Forsaking The World (Faith - Part IV)

I don't know how many of you saw the demonically -inspired opening ceremonies for the

Olympic Games in Paris, but it's just becoming more obvious these days that the world is, you know, they're taking off the mask, they're dropping all pretense, they're very clear that they have an agenda that's against God.

They hate God. They hate Jesus Christ. They mocked the

Last Supper during the opening ceremonies. They kind of pledged their allegiance to the

God of this age. And I only mention that because it's just so very clear now, the distinction between the world and believers in Christ.

Okay, just oil and water, black and white, polar opposites. So we need to live a life that is set apart from the world.

Very essential. And we see in this passage that Moses, because Moses lived, grew up in Egypt, there came a time in his life where he needed to make a decision, am

I going to be part of Egyptian culture? Am I going to be part of, because Egypt is a picture of the world in the

Bible. Am I going to be part of Egypt, part of the world, or am I going to stand with the people of God?

That was the decision Moses had to make. Look at verses 24 and 25, it says, by faith

Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

So Moses had a choice to embrace Egypt, to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin for a season, or he could stand against Egypt and side with the

Lord and his people. We know what Moses did. The question is, what are we going to do? Are we just going to be another cog in the wheel?

Or are we going to say yes to God and live a life set apart unto him? So let's begin reading

Hebrews 11, starting in verse 20, it says, by faith,

Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith,

Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, that's out of Egypt, and gave instructions concerning his bones.

By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw that he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's command.

Verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

You realize Moses could have lived, he could have lived literally like a king for the rest of his life.

Anything he wanted, live like a prince. He was a prince. He chose not to do that.

Why? Why? Why? Verse 25, because he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

You know, this is a significant statement, the passing pleasure of sin.

Normally, in the Bible, we're used to, when the Bible talks about sin, it talks about it as a bad thing, something to be avoided, right?

But here, it talks about how sin is what? It's pleasurable.

If it wasn't pleasurable, people wouldn't do it, right? This is why people do it, because it feels good for the moment, okay?

Some translations will say passing pleasure of sin for a season, because it feels good in the moment, but what does it lead to later on?

All the repercussions. So you know, you play at first, but you pay later.

Moses understood that on some level, so he decided to forsake

Egypt. Verse 26, why? Because he esteemed the reproach of Christ.

That is, he viewed suffering with Christ to be greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

So he looked forward towards the reward. What's the reward? Well, the reward is eternal life.

Going back to Abraham, who waited for the city, which has foundations, speaking of the heavenly city,

New Jerusalem. So the reward is eternal life with God, we say, you know, in heaven or whatever you say, new heaven, new earth, that is the reward.

So Moses, we see on some level understood salvation, heaven.

We don't know how much he knew, but he knew something. Just to address this one question people have, they'll say, how could

Moses esteem the reproach of Christ when he didn't even know about Christ?

Well, he may not have known the name Jesus Christ, that's true, but he did know some things.

After all, he would speak in the future of a prophet who was to come, one greater than himself.

So somehow, probably by oral tradition, Moses understood something about God and redemption.

And he knew he had a choice, either stay with the world, stay with Egypt or forsake it and go with the people of God.

You know, today in the church, we're so blessed to have the faith once for all delivered to the saints, as Jude puts it.

So we kind of have all the facts accessible to us right here in the Bible. Moses didn't have that, but he knew enough.

He knew he had a choice. And there comes a time and a lot of people, you know, they grow up, maybe they grow up in a worldly home or they grow up in a

Christian home, but you're still in the world. There comes a time where even if you're brought up as a

Christian, you come of age and you need to make that choice for yourself, right? Even if a kid is baptized at a very young age, it really doesn't matter, there still is a point in time where they choose for themselves that this isn't my parents' faith, it's my faith.

And that time came with Moses. So either the choice was either obey

God and follow his will for his life and receive the reward or go with the passing pleasures of sin for a season.

And then I think Moses knew enough that that would forfeit. He would forfeit eternal life.

But because he had faith, look at verse 27, by faith, Moses forsook

Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

In the Bible, Egypt, as I said, is used as a picture of the world. So if Moses forsook

Egypt, that can be seen as symbolic for hopefully us desiring, choosing to forsake the world.

Now, did Moses actually leave Egypt? Well, he did for a time, but if you remember, he left, you know, something happened.

He saw the Egyptian mistreating one of his own people. That was a real turning point in his life.

Remember what he did? He defended the Hebrew and he killed the Egyptian, which, you know, maybe that wasn't the right thing to do.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But that event caused Moses to flee Egypt.

He had to run for his life and he went out into the wilderness and he dwelt there for 40 years.

But when he encountered God at the burning bush, you remember what God told him to do? God sent

Moses back to Egypt. So he left, but God told him to go back.

But did God tell him, hey, go back and try to get your position back as prince? No. The Lord told

Moses to go back and now he would stand against the powers that be.

He went back to Egypt and he told Pharaoh, we know the story, let my people go.

And of course, Pharaoh didn't listen, but God fought for Moses and God defended his people.

Now this is all a little foretaste of what will happen in the future, by the way. Anyone who has studied the book of Revelation knows that when you read the story of Moses and Pharaoh and the plagues, all of that really is a type or a shadow of the plagues that are listed in the book of Revelation.

So Moses was reluctant to fight this battle, but because he had faith, he followed through.

And it's all just kind of showing us a picture of what's going to happen in the future. But he had faith.

He had faith in the invisible God. Look at verse 27. Another translation puts verse 27 this way.

It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king's anger.

He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is what invisible.

You know, so this is a series on the subject of faith and we're talking about faith. We talked about what is faith, you know, faith is what, what does it say in Hebrews chapter 11, verse one, it gives us the definition.

Faith is the substance of things, hope for the evidence of things not seen.

Okay. So you can't see it. If you could see it, you really wouldn't need faith. It would be right there.

So we talked about what is faith and then we talked about why faith is necessary, but now we're looking more at the results of faith.

So Moses trusted in God, even though God is a invisible, perhaps this is the most obvious reason why we need faith because we can't see

God. You know, there's people who say, well, if I could just see God, if he just appeared to me, then I'd believe in him.

Well, probably not. But we can see

God at work. Can we not? I just think of Hebrews chapter 11, this whole story, the whole story of the children of Israel is a massive picture of God at work.

You cannot deny God at work. When you look at the story of the

Jewish people, how they existed and how they've been able to really retain their heritage, even after all this time, what

God did through them in and through them is nothing less than miraculous.

I think miracle is a good word to use for it. There's no really no other explanation. Children of Israel have endured for thousands of years, even again to this day, keeping their identity distinct.

Their story is a miraculous story. Their existence, what we're reading about in Hebrews 11, this, this is all history, but it's, it's a miraculous history.

So the point is, even though you can't see God, you can see what God has done. Some of you probably know people, maybe this is your own story, that there was a time you, you didn't care.

You lived like Moses may be brought up in the world, doing the things of the world. But then there's a point in time where you just had that, that moment, that repentance, that change of heart, your life or someone else's life was completely turned around.

And really there's no other explanation. So even though we can't see God, we see what he has done.

Untold number of lives changed. So the work of God is undeniable. Of course, the devil hates all this.

He wants to undo that work. If you haven't noticed, it seems like he's trying harder lately.

I don't know about you, just, it really does seem that way. But while we serve a

God who is invisible, we do see what he has done and we can read his word and we can know what he's going to do in the future.

So just going back to the context of Hebrews 11, all of this was supposed to reaffirm and strengthen the faith of the early church.

The early church, the Hebrew Christians, the first converts to Christianity were Jewish. They had dealt with all sorts of persecutions, really starting from their own people.

It was the Jewish council that killed Jesus. So the first wave of persecution was really

Jews persecuting other Jews. Rome at first really didn't care.

These religious disputes, you know, Rome didn't care about that. But in the mid -60s of the first century, the

Emperor Nero, when he came to power, as the story goes, he used the Christians as a scapegoat.

So the city of Rome burned and these fires, Nero, many believe that he probably had the fire set himself.

Obviously, governments don't admit when they carry out acts like that. False flag operations, they're not going to admit to it.

But many believe that Nero ordered the fire set. He wanted to make his mark on Rome.

So for him to build all these new structures, some old structures had to be taken down.

So he set the fire, old structures taken down, he could rebuild. Also, he could unite the empire against this new threat.

So he scapegoated the Christians. Christianity, he said, was this new threat to the empire.

So these Hebrew Christians faced persecution from their fellow

Jews. Now they were facing intense, starting to face intense persecution from the

Romans. And that was much, much worse. So now we have, when Hebrews was written about 68

AD, about that, you have a second generation of Hebrew Christians.

And now because of the people that were being arrested, persecuted, some even killed, now people are starting to fall away from the faith.

And that falling away became evident when the Christians stopped assembling with the church.

This, just to go back to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews 10, look at verses 24 and 25.

The author of Hebrews says, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So a lot of people, in order to sort of save their own skin, they're like,

I don't want to assemble with this. So they stopped going to church, long story short. They didn't, we're not talking about like skipping a week or two.

They just stopped assembling. And this was to, yeah, save their own skin.

Because being a Christian now sort of put a mark on you. You had a target on your back.

So the evidence that they were no longer assembling really proved that they were falling away from the faith.

So this is all what's going on behind the scenes with the context of Hebrews chapter 11.

And I always try to make parallels to, you know, okay, here's what was happening then. How does this apply to what's happening now?

Well, whenever you identify the moment in our culture, I think of 2015 as a defining moment.

But in our culture, things sort of shifted to where it was socially acceptable to be a

Christian back in the 70s. I hear stories from other pastors back in the 70s and 80s.

You know, you had the Jesus People movement and people are flooding into churches and churches were full.

And it was the fashionable thing to do to go to church and be a Christian. That was the thing to do.

Well, at some point, things changed. And now, if you work for a large corporation and the

HR department knows you're a Bible -believing Christian, yeah, you probably do have a target on your back.

So things change and it causes people who are sort of on the fence or maybe they don't want to suffer any persecution.

It causes people to, I don't want to assemble with the church. I don't want to be marked as a Christian. And people turn their back on faith.

So you see this in Hebrews. Based on Hebrews 10 .25, there is a definite connection between faith and the life of the church.

I can't stress that enough. The church plays a vital role in faith. Okay, Moses didn't have the church, but he had the people of God.

Would he stay loyal to Egypt and to his Egyptian family or would he stand with God's people?

Okay. Well, we know what he chose. Moses decided to reject the idea of being an

Egyptian. And he said, I am a Hebrew. See, this is the choice we need to make.

I am a global citizen. You know, whatever people say. I'm, you know,

I'm with the world. I'm with the culture. I'm this, I'm that. Or are you going to say, no,

I reject all of that. I am a Christian. That's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do.

It's an easy, should be an easy thing to do, you know, within the confines of this, this room, these four walls.

It's a hard thing to do out, out there. Especially when we see the things the world is doing.

I just feel like there's been so much happening right now. So now we're getting more into the application.

Moses, it says he forsook Egypt. He chose to stand with the people of God. We are in a sense called to forsake the world.

Again, we live in it, not supposed to be of it. But I just really feel in the past several years, sort of like in the past few weeks, there's just been so much going on, but it's becoming more and more clear that we are living in a post

Christian nation. If this was back in 19, you know, 40, when pastor

Truesdale was here, I don't know what the members of Morris Corner Church would say. They'd probably say, we live in a Christian country.

Or if somebody said that, I mean, I suspect there had been a lot of people who would agree and believe that.

Back in the 70s, when pastor Flogey was here. I'm sure if you said this is a Christian nation, it probably looked like it in a lot of ways.

Well, fast forward to pastor Grant, this ain't a Christian country anymore. But it's so obvious.

It grieves me to see what's going on in the world. But in this way, in this sense, it's a good thing.

Because now the choice is so very clear. So very clear. It's hard for anyone to be, you know, deceived.

Like, I don't know, is this right or is it wrong? No, it's black and white these days. So, you know,

I mentioned the opening ceremony for the Olympics in Paris.

Who saw this? You know what I'm going to talk about. Yeah. So some of you, I'll explain it briefly for those who didn't see.

So the Olympics, why? So who cares about the Olympics? Somebody says. I don't watch it.

Who cares? It's really when the world community comes together, all nations come together.

The Olympics is very significant in that way. All nations coming together kind of under one banner or with one event.

It's a significant act or event in that way. What I saw during the opening ceremonies was overtly demonic.

Overtly demonic. I remember when I was a kid watching the Olympics.

It seemed like everybody back then watched. It was exciting. Yeah, the world community came together.

But you were always rooting for your country, right? There's that great hockey team the

United States had back in, what, 1980? And they beat the Soviet Union, you know. And there's a lot of American pride, and rightfully so.

It's hard to be proud, though, these days. But you see what happened. For those who didn't watch, first, at the opening ceremonies, they mocked

Christianity by having drag queens reenact the Last Supper. And in case people didn't know,

I mean, that really signals that the powers that be, we hate you. Christians, we hate you.

In case you didn't know, they hate God. Jesus said this.

If they hate you, they hated me before they hated you. Like, don't take it personally. They hate God. They hate

Jesus. They made that abundantly clear. The band that was playing for the opening ceremonies played in front of a golden, something like a golden calf.

Some say it was a bull that represent Molech. And there's always some way people can say, no, no, that's not what it meant this.

Or they can always play that game. But after they mocked Jesus in the

Last Supper, they had a woman with a beard doing some provocative dance routine, followed by scenes of a woman holding her own severed head.

Probably a reference to Marie Antoinette. I mean, this is France, so they're probably, you know, signaling back to the

French Revolution. But just to see it, this is what a Christian would think. Watch. This is satanic.

This is evil. It was a celebration of evil. And then this is why

I'm mentioning it. The acts to follow seem to clearly play out the events of the

Book of Revelation. Let's turn to Revelation chapter six. So they mock

Christianity. Then they seem to bring out a rider on a, you know, and again, some people describe it differently, a rider on a white horse, a rider on a pale horse.

So maybe it was both representing. I saw the video, but people were sharing it, and then they tried to block it.

So they're getting massive blowback. People are angry. The few Christian leaders we have left in this country are all speaking out.

People are mad. So now they're trying to, like, scrub it from the internet as though it never happened. So I got to see some of it, but now it's going to be hard to find some of the video.

But really, the Book of Revelation chapter six, it's like they were playing, just kind of carrying out

Revelation chapter six. It begins. This is, of course, events leading up to the apocalypse.

Revelation six one. Now, I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, come and see.

And I looked and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow and a crown was given to him.

And he went out conquering and to conquer. So this figure represents the

Antichrist. And he seemed to to ride into town in front of the Eiffel Tower. Here came the rider on the white horse dressed in such a way, clearly looking sinister, clearly, in my opinion, presenting the

Antichrist to the world. It's almost like a coming out ceremony telling the world what we're doing.

Hey, we had the Antichrist is now on the scene making his appearance. I'm not saying that that's actually what's unfolding in front of our eyes.

But the people who put this on, they understand the imagery. I mean, they're at the very least trying to rub your nose in it.

And maybe they understand it enough to where they're actually trying to bring about the apocalypse.

I wouldn't be surprised. I think some world rulers do want a fight with God directly.

They're certainly fighting against his people, mocking his people. So from there, then there's the rider on a pale horse, which if you look at the fourth seal, verse seven, he opened the fourth seal.

And I heard a voice of the fourth living creature saying, come out and see or come and see. And I looked and behold, a pale horse.

And the name of him who sat on it was death. And hell followed with him.

And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with the sword, with hunger and death and with the beasts of the earth.

So, you know, all that to say this, the world, and there's no better platform for the world to send a message than the

Olympic Games. And they're saying, we hate God. We hate Christianity. Mocking the

Last Supper, all the rest. The Antichrist rising up, whatever they're trying to do.

Here's the point. It's very clear. The choice that we have to make, we can either say, yeah,

I don't really like it. But the world has a lot to offer. And I stand with the world.

How do we stand with the world? By just going along with whatever they tell you to do. You know, watching it and affirming it obviously is standing with the world.

Defending it is standing with the world. Having excuses of why this is acceptable is standing with the world.

So we can either be like that and just kind of go along with whatever they want to shove down your throat.

And you say, well, I would never believe that. Well, if you continue to watch their propaganda over time, people don't deconvert in a day.

You realize that? The people who have fallen away from the faith here in Hebrews 11, they didn't fall away from the church the first week stuff started to happen.

It was over time that the enemy tried to wear them down. And that's what happens.

They try to wear you down, wear you down, wear you down, wear you down. And eventually you just sort of,

I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of fighting. And then you stop assembling with the church.

The other option is to be like Moses and say, maybe I can live a comfortable life with the world, going along with the world, being an

Egyptian, being a prince of Egypt. But then you make that decision that Moses made.

No, and you forsake the world and stand with the people of God. So in conclusion,

I want you to consider Moses by faith. Moses verse 25 shows rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, the steaming, the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure treasures in Egypt.

For he looked to the reward. We need to be like Moses. We need to live set apart from this world.

And if you agree, say amen. Amen. In Jesus name. Amen. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you that you have made your word very clear. I thank you that it is becoming obvious that we're living in a modern day

Babylon. It kind of happened right under our nose. But Lord, we thank you knowing that it's not going to last forever, whether you raise up a man like Moses or whether it's the events in Revelation where you once again will fight for your people.

Either way, Lord, we know who wins. We've read the end of the book. We know that this will not endure.

We know that Christ will return to set up his kingdom, which shall last for 1000 years.

Lord, I pray that your people would be encouraged, that we would know what time it is that we'd be awake, that we'd be aware and that we would make a conscious decision each and every day to live a life set apart unto you.

So, Lord, please save people from this world system. And may we look forward to the soon return of our