Basic HTML Version
Seeing the Invisible, April 7
By faith Moses, when he was 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; ... for he had respect
unto the recompence of the reward.
Hebrews 11:24-26
.
Think of the life of Moses. What endurance and patience characterized his
life. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews says, “For he endured, as seeing him who
is invisible” (
Hebrews 11:27
). This character of Moses does not simply mean
passive resistance of evil, but perseverance in a firm, consistent course. He kept
the Lord ever before him, and the Lord was at his right hand to help him.
Moses had a deep sense of the presence of God. He saw God. He was not
only looking down through the ages to a Christ that would be revealed, but he saw
Christ in a special manner accompanying the children of Israel in all their travels.
God was real to him and present in his thoughts. When called upon to face danger,
to bear insult, and to be misunderstood for Christ’s sake, he was persevering to
endure without retaliation.
Moses believed in God as One whom he needed, and One who would help
him because he needed His help. God was to him a present help in every time of
need. We have far too much dead, nominal faith, but the real trusting, persevering
faith we do not have. God was to Moses a Rewarder of those who diligently seek
Him. Moses had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Here is another
point in faith we wish to study, and if brought into the life and experience, it will
enable everyone who fears and loves God to endure trials. God will reward the
man of faith and obedience. Moses was full of confidence in God, because he
had appropriating faith. He needed the help of God, and he prayed for it, and
believed for it, and wove it into his life experience that God cared for him. He
believed that God ruled his life in particular. He knew that God had assigned to
him a special work, and he would make that work thoroughly successful so far as
possible. But he knew that he could not do this without the help of God, for he had
a perverse people to deal with. The presence of God, he knew, was strong enough
to carry him through the most trying positions that a man could be placed in. He
could see and acknowledge God in every detail of his life, that he was under the
eye of an all-seeing God, who weighs motives, who tries the hearts. He looked
to God and believed in Him for strength to carry him through uncorrupted every
form of temptation.... This is the kind of faith we need, faith that will endure the
test.—
Letter 42, April 7, 1886
, to “Brother Ramsey.”
[112]
108