MOSES’ DECISION – Charles Spurgeon
MOSES’ DECISION
“By faith Moses, when he came of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” – Hebrews 11:24-26
Introduction to Moses’ Decision
Last Sunday, we spoke about the faith of Rahab. We highlighted her unsavory past and showed how her faith triumphed, saved her, and produced good works. Today, however, I want to address those who might argue, “This faith is very suitable for Rahab and others in her circumstances. Those destitute of sweetness and light may follow the Gospel, but the better sort, those with higher education and standing, will never embrace it.” It is likely that some might reject faith in God altogether, considering it unworthy of those with superior status and upbringing. To counter this, we look at the case of Moses, whose example stands in direct contrast to Rahab’s. Though such criticisms may be of little consequence—after all, people who sneer are usually so inconsiderate that they deserve no attention—I believe Moses’ story can help us clarify this point.
Some might also feel, “I’ve been kept from outward sin by the Providence of God. I am not part of the lowest class, and my character is superior. The Gospel might be for sinners, but perhaps because I have not sinned openly, my mind is not as ready to receive the abounding grace of God.” While this line of thinking is mistaken, it’s not uncommon. To correct such misconceptions, we turn to Moses, a man of noble rank, high education, and pure character. Moses was saved by faith—just like Rahab—and his faith moved him to a life of service to God and unparalleled self-denial. I pray that those who are moral, educated, and well-positioned may see Moses’ example and understand that faith in God is not something to be despised, but rather is the one thing that is needed.
I. The Decided Action of Moses
“When he had come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” We need not delve into the stories found in ancient writings such as Josephus, which mention Moses taking Pharaoh’s crown or trampling it. These tales may or may not be true, but what matters is that they are not recorded in Scripture, and therefore are not worth our attention. The Bible tells us that Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s court, during which time he was recognized as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and enjoyed Egypt’s treasures, though he did not indulge in the pleasures of sin.
It’s possible that during his early life, Moses was essentially Egyptian—he was a scholar and well-versed in Egyptian wisdom. It was only when he reached forty that faith began to shape his decisions. For many years, Moses may have tried to balance his position with the comforts of Egypt and his faith in God, but eventually, he could no longer remain silent. As he grew older and gained clarity, he fully rejected his identity as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose instead to stand with the oppressed people of God.
Consider who Moses was when he made this decision. He was a man of great education, having been trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he held a high rank in Pharaoh’s court. He may have been the heir to the Egyptian throne, yet he chose to join with the oppressed people of God. This decision was not easy. He gave up wealth, honor, pleasure, and a secure position to stand with the slaves of Egypt. Moses’ choice serves as a profound example for those who have position, wealth, or education. If Moses, with all his greatness, was willing to forsake everything for the sake of God, how much more should we, who may not be in such high positions, follow his example?
Moses did not just leave behind wealth and comfort. He also severed ties with his former society and the people he had known for forty years. He left behind influential courtiers and those who were respected in their communities. He gave up their companionship, wealth, and privileges for the sake of God. In choosing to align with the Israelites, Moses knew he would face affliction, hardship, and rejection. But he regarded the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
II. The Source of Moses’ Decision
What led Moses to make such a bold decision? The Bible tells us it was his faith. Some might argue that Moses was merely acting according to his natural instincts since he was born an Israelite. However, the Bible clarifies that it was faith, not blood, that moved Moses. Divine grace does not pass down through bloodlines. Moses had seen the idols and false gods of Egypt, but his heart was drawn to the one true God. His faith in Jehovah led him to reject the false idols of Egypt, and he chose to suffer with God’s people rather than enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin.
It wasn’t eccentricity or patriotism that led Moses to act as he did. Moses wasn’t motivated by a desire to be different from others or by a sudden burst of excitement. He was a man of steady character and clear convictions. His decision was rooted in his faith in Jehovah and his understanding that the Israelites, despite their poverty and suffering, were the people of God.
Moses’ decision shows that true faith leads a person to stand firm in their convictions, even when it is difficult, unpopular, or costly. It calls a person to value God’s truth above all else, even if it means forsaking everything else.
III. Practical Lessons from Moses’ Decision
Moses’ story teaches us many important lessons. First, faith in God must be the foundation of our actions. Whether we are in positions of power or of humble origin, we must prioritize our relationship with God above all earthly things. Second, faith often requires us to make difficult decisions that may involve loss, rejection, or even affliction. But the reward for choosing God’s way is greater than anything this world can offer. Lastly, Moses’ example shows us that we should not be ashamed of the Gospel or of identifying with the people of God, even if they are poor, unrefined, or unpopular.
As we consider Moses’ decision, let us ask ourselves: Are we willing to make similar sacrifices for the sake of our faith in God? Are we ready to choose God over wealth, honor, and comfort, even if it costs us dearly? Moses shows us the power of faith and the importance of making choices that align with God’s will, no matter the cost.
The One True God and His Worship
There is one God who made Heaven and earth; there is a pure Spirit who upholds all things by the power of His might—I will worship Him alone! And I will worship Him after His own Law, without images or other symbols, for has He not forbidden them? Has He not said, “You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God”? Oh, that God would give to men faith to know there is but one God, and that the one God is not to be worshipped with man-ordained rites and ceremonies, for He is “a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth!” That one Truth of God, if it were to come with power from Heaven into men’s minds, would shatter St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s from their topmost cross to their lowest crypt—for what do these two churches teach us now but sheer, clear idolatry—the one of rule, and the other by permission! And now, men who boldly worship what they call the “sacred elements” have leave and license to exercise their craft within the Church of England! Every man who loves his God should shake his skirts clear of these abominations, and I pray God that we may find many a Moses who shall do so!
Faith in Christ and His Promise
The faith of Moses also rested in Christ. “Christ had not come,” says one. No, but He was to come, and Moses looked to that coming One! He cast his eyes through the ages that were to intervene, and he saw before him the Shiloh of whom dying Jacob sang! He knew the ancient Promise which had been given to the fathers, that in the seed of Abraham should all the nations of the earth be blessed, and he was willing, in order to share in the blessing, to take his part in the reproach. Dear Friends, we shall never have a thorough faith in God unless we have, also, faith in Jesus Christ! Men have tried long, and tried hard to worship the Father apart from the Son, but there it stands and it always will be so—“No man comes unto the Father but by Me.” You get away from the worship of the Father if you do not come through the Mediation and Atonement of the Son of God! Now, though Moses did not know concerning Christ all that is now revealed to us, yet he had faith in the coming Messiah, and that faith gave strength to his mind. Those are the men to suffer who have received Christ Jesus the Lord; if any man should ask me what made the Covenanters such heroes as they were, or what made our Puritan forefathers fearless before their foes, or what led the Reformers to protest, and the martyrs to die—I would reply it was faith in the Invisible God, coupled with faith in that dear Son of God who is God Incarnate! Believing in Him they felt such love within their bosoms, that for love of Him they could have died a thousand deaths!
Faith in God’s People and His Cause
But then, in addition to this, Moses had faith in reference to God’s people. Upon that, I have already touched. He knew that the Israelites were God’s Chosen, that Jehovah had made a Covenant with them, and in spite of all their faults, God would not break His Covenant with His own people. And he knew, therefore, that their cause was God’s cause, and being God’s cause, it was the cause of right; the cause of truth! Oh, it is a grand thing when a man has such faith that he says, “It is nothing to me what other people do, or think, or believe; I shall act as God would have me act; it is nothing to me what I am commanded to do by my fellow creatures. It is nothing to me what fashion says or what my parents say as far as religion is concerned; the Truth is God’s star, and I will follow wherever it may lead me. If it should make me a solitary man; if I should espouse opinions which no one else ever believed in; if I should have to go altogether outside the camp, and break away from every connection—all this shall be as immaterial to me as the small dust of the balance! But if a matter is true, I will believe it, and I will propound it, and I will suffer for its announcement. And if another doctrine is a lie, I will not be friends with it, no, not for a solitary moment! I will not enter into fellowship with falsehood, no, not for an hour! If a course is right and true, through floods and flames, if Jesus leads me, I will pursue it.” That seems to me to be the right spirit, but where do you find it now-a-days? The modern spirit mutters, “We are all right, every one of us. He who says, ‘Yes,’ is right, and he who says, ‘no,’ is also right! You hear a man talk with mawkish sentimentality which he calls Christian charity: “Well, I am of opinion that if a man is a Muslim, or a Catholic, or a Mormon, or a Dissenter; if he is sincere, he is all right.” They do not quite include devil worshippers, thugs, and cannibals yet—but if things go on, they will accept them into the happy family of the Broad Church! Such is the talk and cant of this present age, but I bear my witness that there is no truth in it, and I call upon every child of God to protest against it and, like Moses, to declare that he can have no complicity with such a confederacy! There is Truth somewhere—let us find it! The lie is not of the truth—let us abhor it. There is a God—let us follow Him and it cannot be that false gods are gods, too! Surely truth is of some value to the sons of men! Surely there must be something worth holding—something worth contending for—and something worth dying for! But it does not appear now-a-days as if men think so. May we have a respect for God’s true Church in the world which abides by the apostolic word and doctrine! Let us discover it and join with it and at its side fight for God and for His Truth!
Moses’ Faith in the Recompense of the Reward
Once again, Moses had faith in the recompense of the reward. He said thus within himself, “I must renounce much, and reckon to lose rank, position, and treasure, but I expect to be a gainer, nevertheless, for there will be a day when God shall judge the sons of men. I expect a judgment throne with its impartial balances, and I expect that those who serve God faithfully shall then turn out to have been the wise men, and the right men, while those who truckled and bowed down to gain a present ease shall find that they missed Eternity while they were snatching after time, and that they bartered Heaven for a paltry mess of pottage.” With this upon his mind, you could not persuade Moses that he ought to compromise, and must not be uncharitable! You could not convince him he ought not to judge other good people, but should be large-minded, and remember Pharaoh’s daughter, and how kindly she had nurtured him—and consider what opportunities he had of doing good where he was! You could not persuade him how he might just befriend his poor brethren, and what influence he might have over Pharaoh—how he might be the means of leading the princes and the people of Egypt in the right way, and perhaps God had raised him up on purpose to be there. Who could tell, and so-on, and so-on, and so-on—you know the Babylonian talk, for in these days you have all read or heard the plausible arguments of the deceivableness of unrighteousness which in these last days teaches men to do evil that good may come! Moses cared for none of these things! He knew his duty and did it, whatever might be the consequences. Every Christian’s duty is to believe the Truth of God, and to follow the Truth, and leave the results with God! Who dares do that? Again I ask it, who dares do that in these days?
The Arguments Which Supported Moses’ Course
Thirdly, we are going to run over in our minds some of the arguments which supported Moses in his decided course of following God. The first argument would be he saw clearly that God was God, and therefore must keep His Word, must bring His people up out of Egypt, and give them a heritage. Now he said within himself, “I desire to be on the right side; God is Almighty; God is all Truthful, God is altogether Just; I am on God’s side, and being on God’s side I will prove my truthfulness by leaving the other side altogether.” Then, secondly, we have it in the text that he perceived the pleasures of sin to be but for a season. He said to himself, “I may have but a short time to live, but even if I live to a good old age, life at the longest is still short, and when I come to the close of life, what a miserable reflection it will be that I have had all my pleasure, and then I have to appear before God as a traitorous Israelite who threw up his birthright for the sake of enjoying the pleasures of Egypt.” Oh that man would measure everything in the scales of Eternity! We shall be before the bar of God, all of us, in a few months or years, and then think how we shall feel? One will say, “I never thought about religion at all,” and another, “I thought about it, but I did not think enough to come to any decision upon it; I went the way the current went.” Another will say, “I knew the Truth well enough, but I could not bear the shame of it; they would have thought me fanatical if I had gone through with it.” Another will say, “I halted between two opinions; I hardly thought I was justified in sacrificing my children’s position for the sake of being out and out a follower of the Truth of God.” What wretched reflections will come over men who have sold the Savior as Judas did! What wretched deathbeds must they have who have been unfaithful to their consciences and untrue to their God! But oh, with what composure will the Believer look forward to another world! He will say, “By Grace I am saved, and I bless God He granted me Grace so I could afford to be ridiculed, I could bear to be laughed at, I could lose that job, I could be turned out of that farm, and could be called a fool—and yet it did not hurt me! I found solace in the society of Christ; I went to Him about it all, and I found that to be reproached for Christ was a sweeter thing than to possess all the treasures of Egypt! Blessed be His name! I missed the pleasures of the world, but they were no miss to me! I was glad to miss them, for I found sweeter pleasure in the company of my Lord, and now there are pleasures to come which shall never end.” O Brothers and Sisters, to be out and out for Christ; to go to the end with Him even though it involves the loss of all things—this will pay in the long run! It may bring upon you much disgrace for the present, but that will soon be over, and then comes the eternal reward!
The Cost of Following Christ
And, then, again, Moses thought within himself that even the pleasures which did but last for a season, while they lasted, were not equal to the pleasure of being reproached for Christ’s sake. This ought also to strengthen us, that the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world; that even now we have more joy as Christians, if we are sincere, than we could possibly derive from the sins of the wicked!
Conclusion
I have only this to say in closing. First, we ought, all of us, to be ready to part with everything for Christ, and if we are not, we are not His disciples. “Master, you say a hard thing,” says one. I say it yet again, for a greater Master has said it—“He that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” “Unless a man forsakes all that he has, he cannot be My disciple.” Jesus may not require you actually to leave anything, but you must be ready to leave everything if required. The second observation is this—we ought to abhor the very thought of obtaining honor in this world by concealing our sentiments or by making compromises. If there is a chance of your being highly esteemed by withholding your witness for Jesus, do not run the risk of winning such dishonorable honor! If there is a hope of people praising you because you are so ready to yield your convictions, pray God to make you like a flint never to yield again—for what more damning glory could a man have than to be applauded for disowning his principles, to please his fellow men? From this may the Lord save us! The third teaching is that we ought to take our place with those who truly follow God and the Scriptures, even if they are not altogether what we would like them to be. The place for an Israelite is with the Israelites. The place for a Christian is with Christians. The place for a thorough-going disciple of the Bible, and of Christ, is with others who are such—even if they should happen to be the lowest in the land, and the poorest of the poor, and the most illiterate and uneducated persons of the period—what is all this if their God loves them, and if they love God? Weighed in the scales of the Truth of God, the least one among them is worth 10,000 of the greatest ungodly men! Lastly, we must all of us look to our faith. Faith is the main thing. You cannot make a thorough character without sincere faith. Begin there, dear Hearer! If you do not believe in Christ; if you believe not in the one God, may the Lord convert you, and give you now that precious gift! To try and raise a character which shall be good without a foundation of faith is to build upon sand, and to pile up wood, hay, and stubble—which wood, hay and stubble are very good things as wood, hay, and stubble—but they will not bear the fire! And as every Christian character will have to bear fire, it is well to build on the Rock, and to build with such graces and fruits as will endure trial. You will have to be tried, and if you have by sneaking through life as a coward, avoided all opposition, and all ridicule, ask yourself whether you really are a disciple of that master of the house whom they called Beelzebub! Ask yourself whether you are truly a follower of that Crucified Savior who said, “Except a man take up his cross daily, and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple.” Suspect the smooth places! Be afraid of that perpetual peace which Christ declares He came to break! He said, “I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword.” He came to bring fire upon the earth and, “How I wish,” He said, “it was already kindled.”— “Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas? Surely I must fight if I would reign! Increase my courage, Lord, I’d bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by Your Word.” Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON—PROVERBS 1.