Every Picture Tells a Story (Part 2 of 2)

Replace to the surgeon required you to leave behind a secure and comfortable lifestyle on the Scriptures contain remarkable stories that help us picture individuals who had to make decisions just like that, and who stood out as a result of their faith in God today on Truth for Life. Alister Ben continues to study in Hebrews chapter 11 as we focus our attention on Jacob and Moses. The next picture quickly.

Jacob and his grandsons.

You can see this in Genesis 48. He has the boys on his knees and then he takes the boys off his knees and then they bow down before him. It is a wonderful scene.

He's now an old man, but if you could paint this picture you would paint this old man when you and somebody would save you now. Make sure you get his staff in there. Make sure you get that thing that he's always caddying around with because he had with him. In Genesis 32 when he crossed the Jordan and make sure you get something of the picture of his blessing is that where graphically descending upon these his grandson. What a wonderful blessing to be a grandpa and bless his grandchildren what a wonderful privilege to have had such a grandfather.

Some of your children here this morning and you go to grandpa's house. You make memories and if in the grace and providence of God that I memories like this in your environment then you will one day be thankful. Even if today you wonder we gotta keep moving, next portrayed was stop and look at Joseph and his bones, Joseph and his bones. By faith Joseph, verse 22 when his end was near.

Can read of this in Genesis chapter 50 Joseph spoke about the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and give instructions about his bones. Why does he mention this way mention this because it's within his purpose. The people of God were buffeted they were getting ever smaller number. It would seem they were saying to themselves.

I wonder if there is a future, and so he says listen, there's a future Abram says there is. Isaac says there is Jacob says risk and there is a future as well. Joseph says so because those people were trapped, those people could see no way I had and Joseph said God will take you up and when he takes you out. Make sure you take me up, so don't put me in a very elaborate tomb here in Egypt which I could obviously have but just keep my bones in the box. So in the years to come. The people would ask why the bones in the box and they said the bones are the bugs because were going to the promised land and Joseph wanted us to be reminded of and he reckoned that by his faith. He would speak in this way, you perhaps recall our studies then we talked about preparing for death. Let's pause for a moment before this. These five pictures of Moses, which begin in verse 23. First of all, we have Moses in a basket. That's the first picture. If you read the record in Exodus 2, it's clear that the basket closed the door in an open basket where he was lying, looking up at the stars, but was a close basket because it says that they opened the basket and saw actually you could do a picture not of Moses in a basket, but of Moses in a cupboard because when you read in Exodus 2 it says that his mom and dad sequestered them away and kept him out of sight hidden for three months and when they could no longer hide him for three months. Then he put them in a basket and put in diamond by the bulrushes.

It's a great story. If you haven't read it for a while.

I am rated I have it in my mind for Sunday school, but I reread it and I I was just walking up and down. I was so jazzed by such an amazing story. If you think about it, the king says it needs establishes a meeting ground all the Hebrew boys keep the Hebrew girls so they have a baby that is Amram Amram and Jekyll bed. Unfortunate names, but nevertheless these this Mr. Mrs. have a baby and they look on this boy and there's just a stamp of something on a month so that he thinks is you gotta kill them drown and they said forget that when we going to keep and work even in height, so the Heideman for three months he managed to keep them in the house. Then it put them in the basket, put them in the bulrushes send his big sister cannot stand around the bulrushes while Moses is in the basket she stand around the bulrushes down from the big entourage out of the Egyptian head and suddenly she's in the company of Pharaoh's daughter Pharaoh's daughter pokes her nose around the basket. Find the boy says oh I like to take him home with me. Quick as a flash, the big sister says hey, how about this how I get a Hebrew woman to not send officers Pharaoh's daughter that suspended idea. So she runs home gets Moses literally mother to be his nursemaid.

She looks after Marines and gets into the position where he needs to be. Then he goes into the custody of Pharaoh's daughter.

God is so good as he takes care of all the details, baskets and cupboards and bulrushes and mothers and sisters and stepbrothers and all these things under his control, lying awake in your bed, worrying about everything, tossing and turning, trying to replay the video of the last 12 months the last 12 years. The next six months. Whatever might be over like where light on what will happen. Listen, ask, lie on the floor and ranks in the fact that your father knows best. He moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform the deceit of Jacob Jacobs: deceit is in the unfolding this strange experience in the bulrushes part of his practice.

That's the first little picture that we have and it is a picture not Moses faith but the faith of his mom and dad. That is a reminder in passing how important it is for us as young families to establish the parameters for our kids in such a way that they grow up with this kind of history you just bump one picture down and you find another one of Moses. Now all these years of past now is about 40 years old he say my looks handsome. There does he not because this is Moses in a midlife decision. We could see a midlife crisis. But that's just cute. It's a midlife decision. Verse 24 when he grown up.

He refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. What's that all about what was an act of faith. What was the act of faith the active faith was this that here now and in Pharaoh's establishment.

He had everything that represented security to outside of the precincts of Pharaoh's establishment. There was nothing that represented security.

There was only obscurity.

There was only emptiness, there was only impoverishment there was only slavery would encourage young man to make such a crazy decision from an athlete respect. Why would somebody give up so much to embrace so little.

The answer is because he really he realized that he could not identify himself with the Israelites and also with the Egyptians at one and the same time. It is a fixed principle love once we cannot be the friends of the world and the friends of God one and the same time. That's what James said he had that from his brother Jesus and those of us who are trying to play that middle course know how empty and futile. It really is because we are neither happy as a friend of the world, nor are we happy in the company of God's friends, because when a walking contradiction and Moses now in the maturity of his life makes a radical decision. The kind of radical decision that some who are here today need to make because your background is relatively similar to Moses you are nurtured by mom and dad who loved you and cared for you they gave you the foundations of faith. The protected you. They provided for you and for years you have lived boy and doesn't wear on the faith of the surrounding family experience but now you're your own man. Now you're your own girl now you're mature and you're at that point in your life where you have to determine for yourself what is your choice.

I want to live as a friend of the world to live as a friend of God I don't live by the world standards life of the world's jokes employ the world's methodology are you going to do what is absolutely crazy to your non-Christian friends and that is take your stand with Jesus Christ go absolutely against the flow.

Nail your colors to the mast.

See, I don't care who knows this is my life. From this point on.

I am thankful for my past, but this is my day and this is my time and this is my decision. See there are many people who continue to believe that they can have a private faith in Christ in God. Without any public confession that he can come to church, a sort of private believers.

They have a car you know they never show it to anybody. There's no identification. They just privately believe they never tell anyone.

They never professing their unprepared to be baptized. They never made much of it they never never verbalized of faith. Let me tell you something. The chances are you're not a Christian. The strongest chances you do not believe because the same Holy Spirit who implants faith with in a life implants boldness to verbalize that faith and when I do not verbalize my commitment and declare my choice and make public my confession. I call in question.

All of this private stuff that I long to and myself. What is Romans 10 nine safe if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

How about your public confession. It's not enough that people simply and fair that we are Christians that we are believers, because to the witness of our lives. There needs to be added. The testimony of our lips. When you plant bulbs. If you plant a good bald nice flowers you plan and then bulb you can you plant the ball of faith in the life of an individual you get a confession of faith and Moses when he had grown up said, here it is. I'm with these guys choose you this day whom you will serve, said Joshua. But as for me and my house, I will serve the Lord. The remaining three pictures with just glance at because you have Moses and a basket of Moses with a midlife decision, then you have Moses opting for treasure versus pleasure. Versus 25 and 26 Egypt offered him social status, physical satisfaction, material gain. He could have reasoned that by remaining in Pharaoh's court he would be able to exercise an influence on behalf of the people of God that he would never be able to do if he went and joined himself to them. However, he renounces his privileges of Egyptian citizenship.

He identifies with this crummy little group that has no political rights or tall he chooses ill-treatment and he chooses disgrace were tolled for the sake of Christ in much the same way that the mighty apostle Paul who had all the right kind of background, the law degrees in all the kind of sophisticated pageantry that marked his life said all this stuff. I counted us down for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ is like stuff that comes out of a horse that you try and avoid when you go to the to the parade of the circus.

I pretty graphic and fight and get a little more graphic but I won't say it was kind of okay. I decided just to move into the side of my plate. He said I would even stand.

I will even get near that's what I viewed and that's what this kind. People looked at her and said you know what you got it made you a great family background is ideal. We went in there were Pharaoh's daughter. I got a big chariot, big house, big stuff. The chance are you going to the head guy in Egypt stay there so I can stay there. Why because I can be a friend of Egyptians and a friend of the Israelites the same time I because the Egyptians are killing the Israelites on either a slave with my people are not apostate. What is the problem and in Hebrews apostasy. People who were saying they were one thing and living as there is another he says I can't say that I am an Israelite live as an Egyptian I can say that I'm a believer live as a nonbeliever because if I do that I call in question the profession of faith that I make when you stand and look at that portrayed you understand Moses in verse 27 FOR the invisible, rather than the visible. I don't how would paint that, but he left Egypt were told in verse 27 whether this is a reference to them going into the wilderness in Midian after he killed the Egyptian or whether it is that the historical think it's a little ahead of itself here and this is a reference to the Exodus is not as significant as the fact is that he persevered because he saw him who was invisible. In other words, he gave up the immediate for the ultimate. He recognized as Paul says that we set our eyes to Corinthians 4 not in the things that are seen but in things that are unseen for the things that are seen are temporary to the things that are unseen or permanent as the hardest lesson for me to learn that is the hardest thing to learn because everything that we see, touch, handle, and no seems to be that which we should have and which makes a significant and Paul says that is the most insignificant part of it all the stuff you can see and all the things that Moses could see.

He turned his back on and finally, in verse 28. We have a picture of Moses standing underneath the bloodstained door Moses underneath the bloodstained door. I don't have time to go back to Exodus 12 and to recount with you there. The story of the Passover is a most amazing story. Moses is sent to sell tell Pharaoh let my people go.

Moses responds. You will recall in the wilderness by saying I have a brother who is really good at this kind of stuff. God system who made your mouth was that okay I have a point. And then he begins to go to Pharaoh every time the play comes Pharaoh backs off every time the playbacks off. Pharaoh changed his mind again and eventually it comes to the plate of death of the firstborn in God comes to Moses and he says is what I want you to do Moses I want you to get a lamb without blemish. This will be costly for many families, but I want you to do it. I want you to bear the cost and I want you to pay attention to the instructions. I want you to kill the land when you take the blood and put it in a bowl. I want you to get a bunch of his salt. Dip it in the bowl.

Take that take the hiss of and sprinkle the lintels of the door with blood design very plausible challenge the intellect a little sound ridiculous, and then when the angel of death comes, we will see which houses have the blood on the doors and that Angel will pass over those homes in the firstborn will not die, but those who will not put the blood on the doors, the firstborn will die now do it Moses. Moses said fine. Consider it done besets the Passover, the angel of death comes and passes over when God fulfills his word to his servant. Could Moses make sense of the promise a particularly could he understand the command without quest and here we are in anticipation of this evening Jesus as I want to let you know that in this bread that I break and in this cup that I pour is to remind you of the way in which by my dad. I have liberated you from the bondage of your sin. It will remind you of the way my people came out of Israel many years ago and it will allow you to anticipate the future today. People look at the picture and they say you've got to be crazy.

You telling me to believe as a result of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God that there is forgiveness for my sin. Surely there's a better way I can do it. Surely I can give some money here are become a faithful servant. There are perhaps I can become diligent in religious or what all these other things. Give me a decent sensible way and then I will believe there is no other way. The only way in Egypt was the way of the bloodstained door and the only way in Cleveland this morning is the way of a bloodstained cross and it is by faith, by faith, can I ask you just imagine now the continuum of this portrait Gallery in Hebrews 11 and God is added to it all done through the corridors of time, another face here and another face that is your face is your face in the group is the law sure I didn't get an individual one with a light on the top of it. No.

I is a dead certainty. But I'll tell you what, I'll settle for find in my face with a magnifying glass in a huge big group and when I find my face.

I will be able to rehearse nothing on that which I brought to the gallery, but only to rehearse all of the grace of the master artist who paints the picture. According to this plan and incidentally it's not like the church directory which gets obsolete before it's even produced is not like the church directory where you located and say all they're gone they're gone. Once you get your picture in and never goes, why because God is faithful, say but I made a hash of it. I understand that God is faithful. I'm a doubting Thomas. I understand that God is faithful. You know what I been manipulated by my mother I be horrible to my father and I'm really jealous of my brother say you know what you could have your picture right up beside Jacob.

The two of you are just the same. Don't let the devil tell you that you can get your face in the gallery or one scarred by his grace, put your picture on the wall that somehow or another he's going to take it off again. He who began a wonderful portrayed of your life will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ because he is faithful God.

It is because of God's faithfulness that we can be permanent members of Christ's family assuring promise from today's message on Truth for Life with Alister Greg, please keep listening. Alister will be right back to close with prayer. In the meantime, just a reminder that if you're benefiting from the messages you hear in this series you want to supplement your study with a book or recommending it's written by Nancy Guthrie called God does his best work with empty each chapter explores stories from the Bible to demonstrate how God uses suffering and disappointment and loss. To draw people to himself. These stories reveal how God weans us from worldly cravings and replaces them with the hope of the gospel.

This isn't up self-help book with a to do list that tells you how to achieve satisfaction. It is instead a reminder of who God is and what he's done that shows how his promises. Give our lives meaning. Discover how God through his presence, his grace and his kindness redeems us from our emptiness and provides us with purpose and faith, and joy. Requester copy of God does his best work with empty today will send it to you when you donate to support the Bible teaching you hear on this program.

Give through the app or give online a Truth for Life.org/donate or call 888-588-7884 can also mail your donation along with your request for the book right to Truth for Life at PO Box 39000, Cleveland, OH 44139 and we want to remind you if you're traveling and unable to listen to your local radio station, you can easily find Truth for Life on the radio when you're on the road. Visit Truth for Life.org/station finder type in the ZIP Code you will be traveling and then you'll see a list of stations and broadcast times in your area so you can hear Alister any time you're away from home. Now here's Alister to close with prayer father out of all of these words. I pray that you will encourage those who follow you that you will pick up the fainthearted, strengthen the weak knees. I pray for those who are living with the idea of the kind of private faith, secret discipleship pray that you will show is that either are discipleship will destroy our secrecy, our secrecy will call in question are discipleship. Some of his need to make choices, decisions about where we stand. Grandest grace to do so. Thank you for the pardon for our sins for the peace that endures for your presence that cheers and guides us. Thank you Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Esau chose Moses and our God.

Thank you. In Jesus name on from Bob Lapine. Thanks for listing.

How do you pray when your faith has faltered or failed tomorrow will hear how God responded to his people when they began to complain and join us tomorrow.

The Bible teaching of Alister Greg is furnished by truth for lying where the Learning is for Living