Hebrews 11:23-31
Please turn in your copy of God’s
holy scriptures to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 11. Our reading
today will be chapter 11, verses 23 through 31. This is a section
where we are hearing about examples of faith. And today’s section
deals with Moses and the Exodus and the entry, the early entry
into the promised land, where the walls of Jericho fall down
by faith. And so today we can consider
a handful of the features of faith as given to us through
the example of those heroes of the faith found in chapter two
or chapter 11. Let me remind you that in chapter
10, on the front end of chapter 11, the writer of Hebrew says
to us, those who are of faith are not those who shrink back.
No, they press on, they keep on, they continue on. And then
on the other end of chapter 11, in the early verses of chapter
12, our writer is going to tell us that those who have faith,
not only do they not shrink back. But they keep their eyes on Jesus,
the author and the perfecter of the faith. And that’s a good
reminder for us that we don’t put our eyes on humans. Yes,
they can give us encouragement and examples, but we ultimately
put our eyes on the one who can show us true faith, and that
is Jesus. So let’s hear from God’s word together. Hebrews
chapter 11, beginning at verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he
was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because
they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the
king’s edict. By faith, Moses, when he was
grown up, 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. He considered the reproach
of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he
was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not
being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing
him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover
and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn
might not touch them. By faith, the people crossed
the Red Sea as if on dry land. But the Egyptians, when they
attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith, the walls
of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven
days. By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who
were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome
to the spies. Let us pray together. Our great
God, we thank you for this word to us that shows us what faith
looks like in real life. And so we ask that as we hear
from your word today, as we receive from the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper, that you would feed us and nurture us in a way that
helps us through real life. We do ask this and pray for the
spirit’s help in Jesus name. Amen. About three years ago,
I had an appointment to keep in Atlanta. And from the town
where we were living, it was a not a terrible drive. And so
I thought I’ll just make the drive. Well, I was invited by
some others attending the same meeting to ride in a small private
airplane. And so one rainy Friday morning,
I drove to a little airport in Mount Airy and we put our luggage
in the back of the plane. We got in and I was not nervous
before this day and flying in small planes a few other times,
but it was rainy. and it was cloudy, and this plane
was rather small, and it was stormy, and the day looked a
little bit uncertain. But as I buckled my seatbelt
and talked to the pilot, asking him a thousand questions, I realized
that he wasn’t scared one bit. He was experienced, he was seasoned,
he was confident. But he also had this little gizmo
in the dashboard of his Piper airplane is Piper Cub that was
about as old as I was. He had this little gizmo that
we call instruments. He was going to fly that plane
that day right through the clouds, which extended from Mount Airy
all the way to Atlanta. And he was going to fly that
plane without sight. but with instruments and with
the help of radar and other electronics, we could not see it all. In fact,
when we were taking off, we were told to sit tight on the runway
for there was a jet 10 miles out and it would be landing in
just a moment. And sure enough, out of the clouds descended this
little jet airplane. And after it landed and was out
of the way, we took off. And within 50 feet of getting
in the air, we were in the clouds. We could see nothing. And for
three hours, we bumped along. For three hours, we buzzed along
through the air. For three hours, for all I knew,
we were making our way to Atlanta. This pilot had punched in the
numbers on his gizmo. He had called into air traffic
control. He was obeying all orders that
were given to him over radio. And in three hours time, we descended
from the clouds and right in front of us was a runway. Right
in front of us was a tarmac. Right in front of us was a terminal
where we would drive our plane up and we would get out into
dry weather and we would take a sigh of relief. We had reached
our destination. And I’ve often thought of that
event, of what it truly was that day to go by faith To go by the
faith of an electronic gizmo that could steer that airplane
through the sky, avoiding all other flying objects, all weather
conditions. And it could take us from one
place to the next. And there was only one thing
I could do, and that was to sit and wait and to land safely at
a destination. And friends, our call to faith,
our call to live a life of faith is much like that. God says to
us, go and we go. He says, I’ll show you the place
and we don’t see it. But he says, I’m going to get
you there. Remember at the early at the beginning of chapter 11,
what does the writer of Hebrew say to us about faith? It’s two
things. It’s assurance of things hoped for. and its conviction
of things not seen. By it, the people of old were
commended as having faith. Well, today we’re going to see
more examples in the life of Moses and the exodus of Israel
and the conquest of the Holy Land. We’re going to see more
examples of those who live by faith. They had assurance of
things hoped for. and they had conviction of things
not seen. Now, the first thing we see in
this passage is that faith perseveres in adversity. Faith perseveres
in adversity. You ever felt like it’s me versus
the world? It’s me versus relational hardships. It’s me versus physical ailments. It’s me versus financial or other
sorts of issues that always seem to plague our lives. Or to ramp
it up a bit, it’s me versus satanic opposition. It’s me versus Satan
in my marriage. It’s me versus Satan in my child
rearing. It’s me versus Satan as I serve
the church, as I labor in the vineyard where God has put me.
We must remember that faith perseveres in adversity. That Jesus, or
that God has told us in the scriptures in Genesis 3, that our battle
will be a perpetual, an ongoing battle against the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent. That the children of God and
the children of Satan will constantly war against one another. And so if you feel like it’s
you against the world, Maybe it was sickness and hardship
and other things like that. Remember that the battle is even
greater and that this battle for your faith is one which is
old, one which started in the garden when Satan came and tempted,
when Adam and Eve failed to obey God’s commands and all the rest
of mankind after them would fall into the ranks of sin and brokenness
and curse and disorder. And so we must remember. As Jesus
says, as the Apostle Paul says, all who desire to live a godly
life will be persecuted. And so faith perseveres in adversity. Look at how the story unfolds
for us in verse 23. It says, by faith, Moses, when
he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because
they saw the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the
king’s edict. Here’s Amran and Jochebed, Moses’
parents. disobeying Pharaoh, the great
king of Egypt. There are too many Hebrews. They
are growing and increasing in number. And so the Pharaoh and
his wise counselor said, we must put these Hebrew boys when they
are born to death and that will decrease the population. We call
this in modern day times, ethnic cleansing. We’ve seen it in other
nations. We’ve experienced it with the
Nazi regime. We see it even to this day. But Pharaoh had ordered that
all Hebrew baby boys be put to death. In fact, there were so
many being born, he said they must be thrown into the Nile
River. The midwives were ordered to
put every little one, every little boy to death. But what does this
passage say of Moses’ mother? She had faith. She had faith
to hide him. She saw that he was beautiful
and she was not afraid of Pharaoh, the great king of Egypt, the
mighty and terrifying king of Egypt. She was not afraid of
him and she hid him. You can imagine their path of
perseverance. You see, faith perseveres in
adversity. You can imagine their path of
endurance, their path of holding out until Some time would come
when something would come to pass and Moses would be safe.
You can imagine it was tense, keeping a little baby from crying.
You’ve been in a restaurant. You’ve had your little one in
there and you’ve not wanted to disrupt the other customers enjoying
their meal. And so you you do everything
it takes or or your little ones in church do everything it takes
to keep them quiet. Keep them happy, keep them settled,
for their cry will be disruptive. Well, even worse here, this cry
would give away his presence. A Hebrew boy was kept alive when
he should have been put to death. And so after a time when she
could hide him no more, his nursery becomes a boat. And she puts
her little one in a boat of bulrushes in the Nile River. Now, think
about that for a moment. One of the great rivers of the
world in the bulrushes. with the snakes and the alligators
and the crocodiles and the hippopotamuses and all else that you would never
allow to babysit your little three-month-old infant. And yet
that is what they do by faith. And you can imagine that during
this time, there was some sort of door-to-door campaign. Do
you have a Hebrew boy? And you can imagine the tears
and the agony of many babies being taken Many little ones
who had not been put to death, but now were on their way because
Pharaoh’s men had found them. But the story is a story of redemption. Pharaoh’s daughter finds this
little one. The child that was beautiful
in his mother’s sight was also beautiful in the Pharaoh’s daughter’s
sight. But the book of Acts also tells
us that Moses was beautiful in God’s sight and that he would
become the ruler and the redeemer of Israel. And so you see, when
faith perseveres in adversity, we see that God is at work in
redeeming his people. And so let me encourage you in
this way. You may never know what God is doing, but you keep
living by faith. And you may not be a Moses. or
a Jacobite or a Pharaoh’s daughter. But God is always at work in
and through his people, and he is showing forth the glories
of redemption. There’s another example of faith
persevering in adversity. We find it in verse 27, where
it says, by faith, Moses left Egypt, not being afraid of the
anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Moses fled Egypt. Now, we don’t
know if this is the occasion where he fled Egypt because he
had just killed the Egyptian slave master, or is this the
occasion where he fled Egypt after performing all the signs
and wonders in front of Pharaoh? And remember, Pharaoh, in his
anger, said to Moses, Get out, leave my presence. We don’t know
which account, which story it is. But nevertheless, by faith,
it says Moses was not afraid of the king’s anger. And he left
Egypt for he didn’t see what was in front of him. No, he saw
what was invisible and he persevered in adversity under self-exile
and removing himself from his own from his own land to go and
identify with his real people, the Hebrews. He had his eyes
on God. He’s going to do what is right.
Yes, it is Moses versus the world, it is Moses versus the the seed
of the serpents. But by faith, Moses, by faith,
Amran and Jacob fought against Pharaoh. They were not afraid
of the king, for they could see the real king. And remember,
as we’ve said over and over, when God wants to encourage his
saints, what does he do? He gives them a vision of heaven
and lets them see who is really on heaven’s throne. And friends,
when you see who is on heaven’s throne, you will not fear Pharaoh
and his greatness. You will not fear a dynasty on
the throne of England or a dynasty on the in the Oval Office of
America, for our eyes are on God and we see what others cannot
see. So faith perseveres in adversity
when culture is against you. When the world is against you,
when your family or your neighbors or your friends or your loved
ones are against you and you’re feeling like Elijah, as if there
is no one else in the land who has not bowed their knee to the
bales, you are never alone. For there are always people who
are persevering in adversity by faith. Well, the second feature
of faith we see in this passage is that faith not only perseveres
in adversity, faith identifies with the people of God. Faith
identifies with the people of God. Do you declare before the
watching world, I am a Christian? I love the Lord Jesus Christ.
I worship God. I follow him. I read my scriptures. I think Christian thoughts. I
think God’s thoughts after him. And these thoughts, these beliefs,
these convictions inform the way I live, what I do, how I
act. You talk about your faith. You
proclaim the exclusivity of the gospel against all other religions. Do people know who you are and
who you follow? You see, identifying with the
people of God is a feature of faith. And we say I’m part of
the church. I worship God. I fear him. I
follow his scriptures. Do you remember what the true
definition of the church is? What does it mean to be the church?
The church is simply this. We are the called out ones. We
are called out of the world to live for God, to live separately
for him. Look at verses 24 and 25 and
26. It shows how Moses identifies
with the people of God. It says, by faith, Moses, when
he was grown up, 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. He considered
the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of
Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. This passage tells us that when
Moses came of age, when he became an adult, we believe this was
about age 40, he recognized that he was really a Hebrew and not
an Egyptian. I mean, he had wealth, he had
status, he had a good life, he had servants who at the snap
of his finger would bring a meal. But he chose rather to serve
his people. To kill a taskmaster, to identify
with the people of God and their suffering and their their enslavement,
to camp with them no longer in a palace, but out in the wilderness
and to suffer with them. Our passage tells us that he
was willing to be mistreated. He was willing to suffer the
evil that was hurled against them by his own adopted family. Because he considered the reproach
of Christ greater than the treasures and the wealth of Egypt. And
do you know, dear friends, dear Christians, that to be a Christian,
to identify with the people of God is not only to identify with
those around us, but we are identifying with Christ himself. And so anyone
in the world. Who is in Christ Jesus, we are
connected to them, the communion of saints is our theological
teaching on this and that when insults, when persecution, when
hatred is aimed towards the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, since
he is in heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, the Father
Almighty, we who are connected to him receive that pain and
that injury and that suffering. The Apostle Paul, in the beginning
of his letter to the Colossians, says, I am filling up what is
lacking in the sufferings of Christ, the sufferings which
are intended for Christ, who is in heaven, are being heaped
upon me and the rest of his church. But flip back to the Old Testament. You see, Jesus was only here
for 30 years. And there is an implied statement
here in this passage. We know this from our New Testament
theology, that when Christ is in heaven and not here, whether
pre-incarnate or post-resurrection, when he is not here to receive
the insults hurled at him by those who hate him, by the seed
of the serpent whose desire is that Jesus be
stamped out and put to death, that you and I That the apostle
Paul, the saints persecuted around the world today, even Moses back
in the Old Testament, we received the reproaches hurled at Christ. Meant for him, but because he
is not present, we are his people, we are present and we receive
them. Moses considered this suffering, this mistreatment better and
more rewarding than the riches of Egypt. And so, my dear brothers
and sisters, when you identify with the people of God, you are
you are signing up for suffering. And because you are signing up
for the suffering that is intended for Jesus, it will be intense.
It will be painful. It will be hard. But God gives
us grace. And just as Jesus was raised
from the dead, just as Jesus was ushered from this world to
the next, where he is in perfect bliss and harmony with his father,
you, too, after you suffer for a little while, will be brought
safely into heaven. But he considered it greater
wealth than the treasures of Egypt. And notice what it says,
his gaze, his eyes were fixed on a reward. He could have had
the riches of Egypt. Maybe some of you have traveled
there and seen the ancient ruins. It was a magnificent culture
and civilization. And he said, I’ll give that up
for the city of God. No city of man will captivate
me, no my eye My affections are on God. Let me encourage you
in this way. If your affections haven’t changed
all that much since you become a Christian, ask the Lord to
remove those old affections for things of this life, for things
of this world, to put them away and say, Lord, give me new affections.
Make my gaze like the gaze of Moses on heavenly things, on
things that will last. You know, the things of this
earth will pass away. Moth and rust will destroy them.
In the end, they will not pass judgment, but the heavenly city
will never pass away. You see, Moses went from being
a prince to a pauper. But what stories do we love on
our televisions? We love the stories of the opposite.
We love it when others have gone from being a pauper to a prince,
from rags to riches. But friends, that is not the
way of the Christian life. And Moses knew that. Notice in
our passage, though, there’s another example of someone identifying
with the people of God. We find that in verse 31, it
says, by faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who
were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome
to the spies. You know, it should really read,
and I’m not trying to correct the Bible, But it should really
read Rahab, the non-Israelite prostitute. You see, that’s pretty
significant, isn’t it? That Rahab, the non-Israelite
and a prostitute would have faith in God, such faith in God. And as she calls him, as we can
read of it in the account in the Old Testament, she said,
he is the God of heaven and earth. I’ve heard of what he has done
for his people. And that’s the kind of God I
want to serve. Here was a lady. and not a very
polite lady that we want to have in our company, as we might put
it, who lives in Jericho, one of the most beautiful cities
of the ancient world, one of the wealthiest, most prosperous,
one of the most magnificent cities. It would be a city that we would
find in a magazine ad, visit Jericho. You’ll enjoy a week
there, the food, the nightlife, all the fun and whatever accompanies
it. But here’s a lady who in the
midst of beauty, in the midst of luxury and in the midst of
Canaanite God worship says, I no longer want to identify with
these things. No, I put my faith and my hope
and my trust in the God of heaven and earth. And what does our
passage tell us about Rahab, the non-Israelite, the prostitute?
She believed God when the rest of the city of Jericho did not
believe him. And she and she alone escaped
destruction when the city fell. You see, friends, she understood
what is temporary and what is lasting. Her desires for comfort
and for ease and for prosperity in this life were put away. She
said, I know what is lasting. And I don’t put my faith and
my trust and my hope in this city with its thick walls and
its culture and nightlife and whatever else it offers. No,
she put her trust and hope in a city that was lasting. And
so she says, she says, I will follow God. I will follow the
God of the universe. Now, friends, you live life in
the real world. You live life in the real world
that every day tests your faith. Every day says Christians are
dummies. Every day says Christians who believe in a savior have
a crutch. You’re not intellectual. You’re,
in fact, the dumbest of the dumb. Friends, remember, the world
hates Christians, but you’ve identified with Christ. And Jesus
says that the world hates me. It’s going to hate you and you’re
going to suffer. You’re going to face hardship.
But remember how the writers of the New Testament, Peter and
Paul and others, even the writer to the Hebrews, say of suffering,
suffering can be done with joy. And it is indeed a privilege
to be counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. So if
you have identified with the people of God, you have disaffiliated
with the world around. You have your eyes on heaven
like Moses and Rahab and the people of the people of Hebrews. Now, think about Moses for a
moment. Where do we see him reappear someday? I mean, for sure, with
the exodus and taking Israel out of Egypt. But where is he
standing on another day? He’s standing with Jesus and
Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. His faith brought him to great
things. Think about Rahab. Where do we find her later? She’s
in the genealogy of Jesus. You think genealogies are boring?
Read the genealogy of Jesus. He is a son of Rahab, the non-Israelite
prostitute who had faith enough to identify with the people of
God. And so friends, faith perseveres in adversity. Faith identifies
with the people of God. The third and last thing we should
consider is faith follows God’s strange commands. And there’s
three strange things in this passage that God requires of
his people. He asked them to do some weird, strange, and odd
things, and yet they do them, and it produces the deliverance
that he promises. So faith follows God’s strange
commands. Let me ask, if you were presented
with the option of escaping death, if you were presented with the
option of Having your family saved, would you paint your doorpost
with the blood of a lamb so that the destroyer would pass over
your house and not take your family? If you had the option
to escape death and to walk on dry land through what had just
been a very deep sea, would you by faith walk on that dry land
in order to escape the pursuing army? Or if you were told the
way to win this battle is to not take up your guns, not to
use advanced techniques of warfare, but to simply quietly walk around
a city one time for six days. And on the seventh day, seven
times, and on the last lap around, scream and holler and blow your
shofars and trumpets. You see, this last little section
tells us that faith follows God’s strange commands. By faith, Moses
kept the Passover. By faith, the Israelites crossed
the Red Sea. Actually, you know what it says?
By faith, Moses crossed the Red Sea. There’s some indication
that the people of God were too chicken to do it, but when Moses
raised his staff and marched forward, the people followed. By faith, With Joshua, the people
of God encircled the city of Jericho. And those walls that
were thick and high and impenetrable, they fell down in a heap. You
see, by faith, the destroyer did not touch Israel and put
them to death. But it put to death those of
Egypt who had no faith. By faith, the Israelites walked
across the sea as if on dry land. But Pharaoh’s army, who had no
faith, they were destroyed as the sea engulfed them. By faith,
the walls of Jericho fell. But by unbelief, the people inside
those walls, minus Rahab, they fell and they were destroyed. Friends, let me ask you this.
Do you take God at his word? If he says, do something strange,
do you do it? Do you remember that king in
the Old Testament who had leprosy? And he came to the land of Israel
and he was told to get in that river and wash. And his pride
said, no, I’m a king. I don’t get in nasty rivers and
wash. Well, you’re not going to get better. You see, what
God does is he says, do this and you will live. Do this and
I will feed you. Do this and I will nurture you.
And so, friends, by faith, we follow God’s strange commands
because what he says we should do, where he sends we should
go. For the best way for the Christian
is simply to trust and obey. We’re about to participate in
a very strange ritual before the watching world. We’re going
to take little bitty crumpets of bread and little bitty cups
of juice. And we’re going to say God is going to feed us a
feast. But that’s exactly what he does
by faith through the bread and through the wine, he feeds and
he nurtures us. And so, brothers and sisters,
the rituals we should do, the walk we should march. And we
should make our way from this life to the next, doing exactly
as our king tells us. You know, if we identify. We
identify with the people of God, if we follow his strange commands,
if we. If we have faith in him and do
what he commands us to do, the world is going to hate us. But
by faith, you will be safe in the arms of Jesus and our salvation
says to us, have faith in him, rest in him, put your trust and
hope in him for Christ, our Passover lamb. has died for us. And friends,
in our greater salvation that we have experienced this side
of the cross, you see, we’ve seen more than Moses. We’ve seen
more than the generation of the Exodus. For us, the sea will not part.
For us, the Passover destroyer will not pass by our houses when
he sees blood on the doorpost. You know what will come for us?
For those of us who have faith, The heavens will open and God
himself will send his son at the trumpet sound where the scriptures
tell us he will gather his elect. He will gather his elect like
a father does his children. He will remove us from all this
pain, all this hardship, all this suffering, and he will take
us home to be with him. The dead in Christ shall rise. Those who are alive will be caught
up in the air and he will take us to a greater feast than this
one. It’s the feast that he promised his disciples that he would eat
with them anew in the new heavens and the new earth. And so, friends,
where is your faith today? Does it exist? Is it wobbly? Is it wavering? Or do you have
your gaze fixed on him and him alone who can save you? Strange as his request may be. Let’s pray together. Our great God, we thank you for
this, your word today. We thank you that you feed and
nurture us through it. We pray now, Lord, that you would
grant in your wounds that we would find safety. In your stripes,
we would find our cure. In your pain, we would find our
peace and your cross, our victory and in your resurrection, our
triumph. And that when we awake. We will
find a crown of righteousness and the glories of your eternal
kingdom. And we pray that this would come
as a result of the gift of faith that is ours, but faith that
we have nurtured because we believe your word and we believe your
commands. And we ask and pray this in the
name of Jesus, our great savior. Amen. Let me ask the elders now
to please come forward as we prepare for the Lord’s