This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Faith for the Family.
Hebrews 11 talks about champions of faith. Perhaps you have never heard the names of two of them: Amram and Jochebed, Moses’ parents. (See Exodus 6:20, Hebrews 11:23.)
Parents of faith are the most influential, powerful people on Earth. Consider four things about faith for the family:
First, there is faith’s vision. Amram and Jochebed were both of the tribe of Levi, people of great faith, students of the Word of God. They saw that Moses was “a beautiful child.” (See Hebrews 11:23.) They knew God had prophesied that Israel would come out of Egypt after 400 years. The clock had been ticking, and now a leader was needed. Two things engendered faith in Amram and Jochebed: one, the written Word of God; two, the Spirit of God who spoke to their hearts and said, “This is the child.”
Can you control the destiny of your children? No, but you can certainly influence their destiny. Can you believe God on behalf of your children? Not only can you; you must.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). One of the keys to understanding this verse is the word way. It is a Hebrew word that means something like a bend in a bow. Every child has a bent to a particular thing. It is our duty and joy to discover that bent.
Do not see your child as a block of unsculptured granite and imagine that you can chisel out of him what you will. Instead, try to determine what gifts God has put into that unique person.
Whoever he or she is, say, “My child is a gift from God—and oh, God, give me the faith that Amram and Jochebed had to see a destiny for my child.”
Second, there is faith’s valor. Pharaoh had commanded that all the Hebrew baby boys be drowned in the Nile. (See Exodus 1:22.)
“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command” (Hebrews 11:23). It was a dangerous time for Amram and Jochebed. But they were not afraid, because they realized their battle was not primarily with Pharaoh—it was a spiritual battle. (See Ephesians 6:12.)
A spiritual battle can be fought and won by faith. Parents, put fear out of your life and say, “By faith we are going to raise this child for Jesus in these dangerous days.”
Think about what dangerous days these are:
Why were Amram and Jochebed unafraid of the king’s commandment? Because they knew the King of kings. You will not raise your children as you ought unless you have the faith they had.
Third, there is faith’s venture. “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). True faith is belief with legs on it.
Amram and Jochebed hid their child from Pharaoh’s henchmen. (See Exodus 2:2, Hebrews 11:23.) They were not fatalists—“Whatever will be, will be. Just let it happen.” They weren’t fanatics—“Just throw him in the Nile and let God take care of him.” They did something.
It is your duty to train up the child. Political correctness is against that; the world thinks you are interfering with a little child’s life.
Political correctness: Don’t spank the child; that’s child abuse. God’s Word: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15).
Political correctness: Just give your daughters birth control pills.
God’s Word: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).
Political correctness: The government partners with the parents.
God’s Word: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3).
Political correctness: Let your children choose their own sexual preference.
God’s Word: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).
Are you training, coaching your children? Do you have them in a Bible-believing church? You have to pray, teach, plead, and show by example.
Faith honors God, and God honors faith. The Bible tells us that after Amram and Jochebed could no longer hide the baby, they made a little boat out of bulrushes and put it in the River Nile.
The princess, Pharaoh’s daughter, went to the river and saw Moses in the basket. Moses cried, and her maternal heart melted.
Moses’ sister, Miriam, stepped up and said, “If it please the princess, I can get one of the Hebrew women to nurse this child for you.”
The princess said, “Do it.”
Miriam told her mother, “You’re going to get little Moses back!” (See Exodus 2:1-8.) How Jochebed must have poured her heart and prayers into little Moses. When you obey God, He will move in and do something wonderful.
Fourth, there is faith’s victory. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. (See 1 John 5:4.)
“By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:24-27).
That is, Moses caught a glimpse of Jesus, and he endured. Moses was faced with tremendous temptation. But Jochebed had put into Moses’ heart something that a secular university could not take away. Now he was being offered a choice. On the one hand was everything royalty could provide—pleasures, treasures, power. If he turned his back on it, he would face the wrath of the king, but he would have the treasures of Jesus.
How did Moses make this decision?
If your children don’t have that, if there is no evaluation, there will be no determination, no elimination, and Egypt will have them.
But you can be parents of faith—faith’s vision, faith’s valor, and faith’s venture will lead to faith’s victory.
