I want to pick up right where
we left off this morning. Exodus chapter 33, verse 18. We heard Moses pray, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. My subject tonight is the glory
revealed. Exodus 33, verse 18. Moses said, I beseech thee, show
me thy glory. And he said, 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 cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while
I pass by, and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see
my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. And the Lord said
unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone, like unto the first,
and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first
tables, which thou breakest. And be ready in the morning,
And come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself
there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come
up with thee. Neither let any man be seen throughout
all the mount. Neither let the flocks nor herds
feed before that mount. And he hewed two tables of stone,
like unto the first, And Moses rose up early in the morning
and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him,
and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord
descended in the 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
unto the third and fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed
his head toward the earth and worshipped. And he said, if now
I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee,
go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people. and pardon our iniquity
and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. Now let me,
as we look at this passage of scripture that is more suited to be meditated
on than preached about, especially by me, let me try to simply raise
and answer from the text we've just read four plain questions. Number one, Moses said, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. What is it that God revealed
to Moses in answer to his prayer? The Lord said, 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. Obviously,
Moses knew God is spirit. These Old Testament prophets,
these Old Testament saints, believed the record God had given concerning
himself. And they understood far more
than most folks in the religious world understand today. They
understood clearly the gospel of Christ. They understood the
message of Genesis 315. These folks understood that God
is spirit. And you can't see a spirit. You
can't touch spirit. You can't feel spirit. God is spirit. Well, how am I
going to see him? Moses fully believed, as God
promised in Genesis 315, that God would take on himself somehow
or another and appear before men in human flesh as our Redeemer. And he said, Lord, let me see
you. Let me see your glory. When you read the Old Testament
scriptures, and you read about the angel of the Lord coming
to men, you read about God standing before men, God speaking to men,
and men communicating with God, and God with them. Understand,
these fellows were not just hallucinating. They were not just having dreams.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, God the Son, stood before men in
human form and spoke to them in human form, he is called throughout
the Old Testament the angel of the Lord. He is the archangel. He is God's messenger, the chief
one, the one of whom all other messengers speak. So when Moses
says, I beseech thee, show me thy glory, he is saying, Lord,
I fully believe you're coming in human flesh. Let me see you. Let me see you. Show me your
glory. These eyes of flesh are designed
only to see that which is physical and material. They cannot reveal
and they cannot understand that which is spiritual. So Moses
is asking not only that he see the Son of God, but that seeing
him, the Lord would give him understanding as to his person,
his character, and his worth. this desire to behold God's glory,
to behold the wondrous person of God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, to know God. You young folks, young boys,
young girls, teenagers, one of these days you'll meet somebody
that'll do more than turn your head. and you'll fall in love
with them, and you'll get married, and you'll want to know everything
you can. And after you've been married
for 40 years, as you grow in love with one another, you know
what you'll be wanting to do? Want to know them even better.
Just keep wanting to know. Want to know everything you can
about them. Know them intimately. in detail,
know them as fully as possible. You want to know their thoughts,
their tastes, their desires, their likes, their pleasures,
everything you can about them. You want to know that person
upon whom your heart is set. Moses says, Lord, I want to know
you. He had been in the mount with
him for 40 days and 40 nights. He knew God Dare I say it like
I imagine nobody else on this earth knew God. He knew God. And he said, I want to know you.
You see, the more you know him, the more you want to know him.
The closer God draws to us and allows us to draw to him, the
more we're constrained to cry, Lord, lift up the light of thy
countenance upon us. And God intends for us to see
Him in His glory. God Almighty has purposed that
somebody know Him as He is and know Him in the fullness of His
glory. The great purpose of the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ to redeem and save His people from their
sins was that we might behold His glory Listen to this. Our Lord prayed, Father, I will
that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am
that they may behold my glory. Father, I want these. whom we've
chosen. These whom you've given me. These
whom I have redeemed with my blood. These precious ones to
me. These God's own inheritance. I want them to be with me where
I am at your throne that they may see. See so as to know my
glory. And you can be sure of this.
Every sinner for whom Jesus Christ shed his blood at Calvary Every
sinner for whom he made that prayer Shall behold him in his
glory and know him even as he is known Perfectly know him Job
understood this turn back to the book of Job chapter 19 Job
chapter 19 and Remember that Job Probably,
probably, was written before Genesis. Job, probably, is the
oldest book in the volume of inspiration. This man, Job, lived
at least as early as Abraham, maybe earlier. He speaks profoundly. He speaks profoundly. He says
in Job 19, 25, I know. He's not guessing, he's, I know.
I've been taught of God, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Not he's going to live, he liveth.
My Redeemer. The one who redeemed me before
the world was, he liveth. And that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth. And this is not talking about
Christ's incarnation. This is talking about the second
coming. How do you know? Job goes on
to say, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, After
this piece of flesh has been eaten of the worms and gone back
to the earth, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Wow. Now, remember who said this and
when he said it. This is not a man who'd been
reading John Gill's Body Divinity and John Gill's commentaries
all his life. This is a fella who lived back long time ago. He had a better teacher than
Dr. Gill. He was taught word of mouth, direct from one father
to his sons, and a son to his sons, and a son to his sons,
generation after generation, in days when men lived a long
time. He said, I know that the day's
coming when the one who bought me with his blood, the one who
stood as the lamb of God, my shelter and my redeemer before
the world began, he's going to come here and stand on this earth. and this body of mine is going
to be raised out of the grave, and I'm going to see him with
these eyes. I'm going to see him. Now, just be sure you don't
misunderstand. And mine eyes shall behold, and
not another, though my rage be consumed within me. If you turn to the back of the
book and read that which is written in the Eternal City, I saw no
temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are
the temple of it. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. I don't think
I ever quite noticed that just like that before. The glory of
God lightens the city. And the lamb is the glory of
God. Christ Jesus is the one of whom
Moses speaks here. Now, go back to our text, Exodus
34, 33. What is it that God showed Moses?
What revelation did he make to this man whom he made to be his
friend? Moses asked to see God's glory.
And now, Moses is placed into a cleft of the rock, standing
upon the rock, and God says, I'll put my hand over you, and
I'll pass by you, and I'll cause you to see my goodness. All my goodness shall pass before
you. Goodness. I will make all My
goodness passed before thee. Wow. You'd have thought he meant
to say, you know, cannon fire and sparklers and halos and all
kinds of stuff. You'd have thought all kinds
of the religious notions that folks have. Let me see your glory. God said, I will cause my goodness
to pass before you. This is the glory of our God. The glory of God. What is a man's
glory? It's the thing he puts out front.
What is a man's glory? It's that which he wants you
to see. It is that which makes him appear
at his best. Here is God's best. His goodness. His goodness. The very word God is but a shortened
form of the word good. God is good. The Lord is good. His goodness fills the earth.
I'll cause my goodness to pass before you. Everything about
God is good. Everything God does is good. Indeed, God alone is truly good. You remember when the rich young
ruler came to the Savior? He said, good master. And the
Lord Jesus, not being a well-trained soul winner, he said, what are
you doing calling me good? There's none good but God. Nobody
else good? Nobody else good? No one truly
good. So if you call me good, are you
saying I'm God? There's none good but God. The
Lord God is good. and all his judgments are good,
and all his ways are good. He does nothing but good. It may appear to be evil at the
time, and it may bring evil upon men, but that which God does
is good, because God is good. He's good. His goodness is experienced
by everyone. God's goodness is directed toward
his elect, obviously. God's goodness is that which
he bestows upon his elect in all the ages of time, in all
circumstances, in all experiences. But when it rains over here,
you know it rains over yonder too? So that God causes the rain
to fall on the just and the unjust. He causes the sun to shine on
the righteous and on the wicked. Now, some fools call that God's
providential goodness to men universally, his universal benevolence,
a sense in which God shows his love to everybody. Well, let's
try the reverse of that. Let's try the reverse of that.
When God sends a tornado through here, And it comes right in this
path here. It knocks out my house and whirls
around there and knocks out my neighbor's house and goes on
over there and knocks out the farmhouse and goes down there and knocks
out that house and goes across the road and knocks down that
house. And that's God's judgment. I'm one of God's people. Do you
mean then that since God sends judgment to everybody else, there's
a sense in which God universally is angry with everybody, including
me? This is God's universal judgment. No, no, no. God does good and
only good. And everything he does is specifically
for me. Did you hear that, my brothers,
my sisters? It's just for you. So that if
he sends the sunshine and your neighbor gets a little water,
he sent it for you, but your neighbor gets benefit because
he lives close to you. If God sends the sunshine and
your neighbor's plants grow and thrive, they get the benefit
of living close to you. And if God sends judgment, you
experience it just because you live in this world of ungodly
men. But it's designed still to do
you good. The righteous understand the
judgments of the Lord. God sends devastating earthquakes,
tidal waves, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We read about
them every season of the year. And you see life destroyed and
fools stand up and say, how can you talk about this being God's
work? This is God's work and it's good. And God's people understand it.
And people who don't understand it are not God's people. They're
just not God's people. We bow and worship God. We don't argue with Him. We don't
fuss with Him. But He's more than good. God's
goodness is seen in His election of His people. Saint in our redemption,
saint in our call and preservation by the Spirit. God in all his
being is good, is good in all he does. He only performs wondrous
things in the earth. But there's something else God
showed Moses. He said, I will cause all my goodness to pass
before thee. And he says, I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. You see, God's goodness doesn't
stand by itself. God's goodness is sovereign goodness. It is sovereign goodness. He is merciful to whom he will
be merciful. He owes good things to no one. No one has a claim on his goodness. No one has a right to expect
anything good from God. We forfeited that in the garden
and we forfeited it when we came forth from our mother's womb
speaking lies. God is good, but God's goodness, he bestows on
whom he will, as he will, according to his own will and pleasure
and nothing else. Now, would you behold God's goodness? Go to Calvary. and see Jesus
Christ crucified, dying in the room instead of his people, satisfying
the justice of God on behalf of his people, and saying, I
laid down my life for the sheep. What goodness. Why did he redeem
you? Because he's good. But why Bobby
Estes, not your neighbor? Because he's sovereign. Why did
he call you? Because he's good. But why you
and not your neighbor? Because he's sovereign. He has
mercy on whom he will have mercy. The Lord Jesus came here to save
a people, a people called his seed, a holy seed, whom he's
seeking in this earth by his sovereign goodness. Our God is
an absolute sovereign. And this attribute of God's sovereignty
ought to be, it ought to be a matter of constant delight and cheer
to God's people. Our Lord Jesus calls out, come
unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. But just before he said that,
listen to this, he said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. O saints of God, in this day
of near universal judgment and reprobation, when God has sent
strong delusion of every imagination, against men and women who would
not receive the love of the truth. In this day when God has passed
judgment upon the world in which we live, in this day when God
sets up evil over us, evil over nations, and evil over men to
rule over them, in this day when God has put people in authority
to teach both moral perversion and decadence and religious perversion
and decadence. In this day, here we sit in this
place, worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Oh, Father, I thank you. You've hidden the gospel of your
grace from the wise and prudent. revealed it unto babes even so
father for so it seemed good in thy sight here we are because
God's gracious to me will be gracious he's merciful to whom
he will be merciful and yet he says come unto me all ye that
labor and heavy laden and I'll give you rest I have a letter
on my desk, I've got the answer this week. Read the LinkedIn
letter from a young man asking me, how can you declare God's
sovereignty on the one hand and then call sinners to repent and
believe on Christ on the other hand? Of course, the Savior does.
Well, he does. And the fact is, right now, if you come to him,
if you come to him, Let me be personal as I can possibly
be. If you come to Him, oh brother
God, I'm so aware of my guilt, my corruption, my depravity,
my sin. I've got to have help. I need
Christ. I need His blood. I need His
righteousness. Come to Him. Come to Him and He will give
you rest. He'll give you rest. But what
if I'm not one of God's elect? If you come, you are. If you come, you are. If you
believe, you are. How can that be? Because that's
the way it is. You won't come unless He turns
you and brings you and draws you. And the coming is the fruit
of the calling. The coming is the fruit of election. The coming is the fruit of redemption. The coming is the fruit of God's
goodness. All right, here's the second
thing. What did God conceal from Moses? He said, thou canst not see my
face. Verse 20 says, thou canst not
see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And this was as much an act of
grace as him declaring, I will cause my goodness to pass before
thee. Just as much an act of grace.
You see, when God conceals a matter of Acts, it's best concealed. Be sure you get that. It'll help
you. When God conceals a matter, it's best concealed. There are
things God would have us to know and things he would not have
us know. And it is foolish, it is irreverent, it is akin to
blasphemy to pry into those things that God has hidden. The secret
things belong unto the Lord. And the things that are revealed
belong to us and to our children. So that when we start to pry
into things that God has not revealed, Oh, now let's get our
thinking caps on and study this thing out. We can find it out.
It's got the scriptures, you know, they've got a hidden code.
They've got a hidden meaning. No, this is not God's hiding. This is God's revelation. He's
given this for us to know something. He's given the book of God for
us to know Him in His glory, not for us to know all the things
He does. He reveals to us the general
overall picture of things, telling us all things work together for
good to them that love God. Well, how on this earth can it
be good for a man like Muammar Gaddafi to be a ruler of a nation,
or a man like the fellow who got in the White House now to
be a ruler of a nation, or the one who preceded him to be a
ruler of a nation. How can that be good? How can it be good to
have to go to the funeral home and bury my daddy? How can it
be good to go bury my mama? I know she's in hell now. How
can it be good? How can these things work for
good? How can it be good for my family
to be blown to the winds? Not be able to know my sons or
daughters and then be scattered from one end of the earth to
the other? How can it be good for my wife to run off with a
neighbor? My husband to run off with a
neighbor? How can it be good? How can these work together for
good? I don't know! Except to say God rules. And God's declared He works all
things together for good to them that love Him. That's all. That's all. One Sunday morning years ago,
many years ago, a preacher was sitting back there in the back,
visiting with his family in the area. I was preaching from Romans
8, 28. As he walked out, a fellow, and
the fellow claimed to believe the gospel of God's grace. He
said, I sure don't know how you can say this is good. I responded,
I didn't. God did. God did. He causes even the evil to be
good to His own. God Almighty has given us this
book to show us His way and to show us His glory in the face
of Jesus Christ. And that which He conceals from
us, we ought to leave alone. Just leave it alone. Don't ask
things to which there's no answer. Don't pry into things about which
God doesn't speak. If God speaks, seek to understand
it. If God doesn't speak, leave it
alone. And then third, how did God reveal his glory to his servant
Moses? Look at verse 21 again, Exodus
33. The Lord said, behold, there
is a place by me. and thou shalt stand upon a rock
and it shall come to pass that while my glory passeth by that
I will put thee in the cleft of the rock and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by and I'll take away mine hand
and thou shalt see my back parts but my face shall not be seen. Before any man can see behold,
grasp, the infinitely glorious, righteous, and holy God, he must
be put in the place of security and grace and peace. He's got
to be put in Christ. I said a little bit ago, if you
come to Christ, it's because God's brought you to Christ.
The Lord says, I will put you in the cleft of the rock. I'll
put you there. Rock of ages, cleft for me, grace
has hidden me safe in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Cleanse
me from its guilt and power. Now look at the beautiful picture
we have here. God said, I'll put you in the cleft by an operation
of almighty grace, I put you in my son. And I will put my
hand over you. And I will cause my goodness
to pass before you. And thus he shows us the absolute
security of all his people in Christ Jesus. We are on the rock,
built on the rock, Christ Jesus. We are hidden. in the wounded
Redeemer, hidden in the cleft of the rock by God's own hand,
covered over by the hand of God, so that that glory that is a
consuming fire to all men outside Christ is to us a matter of delight
and no harm, hidden in the crucified with God's hand over us, protecting
us all the time. Here's the great superiority
of the gospel over the law. The law gives a shadow of these
things. The gospel gives the reality.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall
abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Now, one more thing,
one more thing. Look at verse 34, our chapter
34. What is the glory? the glory of God revealed in
Christ. Verse five, the Lord descended
in the 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. How good, merciful, and gracious. How unlike all the imaginary
gods of ancient days. You read the Greek mythology
about their gods. They were all either a little
limp wristed and effeminate and womanly, or they were terrors.
And sometimes the female goddesses were terrors. But he who is God,
merciful and gracious, full of mercy and full of grace. Read
on. Long-suffering. Long-suffering. That doesn't mean that God's
just so patient he'll put up with your ungodliness forever
until you just finally wear out his long-suffering. No. Long-suffering,
Ron, means that God Almighty never gets in a hurry. He knows
exactly what He's doing, and at the appointed time of love,
He'll cause you to cross His path, and He'll cross your path,
and everything changes. He's long-suffering. He waits
to be gracious, not because He has to wait on you. No, no, no,
no. He waits to be gracious, for He waits at the proper time,
and the best time, and the appointed time to be gracious. long-suffering
and abundant. Abundant in goodness and truth. Goodness and truth. By mercy
and by truth, iniquities purged. Can't be any other way. What's
this? Keeping mercy for thousands. uses this indefinite number to
speak of a vast multitude which no man can number, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, forgiving sin fully and
completely, absolutely of every kind, of every character, iniquity,
inequity, missing the mark, transgression, kicking down the fences, knocking
down the barriers, running in rebellion against God, and sin,
the evil of what you are. God says, my goodness, is that
I forgive it all. Iniquity, transgression, and
sin. I forgive you for what you haven't
done. I forgive you for what you have
done. I even forgive you what you are.
Iniquity, transgression, and sin. Read on. and will by no means clear the
guilty." What a contradiction. What a contradiction. Well, I
told you the Bible's full of contradictions. Just throw it
away. Well, God put stuff in there for goats too. No contradiction. None at all. How on this earth
can God forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin, and by no means clear
the guilty? How could he do that? There ain't
but one way. There ain't but one way. And
that's his glory. That's his glory. He found a
way, David Peterson, to make the guilty guiltless. He found a way to make the sinner
holy. He found a way. to make the transgressor
righteous. He found a way. And that way
is the incarnate God, Jesus Christ, our Savior. So that now, he said,
y'all come from everywhere. Come to me. Assemble here before
me, you who pray to a God that cannot save you, you who worship
your dumb idols. Come, come, gather around me.
Behold me. a just God and a Savior. He made His darling Son to be
sin for us. And when He made His Son to be
sin for us, He drew forth the glittering, dreadful sword of
His fierce, infinite justice and shoved it into the very heart
of His Son. as his darling son takes hold
and draws it into his old bosom until the sword of justice is
swallowed up in the sacrifice of his son. And now justice is
satisfied. Justice can demand no more. And the justice of God, the justice
of God calls as loudly for our salvation, the salvation of every
sinner for whom Christ died, the salvation of every poor,
needy soul who comes to Christ. The justice of God demands our
salvation. It demands it because justice
is satisfied. It demands it because by Christ's
obedience, we have been obedient. By his death, we have died. By
his resurrection, we live again. Justice demands it. Read on. Visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and fourth generation. The soul that senteth It shall
die. God won't forget. God won't bend. God won't break. God won't violate
his own character. God will not violate his own
word. God will not violate his own law. The sinner must die! Either you must suffer all the
horror of God's holy wrath in the substitute Christ Jesus.
or suffer the horror of God's holy wrath forever in your own
soul, in the pit of the damned. There's no in between ground.
Verse eight. How are you going to respond
to this? Moses made haste and bowed his
head toward the earth and worshiped. That's a pretty good way to respond.
He made haste and he bowed his face in the dust and worshiped. And that's the only place you
ever worship God. My brother Scott Richardson used
to say, make your headquarters in the dust. That's where you
belong. Make your headquarters in the dust and sue for mercy.
Perhaps he will admit my plea. Perhaps he will hear my prayer.
Make your headquarters in the dust. God Almighty will be gracious
to whom he will be gracious. That means, Alan, he might, he
just might be gracious to you. He just might, he just might
be gracious to me. Let me seek his grace. Let me
sue for mercy. Read on. And he said, if now
I have found grace in thy sight, Oh Lord, let my Lord, I pray
thee, go among us. Walk in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people. And pardon our iniquity and our sin. Oh God, save us rebels. pardon our failures, pardon what
we are, and take us. Take us for thine inheritance. Remember how Naomi taught Ruth
to seek Boaz mercy? She said, honey, Get to the threshing
floor tonight, mark the spot where that good man is. And lay
down at his feet. Surrender everything to him.
Surrender everything to him. Oh, what would people say about
me? If I went down there, they'd think I was an evil woman. That's
what you are. Take your place there. Take your
place there. Sacrifice everything. The only
thing you got left As you think your good name, go get rid of
it. Lay yourself at his feet. Stretch
yourself out at his feet. And when he stirs himself, say
to him, take me. Oh, God, take me. Take me. I beseech thee, show me thy glory,
and take me for your own. Amen.