Tuesday, May 22, 2007
IDEA: Those who are close to us have the greater capacity to make us fear than those who are opposed to us.
PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that no leader can go it alone.
Do you enjoy some of the intellectual challenges that appear as you study the Bible?
For example, there seems to be a very straightforward statement about Moses in Hebrews 11:27 – “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible” (NIV).
The text says 3 things: by faith he left Egypt; he didn’t fear the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw the one who is invisible.
I. The problem that we have to solve is in the statement, “by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger.” What could that refer to?
It could refer to the time Moses left Egypt after he had killed an Egyptian and fled to Midian. That fits the sequence in Hebrews 11. The difficulty is that back in Exodus 2:14 the text says that Moses feared and fled.
It could mean that Moses left Egypt in the Exodus when he led the people out and through the Red Sea. That fits Exodus 2 but it doesn’t fit the sequence in Hebrews 11.
II. How do scholars who believe that it refers to the journey to Midian explain the phrase “he was afraid”?
The text doesn’t say what made Moses afraid. In this interpretation Moses wasn’t afraid of the anger of Pharaoh itself.
Even though he was fearless, the lack of faith in the Hebrews who rejected his leadership made him afraid.
III. Our own people can often make us more afraid than our enemies can.
Acts 7:23ff seems to say that: "Now when [Moses] was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppresed, and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, 'Men, you are bretheren; why do you wrong one another?' But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ' Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?' Then at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons."
Our own experience can affirm that: Who can make us most afraid? Who can discourage us most? Those whom we consider to be our friends or those who are our enemies?
Moses left Egypt not because he feared the wrath of Pharaoh but because he feared the negative response of his own people.