Moses: Faith to Choose Reproach, Part 2 (Hebrews 11:24-26)

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Moses: Faith to Choose Reproach, Part 3 (Hebrews 11:24-26) | Worship Service

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Hebrews chapter 11, and to find your place there at verse 24.

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And before we begin, let's bow our head in prayer. Our Father, we rejoice in your goodness to us, and part of that goodness is your gift to us of your word, that you have revealed yourself in the pages of scripture.

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And we have sung now to you, and we have expressed the joys and delights, the sentiments of our heart in praise to you, and we pray now that through your word, you would speak to us, that you would open our eyes to the truth of your word, and open our hearts to be obedient and receptive to it.

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We pray for the gift of your spirit in illuminating your word to us, and help us to see our lives and ourselves in light of your truth, and help us to be encouraged today, we pray that you would grant us grace in our understanding, so that we may understand your word, but we pray that above all, that we may be edified and equipped and encouraged by it, and rebuked and reproved where necessary, that we would bring our lives into humble submission underneath the authority of your word, and that we may see clearly what it is that you have for us today, and we ask this in Christ's name, amen.

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The mindset and affections and priorities and the perspective of those who belong to Jesus Christ, when we live in obedience to the truth of scripture, it runs completely contrary to the spirit of the age and the path that the world takes.

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In fact, when the world sees Christians living as Christians and living in light of truth, it is the world has no way of explaining those priorities, no way of understanding or apprehending or trying to grasp the truth by which

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Christians live. They can't understand it. They see our priorities as completely inexplicable in this world, and the believer is forced, we are forced to choose between those things that we cannot be seen, and the world cannot see them either, and those things that the world can see, and loves, so when we choose the things which cannot be seen, and we live our lives in accordance with those things and in love with those things, the world has no way of explaining that.

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To the world, our priorities are insanity. Our disciplines are foolishness.

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The mortification of sin that we engage in in our pursuit of holiness is a wasted energy to them.

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It's unnecessary difficulty and inexplicable self -denial. The world looks at the

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Christian and says, how is it that you cannot care about the world's approval? How is it that you can turn your back on all of the world's treasures that the world offers to you?

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How is that possible? How is it that you could disregard the world's assessment of you? I mean, what if anything has any bearing, if not your life in this world, and you get only a certain number of trips around the sun, you might as well make the most of it, get the most out of it that you can.

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That is the mindset of the world. So when we turn our back on those things which we can see and which the world loves and embrace and love instead those things which cannot be seen, and the world cannot see them, and because the world cannot see them, they do not have a taste, they do not have a heart for, they do not have affections for those things.

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To them, that's just completely inexplicable. And one of the best and one of my favorite examples of this is the great preacher of Westminster Chapel, Dr.

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Martin Lloyd -Jones. Lloyd -Jones lived from 1899 to 1981, and he had a profound theological and preaching influence on Wales and in the

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United Kingdom during his ministry, and he continues to have one today through his written works and the published sermons that have come out even after his death.

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Lloyd -Jones was known for his clear thinking, his precision in the pulpit, and his theological acumen.

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He was a man of rare intellectual capacity, rare intellectual ability. In his early life, he pursued a career in medicine, and he excelled in his studies, and his professors, who were geniuses in their own right, were more than impressed with Lloyd -Jones' ability and his academics achievements, and by the age of 25, he had earned multiple medical degrees and had been accepted into the most prestigious academic circles and the most prestigious medical institutions of his day.

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He was becoming very well -known. He had distinguished himself even before he began to practice medicine.

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That is why he is affectionately known today as the doctor. You just refer to Martin Lloyd -Jones as the doctor.

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He was converted to Christ in his early 20s, and yet he left all of that to preach.

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He saw the church of his day as spiritually sick, anemic, weak, plagued by false doctrines and slothful pastors and devoid of biblical preaching, and to him, the remedy was clear.

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What the church needed was ambitious, authoritative, bold, unapologetic, biblical, theological, expository preaching.

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That's a mouthful, but all those words were necessary, because all of that is what the church needs in our own day as well.

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So Lloyd -Jones turned his back on everything that the world offered him so that he could give his life to preaching the word of God, and students of Lloyd -Jones will tell you that if he had chosen to stay in medicine instead, he would most certainly be well -known today as well.

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We would know his name today, but as a medical doctor instead of one of the most influential preaching theologians of the 19th century.

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We would still know of him today simply because of his genius and his intellect. He would have left his mark on history, and he certainly would have received every accolade and every treasure and every recognition and every distinguishment that the world could have heaped upon him for his natural abilities.

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But he chose rather to labor for the spiritual benefit of the people of God and to face the world's opposition than to enjoy the approval and the accolades of the world and the worldly intellectual peers, and he walked away from riches in order to serve the church.

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Walked away from riches. He had a job, he had a career path that would have printed money for him, and he walked away from that so he could pastor a church, and this mystified those who were close to him.

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It was inexplicable. You would have to say that he was insane. What would cause a man who, with such an intellect, such a skill, such a natural ability, to turn away from all that the world would offer to lavish upon him for those natural abilities and his intellectual capacity, and instead to embrace a humble, and it was a humble in the early days.

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It wasn't Westminster Chapel. It was another church that he pastored in Wales, and it was just a small group of people.

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What would cause somebody to leave all of that behind and instead choose such a lowly, humble, insignificant, ignominious path ahead of him?

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What would cause him to do that? You'd have to say, by the world's assessment, that the man was mad, crazy, insane, all three of those and a whole bunch of other words that you could find in the source next to insane.

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He was that. Or Lloyd -Jones saw something that nobody else could see.

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Those are your two options. He's either crazy or he saw something that nobody else could see.

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He saw that it would be better to serve Christ than to receive all the treasures that the world could offer him.

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Lloyd -Jones was such a man, and Moses was such a man, and Moses is the subject of our passage beginning in verse 24.

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We looked last week, and we'll just read verses 24 through 26. We looked last week at verse 24. Let's read it together.

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By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

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Now, by faith, Moses had to choose between two peoples, Israel and Egypt, two positions, slavery or royalty, and two prizes, reproach or treasure.

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That was Moses' choice. And last week, we looked at his choice of peoples. He chose

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Israel over Egypt. He rejected Egypt's royalty and the status of the empire that he had every right to, being the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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He had all of the honors and the accolades, the respect and the riches that Egypt could have lavished upon him, and yet he denied that dynasty and turned away from it so that he may embrace instead

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God's calling for him to be among the covenant people of God and to be their deliverer. And this was not a small choice for Moses.

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It would have been a costly choice, an immensely costly choice, because it would involve not just sacrificing everything that the world could offer him, but it would have involved doing some hurt and some emotional hurt for certain to those who were close to him.

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And it certainly estranged him from Egypt, a people and a dynasty and a family that had given him everything that it could have given him as he was growing up as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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So he chose a people, Israel, over Egypt. Today, we're looking at Moses' choice between two positions, royalty over slavery.

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Now, you might say that these are really the same choice. You're just repeating to us everything that you chose, you said last week.

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Last week, you said he chose Israel, which is a slave nation, over Egypt, which was a royal nation, and now you're telling us that he chose slavery over royalty.

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Well, there's a bit of an overlap here, but it is actually two distinct things in this regard.

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Choosing Israel over Egypt was not like you just chose which ethnicity you wanted to be part of in an otherwise equal circumstance.

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It wasn't like that. It wasn't like choosing, am I going to be a citizen of the US or of Canada, two, for the most part, very similar nations.

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More similarity between those two nations than there is, say, between being a member of the US as opposed to a citizen of Sudan, for instance.

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It's not like he was just choosing two nations, either one of which he could have been a doctor or a lawyer or a prince or a king.

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And it's not as if Moses was choosing just merely between two ethnic identifications or two national identifications.

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Imagine a modern -day parallel. Well, imagine a little Mexican baby is adopted by an

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Irish family. Some of you are grinning because you think I'm gonna get in trouble with this illustration, but I'm not going to,

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I promise you. Okay, a little Mexican baby is adopted by an Irish family. And little

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Eddie grows up in that Irish family and he gets to enjoy and he develops a taste for corned beef and cabbage and coal cannon and all the stuff that the

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Irish enjoy because he grows up with them. But then there comes a point in Eddie's life where he has to choose between, shall

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I be known as Eddie O'Malley or should I be known as Eddie Hernandez? And any similarities to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

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But he has to make that choice for himself. And you say, well, Eddie could choose to be known as Eddie O'Malley and embrace his

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Irish ethnicity and his Irish upbringing if he wanted to, even though clearly you can see from Eddie O'Malley's appearance that he's anything but Irish.

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You might say that he could be Eddie O'Malley and yet still he could be a doctor, still he could be a lawyer, still he could be an engineer, he could be anything, he'd be

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President of the United States or Eddie could choose to be known as Eddie Hernandez and be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or President of the

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United States. Moses's choice between being Moses son of Pharaoh's daughter and Moses son of Abraham was not that kind of a choice.

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It wasn't merely an ethnic identity or a national affiliation that Moses chose. Instead it was the choice between being a devotee of the one true

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God or being a devotee of Pharaoh and his gods. So it's not just an ethnic choice.

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It is choosing slavery and being identified with God's people over being identified with the royal people of Egypt.

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Moses's ethnic identity was known to Pharaoh. Pharaoh didn't have a problem with that. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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Pharaoh's daughter knew when she picked him up and saw him in the basket, this is one of the Hebrew's children. She knew that. That wasn't hidden from Pharaoh, Pharaoh knew that.

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Pharaoh didn't have a problem with Moses's ethnic identity. Pharaoh would have a problem with Moses's spiritual affiliation.

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You see it wasn't the fact that Moses descended from Hebrews that Pharaoh would have had an issue with. Pharaoh had no problem with Moses being a descendant of Abraham.

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But Pharaoh would have had a problem with Moses being a devotee of Abraham's God. That is where the divide stops.

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So it's not just merely an ethnic affiliation that Moses is choosing. It is a spiritual commitment that Moses made.

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And that spiritual commitment made him completely unwelcome in the polite society of Egypt. Notice in verse 24 it says, by faith when he had grown up, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and he chose rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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The refusing and the choosing in verses 24 and 25, these are two sides of the same coin.

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To do one, that is to refuse something, is to choose something else. Because Moses had two and only two choices.

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And they could be in no way amalgamated or syncretized together so as to make some third option.

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Moses had to choose between Yahweh or Egypt's gods. He had to choose between slavery or royalty.

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He had to choose between the treasures of this world or the reproaches of Christ. Those were his two options. And he couldn't have both.

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He couldn't put them together and say, I'll spiritually identify with the people of Israel and then

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I will physically identify in all of the luxury with the people of Egypt. That was not an option for Moses.

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There were two sides of the same coin to embrace. One was to forfeit the other. The people of God or the people of Egypt, Israel or Egypt, slave nation or royalty, son of Abraham or son of Pharaoh's daughter,

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Canaan or Egypt, Yahweh's covenant, Pharaoh's comforts, yes to one was no to the other and no to one was yes to the other.

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It was a binary decision. And much regarding our affiliation, our spiritual commitments in the land and the nation and the environment in which we live is also a binary decision.

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If you are to obey God, it means that you will deny the world. If you are to follow Christ, it means you will take up your cross and you will follow him.

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If you're going to turn to God, you must turn from idols. If you are repenting, it means you must turn from sin.

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These are all choices. These are all crucial points in our lives, decisions that we must make, choices that are confronted, bring us that we confront in our lives.

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And there are only two options and there is a cost of choosing in both of those. You can embrace the pleasures of sin but it will cost you the rewards of righteousness.

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You can't have both. You can't have the eternal rewards of righteousness and the passing pleasures of sin in this life.

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You have to choose which one of those you're gonna embrace. You have to choose which one of those you want. What are you going to live for?

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If you put off the old man, you have to put on the new man. If you're going to do the will of God, you can't do the will of the devil. If you're gonna do the will of the devil, then you can't do the will of God.

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You can serve God or you can serve mammon. Jesus said, you're either a wheat or you're tares, you're either a sheep or you're a goat.

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There's only two options, there's only two choices. We are confronted all the time in our Christian life and in living in this world with binary decisions.

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There are two options and no third option. And so in many ways and in many environments, we run up against the exact same kind of decision that Moses had to make.

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You can choose sin and indulge your flesh but it will cost you a clean conscience, peace with God, rewards of obedience, the joy of a clean conscience.

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It will cost you shame, guilt, remorse, the loss of fellowship, loss of joy and blessing. Those are just the temporal costs.

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That's to say nothing of the eternal cost. So you choose obedience, you get righteousness and you become a slave of righteousness.

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If you choose sin, you lose out on all of the temporal and eternal rewards of righteousness.

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You can live for the approval of men or the approval of God, the world's pleasure or God's pleasure, live for financial rewards or rewards in this life, temporary rewards, pleasures of sin or you can live for righteousness and the eternal rewards.

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And sometimes the trade -offs are eternal. Moses clearly paid a cost. Sin promises always, sin promises a reward with no cost.

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That is always the promise of sin and it is always a lie. You can have this and it will cost you nothing.

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It's nothing but pleasure and there's no cost on the other side of it. That is always sin's tantalizing allurement and it is always a lie.

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Every single time it is a lie. And no matter how often we fall for it, we keep making the same mistake.

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Every time we choose that, we choose the inferior, the lesser thing and it costs us something and it costs us sometimes things temporal, sometimes things eternal and yet sin always extracts its cost and there are trade -offs.

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Sin promises pleasure but at no price and it is a lie because sin always costs us something.

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But faith, the eye of faith, in Moses' case, in Lloyd -Jones' case and in your case, the eye of faith will be able to see something that is unseen.

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That is the eye of faith sees the reward of obedience and the cost of disobedience. That's what's unseen to us.

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You can't necessarily see that. You see, we set our hope on a reward that is to come and we say if I'm obedient, I receive this reward.

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The reward and what is to come is unseen to us. It's not tangible but in the eye of faith,

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I see that thing as if it actually exists. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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So Moses was able to see what nobody else was able to see, namely the eternal and temporal cost of disobedience, being involved in the sin for a season, the temporary pleasures of Egypt and he was able to see the eternal and lasting rewards and the true value of the suffering that would come to him as a result of his spiritual affiliation with the people of God.

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And now at the end, if you choose disobedience and we choose sin, then we have our reward which is pleasure and notice that the author doesn't try and convince us here that sin is not pleasurable.

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It certainly is. Sin is pleasurable. There are certain allurements to sin that promise us this reward and promise us this pleasure, always with the hope that it won't cost us anything, always with the expectation that we will pay no price but the author is not trying to convince us that sin is agony.

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Look, if sin were miserable in the moment, how many of you would ever sin? No, if every time you sinned, you were miserable the entire time that you did it and agonizing and screeching out in pain, that wouldn't be enticing at all.

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There's no allurement to that but it is pleasurable. There is pleasure but it is a passing pleasure and even that pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure is what

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Solomon referred to as vanity, Ecclesiastes 2, one to two and I hate to bring up Ecclesiastes again but here we are. I said to myself, come now,

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I will test you with pleasure so enjoy yourself and behold, it too is futility. I said of laughter, it's madness and of pleasure, what does it accomplish?

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Now keep in mind, this is a man who lacked no ability to bring himself pleasure if he wanted to.

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In fact, he describes it, Ecclesiastes 2, verses eight through 11. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.

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I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men, many concubines. Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.

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My wisdom also stood by me. All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.

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Thus I considered all my activities, all of the pleasure, all of the pursuit of pleasure, thus I considered all of my activities which my hands had done and the labor with which

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I had exerted and behold, all was vanity and striving after the wind and there was no profit under the sun.

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This is from a man who had both the means and the time to indulge every pleasure imaginable and he gets to the end of it and he says, what is it?

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There's a prophet. It's all vanity. You know why? Because he did not understand or see what

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Moses saw, namely that it is the passing pleasures of sin, that they're temporary.

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If you can grasp that, it's a bulwark against sin. Notice what the author says.

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He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure treatment, ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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Notice those two words, enduring and enjoying. Obedience was to endure ill treatment with the people of God and obedience was to refuse to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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Endure and enjoy. Now, just for a moment, think about just those two words themselves. Those two words communicate something to you, don't they?

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If I just asked you in a vacuum, you had no idea what else I was talking about but I said to you, would you rather endure something or enjoy something?

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What would you choose? You'd say, I'd rather enjoy something than endure something because just the idea of enduring itself suggests discomfort, it connotes suffering.

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The idea of enjoying something suggests pleasure or joy or at least having delight in something.

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And you would question the sanity of anybody who would choose, oh, who would say, I'd rather endure than enjoy anything.

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I don't like enjoyment, I just like enduring difficult things. That type of person actually enjoys enduring difficult things.

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So in choosing the difficult thing, they would be actually choosing what? Enjoyment. But just those two words, not to get too philosophical with you, but just those two words alone in a vacuum, if I asked you, would you rather endure or would you rather enjoy something?

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You would lean toward enjoying something but then you would have to say, but hold on a second, there's other questions that need to be answered before I can answer this question intelligently.

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Like for instance, what is it that I'm suffering? I'd need to know that. What is it that I'm going to endure?

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How long am I going to endure this? Is there a reward for enduring this?

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What am I enduring this for? What am I suffering for? And what is it that is to be enjoyed? And how long does the enjoyment last?

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And what is the cost of enjoying it? Those are all questions that a wise person would want to have answered before you could answer the question, would you rather endure something or enjoy something?

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What is it? How long is it for? What is the cost slash reward? I need to have those questions answered.

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In fact, those are the very considerations that are in view in our passage that determine whether or not

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Moses was the world's biggest fool or truly a hero of the faith. And the passage just so happens to answer some of those very questions.

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Let's look at it. Ill treatment versus pleasure. Now this adds a little bit of information to it, right? Would you rather endure the ill treatment?

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Would you rather endure ill treatment or would you rather enjoy pleasure? Endure ill treatment.

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Now you say, Jim, you asked me if I'd rather endure or enjoy. I can't really answer that, but now you tell me what it is that I'm enduring and what it is that I'm enjoying, and this adds a little bit of clarity.

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Now I can make a decision. Now I understand that it is enduring ill treatment. I wouldn't want that, again. That kind of confirms my bias or my presupposition that whatever is being endured is difficult, and the other choice is enjoying pleasure.

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That kind of suggests, again, that I was right on in assuming that if I'm enjoying something, it must be good. So now you've kind of painted these two pictures.

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That helps me decide. Of course, I would rather enjoy the pleasure than endure the ill treatment.

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Okay, but that doesn't answer all of the questions, does it? Because now we have to ask, what is the pleasure and what is the ill treatment and what is the result of that?

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So look at verse 25 again. Choosing to endure ill treatment with the people of God than the passing pleasures of sin.

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Now here's where the whole equation flips, isn't it? If it's just enduring ill treatment or enjoying pleasure,

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I'll take pleasure 100 % of the time. But what makes the equation all of a sudden flip on its head is this little piece of information,

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I'm enduring ill treatment with the people of God, and the pleasure comes attached to sin.

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Suddenly that balance on the scales switches, and now the person of faith, the righteous one, says that I would rather endure than enjoy.

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You see, in a vacuum, you have to be almost maniacal to choose enduring ill treatment over enjoying pleasure, but in this context, since the ill treatment is with the people of God and the pleasure is attached to sin, suddenly now the scales are switched.

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Now you can see why it is that Moses chose to do what he chose to do. See, it's not the pleasures are not just any pleasures, but they're the pleasures of sin.

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They're the passing, temporary, temporal pleasures of sin.

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And the ill treatment is not just any ill treatment, it's ill treatment with the people of God, which means that these people are his covenant people, these people are the people of his blessing, the people of his presence, the people of his destiny, the people upon which

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God has promised to lavish these blessings, and if that's who I'm going to align myself, and it means ill treatment, I'll choose that, and I would frankly choose to pass up on the passing pleasures of sin.

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So suddenly the equation has changed, and Moses chose to endure ill treatment with the people of God.

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That full phrase explains why it is that that was preferable to Moses. Yes, it was ill treatment, but it was ill treatment to the people of God.

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And yes, I'm passing up pleasure, but it's the pleasures of sin, because Moses saw what nobody else saw, namely the cost and the reward behind both of those two options.

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So he chose ill treatment. The text is not specific about what ill treatment Moses received.

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I think it was last week, we went back and looked at him being hunted and hated by Pharaoh when he had cast his lot in with the

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Jewish people and sort of drawn his line in the Egyptian sand, as it were, and stepped across that and said, these are my people. When he did that,

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Pharaoh set out to kill him, because that was Pharaoh's indication to Pharaoh of where Moses' sympathies lie.

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And when he did that, Pharaoh hunted him and hated him, and it ended up costing Moses not just his place in Egyptian royalty, but also any comforts or convenience, because he immediately went out into the desert to the

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Midianites, and to Midian, and started shepherding sheep, and he lived out there for 40 years away from any of the royalty or the comforts that he had enjoyed.

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And he had suffered reproach, because you can bet yourself that Pharaoh and the daughter of Pharaoh and anybody associated with Pharaoh's court and Pharaoh's household and Pharaoh's military leadership all would have stood around for years after and would say, can you believe the choice that Moses made?

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That guy had to be insane to choose that. And he would have endured the reproach, it says, of Christ, verse 26, he considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt.

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That should be of great encouragement to us. Reproach is one of the hardest things to bear up under, isn't it?

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Physical suffering is difficult, it's challenging. But when people that you love and care for and they care for you, when they reproach your good name, when they slander you and they blaspheme you and they say evil things against you for Christ's sake, when they do that, that's one of the most difficult things to endure.

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Moses chose to endure the reproaches of Christ rather than to enjoy the treasures of Egypt. And the original readers of the book of Hebrews here, remember they had endured the seizure of their property and time in prison and being excluded from polite society.

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And Moses' spiritual affiliation cost him his royal position. The early first century Christians, their affiliation with Jesus Christ cost them their friends, their family, their businesses, sometimes their dwellings, their possessions.

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But they gladly are commanded here to embrace the reproach and be willing to abandon all the treasures of this world if necessary, if called upon, to be obedient to God.

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So choosing Israel was not just a national affiliation for Moses, it was a spiritual affiliation as well.

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It was Moses saying, these people are my people, their God is my God, their destiny is my destiny, their hope is my hope, their land, it's my land.

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And if Egypt hates them, then let them hate me. If Egypt is going to scorn them and reject them, then let

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Egypt scorn and reject me. We are faced in America with very similar choices and very similar circumstances.

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The culture around us is requiring us to affirm their paganism, and we are reaching a point where you are going to be required to affirm sexual perversions and celebrate sinful choices and to bow the knee to Baal and do worship and homage to Moloch in order to function in polite society.

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We're approaching a time in our nation, in our culture, when faithfulness to the truth will mean your exclusion from polite society.

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For the world and the spirit of the age will demand that you comply or leave, and they will persecute you for your political views.

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Now, they're not political views, they're just issues of truth and reality. They will persecute you for recognizing something that all of human history has recognized for 6 ,000 years, that is, that there are men and women, and that's it.

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Now, that's not a political view, that's just anybody who's mildly observant, anybody who has a functioning cerebral cortex can understand that.

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All of human history has acknowledged that. We understand what is moral and immoral, the law of God is written on our hearts, and so when we affirm these things, we're not on a political agenda, but the world is gonna call it a political agenda so that they can tell you that you have religious freedom, but we're only persecuting, or we're only not accepting your unacceptable views.

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We have had, within the last few months, the leader of Canada say that certain people are not allowed to have what he called unacceptable views.

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We cannot tolerate unacceptable views. That happens to be just views about reality and truth.

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They're not political in nature. Some of these views are just views that we have because we can observe the world around us, and because we have the law written on our hearts.

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So we are approaching a time in our own nation, and the day is coming, when you will not be allowed to affirm a biblical worldview, to associate with believers, to give your money to a church, to support

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Christian or godly causes, and get an accredited degree, get a license to run a business, rent a venue, host an event, drive a car, have a job, buy at the grocery store.

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Eventually, the world will make it really easy to distinguish between those who are able to buy and sell and those who are not.

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But eschatology is not my subject for this morning. We'll go past that. Are you ready for a time, dear

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Christian, when you, because of your commitment to the truth, are not allowed to be a lawyer, a police officer, an actor, an author, a firefighter, a doctor, an engineer, a teacher, an airline pilot, a business executive, a business owner, or the principal of a school?

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Because you have unacceptable views, and your unacceptable views are gonna make you as welcome in our society as Moses was in Pharaoh's.

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Now, am I a prophet? Am I the son of a prophet? I'm none of that, but I have read a history book, and all you have to do is read a history book to find out, to know how all of this ends.

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So unless there is some radical change, unless there is some alteration in the course of this nation, through revival, or through some destruction, or something that happens, this is the direction that we are headed.

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You will not be able to go to college, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or anything else, unless you bow the knee to Baal and worship

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Moloch. And if you don't think that that is true, it was only 10, I don't know, 12, 15 years ago that Brandon Eich, the founder of Mozilla, gave a couple million dollars to support

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Proposition 8 in California, which just affirmed reality, that there are men and women, and that marriage is what marriage is, and he supported that amendment, and for that he was run out of his own business, the one that he founded.

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The spirit of the age will not tolerate dissent, even from its own. Brandon Eich is not a right -winger.

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Brandon Eich is not running for president. He was not on Trump's transition team, or anything like that, but he gave money toward something that did not fit the narrative, it was not acceptable, and so the response of academia, and the response of the media, the response of the culture was, you can't have a company, you cannot be the

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CEO of a company with those hateful views. They're not hateful, but you can't have that.

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So, you and I better get used to the idea that our children and our grandchildren, they're not gonna be doctors, they're not gonna be executives, they're not gonna be

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CEOs, because unless the spirit of the age changes, or takes a massive hit, this is the direction that it is going.

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We are going to be excluded from polite society by virtue of our view of the truth, and we're not going to be welcome in those circles, and you and I have to not only be ready for it, prepared for it, don't panic, but have joy in it, and embrace the reproach that comes, because that's what we're called to.

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So, will you bow the knee to Baal, and embrace the treasures of this world, receive the treasures of this world, or will you stand for truth, and be excluded from polite society, and embrace instead the reproaches of Christ?

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Matthew, Henry said, Moses was willing to take his lot with the people of God here, though it was a suffering lot, that he might have his portion with them hereafter, rather than to enjoy all the sensual, sinful pleasures of Pharaoh's court, which would be but for a season, and he would then be punished with everlasting misery.

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See, nobody in their right mind would well as suffering for suffering's sake, but if suffering is the path of obedience, if it ends in a great and eternal reward, if it is in fact that which

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God has called us to, then suffering is the most rational, the most logical, the most reasonable, the most normal, and the most genuine thing that we could possibly embrace.

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Suffering for the sake of suffering is no virtue, but suffering or being excluded from polite society for the sake of the truth is not just virtuous, it's our calling, especially as our society continues to reject truth at every turn and on every level.

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What did it cost Moses? It cost him the temporary pleasures of sin, sinful pleasures, and he had plenty of them afforded to him by his wealth and his position.

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Royalty offered him indulgences and opportunities to indulge his fleshly desires that few other men would have had, and like Solomon, he had access to whatever he wanted.

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Now, let's be clear, there's no record that Moses ever lived a lascivious or immoral lifestyle as an

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Egyptian citizen. There's no record that he did that. So we shouldn't think that just because he lived 40 years as the son of Pharaoh's daughter that he lived a debauched and reprobate life for 40 years.

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In fact, I think, this is my suspicion, I think it was probably Moses's continual refusal to do that over the long haul, like Joseph, who was petitioned by Potiphar's wife day after day after day, week after week for a long period of time before it finally came to a head and had to be dealt with.

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I think it was probably Moses's continual, faithful refusal to do that that eventually brought the whole thing to a crisis, and he finally had to say, no,

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I can't have that, I refuse to have that. Instead, if this is the choice you're gonna give me, if this is the line you're gonna draw on the sand, then

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I'll step over it, and I will take my place with the people of God. And I'll suffer there rather than to endure and to enjoy all of the passing temporal pleasures of sin that last just for a season.

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The word pleasures here is not necessarily a word that is sinful or always means something sinful, it actually has no moral quality to it whatsoever.

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It's used twice in the New Testament, once here where it describes something negative, the pleasures of sin, but it's also used in a positive way in 1

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Timothy chapter six, verse 17. Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

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That's the same word translated as pleasures here, it's all things to enjoy. It means enjoyment. God is the giver of all enjoyments.

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Every enjoyment that we have comes from his hand. So not all enjoyments and not all pleasures are sinful.

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Pleasures that lead to sin, pleasures that cause us to sin or require us to sin to enjoy them, those are sinful pleasures.

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Those are pleasures derived through sinful compromise. But we may enjoy some good things and good pleasures from God's hand without sinning.

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Not every pleasure in Pharaoh's court was a sinful pleasure, understand that. There's nothing sinful about being comfortable.

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There's nothing sinful about hiring people to wait on you hand and foot. That's not sinful. It's not sinful to enjoy good food or good drink or entertainment or ease or wealth or privilege.

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None of those things are sinful. But food, though it might direct our attention toward God as the giver of every good gift, food, when abused, becomes a sinful pleasure.

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Comfort and ease, when abused, become a sinful comfort and ease. It becomes laziness or apathy or sloth.

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Good drink becomes a sinful pleasure when we indulge to the point of drunkenness. Our wealth or our ability to buy things becomes sinful pleasure when we waste or spend it on the wrong things.

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So all of the good delights that God gives us can become sinful when they are used wrongly or used to a wrong end.

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For instance, if Moses was required to compromise the truth or compromise his knowledge of who God is and what

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God expected in order to enjoy those pleasures, even though those pleasures were not sinful, then that would have become a sinful pleasure.

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In other words, if Pharaoh said, look, we have a banquet table here full of food. In order to enjoy that, you have to bow the knee to Baal.

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Or it wasn't Baal at the time, but whatever the Egyptian god was. The big stone cat that is out in the foyer.

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If you're gonna enjoy the table set with all this lavish food, you're gonna have to bow down and do homage to the big cat out there in the foyer.

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Well, Moses could have reasoned to himself, there's nothing wrong with a table full of food. I've stepped up to hundreds of tables full of food.

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This is a good gift from Yahweh. Yahweh gives me this gift. I can enjoy it with a clean conscience. I can go and eat everything that's on that table or pick my things on that table and enjoy a good meal and satisfy myself, and none of that would have been sinful.

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That pleasure would not have been sinful, but what would have been sinful is to take that pleasure at the expense of the sin, bowing the knee to the big stone cat out in the foyer.

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That would have made that sinful. So if Moses had to proclaim his fealty to a pagan god or reject or deny his, enjoy those pleasures, then it certainly would have been sinful.

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The passing pleasure in this life is the very best thing that sin has to offer.

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Listen to this carefully. Passing pleasure in this life is the very best thing that sin has to offer. Eternal judgment is the worst thing that sin has to offer.

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And ill treatment in this life is the worst thing that true religion has to offer.

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And eternal joy is the best thing that true religion has to offer. The eyes of faith will see that equation.

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They will see that truth and realize that the very best that I have to get in this life brings me destruction and judgment in the next.

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And the very worst that I could have in this life brings me an eternal reward in the next.

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Both of these things are temporary, the ill treatment and the pleasure. Don't miss that. It's not just that the pleasure is passing, but the ill treatment is passing as well.

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That's only temporary. Matthew Henry said, suffering is to be chosen rather than sin. There being more evil in the least sin than there can be in the greatest suffering.

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Listen to that carefully. Suffering is to be chosen over the least sin because there is more evil in the least sin than there is in the greatest suffering.

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Suffering cannot damn you, but sin always does. Suffering cannot cost you a clean conscience, but sin always does.

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Suffering cannot take away your peace or rob you of intimacy, assurance, joy, or a clean conscience, but sin always does those things.

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So therefore, if you have to choose between the least sin or the greatest suffering, it is always better to choose the greater suffering than the least sin because the least sin is more evil than anything you can endure during suffering or anything suffering can cause.

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And notice that it is a passing. It is temporal. These are both short -lived. The pleasures were passing because, listen, they were

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Egypt's pleasures and Egypt was passing away. Because Egypt was temporary and Egypt was passing, everything that it offered was also temporary and passing.

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But here's the good news for you and I who are in Jesus Christ and because of what we get to expect and look forward to in the life that is to come and the reward that is offered to us, that in the resurrection, you and I get not passing pleasures, but eternal joys and eternal pleasures forevermore.

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This is what Moses could see that nobody else could see, that the pleasures are temporary, but the lot that belongs to the righteous because of God's promises to them, this is truly eternal.

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In fact, in that Psalm, and this is only to be had, not in this life, but this is only to be had in the life that is to come in the resurrection.

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Psalm 16, which describes the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in a prophecy, David wrote, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your

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Holy One to undergo decay. Familiar with those words? You find it in Acts chapter two, Acts chapter 13. It's an

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Old Testament prophecy of the resurrection of the Messiah. David himself expressing hope that he would rise again, that he would not ultimately perish in the grave forever, but that there would be a resurrection.

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But because David spoke this, he was looking forward to the one who was to come who would fulfill this in the ultimate sense, the precursor to all of the resurrection, the firstfruits of the resurrection, the

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Lord Jesus Christ himself, the greater son of David. So David describes prophetically the resurrection, and here is his hope.

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Very next verse, verse 11, Psalm 16, you will make known to me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy.

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In your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. That is his hope. In your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

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So what do you want? The passing pleasures of sin for time and eternal misery, or do you want pleasure forevermore and some temporary discomfort?

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That choice is clear, but only somebody with the eyes of faith can see it. By faith, Moses saw what is unseen.

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He saw the cost of Egypt's comforts. He saw the rewards of God's covenant, the temporal and eternal loss that sin's pleasure brings, the temporal and eternal rewards that joy and obedience bring, and he was assured of what he hoped for.

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He was confident of what he could not see because he believed in a God who rewards those who diligently seek him, and so he chose the people of God over the enemies of God.

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He chose eternal rewards and obedience over the temporary pleasures of sin and disobedience.

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May God grant us the grace to do the same. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness to us in Jesus Christ and for the promise of a resurrection that is to come and the hope of eternal life, eternal reward, and pleasures forevermore.

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We pray that you would use these truths in your word to comfort and encourage our hearts, to make us stand upon the truth, to give us a boldness and a love for the truth, and to set our affection on the things that are to come.

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We pray that in all that we do and in all that we say and in all that we prioritize that we may reflect this biblical faith -filled mindset for the glory of Christ our