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; (Hebrews 11:24-25)
Imagine growing up in a palace, the son of daughter of a rich ruler.
Wealth is all around you and the knowledge that anything you want can be bought. As a child each day you would wake up and be dressed in the best clothes and fed by the best foods by the servants. You would be taught by the best teachers, no money would be spared on your education.
Now imagine that one day you are wandering through the corridors of the palace and overhear a conversation.
In that conversation you find out that the king is not your grandfather, that the woman you have called mother all of these years is not your mother, but that you are actually the son of a slave. Further you also find out that the woman who has been your nanny is actually your mother. You think of all the times that you may have spoken harshly to her for some supposed indiscretion.
To make matters worse you find out that you are not an only child but that you have a brother and sister who are slaves working in the brick pits.
What would you do?
Would you hide your knowledge and continue to live the good life?
This is the choice that Moses faced.
Stay in the palace or join his family in the brick pits…
Each of the men that we have spoken about all had that moment of choice and each for good or bad made their choice.
- Adam failed when he ate the fruit
- Cain held on to his anger and ended up killing his brother
- Enoch followed after God and was caught up
- Noah built the ark and together with his family was saved from the flood
- Abraham trusted God and left home
- Esau gave up his birthright for a bowl of porridge
- Jacob held on and received a blessing and name change from God
- Joseph ran from the woman and ended up first in prison then the palace
Like all these men before him Moses had a choice to make stay a prince or become a slave, yet to fully become what God needed him to be Moses had to be trained and tried before God could use him.
His first forty years would be spent in the palace where he would be taught how to deal with kings. This would end when he slew a slave master who was beating a fellow Hebrew.
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. (Exodus 2:11-12,15)
His next forty years would be spent in the deserts of Midian as a shepherd where God would train him to be a shepherd to the house of Israel, but the time would come when God would call him personally and tell him of the task that lay before him.
Moses would follow God’s word even when he felt that he couldn’t do it and end up bringing the nation of Israel out of bondage. For the last forty years of his life he would use the skills he had learned in the first eight years of his life to lead the unruly children of Israel from one place to the next and only be allowed to see the Promised Land never to enter it.
Yet in spite of this God called Moses friend…
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. (Exodus 33:11)
Just as there were three main phases in the life of Moses I believe that there are three main lessons to be learnt from his life…
1. Your youth does not preclude you from making bad choices choose wisely.
Moses did not have a choice as to where he was born or where and how he was raised he did however have a choice as to continue in the way that had been given to him. To use a modern phrase: “Moses didn’t like the hand that he was dealt… so he got a new deck!”
2. Just because in your middle years your life may seem over doesn’t mean that it is… it just means God is preparing you for the next stage.
At forty years old Moses found himself herding sheep. I’m sure this is not what twenty year old Moses thought that he would be doing, yet this is exactly what God needed him to learn. God teaches us many things in many ways; the question is will you, are you learning.
3. Think you’re too old… think again!
J.R.R. Tolkien began writing of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was 45 years old. He would not finish it until 18 years later, when he was 63 years old. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, that means he was at least 480 when he started building the ark. If God has a task for you, your age will mean nothing. This is what the bible says about Moses at the time of his death…
And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. Deuteronomy 34:7
Read the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy to see some of what Moses did during the last eighty years of his life, and know that the God who created you, who called you, can and will strengthen and sustain you in your endeavours.
… As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. (Joshua 1:5)
God’s promise to not forsake Joshua and to be with him was the same promise the God gave to Moses and the children of Israel…
…And he [God] said, certainly I will be with thee; (Exodus 3:12)
And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: (Deuteronomy 31:8)
The same way that God was with the Moses and Joshua and the children of Israel, is the same way that he will be with you.
…For I am the Lord, I change not; (Malachi 3:6)
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Number 23:19)
Moses was the man who was a prince that became a slave, yet was called a friend of God. A man who in spite of being brought up in a palace was called the humblest man who ever lived.
Moses was a man who:
- Found is place at forty…
- Found his purpose at Eighty
- Found his rest at one hundred and twenty
Are you thinking that you are too young or too old, or that life has already passed you by?
Think again and look at the life of Moses.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Maranatha
