The Book of Hebrews 11:23-29 Reproach of the Messiah

Good morning. We're going to be stepping through this Hebrews passage that Brad just read for us here, Hebrews 11, 23 through 29, one step at a time here. And one of the things we're going to be continuing with, we're going to continue this chapter here into next week as well. We're going to be going through this great hall of faith, and today we'll be focusing on Moses, and next week looking at kind of miscellaneous other Old Testament saints. And one of the things we've also been telling you is that everybody has faith.

Even atheists and outspoken skeptic James Randi. And James Randi, by the way, is getting older. He is soon to meet his maker he doesn't believe in. So anyway, James Randi, several places actually on his website, has this statement, evolution is a fact. That's what he said. Now get what he put here right up above it, no amount of belief makes something a fact.

So let's take a look at that, keep that in mind. We pointed out previously that the evolutionary theory says that rodents, and some would say primates, evolved into bats. There is no clear fossil evidence for that. The fossil evidence between rodents and bats is completely missing.

Therefore, if someone believes that that evolution took place without any historical fact to support it, that's faith, Mr. Randy. Another statement here is that an okapi-like creature evolved into the giraffe. And since that has no historical evidence in the fossils to support it, that also is faith. We mentioned as well, here's a quote from Current Biology a year ago this month. These are secular scientists who are quite well aware of the fossil record. And for turtles, the transitional fossils are lacking. And therefore, if you believe the turtles evolved in spite of having no evidence to support it, then that's faith.

Now, I pointed out hummingbirds previously. April 3rd, issue of Current Biology reported. This is a study out of UC Berkeley. At last count, there are 338 species, so that's a very current number of hummingbirds, are thought to have evolved from a dinosaur that's called a pterosaur.

No, excuse me, pterosaur. All right, but there are no clear, indisputable transitional fossils between these dinosaurs, these pterosaurs, and the hummingbirds. Now these pterosaurs varied in size from 10 inches, this is the smallest one, up to 30 feet across. So the evolutionary theory is that these pterosaurs evolved into the hummingbirds.

Then you have quotes like this, birds are living feathery dinosaurs. That's from the September 20 issue last year of National Geographic. Now, let's look at the bee hummingbird to take an extreme case. This is the tiniest hummingbird. As a matter of fact, it is the tiniest bird, period.

It weighs 1.6 to 1.9 grams, and as you see, it compares to the end of a pencil. To get an idea, here is a penny. 2.5 grams is the weight of a modern penny before they send it out. So this hummingbird is substantially less than the weight of this penny.

This hummingbird flaps its wings 80 to 100 times a second. Its heart beats about 20 times a second, except when it goes to sleep. when the heart slows down to once about every two seconds. This hummingbird has to eat about every three to five seconds to keep going, which is why the heart rate slows down so much at night. Otherwise, they would starve to death, keeping up the heart rate. This hummingbird, this little bee hummingbird, visits 1,500 flowers a day.

The pterosaurs ate meat. This hummingbird eats nectar. The hummingbird eats nectar. We even have one case where the dinosaurs were found to have a fossil bird in its stomach. So have them, you know, the dinosaurs eating the birds or did they come from them? Since there is no clear fossil evidence between the pterosaur and this little bee hummingbird, if you believe, if you believe that the pterosaur evolved into this little bee hummingbird, an amazing creature, that's faith, Mr. Randy.

No amount of belief makes something a fact. You can believe that all these things evolved by randomness and chance. But that's not fact, that's not science, that's faith. Evolution is not a fact, it is faith. So Mr. Randi has quite a faith, doesn't he?

Now let's take a look at the historical timeline here. As we step into the book of Hebrews and we look at Moses' life, we'll be taking a quick scan, is what this passage does, of the life of Moses. And to give us sort of a framework, we've been talking about Abraham and those living kind of in his time. So here's Abraham living around the year 2000. And now Moses, a good round figure to work with, is about 1500 BC. is the time of Moses. King David, from whom Jesus is descended, about 1000 BC, so there's a kind of a good framework to put other biblical personalities in. The Old Testament being completed just before the year 400. So, and then we get into the time of Christ. Christ born a few years before the year zero. and then in the first few decades of the first century.

And by the way, it's a very, very sad thing to be able to tell you, nobody lived during the year zero. Nobody. It's because there wasn't any such thing. We mark that on our timelines, but they don't count it. So nobody was alive. Absolutely nobody during the year zero.

It's this time here, Moses, about 1500 BC that we're looking at. And one of the reasons I look at some of these historical details, and even scientific details, is because what is happening is that Christians are under greater and greater assault and attack, as if we're some kind of mindless people that just believe all sorts of things with immense gullibility.

And the reality is that there is a great misunderstanding about what is science and what is faith. The reality is those who deal with science, even science that is current, repeatable science, have faith. And those who go into the past that is unrecorded, have even greater faith. We believe on the basis of God's word in creation, on the basis of faith, but those who believe that life evolved in times past also believe on the basis of faith. It is faith, and it's not science versus faith, it's one faith versus another.

Okay, so here is Egypt where Moses is born. The Israelites had been in Egypt for some centuries by the time he was born. And by the way, here are the great pyramids of Giza. The Jews did not build the pyramids. That's one of the things, if you look up Jewish slaves working and that kind of thing, you'll frequently see them shown carrying big stones and building pyramids and other things. They didn't do that. They never did that.

These great pyramids were there before Abraham came to Egypt. So Abraham almost certainly saw these pyramids there when Moses was born. He was born into a culture where these pyramids had long existed for centuries. The Jews didn't build the pyramids. The Jews instead made mud bricks. They got to be very, very good at making mud bricks.

They would take the soil and get it wet and they would stomp in straw. And they would put it in a wooden mold. We actually have wooden molds from the time that the Israelites made the mud bricks, very likely used by the Israelites. And they would dump the mud and the straw into the mold, and they'd stomp it flat.

And then when they were done, each brick would get this stamp of the pharaoh on it, the stamp of the pharaoh on each mud brick. And so you can imagine, generations after generations, making these mud bricks. All the Jews making mud bricks. They were the standard building material for everything but temples and royal structures. This is a town of old mud brick structures in Egypt. That's what they would be used for, to build things. You'd take the mud bricks, put them together, and guess what you'd put them together with? One brick on top of another, you'd put them together with mud.

Right? There you go. You got that right. Okay. Now, here is the 18th dynasty. And again, I go over this because people think Christians just believe everything, right? We'll believe anything. As long as it's in the Bible, we'll just believe it. No. There's actually good basis for looking at this account of Moses and seeing good substantiation for it in history and in historical fact. So here is the dynasty into which Moses was born. And notice that several of the Pharaoh's names were built around the ending Moses.

That's Egyptian for child. And so for the daughter of Pharaoh, and we'll point out likely Hatshepsut was the daughter of Pharaoh that wanted to adopt Moses. For her to name the baby that was found Moses, was quite fitting. Moses in Hebrew means he who draws out, that is he was drawn out of the Nile, right?

So it would fit the Hebrew name and it would fit the time context. This Mose ending at the end of the Pharaoh's names did not continue after this dynasty and it did not exist before. Moses being born into this time fits the historical record and fits the context. And with all the relatives being named with a name that ends with Mose, for Hatshepsut, who was probably about six, around six years old, to think, hey, I'll call this little baby Mose just fits. It's a family name. So here is Moses born about 1526 towards the end of the reign of Amos I. And Hatshepsut is a female pharaoh.

A female pharaoh. And why would she get away with having a Hebrew slave child in the household? She was strong-willed and precocious. Here is Hatshepsut's mortuary temple. A huge structure. A massive structure. She was an actual woman pharaoh, atypical of the line, but very strong-willed, very precocious, and she got her way.

Here also, and you have this in your handout, here are the palaces that Dr. Bryant G. Wood, who by the way, a little over a decade ago, spoke in this room. Dr. Bryant G. Wood has identified the temples that were the places where Moses grew up and where Moses went back to, to tell the Pharaoh, let my people go. So this is the place.

And so they've identified it at Associates for Biblical Research. That's what ABR stands for, Associates for Biblical Research. They've identified these temples as the place where Moses was raised, as a place where Moses went back to to demand the release of the Israelites. They've identified Hatshepsut as very likely Pharaoh's daughter that was the one that adopted Moses. Alright, let's read from Hebrews 11, 23. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months from his parents. No, was hidden for three months by his parents, right?

Because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's edict. And by the way, that beautiful child, we're going to take a look at that, okay? It wasn't that they thought, you know, this kid is too cute to kill, right? Every parent would think their kids are too cute to kill, right?

There's something else and we'll get the insight on that. Okay. All right So by faith we get the insight here from Hebrews because it doesn't exactly say it in Exodus The inside we get from Hebrews is what Moses parents did was by faith They had it had to do with their relationship with God and their trust in him. It was by faith. I So the preservation of Moses' life, initially keeping him in the house, but then about three months along, somehow, and we are not told quite why, they felt they couldn't hide him any longer. I suspect it might have something to do with this.

When our second son, Ed, was born, he would cry so quietly that If the door was shut, you couldn't tell he's crying. So the way it would work is Randy, being a little tight about that point in time, would go back and listen to the door and come running down the hallway to let us know that Eddie's crying because he cried so quietly. Now, we call Eddie the Critter. But Randy couldn't quite say it at that point in time, so he'd run down the hallway, the fritter's frying! The fritter's frying!

Right? Okay. So, sorry about that, Randy. I suspect that it came to a certain point that somebody hit the turbo button on Moses' lungs, and it just couldn't keep it quiet anymore, right? Okay. So, in this case here, They got to a point where they said, well, no, we can't keep him here. He's going to get discovered, and they're just going to want to kill him.

And so they came up with this plan. We're going to put this baby in a pitch-covered basket and set him out on the Nile right where this young princess, Egyptian princess, would see him. And so they went ahead and put the basket together that way and floated it, and Miriam Moses older sister would then watch and see you know what was happening and as likely Hatshepsut Came and said oh, this is a cute kid. Hey too cute to kill right and this is a cute kid We've got a I want to keep this one. Okay. She wasn't in the doll. She was into real babies, right? and so at any rate So then Miriam comes up and says, hey, you want me to get the mom? Oh, sure.

And so it rains for then Moses to be actually supported in his life by his natural mother and for her to act as a wet nurse until he was old enough to be taken into the household of the Egyptians. So here is an artist's rendering, and it's actually not too bad. I looked at various ones, and some of them show her older, and that's not quite correct. So about six years old was likely the age when Moses was put out on this basket, and she would have had maidens around her who would help as an Egyptian princess. Now, here's how Stephen tells the story, and he provides a very good insight into that little phrase, a beautiful child. Look at this. Here is Acts 7, 20 through 24, and you've also got this as a slide in your handout. And it was at this time that Moses was born, and he was lovely in the sight of God, and he was nurtured three months in his father's home.

I'm going to stop there, because here's why. Lovely in the sight of God. That's the key insight. Now, this is really different. All babies are too cute to kill, right? But it's how God saw him that was the difference. Stephen has a critical insight here, okay? Lovely in the sight of God. It's not just man's judgment, oh, this is a cute kid, you know. But rather, it was God looking upon Moses and saying, hey, he's got a good-looking heart, okay?

Moses first 40 years are described then and first given in Exodus chapter 2, starting from the time of his birth all the way up to the end of his 40 years. So Exodus chapter 2 gives the full account. We're looking at faith here, and so that's the focus. So here is Moses taken into the household of Pharaoh. Again, you have kind of a quick mapping of the temples where he was brought up.

And now, good-looking in the sight of God. Basically, that word is translated beautiful in the New American Standard, in Hebrews, and lovely there in the Book of Acts. The reality is the word means good-looking. You could use different terms, but good-looking. People often desire to be good-looking to themselves, and I look in the mirror and see myself, or to others on this planet. And by the way, that was an interesting thing.

Going over to Uganda, a lot of the kids in the village, they've never seen themselves. So that's very interesting because that's a perspective that we couldn't have. Matter of fact, you take a picture and show them their picture on the digital camera and they don't believe you. That's not me. That's my brother next to me and my sister right next to me, but that's not me, right?

But to be good-looking to God is a rather extraordinary thought indeed. Very interesting. Good-looking in the sight of God. Here's a point for parents, I think, to consider. It's not one often brought out, but from the perspective Asking the question, how does God see my child? Ah. Insightful. How does God see my child? That's a great way to provide spiritual insight into what's going on. Not just what do I see, but how does God see my child?

Big important point. And that comes out here out of this Acts 7 passage here. I think it's a great question. One more thing. How does God see the child that God has entrusted to me? See that? How does God see the child that God has entrusted to me? Okay. Here's Hebrews 11, 24 through 26.

I put the three of them together because it's one sentence, and there's also a pattern we want to take a look at. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Choosing, rather, to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Let's take a look at that. You have this as a slide on your first page here. Look at the verbs here. Refused, choosing, considering, was looking. So here are some things in action, things he was doing that was about to impact his behavior. Now first of all, this refuse, what does that mean? He said no to all the privileges that he had as Pharaoh's daughter's son. Choosing, so that's a deliberate choice, right?

Choosing rather the ill-treatment of the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of, and I want to point this out, the Christ. There's a definite article there that the English translations don't bring out. So when it has the Christ, just about universally it's conveying the Messiah, okay? the reproach of the Messiah greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking for the reward not on earth looking for the reward refused choosing considering and looking those four verbs and that word consider means to weigh things out so as to place a value on something the relative value that he was choosing He said, I would rather have the ill treatment than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin that are certainly available to me there in the palace. I can go in and out of the palace with complete liberty and I'll decline. I'll decline.

So, let's talk about Hatshepsut's adopted Hebrew son. Hatshepsut, the likely adopting mother of Moses, had been strong-willed and precocious such that she could adopt a Hebrew baby even against the king's edict. She could get away with it. Why? She was strong-willed and precocious and she proved it the rest of her days by being a rare woman pharaoh. You don't do that by being a lily white and a pansy and gullible, right? She got her way. She got her way.

But as Moses grew up, educated as an Egyptian prince, he knew all along that he was a Hebrew and that those people were his people. Those are my people. He had the liberty to hang out with them. He had that option. So Moses, though he had full privilege as an Egyptian prince, he chose, there's this choosing, right? He chose to hang out with the Hebrews even though the circumstances were often not pleasant. He turned aside from the privileges and the comfort that he could have had.

He said, nope, I'm going to hang out with my people. I'm going to go hang out with those who are of my own. Moses could have chosen a very comfortable route. Just hang around the palace, go out and have some adventures, don't stir the pot, and just keep on going with all the privileges that he had. But Moses also saw that his people were badly mistreated. So he came to their defense thinking he could do so covertly, and perhaps sometimes he did.

Which is greater, this or this? You know, I don't know why optometrists put you on this. I'm never going to wear one of these things. I don't know about you. I'm certainly not going to pay for it. But one of the things they do is they put that in front of your eyes and say, which is better, this or this, right? And so what we're asking is something similar. Which is greater, this or this? Which is greater, this or this?

As believers, we're in a place to assign value, and that's what Moses was doing. Value to things that are visible and value to things that are invisible. We assign relative value to things that are visible and things that are invisible. Probably most of us here have two citizenships. A US citizenship and a heavenly citizenship. Which is most valuable? The heavenly citizenship, right? It's a spiritual value. Moses did that, and after careful consideration, because one of the things we know, he was very intentional. He refused. He chose. He considered. He looked at. One of the things he did, after careful consideration, was valuing suffering for the Messiah. Valuing suffering for the Messiah.

For those who are parents, it may be well worth asking how the relative values of things is communicated to your children with a deliberate choice to convey what is spiritual as of greatest value. You know, it's getting to be fairly common for those who are raised as Christians to end up just dumping and pitching it when they grow up. There's a lot of that happening. One of the reasons for presenting some of the things I have earlier archaeologically, historically, scientifically, is certainly to defend the faith, and I think it defends well. To defend the faith, but here we're also talking about what's important, conveying and communicating spiritual value, not just, you know, we all go to church and we, you know, prayed before a meal, but communicating deliberately spiritual value.

I'm going to choose this instead of this because I place value. So for parents, that's an opportunity to deliberately think about what's communicating what's valuable. Because if your children don't think it's valuable to you, guess what? It's not going to be valuable to them either, most likely.

So here is Moses. He's trying to help out the Israelites. He's hanging out with them. And then he gets into places where he takes advantage of his liberty and freedom and tries to defend the worst offenders against the Israelites. And so at one point he's taking out one of the slave drivers over the Israelites.

And he thinks, at first, I got away with it. And probably before he had, but not this time. Not this time. An Egyptian had seen what had taken place. He didn't do it around the corner and out of sight enough. So in Hebrews 11.27 it reads like this, By faith he left Egypt, Moses left Egypt, not fearing the right of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is unseen. Now first he tried to write Egypt, but that didn't work, so he left Egypt. Sorry about that. By faith, he left Egypt.

After refusing, here's the verbs, refusing, choosing, considering, and looking to a spiritual reward by faith, Moses left. He says, I'm getting out of here. It's not looking so good for me here, and I'll take my game and go somewhere else. So he left.

Notice that Moses spiritually, because it talks about him having spiritual sight, saw God, not with his physical eyes, but with spiritual vision. And what you have here at the bottom of this slide, and this is on page two, is a timeline. We'll take a look at that in a minute. So here's Moses.

He's saying, I'm leaving all of this royal privilege that I have, and I'm getting out of here while the getting's good. And so he heads from Egypt over to the land of Midian. And instead of hanging out with Hebrews, he hangs out with sheep. So that's his location. He goes there out of the area where the Egyptians have any domain or authority or interest. So he hangs out with sheep. Years go by and he hangs out with sheep. More years go by and he hangs out with sheep. And after years and years and years, he still hangs out with sheep. Forty years go by and he hangs out with sheep.

So here's the timeline here. Moses is born. I think we have a date for that later, around 1526. Moses then decides to leave. He's 40 years old. Then Moses, after 40 years watching sheep, finds this bush burning, and the Lord tells him, go, go and get my people out of there. And so he goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, no. Until eventually he gets them out. And then, after 40 years in the desert, then he gives them his last sermons, Deuteronomy, and dies. So that's the pattern with Moses, 40, 40, 40. 40 years as an Egyptian prince, 40 years as a shepherd in Midian, and 40 years leading the people of Israel.

And apparently, 40 years watching sheep is good training for watching the Israelites. So here's Moses, he's told, you go and get those people out. And Moses is actually kind of reluctant, but the Lord says, nope, you're going. Yeah, your brother can help you, your brother Aaron, but you're going. So he goes from Midian, from watching sheep, to go to get his people out of Egypt.

And now for something completely different. You ready? Okay. This is the big book of Jewish baseball, because now Moses is going to play ball with these Egyptians. Moses is going to be the pitcher, and he's going to come up and throw the ball to these Egyptians. The Egyptians are going to be at the other end, try to hit the ball. That's the way it's going to work here.

Now, one of the things I have to tell you, you think that's a fly ball? You've got to remember this is Jewish baseball. Different rules. Flies mean something completely different than Jewish baseball. Not at all the same. Also, different hats. Here's one Moses knows best. Or here's another one, what would Moses do? Now, so ten different plagues. All of them nasty. Ten different plagues. Blood, and frogs, and lice, and flies, and diseased cattle, and boils, and hail, and locusts, and darkness, and finally death for the firstborn. Yuck!

But after ten of those, now we get to the special rule in Jewish baseball. How many strikes until you're out in our baseball? Three strikes. But in Jewish baseball, it's ten. Ten strikes and you're out. That's the way it works. It's different. So that's the rules in Jewish baseball. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So here's Hebrews 11.28.

By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them. The Israelites. Let's look at, by faith he kept the first, and notice I added that, the first Passover. Because there were Passovers every year, right?

And those are a remembrance? This one's not a remembrance. This is the real deal. You can't just say, you know, I'm going to be a little bit sloppy with my Passover celebration. This is the one, you better do it right, or the oldest dies. You don't want that.

So there would be many observances as a remembrance of Passover by the Jews over the centuries, all the way up to the time of Christ. All the way up to the time of Christ, and the Last Supper was a Passover. The first Passover was a matter of life and death. I think that's one of the things.

This isn't just a, hey, let's have a Passover celebration like we always do. This is the first one, and you better do it right, or somebody's going to end up dead. You've got to do that. All right. So Moses didn't just tell everybody else what to do, and then not keep the Passover himself. He says, I'm going to do this, and you'd better do it too, if you want your firstborn to be living. Instead, he was a good example for the others, in addition to telling them, this is how you're going to do it. Moses believed God about the first Passover. It was not, at that time, a remembrance. This is the real deal. This is the real deal. God will pass over your household, as far as death of the firstborn, because you do these things. It's the real deal, not a remembrance. Now here's Hebrews 11, 29.

By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land. And the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. So the faith was first on the part of Moses, because everybody, all the Israelites, they were panicking. Oh, we're up against the sea and the Egyptians are coming. We're going to get killed. So Moses was the only one who was really showing faith by saying, cool it, calm down, chill, and held his rod over the sea. So first it was Moses who exercised faith.

But even with the sea opening up, if you saw a great big channel appearing in front of you in a big body of water, would you just kind of step into it? Probably not, right? But if you were an Israelite that day and you saw what Moses holding his rod over the water did, and you saw that not only did you have a way of escape, but there were a whole bunch of really nasty Egyptians right behind you, I think you'd have incredible faith, right? And you'd walk between those two walls of water, and you'd say, whoa, this is really something. It's the best aquarium visit you've ever had. Yeah, there's great walls of water on each side. I mean, you don't get any better than that. All right.

And as all the Israelites passed through, that was by faith on their part. So Moses had faith first, and all the Israelites who passed through had faith as well. I'm sure they were worried a little bit, They had faith as well. But for the Egyptians, it was not faith. It was presumption. They thought, oh, well, if the Israelites can go through there, we can too.

But the Egyptians had 700 gods of their own, and one of them was not the Israelites' god. Soon they were to prove all these 700 gods powerless. As the Israelites moved through the sea, And as the Egyptians came rushing in, that was the end. They breathed their last.

Now, something very interesting, in addition to the Hebrews passage, there are a couple of verses in 1 Corinthians 10 which provide an additional insight And it reflects on who the Israelites are and who we are. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into who? Baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. So the Israelites were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. We just looked at that account there.

We in the body of Christ also have an identification or baptism, and that's in Galatians 3, 26-27. For you, Paul is writing to the Galatian believers, Jew and Gentile, you are all sons of God. And by the way, to be a son of in the Bible, if it isn't a physical son, you can take this everywhere you see it. To be a son of in the Bible means to be like in character and close in relationship. Like in character and close in relationship. So when it says here, you are all sons of God, this isn't meant to offend the females among us.

But it means like in character and close in relationship to God through faith in Christ. What? Faith. This is the word we've been talking about here. Through faith in Christ. For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. You have been identified with Him in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. So the Jews were baptized into Moses with the cloud and the sea. at the moment of faith, are baptized into Christ, identified with his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. So let's review here.

By faith, as it applies to the life of Moses, as we see in this passage, Moses' father and mother, Amram and Jochebed, first exercised faith by preserving Moses, first by keeping him in the house, apparently quiet enough until three months old, keeping him in the house, and then by putting him in this pitch-covered basket and floating it on the Nile right near the princess' place where she would come out into the Nile to bathe. So they exercise faith by preserving Moses in those ways. Then Moses exercised faith by refusing, choosing, considering, looking, and leaving.

Those five verbs. It's interesting that faith doesn't just sit there. Refusing, choosing, considering, looking, and leaving. Faith doesn't just sit there. Faith actually does something. Faith is active. And the last of those verbs, refusing, choosing, considering, looking, is he left. He left Egypt. He, that is Moses, exercised faith by believing God about the first Passover. Look, folks, this is not a suggestion. You'd better put the blood on the doorposts and over the top of the doorway. That's not a suggestion or recommendation. Absolutely essential if you want your firstborn to be alive. He exercised faith in what he did and what he conveyed to others. And Moses exercised faith when he held his rod over the sea, as did the Israelites as they walked across. All of those are exercises of faith.

For us, here and now, an exercise of faith is when we walk in fellowship with the Lord and with others in the body of Christ. We exercise faith as we behold the Lord and fellowship with Him through His Word. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for what you have revealed here about faith.

Boy, faith is an amazing thing. But where it's placed matters a lot. We've seen in this account and earlier, we've seen that the Egyptians made a fatal mistake by not putting their faith in you. We see that James Randi is still making a continuing mistake by not putting his faith in you. And we thank you, Lord, that you've revealed these truths to us, not to our credit, but to yours, because you love us and care for us so much. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.