was not at liberty to calculate then on matters of expediency, or to weigh in the balance of carnal reason the possible or probable issues of different events. His duty was to obey God; and to leave to God to save his people in his own time and way, according to his own infallible and eternal counsels.]

3.

It was not absurd

[Moses looked beyond the concerns of time, and acted with eternity in view. He knew that his pleasures, riches, and honours, how great soever they were, were only for a season; and that the afflictions to which he was about to subject himself, were also for a season only; whereas the recompence which his sacrifices would insure him, was eternal. What comparison then could there be between these things? or what room was there for hesitating one moment which he should prefer? If he gained the whole world, what would it profit him, if he lost his own soul? or if, by sacrificing the whole world, his soul should be saved, what reason could he have to regret the sacrifice? His choice then was that which sound wisdom dictated, and true piety inspired.
In truth, this is no other choice than what all the Prophets and Apostles in their respective ages have approved. David would rather be a door-keeper in the house of his God than dwell in the tents of ungodliness [Note: Psa 84:10.]: And why? Because, as he tells us in another psalm, A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked [Note: Psa 37:16.]; better in its possession, better in its operation, better in its end. Solomon was of precisely the same mind [Note: Pro 15:16-17.]. St. Paul, like Moses, actually suffered the loss of all things, and accounted them but dung, that he might win Christ [Note: Php 3:8.]. Having made a sacrifice of every thing, so far was he from feeling himself impoverished by his loss, that, when he had nothing, he accounted himself as possessing all things [Note: 2Co 6:10.]; and actually took pleasure in all his necessities and distresses, from a consideration of the benefit which would accrue from them to himself, and the glory to his Lord and Master [Note: 2Co 12:9-10.]. St. Peter confirms this view of the subject most fully, and in terms too which are peculiarly applicable to the case before us: for he declares, that the sufferings of Gods people are Christs sufferings; that from them arises much honour to God, and much benefit to the soul; and that they are rather to be accounted grounds of joy, than occasions of sorrow and regret [Note: 1Pe 4:12-14.]. To these I will only add the testimony of our Lord himself, who, in the epistle to the Church of Smyrna says, I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty; but thou art rich [Note: Rev 2:9.].

After such testimonies as these, we cannot but approve the conduct to which our text refers.]

From this subject then we may see,
1.

How erroneous are the views of worldly men!

[The men of this world set a high value on the things of time and sense, whilst sin appears in their eyes but a light and venial evil. By them, suffering is more dreaded than sin: and the loss of an opportunity of honouring God is of no account in comparison of the loss of great honours and great emoluments. They will strain every nerve to combine the irreconcileable services of God and mammon: and, if the one or the other must be sacrificed, they will hold fast their pleasures, their riches, and their honours, instead of parting with them for the Lord, To forsake all and follow Christ, is to them a hard lesson, which they cannot, and will not, learn. But the example of Moses must be followed by us all, so far at least as our circumstances are similar to his. We must all confess Christ openly before men. We must all unite ourselves to his people, and take our portion with them. Whatever cross may lay in our way, we must take it up cheerfully, and bear it after him, going forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach [Note: Heb 13:13.]. We are not indeed of necessity called to renounce the highest distinctions: because they may be held, and the most important offices in the state may be executed, in perfect consistency with our duty to God; as no doubt they were by Daniel: but if the hope of acquiring eminence, or the fear of losing it, deter us from the performance of any duty, or lead us to a compliance with any sin, we are then called to take the decided part that Moses did, and to forsake all for Christ. Let us then not seek great things either for ourselves or our children: or, if we possess them, let us not seek our happiness in them, but in God alone. If we possess not his favour, though we had kingdoms in our possession, we are poor: but if he be our God, then, though bereft of every thing else, we are rich.]

2.

How blessed they are who live by faith!

[True it is that the whole of their life is foolishness in the eyes of unconverted men: and they must of necessity meet with many reproaches and persecutions for the truths sake. But, notwithstanding all that they are, or can be, called to endure for righteousness sake, the very worst of their portion is better than the best of the portion of ungodly men: the best that the world can give, is its treasures: and the worst that the believer can receive, is its reproaches and persecutions: yet is the reproach which the believer sustains for Christs sake, greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. How superior then must the believers portion be in the eternal world! If the believer in a dungeon is richer, and happier, than the unbeliever on a throne, what must his portion in heaven be when compared with the unbelievers in hell! Be not dejected, then, ye who are despised or persecuted for Christs sake, but by faith view your privileges, and expect your reward. Our blessed Lord has set forth the worst of your portion, and pronounced you in the midst of all blessed. And he has set forth the best of the unbelievers portion, and denounced nothing but woes against him in the midst of all [Note: Luk 6:20-26.]. Take but eternity into your estimate of things, and have respect unto the recompense of your reward in heaven; then will every sacrifice be small, every suffering light, every service easy. In such a frame you will rejoice to suffer shame for Christs sake, and account death itself, though of the most violent and cruel kind, a subject of desire rather than of fear, of self-congratulation rather than of sorrow [Note: Php 2:17.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;

Ver. 24. When he was come to years ] Gr. , grown a great one, and so knew what he did, understood himself sufficiently.

Refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s ] And so to succeed in the kingdom (for we read not of any son that Pharaoh had), yea, in the kingdom of Ethiopia too; for being sent on his fosterfather’s quarrel against the king of Ethiopia, histories tell us that he afterwards married thai king’s daughter; for the which he was checked of his brother and sister, Num 12:1 . But he could have told them, that for denying the title of son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he was soon after called Pharaoh’s god,Exo 7:1Exo 7:1 ; and what he lost in Ethiopia, was sufficiently made up to him when he became king in Jeshurun. Howsoever, gratius ei fuit nomen pietatis quam potestatis, as Tertullian saith of Augustus, he more prized piety than power.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

24 28 .] The faith of Moses when come to man’s estate .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

24 .] By faith Moses, when grown up ( . . , , Thl. The expression is from ref. Exod. Schulz and Bretschn. imagine it to mean, having become great, viz. in dignity as a citizen: but the usage is the other way, see reff.), refused (add to reff., Herod. iii. 1, : Heb 6:13 , : Eur. Iph. Aul. 972, ) to be called son of a daughter of Pharaoh (perhaps is indefinite; but it is by no means certain: all these nouns of relation are used constantly without the article, when they are undeniably definite. There is no record in the O. T. of this refusal of Moses: but the fact of the adoption was matter of Jewish traditionary belief, see Philo below, and the Rabbinical testimony in Schttgen: and the refusal is fairly gathered from his whole conduct. It is interesting to read and to compare the inflated account of the same in Philo, Vita Mos. 7, p. 85 f.: , , , , , , , , , ),

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Hebrews

THE FAITH OF MOSES

Heb 11:24-27

I HAVE ventured to take these verses as a text, not with the idea of expounding their details, or even of touching many of the large questions which they raise, but for the sake of catching their general drift. They are the writer’s description of two significant instances in the life of the great Lawgiver of the power of faith. He deals with both in the same fashion. He first tells the act, then he analyses its spring in the state of feeling which produced it, and then he traces that state of feeling to certain external facts which were obvious to the faith of Moses. ‘The Great Refusal,’ by which he flung up his position at the court of Pharaoh, and chose to identify himself with his people, is the one. His flight from Egypt to the solitudes of Horeb is the other. The two acts are traced to the states of feeling or opinion in Moses. The former came from a choice and an estimate. ‘He chose to suffer with the people of God’; and he ‘esteemed the reproach… greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.’ The latter in like manner came from a state of feeling. He ‘forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.’ What underlay the choice, the estimate, the courage? ‘He had respect,’ or more literally and forcibly, ‘he looked away to the recompense of the reward.’ He saw ‘Him who is invisible.’ So, an act of vision which disclosed him a future recompense and a present God was the basis of all. And from that act of vision there came states of mind which made it easy and natural to choose a lot of suffering and humiliation, and to turn away from all the glories and treasures and wrath of Egypt. That is to say, we have here two things – what this man saw, and what the vision did for his life, and I wish to consider these two. The same sight is possible for us; and, if we have it, the same conduct will certainly follow. I. Note then, first, what this man saw. Two things, says the writer. ‘He looked away to the recompense of the reward,’ and he saw God. Now I need not remind you, I suppose, that these two objects of real vision correspond to the two elements of faith which the writer describes in the first verse of our chapter, where he says that it is ‘the substance of things hoped for’; to which corresponds ‘the recompense of the reward,’ and ‘the evidence of things not seen; to which answers Him who is invisible.’ Now, that conception of faith, as having mainly to do with the future and the unseen, is somewhat different superficially from the ordinary notion of faith, set forth in the New Testament, as being trust in Jesus Christ. But the difference is only superficial, and arises mainly from a variety in the prominence given to the elements which both conceptions have in common. For the faith which is trust in Jesus Christ is directed towards the unseen, and includes in itself the realisation of the future. And the faith which is vivid consciousness of the invisible world, and realisation of a coming retribution, finds them both most clearly and most surely in that Lord ‘in whom, though now we wee Him not, yet believing we rejoice,’ and anticipate the future ‘end of our faith’ even the salvation of our souls. So we may take these two points that emerge from our text, and look at them as containing for our present purpose a sufficient description of what our faith ought to do for us. There must be, first, then, a vivid and resolute realisation of future retribution. Now, note that this same expression, a somewhat peculiar one, ‘the recompense of the reward,’ is found again in this letter in directly the opposite reference from that which it has here. In the second chapter of the Epistle we read that ‘every transgression and disobedience shall receive its just recompense of reward.’ Both recompense by punishment and by blessedness are included in the word, so that its meaning is the exact requital of good or evil by a sovereign judge. And that is the very purpose which faith has for one of its chief functions, to burn in the conviction on our slothful minds – that all that is round about us is at once cause and consequence; that life is a network of issues of past actions, and of progenitors of future ones; that nothing that a man does ever dies; that

‘Through his soul the echoes roll, And grow for ever and for ever’

that ‘whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ Character is the result of actions. Condition is largely, if not altogether, dependent upon conduct and upon character. And, just as the sandstone cliffs were laid down grain by grain by an evaporated ocean, and stand eternal when the waters have all vanished, so whatever else you and I are making of, and in, our lives, we are making permanent cliffs of character which will remain when all the waves of time have foamed themselves away. That process, which is going on moment by moment all through our lives, Christian faith follows beyond the grave. It works right up to the edge of the grave as everybody can see, and many a man’s last harvest of the seed that he sowed to the flesh is his, when laid a Corrupted corpse into his coffin. But does it stop there? The world may say, ‘We know not.’ Christian faith overleaps the gulf and sees the process going on more intensely and unhindered in the life yonder. We are like signalmen in their isolated boxes. They pull a lever, and the points a quarter of a mile away are shifted. The man does not see what he has done, but he has done it all the same. And when his time for travelling comes, he will find that he has determined the course on which he must run by the actions that were done here. And so, brethren, this conviction, not merely as being a selfish looking for a peaceful and blessed heaven, as some people try to vulgarise the conception, but as being the thrilling consciousness that every deed has its issues, and is to be done, or refrained from, in view of these, this is what is meant by the word of my text: ‘he looked away’ to the recompense of reward. Now remember that such a vision clear and definite before a man, substantial and solid and continuous enough to become a formative power in his life, and even to determine its main direction, is only realisable as the result of very special and continuous effort. The writer of the letter employs a singular and a strong word, which I have tried to English by the phrase ‘looking off unto the recompense.’ He turned away by a determined effort of resolution, averting his gaze from other things in order to fix it on the far off thing. One use of the tube of the telescope is to shut out cross lights, and concentrate the vision on the far off object, looked at undisturbed. Unless we can thus shut off on either side these dazzling and bewildering brilliances that dance and flicker round us, we shall never see clearly that solemn future and all its infinite possibilities of sorrow or of blessedness. The eye that is focused to look at the things on the earth cannot see the stars. When the look-out man at the bow wants to make sure whether that white flash on the horizon is a sun-smitten sail or a breaker, he knits his brows and shades his eyes with his hand, and concentrates his steady gaze till he sees. And you and I have to do that, or the most real things in the universe, away yonder in the extreme distance, will be problematical and questionable to us. Oh, brother! our Christian lives would be altogether different if we made the resolve and kept it, to fix our gaze on ‘the recompense of the reward.’ Then the next thing that this man saw, says my text, was ‘Him who is invisible.’ Now I do not suppose that there is any reference there to the miraculous manifestations of a divine presence which were given to the lawgiver, for these came long after the incidents which are being dealt with in my text. True! he saw God face to face amidst the solitudes and the sanctities of Sinai. But that is not at all what the writer is thinking about here. He is thinking about the vision which was given to Moses, in no other fashion than it may be given to us, if we will have it, the sight of God to the ‘inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude,’ and ministers strength to our lives, in solitude or in society. The conscious realisation of God’s presence in our minds and hearts and wills, and the whole trembling and yet rejoicing inner man, aware that God is near, are what is meant by this vision of Him. The realisation of His presence continually, the sight of Him in nature, so that every bush burns with a visible deity, and every cloud is the pillar in which He moves for guidance, the realisation of His presence, in history, in society, operating all changes and working round us, and in us, and on us – this is the highest result of a true religious faith. And it is worthy to be called sight. For not the vision of the eye is the source of the truest certitude, but the vision of the inward spirit. A man may be surer of God than he is of the material universe that he touches and handles and beholds. The vision that a trustful heart has of God is as real, as direct, and, I venture to say, more assured, than the knowledge which is brought to us through sense. And such a vision ought to be, and will be if we are right, no disturbing or unwelcome thought, but a delight and a strength. A prisoner in a solitary cell sometimes goes mad because he knows that somewhere in its walls there is a peep-hole at which, at any moment, the eye of a gaoler may be on the watch. But the loving heart that yearns after God has nothing but joy in the otherwise awful thought, ‘If I take the wings of the morning, Thou art there. If I fly to the uttermost parts of the west, there I meet Thee.’ ‘If I make my bed in the grave, Thou art there. Thou hast beset me behind and before.’ Brethren, either our ghastliest doubt or our deepest joy is, ‘Thou, God, seest me.’ ‘When I awake I am still with Thee.’ II. And now, secondly, notice what the vision did for this man. I cannot do more than touch very lightly upon the various points that are involved here. But I would have you notice in general that the writer masses the enemies of a noble life, which Moses overcame by this sight, in three general classes – pleasures, treasures, dangers. The faith of Moses lifted him above ignoble pleasures, saved him from coveting fleeting possessions, armed him against mere corporeal perils. And these three – delights, rules, dangers, may be roughly said to be the triple-headed Cerberus that bars our way. Let us look how the vision will help to overcome them all. This sight will take the brightness out of ignoble and fleeting pleasures. Moses had the ball at his foot, Jewish legends tell us that the very crown was intended to be placed on his head. However that may be, a life of luxurious ease, of command over men, accompanied by the half deification which in old days hedged a king, were his for the taking; and he turned from them all. He did not choose suffering: but he chose to be identified with the people of God, though he knew that thereby he was electing a life of sorrow and of pain. The world has seen no nobler act than that when he passed through the gates of Pharaoh’s palace, the fragments of whose glorious architecture we still wonder at, and housed himself in the dark reed huts where the slaves dwelt. Now that same spirit, both in regard to choice and to estimate, must be ours, and will be ours, if we have any depth and reality of vision of the recompense and of the invisible God. For if you once let the light of these two solemn thoughts in upon the delights of earth, how poor and paltry, how coarse and ignoble, they look! Did you ever see the scenes of a theatre by daylight? What daubs; what rents; what coarse work! Let the light of the ‘recompense’ and of God in upon earthly delights, and how they shrivel, and dwindle, and disappear! Ah, brethren! if we would only bring our earthly desires to the touchstone of these two great thoughts, we should find that many a thing that holds us would slacken its grasp, and the fair forms, with their tiny harps, and their sweet songs that tempt us on the flowery island, would be seen for what they are – ravenous monsters whose guests are in the depths of hell. ‘He had respect to the recompense of the reward,’ and spurned ignoble pleasures. If you see the things that are, you will not be tempted with the things that seem. And then, further, such a vision will help us to appraise at their true value earthly possessions.. I cannot enter upon the question of what the writer means precisely by that singular phrase, attributing to Moses ‘the reproach of Christ.’ Whether it implies the reproach borne for Christ, or like Christ, or by Christ, all which interpretations are possible, and have been suggested, need not concern us now. The point is that the twofold vision of which the writer is speaking, let in upon worldly possessions, reveals their emptiness and dressiness, as compared with the true riches. There are old stories of men who in the night received from fairy hands gifts of gold in some cave, and when the daylight came upon them what had seemed to be gold and jewels was a bundle of withered leaves and red berries, already half corrupted and altogether worthless. There are many things that the world counts very precious which are lille the fairy’s gold. Nothing that can be taken from a man really belongs to him. The only real riches, corresponder with his necessities, are those which, once possessed, are inseparable from his being, the riches of an indwelling God, and of a nature conformed to His. And that effect of the vision of the unseen and the future, as bringing down to their true value all the wealth of Egypt and of the world, is a lesson which no man needs more than do we whose lives, and habits of thinking, are passed and formed in a commercial community, in which success means a fortune, and failure means poverty; in which the poor are tempted to look upon the possession of wealth as the only thing to be coveted, and the rich are tempted to look upon it as the one thing to be rejoiced over. Let the light of the future, and of God, ever shine upon your estimates of the worth of the world’s wealth. Lastly, such a vision will arm a man against all perils. I take it that ‘forsaking Egypt’ in my text refers to Moses’ flight to Horeb. Now, in the book of Exodus that flight is traced to his fear. In my text it is traced to his courage. So, then, there may dwell in one heart fearing and not fearing. There may be dread, as there was with Moses, sufficient to impel him to flight, though not sufficient to induce him to abandon the purpose which made flight necessary. He was afraid enough to shelter himself. He was not afraid enough, by reason of dangers and difficulties, to fling up his mission. That is to say, the vision will not take away from a man natural tremors, nor will it blind him to real dangers and difficulties, but it will steady his resolve, and make him determined, though he may have to bow before the blast, to yield no jot of his convictions, nor fling away any of his confidence. He will flee to Horeb, if need be, but he will not cease to labour for the redemption of Israel If we put our trust in God, and live in the continual realisation of future retribution, then, whilst we may prudently adapt our course so as to find a smooth bit of road to walk on, and to avoid dangers which may threaten, we shall never let these either shake our confidence in God, or alter our conviction of what He requires from us. So I gather up all that I have been trying to say in the one word – the true way to make life noble is the old way, the way of faith. The sight of God, the vision of judgment will make earth’s pleasures paltry, earth’s treasures dross, earth’s dangers contemptible. The way to secure that ennobling and strengthening vision to attend us everywhere, is to keep near to Jesus Christ, and to fix our hearts on Him. In communion with Him pleasures that perish will woo in vain, and possessions from which we must part will lose their worth, and perils that touch the body will cease to terrify; and through faith ‘we shall be more than conquerors in Him that loved us.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

when he was, &c. Literally having become great, i.e. grown up.

refused. Greek. arneomai. Genitive translation “deny”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

24-28.] The faith of Moses when come to mans estate.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Heb 11:24. , by faith, Moses) So far from faith being opposed to Moses, he was an eminent example of it. The name of Moses is repeated, because in Heb 11:23 the apostle is speaking of the faith of his parents, here of his own. Concerning the use of this observation, look, if you are at leisure, at the Apparatus, p. 725 [Ed. 11. p. 418].- ) So the LXX., Exo 2:11.-, refused) An instance of great self-denial.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

, .

. Syr., , when he was now a man. Other considerable variations in translations there are none.

The latter clause of Heb 11:25, , is rendered by the Vulgar, quam temporalis peccati habere jucunditatem: which our Rhemists translate, than to have the pleasure of temporal sin, by a double mistake; for instead of they read , joining it with , contrary unto all ancient copies, and the exposition of the Greek scholiasts. And , which is fruition or enjoyment, they render by jucunditas, or pleasure. Nor is the sense of the words, so translated, proper unto this place, as we shall see. Syr., than for a short time to delight in sin.

. Syr., and he chose to or for himself; he determined in himself and for himself.

. Syr., ; and he thought; Vulg Lat., aestimans; as we, esteeming; arbitratus, reputans. , probrum, opprobrium. Vulg. Lat., improbrium; which the Rhemists render [14] reproach.

ft14 VARIOUS READING. For of the textus receptus, is now generally substituted as the proper reading. Ed.

Heb 11:24-26. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, [being grown up,] refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, [the transitory pleasure of sin]; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of reward. This example is great and signal. The apostle, as we showed before, takes his instances from the three states of the church under the old testament. The first was that which was constituted in the giving of the first promise, continuing unto the call of Abraham. Herein his first instance is that of Abel, in whose sacrifice the faith of that state of the church was first publicly professed, and by whose martyrdom it was confirmed. The next state had its beginning and confirmation in the call of Abraham, with the covenant made with him, and the token thereof. He therefore is the second great instance upon the roll of testimonies. The constitution and consecration of the third state of the church was in the giving of the law; and herein an instance is given in the lawgiver himself. All to manifest, that whatever outward variations the church was liable unto, and passed under, yet faith and the promises were the same, of the same efficacy and power under them all.

The person then here instanced in, as one that lived by faith, is Moses. And an eminent instance it is unto his purpose, especially in his dealing with the Hebrews, and that on sundry accounts:

1. Of his person. None was ever in the old world more signalized by Providence, in his birth, education, and actions, than he was. Hence his renown, both then and in all ages after, was very great in the world. The report and estimation of his acts and wisdom were famous among all the nations of the earth. Yet this person lived and acted and did all his works by faith.

2. Of his great work, which was the typical redemption of the church. A work it was great in itself, so God expresseth it to be, and such as was never wrought in the earth before, Deu 4:32-34, yet greater in the typical respect which it had unto the eternal redemption of the church by Jesus Christ.

3. On the account of his office. He was the lawgiver: whence it is manifest that the law is not opposite to faith, seeing the lawgiver himself lived thereby.

Obs. 1. Whatever be the privileges of any, whatever be their work or office, it is by faith alone that they must live unto God, and obtain acceptance with him. The lawgiver himself was justified by faith. There are three things in general in the words, setting forth the faith of Moses:

1 What he did in matter of fact, whereby his faith was evidenced, Heb 11:24.

2. The interpretation of what he so did, by the nature and consequents of it, Heb 11:25.

3. The ground and reason whereon he so acted and exercised his faith, Heb 11:26.

In the FIRST of these, the first thing expressed is the time or season, or the condition wherein he thus acted his faith. Say we, when he was come to years; not accurately. , cum esset grandis, chin grandis rectus esset; when he became great. Syr., when he was a man.

But the word may respect either state and condition, or time of life and stature. To become great, is, in the Scripture and common speech, to become so in wealth, riches, or power, Gen 24:35; Gen 26:13. And so was it now with Moses. He was come unto wealth, power, and honor, in the court of Pharaoh; and a respect hereunto seems to set forth the greatness of his self-denial, which is the eminent fruit of his faith that is here commended. He did this when he was great in the court of the king.

But although this be true materially, and hath an especial influence into the commendation of the faith of Moses, yet is it not intended in this expression. For, having declared the faith of his parents, and the providence of God towards him in his infancy, in the foregoing verse, the apostle here shows what was his own way of acting after he grew up unto years of understanding. So is used for one that is grown up to be sui juris, or to be a man: , Hom. Od. 2:314; I was an infant, saith Telemachus, but now I am grown up, orgrown great. It is grandis absolutely in Latin, though grandis natu be one stricken in years: At ego nunc grandis, hunc grandem natu ad carnificinam dabo, Plaut. Capt.; being grown up, being grown a man. Cum adoleverit, when he was grown up; that is, come to years of understanding, to act the duty whereunto he was called.

Most expositors suppose this expresseth the time when he was forty years of age; for they refer the refusal to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter unto that act of his in slaying the Egyptian, which was when he was full forty years old, Act 7:23. And there is countenance given hereunto from what is affirmed, Exo 2:11, And it came to pass in those days, after Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren; where the Hebrew, , is rendered by the LXX. , the words here used by the apostle.

But although that time and fact be also included herein, yet the whole duty cannot be confined thereunto. For, as it was an act of faith, Moses had in his mind long before refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; that is, to renounce his own people, and to join himself unto the Egyptians. Wherefore the largest and most comprehensive interpretation of the words suits best with the sense of the place, or mind of the Holy Spirit therein According as he grew up in stature and understanding, he acted faith in the duties whereunto he was called. For the story mentioned by Josephus, of what he did in his infancy, by trampling on the crown of the king, when he would have placed it on his head, is undoubtedly fabulous. And,

Obs. 2. It is good to fill up every age and season with the duties which are proper thereunto. And it is the duty of all that are young, that, according as by time and instruction they come to the knowledge of what is required of them, they apply themselves vigorously and diligently thereunto. Not as is the manner of the most, whose inclinations to serve their lusts grow with their years and stature.

Secondly, What he did at that season is declared as the first effect, fruit, and indication of his faith. He refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter.

Three things are here to be inquired into:

1. How and on what account he was esteemed and commonly called the son of Pharaohs daughter.

2. How and by what means he came to know that he was of another stock and race.

3. How did he refuse to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter?

1. For the first, it is manifest from the story, Exodus 2; upon her first finding him in the river, and saving of his life, she gave order to his mother, who appeared for a nurse, that she should nurse him for hers, and she would pay her wages, verse 9. Herein she owned it to be hers, or took the care of it on herself. But this she might do, and yet esteem and keep it only as a servant. So servus is called a servando. She saved him, and he was hers. But when he was weaned, his mother carried him home unto her, she having probably often seen him in the meantime. And it must be acknowledged, that there was no less danger herein, no less a trial of the faith of his parents, than when they put him into an ark of bulrushes and set him floating on the river. For to carry a tender infant, probably about three years of age, to be bred in an idolatrous, persecuting court, was no less dangerous unto his soul and eternal condition than the exposing of him in the river was unto his natural life. But there is no doubt his parents, who were true believers, were now satisfied that in all these wonderful passages concerning him, there was some extraordinary design of Providence working effectually for some especial divine end. They resolved, therefore, to comply with the conduct thereof, and leave him to the sovereign care and disposal of God. And this, by the way, gives not the least countenance unto those parents who, for gain or advantage, or to please their humor, will dispose their children unto persons, ways, places, employments, wherein they cannot avoid dangerous and inextricable temptations.

But when Moses was thus brought to the court, unto Pharaohs daughter, it is said, He became her son. It is probable she had no other child, whether she was married or not. Wherefore being inclined both in her affection unto the child, which was beautiful, and by the marvellous manner of her finding and saving of him, by the consent of her father, she solemnly adopted him to be her son, and consequently the heir of all her honor and riches, which ensued on adoption. Hereon she gave him his name, as was usual in cases of adoption, taking it from the first occasion of her owning of him. She called his name Moses; and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. Whether he had any other name given him in the house of his parents is uncertain. This is that which God would have him use, as a perpetual remembrance of his deliverance, when he was in a helpless condition.

Being thus publicly adopted and owned, he was by all esteemed, honored, and called the son of Pharaohs daughter, without any respect unto his extraction from the Hebrews, though no doubt that also was commonly known among the Egyptians; though the stories that Josephus, Philo, Clemens, from Ezekiel Tragicus, tell about him, and their fear of him, are justly to be suspected.

Some think that the then present king of Egypt had no child but that only daughter, whom they call Thermutis; and that this adopted son of hers was to succeed unto the crown. But this also is uncertain and improbable. But the secular interest, power, glory, honor, and wealth, which belonged unto him by virtue of this adoption, were such as the apostle calls the treasures in Egypt, then one of the most rich and populous nations in the world. But,

2. It may be inquired, how it was, and by what means, (supposing Moses to be carried unto Pharaohs daughter presently after he was weaned, and thenceforth brought up in the court,) could he come to know his stock, race, and kindred, so as, upon all disadvantages, to cleave unto them, unto the relinquishment of his new, regal relation. I answer, there were many means thereof, which God made effectual unto this end.

(1.) His circumcision. He found himself circumcised, and so to belong unto the circumcised people. Hereon God instructed him to inquire into the reason and nature of that distinguishing character. And so he learned that it was the token of Gods covenant with the people, the posterity of Abraham, of whom he was. It was a blessed inlet into the knowledge and fear of the true God. And whatever is pretended by some unto the contrary, it is a most eminent divine privilege, to have the seal of the covenant in baptism communicated unto the children of believers in their infancy; and a means it hath been to preserve many from fatal apostasies.

(2.) His nurse, who was his mother, as the custom is in such cases, was frequently with him; and probably his father also on the same account. Whether they were ever known to the Egyptians to be his parents, I very much question. But there is no doubt but that they, being persons truly fearing God, and solicitous about his eternal condition, did take care to communicate unto him the principles of true religion, with a detestation of the Egyptian idolatries and superstition.

(3.) The notoriety of the matter of fact was continually before him. It was known unto all Egypt that he was of Hebrew extraction, and now incorporated into the royal family of the Egyptians. Hereon he considered what these two people were, what was the difference between them; and quickly found which of them was the people of God, and how they came so to be.

By these means his mind was inlaid with the principles of faith and the true religion, before he was given up to learn the wisdom of the Egyptians, and before the temptations from wealth, power, and glory, had any influence on his affections. And,

Obs. 3. It is a blessed thing to have the principles of true religion fixed in the minds of children, and their affections engaged unto them, before they are exposed unto temptations from learning, wisdom, wealth, or preferment. And the negligence of most parents herein, who have none of those difficulties in the discharge of their duty which the parents of Moses had to conflict withal, is a treachery which they must be accountable for.

Obs. 4. The token of Gods covenant received in infancy, being duly considered, is the most effectual means to preserve persons in the profession of true religion against apostasy by outward temptations. 3. Our third inquiry is, How or when did Moses refuse to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter?

Some observe, that signifies sometimes not only to refuse barely, but to reject with indignation. But there is no need to affix any such signification unto it in this place. The sense of it is determined in the opposite act of choosing, mentioned in the next place. Choosing and refusing are opposite acts of the mind, both of the same kind.

Some restrain this refusal unto that act of his in slaying the Egyptian, wherein he declared that he owned not his alliance unto the court of Egypt. But whereas it is the internal frame and act of his mind that are here intended, it is not to be confined unto any particular outward action, much less unto that which fell not out until he was full forty years old, Act 7:23, and before which it is said that he owned the Israelites for his brethren: He went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, Exo 2:11; which he could not do without a resolution to relinquish his relationunto Pharaohs daughter.

Wherefore this refusal consisted in general in three things:

(1.) In the sedate resolution of his mind, not finally to abide and continue in that state whereinto he was brought by his adoption. And this was not attained unto without great consideration, with great exercise of faith in prayer and trust in God. For this refusal was an act and fruit of faith, of whose power it is here given as an instance. The least sedate consideration of his circumstances, of what he was, what he was to leave, what he was to undergo, (whereof in the next verses,) will evidence unto any what conflicts of mind, what reasonings and fears he was exercised withal; what self-denial and renunciation of all earthly advantages he herein engaged into. Herein principally consisted the refusal which is here celebrated as a fruit and evidence of faith.

(2.) No doubt but, as he had occasion, he did converse and confer with his brethren, not only owning himself to be of their stock and race, but also of their faith and religion, and to belong unto the same covenant.

(3.) When there was no longer a consistency between his faith and profession to be continued with his station in the court, he openly and fully fell off from all respect unto his adoption, and joined himself unto the other people, as we shall see in the following verse. And we may observe from hence, that,

Obs. 5. The work of faith in all ages of the church, as unto its nature, efficacy, and method of its actings, is uniform and the same.

They had not of old a faith of one kind, and we of another. This in general is the design of the apostle to prove in this whole chapter. It hath been varied in its degrees of light by outward revelations, but in itself from first to last it is still the same. And hereof the instance here insisted on is a most evident demonstration. The first act of faith purely evangelical is self- denial, Mat 16:24; Luk 9:23. And what greater instance of it, unless it were in Jesus Christ himself, can be given since the foundation of the world, than in what is here recorded of Moses?

He was in the quiet possession of all the secular advantages which a man not born of the royal family could enjoy, and perhaps in a just expectation of them also. He was every way able honourably to fill up his place and trust in the discharge of all public offices committed unto him; for he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds, even before he fell off from the court, Act 7:22. Wherefore, his personal eminency above other men, joined with his high place and dignity, procured him all the popular veneration which he could desire. And he was of that age (for he continued in this state from his infancy full forty years) wherein these things give the greatest gust and relish of themselves unto the minds of men. For him now, voluntarily and of his own accord, to relinquish them all, and to betake himself to dangers, poverty, banishment, without any prospect of relief, and that merely, as we shall see immediately, upon the account of the promise of Christ, must be acknowledged to be comprehensive of all the acts, parts, and duties of evangelical self-denial.

For, as that which gives life, form, and power, unto self-denial, doth not consist in the respect which it hath unto the outward things which any one may be called therein to forego; but in the mortification of the desires and affections of the mind which would put a valuation on these things, when they stand in competition with things heavenly and spiritual: so this was in Moses in a most eminent degree. He left not his outward enjoyments until he had crucified his heart unto them, esteeming them but loss and dung in comparison of Christ, and what was in him to be enjoyed.

But in the days wherein we live, we have more Esaus than Moseses, more who for morsels of bread, for outward, secular advantages, will sell their birthright, or part with religion and profession of the truth conveyed unto them by their parents; than who will abandon self, with all that belongs thereunto, with a resignation of themselves unto the will of God for their whole satisfaction and reward, rather than part with one tittle of truth.

SECONDLY, But the next verse is an exposition of this refusal of Moses, declaring the nature of it, and what was contained therein.

Heb 11:25. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

There are two things to be considered in these words:

1. That there were at this time two things proposed unto Moses; first, The people of God in their afflicted state; secondly, The enjoyment of the pleasures of sin for a season.

2. The determination he made as unto his own interest and concernment; he chose rather, etc.

1. In the First sundry things may be considered:

(1.) Who were this people of God; that is, in contradistinction and opposition unto all other people and nations whatever? These were the Hebrews, the posterity of Jacob, then in Egypt; that is, the brethren of Moses, Exo 2:10-11.

(2.) How did these Hebrews come to be thus the people of God in a peculiar manner, in opposition unto all other people whatever? Now this was by virtue of that especial covenant which God made with Abraham and his seed throughout all generations; the token whereof they bare in their flesh. Therein God became their God, and they became his people: which relation cannot be any otherwise raised between God and any of the children of men, but by virtue of a covenant. And,

Obs. 1. Let hence no man be offended at the low, mean, persecuted condition of the church at any time. All Gods people, and the only people he had then in the world, were only a company of brick-makers, under hard and cruel task-masters. And whoever would belong to the people of God was to cast in his lot among them; as it was with Moses. Wherefore,

Obs. 2. The sovereign wisdom of God, in disposing the outward state and condition of his people in this world, is to be submitted unto. He only knows what is good for them, and for the concernments of his glory in them.

Obs. 3. It is certain there is somewhat contained in this title and privilege that is infinitely above all outward things that may be enjoyed in this world, and which doth inexpressibly outbalance all the evils that are in it. For otherwise men might be losers by the nearest relation unto God; and he should not be himself an all- satisfactory reward.

Obs. 4. The church, in all its distresses, is ten thousand times more honorable than any other society of men in the world; they are the people of God. And we may observe, That their being so, and withal professing and avowing themselves so to be, is that which provokes the world against them, and which is the cause of all their persecutions. The world cannot endure to hear a company of poor, despised persons, perhaps little better, at least in their sight, than these Egyptian brick-makers, should take to themselves and own this glorious title of the people of God. Other things they pretend against them, as the Egyptians did against the Israelites; namely, that whereas they are a people who have a peculiar interest of their own, there is danger of sedition from them against the state, Exo 1:9-10. This is the usual pretense. The true cause of their rage is, their profession that they are the people of God, and have a right unto all the privileges accompanying that title.

(3.) This people of God is proposed to Moses as under affliction, so as that if he will join himself to them, it must be with a participation of the outward evils that they were subject unto. . The word is used only in this place. It signifies to be vexed and pressed with things evil and grievous. And our expression, of being afflicted, or suffering affliction, according to the common understanding of that expression, scarce reacheth unto the emphasis of the original word, to be pressed, vexed, distressed with things evil, burdensome, destructive to nature.

What were the afflictions and sufferings of the people of God at that time, is known. It is not only related in the Scripture, with their sighs, sorrows, and cries under them, but they are frequently mentioned afterwards as the highest distresses that human nature could be exposed unto.

But it may be inquired, how a participation in these sufferings was proposed unto Moses, seeing it was not required of him, nor was he called unto it, to work in the same kilns and furnaces with his brethren. I say, it is not at all here intimated that he was so; but only, considering their woful condition, he cast in his lot among them, to take that portion which fell to his share. He made no bargain or contract for himself, but choosing their condition, referred himself for his part and share unto the guidance of divine Providence. And this fell out in the danger of his life, his flight out of Egypt, his long poor condition in Midian, with all the evils that befell him afterwards.

Secondly, That which was proposed unto him in opposition here-unto was, as we render the words, to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, to have the temporary enjoyment of sin. is fruition or enjoyment, and is usually applied to signify such a fruition as hath gust and relish in it, yielding delight and pleasure unto them that have it; as all enjoyment in some measure doth, nor is any man said to enjoy that which he doth not take some satisfaction 3: Hence we have rendered it pleasures, in the plural number. For the best that sin, or any thing that is enjoyed with sin, can pretend unto, is but present, transitory pleasure.

To clear the meaning of the words, we must observe,

(1.) That no man makes sin, as sin, under its formal notion, to be the object of his desires, nor can be said to have or possess the fruition of it.

(2.) That the things here intended are those which accompanied his being the son of Pharaohs daughter, called the treasures of Egypt in the next verse.

(3.) That those things might absolutely and in themselves be enjoyed and used without sin; and so they were by him, until the appointed time came wherein he was called from them.

(4.) They would therefore have become sin unto him, not in themselves, but in their enjoyment; and that for two reasons:

[1.] Because they would have hindered him from the performance of a duty necessary unto the glory of God and his own salvation, as we shall see immediately.

[2.] Because he could not so enjoy them without a conjunction with the Egyptians, it may be, in their idolatries, but, to be sure, in the persecution and oppression of the people of God.

Wherefore, to have or hold the fruition of sin, in this place, is to continue in the enjoyment of all outward advantages by the means of the greatest sin imaginable, namely, the neglect of the only great duty incumbent on us in this world, or the profession of faith in God and the true religion on the one hand, and persecuting the church of God on the other.

This enjoyment of sin is, said to be , temporary, for a season; subject unto a thousand interruptions in this life, and unavoidably ending with it.

Thus were things truly represented and proposed to the thoughts of Moses. They were so by himself. He hid not his eyes from the worst on the one hand; nor did he suffer himself to be imposed on by the flattering appearances on the other. He omitted no circumstances that might influence a right judgment in his choice. He considered the worst of the people of God, which is their affliction; and the best of the world, which is but the evanid pleasure of sin; and preferred the worst of the one above the best of the other.

2. The work of his faith is expressed in the act of his mind with respect unto these different objects. He chose the one rather than the other. They were proposed unto the elective power or faculty of his soul; that whereby, upon the due consideration and pondering of things and their reasons, it is able to embrace that which is truly good unto it or best for it, and refuse whatever stands in competition with it. His choice hereby, on mature deliberation, may t)e expressed in the conclusions which he made in his own mind on this occasion; as,

(1.) That those two opposite states were divinely proposed unto his consideration, as those wherein his concernment did lie, and unto one of which he must associate himself, lie found that he could not be happy alone, nor perform his duty, nor enjoy things that were good and desirable. And these two sorts are always in the world, and are made conspicuous in a time of persecution. Some think they may pass their time here without a relation unto, or a conjunction with either of these societies. They will neither join themselves, as they suppose, to the persecuted church nor to the persecuting world. But they deceive themselves; for if they choose not the one, they do belong unto the other.

(2.) That those states, and an interest in them, were irreconcilable, so as that he could not enjoy the good things of them both, but adhering unto the one, he must renounce the other. If he cleave to the treasures of Egypt, he must renounce the people of God; and if he join himself unto the people of God, he must renounce all his interest in Egypt. This he saw necessary, from that profession which God required of him, and from the nature of the promise which that profession did respect.

(3.) He passed a right judgment concerning the true nature and end of those things, which were to be enjoyed in his continuing as the son of Pharaohs daughter. Notwithstanding all their glittering appearance, they were in themselves temporary, fading, perishing; and unto him would be sinful, pernicious, and destructive.

(4.) Hereon he was determined in his mind, and actually made his choice of the state and condition which he would embrace. He chose rather to suffer affliction, etc. The reason of which judgment and choice is more fully expressed in the next verse, And we may observe,

Obs. 5. That in a time of great temptations, especially from furious persecutors, a sedate consideration of the true nature of all things wherein we are concerned, and their circumstances on every hand, is necessary to enable us unto a right choice of our lot, and a due performance of our duty. The things we are to lose, in houses, lands, possessions, liberty, and life itself, make an appearance of a desirableness not to be overcome. And the distresses, on the other hand, of a persecuted estate, appear very terrible. If the mind leave itself unto the conduct of its affections in this matter, it will never make a right choice and determination. Faith enables the soul to divest the things on either side of their flattering or frightening appearances, and to make a right judgment of them in their proper nature and ends.

Obs. 6. No profession will endure the trial in a time of persecution, but such as proceeds from a determinate choice of adhering unto Christ and the gospel, with a refusal and rejection of whatever stands in competition with them, on a due consideration of the respective natures and ends of the things proposed unto us on the one hand and the other; that is, the loss of all temporal good things, and the undergoing of all that is temporally evil. Those who engage unto a profession on such light convictions of truth, or other inferior grounds, as it were at peradventures, will scarce endure when it comes unto a trial, like that which Moses underwent.

Obs. 7. He chose to be afflicted with the people of God; and so must every one do who will be of them unto his advantage. Our Lord Jesus Christ warns us, that some will entertain the gospel, but when persecution ariseth for the word, immediately they fall away. They would have him, but not with his cross; and his gospel, but not with its burden. And of the same Samaritan sect there are multitudes in every age. They would be accounted of the people of God, but they will have nothing to do with their afflictions. They have ways of compliance to keep their own peace and wealth, it may be their places and profits, without being concerned in the afflictions of the people of God. But those who will not have their afflictions shall never have their privileges; and so it is all one whether they profess themselves to belong unto them or no.

Obs. 8. Men fearfully delude themselves, in the choice they make about profession in times of persecution. The choice which they have to make is really and singly between the pleasures of sin, and those to be enjoyed but for a little while; and present sufferings attended with an eternal reward, as the next verse declares. But, for the most part men have other notions of things, and suppose they may come off with some distinctions or limitations, like that of Naaman, and save themselves

THIRDLY, The grounds whereon Moses proceeded are expressed in the next verse.

Heb 11:26. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

The words contain the ground and reason of the choice of Moses, mentioned in the foregoing verse. And this is, the judgment which he made concerning the things which he chose and those which he refused, being compared one with the other. Esteeming, or having esteemed, determined and judged. And,

1. There are the things themselves expressed concerning which he passed a judgment, namely, the reproach of Christ on the one hand, and the treasures of Egypt on the other.

2. The common notion under which he considered them both, and by an especial interest wherein the one was preferred before the other; and this was riches, he judged one to be greater riches than the other. 3. The especial reason whereby the things which he chose approved themselves in his mind to be greater riches than the other, namely, from the recompence of the reward which belonged unto them, and was inseparable from them.

1. The thing which he chose he calls the reproach of Christ. This must be the same with what he calls being afflicted with the people of God, in the verse foregoing, only with an addition of a consideration under which it was peculiarly eligible. What is this reproach of Christ, we must inquire.

Much endeavor hath been used by some to remove the consideration of Christ, as then proposed unto the church in the promise, out of the words. Grotius and his follower would have the reproach of Christ to be only such kinds of reproach, sufferings, and afflictions, as Christ himself afterwards, and Christians for Christ, did undergo. Of the same mind is Crellius, who feigns at least a catachresis in the words, arising out of sundry tropes and metaphors. But he thinks that chiefly the afflictions of the people of Israel were called the reproach of Christ, because they were a type of Christ, that is, of Christians in some sense. So unwilling are some to admit any faith of Christ, or knowledge of him, into the religion of the ancient patriarchs. But,

(1.) as here, is never used for any type of Christ, for any but Christ himself.

(2.) If Moses underwent reproaches as the type of Christ, and knew that he did so, then he believed in Christ; which is the thing they would deny.

(3.) The immediate reason of the persecution of the Israelites was, because they would not coalesce into one people with the Egyptians, but would still retain and abide by their distinct interests and hopes. Now, their perseverance herein was grounded on their faith in the promise made unto Abraham, which was concerning Christ. So these things have nothing of solidity in them.

But the mind of the apostle is evident in this expression. For,

(1.) From the first promise concerning the exhibition of the Son of God in the flesh, Christ was the life, soul, and the all of the church, in all ages. From him all was derived, and in him all centered: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to day, and for ever; a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. To deny this, is to destroy the whole mystery of the wisdom of God under the old testament, and in particular, to overthrow the whole apostolical exposition of it in this epistle.

(2.) Being so, he was the original cause or occasion of the sufferings of the church in all ages. All the persecutions of the church arose from the enmity between the two seeds, which entered upon the promise of Christ. And the adherence of believers unto that promise is the only cause of that separation from the world, which is the immediate cause of all their persecution. Wherefore, the reproach of Christ, in the first place, signifies the reproach which upon the account of Christ, or their faith in him, they did undergo. For all outward observances in the church, in all ages, are but the profession of that faith.

(3.) Christ and the church were considered from the beginning as one mystical body; so as that what the one underwent, the other is esteemed to undergo the same. Hence it is said, that in all their affliction he was afflicted, Isa 63:9. And the apostle Paul calls his own sufferings, that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, Col 1:24, namely, which belonged unto the full allotment of sufferings unto that mystical body whereof Christ is the head. And in this sense also the afflictions of the church are the afflictions of Christ.

(4.) Somewhat of that which is here called the reproach of Christ is called by the same apostle the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body, Gal 6:17; or the stripes which he endured, with the marks of them that remained, for the sake of Jesus Christ. And so are all the sufferings of the church the reproach of Christ, because it is for his sake alone that they undergo them, and it is he alone whom they lay in the balance against them all.

2. All the sufferings of the people of God for the sake of Christ are called his reproach. For all sorts of afflictions, persecutions, and oppressions from men, on the account of the profession of the truth, are intended. And they are so called on a double account:

(1.) Because the foundation of them all is always laid in reproach. The world can neither justify nor countenance itself in its persecutions of the church, unless they first cover it all over with reproaches. So dealt they with our Lord Jesus Christ himself. They attempted not to take away his life, before the rage of the people was by all manner of reproaches stirred up against him. So it is in all the persecutions and sufferings of the church. They are always represented as heretics, schismatics, or seditious persons, opposite to all good order in church and state, before they are exposed to violence. And this also is usually accompanied with contempt, scorn, mocking, and false accusations. Wherefore, all the sufferings of believers may be denominated from this rise and entrance of them.

(2.) There is nothing in sufferings that is more sharp and terrible unto ingenuous souls than this reproach is; nothing that hath more of a severe trial in it. Hence the psalmist, in the person of Christ, complains that reproach had broken his heart, Psa 69:19-20. And the apostle mentions cruel mockings, verse 36 of this chapter, where we shall speak of them.

(3.) They are so called, because all the persecutions of the church do arise from the enmity, hatred, scorn, and contempt, which the world hath of and towards Christ himself, or the mystery of the wisdom of God for the salvation of sinners in and by him. And we may observe in our passage, that,

Obs. 1. Reproach hath in all ages, from the beginning of the world, attended Christ and all the sincere professors of faith in him; which in Gods esteem is upon his account. One of his last acts in this world was his conflicting with ignominy and shame; which he overcame with contempt, Heb 12:2-3. And his apostles began their ministry with suffering shame for his names sake, Act 5:41. But when the mystery of iniquity began to work, one great design in it was, for the rulers of the church and their adherents to quit themselves of this reproach and scorn from the world; which indeed they did not deserve. Wherefore, they contrived all ways whereby they might attain wealth, honor, grandeur, and veneration in the world; wherein they succeeded, unto the ruin of Christian religion.

3. That which Moses compared herewithal was the treasures of Egypt; the treasures that were in Egypt. Treasures properly are riches in gold, silver, precious stones, and other things highly valuable, that are stored, hid, and laid up. But when there is mention of the treasures of a nation, they include all those profits and advantages of it also whence those treasures are gathered. In both respects, Egypt, whilst it flourished, was behind no kingdom in the world. What was, and what might be, the interest of Moses in these treasures, we before declared. But in this matter he doth not so much, or at least not only, consider them as unto his own share and interest, but also absolutely what they were in themselves, tie considered what they were, what they would amount unto, what might be done with them or attained by them, and prefers the reproach of Christ above them all. For,

Obs. 2. Let the things of this world be increased and multiplied into the greatest measures and degrees imaginable, it alters not their kind. They are temporary, fading, and perishing still; such as will stand men in no stead on their greatest occasions, nor with respect unto eternity.

Now, these things were not considered by Moses in the notion of them, but he saw them daily exemplified before his face. He saw the treasures of Egypt, with the state, glory, gallantry, and power of the court, by whom they were enjoyed, and what supply they had for all their lusts and desires. And he saw the poor, oppressed, scorned people of God, in their bearing the reproach of Christ. Yet in this present view of them, when it most highly affected him, he did in his mind, judgment, and resolution, prefer the latter before the former, so as to choose it and embrace it. This is that which faith will effect. Let us go and do likewise.

4. These things Moses considered under the notion of riches. He esteemed the reproach of Christ to be greater riches. Riches, opulency, wealth, contain all that men love and value in this world; all that is of use unto them for all the ends of life; all that they desire, and place their happiness in, at least so far, that they judge they cannot be happy without them. Hence two things are denoted in the word:

(1.) That which is the principal means of all the ends of life.

(2.) An abundance of it. On these accounts the word is frequently used by the Holy Ghost to denote the spiritual things which God prepares for and gives unto believers, with the greatness, the abundance, the excellency of them. They are called riches, durable substance, treasures; and are said to be richly or abundantly communicated, for there is in them an all-sufficiency, in all things, for all the ends of mans life and blessedness. So doth the apostle here call them riches, with an especial respect also to the treasures of Egypt, which were their riches,

Obs. 3. There is therefore an all-satisfactory fullness in spiritual things, even when the enjoyment of them is under reproach and persecution, unto all the true ends of the blessedness of men.

5. Lastly, There is in the words the ground whereon Moses made his judgment concerning these things, and what it was which influenced his mind into that determination. For although he might on some accounts prefer the reproach of Christ unto the treasures of Egypt, yet it doth not easily occur on what ground he should judge that it was greater riches than they, or more sufficient unto all the ends of mens lives and blessedness. Wherefore the ground of this judgment being taken from a due consideration of what did accompany this reproach of Christ, and was inseparably annexed unto it, is expressed in these words, For he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

He had respect, , intuitus est; he looked on, he saw by the eyes of faith, as represented in the promise; he took into consideration.

The recompence of the reward; praemii retributionem, largitionem; mercedis redditionem; the gratuitous reward that God hath annexed unto faith and obedience, not merited or deserved by them, but infallibly annexed unto them, in a way of sovereign bounty.

The causal conjunction, for, is introductive of the reason whereon Moses made the judgment before declared.

Schlichtingius is mute as unto this reward, not knowing, as it should seem, how to avoid the force of this plain testimony concerning the faith which believers under the old testament had of eternal rewards, by virtue of Gods promise. Grotius is bold, in his usual manner, and refers it to the possession, of the land of Canaan. Hammond forsakes his guide, and extends it unto things eternal. Nor can there be any thing more improbable than the conjecture of Grotius; for neither did Moses ever enter into the land of Canaan, nor was the interest of his posterity therein to be any way compared with the treasures of Egypt

But the apostle gives us here a pregnant instance of that description of faith which he gave us in the first verse of the chapter, namely, that it was the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen; for both these were seen in this faith of Moses. It gave him an evidence of the invisible things of the eternal reward; and caused them so to subsist in their power and foretaste in his mind, as that he chose and preferred them above all things present and visible. And,

Obs. 4. Such signal exemplifications of the nature and efficacy of faith in others, especially when victorious against mighty oppositions, as they were in Moses, are high encouragements unto us unto the like exercise of it in the like circumstances.

Now whereas, as was said, and as is plain in the text, this is the ground whereon Moses made the judgment declared, it is evident that the whole thereof, and of his faith therein, is resolved into this certain and immovable truth, that God in his purpose, promise, and constitution of his word, hath immutably annexed a blessed reward unto the reproach of Christ, or the undergoing of it by believers.

We must therefore inquire,

(1.) What this recompence of reward is; and,

(2.) How Moses had respect unto it.

(1.) That this recompence of reward includes in it, yea, principally respects, the eternal reward of persecuted believers in heaven, is out of question. But whereas God is in his covenant a present reward unto them, Gen 15:1; and that in the present keeping of his commandments there is a great reward, Psa 19:11; as also, that the spiritual wisdom, grace, mercy, and consolation, that believers receive in this world, are riches, treasures, and durable substance; I doubt not but the blessed peace, rest, and satisfaction which they have, in a comfortable persuasion of their covenant-interest in God, are also included here. But even these also have their power and efficacy from their inseparable relation unto the eternal reward.

(2.) This reward he had respect unto; which compriseth three things:

[1.] He believed it upon divine revelation and promise; and that so steadfastly and with such assurance, as if he held it, or had seen it with his eyes.

[2.] He valued it according to its worth and desert, as that which was to be preferred incomparably above all present things.

[3.] He brought it into reckoning and account, in the judgment which he was to make concerning the reproach of Christ and the treasures of Egypt. And this was the victory whereby he overcame the world, even his faith.

And sundry observations, for our own use and instruction, we may take from this example of the faith of Moses and its success.

But we must first of all observe in general, that the consideration of this example is principally required of us in those seasons wherein we are brought into the like circumstances with him, that is, a time of great distress, oppression, and persecution of the church; and unto such a season is this example here applied by the apostle. So we may learn,

Obs. 5. It is our duty, in the whole course of our faith and obedience, to have respect unto the future recompence of reward, but it is so especially in times of great persecution and oppression of the church, wherein we are and resolve to be sharers; a respect, not as unto that which we shall deserve by what we do or suffer; nor as that which principally influenceth us unto our obedience or suffering, which is the love of God in Christ; nor as that between which and what we do there is any proportion, like that between work and wages; but only as unto that which divine bounty hath proposed unto us for our encouragement, or as that which becomes the divine goodness and righteousness freely to grant unto them that believe and obey. See our exposition on Heb 6:10. But this I add, that we are to have this respect unto the future reward principal]y, or to have faith in exercise about it, in the times of danger, persecution, and oppression. Nor is this respect unto the reward anywhere mentioned in the Scripture, but it is still with regard unto sufferings and tribulations. See Mat 5:11-12; Mat 10:39; Luk 6:35; Heb 10:35; Rev 22:12. For as in such a season we do stand in need of that view and consideration of the future reward which we may lay in the balance against all our present sufferings; so it becomes the greatness, goodness, and righteousness of God, that those who suffer from the world for him, and according to his will, should have that proposed and assured unto them, for their encouragement, which is incomparably greater in goodness and blessedness than what they can suffer from the world is in evil, loss, and trouble. And therefore frequently where believers are encouraged with an expectation of this reward, they are so also with being minded of that recompence of reward, in vengeance and punishment, which shall befall their wicked persecutors; both of them being on many accounts alike suited unto their encouragement. See Php 1:28; 2Th 1:4-10.

Obs. 6. It is faith only that can carry us through the difficulties, trials, and persecutions, which we may be called unto for the sake and name of Christ. Moses himself, with all his wisdom, learning, courage, and resolution, had never been able to have gone through with his trials and difficulties, had not faith had the rule and government of his mind and heart, had he not kept it in exercise on all occasions. And in vain shall any of us, in such a season, expect deliverance or success by any other way or means. A thousand other things may present themselves unto our minds, for our relief or preservation in such a season; but they will all prove fruitless, dishonorable shifts, or snares and temptations, unto the ruin of our souls. We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

Obs. 7. Faith in exercise, will carry us safely and securely through all the trials which we have to undergo for Christ and the gospel. As there is no other way for our safety, success, and victory, so this will never fail us. Consider all circumstances, and it is almost impossible that our temptations and trials should be greater than those of Moses: howbeit faith carried him safely through them all, as we shall see further in the next verses. How it doth it, whence it derives its power and efficacy for this end; what are the ways of its working, and how it engageth all our graces unto its assistance; by what means it resists, refels, and conquers oppositions; how it strengthens, relieves, and comforts the souls of them that believe; is not my present work to declare: I only, with the apostle, propose an example of what it hath done, as a document and evidence of what it will do in like cases.

Obs. 8. Faith is highly rational, in all its acts of obedience towards God. It reckoneth, computeth, judgeth, chooseth, determineth, in the most exalted acts of reason. All these things are here ascribed unto Moses in the exercise of his faith. I would willingly insist hereon, to vindicate the honor of faith from the imputations that are cast on all its actings in the world, as weak and foolish; or that it is nothing but an engine or pretense set up unto the ruin of reason, and the use of it in the lives of men. And if we cannot prove that the wisdom of faith, and the reason wherewith and whereon it always acts, are the most eminent that our nature is capable of in this world, and that whatever is contrary to them or inconsistent with them is arrant folly, and contrary to the primigenial light of our nature, and all the principles of reason truly so called, we shall freely give up the cause of faith unto the vainest pretences of reason that foolish men can make. But a resolution not to engage in such discourses, on this occasion, will not allow me to enter on a further demonstration of this truth.

Fuente: An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews

Moses Faith

“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” Heb 11:24-26

Perhaps, above all other Old Testament believers, Moses is the example of faith best suited to us. Those men of God who are mentioned in the first part of this chapter are all examples to be followed. But we cannot literally do what most of them did. We follow them in spirit, but not in deed. God has not called us to offer up a literal sacrifice, like Abel. God has not called us to build a literal ark, like Noah. God has not called us to literally leave our homeland and families, to dwell in tents, or to offer up our Isaac, like Abraham. But the faith of Moses exactly tallies with the experience of all Gods saints. Moses faith made him walk in the same path, make the same sacrifices, and endure the same trials as true faith requires of us today. As it was with Moses, so it is with all believers. True faith in the heart manifests itself by certain characteristics of life.

Moses Sacrifices

Moses gave up some things he would have preferred not to give up. Here we are told that Moses gave up three things for the sake of his soul. He could not have followed Christ; he could not have been saved, had he kept them. So he gave them up. He sat down, counted the cost of following Christ, and willingly paid the price of doing so. Moses made three of the greatest sacrifices a man could ever make.

First, Moses gave up rank, position, and greatness. When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. We are told, by tradition, that Pharaoh had but one daughter, his only child; and that Moses was her only child. She had adopted him as her son. He was next in line for the throne of Egypt, the greatest nation in the world. He could have been a great man, the most powerful, influential man in the world. But Moses refused it. This was a very great sacrifice. He refused the throne of Egypt. He forsook his family, a mother whom he loved. And he made this decision when he was a man of forty years of age.

Second, Moses gave up earthly ease and pleasure. The pleasures he gave up would have been for other men matters of indifference, involving no sin in themselves. They were simply the pleasures of wealth, security, comfort, luxury, and ease of life. But for Moses, they would have been the pleasures of sin, because they were contrary to the will of God. This, too, was a great sacrifice. Moses gave up that which all men and women of all ages and social conditions most naturally seek. Pleasure!

And, third, Moses gave us great riches. The treasures of Egypt would have been his. This, I dare say, was his greatest sacrifice. Most men are far more willing to give up both position and pleasure than give up prosperity. Yet, Moses did not give away only a portion of his wealth. He gave up all his wealth.

Consider how great these sacrifices were. He gave up all of these things, position, pleasure, and prosperity, all at one time. He gave them up deliberately, as a wise, well-educated, mature man, a full forty years old (Act 7:22). His was not a hasty, rash decision, made in an emotional moment, but a deliberate, willful, calculated choice.

He was in no way obliged to give these things up. Pharaoh did not disown him. The children of Israel did not beg him to become their leader. He was not a dying man, who was about to leave the world, and therefore willing to give it up. He was not a beggar, who had no rightful claim to or hope for these things. He was not an old man, who could no longer enjoy these things. Moses willingly made these sacrifices, for the honor of God and the good of his people, hoping for and expecting nothing in return.

Moses Choices

Moses chose some things he would have preferred not to choose. His choices were as great as his sacrifices. He chose to walk in a path that was completely contrary to the flesh, contrary to worldly wisdom, and contrary to personal desire. The Holy Spirit tells us that Moses chose three things. They were hard, costly choices. But they were necessary to the salvation of his soul. The things Moses chose did not in any way merit, earn, or cause his salvation. But had he not done these things, he could not have been saved (Jas 2:17; Mat 6:14-15). Obedience to Christ is necessary.

First, Moses chose a path of affliction and suffering. Conflict instead of comfort Adversity instead of prosperity Sorrow instead of satisfaction Pain instead of peace Suffering instead of solace.

Second, he chose the company of Gods despised people. He left his family and friends and became one with the people of God. Their troubles became his troubles. Their sorrows became his sorrows. Moses not only preferred Gods despised people to the people of this world, he preferred Gods people to himself.

And, third, Moses chose a path of reproach and scorn. He was mocked, belittled, ridiculed, and laughed at. He was the joke of Egypt. He saw reproach and scorn before him, and deliberately chose them. For most, little is as difficult to face as scorn and ridicule.

Never was there a man, but the God-man, who made such sacrifices and choices as Moses. He gave up a kings throne and chose a slaves rags. He gave up the kings palace for a place among Gods people. He gave up riches for poverty. He gave up respectability and chose reproach. Why would any sane, reasonable man make such choices?

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The Choice of Moses

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward.Heb 11:24-26.

When I turn, says Dr. J. H. Jowett, to this great Epistle to the Hebrews, I feel as though I were in the inspiring spaces of some great cathedral, as though I were moving about Westminster Abbey; in fact, I have ventured to call the Epistle to the Hebrews the Westminster Abbey of the Bible. There are some beautiful little side chapels, where a weary soul can bend in quiet and reverent prayer and praise; some most winsome light breaks through quite unexpected windows, as you move about in the august place; again and again you hear the sound of an anthem raising melodious songs of praise to the great God; and you are never allowed to get far away from Calvary and the cross. When I come to chapter 11, I always feel as though I were turning into the nave of the great cathedral, and I find it is occupied by monuments which have been erected to commemorate saintly men and women who were distinguished by their faitha monument to Abraham, a monument to Isaac and Jacob, a monument to Sarah, one to Rahab. I stand now before a monument which commemorates an old patriarch statesman, and I ask why this man is commemorated in the abbey? What did Moses do to entitle him to a place in the nave?

The answer to Dr. Jowetts question is the whole life of Moses. But that which determined the life of Moses was the choice which he made when he reached manhood. That choice is our subject. We have it brought before us in the text in some fulness. We shall speak first of the Choice itself; next of the Faith which prompted it; and then of the Motive which inspired it.

I

The Choice

Viewing his situation from the outside, we might declare no one so unlikely as Moses to be confronted with a crucial decision. Egypt at that day boasted of an advanced civilization; and all its luxury, all its culture, were poured into his cup. He had been trained, they say, in the most famous college in the land, and had proved himself already a statesman and a soldier. His foot was on the step of the loftiest throne on earth; in the judgment of his peers there lay open before him a career of the most enviable brilliance. It seemed as if one success had but to follow another: to-morrow would be as yesterday, and much more abundant. And then came GodGod, who had a plan of loving wisdom for this man, and was but biding His time.

The choice involved two thingsa refusal and an acceptance.

i. The Refusal

One of the chief features of Moses character is here put before us: Moses refused. That implies a strong temptation, impelling him to acceptinfluences operating in such a way that it was by no means easy to the natural man to refuse. God was testing him, and by that test preparing him for higher service. Moses, by Gods grace, stood the test. His mind seems to have been thoroughly made up. He refused the prospect of princely magnificencehe rose superior to the temptation, and this, we are told, because he acted by faith.

1. The act of renunciation was itself an act of unusual keenness of perception, for there was so much that might have been urged on the other side. It is generally not difficult to find specious reasons for doing something which we very much want to do. It so often happens that the intellect is the slave of the will, and we can make out an excellent case for following the bent of our desires. And in the case of Moses the arguments against the course he adopted were really cogent. There was the general principle that it is usually best to stay where Providence has placed us. No doubt it often happens that this principle may be overruled by a higher, that there are exceptions which warrant a departure from this course. But in the case of Moses it might well have been argued that this was pre-eminently one of those cases where the rule held good. For what, it might plausibly have been urged, had Providence given him such a position except that he might use it? And to the plea that he was making the renunciation for the sake of his people, how very effective the reply would be: If you wish to help your people, stay where you are. You have the opportunity, as the son of Pharaohs daughter, to do much in alleviating their lot and in making their life more tolerable; whereas by flinging away your position, you bring yourself down to their level and lose all power of effective assistance. Why sacrifice a fulcrum which gives you such a leverage and try to raise your people by a dead life?

There is a general principle that we are bound to be more careful when the course of action we think of adopting is one that conduces to our own pleasure or advantage. We do not readily acknowledge these things to ourselves, and indeed it is very easy for us to be the victims of unconscious bias. No doubt it often happens that the right course of conduct is also the more agreeable, but in view of the peril I have mentioned we must take special precaution to be sure of our ground.1 [Note: A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, 104.]

Felicitas was a rich widow who with her seven sons was well known in Roman society. In a time of calamity certain pagan priests represented to the emperor that this woman by her deeds of Christian piety had brought down the anger of the gods upon the people; and by imperial command the prefect, Publius, was required to see that she and her sons sacrificed to the gods. The prefect endeavoured to persuade her to make the sacrifices; but she, declaring that the Holy Spirit would strengthen her against the evil one, said: I am assured that while I live I shall be the victor in my contest with you, and if you cause me to be put to death I shall be still more a conqueror. Publius replied: Unhappy one, if it is pleasant for you to die, at least let your sons live. My sons, said Felicitas, will surely live if they do not consent to sacrifice to idols. But if they commit this crime of sacrificing they will die eternally. The first attempt of the magistrate failed, and a public trial was ordered. At this trial, when urged to have pity on her sons, Felicitas addressed them saying: Look up to heaven, where Christ with His saints is waiting for you, fight the good fight for your souls, and show yourselves faithful in the love of Christ. The young men were questioned one by one. Januarius, the eldest, who was offered a rich reward if he sacrificed, and scourging if he refused, made answer: The wisdom of the Lord will support me and enable me to endure all. He was ordered to be scourged, and was led away. The second son also refused to sacrifice, saying: We adore one God to whom we offer the sacrifice of prayers: never suppose that you will separate me or my brothers from the love of the Lord Jesus Christ; our faith will never be overcome or be changed by any of your threats. The other brothers were no less faithful in their confessions, and at last, when the emperor had read the report of the trial, he ordered the accused to be executed. Felicitas and three of the sons were beheaded; three of the others were beaten to death with whips; the last was thrown down from a height that he might be killed.1 [Note: J. Herkless, The Early Christian Martyrs, 46.]

2. It was necessary for Moses to make up his mind what he would do in those cases where loyalty to Israel was incompatible with loyalty to Egypt. His position was a very delicate one, and he was bound to be exceptionally careful. He might so easily be discredited by a false step, the cry might so readily be raised that he was traitorously sacrificing the interests entrusted to his care. And if he had tried to hold the balance even, he would have quickly learned that it is the fate of the moderate man to be stoned by the extremists on both sides. Moreover, as time went on his generous enthusiasms were likely to fade. The idealist would have degenerated into the practical man, and the official palliations of abuses and tyranny would have come glibly from his lips. It was better for Moses himself, better, too, we may be sure, for the cause he had at heart, that he should make a definite break with his past and devote himself whole-heartedly to his people. And that he saw this so clearly and steadily, that his judgment was not swayed by self-interest or led astray by sophistries, justifies the author of the Epistle when he finds in his renunciation the proof of his faith.

What did he refuse? Away out from the kings palace on the plain there was a poor, downtrodden, oppressed, ill-used race, and this man, who was akin to them and belonged to them, was afraid lest, getting into the softness of retirement, the surroundings of leisure, the woolly softness might stop his ears, the very kings palace become as it were a palace of wool, shutting out the wail of the oppressed, causing him to be indifferent to the cry of the downtrodden. He was afraid lest, if he got into the kings palace, sat down at the feast of plenty, and had all the allurements of the kings house, in leisure, ease, retirement, he should lose touch with his fellow-men, be benumbed and paralysed by the ease which lay within his choice. He refused leisure, and he refused pleasure.

What answers to this refusal for us? Our own conscience alone can make reply; but it may be one of many things. Perhaps there is a friendship on which we have set our heart, a friendship at war with loyalty to Christ. We must change its inner tone, or say farewell to it, if we are to choose the better part. Or it is possibly a means of gain as to which we have had gathering doubts, until now we know that unless it is renounced it will bar us out from the Kingdom of God. Or it may be some secret evil habit, sweet for the passing moment, but shameful in memory; if we do not cut the strands, and cast it off, something tells us that it will one day drag us down headlong into the pit. And yet do not let us ward off the thrust which, it may be, this passage is making at our heart by pleading that the pleasures of sin can refer only to gross self-indulgence and taking comfort in the thought that nothing of that kind is chargeable on us. What these pleasures meant for Moses was no base sensualityhe lived above all thatbut a stage for his ambition, the intoxicating draught of personal influence and power. And many a man who would scorn to stoop to coarse wrongdoing finds, often to his own intense surprise, that the pursuit of the common ideals of success can rob him of eternal life quite as effectively.

This moments thine, thou never more mayst hear

The clarion-summons-call thus loud and clear;

What now thou buyest cheap may yet prove dear.

Part with thine all, spare not the needed cost;

That which thou partest with were better lost,

Thy selfish worldly schemes more wisely crossed.

Thy loss infinitesimal, thy gain

Endless, immense; thy momentary pain

The single step the boundless to attain.

These idol loves that gender loveless lust

Weighed in the balances, whose scales are just,

With the bright hopes thou spurnstare breath-borne dust!

Eye hath not seen, mans ear hath never heard,

Nor heart conceivedsave some faint image blurred

The bliss of those who keep the Christly word-

Let go; my soul, let go!1 [Note: William Hall.]

3. In another respect the faith of Moses is shown to be eminent in that he realized that the pleasures of sin could not last. If he enjoyed them, it could be but for a season. Now this brings before us the magic of sin. It is not easy for a man before he commits a sin to look at it from the point of view which he will adopt towards it after he has committed it. The illusion of sin is what gives it its fatal power. It casts a glamour over the eyes of the tempted, so that they cannot penetrate through the radiant appearance to the hideous and loathsome reality. It captures and inflames the imagination, muffles the conscience, and paralyses the will; it makes itself seem the most desirable of all things, the one beatitude needed to crown and complete the life. It is the man of faith whose vision strikes through all disguises to the truth. He is too sane to deny that the pleasures of sin are real; but he knows, nevertheless, that they bring no permanent satisfactionindeed, he knows quite well that sweet gratification turns quickly to bitter remorse. And Moses had just that faculty steadily to look at the sin beforehand from the standpoint of the experienced gratification, and understand that the pleasure could not last. He knew quite well that, while he could reach the goal on which his ambition was set, and the advantages and enjoyments it would procure for him would be real and substantial, his pleasure in them would always be poisoned by the thought that a higher call had come to him, and he had made the great and irretrievable refusal.

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good.1 [Note: George Eliot, Romola.]

ii. The Acceptance

1. What did Moses prefer? He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. He chose the side of weakness and oppression against the side of unscrupulous might; a weak minority against an outrageous majority. He was willing to be one of the weak plus their pain, rather than be on the side of majestic and magnificent vice. There is no more splendid spectacle than this, the sight of a man who, if he likes, can have ease, leisure, pleasure, treasure, putting off his slippers, putting on his heavy boots, going out into the stormy night, battling with wind and rain because he has heard the cry of pain and servitude. Happily, the Christian centuries abound in men and women who have left ease, delight, luxurious home and wealth in the interest of the weak and oppressed.

If young women want to know what a woman can be, read Josephine Butlers life of her husband and see how she mingles with it as one of, shall I say, the knight-errants of the Lord Christ? Josephine Butler, living in the ease and seclusion of a snug deanery, heard the cry of awfully oppressed womanhood. It shook her heart with pain and fear. She at once made up her mind to go out into the night, if she might be the means of lifting the burden from the oppressed womanhood of our realm. She knew what it meantthe contempt of the aristocracy, the loss of much social esteem and regard; she counted the cost. She made the confession to her husband: God had created the husband as splendid as the wife; he was willing that the sacrifice should be made. She tells how she made her purpose known to her husband: I went to him one evening when he was alone, all the household having gone to rest, and I recollect the painful thoughts that seemed to throng that passage from my room to his study. I hesitated. I leaned my cheek against the closed door, and as I leaned I prayed. Then I went in, and I gave him something that I had written, and I left him. I did not see him until the next day. He looked very palehe had been in Gethsemane through that nightand very troubled, and for some days he was very silent. And then I spoke to my husband of all that had passed in my mind, and I said: I feel as if I must go out into the streets and cry aloud, or my heart will break, and that good and noble man, foreseeing what it meant both for me and for himself, never said, What will the world say? He had pondered the matter, and looking straightI like that phraseas was his wont, he saw only a great wrong, and a woman who wanted to redress the wrong, and in loving and reverent response he said, Go, and God be with you. Out into the night she went; she chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than dwell in the luxurious seclusion of a deanery, and I tell you that if the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews were to return, and were to enlarge his nave, and wanted to erect a memorial to some distinguished woman, Josephine Butler would find a place.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

2. He esteemed the reproach of Christput that in one hand: greater than the treasures of Egyptput that in the other hand. He esteemed reproach, contumely, contempt, derision plus right, more than all the treasures of Egypt plus unrighteousness. He did not mind a scar; some scars are ornaments. Is there a more splendid word in all the supremely splendid Epistles of St. Paul than I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus? Do you see that? he said; I was stoned there; and I think he pulled up his sleeve and said, Do you see that? It is the mark of the scourge. If you could only see my back; I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; he exhibited them as some men parade their degrees. His scars were his crown. So Moses refused, he turned his back upon majesty; he chose, he preferred oppression and weakness.

It is difficult for us to realize how daring such a faith was, for we look back across the intervening millenniums and see with what unique lustre Israel has shone, and how singularly it has justified Moses estimate. We think of all the splendid galaxy of saints and prophets, of sages and psalmists, who so gloriously vindicated Israels right to the title. But all this still lay in the future to Moses. He knew nothing of the lofty spiritual achievements which awaited his race. It was rather a mere horde of slaves, with all that this implies. For we know what slavery does for men, how it takes the pith out of their manhood and grinds them into abject submission, how it creates a degraded slave-morality of its own, underhand and obsequious.

There was a man called Benjamin Waugh who was enjoying the delights of some secluded ministry, all the enjoyment that comes to the studious life. He heard the wail of a little child, and he left his study and his books, went out into the night, and encountered the tempest, antagonisms on every side. He only wanted to protect the ill-used child against the heavy, brutal hand of oppression, but he was opposed and antagonized, confronted on every hand by opposition. The police, especially the chief constables of the country, ranged themselves in opposition to him. He had to fight and fight and fight; and now to-day we have a great and popular society for the protection of ill-used little children, which must be traced to the majestic outgoing of a man who said: I will despise ease, leisure, pleasure, treasure: I choose to be one with the ill-used children rather than to enjoy the pleasures of luxurious seclusion, even for a season.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

Count me oer earths chosen heroes,they were souls that stood alone,

While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,

Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline

To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,

By one mans plain truth to manhood and to Gods supreme design.2 [Note: James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis.]

II

The Power

By faith.While the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says but little of the faith displayed by Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, he has much more to say concerning the faith of Moses. And this was natural. No patriotic Hebrew who looked back with love and pride on the early history of his race could fail to accord a pre-eminent place to Moses. To him, across the intervening centuries, a grateful nation looked back as the founder of its political existence and the revealer of its law. But the author includes Moses in his list, not merely because he was too great a man to be omitted, but because his career was so singularly marked by the quality of religious insight and lofty self-renouncing heroism.

1. God had chosen Moses, but now the time had come when Moses must choose God. We are not told how the crisis came about; we know only the outcome, and that the power that enabled him to act was faith. Faith in his mothers God, for Jochebed must have taught her boy of Him in whom she trusted. A faith that came from calm and quiet consideration, for we are told he looked unto the recompense of the reward; literally he looked beyond, or away from that which was before his eyes. He was brought to consider his position in the light of eternity, and to make a choice as to whether he would live for the present or for future gain.

2. Now faith is the giving substance to things hoped for, the test of things not seen (Heb 11:1, R.V., margin). Faith puts to the proof the statements of God by acting upon them, and in the acting finds their substance and reality. Faith tests the unseen things, and translates them into real experience. This was strikingly true in the case of Moses. By faith he looked beyond the things before his eyes, he deliberately chose to refuse all the pleasures and treasures of the present, and faith tested, proved, or gave substance to his hopes. He was led step by step away from things seen, into a fellowship and communion with the unseen God, of which he had no conception when he made his choice in Egypt.

3. The faith that is the proving of things not seen demands direct communication with God. Souls have often been shipwrecked here. They have rested their faith upon the written word spoken by others, rather than upon God Himself in His Word. The faith that can act as Moses did must have the word of the Living God as its basisthe word of the Living God in His written Word, but by the Holy Spirit applied as His direct word to the soul. When God speaks, His commands are His enablings. By the faith wrought in us by God, and the assurance of the reward of knowing Him face to face, we too can refuse to be of the world, and declare plainly that we seek a better country, that is, a heavenly; we too can refuse the pleasures of sin and self-pleasing, and choose the way of the cross: we too can hold lightly the treasures that others clasp to their breasts, and account reproach with Christ as greater riches than them all.

4. Faith is the key to all the treasuries of God. The gospel is practically Gods statement of what is in the spiritual world. Faith is simply believing Gods word, however contrary it may appear to the things of sense and sight. Faith in Gods statement to us is proved by action. We act according to what is told us by God, which we believe, and must of necessity obey. Living faith involves action; without action it may be said to be dead, for a mental assent to the truths of God will never give them substance in our lives. If we do believe Gods word, we shall act according to that word.

He who walks by sight only walks in a blind alley. He who does not know the freedom and joy of reverent, loving speculation wastes his life in a gloomy cell of the mouldiest of prisons. Even in matters that are not distinctively religious faith will be found to be the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. It is faith that does the great work of the world. It is faith that sends men in search of unknown coasts. It is faith that re-trims the lamp of inquiry when sight is weary of the flame. It is faith that unfastens the cable and gives men the liberty of the seas. It is faith that inspires the greatest works in civilization. So we cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith, and when we get rid of faith we give up our birthright and go into slavery for ever.1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]

O God! the scholar and the sage

Into Thy mysteries peer,

And strive by Reasons subtle art

To make their meaning clear.

But my bewildered heart rejects

The puzzling paths they lay,

And seeks to gain the Eternal Heart

By some directer way.

Lord, draw me as the sun in spring

Draws the awakening vine,

And up some lattice of Thy love

Bid my affections twine!

So when my grasp on Reason fails,

Faith-led, I still may go,

And all the mystery shall melt

As melts the April snow.

III

The Motive

What was the motive which inspired the choice of Moses? In other words, What form did his faith take? How did it express itself? The answer is, He looked unto the recompense of reward.

1. When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Moses looked unto the recompense of reward, he seems to spoil what has gone before. Our impulse is at once to retort, Oh, then, Moses was self-seeking after all, only he made much cleverer calculations than other people would have done. Faith was just the cooler, keener insight which enabled him to make a better bargain than his fellows. He was good because it paid him better. The writer does not, it is true, tell us precisely what he had in mind, but we can, at any rate, rest assured that we should wrong Moses himself by such a criticism. For what we may call the higher doctrine of the future life emerged in the religion of Israel at a comparatively late period, and therefore the founder of the religion may reasonably be regarded as untouched by this as regards motive. So far as he was concerned he did his duty and made his sacrifice without thought of reward in that sense. If, then, we give to the authors words a meaning which shall harmonize with history, we shall speak of Moses as contemplating a reward only in the sense in which we speak of virtue as its own reward. He had peace of conscience and the assurance that, at all costs, he had followed the path of duty. He had the privilege of knowing that his sacrifice had meant the redemption of his people. Above all, he was happy in the sense of Gods approval. We may all desire that our own actions may be prompted by such disinterested anticipations of reward.

To labour in a righteous cause with the assurance that some day the right will be justified is to manifest the disposition of faith. Is it not a beautiful word in the Psalmist: He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light? A man said to me last week in Birmingham, only a working man, We dont seem to make much headway there in the slums; it is like trying to clean them with a spoon, but I am doing my best, and I am trusting God. It came to me to quote thy righteousnessonly like a little candle in a dark place, but if thou art faithful to itHe shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and even when thou art working, as with a candle amidst surrounding blackness, work thou as a child of the noon. Oh, that is the meaning; when we are working in the twilight, when the darkness envelops and oppresses us, to work as children of the noon. Is that not what our Master meant when He said, Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive?1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

2. And yet it was possible for Moses to see a definite though distant reward. We read of the Saviour Himself: Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. What do those words mean? They mean far more than we can comprehend. They, however, at least teach us that the salvation of those for whom He died will be His recompense. His reward will be the satisfaction which the presence of the redeemed, which no man can number, will give to the love that brought Him from His heaven to die for them. Such a reward in a humbler measure and in a different sense was the reward of Moses.

(1) First of all, with regard to the very people to whom he was to become deliverer, his reward consisted in being permitted, though not to enter Canaan itself, to stand on the summit of the mountain and see the land they would so soon enter. The recompense of his toil, the reward of all his suffering, was to b permitted to know that they were not in vain, but that the people for whom he in his best hours was prepared to die were finally delivered from bondage and placed in possession of the Promised Land.

(2) But that is only a type of the deeper and more spiritual joy which fell to the lot of Moses, namely, the recompense of the reward in finding that every self-denial could be made sweet, and every cross could be converted into a crown. The greatest recompense we can have for any self-denying service is to lose the sense of the self-denial in the ecstasy of the joy and privilege of it; to feel that though we may have to suffer, the suffering itself becomes a channel of joy to us in that we are permitted to suffer for the Masters sake. The recompense of the reward is to be so transformed and transfigured by the service we render to Christ and for humanity that we shall become like our Lord, and find our greatest joy in being permitted to bless those who need our help.

In Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau Browning gives a striking picture of the inadequacy of the judgments that are passed from an imperfect seizure of the facts of the case. It will serve to illustrate the inadequacy of the worlds judgments of things that are outside of its province.

An artist in Rome covered all the accessories in the Laocon group, leaving exposed only the central figure of the father, with neither sons nor serpents to denote the purpose of his gesture. Then he stood by to hear the peoples comments. What would they make of the tremendous energy of those legs and arms, and of the eyeballs starting from their sockets? With one exception the uninitiated multitude decided that it was a yawn of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose, and the subject of the statue must surely be Somnolency! Only one spectator seized upon the truth

I think the gesture strives

Against some obstacle we cannot see!

When Moses gave up his bright prospects at the Egyptian court and set out for the wilderness, there were many that thought him mad. But they did not see all the elements of the group; they did not see what Moses saw. They failed to take into account his devotion to his God and to his people, and his grounds for faith in the promises that were his peoples heritage. And did he not choose wisely? As one of a line of Pharaohs he could not have failed of having his name and his fame written down on some of the clay tablets of his period, and we might have been digging them up to-day. But as the Leader of Israel and as the Schoolmaster of Christendom, his name and his fame are written in golden letters in the language of almost every people and nation and tribe under heaven.1 [Note: J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 162.]

Beloved, yield thy time to God, for He

Will make eternity thy recompense;

Give all thy substance for His love, and be

Beatified past earths experience.

Serve Him in bonds, until He set thee free;

Serve Him in dust, until He lift thee thence;

Till death be swallowed up in victory

When the great trumpet sounds to bid thee hence.

Shall setting day win day that will not set?

Poor price wert thou to spend thyself for Christ,

Had not His wealth thy poverty sufficed:

Yet since He makes His garden of thy clod,

Water thy lily, rose, or violet,

And offer up thy sweetness unto God.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 17.]

The Choice of Moses

Literature

Banks (L. A.), On the Trail of Moses, 12.

Bell (C. D.), The Roll-Call of Faith, 178.

Brandt (J. L.), Soul-Saving, 219.

Brown (C.), The Birth of a Nation, 95.

Brown (J.), Sermons with Memoir, 159.

Carroll (B. H.), Sermons, 126.

Chadwick (G. A.), The Book of Exodus , 34.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 365.

Dewey (O.), Works, 716.

Hopkins (E. H.), Hidden yet Possessed, 53, 60.

Mackintosh (H. R.), Life on Gods Plan, 15.

Meyer (F. B.), Moses the Servant of God, 17.

Neville (W. G.), Sermons, 290.

Norton (J. N.), Golden Truths, 341.

Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 133.

Peake (A. S.), The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, 99.

Penn-Lewis (Mrs.), Face to Face, 25.

Plumptre (E. H.), Theology and Life, 147.

Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, ii. 42.

Ramsey (D. M.), in The Southern Baptist Pulpit, 314.

Rawlinson (G.), Moses: His Life and Times, 51.

Ryle (J. C), Faiths Choice, 1.

Selby (T. G.), The God of the Patriarchs, 163.

Smith (J.), The Permanent Message of the Exodus , 16.

Whitehead (H.), Sermons, 73.

Cambridge Review, ix. Supplement No. 216 (E. H. Bickersteth).

Christian World Pulpit, xxxix. 225 (F. W. Farrar).

Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., vi. 309 (F. W. Farrar).

Homiletic Review, xlvi. 33 (J. H. Jowett); lvi. 229 (G. E. Reed).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

when: Exo 2:10, Act 7:21-24

Reciprocal: Exo 2:11 – Moses Num 24:11 – the Lord Rth 2:11 – and how Mat 1:24 – did Mat 4:8 – and showeth Mat 13:44 – for joy Mat 16:24 – If Mat 20:5 – and did Mar 8:36 – profit Mar 10:29 – There Act 7:23 – when Eph 6:16 – the shield 1Th 1:3 – your

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Heb 11:24. Come to years corresponds with “full forty years old” in Act 7:23. At that time he repudiated his relation to the daughter of Pharaoh in order to join himself with the Hebrews. The circumstance of becoming related to Pharaoh’s daughter referred to here is recorded in Exo 2:5-10.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Heb 11:24-28. Mark the successive expressions of his faith. When he was grown up he refused the name and dignity of a member of the royal family, preferring to suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy, with godless, idolatrous Egyptians, such fleeting pleasures as sin provides. Deeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt. The reproach which typical Israel suffered is called the reproach of Christ; as Paul calls the sufferings of Christians the sufferings of Christ (Col 1:24; 2Co 1:5), i.e of Christ dwelling and suffering in His Church as in His body. In the true Church of every age the eternal Christ ever lives and reigns, though when Moses suffered He was still to come, appearing chiefly in the types and prophecies, while really dwelling among them. And the reason is that he looked away from the suffering to the Divine reward, his life and acts being moulded and guided by his hopes.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. The reference here has been supposed to be to his flight into Midian after the slaughter of an Egyptian; but then it is said that he did fear (Exo 2:14). The natural explanation is that the words describe his abandonment of all his Egyptian hopes (not that he fled from Egypt, but gave it up), not fearing the wrath which the desertion of his post, and the bitter feeling of Pharaoh against the people whom he was joining would certainly excite.

For he endured (he was stedfast) as seeing him who is invisible, or, the king who is invisible (1Ti 1:17). The wrath of an earthly sovereign was nothing to him, when assured of the grace and protection of the King of kings.

By faith he hath kept the Passover, i.e he celebrated it, as the verb always means, and instituted it, as the sense rather implies. Both thoughts seem to be here. By faith, because he believed that the destroyer would pass over and not hurt the chosen people, and that a complete exodus from the land of their captivity was at hand; as by faith in a coming Deliverer it was intended that it should continue to be observed.

And the effusion of blood, viz. on the lintel and door-posts. The effusion was made by means of a branch of hyssop, and so sprinkling has come to be a rendering of a word which properly means effusion. In this sprinkling or application of the blood lies the atoning power of the Passover, as in the case of the great Antitype; it is not the blood shed, but the blood as applied through faith, that speaks peace an secures forgiveness.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The next person whom our apostle instances in, is Moses himself, whose faith and self-denial were most evidently conspicuous in all the instances of them.

Observe, 1. His great self-denial, with all the enhancing circumstances of it: When he came to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

Note here, 1. The circumstance of time, When he came to years; it was no childish act, when he knew not what he did, but when he came to age and understanding; nay, farther, this was when Moses was newly come to age, in the prime and vigour of his time, when he had just began to taste the sweetness of youthful pleasures. The world appears a dead and dry thing in the winter of old age, but looks green and beautiful in the spring of youth: but Moses, when come, just come, to years, refused it.

Note, 2. The circumstances of his education; he had been bred from a child in a princely way and manner, he never knew what belonged to a low estate: those that never had much, forsake but little when they forsake all, want will never much pinch those who never understood plenty; but those who have enjoyed fulness all their days, for them to stoop voluntarily from the height of ease and honour, to the depth of affliction and hardship, is admirable. Thus did Moses; he refused honour, and chose affliction.

Note, 3. The circumstance of his obligations; Pharaoh’s daughter had saved his life, adopted him for her son, given him princely breeding, He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and set her heart upon him as her own. However, Moses breaks through all, and away he goes. But whither went he? Why, to a company of poor bond-men, labouring at the brick-kilns, to take his lot of suffering with them.

Note, 4. The circumstance of his expectations; how very fair and certain a prospect he had of enjoying the crown of Egypt; he did not refuse it because he despaired of attaining it, for he was an adopted heir unto it.

Note lastly, That all this was not a rash and sudden determination, but a deliberate and advised choice, Act 7:23. St. Stephen said he made this choice when he was full forty years old; that is, when he was of ripest judgment, and in the height of prosperity and reputation: he did not only, as Josephus says, at three years old cast a crown, given him for a play-toy, to the ground, and trample it under his feet; but, as the apostle says here, when he came to be a man, he treated it with no more respect, but refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Behold here Moses’ faith, and eminent self-denial, in choosing rather to suffer affliction with the worshippers of the true God, than to gain a kingdom by renouncing God and his holy religion.

From whence learn, That faith is a grace which will teach and enable a person openly to renounce all worldly advantages at God’s call, when we cannot enjoy them with an upright mind, and a good conscience.

Question But how did Moses come to know his stock and race, that he was an Hebrew born, and not an Egyptian, no son of Pharaoh’s daughter?

Answer He found himself circumcised, and so belonged to the circumcised, and so belonged to the circumcised people. The token of God’s covenant received in infancy, duly considered, is a most effectual means to preserve persons in the profession of the true religion.

Add to this, that his mother was his nurse, and continually with him, and probably his father frequently; who being persons fearing God, took care very early to impress him with the principles of the true religion, and with the detestation of the Egyptian idolatry.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Heb 11:24-26. By faith Moses None in the old world was more signalized by Providence in his birth, education, and actions, than Moses; hence his renown was both then and ever after very great; when he was come to years , when he became great; Syriac, when he was a man. The word may respect either state and condition, or time of life and stature. To become great, is in Scripture and common speech, to become so in wealth, honour, or power, and so Moses was become great in the court of Pharaoh; and hence the greatness of his self-denial here commended. But although this is true, and is a circumstance which greatly commends his faith, yet it is not primarily intended in this expression; for having declared the faith of his parents, and the providence of God toward him in his infancy, in the foregoing verse, the apostle here shows what his own disposition and practice was, after he was grown up to years of understanding. The expression is the same with that used by the LXX. Exo 2:11, where we read, In those days when Moses was grown. The time referred to seems to have been that mentioned by Stephen, Act 7:7, when he left the court of Pharaoh, and visited his brethren, being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and full forty years old; refused to be called Any longer, as he had before been; the son of Pharaohs daughter It is not said in the history that Moses made this refusal formally, but he did it in effect by his actions; he boldly professed himself an Israelite, and interposed to vindicate his brethren from their oppression; at the same time leaving Pharaohs court, and (after killing the Egyptian who had smitten a Hebrew) fleeing into the land of Midian. And though he afterward returned to Egypt, he did not reside with Pharaohs daughter as formerly, but went among his afflicted brethren, and never afterward forsook them; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God Greek, , to be evil entreated, or pressed with things evil and grievous. What the afflictions and sufferings of the people of God were at that time in Egypt is well known: but it does not appear that it was required of Moses to work in the kilns and furnaces with his brethren; but considering their woful condition he sympathized with them, and was willing to suffer with them whatever they might be exposed to in the course of divine providence. To account for this exercise of faith in Moses; we must suppose that in his childhood and youth he had often conversed with his parents and with the Israelites, of whom he knew himself to be one by his circumcision; and that they had given him the knowledge of the true God, the God of their fathers, and of the promises which God had made to their nation as his people. Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season , literally, to have the temporary fruition, or enjoyment of sin. The enjoyment of sin is therefore said to be temporary, or for a season, because it is subject to a thousand interruptions and reverses in this life, unavoidably ends with it, and is followed, if repentance prevent not, with everlasting misery. Thus were things truly represented to the thoughts of Moses; he did not shut his eyes on calamities to be endured on the one hand, nor suffer himself to be imposed upon by flattering appearances on the other. He omitted no circumstance that might produce a right choice. He considered the worst thing belonging to the people of God, which is their affliction, and the best of the world, which is but the vanishing pleasure of sin; and he preferred the worst of the one above the best of the other. Esteeming the reproach of Christ So he terms the infamy that he was or might be exposed to, by acknowledging himself one of the Israelites, whom Christ had been pleased to take under his special protection. Or he may mean the scoffs cast on the Israelites for expecting the Messiah to arise among them: greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Though then a very opulent kingdom. It is here intimated, that if Moses had continued in the court of Egypt, as a son of Pharaohs daughter, he might have had the free use of the kings treasures, and therewith might have procured to himself every sensual enjoyment. For he had respect unto , he looked off, from all those perishing treasures, and beyond all those temporal hardships; unto the recompense of reward Not to an inheritance in Canaan: he had no warrant from God to look for this, nor did he ever attain it; but what his believing ancestors looked for, a future state of happiness in heaven.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Verse 24

To be called the son, &c. to be attached to the court and the royal family.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

Moses had a true appreciation for the promises of God. This led him to choose the reward associated with Israel’s promised Messiah over the temporary material wealth he could have enjoyed had he stayed in Egypt. We should also be willing to suffer temporary disgrace, reproach, and loss as we continue to cast our lot with God’s faithful disciples.

"As with Abraham and Moses of old, the decisions we make today will determine the rewards tomorrow. More than this, our decisions should be motivated by the expectation of receiving 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! . . .’’" [Note: Wiersbe, 2:279.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)