well when i came in this morning
i turn on the heat to dry it out and then i turn on the cold
to cool it off well it's good to see you out this evening remember
those who requested prayer marvin stoniker continue to remember
the others who requested prayer seek the lord's help for them
i haven't heard anything about ronald jane's how he's doing uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... Fade, fade each earthly joy. Jesus is mine. Break every tender tie. Jesus is mine. Dark is the wilderness. Earth has no hiding place. Jesus alone can bless. Jesus is mine. Tempt not my soul away, Jesus
is mine. Here would I ever stay, Jesus
is mine. Perishing things of clay, born
but for one brief day, pass from my heart away, Jesus is mine. Farewell, ye dreams of night,
Jesus is mine. Lost in the dawning bright, Jesus
is mine. All that My soul has tried, left
but a dismal void. Jesus has satisfied, Jesus is
mine. Farewell mortality, Jesus is
mine. Welcome eternity, Jesus is mine. Welcome, O loved and blessed. Welcome, sweet scenes of rest. Welcome, my Savior's breast. Jesus is mine. And the very next hymn, now,
on that page, hymn number two, or 67, All Things Work Out for
Good. All things work out for good,
we know, such is God's great design. He orders all our steps
below for purposes divine. For purpose is divine This is
the faith that keeps me still No matter what the test And lets
me glory in His will For well I know tis best For well I know
tis best So now the future holds no fear. God guards the work
begun. And mortals are immortal here
until their work is done, until their work is done. Someday the path he chose for
me will all be understood in heaven's clearer All things worked out for good. All things worked out for good. Exodus chapter 33. We're gonna
read verses 20 through 23. The Lord is still answering Moses'
inquiry concerning his glory. And he says, 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 thou shalt
come to pass while my glory passeth by, and 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 mine hand
if thou seeth my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, great God of glory, who doeth
all things well, who does everything right, who is good and gracious
and merciful, we praise you for who you are. We are thankful that in the days
of our journey here, you interrupted our career and taught us who
you are and who your son is. You taught us, Father, what we
are and revealed to us our sinful condition and our great need
and then revealed to us our Savior. How sweet that is to every one
of us. Father, we pray for those who
are sick. Remember especially Brother Larry
Brown as he's recovering from his stroke. Brother Marvin Stoniker,
we pray that you'd raise him up again to preach the gospel.
Thou knowest these things. These all are by appointment.
But you know the desires of your children's hearts. And when one
of us whom we love is sick, we desire their healing. I know
us best, and we trust you to do that which is right and good,
for we know you will. Father, we pray for ourselves
tonight as we gather here that you might be pleased to watch
over us by your Spirit, to take the things of Christ and reveal
them unto us, show us our Savior, that we might truly worship you
as you ought to be worshiped. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Now in this passage we see that
the Lord makes a distinction concerning His glory. To this
point the Lord has told Moses that His glory was tied up in
what He will do. I will make my goodness passion
for you. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord. I will show mercy. I will show grace. He told him
about what He will do. That indicates that the revelation
of His glory lies somewhere in the future. This is what He will
do. That revelation of His glory
was displayed on Calvary, we know, and revealed in the Declaration
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is how, at some future date,
the Lord will make His goodness pass before men. He will proclaim
the name of the Lord. He will show mercy and He will
show grace unto whom He will. The fact that this revelation
is yet to come gives understanding to the verses we just read here
in verses 20 through 23. Verse 20, the Lord makes a statement
that He often repeats throughout Scripture. He says this, for there shall no man see me
and live. He makes that statement many
times in scripture. He tells Moses that he cannot
see his face and live. If God means by this his form
or his person, then Moses would have died already. Because remember
what the Lord said about Moses. He said that he spoke to Moses
face to face as with a friend. So Moses has seen God's form
he has seen his person so evidently what god is talking about is
something else when he says he that sees my face so what's the
subject the subject being addressed again is his glory show me your
glory now he's about to show him his glory he told him what
he was going to do and what his glory was in that he was going
to do now he's going to show him his glory at the end of life
the believer will see christ as he is because the believer
will be like him we'll see his face the use of the word face
here is employed in the same sense as paul said in second
corinthians chapter four when he said the light of the knowledge
of the glory of god there's that glory of god again in the face
of jesus christ the face of god has to do with what he is doing. Remember he said, I will do this.
I will do that. Now he says, you can't see my
face and live. What his face is, is what he's
doing. His actions at this present time. You can't see that. You can't
see that. No man can see that and live.
This does not have to do with a sort of capital punishment,
but rather a human being's inability to withstand the magnitude of
God's workings in this world. We get frustrated by circumstance,
by things that surround us, by the things that are going on.
We see them and it troubles our souls. We get upset and God's
working. all those things that are going
on around us that upset us and cause us to struggle in our mind
God is working God is working for our good and for his glory
now if he was to show us what he was doing it would kill us
we would not agree with him we would be upset I remember one
many years ago well not many years ago but after our father
died my dad died My mother didn't have a way to go to church, because
she couldn't drive anymore. Her neck was too stiff to turn
around. She had a neck problem. So my
younger brother, who had been under the gospel most of his
life, but didn't attend church, said, I'll take you to church,
Mama. And so he started to take me to church. I just sent him
a set of my books a couple weeks ago. So he's still interested
in these things. We were standing outside mom's
house having a cigarette one night, and I said, if God had
asked you, is it all right for me to kill
your daddy so I can get you in church to take your mom to church,
would you have agreed with that? He said, I don't think so. I
said, well, that's how it works. We wouldn't agree with most of
what Providence goes on. God is working. And because we
are complaining, we're complaining against what He's doing. We just
don't know it. It's too big for us. It's too
big for us. If we saw how God employs time
and tide and all His creation, exalting His glory and doing
good to His people, it would be too much for the human frame
to endure. You cannot see my face. You cannot
see what I'm doing. Our mind and heart would expire
if we saw the machinations of God ruling in this world. In
Isaiah 45 he says, I create evil. I create darkness. I create,
I do all these things. In Amos chapter 3 he says, shall
there be trouble in the city? And I didn't do it. Wait a minute. This is the God
of Scripture and He does not give us an idea of what's going
on. The Lord has mercifully fixed
it so we cannot see His actions and problems. He's mercifully
done that. Over in Ecclesiastes chapter
3 when it talks about a time and a season for everything. He says this in verse 11. He
says, I've seen the travail No, verse 11, He hath made everything
beautiful in His time, so it's all gorgeous to Him. What's going
on now in this world, in this so-called
chaos that we see? It's beautiful. It's His time
and it's beautiful. Also, He has set the world in
their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh
from beginning to end. He set the world in our heart. What does that mean? He's put
the world in our heart so that we can only reach rational conclusions
by what we see occurring. We look at circumstance. Occasionally, when God gives
us faith and some light, we're able to judge circumstances by
God rather than God by circumstance. But generally speaking, we judge
things by what's around us and what's going on around us. That's
the world in our heart. That's the world. In those precious
moments of faith, the believer understands that circumstances
and events are beyond his ability to rationalize. then and there
alone probably he bows in knowledge that it is the Lord and he's
done whatsoever he has pleased. The Lord's face is his glory.
The Lord's face is his glory. You can't see it. You can't see
it. This is his face and to see it
would kill us, he said. Man sees my face and he dies. In the following verses the Lord
explains to Moses what he meant in verse 20 when he said, when he said thou canst not see
my face for there is no man because now he's going to show him something. Now he's going to let him see
something, not his face, not what he's doing, but he's going
to show him something. First he causes Moses to stand
upon the rock. The rock is by the Lord. We know
that rock is Jesus Christ. That rock is the stone that the
builders refused that has become the head of the corner. That
rock is the rock of ages. That rock is the rock foundation
upon which the wise man builds his house. That rock is the rock
of refuge. I rock. It is not like any other
rock. That's what Moses said in Deuteronomy
32. I rock. It's not like their rock.
And their own words tell that. people talk about Jesus Christ
being the rock and then they describe him in a way that he's
not our rock. Our rock's not like that. Their
rock's malleable. He's weak. He's not a hiding
place unless you make him a hiding place. Moses stands on the solid
rock Christ Jesus, the rock that is higher than I. Then the Lord
says that his glory is going to pass by way. I will show you
my glory this way. I'll proclaim the name of the
Lord, make my goodness pass before you. I will be gracious unto
whom I will be gracious. I'll show mercy. I will do that.
Now he says, my glory is going to pass by. So he's going to show him his
glory. He's going to show him his glory. Well, he can't see
what he's doing, so what's he going to show him? What's he
gonna show it? So God fixed it so Moses will
not die. He places Moses in the cleft. Here it's called cleft, but that
word doesn't exist in the English language today. The cleft of
the rock. Now Moses, where is Moses? He's
in the rock. Before he was standing on a rock,
now we find him in the rock. And it does not require a stretch
of the imagination to see what this means. The entirety of our
salvation in life is Christ alone. Christ alone. Look over at Isaiah
chapter 32. Verse 1 and 2 says, Behold, a
king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest. as rivers of water and a dry
place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. We know that man was Jesus Christ.
That's the entirety of our salvation. In Christ the believer died,
you see. He died. And in Christ the believer lives.
Paul said to the Colossian church, you are dead or you died. And your life is hid with Christ
in God. That to me is a wondrous statement.
First time I read it I thought I understood it. Then I started
thinking about it and I found out the more I think about it
the less I understand. Our life is hid with Christ. What does
that mean? We can't really see our life,
but it's there. It's in Him. it's in him. I know people have
defined what they call the Christian life by the deeds that people
do, but every child of God knows that the deeds he does are so
full of sin that it would send a thousand worlds to hell if
it was based on merit. So what does the Lord do? Puts
him in the cleft of the rock, in that shadow from the covert,
from the tempest, and then the Lord covers Moses' eyes. he's
in a month or going to pass by what you don't know or we see or we see passes by and when he passes by then he
lifts his hand from his eyes after he's gone past him so he
can see his hinder parts or his back parts but not his face. He can't see what he's doing
lest he die. Moses cannot see what God is
doing but he can see the result of what God has done. His hinder
parts. That's his back part. He can't
see my glory. No man can see my glory. This is the beauty of the gospel
we have. This is the beauty. The glory
we see is the result of what he told Moses he would do. I
will proclaim the name of the Lord. I will make my goodness
pass before you. I will show mercy. I will show
grace. How? You must have already done
it. because it's his back parts that
he shows. He shows him his glory. He shows
him his glory. He shows him what he has done.
Isaiah 54, uh, 44, 23 says, The Lord has done it. The Lord rejoiced. Sing, O Israel. Sing, O Jerusalem. The Lord has done it. He has
redeemed Israel. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ is that
He has accomplished all He told Moses He would do. He said, I
will do this. And He walked by and showed him
that He's done it. This is what the Gospel has that
causes us to rejoice. This is the beauty and the wonder
of the Gospel. It is a published report a published report of
a thing that is done, finished, complete, and fulfilled. The
gospel has nothing for us to do, nothing at all. It is a recorded account of what
God has done. When we think about trying to
figure out what He's doing today, He'll cover our eyes. We can't
see that. It's too much for us, for our
poor old uh... his thoughts are so much uh...
ties uh... this is his hand reports it's old news about what god is accomplishing
jesus christ on calvary street the redemption of the elect is
done it's done our lord said it is finished when you see that
you've seen god's glory you've seen his glory what great things
he has done father bless us to understand and pray in christ's
name