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Reading Ex.2:11-25

"One day when Moses had grown up" that is how our passage begins this evening. Moses' childhood, adolescence and early manhood are passed over in silence. The Bible is not interested in writing biography as we think it should be written but focuses upon those details which are important and significant in the unfolding of God's plans.

How we need to be reminded of this simple truth again and again – it is God who is centre stage and it is His plans that are important. Let us learn to think in this way about our own lives – how do we relate to His plans and purposes, where do we fit it etc. rather than wondering how God might fit into our lives!

The NT gives us just a few more details concerning Moses' early life. Stephen, in his speech before the Jewish Council, tells us that:

Acts 7:22 "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds."

Moses, the boy who had been born at such an inauspicious moment, is now a grown man of some standing. Egypt was the leading power of the day and Moses was a member of its influential classes. Nor was he a mere hanger-on but he was one of its bright members: Moses' future seems assured. He is now forty years old.

 Although Moses' has been educated as a member of the ruling Egyptian elite, he was fully aware that he was not himself Egyptian, he knew he was descended from the Hebrews who were currently a downtrodden people working as a slave labour force building the cities of the country.

One day he decided to go and visit his ancestral people. This turned out to be no casual visit. We are told that "he looked upon their burdens" v.11. This was no impartial fact-finding mission for Moses. What he saw moved him most profoundly – he saw an Egyptian taskmaster severely beating one of the Hebrew slaves – and Moses was greatly distressed by what he saw.

So far so good. Moses was right to be moved by the pitiful state to which his people had been reduced. He was right to be offended and grieved by the injustice of it all. Indifference in the face of horrible injustice is scandalous though it takes bravery and courage to do something about it. In this he was acting in just the same way that the LORD God Himself was to react when the cries of this people came to Him:

vv.24-25 "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw (same word used) the people of Israel––and God knew."

But unfortunately Moses, in his anguish, acted in a totally inappropriate manner which was to have enormous consequences. Bravery and courage are not enough – wisdom too is needed, God's wisdom.

With a hurried (furtive?) glace to the left and to the right to see if anyone was watching, Moses moved into action and meted out a beating of his own! His lifeless victim he quickly hides in the sand.

(The Hebrew word used to describe the Egyptian's treatment of the Hebrew slave is used of Moses treatment of the Egyptian and of the Hebrew slave mistreating his companion with yet another "beating" the following day!) In this way Moses is shown fundamentally no different from those whose behaviour he is trying to remedy or correct. Small wonder then that he was asked the question v.14 "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?" for he was indeed no better than anyone else.

The beating that Moses handed out was severe in the extreme – it caused the death of the Egyptian he struck.

Is this really the way to deal with evil? The NT teaches us another way of behaving:

Rom.12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Moses will in due course be made the deliverer of his people but not this way. Here, acting according to his own ideas, using his own physical force, he tries to deliver his people by means of murder and he assumes the people will understand that God is delivering them by his hand. But the people don't understand that at all! Indeed how can they when Moses is acting in exactly the same evil way as their oppressors! Moses will return years later to be the deliverer but then the deliverance he will bring will be of such a nature that will bring great and widespread glory to the LORD. Sordid murders and dissimulation are not God's way.

Moses had taken precautions hoping to keep events under wraps but to no avail. Later in another context he would pen words that would speak with a real poignancy:

Num.32:23 "your sin will find you out."

And all too often don't we still lamely hope that when do wrong we'll somehow be able to get away with it!

As soon as Moses realizes that the truth is out and that it has become known that he had killed the Egyptian he becomes afraid and with cause… it is not long before the news reaches Pharaoh's ears and Pharaoh is not pleased. He will not tolerate such action and a death warrant is issued – Moses must be executed!

Moses takes flight to save his skin. The Egyptians are against him and the Hebrews don't recognize him so off he runs to Midian, an area to the East of the Gulf of Aqaba – southern Jordan northern Saudi Arabia.

And still Moses sense of injustice burns brightly. He could have argued that this had got him into trouble before and that was enough but no he continues to react when confronted by injustice. Moses was a brave and courageous man. Seeing a group of shepherdesses being bullied by other shepherds Moses intervenes despite being outnumbered. Only this time we hear of no further murder.

What is the upshot of it all? Moses finds a wife, a family and a new home. He will live here quietly in obscurity for a further forty years before God's time comes for the deliverance of His people and Moses will be summoned to action.

That is the story that we have recounted to us in these verses. Now it is time to look a little more deeply into the whys and wherefores of it all.

 The NT never gives the slightest hint of approving of Moses resort to violence as he tackled the cruel Egyptian taskmaster. On the other hand some of the choices he made are thoroughly approved of. By these choices Moses indicated just where his ultimate loyalties lay.

Heb.11:24-26 "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."

While not all of the detail of what Moses did was right nevertheless the basic attitude of his heart was! He was animated by a vital living faith. Can the same be said of us?

There are a couple of things that we must take careful note of here from the fact that the Bible shows us clearly that Moses had faith and yet made mistakes.

1.       The presence of faith in a person does not guarantee sinless perfection in all that they do.

2.       The fact that a person makes wrong choices is not necessarily evidence of the absence of faith but may well be evidence of weak/immature faith.

Moses faith was very real. Living according to faith involved Moses in making choices that involved impressive sacrifice. We will never appreciate nor understand the choices he made unless we appreciate something of the faith that drove him.

Moses did what he did because he was a believer who believed.

ü  Moses believed the will and purposes that God had made known to Abraham and his descendants. This included mighty promises that had not yet been fulfilled though Moses understood that a portion of them at least was about to be fulfilled in his day. He counted upon this: God had spoken and Moses had faith in God's Word.

ü  Moses believed that God would keep His promises – what He had covenanted to do for His people He would surely do.

ü  Moses believed that with God nothing was impossible. The deliverance of Israel from the despair of Egyptian servitude might look too difficult to be achieved but the all-sufficiency of God was sufficient for Moses' faith.

ü  Moses believed in the wisdom of God and cast off what was wise according to this world. As Paul would later write: "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1Cor.1:25.

ü  Moses believed that God was merciful and would not inflict more bitterness on His people than absolutely necessary. Consequently Moses was prepared to embrace the way hardship if hardship was part of God's plan. 

Let's now turn to consider what faith was to cost Moses. We can do this by looking at the choices he made:

Firstly, at what he choose to give up and to refuse.

Secondly, at what he chose.

a.       Moses gave up rank and greatness or what we might call today privilege.

Many today live for power and influence, they long for the celebrity status of belonging to the in-crowd. Well Moses was an insider, all the contacts were his, what a glittering career lay open before this man who was "powerful in speech and in action". And he deliberately turned his back upon it all.

b.       Moses refused the pursuit of pleasure.

Egypt was an important nation and all that Egypt had to offer lay open before such a one as the daughter of Pharaoh's son. How easy it would have been for Moses to seek to satisfy "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life" 1Jn.2:16.

The exact form those pleasures take may change over time but there always have been those who will pursue pleasure to the detriment of all else. And there are still pleasure seekers aplenty in our world today – perhaps you are one of them – but Moses saw clearly the temptation that was involved and resisted. He refused pleasures that could only but be temporal, transitory and he gave them up.

c.        Moses refused the pursuit of wealth.

The treasures of Egypt were open to him and perhaps he had already experienced plenty of them already but he would not live for these things as though that summed up what life was all about. Did he know already that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil"? Just think of Egypt with its treasures Tutankhamen, the pyramids, the obelisks, the Temples etc. There was much worldly wealth in Egypt and Moses voluntarily turned his back upon it all.

A.       Moses chose suffering and hardship.

Egypt's court life was one of comfort and ease but Moses gave up on that preferring to associate with God's people even though their life was characterized by great hardships and privations.

B.       Moses chose the company of a despised people.

Moses didn't just feel sorry for the people of Israel and pity them from a distance. He didn't send some messages of comfort and visit occasionally knowing that at the end of the day he would return to the upper class society of the Egyptian elite. Rather he openly associated himself with them. In time their interests and concerns would be his interests and concerns.

C.       Moses chose the reproach and the scorn of turning from the things of the world that men esteem highly to embracing what the world despises.

Moses believed the Israelites to be the chosen people of God to whom belonged the adoption, the covenant, the promises and the glory. He believed that the promised Messiah would come to and through this people. The future indeed, unlikely though it might appear to human analysis, lay with this despised, downtrodden people. And Moses chose to be associated with them.

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that he chose the reproach of Christ as being of far greater value than could be offered to him by the greatest power of his day.

I wonder whether you see any relevance in all this to your life. Perhaps you just see it all as some interesting story belonging to a distant past but nothing more.

Don't you see that the same choices that confronted Moses confront you too today?

Just as Moses had to make serious choices that would so seriously impact his life so do you. You see you can't just add Jesus into your life as some kind of additional extra, an add-on. He comes as Lord to save you and to transform you. You can't take Jesus as some kind of insurance policy left to one side in a draw gathering dust. The Only Saviour there is is properly known by His full name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can't serve God and Mammon. Jesus will not come into to your to share it with other gods – the gods of power, pleasure, possessions etc. No, He comes to drive them all out, to sweep the house clean and to inhabit it by His Holy Spirit.

The choices Moses made were important and in his particular case stand out so starkly but in reality we all must choose. Do we really want Jesus Christ or do we not? Are we prepared to associate ourselves wholeheartedly with His downtrodden, despised people? The church – no respectability in being known as an evangelical – no they're the worse kind of enthusiasts! But yes, they are His people – are you throwing your lot in with them knowing that they live under God's blessing and promised blessings to come?

Let me close with a well-known quotation from the missionary martyr Jim Ellliot. Jim, who gave his life while serving the Indians of Ecuador, understood far better than I do what I've been trying to share with you this evening. He wrote "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

To God be the Glory.