Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. So today's sermon, being the
second half of that verse, I've entitled it by the words from
Revelation 22.4. If you want to turn there with
me. Revelation chapter 22 and verse,
we're going to start at verse 1 and read there in Revelation. Listen to these words that Described
to us what we cannot comprehend. It's indescribable in its majesty
and his glory and it's In all the the wonder of heaven, but
here we read it in Revelation 22 1 and he showed me a pure
river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb and And in the midst of
the street of it, and on either side the river, was there the
tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded
her fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse,
but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and
his servants shall serve him. And verse four, And they shall
see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. They shall
see his face. What words are these? They shall
see his face. I think we understand truth in
a high degree by contrasts. We understand, for example, in
part, that we're justified by grace by understanding first
that we're not justified by works. Contrasts sometimes shock us
and humble us when we receive the truth. We understand, for
example, the hurt that we experience when someone that we love and
truly care about does not accept us or does not
give us time or even the time to spend to get to know our thoughts
or to hear our concerns or to listen to us, that hurts us. And there's nothing, I suppose,
that's more dear to us than that open and transparent communication
that comes between us and those that we love, where you feel
that you can just empty out your heart and tell everything that's
concerning you, everything, all your fears, and all of your desires
and have that other person express to you things that they can communicate
that allow you to see they truly understand where you're coming
from. And then they can come alongside you with words of comfort. especially when those words are
the truth of the gospel. I don't think there's anything
on earth that's nearer and dearer than that experience. Sharing
with those you love, those you care about, the deepest and most
intimate thoughts of your heart, and then having them in turn
expose and disclose to you what is on their heart. And so I say
that to bring those two things into contrast. Because in understanding
the contrast, I think we'll understand better what it means when it
says in scripture that the pure in heart shall see God, or hear,
they shall see his face. Because on the one hand, when
we say there's no deeper hurt than to have someone you love
turn their face and turn their back to you and ignore you, or
maybe they don't literally do that, but it appears that they
have done that. And then we also have the contrasting
experience of the greatest peace and comfort in knowing that the
ones we love are able to intercourse with us in communication at the
heart level. I don't think those two things,
those contrasting things, I think help us to understand this verse.
They shall see his face. And so I want to look at this
with you from that perspective. And I want to tell you the story. We sang a song, Tell Me the Old,
Old Story. This story is meant to be an
introduction. But I think it helps us understand
the gospel. I was talking to a brother in
rescue on Friday night. And he's an alcoholic. And this
was his testimony. He said, alcohol controlled my
life for years. He tried to quit, but he couldn't.
He would end up in jail, charges were brought against him, charges
from those that he had hurt. He prayed, he asked God and promised
that if God would deliver him from jail, then he would quit,
quit his alcohol. He was delivered from jail, but
he couldn't quit. It was an enslavement that he
couldn't stop. And then he heard, he would go
to church and he would hear the gospel preached, and he would
often go to church intoxicated. And when he was there, he would
cry because he couldn't be free from this alcohol. He gave his
money, he did good things, but one day he heard that all of
his promises and all of his good works amounted to nothing. His
promises were empty, his works were of no value to God, He needed
God, but God did not need him. And yet, at this point in his
life, as it says in our songs, though it be a cross that raises
me, he opened his heart and he said,
Lord, I cannot quit. Would you save me? And it was
at that point in his life 18 years ago that he was able never
to drink again. And I remembered that verse in
Psalm 50, 15, it says, call upon me, the Lord says, this is a
promise, call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee and thou
shalt glorify me. You see, how do we glorify God? We glorify Him by being the objects
of His saving grace. We would like to glorify Him
by what we do, but sadly, what we do isn't adequate to glorify
God. We can express, we can ascribe
honor and glory to Him in our thoughts and with our words,
but those even fall so far short. But one thing will glorify God
is when we're in deep trouble, and in that trouble, We find
it's all our fault. It's trouble we fear. Trouble
that came upon us because of our sin. And trouble we can't
escape from. And yet the Lord makes Himself
known in that trouble. And when He does, then we glorify
Him. Turn with me to Psalm chapter
80. We're going to look at a few verses here. And these verses
are meant to show us... the cry of one like this man
that I just described to you whom the Lord had saved. All
of us who know the Lord have a testimony regarding what God's
grace means to us. What God's grace means to us. This psalm in Psalm 80 is a prayer. It's a prayer to God It's a prayer
given by God to His people, His wayward people, His straying
sheep. And it's given to them to cry
to the Lord in their distress, in their trouble, trouble that
is all their fault that came upon them, trouble they feared
would come upon them if they departed from the Lord, trouble
they can't get out of, trouble that is of the deepest kind of
trouble And you see here, when you read through this, the cry
that is given to these people is a cry that God has prepared
in advance, anticipating the trouble they would get into by
their own sin. And this gift is given to us
as a prayer. to bring to Him, and in bringing
this gift to Him, we see a cry that comes from their lips that
is the mind and in the will of God for His people. Remember
Romans 8, 26, it says, we know not what we should pray for as
we ought, but the Spirit itself, God's Holy Spirit, makes intercession
for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. In our hearts, God
has given us His own Spirit. And His Spirit knows what the
mind and will of God is. And He intercedes for us, in
us. And God the Son knows what the
mind of the Spirit is. And He searches the hearts and
finds His mind and will, which is the will of God. And He intercedes
in glory, in God's own presence, with His blood. And that intercession
is heard, because it's who it is that intercedes. And what
He has there, His own blood and His own sacrifice. And that He
intercedes according to the Spirit of God in the hearts. And here
we have a prayer. that's just that, articulated in these words that are well-spoken
and truthful words, words that we could never have come up with,
but express the deepest needs of our heart to God as He is
in truth in His saving person and His saving work. Listen to
these words as we read here in Psalm 80, verse 1. Hear the cry, give ear, O shepherd
of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that
dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Who is the shepherd? The Lord is my shepherd, is he
not? Psalm 23, one. Jehovah, God,
is my shepherd. And yet the Lord Jesus says in
John 10, I am the good shepherd. And in 1 Peter 5, four, he's
the chief shepherd. And Hebrews 13, 20, he's the
great shepherd of the sheep. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
shepherd of the sheep. Why did God make him the shepherd
of the sheep? because Christ loved the sheep,
because He laid down His life for the sheep, and because God
the Father knew that entrusting the sheep to His Son, He would
not fail, but bring them all to glory. And so the Spirit of
God works in the midst of trouble, trouble because of sin, and expresses
from the mouths of His people this psalm, and He says, Thou that laid down your life
for these people, you that were appointed by God, anointed by
him, capable and able to save to the uttermost, the one who
seeks his sheep and finds them and brings them to himself, that's
the shepherd. And he says, give ear, O shepherd
of Israel. And then he adds this, Thou that
leadest Joseph like a flock, Joseph. Remember Joseph, he was
the brother that was cast into the pit. He was the one that
God used to save much people alive. He was the one who suffered
for years under false accusations in order to bring his people
out of, into Egypt where they would be safe and then to project
that they would come out of Egypt by promise to the promised land. That Joseph, remember Joseph? These are the people you saved
by Joseph. He says, O shepherd of Israel,
thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between
the cherubims. And what were the cherubims?
The cherubims looked down toward the mercy seat. On the mercy
seat, the blood was sprinkled. God saw the blood. When the cherubims
looked down, He saw the blood covering the mercy seat. And
the mercy seat is nothing less in its fulfillment than the throne
of grace in glory, where the Son of God has entered glory
and offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit. And God sees
His blood. And God not only sees His blood,
He receives sinners on the basis of that blood, but there God
meets with sinners and there in Christ discloses to sinners
who he is and makes himself known. And this is the way they pray.
This is the way they pray according to the will of God. Give ear,
O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock,
thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Shine forth, because unless you
shine forth, we are in the dark. Unless you make yourself known
in Christ, unless you save us by your grace, we are totally
lost and without hope and without help. And so he says in verse
two, before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength
and come and save us. Now Ephraim is a title given
to the ten tribes of Israel. And so Ephraim and Benjamin and
Manasseh, these are all the children of Jacob through his wife Rachel. And they represent that Israel
that was so famous or notorious for their idolatry. He's confessing
now those who were Joseph's seed, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Joseph's
brother Benjamin. Remember Benjamin was the one
that Judah made himself surety to his father Jacob to bring
him back to his father. Representing how God the Father
sent Christ to bring all of his people to himself through his
own blood. And he says, before Ephraim and
Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come and save
us. Thy strength. What is his strength?
Well, look over in Psalm 78, in verse 60. He says in Psalm 78, verse 60,
so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh. It's right in the
middle of the chapter, but he's talking about God forsaking the
tabernacle of Shiloh. And Shiloh was the place where
Samuel, the prophet, ministered. And Shiloh was the place chosen
by God at first for the tabernacle. Shiloh was the capital of those
ten tribes. The ten tribes named as Ephraim,
Benjamin, and Manasseh in sort of a summary fashion. But here
he says that God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent
which He placed among men, and He delivered His strength into
captivity and His glory into the enemy's hand. And then in
Psalm 132, verse 8, He says this about His strength. He says, And these are meant to teach
us something. He says in Psalm 132 verse 8.
He says, Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark of
thy strength. So the ark of God, the tabernacle
that was in Shiloh, that place where Ephraim and all of those
who were named by him, Benjamin, Manasseh, and Joseph's children,
and all the other tribes, but they were all They were all comprised
in that one title given to them, Ephraim. He says that place,
Shiloh, that he forsook where his tabernacle was, his strength.
God says he delivered that strength. That tabernacle pointed to and
represented the power of God in salvation. through the Lord
Jesus Christ. His strength, His power is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He came to save. Let me read
to you from 1 Corinthians 1.24, a very familiar verse. He says
this. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. To them which are called, to
Jews and Greeks, the Lord Jesus Christ is the strength of God. He's the power of God, isn't
he? And so the tabernacle represented that. It represented the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's where the altar was. That's where the holiest of all
was. That's where the blood was sprinkled
on the mercy seat. And in that ark, were the broken
law, Aaron's rod that budded, and the manna. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is that ark in its fulfillment." That's God's strength. And so
the prayer in Psalm 80 is this, Lord, stir up your strength. Stir up your strength. See the
effectual, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His power to
save, and look upon Him, and based upon what you see in Him,
come and save us. Notice the words here, come and
save us. Now, the word come means, Lord,
You come. The people here are in great
trouble in this psalm. And the reason they're in trouble
is for their sin. They forsook the Lord. And because they forsook the
Lord, God forsook them. Remember I talked to you a minute
ago about how the most cherished experiences in our life can be
those relationships where we share intimacy with one another? The people of God forsook God
himself for idols. They took the one who was only
good to them in all of his grace and mercy toward them, saving
them out of Egypt, choosing them for himself, delivering them
from their bondage, and showing himself strong on their behalf,
and they forsook him. They forsook Him, and so God
hid His face from them. And this is what they're praying
out of the context of this. And so He says here in the verse
we just read, in the last part of it, come and save us on the
basis of all that has gone before here, the cherubims and Joseph
and the shepherd and the strength of Israel. Come and save us. When we think about this prayer
to come and save us, sometimes we get in trouble, and we want
to be saved out of our trouble, don't we? And there's no greater
trouble that I know of, that I've experienced in my life,
than the trouble of my sin. There is no greater trouble.
The trouble of my own sin, my own guilt, before God, knowing
that I've sinned against light, and knowledge, and truth, and
grace, knowing that I have treated God as these people have. And you know, sometimes we think
that what we really need is to be delivered from that sin. And
we pray that way. Get me out of this mess. Get
me out of this trouble. Don't let the consequences of
what I've done come upon me. Or deliver me from this sin.
But here the Spirit of God guides their prayers to pray properly.
He says, this is what we are to pray. Lord, You, who are the
shepherd of Israel, you who have saved your people through one
appointed to suffer for them, you who meet with us between
the cherubim, you who stir up your strength in Christ, you
come. Not just the problem that we're
facing now, but you yourself come. You yourself. Nothing less
than the very presence of God. God himself coming to us will
save us. God has to save us. And nothing
will satisfy us unless God himself comes to us. But this is the
contrast we read here. He says in verse 3, Turn us again,
O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Here they admit, We need to be
turned, not just this once, but again. We've been turned before.
We have been with you before. We have shared that intimacy
before, but now we've drifted, we've sliddened back, we've gone
the other way. We need to be turned, and we
realize we cannot turn ourselves. Lord, you come, you save, and
turn us again. Do you see that? Turn us again. What a word is this. How would
he say this? How would he do this? Cause your
face to shine and we shall be saved. Now, I want to, the point
of this is to describe to us how we shall see his face, what
it means to see his face. But before we do that, we have
to understand what it means to not see His face. Remember, we
see in contrast, we see the truth in contrast. Look at this. We've
seen it so far in this, but look at this in Jeremiah chapter 32.
This is telling. Now, when you read the Old Testament
and you see how the children of Israel behave themselves,
what is your reaction to that? I know that what I think sometimes
is, how can they be so stupid? And you want to kick them, or
you want to smack them, or something to rebuke. How could you be so
stupid? Moses was just down here. He
just went up to the mountain, and now you're building this
calf. Worshiping a calf, what are you doing? But here's a principle,
there's a principle here, and we must understand this, and
we'll develop this more fully as we go through the sermon today.
But the principle is this, whatever you see in the lives of those
people in the Old Testament, how they responded to God, how
they sinned, how they were turned, and their prayers and all these
things, Your nature is seen in their behavior. The way you are
is evidenced by what they did. And so, let's learn from these
things. Let's not set ourselves over
here and them over on the other side. But let's learn from this,
and we'll see this more as we go forward, because seeing this
is really, really helpful. Look at this in Jeremiah 32.
In verse 31. For this city hath been to me
as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that
they built it, even unto this day, that I should remove it
from before my face." What is God saying? Jerusalem has been
a provocation to God ever since they were there. Wow. And God says, "...because of
that I purposed to remove it from before my face." Look at
verse 32, "...because of all the evil of the children of Israel,
and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke
Me to anger, they Their kings, their princes, their priests,
and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem. And now look at verse 33. How
did they do this? How could you summarize what
they've done? They have turned unto me the back, and not the
face, though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet
they have not hearkened to receive instruction. God's people provoked
Him. And how did they provoke Him?
here he had done all of this and made himself known to them
his great saving power out of Egypt and they turned around
backward and in disrespect and in disregard and in detestation
even they went away from God and they snubbed him they ignored
him have you ever had that experience where someone you're talking
to them and they just turn around and walk the other way Maybe
you haven't, but you can imagine how that would be like. What
disrespect that shows. What a total disregard it is
for you. And you're carrying on a conversation
and all of a sudden your words just trail off as they walk away.
This is what they did. They did more than that. All
of the goodness that God lavished on them. delivering them out
of the bondage of Egypt, and so on. And they turned their
back on God. Look at Deuteronomy, chapter
31. Deuteronomy. He foresaw this
coming. It didn't take him by surprise.
Remember, Psalm 80 is the answer, a provision of God to his people,
made in advance. Because God anticipated their
problem, their wickedness and their sin and what would come
about. This is the grace of God. He anticipates and provides for
our need before we even have a need. And then in our trouble,
He gives us what His provision is. That's the story of the Gospel.
Christ the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Look
at Deuteronomy 31 and verse 16. He says, The Lord said to Moses, Behold,
thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people will rise up
and go a-whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land,
whither they go, to be among them, and will forsake Me." That's
turning the back, isn't it? What does it mean to forsake?
It means to abandon. It means to go apart from, to
leave, to reject. forsake me and they will break
my covenant which I made with them then my anger shall be kindled
against them in that day and I will forsake them And now look
at it carefully. And I will hide My face from
them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall
befall them, so that they will say in that day, Are not these
evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? See, to turn the face. When they
departed from God, they left Him. When God hid His face from
them, they said, Whoa, God is not among us. That's why these
troubles are upon us. And verse 18, And I will surely
hide my face in that day, for all the evils they shall have
wrought, in that they are turned to other gods. Here, God, in
prophecy to Moses, says this is what they're going to do.
So when we read in Psalm 80, Give ear, O shepherd of Israel,
thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between
the cherubims, before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, shine
forth, come and save us. Shine forth, cause thy face to
shine, return us again, and we shall be saved. When we read
those things, we're reading the prayer that God prepared, even
knowing that they would turn from Him. That is grace. That is God's grace to us, giving
us what we need. And when they prayed this in
Psalm 80, It wasn't the first time. Return again, return, and
return us again, O Lord, and we'll see that in a second. But
now I want you to look. So this is what it means when
we turn our back on God, when we turn our face away from Him,
and God promises that He will hide His face from us. Look at
one verse here in Psalm 101 on this subject. In Psalm 101 and
verse four. He says, I think it's that verse
that's the one I want. Actually, that's probably the
wrong verse, but we'll look there anyway. Psalm 101 and verse four. This is not the one I meant to
return to, but look at this. He says, a froward heart. 1014.
A froward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked
person. So you see, this is just a reaffirmation
that God will not dwell. He will not shine His face on
a sinner. He will turn His back. And so
let me take you back now to Isaiah 59. Look at Isaiah chapter 59.
Just establishing the fact that, first of all, what happens when
we turn our back on God? God turns His back on us. When
we turn our face from Him, He hides His face from us. Look
at Isaiah 59, verse 2. In verse 1 it says, Behold, the
Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither
is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have
separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his
face from you, that he will not hear. Do you see that? God's
saying here that The psalm I was going to turn
to is a psalm that says, when God takes away, when He takes
away His face from the animals, they die. And I just couldn't
put my finger on the verse. And they're troubled, and they
die. When God takes His face away from us, what happens? We
spiritually cannot live. We cannot live without God. We
cannot know Him. We can't have any comfort. We
can't have life itself. And so He says, our iniquities
have separated us between us and our God, and His face has
turned from us, because in our sin we have turned from Him. Now, I want to take you to Exodus
chapter 33, too. 33 also, because here we'll see
what it means when God shines His face, when God turns His
face to us. Look at Actually, hold your finger
in Exodus 33 and turn to Numbers chapter 12. Numbers 12, Moses
had married an Ethiopian woman. Aaron and Miriam complained about
it, and they came to him, and because they were speaking against
him, God called all three of them together, and God spoke.
And this is what God said in Numbers chapter 12. He said in
verse 6 of Numbers 12, Hear now my words. If there be a prophet
among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a
vision, and will speak to him in a dream. My servant Moses
is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With him will I
speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches. And
the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore then were
you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" Do you see
that? He's saying, Moses, God's relationship to Moses is unique
among all of the prophets. To the prophets, he would give
them a dream or a vision, and they would understand what God's
message was in kind of a dark way. But God says to Moses, I'm
going to speak mouth to mouth, even apparently. I'm going to
say something, and then Moses is going to ask me a question,
and I'm going to respond to him. There's going to be communication.
Whatever he asks me, I'll reveal to him. And whatever I reveal
to him about myself, he'll know it. There's no hiding here. We have a full disclosure between
me and Moses. There's no barriers. And so look
at Exodus chapter 33 now. The same thing is brought out
there. Look at Exodus 33 in verse 11. The context here is that in chapter
32, the people, through Aaron, had made a calf and worshipped
the calf while Moses was on the mountain. He comes down, breaks
the tables of stone, intercedes to God for the people, and now
Moses is in his prayer in verse 11. And it says, And the Lord
spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Do you see that? There was a
man that I met the other day, and he wanted to talk to me,
and he grabbed me by the hand, and he shook my hand, and he
put his left hand on my elbow, and he had his right hand on
my hand, and he wouldn't let go, and then he pulled me close,
and his face was almost closer than my comfort zone, and he
was looking at me eyeball to eyeball. That's face to face,
isn't it? That was his way. That was okay. I was all right
with it. I just wasn't used to it. But I love communicating
face-to-face. It's hard to do. You can't just
make it happen. There's a gift there, isn't there?
A gift of openness. A freedom of interchange. And you want someone to know
what you're thinking. and you want to know what they're
thinking, and they express to you the deepest love of their
heart, and you to them, and especially when you find that that love
is the same love, oh, the grace that God has given us, and you
share that with them, and the tears sometimes flow, and there's
joy, and there's embracing, and all these things. This is the
way God spoke to Moses. Face to face as a man speaks
to his friend. Come here, my friend. I want
to talk to you. And so Moses turned again into
the camp. Because God had said to Moses,
I'm not going to go up with these people. I'm not going to go up
with them. If I'm with them, I'm going to
destroy them. Because they're stiff-necked
people. Moses gets down from the mountain. He moves the tabernacle
outside the camp. And he goes out there. And he
says, whoever is going to seek the Lord, go outside the camp
to the tabernacle. So he's out there. And Joshua
is with him. And Moses is there speaking face-to-face,
God speaking face-to-face with him. And so he turned again into
the camp. But his servant Joshua, the son
of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. Wow,
what was in the tabernacle? There wasn't that much, was there?
A table, a candlestick, a showbread, an altar, a curtain? I mean,
there was some lights. After a while, you'd think a
young person would be bored by all that, wouldn't you? But the
tabernacle is the only place where God meets with men. The
tabernacle is where God makes himself known to men. The tabernacle
is where the altar is and the cherubim are. That's where God
will meet with us. That's where God makes himself
known in the Lord Jesus Christ. Joshua would not leave Christ
because in Christ alone is God known. in His crucifixion, in
His giving of Himself, in His humbling of Himself, in His grace
to sinners, in His compassion, in His love for them. But here
we see in verse 12, And Moses said to the Lord, See, thou sayest
to me, Bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know
whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee
by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight. And now look
at verse 13. Now therefore I pray thee, see how Moses is speaking
face to face with God, mouth to mouth. He just, God says things
and Moses says things back. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, and he's not saying it as if
there's a question of whether he has or not, but he's saying
it as a building, a platform, a foundation on which he goes
to the next step. If seeing that 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." And God said to him, very important, look
at the next few words, my presence shall go with thee, and I will
give thee rest." You see the word there, my presence? It's
the exact same word as in Psalm 80, here in Exodus 33. God's face, his presence. To see His face, to have God
speaking to you face-to-face is for God to be with you in
His presence. It's like the man who draws you
in close and looks you in the eye and communicates to you heart-to-heart,
face-to-face. And so he's looking at him there
and he says, my presence shall go with you. And then in verse
16, I mean verse 15, and Moses said to him, and Moses is very
bold here, I don't know where he got the temerity, but he says,
if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. In other
words, if you don't go, I don't wanna go. I don't want to go. Verse 16, For wherein shall it
be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy
sight, is it not, in that thou goest with us? So shall we not
be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are
upon the face of the earth? And so the Lord said to 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. What words are those? We departed
from God. God hides his face from us. And
to have God hide his face, it means that God has withdrawn
what we see here. What Moses is experiencing face
to face with God. God has withdrawn his presence.
The animals are troubled and they die. God withdraws his presence
and his people say, all of this trouble has come upon us because
God is not with us. His face, Lord, cause your face
to shine and we shall be saved. And the next thing I wanna show
us is that not only did we hide our face from God and He hid
His face from us, but look at this in Isaiah chapter 53. I
want you to see something. Remember I said the principle
is that whatever we see the Old Testament saints experiencing,
that reveals to us our nature. Look at Isaiah 53. He says this. I always go back
to Isaiah 53. He says this in verse 3. And you know this is talking
about our Lord Jesus. He says, He is despised and rejected
of men. What? He is despised? He is rejected of men? You would
think that we would be saying God despises and rejects men. That's what we did. I mean, that's
what we deserve. We forsook God and God said He's
gonna hide from us. But here He says, the Lord Jesus
Christ is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And look at the next part. And
we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and
we esteemed Him not. Now we need to understand this.
Here we are. God creates us. God shows us
his truth. What do we do? We turn our back
in our sin against God. And God hides his face in justice.
But here we see something that's completely amazing. The Lord
Jesus Christ comes. And in prophecy it says, we saw
him. And we despised and rejected
Him. Now, but you might say, but I
wasn't there. I didn't despise Him. If I would
have seen Him, I would have loved Him. No, that's not what it's
saying. Because a little further, it
says this. In verse 6, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. So the same we is the same we
that hid our faces from Him. You see the nature revealed,
our nature is revealed to us in how God, how these people
are in prophecy spoken of in how they treated Christ. This
is what we did. We despised the Lord Jesus Christ. But why was He despised? Why
would we despise Him? Well, there's lots of reasons
we despise Him. When we saw Him, we couldn't
bear to look upon Him. He was despised by us. We're
sinners. And the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't a sinner. We despised
Him because we despised God. We despised Him because we couldn't
imagine that one would be so good. And our wickedness is so
gross that when we see Him that it shames us and we can't do
anything but despise the one who's good. Jesus said it this
way, he says, is your eye evil because I'm good? That's the
reaction of sin. The law is good, but we sin more
because of that. So our sin appears exceedingly
sinful by our reaction to what is good. If Christ, God in the
flesh, if we despise him, how bad is our sin? And this is what
he's saying here. We turned our backs. We hid our
face. But it's worse than that. It's
worse. Look at Matthew chapter 26. What else did we do? What else? Matthew 26. He says in verse
36. Actually, no, this is not the
one I wanted to go to. I wanted to go to... Verse 67. Verse 67. He says, in verse 66, they asked, what think
ye? And they answered, he's guilty
of death. And then what did they do? They spit in his face. They spit in his face. This is
the face. We hid our faces from him, but
we did more than just hiding our faces from him in disregard
and disrespect. We actually brought up from our inner self
something that we could hurl in his face in disgust and hatred
and dejection. and spit in his face. What does
that mean? Well, out of the heart of man
comes blasphemy, evil thoughts, adulteries, all these things. That's what Jesus says. So to
spit in Christ's face means that out of man, bringing up all out
of his heart that he is and using that as a representative, hurls
it in his face in disgust and filth and shame, right in his
face. And we did more than that. Look
at Mark chapter 14. Mark chapter 14. In verse 65, he says, and some began to spit
on him and to cover his face. See that? Not only spit in his
face, we covered his face. And then look over at Luke 22
and verse 64. Luke 22 and 64. He says, and when they had blindfolded
him, that's covering his face, they struck him on the face.
And they asked him saying, prophesy, who is it that smote thee? This
is our Lord Jesus. the one in whom was no sin. We
despised him, we rejected him, we hid our faces from him, and
then we spit in his face, we covered his face, and we hit
him in the face. Why would this happen? Look at
Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50. He says in Isaiah 50, In verse 6, he says, in verse 5, the Lord
God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious, neither
turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters
and my cheeks To them that plucked off the hair, I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. This is our Lord Jesus, the face
of our shepherd, the one whose face we must have shine. We turned
our back on God. God must forsake us. But here
we see the Lord Jesus Christ giving his face to shame and
spitting. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. And this is how. This is bad
enough. But it's worse than this. Because
what happened before we spit in his face, and covered his
face, and hit his face, and returned from him? What happened before
that? What happened before? Peter denied him, and all the
disciples forsook him, and the soldiers mocked him. What happened
before he was falsely accused and condemned to death? What
happened before those things? He was in the garden. And in
the garden he poured out sweat, as it were, great drops of blood,
and cried, O my father, if it be possible, take this cup from
me. His father already was pouring
out his indignation on him, and in the affliction of God, In
the pouring out of God's displeasure upon him, he felt in his soul
the hiding of God's face towards him. He felt the withdrawing
of God's presence toward him. Look at Psalm 88. I want to show
this to you. And when he felt that, when he
was in that case, that's when we added to his grief, and spit,
and hid, and covered his face, and hid from him. Psalm 88, it
says in verse 14, Lord, and this is a Psalm, a prayer of our Lord
Jesus Christ in His agony. He says, Lord, why castest thou
off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from
me? I am afflicted and ready to die
from my youth up. Why While I suffer thy terrors,
I'm distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off.
They came round about me daily. God's terrors, like water, they
compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put
far from me, and mine acquaintances into darkness. And then look
over at Psalm 69. At verse 7. He says... In verse... Verse 7, he says, "'Because for
thy sake I have borne reproach, shame hath covered my face.'"
And in verse 17, "'And hide not thy face from thy servant, for
I am in trouble. Hear me speedily.'" And then
this verse in Psalm 22, 1, he says, "'My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?' You see, the Lord Jesus Christ was first forsaken
by his father and then turned over to his enemies. All of hell,
all of the Gentiles, all of the Jews, even his own disciples
forsook him, despised and rejected him, and hit him and spit in
his face and covered him. All of this came upon him in
order that God might shine his face upon his people. That's
the way we're saved. That's the way God's face can
be known. That's the way we can have this intimate communion
and fellowship with God. That's the way we can know Him.
Look at this verse in John chapter 17. John 17. I want you to see these things.
John 17 verse 24. He says, This is our Lord Jesus
praying to God for His people just before He goes to the cross. He knows what He's going to go
through and He's praying as a consequence of what He would
do. He says in verse 24, Father, I will that they also whom Thou
hast given Me Be with me where I am. There's that intimacy. That they may behold my glory,
which thou gavest me, for thou lovest me before the foundation
of the world. I want them. I want them to be
there. I want you to think about the
intimacy and the joy that we will experience in seeing the
face of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you know you get a foretaste
of it, don't you? 2 Corinthians 4.6, God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the
face of Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ.
That's where we see God, is in His face. No man has seen God
at any time. He that is in the bosom of the
Father, He has declared Him, made Him known. Jesus says in
John 6 40, This is the will of Him that sent me, of all which
seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have everlasting
life." So to see is to believe, and to believe is to have everlasting
life. All these things teach us that
the way that we receive the greatest blessing, the ultimate blessing
from God, which is to see His face, is because the Lord Jesus
Christ, in spite of our rebellion, in spite of our rebellion in
the light of God's justice, He comes and fulfills all that is
needed to bring us back, enduring Himself, the hitting and the
spitting and the covering and the shame and all that we would
hurl, but more than that, the forsaking of God and the hiding
of God's face towards Him. He did that in order that we
might see His face. And so we read, as I said in
2 Corinthians 4-6, even now, by faith, we see the Son of God. We see His face in what He's
done for us. We see that He did all of this
when we were His enemies. We see that God gave Him up to
this so that God could have us. Remember the joy that the prodigal
felt in Luke chapter 15? I was thinking about this. The prodigal son. Can you see what that would have
been like? Here's the prodigal. He comes
to his father. His father runs out to meet him
and falls on his neck and kisses him. What do you think the prodigal
felt at that time? I can almost see his body go
limp like a rag doll because he cannot He's overwhelmed with
incredulity that his father would embrace him, that he would hear
his father's words, that he would see his father's face, that his
father would actually pour such affection upon him. And so his mind and conscience,
at first, he thought, I can't believe it's true. And he couldn't
express it. He was probably speechless. And
his father continues to assure him with his words and expressions
of his love. And not only did he express his
own love, but he commands his servants and calls them in. He
says, he's not ashamed to own him as his son. get the best
robe, put the ring on his finger, and shoes for his feet, and kill
the fatted calf, and let's feast, and drink, and be merry." And
there was music and dancing, because the love of his father
had prevailed through all of his sin, and brought him to himself. And the son is just standing
there, open mouth odd, and the assurance begins to seep into
his heart that God, that his father in the prodigal parable,
actually did love him and bring him and want him, and his love
prevailed, and he could almost hear him thinking out loud, my
father is truly glad to see me, and he really does love me, even
though all I've done in light of all this. That is knowing,
that is seeing the face of God. That's just a foretaste of it.
We know that, don't we? And so when we read in Revelation
22, 4, and they shall see his face, it teaches us. that because
God has been gracious, because God has done for us in the Lord
Jesus Christ what he has to bring us to himself, to give us a heart
to know him, and in that heart to believe that in Christ's blood
we're received, we now see his face shine and we know him. There's
so much in the scripture about the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. about the face of God, that it's
just too much to go to. I like this, I like a couple
of verses in Psalm. It says this in Psalm 27, four,
one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after,
to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
And then another verse in Psalm 17, 15, he says, but as for me, I shall behold his face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
in his likeness. In 1 John 3, 2, he says, when
we see him, we shall know him, for we shall see him as he is.
I mean, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Have you ever seen someone do something that you really admire? I saw a YouTube video the other
day where a father gave all of his life for his
son who was unable to get out of a wheelchair, couldn't do
anything by himself. His arms are just unuseful and
his eyes kind of turn away the other way. The son lived, he
was over 40 years old and his father spent all of his time
and his money and missed opportunities in his life in order to take
care of his son and be with his son. And I think, man, I want
to be like that. Do you ever have those experiences?
Or you see a mother running into a burning building to get her
child. Or a soldier who gives his life for all the men in his
company. Or any number of things like
that, that cause us to say, man, that's really giving, isn't it?
I want to be like that. When we see him, we shall be
like him. For we shall see him as he is.
When we see Him, we see Him now by faith, and we're changed into
the same image from glory to glory. But when I see Him, I'll
be fully conformed into His image. God is going to give me the grace
to have all that seeing Him causes me to desire now, and to desire
then. I wanna be like Him, and God's
gonna bestow that gift, and we'll be with Him, and we'll know Him,
and He'll make Himself known, and we'll know that we're known,
and we'll know that we're loved in Christ, and we will be like
Him. To see the face of God, the pure
in heart, it's a gift of God's grace in Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this marvelous
grace of our loving Lord, that you would so give yourself, your
face to those that pluck off the hair, your back to the smiters,
and your face to shame and spitting. Our own spitting, our own sins
brought this upon you. It was for our sins that you
were wounded. It was for our peace that you were chastised.
It was our iniquity that was laid upon you. and it's your
face that we see and are saved by because of what you've done.
You have showed this grace, this marvelous grace to us. Lord,
let us be now enthralled with your greatness and thankful in
our heart and show this grace to sinners by declaring your
greatness to them and showing this mercy as you've been merciful
to us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.