Exodus (Lesson 67)

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delane, Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

This is the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

I sincerely hope that you can stay with us for the next half an hour.

We are studying together the Bible book of Exodus.

We are in broadcast number 68 in that study, and we find ourselves in the midst of Exodus chapter number 33.

And I believe we left off last time at verse number 16.

So if you can follow along in your Bible, that'd be wonderful.

If you drive in your car or your truck, please don't try to follow along in your Bible.

If you're at work, we don't want you to get fired.

We're glad you can listen on the job, but you better not be caught sitting there with a Bible open in front of you.

So as best you can, follow along with us.

If you can read and listen, that'd be great.

If you can just listen, that'll be great as well.

But we're going to start in Exodus 33 and verse number 17.

Exodus 33 and verse number 17.

And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

Now what Moses had spoken, he desired, he requested that God abide with his people.

God abide with his people, and the Lord promises here that he would.

And he 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.

Now, this is supposed by the critics of the Bible to be a contradiction within the pages of the Word of God.

In verse 11 of Exodus 33, the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend.

And in 33, 20, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.

And so the supposed contradiction is how could you speak to someone face to face and yet not see them?

Now it it's almost embarrassing for the critics of the Bible when you consider their criticisms and you you think to yourself, is that the best you could do?

That's all you could come up with?

Now, somebody right now, listen to my voice, right now, somebody listening to my voice is physically blind.

There is someone in our audience that does not have the ability to see.

Is it not true that that man, that blind man, can speak to me face to face and not see me?

Is that not true?

Well, then for me to say, that man and I spoke face to face, and yet he never saw my face, would not be a misstatement, it would not be a lie, it would not be a contradiction.

Both would be true.

So it's obviously possible for Moses to speak to God face to face, and yet not see or behold God's face as he speaks unto him.

But Moses, think about this.

He had already beheld the glory of the Lord in a sense.

In Exodus 19 and verse 21, you recall the Lord's glory was on display as Moses went up on the mountain.

The Lord said unto Moses, Go down and charge the people lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.

But Moses has been up there with him.

In Exodus 16, verse 7, in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord, for that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord, and what are we that ye murmur against us?

Exodus 16:7

So God's glory had been on display.

Abraham, Jacob, and others had already seen the face of the Lord, in a sense of him manifesting himself in some way or another, as had the elders of Israel.

We read about that in Exodus 24.10.

Now the angel of the Lord, that we read about in Exodus 34.5 and other place, uh other places, uh, though the angel of the Lord is not mentioned, it says the Lord descended in 34.5.

I'm thinking of an earlier passage.

But anyway, the Lord came down, passed by.

We're gonna read about that.

What Moses beheld was not God's soul.

First Timothy six, sixteen says he's the invisible God.

Uh 1 Timothy 1 17, invisible God.

John chapter 4, God is a spirit.

John 4 · chapter mention

Now the Lord showed a similitude, something similar to a physical presence.

Numbers 12 8 says that.

The Lord Jesus Christ certainly existed before he was manifest in a body of human flesh as the express image of God's glory, Hebrews 1.3, in glorified flesh and bones, Revelation 1.6, Luke 24, 37 to 40, 1 Corinthians 15, 28.

See, the Lord Jesus Christ is the glory of God.

He was better than the glory of angels, Hebrews 1.4, though at his incarnation he was made lower than the angels.

What Moses beheld.

Some say is what Peter, James, and John beheld, when the Lord was transfigured on the mountain and was glorified, or showed his glory in front of them for them to behold.

But there's something more at work here.

Something much, much deeper and much more significant.

I'm going to try my best to explain it to you on the program today carefully from the pages of the Holy Bible.

Now, Moses asked in verse 18, show me thy glory.

That's what he asked.

He didn't say, I want to see your face.

He didn't say I want to see your body.

He didn't say, I want to see something physical that is God.

He asked to see the glory of God.

Now carefully.

God answered.

He didn't say, I will make all my glory pass before thee.

But instead in verse 19, he said, I will make all my goodness to pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee.

And then he said in verse 20, You can't see my face, no man can see me and live.

So he didn't just say, You can't see my face and live.

He said, You can't see me and live.

So Moses said, I want to see your glory.

God said, You can't see me, but I'll show you my goodness, and when you see my goodness, you will behold my glory.

Now get that, please get that.

21.

And the Lord said, Behold, there's a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock.

Now, why would I stand by God if I was going to see God?

I'd want to stand in front of him, not by him.

But I I'm at I'm at God's side.

So we're both looking the same direction.

Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father, sitting by his side, they're both looking the same direction.

So Moses and God are looking the same direction.

And it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by.

Then I will put thee in a cliff 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 so well-meaning men, sincere men, doing the best they can with the passage, say the Lord walked by, but he wouldn't let Moses see him.

But once he got past, he moved his hand, and Moses got to see the back side of God, or the back of his robes or his garments, which, if you think about it, is a little bit impossible because if you if God's invisible, if he's spirit, he doesn't have robes and he doesn't have garments, he doesn't need either one.

So you couldn't see what he doesn't have.

That's just speculation, trying to make some sense of the of the statement, some sense of the passage.

Now, for let's let's see what Moses asked to see.

Show me thy glory.

Where would he have to look?

Where would Moses have to look to see God's glory?

Psalm nineteen Psalm nineteen and verse number one says this Psalm nineteen verse one.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night showeth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world.

In them at the set of tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of heaven, the heaven, and his circuit under the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

Now, if you wanted to behold the glory of God, God could show you his glory on display in the heavens and the earth, the sun and its progression across the sky, the stars in their places rotating in their courses.

God could show you his glory as you beheld his creation.

Now, the Lord said, I won't show you my glory, I'll show you my goodness.

My goodness.

Well, come back in your Bible to Genesis chapter number one.

What would be a declaration of God's glory?

The heavens and the earth.

In Genesis chapter number one, in Genesis one, we read, verse one, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Verse number, verse number two, or six, God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.

Verse eight, God called the firmament heaven, evening and morning the second day.

Verse nine, God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together under one place.

The dry land also appear, and it was so.

In verse number fourteen, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so.

And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night.

He made the stars also, and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness, and God saw, and God saw that it was good, and God saw that it was good.

Now Moses said, Show me thy glory, and God said, I'll show you my goodness.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and when God created the heavens, he said it was good.

Now, in verse number, back to Exodus 33, in verse number 22, it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by.

Now, when parts is modified by the word back, because we are, come on now, because we are following a line of reasoning, not a Bible scriptural line of interpretation.

We think the back parts of God's physical body, but God doesn't have a physical body.

We think of the back parts of God's garments or clothing, but he's clothed with majesty, he's clothed with light, he's clothed with glory and honor.

So that won't work.

Now, get your dictionary, get your dictionary, look up back, look up parts, and and look at those definitions.

When back modifies parts, and you know what you'll see there?

It will say to return to a former place, to a former time, to a former state of things.

How about that?

You know, there are many parts to American history.

Some of the back parts are the revolution, the Civil War, the uh wagon trains going west.

Those are parts, those are parts of American history, back parts, former parts.

Human history has its back parts, its former parts.

There's part that has to do with right now, there's part that has to do with different continents, there's parts that have to do with men, parts that have to do with women, but then there's the back parts.

What part of God shows his glory?

The heaven and the earth.

What do they say about God?

What did God say about them?

They are good, they are very good.

Is it possible?

No, no, no, listen carefully.

Is it possible for God to transport John the Apostle from a prison cell on the Isle of Patmos into the future and make him an eye-witness of the revelation, an eyewitness of the end-time prophetic events.

Is that possible?

Would you agree with me that the book of Revelation says on a number of occasions that John saw?

He said there was a door open in heaven, and he was standing in heaven in the future, and he saw Revelation 4 and 5, things going on round about the throne in heaven in the future, without his body ever leaving a jail cell on the Isle of Patmos?

Did he not say that he stood and observed 21 tribulation judgments upon the earth in the future, while his body never left that prison?

Did he not say that he stood and saw as an eyewitness the Lord Jesus Christ returned to this earth on a white horse?

Establishes, look, he said, I saw, I saw new heaven and new earth, former things passed away.

So if you believe, if you believe the book of Revelation to be true, I believe it's true.

Do you believe it's true?

If you believe it's true, then God took a man without relocating his physical body.

God transported that man in some way, shape, or form, and made that man an eyewitness to end-time prophecy, so that John was not making things up.

He was not guessing, he was writing down what he had seen as an eyewitness.

You believe that?

I believe that.

Just about everybody I know that believes anything about the Bible believes that.

Then let me ask you something.

Is it possible?

Is it possible?

I'm not asking you to agree with me just yet.

I'm asking you, is it possible that just as God transported John into the future and made him an eyewitness of the end time revelation?

Is it possible that on this mountain God transported Moses backward into the past and made him an eyewitness of?

The creation, so that when he writes in Genesis chapter number one, he is not writing on the basis of 2,000 years of oral tradition or campfire tales, but it is writing down what he saw and witnessed with his own eyes.

Is that possible?

Now look, if you believe there's a God, if you believe that God lives outside the bounds of time, if you believe that when you die or when you are raptured, you are going to a place where time is no more, you have to believe that God is able to do that.

I believe He's able to do that.

Now, interpreting Exodus 33, not guessing at what we think it means because it makes sense to us, but interpreting what it means in light of Scripture, show me thy glory.

How does God show his glory with his creation?

When God performed that act of creation, the heavens and the earth, he said it was good.

So when Moses says, Show me thy glory, he said, I'll show you my goodness.

And and if words mean what they mean, for God to reveal his back parts, the meaning of the words certainly allows for us to understand that he is revealing or showing or manifesting a former state, a former condition, a former time.

So I believe, I believe, and you don't have to agree with me, but I believe the Bible supports my belief that just as John saw the future, so Moses saw the past.

Now, do you realize how vitally important it is to present that truth with its scriptural cross-references, with its biblical support?

We no longer have the Hebrews' guess as to how things started, matched up against Darwin's guess as to how things started.

We now have an eyewitness account lined up against the theory of a man who didn't like the eyewitness account.

That changes everything.

That changes everything.

My friend, all the answers are in the Bible.

All the truth is in the Bible.

And whenever, whenever science or philosophy or any any endeavor, any field of man's study, whenever man gets down to any truth, that truth will match what's written in the Bible.

Every time.

Every time.

Now, I don't know what you believe about the origin of all things.

You might believe in a dust cloud and not know where it came from.

You might believe in a primordial and not have any idea who's who cooked it up and in whose kitchen it was cooked.

You might believe in a big bang and have no explanation for where the things that went bang came from.

You might believe that two apes met one time at a high school dance, and before that uh rendezvous was over, uh, the female ape had conceived, and nine months later she had a human.

You might believe that.

Personally, I don't have enough faith to believe any of that stuff.

Not only because it has no support, not only because you have no proof, but because it it contradicts the eyewitness account.

God took Moses back and he saw it.

And he saw it, and he wrote down what he saw.

How about that?

I just give you a little something to think about.

Now, Jesus Christ is God's goodness, Jesus Christ is God's graciousness, Jesus Christ is the full manifestation of his mercy.

As we look on the face of Jesus Christ, we behold the face of God, for he was and is God manifest in the flesh.

Jesus is the rock, and he's the clift in the rock to hide the sinner.

He is our all in all, he is our everything, the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who watched man sin and fall, bring ruin and shame upon himself, the God who watched you and watched me commit our first sin.

That God became flesh and dwelt among us.

He went to that cross and suffered and bled and died to pay for your sins and for mine.

Three days and three nights later, he rose from the dead, that all sinners who believe on him may receive by the grace of God the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Have you trusted him, this great creator?

Have you trusted him, this one who loved you enough to die that you might live?

Have you trusted him who alone can wash away your sins and give you eternal life?

My friend, the Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

You shall try my own way, my own church, my own religion.

That same Bible says, Neither is there salvation in any other.

There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

It's Jesus or hellfire.

Those are your options.

Being good is not an option because you haven't been and you can't be.

But Jesus Christ saves sinners.

Trust him, trust him, and he'll save your soul.

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