Kootenai Church Morning Worship: Hebrews

Hebrews 11, beginning at verse 23. We'll read through verse 29.
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. (NASB)
Example after example in Hebrews 11 shows us that faith is not just a New Testament principle or a New Testament idea, but rather that the men and women of the Old Testament, believers, were marked by faith and they lived their lives by faith. Their good works, which are highlighted in Hebrews 11, flowed from their faith. Their faith issued in and produced the good works in their lives. We understand that concept in the New Testament era, that we are not saved by works, we do not please God by works, but rather that our good works are the results of faith. Faith comes first. The good works flow out of our faith. Our faith motivates those good works and actually gives life to those good works.
That's a concept that we're familiar with from what is taught in the New Testament, and it is a concept that was true also in the Old Testament with all of the saints of old. Their works did not please God any more than our works would please God, and they were not saved by works any more than we are saved by works. Their works likewise flowed out of faithful hearts, hearts that had faith and believed God and trusted God. And out of that faith came all of the works and the good deeds that we read of in the Old Testament.
The author reads the Old Testament through the lens of faith. And I think that there's something instructive in that to us as to how we should approach the Old Testament as well. When we read the Old Testament, we should not read it as though we're just reading a bunch of stories that are told for our moral betterment, as if they are a bunch of morality tales. You read the story of David and Goliath, and David picks the five smooth stones and meets Goliath down in the valley and slays the giant, and the preacher preaches through that or you read through that, and then you're asked the question in your mind or by the preacher or in your study guide, What are the giants in your life that the Lord would like to slay? And what are the five smooth stones that you need in your life in order to slay the giants? And that perspective on the Old Testament just makes the Old Testament into a series of morality tales or little stories like Aesop's Fables that we can read and draw out little lessons here and there. And it is an entirely unbiblical approach to the Old Testament.
Instead, the author of Hebrews is showing us that we can read through the Old Testament and we should be able to read it through the paradigm of faith, to see in the lives of all of these men and women of the Old Testament, like the ones that are cataloged here in Hebrews 11, to see how it is that faith motivated their good works, that these are men and women who responded to God on the basis, not of their works, but on the basis of faith, and how that faith issued itself out in lives of obedience and in submission to the Word and to the will of God.
By his own admission, the author of Hebrews is not giving us a comprehensive list of Old Testament characters. Look down at chapter 11, verse 32: “What more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets.” It's a good indication that the book of Hebrews was originally a spoken sermon as opposed to a written word because this is what every preacher says. Look, I’m running out of time. Time would fail me if I were to go on to all of the other things that I could say on this subject. But he is admitting there that this list in Hebrews 11 is not comprehensive. He doesn't even go into Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, but he just lists them.
And not only is the list of characters incomplete, but the list of examples of faith in the lives of the characters that he mentions is incomplete. See, when he camped on Abraham back a few verses ago, there are far more examples of faith in the life of Abraham, but the author cherry-picks a few of those examples. And when he slows down to talk about Moses in this passage, it's not just these incidents in the life of Moses that are examples of his faith or that are indicative of his faith. There are four of them that are mentioned here. Verse 24: “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.” Verse 27: “He left Egypt.” Verse 28: “He kept the Passover.” And verse 29: “They passed through the Red Sea.” That's not a comprehensive list.
In fact, we could add to that list from the life of Moses the following. This is just, again, a cherry-picked sampling. By faith Moses picked up the serpent and turned it into a staff. By faith Moses picked up the serpent after it had been turned from a staff into a serpent. By faith Moses returned to Egypt. By faith Moses announced to the elders of Israel God's promise to deliver them. By faith Moses stood before Pharaoh. By faith Moses commanded Pharaoh to let God's people go. By faith Moses commanded water to turn into blood. By faith Moses stood before Pharaoh again. That list could go on. We could go through all the ten plagues of Egypt.
So this sampling that we have here, these are chosen from the life of Moses and they are instructive. And we've looked at the first incident of Moses's faith. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, as he was looking forward to the reward. Now we turn in verse 27 to the next example of Moses's faith because we're not yet done with Moses. Verse 27: “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”
We're going to make a few general observations before we get into the nitty-gritty of this verse and what it is referring to. I want you to notice the verbs that the author uses, beginning in verse 24. These are all examples of Moses’s faith. He refused (v. 24), he chose (v. 25), he considered (v. 26), and he looked (v. 26). So he refused and he chose, he considered and he looked.
And now in verse 27 there are two more verbs. “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured.” He left and he endured. Both of those verbs are examples of faith. They're expressions of his faith. Those two phrases in verse 27, “not fearing the wrath of the king” and “as seeing Him who is unseen,” those two phrases really describe the manner or the how of Moses's action. He left and he endured. How did he leave and how did he endure? What sustained him through that? He left, not fearing the wrath of the king; that describes his faith. And he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen; that describes what it is that sustained Moses for his expression of faith, how it is that he was able to leave Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.
Now, one of the main questions of verse 27 is what incident is this referring to? Verse 27—what incident in the life of Moses is this referring to? Because there are two times when we could say that Moses left Egypt. One of them we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when Pharaoh tried to kill Moses after he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Pharaoh tried to kill Moses, and Moses heard that word had gotten out. He was afraid, and he fled Egypt and went out to Midian, where he lived for forty years. That is one of Moses's leavings of Egypt. The other one is in the exodus proper. Forty years later, after the ten plagues and the Passover and Israel looting the Egyptians, Moses and all of Israel with him got up and left and went out of Egypt. So there are typically two times that Moses departed Egypt. And the question now is, Which one of those two times is the author referring to?
I want you to notice one last thing. Verse 27, 28 and 29—there is an order there. He left Egypt. By faith, verse 28, he kept the Passover. And verse 29, they passed through the Red Sea. He left Egypt, kept the Passover, and passed through the Red Sea. Just notice that order and keep that in your mind. Left Egypt, kept the Passover, and went through the Red Sea.
Now, in order to find out what incident from the life of Moses is described in verse 27—“he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king”—I want you to turn back to the book of Exodus. Keep your finger here in Hebrews 11 because we will be returning here. Turn back to Exodus 2. There is some disagreement amongst Bible scholars and commentators as to which of these incidents is meant by the author in verse 27. “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen” (v. 27).
Now, there are two options, as I mentioned. The first is Moses's flight into Midian, which is briefly mentioned toward the middle of chapter 2, in verses 11–15. This is the first possibility. I'm going to give you these two possibilities.
11 Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12 So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
13 He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?”
14 But he said, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” [Look at the end of verse 14] Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known.”
15 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, and he sat down by a well. (NASB)
Now, according to Acts 7, Moses was forty years old when he fled Egypt that first time and went out to the land of Midian. Midian is a little bit south of Egypt, where Moses and the children of Israel were at in the land of Goshen, and east over in the Arabian Peninsula. That was the land of Midian. So it was far enough out of Pharaoh's reach that Pharaoh could not find Moses.
The second option is the exodus itself. And we're going to skip over a little bit of material, but flip over to Exodus 12. This is after the Passover, after the death of the firstborn. Egypt drives them out. Exodus 12:40: “Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt” (vv. 40–41). That's Moses with them. So Moses leaves Egypt twice, once to the land of Midian, and once alone, and once with the children of Israel in the exodus itself.
Now, which one of those two events do you think is described in Hebrews 11:27? Don't turn back there just yet, but I'll read it to you. “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” Nearly every source that you check, and I say nearly because it's not all of them, but nearly every source that you check will tell you that verse 27 and Hebrews 11 refers to either Moses fleeing for Midian or Moses fleeing Egypt with the children of Israel in the exodus. All of those sources except for one. And if you count me as a scholar, you can now say two, because I have a third option.
But before I give you the third option, I want to set a little bit of the context for that and describe why it is that I don't think that either one of these two departures from Egypt is meant by this in verse 27. The first one, our first option, is Midian, back in Exodus 2. It is interesting that that flight from Egypt is directly attributed to Moses’s fear. Did you notice that? Exodus 2:14:
14 But he said, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known.”
15 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, and he sat down by a well. (Exod. 2:14–15 NASB)
Moses’s first flight from Egypt is attributed to his fear. Now, there are Bible scholars who believe that that's the one mentioned in verse 27 of Hebrews 11. They'll say, “Yeah, Moses was afraid, but he wasn't ‘afraid’ afraid.” I don't know what that means, but basically they're saying, “Sure, he was fearful. Who wouldn't be fearful of the most bloodthirsty tyrant on the face of the planet at the time, a man with a military like that seeking to kill you? Who wouldn't be afraid? So of course Moses was afraid, but it wasn't a fear that caused him to flee. He was just fleeing to save his life.” I don't know, maybe Moses was not really “afraid” afraid, he was just afraid. But I think that the statement in Exodus 2 is a little difficult to reconcile with the Hebrew statement, “He left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.” So I think there has to be an incident in the life of Moses where he stood before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's wrath was aimed at him, and Moses did not fear that, and Moses left instead.
The second possibility is that this is referring to the exodus, but if that's the case, the order of Hebrews 11 does not work. Now, as I mentioned before when we went back through Hebrews 11, he left Egypt, they kept the Passover, and he went through the Red Sea. Now, if we're going through Hebrews 11 and it's chronological, you'll notice that something is out of order there. They celebrated the Passover, then they left Egypt, then they went through the Red Sea. But Hebrews 11 says he left Egypt, then they celebrated the Passover, then they passed through the Red Sea. I would submit to you that the order does not work because everything in Hebrews 11 so far has been chronological.
Now, you might say, “Well, the reference to these incidents in the life of Moses is not intended to be chronological.” If it's not intended to be chronological, it kind of doesn't fit the rest of Hebrews 11 because everything else in Hebrews 11 has been chronological. Remember, we started with Cain and Abel back at the beginning of this chapter, and every person that has come up has been brought up in a chronological order as you're going through time. And furthermore, when he focuses in on Abraham, zooms in on the life of Abraham and Sarah and gives us multiple examples of faith in the life of Abraham, those multiple examples are in chronological order. So if he is referring to the exodus of Egypt here, it doesn't fit the chronology of Hebrews 11. It suggests that the author has something in mind, something that happened before they celebrated the Passover that refers to Moses leaving Egypt.
Furthermore, it would be more proper for the author to say, if he's talking about the exodus itself, that by faith they left Egypt, rather than to say, by faith he, Moses, left Egypt, as he does down in verse 29 of Hebrews 11: “By faith they passed through the Red Sea.” He refers there to the whole company, the whole host of the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea by faith. Now, of course, Moses was leading that, but it's a reference there to the entire nation. So if this is referring in verse 27 of Hebrews 11 to the exodus, it seems more appropriate that he would say by faith they left Egypt, not he. So again, there seems to be some incident in the life of Moses where Moses himself was standing before Pharaoh in the face of Pharaoh's wrath that the author means here.
Third, when the children of Israel left Egypt, Pharaoh was not full of wrath. Pharaoh was a broken man. He was not full of wrath. In fact, check Exodus 12. Look at verse 29:
29 Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.
30 Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead.
31 Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said.
32 Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and bless me also.” (Exod. 12:29–32 NASB)
Does that sound like Pharaoh's wrath? Not at all. So the exodus doesn't seem to fit that description, “By faith he left Egypt. not fearing the king's wrath.”
There is a third option. The third option—and I didn't invent this out of whole cloth. I actually saw this in a commentary by John Owen in his series of books, his commentary, on the book of Hebrews. Owen suggests a different incident that is meant in verse 27. But in order to get that, I want you to go back to Exodus 2. We're going to set a little bit of context so you can see what sort of leads up to this. In Exodus 2, Moses does escape to Midian. That's not what the author of Hebrews is referring to. He meets the daughter of a priest of Midian and marries her, Zipporah, and has a son. Pharaoh eventually dies. Exodus 2—look at verse 23:
23 Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.
24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. (Exod. 2:23–25 NASB)
That doesn't mean that God was oblivious to their existence or oblivious to their plight before that, not at all. But it does mean that under their cry, when the time came about for God to deliver them according to His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God took notice of them in the sense that His attention was directed to them with the intention of redeeming them and taking them out of Egypt. The time had come for that to happen. So it’s not that God woke up suddenly and said, “Oh, that's right, Israel. I forgot. I made a promise to Abraham 430 years prior. I should probably do something about that.” But rather that, when in the providence of God that time came for them to be delivered by God's power, God remembered His covenant that He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the actions that He takes from this point forward are intended to fulfill the word that He gave to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob.
So in chapter 3 and 4 are the incidents of the burning bush and Moses's call, Moses being out in Midian now with a son and a wife. And he is shepherding his father-in-law's sheep. Moses is out in the wilderness now, forty years have passed, and Moses meets God at the burning bush in Exodus 3 and 4. And Moses is called to be God's deliverer, His instrument through which He would go deliver the children of Israel from Egypt.
And you remember the story. Moses came up with every excuse under the sun that he could possibly come up with. “I don't know, Lord. I don't think that they're going to know who You are.” And God said, “No, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. My name is Yahweh. You're going to introduce Me to the sons of Israel, and I'll take care of this.” “Well, I don't think Pharaoh is going to really pay attention to who You are. Pharaoh is not going to care who You are.” And God said, “It doesn't matter whether Pharaoh cares who I am or not. I'm going to do many signs and wonders in the presence of Pharaoh, and I will crush his heart, and I will bring up My people.” And Moses said, “But I'm not really a good articulator. I've never been to homiletics class or to speech class, and I've never really spoken in front of people. I'm not the guy. Not my mouth, Lord, choose anybody's mouth but mine.” And the Lord dismissed that and said, “I'll give you Aaron.” And he said, “Well, the tent cleaners are coming on Tuesday, and the sheepshearer is on Thursday, and we got the—this whole week, Lord, is just not good for me.” Finally, the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and Moses relented, and God humbled him and directed him back to Egypt.
Moses goes back to Egypt. In chapter 5, Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands the release of the children of Israel. And Pharaoh politely declines. Chapter 5, verse 1:
1 And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” (Exod. 5:1–2 NASB)
“It's gonna be a hard pass for me, bro,” is what Pharaoh said. “Not gonna do this. I don't know this God that you speak of. I'm not interested in this God that you speak of. So it's not going to happen.” And then Pharaoh increased the workload of the children of Israel by taking away from them the straw and making them go fetch their own straw so that their burdens became heavy. And then the children of Israel lashed out at Moses and said to Moses, “The Lord should judge you for making our burden heavier. Everything was better before you showed up and started demanding our release. And now things are worse than they have ever been.”
Chapter 6, verse 1: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land.” Now, the Hebrews would not listen to Moses. The Jews did not. They resented the fact that Moses came back, and because he confronted Pharaoh, their workload was worse than it had ever been and they were suffering more than they had ever suffered prior to Moses's arrival. And Moses now doubts that Pharaoh is going to listen, but the Lord encouraged him.
And now here's where everything heats up. Chapter 7, verse 1:
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.
2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land.
3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.
4 When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments.
5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”
6 So Moses and Aaron did it; as the Lord commanded them, thus they did.
7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh. (Exod. 7:1–7 NASB)
So at this point, Moses is eighty years old. Forty years have passed with him being in Midian. And now he shows up in front of Pharaoh to demand the release of the children of Israel.
And God says in verse 3 of chapter 7—look at it—“I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders.” Here's an interesting little sidebar homework assignment for you. Read through the first eleven, twelve chapters of the book of Exodus sometime and take note of all the times when it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. And take note of and list all the times when it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And you know what you'll find? That both of those things are true. And here's why. Because every time that Pharaoh responded to God's revelation and a deed that God did, Pharaoh's act of rejection and rebellion is described by Moses as Pharaoh hardening his heart. And because Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not repent, God's judgment upon Pharaoh was that He hardened Pharaoh's heart. So God ended up giving to Pharaoh exactly what Pharaoh deserved and exactly what Pharaoh wanted in hardening his heart, so that Pharaoh would respond by further hardening his own heart, to which God responded to Pharaoh's act of hardening his heart by hardening Pharaoh's heart, and back and forth it goes all the way through the Exodus narrative. So we see two things working in tandem: the sovereignty of God in hardening Pharaoh's heart so that He would accomplish judgment upon the Egyptians, and the responsibility of Pharaoh in rejecting God's truth and God's revelation, and thus his heart was hardened.
Now, what follows in chapters 7–10 are what we call the ten plagues of Egypt, or on Egypt. The first one—and we're not going to go into depth on all of these. The first one is water turned into blood. Oh, one thing I will say about all of these in particular—the case has been made, and I think it's a convincing case, that each one of these plagues is intended as something of a polemic against one of the gods of Egypt. Because of the gods of Egypt and their multiplicity of gods and the way that they worship—they worship the Nile, they worship frogs, they worship flies, they worship all of these things. And all of these ten plagues represent some aspect of Egyptian culture, Egyptian religion, or Egyptian polytheism that God is assaulting with each plague.
It was almost like if you had a god—like if you worship cows, for instance, and then God said, “I'm going to wipe out all the cows,” and just wipes out all the cows, and you're an Egyptian, you'd be sitting there thinking, “Hold on, we worship a god who's a cow, and you couldn't keep the cows from living? And yet this God, this miracle, this Moses, does this to our cattle?” That is the case with all of the plagues of Egypt. Every one is intended to assault one of the Egyptian deities or one of the Egyptian false religions.
The first one is the water being turned into blood. Pharaoh was rather unimpressed with that. The second plague was frogs all over the land. In response to that, Pharaoh promised to release the children of Israel but then relented when the plague went away. The third plague was the gnats or the lice. Pharaoh was unmoved by that. The fourth plague was flies. Pharaoh promised release and then again relented. The fifth plague is the cattle dying. Like, for instance, if you worship cattle—there's the illustration I gave. It was right out of the passage. The cattle die. Pharaoh was unmoved by that one. The sixth plague was the plague of boils. Pharaoh was unmoved by that one. The seventh plague is flaming hail. And Pharaoh, in response to that plague, promised release of the children of Israel, but then again he relented. Plague number eight was the plague of locusts. And Pharaoh's response to that was a shallow repentance. And finally, the ninth plague was a darkness that encompassed the entire land, and Pharaoh gave them permission to leave kind of, sort of.
And by this point, you should be in Exodus 10. Look at verse 21. Now, keep in mind with each one of these that the children of Israel were supernaturally protected from all of those plagues. So God made a distinction between Israel and Egypt just in how He protected His own people from all of the judgments that fell upon the land of Egypt. Exodus 10:21:
21 The Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.”
22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.”
23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings.
24 Then Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, “Go, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be detained.” (Exod. 10:21–24 NASB)
Now, here's Pharaoh's sort of quasi-repentance, his quasi-acknowledgment that they could leave. Verse 24: “Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, ‘Go, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be detained.’” You can leave, but you’ve got to leave all your stuff. You can't take anything with you. You guys wander off into the wilderness. The thought being, obviously, that they would wander off into the wilderness, maybe find some animals to sacrifice, and then they would get tired of wandering around with nothing and think, “Well, we might as well go back to Egypt. I mean, that's where all of our stuff is.”
Verse 25:
25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice them to the Lord our God.
26 Therefore, our livestock too shall go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind [for some reason I love that phrase], for we shall take some of them to serve the Lord our God. And until we arrive there, we ourselves do not know with what we shall serve the Lord.” (Exod. 10:25–26 NASB)
In other words, we’ve got to take all of our stuff because we don't know till we get out there what the Lord is going to require of us in terms of service and sacrifices. So we obviously can't go out into the wilderness without any animals. So we're going to take all of our animals because we're going to get out there and then the Lord will reveal to us what it is that He wants of us, and we will have all of our stuff to offer to the Lord. Verse 27: “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go.”
Now, here's the crisis, and here, I think, is the third option. Just to remind you, since it's been a while since we covered the first two options, there are two options, right? Moses leaving Midian and Moses leaving in the exodus, neither of which I think fit the description in Hebrews 11. We're all up to speed now because it's been a while. So if you're waking up now, you've missed all of that. Here's the third option. I think it is this exchange at the end of chapter 10 and the beginning of chapter 11 between Moses and Pharaoh. Verse 28: “Pharaoh said to him, ‘Get away from me! Beware, do not see my face again, for in the day you see my face you shall die!’” Now, does that sound like Pharaoh's mad? Just a wee bit? He's mad. That's Pharaoh's wrath.
Verse 29: “Moses said, ‘You are right; I shall never see your face again!’” Does it sound like Moses is afraid? Did Moses run out of there? Moses didn't run out of there. In fact, this heated exchange continues. I want you to ignore the chapter division because that's not in the original. The heated exchange continues in chapter 11.
Now, in chapter 11, the Lord reveals something to Moses, something to the children of Israel, and something to Pharaoh. Chapter 11, verse 1, is the Lord speaking to Moses. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘One more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely.’” Again, after this plague, this last and final plague of the killing of the firstborn, Pharaoh is not angry when he drives them out. He wants them to get out. Pharaoh's anger has just been expressed. “Leave my presence. If I ever see you again, I will kill you.” That's the threat. That's the wrath of the king.
Then the Lord has something to reveal to the children of Israel. Here's the instructions for them. Verses 2–3: “‘Speak now in the hearing of the people that each man ask from his neighbor and each woman from her neighbor for articles of silver and articles of gold.’ The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.” Now, up to this point, you might be asking yourself why it is that Pharaoh just didn't kill Moses at any point along this whole story until now. The very first moment when Moses steps into the presence of Pharaoh and says, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Let My people go,’” why didn't Pharaoh just right then say, “You, take him out of here. Kill him. Deal with him. I don't want him anymore. Get rid of this guy.” Pharaoh's the most powerful man in the world. Why didn't Pharaoh kill Moses at that point? Or after the first plague? Or after the second plague? Or after the third plague? You see where this is going? Or after the fourth plague? Or at any point up until now?
The end of verse 3 is the answer to that: “Furthermore, the man Moses himself was greatly esteemed in the land of Egypt, both in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people.” So Pharaoh threatened Moses, and Israel was embittered against Moses. And it is Moses’s esteem in the sight of the Egyptians that has kept Pharaoh from killing him, I think, up to this point. This becomes very politically unfeasible to get rid of Moses before now because Moses was esteemed by the people of Egypt. And he was not esteemed by his own people, but he was esteemed by the people of Egypt and esteemed by those in Pharaoh's court. It's not politically expedient for Pharaoh to kill Moses. He doesn't want to do that. So he has avoided doing that until this very moment when his wrath finally has reached a boiling point and he says to Moses, “Get out of my presence or I am going to kill you.”
It would have seemed very reasonable for Pharaoh to kill Moses any point before this because, remember, the children of Israel were mad at Moses. They didn't want him there. Earlier, they had said to him, “The Lord judge you for doing this to us. Now our burdens are more.” So the Hebrews didn't want to follow him. The Hebrews didn't like Moses. They resented the fact that he was there. They would rather have their comfort and their slavery than discomfort and freedom. And if you don't think that the natural inclination of the human heart is to desire comfortable slavery over uncomfortable freedom, you have not been paying attention to what is going on around us. This was the inclination of the children of Israel. They would rather have had Moses dead and out of there and had their slavery and at least some of the workload alleviated than to be free and to have to go through all this suffering to get it. That would have been their natural inclination.
But Pharaoh would never have killed Moses up to this point simply because he was esteemed in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of all the people. But now it has come to a point where killing him is the best option. Verse 4—here is what Moses says to Pharaoh.
Oh, one other thing before we get to verse 4. There's another thing that is ironic here in this passage in light of what we've covered in recent weeks. Remember, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing instead ill-treatment with the people of God than the passing pleasures of sin and the treasures of Egypt, right? So notice at this point where Moses is at. He's at a place in his life where the people to whom he has sworn his allegiance, and who he has chosen to be his people, have rejected him. And the very people that he has rejected, they highly esteem him. That seems entirely backward, doesn't it? The people that he has rejected esteem him. The people that he has embraced are rejecting him. I think there's a whole message to be preached there, not by me, but by somebody else.
Verses 4–5: “Moses said, ‘Thus says the Lord, “About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well.’” Now, this is what Moses is saying to Pharaoh. Keep that in mind. You're going to see that here in a moment. Moses is saying this to Pharaoh. Verse 6:
6 “‘Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again.
7 But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’
8 All these your servants will come down to me and bow themselves before me, saying, ‘Go out, you and all the people who follow you,’ and after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. (Exod. 11:6–8 NASB)
Now that's an interesting exchange, isn't it? The Lord revealed something to Moses. One more plague and after this you're out of here. He revealed something to the children of Israel. Ask everybody for silver and gold items; they're going to give them to you. Israel ended up plundering the Egyptians. And then to Pharaoh, Moses announces the judgment of God on Pharaoh and then announces to Pharaoh that he is leaving Egypt. This, I think, is the incident that the author of Hebrews has in mind.
First of all, it fits the chronology of Hebrews 11 because Moses here is leaving Egypt, as it were, as he announces it to Pharaoh and leaves to pack his bags. That is a departure and a leaving. It fits the chronology of the passage in Hebrews 11 because after this in Exodus 11 they celebrate the Passover in chapter 12 and then they pass through the Red Sea. So it fits the chronology.
Second, Moses faced Pharaoh's wrath without any fear. You'll notice—what was Moses’s temperament when he went out from Pharaoh at the end of verse 8? Hot anger. So Moses stood in front of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh gave him all of his wrath. “If you ever see my face again, I'm going to kill you.” And Moses stood up to that, was absolutely unflinching and unbending in the face of that, announced to Pharaoh the judgment that was going to come, and announced to him what was going to happen after this. “When this happens, you're going to drive us out. We're leaving, we're out of here.” And then Moses turns around, not fearful at all, and walks out of there, drops the mic, walks out of Pharaoh's court, never to be seen again as far as Moses is concerned. This is Moses, I think, leaving. And this is the event that I think the author of Hebrews is describing.
You could say that the reference to him leaving Egypt by faith in Hebrews 11 refers to all of these events, right, the plagues. It could be just a blanket term to refer to that, but it culminates in this exchange between Pharaoh and Moses where Pharaoh now, the most murderous, bloodthirsty tyrant on the face of the planet, a man with unlimited power in terms of visibly what it would look like over Moses and the children of Israel, is threatening Moses’s life, and Moses is absolutely undeterred by it. It is in faith that he stood up to Pharaoh's wrath.
John Owen is the only commentator that I read who believes this and takes this incident as the incident that the author of Hebrews is describing. And as I said, I think it answers all of the problems. It matches the chronology, it matches what is here in Hebrews 11, and it seems to answer exactly what it is that the author of Hebrews is saying. After all of those incidents, Moses stood in front of Pharaoh and was absolutely unbending in the face of the king's wrath. Pharaoh's wrath was at its peak, and Moses was unfearful in the least. And he turned and he walked out and he said to Pharaoh, “We're done here. I'm leaving. I'm packing my bags. By this time tomorrow morning, your servants will be bowing down to me and begging us to leave. So bye-bye.” That's what Moses said. Absolutely unafraid in the presence of Pharaoh.
Now turn back to the book of Hebrews because now, with all of our time gone, we have to find out what the author of Hebrews says about this incident. Moses did not fear the wrath of the king. Again, chapter 11, verse 27: “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” The most powerful man in the world was threatening Moses’s life. Moses had no army, he had no armed militia, he had no armaments. All he had was a staff. And every time he showed up in front of Pharaoh, he just had a wooden staff. That was all he came into Pharaoh's presence with each time. And yet Pharaoh had an army at his disposal. And Moses’s courage in the face of that is notable. Moses’s faith made him as bold as a lion in front of Pharaoh each and every time.
God would tell Moses, “You're going to go and you're going to announce the next plague,” and Moses would do so. And Moses had these exchanges with Pharaoh, never fearing for his life, always unbending. And Moses left Pharaoh's presence in anger. Pharaoh was angry when Moses left. And God had told Moses, “Look, you're not going to die in the land of Egypt.” And here's where Moses’s faith comes into play. Here's why Moses knew he could stand before Pharaoh and be unafraid for his life, because God had said to Moses, “I'm going to use you to take the children of Israel out of here. You're going to stand before Pharaoh. You're going to announce to Pharaoh what he is going to do. I'm going to do signs and wonders in their midst, after which they're going to beg you to leave, and you're going up from here. You are taking the entire nation out into the wilderness, where you're going to sacrifice to Me. And all of that is how this is going to unfold.”
Now, Moses had no reason at all, no earthly reason at all, to believe that any of that could happen. Moses had never seen any of those miracles. Moses had never seen any of those kinds of signs in his own life. Moses had never seen anything on that scale. All of that was unseen to Moses. And yet he was convinced, because he believed God's word, Moses was convinced, “I'm not going to die in Egypt. Why? Because God said I'm going out to the wilderness.” And that was it. If God said, “You're not going to die in Egypt,” then there was no way that Moses would ever fear dying in Egypt.
So he could stand in front of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh could say, “Next time I see you, I'm going to kill you,” and Moses said, “Well, I guess that means you're never going to see me again because I'm not dying. I'm going out into the wilderness with the children of Israel about this time tomorrow, all of us and our firstborn. And that's going to be real powerful, watching us walk out with all our firstborn while you're burying yours. That's how this is going to go down.” Moses was undeterred by Pharaoh's anger because Moses believed God's word, that it would unfold exactly as God told him that it would unfold.
So Psalm 27:1, which we read earlier: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” That question—let that ring in your mind. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” A dementia patient who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—should we fear him? Should we fear the FBI, the CIA, the NSA? Should we fear the US military? Should we fear government agencies? Should we fear the Supreme Court? Who is there that we should fear? If the Lord is our light and our salvation, whom shall I fear? Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread?” Psalm 118:6: “The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Fear is the devil's most powerful weapon. It is his most effective weapon. And by it—that is, by fear—the devil keeps us from exercising faith, from enjoying peace and joy and assurance. By fear, he handicaps our service to Him. By fear, he keeps us out of being fruitful in our own Christian life. And one of the most powerful types of fear is the fear of man, and all of us are tempted to fear man in some way or to some degree. Proverbs 29:25: “The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.”
All of the great, even the heroes of faith, had moments in their lives when they feared men. Abraham feared men at times. That's why he lied about his wife Sarah. The children of Israel out in the wilderness when they were told to go in and spy out the land, and they came back, and the entire nation responded with a fear of man. Elijah, after slaying 450 prophets of Baal, is overcome by the fear of man when some cackling harridan in the palace says, “I'm going to kill you.” And rather than responding in bold faith, Elijah himself begins to cower. Gideon was afraid. Joshua needed to be reminded, “Fear not. God is with you.” Peter denied the Lord. Timothy was a bit fearful. And Paul had to remind Timothy that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).
So all of us are tempted to this fear of man. It manifests itself in hundreds and thousands of ways in our life. We're all tempted to it. But faith is the antidote. A resolute trust in the Word of God and in His promises and in His presence—that is the answer to fear of every kind. So faith and fear are mutually exclusive.
Which is why Moses’s parents did not fear the edict of the king, but instead hid their son, trusting in God's providence to protect their son. It is by faith that Moses stood before Pharaoh and was undeterred, because he did not fear the wrath of the king. There was nothing that Moses needed to fear. And because he saw who God was, and because he trusted in God's promises, and because he believed what God had said, Moses was absolutely full of faith and not fear. And he stood before the mightiest of the mighty and he was unbending, unrelenting, like Paul. You remember the examples in the book of Acts? Paul would stand first before the Sanhedrin, and then he stood before Felix, and then Festus, and then Agrippa, and then eventually Nero. Here was a man who stood in the presence of the mightiest men in the Roman Empire, in his region, the rulers, and he was absolutely bold and faithful in his explanation of the gospel and in his defense of the truth because he was not afraid of men.
Notice this last phrase in verse 27: “He endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” Endurance is not a new theme for us in the book of Hebrews. You remember at the end of chapter 10 the author in that warning passage is describing to them their own need for endurance. Chapter 10, verse 36: “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.” The author looked at his audience and said, “What you really need is endurance to bear up and to endure under these trying times and these difficulties, and to do so in faith and not in fear.”
Chapter 11, verse 25, says Moses chose rather “to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.” And the word for endure or endurance in chapter 10, verse 36, and chapter 11, verse 25, is a different word than the word used here in chapter 11, verse 27, when it says, “He endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” It's a different word with similar meanings. And the meaning here has to do with the idea of the strength, the fortitude, the obstinacy, and the power of enduring or putting up with something. It's one thing to endure something in fear. We can endure something in weakness. We can endure something flinchingly and terrified. But it is another thing to endure something with an unflinching obstinacy, without becoming weary in it, with strength and power and fortitude, bearing all the evils that come upon us, and to do so with patience and strength and courage. Unbending in strength is what is being described here. So Moses endured. That is, he was unflinching in it and he put up underneath of it. He bore up under the wrath of the king he endured.
Notice that phrase, “As seeing Him who is unseen” (v. 27). That phrase perfectly describes the definition of faith that we saw back in chapter 11, verse 1. Faith is what? It is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (v. 1). Moses was convinced of something that he had not seen. It says, “He endured, as seeing Him who is unseen”—that is, seeing God (v. 27). And notice that the author does not say, “He endured, as if seeing Him who is unseen.” That's different, by the way—he endured as if he saw one who was unseen. Because if the author had said that, it would suggest that Moses endured almost as if he was able to see somebody who was unseen, even though he didn't see the one who was unseen. But instead, the author says, “He endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”
And the author is intending there to call our minds back to chapter 11, verse 1, where it describes the definition of faith. Moses endured, not because he pretended to see somebody who was unseen, but Moses endured because he actually saw with the eyes of faith a God who cannot be seen. In other words, in the life of Moses, God was as real and tangible to him as the wood of this pulpit is to you and me.
There's no human capacity that makes that a reality. It is the gift of faith which makes that a reality. It is only by the gift of faith that Moses could endure, because he saw something. And the author is not speaking here of physical sight, but by faith Moses saw something that is completely unseen. This is what faith does. We could go back to chapter 11, verse 1, and listen to the explanation of that, which we did a couple of months ago when we were in Hebrews 11:1. That ability to see what is unseen, that ability to be convinced of what you hope for, something that you cannot touch—you cannot feel it; you cannot sense it with any of your five senses—but by faith, by that divine gift, you are actually able to see it as a tangible reality.
And the idea is that Moses could stand in Pharaoh's presence, and Pharaoh could come after him with all of that wrath and threaten to kill him, but Moses, with the eyes of faith, could look in that room and say, “God is as real to me here in this room as Pharaoh is and as all of his army is. And so if God is on my side, because I can apprehend Him almost like He is physically here with me, because faith gives me that capacity to trust that, then I can stand in the face of Pharaoh's wrath and be unbending and unflinching.” By faith Moses was assured of what he had not seen. He was convinced and he saw as a substance what he only hoped for. That is why he was able to stand before Pharaoh, because he did so, endured, as seeing Him who is unseen. It's only the eye of faith that allows you to do that. And that is why faith is absolutely mutually exclusive with fear.
Moses endured because he saw by faith a God who cannot be seen. He saw His power. He saw His promises. He saw His Word. He saw His reward. He saw His future. He saw truth and reality, things that Pharaoh could not see. Moses, by the eye of faith, could see it, and he felt it. And because God was present there with him, Moses was not fearful at all.
To illustrate that, imagine for a moment that Moses was actually physically able to see the presence of God with his physical eyes. Do you think that Moses would have feared Pharaoh if he could just look over in the corner and see the angel of the Lord there with his flaming sword, about ready to take Pharaoh's head off? Do you think Moses would have feared that? He would not have. So Moses’s spiritual perception of those real, divine, spiritual truths was as real to him as if he physically saw with his eyes the angel of the Lord with a flaming sword.
You and I need this kind of faith, this strong, resolute confidence in the Word of God. And the only way that you can endure for God's glory, the only way that you can endure life's trials and afflictions, the only way you're going to be able to endure that is if you have this kind of faith that is unflinching in the face of the wrath of the king. The original audience to the Hebrews, by the way, they had many reasons to fear, just as you and I do. They had the kings to fear. They had their own pharaohs. They had their own things that threatened their life, their well-being, their occupations, their families, their finances. They had all of the same realities that you and I face on a daily basis. They had people in their lives, unbelievers, who threatened them and hated them and responded to their faith with vitriol and rejection and hostility.
And so here is this reminder that Moses was able to stand before the most powerful of men and be absolutely full of faith. And the Word of God is the very thing that strengthens that kind of faith. It informs our faith. How do you get that kind of faith? I'll tell you how you don't get it. You don't get it if your only diet and your only intake of Scripture is Sunday mornings from eleven to twelve. You can't have that kind of faith. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). You say, “Oh, but Paul's talking about salvation there, right?” He is talking about salvation, but is the faith that saves different than the faith that sanctifies? It's not. Is the faith that saves different than the faith that secures us? It's not. In fact, in Hebrews 10, the author of Hebrews says, “The just shall live by faith” (v. 38). Not just that we are saved by faith, but we live by faith. And all of the examples in Hebrews 11 are men who lived day by day and did these things by faith.
How do you get faith? Faith comes when I hear the Word of God, I study the Word of God, I memorize the Word of God. and my daily intake, my daily nutrition, comes from the Word of God. That creates that kind of faith. It sustains that kind of faith. It informs and energizes that kind of faith. And if you neglect the Word of God, then your faith will shrivel up and shrink and you will be full of fear. But the man who has God's Word at the center of his heart and his mind and his life, through whose mind and through whose heart the Word of God courses like the blood through his veins, that person has the kind of faith like Moses. And you can only be unbending and unyielding if you have the Word of God at the center of your heart and your life like that. Otherwise you will respond with fear every single time.
Scripture is the food that feeds your faith. And without it your faith will just collapse like a house of cards in a strong wind every time because you have nothing to sustain it, you have nothing to create it, nothing to nurture it, nothing to base it upon. Because faith, after all, is taking God at His word. Where is His word? It's in Scripture. When you take God at His word and you believe what He has said, you have to know what He has said. You have to know what what He has said means. And you have to know how what He has said applies to your life. And when that is true, that will sustain and strengthen and undergird your faith. And it is then and only then that we can be like Moses and stand before the wrath of any king and say, “I'm resolute and unbending. I will endure as seeing Him who is unseen.”