116
Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
her efforts, but earnestly prayed to God for her son that he might be
preserved from every corrupting influence. She taught him to bow
and pray to God, the living God, for he alone could hear him and
help him in any emergency. She sought to impress his mind with the
sinfulness of idolatry. She knew that he was to be soon separated
from her influence, and given up to his adopted royal mother, to be
surrounded with influences calculated to make him disbelieve in the
existence of the Maker of the heavens and of the earth.
The instructions he received from his parents were such as to
fortify his mind, and shield him from being lifted up and corrupted
with sin, and becoming proud amid the splendor and extravagance
of court life. He had a clear mind, and an understanding heart, and
never lost the pious impressions he received in his youth. His mother
kept him as long as she could, but was obliged to separate from him
when he was about twelve years old, and he then became the son of
Pharaoh’s daughter.
Here Satan was defeated. By moving Pharaoh to destroy the male
children, he thought to turn aside the purpose of God, and destroy the
one whom God would raise up to deliver his people. But that very
decree, appointing the Hebrew children to death, was the means God
[183]
overruled to place Moses in the royal family where he had advantages
to become a learned man, and eminently qualified to lead his people
from Egypt. Pharaoh expected to exalt his adopted grandson to the
throne. He educated him to stand at the head of the armies of Egypt,
and lead them to battle. Moses was a great favorite with Pharaoh’s
host, and was honored because he conducted warfare with superior
skill and wisdom. “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.” The Egyptians
regarded Moses as a remarkable character.
Angels instructed Moses that God had chosen him to deliver the
children of Israel. The rulers among the children of Israel were also
taught by angels that the time for their deliverance was nigh, and
that Moses was the man whom God would use to accomplish this
work. Moses thought that the children of Israel would be delivered
by warfare, and that he would stand at the head of the Hebrew host,
to conduct the warfare against the Egyptian armies, and deliver his
brethren from the yoke of oppression. Having this in view, Moses
guarded his affections, that they might not be strongly placed upon his