By faith

[AI translation] According to our Bible reading guide, these days we are reading in the Old Testament the stories that were the subject of a series of sermons in this church just a year ago. By reading the sacred stories daily, we can relive in our souls the glorious facts and testimonies of God's saving grace, through which He accomplishes His predestined will through every obstacle, and accomplishes His saving plan step by step. The passage now read, in which the birth and childhood of Moses are described, is the starting-point and overture of all these great events. In two short words, all that we read about here can be contained. These two words are: by faith.By faith, Moses is born, by faith his parents hide him for three months, by faith they put him on the Nile, by faith a whole series of miracles are performed. Here it all happens in the faith that God is sovereign Lord, whose eternal plan has no obstacles, only means, to its fulfilment. The world looks down on faith because it does not regard it as real enough, as something that can be used in practical life. It thinks that it applies only to such intangible and invisible things as the things of the soul and the afterlife. Well, this story shows just how practical faith is, what faith means in the world of earthly realities, what it means to live by faith, to act by faith, to hope, to calculate, to find one's way and to win on earth, in today, in the everyday world.
Even the marriage of Moses' parents is by faith. The last verse of the first part reads, "Pharaoh therefore commanded all his people, saying, 'Every son that is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.'" (Exodus 1:22) Then the second part continues, "And there went a man of the tribe of Levi, and took a Levi girl to wife. And she took her in her womb, and bare her son: and he saw that she was fair, and hid her three months." (Exodus 2:1-2) At a time when Pharaoh, the worldly power, is making life so difficult for the people of God, it is not at all natural that a young man and a young girl should dare to think of marriage, dare to be happy, dare to act as if there were nothing wrong in the world outside, as if everything were going on in perfect order. They do not hang their heads, they do not say that in such a world, with such prospects, it is not worth while to attempt anything, for what does one know of the serious consequences that may follow any undertaking. Nay, on the contrary, when there is every reason not to marry, when the time is least favourable to the founding of a family and the building of a future, when the lord of the world is about to issue a decree that every male child born hereafter shall be put to death, it happens that 'there went forth a man of the tribe of Levi, and took a Levi girl to wife.' This is what it means to live and act by faith, to marry by faith, to dare to be happy by faith, to light and feed a family hearth by faith.
The following verse further highlights the boldness of this faith. It continues, "And the woman conceived in her womb and bore a son." Could a woman in a blessed state have been more unfit at a time than this woman? At a time when the authorities had pronounced the death sentence on all the male children born afterwards? Would it not have been natural, as so many women have done from that time to this day, for much less reason, to kill their children before they were born, for what fate would await the unfortunate one? The short sentence is not so obvious: "And the woman conceived in her womb, and bore a son." It is much more common and natural that even if she conceived in her womb and bore no son, she does everything possible to avoid bearing either a son or a daughter. Do you understand what it means to live and act by faith, what it means to live "by faith" in material life? For example, that whoever bets in the womb gives birth to her unborn child, even if Pharaoh threatens to condemn the newborn to death. So to live by faith is to dare to take on burdens that common sense would say are madness to take the risk, the danger, the suffering, the shame. But to do all this together with God, in covenant, is a thousand times better than to lighten the burdens of life one ounce, or even to turn away from Him, the covenant, the Mighty, the Almighty. This is how faith in God, that most spiritual of things, penetrates, permeates, influences, even such concrete, physical, material facts of life on earth as the birth or the unborn of a child. Or like running a household, or fulfilling one's civic duties, or enduring an illness. This Word exhorts us that those who are in covenant with God through the blood of Christ may dare to live by faith here on earth, to walk by faith, to speak by faith where we must speak, or to listen by faith where we must listen, to serve by faith, to love by faith even our enemies.
One more instruction from our Word for walking and acting in faith comes from the conduct of Moses' parents. We read that they hid him for three months, and when they could hide him no longer, they made a wicker chest, covered it with resin and pitch, put the child in it, and laid him down by the edge of the river, among the locusts. And all this they did in faith. It is even recorded that the mother herself did not stand, like the sister, to see her child's fate from afar, but laid the child down 'on the brink of the river among the locusts', but as it were in the arms of God, and that she left it there was not a manifestation of indifference, but of the greatness of her faith. The mother's faith, as it were, gave way to the Lord, who there revealed Himself in the most sublime manner. The woman did all that was in her power: she hid it, got a box, prepared it with pitch, placed the child in it among the locusts, and when she had done all that God had entrusted to her, she entrusted her child to the Lord. For surely he did not lay the little babe upon the face of the water to be swept away, or devoured by a crocodile, or found by some cruel man who would carry out Pharaoh's decree upon the little new-born. All this was a dreadful possibility, but the woman was expecting something else: she certainly did not know what, but she acted in the belief that God, He would know what would happen. Yes, now, when human reason has stopped, when all human possibilities have closed, now, when there is nowhere else to go. Now - may the will of a merciful God be done!
It's very difficult to let go of something, to let go of something that is precious, and to entrust it to the Lord. Living by faith and acting by faith sometimes means this too. This letting go, this putting something or someone completely into God's hands. Sometimes a believer, when there is nothing he himself can do, entrusts the fate of his child, the healing of his patient, the fate of his people, the future of his Church to the Lord, in such a way that he gives the whole field over to the Lord to act graciously and wisely according to his will. Can you look so much to God for the future, so calmly entrusting everything to Him, waiting for what He will do? To do all that is in your power, and at the same time to say: Lord, Thy will be done?
This woman did not believe in vain, just as he who believes never believes in vain. What has happened here seems to be an illustration of this Word: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in your prayers and supplications always make known your desires to God with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Phil 4,6-7). It's almost fantastic what happened. God, Who can do all things in infinite abundance, has arranged it so that "Pharaoh's daughter went down to bathe in the river, and his handmaidens walked on the bank of the water. And he saw the ark among the locusts, and sent his handmaid and brought it out. And he opened it and saw the child; and behold a boy weeping. And he had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the children of the Hebrews. And his aunt said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call for a woman of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said unto him, Go thy way. So the damsel went, and called the mother of the child. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child, and suckle it for me, and I will give thee thy reward. And the woman took the child and suckled it. And the child grew up, and she took him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became like a son to her, and she called his name Moses, and said: For I have drawn him out of the water." (Exodus 2:5-10) In all this the divine answer was experienced by the faith of that woman, for behold, God was in all things.
The world may say it is a miraculous coincidence, but faith knows very well how much it is not: God. The rationalist, the doubter, the denier may smile at this, - but faith also laughs, only this laugh is quite different. Amazons may smile coldly and contemptuously at the thought: how can God care for such a trifling matter as a crying infant among the locusts, or as a whimsical princess walking on the river bank! But the believer rejoices in his heart that God is present in all things, and sees God's hand at work here too in the fact that his weary daughter, and no other, was passing by at that very moment, for this child had to be brought up in a royal court in order to fulfil the task God had entrusted to her.
The greatest joy of a believer is when he recognizes the hand of God at work in his life. Are you used to, can you evaluate by faith the events that happen to you and around you? Do you search for the traces of God's work where superficial hearts would discover only blind chance or unalterable fate? Sometimes even the most insignificant circumstance is an important link in the chain of events that God is working through in the unfolding of His great plans. Behold, Pharaoh's daughter had not the least thought that she was to co-operate in the purpose and advancement of the God of the Hebrews, and that she was to adopt and bring up the very child by whom God was to shake Egypt to its very foundations! Of course, this is all to be discovered afterwards, how mightily and how wisely God has arranged events. To act in faith, by faith, means that faith can reckon with this in advance, when everything is still dark and hopeless. When you have to leave your precious child on the riverbank: you can already reckon with the power and wisdom of God in the way he has arranged events. Faith does not know in advance what will happen, but it knows that God is the Lord of all events. It is because faith sees beyond the visible, sees and takes into account God, who is greater than all, that a believer can take on burdens, risks and humiliations with such freedom and serenity - that is, act by faith. Oh, how mighty God seems in this Word too!
This story is not about how great the faith of Moses' mother and father was, but how great God is! But in comparison, the cruel Pharaoh is dwarfed and shrunk. Well, what did he want? To exterminate a people whom God had already brought into his covenant long before, centuries before the birth of Pharaoh. Pharaoh imagined that he could prevent the multiplication of a people of whom God had said, "I will bless you, and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and as the vegetation that is on the seashore" (Genesis 22:17). There is almost a certain divine humour in the fact that when Pharaoh issues the decree that all male children are to be thrown into the river, it is then that the man who will be the instrument of God to bring God's judgments on Pharaoh and his kingdom is born - and it is the Pharaoh's daughter who will be saved and brought up in Pharaoh's court. Who was this Pharaoh? A single link in God's plan of many thousands of years. He was needed, needed by the Lord to advance his predestined purpose of salvation towards its realisation. Such - and much more powerful - is God. And it is this mighty God that faith sees when it acts on earth. And this mighty God is seen and known by faith as a covenant God.
Here in the Old Testament, everything was done with a view to unfolding God's great, saving will ever more fully, to ripening the time and the situation for the coming of the Messiah ever more fully. And from the beginning of the New Testament, God is maturing and adjusting history for the return of Christ. God is working to bring about the great plan of salvation through Christ, and everyone who lives is part of this great plan, either in action or in suffering. Those who belong to the covenant are active participants, and those who are outside it are passive participants in the realisation of God's plan. The badge and seal of belonging to God's covenant is the blood of Christ, the holy blood that covers sins, that brings forgiveness of sins, that brings grace. Only those whose lives are under the redeeming blood should look to God as their covenant. But he who has undertaken and accepted eternal life by faith, should also undertake and live - for he may live - "by faith" life on earth.
"By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was pleasant, and they did not fear the king's command. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, protested against being called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, Choosing rather to be oppressed with the people of God, Than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a time; Considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, For he looked to the reward." (Heb 11:23-26) God now says to all his covenant-makers, "Go, and do likewise.
Amen
Date: 6 August 1950.