Moses by Faith

March 1992

What is the choice of guides in your life?  Let your conscience be your guide?  A conscience can be seared.  Friends are helpful, but they can never put themselves totally in your place.  Professional counselors usually listen and then conclude that the decision is ours to make.  

Decisions should take into account facts, but there is such a thing as being confused by the facts.  The preponderance of the evidence produced by the facts may be misleading.

Can you imagine what a computer based on the facts would have produced if Moses had fed it the facts of his life?  Stay and be a prince of Egypt, or go and join a group of slaves.  Stay and be served hand and foot, or go and be a servant.  Be a general in the Egyptian army or be hunted as a trader and a slave.

Faith demands that we decide our life on the basis of our commitment to Christ. Those blinded to the light of God base their choices on surveys and public opinion, but the people of faith must decide for themselves.  You must look beyond the preponderance of the earthly evidence.

Moses made a choice not based on earthly evidence.   At birth the daughter of Pharaoh adopted him.  He was schooled in the wisdom of the mightiest nation of his day.  Egypt was the granary of the world and the cradle of a mighty civilization.   

Moses became a brilliant general, having defeated the Ethiopians in a national war and yet somehow he felt that his life's purpose lay outside the royal courts of Egypt.  Only a deep personal faith could cause a man to give up what Moses gave up.  Acting out of faith he left the royal courts.

The first step that Moses did in carrying out God's will was to be identified with the people of God.  Were all the slaves perfect?  My guess is that they were probably bitter.  Your friends can carry you up, or your friends can carry you down, but it is better to be in a bad deal with good people, than a good deal with bad people. 

Moses gave up his position as a royal heir and choose to suffer with the children of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.  At 40 years old he moved to the wrong side of the Nile.

The second thing that Moses did in carrying out God's will was developed a willingness to suffer hardship.  Moses traded pleasure for hardship.  Sin's pleasures were enticing, then as there are today, but to remain in Pharaoh's court when God's call was elsewhere would have been a greater sin than the participation in the court revelry.

Hardship came quickly.  Defending a slave from cruelty he was forced to flee for 40 years in the desert.  Imagine going from a prince to a shepherd.  Why would someone do this? Do you think that in the desert he ever once questioned his decisions? Why would someone make his decision?  The wise man decides what he wants from life, not by the immediacy of the moment, but by the long look. 

Moses decided that the hardship connected with the pursuit of God's will were of greater value than all of Egypt's wealth.  Moses believed in the ultimate triumph of the almighty God.  Are you living your life with the same view?

What were the consequences of his decisions?  He lives 40 years as a shepherd. What might have happened if he had kept his temper and not killed the solder?  Men are punished not for their sins, but by their sins. 

Why was he sent to the desert?  He had to learn to control his temper.  He had to learn to do things God's way.  It took him forty years to do learn this, I hope I can learn these lessons faster that forty years. 

Moses was a murder, had a temper, and was a slow learner.  We often forget the shortcomings of the men in the Bible and never forget the shortcoming of the people we know.

Moses sees God deliver his people from slavery, descends from Mt Sinai with the 10 commandments, but still looses his temper descending the mountain and when he struck the rock. 

The most important thing in Moses’ life was he stepped through death's door with the words, well done thou good and faithful servant.  Later we see Moses on the Mount of transfiguration discussing with Elijah and Jesus the coming crucifixion.

Moses could not foresee all of this, but he knew that God's redemption would ultimately triumph, and he made his decision in that light.

Today we have a choice of masters; complete freedom is not an option.  We, like Moses, have a decision to make between God's promise to redeem, or the earthly pharaoh's of this life.  The decision is made sterner by the fact that when we choose God, we lay ourselves open to the disdainful wrath of the very present prince of this world and his Pharaohs and Caesars.

Moses acted against his momentary best interest.  The person who walks by faith is not nearly as blind as the one who takes into account merely the physical facts.

Suppose Moses had chosen pharaoh as a master.  What would his life’s headline be – “Adopted Son of Pharaoh's Daughter drowns in Red Sea” - God's plan would have been carried out, Moses would be dead, drowned in the Red Sea.

Where are you today?  Perhaps you are still living in Pharaoh's court looking at now and not the long term - then you will end up drown in the Red Sea. 

Perhaps you have made a decision to follow Christ, and the prince of this world is coming against you.  You are not defenseless; maybe you are not using all the weapons at you available.  The Holy Spirit can equip you in your battle against the prince of this world.