Moses' Decision

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Hebrews 11:24-26

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

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 Pharaoh's 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 God's people. He knew that the Israelites were God's chosen, that despite all their faults, God would not break His covenant with His own people, and he knew, therefore, that their cause was God's 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 Christ's 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.

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