The 11th chapter of Hebrews is nicknamed the Hall of Faith. as it profiles many of the Bible's most faithful men and women. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah focuses on the one man who receives the most attention in this prestigious list. Moses.
Continuing the series Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith. Here's David to introduce his message. MOSE, the persuasion of faith. Ladies and gentlemen, we were about to talk about a man who is intriguingly important in the Bible. And I remember spending some time studying his whole life.
It took us several weeks at church to teach it. We only have a couple of days here on Turning Point to investigate the summary of Hebrews 11. Moses was an incredible man and certainly really important in the history of the Bible, in the history of the Jewish people. And for all of us who want to understand how God's plan works, Moses is an integral part. We'll get to his study in just a moment.
Before we do that, let me just tell you, we have one week left after this program to help you get a handle on some questions you have in your life. We've published a little book that we want to give you because we believe it will really help you. It will be a book to use and not necessarily just to read. When you get this book, you will be able to find the page that you have. Has your question on it, and on that very page will be the scripture references and the verses printed out so that you will know exactly what the answers to your questions are from the Bible.
This book is called Where to Go in the Bible. It is yours for a gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of November. We need your gifts, we need your help, and we're thankful for them, but we don't want to be ungrateful. We want to say thank you in a tangible way.
So, when you send your gift of any size, please ask for your copy of the book, Where to Go in the Bible, and we'll have it on its way to you before you know it. You'll have it in your hands, and as I've said before, not just to read, but to use. Give us the chance to do that and we'll be grateful. Here is part one of the life of Moses, the persuasion of faith. The 11th chapter of Hebrews, one of the greatest chapters in the Bible.
The 11th chapter of Hebrews is the source of many series of messages apart from the teaching of the book of Hebrews. But when you put it in the middle of the book of Hebrews, it really comes alive in a real and special way. Just before the 11th chapter, as you remember, at the end of the 10th chapter, we're told that the just shall live by faith. And our question is, how does that work? How do the just live by faith?
And the whole 11th chapter of Hebrews is the answer to that question. And we have looked at a lot of people from the Old Testament who are illustrations of what it means to live by faith. We're going to look at one of the most famous people in the Bible. man by the name of Moses. And the record concerning Moses in the 11th chapter of Hebrews begins in the 23rd verse.
And continues through to verse 29. And want to read that for us as we begin our study together. By faith, Moses. when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents. Because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command.
By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned.
The author of Hebrews gives us five examples of faith. Each example is introduced by the phrase by faith, and I've underlined those and circled those in my Bible. Moses' parents provide us with the first example of faith, followed by three examples from the life of Moses and one from the life of the nation of Israel. Moses occupies more attention than any other in this list of men and women of faith here in the eleventh chapter, and he is a significant character in the book of Hebrews, being mentioned in this book alone some ten different times.
Now we begin. Reading the text and understanding it with the testimony of Moses' life. and his relationship, first of all, with God. The Bible tells us a lot about Moses. First of all, the Bible tells us that Moses was a man of God.
Deuteronomy 33, 1 says it this way.
Now, this was the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death. Ezra says it this way, and it is written in the law of Moses. The man of God.
Now, that phrase appears again in the New Testament in the Thessalonian and Titus epistles. But what a credit to anybody to be called a man of God. What a testimony, what a name we should covet for ourselves. There goes so-and-so, he's a man of God. And Moses was, first of all, in his relationship with the Almighty, he was a man of God.
But if you study the Old Testament, you discover also that he was a servant of God. He was not only a man of God, he was a servant of God. Once again, Deuteronomy 34 and verse 5 says: So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor, but no one knows his grave till this day. And Hebrews 3:5 says, Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant.
So, what we've learned so far about Moses was he was a man of God, he was a servant of God. And here's the most unusual thing of all of them. He was a friend of God. It says in Exodus 33, 11, so the Lord spoke to Moses face to face. As a man speaks, to his friend.
Now, when we talk about Moses and his relationship with the Father, we learn that he was a man of God, he was a servant of God, and now the scripture says he was a friend of God. God doesn't force His intimacies on anyone. He grants them only to those who desire and qualify for them. And Moses belonged to this inner circle. Who enjoyed holy intimacy with God?
The Bible says that he was God's friend. And God is a friend of ours. But in the Old Testament sense, Moses had a special, unique, intimate relationship with God. In fact, on more than one occasion, he spent 40 days on a mountain holding fellowship with God. He was God's friend.
John 15:15 says in the New Testament, No longer do I call you servants. For a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. Jesus says, we are friends.
And I'm so delighted to know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I'm happy to know that He's my Lord and He's my soon-coming King, but every week I need to have Him as my friend. Amen. Especially these days.
So that's his relationship with God. Simply put, outlined carefully: he was a man of God, he was a servant of God, he was a friend of God. But notice the record of his achievements. Moses was a great man, and I want to prove that to you. There is evidence to believe that he may have been one of the greatest men who ever lived apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and maybe the Apostle Paul.
In Deuteronomy 34, We have just a few statements about him and his life that are quite amazing when you put them in context with the entire word of God.
So, if you have your Bibles open to Deuteronomy chapter 34, I want to read verse 7 and verses 10 through 12. Notice what the scripture says. Moses was 120 years old when he died.
Now that's a pretty good statement right there. no matter where you are in life. Moses lived to be 120. And the Bible says, his eyes were not dim, nor his natural vigor diminished. And since then, there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh, before all his servants, and in all his land, and by all that mighty power and all that great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
Now that's quite a paragraph about Moses. Concerning him One writer, a great commentator on the Old Testament, I. Am Halderman, has written with great insight that Moses. Was kind of a picture of striking contrasts. Listen to this.
He was a child of a slave. and the son of a queen. He was born in a hut. And he lived in a palace. He inherited poverty and he enjoyed unlimited wealth.
He was the leader of armies and the keeper of flocks. He was the mightiest of warriors and the meekest of men. He was educated in the court and dwelt in the desert. He had the wisdom of Egypt and the faith of a little child. He was fitted for the city, and he wandered in the wilderness.
He was tempted with the pleasures of sin, and he endured the hardships of virtue. He was backward in speech. And he talked with God. He had the rod of a shepherd and the power of the infinite. He was a fugitive from Pharaoh and an ambassador from heaven.
He was the giver of the law and the forerunner of grace. He died alone on Mount Moab and appeared with Christ in Judea. No man assisted in his funeral, yet God buried him. The man Moses. What a unique personality, the testimony of Moses' life.
his relationship with God and his record of achievement.
Now notice secondly, The time periods of Moses' life. Moses' life was divided into three periods. The Old Testament coverage of Moses begins in Exodus chapter 2 and it continues all the way through Deuteronomy chapter 34. Four of the five books of the Pentateuch are required to make known all the acts of this man of God. He had three periods of time in his life.
All of them were 40 years long. He lived 120 years, divided by three, into three 40-year periods of time. He spent 40 years in Pharaoh's court. He spent 40 years in the desert of Midian, and he spent 40 years in the wilderness with the Israelites. Each of these three periods begin with a crisis.
Which was met by faith, and which in turn resulted in a strategic choice. Watch carefully. The first period of preparation, 40 years. We read about this here in Hebrews 11, verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents.
Because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command. because of Joseph's strategic placement in Egypt. When the famines came that would have destroyed the Israelites, Joseph had already prepared for their survival. Jacob and his family had some 70 people. Who had come to Egypt, and they settled down in an outlying district called Goshen.
And as the children of Jacob began to multiply and began to acquire more property and become more prominent in the land, they ultimately became greater in number and in power than the Egyptians living around them. And so we read in Exodus chapter 1, but the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. And there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and he said to his people, Look, the children of Israel are more and mightier than we are. The Egyptians feared that if they were to be invaded by an enemy, that the children of Israel would join the enemy and fight against them instead of fighting with them. And so the new Pharaoh, who didn't know Joseph, Decided that something had to be done.
And so you know the story. He put taskmasters over the Israelites and afflicted them with burdens. And the Bible says that the more they afflicted the Israelites, the more the Israelites multiplied. As if that were enough, Pharaoh also instructed the two leading midwives of the Hebrews to murder all the newborn Hebrew babies, all the males, all the boys. And the Bible says in Exodus 1, 17, but the midwives feared God and they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive.
Finally, in desperation, Pharaoh commanded the people, saying, Exodus 1:22. Every son who is born, you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive. During this awful time in Egypt, Moses was born. Anybody know the names of Moses' parents? I mean, they are really some strange names.
Moses, mom, and dad were Amram and Jacobed. It says so at Exodus 6.20.
Now Amrad took for himself Jacobed, his father's sister, as wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of the life of Amram were 137 years.
Now, generally, the birth of a child, especially if it was a boy, was heralded with joy. But born into this climate, born into this season when death was prescribed for every male child. Having a boy As a baby, it was a time of great anxiety and fear, almost dread. There was no glad anticipation, there was no welcome, there was no excitement. To compensate for the mother's anguish in the thought that now she had brought a boy into the world and that boy would surely be killed before he could live many days.
And the Bible tells us that Moses' parents had courage in that time. We read about the courage of his parents. According to Exodus chapter 2, Moses' parents were Levites, and it is evident that they had a great faith in God. And Hebrews says that it was by faith. In God, that they hid their son.
Years earlier, God had told Abraham that in the fourth generation after his death, the Israelites would be delivered from Egypt. and Moses would have been a member of that fourth generation. Josephus, the secular historian, says that Moses' father had a dream that Moses would be the deliverer of the people. I don't know if we can know that to be true or not. But how can we explain the faith of Moses' parents to hide their son in the very place of death?
Remember, they were to throw the male children into the river. And where was it that they hid little baby Moses? They hid him in the river. And Hebrews 11 says that his parents, plural, Hid him. And they were in this thing together.
Amrad and Jacobed. They remind us that there's not enough faith for one person, it takes both. In our families today, we need to believe together and do what God has called us to do. And they believed and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. Listen to the words of Acts chapter 7.
Acts 7:20. At this time, Moses was born. And he was well pleasing to God, and he was brought up in his father's house for three months. I'd like to suggest to you three things about Moses' parents that are encouraging. First of all, They had the faith to see the potential in Moses.
They had the faith to see the potential in Moses. Hebrews 11:23 says, By faith, They saw that he was a beautiful child. Exodus 2:2 says, She saw he was a beautiful child. Acts 7, 20 says, at this time Moses was born and he was well pleasing to God.
Now, interesting is that all three of these references are to Moses as a baby, and it's one of the few times in the Bible where we are told anything about how a person looks. About their outward appearance. The Bible says that Moses was a beautiful child.
Now Parents look at a child that might not be beautiful at all. But by faith they believe that child is beautiful. I have never yet heard a parent say, Did you ever see such a homely child as my child? I mean, they all believe their child is beautiful, and sometimes when you look at that child, you know it takes some faith for them to have to say that. You know As a pastor, this is one of the occupational hazards.
This is one of the things that happens to you sometimes, and this has not ever happened to me in this church, so don't get after me about this.
Someone will bring up a baby and show it to you and you'll say, Isn't this a beautiful child? And you don't know what to say. I only had that happen to me one time, and somebody told me, What you say is, that sure is a baby. That sure is a baby.
Well, you didn't have to say that to Moses. The Bible says when Moses was born, he was a strikingly handsome child. He was beautiful. This wasn't the kind of faith that Moses' parents had to Express. This was the kind of faith that looked into the face of this little one and knew, according to the nuances of the Old Testament, that Almighty God had something special for this child to do.
In other words, to Moses' parents. Moses was more than a new baby, more than what others saw. This was somebody important to God. I don't know how you feel about this, but let me just go off course for a little bit here for a moment. I was listening to a radio program.
He's telling a story about his son. He was preaching a sermon on how extraordinary God is and how ordinary we are. And he told about his son, and he said that his son was a really good basketball player when he was in junior high. And then when he got to high school, he was sort of. Not as great as he was in junior high, and then when he got out of high school and tried to go to college, he said, one of the great things we had to teach this boy was how ordinary he was.
And I almost ran off the road. Because I don't believe that's what God has called us to do at all. I think we should try to teach our children how extraordinary they are.
Now, it may not have anything to do with basketball, but you know that God has a plan for every baby that's born, and especially children born into Christian families. God has a plan for them, and we ought to constantly be telling them that God has a plan for their life and that God's going to do something special in their lives. I had a woman who Was a friend of our family when I was growing up in Toledo, Ohio, as a young boy. Her name was Nellie Mumaw. And she gave me one of the greatest gifts I have.
She gave me one of the first copies of the Phillips. Paraphrase of the New Testament. I still have it. She wrote a note in there many, many years ago. And basically, what she told me was: every time she saw me, she would say, David, God has a great plan for your life.
God wants to do something great in your life. Don't you forget, David, you read this book. This book will help you. It'll help you get ready for what God wants to do in your life.
Now, my parents did that, but that woman did that. And that's what the Bible says about Moses. His parents saw the potential in him, more than just his good looks. But they knew in their heart that God had something special for him to do. Their faith had to see the potential in Moses, but their faith had to seek protection from Moses.
Hebrews 11, 23 says, By faith they hid him for three months. Just having faith that God has a purpose for this child was not enough. They had to act on the basis of their faith. And the Bible says they hid Moses for three months because they were not afraid of the king's commandments.
So they had faith to see Moses' potential, they had faith to seek protection for him, and then, number three, they had faith to sacrifice their personal ambitions for Moses. They sent him away. What would you do if you knew that you would have your son or your daughter for only eight or nine years and then you would give them up to someone else, never to see them again? The heart of a mother and father, for that matter, must be a heart of faith. And in this day, in our world, we have to be like Jacobed and Amran.
We must do our very best, but we must also trust that God. will help us. And that he will fit us into his plan and fit our children into his plan. But just think about this. One day Amrad and Jacob had to say goodbye to Moses and let him go.
with someone to be raised under a different culture. And all they had to live on was their faith in God. I mean, it was one thing for Daniel to be taken to the Chaldeans when he was a teenager. But Moses was taken from his parents when he was just a very, very young boy. The heart of a mother and father must be the heart of faith.
Moses' parents had to believe that God was at work in all of this. And we in our day, like Jacobed and Amrin, have to do our very best, and then we have to trust God, don't we? I mean, that's one of the frustrations of being a parent if you don't know it. Maybe you've forgotten it. But I want to tell you something.
You can only do so much as a parent, and then you have to say, Lord, I've given everything I have to this, and now you have to take this child. And you have to take him where you want him to go. Whether it's at 8 or 9 or 18 or 19, where we turn our children loose, we say, We've done the best we can. We have to go out and meet the real world now. Thank God when they do well, and we pray very diligently for them as we go through the process.
Acts 7.21 says, But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away. and brought him up as her own son. The only way Moses could survive the Holocaust of the children of his day was for his parents to give him over to the daughter of Pharaoh. And she took him and she raised Moses. apart from his natural family.
The Bible says that his parents allowed this to happen. What was the key to it? By faith. Whoa.
Now that puts faith down where the rubber meets the road, doesn't it? That puts faith down where, I mean, you say, I don't know if I could do that, Pastor.
Well, they couldn't do it either except by faith. Faith is the key, and that's what we're learning as we have been studying the Bible together. By the way, Turning Points, a series of teachings on Hebrews chapter 11, the teachings that I've put on the air during these days, is available. In recorded fashion, it's also outlined in a study guide that we have prepared. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith is available from Turning Point.
It is a Study Guide C D message set. You can get that from our resource center. Just go to davidjeremiah.org and you will see it there and you'll know how to order it and it'll be sent right to your home. Useful to you for your own personal study. but also for leadership in a small group or in Sunday school or wherever you go to study the Bible.
We think it will be helpful to you. We want to make it available and thank you for taking advantage of this opportunity. We will take a break for the weekend, get to church if you can. Please join us Monday when we gather again to continue our study of ordinary people, extraordinary faith. Uh The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr.
David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's newly updated scripture reference guide, Where to Go in the Bible When.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions. available in a variety of handsome and resilient cover options. Let us know how this ministry is helping you grow by writing to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us Monday as we continue the series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, on Turning Point.
