Chapter 22
Exodus 34
“I was telling you last night,” said Mother the next evening, as the children sat beside her, “of how Moses talked with God. He said to God, ‘Show me now Thy glory.’”
“Why did Moses say that, Mother?” asked Sophy.
“I think it was because he felt that everything of man was utterly ruined and hopeless, and his heart turned to the glory of God as something that was above all the ruin and all the sin. God rewarded him for wishing to know Him, by letting him see what no other man had seen. Moses had learned a great deal about God during those forty days that he was in the Mount, and he had seen the lovely pattern of the mercy seat above the ark with the cherubim stretching out their wings on high. It had taught him that there was mercy in the heart of God for him to count on, so Moses felt encouraged to go to Him to plead for His people. He had perhaps also learned in the golden altar of incense that God would hear intercession for a people who could not have been able to speak to Him at all if God had not opened this way.”
“And did God show Himself to Moses?”
“Yes, He did. He said to 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 that thou brakest. 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.’
“Moses went up early in the morning and took the two tablets of stone in his hand. The Lord came down in a cloud and stood with him there, proclaiming the name of the Lord. As He passed before him He said, ‘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.’ Moses made haste, bowed his head and worshipped.
“I believe the proclamation from God’s own mouth, of His mercy and righteousness filled his heart with reverence. Our God is the same today. He does not pass by sin but He is merciful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Because He is merciful, Moses had still more confidence to ask great things from God. Moses counts himself as one of the stiff-necked people and entreats the Lord again to go with the people. The very reason that the Lord had said He would not go with them is the reason Moses pleads to show that they needed God all the more, because they were so evil and wretched in themselves.
“I think Moses had courage to ask God to go with them, because he had learned that God was merciful. God told him that He would make a covenant with him and the people of Israel and that He would do such wonderful things that all the people among whom Moses dwelt would know that it was a work of the Lord. He said He would drive out all the nations too. But He warned Moses not to make a covenant with any of these nations. He said to him, ‘Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves, for thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.’
“God called Himself a jealous God because He does not want His people to love anyone or anything more than they love Him. It is wonderful to read of God’s telling a poor wretched people, who had just been dancing before an idol that He was jealous of their love; that He should care to be loved by such foolish hearts as theirs. And that is equally true of us today too. He commended His love to us by loving us first, for it was while we were still sinners that He sent His Son to die for us. This new covenant that God gave Moses after he had prayed for the people was not the same as the first one God gave him. The first was a covenant of law but this covenant told that God was merciful and gracious and that He had accepted the mediator. It was by this covenant that they entered the promised land.
“The Lord repeated to Moses all He had told him before about keeping the feasts and about the firstborn being given to Him. He told them also about the men and boys appearing before Him three times every year with their firstfruits in their hands. Then the Lord commanded Moses to write down the words of His covenant but He Himself wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets of stone as He had done before.
“Moses was there with God forty days and forty nights without anything to eat or drink all that time.”
“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Arthur. “How could Moses go without anything to eat or drink for so long?”
“God kept him alive, Arthur, and he was so occupied with God and with His Word that he wanted nothing else. While God talked with Moses his face shone like a bright light, but he himself did not know it. When he came down from the mount, Aaron and all the children of Israel saw that his face shone and they were afraid to come near him; so Moses put a veil upon his face when he talked with them. But when he went in to speak to the Lord, he removed the veil.
“Then Aaron and the people came to Moses who told them all that the Lord had said to him.”
“What was it that made Moses’ face shine?” questioned Arthur wonderingly.
“It shone because he was looking at the glory of God. Just as something held in the sunshine reflects the light of the sun, so the light of the glory of God is above the brightness of the sun.
“The children of Israel were afraid of the glory because it brought God to them and they could not bear His holy presence. They felt as Adam did, when he hid himself in the trees of the garden because he heard the voice of God. There was nothing in their hearts that liked the glory of God, so they wished to keep away from it. It was claiming holiness and obedience, and the children of Adam do not like to be holy and obedient. If they had had the faith in God that Moses had, they would have been glad to look at the glory as he was. They would have said that all that God gave them came from that glory; that the love that sent the manna down from heaven every day had also made promises about the good land to which they were going. They would have known too that Someone other than Moses would come out of the glory of God; and who was that?”
“Do you mean the Lord Jesus?” answered Sophy thoughtfully.
“Yes, dear. He who came to save His people from their sins came out of the glory of God that He might take away fear out of their hearts and that He might teach them that the God of glory loved poor sinners. If we were to look to that bright glory now we should see a Saviour in it and we too should be able to say, what by faith all the children of God can say, that is, that there is a Man in the bright glory of God who put all our sins away. Isn’t that wonderful?
“But I think this will be a good stopping-place for tonight. Perhaps we can sing that little hymn you both love so well.”
I have a Saviour, a precious Saviour,
Who died on Calvary’s cross for me;
And now He’s risen, gone back to heaven,
Some day He’s coming back for me.
And while I’m waiting, I’ll try to please Him
In everything I do and say;
And when I see Him, oh how I’ll praise Him,
For washing all my sins away.