It was “by faith,” Hebrews 11:24, that “Moses, when grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
But why on earth would Moses do that – taking into account Acts 7:22, that he “was schooled and trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, maturing him into a superb speaker and a renowned man of action.” At age 40 (verse 23), Moses was at his peak. He was smart, respected, and headed for a rosy future as a privileged member of the Egyptian royal family – potentially becoming one of the great leaders of the most powerful, richest and wisest empire at the time.
But God had other things in mind, which he’d predicted back in Genesis 15:13 when he’d told Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they’ll be enslaved and mistreated 400 years,” but, verse 16, “in the 4th generation your descendants will come back here (to Canaan).” This prophecy, then, had been humming along behind the scenes since the time of Abram, predicting the actual time when the Israelites would be freed from slavery and returned to Canaan. But Moses, it seems, was blissfully unaware of it.
Not for long though, because at age 40 Moses “decided to visit his fellow Israelites” (Acts 7:23), which set in motion a staggering decision on his part – to turn his back on his Egyptian family, renounce his royal office, and throw in his lot with his fellow Israelites. And why did he do that? There’s a clue in Psalm 103:7, that “The Lord made known his ways to Moses” – and especially his “justice for the oppressed” (6). But here was Moses on the side of the Egyptian oppressors who were viciously exploiting his fellow Israelites to boost their own wealth and “the pleasures of sin” – and that hit Moses hard (Hebrews 11:25-26).
It was seeing the difference between God’s ways and the Egyptian ways that ripped Moses out of his blissful ignorance. And isn’t that how God helps us today? “The Lord makes known his ways” to us as well, in the obvious difference between his ways and the world that we too have blissfully gone along with. And it hits us just like it hit Moses. But that too is one of the great blessings in God’s plan of salvation, that he gives us the eyes to see. The time came for us – just as it did for Moses, and for those in Hebrews 10:32 – when we “first saw the light” as well.
And for Moses it came because – as Hebrews 11:27 phrases it – “He saw him who is invisible”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 