Actes 7:20-43

In which time Moses was born.

Moses, a man of God and a man of the people

I. From the people, according to flesh and blood.

II. Above the people, according to spirit and character.

III. For the people, in word and in deed.

IV. Against the people, where the law of God was concerned. (K. Gerok.)

Moses, a pattern of God’s chosen instruments

1. The metal from which He takes them.

2. The fire in which He forges them.

3. The tests by which He proves them.

4. The deeds which He performs by them. (K. Gerok.)

Moses, a true reformer

Every reformer needs--

1. Profound knowledge and living experience of the heart.

2. Clear insight into the times.

3. Warm heart for the people.

4. Heroic courage in the face of the world.

5. Childlike humility before God and His Word. (K. Gerok.)

The training of Moses, an example how God prepares His chosen instruments

1. By great dangers and mighty deliverances (Actes 7:21).

2. By human instruction (Actes 7:22), and Divine illumination (Actes 7:30).

3. By the experience of the world (verss 22-24), and quiet intercourse with our own heart (Actes 7:29).

4. By deep humiliations (Actes 7:27), and high proofs of favours (Actes 7:32). Observe similar experiences in Joseph, David, Elijah, Paul, Luther, etc. (K. Gerok.)

Moses and Christ

I. Wherein Moses resembles Christ.

1. Both accredited by God--

(1) By a wonderful deliverance in infancy (Pharaoh and Herod).

(2) By their silent ripening for their great mission (Moses at court and in the wilderness; Christ in the cottage and the wilderness).

(3) By their solemn call to office (Moses at Horeb, Christ at Jordan).

(4) By the rich manifestation of the Spirit and of power (Moses “mighty in words and deeds,” Jesus “mighty in deeds and words”).

(5) By the deliverances wrought out by them.

(6) By the judgments inflicted on an ungrateful and disobedient people.

2. Both rejected by their nation.

(1) Their Divine mission was apprehended (Actes 7:27).

(2) Their pure intention calumniated (Actes 7:28).

(3) The freedom offered to the despised (Actes 7:39).

(4) Their memory blotted out by an ungrateful generation (Actes 7:40).

II. Wherein Christ is superior to Moses.

1. Moses redeems from bodily, Christ from spiritual bondage.

2. Moses redeems Israel, Christ mankind.

3. Moses effects a temporal, Christ an eternal salvation.

4. Moses acts as servant, Christ as Lord. (K. Gerok.)

And was exceeding fair.--

Moses’ beauty

God gave him that tallness when he was three years old, as was wonderful; and as for his beauty, there was nobody so unpolite, as when they saw Moses, they were not greatly surprised. Nay, it happened frequently, that those who met him as he was carried along the road, were obliged to turn again on seeing the child; that they left what they were about, and stood still a great while to look on him. (Josephus.)

Beauty a Divine talent

Beauty, if given to God, is indeed a talent not to be despised. It adds grace to our actions, a lustre to our virtues, and eloquence to our words. But if it be not defalcated to the service of God, it becomes a deadly poison, both to ourselves and others. (Dr. Wogan.)

Beauty, its criterion

If true, it increases on examination; if false, it lessens. (Lord Greville.)

Virtue necessary to beauty

Beauty unaccompanied by virtue is a flower without perfume.

And when he was cast out Pharaoh’s daughter took him up.--

Providence

What God wills to live no tyrant can destroy. Pharaoh, who had given a cruel order for Moses’ death, must bring him up in his own court. The Lord knows how to protect His chosen, and makes their enemies their servants. (K. Gerok.)

And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.--

Moses’ education

I. The education of Moses.

1. He was instructed by strangers. Pharaoh’s daughter had him taught Egyptian learning at her own expense, as children have to be taught in schools by strangers. Instruction by parents not always possible, because of their ignorance, labour, etc.

(1) God appointed a princess, as if to honour the teacher’s office. People say any one will do; but if your watch-spring is broken, do you take it to a blacksmith? Can a common mind guide that delicate, ethereal thing, a child’s soul? We want first-rate men. Miserable economy in parents! Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. You weigh your child’s mind against copper.

(2) Consider the influence of teachers. Three thousand five hundred years an Egyptian princess took a poor man’s child and taught him. The result of that education is not over yet. Compare her influence with Pharaoh’s. To rule in a single heart is greater than the proudest sway. The teacher is greater than the king. Here is a man perched on high, dressed in a little brief authority, with fingers pointing: That is he! And here is Christ with little children round Him.

2. He was under home influences. By a merciful arrangement Moses’ early years were entirely superintended by Pharaoh’s daughter. His mother nursed him. The princess gave him instruction, his mother education. People think education reading, writing, etc.; loading the memory with information and making preparation for a profession; but that is only the wisdom of Egypt. We must distinguish between education and instruction. The former is to unfold nature; to strengthen good and conquer evil; to give self-help; to make a man. The teacher cannot give this. You want influence bearing on the heart. Now influence is given at home. God gives the father to impart strength of will, and the mother tenderness of affection. Moses owed his lawgiving, politics, etc., to the princess; his religion to Jochebed. Jochebed that woman of poverty and toil, her hands black with brick-making; Jochebed that woman of faith, ennobled to defy the might of Egypt. Mothers, know your work! God has given you the destinies of the world. Our schools fail for the want of mothers and home influences.

3. He was disciplined by circumstances. Pharaoh’s daughter had done something, and Moses’ mother something, but there were other things needed beyond man’s control.

(1) He belonged to an oppressed nation: hence his patriotism--that deep, long devotion to one vast cause which only can be felt in such circumstances.

(2) He was a banished man: hence his sympathy with the crushed.

(3) He was a solitary man: hence his depth and solemnity of character.

(4) He was a traveller: hence his knowledge of the world and man, and his enlarged views.

4. But he needed some sudden impulse. It came in the burning bush, and from thence the man of learning became the man of public action. Observe from all this--

(1) That education goes on through life. After he left Egypt and home his development continued. The lot of many is poverty: hence their fondness of character. It is often the lot of the orphan: hence may spring self-help; or, if the disposition be weak, bad habits. Riches may obstruct the child’s moral growth, and produce, in spite of expensive education, only indolence of character. Again, we are disciplined by public circumstances. We live in time of war or peace, during a revolution, or in an age of trade, science, and philosophy--all this disciplines character. We talk of “finished education.” Education only ends when a man is in his winding-sheet. Observe--education is useful to call forth power to grapple with and modify circumstances. Trees on the sea-coast or in stony soil are thwarted, yet they may be pushed by agriculture. The best agriculture is in Scotland, which has but a poor soil.

(2) Education is God’s work, for circumstances come from God. Teaching cannot do all; we must look for fruit from God. We must war for our best impulses, which come like a flash, unexpectedly. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. Look back on our lives: what governed our most remarkable moments and alteration in character? Not systematic education; but some impression like that of Moses in the wilderness, that locked like chance--an impression from some great soul, or an old truth forcibly put.

II. Its results.

1. On his own character.

(1) Mentally, it gave him the habit of inquiry. He turns aside “to see why the bush is not burnt.” Other men would have simply seen the bush on fire. The first thing in education is to encourage this habit. When your child asks, “What is the use of this?” etc., do not call it troublesome. But not in duty. “Why” in phenomena is the acknowledgment of ignorance, but in practical duties it is the boast of presumption.

(2) Morally, it gave him boldness and tenderness. Many men are bold, yet tyrannical; many tender, yet weak. The perfect character joins both. Moses was ever the champion of the oppressed--his brethren, Jethro’s daughters.

(3) Religiously, it gave him--

(a) Reverence. He takes off his shoes.

(b) Obedience. God says, “Go before Pharaoh,” and Moses braves the angry king.

(c) Meekness. He was humble as a child. This is what is meant by education--mental power, moral worth, religious character.

2. On his nation the chief result was the elevation of the labouring classes. The Egyptian policy was to keep Israel down, to refuse them educational and political advantages, to prevent their increase. The task of Moses was their emancipation. So is that of every Christian. To elevate the labouring classes, however, is not to exempt them from toil. Labour is a blessing; it brings out strength of character. Nor is it to break down classes, but by Christianity and education to level up. Thank God the time has passed when the English policy was the policy of Egypt. The insane cry once was, “The people must not be educated, because it will unfit them for their station.” Now the mighty chasm between rich and poor is filling up. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Human learning recommended from the example of Moses

I. Inquire into the education and attainments of Moses, who is here said to have been learned in all the wisdom of the egyptians.

II. Deduce the lawfulness and explain the advantages of human learning, in opposition to those weak sophisms which some conceited novelists have imagined to the contrary. But there is little need of authority to recommend that which does so amply recommend itself. Such is the excellency of human learning, that it is impossible to conceive how anything so entertaining in the theory, so useful in the application, and withal so ornamental in the figure it makes, should be unlawful to be acquired, or should not, indeed, rather be highly worthy of the most laborious pursuits. The mind of man is capable of great improvements, not to be attained but by much pains and study: from whence we see every day the mighty difference between a liberal and sordid education. In the one, human nature seems only to resemble the rude lines of an unfinished piece, which may, indeed, discover the bulk that is designed, but without that beauty, order, and proportion which should recommend it. In the other it is, as it were, finished by the artist’s hand, and seems to want nothing that should make it lovely and agreeable. I forbear to expatiate farther on the transporting pleasures which arise from learning; in regard its excellency is such that it serves not only to please, but profit, to improve the mind with useful lessons and instructions, as well as entertain it with delightful speculations. The necessity of virtue is more clearly discerned, and the measures of our duty are more easily prescribed, when men are able to perceive the consequences of their actions, and infer fit rules of life from their observation of the nature of things. They are likewise better able to gain advantage to themselves, and go the readiest way to work in any enterprise, when they know the connection between causes and effects, and have all the experience of former ages which learning can afford. Nor is its influence confined at home, but, diffusive of itself, extends to all that stand in any way related to us, The philosopher, studies not only for himself, but for the common benefit of human kind; and, by his useful discoveries, unfolds those secrets for the public good, which had been otherwise locked up in the profoundest silence. The power of medicine to heal diseases might have remained a secret, and mankind have been for ever destitute of wholesome remedies, were it not for such cultivation and improvement of the mind as human learning gives. I need not observe to you how the several arts of arithmetic, geometry, navigation, and the rest, conduce to the good order and government of the world, to the adjusting men’s various rights and interests, to the symmetry, and thereby to the duration, of buildings, to the conjunction of countries far distant in situation, and thereby to the better carrying on of trade and commerce. Nor can you want to be reminded that an inquiry into the nature of moral good and evil must likewise be of general use, beneficial to the public as well as to the student, qualifying some for the information and tuition of others, to furnish them that have less leisure and abilities with true principles, and instruct them fully in the nature of their duty. And from the whole it will be obvious to collect what ought not to be omitted upon this occasion, that those first rudiments of literature we learn at school must needs be highly beneficial as laying the foundation for all the rest, and being, indeed, the proper groundwork upon which any part of human learning should be built. The enthusiast, in the first place, objects against it as deceitful or vexatious, or at best but useless. The deceitfulness of human learning he would build upon St. Paul’s authority, who calls it philosophy and vain deceit, and warns his Colossians beware lest any man should spoil them by it. But they who make this objection would do well to distinguish between the different ends and uses to which learning is applied. The right end of it is to serve for the better illustration and discovery of truth; and when it is subservient to this purpose, the Holy Scripture is so far from condemning it, that it recommends it rather as highly beneficial. It is not then, you see, the thing itself, but the abuse or vain pretence of it the apostle blames. Nor are they less deceived in the argument they draw from the vexatiousness and uncertainty of human learning, which the wisest of men reckoned to be but “vanity and vexation of spirit,” because that “in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” For here again there is a pertinent distinction to be made between the study of human learning, looked upon as being itself our supreme good and happiness, and as a means only which may be subservient and conducive to it. It was Solomon’s business, in his book of Ecclesiastes, to show that nothing but religion or the fear of God can make us truly happy. To that end, he observes the vanity of all other schemes of happiness, and among them, how even learning itself, though it bids fairer than the rest, is yet very defective, and will leave the man far short of happiness who has no higher aims, especially if he be (as without religion men are too apt to be) over-curious to search deeper than human reason can fathom, and unwilling to resolve everything at last into unsearchable wisdom and omnipotence. But this is no real disparagement to that wisdom and knowledge which, being kept subordinate and made subservient to religious purposes, does humbly admire what it cannot comprehend, and therefore can be no just objection against that right use of human learning which I am at present desirous to recommend. I have but one objection more to examine, and that is the freethinker’s, who reckons every man ought to judge in all matters for himself, and not suffer himself to be influenced by the skill and learning of another; but especially that it is most unreasonable, by arts of rhetoric and moving eloquence, to work on the affections of vulgar minds, and so prevail with them to do that to which they would otherwise be most averse. Let it be returned that no man’s liberty of judging is taken from him by having reasons offered to direct his judgment; but he ever judges with the greatest freedom who judges most consistently with the appearance of reason and truth. If the matter be such as he is capable of examining himself, he ought seriously to weigh whatever is thus offered, and either to reject or admit it, as shall appear most reasonable upon mature deliberation. But if the matter be above his reach, it will be but equitable to believe the learned in their own profession, since he can have no other way of discovering the truth. He is not to follow them where he finds they are in error, any more than he would wittingly take a cup of poison if it were recommended to him by a skilful physician. But then neither may he neglect their direction, where his own judgment fails or wavers, any more than he would refuse the medicine prescribed by his physician, for no other reason but because he is not thoroughly acquainted with the quality and power of those ingredients of which it is compounded--always remembering to apply himself to God for His special blessing and favourable assistance. And then, as to the other part of the objection, although I shall allow the moving of men’s passions, where there are no reasons, either directly offered, or at least presupposed, for the conviction of their judgment, to be an absurd and unjust way of proceeding, yet so many are the instances where people act against their judgment, and are backward to do that which they cannot but confess fittest to be done, that it deserves to be esteemed, not a lawful only, but a necessary art, to stir up the affections, even where the understanding is sufficiently informed before.

III. Inferences from all that has been said.

1. Such being the manifold and great advantages of human learning, let us be thankful to Almighty God, who has made our nature capable of such improvements. It is sure a very easy return for the blessings we receive, to acknowledge the bounty of Him who gave them; and he must be most unworthy of the benefit bestowed who will not own it to be one.

2. Let those who are set apart to such studies be careful to improve the talents committed to their trust.

3. Let those who reap benefit from their labours of this kind value in return and esteem them for their works’ sake. The advantages, we see, are great which redound to the public from the studies of the learned; and therefore gratitude requires that the public should make suitable acknowledgments to those persons by whose means such advantages are derived to them.

4. Let us all, therefore, in our several stations and capacities encourage the study and increase of useful learning, by our exhortation, our contribution, or our own industry. (W. Berriman, D. D.)