Moses, and the Decision of Faith
Xi. — 24. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
25. Choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
26. Accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked unto the recompense of reward.
WE all live by faith. What we love and live in we believe in. He that trusts and yields himself to the visible and the temporal lives an earthly, fleshly life. He that looks to the unseen and the eternal, and joins himself to it, lives a divine, a heavenly life. Between these two faith has ever to make its choice. The clearer and more deliberate, the more conscious the decision is for the unseen, the more will the faith in God be strengthened and rewarded. The great difficulty in making the right choice lies in the fact that, by the victory which things seen and sensible gained in paradise, our eyes have been blinded, and the things of time, even where we acknowledge them to be of less value, have acquired, in virtue of their continual presence and their pressing claims, superior power. The great work faith has to do, and the best school for its growth and strength, is the choice of the unseen.
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Of this choice Moses is a striking illustration. Just see what there was on the one side. The lust of the flesh: the pleasures of sin for a season. The lust of the eye: the riches of Egypt. The pride of life: to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. And, on the other side, to be evil entreated, to bear reproach. And what was it that enabled him to make a wise choice? He saw that to be evil entreated with the people of God is to have God as his portion and defence. He bore the reproach of Christ, in the power of the Spirit of Christ from heaven, lifting his heart above earth. Even as Christ, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, so he looked to the recompense of the reward. Faith in the blessing of God on the people of God; union in spirit with the Christ of God; the assurance of a coming world, with its reversal of the judgments of earth; — no wonder that all this guided and strengthened him to the choice he made — the good part never to be taken away.
We are studying this chapter in its connection with the Epistle, and its teaching as to a life under the leadership of Christ — a life in the new and living way of conformity to Him, leading into the Holiest of God’s presence. We long to know how we can grow strong, and live in the full exercise of a faith that inherits the promise and enters into the rest of God. Moses’ witness is clear: Let faith prove itself in choosing, once for all and for always, at any cost, the unseen — the reward will be sure and large. In Abraham we saw this choice when there was no special opposition or persecution. This is the feature in Moses’ choice we must notice: with the danger threatening us of being evil entreated, and bearing reproach, and having to face the loss of all, faith must not hesitate or halt. To be evil entreated with God’s people, to bear Christ’s reproach, and count these greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt, —
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this is what faith enables a man to do, this is the spiritual discipline which makes faith strong. Faith looks at everything in the light of eternity, judging of it as one will do when the judgment day is past, and the glory begun; everything is seen in its true value, and sacrifice and suffering and loss and trial are welcomed as the training in which the glad decision, and the firm will, and the strong character, and the victory of faith are attained.
We have here the great cause of the weakness of faith in our days. There is no separation from the world. So many Christians seek to have as much of its pleasure and honour and riches as they possibly can, consistently with their profession of religion. In such an atmosphere faith is stifled. Many hardly believe, or never remember, that the world, with its arts and culture and prosperity, amid all its religious professions, is still the same world that rejected Christ. The disciple who would be as his Lord, “not of the world, even as He was not of the world,” seeks to say with Paul, “Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which tJie world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world”
How wonderful is the place Moses occupies in the kingdom of God. A pattern of Jesus as a prophet, as a mediator, as an intercessor, in his meekness and his faithfulness, there are few of God’s servants that stand higher. And what fitted him to take this place? Just this — the choice to give up everything for the reproach of Christ. Christian, wouldst thou live in the favour of God, and enter into His tent to meet Him as Moses did? wouldst thou be an instrument and a power of blessing, a man strong in faith? — seek to be perfectly separate from the spirit of the world, refuse its pleasure and honour and riches; count the contempt of God’s people and the reproach of Christ thy trea-
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sures. Ask for the enlightening of the Holy Spirit to teach thee what true conformity to Christ is, in thy relation to the world, its culture, its possessions, its friendship. Beware of judging of what is lawful by any human standard: Christ alone can teach thee what it means to forsake all, to sell all, to deny thyself, and take up the cross, and follow Him. Count all things loss to be conformed to Him. It was in bearing the reproach of Christ a character like that of Moses was formed. This is the sure path of faith to power and to blessing.
Follow thou Moses, accounting the reproach of Christ thy riches, and thou shalt share with him the recompense of the reward. Let us therefore go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach.
7. Examine very carefully where thy danger lies. Is it the friendship and honour of men? Is it pleasure? Is it the cares of the world? Whatever it be, give it up. It is only an unworldly spirit that can be strong in faith.
2. What is the faith that enables a man to bear all and to sacrifice all? Nothing but an eye that sees into the true nature and value of things, that judges of them as God does. Yea, rather that we see God to be all, and the creature nothing except as it leads to Him.
3. Exercise thyself in this faith by retirement into solitude and fellowship with the invisible. Beware of too free intercourse with the literature of this world: its spirit enters into thee. The world knows not God: make thy choice and maintain it.
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