EXODUS - The Presence of God - Exodus 33:1-34:7

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We're going to read through Exodus chapter 33 to 34-7 before Ralph comes up

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

and shares the word with us. So Tessa would you like to start us through Exodus 33?

Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up

out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and

Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I will send an angel

before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites

and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go

with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the

way. When the people heard these distressing words they began to mourn

and no one put on any ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, tell the

Israelites, you are a stiff stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even

for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide

what to do with you. So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount

Horeb. Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance

away, calling it the tent of meeting. Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to

the tent of meeting outside the camp and whenever Moses went out to the tent, all

the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses

until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would

come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the

people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, they all

stood and worshipped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would

speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would

return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua, son of Nun, did not

leave the tent. Verse 12, Moses said to the Lord, you have been telling me lead

these people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have

said, I know you by name and you have found favor with me. If you are pleased

with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.

Remember that this nation is your people. The Lord replied, my presence will go

with you and I will give you rest. Then Moses said to him, if your presence does

not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are

pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will

distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the

earth? And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked because

I am pleased with you and I know you by name. Then Moses said, now show me your

glory. And the Lord said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you

and I will proclaim my name for Lord in your presence. I will have mercy on whom

I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have

compassion. But, he said, you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live.

Then the Lord said, there is a place near me where you may stand on the rock. When

my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft in the rock and cover you with my

hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back

but my face must not be seen. The Lord said to Moses, chisel out two stone

tablets like the first ones and I will write on them the words that were on the

first tablets which you broke. Be ready in the morning and then come up to Mount

Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come

with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Not even the flocks and herds

may graze in front of the mountain. So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets

like the first ones and went up to Mount Sinai early in the morning as the Lord

had commanded him and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord

came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name the

Lord and he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord the Lord the

compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

Yet he does not leave the guilty and punished. He punishes the children, he

punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third

and fourth generation. This is the word of the Lord. Ralph's now going to share

the word to us. Great thank you so much Eric and Tessa and hello everyone. It's

great to be here to be with you and to bring this next part of the book of

Exodus to you. Please do open up your Bibles we're gonna be there in Exodus

33 and 34 the whole time and let me pray for us as we prepare to come and dive

into God's Word. Heavenly Father thank you you speak to us and you speak to us

today. Thank you that your Word is living and active and Lord would we experience

that here and now. Lord we want to meet with you in your Word. We want to

encounter you by the Holy Spirit as we open the very words of life itself.

Lord work that in our lives now we pray. Amen. What would be a real game changer

for you? I mean what would really really change your life? What do you think it

would take to bring real transformation? This week an article in the Wall Street

Journal caught my attention. The article was titled Is That It? and it

documented the experience of a number of people who'd made it to the very top of

their profession. People like Andy Dunn who sold his clothing retailer Bonobos

to Walmart in a 310 million dollar deal. While the world watched on in awe, Dunn

recalled finding the the joy and achievement he expected to actually be

in his words illusory. Or Steve Babcock. Steve moved from managing a small firm

in Colorado to managing a large firm in New York City. He went from 50 people

under him to 200 people under him. The world was impressed but according to

Babcock it left him feeling utterly empty. A shell of his true self. You know

getting exactly what you want often doesn't live up to its billing. So what

do you want? What would be a game changer for you? What would make the real

difference in your life? I'm guessing that many people here this afternoon are

Christians. Now I know a lot of you aren't yet Christians but I suspect the

fact you're here today probably means, probably means, that what you're looking

for is not entirely different to what Christians are looking for. You really

want an experience of God. Not religion, not ritual, but you really want to meet

with God in an awe-inspiring, life-transforming, not the breath out of

you way. That would make the real difference in your life. That would be a

game changer. Well today we're going to be thinking about exactly that. We're back

in the book of Exodus. Now Exodus is the second book in the Bible and it's all

about how the promises that God made in the first book, the book of Genesis, is

all about how those promises begin to be fulfilled. You see back in the book of

Genesis, in Genesis chapter 12 and 15, God made a number of promises to Abraham.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

He promised Abraham that Abraham would become a great nation, the promise of a

people. He then promised that he'd give them an incredible promised land, the

promise of a place, and then thirdly, the big one. God promised Abraham his

presence, that God himself would dwell with his people. But by the end of the

book of Exodus, all of those promises, they look like they're in tatters.

Abraham's family is pretty big, bigger than my family. He had 70 in his family,

but they're not as numerous as the stars in the sky as God had promised. And the

people that they're living in Egypt, not in Canaan, it's in no place yet. And God

is not living among the people. They're living in Egypt surrounded by the

pyramids and by the Egyptian idols. And so you see, after all that in the book of

Exodus, in the book of Genesis, the book of Exodus is all about how God starts to

fulfill those promises that he'd left unfulfilled in the book of Genesis. And

it starts well. When we get to Exodus chapter 1, we find that God's people in

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

Egypt, they've grown to 2 million people. The promise of a

people is being fulfilled. By the end of chapter 14 of Exodus, God has rescued

his people out of slavery in Egypt and he's leading them through the wilderness

to the promised land, to the place that he had said he would give them, the

second promise being fulfilled. And so the next step, the next step is for God

to establish his permanent presence with them. That's promise 3. And things are

already in hand. If you've been with us in recent weeks, you'll know that Moses

was up Mount Sinai and up Mount Sinai, he was receiving the instructions for the

tabernacle, the great tent which will be where God would descend and be with his

people. But then we had the events we saw two Sundays ago. While Moses would up on

a mountain finding out about the provisions for God's presence with his

people, the people were down in the camp, impatient, frustrated, begging Aaron to

make them a golden calf for them to worship so they can have their God with

them. The Lord sees and he tells Moses that he's about to destroy the people

for their rebellion. Moses steps in, he offers to be punished in their place, he

says, I will be blotted out of the book of life in their place, just let them go

free. And we read that the Lord relented, which is where we left things two weeks

ago. There's just one problem, God's presence. You see, the people needed

God's presence to lead them and to guide them. But because of their sin, God's

presence was profoundly dangerous for them. Which brings us to our first point

today, the danger of God's presence. Chapter 33 starts really well. The Lord

says to Moses, up and leave, verse one. I'm about to fulfill my promises to Abraham

and Isaac and Jacob. The promise of the people is already being fulfilled, now

I'm gonna give you the place. I'm gonna send, verse two, an angel with you who is

gonna give you military supremacy. This angel, he's like the celestial equivalent

of an Apache attack helicopter, guaranteed victory. And the place, God

says, the place I'm gonna give you, it's far better than you possibly imagined.

Let me tell you what this place is gonna be like. It's a place that is

flowing with milk and honey. You'll have everything you need, everything to be

healthy and happy and safe and to flourish. You will have it all. There's

just one thing, verse three, I won't go with you. Shock. Why? Because, verse three,

you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you along the way. We've

already met this language of being stiff-necked. We had it back in chapter

32, verse nine. And being stiff-necked, it describes the sin of idolatry. What is

an idol? We tend to see idols as always being really bad things. But what idols

are, according to the Bible, is they're normally very good things that we have

turned into God things. An idol is anything that we seek to derive

meaning and life and joy from instead of seeking that from God. So for some of us

that's a person, our boyfriend or girlfriend, our spouse, our children. For

others of us, it's work. That's where we seek to find our identity. That's where

we seek to find our sense of self-worth. For others, it's popularity. We crave

people's acceptance and approval. For others, it's our bank balance. That's

where we seek to find security and control. Whatever it is, whatever our

particular idol is, it draws us away from God. We got a dog back home in the

Cunnington household. She's called Maisie and this is a picture of her. Isn't she

cute? She is sweet a lot of the time but if you take her out for a walk and

she spots someone's thrown-away takeaway with food still in it, she will make a

beeline for that takeaway no matter what she's supposed to be doing. She'll go

straight for it. And it's a bit like that with idols. When we see that thing that

we seek to find meaning in, we make a beeline for it and nothing can stop us. We

become stiff-necked, refusing to go God's way because we hanker after our God

substitutes. And that has consequences. Look at verse 3 with me. Now when God

says I might destroy you, he's not questioning his own self-control there.

He's not saying, oh if you do this, I don't know, I might lose it and just

destroy you. That's not what he's saying. It's a warning. He's saying, if I go with

you and if you rebel, then I will surely judge and destroy you for that rebellion.

You see, the Lord and sinful people, they are incompatible. Just like light and

dark. If you have light and darkness together, they're incompatible. The light

will drown out the darkness. Or if you put fire and wood together, they're

incompatible. The fire will eat up the wood. They cannot coexist, nor can God

coexist with sinful humanity. Anything impure that comes into contact with God

will inevitably be burnt up. So God says, it's better if I don't go with you, Israel.

Now, let me ask you, how would you have responded had God said this to you?

Don't answer too quickly in your head. Let me rephrase what God said. Let me

rephrase it for you. God says to you, I'm gonna give you absolutely everything you

ever dreamed of. I'm gonna give you a beautiful, beautiful four-bed detached

house. You are gonna have 2.4 children, and what's more, they're gonna be well

behaved, not like all the other kids. You're gonna have an amazing spouse,

incredibly beautiful, handsome, most intelligent, and gracious, and kind, and

serving the best spouse in the world. You're gonna have a great garden. It's

gonna be brilliant. The kids are gonna be able to play in it. There's gonna be a

hammock out there, and you're gonna be able to lie on that every day, and you know, the sun is

gonna shine every single day. It's not gonna be in Manchester, this place, and

you're gonna love your job. It's gonna be so fulfilling. Every single thing you

turn your hand to, it's gonna succeed. It's gonna be a great success. You are

gonna be in the Forbes 500. You are gonna be impressive. There's only one thing. You

won't need to worry about me anymore. No need to go to church. No need to give

your money. No need to have a quiet time to read the Bible and pray. How would you

respond if God said that to you? Let's be blunt. I think that's what the average

person in Manchester really wants. All of God's blessings, but none of God. All of

his gifts, but none of his demands. And if we're being really honest, I suspect

it's what many of us want, too. The forgiveness of God, but not his demands.

The health, the happiness, and the security that God gives, but not the

demands that his presence makes on our lives. We'll take a look at how the

Israelites respond. Verse four, they mourn. They're devastated because they cannot

imagine a future without God. Isn't that challenging to us? And notice how in

these verses they take off their ornaments. It's a weird thing to do. Why

do they do that? Well, jewelry was really significant back then, and it was really

symbolic. Because, of course, there wasn't a Barclays and a NatWest bank down the

corner. When people wanted to save their money, they saved it by what they wore.

Their earrings, their rings, their necklaces, those were their bank accounts.

And it was those very ornaments that the people gave to Aaron in chapter 32 and

said, Aaron, make for us a God out of our most valuable items. It's incredibly

symbolic. But now they take off their bank accounts, they lay them at the feet

of God, and they say, now we're going to serve you, Lord, with this, not our

idols. Which means they recognize their need for God's presence, which brings us

to our second point today. That's verses 7 through to 16. Now, verses 7 to 11, they

have already puzzled Bible commentators. You see, these verses, look at them, verses

7 to 11, they describe Moses going outside the camp to a tent that he's

pitched, which Moses called the Tent of Meeting. Now, that's the same name

that was given to the Tabernacle, which hadn't yet been built because the

Israelites had rebelled. So what's going on here? What's this other Tent of

Meeting? Well, there was a famine of God's presence at that time. The Lord had

to keep his distance from the Israelites for their own safety. But Moses, Moses was

determined, he was absolutely determined to do whatever it takes to get some of

the presence of God. If it meant leaving the camp, then so be it. If it meant

leaving the comfort of his home, if it meant leaving the security of his people,

if it meant leaving the intimacy of being with his wife and family, then fine,

he'd do it, anything to get close to God. Now, the way we Christians experience the

presence of God today is different. We're going to come on to that in just a

moment. But there is a sense in which every Christian experiences something of

what Moses and the people were experiencing here in chapter 33. Every

Christian sometimes feels spiritually dry. You know what I mean? Some of you

are probably feeling it right now. You turn up to church and you leave the

service thinking, yeah, not much happened there. We open our Bibles in the morning

to do our quiet times and we read, but it's just words on the page to us, just

going through the motions, doing what we do every day. And there are two

temptations when that happens to us, when we experience that spiritual dryness. One

temptation is to feel really worried. Perhaps the reason I'm feeling like this

is I'm not a Christian at all. But be really careful there. The very fact that

you are uncomfortable with the way that you are feeling is very good evidence

that you are in fact a Christian. If you weren't, you wouldn't really be very

bothered. But secondly, when we're feeling spiritually dry, we can be tempted

to give up. What's the point of reading my Bible and praying? I get nothing out

of it anymore. I might as well just watch Netflix. I find that much more engaging.

No. No. It is an inevitable part of the Christian life to feel spiritually dry at

times, to feel that God is distant at times. It happens to every single

Christian. We all go through seasons of that. Sometimes it lasts for weeks,

sometimes months, sometimes even years. I have experienced that myself. But the

answer is never, never to give up. Rather it's to lean into the Lord all the more.

Friends, go outside the camp of your spiritual dryness. Seek out God more and

more by praying more and more, by reading and meditating on the word more

and more, doing whatever it takes, just like Moses, doing whatever it takes to

experience God's presence, to go deeper with the Lord, whatever it takes. But I

guess that begs the question, well, what are we talking about here? What exactly

is an experience of God's presence? Take a look at verse 11, verse 11 of chapter

33. We read that the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a

friend. Face to face. And that's so, so interesting. Because a little later in the

passage, in verses 12 to 16, Moses pleads with God for God's presence to go with

the people. And the word used for presence there in the original Hebrew is

the word for face. The same word as is used in verse 11. When Moses says he

wants God's presence, he's saying, I want your face Lord. You get the significance

of God's face? You know, I think I've gotten a much easier job preaching this

passage today in 2013 than I would have had back in 2019. Because COVID taught

us a thing or two, didn't it, about the significance of in-person meetings. You

see, phone and email and a great glory of Zoom, they have their purposes, don't

they? They helped us during the lockdowns. But they are so very, very limited.

Imagine you're starting a new relationship with a guy or a girl. You

may well start that relationship online using a Christian dating website.

But very, very soon, you will want to meet that person in person and go for a

date. Why? Well, because that is how we really get to know someone. That's how we

get to know not simply things about that person, but we actually get to know the

person themselves. Relationally, personally. It is only when you're face to face with

someone, when you can see their lips move, when you can see their facial

expression, is only when you can see their emotions, when you can embrace them

and share things with them, it is only then that you truly get to know them

personally and individually. And you know, it is only when we're face to face with

someone that that person starts to change us. What do I mean? Well, we've all

heard the saying, bad company breeds bad character, haven't we? That's why the

parents among us, we're absolutely desperate to find out what sort of

friendship circles our kids are mixing with at school, because we know what will

happen if they get in with the wrong crowd. It will rub off on them. And of

course, it works both ways. We know this. We know our friends, when they started

dating a new person, that experience of dating that person, it will inevitably

change them. Sometimes it will change them for the good. You know, they'll have

a permanent smile on their face, they'll be really joyful, they'll be really

generous, really self-giving, want to grow and improve themselves. But

sometimes the relationship will be toxic and it will turn them toxic too. Because

being face to face with someone always changes us, either for good or for bad.

And you see, that is why Moses longs to be face to face with the Lord. He wants

to know God, not simply know things about God, but to know God personally and to be

transformed by Him. Do you want the same thing? Now, take a look at a conversation

that takes place between Moses and God in verses 12 to 16. Moses says, verse 13,

teach me your ways, I want to know you. Not simply know things about you, but know

you. And God replies, my presence, verse 14, that is my face, will go with you and

I will give you rest. We read this and we think, great, great, that is exactly what

Moses wants. He's asked for God's presence with him and God has said yes.

But look at how Moses responds, if your presence, again your face, does not go

with us, do not send us. What's going on here? God says he'll go and now Moses

says, why won't you go? Well, the clue is in the us in verse 15. You see, in the

original, the you in verse 14 is singular, not plural. The Lord is saying

here in verse 14, I will go with you, Moses, but I won't go with the people.

And Moses replies, no, Lord, that is not enough. If you won't go with the people,

that is not enough. We all need you to go with you, us. We all need your face, Lord.

You see, Moses is hungering for God's presence, not just for himself, but for

all of the people. And look at his reason, it's there in verse 16, because what else

would distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of

the earth? Let me ask you, why do you long to have a deep experience in the

presence of God? Why do you want that? I think for most of us, we want it because

we think it will change our lives. We think it will fulfill us. Well, look at

how different Moses' reason is. I'm so grateful for a sermon by Tim Keller

to help me to see this. Moses wanted God's presence not for himself, but for

the sake of others. He wants God to go with the Israelites so that the

Israelites are distinctive, so that they stick out, people in the nation see them,

and they long to come to the God who changes. Those of you who are parents

here this afternoon, I think you can probably relate to this. We want the best

for our kids, don't we? Which often means we want to live in a nice neighborhood.

We want our kids to go to a good school. We want them to have nice friends. We

want them to have good things, nice clothes, fun toys to play with. We want

them to enjoy pastimes, to go to football, and then to play music and do

art. We want them to enjoy church. We want to make sure they go to a church

with a really good kids work, with kids their own age, because we really want

them to grow up to be healthy, happy, flourishing Christians. That's what we

long for. But do you know what your children need more than anything else,

God's parents? They need you to hunger for God's presence, to pursue it, to say

with Moses in verse 16, if you don't go Lord with us, we won't go. Listen, because

because I know that I personally really need to hear this. That pursuing of God's

presence will have a far more profound and lasting effect on your children than

living in Didsbury will, or sending your kids to the best schools. What they need

more than anything else is for you and I to hunger after God's presence, to show

them metaphorically what if we read on to the end of chapter 34 we'd see Moses

comes down having been in the presence of the Lord and his face is radiant,

because God's presence transforms. That is what our kids need to see. You know

the same is true for you if you don't have kids. The same is true for you of

your non-Christian friends, colleagues and housemates. They don't need you to

have amazing answers to their questions about how we make sense of God and

suffering and science. Now what they need is to see the impact of God's presence

on your life. They need to see verse 16 that you are distinct, that your face is

radiant because you have been with the face of the Lord, gloriously transformed

by his presence. So finally I guess that begs the question, how do we pursue, how

do we get God's presence today? A few things I want us to see as we wrap up

and this will be quick. Firstly the need for a mediator. Did you notice that?

What is the reason the Lord agrees to go with the Israelites? It's there in verse 17.

It is because the Lord was pleased with Moses, their mediator. Secondly look at

what the Lord does for Moses. Verse 18, Moses asked to see God's glory. What does

God do? Verse 19, he promises Moses I will cause all my goodness to go in front

of you. Now that happens in chapter 34 verses 4 to 7. Moses he's back up Mount

Sinai, he's carrying two new stone tablets to replace the ones that got

shattered in chapter 32. Moses is asked to see God's glory and what does he get?

Verse 6 of chapter 34, he gets God's voice. As Tim Chester puts it, instead of a

description of the way God looks, Moses gets a description of what God is like.

This is what it means for the goodness of God to pass in front of Moses. He hears

a voice and the voice proclaims the Lord's name. The name of God means his

character and his attributes. Verse 6, this is God's goodness. The Lord, the Lord,

the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and

faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness,

rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. Friends this is

how we meet with God, how we experience him face to face today. We experience him

face to face when we hear God's word and we grasp his goodness. And at the heart

of God's goodness is a tension, it's an intriguing tension. It's right there at

the end of what I read. You see, the Lord is a good God who forgives, yet the Lord

is a good God who punishes sin. He is a God we cannot live with because his

justice will burn us up because of our sin, but he is a God that we cannot live

without because we desperately need his grace and forgiveness. How do we resolve

that tension? How do we square that circle? But we need a mediator. We need a

better Moses. You know those words used by the Lord to describe Moses in

verse 17, they are almost identical to the words used by the Father of Jesus

at his baptism. The Lord said, this is my son who I love. With him I am well

pleased. You see Jesus came not simply to reveal God to us, he came to be God with

us. According to John chapter 1 verse 14, the word became flesh and he made his

John 1:14

dwelling literally says he tabernacled among us. That means Jesus pitched his

tent not outside the camp, but right in the center of our lives. And in Jesus, God's

goodness is supremely revealed. Listen to this, it's a little bit later on in John

John 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 we read, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came

through Jesus Christ. You see Jesus brought God's goodness to us. He brought

God's grace, forgiveness for our sinners, but he brought God's truth, the just

punishment of sin. And how did he do it? Through the cross. It was there at the cross

that sin was dealt with. As Jesus bore our sin in our place, God's holy presence

destroyed Jesus. Quite literally, Jesus was burned up by the presence of God in

our place. So that God could live with us once more.

Have you put your trust in that today? Have you laid down your treasure at

Jesus' feet and given your life to the one who was burnt up in your place? Well

if you have, it will make all the difference in your life. Let me tell you

why. Because you can be face to face with God once more, knowing and being known

like you have never been known before. As you go out from this place, the Lord will

go with you and he's promised that he will never leave you and he will never

forsake you. We experience that now in part and we must pursue it. We must long

for a deeper experience of the presence of God. That's one of the key things we

do when we we gather together on a Sunday to hear from God's Word together

and to sing God's truth deep into our souls. That's what we're gonna do in just

a few moments. We need to hunger after God's presence in our lives. You know

one day we're gonna experience it in full. In all its life-transforming glory. As we

close, let me just read some words for us from 1st John chapter 3. There's some

John 3 · chapter mention

of the most amazing words in the Bible. They speak of a time to come when Jesus

will return, we will see him and we will come face to face with him and experience

his life-transforming presence forever. Listen to this. Dear friends, now we are

children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known but we know that

when Christ appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Let me

pray for us. Lord Jesus, you are God with us. Thank you that 2,000 years ago

you took on flesh and you pitched your tent right in the center of our lives.

Thank you that you choose to know us. Thank you that you through the cross you

have resolved that tension. That tension of being absolutely good in your justice

and being absolutely good in your grace and forgiveness. You have brought those

two things together bringing us grace in place of grace and truth. You've done it

again and again for us. Lord, we can't even get our heads around it but we

know we want to go deeper into your presence, into grasping the every

spiritual blessing we have in you Lord Jesus. Lord, even today would we

experience what it means to be face to face with you knowing you and being known

by you and Lord as we struggle in this life and all the ups and downs it brings,

Lord would you help us to look forward to that day when we will be before you,

when we will see you face to face and be transformed forevermore. Amen.