Hebrews 11, verse 23. We read,
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents,
because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid
of the king's commandment. By faith Moses was hid of his
parents. This verse of Scripture is not
talking about the faith which Moses possessed, but the faith
his parents possessed. The title of the message is,
Moses' Parents Believe God. Moses' Parents Believe God. And it says here, by faith, Moses,
when he was born, was hid three months of his parents. Now, why
did his parents hide him? Why did they hide him? Look over
at Exodus chapter 1 with me. You remember, we saw last time
that as Joseph was dying, he told his brethren, how that some
200 years from then they would fall into slavery in Egypt, which
God had promised Abraham years and years and years before Joseph
even said it to his brethren. And so just as the Lord promised,
it came to pass. And we turn to Exodus chapter
1, and we'll see here that it says, verse 5, and all the souls
that came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls. For Joseph
was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his
brethren, and all that generation. Now listen to this. And the children
of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied,
and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
And he said unto his people, Behold, The people of the children
of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal
wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when
there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and
fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore
they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.
And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Python and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them,
the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because
of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children
of Israel to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter
with hard bondage in mortar and in brick and in all manner of
service in the field. All their service wherein they
made them serve was with rigor. And the king of Egypt spake to
the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shephra,
and the name of the other, Pewah. And he said, when you do the
office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, when you deliver these
Hebrew babies, and see them upon the stools, if it be a son, then
you should kill him. But if it be a daughter, then
she shall live. But the midwives feared God and
did not, as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the
men's children alive. And the king of Egypt called
for the midwives and said unto them, Why have you done this
thing and have saved the men's children alive? And the midwives
said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian
women, for they are lively and are delivered ere the midwives
come in unto them. They said, They're having these
babies before we can get to them, so we're not killing them. Therefore
God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and
waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because
the midwives feared God, that He made them houses. And then
Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that's born
you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall
save alive. Now, in Pharaoh and his people,
we have a type, a picture, of Satan and unregenerate sinful
men, his followers, those that he has bound. Because over the
children of Israel, just as Pharaoh set taskmasters and put all these
heavy burdens on the children of Israel and made their life
bitter with hard bondage and yoked them and made them slaves
in Egypt, That's how Satan would have men to be. That's how false
prophets would have men to be, is to build them a house. Build a house for them. And see,
through Israel, the Lord's going to be born. The Lord Jesus Christ
is going to be born through the Hebrews. And so ultimately what
they wanted was, if we can kill all them boy babies, there won't
be any more Hebrew children. There won't be any Christ. These
people won't be able to rise up against us. We'll have the
rule and the dominion. That's, in a nutshell, that's
false religion because that's the works of that old serpent,
the devil, who deceived Eve in the garden. His whole purpose
was to exalt himself over God's people and over God. And all of this was determined
before by God. We saw that last time how the
Lord said they would go into bondage. They would end up slaves
in Egypt. And He predetermined this so
that He would come and He would save them out of Egypt. The Lord
would. And He would do it through a man named Moses. He would be
the one that would deliver the people out of Israel. This baby
that was born named Moses. Moses' mother and father believed
God. They believed God. They promised
that God said, after all this goes on, I'm going to bring Israel
out of Egyptian bondage with great substance. I'm going to
deliver them, God said. And they believed Him. And that's
why they hid Moses for three months. Now, let's see something
else here. Verse 23 of Hebrews 11. Hebrews
11, verse 23, and it says, It says they did this by faith. Moses, when he was born, was
hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper
child. Now, I hate to get you to do
it again, but turn back over there to Exodus. I want you to
see this. Exodus 2. Exodus 2 and verse 1. There went a man of the house
of Levi, and took a wife, a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived
and bare a son, and when she saw him, that he was a goodly
child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer
hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and dopped
it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and
she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister
stood afar off to wit, What would happen? What would be done to
it? Now, you hold your place there. We'll come back at the
end to Exodus chapter 2. Now, it says, she saw he was
a goodly child. She saw he was a proper child.
Now, there's no doubt about it that when Moses was born, his
mother and his father looked at this baby and it was the most
beautiful baby they'd ever laid their eyes on. This is their
son. That's not what's meant here. They didn't spare him because
he was a pretty baby. What's meant here is by revelation
from God, Moses' parents knew that God would deliver Israel
through Moses. They knew that it was Moses he
was going to raise up and use to deliver Egypt out of Israel.
And so Moses is a type here of Christ. When they saw Moses,
they saw he was a proper child, meaning they saw God's deliverance. They saw God's salvation when
they looked at this boy Moses, this child Moses. And I think
of Simeon in Jerusalem, in the temple, when this man had waited
all his life to see the Lord's salvation, to see His deliverance. And they brought this baby named
Jesus to him. And he took that child and held
him up and said, I can depart now. I've seen the Lord's salvation. I've seen Him. And here He is.
And that's in type, that's what Moses' parents saw. But they
knew by divine revelation that Moses would be the one he would
bring out, that he would use to deliver Egypt. But Moses is
a type of Christ. Christ delivered true Israel
from Satan and from the enemies of righteousness. He delivers. You children look over Genesis
chapter 3 with me. Genesis chapter 3. This is what
the Lord said in the garden when Adam and Eve had sinned against
God. This is what he said. He spoke
to the serpent, cursed the serpent, Satan, the devil, and he says
in verse 15, Genesis 3.15, and the Lord said, and I will put
enmity, that's hatred, hatred. I'll put enmity between thee,
the devil, and the woman. What woman is he talking about?
Look here. And between thy seed, the Satan's seed, his children,
and her seed, this woman's seed. And it shall bruise thy head.
The woman's seed is going to bruise your head. Take away all. And thou shalt bruise his heel.
What's worse, to have your head bruised or your heel bruised?
You can still get along if your heels burst, but if your head's
crushed, that's the end of it. That's the end of it. Sin had
put a chain upon God's people, just like these taskmasters brought
them into slavery with hard bondage and chains and kept them bound. Sin bound us under the law, and
the law said, you're guilty. And that's all the law said.
The law said, you're guilty. It didn't justify us. It didn't
give us any way to break those chains or free those chains.
And the Lord gave that law to teach us. You can't free yourself. You're just worse and worse.
The more you try to free yourself, the worse it gets. The more in
bondage you get. You ever seen a bug get caught
in a spider web? And it might be just caught by
a wing or something, you know. And it goes to moving, trying
to get itself out. And the more it moves, the more
it gets hung up in it. And it just gets tangled up in it. God's
law is that way. The more we try to free ourselves
from it by our own hand, by our own work, by our own will, the
more condemned we become under that law. And because the wages
of sin is death, the grave had dominion over us. And we were
going to die. And Satan, while we were in our
ignorance and didn't know God, didn't believe God, hadn't been
born of God, we thought And we're taught by our own defiled conscience
and by false prophets that we could do something. And that's
just like these Pharaoh and his people burdening them down with
this hard bondage and keeping them bound. What's it going to
take to deliver them? Look at Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2
and verse 14. This is speaking of the Lord's
people. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh
and blood. He also himself likewise took
part of the same, the Lord Jesus Christ did, that through death
he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the
devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. Ephesians 4 tells us he led captivity
captive. And so in Moses, we see a type
of our Lord Jesus Christ who, because the children were flesh
and blood and were in bondage in Egypt, God determined to use
a man born of them, just like them, to deliver them out of
that Egyptian bondage. And that one He would use is
Moses. And so that's what the parents saw, that He was going
to deliver them through Moses. Now I want you to see something
here too. They believed God. It says, by faith they did this.
And faith works. Faith works. Faith is not a dormant
thing that does nothing. Faith is an active thing. They
hid this baby three months. They took him and hid him. Faith. Moses' parents defended their
Deliverer. That's what they did. When they
hid Moses, they defended him, protected him, stood for him.
Because all their hope of deliverance was Him. You know what a believer
does by faith? They stand fast in Christ Jesus.
They stand for Him. They won't compromise with anything
that belittles their Savior. He's their deliverer. They're
going to defend Him. And by defending Him and standing for the truth,
they provide for their brethren. Believers do. That's what happened
here is that because his two pairs believed God and their
faith was active and they hid this baby, defended Him, stood
for Him, all their brethren were delivered
because of it. That's a beautiful picture of
faith working by love, is standing for Christ. You see, we learn
in this chapter, Abel believed God would deliver him through
the blood of Christ, and therefore he offered a lamb. a spotless
lamb that died in his place instead of offering the works of his
hands like Cain did. Well, how did that provide for
his brethren? How did that active faith of
truly trusting God and walking in the truth, how did that help
his brethren? Right here in Acts 11, the Lord wrote it for us.
And in every age, the Lord's people have been edified to see
the picture there of Abel offering a lamb. He is saved by a substitute. Noah was told that God was going
to save him by putting him in Christ and that Christ would
bear the wrath of God's reign down upon Christ so that Moses
could be saved and go away free and not drown in justice. And
how did he prove it? He built the boat that God told
him to build. And who did it help? It saved his family. recorded
here in Scripture for the Lord's people to read and gain encouragement
from. Abraham believed God would provide
a lamb when he was going up Mount Calvary with Isaac, up to the
mount with Isaac. And because he believed God would
provide that lamb, trusted God and pointed Isaac to that lamb
and said, God will provide himself a lamb. And in doing so, he provided
the Gospel for his son. He provided the truth for his
son. And he, again it's recorded right here in Acts chapter 11,
for the brethren. And James said, did he not prove
that his faith was genuine faith because he believed God and went
up that mountain and offered up his own son? And God provided
the lamb. And so here, Moses' parents,
they defended their deliverer and through their faithful stance,
God saved their brethren. He saved the Israelites. They
were delivered through Moses. Faith proves it's alive in a
believer because faith stands fast in Christ and urges her
brethren to stand fast in Christ. And that's how the Lord provides
for His people. It's through a faithful people.
That's how He provides for His people on this earth. And then
faith perseveres here too. They hid Moses for three long
months. They hid him for three months. And Isaac, we were told
here, he wasn't just found believing God whenever he was back there
going up the Mount with Abraham, but when he reached his dying
day, he still believed God. He persevered in faith, continued
in faith. Whenever we read here about Jacob,
when he was dying, it wasn't just when Isaac blessed him when
he was a boy that he was found believing God. All these many
years when he was a dying man, he believed God still. He persevered. Joseph, when he was spared by
God when he was 17 years old from his brothers and delivered
down into Egypt and then later raised up to be governor in Egypt,
he didn't just believe then and go backwards. He continued to
believe God right up until the day he died. Faith perseveres
in Christ. That's what the Hebrew writer
is giving us these examples for, because the Hebrew brethren needed
to be encouraged. And this is how God encourages
us, is by showing us that all the people that trusted Him by
faith, and He delivered every one of them. He spared them,
kept them, stayed on Him, and delivered every one of them.
And that's what the Hebrew writer began back in chapter 10, and
he said, the just shall live by faith. We're not of them that
draw back to damnation and to hell. We don't draw back away.
We continue in it by faith. That's what we do. And then lastly,
let's look here. Only faith in God overcomes the
fear of men. Only faith in God overcomes the
fear of men. Pharaoh had the power to kill
Moses' parents. He's the king. He had the power
to kill them for doing what they did. But they feared God more
than they feared Pharaoh, more than they feared him and all
his army and all his people. When we're born into this world,
all we are is fear. That's all we are. But we fear
everything and anything but God. We don't fear God. by nature.
We just don't fear God. And proof of that we are that
way is that everything about us, we want the Lord willing
to see in our message this morning, everything about us is warfare. It's fighting. It's battling. Look at Romans chapter 3. Look
at Romans chapter 3. These things that are said about
us and about our natural condition, These things have to do with
because we're so fearful. We're fearful of losing our lives.
We're fearful of losing our power. We're fearful that somebody's
going to get their leg up on us and have dominion over us.
And so we protect ourselves. That's all we are, fearful of
men and what have you. It says here, verse 11, Romans
3, There's none that understandeth, and there's none that seeketh
after God. They're all gone out of the way, and they're together
become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Now listen to these things. Their
throat's an open sepulchre. It's an open grave. And with
their tongues they've used deceit. The poison, venomous poison of
poisonous snakes is under their lips. Why would we use deceit
with our tongue? Why do we do that? We fear men. Fear what man's
going to do by nature. That's where our fear is. And
then it says here, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
When do you curse and why are you full of bitterness? When
is that? It's when man's done something
to me and I'm fearful and we rebel and lash out in bitterness. Their feet swift to shed blood. Why would we by nature be murderers
of people, of our fellow man? We're not going to have them
reign over us. We're not going to have somebody tell us anything. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. And the way of peace they've
not known. Why is that? Look at the next verse. There
is no fear of God before their eyes. None. God's got to save
us from being fearful of men. He's got to save us from that
to fear Him. to reverence Him, see Him as
the High and Lofty One. And He does that through the
conduit of faith. When He gives faith, He strengthens
the heart of the believer. This is what Isaiah preached
in his day. He said in Isaiah 51-7, the Lord said through Isaiah
to the people, Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the
people in whose heart is My law. Fear ye not the reproach of men,
Neither be ye afraid of their revilings, for the moth shall
eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like
wool." If a moth and a worm is going to eat up man and destroy
man, a little worm and a little moth is going to destroy man
just like a garment, why on earth would we ever be fearful of man?
Because by nature we don't have a fear of God. But my righteousness,
he said, should be forever. My salvation from generation
to generation. The Hebrew writers working up
here to chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13, where He's going to give
us some very practical instruction. And what He's teaching here is,
let your conversation be without covetousness. If we're fearful
of men, if we're fearful of sin, and this earth, and trial, and
loss, or gain, or any of these things, We'll be covetous for
things. We'll be covetous for that which
we don't have, which we think if we had it, it would just provide
for us. It'd be that, just that thing we need to put us at peace
and at ease. And he said, well, don't be covetous
of those things. Don't look at, be content with
whatever you have, whatever you got, because the Lord He says,
He has promised us, I'll never leave you nor forsake you, so
that we may boldly say, with confidence say, the Lord's my
helper. I don't fear what man will do
to me. I don't fear what he'll do to me. But God has to give
us that, don't He? God has to create in us a fear
and reverence for Him to where we truly behold Him as He is. Because if He doesn't, we won't.
We won't trust Him. We'll fear men instead. Who's
more powerful? God or man? Who knows the end
from the beginning? God or man? Who is it that said
he bought his people with his own blood? That he gave nations
for his people? Says, I've given people for you. Who is that? He said, I hardened
Pharaoh's heart. I hardened that man. He wouldn't
bow to me. And so I hardened his heart and
gave him to hell, God said, that my vessels of mercy might behold
that I alone say that it's my prerogative to be merciful to
whom I will, that they might see how rich and valuable my
grace really is." And he said, I gave the whole nation of Egypt,
this whole nation full of folks that were binding his people
in Israel, he said, I gave that whole nation up. I turned them
over, I didn't reveal myself in them, and I did it for one
reason. He says to his people, I did it for you. So you can
see I save. You can see it's me who save.
It's my hand that save. So why will you fear me? And
he said, why will you be fearful of me? You remember I was telling
y'all Thursday night about Ahaz making that covenant with Assyria.
And I said Isaiah 7 and 8 is where you can find him talking
about Assyria being like an axe in his hand. It's Isaiah 10.
Isaiah 10. He sent Isaiah to preach to the
Lord's people there. And he said, say ye not a confederacy
to everybody that this people says a confederacy. Ahaz and
the whole host of Judah had gone and made a confederacy with the
king of Assyria. And the Lord sent Isaiah, his prophet, to
that remnant he had in that land. And he preached this message
and he said, don't be like them. Don't join in with them. Don't
say a confederacy with them. But he said, sanctify, sanctify
the Lord of Hosts Himself and let Him be your fear and let
Him be your dread. What does he mean, sanctify the
Lord of Hosts? Behold Him as He is. He is separate
and He is holy. And He does things right and
in justice and in judgment. And whatever is going on in this
nation right now, whatever is going on in your home right now,
whatever is going on in my home right now, In my life right now,
I know this for a fact. None of that stuff is worthy
to be feared. No man or no circumstance or nothing that's going on. Because
my God is higher. He's separate from everything.
He holds this world's time. the clock that's ticking. He
holds that time in His hand. He started it. And He holds it
in His hand. And everything that He does,
He does by His own power and His own grace for the exaltation
of His great and holy name for His people. And I don't have
to be fearful. I just don't have to be fearful.
And Moses' parents beheld Him. They beheld God Almighty as He
is, holy, separate from sinners, and that His will is going to
be done. And even though Moses was there, he was just a baby,
they believed God. And they feared Him more than
Pharaoh, and they said, let's hide this boy. This is the one
God's going to deliver us with right here. Let's hide him. Trust
God. Just trust Him. And it says that Pharaoh, he
was put where he was put by God. He was put there by God. God
said, for this reason I raised you up. I raised up Pharaoh.
And we can learn something from that too. As Paul told the Romans,
everybody that's in a position of authority in this world is
put there by God. There is no power but God. But now when a man is in power,
like Pharaoh was in, when he starts trying to turn the Lord's
people from Christ, and he starts trying to exalt himself over
the Lord's people, the Lord's people aren't bound to subject
themselves to him. Not bound to. That don't mean
go out and be a rebel against the government and things like
people use something like that as an excuse to do silly things.
But know this, Scripture says this, it says, Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husband as it is fit in the Lord. It
says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you,
and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem
them very highly in love for their work's sake. But he that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. The key is in the Lord.
If my mother and my daddy start trying to reign over me and stop
me from coming to Christ and worshiping Christ and assembling
together in His place of worship to worship Him, it's not in the
Lord anymore. If my spouse or your spouse starts
keeping you from the Word of God, keeping you from worshiping
with the Lord's people and turning you to a false way, it's not
in the Lord. It's not in the Lord. If a preacher
starts reigning over people and whipping people and binding them
with heavy burdens like Pharaoh did, instead of pointing them
to Christ, trying to turn them from Christ to themselves, it's
not in the Lord. And they're not obligated to
show Him any reference whatsoever, any kind of honor whatsoever.
And so rather than obey this ungodly tyrant Pharaoh, Moses'
parents hid Moses. They hid him. And here's what
we can learn. Were they disappointed by this?
Look back over there at Exodus chapter 2. By faith they believed
God. They believed He'd provide just
as the Lord said He would. They believed Moses would deliver
them just as God said He would. And so by faith they took a three-month-old
baby, their three-month-old baby, and they put him in an ark of
just grass that they wove together and set him sailing down the
Nile River. That's trusting God. That's trusting
God. Were they disappointed? Look
at Exodus chapter 2. Exodus chapter 2, verse 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh,
Pharaoh's own daughter, came down to wash herself at the river.
And her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she
saw the ark among the flags there in the reeds and what have you,
she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she
saw the child, and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion
on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. And
then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call
to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the
child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And
the maid went and got Moses' mama. and brought her mother to nurse
the child. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto
her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I'll give
thee thy wages. She paid her to do it. And the woman took the child
and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto
Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name
Moses. And she said, Because I drew
him out of the water. used Pharaoh's own daughter to
raise Moses, used Pharaoh's own money of his own household to
get him the best education he could have, to raise him up in
Pharaoh's own house, used his own mama to nurse him. Moses'
own mama to nurse him. They weren't disappointed at
all, were they? And when it was all said and done, you know who
let him out of Egyptian bondage? Moses did. Moses did. You know who's going to lead
His people out of this Egyptian bondage we're in? Christ His
Son is. We trust Him. It don't matter
what the circumstances look like. It don't matter how things appear. Faith makes reason just go right
on out the window and says, I believe God. And it's never disappointing.
It obtains salvation. Faith always has salvation given
freely to it. So, you believe Him? You believe
Him? We come in here every week and
we tell these stories and rehearse them over and over on what Christ
has done. I don't come in here to tell you what you need to
be doing. I come here to tell you what Christ has done and what He's
doing right now. And eventually, What He's promised to do and
what He does is He arrests each one of His saints, each one of
His redeemed children. He arrests them, sanctifies them,
brings them to believe Him and to see Him as He is. And they
follow Him the rest of His days. And they start telling the same
story to everybody that will listen. So I hope that's a blessing
to you. Moses' parents believed God.