SEEING HIM WHO IS UNSEEN
Heroes
Of Faith: Moses, Hebrews 11:23-29
We
heard the popular idiom, "Seeing is believing." In a metaphysical
world, to some extent, it is true. However, this is not always the case,
especially in the AI-generated world, where what may seem real may not be real.
Optical illusions can deceive our eyes, and our brains can misinterpret what we
see. However, when it comes to spiritual matters of life, the counterintuitive "Believing
is Seeing, is often the truth, and we can build our lives on it.
In
this world, we struggle to believe what we see. How much harder it is to see
the one who is invisible and believe that He exists? Not only that, but we also
rest our entire lives upon Him. That requires Faith. How much Faith do we need
to believe that God exists? Not much, according to the author and the finisher
of our Faith, Jesus. If we have Faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move
mighty mountains and overcome struggles in our lives.
The
Heroes of Faith in the book of Hebrews exhibited such unusual Faith in God.
They believed in Him, though they couldn't see Him. They held on to the things He
promised them as though they would receive them in their lifetimes. Yet many died
without receiving them. For their incredible, unwavering Faith, God was not
ashamed to call Himself their God. They teach us how to live our lives by
believing in Him, even when we cannot see Him.
We
learned about Moses in Sunday school as children. What comes to your mind when
you hear about Moses? It is a very familiar story. Our passage for today is
from Hebrews 11:23-29. We will examine the life of Moses and explore what sets
him apart from the other biblical figures. Perhaps we will learn something new
today.
Let
me break down what we are going to look at: I. Historical Background of Egypt.
II. The Early Childhood, Call, and Mission of Moses. The Call of Moses. III.
The BIG Idea: Seeing Him Who Is
Unseen. Let us begin with what Egypt was like when Moses was born.
I.
Historical Background of Egypt during Moses's Time
In
Genesis 50, we read about the death of the Patriarch Jacob. Before he died, he
moved his extended family, seventy in number, to Egypt to avoid starvation. Due
to a shift in political power, the descendants of Joseph and his brothers fell
into slavery, but they became quite numerous. In Exodus chapter 1:8-14, "Now
a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph, and he dealt with the
Israelites who were growing in numbers harshly and treacherously.
There
is recorded evidence of King Tutankhamen (1360-1280 B.C.), who died between
eighteen and twenty-five years old, sometime during (or possibly just before) the
lifetime of Moses. The Egyptian government was in turmoil and in debt. But
things were stable by the time of Ramses II, the likely Pharaoh of the Exodus.
He pursued a massive program of building temples and shrines (displaying
statues of himself) and a new capital named after himself.
Who
was the task force to construct these huge cities? The enslaved Israelites. Ramses
II lived for ninety-six years and had more than 200 wives and 156 children. The
children of Israelites continued to be a threat, so he ordered an edict which
we read in Exodus 1:22, "Every son who is born you are to cast into the
Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive."
For
the first time, we witness citizens engaging in civil disobedience against the
unjust laws of a King. The midwives helped the Hebrew women and defied the
king's edict, letting the Hebrew boys live, because they feared God more than
Pharaoh. For this, God honored the midwives by establishing households for
them. (Exodus 1:21).
Due
to 400 years of slavery and oppression by the Egyptians, the Israelites cried
out to God to deliver them. God has seen their misery and is concerned about
it. He himself came down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and
lead them into the Promised Land. Under such circumstances, Moses was born to a
couple who were from the priestly tribe of Levi.
II. The
Early Childhood, Call, and Mission Of Moses (Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy)
Under the strict edict of Pharaoh, what Moses' parents
did was very courageous. They exhibited enormous Faith in God and defied
Pharaoh's orders, keeping the baby boy Moses for three years because he was a
special child. When Moses was a toddler, God transferred him to be raised in a
palace, where the very king ordered him to be killed. God has a great sense of
humor!
On
a typical day, Pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in the River Nile; what she saw
in the water changed the entire course of human History. A Hebrew baby boy in a
basket! She named Moses, meaning "draw out and raise her as her own son—a
few highlights from Moses' life.
At
age 40, as an angry young man, Moses tried to end the oppression of his own
people by killing an Egyptian. That didn't go well. God sent him to a desert
school in Midian. He met Reuel, a Midianite priest, and eventually married one
of his daughters, Zipporah (an Ethiopian). They had a son, and Moses named him
Gershon, saying, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land." For
the next forty years, Moses, as a shepherd, tended his father-in-law's sheep.
On
another ordinary day, an angel of God appears to him in a burning bush. God
speaks to him, purifies him, and sends him back to Egypt with a mission. His
mission was to rescue the Israelites from the Egyptians and lead them to a good
and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Initially, Moses gave a
lot of excuses, including saying, "I am dumb and can't speak or slow of
speech. Was Moses really slow of speech? Read (Acts 7:22).
Moses
goes to Egypt, gathers the Israelites' elders, meets with the Pharaoh, and
summons him to let God's people go so they may worship Him. Pharaoh refuses!
Through a series of ten Plagues and one significant event called "the Pass
Over, which is still celebrated among the Jewish People, God brought about the
largest redemption. At the midnight hour, under God's protection, and the leadership
of Moses, over 600,000 slaves walked out to their Freedom.
God
tested Moses's leadership and the people's motives over another forty years in
the wilderness. The lessons that Moses and the people learned are recorded in I
Corinthians so that we can avoid the mistakes they made and walk in the Faith as
they did.
Moses
faced opposition from his own family and rebellious people. Hear, Moses's
frustration, "I can not carry all these people by myself; the burden is
too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and
kill me if I have found favor in your eyes and do not let me see my own ruin."
Heb11:14-15. What kept Moses strong during hardships?
III.
Seeing Him Who Is Unseen! Hebrews 11:24-27
Hebrews 11:24-27, "By
faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's
daughter. He chose to be
mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting
pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the
sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he
was looking ahead to his reward. By Faith, he left
Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who
is invisible."
In many ways, Moses was a
type of Jesus Christ. We see this parallelism playing out in Hebrews 3:5-6, "Moses
was faithful as a servant in all God's house," [a] bearing witness to what God would later speak. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God's house. And we are
his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the
hope in which we glory."
The stress and challenges
that come with over 600,000 people could have killed any strong leader. However,
in Moses, the challenges drew him to his knees at times, causing him to fall
prostrate before God. In that posture, He saw the invisible (Jesus Christ), who
gave him the strength not to give up but to endure hardships. This is how God
highly spoke about Moses.
Numbers 12:3-10, "(Now
Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of
the earth.) "Listen to my words: "When
there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord,
reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them
in dreams.7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house. With
him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"
What struggles in life are you going through right
now? Like Moses, "See Him the One Who is Invisible. "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and
perfecter of Faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the
cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God. Consider him who endured such
opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."Heb
12:2-3. A great cloud of witnesses is cheering us as we run our race.
