November
14
Wednesday
By faith Moses … 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; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt … By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:24-27)
Moses (1)
God Looks at the Motives of the Heart
The above quotation furnishes a most gracious view of the actings of Moses. It is ever thus the Holy Spirit deals with the history of Old Testament saints. When He writes a man’s history, He presents him to us as he is, and faithfully sets forth all his failures and imperfections. But when, in the New Testament, He comments upon such history, He merely gives the real principle and main result of a man’s life. Hence, though we read in Exodus that Moses “looked this way and that way,” that he “feared and said, Surely this thing is known,” and finally, “Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh” (Ex. 2:12, 15); yet, we are taught in Hebrews that what he did, he did “by faith,” that he did not fear “the wrath of the king,” that “he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”
Thus will it be, by and by, when “the Lord come[s] … and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God” (1 Cor. 4:5). This is a precious and consolatory truth for every upright mind and every loyal heart. Many a “counsel” the “heart” may form, the hand may not be able to execute. All such “counsels” will be made “manifest” when “the Lord comes.” Blessed be the grace that has told us so!
The affectionate counsels of the heart are far more precious to Christ than the most elaborate works of the hand. The latter may shine before the eye of man; the former are designed only for the heart of Jesus.
C. H. Mackintosh