By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
By faith Moses left Egypt without fearing the anger of the king, because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. To endure as seeing the Invisible is to keep the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present, acting with Him in view as surely as if He were visible. His choice meant refusing Egypt's highest honors, riches, power and temporary pleasures and choosing affliction and reproach with God's people, valuing God's favor and the lasting eternal reward above what could be seen. That sight was made possible by simple, unflinching faith nourished through connection with God and humble training, which enabled him to obey at once and to advance though nothing was ahead for his feet. The same faith can work now, turning the mind from visible discouraging things to unseen eternal realities, transforming the beholder into Christ's image and sustaining God's servants through danger and trial.
Moses in Faith Chapter
Hebrews 11 holds up Moses among its examples of faith as a pattern for the Christian church, commended for firm faith amid corrupting influences. He is a hero of faith whose conspicuous fidelity to God was made to shine before the world to those in darkness. He belongs to the great cloud of witnesses surrounding believers in the Christian race, one who breasted the evils and difficulties in his way and braced himself successfully against opposing forces of evil in the name of the Lord, sustained and strengthened with the Lord holding him by His hand. By faith he left Egypt without fearing the wrath and anger of the king, and endured because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. His steadfast faithfulness is part of the history of faithful servants of God, and that history is the experience God's servants today must expect to share as they go forward in faith in God's work.
The same faith that worked in God's servants of old can work in believers now. That faith sustains His servants through danger and trial, helping them continue along the path God marks out and preparing them for service. People of faith can serve as channels of God's power. The church and its members are called to endure by keeping the invisible God in view as they carry out their work as Christ's instrument for bringing light to those in darkness. Christians now need ardor to endure to the end by constantly looking to the invisible God, standing each in his own lot and place, catching inspiration from the work Christ did for souls while in this world, exalting the cross of Calvary before others which exalts the one who does it, letting faith have a resurrection and exerting a positive influence for good whether opportunities are limited or extended.
It was not the teachings of the schools of Egypt that enabled Moses to triumph over all his enemies, but an ever-abiding, unflinching faith that did not fail under the most trying circumstances. He advanced at the command of God although there was nothing ahead for his feet to tread upon, leading more than a million people forward step by step day by day through lonely wilderness travels permitted so Israel might learn endurance, trust, and living faith in God alone for relief and deliverance in peril. To endure as seeing Him who is invisible means doing whatever God commands without stopping to consider consequences, giving God credit for wisdom to know what He means and firmness to mean what He says. It means enduring hardship and the necessary divine discipline without complaining or fainting by the way, learning to know and trust God and serve Him with living faith. His faith puts to shame the manifest unbelief of those today who have far better opportunities and greater privileges for obtaining a knowledge of God. There is no limit to the usefulness of those who share his faith by putting self aside, making room for the Holy Spirit, and living wholly sanctified to God, whom God will teach hour by hour and day by day and through whom He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams. Usefulness comes not from perfect human education but from learning meekness, lowliness of heart and distrust of self, rendering implicit obedience regardless of previously inculcated theories, as laborers together with God and partakers of the divine nature. Their obedience leads others to glorify God, and the same faithfulness is seen in lives of self-denial, with the will subject to God and service aimed at doing good and saving souls.
Forsaking Egypt Fearlessly
By faith Moses forsook and left Egypt, enduring without fearing the wrath and anger of the king because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. His endurance was fixed attention and fixed sight upon God, who is invisible, and that faith made departure possible. His steadfast faithfulness belongs to the history of faithful servants of God, and that history is the experience God's servants today must expect to share and go forward in. His example teaches that faith values God's promised reward above temporary pleasure, earthly wealth, and the cost of suffering with God's people, and believers should keep that reward in view and let trials strengthen confidence in God.
His choice meant refusing Egypt's highest honors, riches, treasures, power, education, promised crown and temporary pleasures. It meant refusing idolatrous worship, refusing to hide his parentage, and refusing to abandon the Hebrew captives. Instead he chose affliction, burdens, scorn, persecution and reproach with God's people, to obey God and accept affliction, self-denial and sacrifice. His trust in God outweighed earthly inducements, and his growing awareness of God's personal presence strengthened him for delivering Israel, enabling him to face scorn, persecution and possible death rather than abandon their cause and to bear his people's burdens. His trust made him value God's favor above earthly status and reward.
He valued God's favor, the heavenly inheritance, the lasting and unseen eternal reward, and Christ's reproach above what could be seen. He gave up the flattering but temporary attractions of Egypt for eternal good, turning from treasures and honor to obedience. That regard for the reward and valuing of reproach for Christ above earthly wealth gave strength to remain faithful despite reproach and danger. It sustained choice of affliction with God's people rather than temporary sinful pleasure, through the inward struggle of surrendering the visible for God's promise and contrasting heavenly allegiance with worldly affections and gain.
His example teaches leaving situations and associations that draw from God or obscure obedience and the reward of obedience. To live as seeing Him who is invisible means to follow Christ and do one's work heartily and wholeheartedly for the Lord rather than for people, which keeps confidence and peace in God when worldly choices and influences arise. Faith in Christ is revealed by willing obedience, choosing God's service over the pleasures of the world, and willing obedience brings happiness and joy while disobedience brings sorrow and heaven rejoices when temptation is overcome. Faith kept Moses from turning back toward Egypt, and warns not to turn toward Egypt but toward Canaan, the promised land, while resisting spiritual deception.
Seeing the Invisible God
To endure as seeing Him who is invisible is to keep the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present, living as in His presence and acting with Him in view as surely as if He were visible. By such faith Moses forsook and left Egypt without fearing the wrath and anger of the king, fixing his attention and sight on God who is invisible. That faith enabled him to refuse and give up Egypt's riches, power, highest honors, earthly wealth, temporary pleasure, and the prospect of a royal crown, to choose affliction and suffering with God's people, to face scorn, persecution, burdens and possible death rather than abandon the Hebrew captives, and to value God's promised heavenly inheritance and lasting eternal reward above what could be seen. His growing awareness of God's personal presence and trust in God outweighed earthly inducements, strengthened him for delivering Israel, and taught believers to keep the reward in view and let trials strengthen confidence in God. His endurance was more than passively resisting evil; it was persevering in a firm consistent right course, bearing danger, insult and misunderstanding without retaliation, trusting God as the One needed to help, relying on His strength through trials and temptation, and looking forward to the reward of faith and obedience. He also saw Christ as his Saviour whose merits would be counted to him, and this enduring faith is continuous trust in God, so that losing sight of Jesus through self-indulgence leaves one unable to endure.
Faith turns the mind from visible discouraging things to unseen realities and eternal things, sustaining those who seek the heavenly country and city God has made and guiding life by confidence in unseen heavenly realities rather than by what is visible. It means living as viewing Him who is invisible by relying on and trusting Jesus Christ, living by faith and not walking by sight, living a pure and noble devotional life in Christ and through Christ. It rests on what is hoped for and gives evidence of what is not seen rather than resting on feeling, and it goes with faithful performance of duty. Looking steadfastly to Jesus who is full of grace and truth and beholding His goodness transforms the beholder and gives strength to endure. Perfecting Christian character requires this same beholding day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, fighting the good fight of faith as in sight of the invisible world, taking in the glories of the future eternal world with imagination stimulated and sanctified through the virtue of Christ, understanding through searching the Scriptures what Christ is to us and what we are to Christ, becoming changed by beholding Him, looking not at seen temporal things but at unseen eternal things, keeping the Word of God in counsel and refusing to serve mammon.
Though God is not seen with physical eyes or physical sight, He is seen by faith, and faith makes the unseen God real and reveals His presence. He does not change and is never changing, and looking to Him and fixing the eye on Him gives strength to endure and sustains through testing and troubling events rather than being shaken by them. In trouble and perplexity complete trust brings a living sense of His cheering, all-pervading, encouraging presence and power, knowing Him as strength and portion. Human beings can know and experience God and contemplate Him and speak with Him in prayer as much as they can bear, but cannot fully express His glory or define Him as an essence, and must not confuse Him with or identify Him with anything He created. Awareness of His presence should shape every thought and action, leading to love, reverence and submission to His mind rather than one's own.
This seeing is hindered and veiled when minds lean on human wisdom or are led to rely on it, or when they submit to human power and compelling human control requiring obedience to the dictates of finite minds and finite human judgment. Such leaning and submission place a veil between God and man and before the face, so there is no seeing of the Invisible. Seeing Him who is invisible requires holding to a plain Thus saith the Lord as the rule of faith and practice, keeping every obligation and duty to God and fellow man revealed in the Bible and doing the work after God's principles, so that the Invisible is seen and God is magnified. Faith and practice need the Holy Spirit's power and must be energized by the Holy Spirit instead of rule by finite human judgment.
Moses endured by faith because he kept sight of the invisible God before he could see God with his eyes. In the future the saved will see Jesus directly and will no longer endure by faith in the unseen, because Christ will be visible to them.
Training Behind Endurance
The faith by which Moses forsook Egypt was first planted by his parents, for the love and loyalty to God taught by his mother and the faith and fear of God taught by both parents stayed with him for life and no later influence could make him renounce those principles. That early teaching preserved him from the corrupting influence of court life and kept him loyal to God and to his Hebrew people despite the honor, education, and promised crown of Egypt and despite threats that he would lose the crown and be rejected by Pharaoh's daughter. Therefore he would not join Egypt's idolatrous worship nor hide his parentage for royal advantage.
His faith grew through connection with God and study of God's government while he served in Egypt, and rooted in early teaching it was strengthened as he listened to God's commission, preparing him for delivering Israel from bondage and enabling him to trust wholly in God above earthly inducements. The Lord then trained him through forty years of humble shepherd life in mountain solitude in Midian, which disciplined him, lessened confidence in his own abilities and education, and taught him to make God his only trust and to know God's character from nature. That shepherding taught him humility, meekness, faith, and trust, drawing him closer to God and giving him wisdom that palace education could not provide. Schooled to care for weak, wayward, and wandering sheep, to nurse the sick, seek the straying, bear with the unruly, and supply the young and the old, he was prepared to lead Israel and drawn nearer to the Chief Shepherd.
That training met the danger of his becoming self-sufficient in spirit and proud as general of the Egyptian armies, lest his education in the Egyptian school and association with evil should pervert his sense of the evil of transgression and bring his standard down to the standard of the world and pervert the true moral standard. Enduring as seeing Him who is invisible meant keeping egotism and pride out of his heart and life because those things would be difficult to conquer. It was not the teachings of the schools of Egypt that enabled him to triumph over all his enemies, but simple, implicit, ever-abiding, unflinching faith that did not fail under the most trying circumstances.
That faith moves in the strength and wisdom of God and not in the ways of men, trusting constantly in the power and loving intentions of the Deliverer, so that Moses pressed through difficulties and overcame obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable. Acting as seeing the Invisible, he gave God credit for wisdom to know what He meant and firmness of purpose to mean what He said, doing according to all the Lord commanded without stopping to consider consequences. He did not use education to show the unreasonableness of God's commands or the impossibility of obeying them, but obeyed at once even when the command seemed unreasonable to human judgment, changed his way for the Lord's way even when it led in strange paths and untried ways, and advanced at God's command although there was nothing ahead for his feet to tread upon. Thus he led more than a million people forward step by step day by day on a humanly hopeless undertaking, through lonely wilderness travels permitted so Israel might learn endurance, trust, and living faith in God alone for relief and deliverance in peril.
That faith required placing a very low estimate on his own qualifications and learning, losing self-confidence, and realizing his own helplessness and inefficiency without being upheld by the Lord Jesus. Enduring means willingly submitting to God, bearing the divine discipline imposed without complaining or fainting at the rebuke of the Lord, putting self aside, making room for the working of the Holy Spirit, and living wholly sanctified to become a sanctified channel through which the Lord can work. By that firm faith he was prepared to leave his flock to lead more than a million idolatrous, rebellious people, to be as a rod in the hand of Christ, a willing, unobstructed instrument and sanctified channel through which Jesus could work for the uplifting and salvation of Israel, so that blessings reached the children of Israel through him. The rash slaying of the Egyptian was not this faith but a presumptuous spirit that revealed the foolishness of man's wisdom and the weakness of human strength.
Believing in the great God, he looked to the Highest for spiritual education and knowledge of duty, held communion with the Father through humble prayer until his life became closely linked and united with Heaven and submerged in the Holy One of Israel, with simple, unwavering faith and constant, abiding trust. Through long years of discipline he learned humility until he became a man God could teach and guide, remaining a daily learner in the school of Christ and himself controlled by the Holy Spirit rather than seeking to control it. Therefore God specially chose him and trusted him to be the visible leader of Israel to voice the words of God and communicate divine instruction, talked with him face to face as a man speaks with his friend, and he became the meekest of all men.
Forty years' discipline gave him the right experience to be taken by the God of Israel, placed in the cleft of the rock and covered by God's hand so that a view of God's face would not extinguish his life, and to have God's glory revealed to him. That revelation of what God is taught him his own weakness and that strength is alone in God, and enabled him to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. God hides those who walk with Him in the cleft of the Rock and gives them His presence and light, so they can see Him as Moses did and endure as seeing the invisible, with clearer view and greater understanding. Moses' request to see God's glory was answered, showing that God does not rebuke those who seek a clearer view of His character, and contemplating Christ's character gives clearer views of Him and helps a person persevere in the work God has given. Those who so look with undivided heart catch glimpses of Jesus as sin-bearer and all-sufficient sacrifice, hid in the cleft to behold the Lamb of God, receiving pardon like a live coal upon the lips and tuning the lips to praise, so that time spent beholding Him is no loss. The same veiling was seen when Israel looked upon the guiding cloud standing over the tabernacle, for the brightness of God's presence was wrapped in the darkness of the cloud He made His pavilion so the people could bear to look upon the cloud and in it see the unseen God, and the glory in the cloud came from Jesus Christ who talked with Moses from the midst of the glory just as He had talked from the burning bush, which was God's plan for approaching man.
Beholding Christ by Faith
Moses endured by seeing Christ Himself accompanying Israel through all its travels, looking ahead to His coming in human flesh and trusting Him as Saviour whose merits would be counted to him. He had no hope except by believing in Jesus, for Christ was as much his Saviour as He is for believers now. Christ was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy, the Lamb to take away the sins of the world and to be slain for the sins of the world.
As Moses did, believers now need clear spiritual sight to endure by looking to the invisible God rather than fearing earthly powers. That clearer eyesight is a clear distinct idea of righteousness by faith in Christ and faith in His imputed righteousness, giving endurance and strength to resist temptation. It brings a person out of darkness, hopelessness, faithlessness and powerlessness against the tempter into hope, faith and power, making believers laborers together with God in the missionary work to be done. Those who trust Christ as substitute and surety, resting helpless souls on Him, endure in this way, for through His merits they are accounted pure and guiltless and receive the promise of seeing God.
Beholding Jesus by faith with undivided heart gives more distinct views of Him as sin-bearer and all-sufficient sacrifice. Those who so look are hid in the cleft of the rock to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, receiving the greatest truest joys and great blessing. Earnest seeking of the living God brings pardon like a live coal placed upon the lips, with the Holy Spirit drawing hearts and making the Lord's presence distinguishable. A sense of His all-sufficient sacrifice tunes the lips to the highest themes of praise, filling heart and mind with light and rejoicing in salvation, so that laying aside ordinary studies and time spent seeking God is counted as no loss.
After Christ's triumphant ascension and glorification Peter with his brethren still beheld Him though no longer visibly present, seeing Him as the Lamb of God taking away sin, glorious and invested with the robes of divinity. That inward sight, remembered with shame over denial in the hour of temptation, made Peter long to testify to Christ's divinity and glory, and at Pentecost he was given opportunity to do so. Under the Holy Spirit's influence the hearers in the synagogue at Nazareth likewise beheld the Invisible through faith as Moses did, perceiving God's presence not by physical sight when Jesus explained the prophecies about Himself.
Character Changed by Sight
Endurance meant keeping the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present and relying on His help through trials and temptation. It was not only resisting evil but persevering in a firm, consistent right course, bearing danger, insult and misunderstanding without retaliation. Moses trusted God as the One he needed who would help him, looked forward to the reward of faith and obedience, and saw Christ as his Saviour whose merits would be counted to him. This enduring faith is continuous trust; losing sight of Jesus through self-indulgence leaves a person unable to endure, while abiding in Christ keeps from being easily provoked and gives peace and joy. Faith gave strength to withstand pressure and defend right nearly alone with purest integrity, as Christ in the wilderness endured severe conflict by reliance on God.
Staying the heart on God and beholding His goodness transforms the beholder into Christ's image from glory to glory by the Spirit. Looking steadfastly to Jesus, full of grace and truth, makes meek and lowly in heart and gives strength to endure, for faith rests on what is hoped for and the evidence of the unseen rather than on feeling. Searching the deep everlasting truths and looking to Jesus lifts the mind above frivolous questions, makes motives and sympathies firm and enduring, and goes with faithful performance of duty. Faith in Christ shown by works transforms character through the Holy Spirit, humbling at the cross in contrition all who receive grace, while selfishness and pride resist conviction of sin. This beholding shapes words, spirit, attitude and actions with love, thankfulness, praise and holiness, breaks earth's power over mind and character, and reveals Christ's character instead of finite man's so self is no longer seen.
Seeing God who cannot be seen with physical eyes in clear spiritual light is salvation to the soul and calls for undivided interest and purity of heart. It begins as soon as the soul decides to die to self, and the new light grows stronger and stronger until able to endure the sight. In proportion to the view of God is spiritual force of character, clearness of judgment, and consecration of life, time and powers to God. This is the experience of the pure in heart who see God now, with assurance of blessings in this life and the life to come. It belongs to those who love Christ by having and keeping His commandments and abiding in His love as He kept His Father's commandments, who receive His manifestation and fullness of joy, who love one another as He loved, whose hearts are purified from hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong and cleansed from inherent sin so Christ can enter, and who are rooted and grounded in love to comprehend and know Christ's love and be filled with all the fullness of God.
Seeing the invisible God is intelligent knowledge of the Holy Spirit's sanctification upon the human heart, and that alone is safety. When possessed it turns intelligence of truth into virtue and sanctified character, puts one to reflect light, to watch over younger ones in school and help them with the older blessing the younger, and to bring Christ's work into home and school by helping children understand God's Word and bring it into life practice so schools reflect heaven's light. Christ lived this sight as He came to His crucifixion, looking at the attacks He would meet while helping His followers in every possible way. Those who behold by the eye of faith lose sight of self, seeing the King in His beauty and the land very far off, which mortifies self instead of exalting self. This leads to economy, justice and righteousness, binding about wants, practicing the economy taught to others, not expending unnecessary means on self or display, not confederating by underhand methods to draw large supply from the treasury or claim higher wages than those who work for smaller wages, but giving to the cause in Christlike self-denial what others use for display.
Those who turn to God with full purpose of heart abhor selfish covetousness because they see Christ, and those who refuse this reform and grasp surplus means will never see the King in His beauty, their experience in this life deciding eternal destiny. The verse means power to dare stand alone for right like Daniel, firmly meeting the first suggestion of wrong, refusing to tamper with principles condemned in God's Word, resolutely turning from the presenter of wrong and withdrawing in silence from workers on wrong principles rather than remaining and listening to their devices. Enduring sight of the invisible is possible only for a heart filled with purposeful compassion for fallen people, proved by Christlike deeds fulfilling the law after the Father's gift of His Son. Only he who so loves knows God, while he who does not love those for whom the Father has done so much does not know God and cannot endure.
Seeing Him who is invisible means living before the unseen God as though His presence were real and constant, living open as the day. It leads to a truthful life cleansed of moral defilement, with all deceit, exaggeration, misstatement, untruth, guile and secret works put away. It calls for a trustful disposition always thinking of Him as life and crown of rejoicing, remembering He bought believers with His own blood, cultivating love and confidence toward brethren, refusing to nurse grievous things because time is short, and pressing forward in great determined work without failing or discouragement as vessels kept for the Master's use. One departing from the living God for self and cheap earthly gain must repent, be converted, renew covenant at the cross, die to self, separate from sin and sinners and no longer make them a confidence, and serve the Lord fully, for it is life-or-death to the eternal interest because the end is near when every secret thing comes to judgment.
No one is safe unless living daily, hourly as seeing Him who is invisible, actuated by Bible truth — righteousness, mercy and love — and drawing moral and intellectual power from the Divine Source. Past experience, limited spiritual knowledge, habits and opinions are unsafe and may need reforming, and no instruction or example can overcome natural traits growing with growth and strengthening with strength, with men's influence only restraining unsanctified inclinations until restraints are removed. Safety in the last days, especially for those honored with trust and responsibility who must make God their dependence, is not in trusting men and making flesh an arm but in being hewed by reproof, warning and admonition until heart and character are changed after the divine Pattern and polished for the heavenly building. If the curtain were rolled back so poor sinful mortals could be enabled to endure seeing Him, proud self-exalted sinners would decidedly change attitude, wicked boasting would appear contemptible, and disgusting misrepresentations would make them understand Christ is ashamed to call them disciples. Living as seeing Him means principles of truth transform character so one acts everywhere as Christ's representative, constantly conscious of the unseen God and of outgoing influence, keeping the mind fixed on Him though invisible and forming character after the divine likeness.
Endurance in Present Life
Faith gives courage, freedom, light and power to do appointed duties, to stand at the post and serve and win souls, catching inspiration from Christ's work for souls, lifting the cross of Calvary and in turn being lifted, letting faith rise from indifference, and exerting positive influence. Workers are to seek God in prayer before teaching so words reflect truth, to depend not on own sufficiency but cultivate faith daily, and to have faith renewed for active service.
The workers in Australia exemplified this endurance amid poverty, lack of support and obstacles, trusting God was with them to do His will. It is an experience gained in hard pioneer labor knowing Christ and angels go before in every field, stay with institution and health work, and will reward long labor and invested means.
Looking to Jesus and remembering His past kindness and power, bracing the soul in God and drawing strengthening grace rather than depending on human help or attending to discouragement, keeps the mind from unbelief and doubt when circumstances seem impossible. Through testing, grief and troubling events this gives courage, faith and perseverance that advances, works faithfully, stands firm and does not lay off armor. God tests and proves His people, and looking to Him who does not change and is invisible sustains them through that testing with strength and assurance in trouble and perplexity.
Seeing Him keeps self from ruling and enables trust, submission and service with rest, peace and joy. It means drawing nearer Christ, resting content in His love, trusting the Redeemer and Life-giver to work out salvation, with faith strengthened and love perfected for God. It is honoring Him with flint-like resolve toward Zion without doubting His love even when darkness opposes, holding to mission and work and thereby becoming partaker of the divine nature in overcoming.
In pain, suffering and long wakeful nights the Lord is sacredly near, and communion with the compassionate Saviour looking constantly to Jesus who begins and completes faith brings comfort and strength. By this nearness those who walk by faith not sight keep going undiscouraged, holding Him near and present and looking upon His face full of tenderness and compassion.
In critical duties requiring rapid work with no false moves, seeing the Invisible keeps one calm, self-possessed, with quick discernment, clear eyesight, steady nerves and skillful precision, because Jesus sends His angel to stand by, lay a hand upon the hand and guide movements. To endure is to acknowledge the Presence, magnify God's name not one's own, depend wholly on Him, give up self-distinction, respect ministry and heed counsel rather than planning in own wisdom or starting unappointed enterprises. This sustained a physician before a critical operation with confidence in Christ's present help as sure refuge in distress, and enabled testimony though very feeble and ill beyond natural power with conscious presence of God and angels.
When writers see Him by faith and draw near to speak with Him their words reflect purity and bring life. The same spiritual sight given to teachers discovers truth's loveliness, breadth and harmony through humble contrite searching revived by God, rewards diligent prayerful search, lifts words above the cheap and common, and enables preachers vivified by the Spirit to communicate acceptably and win souls, while students' glimpses bring pardon and joy. Defects of character left unovercome darken understanding and hide that loveliness, but searching with oil of grace makes the student after the similitude of God.
Endurance comes through daily abiding grace, more prayer, humble consecrated walking with God, trusting Christ as sufficiency, earnest diligent exercise that strengthens sinew and gives intensity of thought as Christ is formed within. It means following Christ beneath the cross with humble confidence, moral strength and clear understanding, and abiding, denying self, carrying the cross and using every ability to save others in mercy and love, drawing near to God, standing on Bible truth, growing day by day, placing entire dependence on God and letting His name be magnified. Those who so live find Christ a very present help, walk safely, reveal Christian graces above pettish impatience as laborers together with Him, entitled to covenant blessings only by Christ's righteousness, with life blood circulating through the soul on the bread of heaven and words testifying to the efficiency of grace.
A Christian mother walking in the Spirit is guarded by unseen power with continual grace. Seeing the unseen comes by opening soul windows heavenward and closing them earthward against malaria, giving up earthly service, daily eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood, surrendering the will to God, letting light into the family and teaching children what they must be and do to be saved.
Those unable to endure seeing Him are spiritually darkened and weak, absorbed in earthly things and vanity without joy in the Lord or interest in eternal realities. Those who have tasted the world to come are not to follow that course, for faith turns from forsaking God to dependence on Him.
This endurance belongs to overcomers through the Lamb's blood and testimony as they understand Christ's battle when He veiled glory as a child of a fallen race against Satan's fiercest attacks. It belongs to all escaping worldly corruption who partake the divine nature, resist temptation by God's strength, gain knowledge by cooperating with Him, and become lights.
God's people beholding Him invisible to the world are filled with joy and gladness as an animated people letting light shine in good works glorifying the Father. Beholding is reflected in shining countenance, praise and thanksgiving that helps bring others to faith, and believers may share the Saviour's joy now even amid the church's dark struggle by enduring with Him in view.
Faith discerns God's unseen presence and power working for truth even when human eyes cannot see it, joined with courteous, kind, tender Christlike conduct. It gives strength to stand apart from the world, set affections on heavenly things, keep God's law, live to represent Christ in separation from the world, and carry the church's work as His instrument.
Staying thoughts on God ennobles intellect and gives strength to withstand human claims without being cowed. Keeping Him in view sustains a steady beneficial influence above fogs and clouds in any calling, vitalizing the atmosphere with heavenly principle, manifest in helping tempted souls to the Rock rather than crowding, pushing or abandoning them on Satan's ground.
As faith grows endurance becomes clearer and strengthens obedience. Enduring means believing God and carrying out His purpose, standing firmly for truth without wavering timidity or sanctioning wrong by silence, for unbelief leaves one behind, causes blunders and inability to endure, so that without boundless grace one would perish.
For Christ's disciples it means carrying work as if seeing the invisible Christ rather than relying on human wisdom, facing supernatural powers in a conflict with eternal consequences to advance truth against error, idolatry and sin. Though unbelief and lovelessness discourage and Satan obscures brightness, Jesus lives and shines, heavenly beings serve in His army and He captains them, keeping believers from fear, despair and provocation with abiding peace.
Seeing Christ draws the mind to Him so that when life is hidden with Him selfishness, pride and perverse feelings disappear and grievances cease to burden. Steadfastly looking reveals His grace and goodness, transforms to faithful integrity in duty, while lightly regarding sin and duty shows failure to behold Him.
Daily reliance forms Christ's character making one a pattern of meekness who seeks rest in His yoke rather than burdening others. Enduring by seeing gives conception of divine character and heaven's perfection, and a worker so looking discerns eternal realities without seeking ease or amusement.
Enduring means relying on God's goodness and power through experience to remain faithful in conflict and resist temptation as He intended His manifestations to enable, laboring successfully with Him. It supports giving praise to the unseen God rather than crediting a human helper as source of life and healing, valuing belonging to God above worldly honors, remaining steady amid temptation with joy in Him.
Searching deep everlasting truths and looking to Jesus lifts the mind above frivolous questions, widens horizon, changes to His image, firms motives and sympathies, and gives enduring impressions like living water. Probationers in this world's school for the higher school above may behold by making Christ's excellence their study through time and eternity to represent Him, learning from His life lessons fitting for the world to come, with the most uplifting truths those closest to the source of all truth.
Keeping the unseen God and Jesus continually in view through wrestling supplication day and night for unseen power gives more than human energy to rescue souls from drink and sin's degradation while working out one's own salvation, making overcomers through Christ's love into temperance workers who help others sit in heavenly places. Faith is also applied to reading Scripture as God's Word shining in darkness to discern the One it points to, living by trust in Him.
By faith Moses left Egypt without fearing the anger of the king, because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. To endure as seeing the Invisible is to keep the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present, acting with Him in view as surely as if He were visible. His choice meant refusing Egypt's highest honors, riches, power and temporary pleasures and choosing affliction and reproach with God's people, valuing God's favor and the lasting eternal reward above what could be seen. That sight was made possible by simple, unflinching faith nourished through connection with God and humble training, which enabled him to obey at once and to advance though nothing was ahead for his feet. The same faith can work now, turning the mind from visible discouraging things to unseen eternal realities, transforming the beholder into Christ's image and sustaining God's servants through danger and trial.
Moses in Faith Chapter
Hebrews 11 holds up Moses among its examples of faith as a pattern for the Christian church, commended for firm faith amid corrupting influences. He is a hero of faith whose conspicuous fidelity to God was made to shine before the world to those in darkness. He belongs to the great cloud of witnesses surrounding believers in the Christian race, one who breasted the evils and difficulties in his way and braced himself successfully against opposing forces of evil in the name of the Lord, sustained and strengthened with the Lord holding him by His hand. By faith he left Egypt without fearing the wrath and anger of the king, and endured because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. His steadfast faithfulness is part of the history of faithful servants of God, and that history is the experience God's servants today must expect to share as they go forward in faith in God's work.
The same faith that worked in God's servants of old can work in believers now. That faith sustains His servants through danger and trial, helping them continue along the path God marks out and preparing them for service. People of faith can serve as channels of God's power. The church and its members are called to endure by keeping the invisible God in view as they carry out their work as Christ's instrument for bringing light to those in darkness. Christians now need ardor to endure to the end by constantly looking to the invisible God, standing each in his own lot and place, catching inspiration from the work Christ did for souls while in this world, exalting the cross of Calvary before others which exalts the one who does it, letting faith have a resurrection and exerting a positive influence for good whether opportunities are limited or extended.
It was not the teachings of the schools of Egypt that enabled Moses to triumph over all his enemies, but an ever-abiding, unflinching faith that did not fail under the most trying circumstances. He advanced at the command of God although there was nothing ahead for his feet to tread upon, leading more than a million people forward step by step day by day through lonely wilderness travels permitted so Israel might learn endurance, trust, and living faith in God alone for relief and deliverance in peril. To endure as seeing Him who is invisible means doing whatever God commands without stopping to consider consequences, giving God credit for wisdom to know what He means and firmness to mean what He says. It means enduring hardship and the necessary divine discipline without complaining or fainting by the way, learning to know and trust God and serve Him with living faith. His faith puts to shame the manifest unbelief of those today who have far better opportunities and greater privileges for obtaining a knowledge of God. There is no limit to the usefulness of those who share his faith by putting self aside, making room for the Holy Spirit, and living wholly sanctified to God, whom God will teach hour by hour and day by day and through whom He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams. Usefulness comes not from perfect human education but from learning meekness, lowliness of heart and distrust of self, rendering implicit obedience regardless of previously inculcated theories, as laborers together with God and partakers of the divine nature. Their obedience leads others to glorify God, and the same faithfulness is seen in lives of self-denial, with the will subject to God and service aimed at doing good and saving souls.
Forsaking Egypt Fearlessly
By faith Moses forsook and left Egypt, enduring without fearing the wrath and anger of the king because he lived as seeing Him who is invisible. His endurance was fixed attention and fixed sight upon God, who is invisible, and that faith made departure possible. His steadfast faithfulness belongs to the history of faithful servants of God, and that history is the experience God's servants today must expect to share and go forward in. His example teaches that faith values God's promised reward above temporary pleasure, earthly wealth, and the cost of suffering with God's people, and believers should keep that reward in view and let trials strengthen confidence in God.
His choice meant refusing Egypt's highest honors, riches, treasures, power, education, promised crown and temporary pleasures. It meant refusing idolatrous worship, refusing to hide his parentage, and refusing to abandon the Hebrew captives. Instead he chose affliction, burdens, scorn, persecution and reproach with God's people, to obey God and accept affliction, self-denial and sacrifice. His trust in God outweighed earthly inducements, and his growing awareness of God's personal presence strengthened him for delivering Israel, enabling him to face scorn, persecution and possible death rather than abandon their cause and to bear his people's burdens. His trust made him value God's favor above earthly status and reward.
He valued God's favor, the heavenly inheritance, the lasting and unseen eternal reward, and Christ's reproach above what could be seen. He gave up the flattering but temporary attractions of Egypt for eternal good, turning from treasures and honor to obedience. That regard for the reward and valuing of reproach for Christ above earthly wealth gave strength to remain faithful despite reproach and danger. It sustained choice of affliction with God's people rather than temporary sinful pleasure, through the inward struggle of surrendering the visible for God's promise and contrasting heavenly allegiance with worldly affections and gain.
His example teaches leaving situations and associations that draw from God or obscure obedience and the reward of obedience. To live as seeing Him who is invisible means to follow Christ and do one's work heartily and wholeheartedly for the Lord rather than for people, which keeps confidence and peace in God when worldly choices and influences arise. Faith in Christ is revealed by willing obedience, choosing God's service over the pleasures of the world, and willing obedience brings happiness and joy while disobedience brings sorrow and heaven rejoices when temptation is overcome. Faith kept Moses from turning back toward Egypt, and warns not to turn toward Egypt but toward Canaan, the promised land, while resisting spiritual deception.
Seeing the Invisible God
To endure as seeing Him who is invisible is to keep the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present, living as in His presence and acting with Him in view as surely as if He were visible. By such faith Moses forsook and left Egypt without fearing the wrath and anger of the king, fixing his attention and sight on God who is invisible. That faith enabled him to refuse and give up Egypt's riches, power, highest honors, earthly wealth, temporary pleasure, and the prospect of a royal crown, to choose affliction and suffering with God's people, to face scorn, persecution, burdens and possible death rather than abandon the Hebrew captives, and to value God's promised heavenly inheritance and lasting eternal reward above what could be seen. His growing awareness of God's personal presence and trust in God outweighed earthly inducements, strengthened him for delivering Israel, and taught believers to keep the reward in view and let trials strengthen confidence in God. His endurance was more than passively resisting evil; it was persevering in a firm consistent right course, bearing danger, insult and misunderstanding without retaliation, trusting God as the One needed to help, relying on His strength through trials and temptation, and looking forward to the reward of faith and obedience. He also saw Christ as his Saviour whose merits would be counted to him, and this enduring faith is continuous trust in God, so that losing sight of Jesus through self-indulgence leaves one unable to endure.
Faith turns the mind from visible discouraging things to unseen realities and eternal things, sustaining those who seek the heavenly country and city God has made and guiding life by confidence in unseen heavenly realities rather than by what is visible. It means living as viewing Him who is invisible by relying on and trusting Jesus Christ, living by faith and not walking by sight, living a pure and noble devotional life in Christ and through Christ. It rests on what is hoped for and gives evidence of what is not seen rather than resting on feeling, and it goes with faithful performance of duty. Looking steadfastly to Jesus who is full of grace and truth and beholding His goodness transforms the beholder and gives strength to endure. Perfecting Christian character requires this same beholding day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, fighting the good fight of faith as in sight of the invisible world, taking in the glories of the future eternal world with imagination stimulated and sanctified through the virtue of Christ, understanding through searching the Scriptures what Christ is to us and what we are to Christ, becoming changed by beholding Him, looking not at seen temporal things but at unseen eternal things, keeping the Word of God in counsel and refusing to serve mammon.
Though God is not seen with physical eyes or physical sight, He is seen by faith, and faith makes the unseen God real and reveals His presence. He does not change and is never changing, and looking to Him and fixing the eye on Him gives strength to endure and sustains through testing and troubling events rather than being shaken by them. In trouble and perplexity complete trust brings a living sense of His cheering, all-pervading, encouraging presence and power, knowing Him as strength and portion. Human beings can know and experience God and contemplate Him and speak with Him in prayer as much as they can bear, but cannot fully express His glory or define Him as an essence, and must not confuse Him with or identify Him with anything He created. Awareness of His presence should shape every thought and action, leading to love, reverence and submission to His mind rather than one's own.
This seeing is hindered and veiled when minds lean on human wisdom or are led to rely on it, or when they submit to human power and compelling human control requiring obedience to the dictates of finite minds and finite human judgment. Such leaning and submission place a veil between God and man and before the face, so there is no seeing of the Invisible. Seeing Him who is invisible requires holding to a plain Thus saith the Lord as the rule of faith and practice, keeping every obligation and duty to God and fellow man revealed in the Bible and doing the work after God's principles, so that the Invisible is seen and God is magnified. Faith and practice need the Holy Spirit's power and must be energized by the Holy Spirit instead of rule by finite human judgment.
Moses endured by faith because he kept sight of the invisible God before he could see God with his eyes. In the future the saved will see Jesus directly and will no longer endure by faith in the unseen, because Christ will be visible to them.
Training Behind Endurance
The faith by which Moses forsook Egypt was first planted by his parents, for the love and loyalty to God taught by his mother and the faith and fear of God taught by both parents stayed with him for life and no later influence could make him renounce those principles. That early teaching preserved him from the corrupting influence of court life and kept him loyal to God and to his Hebrew people despite the honor, education, and promised crown of Egypt and despite threats that he would lose the crown and be rejected by Pharaoh's daughter. Therefore he would not join Egypt's idolatrous worship nor hide his parentage for royal advantage.
His faith grew through connection with God and study of God's government while he served in Egypt, and rooted in early teaching it was strengthened as he listened to God's commission, preparing him for delivering Israel from bondage and enabling him to trust wholly in God above earthly inducements. The Lord then trained him through forty years of humble shepherd life in mountain solitude in Midian, which disciplined him, lessened confidence in his own abilities and education, and taught him to make God his only trust and to know God's character from nature. That shepherding taught him humility, meekness, faith, and trust, drawing him closer to God and giving him wisdom that palace education could not provide. Schooled to care for weak, wayward, and wandering sheep, to nurse the sick, seek the straying, bear with the unruly, and supply the young and the old, he was prepared to lead Israel and drawn nearer to the Chief Shepherd.
That training met the danger of his becoming self-sufficient in spirit and proud as general of the Egyptian armies, lest his education in the Egyptian school and association with evil should pervert his sense of the evil of transgression and bring his standard down to the standard of the world and pervert the true moral standard. Enduring as seeing Him who is invisible meant keeping egotism and pride out of his heart and life because those things would be difficult to conquer. It was not the teachings of the schools of Egypt that enabled him to triumph over all his enemies, but simple, implicit, ever-abiding, unflinching faith that did not fail under the most trying circumstances.
That faith moves in the strength and wisdom of God and not in the ways of men, trusting constantly in the power and loving intentions of the Deliverer, so that Moses pressed through difficulties and overcame obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable. Acting as seeing the Invisible, he gave God credit for wisdom to know what He meant and firmness of purpose to mean what He said, doing according to all the Lord commanded without stopping to consider consequences. He did not use education to show the unreasonableness of God's commands or the impossibility of obeying them, but obeyed at once even when the command seemed unreasonable to human judgment, changed his way for the Lord's way even when it led in strange paths and untried ways, and advanced at God's command although there was nothing ahead for his feet to tread upon. Thus he led more than a million people forward step by step day by day on a humanly hopeless undertaking, through lonely wilderness travels permitted so Israel might learn endurance, trust, and living faith in God alone for relief and deliverance in peril.
That faith required placing a very low estimate on his own qualifications and learning, losing self-confidence, and realizing his own helplessness and inefficiency without being upheld by the Lord Jesus. Enduring means willingly submitting to God, bearing the divine discipline imposed without complaining or fainting at the rebuke of the Lord, putting self aside, making room for the working of the Holy Spirit, and living wholly sanctified to become a sanctified channel through which the Lord can work. By that firm faith he was prepared to leave his flock to lead more than a million idolatrous, rebellious people, to be as a rod in the hand of Christ, a willing, unobstructed instrument and sanctified channel through which Jesus could work for the uplifting and salvation of Israel, so that blessings reached the children of Israel through him. The rash slaying of the Egyptian was not this faith but a presumptuous spirit that revealed the foolishness of man's wisdom and the weakness of human strength.
Believing in the great God, he looked to the Highest for spiritual education and knowledge of duty, held communion with the Father through humble prayer until his life became closely linked and united with Heaven and submerged in the Holy One of Israel, with simple, unwavering faith and constant, abiding trust. Through long years of discipline he learned humility until he became a man God could teach and guide, remaining a daily learner in the school of Christ and himself controlled by the Holy Spirit rather than seeking to control it. Therefore God specially chose him and trusted him to be the visible leader of Israel to voice the words of God and communicate divine instruction, talked with him face to face as a man speaks with his friend, and he became the meekest of all men.
Forty years' discipline gave him the right experience to be taken by the God of Israel, placed in the cleft of the rock and covered by God's hand so that a view of God's face would not extinguish his life, and to have God's glory revealed to him. That revelation of what God is taught him his own weakness and that strength is alone in God, and enabled him to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. God hides those who walk with Him in the cleft of the Rock and gives them His presence and light, so they can see Him as Moses did and endure as seeing the invisible, with clearer view and greater understanding. Moses' request to see God's glory was answered, showing that God does not rebuke those who seek a clearer view of His character, and contemplating Christ's character gives clearer views of Him and helps a person persevere in the work God has given. Those who so look with undivided heart catch glimpses of Jesus as sin-bearer and all-sufficient sacrifice, hid in the cleft to behold the Lamb of God, receiving pardon like a live coal upon the lips and tuning the lips to praise, so that time spent beholding Him is no loss. The same veiling was seen when Israel looked upon the guiding cloud standing over the tabernacle, for the brightness of God's presence was wrapped in the darkness of the cloud He made His pavilion so the people could bear to look upon the cloud and in it see the unseen God, and the glory in the cloud came from Jesus Christ who talked with Moses from the midst of the glory just as He had talked from the burning bush, which was God's plan for approaching man.
Beholding Christ by Faith
Moses endured by seeing Christ Himself accompanying Israel through all its travels, looking ahead to His coming in human flesh and trusting Him as Saviour whose merits would be counted to him. He had no hope except by believing in Jesus, for Christ was as much his Saviour as He is for believers now. Christ was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy, the Lamb to take away the sins of the world and to be slain for the sins of the world.
As Moses did, believers now need clear spiritual sight to endure by looking to the invisible God rather than fearing earthly powers. That clearer eyesight is a clear distinct idea of righteousness by faith in Christ and faith in His imputed righteousness, giving endurance and strength to resist temptation. It brings a person out of darkness, hopelessness, faithlessness and powerlessness against the tempter into hope, faith and power, making believers laborers together with God in the missionary work to be done. Those who trust Christ as substitute and surety, resting helpless souls on Him, endure in this way, for through His merits they are accounted pure and guiltless and receive the promise of seeing God.
Beholding Jesus by faith with undivided heart gives more distinct views of Him as sin-bearer and all-sufficient sacrifice. Those who so look are hid in the cleft of the rock to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, receiving the greatest truest joys and great blessing. Earnest seeking of the living God brings pardon like a live coal placed upon the lips, with the Holy Spirit drawing hearts and making the Lord's presence distinguishable. A sense of His all-sufficient sacrifice tunes the lips to the highest themes of praise, filling heart and mind with light and rejoicing in salvation, so that laying aside ordinary studies and time spent seeking God is counted as no loss.
After Christ's triumphant ascension and glorification Peter with his brethren still beheld Him though no longer visibly present, seeing Him as the Lamb of God taking away sin, glorious and invested with the robes of divinity. That inward sight, remembered with shame over denial in the hour of temptation, made Peter long to testify to Christ's divinity and glory, and at Pentecost he was given opportunity to do so. Under the Holy Spirit's influence the hearers in the synagogue at Nazareth likewise beheld the Invisible through faith as Moses did, perceiving God's presence not by physical sight when Jesus explained the prophecies about Himself.
Character Changed by Sight
Endurance meant keeping the ever-present Lord continually before the mind as real and present and relying on His help through trials and temptation. It was not only resisting evil but persevering in a firm, consistent right course, bearing danger, insult and misunderstanding without retaliation. Moses trusted God as the One he needed who would help him, looked forward to the reward of faith and obedience, and saw Christ as his Saviour whose merits would be counted to him. This enduring faith is continuous trust; losing sight of Jesus through self-indulgence leaves a person unable to endure, while abiding in Christ keeps from being easily provoked and gives peace and joy. Faith gave strength to withstand pressure and defend right nearly alone with purest integrity, as Christ in the wilderness endured severe conflict by reliance on God.
Staying the heart on God and beholding His goodness transforms the beholder into Christ's image from glory to glory by the Spirit. Looking steadfastly to Jesus, full of grace and truth, makes meek and lowly in heart and gives strength to endure, for faith rests on what is hoped for and the evidence of the unseen rather than on feeling. Searching the deep everlasting truths and looking to Jesus lifts the mind above frivolous questions, makes motives and sympathies firm and enduring, and goes with faithful performance of duty. Faith in Christ shown by works transforms character through the Holy Spirit, humbling at the cross in contrition all who receive grace, while selfishness and pride resist conviction of sin. This beholding shapes words, spirit, attitude and actions with love, thankfulness, praise and holiness, breaks earth's power over mind and character, and reveals Christ's character instead of finite man's so self is no longer seen.
Seeing God who cannot be seen with physical eyes in clear spiritual light is salvation to the soul and calls for undivided interest and purity of heart. It begins as soon as the soul decides to die to self, and the new light grows stronger and stronger until able to endure the sight. In proportion to the view of God is spiritual force of character, clearness of judgment, and consecration of life, time and powers to God. This is the experience of the pure in heart who see God now, with assurance of blessings in this life and the life to come. It belongs to those who love Christ by having and keeping His commandments and abiding in His love as He kept His Father's commandments, who receive His manifestation and fullness of joy, who love one another as He loved, whose hearts are purified from hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong and cleansed from inherent sin so Christ can enter, and who are rooted and grounded in love to comprehend and know Christ's love and be filled with all the fullness of God.
Seeing the invisible God is intelligent knowledge of the Holy Spirit's sanctification upon the human heart, and that alone is safety. When possessed it turns intelligence of truth into virtue and sanctified character, puts one to reflect light, to watch over younger ones in school and help them with the older blessing the younger, and to bring Christ's work into home and school by helping children understand God's Word and bring it into life practice so schools reflect heaven's light. Christ lived this sight as He came to His crucifixion, looking at the attacks He would meet while helping His followers in every possible way. Those who behold by the eye of faith lose sight of self, seeing the King in His beauty and the land very far off, which mortifies self instead of exalting self. This leads to economy, justice and righteousness, binding about wants, practicing the economy taught to others, not expending unnecessary means on self or display, not confederating by underhand methods to draw large supply from the treasury or claim higher wages than those who work for smaller wages, but giving to the cause in Christlike self-denial what others use for display.
Those who turn to God with full purpose of heart abhor selfish covetousness because they see Christ, and those who refuse this reform and grasp surplus means will never see the King in His beauty, their experience in this life deciding eternal destiny. The verse means power to dare stand alone for right like Daniel, firmly meeting the first suggestion of wrong, refusing to tamper with principles condemned in God's Word, resolutely turning from the presenter of wrong and withdrawing in silence from workers on wrong principles rather than remaining and listening to their devices. Enduring sight of the invisible is possible only for a heart filled with purposeful compassion for fallen people, proved by Christlike deeds fulfilling the law after the Father's gift of His Son. Only he who so loves knows God, while he who does not love those for whom the Father has done so much does not know God and cannot endure.
Seeing Him who is invisible means living before the unseen God as though His presence were real and constant, living open as the day. It leads to a truthful life cleansed of moral defilement, with all deceit, exaggeration, misstatement, untruth, guile and secret works put away. It calls for a trustful disposition always thinking of Him as life and crown of rejoicing, remembering He bought believers with His own blood, cultivating love and confidence toward brethren, refusing to nurse grievous things because time is short, and pressing forward in great determined work without failing or discouragement as vessels kept for the Master's use. One departing from the living God for self and cheap earthly gain must repent, be converted, renew covenant at the cross, die to self, separate from sin and sinners and no longer make them a confidence, and serve the Lord fully, for it is life-or-death to the eternal interest because the end is near when every secret thing comes to judgment.
No one is safe unless living daily, hourly as seeing Him who is invisible, actuated by Bible truth — righteousness, mercy and love — and drawing moral and intellectual power from the Divine Source. Past experience, limited spiritual knowledge, habits and opinions are unsafe and may need reforming, and no instruction or example can overcome natural traits growing with growth and strengthening with strength, with men's influence only restraining unsanctified inclinations until restraints are removed. Safety in the last days, especially for those honored with trust and responsibility who must make God their dependence, is not in trusting men and making flesh an arm but in being hewed by reproof, warning and admonition until heart and character are changed after the divine Pattern and polished for the heavenly building. If the curtain were rolled back so poor sinful mortals could be enabled to endure seeing Him, proud self-exalted sinners would decidedly change attitude, wicked boasting would appear contemptible, and disgusting misrepresentations would make them understand Christ is ashamed to call them disciples. Living as seeing Him means principles of truth transform character so one acts everywhere as Christ's representative, constantly conscious of the unseen God and of outgoing influence, keeping the mind fixed on Him though invisible and forming character after the divine likeness.
Endurance in Present Life
Faith gives courage, freedom, light and power to do appointed duties, to stand at the post and serve and win souls, catching inspiration from Christ's work for souls, lifting the cross of Calvary and in turn being lifted, letting faith rise from indifference, and exerting positive influence. Workers are to seek God in prayer before teaching so words reflect truth, to depend not on own sufficiency but cultivate faith daily, and to have faith renewed for active service.
The workers in Australia exemplified this endurance amid poverty, lack of support and obstacles, trusting God was with them to do His will. It is an experience gained in hard pioneer labor knowing Christ and angels go before in every field, stay with institution and health work, and will reward long labor and invested means.
Looking to Jesus and remembering His past kindness and power, bracing the soul in God and drawing strengthening grace rather than depending on human help or attending to discouragement, keeps the mind from unbelief and doubt when circumstances seem impossible. Through testing, grief and troubling events this gives courage, faith and perseverance that advances, works faithfully, stands firm and does not lay off armor. God tests and proves His people, and looking to Him who does not change and is invisible sustains them through that testing with strength and assurance in trouble and perplexity.
Seeing Him keeps self from ruling and enables trust, submission and service with rest, peace and joy. It means drawing nearer Christ, resting content in His love, trusting the Redeemer and Life-giver to work out salvation, with faith strengthened and love perfected for God. It is honoring Him with flint-like resolve toward Zion without doubting His love even when darkness opposes, holding to mission and work and thereby becoming partaker of the divine nature in overcoming.
In pain, suffering and long wakeful nights the Lord is sacredly near, and communion with the compassionate Saviour looking constantly to Jesus who begins and completes faith brings comfort and strength. By this nearness those who walk by faith not sight keep going undiscouraged, holding Him near and present and looking upon His face full of tenderness and compassion.
In critical duties requiring rapid work with no false moves, seeing the Invisible keeps one calm, self-possessed, with quick discernment, clear eyesight, steady nerves and skillful precision, because Jesus sends His angel to stand by, lay a hand upon the hand and guide movements. To endure is to acknowledge the Presence, magnify God's name not one's own, depend wholly on Him, give up self-distinction, respect ministry and heed counsel rather than planning in own wisdom or starting unappointed enterprises. This sustained a physician before a critical operation with confidence in Christ's present help as sure refuge in distress, and enabled testimony though very feeble and ill beyond natural power with conscious presence of God and angels.
When writers see Him by faith and draw near to speak with Him their words reflect purity and bring life. The same spiritual sight given to teachers discovers truth's loveliness, breadth and harmony through humble contrite searching revived by God, rewards diligent prayerful search, lifts words above the cheap and common, and enables preachers vivified by the Spirit to communicate acceptably and win souls, while students' glimpses bring pardon and joy. Defects of character left unovercome darken understanding and hide that loveliness, but searching with oil of grace makes the student after the similitude of God.
Endurance comes through daily abiding grace, more prayer, humble consecrated walking with God, trusting Christ as sufficiency, earnest diligent exercise that strengthens sinew and gives intensity of thought as Christ is formed within. It means following Christ beneath the cross with humble confidence, moral strength and clear understanding, and abiding, denying self, carrying the cross and using every ability to save others in mercy and love, drawing near to God, standing on Bible truth, growing day by day, placing entire dependence on God and letting His name be magnified. Those who so live find Christ a very present help, walk safely, reveal Christian graces above pettish impatience as laborers together with Him, entitled to covenant blessings only by Christ's righteousness, with life blood circulating through the soul on the bread of heaven and words testifying to the efficiency of grace.
A Christian mother walking in the Spirit is guarded by unseen power with continual grace. Seeing the unseen comes by opening soul windows heavenward and closing them earthward against malaria, giving up earthly service, daily eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood, surrendering the will to God, letting light into the family and teaching children what they must be and do to be saved.
Those unable to endure seeing Him are spiritually darkened and weak, absorbed in earthly things and vanity without joy in the Lord or interest in eternal realities. Those who have tasted the world to come are not to follow that course, for faith turns from forsaking God to dependence on Him.
This endurance belongs to overcomers through the Lamb's blood and testimony as they understand Christ's battle when He veiled glory as a child of a fallen race against Satan's fiercest attacks. It belongs to all escaping worldly corruption who partake the divine nature, resist temptation by God's strength, gain knowledge by cooperating with Him, and become lights.
God's people beholding Him invisible to the world are filled with joy and gladness as an animated people letting light shine in good works glorifying the Father. Beholding is reflected in shining countenance, praise and thanksgiving that helps bring others to faith, and believers may share the Saviour's joy now even amid the church's dark struggle by enduring with Him in view.
Faith discerns God's unseen presence and power working for truth even when human eyes cannot see it, joined with courteous, kind, tender Christlike conduct. It gives strength to stand apart from the world, set affections on heavenly things, keep God's law, live to represent Christ in separation from the world, and carry the church's work as His instrument.
Staying thoughts on God ennobles intellect and gives strength to withstand human claims without being cowed. Keeping Him in view sustains a steady beneficial influence above fogs and clouds in any calling, vitalizing the atmosphere with heavenly principle, manifest in helping tempted souls to the Rock rather than crowding, pushing or abandoning them on Satan's ground.
As faith grows endurance becomes clearer and strengthens obedience. Enduring means believing God and carrying out His purpose, standing firmly for truth without wavering timidity or sanctioning wrong by silence, for unbelief leaves one behind, causes blunders and inability to endure, so that without boundless grace one would perish.
For Christ's disciples it means carrying work as if seeing the invisible Christ rather than relying on human wisdom, facing supernatural powers in a conflict with eternal consequences to advance truth against error, idolatry and sin. Though unbelief and lovelessness discourage and Satan obscures brightness, Jesus lives and shines, heavenly beings serve in His army and He captains them, keeping believers from fear, despair and provocation with abiding peace.
Seeing Christ draws the mind to Him so that when life is hidden with Him selfishness, pride and perverse feelings disappear and grievances cease to burden. Steadfastly looking reveals His grace and goodness, transforms to faithful integrity in duty, while lightly regarding sin and duty shows failure to behold Him.
Daily reliance forms Christ's character making one a pattern of meekness who seeks rest in His yoke rather than burdening others. Enduring by seeing gives conception of divine character and heaven's perfection, and a worker so looking discerns eternal realities without seeking ease or amusement.
Enduring means relying on God's goodness and power through experience to remain faithful in conflict and resist temptation as He intended His manifestations to enable, laboring successfully with Him. It supports giving praise to the unseen God rather than crediting a human helper as source of life and healing, valuing belonging to God above worldly honors, remaining steady amid temptation with joy in Him.
Searching deep everlasting truths and looking to Jesus lifts the mind above frivolous questions, widens horizon, changes to His image, firms motives and sympathies, and gives enduring impressions like living water. Probationers in this world's school for the higher school above may behold by making Christ's excellence their study through time and eternity to represent Him, learning from His life lessons fitting for the world to come, with the most uplifting truths those closest to the source of all truth.
Keeping the unseen God and Jesus continually in view through wrestling supplication day and night for unseen power gives more than human energy to rescue souls from drink and sin's degradation while working out one's own salvation, making overcomers through Christ's love into temperance workers who help others sit in heavenly places. Faith is also applied to reading Scripture as God's Word shining in darkness to discern the One it points to, living by trust in Him.