Open—D. Rule, R. Thonney
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We just found that ever reached our ears when conscience charged injustice, rounds of grace removed our fears #10.
Turn with me, brethren, to Exodus chapter 33.
Last evening in the prayer meeting at Pleasant Hill and looking to the Lord for these meetings, the first hymn that was sung had to do with the journey that each one of us are on. At least we trust that all of us are on that journey home to glory. And a number of the hymns since that time have had that thought before us. And this morning, this afternoon in the reading, we had something of the grace of God.
Brought before us in different aspects of it.
Like to read this 33rd chapter of Exodus and perhaps add to some of the thoughts of the themes that have been before us thus far in our time together. Exodus chapter 33 and verse one.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart and go up. Hence thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an Angel before thee, And I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hibite and the Jebusites.
Unto a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, and no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff necked people, and I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee.
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Therefore now put off thine ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb. And Moses took the Tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Which was without the camp, and it came to pass, when Moses went out under the Tabernacle, that all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door.
And looked after Moses until he was gone into the Tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the Tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the Tabernacle. And the Lord talked with Moses, and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the Tabernacle door. And all the people rose up and worshiped every man in his tent door. And the Lord spake unto those face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun.
A young man departed not out of the Tabernacle, and Moses said unto the Lord, See thou sayest unto me.
Bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace.
In my sight now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace.
In thy sight. Show me now the way thy way, that I may know thee.
And that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation.
Is thy people? And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not offence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us?
So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
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. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. 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 I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away thine hand, and thou shalt see my back part, but my face shall not be seen.
Quite often when this particular chapter is taken up, the emphasis is placed on Moses pitching the Tabernacle outside the camp. That's not the subject that or the points of the chapter that is on my soul for this afternoon. But I just like to mention a few points that we have before us here to give a thought or two and desire that the Lord may use the chapter to be a blessing.
To each one of us individually.
The first thing is that these people were on a journey. They had started out, they had left the land of Egypt.
And.
They were going to the land that had been promised.
To Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And the Lord says, I'm going to send before you an Angel.
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And he will drive out the enemies from the land that you're going to, that it might be your land. And it's a wonderful place. It's a land of milk and honey. And he presents to them a, a very, can I say, nice picture of the place to which they were going. And we too have had, can I put it the same way? We've had a lovely picture presented to us of where we're going. We're on our way home. We're on our way to the glory. It's our land that flows with milk and honey. And unlike these people.
God has so ordered this dispensation, as we call it, in which we live, that we can already enter in and enjoy that promised land in our souls day by day. We don't have to, as it were, wait to the end to begin the enjoyment of the land that's promised to us. And so these people had it in anticipation. They'd already sent the spies into the land and had brought back some of the fruit of the land that they could enjoy.
And yet the way the chapter starts out is a real word to the conscience, and I'd like to present it that way to our consciences because the end of the chapter is a real word of comfort and a word of promise to us. But sometimes we don't enter much into the promises of God because we don't allow the word of God to speak to our conscience is we'd like to have the good parts.
And we'd like to sort of pass to the side.
The other parts. And yet it's a solemn thing, the way the Lord speaks to the people in the beginning, because he says to them.
And after telling him of the land, the Lord says in the middle of verse three, I will not go up.
In the midst of the.
What a what a words are these?
And can we apply them? What if the Lord this afternoon were to say that to us? How would we feel? Thankfully, these people felt it.
They didn't just, can I say, rush out to grab a good word, a good promise, and say, oh, no, everything is all right. The Lord is going to go with us because he said this or that at some other occasion.
But in the circumstances in which they were on this day.
They treated that seriously, and they took it to themselves. And here's a word He says to them. I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. The Lord saw the heart of the people as it was, and He called it for what it was. He called him a stiff necked people and.
He says to them, lest I can see if I go with you, then I might consume you in the way because of what you are is a stiff necked people. Well, brethren, I'm not going to make any pronouncements this afternoon, but I will say let us each individually consider if we want the presence of the Lord to go with us and have a conscious sense of it in our souls. It can only be in communion with Himself.
We can't have the conscious sense of the presence of the Lord.
Except by communion, and these people were not going to enjoy it that way either.
They had to be in the presence of the Lord and own what He saw.
Before they could enjoy the promises which come later in the chapter. And so when the people heard these words.
It says they were as evil tidings and they mourned.
And no man did put on his ornaments.
I don't know for sure what the intended thought in the ornaments is, but it is a something that perhaps each one of us can in our own.
Consciences deal with before the Lord. Maybe it's something different in your life than it may be in mine, but are there things in our lives that can I say we put on in a public way?
Before the Lord, not just before man here it's not so much the ornaments as they were seeing perhaps by others, but it's more to me in my own soul the sense of what the Lord saw. And so they mourn and they leave off their ornaments. They don't put them on. And is there that that we may put on? And I say when we feel that we're going into the presence of the Lord.
That at other times we don't have on.
You know, sometimes when we come into the presence of the Lord on the Lord's Day or on an occasion like this.
There is a certain manner of behavior. There are certain thoughts.
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Patterns that we may adopt and honestly to when we come into the presence of the Lord, but then when we leave or leave it in the collective sense and we go on about the daily business of life. Perhaps those ornaments are more for ourselves and are characterized in some different ways. Well, let us when the Lord wants to speak to us, as it were at times when He does.
Let's not put on ornaments. Let us come before Him and let Him speak to us as He sees us and as we may really be.
Well, the Lord then speaks to Moses here, and he tells them that.
Lest I consume they put off thine ornaments, that I may know what to do unto thee. And so.
The Lord then tells them what to do and they respond to it. And now he says, I'm going to decide what I am going to do.
And so they stripped themselves of their ornaments. And then we have the part of the chapter in which the presence of the Lord amongst the people, the Tabernacle is pitched outside of the camp, and the people see the presence of the Lord there as figured by the cloud. And it's interesting that it says in verse 10 and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the Tabernacle door, and all the people rose up and worshiped.
Every man in his tent door. Oh that a sense of the presence of God.
But always produce, in whatever circumstances or even need that we may have, that being in the presence of God would be that which would produce a reverential respect and worship from our hearts. Well, we thank God that He's brought us together in this way for these meetings. And may the time that we are spending together during these several days be a time in which we will have a collective sense.
Of himself in a way that would be as these people were.
Can I say having put aside their ornaments?
And standing there waiting to see what the Lord is going to do. And then the result that was produced in them was something that honored God. There was worship and He was honored by it. Well, now we find that this is what perhaps more than any other, attracted my thoughts to this chapter is this conversation between Moses and the Lord.
And sometimes, brethren, we can have things collectively, but very often when it's a matter of the conscience and it's a matter of the heart, we ultimately individually have to get together with the Lord.
And let the Lord himself be the one that speaks to our own hearts. And it's a wonderful thing. I didn't hadn't really noticed it before reading it this afternoon as we were reading it here together, how the Lord speaks first to Moses and then Moses draws in to the conversation the people of God, and he brings also the others into their relationship with the Lord in what he has to say in his own conversation with the Lord.
And I think that's often the correct and proper way that the Spirit of God works with us here individually. He's going to work with you as a brother or sister, young person, by yourself and himself. And there's going to be that needed, can I say conversation between you in His presence. And if it produces the proper result in your soul, then your heart is going to reach out and bring others into that same, can I say, conversation of relationship.
And so here it's the Lord speaks to Moses as a man speaketh unto his friend.
And he says to Moses, or Moses says to the Lord. Moses said unto the Lord in verse 12.
See, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know.
Whom thou wilt send with me.
I like that.
Moses here saying well.
Lord, you've told me that I'm supposed to bring this people.
Oh, but you haven't told me who's going to go with me.
Moses didn't intend to bring such a people up by himself and alone. And in fact, if you think about it, he had similar conversations even with the Lord before they were delivered from Egypt, when Moses was in the presence of the Lord and giving the Lord all the reasons why he wasn't a suited vessel to do the job. And he gives him quite a number of excuses as to why he shouldn't be the one to take the people of God out of Egypt to the promised land. And one of them was, well, Lord.
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Who's going to speak? I can't speak. I'm not an eloquent person. And his brother was. He was told his brother would serve and help in that capacity and so on and so yet here he says, But you haven't told me.
Who you will send with me?
You have said this, Thou hast said, I know thee by name.
And thou hast found grace in my sight.
Isn't that a good starting point, brother, sister, in your personal sense, A relationship of going on to the promised land and going on with the people of God there?
I know thee by name.
I know thee by name.
Do you have that sense in your heart? I was thinking this morning as we were reading in Second Timothy Two. Really the first figure that is mentioned in that chapter is son, my son. We need to have a settled sense of our relationship.
With God as our Father, we need to recognize before all else, before we could be a servant, before we could have any other senses of relationship in service to God, the settled sense in our own soul that we are His child.
And that he calls us by name, He knows us individually by name. And Moses understood, at least in his own way, that for himself that he had been called, I know thee by name. And also he could repeat back to the Lord that he had thou hast found.
Grace in my sight.
Isn't that a wonderful thing? Just to rejoice in that I am an object.
Of the grace of God.
To know that God has according to His own heart and according to His own purpose of love.
Said. I'm putting my grace on you. I'm going to show.
My good favor I'm going to display what's in my heart toward you to you.
You are to be the object of my grace. And Moses had that sense that the Lord had said that to him. But he was concerned about the question of going on. He wasn't going to want to have, can I say, the people of God as a responsibility to care for them alone?
And so now he asks the Lord in verse 13. Therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy ***** show me now thy way.
That I may know thee, and that I may find grace in thy sight.
I could put it this way, it's a little bit hope not improperly crude, but.
Lord Moses is being honest with the Lord, and he says, well, Lord, this is what you've said. Now show to me that it's true.
You've presented this to me, now show me that you really mean it. And he goes on and he says, And consider that this nation is thy people.
Oh, how important that is.
We'll never have a right thought about the people of God if we don't always keep in mind, you know, early a verse or two earlier, he said this people.
But when he speaks here, he puts the people of God in their relationship with God. He says thy people.
Now God has, as it were, to respond according to who they are and the relationship in Daniel. God, because the people, lo am I was written on the people. When Daniel pleads with God and owns his condition before God, God never says they're my people. I don't think he says it once in the whole of Daniel, but Daniel always speaks about him as God's people.
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Always brings them before God as his own. Did Daniel not know that Lo am I had written? I'm sure he did.
And yet he had the right heart about it, and he presents them to God in according to the heart that he knew that God had for those people. And so here he says, considering that this nation is thy people, now how does the Lord respond? The Lord in verse 14 says, My presence shall go with thee.
Oh, brethren.
May your heart and mind have that sense this afternoon, individually and collectively.
Of the grace of God.
That would say to us, as he said here to Moses, my present.
Shall go with thee.
And I will give thee rest.
What more could we ask or want this afternoon?
We're on that journey and we're going to eventually get home, maybe sooner than later.
But what above all else, what our hearts desire on the way but to go on the journey.
In the conscious enjoyment in our souls of the presence of the Lord.
In grace with us my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee let rest.
Moses wants to be sure about it. He says in verse 15, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
Been interesting the pronoun use, isn't it? If it go not with me, carry us not up him. How important that we individually have this sense of the grace of God toward us.
He knows what we are. He knows all about each one of us. There's nothing hidden from his eye.
We may individually own at times to be stiff necked.
And half two as it were, removed the ornaments.
But oh, what a wonderful thing that he says, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us?
Is that not adequate to your soul of the sense of the grace of God toward you, that He would go with you and with us?
That was what Moses was saying to the Lord, that the sense in which they would go up to the land was together, and it was the Lord's presence with them that gave them a sense of His grace toward them. And so he says.
So we shall be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
We need to remember that.
If you want the presence of the Lord in your life.
It's going to be on his terms.
You and I may not command the presence of the Lord on our own terms.
It is always and only according to his own character.
That we can enjoy his presence.
And Moses had a sense of that. And one of the things that is required, necessary to enjoy the presence of the Lord in the journey is a separation from that which is contrary to his own character and nature. God is light and this world is darkness. God is love in this world. Doesn't really know anything about it.
Doesn't know what.
The love of God really is, at least if it knows it rejects it. And so he said, I'm going to go with you, but it's going to be in separation.
From the peoples of this earth.
So he says in verse 17, The Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also, which thou hast spoken.
For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. Now what's the answer to the thing that Moses started the conversation with, where the question was?
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Who?
Will go show me how, the way that I may know thee, and who will go with me?
Verse 12 Go back to that, bring this people up. Thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me.
What's the answer to that?
The Lord says I'm not going to send somebody with you, I'm going with you myself.
Brethren, Lord hasn't said to you, Well, you know I'll meet you at the other end.
Or only that from time to time, as needed, I'll send an Angel to take care of your needs for you. The Lord says no, something better than that comes from grace. It says, I'm going to go with you myself.
I'm not sending somebody with you. We're going together. And so he says something that to me that satisfies the heart of Moses. And I'd just like to notice something in the end of the chapter that's not verse by verse, that there might be other time. But he says in verse 18, and he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.
If we have and actually the song that we started the this meeting with in #10 you don't need to turn to it, but it says.
Of grace, then let us sing a joyful, wondrous theme. Who grace is brought, shall glory bring, and we shall reign with him. That song ends in the glory.
And I believe that the true sense of grace in the soul for us in this time in which we live is that which takes the heart on out to the true end of it all, which is the glory. And so even in this case of Moses, that doesn't didn't have the revelation that has been given to us, the mystery that's been made known to us through Paul, yet his thoughts turn.
To wanting to see the glory of the person who had displayed the grace. And if we get ahold of, or better still, if it gets ahold of our souls, it produces this result in us that we have the thirst. We have a desire in our souls to see the source and see the one that is the source of grace, to see His glory, to see the display of the Excellency of Himself.
And that satisfies eternally the soul. It is that which leads us on. Heaven will be a wonderful place.
As far as its comfort and as far as the removal of all the pain and suffering of this life, but.
It is going to be to our souls the wonderful display of the glory of God and that.
The end result you might see in the soul of the working of grace to behold it is that which brings an eternal satisfaction to these hearts of ours. Now this before closing, I'm just going to read almost without comment a few verses in Isaiah chapter 43.
That give a little more.
Of perhaps what it says when he says, I've called thee by my name, which was the beginning of what he had to say to them. Isaiah 43 and verse one. But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee.
By thy name thou art mine, when thou passest through the waters.
I will be with thee.
And through the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest through the fire.
Thou shalt not be burned, either shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel.
Thy Savior there's five. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the West.
Verse 7 Even everyone that is called by my name, for I have created him. For my glory I have formed him.
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Yeah, I have made him.
Just like to.
Speak briefly, brethren, on something that is.
Impressed my own soul.
Perhaps something to do with what Don has to say, but going back to the 32nd of Exodus.
How much God loves his people.
And it's interesting in the New Testament we have that Moses was.
Faithful in all God's house as a ministry and servant.
And then it says Christ as a son over his own house.
Whose house are we? God loves his people and it is impressive reading through the scriptures.
How he does not let his people be evil spoken of lightly. He loves them, and they may be stiff necked and they may be rebellious, but how careful we need to be about speaking badly about the people of God. And I'd like to turn back to this 32nd chapter just to see how Moses and the spirit of intercession pleads.
For the people of God when they were so rebellious.
They had transgressed. They had made an idol.
And it was a serious, serious sin before God.
And so the Lord says, as we've already heard somewhat in chapter 33.
But let's go.
To verse nine of chapter 32, the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people.
Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax spot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of thee a great nation.
You know what stiff neck is? I think some of us have had stiff neck. And when you get a stiff neck, you don't want to turn your neck much. You're going to turn it all. You turn your whole body.
You know, we get that way in a spiritual way, we think we're right, and maybe in a certain way we are.
But, O brethren, we cannot trust ourselves, We cannot trust our own judgment of things even that much. How often I form strong judgments about certain people and certain things, and the Lord has had to rebuke me about it. Now we need not to be stiff necked in the presence of the Lord. They were stiff necked. They were going in the direction of idols.
Let me alone, I'll consume them in a moment, and I'll make us be a great nation.
Look at Moses response, so beautiful.
Verse 11 Moses besought the Lord his God and said.
Why does thy wrath wax hot against thy people? Isn't that beautiful? He doesn't say my people, he says thy people, Lord, they're thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say for mischief? Did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the Lord?
This beautiful how he reasons with God against the destruction of his people.
Of course we know it was the Spirit of Christ in Moses that was speaking.
Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel thy servants, to whom thou sweareth by thy own self, and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of.
Will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit forever and.
The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do.
Unto his people. Isn't that beautiful, brother? May the Lord ever give us to have that attitude towards the people of God again. I say, they may be rebellious, they may be stiffness. What should be our attitude? The attitude of Moses in pleading the cause of God's people. He loves them, and he will not repent of his purpose to bless his people.
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And we need to understand it in our relations with God's people. Lord, help us not to have hard attitudes toward the Lord's people wherever we find them. Now, in contrast with this, Moses was a ministering servant in the House of God.
And is all servants near human servants, I say.
There is failure, and I'd like to go over to the Book of Numbers just briefly.
To see where Moses sailed.
What did he do?
That caused God to shut him out of the land of penis.
Course, we know that in grace.
We have Moses in the land of Canaan in the New Testament on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus.
But as far as the Old Testament is concerned, he was barred from entering that promised land. What was the reason here? The people are thirsty. And it is a constant history of complaining with these people against the Lord, against His servants. And Moses seems to weary of it. And we can get that way too.
We don't realize that they're not our people.
There is the Lord's people, and so he.
Is told by the Lord in verse seven of this chapter.
Verse 8 Take the rod, that's Aaron's rod and gather thou the assembly together.
Thou and Aaron, thy brethren, speak unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water.
Did they deserve to get water when they had been complaining so badly? Absolutely not. But oh how God blesses in spite of us. Brethren, we've got to realize that God bless us in spite of what we are so often gives. We don't deserve it and still gives us the kind of God our God is. And.
So Moses is told to do this, and he comes to the rock. Verse 9. Moses took the rod before the Lord, That's Aaron's rod as he commanded, and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together.
Before the rock, that rock was Christ. We read the New Testament.
And he said unto them, Here's where Moses spirit was provoked.
Here now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod, not Aaron's rod, but his rod, which is a rod of judgment, he smoked the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly in the congregation, drank in the their bees. Also God gave the water even when they didn't deserve a bit of it.
But what follows verse 12? The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, Therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Merabah, because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.
Dear Moses.
What a servant? I don't suppose there's a servant like him in the Old Testament.
But he failed.
Like every human instrument does fail and he failed to sanctify the Lord in the eyes of the people and he was barred from doing it. He got angry with God's people and he spoke in that anger and there were consequences for it. Oh, what lessons these are for us to think about. Another that we don't have time to look at is.
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The case of Elijah, another man God used in a mighty way.
In turning back those 10 tribes to the true God of Israel from idolatry from Baal.
And.
Afterwards he got discouraged. He was able to face, when he had God before him, the 850 false prophets of the Groves and a Bale. But then a woman, Jezebel, threatens to take away his life, and he runs.
How true of our hearts, what a reflection of our hearts if we don't keep our eyes on the Lord. And he runs and then the Lord meets him where he is and he says, what are you doing here, You like Elijah? And he says, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, and this people have forsaken thee. They've torn down my altars and I only I am left.
And they seek my life to take it away.
What the Lord say to Elijah?
Because he was pleading against the people of God, and God does not allow that.
What a lesson, he said. Elijah, go.
And anoint Elisha to be prophet in your stead.
You're going to be replaced, Elijah. I can't have you representing me. You're going to plead against the people of God. The Lord help us to think about these things. God loves His people, brethren. He loves them dearly even though they are stiff necked. May the Lord give us the grace to know in our relationships with them not to be hard in our attitude.
To plead, always plead.
For the people of God.