By Faith Moses
Hebrews 11: 23-29 Joshua 4: 1-9
“More important than what you leave to your children is what you leave in your children” Rev. Terry Bolin
The text begins by stating “by faith Moses when he was born”. Surely we would all agree that it is impossible for an infant to have faith. The infant babe has no concept of faith nor of what it can profit. The faith that is mentioned must doubtless have been Amram and Jochebeds faith.
Faith is a gift of God that can be nurtured, cultivated, increased, or denied. Amram and Jochabed receive a son from God who enteres the world with a death sentence already prescribed by the King. With a prayer and a kiss the new parents say goodbye to the new son. Amram sets him afloat in a lovingly crafted ark on the Nile River. The waves rock him to sleep and the river carries him away. God holds the waters of the world in His hand so the babe on the water was really placed in the hand of God by faith.
Moses is “rescued” by the daughter of Pharoah and brought to the palace. Pharoah has to pay the bill to raise the very man whom God had chosen to rend his kingdom from his hand. By Divine order of God Jochabed is called to nurse the child and care for him until he is probably eight to ten years old. Faith has provided life and sustenance for Moses during his adolescent years.
During these formative years Moses is without doubt taught by his own mother of the God of the Hebrews. Carried often to tour the palace he would someday inherit he witnesses the idolatry of the Egyptians. Seeing both the faith of a people enslaved in a God they cannot see and the faith of a prosperous nation in gods they can see and handle; Moses is faced with a tremendous decision to make. By faith Moses when he was come to years……..
Moses has many encounters with God spanning over 80 years but never seems to grasp his own security of faith.
His mother’s teaching
The burning bush
The plagues God sends
The pillar of fire and cloud of smoke
The Red Sea dividing
The water made sweet
The quails and manna
The water from the rock
The vitory against Amelek
It is not until the Mt. Sinai experience that Moses seems to have his own faith. He has operated on borrowed faith from his parents, Aaron, and even the people but on his return from the mountain top he is acting on his own faith. The faith of Moses has now become the vehicle that will drive the children of Israel to the Promised Land.
Faith cannot be handed down, willed, or traded but it can be borrowed, shared, and stimulated by another believer. Moses’ own wife and sons (Zipporah, Gershom, Eliezer) leave and seem to want no part of his experience while he goes up Sinai. While others show no interest, a young man named Joshua follows Moses up on Sinai. He feels the mountain tremble, he sees the fire, smells the smoke, and begins to receive faith for himself. The act of faith by Amram and Jochabed now has affected another life.
Faith knows God is but must be built to believe God will.
Joshua takes up the work where Moses leaves off and is faithful unto death. The faith of Joshua seems at times double that of Moses. He leaves twelve stones on the edge of Jordan after God has parted the river and by so doing may have taken faith over a thousand years further.
According to historians this same river crossing is where Christ is baptized by John 1482 years later. Could the pile of stones left by Joshua have been the pulpit John the Baptist preached from? The nearby city of Jeriocho where Zaccheus and Bartimaus were raised and later had life changing encounters with Christ lay adjacent to this same river crossing. Many say the women would have used this river crossing for washing and bathing. Could a little blind child have stumped his toe on a pile of stones and asked what they were thus leading to his miraculous healing?
Could a small little boy have played on them while his mother washed in the river and asked what they were? This could have been an answer that placed him in a tree and Jesus in his house. How far does the faith of a mother and father go?
The faith you may see your own children reject may be the very faith that spawns a mighty soldier of the cross to do the work of God. Never shrink from acting on faith in God.
