In Exodus chapter 33, go toward
the end of the chapter. This is a very familiar portion
of scripture. I present no new things to you. The writer of Ecclesiastes said
there's nothing new under the sun. So if I did, there'd be
something wrong with me. What I'm going to do is we're
going to look at what God has to say here about the goodness
of God. And I want you to note as we
read through here that the Lord says there is a place by me. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's that place beside the Lord. He is the goodness of God. None other. A lot of good things
He does, but all those good things He does He does as a part of
who he actually is. The good shepherd. The good guy. Here in Exodus chapter 33, we'll
begin in verse 18. It says, and he said, Moses said,
I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Now that's where we all have
to start. Lord, reveal yourself to me. Show yourself to me. Show yourself
your glory. And the Lord God said, verse
19, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will
show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see
my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord
said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon
a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth
by, that I will put thee in a cliff to the rock, and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away my hand,
and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. Now to verse 5 of chapter 34. Here's the Lord had promised
he's going to do this for Moses, and here is where it actually
happened. Verse 5. And the Lord descended
in a cloud, and stood with him there and proclaimed the name
of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
and unto the third and to the fourth generation. The goodness of our God. Paul said it's the goodness of
our God that leads us to repentance. It is our sovereign God who leads
us to repentance, who reveals himself to us if he wills, if
it's his purpose. It's our sovereign God that we're
talking about here in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. Psalmist David talked about the
goodness of God in several different ways. He said the earth is full
of the goodness of the Lord. We see it all around us. The
Lord is good to Israel. Whoever Israel might be, we'll
see here in just a little bit. He said, Blessed is the man whom
thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness in thy house, even of thy holy temple. And when you
read Revelation chapter 21, you find out what that holy temple
is or who it is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the temple. David said, O God, thou hast
prepared of thy goodness for the poor. That's me. That's me. I have nothing to
offer God. Not one single thing. But he prepared his goodness
for the poor. Aren't you glad? He prepared
the goodness for the poor. He satisfies the longing soul
and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Oh, how great is thy goodness,
which thou has laid up for them that fear thee, which thou has
wrought for them that trust in thee. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. Oh, that men would praise
the Lord for his goodness and his wonderful works among the
children of men. And I say to you that in each
one of these we're talking about a person, not a thing. We're
talking about Jesus Christ. He is the goodness of God. Think about how good He was that
God would send His own Son into this world for His people. Thou shalt call His name Jesus
for He shall save His people from their sins. He sent His own Son because you
and I were sinners and helpless. He sent His own Son to shed His
blood for you and me. Think of the goodness of God.
His Son who gave His life for His people. His Son who shed
His blood for His people. He is our Redeemer. He is our Good Shepherd that
giveth His life for the sheep. I think one of the best definitions
in all of scripture for the goodness of God is found in this passage
we read. As I thought about it and thought
about it, I noticed especially verse 21, and the Lord said,
Behold, there is a place by me. Seated on his right hand is the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is the place by him. there's
the Sovereign One, there's the Judge, there's the Advocate,
there's the Redeemer, there's God Almighty in human form. Steal a man! seated beside the
Father. There is a place by me, the Father
says. Now you want to see me? You want
to know my goodness? There is a place by me, and it's
the Lord Jesus Christ. You will not know God, I will
not know God, until I know Him, Jesus Christ, and Him alone. That's all I need to know. It's all I need to know. There
is a place by me. Jesus said to his disciples,
I go to prepare a place for you. There is a place by me. And we, whom the Lord has chosen,
we who have been given the gift of faith and repentance and have
come to the Lord, we're in Him. in the Beloved,
there's that place by Him. We are in the Beloved. We are in Jesus Christ. Think about how good Our God
is to His people. How wonderful are His works among
the children of men. And when He said that in verse
19, He said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee,
and I will proclaim the name of the Lord. I'm going to make
my goodness pass by you and I'm going to proclaim the name of
the Lord. And what did He do down in verse 6 of chapter 34? and the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God though the words in
the original language are well I won't say the original word
I'll say the word that we use Jehovah Jehovah Elohim Jehovah
God Jehovah that's the personal name for the Lord That's the
name that his people talked to him with. Lord, Jehovah, Jehovah
God. That's the name of his only begotten
son. He is Jehovah. Jehovah God. Jesus. When you break it down
in the Greek language, Jesus is the same as Joshua of the
Old Testament. And Jesus means Jehovah saves. That's who he's talking about
here. He'll make all that goodness pass before him. He'll proclaim
the name of the Lord. He'll preach the gospel, the
everlasting gospel. He'll preach that gospel and
that gospel is all about Jesus Christ, His Son. It's all about Him. We preach
Christ and Him crucified, Paul said. He says, In verse 19 of
chapter 33, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. Our sovereign God. I'll be gracious,
he says, to whom I will be gracious. It's his choice. I'll be merciful
to whom I will be merciful. It's his choice. And He made
that choice eternally. And those are the ones that our
Lord Jesus Christ came for. You see, there's the grace of
God. There's the mercy of God. And if we ask, ask and you shall receive. You
want to see who God is? You ask the Father, show me your
glory. And you know what he'll do? He'll
show you Jesus Christ. There's his glory. And he said,
our Lord prayed in John 17 that he would come back to the glory
that he had with the Father before he came. And then he prayed that
we would see His glory. That's a personal name. That's
a glorious name. Jehovah, Jehovah Elohim. You see at His name every knee
shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. There's none other name under
heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. Where else would you go? His
sheep hear His voice and they follow Him. Where else would
they go? Only to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's not silent. He has His gospel witness. He
has His preachers. He has His teachers. He has his
witnesses, always had them. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost are the witnesses of heaven. The Spirit, the water,
and the blood are the witnesses of earth. He's always had his
witness. There is a place by me. He says there in verse 21 of chapter 33. And the Lord said, Behold, there
is a place by me and thou shalt stand upon the rock. I wonder what rock that was.
the rock Jesus Christ that's who it was you'll stand on the
rock thou shalt stand on the rock that's your foundation no
other foundation has been laid than that which has been laid
and that is Jesus Christ you'll stand upon a rock and verse 22 and it shall come
to pass while my glory passes by that I will put you in the
rock And I'll put my hand over you.
No man has seen God at any time and lived, he says. I'll put
my hand over you so you can't see me. But what I will do is
I'll allow you to see the aftermath. Now what was the aftermath? Let
me see if I can explain what went through my head as I looked
at this. What is the aftermath? What is
the back parts? This is the prophecy. It's going to be fulfilled and
it's going to be fulfilled in a person, Jesus Christ our Lord. The back parts, the aftermath
is the Lord Jesus himself doing everything he said he would do
right here. Not one thing is left out. You'll
see my back part. After I pass by, I put my hand
over you. You know, we're in His hand anyway, aren't you?
We're in the Lord's hand. My sheep hear my voice, they
follow me. I give unto them eternal life,
and no man shall pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which
is greater than all, no man will pluck them out of His hand. Pretty well kept, aren't we?
Do you think anything or anyone or even yourself could pluck
yourself out of his hand? No way. We're covered. So he placed his
own in Jesus Christ. When the Lord passes by, he'll
remove that hand. You see, there is a place by
me. This is what he does. because this is who he is look
at verse 6 of chapter 34 again and the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God merciful merciful I'm
in need of mercy I'm guilty I'm a guilty vile
sinner If I had to stand before God
on my own, I'm gone. There's no hope. But He's merciful. He's merciful. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. Oh, may we pray with that publican,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And you know what? You know what
I'm talking about when I say this. Every morning, sometimes
many times during the day, I pray, Lord have mercy on me. Have mercy
on me. I want His mercy because I can't
take care of myself. I can't do it for myself. merciful and gracious, gracious. Here's the grace of God. We beheld
his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. You see, what he does is who
he is. He's the God of all grace. He is the gracious God. He's
good to us. Next he says he's long-suffering. Peter was told by the Lord three
times, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. I am told, I don't know
this first hand or in reality, but I'm told by my Greek teachers
that the most dramatical Greek structured books in all the New
Testament are 1st and 2nd Peter. Now he was just a fisherman. But God used him to feed the
sheep, to feed the elect. And here's what he said. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promises. Some men count slackness. But
as longsuffering to us. Not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance. There's the long-suffering. He's
abundant in goodness and truth. He is the truth. He said of himself,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father by me. Paul talked about the riches
of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering. Because it
was the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. He's abundant. Abundant. Riches
in goodness. Riches of His grace. How rich
He is. Now that doesn't mean we got
all this money and all these houses and all this land and
all the things that we could possibly want. You know, there
are those guys that have these millions and billions of dollars
and they're still in want. I have the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't beat that for riches. He is my exceeding and great
reward. There's no way. Oh, how good
our God is. How good He is that there's a
place by Him And he says that he's abundant in true goodness
and mercy and keeping mercy for thousands. He's keeping that
mercy just for his own. He's going to give them that
mercy, his own. In the day of his power, they're
going to be willing. And he's going to give that mercy
to them. That's his salvation for the
guilty. If you weren't guilty, you wouldn't need mercy, would
you? Forgiving, he says, verse 7,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Isaiah 53 tells us he
bare the sin of many it says surely
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows Peter said
it this way who his own self bore our sins in his own body
on the tree forgiving you ever thought about
the word forgive Made up of two words, one is for and one is
give. Give in the place of, He was
made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of Him. He forgives. His blood covers
our sin. His blood pardons our sin. His blood purges our sin. He
is the Redeemer and our forgiveness is in Him in whom we have redemption
through His blood. The forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace. But He says that will by no means,
verse 7, the middle of the verse, that will by no means clear the
guilty. He's not going to take you to
the baptismal pool and dunk you in and bring you out and say
you're washed. He's not going to scrub you down
with soap and water and clean you up if possible. He's not
going to have you turn over a new leaf. He's not going to have
you try to even clean yourself. You see, you're still guilty. You're still a sinner. But He substituted Himself for
you. He took your place, where you
deserve to be, on that cross. And He died for your sins, for
my sins. He satisfied God's just demands. God said, the soul that sinneth,
it would I. The wages of sin is death. and he died for us. He took our
place. I must have someone stand for
me. I must have one to be in that
place by the Lord God. There is a place by me. I must
have someone there or I'm lost forever. Now that one that's
there is my advocate, my lawyer. He's pleading my case. He's speaking
up for me. He's interceding for me. That
one that's there is my Redeemer. He's already paid for all these
sins. I can't be... Those sins can't be brought before
Him again. Father, they've already been
paid for. As a matter of fact, He's the Judge. Now think about
it. my Redeemer, my Advocate, my Judge, all in one person sitting
beside at the right hand of the Father. Where's my hope then? Jesus Christ. He is my only hope. He stands in my place. There is a place by me, the Lord
says, And who is he good to? Well, he's good to Israel. Who
is Israel? According to Paul, they're the
children of promise, both Jew and Gentile. According to Paul,
they're the children of God by faith, both Jew and Gentile. The children of Israel. They're
not Israelites because they're born to the nation, as far as
God is concerned. They're Israelites because they
are born of God. They are in Jesus Christ. Can a man, and the Lord said
truly through David, truly the Lord is good to Israel even to
such as are of a clean heart. Can a man make himself clean?
We're talking about that. Can he make himself clean before
God? Who is the only one that has
a clean heart? Jesus Christ, our Lord. He's the only one that
has that clean heart. In my heart, it's deceitful,
desperately wicked. The Bible says to him that knoweth
to do good and doeth not to him in his sin. Paul said, in my
flesh is no good thing. But there's one who's clean,
seated right by the Father. who's pleading for me, interceding
for me, who's redeemed me, who is my judge. All wrapped up in
that one person, Jesus Christ. There was a rich young ruler
who came to our Lord. He said, good master, What good
thing must I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord said, well, why call
you me good? There's none good but God. He's the one that's
good. Later on in that story, the Lord
says, if thou would be perfect. That
young man said, The Lord talked about the commandments. He said,
well, I've kept all those things since my youth up. I'm a good
guy. He'd have probably prayed just
like that Pharisee about how good he was there at the temple. The Lord said, one thing you
like, sell everything you have, give it to the poor, come follow
me. He couldn't do it. He was covetous.
He couldn't do it. Just how good do you have to
be? The Lord said that thou would be perfect. You have to be as
good as God. None of your goodness is nothing
but filthy rags. You have to be as good as God.
You have to be perfect. You have to be holy, blameless,
without spot, without wrinkle, and guess what? That's exactly
what he says about the church. His people, holy, blameless,
without spot, without wrinkle, pure before a holy God, not because
they are, but because of who he is sitting right there beside
the Father. There's a place by me. Most men will proclaim their
own goodness. That's what the writer of Proverbs
says. Most men will proclaim everyone his goodness. But a
faithful man, who can find? But a man of faith, who can? Can you find that? Well, there's
that Pharisee He told all about himself. He proclaimed his own
goodness. And then there was that publican
in the temple. The Pharisee stood out where
everybody could see him. Said it loud enough for everybody
to know. But that publican, over in, I
picture him in the darkness, by one of the pillar poles, spitting
his breath. Be merciful to me, a sinner. I'm a sinful man. Peter said,
depart from me. God, be merciful. You know what
he did? He proclaimed the goodness of
God. If there's any mercy, it's going
to be the goodness of God. If there's any grace, it's going
to be the goodness of God. It's going to be the person,
Jesus Christ. Our Lord. You know even at the
judgment Jesus declares that at the judgment there's going
to be men who are going to proclaim their own goodness. Lord, Lord,
have we not done this? Have we not done that? Why, look
at all the wonderful things we've done. Look at how many pews we've
filled. Look at how many buildings we've
built. Look at the wonderful things
that we have done. And He will look at them and
He will say, Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity. I never
knew you. They were not His covenant people.
They were not ones that He knew. They were not foreknown. They
were not predestinated. They were not called. They were
not sanctified. They were not justified. They
were not glorified. They were not in the Lord Jesus
Christ. They had no Advocate. They had
no Redeemer. They had no judge sitting there
for them. Oh, I'm so glad that it's the
goodness of the Lord that leads men to repentance. What hope do I have? In myself,
none. In the Lord Jesus Christ, He
is my hope. And He leads men to repentance. I think one of the greatest illustrations
of repentance is found in the Thessalonian church. 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1. In verse 9 it says that all the
world knew what this church, what happened in this church,
it says, Paul says. And he says how you turned to
God from idols to serve the living God. You turn from yourself. You turn from your idols. What?
There are no idols today. They have people bowing down
and worshiping stone, isn't it? All over the world. But I tell
you where the idol is, it's in your heart. It's of yourself. We make idols
of ourselves. I was talking to somebody the
other day. We were talking about seeing your picture somewhere. Like the yearbook. When you got
your yearbook, were you vain like me? You open it up and what
you did was fly through it just to see how many pictures there
were of you. Now tell me if that's not vain. But we do it, don't we? We do
it. How you turn from idols, turn
from yourself, turn from your sins, turn from your wicked ways,
denying yourself and turning to the living God. That's what
repentance actually is. There is a place by me. He leads
these men to repentance through the preaching of God's Word. Remember what the angel said
at his birth? Behold we bring you good tidings
of great joy a Savior is born Paul talks about the beautiful
feet of preachers that bring glad tidings of good
things Through the preaching of the
gospel by the Spirit, the Lord leads men, women, young folk to repentance. It's the good pleasure of His
will. It's His purpose. He works in you both to will
and to do of His good pleasure. The Lord did the work and does
the work in the sheep. And that's the reason we have
a good hope. It has nothing to do with what
I do. Everybody that we talk to out
there, their works, will worship. But you got to do so much and
then you'll be accepted. I like what the pastor had to say.
You're accepted then do so much. You're accepted because you love
Him. Go at it. You're accepted in the blood.
He came to seek and to save that which is lost. He accomplished
everything He started. It's done. There's nothing left
for us to do. He who hath begun a good work
in us will perform it until the day of Christ. He's the good
shepherd. He gave his life for the sheep.
There is a place by me. Every good gift, every perfect
gift, coming down from the Father of lights and whom is no variable,
let me get it right here, with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. He doesn't change. Doesn't change. From what we
read here in Exodus 33 and 34, He's never changed one single
bit. He's still the same. Yesterday,
today, and forever. He said through Malachi, For
I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Now doesn't that give you comfort? For I am the Lord, I change not.
Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Well, how do I know if I'm one
for whom he died? Did he lead you to repentance? Has he shown you who he is? Show me thy glory. Has he shown
you who you are? By no means will he clear the
guilty. And has he shown you the one
who's sitting at his right hand, who did everything for you, and
then calls, come unto me. All ye that are weak and heavy
laden, I'll give you rest. My prayer is with David. Lord, remember me for thy goodness
sake. Lord, remember me for thy goodness
sake. I think it's song number 292.
Let's stand and sing a couple of stanzas of that. Number 292.