God our Rock in a Hard Place
Exodus 33: 1 - 23
Consider the Context
• Moses in a 1 to 1 meeting with the Lord, how amazing, just after the golden calf incident, the smashing of the first tablets of stone with the ten commandments written by God on both sides of them (would n’t you just want to see these!)
• Aarons shame after being led up the wrong path by the people and trying to lie his way out of the hole (I put the gold in the fire and this calf came out, just like that..) and 3,000 put to death as Moses tries to restore order to the people
• Have you ever had one of those meetings with the boss or even the CEO when one of your projects has gone over budget still years from completion and no obvious end game in sight, these are classified as Career Defining moments
• I’ve had a few, so did Moses also known as refinement your friends will tell you unless of course it happens to them then it’s a trial
• The Lord is grieved with the rebellion and the stiff necked attitude of the Israelites, Moses had just stepped into the breach for them, God offered to wipe them out and start again and let Moses lead this new people
• Moses pleaded and made the case to persist with them, God relented (as he wanted to do) and loved Moses heart, God knew this mans heart and loved it. This is an amazing relationship going on here between God and Moses against the backdrop of rebellion and sin
• Hebrews 3: 15 - 19"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."
Consider the text
• The Lord does not want to go with the Israelites as he might destroy them, tells them to strip off their ornaments and the Israelites mourn that his presence would not go with them
• Remember the gold and precious things the Egyptians gave the Israelites on their way out of Egypt, this was their back pay for the hundreds of years of slavery and service,
• Ex 3 "And I will make the Egyptians favourably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed”
• Now they had used this blessing and promise from God, for make false idols and separate themselves from their God
• Remember you become like that you worship, what sits on the throne of your heart today?
• Due to their idolatry and sin, these people were now faced with life without the presence of God it does not get worse than that, call it hell it would be for me
• Consider the text again, all the tribes of Israel and Moses are back at mount Horeb, the scene of the burning bush all those years, all those wonders, all those miracles, all the pain, all the hardship and still their hard hearts and wrong attitudes led them back to the starting place were they ever going to make it?
• No spiritual progress at all, more of a corporate backsliding in reality
How fortunate we are
• We who have homes, electricity, water on tap, available food, computers with internet access, cars, schools, not living in an active combat zone and healthcare are part of the privileged top 10% of the total global population, that’s right the top 10% even the so called least of us easily passes the grade
• Yet for all our apparent blessings is our society and country rich morally are we a fragrant offering to the Lord or more of a stench on occasion
• Are not many of our fellow citizens following the idolatrous ways not dissimilar to these stiff necked and rebellious people who have grieved God so much in the text we read?
• Things are changing all around us at an ever increasing pace. Sin is no longer considered sin. Wrong is no longer wrong.
• But the motto of the day is do what pleases you, its all about me see. The words in Isaiah “woe to those who call good evil and evil good” fall on death ears and self pleasure seeking hearts
• If you were God looking at our nation at the people around us, at us what do you think he would think?
• I can tell you he is in pain, the pain of a parent wanting his children home, wanting to find a way to make new relationships to share his love and blessing freely, he is a God of Love what else could he do but love
• He so loved the world he sent his son Jesus to pay the price for us all
• Remember and never forget that God has never allowed the creation of a human being that he did not want and yearn to love, God made us for his glory, we should live to glorify God that’s really what were here for
• We all know the terrible reality as it is probably very close to home, so close it hurts to think of members of our own families who have yet to know Gods love and walk in relationship with him
• For those of us who have confessed Jesus Christ is lord! Do we truly even appreciate how blessed we are to have the way open to God by his son Jesus
• Will we step into the gap, will we go and talk with the Father for our loved ones and those we know don’t know the Lord, will we be like Moses for them or better yet be Jesus for them, if we don’t then who will?
• For heavens sake never ever get smug in your Christian walk, never get comfortable being in church
• It is not meant to be like some glorified business class lounge separated from those economy types waiting for the flight to heaven from earth
• We are not meant to be separated from the world were are meant to be out there in the midst of it all trying to get 100% confessing Jesus is Lord, bringing the Jesus who lives in us to those who need him the most living the kingdoms way
• Until then we are really between a rock and a hard place!
• Or should I say how fortunate we are to have a rock like God in this hard place!
The tent of meeting (Verses 7 – 11)
• A tent pitched outside the camp, again a sign to the Israelites that they were unworthy of the presence of God in their midst, that their sin had polluted their relationship with the Lord
• Consider do your family, neighbours and friends watch you go to the tent of meeting your church, do they look for difference in you something as a result of a divine impartation or encounter, something that will resonate with their emptiness, make them want and seek that that gives you a fullness a “right” ness that has to be from God and not man, that endures
• Do they see what you worship or do you return to the camp veiled, hiding the light that is in you?
• How wonderful for Moses to be able to converse with God as a man does with his neighbour, face to face as a man speaks with a friend
• Just imagine it. Perhaps this comes as no surprise to you, you do it anyway, for others you might never have experienced such intimacy with God
• If you have given your life to Jesus Christ, confessed that he is Lord of all in your life, you can have such a relationship, you can come into the presence of the almighty God, you can speak to him, you can hear his word, you can live in God and God will live in you as you are sealed forever in the Holy Spirit, marked for eternity
• Could you imagine what it must have been like to listen in on the conversations between God and Moses, what did they talk about for how long did they share
• Well consider Joshua son of Nun, I would love to swap places with him even for a day and hour a few minutes while the Lord and Moses conversed
• Then when Moses left, Joshua stayed in the tent to protect it against any forced entry, but also perhaps to linger in the presence of the Lord. Perhaps being prepared for the time when he would lead this nation of stiff necked and rebellious people
• If Moses came out face aglow, just think of Joshua he would have been like a neon light radiant and sun like, he would shine!
Moses the Intercessor (Verses 12 – 17)
• Here Moses is acting in a Christ like way, he was a being like Christ the great intercessor, whom the Father will listen to always
• Moses pleads with God to grant his presence with Israel in the rest of their march to Canaan
• Moses was passionate and direct while always respecting the sovereignty of God
• This is the Moses who at the burning bush asked not to be sent to Egypt as he said in (Exodus 4: 10 – 13)
Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it."
• That same Moses now ordered this arguments and constructed the case
• He reminds God that he sent him and commissioned him, He reminds God of his position with him “I know you by name and you have found favor with me” and “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people”
• The Lord replied "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
• Moses persisted, he asked for things that the Father was pleased to give, Moses wanted people to see that he and the nation Israel were marked by God
• And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
• The power of prayer, the power of an intercessor changing the fate of a nation through communion with the almighty sovereign Lord God, who loves his children, loves hearts that burn for him and men and women who walk his paths and his ways in faith.
The Glory of the Lord (Verses 18 – 23)
• This is the Wow moment, this is the peak this is the pinnacle of Love a defining moment for Moses and Israel
• God has just more or less told Moses to ask for what ever he wants to ask and Moses replies with the greatest request man can ever utter Moses said, "Now show me your glory.“
• Some commentaries state that this was also an act of weakness on Moses part, that if he was strong he would have walked by faith and not by sight, perhaps he asked as proof of the Lords favour toward Israel, I don’t believe that this was an act of Love
• Moses had lately been in the mount with God, had continued there a great while, and had enjoyed as intimate a communion with God as ever any man had on this side heaven; and yet he is still desiring a further acquaintance.
• Moses had wonderfully prevailed with God for one favor after another, and the success of his prayers emboldened him to go on still to seek God; the more he had the more he asked
• So God told Moses "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
• Moses would get to hear the Lord pass by, hear his voice pronounce that he is the Lord, sovereign of all, that “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” and Moses could then see the back of the Lord as he passed by.
• We cannot be said to look at God, but rather to look after him for it is said we see through a glass darkly. When we see what God has done in his works, observe the goings of our God, our King, we see (as it were) his back-parts
• Now Moses was allowed to see only the back-parts; but long afterwards, when he was a witness to Christ’s transfiguration, he saw his face shine as the sun
• The lesson here is if we learn from the revelation God will give us if we ask concerning himself, concerning Jesus and the Holy spirit, God will reveal more of himself to us while we are here in this mortal existence, a brighter and more glorious scene will shortly be opened to us, ask and you shall receive
Finally Consider
• Jesus brings the new covenant, eternal and glorious
• We who are in Christ should live un-veiled lives showing those around us that we are transformed with ever increasing glory
• Pray for all those you know who are yet to be Christians
• Pray to see Gods glory today that his presence will mark you out
• Pray that you worship him and him alone ask the Holy Spirit to guide and bind you to Jesus, stand firm on his rock.
• Trust in God seek our sovereign redeemer as he moves across this earth, let his glory be reflected in your faces and attitudes this day and for heavens sake shine for Jesus, those in the darkness need to find that light, help guide them home!
