Hebrews 11:23–27

In Hebrews 11:23 the faith cited is not that of Moses, but of his parents. His mother hid him for three months because she saw he was a fine child. Hebrews shows that his father as well as his mother saw that the child was beautiful. Their eye of faith was fixed on God, so they were not afraid of the king's command. One greater than Pharaoh had their loyalty.

non-ESV verse quotation; archaic "injunction"; adds depth from source

It means that when he was born there was a look on his face that faith could read. "Beautiful to God" is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of his parents, Amram and Jochebed, and they obeyed it.

Here is a remarkable simplicity of faith in Moses' parents. It acts on grounds that most people would think far too slight — the beauty of the child. God still answers it, because it was faith in Him. And how fully He answers, for this is Moses the deliverer!

True, they owed loyalty to their earthly king. But they also owed loyalty to the Lord of lords. Trusting in Him, they were lifted above all fear of the king's command, and they hid their child — the child God had given them — for three months. They counted on God, and they were not disappointed, for He never leaves or forsakes those who put their trust in Him. …The rulers of this world are powerless before those who are linked with God by faith.

Courage always goes with true faith: "By faith… they were not afraid." Where faith rules, God overrules. Strange turns of providence and strange coincidences mark the path of faith — so much so that everything seems prepared in advance.

The faith of Moses' parents makes them ignore the king's cruel command, and they hide their baby. In answer to their faith, God kept him alive by extraordinary means, when there was no other way to save him. Faith does not reason. It acts from its own point of view, and leaves the result to God.

Hiding the child no doubt put their own lives in danger, but God's honour mattered more to them than the king's command. When the mother later placed the child in the basket at the river's edge, that too was an act of faith, and God used it in a way that was all but miraculous. Did she not really give him up into God's hand, and receive him back again in an unexpected way? So faith never loses by giving anything up into God's hand.

He enters the world to find that a place on earth is denied him. There was no room for the Lord of glory in the inn, and Egypt's king decrees that Moses, who is a picture of Him, must die the moment he is born! His parents rescued him by faith alone… In later years he must have drawn strength from this godly act of his parents, and owed them much for this first training in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The start of our course gives colour to the whole of it… Moses' first breath on earth was secured to him only through the faith of his parents.

How old was he when, as the Holy Spirit says here, "he was grown up"? Acts 7 tells us exactly. There the Spirit of God, speaking through Stephen, says, "When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel" (Acts 7:23). Perhaps you would not call a man of forty young. But he was not old, taking his whole lifespan into account: "Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated" (Deut. 34:7).

Moses was not in the immaturity of his life, for he was forty years old. He took in the whole field. He saw the possibilities of his position in Egypt. He saw the disgrace of his own relatives. Looking calmly at both sides, what does faith do? It refuses all this greatness, its dignity, its expectations.

The parents overcame the fear of the world; their son overcame its favours. This makes the faith of Moses all the more striking, for we may overcome the fear of the world and yet fall under its favour. In Acts 7, Stephen tells us that Moses was "beautiful in God's sight", and that he "was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds." Here, then, was a man whose appearance was attractive, whose mind was well-stored with all the learning of the leading country of the world in that day, who could apply his wisdom with weighty words, and follow up his words with mighty deeds. Moses, then, was in every way fitted to fill with distinction the highest position in this world. Moreover, this great position was within his grasp, for he was by adoption the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and thus in the direct line to the throne of the Pharaohs.

This victory first shows itself when he tells the courtiers not to treat him as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. This is a very beautiful glimpse of his faith. It shows us much of his inner mind and his daily walk among people. He was not ashamed to own his origin and early history: how his own person was loathed, as it were, on the day he was born, and how his whole fine estate came through the king's daughter adopting an abandoned child. This was indeed beautiful. This was above nature. This was victory over "the pride of life."

If providence brought him into her house, faith led him out. It was certainly not from any lack of ability to judge the advantage of his position. Suppose the aim had only been to relieve Israel by influence, or even to move them peacefully to Canaan by skilful use of circumstances. No one had a better opportunity, or was better fitted, to bring it about by diplomacy or any other means. But this would have brought praise to Moses, not glory to God, as faith always and rightly seeks. And so Moses turned his back on all natural and worldly advantages, that God might act for His people and against His enemy and theirs.

He gives it all up. "He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." He gives up ease, and chooses hardship. He gives up luxury, and chooses degradation. He gives up the very thing the heart would delight in, and chooses the very thing that flesh and nature shrink from.

Moses was a man of conviction, and his conviction showed itself in this way — he refused! He refused — choosing! The Christian does not live on a negative plane; he lives on a very positive one.

What victory over the world that was! We like those things that put worldly honour on us. Moses would not have it; and I am sure faith is set to the same battlefield and challenged to win the same victory to this day.

We also learn what he chooses, and his choosing is as striking as his refusing. In his day there was a large number of people who formed the lowest class in Egypt. They were unwanted foreigners, treated with the utmost harshness as slaves. Their hard bondage made their lives bitter. They laboured at brick-making and worked in the fields under the scorching sun (Exodus 1:13-14). But despite their low position and hard bondage, these slaves were the people of God. Moses chose to throw in his lot with these people. He preferred to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

The people may be suffering, wretched, and disreputable. They may little understand and poorly repay the love and faith that could give up everything... but it was enough for Moses that the poor captives were God's people... His single eye judged all that Pharaoh's daughter could offer to be the pleasures of sin. He deliberately gave up the glittering honours and worldly influence that God's providence had spread around him... With whom was God identified? With Pharaoh's palace, or with Israel in the iron furnace?

The moment the truth of God fully awakened his heart, he saw that God completely disowned Egypt and its many attractions. No one knew God in Pharaoh's house. A nation that served other gods afflicted His people. To remain at Pharaoh's court with this conviction in his soul would be to despise the people of the living God. Both his education and his habits fitted Moses well to appreciate the pleasant things of Egypt. God's word promised him only unseen things, so the sacrifice it asked of him looked large.

Egypt's greatness may be attractive, its pleasures many, its power unlimited. But the words "For a season" stood over all the greatness of Egypt. So it is with everything this world has to offer. Faith says: those things are temporary. And, thank God, the affliction is temporary too. I will take the affliction. I will identify myself with my people.

Moses lived a long life — one hundred and twenty years. He turned his back on Egypt and its sinful pleasures at the end of forty years. He had forty years on the far side of the desert. Then a much worse forty years, worried and irritated by people who behaved in a very perverse way... But Moses never regretted turning his back on all the pleasures that could only have lasted another eighty years.

Virtue is that energy and courage of soul that knows how to refuse as well as to choose. Moses is the example. He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin"... You have the faith that connects you with God, and you believe in what you do not yet see. But now you must add virtue. That is the courage which knows how to say "No" to the thousand things that come up day by day, and how to press on without wavering in the path set before us.

And notice what Moses "considered greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt" — it was the "reproach of Christ." It was not merely reproach for Christ. "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me." The Lord Jesus, in perfect grace, identified Himself with His people. He came down from heaven, leaving His Father's bosom and laying aside all His glory. He took His people's place, confessed their sins, and bore their judgement on the cursed tree.

"The reproach of Christ!" Think how the Spirit of God describes it. Here were a people suffering and rejected, and God calls it the reproach of Christ. "In all their affliction He was afflicted," and faith sees in that the affliction of Christ Himself. Later the Lord Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus, "Why are you persecuting Me?" It was the reproach of Christ, not only the reproach of His suffering people.

So we find that Moses "considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt," when as yet Christ had not been named. But though Christ was not yet known or revealed, His reproach was always true of His people. That reproach belongs to faith and to those who confess it. It was seen in full in Christ Himself when He despised the shame. It is their distinguishing badge as they travel the road from earth to heaven.

The language here, no doubt, takes on a New Testament character; but Moses' faith, in fact, looked forward to Israel's Deliverer, who was to come.

Here are the treasures of Egypt: put in that side of the balance everything you can think of in this world's wealth and glory. Here is the reproach of Christ: put in this side all the suffering, the scorn, the self-denial, the poverty, the weakness, the trials that come upon us. As you look at the two, which one, in your judgement, weighs more? If we judge by sight, we would say the treasures of Egypt outweigh all that suffering. But Moses looks ahead to the reward. He thinks of the outcome and says: I will throw in my lot with those who are suffering reproach and affliction, rather than have all this other!

He gave up on purpose the glittering honours and worldly influence that providence had scattered around him. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. With whom was God identified? With Pharaoh's palace, or with Israel in the iron furnace? Had he followed providence, he would have used the advantages of his position to help Israel, relieve them, and perhaps in the end deliver them. But faith led him to make himself a stranger to the world and to identify himself with the people of God.

Because he had a view of the divine recompense, he could form a correct estimate of Egypt's treasures. He ranked them far below the reproach of Christ. If Egypt's glory cannot be compared with the reproach of Christ, how will it look next to the glory of Christ? Faith's penetrating sight led to faith's estimation, and this in turn led to faith's choice and faith's refusal.

This principle is universal: in Scripture, reward is never the motive of action. It is always the encouragement of the one who acts from other motives. So, as we well know, it was love, eternal, divine love, and from that obedience to His Father, that led Christ in the path of sorrow. In that path, for the joy set before Him, He endured. Moses visited his brothers because God put it into his heart. He preferred suffering with the people of God over a life of godless ease in a court.

We believe that Hebrews 11:27 refers to this earlier period, though some treat it as the exodus mentioned in verse 29 of that chapter. The events listed there, up to verse 31, are in the order they happened. Unless verse 27 came before verse 28, this would be the one place where that order breaks.

This surely refers to the second time he left Egypt. The first time, we read that Moses fled from Pharaoh (Ex. 2:15). The second time, he stood up to Pharaoh face to face. Under the mighty hand of God he brought the people of Israel out of Egypt in triumph.

Here Moses deliberately leaves Egypt. He will no longer work patiently with it. He gives it up to the judgment of God… In verses 24 to 26 we see decision; in verse 27 we see separation… There is no hint of fear in Moses, and no cringing. For him the presence of God far overshadows the king's power. God is as plain to him as if he could see his invisible Creator standing at his side.

At first he trusted his own eyes. He looked this way and that, saw that no one was there, killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Then a cruel and unfair Israelite soon let him know that it was no secret, and Moses was afraid and said the thing must be known (Ex. 2:12-14)… We need to look to the Lord and lean on Him. Moses did so at last, when he left Egypt, not afraid of the king's anger. The great secret is added: he persevered, as seeing the One who cannot be seen. It is something to know that He sees me; but there is far more in my seeing Him.

And then there was one thing more — he left Egypt. First he gives up its luxury and chooses to suffer with the people of God. Now he turns his back on the whole thing. What gave Moses his power to endure? He saw the invisible God… Our eye of faith sees Christ in heaven, who is invisible to everyone but the man of faith. So the invisible power works in us.

It was the "seeing him who is invisible" which made Moses endure. He had seen the glory of Egypt and tasted its pleasures. But faith's sight took hold of Him who is beyond all sight and sense. So Moses refused, chose, valued and endured!

The man who once led crowds in the splendour of Egypt now spends his years leading a flock of mindless sheep! Yet "he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Acts 7 says he acted as "seeing one of them suffer wrong." When wrong exists, it is good that we should see it. But if that is all we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. We go right when faith fixes its eye on God.

So we may surely say the same of Elijah. He turned his back on the world of his day. He did not fear the king's anger, and, with his vision of the living God, he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Obadiah lacked all this. He may have feared God in secret, but he feared the king in public. He never broke with the world, and he had no vision of the living God.