The Great Riches of Obeying God's Call on My Life

Egyptian King Tut's Gold Death Mask

We are living in a day when most Americans are concerned about how much money they don't have, and other Americans greatly concerned about how to keep the wealth they've accumulated. 

Moses illustrates what it's like for a person to follow God and His will for our lives, deeming God and His call greater riches than all the treasures of this world.

Born 1400 years before Christ, the infant Moses was placed in a basket of bulrushes by his Hebrew parents and set afloat down the Nile River.

The Pharaoh of Egypt had ordered all Hebrew boys killed to cease the population growth of the ethnic Hebrews enslaved in Egypt. Moses' parents had sent their son down the Nile to escape certain death.

When Pharaoh's own daughter found Moses' ark floating in the River Nile, she took the Hebrew baby boy home and raised him as her own son.

Most people know that Moses became the leader of the Hebrew people in their eventual exodus from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan, but few comprehend the privileged and plush childhood and teenage years of Moses.

The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews says:

"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." (Hebrews 11:24-26).

There are two important questions that arise from the Hebrews text:

1, What was the reproach of Christ, particularly since the Messiah (Jesus Christ) had not yet come?

2. What were the treasures of Egypt that paled in comparison to the greater riches of the reproach of Christ?

Answer #1: The concept of the coming Messiah was not foreign to the Hebrews in Moses' day. Oral traditions included declarative statements that Yahweh would send to the Hebrew people a deliverer. As the Hebrews worked as slaves among the Egyptians, the excitement for a coming deliverer would run high.

Moses certainly knew that Yahweh would send a deliverer to His people. The Scripture says Moses spoke with Yahweh "face to face, as one speaks to a friend" (Exodus 33:11).

Where Christians get confused when reading Hebrews 11:23-26 is that the phrase "the reproach of Christ" wrongly capitalizes the Greek word christos. In Greek, there are no capitals. The word "christos" is a title, not a name. It translates the Hebrew word messiah, and it means "savior, leader, or deliverer."

Hebrews 11:24 is not talking about Jesus from Nazareth as THE Messiah, but rather Moses from Egypt. the chosen deliverer of God's people as the messiah.

Moses deemed God's purpose for his life greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

Answer #2:  Moses refused the treasures of Egypt as an adult and identified with God's people (Hebrews) because he deemed God's call on his life to be greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. As the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, Moses would have been considered a noble of Pharaoh's court, a son of the Egyptian king (pharaoh).

What were those treasures of Egypt that paled in comparison to the call of God?

To understand the immense treasures of Egypt and the riches of Egyptian nobility, one needs to look no further than the wealth of the Egyptian King Tut.

Pharaoh Tutankhamun reigned over Egypt a couple of hundred years after Moses. King Tut died when he was only eighteen, and his abbreviated reign came in the declining days of Egypt’s glory. Moses' adoptive grandfather, Pharaoh Ramses, would have been far richer than King Tut.

Explorer Howard Carter, the discoverer of King Tut's tomb, describes his initial view into the ante-chamber (just outside the burial room) which housed many of Tut’s treasures:

[A]s my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold (Rapport and Wright 1964, 195).

Carter was the first man in thousands of years to lay his eyes on some of the treasures of Egypt in Tut's tomb. There were over 5,000 articles of pure gold, including "golden beds, gold-covered chariots, carved walking sticks and bows with inlaid gold, and a throne, encrusted with gold, silver and jewels."

In the Pharaoh's chamber, there were three coffins fashioned in Tut's likeness. The innermost sarcophagus was solid gold and over six feet long. In addition, there were six small gold coffins (fifteen inches high) containing Tut’s internal organs. Each small coffin, if melted down today for the gold, would be worth over a million dollars.

The death mask (pictured above left) weighed twenty-three pounds and was made of gold and inlaid with semiprecious stones; it covered the head and shoulders of the mummy.

The mask was fashioned by goldsmiths just after Tut died, and it represents how Tut looked when he died. The 5,000 articles in Tut's tomb illustrate the ancient Egyptian saying that in Egypt, “gold is as common as dust.”

Prof. E. M. Blaiklock writes of these vast treasures:

If the tomb of a boy king could produce the beauty, wealth, and art which has so astounded the world, what must the palace of really great pharaohs such as Ramses II have been like? (1983, 459).

Indeed. Further, the writer of Hebrews said that Moses turned his back on the riches of Pharaoh Ramses' court "for the reproach of doing what God called him to do." 

Moses deemed it more important to turn his back on the treasures of Egypt, experiencing the scorn and ridicule of his Egyptian peers because God's purpose for his life was more important than the riches of this world.

Next time you get too caught up or bent out of shape over the politics and economics of America, ask yourself if you have helped others experience and enjoy the far greater riches of the Kingdom of Christ and His reign in your life.

Be the person God has called you to be.

Be the mom or dad God has called you to be.

Be the neighbor God has called you to be.

Be...God's...imager...on...earth.

You may be the messiah (deliverer) God uses to free others from their bondage to the things of this world. You'll never regret becoming the image bearer of THE Messiah in a dark world in need of your light.

There are far greater riches in obeying God's call on your life.

That's the lesson of Moses.