Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
Moses when grown refused to be called the grandson of Egypt's king, giving up the throne, crown, riches, honors and highest prospects of the greatest kingdom on earth to bind his life to God and deliver his oppressed people. Choosing affliction with them meant accepting hardship, reproach, persecution and even death with a despised and humble nation rather than keeping Egypt's luxury, idolatry and sinful pleasures of the court. The pleasures of sin last only for a short season in this life and end in death, while the narrow path of holiness leads to eternal life. The choice was made by faith that looks beyond what is seen to the unseen heavenly country, endures as seeing the Invisible, and obeys whether the way ahead is clear or not. By that faith he counted reproach for Christ greater riches than all Egypt's treasures, looking to the recompense of the imperishable crown and eternal glory, and believers now are called to the same self-denying service that values Christ above ease and inherits joint-heirship with Him.
Moses's Setting and Decision
The verse describes Moses when grown refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, giving up his place as the king's grandson in Egypt when it was the greatest kingdom on earth. He turned from its palace, throne, prospective kingdom and crown, riches and treasures, honors, power, luxury, worldly wisdom, fame as a warrior, and highest human prospects. He made that surrender to honor God, to help deliver his oppressed people, and to bind his life to God's purpose. His strength for the choice was connection with the Source of all power, rising above every earthly inducement and trusting himself wholly to God as belonging to the Lord. The cause of truth is maintained only by such exertion and continual sacrifice, sharing in self-denial with Him who was rich yet became poor that men might be made rich.
His refusal meant rejecting Egypt's idolatrous worship, heathen ceremonies and superstition, and worship of senseless objects. It meant rejecting the corrupting splendor, pride, flattery and sinful pleasures of the court that make men forget God, with its moral standard, education and evil associations. It meant rejecting self-sufficiency of spirit and pride as general of the Egyptian armies, against which God kept him in training lest egotism enter his heart where it is difficult to conquer. When commanded to be instructed by the priests he would not engage in their worship despite threats and promises of reward, but reasoned with priests and worshipers who could not answer him. Threatened with loss of the crown and with being disowned by Pharaoh's daughter unless he renounced his Hebrew faith and concealed his parentage, he would not renounce it but was firm to render homage to no object save God the maker of heaven and earth.
He was able to refuse because God-fearing parents and especially his mother had planted love, loyalty and religious principles in childhood. Those principles bore fruit when most needed and preserved him amid great temptation so he was not corrupted, while love for his brethren and respect for the Hebrew faith held him firm. His faith, rooted in that earliest teaching and strengthened by studying the laws of God's government, grew while he was still joined to Egypt's official interests until he trusted wholly in God. That growth prepared him to deliver Israel from bondage.
He remained at court until he was forty, turning in sympathy to his enslaved brethren, visiting them in servitude and encouraging them that God would work for their deliverance. He hoped they would rise to recover liberty and understand that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not and were not yet prepared for freedom. In that spirit he avenged an Israelite by killing an Egyptian who was smiting him. That killing was rash and presumptuous, done in his own way and not by faith, for faith moves in the strength and wisdom of God and not in the ways of men. When he reproved a quarreling Hebrew the next day, his right to interfere was denied and his deed was thrown back at him. The matter was reported and exaggerated to Pharaoh as a plot to overthrow the government and take the throne, Pharaoh determined to kill him, and Moses fled toward Arabia. He had to be shown the foolishness of man's wisdom, the weakness of human strength, and his utter helplessness without God until he lost self-confidence, realized his helplessness, and put his trust in God.
Choosing affliction with the people of God meant accepting hardship, reproach, scorn, hatred, persecution and possibly death with God's despised, oppressed, humble, poor nation. It meant taking up the God-given work of leading them out of bondage with its labor, anxious care and love for an ungrateful people who did not appreciate him. Although he first shrank from the responsibility and asked God to choose someone better qualified, once he began he never laid the burden down. He bore danger, misunderstanding and insult without retaliation, trusting God as personally present and as the help he needed. He would not let Israel go even when God offered to release him and destroy rebellious Israel.
In solitude near the end of his life, on the mountain reviewing the wilderness manifestations of God's power, glory, favor and communion, he judged the choice wise. Looking back over his life of sacrifice and service, he did not regret his sufferings and hardships but recognized the goodness and power of God and the value of serving among His people. He rejoiced in the choice, and in light of sharing even in small measure Christ's sufferings his own trials and sacrifices appeared small. His years as a shepherd had prepared him for his life's work more deeply than his royal education, for under teaching in nature he learned humility, meekness, simple and unwavering faith, and constant trust in God.
Sin's Pleasures and Affliction
The pleasures of sin last only for a short season in this life, for a time, and must be weighed against appearing with Christ in glory when He appears. All the honor and glory this world can offer is worthless in comparison, because the end of all earthly things is death, even eternal death, so no one can afford to make that choice. To see no further than present enjoyment is spiritual blindness, for those who lack abounding Christian graces cannot see afar off, having forgotten their cleansing from old sins, and remain barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The narrow path of holiness must therefore be resolutely chosen instead, turning from every worldly influence and by faith beholding Christ, altogether lovely and chiefest among ten thousand, who died so that people may live in the earth made new, even leading children away from sin. Men love that temporary pleasure while living in transgression of God's law, yet indulgence through dissipation brings bodily affliction as the penalty for wrongdoing, leaving guilt and fear of being unworthy to come before holy purity for healing.
Those pleasures are deceptive and enchanting, with an enchanting power that even those who now have religious experience once felt. They fascinate, look bright and tempting and harmless, and promise innocent folly and a grand carnival, with vice cloaked in flowers and in a flowery mantle to allure its victim. While sin still seems pleasant and its pleasures are not surrendered, conversion is incomplete and what has been gained can soon be lost, for seeing sin as offensive to God is what helps a person resist temptation and give up a sinful life. Remembering that past enchantment requires those who have turned from sin not to unite with Satan as accusers of the brethren by discouraging one another and contending while he lays snares for the inexperienced feet of children and youth, but to shield the young from his devices, remember their own hourly need for God's mercy and forbearance, stay patient with the errors of inexperienced youth, bear with them as long as God bears with them, and as fellow-sinners never cast them off.
Once chosen, the downward path descends rapidly, breaking the laws of health and morality, chaining the senses by intemperance and frivolity, perverting the fine qualities of the mind, and delivering the sinner wholly into the hands of Satan. What begins as charming enjoyment ends in terrible affliction, darkness of despair, guilt, misery, and the madness of a lost and ruined soul, leaving the sinner helpless in the hands of the evil one even when he would sacrifice wealth and pleasure to regain his lost manhood. That resulting affliction, with its tremendous cost of God's wrath, guilt and misery, is not God's will but the consequence of the person's own life. Sinful desires and traits must therefore be overcome with God's strength, and God's people must separate from sin and from those who draw them toward it, except when they can associate with them to do them good.
Those who refuse obedience and reject the salvation freely purchased by the suffering and death of the Son of God willingly choose that brief enjoyment over obedience to the law of God, though no one is compelled to accept it or obey. In doing so they forfeit happiness, eternal glory, and life with Jesus, sacrificing eternal glory for temporary pleasure. Those who reject the heavenly benefit are left to their choice and at the end receive the wrath of God and eternal death, forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. In black despair like the pall of death they then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, feeling much as Christ felt under the crushing weight of sin on the cross.
Faith and Eternal Reward
The choice was made by faith that turns from discouraging seen things to unseen things of God and seeks a better, heavenly country and the city God has built. That faith endures as seeing the Invisible, rising above earthly inducements by connection with the Source of power and relying not on human ability or wisdom. It obeys whether the command seems reasonable to human judgment or not, accepts divine discipline, and advances even when there is nothing ahead for the feet to tread upon. It gives God credit for wisdom to know what He means and firmness to mean what He says, doing without considering consequences in trust in the power and loving intentions of the Deliverer. Faith let Moses see that the attractions of court life were only a present, flattering good that would ruin him, while God's eternal reward was sure and lasting, so giving them up was no real loss and he did not turn from his integrity.
By that faith Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, because he looked to the recompense of the reward. He had moral strength to refuse wealth and greatness and fame though fitted to take preeminence among the great of the earth, to shine in the courts of its most glorious kingdom and to sway its scepter, distinguished as historian, poet, philosopher, general of armies and legislator. He valued affliction and reproach above worldly riches and honor, high-sounding titles, a prospective crown and the glory of a kingdom, looking by faith beyond the gorgeous palace and monarch's crown to the high honors to be bestowed on the saints of the Most High in a kingdom untainted by sin. He saw the imperishable crown the King of heaven will place on the brow of the overcomer, the unfading crown of immortality and eternal glory. With the eye of faith fixed upon the glorious future, the richest things earth can offer appeared valueless, so that mockings, scourgings, bonds, imprisonments, stoning, being sawn asunder, and wandering destitute, afflicted and tormented appeared light afflictions and small in comparison with eternal life.
Faith values loyalty to God and lasting reward above present ease and sinful pleasure, giving up riches, power and earthly crown in Egypt for the heavenly inheritance by looking beyond what is seen to eternal realities. What Moses counted greater riches truly was so, for his life of renunciation and sacrifice was blessing and blessed, irradiated with the presence of Christ with him in the wilderness wandering, on the mount of transfiguration, and in the heavenly courts, and honored in heaven. Instead of linking himself with the greatness of Egypt and giving laws to Egypt, he by divine direction enacted laws for the world as God's instrument, giving eternal principles of righteousness that safeguard home and society and underlie prosperity and best human government. That work can never perish, while the greatness, power and civilization of Egypt are in the dust and have passed away.
His choice showed he understood Christ's mission bringing the reality foreshadowed by the Jewish system and fulfilling its God-given types and shadows. He saw Christ accompanying Israel through their travels, and trusted God as personally present and the help he needed to bear danger, misunderstanding and insult for Christ without retaliation. In light of Christ's rejection, agony, death and triumph he rejoiced to share even in small measure Christ's sufferings, and his own trials and sacrifices appeared small.
Pattern for Believers
Moses stands among the heroes of faith whose firm principles came from faith and whose fidelity to God is set conspicuously before the world as a visible light to those in darkness. With Abraham and other servants of old, his life serves as a pattern for the Christian church, showing faith at work that can work in believers now. That same faith enables endurance under trials and service to God as channels of His power.
The record of the faithful is given as instruction to follow, which workers for God are to apply as they go forward in faith. Moses choosing hardship alongside God's people instead of the temporary pleasures of sin is held up in that record for strength and courage, especially to those living at the end of the world. It calls workers to turn from the discouraging seen to God and follow the example.
At Corinth the same choice meant gladly accepting suffering for Christ's sake together with the people of God and denying self instead of taking short-lived sinful enjoyment. There it meant standing against surrounding idolatry and sensualism presented in its gayest, most alluring form. While Paul was present believers were able to make that self-denying choice because his firm faith, fervent prayers, words of earnest instruction, and above all his godly life and example inspired and encouraged them, so those influences had little power over them. After his departure many did not hold it but grew careless and indifferent, letting natural taste and inclination control them and returning to the debasing heathen sins they had put away at conversion.
The opposite choice is seen in Herod, who was convicted that he could not keep his brother's wife in defiance of God's law. Obedience would have meant breaking away from that unlawful connection and obeying the commandments with the whole heart, but being weak in principle and vacillating in mind he yielded to lust and to the favor and controlling influence of a sinful partner, letting Herodias re-establish herself in his favor and holding to sin's pleasures rather than submitting to the restrictions of the law. The right choice is seen in later lives, as in Henry N. White preferring hardship with God's people over temporary enjoyment in sin, whose choice gives comfort and sustaining strength to grieving parents after his death and burial in the lonely tomb and the empty place left in the family circle. It is seen also in Joseph Bates, who lived out those firm principles while exposed to the evils of seafaring life, becoming a devoted follower of Christ and a reformer.
Call to Choose Faithfulness
Hebrews 11:25 calls for the same choice now, active and difficult service in God's cause instead of an easy, self-pleasing life free from labor and care. That means an itinerant life of hardships, privations and exposure, living not for self to please self but for God to please and glorify Him. As Moses gave up royal status, honor and luxury and a prospective kingdom in kingly courts, so faithfulness now fixes the affections on what has immortal worth rather than seeking honor from others and clinging to earthly pleasures and concerns. Worldly honor can be gained at the cost of heaven, and worldly success at the loss of spiritual life is disaster and death, not the blessing of providence. Those who defend God's honor and the right may face severe trials and stand nearly alone, but strength, precious victories and a rich reward are given.
Faithfulness is shown by yielding the will to God in obedience, accepting the path of service instead of following inclination, for obedience brings joy while disobedience brings sorrow. It refuses to do wrong even at the cost of death, being willing to suffer rather than commit sin, because cherished sinful desires turn the soul from God and indulging them strengthens that aversion. It resists Satan's deceptions and remains faithful to the message of truth, turning toward Canaan rather than back toward Egypt. It comes out from among the world to be separate and touches not the unclean thing, joining Christ's army to fight visible and invisible foes with His help against tribulation.
That separation overcomes sinful traits by God's strength and separates from enticers except to do them good, with no ambition for fame. It lays aside every weight of evil habits and practices formed by following natural dispositions and the sin that easily besets, to magnify the truth before a watching world. It bears poverty, the cross, self-denial, self-sacrifice, shattered worldly hopes, heavy unappreciated loads and great sacrifice to help God's children and God's work. It does this rather than lavishly spending God's money to exalt ambitious plans. It counts it better to be called poor by the world than to be written poor in the books of heaven, and greater honor to be written in heaven as rich in spiritual graces and hid with Christ in God than to sit with princes on earth and forfeit the kingdom of God.
Those who accept Christ and willingly share His humiliation before the world enter God's covenant of obedience, becoming members of the royal family and children of the heavenly King. They become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to reign as kings and priests, partakers with Christ in His glory with a place with Him on His throne. Valuing Christ above the world's treasures and suffering with Christ leads to reigning with Him and receiving the promised immortal life, the unfading crown of immortality and eternal glory, and the tree of life. Suffering is not itself the reward, but it gives value to the hope for which the faithful endure and prepares believers for it, and none reaches that reward without having chosen to suffer with God's people as Moses did. The Lord does not pass over such faithful ones but keeps them in sight, and their souls are more precious in His sight than those who once had talent and intelligence but ruined and corrupted themselves soul, body and spirit by self-indulgence.
Moses when grown refused to be called the grandson of Egypt's king, giving up the throne, crown, riches, honors and highest prospects of the greatest kingdom on earth to bind his life to God and deliver his oppressed people. Choosing affliction with them meant accepting hardship, reproach, persecution and even death with a despised and humble nation rather than keeping Egypt's luxury, idolatry and sinful pleasures of the court. The pleasures of sin last only for a short season in this life and end in death, while the narrow path of holiness leads to eternal life. The choice was made by faith that looks beyond what is seen to the unseen heavenly country, endures as seeing the Invisible, and obeys whether the way ahead is clear or not. By that faith he counted reproach for Christ greater riches than all Egypt's treasures, looking to the recompense of the imperishable crown and eternal glory, and believers now are called to the same self-denying service that values Christ above ease and inherits joint-heirship with Him.
Moses's Setting and Decision
The verse describes Moses when grown refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, giving up his place as the king's grandson in Egypt when it was the greatest kingdom on earth. He turned from its palace, throne, prospective kingdom and crown, riches and treasures, honors, power, luxury, worldly wisdom, fame as a warrior, and highest human prospects. He made that surrender to honor God, to help deliver his oppressed people, and to bind his life to God's purpose. His strength for the choice was connection with the Source of all power, rising above every earthly inducement and trusting himself wholly to God as belonging to the Lord. The cause of truth is maintained only by such exertion and continual sacrifice, sharing in self-denial with Him who was rich yet became poor that men might be made rich.
His refusal meant rejecting Egypt's idolatrous worship, heathen ceremonies and superstition, and worship of senseless objects. It meant rejecting the corrupting splendor, pride, flattery and sinful pleasures of the court that make men forget God, with its moral standard, education and evil associations. It meant rejecting self-sufficiency of spirit and pride as general of the Egyptian armies, against which God kept him in training lest egotism enter his heart where it is difficult to conquer. When commanded to be instructed by the priests he would not engage in their worship despite threats and promises of reward, but reasoned with priests and worshipers who could not answer him. Threatened with loss of the crown and with being disowned by Pharaoh's daughter unless he renounced his Hebrew faith and concealed his parentage, he would not renounce it but was firm to render homage to no object save God the maker of heaven and earth.
He was able to refuse because God-fearing parents and especially his mother had planted love, loyalty and religious principles in childhood. Those principles bore fruit when most needed and preserved him amid great temptation so he was not corrupted, while love for his brethren and respect for the Hebrew faith held him firm. His faith, rooted in that earliest teaching and strengthened by studying the laws of God's government, grew while he was still joined to Egypt's official interests until he trusted wholly in God. That growth prepared him to deliver Israel from bondage.
He remained at court until he was forty, turning in sympathy to his enslaved brethren, visiting them in servitude and encouraging them that God would work for their deliverance. He hoped they would rise to recover liberty and understand that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not and were not yet prepared for freedom. In that spirit he avenged an Israelite by killing an Egyptian who was smiting him. That killing was rash and presumptuous, done in his own way and not by faith, for faith moves in the strength and wisdom of God and not in the ways of men. When he reproved a quarreling Hebrew the next day, his right to interfere was denied and his deed was thrown back at him. The matter was reported and exaggerated to Pharaoh as a plot to overthrow the government and take the throne, Pharaoh determined to kill him, and Moses fled toward Arabia. He had to be shown the foolishness of man's wisdom, the weakness of human strength, and his utter helplessness without God until he lost self-confidence, realized his helplessness, and put his trust in God.
Choosing affliction with the people of God meant accepting hardship, reproach, scorn, hatred, persecution and possibly death with God's despised, oppressed, humble, poor nation. It meant taking up the God-given work of leading them out of bondage with its labor, anxious care and love for an ungrateful people who did not appreciate him. Although he first shrank from the responsibility and asked God to choose someone better qualified, once he began he never laid the burden down. He bore danger, misunderstanding and insult without retaliation, trusting God as personally present and as the help he needed. He would not let Israel go even when God offered to release him and destroy rebellious Israel.
In solitude near the end of his life, on the mountain reviewing the wilderness manifestations of God's power, glory, favor and communion, he judged the choice wise. Looking back over his life of sacrifice and service, he did not regret his sufferings and hardships but recognized the goodness and power of God and the value of serving among His people. He rejoiced in the choice, and in light of sharing even in small measure Christ's sufferings his own trials and sacrifices appeared small. His years as a shepherd had prepared him for his life's work more deeply than his royal education, for under teaching in nature he learned humility, meekness, simple and unwavering faith, and constant trust in God.
Sin's Pleasures and Affliction
The pleasures of sin last only for a short season in this life, for a time, and must be weighed against appearing with Christ in glory when He appears. All the honor and glory this world can offer is worthless in comparison, because the end of all earthly things is death, even eternal death, so no one can afford to make that choice. To see no further than present enjoyment is spiritual blindness, for those who lack abounding Christian graces cannot see afar off, having forgotten their cleansing from old sins, and remain barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The narrow path of holiness must therefore be resolutely chosen instead, turning from every worldly influence and by faith beholding Christ, altogether lovely and chiefest among ten thousand, who died so that people may live in the earth made new, even leading children away from sin. Men love that temporary pleasure while living in transgression of God's law, yet indulgence through dissipation brings bodily affliction as the penalty for wrongdoing, leaving guilt and fear of being unworthy to come before holy purity for healing.
Those pleasures are deceptive and enchanting, with an enchanting power that even those who now have religious experience once felt. They fascinate, look bright and tempting and harmless, and promise innocent folly and a grand carnival, with vice cloaked in flowers and in a flowery mantle to allure its victim. While sin still seems pleasant and its pleasures are not surrendered, conversion is incomplete and what has been gained can soon be lost, for seeing sin as offensive to God is what helps a person resist temptation and give up a sinful life. Remembering that past enchantment requires those who have turned from sin not to unite with Satan as accusers of the brethren by discouraging one another and contending while he lays snares for the inexperienced feet of children and youth, but to shield the young from his devices, remember their own hourly need for God's mercy and forbearance, stay patient with the errors of inexperienced youth, bear with them as long as God bears with them, and as fellow-sinners never cast them off.
Once chosen, the downward path descends rapidly, breaking the laws of health and morality, chaining the senses by intemperance and frivolity, perverting the fine qualities of the mind, and delivering the sinner wholly into the hands of Satan. What begins as charming enjoyment ends in terrible affliction, darkness of despair, guilt, misery, and the madness of a lost and ruined soul, leaving the sinner helpless in the hands of the evil one even when he would sacrifice wealth and pleasure to regain his lost manhood. That resulting affliction, with its tremendous cost of God's wrath, guilt and misery, is not God's will but the consequence of the person's own life. Sinful desires and traits must therefore be overcome with God's strength, and God's people must separate from sin and from those who draw them toward it, except when they can associate with them to do them good.
Those who refuse obedience and reject the salvation freely purchased by the suffering and death of the Son of God willingly choose that brief enjoyment over obedience to the law of God, though no one is compelled to accept it or obey. In doing so they forfeit happiness, eternal glory, and life with Jesus, sacrificing eternal glory for temporary pleasure. Those who reject the heavenly benefit are left to their choice and at the end receive the wrath of God and eternal death, forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. In black despair like the pall of death they then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, feeling much as Christ felt under the crushing weight of sin on the cross.
Faith and Eternal Reward
The choice was made by faith that turns from discouraging seen things to unseen things of God and seeks a better, heavenly country and the city God has built. That faith endures as seeing the Invisible, rising above earthly inducements by connection with the Source of power and relying not on human ability or wisdom. It obeys whether the command seems reasonable to human judgment or not, accepts divine discipline, and advances even when there is nothing ahead for the feet to tread upon. It gives God credit for wisdom to know what He means and firmness to mean what He says, doing without considering consequences in trust in the power and loving intentions of the Deliverer. Faith let Moses see that the attractions of court life were only a present, flattering good that would ruin him, while God's eternal reward was sure and lasting, so giving them up was no real loss and he did not turn from his integrity.
By that faith Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, because he looked to the recompense of the reward. He had moral strength to refuse wealth and greatness and fame though fitted to take preeminence among the great of the earth, to shine in the courts of its most glorious kingdom and to sway its scepter, distinguished as historian, poet, philosopher, general of armies and legislator. He valued affliction and reproach above worldly riches and honor, high-sounding titles, a prospective crown and the glory of a kingdom, looking by faith beyond the gorgeous palace and monarch's crown to the high honors to be bestowed on the saints of the Most High in a kingdom untainted by sin. He saw the imperishable crown the King of heaven will place on the brow of the overcomer, the unfading crown of immortality and eternal glory. With the eye of faith fixed upon the glorious future, the richest things earth can offer appeared valueless, so that mockings, scourgings, bonds, imprisonments, stoning, being sawn asunder, and wandering destitute, afflicted and tormented appeared light afflictions and small in comparison with eternal life.
Faith values loyalty to God and lasting reward above present ease and sinful pleasure, giving up riches, power and earthly crown in Egypt for the heavenly inheritance by looking beyond what is seen to eternal realities. What Moses counted greater riches truly was so, for his life of renunciation and sacrifice was blessing and blessed, irradiated with the presence of Christ with him in the wilderness wandering, on the mount of transfiguration, and in the heavenly courts, and honored in heaven. Instead of linking himself with the greatness of Egypt and giving laws to Egypt, he by divine direction enacted laws for the world as God's instrument, giving eternal principles of righteousness that safeguard home and society and underlie prosperity and best human government. That work can never perish, while the greatness, power and civilization of Egypt are in the dust and have passed away.
His choice showed he understood Christ's mission bringing the reality foreshadowed by the Jewish system and fulfilling its God-given types and shadows. He saw Christ accompanying Israel through their travels, and trusted God as personally present and the help he needed to bear danger, misunderstanding and insult for Christ without retaliation. In light of Christ's rejection, agony, death and triumph he rejoiced to share even in small measure Christ's sufferings, and his own trials and sacrifices appeared small.
Pattern for Believers
Moses stands among the heroes of faith whose firm principles came from faith and whose fidelity to God is set conspicuously before the world as a visible light to those in darkness. With Abraham and other servants of old, his life serves as a pattern for the Christian church, showing faith at work that can work in believers now. That same faith enables endurance under trials and service to God as channels of His power.
The record of the faithful is given as instruction to follow, which workers for God are to apply as they go forward in faith. Moses choosing hardship alongside God's people instead of the temporary pleasures of sin is held up in that record for strength and courage, especially to those living at the end of the world. It calls workers to turn from the discouraging seen to God and follow the example.
At Corinth the same choice meant gladly accepting suffering for Christ's sake together with the people of God and denying self instead of taking short-lived sinful enjoyment. There it meant standing against surrounding idolatry and sensualism presented in its gayest, most alluring form. While Paul was present believers were able to make that self-denying choice because his firm faith, fervent prayers, words of earnest instruction, and above all his godly life and example inspired and encouraged them, so those influences had little power over them. After his departure many did not hold it but grew careless and indifferent, letting natural taste and inclination control them and returning to the debasing heathen sins they had put away at conversion.
The opposite choice is seen in Herod, who was convicted that he could not keep his brother's wife in defiance of God's law. Obedience would have meant breaking away from that unlawful connection and obeying the commandments with the whole heart, but being weak in principle and vacillating in mind he yielded to lust and to the favor and controlling influence of a sinful partner, letting Herodias re-establish herself in his favor and holding to sin's pleasures rather than submitting to the restrictions of the law. The right choice is seen in later lives, as in Henry N. White preferring hardship with God's people over temporary enjoyment in sin, whose choice gives comfort and sustaining strength to grieving parents after his death and burial in the lonely tomb and the empty place left in the family circle. It is seen also in Joseph Bates, who lived out those firm principles while exposed to the evils of seafaring life, becoming a devoted follower of Christ and a reformer.
Call to Choose Faithfulness
Hebrews 11:25 calls for the same choice now, active and difficult service in God's cause instead of an easy, self-pleasing life free from labor and care. That means an itinerant life of hardships, privations and exposure, living not for self to please self but for God to please and glorify Him. As Moses gave up royal status, honor and luxury and a prospective kingdom in kingly courts, so faithfulness now fixes the affections on what has immortal worth rather than seeking honor from others and clinging to earthly pleasures and concerns. Worldly honor can be gained at the cost of heaven, and worldly success at the loss of spiritual life is disaster and death, not the blessing of providence. Those who defend God's honor and the right may face severe trials and stand nearly alone, but strength, precious victories and a rich reward are given.
Faithfulness is shown by yielding the will to God in obedience, accepting the path of service instead of following inclination, for obedience brings joy while disobedience brings sorrow. It refuses to do wrong even at the cost of death, being willing to suffer rather than commit sin, because cherished sinful desires turn the soul from God and indulging them strengthens that aversion. It resists Satan's deceptions and remains faithful to the message of truth, turning toward Canaan rather than back toward Egypt. It comes out from among the world to be separate and touches not the unclean thing, joining Christ's army to fight visible and invisible foes with His help against tribulation.
That separation overcomes sinful traits by God's strength and separates from enticers except to do them good, with no ambition for fame. It lays aside every weight of evil habits and practices formed by following natural dispositions and the sin that easily besets, to magnify the truth before a watching world. It bears poverty, the cross, self-denial, self-sacrifice, shattered worldly hopes, heavy unappreciated loads and great sacrifice to help God's children and God's work. It does this rather than lavishly spending God's money to exalt ambitious plans. It counts it better to be called poor by the world than to be written poor in the books of heaven, and greater honor to be written in heaven as rich in spiritual graces and hid with Christ in God than to sit with princes on earth and forfeit the kingdom of God.
Those who accept Christ and willingly share His humiliation before the world enter God's covenant of obedience, becoming members of the royal family and children of the heavenly King. They become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to reign as kings and priests, partakers with Christ in His glory with a place with Him on His throne. Valuing Christ above the world's treasures and suffering with Christ leads to reigning with Him and receiving the promised immortal life, the unfading crown of immortality and eternal glory, and the tree of life. Suffering is not itself the reward, but it gives value to the hope for which the faithful endure and prepares believers for it, and none reaches that reward without having chosen to suffer with God's people as Moses did. The Lord does not pass over such faithful ones but keeps them in sight, and their souls are more precious in His sight than those who once had talent and intelligence but ruined and corrupted themselves soul, body and spirit by self-indulgence.