That is such an excellent song. It blesses me every time I hear
it. Written by a man whose name was
Robert Murray McShane, who did not live to be an older fellow. Died when he was pretty young.
And that was one of the songs that he wrote. He wrote several.
And I especially love that. And it was presented quite well. Thank you. We extend our sympathy to the
family, to the Robbins family. Their son, Chad, passed away
Wednesday. And they haven't attended. and certainly not during the
COVID. But it's an awful disease, Huntington's
disease, that runs in their family. And this man, his grandfather
died of it, and his mother died of it. Chad's mother died of
it. His older sister has it. And
she's two years older than Chad. There's a special hospital in
Indiana. It is the only hospital dedicated
only to the treatment of those who do have Huntington's disease. And so we pray for his sister,
Chad's sister, who's two years older than he is. It's a very
debilitating disease and runs in the family. I'll have that
graveside service tomorrow at 1 o'clock and ask you to remember
me, that the Lord would be pleased to give me some words of comfort
to the family and to set forth before all of them a good, clear
presentation of the gospel of the grace of God in the Lord
Jesus. Exodus 33 is where I'm going
to take my text from this morning. Exodus chapter 33. Afterwards, we will partake of
the Lord's Supper And then we shall look forward
to gathering again this evening for worship. Let's bow our heads. Lord, indeed teach us on earth how
much we owe to you for your sovereign saving grace to us through the
Lord Jesus. Teach us how much we owe to Christ
Jesus, who laid down His life for us. May we lose our attachments of earthly things
and be attached more closely to the Savior whom we shall shortly
see. We know that life upon this earth
moves along at a very hasty clip, and it won't be long before all
of us will leave this world and face our God. Oh, that it would
be true, Father, that we faced you in Christ, the Rock of Ages,
hidden in his sight, and by the Spirit sanctified. Bless these
who mourn. Bless, we pray, Ben and Jim down here in the hospital. Lord, you know all things. You know they're very serious
conditions. We ask for Your healing mercies,
if it would be Your will. If not, then take them, Lord,
unto Yourself. We're thankful that for Your
people we have a good hope through grace. Now as we look into this portion
of Scripture, Give us a love for the gospel. Grant unto us
faith in the Lord Jesus. And may we know something about
the power of his resurrection in our hearts. Raise the dead,
Father. Do for us what we cannot possibly
do for ourselves. We run to You and plead for salvation,
asking these things not due to any merits of our own, but through
the merits and through the death and resurrection of our beloved
Savior. In His name, Amen. As you read over the life of
Moses Exodus Leviticus Numbers and
Deuteronomy. There are a few times when you
will find Him beseeching our God for something. To beseech
the Lord is to beg Him. To beseech the Lord is to be
in dire need. To beseech the Lord is to petition
Him not about an unimportant or an insignificant matter, but
a matter that weighs very heavily on your heart. And there are
three occasions, once in Exodus, two times in Numbers, where we
find Moses beseeching the Lord. I'll give you the two in Numbers
first. First of all, Numbers 12. You
need not turn to it. Mary, Moses' older sister, and
with some degree of support from Aaron, they raised opposition
to Moses' marriage of an Ethiopian woman, a black woman. And God was angry over that. You know, every page of the Old
Testament is a picture of our Lord Jesus in some way. Moses, who is in various ways
a type of the Savior, Moses married a woman who was very contrary
to the generally accepted ways of Israel. He married a woman
who was black, an Ethiopian woman. He was a picture of our Savior
who married Himself to us who are black with sins. We can't change that which we
are. But God in His saving mercies,
He joined us to His Son. What God had joined together,
let not man put asunder. The Savior embraced us, an unlikely
people, an unlikely bride, but He delights to save sinners,
people who are black with sin. Well, it would appear there in
Numbers chapter 12 that Miriam was the most vocal in her opposition. In fact, she joined with Aaron
and says, Moses, really, you take too much on you here. And
the Lord, He decided He would smite Miriam
with leprosy. He poured out His anger upon
Miriam and she became white as a leper. full of leprosy. And Aaron, and it's very interesting,
and I would recommend you read the passage when you get home,
Numbers chapter 12. Actually, Aaron went to Moses,
and he asked Moses to intercede for their sister. Now remember,
Aaron is himself the high priest of Israel, but he goes to Moses. Because you see, Moses is a picture
of our Lord Jesus. He goes to one who has authority. And Moses, he did indeed petition
the Lord. And he said in chapter 12 and
verse 13, Heal her now, O Lord. I beseech thee. I beg of you. Oh Lord, this is my plea. Heal
her." And she was put out of the camp for seven days, and
then evidently, the Lord did heal her. And she joined back
in with the camp of Israel. Only two chapters later, In the
book of Numbers, we find the children of Israel once again
murmuring against the Lord. Moses had sent 12 spies into
the land of Prompts. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb,
came back with a favorable report, said, yeah, there's a lot of
opposition over there, but the Lord's with us. We can take this
land. Oh, the other 10, They said,
there's no way. There's no way this can be done.
And in fact, they said, we don't even want Moses to lead us anymore. They said, let's just make us
a captain. Would to God we're still back
in Egypt. We're going to appoint us a captain
and he's going to take us back across the wilderness. back into
Egypt where we had life much more comfortably. And the Lord, again, was angry. And Moses goes to the Lord, as
he so often did. And the Lord said to Moses, How
long shall they provoke me? And Moses, once again, a picture
of our Lord Jesus, the interceder, the mediator, the go-between. Moses said, I beseech thee, forgive
their transgressions. I beg of you. Do they deserve
it? No. Are they worthy of it? No. But Lord, I beseech you,
I beg of you, oh Lord, I plead with you. I beseech you, forgive
them, forgive them. And the Lord didn't wipe them
out. It was a very powerful intercession. Very much a picture of our Lord
Jesus, who is the great mediator, the great intercessor, who is
our go-between, He stands between us and God. He stands between
the guilty and the offended one. And He's a worthy mediator. He is up to the task. He always
has been and He continues to be our great High Priest. And then, there's one other time
when Moses used this word, beseech. And it's found here in Exodus
chapter 33 and verse 18. And he said, I beseech thee,
I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Lord, show me your glory. It
isn't, don't pronounce it, shoo. I know you think it rhymes like
the word hue, but it isn't shoe, the word is show, the way you
pronounce it. I beseech thee, I beg of you. Lord, this is my plea. I absolutely implore you. Lord, would you manifest to me,
would you reveal to me, your glory." That's how serious he
was. He only used this word on very,
very serious occasions. When there was a desperate need,
either with others or within his own soul. And he felt his
neediness. This is what he needed. This
is what he wanted with all of his heart, with all of his soul,
with all of his mind. Lord, I plead with you. Lord,
I beg of you. What you begging for, Moses? More wealth? Prosperity? What do you beg for? Oh God, manifest to me your glory. if I could see your glory, if
you would open my eyes, the eyes of the soul. Not these eyes,
because God is Spirit. You can't see a spirit. He's
not asking to see some ghostly figure. What He's asking is,
Lord, show me, reveal to me, speak to my heart. I beg of you. and manifest to me in my soul
the glory of who you are and how you save sinners. I beseech thee." You know, this language is altogether
different from the language of religion today, isn't it? Because really, in religion today,
It's exactly the opposite. They've made God to be the one
who beseeches the sinner. I'm just being truthful with
you. Listen to what they say. It's God who is the beggar. It's
God who goes about, He's always pleading with sinners. Let me
come in. Would you make me Lord of your
life? Would you let me show grace to
you? Would you let me save your soul?
It's the Lord who's beseeching others. That's the way God's
presented today, but not so with those who are effectually worked
on by the Spirit of grace. We're the one who beseeches the
Lord. We're the ones who beg Him. The Lord doesn't say, make you
well, will you let me? I want to make you wealthy, will
you permit me to do that? Let me tell you something, the
God of the Bible is no beggar. Whatsoever the Lord did, that
pleased He in heaven, earth, and the seas, and all deep places. He's not the beggar. He does
what He wants to do. God says, my counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. He
doesn't ask for your permission to act. He doesn't need man's
cooperation. He's not asking anything of you. You see, this matter of salvation
is not us letting God do something for us, it's God doing something
for us and making us willing and delighted that He doesn't. That's the way salvation is. We began our service by singing
of the reign of the Lord. He doesn't ask for your consent
to rule. He doesn't ask for you to allow
Him to help you or save you. He needs no authorization from
man to do His work. He didn't need man in creation.
He didn't need angels in creation. He just created all things according
to His will. He doesn't need any help or authorization
in divine providence. He's working all things according
to His will. Whether you like what He does
or not, whether you approve of what He's doing or you disapprove
of what He's doing, that has no bearing on the situation. God says, I will do all my counsel. Now this is the God we're dealing
with. And He doesn't need man in salvation. He drew up the covenant of grace. He set forth all the provisions. Why? He's the one who chose a
worthy Savior. And He's the one who chose a
people unto salvation. He's the one who appointed his
darling son to come into this world. It's God who provided
him a body. Hebrews 9, quoting Psalm 40,
"'A body thou hast made me.'" God provided the body for him,
and God sent him. God put him under all laws. And then God made Him to be sin
for us. That one who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It's God who did
these things. It's God who heaped our sins
on Him. It's God who charged our guilt
to Him. It's God who did all of these
things and we had no input whatsoever. Why, if salvation had been left
to any of us or to any man, the wisest of men who've ever lived,
man would have never come up with a way of salvation. Salvation by substitute? Ask the angels. These rebels
who committed transgressions against me. Angels, how shall
I rectify this? And do so in a way that doesn't
in any way compromise my holiness and my justice. But it will result
in the salvation of people who have rebelled against me. And
the angels with all of their vast superior intelligence would
say, Can't be done. Can't be done. But the Lord found
the way, and He says, release them from going down to the pit.
I found a ransom. Who did? God did. And then He
sends to the sinner He chose and redeemed, He sends to that
sinner a preacher to tell him the truth. And then the Lord opened the
ears and opened the heart. And He didn't beg you to open
your heart to the Lord Jesus. He opened your heart. Just read
Acts chapter 16. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people
would just shut their mouths and read the Word of God? Led he a meeting with some other
women, I don't know what the Lord was pleased to do or not
do for them, but I know He did something for one woman. The
Scripture says, He opened her heart and she attended to the
things which were spoken. The apostle didn't say, now,
will you let Jesus save you now? He wants to be your Lord. He
beseeches you. Oh, please let him save you. What a pitiful savior that would
be to present. What a weakling. What a sissy. That's a false Jesus. The real
Jesus. Would the real Jesus stand up? And he stands and he tells us,
he says, I will do all my purpose. and you can't frustrate my purpose.
And what does he do for the sinner that he intends to deal with
in grace? He opens the heart and he makes
them willing in the day of his power. That's all of God. He's not a beggar. He's not a
beggar. And he doesn't need us, we need
him. The heathen said to Israel, where
is now their God? David said, let me answer for
all of us. He said, but our God is in the
heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. And you have not worshipped really. You have not really worshipped
until you've worshipped the God who is God indeed. A God you
can manipulate, a God whose will is dependent upon your will,
is no God at all. He can't help you. He can't help
you. He's just like the gods of the
false prophets there in 2 Kings, or 1 Kings. deprived to their gods to heal
them or to consume the sacrifice, that God couldn't do anything. But the one Elijah prayed to,
now he's the one who works and no man will stop him. I'll tell you in the Word of
God when people approached our Lord Jesus, If they approached Him on the
right basis of neediness, He always heard their pleas, He
heard their beseechings. But if they came upon the grounds
of their merits or their goodness, or they deserved something better,
no, they got nothing. In Ezekiel 37, the Lord took
Ezekiel out to a valley where there had been a great battle
fought and there were just bones there. A great army had been
defeated and a bunch of soldiers died. The vultures and the sand
blowing over their bodies, the flesh was gone. Nothing left
but bones. There were very many and very
dry is what the Scripture says. And the Lord took His servant
Ezekiel out there and said to him, Son of man, can these bones
live? And Ezekiel answered, O Lord
God, thou knowest. And the next word that God gave
to Ezekiel was this, I want you to go down there in that valley
and preach to them bones. But they can't do anything. It
didn't say they could do anything. I just said preach to them. Preach
to them. And here's what I want you to
tell them when you preach to them. Hear the Word of the Lord. But Lord, they can't hear. They
don't even have ears. They're just bones. Hear the
word of the Lord. That's what the message was to
be. And Ezekiel began to preach to
them and he told them what God was going to do for them. Not what they could do or needed
to do for God. Don't believe that dry bones
can do anything for anybody. Might be of some benefit to a
dog that comes along and grabs a bone, but that's about all. You preach to them, tell them
what I'm going to do. And I'll tell you, God raised
up an army and He breathed life into them. He said, I'm doing
this for you that you may know I am the Lord. That's what He
said. That I am the Lord. We'll never
know. We'll never know anything about
salvation. We'll never know anything about
God till He breathes the breath of life into our souls. Come
from the winds. That's what Ezekiel preached.
And the word wind there is identical as spirit. He called upon the
Spirit of God. Breathe upon these bones. That's
what every preacher of the Gospel, that's what we pray when we preach
the Word of God. To you who are out there watching
by internet or listening to this later, to all of you in here,
this is what I preach. Lord! Do something for these
bones. Lord, breathe on these bones
that they may live and know who You are. And the only way you'll
ever know who He is is if He breathes on you. Breathe on me,
O breath of God. In Matthew 7, when our Lord Jesus
came to the end of his great sermon on the mount. He spoke
of what some people in the final judgment would profess unto him,
the judge. They're being cast away. And it's as though they're saying,
wait, there's been a mistake made. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, Have we not prophesied in thy
name? And in thy name cast out devils,
and in thy name done many wonderful works? Look at all we've done
for you. And then I will profess to them,
the Savior said, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that
work iniquity. And at the very end of that chapter,
Our Lord gave this word concerning a wise man and a foolish man. The wise man built his house,
his salvation upon the rock, Christ Jesus. Let all the storms
blow against it. It's built on a good foundation.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand. That's who those
people who were professing those things, they were building on
sand. He gave an illustration of that,
you see. Lord, you needed us. We did all these things for you. But I didn't do anything for
you. Get out of my sight. And then,
interestingly enough, the very next portion of Scripture, as
our Lord comes down from the mountain, He's finished His message.
And a multitude is with him, a great multitude the scripture
says. And there waiting at the bottom
of the mountain was a leper. And he comes to the Lord begging. He's a mercy beggar. He's not doing what those people
in chapter 7 did, boasting of all that they had done for the
Lord. No, no. He's done nothing. He can do
nothing. He needs mercy himself. And he's
pleading with the Lord. He's beseeching the Lord. If
you will, if thou wilt, thou can't show me mercy. If you will. And the Savior, merciful and
gracious, he touched him and he said, I will be thou clean. Listen, a simple, very simple
cry from a desperate soul. That will be heard. Now, if you're going to be a
fool like those people in Matthew 7, well, Lord, I've been reading
my Bible. Lord, I pray, Lord. I put money
in the offering boxes. Lord, look at all the years I
was faithful in Sunday school. See all these pens, Lord? Perfect
attendance. I never knew you. I tell you, the quicker we turn
into beggars, the better off we'll be. That's what's necessary. I will be thou clean. The beggar
got what he came for. He got what he pleaded for. And
in the very next paragraph, a man, a centurion. He's a ruler over
a hundred soldiers. He came to the Lord. beseeching
Him, here's our word again, beseeching Him and saying, Lord, my servant
lies at home sick of the palsy. He too has become a beggar. He
took his place at the feet of the Lord Jesus. Would you do that? I'll tell you what, the only
way you'll take your place as a beggar at the feet of the Lord
Jesus is if He puts you in the dust. He's got to bring us down. See, our problem is we're too
arrogant. We're too proud. We think we are something. And
we're nothing. It's like the church in Laodicea. The Lord Jesus wrote to them,
had John delivered the letter, He said, you think you're rich
and increased with goods. And you don't know that you're
pitiful. You're poor and needy. You don't
even know it. And that's the way it is with
all of us by nature. We're poor and needy. We have
nothing. We need everything. God has to
give it. And here we run around down here
on this earth like a bunch of arrogant cockroaches or something
saying, you know, I'll let God save me when I get ready. I'll
open my door to Jesus when I decide to. It's a wonder we're not all
in hell. It's due to the mercy of God.
Oh, how awful, how bad off we are. And the Lord heard him marveled
at this centurion. He said, I hadn't found such
great faith, no, not in all of Israel. Go your way. It will be as you besought me. And I can go on and on. Blind
Bartimaeus sat by the roadside begging. He hears a crowd going
by and they're all making a racket and he said, what's going on?
What's going on? It's what Jesus of Nazareth is
passing by. Oh, he's the great physician.
So he began to call out, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy
on me. He's pleading for mercy. He's
beseeching the Lord for mercy. And you know what the people
said? Don't bother the Master. He's too busy to fool with somebody
like you, poor old blind man. But he cried out all the more,
more intensely, because he has a neediness. Do you need the
grace of God? Do you need the Savior? That's
a good question. And I'll tell you, we won't know
that we need Him unless He shows us that we need Him. And I can keep on going through
the Old Testament or through the New Testament of illustrations,
but I want to get to this. Back here in our text, he said,
I beseech thee. Okay, I beg of you. I plead with
you. Show me thy glory. Manifest to
me thy... He's asking for revelation of
grace. This is what salvation is. It's
the Lord revealing. It isn't you making a decision.
It's the Lord manifesting grace to you. What is it that you want, Moses?
What do you beseech me for? I want a manifestation of your
glory. I want you to open my eyes, the
eyes of my soul, that I might see your glory. That's a really
good prayer request. And I don't think anybody, well
I know, no man on this earth can fully comprehend the greatness
of the glory of God. But Lord, I beg of you, give
me a good glimpse of it anyhow. Would you just reveal, I'm so
enamored by the things that these eyes see. Oh, that I would be
wrapped up in one who cannot be seen with these eyes, but
only with the eyes that you give me, the eyes of the soul. To
see His glory. To see His grace. The sovereignty
of His grace. And God said, here's what I'm
going to do for you. There's a rock, and I've put a cleft in it. I've
cracked that rock open. I've made a place of safety for
you. I'm going to put you in that
rock. That's the best view you can get of my glory, is from
the rock that's been wounded and smitten by the rod of God's
justice. That's where you'll see God's
glory. The glory of God, 2 Corinthians 4 says, shines in the face of
Christ Jesus. I want to see your glory. Show me the glory of the Son
of God. The glory of who He is. In the
magnificence of His person. The glory of what He did for
me as He laid down His life, willingly, having had all the
sins of His people charged to His account. He steps in front
of me and as it were, then pushes me out of the way and says, If
you seek me, let these go their way. That's what he said there
when the soldiers came to arrest him. You can't have me and them.
And then the Savior endured the wrath of God. That sword of God's
justice, it went right into his soul. Lord, I beseech thee, show me
the glory of that. A lot of people talk about Jesus
dying on the cross. but they don't see the glory
of it. The glory of it is this is how God can be just and justify
the ungodly. That's the glory of it. The glory
of it is that our Lord Jesus did that for people who are ill-deserving
and undeserving of the least of His mercies. And He who laid down His life
took it up again. and He ever lives to make intercession
for us. Oh, Lord, I beseech, I beg of
You. I plead with You. I can't plead for You. Not really. The Lord's got to
put that cry in your own soul. But I plead for myself. Open my eyes to a even a clearer
revelation of the glory of your Gospel. Show me what I am again. You can't tell me too often that
I'm a sinner, because that's who Christ came
and died for. And I'll tell you what, when
the devil tempts me, as he often does, He says, you call yourself
a saint? You're not a saint, you're a
sinner. And I just answer back, you're right. But Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. You needn't
throw that up in my face. I already know that. And I'm
on good ground because that's who He came to save. Oh God,
give me a view of Your glory. I beseech You. I beseech You. What do you beseech the Lord
for? And I can't answer that for you, but I hope that you
beseech Him for His grace, for His salvation, for a view of
the glory of God shining in the face of Christ Jesus. You know
what the Lord Jesus said in John 17 in his high priestly prayer?
I'll give you this, then I'll quit. He said, Father, I will
that those whom thou hast given me be with me in glory. Why? That they may behold my
glory. that they may see Me in My glory."
The disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration got a sight of
His glory. It blinded them. Oh God, blind
me if that's what it takes to see Your glory. That's what I
want. And I want people to whom I preach
to see His glory too. And I'll tell you, if we ever
do, and to a degree we have. I understand that. But as He
shows us more glory, we'll have sun-blinded eyes. Eyes blinded
by the glory of the Son of God. That's what we want. We're going to take the Lord's
Supper this morning. I'll ask the men if they would
come. and get ready to dispense the
elements. You can come on down. The bread
of course speaks of our