Moses’ Parents: Faith to Hide a Child (Hebrews 11:23; Exodus 1-2)

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Hebrews chapter 11, and find your place at verse 23, and let's begin with prayer.

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Our Father, we do now turn our eyes to you and into your word, and we pray that our time here would be spent well, and that you would encourage and strengthen our hearts.

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We pray that you would increase our faith and strengthen our faith, and help us to see you in the pages of the word that you have given, in the revelation that you have provided.

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We pray that we may see Christ, see your hand of providence, your hand of goodness, and your promises to us, we ask this, and your blessing upon this time, in the name of Christ our

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Lord, amen. Beginning in verse 23, by faith Moses, when he was born, was because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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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 treatment with the people of God, ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

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By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was unseen. By faith he kept the

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Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.

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By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as though they were passing through dry land, and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.

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When you get to verse 28, we have moved now from Joseph to Moses, and we are going from one prince in Egypt to another prince of Egypt, and from one person of royalty to another.

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And there are a number of similarities, and I would just remind you that when we get to the end of verse 22, we're dealing with Joseph.

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By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

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And there are a number of similarities between Joseph and Moses. There are some interesting connections between the two of them.

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For instance, both of them enjoyed the riches of Egypt. They had those riches at their disposal, and for their own use.

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They enjoyed high positions of prestige, and reputation, and honor in the nation of Egypt.

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They both were loved and respected by their kinsmen and their countrymen. The Jews loved and respected

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Moses, and the Egyptians loved and respected Moses, and the Jews loved and respected Joseph, and Joseph likewise was loved and respected by the

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Egyptians. Both men forsook the privileges of Egypt for the promises of God. Moses ended up doing this in life as he walked away from all the treasures of Egypt, and chose instead, as our passage says, to have ill treatment with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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So Moses forsook those in life, and Joseph forsook the treasures of Egypt in death, as he didn't want to be buried and honored in Egypt with a tomb.

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Instead, he chose to have his bones carried up with him to the promised land when God would fulfill the promise to bring the nation up.

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Both of them spent their formative years in Egypt. Joseph, of course, was sold into Egypt, and Moses was born into Egypt.

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Joseph was dragged into Egypt against his will, and both men worked to preserve the chosen nation of Israel.

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Joseph did so by bringing the people down into Egypt to preserve them from a famine. Moses preserved the nation of Israel by taking the

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Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus to deliver them from slavery. Both Moses and Joseph were recipients of divine revelation.

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Neither of these men, though we can attach them to the Jewish nation, neither of these men suffered under the slavery that was inflicted upon their

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Jewish kinsmen. Both of these men enjoyed the treasures and pleasures of a palace, and never suffered under that affliction of slavery.

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Both men knew of God's promises, believed God's promises, anticipated the reward that was to come, and as a result, they chose, both of them, to be identified with the

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Jewish people, rather than the Egyptian people, though each person chose that in a different way. And the last similarity between the two of them, at least the last that I'm gonna bring up today, is the fact that both of these men had parents of faith.

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They both had the blessing and the privilege of a godly lineage. And while Moses is mentioned in verse 23, which is our passage for this morning, while Moses is mentioned there, it is really the faith of his parents that is described.

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So it is not right to consider the faith of Joseph, Jacob, or Isaac without considering the faith of their respective parents.

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Similarly, it is almost impossible to understand the faith and the development of Moses apart from the faith of his parents, and that's what verse 23 clues us into.

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It's his parents' faith that is mentioned. And though we're focusing on Moses, at least the story of Moses, verse 23 begins with something of his parents describing, at least here, his godly lineage.

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Verse 23 says, by faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king

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Zedek. That is our passage for this morning. Though that is not what we're going to address right now. We will do this verse,

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I promise you, and get through the end of it before our time is over here today. But this story is told back in Exodus chapter one and chapter two, so I want you to turn in your

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Bibles back to the book of Exodus, to chapter one, and we're going to catch the context of this, see what incident it is that is being described here by the author of Hebrews in Exodus chapter one, the very beginning of the verse.

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We're gonna catch the story. We're just gonna go through chapter one, about the middle of chapter two, then we'll flip back to Hebrews chapter 11 and we'll go through the entire verse.

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It sounds daunting, but we will get to all of it, I promise you. Verse one of Exodus chapter one. Now, these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob.

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We saw that back when we looked at Jacob's faith. Each one of them with his household,

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Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

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All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were 70 in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.

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Verse six, Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation. And that's where we left off at the end of the book of Genesis.

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In fact, just a couple of verses earlier in your Bible, Genesis chapter 50 verse 26, the very last verse of the book of Genesis.

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So Joseph died at the age of 110 years and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. And that's how

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Genesis ends. So now Moses in the first six verses reminds us all the children of Israel come down into Egypt, they're all there, but then that entire generation died off.

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Verse seven, but the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them.

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Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Now there's obviously some time that has passed between Joseph dying and verses seven and eight.

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Verses seven and eight say that the children of Israel have multiplied. How much time has passed between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses, we don't know exactly.

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And that is because there is some difficulty in nailing down the exact date of the Exodus. That is due to the fact that, the dates vary a little bit, due to the fact that in Galatians chapter three,

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Paul speaks of 430 years between the giving of the Abrahamic covenant and the giving of the law.

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So if we date the Exodus from the time, 430 years from the time that God gave the covenant to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, if that's our benchmark for the first of that, then of course you have 430 years later that Moses is at Mount Sinai getting the law.

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Paul says the law given 430 years does not nullify the first covenant. So that compresses all of those events into a very short period of time.

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But if the 430 years or the 400 years describes the time of slavery, then of course you have 200 years from the time that God gave the promise to Abraham to the time of Joseph, 280 some years.

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And then after that you have a period of time that passes where a king arises who does not know Joseph and the people multiply. And then you have 400 years of slavery after that.

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So that stretches out that a little bit. They say, can't you just go into Egypt and read the chronicles of Egypt, go to the hieroglyphics and see the point where the

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Red Sea is drawn on a cave wall and it shows millions of people passing through that and date the

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Exodus from something you find in Egypt? No, you can't because ancient history doesn't work that way. It's not exactly, not everything that was recorded or happened in Egypt was recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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And so our understanding of history is a little sketchy. So somewhere between Joseph to Moses is somewhere between 60 years to 250 years, depending on how we date that 430 years.

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Does the 430 years begin at God giving the covenant to Abraham in Genesis 15 or at the birth of Isaac or at Joseph going down into Egypt or at Jacob going down into Egypt or at the beginning of their enslavement?

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That's the question. So there's a couple of centuries of leeway there that we have to deal with. And by the way, that's not significant to anything in terms of our understanding of scripture.

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And when we come up with things like this, we say we're not exactly sure how this worked out or when this starts or when this ends.

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The problem is always with us, never with the text of scripture. The fact that we don't know exactly when that is to be dated and how long that that took and exactly how those things fell out that way, that is because we lack some kind of understanding about the text or about what the text is describing.

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It doesn't say anything about the incompleteness or imperfection of scripture at all.

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However it happened, the Exodus begins when Moses or happens around Moses's 80th year.

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He's 80 years old at the time of the Exodus. So Exodus chapter one, verses nine through 14. He said to the people, behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.

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Come, let us deal wisely with them or else they will multiply. And in the event of war, they will join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and depart from the land.

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Pharaoh began to sit down with some of his advisors and discuss the Jewish problem. Nothing new under the sun, is there?

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Began to discuss the Jewish problem. These people are multiplying. We have to do something to deal with these people.

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And notice that Pharaoh's concern is not that the Jews would multiply to the point where they would be able to overtake them and possess the land of Egypt.

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That was not his concern. His concern is that they would overthrow that rule and get numerous to the point where they would be able to leave on their own.

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Pharaoh doesn't want that to happen. It's almost as if the Jews, at least some of the faithful ones, had some idea of what

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God had promised to them and Pharaoh understood there are enough crazy people amongst those Jews who think that God's gonna give them the land and they're ready to go back there.

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And if they continue to multiply, they just might decide to march out of Egypt someday. So he comes up with a brilliant plan, brilliantly wicked.

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Verse 11, so they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities,

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Pithom and Ramses, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

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The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.

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Moses is emphasizing something there. You know what it was? Rigor and labor. The Egyptians set out to make their lives absolutely miserable.

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By the time of the Exodus, the nation of Israel probably one of the most conservative numbers that we would be around 1 .5

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to two million people at the time of the Exodus. Now, how long would it take for the 70 mentioned in verse, what is it, five of Exodus chapter one?

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How long would it take for 70 people to become roughly 1 .5 million? Well, back then, they're living longer, having more children, large families.

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Years for that to happen. In fact, they could reach that number of people in a couple of centuries with a population growth rate of about 2 .5

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% which is what we had for most of the 20th century worldwide. So it's not astronomical, it's not unbelievable for that to happen.

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Rapid increase in people and the Egyptians feared that. Verse one, chapter one, verse 15. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the

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Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Sifra and the other named Pua. And he said, when you're helping the

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Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall live.

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Population control was Pharaoh's answer. Population control is the answer of the ungodly and the wicked always.

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Because population control is an anti -life perspective and therefore it is an anti -God perspective.

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So Pharaoh comes up with basically a sex -selective post -natal abortion philosophy.

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What he said was wicked, what he's doing is wicked. There is no difference between the child that is born and the child that is in the womb that would allow but restrain or refrain from killing the child outside of the womb.

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There are only four kinds of differences. Difference in size, difference in level of development, difference in environment and difference in degree of dependency.

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And none of those four differences, size, level of development, environment or degree of dependency are morally significant as to the question of whether the life in the womb is valuable and worth saving or not.

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Just because something's smaller than you doesn't mean you have a right to kill it. Just because something is in a different level of development than you doesn't mean you have a right to kill it.

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Just because a four -year -old's less developed than a 14 -year -old doesn't mean we can kill the four -year -old and not the 14 -year -old. Just because something is in the womb as opposed to out of the womb doesn't mean we have a right to kill it.

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Just because something has a greater degree of dependency upon its parents does not mean that we have the right to kill it. A one -year -old has a greater degree of dependency upon its parents than a 10 -year -old does but doesn't mean we can kill the one -year -old and not kill the 10 -year -old.

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All right, so these four different differences between the person that you are now and the person that you were then does not justify us killing you then but not now.

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So what Pharaoh has advocated here is morally reprehensible but let's be clear, it is no more morally different, it is no different morally speaking than what the bloodthirsty throngs of Moloch worshipers in our own day are demanding the right to do.

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It's evil, it's wicked, they want it enshrined under law, they wanna use words like choice and privacy and healthcare to sanitize the imagery in our own mind but it is the same thing.

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Pharaoh feared that he had something to lose if these babies lived. They would infringe upon his economic feasibility, his economic viability, be very inconvenient to have more

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Jews in the land so Pharaoh is just espousing Margaret Sanger's Marthusian ethics in what he is advocating here.

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Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood and she once wrote the most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it, close quote.

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Well, Pharaoh would concur with that. Pharaoh would agree with that. Population control is an idea that is so anti -life and thus so anti -God that every time you hear it espoused, whether it's by Bill Gates or any occupant of the

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White House, anytime you hear it espoused, you can know that it was belched up out of the deep, dark, demonic bowels of hell itself.

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That's what Pharaoh was advocating. Verse 17, but the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them but let the boys live.

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So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing and let the boys live? The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the

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Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women for they're vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.

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So they disobeyed the king, then they lied about what they had done to Pharaoh. So to preserve their life and the lives of innocent babies, they lied to Pharaoh about the condition of the

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Hebrew women. Meanwhile, they were allowing the women to give birth to these babies and then they were actively working to preserve the life of these babies.

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Verse 20, so God was good to the midwives and the people multiplied and became very mighty because the midwives feared

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God. He established households for them. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people saying, every son who is born, you are to cast into the

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Nile. And now Pharaoh takes his policy from the midwives and makes it a national kill order upon Jewish baby boys.

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He made his program national. And now all the Egyptians are commanded to execute Hebrew babies whenever they are seen by throwing them into the

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Nile. They have a license to kill Jewish boys. And of course, this would in little over one generation wipe out the entire population of the nation of Israel because people are dying.

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And if there are no men to reproduce, it wouldn't take long before you would virtually decimate the entire nation and bring them to extinction.

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This is an extinction order. It's gonna take a little bit of time to unfold, but we don't wanna go. We don't want to occur on time.

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But if we just kill small bits of them in pieces when they're young, then that would be sufficient.

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That is his idea. Those are dark times, right? We live in dark times, not quite that dark.

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They are dark. But into that dark period of time, into that dark circumstance,

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God brings a deliverer. Chapter two, verse one. Now, a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.

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This is a reference to the tribe of Levi, which would probably be tens of thousands of people. So this is not a man marrying his sister of the same household.

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No. The very fact that you thought I was gonna bring up Clark Fork there is enough.

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That was enough. So that's not what happened here, just in case you were born in Clark Fork and you're thinking, see, it's biblical.

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It's not at all. Verse two, the woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.

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Now, that's the verse that the author of Hebrews is referring to. I'll just read to you again. Don't turn back there just yet, but Hebrews 11, 23.

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By faith Moses, look at verse two of Exodus. By faith Moses, when he was born, he hid him from his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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Now, that's the reference that the verse two is what the author of Hebrews is referring to. How did all of this work out?

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Let's just read the rest of the story, verse three. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch.

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Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

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The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile with her maidens, walking alongside the Nile. When she came down, she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid and she brought it to her.

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When she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the boy was crying and she had pity on him and said, this is one of the

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Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from the

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Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you? Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go ahead. So the girl went and called the child's mother, that is

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Moses' mother. Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.

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So the woman took the child and nursed him. The child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses and said, because I drew him out of the water.

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There's a lot to unpack there that we're not going to unpack but I just want you to notice how by the providence of God, the faith of Moses' parents ended up preserving him, providentially preserving him, sparing his life and actually restoring

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Moses back to his mother so that she could have a hand in raising him even though he became the grandson of Pharaoh.

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Pharaoh raged against God and his purposes and God had promised to multiply the nation of Israel but Pharaoh had set to extinguish the nation of Israel and God had promised to take them up out of Egypt and bring them into the promised land and Pharaoh set his heart on keeping them in the land of Egypt.

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Now when God's promises and purposes are going one direction and some wicked king's promises and purposes are going another direction and these hit at a cross, when these two meet, guess who wins?

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Every, God does. The kings of the earth can plot and scheme and they do, they can conjure up all of their wicked plans and their wicked designs and their wicked legislation and they can set their sights against God and against his people and against the kingdom of heaven, they can do all of that but Psalm 2 verse four says, "'He who sits in the heavens laughs,

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God scoffs at them.'" That is one of my favorite verses. It should be at the top of whatever news aggregator website you use.

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The Lord sits in the heavens and he laughs. He scoffs at the kings of the earth. So read that verse first and then read all of the crazy, insane headlines that follow underneath of that but keep that verse at the top of your banner.

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Pharaoh thought he had a walk on it, he had the power, he had the authority, he had the means and he thought his wicked plans could end up thwarting what

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God had promised and purposed for the nation of Israel and God ended up using Pharaoh's wicked plans to accomplish primarily two things.

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Number one, the preservation and deliverance of Israel's deliverer so that, catch this, by the providence of God, Moses ended up being raised right under Pharaoh's nose in his own house.

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The very one whom Pharaoh had ordered his execution, his killing, God worked so that he would be raised right in Pharaoh's own home.

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God saw to it that the deliverer for Israel would have the same home and be trained in the same schools and live in the same house as Pharaoh, the deliverer in his house.

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He never saw that coming, did he? Nobody saw that coming. Second, God used the wicked plans to prepare the

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Hebrews to leave. Several weeks ago, I posed the question, what do you do when you have the entire promised line seed, all of those to whom the promise of the land has been given and they're all in Egypt and they're enjoying and they're multiplying and they're buying land and they're prosperous there and it's comfortable there, it's more comfortable, luxurious than they have ever enjoyed living out in tents in the promised land and then they begin to multiply.

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How is it that you get those people willing to leave all of the comforts of Egypt? Here's what you do. You take away all of the comforts of Egypt and make them utterly miserable and they will long to leave that situation.

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How do you get Christians, by the way, to wish to leave this world and pine for the next? You take away all the comforts of this world for the next.

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Now turn back to Hebrews chapter 11. I promised you we'd go back there and we will. Hebrews chapter 11. Now we're gonna take a look at how the author of Hebrews uses this story to illustrate the nature of faith.

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Hebrews chapter 11, let's read verse 23 again. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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You'll notice that Moses' parents are not named and in fact, they weren't named in the passage that we read just in chapter one and chapter two of Exodus.

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Anybody know off the top of your head what Moses' parents' names were? Marian, no, it was his sister.

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Amram, yeah, somebody did. Yeah, I didn't. I had to go back and look at it. Exodus chapter six, verse 20.

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Amram married his father's sister, Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses and the length of Amram's life was 137 years.

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Amram married his father's sister, Jochebed. That seems a little odd in our era, in our age, and it is by common.

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It was not uncommon in the ancient world. It was not uncommon in the ancient world. In the ancient world, you would marry as far as you could walk.

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Do you understand that? You would marry as far away as you could walk. In other words, if you lived in a little village with 60, 80, 100 people in it and there were no real marriable people of your age that you kind of liked and then your family decided to take a vacation and walk 12 miles to the next village where 60, 80, 100 people and you see this cute little girl across the courtyard and you ask your mom and dad, hey, do you know who she is, who's that?

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And they say, that's your cousin. Ooh, let's make it work.

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That's my option, that's my option. If I have to marry as far away as I can walk and that's all

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I got, then that's what you choose. So it was not uncommon in the ancient world. You might think that this happened all the time in the nation of Israel.

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Yeah, it did happen a lot in the nation of Israel. It also happened a lot in every other ancient culture and custom on the face of the planet because that's just how those things happened.

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So both parents, though they're not mentioned in Exodus, Exodus one and two, both parents had a role in hiding the child for the three months and putting him in the basket and raising the infant.

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The New Testament in verse 23 does involve both parents. So in Exodus one and two,

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Moses' father really, who it says, comes up with this idea and does these activities and Moses' father seems absent from the text but in verse 23, it mentions the faith of both of his parents who were involved in this.

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In Acts chapter seven, verse 20, it says, it was at this time that Moses was born and he was lovely in the sight of God and he was nurtured three months in his father's home.

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So three months is spent in his father's home. Both Moses' father and his mother are involved in this decision to try and preserve him, to protect him, to keep him hidden and it really could not have been otherwise.

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You can't imagine that Moses' mother would have been involved and not his father. So both parents' faith is on display and is involved in Moses' life in those early stages and Moses would have been impacted by this and of course, he had influence from his mother after she got done nursing him.

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She would have been a maid with whom he would have been familiar and probably would have grown up his whole life knowing who his kinsmen were, to whom he belonged and the story of a lot of this would have been revealed to Moses at a young age.

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And you see the godly lineage that we've noticed in Hebrews chapter 11 so far as we've talked about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

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We've noticed the faith that goes from generation to generation to generation there and it's something to note just the impact that a godly parent can have upon their kids.

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That's not to say that every godly parent is gonna have only godly children but it is to say that parents have a significant and important factor in the faith of their children and we make the error of assuming that just because we have faith that our children will follow in that and therefore we don't have anything to do with it.

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We also make the opposite error of assuming that if we have raised our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord but they do something to walk away from the faith or make a stupid decision that we somehow bear the blame for that.

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So while parents are an important factor, they are not the sole and determining factor in the faith and the faithfulness of their children.

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But in Moses' case as well as the other patriarchs that we've looked at, the faith of previous generations obviously had something to bear, had a salutary impact upon them and really the recognition of this should serve as a motivation to us as parents to do everything that we can to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord while trusting the Lord to use that to accomplish his purposes in the lives of our children. Notice their action in verse 23.

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By faith they hid him for three months, tried to conceal him and you can, if you've ever had a newborn child, you know that this would become increasingly difficult.

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You can imagine the fearful situations that they would have faced when someone, when they know that there was a kill order issued by Pharaoh and they're living and Egyptians are walking up and down the streets and the baby starts to cry or rustle in the other room.

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The fear that would strike into your heart, right? You can imagine the sort of, your heart would skip a beat when there's a knock on the door in the middle of the night, late at night or early in the morning or the middle of the day or after the baby has finally cried and you've got him settled down and suddenly somebody knocks at the door.

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Or the horror that might strike into your heart, to come into your heart when you hear Miriam and Aaron, who was three years older than Moses, talking about their little brother out with the other

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Jewish kids, maybe with an earshot of some Egyptians standing around. Three months to do that.

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I mean, you would have to, people would start to catch on as they saw

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Amram and two kids out in public and Jochebed and the two kids out in public, but never

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Amram and Jochebed with the two kids out in public. You would have to hide the pregnancy, hide the birth, hide the baby for three months and eventually it became too difficult for them and I wish we had more detail back in the

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Exodus narrative, but when she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch and she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the

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Nile. This seems to be a last ditch attempt to do something to curry favor or at least compassion amongst some of the

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Egyptians. Someone may have been getting wind of the fact that Amram had a baby child, a baby son, folks beginning to get suspicious.

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Makes you wonder how is it that Aaron escaped this because we don't read about this happening to Aaron. Aaron was three years older than Moses, so how did he escape this?

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My suspicion, this is just in my sanctified speculation, my suspicion is that Aaron might have been one of the children that the

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Hebrew midwives delivered and kept alive and then told Pharaoh, look, the Hebrew women are very vigorous and they're able to give birth before we get there.

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Aaron might have fallen under that and then Pharaoh changes his order and Jochebed gets pregnant again and now they're faced with a dilemma because now it's not just the

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Hebrew midwives who can keep this unbeknownst to Pharaoh, now suddenly there's a national kill order on all

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Egyptian babies. Now this is obviously an act of faith, the text says it's an act of faith, but let me play devil's advocate for just a second and raise an issue that maybe you are thinking of.

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Maybe you're thinking to yourself, how can we call this an act of faith if what

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Jochebed did in this situation with baby Moses was the most natural thing in the world for a mother to do?

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Not like she would have had to pray about this, not like she would have had to seek the Lord as to what his will would be in this situation, the most natural instinct that she would have would be to protect her own child and to hide him from risk, even at risk to her own safety she would be willing to do this.

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That is the most natural thing to do, in fact it is so natural that if somebody did not do this we would naturally understand them to be narcissistic and irresponsible and self -centered, cowardly, craven, careless, wicked, evil, and a whole host of other words that we would use to describe such a person who didn't do this.

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It would be completely unnatural for a woman to give birth to that child, a child that she wanted and conceived and carried for nine months and then to turn around and hand it over to be executed.

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That's an unnatural thing. So it's very natural for her to do this and notice how different her action is from Abraham.

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Abraham's act of faith was made manifest when he was willing to offer up his only son. Jochebed's faith is made manifest when she is willing to go to great lengths to preserve her son's life.

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Two entirely different acts of faith under two entirely different circumstances but what

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Abraham did was very unnatural, it went against everything in him. What Jochebed does is very natural and would comport with everything that she would already want to do.

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So how is it that we can call this an act of faith? In fact, we would say that unbelievers would do the same thing, wouldn't they?

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Wouldn't most unbelieving women be willing to do the same thing? There's something instinctive and natural in that that you wouldn't have to have great faith in order to hide your child.

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Even a pagan should have that kind of natural instinct to be willing to hide the child, protect the child even at great risk to herself.

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So how is that an act of faith? A second devil's advocate point, this is really not a complex thing, is it?

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To hide the child, it's not that difficult. I mean, I shouldn't say, it's not that complex, it's difficult but it's not that complex.

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It's really a simple action. It's not a great action, it's not, we tend to think that faith is reserved for the great and magnificent acts of history like we read about down in chapter 11, verse 33, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

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To do these things, to do these things are mighty things but to simply hide your child from threat or danger to its life is the most natural and simple and instinctive thing imaginable and a parent, a godly parent would only see one option, that is to protect their child.

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So how is that a great act of faith? It's not the conquering of kingdoms, is it? And three months is really not a long time when you compare it to Abraham.

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Abraham waited 25 years in faith. We can see the power of faith for somebody who does something and endures that type of time to see

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God fulfill a promise. Abraham, 25 years and then after that, 100 years total and he still didn't get the land.

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So there you see faith on display over a long period of time and this is just faith for a very short period of time. It's only three months.

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But those three months would feel like the longest three months you had ever lived in your life, wouldn't they?

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In fact, if you want three months to feel like an eternity, then you just need to try and hide a newborn from everybody else for three months.

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You can do that or ask my mother -in -law to come live with you for three months. Either one of those would make three months feel like forever.

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She watches these so it's the most natural thing.

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It is a simple thing. It was an easy thing. It really wasn't that long. How is it that we would call that a commendable act of faith?

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How is something that really instinctive worthy to be included with all of these other great heroes of the faith?

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And here's why. Because faith makes every action it touches eternally significant.

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Every action it touches. Every last thing done in faith is significant.

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Every last thing done in faith is worthy of a reward because every last thing done in faith, no matter how natural it might seem to us, like protecting a newborn child that is yours, or no matter how contrary it might seem to us, obeying

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God for some great thing with belief in offering up his child, whether it is on either one of those two perspectives and everything on those two extremes and everything in between, all of them are worthy of being commended because all of them are done hoping and looking to a

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God who rewards the faithful even in the simplest of things. So that a cup offered in cold water done as an act of faith is worthy of the master's reward.

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The simplest thing as well as the most complex thing. It's not just the difficult things. Look, faith is necessary to put foreign armies to flight later on in the passage,

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Hebrews chapter 11. That's necessary for that. And it's rewardable and commendable. But faith is also involved in putting your temptations to flight and saying no to your temptations.

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Faith is involved in conquering kingdoms in the Old Testament. Yes, it was. It's also involved in conquering your flesh and conquering your lusts, in saying no to what you know is wrong and walking in obedience.

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It's the same faith that is active in both of those things. And sometimes we buy into the lie of thinking that, well,

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I'm really not doing anything in faith unless I'm doing something that is magnificent in front of the eyes of everybody that will be applauded by men forever.

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That is not true. The mother who homeschools her kids and the father who faithfully teaches his children the scripture and raises them in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord. The husband who cherishes his wife and the wife who submits to her husband and does these things in faith.

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All of those things are worthy of reward as well. It's not just the great things. It's the small things.

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So before you worry about conquering foreign armies, conquer yourself. Tame your tongue. Don't worry about taming lions, tame your own tongue.

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Right, don't, we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that faith is, that only faith is needed for the things that everybody sees and approves.

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Faith is necessary for the things that nobody sees and nobody ever knows about. But it is faith nonetheless.

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First Corinthians 10, 31. Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Eating and drinking, those mundane activities when done in faith glorify

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God. Simple things. Romans 14 says, without faith, it is impossible to please him. That's why Colossians 3, verse 17 says, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the

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Lord God the Father through him. Because everything that we do, the small things and the big things are commendable.

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Well, Moses' parents did what they did. As natural as it was, it easy was it for them to make that decision.

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It was an act of obedience and courage and therefore it was worthy of God's reward and worthy of our notice.

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Notice their motivation, verse 23. Verse 23 says, because they did this, because they saw that the child was beautiful.

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Now what mother does not think her child is beautiful? Now talk about something that everybody would think, right?

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Every mother thinks this. It is the most natural thing to think this. Even if the baby is uglier than a monkey's armpit, it's still, when it's born, the mother will look at that and say, isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

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And you can sort of swallow hard and say, yes, it is glorious and beautiful.

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But every mother thinks that this is true. So why does the text mention that, that she did this?

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Because she saw that the child was beautiful. Every mother in Egypt would have saw that the child was beautiful. And every mother since Jacobetus thought that their child was beautiful.

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So why does the author mention this? It's stated three times in scripture. Exodus 2, verse 2, the woman conceived and bore a son.

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And when she saw that he was beautiful, we looked at that back in the book of Exodus. Stephen, in his address to the

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Sanhedrin, mentions it in Acts chapter 7, verse 20. Stephen adds a detail that I think is a hint to what

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Moses and the author of Hebrews is describing. In Acts chapter 7, it was at this time that Moses was born and he was lovely in the sight of God.

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And he was nurtured three months in his father's home. Literally, that would read, he was lovely to God. The word that's translated beautiful or lovely means handsome or charming, attractive.

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Speaks of something that is lovely or proper. There was something about his appearance that was more than just common cuteness, more than just a common baby's appearance.

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And we would need more detail, but there was something that moved Jacobed and Amram to preserve

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Moses. And it was something about his countenance. It's been suggested that maybe there was a glow or some sort of a remarkable aura that came off of him.

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Maybe a pre or foreshadowing of the Sinai glory that he would someday see himself. There was something so striking about the child that would indicate,

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I think, that he was, it was worth risking even their own lives to preserve his life.

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It's worth noting that Moses describes himself like this when he writes Exodus 2, verse 2. He says he was a beautiful child.

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He says also at the end that of all the people on the face of the planet, no one was more humble than Moses.

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So he describes himself as a beautiful child. So that means that I can maintain my own humility even by describing myself as a beautiful child.

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What's interesting is Moses wouldn't have had a camera. There was no pictures of him. So he would have written that because his parents would have described something about his countenance that singled him out as being in some way unique.

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Because it doesn't say that all women thought their children were beautiful and she was just doing what mothers naturally did.

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There was something about when he was born, it was so striking and obvious that something was different about this child.

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And we don't have any other details other than that. Now let me indulge in a little bit of sanctified speculation.

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I believe that because Moses' parents were faithful, God -fearing

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Jews, that they would have understood that their time in Egypt had to have been coming to a close.

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Because God had promised to Abraham 400 years, and again, they would have had to have known when that marker was going to come to a completion in Egypt.

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They had to have known our time in Egypt is coming to a close. And I think that likely in this generation among faithful Hebrew parents, there would have been an expectation that probably somebody in the next generation or two is going to be born that will be the deliverer that God has promised to Abraham, who's gonna lead us all up out of Egypt into the promised land.

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He will take us up. So there might have been this expectation that perhaps they were waiting for this deliverer to show up, and then when

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Moses is born, they see in his face a divine glory or a divine beauty or a divine aura of some sort that would have indicated to them this one is the deliverer.

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I think that that's possible. That, again, is just only my sanctified speculation.

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Acts chapter seven. Listen to how Stephen describes Moses as the deliverer. When he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the

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Egyptian. Now listen to this statement. Stephen describes Moses this way. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.

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You see, Moses attacked the Egyptian in defending the fellow Israelite because he thought that it was time to deliver the

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Israelites. He thought he would be accepted by them, that they would understand that he was their deliverer.

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Why did Moses think that everybody else would understand he was their deliverer? I think because there was something about his birth, something that was communicated to him by his parents and by those close to him that said that you were marked from birth as that one.

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And Moses grew up, I think, understanding that. Notice their courage. The last phrase is significant.

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They were not afraid of the king's edict. They defied the king's edict. Now there are people who could watch what

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Jechebed and Amram did, and their assessment of it would be that they were not at all acting in faith, that what they did was very fearful of the king.

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If you just saw the outward expression that they kept this hidden, they were quiet about it, and they're hiding this child, not letting anybody know about the child.

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They're trying to keep him hidden for three months. It's getting worse and worse, and the more this happens, the more diligently they're trying to keep him hidden from anybody that might threaten his life.

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People might look from the outside at that and say that doesn't look very faithful at all, does it? That doesn't look like an act of faith.

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But here the author of Hebrews is telling us that what they were doing, they were not doing out of motivation by fear. They were motivated instead by faith.

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What they were doing was not fearful lack of trust in the sovereignty of God. In fact, it was the very opposite.

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It was a faithful belief that because God is sovereign, I can be involved in doing these things in believing that God will reward the activity and the work of the diligent according to his sovereign plans.

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It's the exact opposite of what most people think. You can almost hear the Sunday school marm voice in your head.

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You've undoubtedly heard it 100 times in your life. Well, that's not very trusting in the sovereignty of God. If you really believe in the sovereignty of God, you wouldn't worry about things like that.

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You wouldn't be doing anything. You'd just take Moses out in the middle of the street and nurse him for everybody to see.

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You wouldn't try and hide him. That's not trusting in God's sovereignty. And the exact opposite is the case.

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Spurgeon said this. The mother was put to great evasions to hide her child and she used all her wits and common sense.

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She did not put her child in the front room or carry it out into the street or sit in the open door and nurse it, but she was prudent and acted as if all depended upon her concealing the baby.

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Some people suppose that if you have faith, you can act like a fool, but faith makes a person wise, close quote.

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See, this was not an act of fear and the author is telling us that. You might look at it from the outside and say,

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Ed, that person's not trusting in the sovereignty of God. Trusting in the sovereignty of God does not mean that you do nothing.

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It doesn't mean you throw yourself up and say whatever. Sometimes we can work and be active in our efforts trusting in the sovereignty of God to bring about what he would purpose in those things.

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Belief in the sovereignty of God does not bring about indolence, but industry. Trusting God and doing nothing are not synonymous.

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Get that in your head. Trusting God and doing nothing are not synonymous. Trusting God and doing something, working diligently, those are not antithetical.

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Because we trust in the sovereignty of God, because we believe his promises, we press forward using all means at our disposal to work to accomplish his purposes in our lives and in the lives of other people while we trust him to bring the fruit and the benefit and the blessing from that.

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That is an act of faith. And when he says they did not fear the king's edict, he is simply saying that they were not afraid of what the king's edict might mean for them.

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They did this not fearing for themselves, but they did this activity in trusting in God's sovereignty and waiting upon God to bless their efforts.

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They knew that Pharaoh's plans, his edict, could not thwart God's purposes. They knew that.

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God had promised to multiply the people and Pharaoh was trying to extinguish the people. Well, they knew who was gonna win that.

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They weren't afraid of that edict. Whatever the king is, whatever he might say, whatever he might decree, whatever executive order he might sign, whatever crazy legislation the

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Egyptian Congress decided to pass, and whatever their nine unelected Egyptian judges thought about themselves and about the country and about the future state of the

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Israelites and the Jews, she wasn't concerned about any of that. Why? Because she knew that if God's purposes run across of man's intentions and designs,

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God is gonna win that contest every single time and it will always be for the good of his people.

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Doesn't mean that it will not be painless. There were plenty of Egyptian babies who died under Pharaoh's decree, plenty of them.

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There were plenty of families who suffered because of what Pharaoh did. But she did not fear the edict.

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She knew that ultimately he could not prevail and that his plans could not prevail. It's not difficult to see how this verse, verse 23, would encourage the original audience, is it?

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Because they themselves had faced the king's edict, had they not? We read back in chapter 10 that they had suffered reproach for the name of Christ and shame and imprisonment and they had accepted joyfully the seizure of their own property.

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This book of Hebrews is written toward the end of the beginning of the seventh decade in the first century that is probably being written to a group of people who saw

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Nero on the throne and were wondering to themselves, I wonder what the king's edict is gonna mean for us.

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We're already suffering affliction. But this is a reminder that we need not fear the king's edict and that you and I can face whatever it is the king decrees with faith.

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That's the point. If Pharaoh cannot stop God from delivering his people, then neither will

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Nero. And if Pharaoh cannot stop God from accomplishing his purposes for his people, then listen, neither can all of the collection of clowns and feckless, wicked, ungodly people in Washington, D .C.

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and in Boise and in every other state capital and in every other federal office on the face of this country.

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None of them can stop God from accomplishing his purpose. So what is our response? We can be at work to protect ourselves and others.

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We can use peaceable means to push back and to endure and to try and do good to other people and to thwart evil designs when it is within our power to do so, but whatever it is that we do, we must be active and obedient and resolute in our faith, knowing that we need not fear the king's edict, whatever it is.

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It has no bearing upon us eternally at all. It's just wind over sand.

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In the case of most of them, just hot air blowing over sand. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have so worked in history so as to preserve your people and as a reminder to us constantly that you do so for us as well.

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Whatever times it is that you have appointed for us, we know that you have appointed us for these times and we know that you have given us the strength and the grace and we know that our faith will prevail and it will persevere to the very end.

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It is only the man -made faith, it is only the insincere faith that will not persevere to the end, but all those whom you have called and justified will persevere, will continue, and you by your grace will strengthen us according to your purposes to accomplish all that you have for us in Christ.

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We pray that you would strengthen us and encourage our hearts together again as we reflect upon these things, in Christ's name, amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.