On one occasion, Dr. Mortimer Adler suddenly left a discussion group at a tea quite disgusted, slamming the door after him. Someone in the group, trying to relieve the tension, remarked, “Well, he's gone.”
To which the hostess replied, “No, he isn't. That's a closet!” (Myron S. Augsburger, “When Reason Fails” Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 9; www.PreachingToday.com)
How often do we do the same thing when we try to run from God? We end up confined to ourselves, and that’s not a good place to be. When you feel like running from God, the best thing to do is move closer to Him, but how can we as sinful, human beings get close to a holy God? How can we as rebellious people relate to a righteous God? How can fouled up people like us ever hope to be God’s friends?
Well, that was the conundrum God’s people faced in the Old Testament. God had no sooner told them, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), when less than 40 days later they are worshipping a golden calf. Moses tried to cover for their sin, but God says, “No; everyone must die for his or her own sin.”
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 33, Exodus 33, where we pick up the story and see how such sinful people can get close to a holy God.
Exodus 33:1-3 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”(NIV)
That’s a very real…
PROBLEM: If sinful people get close to a holy God, they could die!
God’s holy, righteous wrath would blaze out against their sin, and they would be burned to a crisp. So God refuses to go with His people to the Promised Land lest He kill them for their stubborn, willful disobedience along the way. How do the people respond? Look at verse 4.
Exodus 33:4-6 When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.’ ” So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb. (NIV)
The removal of their ornaments (or jewelry) is an outward sign of mourning. They’re depressed that God won’t go with them, but they’re also demonstrating their willingness to turn from idols to the True and Living God. You remember: their ornaments had been used to make the golden calf. Later, they will use these same ornaments to make vessels for the tabernacle (Exodus 35:22). This is a godly sorrow that for now has led to true repentance, but God still wants to put some distance between Him and them lest they sin again and He destroy them.
It was a problem for God’s people in Moses’ day, and t’s still a problem for us today. Our sin separates us from a holy God, whose justice demands that our sin be punished.
Now, that’s hard for us to swallow, because most people today have a shallow view of sin. For many of us, it’s no big deal, certainly not worthy of divine wrath.
David Head took a traditional public confession of sin found in the Book of Common Prayer and rewrote it as a satire to reflect the contemporary mindset. Here’s how a lot of people, if they’re so inclined to confess any sin at all, might pray today.
“Benevolent and easy-going Parent: We have occasionally had some minor errors of judgment, but they're not really our fault. Due to forces beyond our control, we have sometimes failed to act in accordance with our own best interests. Under the circumstances, we did the best we could. We are glad to say that we're doing okay, perhaps even slightly above average. Be your own sweet Self with those who know they are not perfect. Grant us that we may continue to live a harmless and happy life and keep our self-respect. And we ask all these things according to the unlimited tolerances which we have a right to expect from you. Amen. (Adapted from David Head, He Sent Leanness, Macmillan, 1959, p. 19; www.PreachingToday.com)
Isn’t that ridiculous? And yet that’s our contemporary view of sin. “It’s no big deal, and God is tolerant anyway.” Well, nothing could be further from the truth. God’s holy wrath burns against our sin, so He keeps His distance lest He destroy us. Our sin separates us from a Holy God, but there is the…
POTENTIAL of a close relationship with God.
We can become friends of God like Moses did.
Exodus 33:7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. (NIV)
It’s outside the camp, because God can no longer be among His people.
Exodus 33:8-11 And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. (NIV)
Now, this tent was not the tabernacle, which has yet to be built, so Moses meets with God in a much smaller tent. And God speaks with Moses face to face, clearly and openly, personally and intimately, as a friend.
In contrast to God’s strained relationship to Israel, Moses is identified as a “friend” of God, and that’s possible for everyone one of us. In John 15, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:13-15). God, the Son, desires intimacy with His followers, sharing the secrets of the Trinity with them.
It’s like the relationship the Grahams developed with Jim Bakker after he was released from prison. You remember: Jim Bakker was the televangelist who in the late 80’s was tried and convicted of accounting fraud. That’s after a sex scandal forced him to resign from his ministry. Well, years later, Bakker spoke of the events that occurred immediately after his release from prison. Here’s what he said:
“When I was transferred to my last prison, Franklin [Graham] said he wanted to help me out when I got out – with a job, a house to live in, and a car. It was my fifth Christmas in prison. I thought it over and said, “Franklin, you can't do this. It will hurt you. The Grahams don't need my baggage.” He looked at me and he said, “Jim, you were my friend in the past and you are my friend now. If anyone doesn't like it, I'm looking for a fight.”
“So when I got out of prison,” Bakker said, “the Grahams sponsored me and paid for a house for me to live in and gave me a car to drive. The first Sunday out, Ruth Graham called the halfway house I was living in at the Salvation Army and asked permission for me to go to the Montreat Presbyterian Church with her that Sunday morning. When I got there, the pastor welcomed me and sat me with the Graham family… The organ began playing and the place was full except for a seat next to me. Then the doors opened and in walked Ruth Graham. She walked down that aisle and sat next to inmate 07407-058. I had only been out of prison 48 hours, but she told the world that morning that Jim Bakker was her friend. (“The Re-education of Jim Bakker,” Christianity Today, 12-7-98; www.PreachingToday.com)
The Graham’s are friends of a notorious sinner! And Christ Himself is a friend of sinners! But how? How can sinful, human people get close to a Holy God? Well, let’s see how Moses did it. Look at the way he talks to God, starting in verse 12
Exodus 33:12-13 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 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.” (NIV)
Moses appeals to God not on the basis of His justice, but on the basis of His grace. That’s because Justice demands punishment for sin, but Grace is favor extended even if it is undeserved. And three times the Old Testament word for grace is found in these two verses – twice it is translated “favor,” and once it is translated “pleased.” It’s not something that Moses earned by his good behavior, no! In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, grace is favor that God extends unexpectedly even when it is not deserved.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
We are saved not on the basis of what we have done. We are saved on the basis of God’s grace, his favor, freely extended to all who put their faith in Him.
That’s the only appeal Moses had. Moses couldn’t say to God, “Please go with us because we deserve it.” No! The only thing he could say was, “Lord, be gracious to us who don’t deserve it.” And how does God reply to that?
Exodus 33:14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (NIV)
Moses appealed to God’s grace, and that’s what we must do if we want to get close to God. If we want God to go with us, we too must…
APPEAL TO HIS GRACE.
We must plead for mercy. We must beg for undeserved favor.
Like Moses, 1st of all, let’s pray that God in His grace would show us His path, that God in His grace would teach us his ways. That’s Moses’ specific request in verse 13: “Teach me your ways,” he pleads. This is an acknowledgement that he doesn’t know God’s ways, that he is morally bankrupt when it comes to knowing and doing God’s will.
Moses appeals to God on the basis of his own need, and that’s how we must appeal to God. We must appeal to God on the basis of our own need, recognizing our own sinfulness, begging God to put us on the right path. The problem comes when we don’t acknowledge we have a problem.
Florence Foster Jenkins, a soprano, loved to sing – especially the great operatic classics. She inherited money when she was in her 50s, which funded her musical career. It wasn't long before her popularity skyrocketed, holding annual recitals at the Ritz-Carlton in New York throughout the 1930s and 40s. But as one writer puts it, “History agrees, with hands held over its ears, that she couldn't sing for sour apples. Jenkins' nickname, behind her back, was ‘the Tone-Deaf Diva’ or ‘The Terror of the High C's.’” The writer adds that if you ever hear one of her old recordings, all that you'll hear will be “squeaks, squawks, and barks” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtf2Q4yyuJ0).
Now, get this: Florence Foster Jenkins didn't ever grasp that she was bad! When people laughed and hooted as she sang, she took it to be delirious enthusiasm for great music. She thought they loved her and her music.
In 1944, when she was 76-years-old, she did a benefit concert for the armed forces at Carnegie Hall in New York. Thousands lined the streets to get tickets, and the performance sold out in minutes. The recording of that concert is still the third most requested album from Carnegie Hall recordings, punctuated by a painful rendition of “Ave Maria.” (Doug George, “Florence Foster Jenkins: She played Carnegie Hall and she really couldn't sing a note?” Chicago Tribune, 11-20-09; www.PreachingToday.com)
If you don’t know you’re bad, you won’t get any help. So the first step in getting help from God, is acknowledging that we indeed need that help, that we don’t know His ways and desperately need Him to show us the way. Pray that God in His grace would show us His path.
Then 2nd, pray that God in His grace would go with us along that path, that He would not leave us alone, but walk with us along the way. That’s what Moses begs God for.
Exodus 33:15-17 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 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.” (NIV)
Literally, because you have found GRACE in my sight. God says, “I will go with you not because you deserve it, but because of my grace.”
Moses pleads for God’s presence, and that’s what we must do if we want to get close to a holy God. We must plead for God’s presence more than anything else.
In his book, The Pressure's Off, psychologist Larry Crabb tells a story from his childhood that illustrates our need for God’s presence more than anything else. He writes:
“One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.
“Then it was time to leave. I couldn't unlock the door. I tried with every ounce of my three-year-old strength, but I couldn't do it. I panicked. I felt again like a very little boy as the thought went through my head, ‘I might spend the rest of my life in this bathroom.’
“My parents – and likely the neighbors – heard my desperate scream.
“‘Are you okay?’ Mother shouted through the door she couldn't open from the outside. ‘Did you fall? Have you hit your head?’
“‘I can't unlock the door!’ I yelled. ‘Get me out of here!’”
Larry Crab says, “I wasn't aware of it right then, but Dad raced down the stairs, ran to the garage to find the ladder, hauled it off the hooks, and leaned it against the side of the house just beneath the bedroom window. With adult strength, he pried it open, then climbed into my prison, walked past me, and with that same strength, turned the lock and opened the door.
“‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said – and ran out to play.”
Then Larry Crab makes this point: “That's how I thought the Christian life was supposed to work. When I get stuck in a tight place, I should do all I can to free myself. When I can't, I should pray. Then God shows up. He hears my cry – ‘Get me out of here! I want to play!’ – and unlocks the door to the blessings I desire.
“Sometimes he does,” Crab says. “But now, no longer three years old and approaching sixty, I'm realizing the Christian life doesn't work that way. And I wonder, are any of us content with God? Do we even like him when he doesn't open the door we most want opened – when a marriage doesn't heal, when rebellious kids still rebel, when friends betray, when financial reverses threaten our comfortable way of life, when the prospect of terrorism looms, when health worsens despite much prayer, when loneliness intensifies and depression deepens, when ministries die?
“God has climbed through the small window into my dark room. But he doesn't walk by me to turn the lock that I couldn't budge. Instead, he sits down on the bathroom floor and says, ‘Come sit with me!’ He seems to think that climbing into the room to be with me matters more than letting me out to play. (Larry Crabb, The Pressure's Off, WaterBrook Press, 2002; pp. 222-223; www.PreachingToday.com)
Let me tell you: that’s all we really need. More than anything else, we just need God to be with us. So if we want to get close to a holy God, like Moses, we must appeal to God’s grace. 1st, Pray that God in His grace would show us His path. 2nd, Pray that God in His grace would grant us His presence.
And 3rd, pray that God in His grace would reveal to us His person, that God in His grace would show Himself in all His glory, that God in His grace would display to us who He really is. That’s what Moses asks for.
Exodus 33:18-23 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” (NIV)
No man can see God fully revealed in all His glory and live. One commentator said, “As our bodily eye is dazzled, and its power of vision destroyed, by looking directly at the brightness of the sun, so would our whole nature be destroyed by an unveiled sight of the brilliancy of the glory of God” (Keil-Delitzsch).
Just a couple years ago (July 2010), Paul Crowther, professor of astrophysics from the University of Sheffield's Department of Physics and Astronomy, announced that he and his research team had discovered a star they described as the brightest star ever found in the universe. The mass of the star is roughly 265 times that of our sun, but its brightness is some 10 million times greater than the light coming from our sun!
Think about that: The star, currently named R136a1, is not twice as bright as our sun, which would be overwhelming in itself. It is not just 10 times brighter, which is a light so bright we can hardly imagine it. It is not a hundred times brighter or a thousand times brighter than our sun. It is not a million times brighter! This newly identified star is ten million times brighter than our sun! (Michael Sheridan, “Scientists find what may be universe's heaviest star, R136a1,” New York Daily News, 7-21-10; www.PreachingToday.com)
You couldn’t even look at it with a welder’s helmet on, no! To look at it would mean instant death! Well, the God who made that star is infinitely brighter than the brightest star, and to look on Him in all his glory would utterly destroy you. So God tells Moses, “You will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” In other words, Moses was allowed to see only what remained after God passed by, the afterglow of God’s glory, the results of God’s divine presence, not God’s person Himself.
It was impossible for any man to see God at any time until Christ came along. John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:1,14,18).
Before Christ, no one could see God, but now in Christ God Himself is fully known. Jesus Himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
So if you want to get close to God, get close to Jesus, who died for your sins and rose again; get close to Jesus, who is full of grace and truth; get close to Jesus, who makes the Father fully known.
How can sinful, human people get close to a holy God? We can do it only if we appeal to His grace. 1st, pray that God in His grace would show us His path. 2nd, pray that God in His grace would grant us His presence. And 3rd, pray that God in His grace would reveal to us His person, which He has already done in Jesus Christ, His Son.
Sinclair Ferguson, in his book Deserted by God, shares the story of the first physician to die of the AIDS in the United Kingdom. He was a young Christian, who had contracted AIDS while doing medical research in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In the last days of his life, his power of communication failed. He struggled with increasing difficulty to express his thoughts to his wife. On one occasion she simply could not understand his message. He wrote on a note pad the letter J. She ran through her medical dictionary, saying various words beginning with J. None was right. Then she said, “Jesus?”
That was the right word. He was with them, and that was all either of them needed to know. (Sinclair Ferguson, Deserted by God? Banner of Truth, 1993, p. 51; www.PreachingToday.com)
And that’s all we need to know. Just get close to Jesus, and you will get close to God.
