Well, we are in chapter 11 of Hebrews. Our eighth week, I never would have believed it would take us this long to work through this chapter. But there's so much wonderful truth and so many wonderful examples of faith, of trusting God here. And they're here for our example. To teach us. To teach us. The writer began this chapter declaring that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. That's what faith is. And in chapter 11, we read of these people in the Old Testament who responded to this gift of faith by believing God, by trusting Him, by living according to that faith. They gained approval from God, we're told. And for all of them in the Old Testament, especially the ones we've seen to this point, faith meant belief in promises of God in blessings that were still unfulfilled, that were not fulfilled during their lifetimes. All died in faith, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, without having received the fulfillment of the promises. And yet, each one died believing God, trusting Him. Believing that God would do what he had promised. This is what faith is. Do we believe God? Do we believe he will do what he's promised? And we've seen, you know, in the case of Jacob, as he was dying, without having received the fulfillment of any promises, he affirmed his belief that God would fulfill his promise. 4729 of Genesis. When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, Please don't bury me in Egypt, but when I lie down with my fathers, take me out of Egypt. Back to Canaan. 4929 of Genesis. He charged his sons, Bury me with my fathers in the cave that's in the field of Ephron the Hittite. In the cave in the field of Machpelah. in the land of Canaan. And Joseph showed the same faith as he was dying. He made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, which was at least a couple hundred years away. And he gave orders concerning his bones. And look what he says, Genesis 50, 24. He says to his brothers, I'm about to die. But God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." And this is a couple hundred years at least after the promise was first made to Abraham. And he made his brothers swear. And he said to them, God will surely take care of you and you shall carry my bones up from here. He's believing in something that's nowhere in his own vision at that time, but God had given him eyes of faith. Now, a couple hundred years pass, maybe a little more, and by the time that Moses was born in Egypt, they're all still in Egypt, all the sons of Jacob, a couple hundred years later, the promise was still unfulfilled. things for the sons of Jacob had changed a great deal. They were very difficult at that point. Now look at Exodus chapter 1 verse 8. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and they're mightier than we are. Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply, and in the event of war they'll join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us, and they'll depart from this land. And so they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread, in dread of the sons of Israel. So the Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously, and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks, and in all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously opposed on. So the sons of Jacob fell into slavery in Egypt. But you know, God had told Abraham several hundred years earlier that these things were going to happen. Look at Genesis 15, 13. God said to Abraham, Know for certain your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But God had also promised Abraham that after that time in bondage, He would deliver them from Egypt and bring them into the promised land of Canaan. Genesis 15, 14, I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age, and then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." Now Moses, as a man of faith, believed all these things as he learned them and had been taught them. And after the end of 400 years, the sons of Jacob cried out for deliverance, and God sent them a deliverer. Right on time. Right on time. Acts 7.20, Stephen, as he's about to be stoned to death, says that this time Moses was born. He was lovely in the sight of God and was nurtured three months in his father's home. So let's turn to Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 23. Hebrews 11, 23. Now Moses wrote five books of the Bible. His life covered four books of the Bible. And as we'd seen with Isaac and Jacob, he's reducing Moses' entire life to about one sentence per book of the Bible. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents. because they saw he was a beautiful or proper child, that the child was fair, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he was looking to, he kept his eyes fixed on the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as seeing him who is unseen. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them." Well Lord, we thank You for this Word. We thank You that You have delivered it to us and preserved it for us. As we look into what we know to be Your sacred truth, Your inerrant truth. Give us understanding, Lord, in our minds and our hearts. In Christ's name, Amen. It's easy as we look into these saints and their histories in chapter 11 to lose sight for a moment of what the whole purpose of this book was, isn't it? The writer of Hebrews was writing to Jewish Christians to encourage them to not leave the faith, to stay the course of faith in Christ, to not return to Judaism, the Judaism that was established through Moses. The writer recalls the faith of these Old Testament saints, all Jewish men, for the most part, and women, including the two most prominent men in the history of Israel. That would be Abraham and Moses. And he spends considerable time in chapter 11 on these two men. This is the man from whom the whole nation descended, Abraham, and the man through whom the nation and the law of God was established. These two great saints, what separated them, what makes them special is they lived by faith. Not their human accomplishments, but by the fact of how fervently they trusted God. They lived by faith. And the lesson here is, so must we. Moses' whole life was marked by his awareness of the power and the presence of the unseen God and his faithful obedience to Him. Obedience and faith go together. Chapter 3, verse 5, the writer wrote, Moses was a faithful servant in the house of God for a testimony of things to be spoken later by God. Well, here they are. Moses did many great things. What was it that enabled him to do them? Faith. God had given him assurance of things hoped for, provided him with evidence of things he could not see, as he has with all the people of faith. We don't just look forward to what we read about in Revelation 21 because we're a lot smarter, a lot more intuitive than others. We look forward to that because we know it's true because God has shown us in our hearts that it's true. Really the central thing here is he was in the palace of Pharaoh, a prince with everything he could ever ask for of an earthly nature. And he left that. He set it aside because he had faith in those promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he went out and joined his people, the slaves of Pharaoh. Now, in verse 23, we see that there were others who had some faith in those days. And the two people that he talks about are Moses' parents, Amram and Jacobed. And we see two sides of their faith here. They saw something special in Moses. How did they see that? It wasn't just that he was a good-looking kid. And second, their faith enabled them to overcome fear of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh had the entire nation in fear. The bondage of Egypt was never more severe than at the time Moses was born. This Pharaoh, who was then ruling, had issued this edict, and he was a monster. He issued an edict to execute every infant male Hebrew child. Execute post-birth abortion of every Hebrew male. Now when Moses was born, what happened? His parents defied the order. And that meant if they were caught, they would be executed. And they hid Moses for three months. Why? Because God showed them something. Because they saw he was a proper child, a beautiful child, some versions say. The point is they saw something special in him. Here the writer's alluding to a spiritual truth. He's not speaking so much of Moses' physical appearance. but rather of the fact that God had shown them something, something very special concerning their son. We're not told exactly what God showed them, but He let them know Moses must be preserved alive. Had their hiding of him been discovered, they and he would have been executed. But they were led on by what? What caused them to do this? The assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Faith in God is what led Moses' parents on. Something unusual enough in this child so as to make them risk everything to save him. They defied the edict of Pharaoh and they trusted that God would preserve them and him, especially him despite Pharaoh's mandate. They didn't know how God would do it. They simply trusted in God for what they hoped for. And what did they hope for? Moses' survival. Stories in Exodus chapter 2, beginning in verse 3. Speaking of Moses' parents, it's in the female here, but it actually speaks of both parents. But when they could hide him no longer, they got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. And then his mother put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. So they couldn't hide him any longer. So now they've come up with this idea. They're going to preserve him by putting him in an ark in the Nile River. Daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile with her maidens, walking alongside the Nile. And she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. When she opened it, she saw the child. Behold, the boy was crying. She had pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. And then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you? Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go ahead. So the girl went and called whom? The child's mother. The child's mother. And then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So God not only preserved Moses alive, He retained the bond between Moses and his mother. And the mother was paid to do this. So the woman took the child and nursed him. The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she named him Moses and said, Because I drew him out of the water. Now Stephen, and sometimes we'll allude to Acts 7 and Stephen's recounting of the history of the people of God. Acts 7, 22, Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians. He was a man of power in words and deeds. This is what Moses would give up, walk away from, by faith. And you notice what happened here. God used the wickedness of Pharaoh, this edict to murder all these children, and the faith of his people, Moses' parents, together, all things working together, to accomplish his purposes. And his purpose, to raise up Moses, the deliverer of his people from bondage. Now verse 24, we see that by faith now Moses, we're going to look at Moses' faith now. When he had grown up, he was now near the age of 40. Stephen tells us in Acts 7.23, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He'd been Pharaoh's daughter for 40 years. But he chose rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God. rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. So he's got this harsh treatment over here and the pleasures of sin over here. He chose the harsh treatment. He had two other things to compare. The reproach of Christ, which he considered greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. reproach for the sake of Christ. Why would he do this? Why would anybody do this? Because he's looking for something better. He's looking for something eternal. He's looking for something glorious. He's believing God. Now, if Moses had done as Pharaoh's daughter wished he would do, he would have inherited the most dazzling throne in all of antiquity. Remember these are the people who built all those amazing pyramids and all. What he embraced rather than that was affliction and reproach. But he left Pharaoh's court. He left Pharaoh's court to join his brothers. And this was a renunciation of his adoption into Pharaoh's family. He renounced it. Why? Because he was looking at that promise that God had made. He believed God. When he joined his brothers, he renounced all of the benefits of the royal station. But think about it, if he had stayed there, he could only have enjoyed those benefits at the cost of complicity in what the king was doing. He would have been living in approval of the execution of all these newborn Hebrew children. He would have been living in complicity of the slave labor, as some do today with the slave labor in China, the social justice warriors. Moses didn't do any of that. He didn't put down any deal. He could have thought to himself, you know, if I stay here in the palace, I can maybe use my influence and make things better for my brethren according to the flesh. He didn't do that. There was no hypocrisy in Moses. He renounced the power, the wealth, the ease, and he confessed himself to be a Hebrew. But His people, the Hebrews, were the people of God. They were slaves whose daily business was making these bricks out of straw for a wicked man. But from God's perspective, this was His church. These were His people. By His sovereign decree and by His covenant, they were His people. And so Moses said, I will endure ill treatment with the people of God. With the people of God. He wanted to be among the people of God. He must have understood that to remain Pharaoh's daughter, even ascending to the throne, meant losing all the blessings of the covenant God had made with Abraham. That's how he looked at this. He's looking at the promise of God versus the royal trappings. One writer says, the church in all its distresses and all its miseries and all its troubles is 10,000 times more honorable than any society of men in this world. And that's how Moses looked at it. And so he renounced his royal station. Exodus 2.11. came about in those days when Moses had grown up. He went out to his brethren. He looked on their hard labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that. And when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. He made a choice. He made a choice grounded in faith. He chose rather to endure the ill treatment with God's people over the passing pleasures of sin. Spurgeon describes the choice put to Moses this way. Thank the Lord that He's given us these great men of faith over the years. And Spurgeon is certainly one of them. He puts it this way, as one saying to Moses, Oh Moses, if you join with Israel, there's no present reward for you. You have nothing to gain. You have everything to lose. You'd have to do it out of pure principle, out of love to God, out of full persuasion of the truth. For the tribes of Jacob have zero wealth, they have no honor, they have no anything to bestow. What you will receive is affliction, and that is all. You'll be called a fool. People will think they have very good reason for doing so. Affliction nobody would choose. But affliction with the people of God, that's something else. That's a different matter. Affliction with the people of God ultimately means affliction in glorious company. That's why we're part of this church. The glory that lies ahead. We believe what God has said. We believe in what Christ has done. And there's nothing in this world that can ever begin to compare with what God has in store for His people. With the people of God. That's where you want to be. It's where you always want to be because that's where God is working His purposes for good. This is what separated so many of the Old Testament saints and New Testament saints from those who stood condemned by their own sin. Daniel refused the food of the king. In one degree or another, the same choice is presented to us. Are we pursuing the things of the world or are we pursuing the promise of God? Luke 14.33, to be a disciple of Christ, you must give up the world and embrace the cross. Well, this is what Moses did. Matthew 5.11, blessed are you, Jesus said, when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. Do you believe this? Do you believe this? Amen. This is why we're here. This is why we follow Christ. This is why we seek his wisdom each morning in the Word of God. Your reward in heaven is great. The world can very easily be divided up into two groups of people. Those who believe that this reward in heaven is great through Jesus Christ, who will inherit the reward, and those who don't. Paul said in Philippians 3.8, I count all things, laws, in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of everything. And I count all of it rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. Boy, Paul really understood the gospel, didn't he? Righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. How could Moses prefer what was the worst of this world? Humiliation and bondage to the royal trappings? Well, the only people who would ever make that choice are people of faith. That's the only reason anybody would make the choice to leave the palace and go with the people of God. Only by faith in God and His Word would anyone make that choice. He considers the reproach of Christ, abuse incurred for the sake of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. That's an interesting statement, isn't it? Sufferings of God's people are called the reproach of Christ because it's for His sake that we undergo them. That's what it means. Moses saw being reproached for the sake of Christ as a priceless honor, greater than the treasures of Egypt. And this reproach, it comes in many forms. Trials God permits, often at the hands of wicked men. What's He doing? Why is He allowing this? To conform us to the image of His Son. That's why He's doing this. We don't go into heaven with all this baggage on us. We don't go into glory this way. He refines us. He purifies us. He purges us. The reproach is much greater than any earthly treasure. People of faith understand this. Chapter 13, we'll see, bearing his reproach speaks of bearing a reproach like Christ's. So, all of the godly ought to willingly undergo the reproach of Christ. God is predestined all whom he's chosen to be conformed to the image of his Son and that means sharing in Christ's afflictions. But again, notice Moses did not simply choose affliction, he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God and such that it was sharing in the reproach of Christ. He declared Himself, Moses did, one of God's people by becoming one with them in their misery. Now behind all this, of course, God had a purpose. People will look at Moses and say, what a fool. What a fool. How do you leave the palace? How do you leave all the money, the power, the wealth? How do you throw it all away? These are the very things, if you stop and think about it, that most people spend their entire lives trying to acquire. Money, power, luxury, influence. This is what 90% of the world is seeking to do. Moses takes it. He had it. Set it aside. Neither wealth nor luxury nor power made Joseph forget the promise of God. He's dying and he's saying, don't forget to take my bones up when you go. And the same was true of Moses. Moses made this choice because he could see beyond his present earthly circumstances. He believed the Israelites were truly the people of God. He believed he was going out to the people of God, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He believed God would fulfill the covenant he had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was looking, the writer here tells us, to the reward. He was looking for the coming of a Redeemer. Moses is the one who said in Deuteronomy 18, the Lord will raise up for you a prophet like me. And what was the reward that Moses was looking forward to? We're told that Abraham looked for what? A heavenly country. A city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. The Apostle John was given a vision of the glory that awaits every one of you who trusts in Christ, who believes God. I don't look for opportunities to read Revelation 21.1, but they just tend to present themselves. But this is what he's looking forward to. This is what we look forward to. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. There's no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men. He will dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be among them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away." You can read on for the vivid description of it. So Moses chose affliction, ill treatment. And you know what the irony is? We now know if Moses hadn't left, if he'd remained in Pharaoh's court, that would have meant lasting dishonor for him. The one who refused the call of God. One writer says what we know about him right now is he'd be probably a name on a mummy somewhere in a British museum. And that's what we know about Moses. But because of the direction he took, leaving the palace and going out to join with his brethren, trusting God. Moses is among the most honored names in all of human history. Because he did this. Like Paul, 1500 years later, he counted everything as loss for Christ's sake. He knew that affliction, suffering weren't real evils, they were just God's school. The place where God trains us for glory, where God purifies us, where he purges the evil out of us, where he burns away the dross. Moses refused greatness, riches, and pleasure because he looked forward to something better. One writer says, with the eye of faith, he saw kingdoms crumbling into dust, riches disintegrating, pleasures leading on to death and judgment, and Christ and His flock enduring forever. So he recognized the reproach of Christ as the true treasure which leads to eternal life and glory. Verse 27, by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. So how did he overcome fear? He kept our Lord before his eyes. So this passage, this verse 27, some believe this speaks of Moses' flight to Midian at the age of 40 after he killed the Egyptian. Others think the writer's speaking of the time of the Exodus 40 years later. It's not entirely necessary that we resolve that, and we're not going to, in order to understand the writer's point here. I believe he's talking about the time of the Exodus, primarily because of this passage in Exodus 2.14 where we're told Moses fled after he killed the Egyptian for fear of the king. Exodus 2.14, he said, who made you prince or judge over us? It was one of his Hebrew brothers. Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? And then Moses was afraid. And he said, surely the matter has become known. When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian. So at the age of 40, after killing the Egyptian, Moses fled in fear. When he returned 40 years later, after being called by God at the age of 80, Moses fearlessly confronted Pharaoh again and again. And he demanded, let my people go. Free my people. Why? He had encountered the living God. God met him at a bush that was on fire, so he would not fear any earthly king. John Knox, the great Scottish reformer, he was constantly in opposition to the Roman Catholic Queen of Scotland, whose hobby was executing Christians. He was asked how could he go so boldly in front of the Roman Catholic Queen of Scotland. And he said, one does not fear the Queen of Scotland when he has been on his knees before the King of Kings. So now Moses, at the age of 80, as he prepared to lead the sons of Jacob out of bondage in Egypt. Exodus 14, 13, he said to the people, Do not fear. Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. Now let me ask you, did it take some faith for Moses to hold that staff up there believing the sea was going to part? You betcha. You betcha. He disregarded the wrath of the king who's coming after him, by the way. He had no human army. All he had was the power of God. And you know what? He trusted God. He endured. He was strong and firm because by faith he saw the hand of God leading him. And the presence of God, one writer says, like a wall of fire around him and his people. His faith bore him up and carried him along. Oh, to be there that day. Oh, to have been there that day. really an instance of just amazing strength of faith. He brings out this multitude, two million people, untrained for war. These weren't soldiers. Burdened with all their encumbrances. And yet he trusted that God was going to open up a way. He's got the army of Pharaoh on this side. He's got the sea on this side. And he's not doubting. Remember Abraham when he went up to offer Isaac. He considered that God could bring Isaac back from the dead and thereby fulfill his promise of sending the blessing through Isaac. Well, here's Moses in a similar kind of situation. Faith, folks, is not blindly believing in something, as the Muslim terrorists do when they fly planes into buildings. Faith is something that gives one vision of things that are real and true, of what we can't otherwise see right now. It's evidence, evidence, proof given by God into our hearts that what He says is true. Moses could look upon God and what He promised with eyes opened by God, eyes of faith. By faith, he kept the Passover, the sprinkling of the blood. On the way out of Egypt, God had executed nine judgments on the Pharaoh and on the false gods of Egypt. There was one more to go. He was going to execute the firstborn in every Egyptian family. And you notice the symmetry with what Pharaoh was trying to do, even to Moses and the children of the Hebrews born. So now God says to Moses, I want you to have every family bring a lamb into their house, a little innocent first-year lamb. Keep it in the house a few days and then kill it. And then take the blood and put it on your doorposts. And I'm going to send an angel of death all through the land, and we're going to pass over those doorposts, the houses that have the blood on the door. God did what He said. He sent the angel of death. Exodus 12, 12, I'm sorry. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night. I will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. I think that was my favorite part when we went through the book of Exodus, seeing God execute the sun god, Ra, and the god of the river, one right after another. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. And when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. No plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Moses faithfully did this. This couldn't have sounded like it made a whole lot of sense to him. Only if he really believed God would he have done this and had the whole nation do it. These people slaughtered the lambs, covered their doorposts, and they were protected. For Christians today, there's a greater meaning behind all of this because this symbolized, didn't it? And foreshadowed the blood of the true lamb. We look upon that blood, which saves us. cover ourselves in His blood and we're protected from the eternal fire. And the Jewish Christians now who are thinking about going back to the law of Moses, to the ceremonies, they could now understand. This is why this was so critical in this letter to the Hebrew Christians. They could now see the foreshadowing significance of the Passover and they could see that Moses put faith in the blood of the Lamb. Not in his ability to keep God's law. This is the way Moses was saved. By faith. And so the writer of Hebrews is telling these Hebrew Christians. It's by faith, folks. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land. Egyptians followed them through, by the way, and were swallowed up or drunk down, literally. What caused those people to follow Moses into the sea? Well, it was Moses' faith that inspired them to move into the sea. We later see these weren't people of faith. They didn't believe God when they came to the mountain. They were full of fear. They were full of complaints. But they had Pharaoh's army behind them, and they had the Red Sea over here. And so they followed Moses through the dry land that had now opened up. And God led them safely. through the Red Sea, how could they have disbelieved Him when they came to the mountain at Kadesh? How could they have disbelieved Him? Well, from Moses' perspective, it was by faith in God's power and in God's care and in God's Word that he went boldly into the sea and persuaded his people to follow him. Faith for him was the antidote to fear. It was the antidote to the loss of earthly pleasures. Faith. And like his fathers, interesting to think of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Moses' fathers, he looked ahead in full assurance of the truth of all that God had spoken. And so for the Israelites, the Red Sea was victory. For the Egyptians, it was death and judgment. And what do we have here? The Exodus, the deliverance of the sons of Jacob, the judgments on Pharaoh and his subjects. A picture, a foreshadowing of what is going to occur on the day of Christ's return. You want to know what it's going to be like? Look at this. the separation of the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, the deliverance of the people of God from all evil, from all sin, and from death forevermore, and yet from all pain." Jewish Christians who first received and read this word in the first century were tempted to return to the law of Moses and try to earn it. But Moses himself was a man of faith who sought deliverance for himself and for all his people through faith in the Word of God. You know, Moses also prophesied the coming of Messiah. He believed in the coming of the Messiah. He trusted in the coming of the Messiah. And like Abraham before him, he looked forward to the day of Christ. Brothers and sisters, these accounts have been preserved for us as examples, as examples of living by faith. They're here for us to grasp onto and to follow. This is what God wants to see in all His people, faith that expresses itself in the way we live, in our trust in Him, in our obedience to Him. The question for us is, Does faith in God's Word manifest itself in our lives? We all have our own challenges and daily we have to choose whether we'll follow the worldly way or God's way. Do we trust Him? Do we live looking for a heavenly country and a heavenly city? Are we seeking Him and His glory? Or are our energies and resources devoted to the pursuit of those very things that Moses rejected and walked away from? Let's take a moment and meditate on the faith of Moses and what it says to us. And then we will gather around the table of the Lord and share the Lord's Supper.