Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews
11, reading from our text, verse 27. May we read these words. By faith he, that is Moses, forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as
seeing him. who is invisible. Hebrews 11 verse 27 and specifically
the words for he endured. I want to consider Moses this
morning and how he endured. It is something that each one
of the people of God vitally need. It's one thing to start
in the way It's another thing to continue, to keep going, to
not give up. And so this message really is
one that does apply to us. How did Moses endure? What was the secret of his endurance? In all we go through, what is
our own faith to endure in that, in our afflictions, in providences,
those things that we're brought into, how to keep going in those
things, to endure unto the end. This is recorded of Moses, for
he endured. So I want to look this morning,
firstly, and who was Moses to look at the man first and then
secondly what Moses endured and then thirdly how how Moses endured
and look at the three points that is described in this verse
as to how he endured but first i want to Consider
Moses himself, and of course we know that he was the man God
raised up to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. God used Joseph to be the means
of bringing them into Egypt. God had said to Abraham that
thy seed shall be a stranger in a strange land. They shall
afflict them for a hundred years, and in the fourth generation
that they shall come forth hither, come into the land of Canaan. They had from the first time
of the promise, they had 215 years before going into Egypt,
and then they had 215 years in Egypt. Their persecution started
in the land of Canaan, when Ishmael first afflicted Isaac. That was the beginning of their
afflictions. But they reached a peak and a
height in Egypt, when there arose a king that did not know Joseph,
and then started to persecute them and to put them under. They saw that they were increasing,
getting more than their own people, and so they made their tasks
very hard. and also they cruelly gave the
commandment that every man child should be cast into the river
that should be destroyed. But God looked upon them, he
had respect to them, he recognised them as his people and the people
that he promised to bring out of Egypt, the promises to Abraham. And so then he caused that Moses
was to be brought forth. It is interesting to know that
the time between Moses being born and the time that they were
actually brought forth and delivered was 80 years. And yet we read
that God is already putting things in motion to deliver the children
of Israel that long before. What an encouragement that is!
We might think in our trials and in our difficulties, the
Lord is not noticing. He's not taking any notice. He's
not doing anything about it. But when we think of the record
that we have here, God was doing something 80 years before they
were actually delivered. He did notice. He had recognized. And it's a good lesson to us.
No, the Lord said when he was on earth, your time is already
ready, but my time is not yet. It was that they would accomplish
that time in Egypt and that they had to endure first those afflictions
and those trials. But when Moses then was born,
and there's surprisingly little that is actually written of those
first 40 years, or that time when he was born, we read in
Exodus chapter 2, and I will read this because not a long
passage, and it summarizes very well, in the inspired Word of
God, the beginning where Moses was brought forth. So from Exodus
chapter 2 and verse 1. There went a man of the house
of Levi, and took to 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 dogged 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 be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came
down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along
by the river's side. And when she saw the ark among
the flags, 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. 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 called
the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto
her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give
thee thy wages. 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. And then we come 40 years pass
by and it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that
he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens and
he aspired an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew one of his brethren
and he looked this way and that way And when he saw that there
was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And
when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews
strove together. And he said to him that did the
wrong, wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, who
made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill
me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, surely
this thing is known. And then we read how Pharaoh
heard of it and sought to slay Moses. And then comes the period
that our text refers to, or begins to refer to. So Moses, we are told there was
none like him, new God, face to face, Moses who prophesied
of the Lord Jesus Christ, a prophet like unto me, shall the Lord
raise up unto you of your brethren. It is the blessing of the Lord
shall be with him. Of course, he was speaking of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But Moses had a very remarkable
birth, remarkable preservation, and keeping from death, and it
was for a purpose. The Lord has for every one of
his people that he has a need, he will raise that person up
and right from their birth, he watches over them, keeps them,
and will be using them in the way that he chooses. So Moses
was very important in the history of the children of Israel and
very important in bringing the promises to Abraham to pass,
leading them right from the children of Israel, right from Egypt to
the borders of the promised land, but not into the promised land. Well, I want to look then secondly
at what Moses endured. We are told in our text, by faith
he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he
endured to see him who is invisible. There are two times that Moses
forsook Egypt. The first one was when he did
fear the king, because the king had heard of the act that he'd
done in killing the Egyptian, And so he fled from Pharaoh,
fled from Egypt, out into the backside of the desert. And there
he was, 40 years as a shepherd. He was brought there to marry,
to have children, and not much is told us of those years in
the desert. Really, 40 years he had schooling,
in Pharaoh's household as the court of a prince, and in all
the leadership of a land, and then 40 years actually being
in the wilderness, because his work in the end was to be in
that wilderness, 40 years in leading the people, and he was
to be a leader, so he needed to be prepared in both ways,
both in leading a people, in governing a people, and also
in enduring in the wilderness. And many think, and I feel it
is so, that our text is referring to the second time, but let us
consider first the first time, because there is still an enduring
there. Sometimes it is much harder to
endure a waiting time than a time when we feel to actually be in
God's hand in his place and in his purpose doing his work because
the first time with Moses he was he was waiting and to endure
that waiting time. You know in reading that piece
in Exodus came to mind a word that was blessed to me many years
ago in his Peckham Chapel and that was before I was in the
ministry just before we were married as well. And I'd had
the exercise of the ministry for many years, waiting for that
time that the Lord would send me out into the ministry. And
sometimes it got as if the exercise was so low that it would never
happen. It was a hard waiting time with
nothing seeming to be happening. And the Lord's servant brought
that word, take this child and nurse it for me and I'll give
thee thy wages. And the way that the Lord laid
that on me was, this child was the exercise of the ministry. You nurse this, you think on
it, meditate on it, pray over it, wait for that time. And as today, remembering that
encouragement, in a time of waiting. Now maybe with you here or those
joining in, you also have waiting times where the Lord seems to
be doing nothing in your life. Maybe he's impressed upon your
heart that he will do something. He will do this or that or raise
you up, either to be a husband or to be a minister or to some
other purpose, but nothing seems to happen of it. and you're waiting
upon the Lord to fulfill it. And there is to be an enduring
through that time, not giving up, not turning aside. You might think with Abraham,
God gave him the first promise of a child in thee and in thy
seed shall all nations be blessed. You can read it in Genesis 12,
but he had to wait 25 years before Isaac was born and in waiting,
Or you might say, he put his own hand to it and we had Ishmael
that was born. But it was a very severe test,
a waiting time with a promise but no child and no prospect
of it coming to pass. It needs as much, you might say,
grace and help of God to wait in that circumstance as to when
you're in the midst of actually doing something. as to later
on what Moses was when he was leading the children of Israel
through the wilderness. He knew then he was in his life's
work. And so same with us in the ministry. Now in the ministry, some 33,
30 years or more, 32 years, and it needs such an enduring then
as well, a continuing then. So with Moses, when we read that
he endured, he endured that waiting time. He continued until the
time the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush and commissioned
him then to go back to his people and go back to Pharaoh. And that's a time when especially
we would think of the words of our text, that he forsook Egypt,
not fearing the wrath of the king. When Moses was sent back, he
was sent back to work many signs and many wonders in Egypt. And
the things that he did, they incurred the wrath of the king.
Egypt was brought virtually to ruin. Pharaoh's own men said
to Pharaoh, knowest thou not that Egypt is destroyed? But God said, O Pharaoh, for
this cause have I raised thee up, that I might show my power
in thee. And he told Moses that he would
harden Pharaoh's heart. He would not let the people go. And so he had nine signs, nine
wonders that were wrought in Egypt. But though they showed
the mighty power of God, They were not used to release the
children of Israel. I believe it's one of the most
striking contrasts in the Word of God. And in the Word of God,
there are many, many contrasts. The Lord always uses two things
together to compare. You think of the very start where
we have two worshippers, Cain and Abel. Not just one worshipper,
as if God would say, here is able, this is how you worship
with a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice. He says, no, here is how you
do worship, but here is how you do not, with a bloodless sacrifice
and something of your own hands. And so there's a contrast there.
There was with Ruth and Orpah going out of Moab, two, one that
went, one that didn't. You have two by a lord in the
temple, that we're praying the pharisee and the publican not
just a publican but a pharisee so all the time you've got the
contrast do watch as you go through the scriptures how god uses contrast
uses one one way one the other shows what a saved person looks
like say what an unsaved person looked like say shows what the
right way is and then shows what the wrong way is and so you have
with Moses here, and the signs that were wrought in Egypt, nine
times, as if the sign is wrought, no deliverance. Great signs,
but no deliverance at all. It's like when Elijah comes to
Mount Horeb, and there is the fire, there is the earthquake,
there is the wind that rent the rocks, but the Lord was not in
there. He passed by and all these things
happened, but then a still small voice. And you get what then
is vital, to hear the voice of the Lord, not all these other
signs. And so with Egypt, all these
nine signs, no deliverance, no blood, no blood, no sacrifice. But then you come to the Passover,
and then there is immediate deliverance. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you, The lamb had to be slain. The blood had to be
put on the doorpost and over the lintel. They had to sit in
that house. They had to eat that Passover
with haste. They'd have their shoes on their
feet, their staff in their hand. They had to be ready for departing
immediately. And when the angel, the destroying
angel, went through that land, then when he saw the blood, he
passed over the house where there was no blood. Then the firstborn
were slain, whether it be a man or a beast, amongst the children
of Israel or the Egyptians. But those that were believing
in Israel, they sheltered beneath that blood. And that points to
the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of our Lord saying to
his disciples with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer. It was to be the last real observance
of the Passover before the real Passover lamb, the Lord Jesus
Christ, was slain. And it is a beautiful time, a
beautiful setting forth of the precious blood of Christ and
the reinforcing of the word Without the shedding of blood, there
is no remission. And we could put it in the words
with the Hebrews in Egypt, without the shedding of blood, there
is no release from Egyptian bondage. There is no beginning in the
pilgrimage journey. There is no setting out on the
way to the promised land without the shedding of blood. The Lord
Jesus Christ, in his sacrifice for sin, sacrifice for his people,
is the very foundation and beginning of the work of grace for his
soul. There must be the work of Christ
on Calvary first, and then he, as the executor of his own will,
will find out, will have drawn to him his own people for whom
he died, and he will bring them to be called by grace, to walk
in the pilgrimage way and to bring them safe to heaven at
last. And so with Moses, he was called
to go back to Pharaoh and work all these signs, fearless of
the king, knowing the Lord was with him. And then as they were
brought out into the wilderness, then he was to lead them through
all of those 40 years, right through that land that was barren,
there was nothing there. And this especially is where
we have the picture of our text, He Endured. Perhaps to do a little Contrast
again, we think of Moses when the Lord met with him at the
burning bush, and he made every excuse possible. He did not want
to go. He was very different from when
he first, 40 years before, he was going to judge Israel and
judge the Egyptians and judge his people and bring them out,
but now, Now and oh, he wanted the Lord to send another, to
do it some other way, and yet Moses had to go. But once he did go, he never
turned back. The people, they tried to turn
back again and again. They rebelled against Moses,
they rebelled against the Lord, they really tried him so much
as that that time with at the waters of strife of Meribah,
that Moses, who was a meek man above every man, yet his own
spirit was stirred, so that instead of speaking to the rock, he struck
it twice, and is what he said to, must I bring you water out
of this rock, ye rebels? Well, the Lord had told him to
strike it, it had already been struck. The Lord had told him
to speak to it, it had already been struck before. And as it's
setting forth, the Lord Jesus Christ is only one sacrifice,
one striking, one suffering of our Lord. And the Lord doesn't
begrudgingly give the Gospel either. He doesn't say to people,
must I bless you in the Gospel? Must I favour your soul? You've
tried me, you've tempted me. You've done all of these things,
must I really bless you again? Must I accept your repentance
again? Our Lord doesn't give the gospel
like that. It is freely, unregrettingly,
lovingly given to all that feel their need. If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The apostle says, how many times
shall my brother, sin against me, turn and repent, and I receive
him, and I forgive him, till seven times seven? No, till 70
times seven. The Lord would have his people
act in the same way that he does, and the Lord is a gracious God,
a long-suffering God, and Moses had to walked this path as a
leader of the people, bearing with all of their rebellions.
He endured that hardship, too. He ate of the manna, too. The
trials that they went through, he went through. He was with
them, but the Lord was with them. We read by Paul that they drank
of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. start of their journey, the fiery,
cloudy pillar was over them, and it was that which separated
between them and the children of Israel and Egypt when they
came to the Red Sea. So they did not come near each
other all that night, and it was then the Lord that brought
them through the Red Sea. They sung the song of Moses. Moses went through all of this
time, And he endured, he kept going. And you can read through
Exodus, through Numbers, all of those things that came upon
him. All the afflictions, all of the
rebellions, all of the hardship, all those times when the children
of Israel made idols like the golden calf, the broken law,
the giving of the law, the 40 days in the mount twice. All of these things, and Moses,
he keeps going, and he keeps going right to the end. And if
it was his own will, he would have gone into the land of Canaan
too, but the Lord forbade him to do that. And this was then
his life's work. Moses could clearly see this
was what he was raised up to do. He was in it. He was doing
it. And may we remember this too.
If we are in our life's work, If we're in that place where
the Lord has put us, we will have that, that we need to endure
as well, and to go day by day. And we will need grace and help
to endure. He that endureth unto the end
shall be saved. We can be sure of this. If God
is to have the honour and the glory, then the people of God
will confess they need His grace. They need His help that they
might endure. The Apostle Paul, all of the
trials and the troubles that he had, all of the persecutions,
the three times he was shipwrecked, the night and the day he spent
in the deep, all these afflictions, he says that it was by the grace
of God, I am what I am, and it was through His help. My grace
is sufficient. for thee that he endured. So this morning is a reminder
of a race, a path that must be endured and that there are those
before us who've also endured and there is a secret of their
endurance and how they endured and may it be an encouragement
to us because we do get disheartened. We do get down, we do get low,
we wonder whether we shall continue, whether we shall endure unto
the end. Sometimes Satan attacks our faith,
sometimes he undermines even the very fundamentals of what
we believe, and other times the discouragements of the way. We
think we cannot stand, no, not another hour. And so I hope we'll
prove this word to be a timely word to go from Moses to us and
what we need. So I want to look thirdly at
how Moses endured, and may that be what is a help to us to endure. Our text says, by faith he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as
seeing him who is invisible. So there's three things. The
first thing is this. This is a chapter, a great chapter,
on faith, the faith of God's people. The portion that we began,
we began reading at verse 23, And it reads, by faith, Moses,
when he was born, then in verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he
has come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Assuming
the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt, or he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
The great first point is that he was given faith, a faith given
by God. How important it is that we have
that. We read a solemn occasion in
the book of Jeremiah of the prophet Hananiah. And Jeremiah was saying
to the children of Israel how they'd sinned. God would carry
them away into Babylon. He would punish them for 70 years. But Hananiah comes along with
all confidence, testifying that God would send them peace. And
within two full years, he would send deliverance. And all this
language, kind of, you think, well, this man is a man of faith.
He is really authoritatively declaring what he's done. And
we can get a picture like that, we can have people that are very
certain, they're very confident, this will happen, that will happen,
this is going to happen. But it's not the faith of God,
it doesn't come from God at all, it is just, it's just bluster,
it's just man's word, it's just out of their own head, it's not
based upon anything at all. And so faith, real faith, that
comes from God alone. We read the definition of faith
in verse 1 of this chapter. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, that by it
the elders obtained a good report. We're told in verse 6 that without
faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God
must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. In Hebrews 12, we read of our
Lord, that he is the author and finisher of our faith. He is
the one that gives faith. All men have not faith. Faith
is given at the new birth. Faith is given to God's people
at the same time as he gives them eternal life. And the Word
of God through which we are saved. The Lord said to the man that,
the rich man that was in hell that wanted his brethren to be
saved, thought a miracle would be enough. He says they have
Moses. If they believe not Moses and
his words, neither will they believe if one rise from the
dead. And we read of those that the
Word of God did not profit them, being not mixed with faith in
them that heard it. If the Word of God is to profit
us, if it's to be blessed to us, we need faith. You might
say, but faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of the
Lord. So it does. But faith must be given first. And then faith is strengthened,
encouraged, through the Word of God is given. through the
Word of God. So it's vital that we, like Moses,
that we are given that faith from God, something that we did
not have by birth, something that is given through our Lord
Jesus Christ. And we may say, something that
has an object, an aim, that no natural faith and no natural
resolutions will ever have, and that object is Christ. At the
end of this chapter in Hebrews 11, we read, these all having
obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.
What was the promise? That promise was our Lord Jesus
Christ. Though there are evidences of
faith in this chapter, right through it, What they were all
looking forward to was the Messiah, was Christ, was the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world, was the one that would save them
from their sins. There's no two ways of salvation. There's only one way of salvation,
from the beginning of the world to the end of the world, It is
through faith in Christ alone, through his precious blood alone. The Old Testament saints were
not saved in a different way than us. They looked forward
to Christ's sufferings and death and blood shedding, and we look
back to see what he endured. But the object is the same. And it is still by faith, just
in that small time of history, those times of the Lord's sufferings
while he was on earth and on the cross. Those that were there,
they saw him, but many saw him with their eyes, but they never
believed. They didn't have faith. They couldn't see him as he truly
was. But for the most part in the
history of the world, it is a faith that views him who is invisible,
looking forward and looking back. Paul says, Paul is the author
here of Hebrews, that we are to lay aside every weight, the
sin that does so easily beset us, and run with patience the
race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. There is the object. And there was Moses' secret,
the first secret that must be for us as well, that we have
the Lord that has gone before us. that he on Calvary's tree
has cancelled all our sin. He endured the wrath of God in
our place. He endured. You think of that. Those 30 years, the Lord says,
how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? You think of the endurance of
the Lord to continue. Paul says in his epistle to the
Hebrews, to the Philippians, He says that He was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath
highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every
name. If you and I have a faith that
will enable us to endure, then the object of that faith will
be Christ. And it will be as seeing Him
that we endure. But it's vital that we have faith
And that faith first centers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not a faith that just says, well, I'm going to get on. I'm going
to persevere. I'm going to get on to the end.
It's one who's looking unto Jesus. So that is the first. If you
and I are to endure in waiting, endure in the place that the
Lord has put us in, endure unto the end that our faith endure,
our trust endure, our hope for heaven endures, our faith that
our sins are put away, blotted out, God is just, and yet we
are saved. If our faith in the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ is to endure, then the object of that faith
must be the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, secondly, forsaking that
detrimental to our walk with God and his people. We read of Moses here in our
text, by faith he forsook Egypt. He forsook Egypt. And we think
of the letter to Corinthians, coming out from among them, Touch
not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and you shall be
my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We think of
the Lord saying that if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,
if thy hand offend thee, pluck it off. His exhortation that
we are to take up our cross and follow him, that if a man love
a father or mother, daughter, son more than me is not worthy
of me. All the time there is a forsaking,
a forsaking of our old life, a forsaking of our sin, a forsaking
of the world itself. Those described in Hebrews here
in verse 13, all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, were persuaded of them, embraced
them, confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth. For they that say such things
declare plainly they seek a country. And so there is a looking from
this world to that which is to come. And there is not salvation
without the forsaking of the old way. The Lord says you cannot
serve God and mammon. You can't continue. The children
of Israel, Pharaoh all the time says, no, you stay here in Egypt. You serve your gods here. No,
how can we sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians in your presence? We must go out. We must obey
the Lord. We must go out to meet the Lord. And there are those that think,
well, we can. We can have the world, and we
can have the Lord as well. In fact, we'll bring the world
into the church, will make the church more acceptable to the
world, and then we'll fill the empty seats and there'll be full
of people, but they're people of the world and the Lord is
not there. We read in the world that they
only consult to cast him down from his excellency, but in his
temple everyone speaks of his glory. But the people of God
are never to be ashamed of being different than the world. have
been separate from the world. We are in the world, but not
of it. We are to be known as those that
are friendly, are kind, are cheerful, but not as those that compromise
the truth of God for the ways of this world. And the world,
the Lord is very clear that whosoever is a friend of the world is an
enemy of God. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. And we need to be aware
of that. If we are to endure unto the
end, if we are to endure in the faith, then it is vital that
those things that are detrimental to our walk with God, that they
are parted from. I've used this example sometimes
before. But if we are trying to, say,
lose weight and we are diligently doing exercise, we're running,
we're weightlifting, we're trying to lose weight, but then someone
sees us and we're having our meals and we're having this great
big meal and all the fat and all the things. What we're doing
on one way that is trying to reduce our weight, on the other
side is doing the exact opposite, is piling that back on again.
And we can do all that is right, we can come into the house of
God, we can hear the word, we can hear a good sermon, we can
read the word of God, we can have a feast of fat things, and
then we can go outside and we can fill ourselves with all the
world that completely counteracts everything that we've heard.
And everything that we've done is all disannulled. We think
of the children of Israel, that they tried to serve the Lord
on one hand, And then they'd turn, and they'd go, and they'd
worship their idols. And they thought that they could
do both of these things. We cannot. If we are to endure
unto the end, it's not just having, well, this is my religious compartment
in my life, and this is my secular work, and this is my secular
life. No, it is serving the Lord fully
in all of our life as one new creature in Christ, fully serving
the Lord in all that we do, in all that we say, in all that
we think. And there'll be those things that we must part from. I knew, especially when the Lord
first began with me in grace, those things that I was doing,
they seemed to be well, but as proving it after time, I knew
that they were detrimental. I couldn't continue. They had
to be stopped going in that company and with those people and doing
those things. So if we are to endure, then
we will have something akin to what Moses had here. He forsook Egypt. Of course,
Egypt is a type of this world in which the children of Israel
forsake it, and they begin to go on pilgrimage. And from that
point, they've got the trials of the way, the pilgrimage way. Well, the last thing in which
they Moses endured, and we shall endure, is seeing him that is
invisible. He endured as seeing him who
is invisible. Moses had asked the Lord that
he might see his glory. He says, I'll make all my goodness
pass before thee in the way. I'll put thee in a cleft of the
rock, thou shalt see my back pass. that thou shalt not see
my face, but Moses did speak to the Lord face by face." Thinking
of this word, and how God has so ordered it that there are
no pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ, everything is done by
word, word pictures, and How it is with, we've got a couple
in this town that are blind. We see them every now and again
walking around the town. They cannot see. But they have
other senses. They have feel. They have smell. They have hearing. They can hear. And those senses are acute. And we know the Lord in that
way. We think of Samuel who did not know the Lord. And the Lord
came and met with him and called him three times, Samuel, Samuel. And first he thought it was Eli,
but then Eli directed him that this was the Lord. And that was
how the Lord first was made known to him, by the word of the Lord. My sheep, they hear my voice,
they follow me. They know the Lord by his voice. And later on with Samuel, the
Lord revealed himself again to Samuel, by the word of the Lord. If the Lord reveals himself to
us, it will be by the word of the Lord. It will be seeing him
through the lattice of the word. I remember one special time many
years ago and reading that where Jacob was wrestling with the
angel. There wrestled a man with him
to the breaking of the day. and how the Lord stopped me and
showed that man. That was the Lord Jesus Christ.
That was him before he came to this world. Thou hast wrestled
with God and with man and hast prevailed. Thy name shall be
called Israel. And those are special times where
we may be reading the word of God and suddenly in a passage
we may have read many times, we see the Lord Jesus Christ
there And he is precious there, aren't he? You which believe,
he is precious. And so it is seeing him through
the word of God. And also, he said, with those
that are blind, they're feeling. You think of those two on the
way to Emmaus. They didn't know who the Lord
was that drew near to them. But they heard him. In all the
scriptures, the things concerning himself, their heart burned within
them. They felt it. They felt the Word. It didn't leave them unmoved.
And that later the Lord revealed Himself clearly to them. Really
the fear of the Lord makes the presence of the Lord a real reality. As if we were seeing Him, believing
His promise that He is in the midst, we see Him that is invisible. To Moses, God was a reality. And if we are to endure, that
must be so with us as well. Now, many will say, well, we
know God, and they'll call him by many names. But all the way
that how they have attitude in his presence. You think of Daniel,
when God revealed himself to him, he was prostrate before
the Lord. All his strength turned into
weakness, all his comeliness into corruption. Peter, when
he saw the Lord as working the miracle of the fishes, he says,
depart from me, O Lord, for I'm a man, a sinful man. He had a realization of the holy,
holy God's one attribute of God that's repeated three times,
holy, holy, holy. And so Moses, he had to know
this, to see the Lord. And so that will be a secret
too with us, that though we see him not with our bodily eyes,
yet his presence is a reality with us. The Apostle Paul says
in heaven, then shall we know even as we are known. Then we
shall see him, and remember what is said of the Lord as the author
of faith, he is also the finisher of faith. Because when we die,
faith stops and is replaced by sight. And then we shall see
the Lord. And it is that enduring, enduring
unto the end. He that endures unto the end
shall be saved. May the Lord grant us that endurance. And whatever may be our path
that the Lord has appointed, may it be that we continue with
Christ in our view, with faith in Him, and continuing, day by
day, forsaking those things that are detrimental to our faith,
and looking unto the Lord, endure unto the end. Amen.