Hebrews 11:24-26

Hebrews 11:24

The Choice of Moses.

Consider:

I. The choice which Moses made. If we carefully examine this passage we find it to represent one of the most extraordinary acts of deliberate renunciation of the worldly, and deliberate preference for the spiritual, which the world has ever known. It is equally wonderful, whether you look at the things which he sacrificed, or at the things which he preferred. The adopted of royalty, the dweller in a palace, the well-instructed student of Egyptian wisdom, luxury loading her board at his bidding, pleasure waiting for his presence at her revel, within his grasp the sceptre of the most ancient and wealthy monarchy in the globe. It was surely no light thing to renounce a heritage like this; and there must have been, to constrain his decision, motives of irresistible power. He chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." He was influenced in his choice by the promise of a Messiah, which God had given unto Israel. There are, in this choice of Moses, the true principles of the philosophy of Christianity. There is involved the recognition of the future as higher than the present the preference of the spiritual to the secular, when their respective interests come into collision; and to have a right estimate of both, and to secure an equitable adjustment of their several claims, is the great problem of human life.

II. The motive which influenced his decision is presented in the words, "For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward." The recognition of a future state, with its allotments of delights and doom, is frequently recorded in Scripture as exerting a powerful influence on human conduct. We observe (1) it is certain; (2) it is complete; (3) it is eternal.

W. M. Punshon, Sermons,2nd series, p. 42.

The Wise Choice.

Our admission into the family of all the saints depends upon the use we may make of that power of choice which, at all times, but especially at some times, is given to every one of us.

I. It is remarkable that this grace of choosing is mentioned as one of the characteristic features of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that when any one makes a good selection in things spiritual, he may have the comfortable feeling that he is copying Christ in one of the greatest traits of His perfect character, and that he is making the best return he can, to God Himself, when he chooses him to be his Father, who, from all eternity, has chosen him to be His child. The exercise of choosingis plainly a part, and no little part, of the discipline of life. In creating this world, God seems to have laid it down that it should be a world of probation. All probation presupposes a choice, a power to take good, or to refuse it; to love evil, or to eschew it. Therefore, in a great measure, because it was necessary to the exercise of the faculty of choosing which God thus made a part of the moral government of this world He permitted evil to come into it.

II. Moses made his choice as soon as he came to years. We do not know at what age he might be said to come to years. We have no reason to think that it was at that period when he made the first attempt to deliver his countrymen, when he was about forty. There is ground to think that he made the good choice long before that. Probably, it was at that season of life when his reason was capable of making a grave discrimination; and the lesson all lies in the fact that he did it early, as soon as he could. The sooner you give your heart to pod, the younger you are when you make the great decision which is to determine life, the more easy, the more acceptable, probably the happier, and the more Christlike, your choice will be.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,5th series, p. 143.

References: Hebrews 11:24. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xviii., No. 1063; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 91; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. x., p. 185.