The voice, the voice of inspiration
says to each of us what one of Job's friends said to him. He said, acquaint now thyself
with God. Now, get acquainted with God. That is, get intimately acquainted
with God. And we know that is our responsibility
and certainly that is life eternal to know God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, but nobody can know him except the Lord revealed
himself. That's what we ask for, isn't
it? As we embark upon every worship service, Lord reveal to us yourself, Moses said, Lord, show me thy
glory. And we know the glory of God
shines brightly in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, here's our prayer.
Oh, God, show us Christ. Reveal to us the Son of your
love. that one who is the only Savior
of sinners, Lord, reveal Him to us. We've got to know God. We've
got to know God. The Savior said, I quoted this
last week in John 17, this is life eternal. And we ask, Lord,
what is it? What is life eternal? Listen to the Master, as He says,
to know thee. Remember, this is His prayer
to the Father, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent. I want to know God. I don't want
to just know about Him. I want to know Him. I know He's the creator and I
know He's the sustainer of all beings, of all creation. I know He's the giver of all
things. I know that He's working His
will in everything that happens. So I know He's the God of creation. I know He's the God of divine
providence. but I want to know Him as the
God of grace. I want to know Him as the God
of salvation. I want to know Him as that God
who is always true to His justice, who found the only way by which
you and me and millions of sinners would be reconciled to Him And
that's through the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son. I want to know Him as the God
of salvation. And I'll add a little word right
there. I want to know Him as the God of my salvation. I want to know Him as the God
who saves me. Moses in chapter 33, he made
this statement. If you'll look back in verse
13, chapter 33, verse 13, he said, now therefore, I pray thee,
if I have found grace in thy sight, he says, Lord, show me
thy way that I may know thee. Here's the first thing, I gotta
know the way to God. And in knowing the way to God,
then I'll know God. Now this was his desire. And I know this is very elementary,
and we've heard this hundreds and hundreds of times, but God
willing, you'll hear it as many times again. That one who has
the way to God is Christ Jesus. And you will not know God, not
as the God of grace, not as the God of forgiveness, not as the
God of salvation. You will not know Him until God
reveals to you the way to Him. And that's Christ Jesus. There
is no other way. There is no other approaching
to God except by this way of the bloody sacrifice of the Son
of God. He said, I am the way. I'm not
a way, I'm the way. And I'm the truth. I'm the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. I know this, if we're going to
know God, God's got to teach us. And so we read in John chapter
six, every man that hath learned of the Father, Christ said, cometh
to me. The Father has got to teach us.
You see, I can teach you, and I endeavor to do so, I preach
the absolute truth of God to you. But my voice will only reach
the ear gate. It cannot reach your innermost
being, not my voice. It takes the voice of that one
who wakes the dead. It takes the voice of that one
who walked up to Lazarus' grave, his tomb, and said, Lazarus,
come forth. That's when the dead come forth.
That's when the dead live. My voice, now it's necessary
that you hear the gospel and it go in through the ear gate.
You've got to hear the truth. You've got to hear who God is.
You've got to hear what you are. You've got to hear that the only
way to God is through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ Jesus. But
all I can do is tell you the truth. He who is the truth must
reveal it. Oh God, reveal the truth, that I may know you, that I may
know you. In teaching us of God, the Lord
teaches us also of ourselves. You see, lots of people, even
people who are in many ways doctrinally correct, they start off with
man. That's the wrong way to start. I understand tulip. but it starts
with man's depravity. That's not where things start.
All things start where the Bible starts, with God. And you'll
only know really what you are and the great vastness of your
guilt as you come to know something about God. And as you begin by
the power of the Spirit to see something with the glory of God,
that light will then manifest to you your great guilt and the
vast distance between you and a holy God. There is no soundness in us. There's only wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. And Isaiah says, from the top
of the head to the bottom of our feet. There's no soundness. We're not whole. We're sick. We're sick in sin. Yea, beyond
sick, we're dead. And our only hope, your only
hope, my only hope, is in the Lord God of glory to reveal to
me my neediness in the light of his holiness. And you know something, it's
very interesting that as you learn more about God, and those
of you who have been converted for many years, you will understand
what I'm saying. As you learn more about the greatness,
the holiness, the justice, the purity of God, the more you'll
see your own corruption. It works that way. So you don't
start with man's depravity. You start with God. And in the
light of who he is, then I see, my, what a contrast. Oh, how
awful I am. As I see His goodness and His
glory and His holiness, I see then the blackness and filthiness
of my own soul, my heart so sinful. Moses said, Lord, show me Your
glory. He said, I want to know You.
I want to know you. I fear that sometimes I'm preaching
to people who are just kind of playing church, just acting a
little religious. There's a whole lot of difference
between acting religious and knowing the God of grace. I appreciated your prayer. And he made this statement, if we've not worshiped before,
let us worship now. Oh, that's good. That's good. It reminds me of a song Newton
wrote. And he finished it up by saying,
Lord, if I haven't loved you before. Now, wait a minute. You're
a preacher, Brother Newton. You're a songwriter. You've labored
in the gospel for many years. He said, Lord, if I haven't loved
you before, let me start loving you now. Don't you feel that
way? I'm not going to base my assurance
on what I felt or what I think I did 20 years ago, 10 years ago, a year
ago, or even an hour ago. I need Him now. Am I by myself? I'm not by myself, am I? I need
Him now. I need a revelation of His grace
to my heart now. Lord, do something for me! Isn't
that your cry? Lord, do something for me! I tell you, I'm stepping ever
and ever closer to eternity. Lord, do something for me. I
dare not step out into eternity not knowing God. Oh my! Oh my! You who know not the Savior,
oh, how I pray for you. How I pray that God would open
your heart. You have no idea of the greatness
of the wrath of God. But I'll tell you who knew of
the wrath of God. And he cried out, while in the
midst of being judged for our sins, our darling Savior. And he said, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Those words are taken from Psalm
22. It's one of the Savior's seven sayings from the cross. And in Psalm 22, the answer comes
back, for thou art holy. God is holy. He can't look on
sin. There our Lord, by imputation,
guilty because He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. And the wrath of a just and holy
God fell on Him. So much so that the Son of God
You can't comprehend this, and I can't either. But God the Son,
He cried out as a man. He didn't say, my Father,
my Father, why hast thou forsaken me? But He cried out as our substitute,
as that one who hung on that cross in our stead. He cried
out, my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It's because
He bore our sins. If He, the Son of God, cried
out, all the while holy in Himself, but if He cried out, Oh, how horrible, how hideous
must be the cries of the damned souls in hell. They cry forever and ever. I don't want any of y'all to go to that awful place. There's the way to God. There's
the way to God. Christ is the way. Oh, Spirit
of grace, do your work. Because if it's left to us, if
this is left to you, you've got no hope. That's just a fact. You've got no hope. But I'll
tell you what, our hope is in Christ. and what He does for sinners
and what He's done for so many of us. He has the power to do
for you. He said, I'll be gracious to
whom I'll be gracious. That's His glory now. We've already
learned that out of chapter 33. But maybe He'll be merciful to
you. Maybe He'll be gracious. I know
this, He delights to show mercy Moses said, Lord, I want to see
your glory. God said, I'll tell you what
I'm going to do. I'm going to put you on a rock that's got
a split in it. I'm going to hide you in that
rock. Then I'm going to pass by. But I'm going to do something
else for you. The Father says, I'm going to
put my hand over you. Let me tell you something, that's
double safety. That's what that is. Double safety. It reminds me of that passage
of Scripture in John chapter 10. where Christ said, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give
to them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hands. My Father which
gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hand. I am my Father and one. There's
the hand of God. Do you think those who are hidden
by the hand of God are safe? It's safe forever. That's double
safety. He put us in Christ Jesus who
was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. And then God puts his hand up
and says, you're doubly safe, Moses. And that's the way it
is with the people of God. We're doubly safe. God said, okay, Moses, I've told
you what I'm going to do for you in the morning. I want you
to get you two tables of stone and you come up on the mountain.
I'm going to meet with you, just you and me. Nobody else on that
mountain. No sheep, no goats, no flocks
on that mountain, because they'll have to have shepherds with them.
This is a one-on-one. It is me meeting with you. That's the way it has to be. You see this thing of knowing
God, I tell you what, it's very personal, very private, and it's
gonna be very powerful. You don't come to know God with
a bunch of people. Well, we all know God now. Hang
on now. It's gotta be personal. It's gonna be private. And I
tell you what, if God's going to do business with you, and
I pray that He will, I pray that He will, I guarantee you this,
it'll be powerful. Because God, when He sets out
to do something, He cannot fail. And so, next morning, Moses goes
up on the mountain. And look at verse five. The Lord
descended in the cloud. And I like this. Stood within
there, standing with God. God standing with a sinful man. How can that be? How can God
stand there, appear with a man like Moses? a guilty sinner just like all
the rest of us. And yet there, God stood with
Moses. Well, he stood with Moses because
number one, Moses is in the rock. Don't forget that. See, in the
end of chapter 33, the Lord tells Moses what he's gonna do. And
then here in chapter 34, God does it. And there Moses is,
the Lord has split open a rock. Christ is the rock. On Christ
the solid rock I stand. More than that, in Christ the
rock I stand. And so brother Augustus Toplady
wrote, Rock of ages, what do you say? Cleft for me. Let me
hide myself in thee. God put him in the rock. And I know, as far as God's concerned,
and this is the way it is, He put us in the rock before the
foundation of the world. How long have we been in the
rock? As long as the Lamb has been slain, and that's from before
the foundation of the world. And we is in the rock, the rock
of ages, when He laid down His life, He gave Himself the ransom
for our sins. And then the Spirit of God came
to us through the preaching of the gospel, preaching just like
you're hearing right now, the truth. And then we are made very much
aware of coming to Christ Jesus by faith. And we rejoice. God put us in the rock. The Lord stands there with Moses,
and the Lord keeps His hand over Moses. Nothing can harm brother
Moses. and nothing can harm you, child
of God. Nothing. I may get a terrible disease.
All that can do is wear your body down and be the ordained
means of the Lord taking you home to glory. And in that sense,
it is a friendly visit. get to see the shepherd face
to face. The Lord stood with him. And
then the Lord proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord describes
himself. That's the title of this message.
The Lord describes himself. Look at verse six. And the Lord
passed by before him. And the Lord proclaimed, my, what a sermon. This is God
preaching. And I'll tell you what, when
God preaches, I'm going to make very few comments. God's preaching. He told Moses,
he said, I will proclaim the name of the Lord to you. I'll
do it tomorrow morning. And there Moses is with the Lord
and the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, number one,
the Lord, the great I am. And you know, this is how the
angel of the covenant revealed himself to Moses back at the
bush that burned and wasn't consumed. Who are you, Lord? You tell me
I'm going to lead Israel to safety out of Egyptian bondage? And
they ask me, who sent you? What am I supposed to say? Tell
them I am, that I am has sent you. I'm the Lord, the ever-existent
God. The God who has always been. Wrap your mind around that if
you can. But you can't. The Lord. That's who I am. It's
not that I want to be Lord. It's not that I desire to be
Lord. I am the Lord. I've always been the Lord. I'll
always be the Lord. There's no end to His Lordship. From everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God. That's what the
scripture says. And then he said, the Lord God. Now he adds a word to it, God,
which means almighty. It's the same word that's used
there in Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created. This indicates his awesome authority
and power. I am the everlasting Lord who
has all power over all things." And you know what? Our Lord Jesus
has all power over all things by virtue of the fact that He
finished the work of redemption that God gave Him to do. The Lord God. And then He says,
merciful. Oh God, thank You for being merciful. for not giving me what I deserve. And gracious, thank you for giving
me what I don't deserve. You give me life. You give me
everlasting salvation. And your longsuffering. You know
what Peter says about the longsuffering of God? That is salvation. Why did God bear with me in my
days of impenitence, in my days of false religion? Why did God
put up with you? Why was He patient with you in
your years of sowing your wild oats or whatever it was that
you did? Because He's longsuffering to
usward. Peter says to God's elect. And he's abundant in goodness
and in truth. He's always been good to me. He's good when I feel good. He's still being good to me when
I just don't feel good at all. He's still being good to me because
He's working all things out for good to them that love Him, to
them whom He has called according to His purpose. And He's abundant in truth. Have you ever thought about the
abundance of the great truth of God? How many years have you been
studying the truth of God? Some of you have been here since
this church was established. 60 some years, maybe more than that. And yet, and yet, do you not
find that the truth of God is abundant? It just keeps on bubbling
forth. It keeps on blessing your soul.
Any other thing, if you hear it over
and over again, you say, boy, this is getting old. But then
you hear the truth of God's grace to us in the Lord Jesus, the
truth of God's electing grace, His redeeming grace, His regenerating
grace, His justifying grace, His preserving grace, and soon,
His glorifying grace, and we find there's an abundance in
the truth of God. It just keeps on going and going,
and I keep loving it and loving it. That's due to the goodness
of God. And he says in verse seven, keeping
mercy for thousands. That word keeping means preserving,
preserving. Why does God preserve mankind? Which for the most part is just
evil. You see stuff on television,
you read about things going on in the world. Lord, how much
longer? How much longer is this going
to go on? Well, He's preserving mercy. And I have no idea when the Lord's
going to come back, and you don't either. We're not predictors
of His second coming. But the reason God keeps our
population going, keeps folks on this earth, because He has
a people who've got to hear this gospel. So He preserves mercy
for thousands and thousands of people. And you know, there are
people, there are vile, wicked people in this world. and who'll never come to know
the gospel. But you know, he preserves them
too. Why does he do that? It may just be because their
children or their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren
or great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren are the elect of God. So God
doesn't wipe these people out. because that would erase folks
that's going to live, say, another 100 years or 200 years from now. But they're the elect of God.
They've got to be born. They'll have to hear the gospel
too. God's ordained all of that, so He keeps, He preserves mercy
for thousands. He sure knows what He's doing. He forgives. To forgive is to
lift off and take away, okay? That's what forgive is. He forgives
iniquity. What is iniquity? That which
is not straight. You see, the truth is straight. Iniquity is twisted. That's something
that's twisted. But God forgives iniquity. And
transgression, what's transgression? Rebellion against God. And sin, which is missing the
mark of perfection. He lifts those up and takes them
away. But make sure you understand
this. He will by no means clear the guilty. He's just and He's holy. He's not going to show mercy.
He's not going to show grace. He's not going to do those things.
He's not even going to save at the expense of His justice. He's not going to clear the guilty.
So the guilty, either they will die themselves or God is going
to save them through the substitute Christ Jesus. And he'll visit the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
and to the third and fourth generation. And I'll give you an example
of that. Remember when Pilate said, I find no fault in this
man? And before all the Jews, he washed his hands. He said,
I'm clear from the blood of this man. See ye to it. Go ahead and
crucify him. And you know what the Jews said?
His blood be on us and on our children. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And that's what happened. Because some nearly 40 years
later, oh, the temple was still there in Jerusalem, all that
religiosity going on. And the Roman army came in and
just wiped that place out. There wasn't one stone left standing
on another, the temple. And thousands and thousands of
adults and teenagers and young children and babies died. His blood be on us and on our
children. I'm not going to clear the guilty,
God says. Well, let me give you this. What
is this result of Moses hearing from the Lord, hearing the Lord
describe himself? Verse eight, and Moses made haste, bowed his head toward the earth,
and he worshiped. That's what happens. If God the Spirit ever proclaims
the truth of who God is to you, and of His forgiveness according
to His justice being satisfied, if He ever shows you the way
to God, which is Christ and Him crucified, I'll guarantee you
this, you'll bow your head toward the earth, and that's when you'll
worship. And you'll never worship until
you see God's glory. You can mouth some words. You
can cross your heart and do all that mumbo-jumbo, counting of
beads and all that other heretical things. But you'll only worship. when
the Lord reveals Himself to you. And when He reveals Himself to
you, you will worship, and you'll bow down, and you'll make haste
doing it too. Just like Moses did. Oh, may the Spirit of God take
these things and put them in our hearts. Let's sing one of
Fannie Crosby's songs, 235, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. Don't
pass me by. 235, 235. Sing this.