The lorry can delete it. That's
fine. I want us to look and begin in
verse 7 of Exodus 33 and just read this one verse, but I want
to tell you an incident, tell you a story of this incident
that took place in the nation of Israel when
they were out in the wilderness. Let me read this one verse to
you. And you won't know why Moses did what he did until you read
it in the context. So let's first read verse 7.
Moses took the tabernacle. Now that was the place at this
time where they gathered for special meetings. They gathered
for the reading of the Holy Scriptures, the prophets to preach, to worship. This was a special place. This
was the tabernacle that Moses had reared up there in the wilderness.
And he took this tabernacle down, Moses took it down, and he pitched
it without the camp, far off from the camp, and he called
it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that every
one which sought the Lord went out into the tabernacle of the
congregation which was without the camp." Now I think to understand
that and help us to apply it a little bit, we've got to remember
the whole context of this passage. And it starts really 40 days,
at least 40 days before this. Back here in chapter 32, Moses
had been gone for 40 days. He was up on the Mount Sinai
with the Lord, him and Joshua, his minister. The Lord had given
him the Law, had written the Laws down to him. Told him, and
then, right before he comes down from this mountain, the Lord
made these two stones, wrote on it the Ten Commandments, and
gave them to Moses to give to the children of Israel. But after
he had been gone, we're told here in chapter 32, for 40 days
the children of Israel got so impatient and restless. And they
said, where's Moses at? He's brought us out here and
he's left us. We haven't seen him. We don't know what happened
to him. So they came to Aaron and they cooked up this scheme.
They said, make us a God that may go before us. We need a leader. We need a commander. So Aaron
said, take off your earrings. Now, some of you, some of you
brotherly, macho type fellas, that don't believe in men wearing
earrings, and it's sort of repulsive when we see a man wearing earrings.
These guys wear earrings. Now you may say, that's probably
what the problem was, but they had earrings. Moses said, you
fellas, or Aaron said, you fellas, you women and you brethren, take
your earrings off and give them to me, and I'll make you a god.
Now he denied it later, but he did make a golden calf. He put
it in the fire, he melted it all down, he took it back out,
and the Bible says he fashioned it. He made a little god out
of it, a little calf. You find that in chapter 32. Look at it in verse 2. Verse 2, And Aaron said unto
them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your
wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all
the people break off the golden earrings in their ears, and they
brought them to Aaron. Verse 4, He received them at
their hands, and fashioned it with a graven tool, after he
had made it a molten cap. And they said, This be thy gods,
O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Canaan. And Aaron
saw it. Now there is something to this.
Aaron saw it. What do you mean he saw it? Of
course he saw it. He was chiseling around on it. But he saw it.
And he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation
and said, tomorrow is the feast of the Lord. And they rose up
early on the morning and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And people sat down to eat and
drink and rose up to play. Now I wanted to say something
about this because this is amazing. This is amazing. And here's what
I earnestly think. As they looked upon this golden
calf, it wasn't that they said, that calf is God. That's the
calf that brought us out of Egypt. That calf hadn't been invented
yet. I truly believe that what they were saying is, this calf
represents God to us. And when we worship God, we worship
Him through this calf. In other words, it's a help to
us. It makes it easier for us because
we've got something we can see. This helps us. The reason I say
that, they looked at it and said, this be the God, O Israel, that
brought you out of the land of Egypt. This is the God that delivered
you. And even Aaron said, tomorrow
is going to be a feast to the Lord. We're going to worship
the Lord. And then, on the morrow, they
brought these sacrifices and offered them there before that
silly calf. Now why do I say that? Well, if you ask Catholicism
why they use their candles, why they have the big seat up here
that represents the throne, all the different pictures that they
use and all the things they use in their worship, you ask them,
do you worship those things? And you know what they'll tell
you? No, that's silly. Don't be ridiculous. Well, why
have you got these things then? They say those are helps. They
help us to worship God. They represent God. Why do they
go and bow? Have you ever been to a Catholic
church when they had a wedding or a funeral or something? Every
church has this throne, this seat. And you watch the little
alder boy as he goes back and forth doing his business. Every
time he goes by that throne, he'll bow down. And you know
why he does that? That represents the throne of
God. But it's idols, you see. We don't
need any helps. We don't need any images. We
don't need any pictures. We don't need any alters. We've
got two helps that we can see. One is the Lord's Supper, that
bread and wine. The other is baptism. That's
the only two things we have that we can see that represent something
to us. In verse 7 of chapter 32, the
Lord speaks to Moses. And He says, Moses, and I always
thought this was very amusing. When the Lord spoke of these
children of Israel, He always called them Moses' people. You
notice that? And the Lord said unto Moses,
Get thee down for thy people which Thou broughtest out of
Egypt, have corrupted themselves." And when Moses was talking to
the Lord, He said, No, they're Your people. You brought them
out. So they had this conflict between them. When they see Him,
the Lord said, They're Your people. And Moses said, No, Lord, they're
Your people. They're Your people. So the Lord spoke to Moses in
verse 7 and verse 8 and says, Get back down there to the camp,
because they've corrupted themselves. They've made themselves idols.
In verse 11, Verses 10 and 11. Moses, when the Lord told him
that, he believed it, but it didn't register much with him.
The Lord told him in verse 10, he says, Let me alone that my
wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them,
and I will make of thee a great nation. He said, Moses, I'm going
to destroy you. Moses couldn't figure out why
the Lord was so upset. Look at what he said in verse
11. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Why doest
thy wrath wax so hot against thy people? Which thou broughtest
out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty
hand? See, he couldn't figure out why the Lord was all that
upset. But wait till Moses goes back down the mountain. Wait
till it dawns upon Him. Dishearing something. Dishearing
the condition of things. How bad things are sometimes.
It doesn't register upon us, does it? Until we see it for
ourselves in our own hearts. Moses gives some reasons here
why the Lord's wrath shouldn't wax hot towards the children
of Israel. One, he said, Lord, they're Your
people. You've begun this work in them. Look what you've done
for them already. Are you going to destroy them
now? It's just not like you, Lord, to begin a work, then leave
it off. That's one of the pleas. These are your people. Are you
going to disown them? That's not like you, He said.
Boy, that's a good plea in prayer, ain't it? Lord, these are your
people. And in verse 12, He had another plea before the Lord
in prayer. He said, Wherefore should the
Egyptians speak and say, For mischief the Lord brought them
out to slay them in the mountain, and to consume them from the
face of the earth. Turn from thy fierce wrath, and
repent of this evil against thy people." You know, when we look
upon the church, the world learns a lot from the church. Did you
know that? Not only what the church preaches
to her, but the way the church acts in this world, it tells
a lot about the Lord. And Moses said, Lord, if you
destroy these people, what's the Egyptians going to think?
They're basically going to think, the Lord is just not very good
to His people. He's brought them out here, but
now, why did He bring them out here? Just to destroy them. That's
what they're going to learn from this. And he has another plea
in verse 13, and that's that everlasting covenant. Lord, don't
destroy your people. And verse 13, remember Abraham
and Isaac and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own
self and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars
of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I
give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. Boy,
that's three pretty good pleas in prayer. and plead in the covenant. Lord, did you not swear that
you would multiply this people and give them the land? Now,
if you destroy them, what about the covenant? And in verse 14,
the Lord repented of the evil which He sought to do unto His
people. He repented. I tell you, the
effectual firmament prayers of the righteous man availeth not.
And what you see in these prayers like this, and Daniel and Jacob,
those men wrestling with the Lord, it's because the Lord desired
them to wrestle with Him. That was His purpose. He wasn't
about to destroy Israel. He wanted Moses to wrestle with
Him on their behalf. And in verse 15 and verse 16
is something very interesting. And it tells us this about the
law. The law was given twice. Did
you know that? And this is amazing because Moses
had these two tablets of stone, and it was written on the front
side and on the back side, the Ten Commandments. But Moses didn't
carve out the stone, and he didn't write it on there. It was written
by the hand of God, the finger of God. Wouldn't you love to
see that? And saw what that looked like. God carved out these stones. How did He do that? And he wrote
it. He wrote those Ten Commandments
down. Moses put them underneath his arm. Him and Joshua, his
young minister, went back down the mountain. And he gets down
here to verse 19. And it came to pass, as soon
as he came down into the camp, that he saw the calf and the
dancing. And Moses' anger waxed hot. Now there's the difference between
just hearing about something and really seeing it yourself.
There's the difference between getting something in your head
and getting it in your heart. Somebody tells you something,
you got it up here, and it don't have much effect upon you. Why?
Why are you so upset, Lord? But when you see it yourself.
When Moses saw it himself, he got so angry, he cast those two
tables of his hands and he'd break them there beneath the
mount. And we have no idea where those two tablished commandments
went to. I imagine they just wore away
with time and went back to the dust. I don't know. But that
tells us something. The first commandment was written
by the finger of God and it was broken and pieces shattered.
Then the second time Moses went back up, the Lord said, you make
these commandments. Moses carved him out two tablets,
and Moses chiddled the Ten Commandments on them. And he brought them
back down and showed them to the children of Israel. This
teaches us something, doesn't it? And here's what this teaches
me. Here's what I learned from this. Before Moses ever gave
the Law to the children of Israel on Ten Commandments, God had
already given them. Nobody ever saw them physically,
but there they was, but Moses. And from Adam to the giving of
the law on Mount Sinai, there was a law. Nobody's seen it. You didn't have it written down
here. We didn't have the Ten Commandments that you could go
read. But where was it? Up here. God had put it up here. It was a sin to not worship God. It was a sin not to love God
with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. It was a sin to
kill. It was a sin to kill. It was
a sin to covet. How do we know that? God had
put it in the conscience. Nobody had seen it, but it was
there in secret. Now we have it written down,
don't we? We have it written down. We can go read it. But
you know there's places in this world where they can't go read
it. They don't have it written in their language. But it's still
there. It's written in their conscience.
It's been broken. You can't see it on tablets.
But it's there in the conscience. That's what leaves men without
excuse. Moses saw the calf. And now he
does something drastic. He does two things. Very drastic. He takes some drastic steps.
People think that we're sort of harsh today. They should have
been this day. Moses saw this calf. His anger
was waxed hot. He ground it to powder in verses
20. And he scattered it on the water.
And he made these people drink of that water. that he scattered
this idol's ashes upon. They drank it. And then he confronts
Aaron as to why he did this, and of course Aaron lied. He
said, they gave me those earrings and gold and I threw them in
the fire just to help pop this idol. He just lied like a dog,
didn't he? Could God's children still lie
occasionally? In verse 25, Moses saw something
else, and here he's ready to take another drastic step. In
verse 25, and here's what sin, brothers and sisters, does to
the church. Here's what sin does to the church. And when Moses
saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked
unto their shame among their enemies. The enemy looked upon them and
said, their defenses departed from them. They're as if they're
naked. They're ashamed. They're weak
now. They're naked. That's what sin
does to the church. She loses her defense, doesn't
she? And Moses took this drastic step.
This was an awful step, but he took it. In verse 27. In verse
26, he stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the
Lord's side? Let him come unto Me." And all the sons of Levi
gathered themselves together unto Him. And He said unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his
side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,
and slay every man his brother, every man his companion, and
every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did
according to the word of Moses. And there fell that day of the
people about three, 3,000 men. Man, that's a drastic step, wasn't
it? Kill 3,000 people? You know,
if you just read the Old Testament, there's no wonder that people
look at it sometimes and are disgusted with it. They look
at it sometimes and they say, if you want a bloody book, if
you want a book of wars and murders, just read the Bible. Well, we
can't hardly deny it, can we? But you know what this teaches
us? That when God looks upon sin, it will be judged. And that's
why people don't like the church today, is it not? They live in
sin, and when the church confronts them with it, they don't like
it. But we take this sword, and I don't care if it's your mama,
or your daddy, or your brother, or your sister, you heal them
up with this sword. That's what He did. He did it literally. And it was
a drastic step. And then, on through the remainder
of this chapter, he takes another drastic step. He tells them that
they've sinned. Their sin is grievous. He tells
them to put off these jewels that were on them. The ornaments. He says, I'm going back up to
plead for the Lord for you. See, if there's any hope for
us. And that's what he begins to do there in verse 31. He returns
unto the Lord and said, Oh, this people, this people. He doesn't
even call them the Lord's people now. He says, this people. They have sinned a great sin
and have made themselves God of gold. You know what you and
I need in this day. You know really what the church
needs in our day. The church needs to be awakened. The church needs to see the condition
that the church is in. You know why you and I aren't
anxious about the condition the church is in today? We don't
even know it. We can't see it. If we got a
true view of it as it was, There was a man that came up to me,
a dear preacher down at Brother Don's just a few days ago, and
he said, the church is so like the world, you can't tell them
apart. Isn't that so? Well, I couldn't altogether agree
with him, but I'm not seeing as clearly as he does. He's old,
you see. Oh, if we could see, brothers
and sisters, how anxious we would be. How surely we'd go to the
Lord in prayer. over this matter of the condition
of the churches in our day. You remember the clowns that
was down on the street last summer? Remember that? The cowboy church
up in the city just north of Muncie? Motorcycle day? Hog day? Here in this city? All these silly things. The fig
leaf ministry? I'm still reading about the fig
leaf ministry. that has this lady for a pastor,
and called himself the church. We're ordaining homosexuals? A lot of so-called Christians
is now supporting abortion, the killing of the unborn, and professing
to be in the church? Are we in a sad state or not?
The church, as we look around us, is in a sad state. And if
we don't see that, it's just because we're not like Moses.
And if we saw it, I'm sure we'd have the same attitude that he
had. Oh Lord, this people have sinned
a great sin. And yet now in verse 32, if thou
wilt forgive their sin, then he pauses for some reason, and
if not, block me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast
written. This was the attitude of Paul,
wasn't it? I could wish myself a curse from Christ for my brethren.
If I knew that that would save them, if that could possibly
save them, Lord blot my name out of the book. But I tell you,
He ain't going to blot anybody's name out of the eternal book
of the life of the Lamb. But He says there in verse 34,
Therefore now go, lead this people into the place." And look, lead
the people. The Lord didn't even call them
Moses' people anymore. What a sad state. See what a
sad state it has degenerated into. The Lord said, Moses, they're
your people. Moses said, Lord, they're your
people. And now neither one of them wants to honor them. Moses
said, it's this people. The Lord said, it's the people. Behold, mine angel shall go before
thee. Nevertheless, in the day when
I visit, I will visit their sins upon them." And the Lord plagued
the people because they made a cat, which Aaron made. And
then in chapter 33, he goes on and reiterates that again. Go
unto the land, in verse 1, that I swore unto Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Verse 3, unto a land floored with milk and honey,
but I will not go up in the mist. of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked
people, lest I consume thee in the way." And that brings us
here to verse 7. Now see the context of this.
See the context of this. It was a sad time. They had committed
idolatry. Moses had taken these dreadful
steps to deal with it. And there seemed to be this attitude
of pending judgment. You can almost feel it. The Lord
said, I'm going to visit their sin. I'm going to visit their
sin. And it was almost like this judgment
hanging over their head. And here in the first few verses
of chapter 3, when the Lord told Moses to tell them to strip off
their ornaments, their jewels, their pride. They're still proud.
Tell them to pull those off. And they did, and they were weeping.
And there was this awful, awful state of things within this camp. Unrest! And this is the context in verse
7, "...which Moses took the tabernacle, and he pitched it without the
camp, afar off from the camp." Now this was a gigantic step
because this was the place they met to worship. Why does Moses do this? It wasn't
a self-righteous thing. It wasn't a thing that I'm going
to separate myself from you. I'm better than you are. I'm
holier than you are. And I'm going over there to worship.
It wasn't that at all. It was this sense of idolatry. Some of them hadn't repented
of it. They weren't broken-hearted about it. The judgment of God
was pinned up on them. The Lord said, in the day when
I visit their sins, I'll deal with them. And Moses said to
himself, he thought to himself, I want a place of quietness. I want a place to go to worship
the Lord and be quiet. So he takes this tabernacle down.
And he takes it not only outside the camp, but he said, you're
far off from the camp. Far off from the camp. Why does
he do that? And notice how he says this here,
he called it the tabernacle of the congregation. What a reproach
that was to those who were over there in the camp. It's sort of like we say today,
here's the church. Here is the church. We begin
to identify the church like I did this morning in the message.
Who is the church? It's those who are in Christ.
It's those who are built upon Christ. And somebody is going
to say, oh, oh, so you think you've got the only church. It's
sort of like you think you've got the only way. And they get
mad about that. Why do we have to do that? Why
was it so necessary that Moses take this tabernacle and way
off from the camp and says, here's the church? The church is not
over there with you fellows. Here's the church over here.
Why does he do that? For this reason, brothers and
sisters, the world and the church has to be distinguished. The doctrine of Christ and the
doctrines of men and devils must be distinguished. You just try
to integrate them together like the world is wanting us to do
today. And that's what the world is wanting, where you can tell
no difference in what the church believes and what the world believes. What the church acts like and
what the world acts like And if we'll just all be alike and
have unity, that'll bring peace and harmony, and we'll all get
along just fine. There's but one thing wrong with
that. The church and the world are different. The worship of
God and the worship of devils are two distinct things. And
we have to separate them. People don't want us to do that.
People want to come here to our little congregation and live
in sin and still belong to this congregation. They want to live
like the devil, walk according to the course of this world,
and if you say anything to them about it, who are you to judge
me? Are you the only church there is? Have you got the only truth? What must we do? especially in
our day, when they're talking about unity, gathering everybody
back together. What we have to do, brothers
and sisters, is to say, here's the truth. We have to identify who God is,
what sin is, the way of salvation. We have to distinguish between
the truth and the lie, light and the life, death and life. We have to do that. That's why
Moses did that. And you notice the effects of
it? Notice what happened when he did that. And it came to pass,
and it always does, that everyone which truly in his heart sought
the Lord, he went out into the tabernacle of the congregation
which was outside the camp. See that? They said, wait a minute, guys,
something's going on here. We're here in the camp, but where's
the church? We're here in this camp and we're
getting along just fine, but where's the presence of the Lord?
And they looked out there with Moses in the tabernacle and they
said, uh-oh, it's out there! It's not here! It's out there! And they began to think about
that and they said, man, we're in trouble. We're in trouble.
We're not right with the Lord at all. We're not in the church
at all. We've missed it. And some man told his wife, said,
I'm going to seek the Lord. I'm going to seek the Lord. I'm
wrong. I'm seeking the Lord. Oh, what
are you going to do? He said, I'm leaving this camp and I'm
going out there to that tavern. That's where I'm going. I think
Paul interpreted this for us. If you want an interpretation
of this, let me read you a perfect interpretation of this. It's
found in Hebrews chapter 13. Listen to this. Hebrews chapter
13. Paul interprets this verse of
what Moses did very well. Wherefore Jesus also, that He
might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto
Him without the count, bearing his reproach. You and I don't come out of false
religion and false churches and false worship that's lying on
God just to be self-righteous. That's not what it's about. It's
because God's not in this stuff. He's in the truth. He's where
the gospel of Christ is preached. where he's worshipped in truth
and sincerity. That's why Moses took this step.
And you and I need to stand steadfast, brothers and sisters, in the
truth. Come out of all this junk and idolatry. The judgment of
God is pending upon this religious world. Not just the open and
profane world. Come out from among them, he
says. Be a separate, saith the Lord. Don't touch that unclean
stuff. And I'll receive you. I'll be
among you. I'll walk in you and be your
God and you'll be my people. That's why Moses did this. And then if we go on in this
chapter, and I'll hurry. I want to go through this chapter
because it goes on in such a good story. Moses goes back up and he begins
to talk out to the tabernacle. He begins to talk with the Lord.
And it comes to pass during the process of his praying to the
Lord that he makes these two requests. In verse 13, he has
these two requests. Mainly two requests. Moses talking
with the Lord out there in the tabernacle. Now therefore I pray
thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, Show me now thy way,
that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and
consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, the
Lord said to Moses, My presence shall go with thee, and I will
give thee rest. And he said unto him, Moses said,
If your presence go not with me, carry me not up hence. For
wherein shall it be known here that I am thy people, that I
have found grace in thy sight. Is it not in that thou goest
with us? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
world." Primarily, if you reduce this down here and this few verses,
Moses is praying for one thing. It's evident because of the way
the Lord answered him. Moses was wanting the presence of the
Lord. That's what he was asking for. The presence of the Lord. And I just about bet you that
everyone that went out there to that tabernacle with Moses,
had the same attitude. That's why they went out there.
They never went out there. They coveted, they desired the
presence of the Lord. There's three things about the
presence of the Lord, and Moses mentions all three of them right
here. First, look in verse 16. 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? Brothers and sisters, how can
you and I possibly know that the Lord has saved us? We're
saved by grace. How do we know that He's been
gracious to us? How do we know we've found favor
in His sight? Is it not that He gives us His
presence? Do not we have an unction from
the Holy One? Don't the Spirit of God bear
witness with our spirits that we're children of God? I can
tell you you are a child of God. You can go to this Word and find
all kinds of assurance from it. But there is another witness,
and that witness is essential. If you and I are to have the
assurance to know, and that is what Moses said, how can we know
that we are your people? How can I know that I have obtained
grace in your sight? Is it not by your presence? And
he mentions something else. Well, the Lord mentions it in
verse 14. Not only that initial witness, the spirit bearing witness
with our spirit that we're children of God, but look what else he
says in verse 14 about this presence. My presence shall go with thee,
and I will give thee rest. What is it the presence of the
Lord gives the soul? Is it not rest? I tell you for
my own part, I consider this personal witness for myself,
I have never found a rest in my whole life like soul rest. And I have never found a soul
rest like His presence, the blessed presence of the Son of God. Can't
you say that too? A prison would palace His proof
if Jesus would dwell with me there. What made Newton say that? Because he knew the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ was rest. He took away the fears
and the doubts and the dread of this life and the enemies
and even death itself, if Jesus would dwell with me there. What
rest for the soul? But he says something else about
the presence of the Lord, and I love this. It's the last part
of verse 16. Here is something else the presence
of the Lord will do. Is it not in that thou goest
with us, so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the
people that are upon the face of the earth? We talk about separation. We talk about holy living, the
church being separated. I tell you what secures her separation. The presence of the living God.
That will do it every time. I tell you what, you can get
on the people, try to get them to live right. And I made the
statement down at the conference the other night. Did you ever
try to get a lost person to act like a Christian? That's one
of the most disappointing things you ever run into in your life.
Don't do this, don't do that, don't go here, don't go there,
read your Bible, pray, do all this, and they just disappoint
you. And you know why? They cannot
and will not. They don't have the presence
of the Lord. If you don't have the Spirit of Christ, you're
none of His. And there ain't no sense acting like it. It's
hypocrisy. Here's what will secure the church
being different than the world. The Lord's presence. I've found
that so in myself, haven't you? I tell you, even the pleasures,
the temporal advantages that's in this world, is sort of losing
the appeal to me. Aren't they to you? The things
you used to love and just seek after, now they're just fading
like an old leaf in the late fall. And why is that? It's His presence. It's His presence. That's what the church needs
today. What the church of Jesus Christ needs in this world today
is the Lord to visit her with His presence. We can pass laws
of morality. The moral majority tried that.
Look how it failed. We can get the best schools that
we can get and the best teachers that we can get. Try to reform
our governments from the White House down to your house. And
I'm telling you what, if the Lord don't come in His presence,
we'll be just like the world. So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people of the world. You won't believe
like the world. You won't act like the world.
You won't think like the world. And the reason why is present. I've got to go on because I'm
keeping you too long already. Here's the second thing Moses
prayed and asked for. Not only for the presence of
the Lord, which the Lord assured him of, But he had this amazing
statement in verse 18, this amazing request. He said, Moses said
unto him, I beg you, show me thy glory. Show me thy glory. I tell you, Moses had seen a
lot down in Egypt, hadn't he? I mean, if you see the Lord turn
rivers to blood, that's pretty amazing. If you see the Lord
send thick darkness that you can feel it, That's not natural. That's from the Lord. Moses saw
that. He saw the Lord smite all the
firstborn down in Egypt. He even was standing there at
the Red Sea when the Lord parted it, and it got dusty on the bottom,
and the children of Israel went across on dry land. What are
you talking about, Moses? You want to see His glory. Oh,
he said, I've seen your judgments. I've even seen something of your
grace. But he said, I've never seen
nothing that I want to see. Show me your glory. Well, the Lord said in verse
19, Here's my glory. I will make all my goodness pass
before thee. And I'll proclaim the name of
the Lord before thee. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. I will show mercy upon whom I
will show mercy. But you can't see My face and
live. Verse 22, there's a place by
Me, a rock. And I'll pass by and put you
in a cliff to the rock. And I'll remove My hand, you'll
see My backside. But you can't see My face and
live. And then down in chapter 34,
verse 6, here's what the Lord does. In verse 5, the Lord descended
in a cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name
of the Lord. The Lord passed by before him
and proclaimed, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquities, transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty. this in the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children's children, and to the third and to the fourth
generation. And when Moses saw this glory,
he made haste, and bowed his head towards the earth and worshipped."
Now, I don't have time to go into this, and I don't even see
all of it, to be honest with you, anyway. But he says here, the glory of
the Lord is His goodness. It's His goodness. There's a
man that came to the Lord Jesus one time and called Him good
master. And the Lord said, why are you calling Me good master?
There's one good. There's one who is essentially
good. He has no evil about Him at all.
He's good through and through. And the Lord said, do you believe
I'm God? Is that why you're calling Me good master? God is good. And His creation, His providence,
shows forth His goodness. When I look at you today, you're
sitting here, and you know what I see? I see the goodness of
the Lord. I'm standing here before you,
and you know what I see? The goodness of the Lord. My
garden produced beans that Joe and I can. Wonderful tomatoes. Aaron went out in my garden one
evening. I bet he ate 20 tomatoes. He ate 6 at one time. That's
the goodness of the Lord, ain't it? What if we was over somewhere
where we had no gardens? Ain't the Lord good? And letting
us come here and be in good health. You're looking at me and I'm
looking at you. You can hear me and I can speak. All around
us. The sun rising, the rain from
heaven. In all the providence of God.
What do we see? The goodness of the Lord. Boy,
we get off into salvation. Why did God send His dear Son
to hang upon Calvary's tree for such as we are? Why did He do that? One reason. He's good. Why did He call you
when you were dead and sinned? Of all people, He called you.
Ain't He been good to you? The Lord is good to Israel. He's
good to His church. Oh, the goodness! I don't know
what all Moses saw in this, but I'm telling you that's the difference.
I can talk to you about it. But when the Lord shows to you
His goodness, that'll be the difference. That'll be the difference. The Lord showed me. Showed me.
The Lord said, I'll show you. And then He talks to this about
being gracious. And you notice a couple of things
about this. Here in verse 19 of chapter 33.
This grace is particular grace. Because look how he says it.
I will be gracious to whom? I'm going to be gracious to some
people. Some particular people. Not everybody. We know that.
But aren't you thankful that God is gracious to somebody?
To whom? If you want to do a little word
study on this, I'll get you started on this. Whom? Let's go to Romans
8, verse 29 and 30. Those whom He foreknew. Those whom He called, He justified. Those whom He justified, He glorified. A lot of whoms, aren't they?
But it's particular grace. But it's discriminating grace
too, because notice this. I will be gracious to whom I
will. I will. I tell you what, Moses saw this
immediately. He saw this, and this is one
of the things I think that bowed his head in worship, because
he saw the Lord was going to be gracious to this people. I
will be gracious. And when God says, I will be
gracious, the devils in hell or sin or flesh cannot stop Him.
Do you know that? It's sovereign. It's particular.
It's discriminating. Moses, I will have mercy. Oh, my soul. Oh, my soul. Can anybody hinder Him when He
says, I will? I will have mercy. That's one
of the reasons we lack discriminating grace. The world hates it. Away
with it, they say. You and I love it. You and I
love it. You know why the world They think
of this grace like this in the hands of God, it's free. And
you know why they don't like it? They don't like it for one of
the reasons why Moses really loved it. Because the Lord spoke
of forgiveness of sins and transgressions and iniquities. The judgment
of God was pending upon this people. He said, I'm going to
visit your sins. I'm going to visit your sins.
You better pull off these jewels and humble yourself. I'm going
to visit your sins." And now he turns right around and says
to Moses, this is a stiff-necked people. They don't deserve anything
but my visitation of judgment. But I will be merciful. I will forgive their transgressions. I will forgive their sins and
their iniquities. And Moses said, oh my soul, and
he bounced down to worship. You see yourself. as the most
vulgar, wretched, hell-deserving person in this world, don't you?
Don't you see yourself that way? Larry said this morning, if you
see yourself in the light of this Word, you see yourself that
way. Aren't you amazed, then, when
the Lord says to you, you're saved because I will to be merciful? You're going to be in heaven
with me someday just like my son because I will to be gracious. Ain't that wonderful? And the world argues and complains
and they murmur because the world thinks it's something. And the
world thinks it's deserving. Paul used this in Romans chapter
9 to strip those Jews. To show them just because you're
a Jew doesn't mean you're one of God's elect. It's His choice. It's His sovereign will. We try
to teach people this. Excuse me. But it's the problem
that we're having. They haven't been humbled. They
haven't been humbled. You let a man stand before God
realizing that if I get what I deserve, I'm a goner. And then
you let him see this grace, this sovereign, distinguishing, discriminating
grace. I'm telling you, his face will
get in the dust. And he'll repent that he ever
complained about. This is the course I wish. And
this is why I wanted to look at that this evening. It seems
like to me that this is the course that the church needs to be dealt
with in our day. It's a day that I would to God
the Lord would awaken at least a few people and show a few people,
if nothing else, a few preachers, the condition of things today.
And they begin to take some of these severe steps Instead of
getting the pulpit to please people and have people to speak
well of them, they'll stand up and declare the conditions of
things as they really are, and call the church outside this
miserable camp that she's settled down in to show the difference
today. Calling the church to repentance
and seeking the Lord. And then God visiting. And then
that's when the church is going to begin to see the glory. of
God in Christ. Let's pray.