By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
He considered abuse suffered for Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward.
By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered as though he saw him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:24-27)
Talk about a radical reorientation to everything that we think in the natural!
- Who wouldn’t want to be known–isn’t fame the greatest treasure?
- Who wouldn’t want to have the place of son in the royal family–isn’t celebrity and having people look up to you a major rush in life?
- Who wouldn’t want to be well thought of and treated well–isn’t good treatment our just desserts?
The answer to all those questions is–Moses! Through the channel of faith, he saw what many of us miss–a treasure greater than all that the world has to offer. He saw a someone–Jesus who convinced him that the earth’s wealth paled to dull in the light of His Presence. He saw greater wealth in Christ.
When we who claim to be Christian preach, overtly or covertly, that God wants us to be materially prosperous, we preach as blind people.
We preach a confession that screams that we ourselves have never seen anything more valuable than earth’s tangible treasures.
We play shell games with the unbelieving world when we tell them this earth holds the best of everything.
I want to see what Moses saw–I want the greater wealth — the true prosperity that Moses possessed!
I want the authentic diamond that makes the stuff of this world look like the plastic pop beads that they are!
J.C. Ryle captured the heart of Moses as he thought about these verses:
Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering were not real evils. They were the school of God, in which he trains the children of grace for glory; the medicines which are needful to purify our corrupt wills; the furnace which must burn away our dross; the knife which must cut the ties that bind us to the world…
Marvel not that he refused greatness, riches and pleasure. He looked far forward. He saw with the eye of faith kingdoms crumbling into dust, riches taking to themselves wings and flying away, pleasures leading on to death and judgment, and Christ only and His little flock enduring for ever….
He saw with the eye of faith affliction last but for a moment, reproach rolled away, and ending in everlasting honour, and the despised people of God reigning as kings with Christ in glory. ((Richard D. Phillips, Hebrews, P & R Publishing, p. 500))