more.” The vain things that charm us most “we must” sacrifice them to His blood.” This world is no friend of grace to help us on to God and we must say goodbye to Egypt if we are going to the Promised Land. Recently after I had preached on this subject, a pastor’s little daughter prayed in family devotions that night using the Lord’s Prayer with this change, “And deliver us from EGYPT” ! We live in a day when it is more and more difficult to say “No” . We work both sides of the street, run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. We are in church on Sunday morning with Moses and all week we are in Egypt with Pharaoh. We would make the most of both worlds. We would work out an arrangement by which we might dwell in the Promised Land and also keep our old connections back in Egypt. Our church rolls are filled with a motley mob stranded in the wilderness, longing -for the fleshpots of the old life, preferring a taste of garlic to a foretaste of glory. Christians need to be called back to the Great Renun ciation: “ If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” Moses was right not only in what he refused but in what he chose, “ choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,” “ the reproach of Christ.” This is foreign language to the average church-goer today. We leave comfortable homes to ride in comfortable cars to sit in comfortable churches to hear comfortable ser mons, — what do we know about the reproach of Christ? We sing :' “ To the old rugged cross I will ever be true, Its shame and reproach gladly bear.” Then we fold up the reproach in the hymn-book and go out with not the faintest idea of what we have been singing about. We read, “ Let us go unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach” but what are the afflic tions of the people of God and what is the reproach of Christ? Certainly not our ordinary troubles to which everybody is heir. We are not bearing our cross every time we have a headache; an aspirin tablet will take care of that. What is meant is the trouble we would not have if we were not Christians, the trouble we have because of our identification with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. We don’t hear much about cross-bearing these days. Some people wouldn’t join church if they thought it cost anything to be a Chris tian so now we talk about how much fun you can have in a de luxe country-club Christianity. The former pas tor of the church where I belong says that less than a hundred years ago the members of this church were ridiculed and its pastor hissed as he walked along the street. We know nothing of that nowadays and it is not because times are better. We are a weaker breed of Christians who know nothing of the scandal o f the croSs. A dedicated New Testament Christian will suf fer scorn and opposition, will be an odd number, a stranger in the eyes of this godless generation, for “all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer perse cution.”
We commonly think that life’s major decisions are made by older people but actually the three greatest choices anyone can make are decided upon usually by young people before they reach their middle twenties. The salvation of thè soul, the choice o f a life work and a life companion : these are life’s greatest decisions and usually young people make them. When one makes that first choice and trusts Christ, it is all-inclusive; all other decisions are wrapped up in it. We read that Moses “ESTEEMED the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” He made a survey, took stock, added up all the facts on both sides and made his decision. He looked at Egypt’s best and Israel’s worst and cast his lot with the people of God. Furthermore “ he had respect unto the recom pense of the reward.” He looked into the future and saw not a nation of slaves but the kingdom that was to be, not only under David and Solomon, but that greater kingdom when Christ should reign over a restored Israel. When we choose our crowd, we should do it with the long view. God’s true people are not much to look at now, but their day is coming. They suffer now and reign later ; they bear the cross now and wear the crown hereafter. You don’t hear much about that in our prosperous, popular, modem Christianity but this is New Testament Christianity and it is what Moses saw by the telescope of faith in his day. His contemporaries may have said, “ That Hebrew is crazy,” but here I am, centuries later, writing about Moses. He lost his life to save it. He went down to go up. He staked his for tunes on eternity instead of Egypt and he won. Finally, along with his PERSONAL CHOICE there was PERSEVERING CONTINUANCE: “He endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.” When he first tried to deliver Israel, “he looked this way and that way” (Ex. 2:12). He was cross-eyed and nobody ever accomplished much for God looking two ways. He tried to kill the Egyptians on the retail plan, one at a time, but after his post-graduate course in Midian he looked only one way and having chosen the imperishable, he saw the invisible and did the impossible. Like Paul, he was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision and, like Paul, he could have said, “ This one thing I do.” From then on all of him was headed in one direction so that his life came to a point like a sword and not like a broom ending in a multitude of straws. Moses made his choice and so must we. He said “No” to Egypt and “Yes” to God and so should we. For us as with him it is the sufferings of God’s people or the pleasures of sin for a season, the reproach of Christ or the treasures in Egypt. No man can have both. Mod ern youth needs to face squarely this “ either, or” deci sion in a day when exponents of “ neither, nor” Chris tianity would produce a new variety with loyalty divided between Egypt and Canaan. We need a new breed who are willing to be the scum of the earth and a spectacle to the world for the scandal of the cross.
SEPTEMBER, 1964
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