A BUNCH OF HOOPLA!
Merry Saturday With Parris Bailey
“By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God,than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season.”
There is all kinds of debate over whether Christians can drink, commit fornication and just plain live “like the world”.”Oh, “we are married in the “eyes of God” or I drink, I just don’t get drunk….and I could go on and on to gambling at the casino and hanging out on Bourbon street barhopping to witness. I am sure by now many of you are red in the face, instead I will spare you all the hoopla and just point to what was Moses’ choices. The crazy thing is the word of God didn’t even get into detail about what Moses was facing but just called it for what it was—–“sin”. Gill says, “there can be no true pleasure in sin; there is always bitterness in the end, and it issues in death, if grace prevent not: now it was by faith Moses made this choice, for it is manifestly contrary to flesh and blood: it showed him to be a man thoroughly acquainted with the nature of sin; and that he looked beyond the things of sense and time, to those of eternity.” Eternity, now that is worth looking at. I can only speak what the word says, we are to live for eternity and all “that hoopla” is just momentary.
Moses “had respect unto” or in the Greek, “turning his eyes away from other considerations, he fixed them on the (eternal) recompense” (Heb 11:39, 40). The Fire Bible puts it this way, “Every believer faces the recurring choice that Moses faced; to be identified with Christ and God’s people, even though it may bring rejection and persecution, or to enjoy the momentary “pleasures of sin” and the feeling of freedom that my initially come from going our own way. We must keep in mind that our temporal choices have eternal consequences. Moses traded momentary pleasure and privilege for future long-range good. He was able to make the right choice for two reasons; HE WAS A MAN WITH SOLID SPIRITUAL VALUES AND HE WAS MAN OF SPIRITUAL VISION.”
While we fight over “our Christian liberties”. Matthew Henry continues in Hebrews:
“They were tempted; some read it, burnt… They were slain with the sword. All sorts of deaths were prepared for them; their enemies clothed death in all the array of cruelty and terror, and yet they boldly met it and endured it. Those who escaped death were used so ill that death might seem more eligible than such a life. Their enemies spared them, only to prolong their misery, and wear out all their patience; for they were forced to wander about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented; they wandered about in deserts, and on mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, for the excellency of divine grace, that is able to bear up the faithful under such cruelties, and to carry them safely through all.”