Hebrews 11:24

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Like parents, like son! It is now shown that the faith of Amram and Jochebed was contained and carried forward in the life of Moses. Significantly, the first great act of Moses' faith came in the form of an astounding refusal.

ROYAL REFUSALS

There are four royal persons in the Bible each of whom made a notable refusal, these being Moses, David, Daniel, and Jesus. Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; David refused Saul's armor (1 Samuel 17:39); Daniel refused the king's meat (Daniel 1:8) and Jesus refused the popular efforts to make him an earthly king (John 6:15).

Are these the four great refusals in history? Due to the conditions surrounding each of these great crisis decisions, and to the epic results that flowed out of each one of them, they must be hailed as decisive victories of the human soul over temptation, making them stand forever as inspirational examples of the Christian who, in the probation of life, often finds the dreadful difficulty of saying, "No"! Each of the four refusals noted here was made by a young man in the vigor of life, and each involved a rejection of royalty. Moses rejected the royal adoption, David the royal armor, Daniel the royal table and Jesus the royal crown.

From the human viewpoint, how unthinkable is what Moses did! He must indeed have loved the gentle daughter of Pharaoh who had rescued him as an infant from the terrible death by drowning in the great river and then had brought him up as her own child; and it must have cut squarely across every instinct he had to reject her, to refuse her loving affection, and to accept the scorn and hatred of them who had clothed and fed and educated him, to say nothing of the sacrifice of all the wealth, honor, power, and glory that would have come to him, and which accompanied his status as the heir presumptive to the throne of Egypt. His decision, therefore, is impossible to understand, except on the basis of what is said here, that it was "by faith" that he did so. This means that God communicated to Moses the desire and command that Moses should make the great refusal. It is an act of nearly incredible faith that he did it.

Profound lessons come from a study of these refusals. Christians too must forbear the world's adoption and must not be fashioned according to the world (Romans 12:2); they must not understand the world as other than evil (1 John 5:19), nor allow themselves to be spotted by it (James 1:27), nor be enamored with its wisdom (1 Corinthians 3:19), nor love it (1 John 2:15), nor become a friend of it (James 4:4), for the world is crucified unto Christians (Galatians 6:14). The world's adoption must be rejected by them that would receive the "adoption of sons" through Jesus Christ (Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:5).

Like David, Christians should reject the armor of this world, preferring "the whole armor of God" (Ephesians 6:14); like Daniel, they should reject the world's dainty fare, and like Jesus, any crown the world might offer, preferring the "incorruptible" crown (1 Corinthians 9:25), the "crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8), the crown "of glory" (1 Peter 5:4), and the "crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).