Questions for Littles: Who was saved by faith in v23? Whose faith did God use to save him? What did Moses’s parents do with him? What didn’t they feel about the king’s command? What did Moses refuse in v24? What did Moses choose in v25? Instead of what? What did Moses think was more riches than the treasures of Egypt? What did Moses abandon in v27? Of what was he not afraid? Whom did Moses’s faith see? What did Moses do by faith in v28? What would have happened if he didn’t?In the sermon this week, we continued hearing about faith in action. Up to this point, we have learned much about about faith: faith believes that God is; faith believes that God rewards those who seek Him; faith believes that God Himself is the great reward that He gives; faith holds on to God’s promises as if they are the thing promised; faith lives in certainty of the resurrection.
Now, in v23, we find a strange statement: by faith Moses was hidden. Moses is the beneficiary of the faith exercised in this verse, but he’s not the one who exercised it. He did, however, grow into a very similar faith.
If we read too quickly, we could miss the parallel between the end of v23 and the first half of v27. Moses’s parents weren’t afraid of the king’s command. Later, Moses doesn’t fear the wrath of the king.
There is a wonderful lesson here on parenting by faith. First, the Lord uses the faith of Moses’s believing parents to bless their son. It’s a wonderful story, how the Lord actually makes Pharaoh pay Moses’s mother to nurse the baby he had commanded should die.
Later, the Lord reproduces the faith of his parents in Moses himself. This faith is not merely a willingness to do the right thing no matter what. This faith is to value belonging to Christ, and to bring glory to Christ, above all other things.
The “passing pleasures” in v25 are not small in the world’s eyes. Egypt was on top of the world, and Pharaoh’s family is on top of Egypt. Those “passing pleasures” are the greatest pleasures that earthly life has to offer.
The riches of the “treasures of Egypt” were so great that it wasn’t just people from that age who valued those riches so highly. Even to this day, anything found in a Pharaoh’s tomb is front-page news and the stuff of legends!
But Moses knows a richer treasure than all the treasure of Egypt: getting insulted. Of course, the value is in how/why he is insulted: with the insults of Christ. Here, so many of us are timid about being too overtly Christian, lest we be insulted. And Moses valued it more than the treasures of Egypt!
Moses may not have been afraid of Pharaoh, but there was One of whom he was afraid. The one in the bush. The one who slayed the firstborn. The one who drowned the entire Egyptian army.
Faith doesn’t just value God’s rewards. It fears God’s wrath and employs God’s remedies.
What is God’s greatest reward? What is His great remedy for the wrath that we deserve?Suggested Songs: ARP51B “From My Sins, O Hide Your Face” or HB303 “Be Thou My Vision”
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