Last week we came to Moses, and I told you that we would probably be looking at several, having several sermons pertaining to Moses. He's such a central figure in the Bible, and so this is our second sermon relating to Moses, and we'll have at least one more as we're going. Today we are going to focus on Hebrews 11.27. It tells us that Moses endured seeing Him who was invisible. We touched on this verse last week, but today I want to dig deeper into Moses' example of faith that endures. He had faith that endures. This model may seem out of reach for the likes of us. Moses is, when you look at his faith, it's really remarkable and incredible how strong his faith, how his faith endured. He's outstanding, you know, the way that, the strength that he had in that way and his trust after he once was established in it. But we must remember that the Holy Spirit has given us these examples for imitation. That's why they're here. They're here to inspire us. And the Holy Spirit works in us. And by God's grace, which is the only way Moses did anything, as we see, he was a man like us. The only way he did these things was because God enabled him. And if he can do that for Moses, he can do that for us also. So we're to ask God, as we look at these things, to help us have faith like Moses. Faith that rests in our sovereign Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, listen now as I read to you then from God's word. I'm gonna begin where I did last week when it first starts to talk about Moses, which is in verse 23, and I'll read through to the text today, which is verse 27. So Hebrews 11, 23, this is God's holy and infallible word. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child. and they were not afraid of the king's command. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, where he endured as seeing him who is invisible. And I just, in the reading of God's word there, may He bless it to us. I just want to remind you, as we saw last week when it talks about that they saw Moses as a beautiful child. They saw him as one that had God's promises on him for eternal life and glory. They recognize that in their children. We need to see that in our children. We live in a world like they were in. Theirs was perhaps even worse. Their situation was certainly worse, where they were in bondage and under the thumb of a corrupt and idolatrous nation that was oppressing them. And yet they had a child and they didn't say, oh, it's such a terrible time for this child to be born. But they said, no, this is glory. God's promise is on this child. And they saw into the future. They saw him who was invisible. And so Moses grew up. It's not surprising that he chose also to go with their God because they were not wed to the world. That was not where their heart was. Their treasure was in glory. And so Moses also, his treasure was there also. Where your heart is or where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So may the Lord help us to have faith like Moses that endures from generation to generation. You endure by faith when you believe that God will do what he has promised. That's the core of it, what this verse teaches us. Now, let me tell you about this man, Moses, because I know that there's different amounts of familiarity with some of these Old Testament stories that we have. And it should be refreshing to you who know the story to hear it recounted. And it should be something that is very exciting if you are not familiar with these stories. So he was born to the nation of Israel, the people that God has chosen to bring forth Jesus Christ the Savior of the world into the world. Some 400 years prior to the time of Moses, the Lord had told the forefather of this nation, Abraham, that his family would grow very quickly, but that they would be slaves in Egypt. They would multiply like the sand of the sea, but they would be slaves in Egypt. But that after the 400 years from Abraham, he would bring them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and bring them into the land of Canaan, where God had already sent Abraham. He'd sent Abraham there and he said, I'm going to bring them to this land where you are. They're going to be in Egypt in slavery, but I'm going to bring them out with a mighty hand. It would be their task then, when they were brought to the land, to destroy all the people of Canaan because of the wickedness and idolatry of those people. They were steeped in idolatry because they hated God. When people hate God, then they turn to idols. People turn to idols because of this. So Israel was to destroy them all and to live in their land under God's rule, different than the Canaanites had lived in the land. They were to live according to God's ways, his precepts in service and worship of him, loving him, loving each other in the beautiful way that he has designed for human beings to live. God would also give them priests who would make sacrifices for sin that would testify of God's way of forgiveness that he had promised to bring into the world, the son that he had promised. Moses was born to this people of Israel when the time was getting near for that promise to be fulfilled, for the emancipation of Egypt to be fulfilled, from Egypt to be fulfilled, not of Egypt, but from Egypt. But at that time, it looked utterly hopeless. Pharaoh was concerned because he saw them multiplying. There were about 500,000 men plus women and children. By the time that they left, 40 years later, there were 600,000. So probably one and a quarter million people altogether or so at this time. Pharaoh had put them under slavery and severe bondage in order to keep them subdued so that they wouldn't create some kind of a rebellion or something. And his slavery was very rigorous. Since they had continued to increase, even with that, they didn't discourage them in that way. He had ordered that all the males that were born, first of all, that they would be aborted when they were being born. And then when that was not done, then he ordered that they would all be cast into the river. So as we saw last week, Moses' parents trusted God. They knew that the promise of God had made to his people and was to them, to God's people, their nation, to them as people and to their son. So they hid him, trusting God. After three months, when they put him in a little ark in the river among the reeds to keep him hidden, probably they may have heard that they've been found out that they were hiding him or whatever, but they put him there with his sister looking after him in God's providence. Pharaoh's daughter came down to the water to take a dip, and she saw him, and she adopted him. And she even agreed to let Moses' mother be his nurse and take care of him, hired her out to do that. So she was a very compassionate lady. As a result, Moses got the best education that Egypt could offer, had the privilege of being the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and yet at the same time was taught by his birth mother, which was much more important, the promises of God and the blessing of God to his people. So last week we saw that when Moses grew up, He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose rather to identify, to cast his lot in with the people of God, even though they were in bondage. And in Egypt, he would have been, he was a high prince. And he chose that because he did the math. And when he did the math, he saw that it was much better to be with them in their reproach than it was to be with the Egyptians in their riches and power, because that power of Egypt was only short-lived in light of eternity. He had his eye on the reward. And of course, we live very shallowly if we do not see beyond this world and this life as Moses did. He recognized rightly that it was much better to be identified with God's people than to have all the riches and pleasures that Egypt could afford. Egypt's was only temporary. Moses believed God's promise. And so he knew that the time had drawn near, that 400 year period had drawn near when God was going to bring his people out of Egypt. God had told them long ago and they were waiting for that. In view of God's promises then, Moses began to make some efforts to help his people. He knew that they needed to be reformed in their conduct and also delivered from the hand of the Egyptians. And so he did two things that were related to that. We're given this account in Exodus 2, 11-15. It says, Now it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting. And he said to the one who did the wrong, why are you striking your companion? Then he said, who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? So Moses feared and said, surely this thing is known. When Pharaoh heard this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well, and the story goes on. We could say that this was the first time that Moses forsook Egypt, but this is not the time that we're told about in the scripture text in Hebrews 11.27. Hebrews 11.27 says that he was not afraid. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. When he left on this first occasion, he fled because he did fear the king. It says that expressly. He went to Midian, and he ended up marrying the daughter of a priest who lived there. He became a shepherd and remained there for 40 years. We can see that Moses was discouraged. How can we see that he was discouraged? Because he had two sons while he was there, and he did not give them the sign of God's promise. Circumcision. He apparently did not see them as beautiful children the way his mother and father had seen him as a beautiful child. He had lost hope. and the promise of God's deliverance, at least to some extent. I don't think his faith had utterly failed, but he was rebuked by God later for that omission, for not circumcising his children. Moses appears to be discouraged. But then one day, God came to him in a glorious theophany. Moses saw a bush that was engulfed in flames and yet was not burning, still had all its foliage on it, and it was raging in flames. And Moses realized that it was the Lord who was coming to communicate to him from that bush. So God told Moses that he wanted him to go and lead the people out of Egypt, all of them. The now it was probably more like maybe one and a half million that were there. He was to go and tell Pharaoh that the Lord God said, let my people go, that they may serve me. God said that Pharaoh would not want to do this and that he would do all kinds of that the Lord would do all kinds of signs to humble Pharaoh and to make him yield to break his pride. And then Moses was to bring the people out and lead them to the land that God had promised to their father Abraham some four centuries before. It is now in going to Egypt this second time that we see the incredible faith of Moses that is talked about in Hebrews 11, 27. It is described so well and so succinctly. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured at seeing Him who is invisible. And we read that passage in Exodus 10 where Moses says, You're right, you're not going to see my face again because, he didn't say because, but the implication, because we're leaving. We're all leaving. We're going to leave whatever you say. We're going to leave. That's what Moses is saying. So he answered Pharaoh's threat with that courage. He was fearless. Why? What does it say? Because he saw God who was invisible. He had faith in God who had promised him. Not talking about that God made Himself visible in the bush. That's not what it's talking about. God who is invisible. We can't see God in His essence. He shows Himself in visions and things like that and different aspects of Himself. But it's the idea that he saw God and the promises of God. He knew that God was there all the time with him. He believed that God who he saw by faith could and would deliver His people from the strong hand of Pharaoh. Now just think about the faith that's involved here. I mean, this is utterly impossible from any human estimation apart from God's strength. Because for Moses to bring these people out by human strength or human force, Moses was a rejected prince in Egypt. They wanted to kill. He'd run away some 40 years before. And now Moses was going to just walk up and tell Pharaoh, hey, the God of heaven, the one that you don't acknowledge, the Lord says, let my people go and come and serve me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh's going to say, oh, yeah, OK, sure, whatever. You know, he's going to release 600000 men and their wives and children to go out and and serve God. No way would he do that. And what could Moses do about it? He knew that the people were discouraged. He knew that they weren't ready to do anything to go oppose this man. They weren't willing to stand up. He knew that even if they tried, the Egyptians had an iron grip on them. They had them all under bondage with taskmasters over them, with weapons and everything, and there was nothing they could do. And how could he take them across the wilderness and then bring them into this land that was inhabited and fortified with mighty fighting people? How could he go in there with them and expect to subdue that land? Would these great and mighty people in Canaan just lay down and let them walk in? The whole enterprise was utterly and completely impossible. I mean, just think about it. You're told you're in the backside of the desert and you're told, like, go and talk to the most powerful king in the world and tell him that this is not something that you just like, oh, yeah, sure. OK, whatever. And Moses also, he said, maybe somebody else would be more qualified. I'm not very eloquent. And, you know, he did all that with God. But God sent him anyway and gave him the courage to go. This is where faith comes into the picture. By faith, Moses endured. He endured all that. He was able to do all that. It's because he had faith, because he believed in the living God. He saw God for who God is. He'd already seen Him all his life, hadn't he? That's why he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season in Egypt. He trusted God to do what he said he would do. Moses endured by faith. His example really is outstanding. That's why I said we may look at Moses and say, whoa, this is just out of reach. But we need to say, no, the same God, the same Holy Spirit that worked in Him is at work in us. In a moment, we're going to look back at some of the things that He endured to be encouraged by those to see how we can endure as God enabling by faith. But first, make sure that you connect with Moses. as a model for you, because we may look at it and say, well, I don't have to come out of Egypt and we're not in bondage. You know, you may look at it that way. You need to connect with with what's really going on here in the big picture. Moses shows us how we ought to trust God and what it looks like to trust him. And he is a model given for us. So there's a connection here that we must see to understand this passage the way we should. This verse. God has ultimately had one promise from the very beginning. Okay, from the very creation of the world, he's had one promise. He has said that he is going to fill the earth with people that beautifully live for his glory in pure and holy love for him and for each other. It's going to fill the earth with people like that. From the very day that He created the first man, He blessed them and He called them to fill the earth with people like they were, unfallen at that time, made in God's image. People who are beautiful worshipers of God and image bearers of God. Fill the earth with people like that. I'm blessing you to enable you to be able to do that by faith. Our first parents trusted God to enable them to do this for a short time. But then they severed themselves from God by rebelling against his rule. Pride took over. God pronounced sorrow and death upon them as a result of their rebellion. But he also renewed his plan. He was still going to fill the earth with godly people who worshiped him and loved him. That was still going to be accomplished in the end. He told of a people that would be born of the woman who would return to him. That they would turn against this rebellion, against Satan, and they would come back to him. He put enmity in their heart for this Satan and his rebellion and so on. And that a son would be born to them. who would deliver them all, who would be instrumental in bringing the ultimate victory and deliverance and establishing God's beautiful kingdom of righteousness that would fill the earth. But there would be a time of conflict. There would be a time of warfare that would go on, which we are still in today. So Moses and his nation were the people that God had brought forth to be that seed of the woman that was following him in the time of Moses. The next great event for them was to be their deliverance from Egypt so that they could live under God's rule in Canaan in the promised land. That was what God had on the calendar that He had already told 400 years before. The time was at hand. Moses was to lead the people out that he might lead them in to the land of Canaan. Out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan. That was the work that was to be done in his generation that related to the great promise of God to establish his glorious kingdom. A lot has happened since then. But the same promise to fill the earth with godly people is still at the forefront of everything. God did bring them out of Egypt, as he said he would, by the hand of Moses. And eventually, actually after Moses was dead, he did give them the promised land, where he did set them up under his rule, and he kept making the promise, renewing the promise of his son, who would come to deliver them. He made that promise more and more clear to them, as the years roll by. Then 2000 years ago, he sent him, Jesus, the son of God, the son of man, the righteous son born of woman. And Jesus did what no one else could do. He went to the cross to atone for our sin, that we might be forgiven. And then He rose from the dead, and He sent out His disciples to make disciples of all the nations. Disciples, followers of Christ. Those who believe, those who are baptized, those who learn to follow His ways. That's what he did. He promised that he would rule from heaven until all of his enemies were made his footstool. Jesus said, I will bring about this kingdom. And he instructed his disciples to pray, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, where God is obeyed. That was what he told them to pray. We're involved in this great work to fill the world with godly people, just as Moses was involved in this great work and bringing about the early stages of this kingdom. And it is just as impossible. Now, this is where we connect with Moses. It is just as impossible for us to do this as it was for Moses to do what he was called to do in his day. Moses endured. because he saw Him who is invisible. He said, God is in this. God is the one who is going to do this. I trust Him because He's God. And so even though Egypt has all the power right now, and we're under their rule and oppressed by them, God is going to do what God said He would do. He kept on believing the promise, even though it was utterly impossible for it to be fulfilled by human effort. Now, what about us? We look out and we see things as they are. We see all the problems in the world. We see the weakness of God's people. We see the weakness of the church. We see the church losing heart. We see the strength of our enemies. We see them gathering and mustering and looking like they're invincible and they're going to go on and on and on. And it is easy for us to lose heart and to say, this is not going to happen. God says, yes, it will. Hebrews 11 27 presents Moses as a model for us of how we ought to endure and not lose heart, not because we are so strong, but because our God is so strong and he has promised. This was given to the Hebrew believers in the first century who are a very small group. Their nation, by and large, had rejected the Lord and they had trusted in the Lord Jesus when he was revealed from heaven. And they were going forth, enduring with faith through persecutions as they were first persecuted by their own people and then also by the Romans fed to the lions or whatever. And it looked like they were losing, but they were not at all because God was in it. It is so easy to be discouraged and to wonder how we could ever see the earth filled with godly people. How could that happen when we look out at things as they are? If we focus on our ability, we will want to go off to Midian and forget about it. We want to go off and have children that we do not baptize, because we've got no thought of the promise of God upon them, that they are beautiful children that have hope. You see Christians closing up themselves to not have children because they have no hope in bringing children into this world, and what that will mean. Even if those children are utterly wiped out by oppressive forces, They will they will be reigning in this earth and the resurrection when our Lord Jesus has accomplished his purposes. So we need to hear the promise of God and the call of God to go forth and to with renewed hope with our evangelism, proclaiming the good news to the nations, making disciples of the nations and by bringing forth children to go on in his name. This is all very helpful. But there's a warning in Moses' example that I want to bring to you, what we see about misplaced trust. Yes, with Moses there's an example of misplaced trust. Remember, I said there was the first time when he left in fear. There's a second time he left with amazing faith. So let's look at that. You have to be careful to trust in what God has actually promised. and not what you just imagine him to have promised. Moses had discouragement at first because though he had the promise that his people would be delivered from bondage in Egypt, he went about trying to make it happen in his own way about 40 years too early. It was right and good that he wanted the promise deliverance. That was a good thing. But it was not good that he did not wait on God. It's like people today that might say, we want to build a church, and so we're gonna compromise on things that God has told us to do in order to make the church more popular. We're going to accommodate, we're gonna do this or that. It's that kind of thing. Or it's people that are relentlessly going forward and they're thinking, this is gonna happen today, and then they're discouraged. Over the years as a pastor, I have often seen God's people misrepresent what God has actually promised and to substitute promises that they have concocted or manipulated in their own mind. Instead of trusting in what God has said, they trust in what they want him to promise. And then they get discouraged like Moses did. I ran into some people about 35 years ago when I was involved in the campus ministry. I think it was around that long ago. And they told me, there were a couple of them together, and they told me that God had shown, they said, God has shown me that he's gonna come back before I die. Now, this is some 35 or 40 years ago, and those people, they had that God showed them, they said. It was not God that showed them that. I don't know where they got it from, but that was there. There were nice, sweet people that love the Lord, and I expect that they're in heaven. But it was discouraging for them to say that. What did their children think? Because the promise was not fulfilled. Then I knew two men even before that when I was a young Christian. One of them was a little later than that. One of them was when I was a young Christian. And they said that God told them the girl that they should marry. He pointed it out. God said, there's the one. That's the one for you. And both of these men pursued that. God never showed the girl. The marriage never happened. And both of the men became discouraged. One of them to this day does not serve the Lord. The other one has limped along back and forth and never really gone very far for the Lord, where before he was a faithful man. Both of these men lost confidence in God because they believed as God's promises what He had not actually promised. There's a real danger in this sort of thing. I have known people who pray that they would be healed or that a loved one would be healed and then said, I know that God's gonna heal me. God has shown me that he's gonna heal me. There's a promise from God. And they forget that the Lord has told us that we may have things in this world that he does not deliver. We will have tribulation. What about Paul? He had his thorn in the flesh and God did not take it away. Healing will come for all who are in Him though. When will it come? The resurrection. You're looking for it too soon. Everybody, no matter if you get healed now, we've seen people that were healed in answer to prayer. But even if you're marvelously healed, you're gonna get sick again and die in this world. There's no permanent healing here. If everybody was healed, then no one would die. And everybody dies from the first century onward after Christ came. Anyone who is healed now is only temporarily healed. I have seen lots of people take also another kind of error. They'll take one of God's conditional promises and they'll make it as an unconditional promise. Like 2nd Chronicles 7.14, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. They will pray for God to heal our land, and then they're discouraged that God has not kept his promise. Why doesn't he heal our land? We've been praying. And then they get discouraged when he doesn't. But the promise is to those who repent and who turn to him, to the nation that repents, not just individuals. This is a national promise. Likewise, there is a promise of God to our children. That is a promise to be claimed indeed, but it is conditional. on our diligent observance of his covenant, which we can only do by his grace. When we turn to idols, God will often chasten us the way he chastened David when he turned to an idol. What was the idol he turned to? Bathsheba. He put her above God. He said no to God's way. I'm going to choose this idol is more important to me having this woman. And as a result, God chastened him and his sons. To use another illustration, God says that he will preserve his church. Sometimes a believer will pray for their church. God promised, gates of Hades will not prevail against my church. And then their church goes down the tubes. And it folds up and it closes. Or it goes into complete apostasy where the gospel is not even preached there anymore. There were lots of godly people, say, in the United Church that would pray for the church in those times. But they couldn't claim that that church was going to stay faithful because of their prayers. They prayed for it and they asked for it rightly. But God has not promised to each church that it's going to endure forever. Some of the churches in Revelation that we're looking at, they are no more. Jesus warned them that they might be no more. He doesn't preserve every congregation or every denomination. He preserves his church as a whole. So you have to get the promise right. Or it's going to lead to frustration and discouragement in your life. We have to take what God has said. We dishonor him when we manipulate or we manufacture promises as if from God. And then when they don't occur, it brings discouragement to other people, too, who may have believed us. So the point of all this, what is the point? It is that your faith needs to be in the promises of God, not in something else. His promise is that he will establish his kingdom of righteousness and that will fill the earth. That is the absolute promise. Some people say he's going to do that a really long way before he comes back. And other people say it's still going to be pretty bad until he comes back. I'm inclined to say he's going to go a long way before he comes back. But that is not so clear. The clear thing is, is that the ultimate result is going to be a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells and there's no more tears and there's no more sorrow. That's the thing we have to latch on to and say that is the certain thing, just how and when it will happen. Only God knows. It's for us, though, to tenaciously believe the promise and cling to it, even when it looks like it could never happen. You need courage and trust in God, courage that comes from trust in God to go forward. We need to see him who is invisible. Then we can endure. Then our faith will not fail. OK, now let's take a look at some very practical things that Moses endured that we must endure by seeing him who is invisible. First of all, you need to endure when God's promise is impossible. We say, that's what you're just talking about. Yes, it is. We've already seen this. It's the main point of our text, but I wanted to start with it just to drive it home. Moses was to go and bring about 100, I mean, 1.5 million discouraged people who were carefully watched slaves out of the most powerful nation on the earth. He was to lead them through the wilderness to the land of Canaan. Then they were to overthrow the people there because of the wickedness of the people there and to live as God's people. Moses held on to the promise that God was going to bring him into that land. He saw him who is invisible. We are called to be godly people who fill the earth with godly people. Yet we see Most of the seats of power in the world taken by those who do not love God. We see our nation and other nations bringing more and more, becoming more and more ungodly. And we see many of our brothers and sisters around the world persecuted, ridiculed for their faith. Endure. Endure seeing him who is invisible. Don't let your heart be discouraged. Keep on trusting. Keep on praying. Keep on leaning on Christ. Keep on reading his word. Keep on worshiping. Keep on testifying of your hope. Keep on obeying your God. He will bring it to pass. Second, you need to endure by seeing God when you're intimidated by man. Moses was certainly intimidated when God told him to go and talk to Pharaoh. The Lord says, let my people go that they may serve me. He had to go and say that to Pharaoh of all people. He knew that humanly speaking, Pharaoh had power to destroy him. He was concerned about his eloquence, he said, but God reminded him that he was the one that made his mouth. Moses went, Moses endured, seeing him who is invisible. Who intimidates you? Are you afraid to tell others about your faith for fear that they might ridicule you? That you might lose your position somehow? Are you afraid of what people might say if you tell them that you cannot do something on the Lord's Day because it's the Lord's Day? Because you love the Lord and do not want to sin and because you love the Lord and don't want to sin against him? Are you ashamed to tell people that God created us and that we fell into sin and if we don't repent and we're going to perish? You need to endure seeing him who is invisible. You cannot deny these things. You need to testify of these things. Don't be intimidated by the world and what they might do. Third, you need to endure by seeing God when things do not seem to be working out. When Moses first told the people that God had remembered his promise and was at hand to deliver them, they did take heart right at first. But after he spoke to Pharaoh, Pharaoh was angry and intensified their labors. The temptation for Moses would have been to pack up and go back to Midian, say, OK, I did what you told me and it got worse instead of better. I tried that. I'm done. What kind of opposition do you face? when you attempt to serve the Lord. Do you make resolutions to be faithful? What happens when you do that? Say, I'm going to get back into reading God's word. I'm going to get back to being faithful. I'm going to go to both services at church. I'm going to be faithful. I'm going to do this again. And what happens? Something comes up, you get sick or something. Sometimes it's a legitimate thing, you can't, you're not able to do this. And then you're kind of, oh, every time I try, you know, it comes, and you get discouraged and you say, I tried God, I tried, and something always gets in the way. And you give up. No, you endure because you see Him who is invisible. You're tested in order to make you stronger. That's why God brings the test to you. He said, I made Pharaoh strong. I made Pharaoh obstinate in order that I might show my power all the more. and bringing him down when he was opposing you. Let this Pharaoh flex all of his muscles and it will be evident that God is much stronger than he is. It's not the time to give up. Fourth, you need to endure by seeing God when no one stands with you. When Moses or when Pharaoh increased the bondage after Moses first requests to release the people, The people were not only discouraged. Not just discouraged, but they also rejected Moses. They said that he was a deceiver. And they refused to stand with him. So Moses was by himself, while with his brother Aaron. They did not believe God's promise. Jesus had that too, didn't he? It's interesting in Isaiah, it's attributed to him that he said, I have labored in vain. There was that time, for example, when he fed the 5,000, and they were all hyped up, and they were ready to make him king. And then Jesus told him what it meant for him to be their Lord, that it meant that he was the one who gave them life. Because they were sinners and they needed to eat him as the bread of life, to have him as their Savior and their Lord, the sacrifice that God was going to provide for his people. And they didn't like that. They wanted him to overthrow the Romans. That was their agenda. They had a different promise, didn't they? What we were talking about before, they missed the promise. They said, he's going to overthrow the Romans now. No, what he was going to do then was to bring redemption, to bring forgiveness of sins. And so by missing the promise, they were discouraged about Jesus. They did not want to follow him. But what about Jesus? He looked to his disciples and he said, are you going to go away, too? And they didn't. He did have the disciples stayed with him, but by and large he was rejected and he went on because he believed what God has said. Now, what about you? Do you sometimes feel lonely in the Lord's service? Do you sometimes like no one stands with me? Maybe it's even in things that are more narrowly what God has called us to do. You say lots of people don't go. They don't believe that they don't do that. It doesn't matter how many people. You and God make a majority. If it's something that's true and right, you don't do it by polls to see what's popular in the Christian church. If you do that, then you will be with all the people that said to Moses, you're a deceiver. What are you doing here? All the people that said to Jesus, you're a deceiver. What are you doing here making all these pretenses? That's the way that it goes. You endure only by faith. You must see the smile of the invisible God upon you. Next, you need to endure by seeing God when you're asked to make inappropriate compromises. Pharaoh told Moses that he would let the people go. If only the men went. When Moses refused. Then he tried again, he said, OK, well, don't take the livestock with you. Why did Moses refuse? I mean, after a relentless battle that he'd had with Pharaoh and all the conflict that had gone on, oh, you know, he's conceding. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna meet, I'm gonna compromise. I'm gonna meet him, because he finally, we've got something that we can go forward here. Why did Moses not do that? Because it was not optional. He saw Him who is invisible. The Lord has spoken. And Moses couldn't say, oh, well, it doesn't matter what the Lord says, because this is going to work if I say yes now. You don't compromise to make something work when God has said something that doesn't look like it'll work very well. And it didn't. Pharaoh got mad. He said, you know, well, God better be with you if you're going to go with all your flocks and everything. As those who are seeking to fully obey Christ. There's always pressure to compromise. Compromise on these things and all these people will be happy over here. Compromise and just but if God has said it, you can't. You can't compromise on them now. Now supposing you do that, what happens after that? Then they say, well, you need to embrace people that that don't think Jesus is really God too. You know, you're being too narrow and it keeps going and going and going and you end up with no truth whatsoever. It would be much easier for us if we did not hold to biblical distinctions and gender roles. If we embellish our worship with things that God did not command, if we were more accepting of of gay marriage and things like that, it would be easier for us. More people would be interested in that sort of a thing. And next, you need to endure by seeing God when you're in the heat of a crisis. After Moses brings Israel out of Egypt. Pharaoh changes his mind, as he did that several times, but they're already gone, and he decides to send his Egyptian forces after them with their chariots and everything. They see all these Egyptians coming with their armor and their chariots, and they become frantic because they're hemmed in, there are mountains on one side, the Red Sea is on the other side, and they begin to complain against Moses. But look at Moses. Before he even knows what God is going to do, He says, Exodus 14, 13, do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. It's so easy to lose composure when terror strikes. But when we see him who is invisible, we can endure. We can go on by faith, trusting in God. We can rest in the Lord and recognize that we are in his hands. He is much greater than Pharaoh or any crisis that Pharaoh or the forces of this world can bring. We have no need to panic. when we are in Him. Maybe there's something that is coming that's going, a great storm or something that's going to completely wipe us out and you're hemmed in, you're in the traffic, you can't get out. There's nothing you can do. You say, Lord, I'm in your hands. If it's time for me to die, I will go and be with you. If you're going to deliver me, you can deliver me. I'm in your hands. There's no need to panic in such a situation. You find out you've got terminal cancer, whatever it might be. You do not need to panic because you're in God's hands and he will do what he has appointed. And if you're trusting in him, you'll just go on according to his plan. There are six. So there are six occasions we learn from Moses where you need to see him who is invisible so that you might endure the way Moses did. What a model he is of one who trusted in the Lord. So in closing, let me show you how you can cultivate that kind of trust. First of all, to have faith in God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You need to be constantly in God's word. You need to read his word. You need to meditate on his word. You need to hear the word preached. You need to not just look, just go through emotions of reading or say, oh, I read I'm done, but to take it in, to receive the word, to trust what God is, to see him as invisible. who is revealed in the Word. You can't know Him by your own heart or by just looking around things. You can see some of the greatness of God by creation, but you don't really know Him in faith and His promises apart from the Word. The promises are not in the creation. The promises are in the Word. And that's what you need to believe what God has said and to see who He is and that He's able to execute these things to bring them about. So don't just make excuses about why you can't spend quality time in God's Word. No, this is important. You need to do this. And don't just hear it, but take it as his word and apply it. Meditate on it. Think about it. Chew it over. Speak to him about it. And that's that leads us to another thing. Pray to him and ask him to keep your eyes on him so that you will not lose heart so that you might endure seeing him who is invisible. Say, Lord, show me your glory. Keep teaching me about yourself. Let me see who you are that I might trust you more. It is by trusting in him that you can endure. Let me tell you, you know what happens to people when they don't spend time in God's word? They start taking those false promises I was talking about. They start making up and manufacturing promises because they don't have any comfort. And so they're looking for they're trying to grab on to stuff. We go back to God's word. You see what he's actually said. Then you're centered upon the truth and you're resting in him. And then finally, we also need to obey him as our Lord. He is Lord. You don't know him as a great and mighty Lord. If you take the things that he says and you go. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't really like what he said here. I don't want to do that. But this is okay, so I'll do that. Okay, what's going to happen when something like Pharaoh comes and confronts you? If you think God's like that, that you can kind of take it or leave it, then you don't know God. You don't know him at all. This is where obedience comes into the picture. If you take his commandments, like to observe the Sabbath, and sometimes do, sometimes don't, or commandment not to gossip, but you kind of like to gossip, or whatever it is, your fleshly lusts, you say, well, it doesn't really matter too much. If you do that, you treat him with dishonor as a lightweight. You regard God as someone that doesn't carry any weight. So how is that going to play out in your life when you need to trust him in the moment of crisis? Of course you won't be able to trust him when your faith is tested. If he is a featherweight, how can you trust a featherweight? It is only when you see him who is the invisible God of all glory that you will be able to endure. Please stand and let's call upon him for his aid. Oh, Lord, our God, we come before you praising you, oh, Lord, for you are a great and mighty and awesome God. Oh, Lord, we saw last Sunday afternoon in Revelation, the glorious vision that John saw of Jesus Christ, this one that made John fall down on his face before him. He would not have thought about kind of Disregarding what he said or kind of disobeying him when he saw that glory, he was on his face before him. And then we see the tenderness of our Lord Jesus who came in and touched him and said, do not be afraid and lifted him up and. and told him that he was to deliver his message to the churches. And his message was, in part, in the vision, that this glorious one that John saw was walking among those churches. He was with them, caring for them. The lampstands that he was walking among represented those churches. And that their leaders, their messengers, were in his hand. And what a beautiful picture it was of the Glorious One. And O Lord, we need to see You as the Glorious One. And we pray that You would open our eyes, that we may see You as You have been revealed in Your Holy Word to us. That we would recognize that You are a holy God from whom heaven and earth flee away. And yet you are a gracious God who reaches out to touch us and to take us in and to forgive us when we come before you with a broken and contrite heart as those who are humbled and not proud, not arrogantly fighting against you and resisting you and opposing you, but coming as little children to follow you with delight and gladness because you are a God of grace and love and mercy and tenderness to your children. Oh Father, teach us to see You as You are and not as the world would want us to see You or as Satan would want us to see You or as our own flesh might want us to see You. Oh Lord, please make Yourself known to Your people that we may have faith and that we may endure. We thank You so much for the example of Moses. And Father, we can't look at something like this without recognizing how much we have failed. And so, Lord, we pray that you would have mercy on us and that you would forgive us because you are a forgiving God. And we see that Moses also that he had that time in the wilderness. He didn't he didn't circumcise his children. And you came to kill him because of that. And he humbled himself before you. So, Lord, we come now asking you, oh, Lord, to be merciful to us, to forgive us of our sin, to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. Oh, Lord, we trust in you because you are our God and we are your people. Thank you for all that you have done for us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated and let's prepare to come to the Lord's table. Receive the blessing of the Lord. May the Lord your God be with you as he was with your fathers. May he not leave you nor forsake you, that he may incline your hearts to himself, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and judgments, which he commanded your fathers. Amen.