The Lord may graciously help
me. I return your prayerful attention this evening to Exodus chapter
33 and reading verse 13 for a text. Although I do want to go through
this prayer of Moses as he pleads on behalf of Israel. for the
blessing to God and how graciously that prayer was answered and
he gained his objective. Exodus 33 and verse 13. Now therefore I pray thee if
I have found grace in thy sight show me now thy way that I may
know thee that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that
this nation is thy people. Exodus 33 and verse 13. I hinted before we had our reading
that Moses had here a tremendous shock Moses had been 40 days
up in the mount receiving all how Israel was going to organize
its worship, how the tabernacle was going to be made, the furniture
of the tabernacle, how Aaron was to be consecrated into the
position of the high priest. And Moses no doubt was coming
down from that mount thinking of how he would pass on this
information to the Israelites and how he would put all this
into motion so that Israel would be a God-centred, God-worshipping
people. And he starts travelling down
the mount and realises that there was a golden calf. They were
worshipping this golden calf, dancing around it, seems naked
some of them. everything opposite to what the
true worship of God should be. And interestingly Aaron, who
was to be the new, the first ever high priest in Israel's
line, was very involved, in fact seemed to be the main person
who was responsible for allowing this to take place. It was a
tremendous shock for Moses, a tremendous sadness, no doubt. But you see here, often Moses
is portrayed as representing the law. And if Moses had just
represented the law, then Moses would say, you've sinned, and
that's it. But Moses stood in the breach. He pleaded on behalf
of Israel. This shows so much of the Gospel
in the Old Testament as well as in the New. And the fact that
Aaron did become the High Priest, what a mercy. The ringleader,
the one who allowed this golden calf to be built and did these
great wickedness, he still became the first High Priest. Is it not similar in the New
Testament when Peter was that one who was denying his Lord
with oaths and curses? He was the one that was appointed
to preach the Gospel at Pentecost. And you see here that God uses
those to be a blessing and a preach his truth, not that are angels,
but that have obtained mercy themselves. They've experienced
that mercy and they're to speak of that mercy to others. And
so here we have Aaron doing the opposite to what Moses knew that
he should do. And Moses then comes and says
in verse 30 of Exodus 32, Ye have sinned a great sin, and
now I will go up unto the Lord. Peradventure I shall make an
atonement for sin. Moses was one that was a type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said there should be one like
unto me that would come, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here you see
he said, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
The greater than Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ did not go to Calvary
saying, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
He went to Calvary with that work that he would complete.
He did make atonement for our sin. But so much preciousness
in Moses' desire and concern, Moses returned unto the Lord
and said, this is verse 31, oh, that this people have sinned
a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if they
will forgive their sin, merciful. And then there's a dash. And
if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast
written. How Christlike was that. Christ, as it were, had the sin
of his people put on him. He bore the curse that his people
should go free. Obviously, Moses was but a man.
He could not do that. But his desire was Christ-like
in that sense. He would be willing to bear the
punishment of Israel. That's how much Moses loved the
people. God says that an angel should
go before thee and that's repeated again in chapter 33 and the Lord
said unto Moses depart and go up hence and the thou and the
people which thou has brought up out of the land of Egypt unto
the land which I swear unto Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob saying
unto thy seed will I give it and I will send an angel before
thee and I will drive out and then he says all the uh the the
tribes that he's going to drive out, the Canaanite, the Amorite,
and the Hittite, and so on, unto a land flowing with milk and
honey, for I will not go up in the midst of thee. For thou art
a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. Now for Moses this was a tremendous
blow. God had said, that he wasn't
going with them. They got to this Mount Sinai
and no, he wasn't going with them anymore. Just an angel,
but God wasn't going with them anymore. And here I see God sometimes
tests his people. Like he did Abraham to offer
up Isaac. It was a test. He didn't actually
offer up Isaac. You think of Jacob when he was
wrestling with that at Peniel, there wrestled an angel with
him, and he said, let me go for the day breaketh. The angel said
that, and Jacob said, I will not let thee go, except thou
bless me. There's an impetuneness. There
was not a willingness to take no for an answer. And you might
think this is rudeness or not being humble before God, but
no, there was, God honors this when there is a unwillingness,
as it were, to take no, because we're so desperate to have what
we need, and in a good way. You think of the woman of Cana.
She came to the Lord Jesus, and she wanted her daughter to be
healed. But he didn't answer her word.
And then when he did answer, he said, I'm not sent to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then he said it was not,
but she came and worshipped him. And then it seemed that he was
pushing her away. But she kept coming. And he said,
it's not meat to give the food, the children's bread, and to
give it to dogs. And she said, truth, Lord, but the dogs eat
from the crumbs that fall from the master's table. She was willing
to be a dog. She was willing, as it were,
to be called that, that she may have those crumbs from the master's
table. And Jesus said to her, great
is thy faith. Be it unto thee as thou wilt. You see, he blessed her because
she would not take no. Just one other example. When
the two were on the road to Emmaus, and their hearts had burned within
them on that road as Jesus drew near and went with them and preached
Christ in all the Old Testament, how they all pointed to a suffering
savior. When they got to Emmaus, what
does Jesus do? And why did he do it? He made
as if he would go further. Why did he do that? He made us
if he was carrying on. But we read, and they constrained
him, and said, it is toward evening. The day is far spent. Abide with
us. Don't go on. You see, they could
have said, well, he needs to go on. Just let him go on. But
no, you see, they wanted him that much. They constrained him. And you see, he then came and
there was such a blessing, wasn't it, to them. And so there's an
encouragement here that we, and I think if you look at what we
have here, God says, for I will not go up in the midst of thee.
But through Moses' prayer and pleading with God, Moses reversed
that. And what a blessing that was
for Israel. And so it's a great blessing that when we have these
things that we covet earnestly the best gifts. You see in this
chapter 33 we have a repentance I believe of the people. in verse
4, and when the people heard these evil tidings they mourned
and no man put on his garments. They stripped themselves of their
jewels. And then we read that the tent of the tabernacle, now
this is not the tabernacle that Moses received the information
from because he'd just come down the mountain, they hadn't built
that yet. This was the tabernacle of meeting they used to have.
And that was, we read, that was put outside the camp. The camp
had been involved in all this evil, but the tent of meeting
was put outside the camp and Moses went out to it. Of course
we, in Christ's day, the centre of worship was meant to be Jerusalem,
but when the temple and all that was so opposed to Christ, we
read, let us therefore go unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach. But ultimately in glory, Christ
is not without the camp. Christ, the lamb as he has been
slain, is the centerpiece of glory. But here we have that
Moses went without the camp, we read. And he went to make
intercession. He went to plead to God. And
it seems that all Israel was looking as they came with repentance. You see, this is so important,
repentance and faith. They're two vital parts. Repentance
without faith will not get you to heaven. Judas
had repentance. He said, I have betrayed innocent
blood. He gave the money back, the 30 pieces of silver. But
he had no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He went and hung himself. But you see, Israel here, they
had repentance. and faith. They looked to Moses
that he would that he would commune with God and he would be able
to be that mediator between a holy God. This one that visited them
on Mount Silo. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. See, I mentioned in prayer, but
it's a tremendous thing that God is both holy, holy, holy. And yet he's also merciful. So you might think somebody who's
not so interested in holiness can be much more lenient to sin.
But God is intrinsically holy. Holy, holy, holy, and yet he's
merciful to sinners. And how can that be? Because
he's dealt with their sin at Calvary. Because that handwriting
that was written against them because of their sin He's taken
it unto himself, nailing it to his cross. And so there is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, not because
he's lowered the standard of righteousness, but because he's
taken the penalty that that righteousness, or sorry, that sin deserved.
And so it's a great blessing when we realize the nature of
our God. So that's a little introduction,
really. But we come then to what we've named as a text. Well,
this prayer that Moses comes to God with. And Moses, this
is verse 12 of chapter 33. And Moses said unto the Lord,
See thou sayest unto me, bring up this people. You see, he's
pleading what God has told him. God told him to bring Israel
out of Egypt, you see. And Moses is going back and pleading
it. But you see, God had brought Moses this far and then said,
now you're going to go on your own. You've got to go with an
angel before you. And Moses said, no, I'm not going. I'm not. You see, he says this
in verse 15. He basically says, I am not going
to the promised land without thy presence. He said unto him,
if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. He doesn't
want to go. You say, Moses, look, there's
an angel going with you. It's a land flowing with milk
and honey. Does it really matter whether God's with you or an
angel? Moses said, I need my God. You see, Moses wanted his
God. He needed forgiveness. He needed
mercy. He wanted God to go with him. And he didn't want any land
flowing with milk and honey. He'd come from Egypt. He had
the luxury of everything in Egypt without his God, as it were.
He wanted to have God with him. And for Moses, this was something
that he would not budge. And it's sometimes good when
the Lord's people get to a state where they will not budge. Ruth,
with her mother-in-law saying, go back to Moab, go back to the
idol worship, or go back to be, I hope you get on well back in
Moab, or in the house of your husband. And Ruth says, no. Ruth
was very, polite to Naomi and a lovely girl, but on this point
she put her foot down. No, she would not do this. Entreat
me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee. Don't
encourage me to go back. And you see here God honours
these things and God honoured Moses. God honored the two on
the road to Emmaus. God honored the woman of Cana.
God honored Jacob. He blessed him there at Peniel. And so, you see, we are to To
wrestle for the blessing and not to take no for an answer
not to say well if he does bless or doesn't bless Well, it's not
much difference No, Moses was not like that and Moses said
unto the Lord see thou sayest unto me bring up this people
and thou'st not let me know whom thou would send with me yet thou
said I know thee by name now found grace in thy sight and
Now I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight. You see,
he turns it back. He pleads, he argues with God
as it were. He uses godly arguments. He takes
what God has says and then uses logic back on that. If I have
found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way. You see, God had showed all this worship
that they were going to do with this temple and with Aaron, but
now it had all come to a tremendous consternation with this golden
calf and sadly 3,000 of them dying. But he says, show me now thy
way, God's way. How is God going to deal with
this? How can ever Israel be a holy people when they carry
on like this? Show me now thy way. And the
wonder is that there is a way that God has made whereby sinners
can be made nigh by the blood of Christ. There is a way. Moses said, show me that way.
Show me now thy way. And how we need that in our pathways,
that we may know the way that we should go in the uncertainty,
and there's massive uncertainty, God was talking of destroying
all of Israel. God said, let me alone, I'll
destroy Israel. I'll make of you a great nation.
And Moses wasn't interested. He didn't want a great Moses.
He wanted a God that was honored for bringing that people out
of Egypt. That's what he wanted. That's what he knew that would
be for the honor and glory. He wasn't in it for himself.
Moses wasn't in it for his own name. He never was. He was a
humble man. And he was so greatly used of
God, but he was humble. And he was willing to have his
name blotted out for the good of Israel. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way. But what is the end result of
showing me thy way? That I may know thee. This is
the great end, you see. It's not showing me thy way so
just I can prosper in an earthly sense, although it can involve
that of course, but that I may know thee and that I may find
grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is thy people.
You see God had told Moses to bring up his people out of the
land of Egypt and yet If you look at the beginning of chapter
33, it's almost that they're Moses' people, not God's people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, depart and go up hence, thou
and the people which thou hast brought out of Egypt. It's Moses,
it's your people. Moses says, no, no. I want to be leading thy people,
not my people, thy people. And I want you to come with me.
I want you to be my God. And if you don't come with me,
I'm not going. I'm staying here at Sinai. I'm not going. I'm
not going to that land of milk and honey if I don't have the
presence of God with me. Can you see there was a boldness,
not an arrogance, but a boldness. I will not go. Just like Jacob,
I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And God honored
this. God did not reprove Moses for
this praying. He blessed him. Now therefore
I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now
thy way, that I may know thee. You see, that was the great prayer
of the apostle in Philippians 3, verse 10, that I may know
thee and the power, that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection. The same, Moses in the Old Testament, Paul in
the New Testament. And who knew more of Christ?
Well, we read. I think I preach from here, actually,
that there was no greater prophet in the Old Testament than Moses,
who knew so much. And yet Moses was the one that
said that I may know him. And in the New Testament, who
was one of the greatest people that knew about Christ? It was
Paul the Apostle. And yet he says that I may know
him. This is the great desire. And you see, that's why we constantly
have to grow in grace. We must grow in grace. not to
stagnate, not to say, well, I know all that is to be known about
being a Christian. It's a terribly foolish thing
to say. It's so wrong. Moses that knew so much, he said
that I may know thee. The Apostle Paul that knew so
much and preached so much, that understood so much of the Old
Testament and all the sacrifices and how that brought forth Christ.
Yet he says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection,
being made conformable unto his death. That I may find grace
in thy sight and consider that this nation is thy people. That's
what Moses is saying. I'm not bringing up my own people.
I want to bring thy people, God's people. And I want God to be
their God. A humble boldness. And he said
in verse 14, my presence shall go with thee. You see in verse
three it says I will not go within the midst of thee. But you see
God did. And how he tries our faith. And
Moses could have said well God said he's not going with me so
he's not going with me and I'll just go with the best I can.
Moses didn't say that. You see we are to be seeking
for those real blessings and not content with something less. We are to say we must have Christ.
Give me Christ or else I die. One of the hymn writers picks
that up. Hear my never ceasing cry. Give me Christ or else I
die. I can't satisfy for less. I can't just have an angel. That
won't be able to die for me. That won't be able to suffer
for my sins. Give me Christ or else I die. And therefore, And
he said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee
rest. And then Moses turns it round and then says, and he said
unto him, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up
hence. We'll stay in the wilderness.
We'll stay in this place of barrenness rather than go to a land of milk
and honey without God. Would you say that in your lives? Would you rather stay in a difficult
situation, knowing that the Lord is with you in that situation,
or go to some much better place, but not with the presence of
God with you? What would you choose? Would
you choose like Moses, rather to suffer affliction with the
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season? And what a short season that
was. However long Moses would have lived in Egypt, His time
has long since gone. All the pleasures, the sinful
pleasures that he would have enjoyed in Pharaoh's palace are
long gone. But now you see he's enjoying
something far greater. He's with his savior. He despised
the riches of the land of Egypt for greater riches, for greater
riches for the Lord Jesus himself. And he wasn't now. going to give
up. You see, God's people have to
keep pressing on. It's not just a case of once
in their lifetime, as it were, choosing to be a child of God
or seeking the Lord and finding Him and that's the one step that
they did in their life and that's the end. We're daily presented
with choices, daily, hundreds of choices every day. Are we
choosing Christ and his kingdom, or are we choosing the opposite?
Are we followers, or are we going away from him? Well, you see, we come short. Sin is mixed with all we do.
But here we have a pattern of when Israel went wrong, they
had to go back to God. They had to seek for forgiveness.
But then in verse 16, Moses gives, I think, a beautiful description
of what it is to be a Christian. what it is to be a child of God.
And Moses picks up one thing that it is, that separates God's
people from everybody else on the face of the earth. Verse
16 says, and for wherein shall it be known here that I and thy
people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not that thou goest
with us? And that's why Moses was not
prepared to go to the land flowing with milk and honey without God.
Because he said, well, you can have your land flowing with milk
and honey, but if you haven't got God, you haven't got anything.
And you see, so God becomes the most important thing. And Moses
saw that, and he was tenacious. He would not go without it. He said, this is what defines
a Christian. This is what defines God's people,
is that God is with them. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is
it not that thou goest with us? And as a church and people meeting
here and all that are gathered, surely that's what we want, is
the Lord to be with us. Whatever happens, whatever the
economy does, whatever the situation in our families, whatever happens
in our experiences, Whatever happens, is this one thing, the central
desire that you have, that God is with you. Because if he's
with you, it's well. If he's not with you, it's not
well. Whatever the world say, the luxury
that you live in, it'll only be for a short time. If God is
not with you, is a false sense of security. But Moses, in Psalm 27, sorry, it's not
Moses, but in Psalm 27, David says, one thing have I desired
of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty
of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. That's the desire
of a child of God. For wherein it shall be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight, is
it not that thou goest with us? A simple definition of what it
is to be a child of God, that God is with us. And so shall
we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are
upon the face of the earth. And you see, when we don't feel
God's presence with us, when we grieve the Spirit, when we
sin, Like David did. David sinned grievously and he
lost the joy of his salvation. He didn't have that evidence
that God was with him anymore. He lost the joy. But he came with repentance and
prayed, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. And he did
restore it. And then what did David say?
Then I tell transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted
to thee. David was going to use what God
had done for him in restoring him from his great sin, and he
was going to preach to others a precious savior. And that's
the gospel, you see. Gospel preachers, you can look
at them and you say, well, they do this and that and the other
wrong. There's sin in their lives, but God has appointed that those
that preach the gospel have fed from the gospel themselves. That
means they are sinners and they have obtained mercy by God's
grace. And so David could speak with
authority and said, I've been a murderer, I've been an adulterer,
I've been a deceiver, but I obtained mercy. He wasn't proud of the
fact that he'd been those things. I'm sure he loathed it to his
dying day that he'd fallen in that way. And yet he used it
to show the mercy of God in Christ, so that none could say, I'm too
far. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is
it not that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth. That's the mark that Moses gives as the definition of how
do you tell, as it were, the true people of God from everybody
else? God is with them. So if God is not with us, we
have no evidence that we're the child of God. And when we feel
that, we're to go back to God with repentance. David lost it. He lost the joy of his salvation.
It's good he did. Otherwise he'd have carried on
in his ungodly ways, but he came back to God. God brought him
back. God sent the Nathan and convinced
him of his sin. Well, in verse 17, we have, and
the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou
hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know
thee by name. God is saying, Moses, yes, your
prayer has been granted, I will go with Israel. And God did go
with Israel, didn't he? But you see here the impertunate
prayer of Moses. He would not take no for an answer.
He stuck to this absolute principle. If I'm going, I'm going with
God. And if God is not going with
me, I am not going. It's very simple, really. Very simple. But then, if I can just look
at verse 18. You see, if you had God with
you all the time, you might say, well, it's just a familiarity,
there's not a respect. But here you see Moses, after
God said he's gonna go with him, he wants to go one further. And
he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. He doesn't just
want God with him, He wants to appreciate something of God's
glory. We're not to have God with us
so that he's just on an equal with us, just our pal. We have
God with us that we may behold his glory. And then we realize
what it is to have that one with us. I beseech thee, show me thy
glory. This is what Moses prayed. And
interestingly, this, Psalm 90, of course, is written by Moses.
And he says, let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. He hadn't lost sight of that
in Psalm 91. He wanted to see the glory of
God. We want God with us, but we want
to see his glory. You see, if we say, oh yes, God's
with us, Now let's talk about something else. No, the glory
of God. This was the great aim. To know
his glory, to talk of his works. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty
of the Lord our God be upon us. And establish thou the work of
our hands. Yea, the work of our hands establish
thou it. That's what Moses wanted. He
wanted these things for Israel. He wanted it for their children.
And you say, well, what a lovely prayer that Moses prayed, but
was it answered? Well, you go into Joshua, the
book of Joshua, and you find that Israel served God all the
days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua,
which were Moses' children, the next generation. Israel did serve
the Lord. Moses' prayers were answered.
Sadly then later on they turned away from God. But you see Moses
was one who interceded for his people. He loved his God. He wanted to see God's glory.
And then God said he would show him his glory. So coming back to our text. Now
therefore I pray thee If I have found grace in thy sight, show
me now thy way. This is what we want. God's way.
God's way in our lives. That way which will be a blessing.
That way which will have his presence with us. That way, and
there may be these things coming to our lives that are there,
you might say, oh it's very providential, this happened to me, or this
opportunity happened to me. Well it may be, but it may not
be. You see, you could say it was very providential that when
they got to Emmaus that Jesus needed to go on, very providential.
The two on Emmaus didn't see it as providential. They saw
it as something they wanted, that one who had blessed them
in their souls to be with them for the evening. They didn't
know who he was, they didn't recognise that he was a saviour.
They recognized, they didn't know who he was, he was a stranger
that had preached Christ to them, and they loved him. They loved
him for it. And they wanted that one to be
with them. And you see, that's what we need in our lives. We
can't just drift along and just say, well, this came into my
life and that, it may have done, but we're to try these things.
God sometimes puts things into our lives. Moses, I can make
of you a great nation. You might say, oh, that's very
nice. Thank you very much. I'd like to be a great nation
myself. Thank you very much. Providential. But Moses says,
no. What will the enemies say? That
you brought the children of Israel out of Egypt and they will be
perishing in the wilderness. And what will that do with thy
great name? Moses was concerned, you see,
for the glory of God. and things may come into your
life, you young people. Oh, it's profitential, there's
a job here, you can go there and get great lots of money. Is there a church there? Is the
Lord's blessing there? Is there a place where you can
have time to be with the Lord there? Will it be a good for
your soul? It's a wonderful opportunity.
Well, Moses would say, if thy presence Go not with me, carry
me not up hence. I don't want to go. Whatever
the job offer, whatever the great tinsel glory that Satan manages
to show it in, if it isn't with the Lord's presence and with
his blessing and with his approbation, I don't want to go. If thy presence go not with me,
carry us not up hence. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way. God's way. God's way. And what
is God's way? To humble us. To prove us. To see what was in our heart.
whether we should obey the Lord our God or no. God leads his
people to bring them to look for a city whose builder and
maker is God. Moses appeared on that Mount
of Transfiguration and spoke with Christ about the decease
that he would accomplish at Jerusalem. He was looking to the Savior,
looking to what Christ would do. Moses was focused on that,
not on building another pyramid with another load of gold in
it. That wasn't what he was looking for. That's what the world would
tell you is great. More pyramids, more gold, more
assets. Moses wasn't interested in that.
He wanted God with him. It's in one sense Moses did have
a great asset. So if you think of all the children
of Israel and all that wealth they had, but it wasn't what
he was in for. He was in to serving the Lord
and to have God with him, to be where God wanted him to be.
That was what Moses wanted. Show me now thy way that I may
know thee. That's where God's way brings
his people. All things work together for
good to them that love God. to those who are called according
to his purpose, to be made conformable to his image. And I don't believe,
if you think of your life, and you, if you had no difficulties
in your life, no troubles came into your life, nothing to jar
you, nothing, no problems, would you be Christ-like? Would you
be conformed to the image of Christ? I don't think we would
be. But as the Lord sends those difficulties,
and He's in control of every one of them, all things work
together for good to them that love God, to make them conform
to the image of His Son, to make them appreciate Him, and to make
them desire to be like Him. You see, If you really look up,
it's that natural, isn't it? You get people that these celebrities
and people look up to them and so impressed with what they do
and they want to be like them. They want to imitate them. But often that's not a good thing.
But here you see it's like that to be with, we look up to the
Lord Jesus and we want to imitate him in a way of the moon as a
reflection of the sun. And may we, by God's grace, each
be moons that reflect the sun, Christ, the son of righteousness. Amen.