We have
the danger of God’s presence is that He is not safe if we are not submissive.
A. The honour of God’s presence is that
we might have fellowship with the invisible God.
In verse
3, God offered to bless the people with the Promised Land, but without His
presence. That’s exactly what many people. They want God to give them whatever
they need for a happy life, but they really don’t care about a daily walk in
fellowship with Him.
Think
about it: Could that describe you? You
want happiness, inner peace, loving relationships, a fulfilling job, and a good
church to attend. But as long as you have those things, life is good. You
don’t really care about a daily relationship with God.
Thankfully,
in this situation, it wasn’t good enough for Israel or for Moses. Israel mourned the news that God would not
go with them and showed their repentance by stripping off their ornaments. Moses
sought the Lord and prayed (Exod. 33:13), “Now
therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your
ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too,
that this nation is Your people.” He went on to add (Exod. 33:15), “If Your presence does not go with us, do
not lead us up from here.” God’s presence was even more cherished than
the blessing of the Promised Land! What do you cherish? Many people today are
running for miracles rather than for God’s presence.
Verses
7-11 seem to interrupt the flow of the narrative, but I think they’re here to
show how Moses enjoyed intimate fellowship with the Lord. The tent here was not
the tabernacle, which was yet to be built. The tabernacle would be placed in
the center of the camp and even Moses could not enter the inner sanctuary of
the tabernacle. Only Aaron, the high priest, could go in there and just once a
year, to make atonement for Israel’s sins.
Moses called this tent “the tent of meeting” (v. 7): “And everyone who sought
the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp.” But
it seems as if not everyone could enter the tent. They had to go through Moses,
their mediator. When he went out to the tent, everyone would stand at the door
of their own tents, watch, and worship (vv. 8, 10). The pillar of cloud would
descend as Moses entered the tent and the Lord would speak with Moses (v. 9).
The people
must have wondered what took place inside that tent! Verse 11 tells us: “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face
to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp,
his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.”
Apparently Joshua stayed there to guard the tent from any intruders.
When it says that the Lord spoke with Moses “face to face,” it does not mean
literally, since no man can see God’s face and live (Exod. 33:20). It means that Moses enjoyed intimate
fellowship with God there. It was a sacred place where Moses met with God.
Some brief applications:
1. there are
different levels of intimacy with God. Moses
knew God in a way that even Aaron and their sister, Miriam, did not (Num. 12:1-8). Only Peter, James, and
John saw Jesus transfigured into His glory and they were not permitted to speak
of what they saw until after Jesus was risen (Matt. 17:1-13). Paul had the unique experience of being caught up to the third heaven where he
heard things that he was not permitted to speak (2 Cor. 12:4). All what the
rest of us can do is read about these extraordinary experiences and let them
motivate us to seek to know God more
deeply than we already do.
2. those who seek the Lord must go through the Mediator. The Israelites who sought the Lord would
go outside the camp to the tent and go through Moses. It
involved some deliberate effort to go out there. Maybe they had to wait in
line, since Moses could only handle a few requests at a time. But we have a Mediator who can handle all
our requests at once! Paul says (Eph. 2:18), “for through Him we both [Jews and
Gentiles] have our access in one Spirit to the Father.” Hebrews
13:13 exhorts, “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His
reproach”.
3. it’s helpful to have a specific place
and time where you meet with God. Make a
designated spot where you can get alone with God to fellowship with Him through
His Word and prayer. As you read His Word, ask Him to teach you His ways so
that you may know Him (Exod. 33:13; Ps. 25:4). God’s ways are how He deals with people, and His ways are not our ways
(Isa. 55:8). He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son,
providing the ram at the last minute, as an illustration of how He would
sacrifice His own Son (Gen. 22:1-14). He put Joseph in an Egyptian dungeon
after he obeyed God by resisting the advances of Potiphar’s wife. His way with
Joseph was puzzling at the time, but later God used him to provide for His
people during a famine (Ps 105:16-19; Gen 50:20)
B. The honour of God’s presence is so
that we might be distinct from all other people.
As God’s
people, we are in the world, but
not of the world (John
17:15-16). We saw in verses 1-3, how God
distanced Himself from the people because of their sin with the golden calf.
But Moses, through his prayer, sought to secure God’s presence again with His
people. In verse 13, after asking to know God’s ways and find favor in His
sight, Moses reminds the Lord, “Consider
too, that this nation is Your people.” In verse
14, the Lord responds using a singular pronoun: “My presence shall go with you, and I will
give you rest.” But Moses wasn’t content with that. So he went on (vv.
15, 16) to ask for God’s presence to lead the people from there and to go with
them all. God’s presence
would distinguish Israel from all the other people who were on the face of the
earth (v. 16).
We should experience God’s presence not
just individually, but also corporately. Paul
asks (1 Cor. 3:16), “Do you not know
that you [plural] are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you
[plural]?” The church is now the temple where God dwells. Unbelievers who come into our church
gatherings should sense that God is in our midst (1 Cor. 14:25). But for that to happen, we have to be
distinct from the world. In 2
Corinthians 6:16, Paul again states that the church is the temple of God and
that God dwells in our midst. Then he commands (2 Cor. 6:17), “Therefore, ‘Come out from their midst and
be separate,’ says the Lord.” Paul concludes (2 Cor. 7:1), “Therefore, having these promises, beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God.”
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