Doing the right thing in relation to corrupt governments is nothing new. History is full of accounts of the kinds of evil people will do when they have the power to carry out their wicked desires. We just happen to be the current version of such heart-wrenching realities.
I am always encouraged to hear of doctors, politicians, and scientists who stand against the flow of corruption and put their careers (and even their lives) on the line to tell people the truth. The accounts of communities wising-up to the lies and deception to join the revolution, so to speak, is certainly good news to counter the bad.
However, when I consider the ultimate in standing against corruption, and ponder the very best ways of doing the very best for myself, my family, my friends, and even my enemies, I must acknowledge that the most extreme realities of corruption are coming from the spiritual realm, and the greatest way to stand against evil is to stand for the Holy One of the universe, Jesus Christ our Lord.
As I was meditating on the wonder of how God delights to attach to us in what we see in his word, the Bible, I found myself in a scene where one of the most famous figures of history, the man named Moses, had to stand against the corruption of his day. The lessons from Moses and his parents are so uplifting, encouraging, and motivating.
First, the background to what Moses and his parents did is in context of an evil edict made by the king of Egypt at the time. He told the midwives who helped the Hebrew women with their deliveries that when a child is born, “if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” He then clarified this with a more explicit instruction, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
Does that sound evil enough to you? A wicked tyrant is afraid that his thin thread of authority could be jeopardized by a certain group of people so killing all the male babies to prevent the reproduction of a whole generation makes sense. And yes, it is not difficult to find parallels in our day!
So, then we are introduced to Moses’ parents. When Moses was born, were they going to sacrifice their son to the Nile River just because the King told them to? Were they going to act wickedly towards their child just because someone in charge ordered such an evil thing against children? In other words, were they going to let a government tell them what to do with their child just because it was the government?!
Now, here is the short version of how Moses’ parents responded to their predicament: “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.”
Moses’ parents knew what the king’s edict was, but they were not afraid of it. There was something of much greater value in play than the threat of governmental repercussions. Not only were they under a much higher authority than the king of land (that of the Creator of the ends of the earth), but they had just brought a beautiful baby into the world and that little child mattered far more to them than a wicked taskmaster.
What is the key word in that sentence about Moses’ parents?
FAITH!!!
Faith never stands alone. It is nothing without the object it attaches to. So many people have put their faith in a narrative of corruption and deception and are dropping like soap-covered maple bugs! Their faith may be just as strong as mine, but attached to the wrong object makes it deadly!
When we read of Moses’ parents, and we read that what they did was “by faith”, the whole context of the Bible is faith in the Only True God, the Holy One of Israel, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God who had preserved his chosen people through the leadership of Joseph quite some generations earlier. In other words, their faith was in the One God revealed in the Bible and made known to us through God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, as much as I am enjoying speaking to you of the faith of Moses’ parents, that is just the setting for the life of Moses. Because his parents were living by faith in God instead of fear of the king, God provided for Moses by using the king’s own daughter to rescue him, care for him, and raise him as a son of the very Pharaoh who had ordered his execution.
So, decades later, what was Moses going to do when he discovered that his upbringing in the ways of Egypt, and his luxurious life in Pharaoh’s household, and the genuine care he had received from his adoptive mother, had put him on the side of the wicked government that had conspired to kill his people and was presently oppressing them with evil burdens of slavery?
Answer: Moses was going to live by the same faith as his parents, and of the nation that the wicked king was oppressing.
First, “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter”. Even though it was Pharaoh’s daughter who had taken him in, saved him from the king’s wrath, and provided for him such a luxurious lifestyle, that had positioned him in a family that was promoting evils against the people of God. The fact that he was confronted with such a conflict shows us that there is nothing new under the sun when we ourselves must choose between family and God. The issue is going to be where our faith sets its anchor. Whatever our faith is bonded to will direct how we then behave.
Second, Moses chose “rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Not only was Moses aware that giving up his relationship to his adoptive mother would put him outside the luxury he was conditioned to enjoy, but he knew that attaching to “the people of God” would set him up to be “mistreated” just as they were being abused. This does not mean that Moses was a sucker for punishment. It meant that he knew where his faith ought to be anchored, and he had to accept that the evil world he lived in would do its best to make him suffer for rejecting its wickedness.
Third, we are given a look into Moses’ heart and mind as we are told that, “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” The conflict is now clarified very precisely. Even in Moses’ day, it was between Christ and the world. How much Moses understood of the Christ we do not know. But Moses’ faith was in the Only True God, and Christ has always been the golden thread in the history of God’s people, so when Moses was old enough to choose, he looked at “the reproach of Christ” he would experience by associating with God’s people, and he looked at “the treasures of Egypt” he could enjoy if he submitted to the wicked leadership of his adoptive grandpa, and he knew that what he would have with the people of God in Christ was “greater wealth” than anything he could have by playing it safe and doing what he was told.
Part of this was because he had intel on where the two choices would lead: the “treasures of Egypt” would lead him into the same wickedness as his adoptive family had perpetrated over God’s people, while “the reproach of Christ” would lead him to “the reward” of God. And the reward of God is so vastly superior to the pleasures of sin and luxury that putting up with reproach from government and worldlings is a small price to pay to experience the favor of the Creator.
Fourth, now we get to the description of Moses’ faith that put the spotlight on this scene from history for me: “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”
Faith is a partnership between our relational bonds and our reasoned beliefs. These bonds and beliefs determine how we will behave. In that sense, everyone lives by faith. The issue is who we bond to that determines our beliefs, and how we behave accordingly because of what those bonds and beliefs mean to us.
In Moses’ case, his faith was not in his family. Even though the king’s daughter was the only family he had known, family is never enough reason to rebel against God our Creator. Even though the king had authority and power to mistreat Moses and the people of God, because Moses’ bond was with Yahweh, the God of Abraham, and that bond shaped what Moses believed about the world, he was not afraid of the fact that his actions would make his adoptive grandpa angry. He had something more important going on than what a wicked king was doing.
And then we get the ultimate reason that Moses’ faith would choose the good over the evil: “he endured as seeing him who is invisible.” That is the whole thing. It explains why Moses endured. It explains why he would throw away such a luxurious lifestyle where the pleasures of sin were not only legal, but he was as close to the man in charge as anyone could be.
The thing that is captivating my faith this morning is what happens when we live “as seeing him who is invisible.” There is so much to that expression that I barely feel like I am capturing the whole scene. The definition of invisible is, “impossible to see”.[1] Because God is spirit, he can’t be seen by the material eye. It is impossible!
This is why it does not say that Moses “saw” the invisible God, but that he endured “as seeing” him. In other words, our faith in the Living God is so real and profound that it is just like we are seeing him. In fact, the fact that our faith sees God as real is the same as our eyes seeing the evil tyrants of our day.
To bring ourselves into the scene, even though we can see the evil that government leaders are perpetrating, and we can see the repercussions of refusing to comply with their evil edicts, what our faith sees of God through faith in Jesus Christ is more real, if you will, than what we can see with physical sight. No evil tyrant remains in control of the whole world. They all come and go. They boast and spout out their prideful claims and edicts like they will live forever when the only ones who live forever are those who receive the ever living one through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God woke me up early this morning. That has given me lots of time to meditate on why God would ask Jeremiah, “what do you see?” Over the last week or so I have come to know by personal experience and faith that God does this for everyone who reads his word, he asks us every day, every morning, “what do you see?” He does this to help us focus and concentrate. He does this to help us stop our busyness and notice things we haven’t seen before. It is why after decades of seeking God in his word and prayer I constantly see things I have never noticed before, or I find connections between thoughts that have never stood out the way they are right now. And that is why, just this morning, reading of Moses in Exodus and Hebrews 11 brought me to that small phrase that has never attached to my bonds and beliefs as it is right now, “as seeing him who is invisible”.
What this is doing is beyond the words I have written. When God asks me what I see in his word each morning, it is because he wants my faith to see him who is invisible. He reminds me that, while “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” he is the “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’” and “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In other words, if Moses’ faith saw him who is invisible back in the day, we see him who is invisible “in the face of Jesus Christ” every day of our lives of faith.
Which is why the apostle John declared, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” Jesus has made the Father known to us today even clearer than Moses could have seen him, and so Moses’ example must encourage us to live the life of faith as our witnesses of faith modelled for us.
The bottom line is that, if Moses’ faith in Christ enabled him to endure the wickedness of the family that had raised him in the pleasures of sin back then, we who are under the new covenant that is in the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord have all the more clarity to feed our faith so that we will endure whatever evils and wickedness our government leaders are expressing in our day, including cutting (or minimizing) ties with any relationships with loved ones who are pulling us away from the Only True God.
From my childhood, I have known that, if God is God, and if Jesus Christ is God’s Son, the image of the invisible God, then I cannot change the fact that I answer to the Triune, not to anyone on earth. I know what it is like to be afraid of people and circumstances. I know what it is like to have a fear-based identity that is terrified of being hurt. I know the piercing grief of losing people because standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ is not worth it to them.
But I also know that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”, and it is the invisible God I will stand before one day and no earthly relationship, not matter how beloved, will do anything to affect whether that is a good or bad experience. It is Jesus Christ alone who can save me out of my sin and condemnation and give me the eternal life I long for. And so, my faith must remain attached to him no matter how lonely and scary that may sometimes feel.
There is a phrase that was originally stated in reference to the firstborn son of history, Abel, “And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” However, I have applied this to so many of my mentors both in the Bible and in church history who have passed on in the flesh. Even though they have died, their faith still speaks. And what it tells me is to keep my eyes on him who is invisible, and surrender every day to Jesus, the image of the invisible God, and constantly follow where he leads no matter what I must give up on the journey, and no matter who may try to scare me into disobedience to God. I simply have too many witnesses showing me the superiority of the life of faith to lose what is eternal for the fleeting pleasures (and self-protection) of sin.
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the
earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down
and worshiped.
© 2023
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English
Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition:
2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers.)
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