THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 3..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. The Lord said to Moses, Depart, go up from here, you and the people from whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your offspring I will give it. I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. Verse 4, When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, Say to the people of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. If for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.

Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onwards. Now Moses used to take the tent of the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp. And he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up and each would stand at the tent's door and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.

When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship each at his tent door. Thus, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man would not depart from the tent. Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, bring up these people.

But you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight. Now, therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people. And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

And he said to him, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. But how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us so that we are a distinct, that we are distinct, I and your people from every other people on the face of the earth? And the Lord said to Moses, this very thing that you have spoken, I will do for you have found favor in my sight. And I know you by name.

Moses said, Please show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. But he said, You cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock.

And while my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. What a wonderful passage we have before us here in Exodus chapter 33.

This is indeed a tremendous passage which is probably very familiar to most of us. Most of us know that the passage where Moses boldly comes into the presence of Yahweh and asks to see the glory of Yahweh. And that is a point that we will not examine this week, but rather next week as we move into chapter 34, which speaks and continues really this passage. But this evening, by God's grace, we will together look and consider together what comes before that bold request by Moses. And now for context, the previous chapter, the chapter that our brother took us through last week, chapter 32, we know is a chapter where the people of Israel rebel against God.

They're at the base of the mount, Mount Sinai, and Moses is on the mount receiving the law from Yahweh. He was up there for many weeks and the people grew restless. They looked up and they said, where is this Moses? Where is he gone? We don't know what has come of him.

Therefore they went to Aaron and said, make us a golden calf. Make us a physical, tangible God that we could worship. And so Aaron obliges and makes this calf. And it manifests the fruits of these people's hearts, the fruit of rebellion and idolatry that is found in these people's heart was manifested in their request to Aaron. And of course, we know that God sees all things.

Moses is with the Lord, but God sees what is happening at the foot of his mountain and his anger burns within. His fury burns at these people because of what they have done. They have indeed broken covenant with a God who had released them or freed them from the land of Egypt. But then we're told that through the mediation of Moses, The Lord relents from doing what these people deserve, for what covenant breakers deserve, the Lord relents from completely and totally destroying them under the wrath of His goodness. Rather, He withholds His wrath, at least for the time being.

But beloved, we all know that sin has its consequences. So the chapter ends, that's 32, ends with Yahweh sending a plague upon these people. But He doesn't annihilate these people. He doesn't destroy these people. But the plague was a serious warning for them to know the dire consequences of sin before a good and holy God.

And now we find ourselves in chapter 33. Some time has passed, it seems, and the Lord will instruct Moses to gather the people and depart from Mount Sinai, from Mount Horeb, otherwise known as, and to take his people and begin their journey to the land of Canaan, the land that he had promised their forefathers that he would give. However, as I said earlier, sin has its consequences. The fact that Yahweh withheld His righteous fury previously doesn't mean that nothing has actually changed, because something has. You see, the people will still be given the promised land, and Yahweh will actually send an angel before them to accompany them until they do.

That was promised back in Exodus 24, and He'll uphold that. But what does change as a result of them breaking covenant with God, is told to us in verse 3 in Yahweh's own words. He says, But I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. This is a serious indictment of God to this people before Him. You see, stiff-necked people, our brother brought this up last week, is a term that will be used throughout the Old Testament.

In particular, through the prophets that God speaks through about His people, His people in Israel. And it really does connote a high level of insubordination and a deep, deep rooted stubbornness. Just like that of an ox who, no matter how much you pull at the yoke that is attached to that ox's neck, he refuses to change direction. These people, Yahweh is saying, are proud, they're hard-hearted, and they always think that they are right. And they refused to submit to him.

Beloved, Proverbs 12, Proverbs 14, verse 12, has something to say to this point. It reads, There is a way that seems right to man, but its end is a way to death. And beloved, anyone who opposes this God, the only true God of the universe, the end will inevitably be death. But it seems to some degree, at least, in the passage that we read for you in chapter 33, that these people are showing some signs of repentance. You see, beyond this, when we look at the second section, we see that Moses goes out and pitches a tent far from the camp, far off from the camp, outside from the presence of the others.

We see the attitude of these people is an attitude of worship. And when they see that Yahweh comes down in the pillar of smoke, they worship. They stand at the entrance of their tent and they worship at the same time. This is different. Moses goes away from the tent like earlier when he went up the mountain and they instead asked Aaron to make a god for them to worship.

But now it seems they may have learnt the lesson now when Moses departs. They're eagerly expecting and they fall in worship before Yahweh. But even in the passage that we have before us in verses 3-5, we see something quite interesting. We see something very interesting. Because it seems like when Moses comes back and tells these people what Yahweh has said to him, they're struck to the heart.

Because in verse 4 we're told that these people considered the words of Moses, that is in particular that Yahweh, that God is not going to be immediately among them, they saw those words as disastrous words. And beyond this, in verse 4 we're told, they mourned. It was as though they received a death sentence at that point. It was as though the world had come to an end almost. You see, it's important that we look into their reaction a little bit more deeply.

We need to ask the question, why the somber response? Why indeed are these people mourning? Isn't everything back on track according to what we've just read? When Israel was freed from bondage of the Egyptians, they could look back and they could see what they left behind, what they were saved from, the pain and the suffering, the bondage under the Egyptians. They could see that Yahweh had saved them from that, and their hope was for something better in the future, because they had their eyes on the promise that God had made to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, a land flowing with milk and honey.

They wanted to be a nation, an independent nation with their own land. And now, despite their detestable sin, despite what they had done at the foot of that mountain in breaking covenant with God, that promise is still going to be fulfilled. That's exactly what God says to Moses, that He's going to still fulfill that promise and have these people enter into that land. So why are they mourning? Why the somber mood?

If Yahweh is going to continue to provide for them, to protect them, that His mighty hand, He says, will drive out the battle-ready occupants of Canaan in order to give these people that land that they so desperately desired. Now He'll do it from a distance. He'll do it from a distance, not from among his people as he had purposed, which was very evident in the many chapters that he gave this, the intricate chapters that he'd given to Moses in the details of constructing that tabernacle, which would indeed house the Lord, which would be the place of the manifest dwelling of God among his people. He would go. He would go among his people, he says, but through this angel.

So if that's the case, and the people are going to end up getting their land, then why are they mourning? You see, I think that there's beyond the land in their mind. I don't think that is the ends of what they're thinking. Because I think they've been somewhat enlightened in this whole situation. I think they've come to see a bit of a glimpse of the true treasure of being the people of God.

What it is indeed that makes them peculiar. What makes them privileged amongst the other nations. Maybe they've begun to see the difference is not in the things they have. Maybe they've come to see that the difference is not in the things that they're yet to possess. Rather, as the Lord already said to Moses in verse six, or as Moses already said to the Lord in verse 16, maybe they've come to see what is indeed the thing that makes them different is the presence of God among them.

that they could say that Yahweh is with us. But beloved, due to their sin, Yahweh will still be around, but he'll have his distance from his people. Beloved, that is a reason to mourn. But Moses will intercede yet again on behalf of the people of Israel in his mediatory role. And we know, of course, that Moses' mediatory role is a type or a shadow of Jesus Christ's mediation on behalf of his people.

We see this in the first five books of the Bible. We see many examples where Moses is seen as a mediator between the people of God and God himself. And we see that again in verse 11 of the passage before us, when Moses met with God. We're told he met with Him as though He was a friend. He was conversing with God face-to-face, we're told here, in the tent of meeting.

Of course, the example of the greater mediator, Jesus Christ, is not only that He mediates on behalf of His people, but not as a friend, but the eternal Son of God. And according to John 1, verse 1, He's face-to-face Fellowship with God was not only temporary like it was here for Moses, but from all eternity he had that relationship. However, here Moses in his mediatory role is prefiguring that of Christ and he comes before Yahweh requesting forgiveness for his people. He's asking that Yahweh would once again presence himself among his people as he had purposed to do before they had broken his covenant. Because Moses knows how important it is to have God with them.

Despite knowing fully the unworthiness of a sinful people, which Israel had proven to be, and their unworthiness to enjoy his immediate presence, Moses yet makes intercession for these people in verse 15 where he says, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. In other words, what Moses is saying is, even if you were to bless us with all the blessings that we could fathom, give us the land, give us victory over our enemies, give us everything this world can give, Yahweh, God, if you are not with us, if your presence is not close to us, then we don't want it. We might as well stay here and die in the wilderness and be blotted from the name of the earth. Our names blotted from the earth. Because without your presence, Moses is saying, nothing else matters.

Brothers and sisters, this is profound. And this ought to be the true heart's response of every true believer. Give me the very best things of this world. Give me all that the world can give me. Give me the desires of my flesh, the career that I want, the wealth, the prestige, the popularity, everything the world can give me.

If you give these things all to me, oh God, but if I don't have you, then my heart mourns as though I have nothing. Beloved, as New Testament Christians, we know what we deserve, do we not? We know that we are no different than the wilderness generation, these people who rebelled against God. Now, we might say we have not fashioned a golden calf and brought ourselves to bend our knee to this calf. I agree with you, but are our hearts any different by nature?

Are our hearts not idle factories? Beloved, whenever we sin, we place something before the law of God, and therefore we bend the knee to that thing rather than bending our knee to the Almighty God. We are no different. However, the only true mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, through His now finished work, He sits on the right hand of the Father and He has made intercession for us and He continues to make intercession on our behalf. Despite our sins, despite our unworthiness, despite our worthiness of being destroyed because of the infinite offense that our sins are before a thrice holy God, He has purchased our forgiveness and He has reconciled us to God.

Now we have eyes to see. Now we can recognize that our greatest treasure is not the benefits or the blessings. Our greatest treasure is God himself. Emmanuel, God is with us. It's to be in the presence of God in Christ Jesus.

That ought to be our greatest desire and beloved. That's what Jesus purchased on that cross. Because not only is God among us, by his Holy Spirit, through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, God resides within us. And I want to end on this note. Have you ever thought of the final words of our Lord to his disciples in the last paragraph of the gospel?

According to Matthew, we know those words as the Great Commission. And before our Lord ascended into heaven, he gave the disciples and by implication, he gave all us Christians. this daunting command, and that is to take the gospel into all the world. To take the gospel of Jesus Christ into a hostile world who hates Him and everything He stands for. To take the gospel into a world that will be only opposing to Christ, to a world that will inflict suffering and pain upon His people.

A world that will inflict persecution, and even many who have been trying, who have tried to be faithful to that Great Commission, would pay for that obedience with their own lives. And I ask you, what makes that journey worthwhile? How is it that Christ is able to command such a lofty and such a weighty thing of His sheep, of His people, sheep amongst wolves? How is it that He can tell them to go out into a hostile world and to proclaim the gospel until He comes back? How is it that they can bear that?

How is it that by very definition of them doing that and obeying Christ, they're saying we're going to give up everything in the world, everything our hearts, everything our flesh desires, we're going to give all that up for the sake of Jesus Christ. How is that worth While, well, our Lord knows how it is worthwhile. He gives them the reason in the very last words that he gives them in that same passage in Matthew chapter 28. And listen to what he says after he says, go into all the world, make disciples. He says these words, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Brothers and sisters, Is there anything more glorious than knowing that if you are in Christ, He is with you always. No matter what situation you're in, no matter the hardship, no matter your circumstances, Jesus Christ says, I am with you always. And beloved, we ought to rest in that. Let's pray.