In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of making choices in life. Drawing from the biblical story of Joshua, he highlights how Joshua urged the children of Israel to choose whom they would serve. The preacher emphasizes that life is full of decisions, both big and small, and that these decisions shape our lives. He also emphasizes that these decisions have spiritual implications, as God gives us the choice between life and death, blessing and cursing. The preacher encourages listeners to choose life and to make wise decisions that align with God's will.

By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw that he was a proper child, and they were afraid of the king's commandment. 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, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith, they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians, as sane to do, were drowned. Let's pray and we'll look at it together. Lord, we do want to thank you now for your word. And as we look today at Moses and the issues of faith all around his life, over and over, by faith, by faith, by faith, some five times in these verses that we read, the step of faith, Lord, being required by God for the blessing to come that you had in store. And Lord, that's true with us. And we ask, therefore, as we look to your word that we would, let us speak to our hearts and our lives in ways, Lord, that would strengthen us. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Well, you know, as obviously that one of the great aspects of life, I suppose, is that life is wonderfully full of decisions, big decisions, small decisions, you know, kind of like what's the old story? The couple get married that, you know, the husband gets to make all the big decisions. The wife made all the smaller ones. But after 20 years, the poor fellow says, so far, we haven't had one big decision to make yet. But nonetheless, life is full of decisions. We're always making them. From the littlest child, you know, who your friends are. Are you going to tell your parents the truth when they ask you something? What are you going to do here or there? Where are you going to go? What do you want to be when you grow up? What type of career are you going to head off into? Major decisions and then many, many small decisions that end up having, oftentimes, a major effect on life. But it's always these decisions. And how many times do we all look back in life and realize the opportunities that we had to make decisions didn't make them? Or some of the decisions we made were the wrong ones. I remember we lived up in the Silicon Valley, up in the old tech world there for 11 years. And our church was full of all these people that working for all these startup companies in the whole computer industry. And I was always hearing people wanting to come. You know, and you hear these little tips that be going on. There was a fellow in the church that worked for a company called Redback. So it's going to be great. You ought to buy stock. Well, I looked at it and it was around, you know, $18, $20 or something. $12, I think, initially. I can't remember. And I thought about it. Well, I'll look at it a little bit. I'm not really a big stock guy or anything. But you kind of hear all these little things. Well, about a week later, it was up to 20. And I think, oh, no, I can't believe it. You know, it almost doubled in a week. Well, that's too late for that. But about a week later, it was up to 30. And then I watch it. Oh, now I really should have done it. And within about a month, month and a half, it had gone up to close to 70. And then I bought some. And actually, though, it kept on going up. But I was so nervous. I'm watching it every day. I was checking on it, see what it is. Because it's moving all around. It went up a little bit. I just didn't have the stomach for it. You people that are into this, God bless you. But I just didn't. I sold it. But I got a little profit. I made a little bit of money. I was really excited. But then that excitement turned to depression. Because within a year, that stock went to 396. And yes, if I had stayed in it, I would own every one of you people today. But it's something where you look back and you see this. And then, of course, if I had stayed in it, then ultimately it went back down to 17 cents. Which I sold the rest of what I did have. Then 17. That's true, too. I had a little left. But just you look at all of this. And how many times in life is it full of decisions like this? Things that you could have, should have, would have done. Or things that you did and shouldn't have done and things. But it's full of decisions. Can't do much about that. In a sense, they're always there. But I've come to find, though, that the issue in life, though. We so often think that the big things in life are the circumstances we're in. Which every one of us are always in circumstances. By virtue of just being alive, there's a set of circumstances you're in right now. And oftentimes, maybe some of them are much like Eve and Moses and other characters in the Bible. And the issue has nothing to do, I think, I believe in life of the circumstances we're in. We're oftentimes, oh, these terrible circumstances. But as far as God's concerned or the Bible is concerned. I believe life is concerned. Our life is not fashioned by the circumstances we're in as much as it is by the decisions that we make in those circumstances. What do we do with them? Not so much of just the fact that people have circumstances that are constantly there. But how do we handle those circumstances? Because so often these circumstances, they have a way of bringing about a crisis in our life that requires a decision. And that decision actually fashions who we are. And that's not only true in just a worldly sense. That's far more true in a spiritual sense. What am I doing spiritually in the issues that are going on within my life? And God, of course, looks at it this way, too. He tells the children of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19. God says, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have said before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. Here God looked. He says, I want to make it very clear. I put before you in your life, it's going to be recorded this day against you. What you do, you have life and blessings and cursings and death. You have all of these things, but it is your choice what you are going to do. And this, of course, is a prevailing issue in life. Joshua, as he looked back over his life and all of the circumstances that he himself had been through, which, of course, were many as well. But he found himself looking there at the children of Israel and saying, you choose this day whom you'll serve. God said life was a choice. Joshua says life is a choice. When Elijah found himself at Mount Carmel there with the 450 prophets of Baal and the circumstances were difficult, the nations going through great trials, the king had brought them under great judgment and struggle. And here at this time, Elijah stood up and said, you've got to choose who you're going to serve. He said, if the Lord be God, you follow him. If Baal be God, you follow him. You have a choice to make. Circumstances are always coming and going in life. But the issue is, is who you're going to follow. Who is your choice? You have a choice to make. And as we've been looking here in Hebrews 11, choices again and again. Abel and Cain, they both had a choice. Abel made a choice to follow God. Abel, Cain, his brother, his own way of doing it. Enoch had a choice. Was he going to walk with God? He chose to walk with God. There was a choice. Abraham had a choice to make. Would he go out when God offered him, you know, a life of blessing in his hand upon him and wonderful things if he would follow him? And he did. Isaac, same things. Jacob, same struggles. Joseph, terrible circumstances in his life. His brother sold him. He finds himself down in Egypt. Potiphar's wife takes off after him. He ends up thrown in prison. He went through terrible circumstances. But the thing is, is the man turned out to be one of the most glorious lives ever lived because though he had terrible circumstances, he knew the choice he had to make. It was simple. I've got to follow God. That isn't up for discussion. That isn't a part of the equation. That is set in stone within, you know, there's many people's hearts and lives and when they have that, but it isn't just simply an arbitrary human choice. What is happening here in the book of Hebrews is the choice that is based ultimately all the time on faith. That's why it says that all of this is by faith over and over and over again. By faith, Abel. By faith, Enoch. By faith, Abraham. By faith, Joseph. By faith, Moses. By faith, Moses' parents. All of them there, when they do, they realize the choice they have to make and that is trust God that ultimately there is something in their heart or their life, something occurring in the circumstances where they now need to collect, you know, the issues of the circumstances in a sense and set them out and say, God, I trust you. I'm turning it over to you. I'm asking your help. I'm asking your power. I'm asking your direction. I'm asking your wisdom, whatever it may require at the time. So it isn't just simply an intellectual choice of I'm going to go this road or this road, although it is. But the road that ultimately that has constantly been going down by those that are making the right choices is the road of faith. One there where, God, I need you. God, you must reveal. God, you must work. God, I'm surrendering. I'm offering. I'm asking. I'm seeking you. It's a spiritual work. And here we want to look over and over in the verses that we said some five times here just in this ones we read this morning alone by faith. In other words, by taking this step of faith, this dependence upon God in one way or another. And we want to look at just at those five here together. Because the very first one that is actually happening here with Moses' parents, actually, that faith, they're in a crisis. And they're in this crisis there. It brings about an opportunity to make a decision and a decision essentially to surrender to God's plan, to realize that there were circumstances in life they could not work with. It tells us here in verse 23, it says, By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. Now, what had happened here, as you're probably aware, is that at the time when Moses was born, the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. The Egyptians were beginning to look over now at the massive numbers of slaves that they had, at the power and the sheer numbers of the Jews that were enslaved, and realizing that they're becoming a force that we may have to reckon with. We need to weaken them. And so they decided that all the babies, a male child, two years and younger, that they had to be killed, throw them in the Nile. And to weaken the slaves, to weaken their potential of continuing to grow to where one day they may be able to be a force against Egypt. And so here Pharaoh goes, and he puts out an edict to do it. And here with these massive, you know, what a trial, what a difficult time, what a set of circumstances to be in there. And there you have a baby, you have a child. But here when Moses was born, there his parents looked at his life, looked at this little child. They hid him for three months at first. And there, you know, with any child, any baby, the noise, the awareness, word getting out around town, you know, up and down the little street, somewhere here and there, that there's yet a baby boy that's being hidden. We can hear him. He's around. And realizing there that their days were short, they decided there they had to come to a place, they had to do something. And in one sense, humanly, the king or the Pharaoh, he had made an edict. They were, he was to die. And now they're in a set of circumstances where what they have come to love, this little boy so much, obviously. Now, as their heart is being wrenched in a sense there, they've got to take ultimately a step of faith. And the step of faith that tells us by faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents. First by faith. Okay, Lord, we're not going to just turn him over. We're not going to give him up. And he hasn't been found. But then it was something where they came to a place that says they were not afraid of the king's edict. Can you imagine that? It's quite an amazing thing to think about. Here we have an Amram and Jehoshaphat, his parents. Not afraid of the king's edict. To have something there where you've got a king there that says, I'm going to kill your child. I want him dead. We're hunting for them. We're finding everyone we possibly can and we're killing them. And yet they ignored the pressures. They see these threats, all of these human natural fears that any parent would obviously have. But they find themselves, God, you gave us this child. And somehow or another, they had what ultimately, I suppose every parent should have about their child. God's no respecter of persons. And I suppose what any parent thinks about any child, we all ought to be able to think about every one of them. It says in Acts 7, verse 20, Stephen speaking to the Sanhedrin about this very issue. He said, at the time that Moses was born, he was well pleasing to God. There's ought to every one of us ought to look at a child as this wonderful, well-pleasing gift of God that God has given to us. There's somebody, every human being born in the image of God, born with a stamp of God, with an identity, a hope of God. A God who is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. And he is no respecter of persons. He looks at every child. His love is the same for one as it is for all, and all as it is for anyone. And here is, there is something about Moses. The parents were, God, you gave us this child. God, you have entrusted this child to us. This child is created by you, for you, belongs to you. And they came now to realize they could look at Pharaoh and say, who cares what any human being has to say in the matter? Who cares what any other force out there, though they threaten and want to kill? God, the child is yours. You are bigger and greater than any child. And therefore, they did the most amazing thing. They make this little, get some pitch, put it on a little boat that they kind of make, makeshift little basket. And they take Moses and they go down and just have to literally do the most amazing thing, realizing there's no place to take him, nothing to do with him, nowhere to hide him. They now essentially have got to just put him in the river of life, so to speak. The current of the river, wherever it's going, and just say, God, take care of our child. And there is, they put him in this little basket, and off he floats down the Nile and watching where it would go. Miriam, his sister, his older sister, running along the banks, watching it. And amazingly, of all places, of all places for the thing to go, as it works its way down the Nile, big river. But over there, as it comes along, Pharaoh's daughter is one day out in the Nile. She's bathing herself as she looks there. And here's this little basket. She tells her servants, what is that? Go get that. They bring it over, says, it's a baby. Pharaoh's daughter, bathing, looks at this thing. She says, I always wanted one of those. You know, and she says, I'll take it. And there she takes Moses there. Miriam, quick thinking, she runs up and she says, you know something? I know somebody that can nurse that child for you. And Pharaoh's daughter says, go get her and bring her in. And so here, all of a sudden, I've only got a daughter. I got a nurse to help me raise it. And somebody can nurse the child as well. Help me raise. What a wonderful little package. And here, as you can imagine, you know, Miriam running back to the tent to Amram and Jochebed. Mom, dad, guess what? Good news, bad news. You know, what is it? Bad news first. Bad news. Moses floated right down to Pharaoh's house. And Pharaoh's daughter saw him and took him. Oh no, good news. She wants somebody to nurse him, to take care of him. And I offered you. And all of a sudden, are you kidding? Go. And here she ends up going down to Pharaoh's house and taking care of her own child. You know, their first case in the Bible, well, welfare happens, where the government actually paid somebody to raise their own children. Where here they're, you know, going on. And here she raises him. But you're looking at the amazing, ironic ways sometimes that God works, you know, and brings things about us. You just watch this mystery, though. But here are these two people, on one hand, taking their child and saying, God, we give our child to you. You know, what's going on and where it's going to go and how this all can happen and how this story is ever going to come out. But God, you gave us this child and we can't keep him here. And all we know, we just have to offer him to you. And that was just the beginning. I imagine of the great faith that they had to have for because then no sooner as they begin to watch him, they realize, as we're told by Stephen in Acts chapter seven and elsewhere in the Bible, it tells us about Moses that as he grew up, number one, he was exceedingly handsome. Extremely handsome young man as he's growing up and as he's sprouting up. And then as he's growing up there in the house of Pharaoh, he's educated in all the wisdom and the knowledge of the Egyptians, the Bible tells us. A man there that he's mighty in word and in deed as well. He's very articulate. He's very powerful. He's very commanding. There is they're watching him now, but now he's being educated, not in Hebrew, not in in the scriptures, not in the things. They're the parent there that has offered their child to God. They're watching him grow up in the house of Pharaoh with all this education, all this this world around them. And he's growing up in it, a part of it, thinking he's of it. And here, you know, whatever influence that Jehoshua ben Amram, you know, maybe thought particularly in the mom, Jehoshua ben, maybe as she's looking at this and just thinking there on she's losing influence. The world is taking over and all that and what they've got to offer. She doesn't have it. I can't compete with the world. I can't compete with the entertainment, with the power, with the interest, with the activity. And if she there is watching this thing and just seeing his life grow up in it, and maybe hopefully five, six, 10 years old, you'll make it a good decision. 10, 15, 20 years. Time has gone on and gone on. And yet at the same time, she's growing up in this whole world. And how many times, God, I gave him to you and he is born. I give him and give him and give him. You know something, I think sometimes we look, we think we're going to meet these people in heaven, be so impressed with Moses's parents or with Moses or others that we tend to put up on these pedestals. But yet at the same time, I think these parents, and when you would want to look at them, they would say, do you think your child was any different than mine? Do you realize though you brought him into the world there at the same time? You had a river you had to put him into and it took a current. And all you could do is kind of watch it. You could just kind of run alongside it. You could just kind of pray. You could just kind of hope I could get a word in here. Be a little bit like a nursemaid, but like this huge world around there is really mothering and fathering and influencing beyond your control. So many of these things. Did you not know the same world with your own children? Did you not sit up at night watching them as they're being educated and they're doing their homework in all the wrong subjects? Is there being entertained and enticed by all the wrong pleasures as they are being drawn into as you're watching them growing up in this world? And they're thinking that they are actually the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, the son or the daughter of the world that you watch them. There is there going on. They're blossoming. They've got so many wonderful things, but it's all in the wrong direction. That's what Moses's parents sat and watched. But by faith, there were parents where they really looked at it. I don't think your world is any less dramatic than theirs. As far as the issues, again, running along the shore, a sea and the river and praying and looking and trusting, saying, God, you gave them to me. God, you entrusted it to me. And now all I can do is give them back to you and ask that you take their heart and their life and you would touch them. And so often by faith, you go on when they're years. It's gone on when he's 10 and they're 15 and 20 and 25 and 30 and 35 and nothing that's apparent at all within Moses at all. And yet still these believing, wonderful parents going through all this crisis of what parenting is really all about. That's what they had to do. But that's also faith is then finally at 40 years old with Moses by faith. Verse 24, Moses enters into faith himself by faith. Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. You see, the first 40 years of his life, Moses believes I'm the son of the daughter of Pharaoh. There he is as he's growing up. He has a pleasant nurse, whatever, but only he has taken there the identity. I am, you know, for I'm the son of the daughter of Pharaoh. He's a prince of Egypt. And again, there's somebody that has risen to great heights there with all of the influence and the affluence and all the prestige that could possibly given be given to a human being as areas growing up. And he's mighty in word, indeed, educating all the wisdom and the knowledge of the Egyptians exceedingly fair. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, tells us by the time Moses was 40 years old, he was commander in chief of the Egyptian armed forces and in line to become Pharaoh himself. Here was somebody's he'd grown up the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, growing up the son of the daughter of this world and of the premier leader of the world, the greatest culture, the most educated, the most powerful place on the planet. And here he is growing up heir of it, prince in it. And it's all of this. He's just bathed in a day by day and where he went and what he did was just going off. Or meantime, these parents are standing off at the side, watching their world becoming your son more and more embellished in the world around them, more and more overtaken by it. But then another great aspect of faith that comes in one life after another, after another. Moses came to years. I love that. By faith, Moses, when he came to years, it said there was a time in his life where God, you know, he did 40 years old in his life, different age in everybody's life. We wish it was a two or five or 10 or 15 or 20. We wish it was early on in life. But with many, when they came to years, there was an appointed time where God began to look to him. And there one day is he with Moses. Now, by faith, he had he had another aspect of his faith that had to be exhibit. He came to an awareness. He came to realize he looked at this world and realized it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He looked at all that could be offered to him in a sense there. But it ends up he refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh. Something happened within him that he realized this world is not my home. And this world that it offers to me is not it's not my world, though a prince in Egypt with all of its wealth and its power and its society, all that could be given there. There was something where Moses, maybe for years, maybe in his teens, maybe in his 20s, he sat there and as it just came and it kept coming. And there is he, you know, looks over at the Hebrews, at the slaves, and just want to look at those little slaves. And yet looking on how life is unfolding for him, everything you could have, everything you'd offer is laid at his feet. It's being given and given and given and given until finally one day at 40 years old. I imagine by them everything he could dream of, it could offer every picture could ever paint, every promise it could ever make, every hope it could ever write on his heart, every desire that it could ever dream to fulfill. He had been there and done it and he looked at it. Is this it? Is this it? Is this all that the finest place and the finest power and the finest family and the finest of everything ever has to offer? And somehow or another, here's he finds himself looking over and something begins to happen in his life. Am I going to become a full on full fledged Egyptian? And go for it. Continue to run the armies and then soon to become Pharaoh myself to run it. It's at my feet. And here the amazing thing is, he then looks over at slaves, poor slaves. There who built their city, who made all their dreams come true. You watched them live and die like cattle or like horses and do your work and do your things for you. And yet somehow or another, something happened as he lived in this world and he watched both of them right before his eyes. The day came. Do you want Egypt, Moses and everything it has to offer? It's yours for the taking. Nothing to stop you. You're at the prime of your life, 40 years old. What do you want? And something happened. It tells us verse 25. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Moses by this time, who knows how many seasons of pleasure he had been through. Who knows how many pleasures in his early teens, how many pleasures in his early 20s and how many pleasures here and there. One pleasure after another. But he'd come to realize every one of them, they all had a season. They came up and one day woke up and he says, is this it? And then it promised him another thing over here. So he went off after this and he'd been there and he'd gone through over for this two, three, five years. That was the greatest thing. I'm going. It's going to happen. It's going to really unfold. Life is great. And then the season ended and another season and another season ended. And one day he wakes up. Is this it? And meantime, he looked over at these people, these slaves who had no seasons, who had no pleasures, who had no wealth, who had no affluence, influence, no pedigree, no identity, common slaves. And yet he saw something in them so glorious in their home, in their lives, in their families, in their servitude, in their slavery, in their absolute nothingness of life. One day he looks at them and he esteems the reproach of Christ greater riches in the treasures of Egypt for he had a respect and the recompense of reward. He looked there and he realized. I would rather have nothing in the God they have and have everything without it. He found himself looking around there, you know, where it tells us that he came to a place where he forsook, the Bible says, Egypt, found himself to where he just looked at it and didn't care about it. He found himself looking there and realizing if this is all Egypt's God, if this is it, if this I've had all this promise of all of its joys, all of its thrills, all of its pleasures, all of its treasures, if this is it, then that's it. And here on one hand, Moses, when he walked away from Egypt, it's something there. I suppose from a worldly standpoint, he gave up absolutely everything for nothing. Amazingly, though, by when he took that step of faith and he opened himself to God to say, Lord, you are going to take over my life. Little did he know it at the time, but he was giving up literally nothing and getting everything. That's the great deception in his life. So often we have we spend our life. I'm going to get I'm going to get I'm going to get I'm going to have we who doesn't want fame or who doesn't want some sort of fortune? Who doesn't? You may never even get it, but yet you can be under its influence all of your life. Even if you never get it, it can have a power. It can have a spell. It can have something. Egypt is huge. Egypt is real. This last week, G and I, we went up to Montana to dedicate a church ordained fellow who'd been under our ministry before they were up to a Bible college, and most of them had a cold. Well, when we came back, we decided fellowship was too close because we both got it. And we're sitting there one night, just sick as dogs. And we got the old video Fiddler on the Roof. I don't know if you ever saw that years ago. Great play movie. We sat and we watched that thing. And in it is, you know, the journeys of this, you know, absolutely poverty stricken Jewish family and all the struggles going in a terrible circumstance of a terrible poverty. And I think it's Tevye or whatever his name. I can't think of it now. But all the time, he just he had this other world he would kind of drift off into. If I were a rich man, you know, the old song, you know. And in it, he could do it when he would just get into this world out of the poverty, out of the struggles, all the things. But he would just think, if I were a rich man, and then he'd go off singing it to himself and he'd be strutting his stuff around. And he'd go off into this world on how if I were a rich man and how wonderful it would be. And he says, I'd have a house in the center of the town. And then he says it'd be a big house. And he said, I have a staircase going up. I have a staircase coming down. And I have a staircase going nowhere at all. And we just if I were a rich man, I just have this whole world just there. I don't care if the staircase even goes in place. I just want to have it. And people come in and see my staircases and see my wealth. And he says, I'd have a proper wife with a proper double chin. I looked over at my wife and she said, don't go there. But anyway, the thing, I mean, all of these little images of what wealth and arriving at things can be. And we can be so under the influence and so empowered by that world. But Moses was somebody there. He could look and say, I've been there and I've done that. I've had it. He also could look there at the lives that Egypt had destroyed, the homes and marriages, the families, the relationships that crumbled the futility of it all and sat there, you know, with the whole structure of it and said, I don't want it. What I see in these poverty of it, he says, I see greater riches that are in Christ, greater riches than all of Egypt than could ever be there. It wasn't that Moses gave up his wealth. I don't think a person, your desire, everybody ought about, God, I want to be the wealthiest person in the world. But how you define it, how you define it is to me one of the great influences in life. I long to be, I wish you were all, I wish everybody's rich, even materially, I guess. I wish the church is full of rich people, particularly if you tithe, you know, the thing. But there's nothing wrong with wealth. But as soon as somebody thinks that there is anything at all other than a tool, if it's something there that carves out their identity or makes them important or famous or somebody at all to realize, oh, it'll never do that, never. My wealth, you know, the real wealth is something that I realize that can't, that's in heaven. Jim Elliot, the famous missionary, died in Ecuador. There he once said a famous statement, of course, he is no fool who gives up that which he cannot gain to gain that which he cannot lose. And when there's somebody you realize that Moses gave up nothing, gave up nothing. And a lot of people think Moses gave up something. But all it was, was just simply God brought him to the place where he says, Moses, trust me with your life. Don't trust Egypt. Don't trust its, you know, that its promises, its resources, its capacity. It can't make you happy. It can't give you real treasure. It can only give you a deceptive one, an immaterial one, a non-lasting one. But there, the wonderful thing about Moses is he was somebody that when he understood this, he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. And he had respect under the recompense of reward. He realized, you know, what I am gaining so out magnifies what I'm giving up. I'll tell you anything anybody ever thinks they've gave up a thing for the Lord. My family and we grew up around business and, and God's blessed people in my family and things. But it's something there's some people that look at me. My degree was in business. I was in business for a while. But then there was something there as God called me. And I've, at times I've been asked, do you ever wish, do you ever wish you'd gone into business? You'd have done. First of all, I'd have probably gone bankrupt. I don't know. Even if I had. But even if I'd succeeded or anything else, I look at them and say, are you kidding? I cannot believe the thrill that life has been. Can't believe it. You know, the adventure of faith to me, it is more exciting than any other adventure. There is a watching God and trusting God through all of the issues of life. Moses, also another crisis, another time for a decision here. It tells us in verse 27, it says, by faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured to seeing him who is invisible here. There is the next thing where another circumstance of life that you come into, whether it's the circumstance of your children, the circumstance of your value system. But also the circumstance that comes where it requires another decision, and that is fear, not fearing. It says there, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath. Here when he was in Egypt, he had it all. I mean, life is on cruise control. Most people, they always, you can think about so often as I just want to get the 401k solid. I want to get a retirement. I want to have this and want this so I can get in cruise control. So things are settled. So I don't have to get up every day, day after day after day and trust God. That's what we don't want to put it that way. But that's the way it is. I don't want to have to there. I'm there saying, Lord, give me, Lord, care for me. Lord, watch over me. I don't want to get to the place where no. Oh, I can pray it, but I don't have to mean it because it's all set. And when Moses, as soon as somebody takes and they put away Egypt and they begin to be guided by obedience and surrender, they open up a whole new door called fear. How are you going to take care of yourself? How are you going to do this? How are you going to do that here when he walks out of Egypt and with all of it? And now he goes out into desert living. He finds himself out there in the desert where day by day he gets up. And for 40 years, he spends the next 40 years, little more than his wife's husband, employed by his father in law, shoveling sheep around the desert. And yet, while all of this is happening, he's beginning to grow in God. He's beginning to really. Is this the life I want? Or is this the people? Is this the value? Is this it? And there is God is just fashioning, informing him, teaching him some great, simple, wonderful things. The amazing thing is, is here he's bringing him to a place ultimately where he was. He ran 40 years earlier in fear, but fear of his own life because he killed an Egyptian, buried him in the sand, ran for his own life out of fear. Now he gave all of up Egypt and then he had to run for fear out of it. But little did he know that one day God was now going to train him and bring him to a place of such fearlessness, not fearing the wrath. Not only didn't fear the wrath of the king, but now he can go right back into the king, go right before Pharaoh, throw a rod down and say, let my people go. And here is a man who's overcome fear. Here's a man who's come to a place to where his whole life something has happened and he has seen something more powerful and more glorious and wonderful than he ever dreamed of ever seen in Egypt with all of its power and all of its fear that a Pharaoh could put in the world and all that the army could do to control and to manipulate and the wealth and the education and all that it could amass to put around somebody. And there he goes out and he spends 40 years in the desert and it tells us there by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured seeing him who is invisible. One day he wakes up and he sees a power and a strength that made Egypt and Pharaoh and any and everybody else on the whole planet nothing. He saw him who is invisible. He saw God. He saw the one that said, let there be light. He saw the one that knew us before the foundation of the world. He saw the one who sent his son to die for us. He saw the one that if he spared not his own son, will he not give us all things? He saw the one who says, I'll never leave you or forsake you. I'll be with you always into the ends of the age and all of a sudden Pharaoh and Egypt and everything he grew up in that was the dream and the darling of every soul in life to embrace and have. He looked at it as nothing. He had seen majesty, eternal power, and fear was conquered in his life. Afraid of this, afraid of that. How will I handle this? And here one day he now walked back into the very presence of where all his fear were. He says, you'll let them go. And one after another, you see this man with so much power, with so much strength, fear was gone. And you know, fear is a huge thing. Abraham had fears. That's why he lied a couple of times about his wife being his sister. Isaac did the same thing with Rebekah. Jacob has his fears and he ran from Esau. Everybody all the way through the Bible, you look at all these people with fear after fear after fear, you know, where Elijah sometimes, you know, on one hand, strongest guy in one world. You know, 450 prophets of Baal, he can take them all on. One woman, Jezebel, so I'm going to get you. And he's out of there hiding in the back of a cave. God says, what are you doing here? He says, did you hear what she said? She's going to kill me. You know, and here he's reduced fear. You look at all of these times, Jonah, and he runs for fear. You look there at Peter on one hand, this great leader supposedly. And yet Jesus tells him, you know, you'll deny me three times. And after two women, two little maidens, the soldier, he denies him. He curses. I never knew him. Why fear? I'll tell you, one of the greatest things that ever happened in a human being life is when they see him who is invisible. When faith brings you in a dimension there where you look there at all of life and you fear nothing. When the Lord is your light and your salvation, whom shall I fear? Though an enemy encamp against me, of whom shall I be afraid? You know, the wonderful thing is when somebody discovers the absolute reason that they exist, they find it surrendered. They're brought out into God's presence. And by faith, the crisis that was there, the conditions, the circumstances brought them into a place of faith. And then faith opens up. They see who is invisible and they're changed forever. That's what faith does. That's how glorious it is. That's how eternal it is. And then it's wonderful. It goes on because in verse 28, through faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood lest he destroyed the firstborn should touch them here. There's something now where he discovers there is he's as he's leading the children of Israel. And as he's leading the children of Israel, and now they're being given permission and dealing, going back and forth in his negotiations through all the 10 plagues with Pharaoh. But then he comes in and he tells him, he says, you're going to let him go. And he says, God is going to destroy the firstborn of every man and every beast in all of Egypt. He's God and he's going to judge. Pharaoh says, oh, really? And he said, yes, you pushed him. And here Moses then goes back to his own people. And now he tells them the judgment is going to come and over the house of every of every man and of every beast in all of Egypt. God is going to execute judgment. He is the Lord. He's going to take the firstborn of every one. And he says, but if you will take a lamb, tells him in Exodus 12, take a lamb. And he said, you'll kill the lamb. Then you'll take the blood of the lamb. And he says, you'll sprinkle the blood on the door, the lintels and the doorpost of your house. And then you'll go inside the house and you will stay in there overnight. And as you sit in there after you then go and you'll eat the lamb, it'll be a meal. And he says, and you will eat this. He says, I want you to actually do it. It'll be nighttime. He says, you'll eat it with your loins girded, your shoes and your feet and your staff and your hands. It is the Lord's Passover. Get ready to go off into a whole new world, a whole new life, a whole new freedom. Well, nothing like this, obviously, it ever happened in the history of the world. What a story. And yet Moses there, as he looked at them and the conviction that came upon them, realizing the power he had seen his who was invisible. And he came and he's told him to do it. And they did it that night. God judged. And there was a cry heard throughout Egypt, such as never before since as then they began to hear the judgment that came, the death that happened in the house of man and beast everywhere, except for those who were under the blood. Because God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you and hear the amazing thing. That's why the Bible tells us about Jesus Christ. He is our Passover. He is the Passover lamb. He is the one that when somebody then takes the blood of Christ and they put it over the doors and the lintels of their own heart and their own life, and they find themselves going inside and they put their faith and their trust in him to say, Lord, I had to die for my own sins. I know that. But if you will pass over me, if you will forgive me. And literally the word there means hover over. We'll look at that someday. But it's something there. The wonderful thing is, is that Moses realized God's unbelievable provision of forgiveness, of hope, of eternal life. I'll forgive you. You'll be mine by faith. Well, now the issue of death is coming over the land. And what do I do? How can I live through death? And they found it was through the blood of the lamb. And it's there. They took that step of faith and they put the blood of the lamb on the doors and the lintels of their house there that night. They found them spared. Another great circumstance of life. Have you taken that? Do you know that? For here we're told by faith, he kept the Passover, the sprinkling of the blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn might not touch them. The wonderful thing to realize the hope that we have in Christ. And then lastly, faith is something that at the time of the great crisis in life, God will lead us through. Verse 29. It says, By faith they pass through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians, assain to do, were drowned. Here now, Moses, again, you look at this. It just starts off in life. And you watch the way God leads and guides through the circumstances in life, the chaos, the difficult. But there's a decision to make. Moses made it. Moses made it. His parents made it. And by faith, OK, God, come through. OK, God, I need you. OK, God, I need you. I'll trust you. And then you watch him as he forsook Egypt. You watch him as he chose no longer to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh and to look at Egypt and say, you're not it. And as he began to turn towards God and the whole world unknown to him, a dust bowl in the backside of the desert. But you watch his life. And now he's back and he's back in power and he's back in strength. Then he comes before Pharaoh and one plague after another. They come until finally when the firstborn of every man, every beast dies. Now Pharaoh says, go. And the children of Israel are so thrilled. We're all going. Staff in their hands, shoes in their feet. The loins are girded. Off they go. Dawn off into a new life. They're leaving Egypt. And while they're on their way out, here's a mountain range on one side, a mountain range on the other, the Red Sea ahead of them. And then as all of this is happening, they're meandering along. God, God decides we need another circumstance. Kind of help their faith. Help them decide. Bible tells us God puts a hook into Pharaoh's jaw and against all sanity, all reason. Pharaoh now calls his army and says and goes after the slaves that he had just let free. We're going to kill him. And he absolutely saying that you would think all of Egypt would say, that's the stupidest thing in the world. I think we've learned a lesson. Let him go. But the Bible says God hardened his heart. God put a hook in his jaw. God drove him in. And here God set up another circumstance, a terrible one. Red Sea, two mountain ranges. Now here you are a bunch of slaves. You're not warriors. You can't fight. You don't have a ship to go across. You can't go over the mountain range. And here is a well-equipped, seasoned army, the most powerful in the world now coming down upon you and you're sealed in. And now the children of Israel, they begin to cry out. What's wrong, Moses? Weren't there enough graves in Egypt for us? You're going to kill us here. You realize the need of the circumstance in all of their life is they're all panicked. And then Moses there, no doubt, you know, wondering what in the world is going on is by faith. It tells us here, by faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through on dry land. Here this wonderful thing is, is God now tells Moses, he says, Moses, I want you to go and stand there on the shore of the Red Sea. I want you to stretch out your rod. Tell the children of Israel, stand still, they'll see the salvation of the Lord. Here God sets us a circumstance, but he says, I want you to make a decision, Moses, and the people to make. You tell them to be quiet. Quit their screaming. Stop their fearing. Stand there and see. And somehow or another they did, wondering where are we going? And they says, Moses, now you go stretch out your rod over the Red Sea and command it open. You know, it's funny. The Bible tells us about Moses that he was the meekest man on the face of the earth. I've always troubled with that. And one says, not always, but for years I used to. How could that guy be the humblest, the meekest man on the planet? I mean, I would think he'd be the most arrogant. I would think, I mean, you look at the accomplishments of this man. You know, if I was interviewing and saying, now Moses, you've accomplished a few things here. You know, I mean, a lot of plagues, water, blood, dust, the lice, plagues all over the place. You've opened up the Red Sea, water out of rocks, man out of heaven, quail out of the sky, opened up the, you know, the earth, swallowed up your enemies. And how did you do all of this? Well, I'm just a great guy. What can I say? Who knows what he would have said maybe? Well, I am exceedingly fair. I'm pretty smart, I guess. Better than the average bear. I'm educating all the wisdom and knowledge of the Egyptians. I'm idea and word indeed. I'm just natural born leader. But rather than that, the Bible says he was the meekest of all men. And I believe that he was the meekest of all men. Because when you would have asked Moses, how in the world did you open that up? How in the world did you get water out of rocks? How in the world did you get man out of heaven? I'm absolutely convinced Moses would look like anybody else in the whole crowd and say, I haven't the faintest idea. I haven't the slightest idea. I was as nervous as everybody else. He says, go out there, stretch out your rod and say, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And so I said, you want me to what? Can I practice on a creek, you know, or something? Can we, you know, can we, how about just in the beginning? How about just let me have a loaf of bread in my, you know, fall out of my tent, you know, or something. So I can just kind of see when I start commanding these things in front of the whole world. He says, no, you'll go out there and you'll put your life on the line. You'll go out there and you'll lead these people and you'll see it the same time they see it. And I believe the moment that that happened and that Red Sea opened or one plague after another, Moses, I think what happened within him when they got to the other side and then the Lord says, close it up. And they closed it up. I'll tell you the happiest person on the planet was Moses. I'm convinced he was the one that wrote the song of Moses. I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and rider fell into the sea. And I'm sure that was the most real song he ever sung. I can't believe it. He is so real. He is so wonderful. I've seen him who is invisible. I've touched his power. I've seen his glory. I've seen him work. What a thrill of a life to live. That's the same life he has for you. Same life he desires for every one of us that one day we would have riches like this. That one day that by the time that God would take us out of this world and into his presence that there would be something in our experience in our life where we stood there on the banks of some river in the midst of some circumstances in the midst of something there that said stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. I trust him. I've seen him who is invisible and there's nothing like him. That's what he wants for every one of us. It may start with your children and putting them in a little basket and watching the current of life that just seems like it's just stage five rapids as they're going down it and out of control and saying God you give them to me. I give them to you. I give them to you. You love them more than I do. You created them. And then to watch them maybe as wherever they're enticed and drawn and they're rising up until say God the years waiting for the day that maybe they or in the struggles in our own life to where we too could forsake Egypt and that we could look over at the riches and the treasures of Christ and count them greater riches than all of Egypt and truly mean it. Those are the riches I want. Do you and that when we would look there and we those are the decisions that we oftentimes have and we find ourselves there coming and say Lord your strength your provision your blood your cross shed for me. I've seen him who is invisible. Have you seen him? Have you really seen him with the only way you do you won't read it in a book and you won't see it in a movie. You'll see it there as only times he's really seen is that when you're in that circumstance of life and whether it's that child or whatever it is and now God says step out. You have a decision to make by faith. Give me your life. Give me your child. Give me your career. Give me your fears. I'm greater than them all and I'm anxious to prove it to you anxious. Amen your father. We thank you for your love and your word and your goodness and Lord we do just pray that you would bring us more and more and more that this wonderful dimension this wonderful place where we would just love you and trust you waiting upon you Lord that by faith Lord I pray for each one here today that for whatever the circumstance of life that they may be in and there's decisions. There's pressures. There's tears in their eyes. There's tension in their home. There's circumstances out of control. Lord may it be something that has all the fixings of you to step in and say here am I. Here am I. Trust me. Give it to me. I'm invisible to the rest of the world but I'll be invisible to you. You will see me unmistakably. You'll see my face. You'll hear my voice. You'll know the still small voice from behind you that says this is the way walk in it. Lord may you be bringing us into that place more and more and more in our own lives our own experiences. Father we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.