The following is Pastor Nate’s teaching transcription from Calvary Monterey’s 6/22/21 Tuesday Night Service. We apologize for any transcription inaccuracies.
1 The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people 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.’ 2 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. 3 Go up to a 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.” Exodus 33:1
Exodus 33 – The Renewal of the Covenant
The Lord said to Moses, "Depart, go out from here you and the people 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 a 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."
Now, just to remind you of the section that we're in here in the book of Exodus, we are here in chapter 33 in the middle of a three-chapter section where the people of Israel first rebelled in building the golden calf while Moses was still on Mount Sinai. Then secondly, and we'll see it in this chapter, Moses will mediate for the people. He's actually already begun mediating for the people a little bit in chapter 32, which we saw in our last study together. And then finally, God is going to restore the people of Israel. So that's the flow that we're in, in this little three chapter section. Rebellion of Israel, the mediation of Moses for Israel, and then the restoration of God to Israel.
So today we're going to look at, Lord willing, chapter 33 and 34. Now in chapter 32, just to remind you, Moses had asked God when God's wrath was burning hot against Israel for their idolatry and basically their decision to displace the God that they knew for this golden calf, they're making themselves like the Egyptians that they had just been set free from, Moses asked the Lord, he said, "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants." This is back in chapter 32, verse 13. And so here God responds by telling Abraham in a sense that he hears Moses's prayer, "To the land of which I swore," God says, "To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." So God heard Moses's cry. And what the Lord says here in verse two, as he tells Moses, he says, "I will send an angel before you." Now there's a little bit of debate as to the identity of this angel. It is possible that it's just a literal angel that would help wage battle for the people of Israel. It's also very possible that it is a reference to pre-incarnate Christ himself. In other words, Jesus before the incarnation, Jesus walking and talking in Israel doing miracles in Galilee, formulating 12 disciples, teaching, doing miracles and dying on the cross, that this is actually Jesus showing up in pre-incarnate form leading the people of Israel.
Humbled
So in a sense, God would still in a way, be willing to go with Israel if the angel is pre-incarnate Christ. Uh, but it's also very possible that that's not at this stage, what God is alluding to or referring to. Partly because in verse three, he says, "But I will not go up among you," God is distancing his himself from them, or at least that's what he says he's going to do to Moses. I think partly, God is testing Moses's heart. Where is Moses's perspective? Is Moses going to be mortified by the idea that God is not going to go with the people of Israel? Is he going to persist in asking God to allow his full presence to go with them? Or is the land flowing with milk and honey that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is that enough for Moses?
4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5 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.’ ” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
But Moses at this point has been thoroughly transformed. He wants God. He is not satisfied with the land itself. He wants the giver of the blessings, not just the blessings. And so Moses is going to intercede and ask God to go with them in his entirety, to go with them completely. And God is going to hear the cry of Moses as Moses mediates for the nation, and God is going to restore, re-establish the covenant with the people of Israel. Now, when the people ... verse four, 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 onward.
Now, this whole scene is a good news, bad news revelation from God to the people. Moses comes down, he says, "Look, I've heard from the Lord. The good news is that God is going to fulfill the promises that he made to the patriarchs. He's going to bring you into the promised land. But the bad news is that God is not going to go with you, he's going to send his angel before you." And the reason that God gives for this decision is that if they lapsed again into sin, his wrath just might break out against them. Their unholiness would cause him to judge them as his covenant people. Now they grieve, as they're told to, by taking off their ornaments.
Now you should get out of your mind, ornaments that you might be thinking of. The only time I ever used more than likely the word ornaments is in thinking about decorating a Christmas tree. So they were not taking off Christmas tree decorations or ornaments, what they were taking off were rings and necklaces and bracelets or anklets. This is similar to dressing themselves in sackcloth and ashes. It's a sign of mourning over and mourning for their sins. The ornaments that they were wearing, the ones that were left ... remember they'd taken some of their ornaments, their golden earrings and melted them down to make the golden calf. But the ornaments that they had left, these were all outward symbols or reminders of God's power over the Egyptians. Because it was the Egyptians, when the Israelites left Egypt, who gave their jewelry to the people of Israel. Now they're taking these things off in a sign of mourning before God. They'd done wrong. This was good. They needed to be humbled at this point. This was not just God's discipline on their lives, but this is God asking them to humble their hearts before him.
James says in James 4:6 that God gives more grace. Therefore it says, "He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble," and the people of Israel at this moment, they're humbling their hearts before God. James 4:10 concludes, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Now with that verse in our minds, we likely have a sense of what's coming. The people of Israel, they're broken by their sin, they take off their ornaments, they are humbled before God, they're mourning their own sin, you can almost bank on it that what's coming next is that God is going to exalt his people. He's going to restore his people. You see, God loves a supple, broken, soft heart before him.
Now, one of the goals of the Christian life is to maintain this spirit constantly. Not walking around saying, "Woe is me a sinner," not walking around saying to ourselves, "I'm a shameful, disgraceful person." But a person who humbly understands that there's an inclination of sin, we call it the flesh in the new Testament era, that can always pull us down. That we must be cautious about the flesh. That we are susceptible to things like the lust of the eyes, the pride of life and the lust of the flesh. In other words, there are things that we crave that we see, there are feelings that we crave that we want to have, and there are things that we want to be that are sinful, that are self-exalting. Those temptations always exist within us. And the prideful person says, "I'm above those things," or, "I deserve those things." But the humble person says, "I'm cautious about that reality and I need the Lord's intervention." And the Lord, he, as we humble ourselves before him, he exalts us. And so God is about to release his special presence upon the people in some powerful ways, but first Moses needs to intercede for them. And so in verse seven, we shift to the mediation section of this three chapter passage the rebellion of Israel, the mediation, done by Moses and then the restoration of God's people that occurs.
Moses' Prayer Life
Now, all of this, it's hard to put a sharp timeline on how this whole event unfolded, but it's very possible that this was a 10 month stretch of time. There are at least 80 days accounted for, Moses goes up the first time to the mountain top for 40 days, receives the law, comes down, the golden calf episode unfolds, and then he goes back up to the mountain top for another 40 days before the Lord. But it appears that there's a season of time where Moses goes out to the tent of meeting, he's interceding, talking to God inside the camp before he goes back up to Mount Sinai. So there's a period of time here, something even up to 10 months where God is interacting with Moses, Moses is crying out to God. Everything's in the balance. What's going to happen? We know that God is going to bring the people into the promised land, but will his presence go with them? Is his glory going to come upon the tabernacle? Will he make the people of Israel primarily at their temple or tabernacle his dwelling place? Will they be his people? And in this little passage, Moses becomes the central figure as he cries out to the Lord.
7 Now Moses used to take 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. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 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. 10 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. 11 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.
So Moses, it says in verse seven, it says, "Now Moses used to take 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 his tent 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."
Now, this is a interesting little paragraph because it tells us a little bit about life before the full tabernacle was built. Eventually, they would build the tabernacle that God gave them directions to build. At this point, they have not yet built it. And that tabernacle would ultimately become known as the Tent of Meeting. It was a place where God and man we're meeting together. Here though, before the official tabernacle, which would turn into the temple tent of meeting was built, there was an early clear tent of meeting. The ultimate Tent of Meeting, the tabernacle, it would be inside the middle of the people of Israel, right there at the center of the encampment. But the tent of meeting that Moses established before the tabernacle was built was on the outside of camp. It was a place for Moses to go to sleep in time with the Lord. And again, also referred to as the Tent of Meeting because Moses would go there to meet with the Lord, to meet with God.
And it's powerful what happens. We don't really know many more details about the structure of it, how big it was, or anything like that. There are some indications in this that, Moses was not seeing God directly though, it says that he spoke to him as a man speaks to a friend, face-to-face. However, this is probably just language used to try to describe in human terms, what was doing in speaking with Moses. There are some indications that there was some barrier between God and Moses in the passage, and that there was an entrance to the tent that Moses would stand at, and then from inside the tent, the Lord would speak with Moses. So there was even still a gap between these two. And when Moses would go out to seek the Lord, all the people would rise up and they would worship. They would see the glory of God descending upon the tent. It was a serious moment for them, where they understood that our leader is going to speak with the Lord.
Now, a couple of things to just consider about all of this. First of all, it's just a very clear statement for us to make that Moses, he was a close friend with God. He had deep fellowship with the Lord. Every day he's spending this time face-to-face with God. And I would encourage you as a believer, here we are on this side of the new covenant, all of us have the opportunity to have a closer relationship with God that even Moses had in many ways. And so we can go straight into the holy of holies. The Bible teaches us, we can come to God at his throne of mercy to find grace and mercy to help us in our time of need. Christ intercedes for us, he is our friend, he is closer than a brother, he gives us the position that he has before the father. And so we have the opportunity to have better than face-to-face. It's almost soul to soul, spirit to spirit. God's spirit driving our spirits, interacting with his spirit kind of conversation. Better than even face-to-face.
But another thing that I want to point out, not just urging you in your own personal relationship with the Lord, is I want you to see how Moses's relationship with God, his walk with God, his prayer life before God, it impacted a whole nation. Now you or me likely our walk with God isn't something that millions are going to be conscious of, as was the case in Moses's life. Our walk with God might not determine the course or the fate of an entire nation, as Moses's walk with God did. But it would be good for us to consider the implications of our walk with God upon the lives of other human beings. Some of those people are people that you know, that you can see, that you could put down on a piece of paper if you were to make a list today, but many of the people that would be on that list are people that you would not be able to name. Because through your life and your walk with the Lord, as you impact the people, you know they will impact the people they know and some of those people you won't know.
So the reality is your walk with the Lord can reverberate throughout the world. And so be conscious of the importance of your relation with God because of the reverberating influence that it has upon the world around you. Moses, his walk with the Lord clearly was impacting an entire nation. They got up in respect and reverence understanding what was happening to worship the Lord. Now, when Moses was done with his interactions with God, there's a little notation there in verse 11, that Joshua who was Moses's servant, who we know of from the book of Joshua, he would ultimately become the next leader in Israel and take the people into the promised land, spoiler alert, Joshua would not depart from the tent, it says. And this might not be a statement about his holiness or what he was doing there, he might've just been guarding the tent from the rest of the people of Israel or tending to this tent of meeting as a priest figure there, preparing it like the regular priest who would prepare the tabernacle ultimately for the high priest to come and offer sacrifices to God on the day of atonement.
Moses' Prayer
Request #1
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this 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.’ 13 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.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
So in verse 12 of chapter 33, we move into a time where we get a record of Moses's prayer before God. We've seen kind of the general statement about his prayer life, daily speaking to the Lord face-to-face as a man speaks with his friend, but in verse 12, it says, "Moses said to the Lord, "See you say to me, bring up this 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.""
Now in this movement, we're going to see Moses pray to the Lord three times. And we just read the first prayer before God. And his prayer before the Lord is simple, he wants God to go with them when they enter into the promised land. Remember, God has already said, I'm not going to go, I'm going to send my angel with you, however, but here are Moses cries out and he says, "God, that's not good enough for me. I want you to go with me." And the Lord says, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest." And so Moses is being heard by the Lord.
Now, part of what Moses wants, he says in verse 13, he says, "Show me your ways that I may know you." This is Moses quoting something that God had previously said, he's longing for a deeper revelation of God. God knew Moses by name, so Moses wanted to know God. Who are you? And so God tells him in verse 14, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. This is his way of reinstating and saying, yes, my presence will be with you. And this is what God was looking for, I think. I think he was looking for a man who wanted his presence, not just his promised land. And I love this about Moses, he wanted the Lord. He wanted God. This is a good question for us to ask, do we want God or do we want only the blessings that God gives?
James 1:17, it says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." You see the wise person says, give me God, because if I get God then all the blessings that come with God are also mine. But when you're chasing the blessing, sometimes it's hard to know, is this really something the Lord wants for me or not? But when I have God, I can resecure that whatever he's chosen to give to me, they are from him, they are blessings, they are what he desires for me to have.
Request #2
15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For 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 distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” 17 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.”
Now, verse 15, Moses goes on, it says, "And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For 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 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."" So again, Moses wants confirmation, are you really going to go up with us? If your presence won't go, I don't want to go. He rightly believed that a mere angel was no substitute for the actual presence of God. He wanted confirmation. That's why he said in verse 16, "How shall it be known?" He wanted confirmation from God that he would go. He wanted to hear it again. He's like a little child needing a repetition from the Lord. And God is willing to repeat himself. And so he tells him, I will do this thing that you have asked.
Request #3
18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 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 will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
And in verse 18, 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 on 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 a 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." In this third request, Moses said, "God, can you teach me who you are? I need to know your ways. Can you come with us? Let your presence be with us?" Here, he says, "I want to see your glory." Again, Moses is just craving a knowledge, a deeper knowledge of who God is.
By the way, this should be highly instructive to us that this was Moses's heart and desire. He's very close with God at this point, and there's nothing about his relationship with God that has made him say to himself, I've had enough of who God is. This is God. The more that you know him, the more that you want to know him. The more satisfied you are in him, the more you want to be satisfied in him. Not in a way that drives you crazy. You are satisfied, you are blessed, but you know that there's further to go. And Moses knew that about the Lord. He said, "Everything I've experienced from you so far has been so good. I want to know you even more than I know you today. Show me your glory." Now God responds to Moses's request to see his glory by saying, "You will see all my goodness." You will see all my goodness. In other words, this is part of God's glory, his good nature. That's what Moses is going to be able to see, the goodness of God.
And he tells Moses, "My name is the Lord." He gets to hear the name of God directly, which is a really big deal that will be fleshed out throughout the rest of the old Testament. And then God announces his own sovereignty. He says, "I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious and I'll give mercy to whom I'll give mercy." But he announces to Moses, "You can't see the full blast of my glory. You can't see my face, you can see my back." Now, this is often understood to mean that God would pass by Moses, so to speak, and Moses would then see the afterglow of the glory of God. Doesn't really fully say it just like that, but that's the idea that we come up with in seeing the way that God speaks to Moses. Again, it's an anthropomorphism, it's God describing in human terms, what he is going to do. This is God though, that we're speaking about God being spirit. So he's going to see in some sense, a diluted version of God's glory. And so Moses is receives this incredible promise from the Lord. And again, this helps us understand that while we can truly know God, we can never really know him exhaustively.
Now the beautiful thing is that we live in one of the best times of human history, because we live after the cross of Christ. And the Bible says in Hebrews chapter one, that in the last days, God has spoken to us by his son. And so we are getting to see the exact imprint Hebrews 1:3 says. The radiance of the glory of God, because we get to know and understand and study who Jesus is. And so when the son of God came, God the son, he showed us a greater revelation of God than Moses would ever receive on that day, on the mountain top.
Exodus 34 - The Covenant Renewed
1 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
Now in chapter 34, God will reveal himself to Moses. And so he said to Moses in verse one, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone, like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke." Remember when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people dancing and playing and committing lewd acts before the golden calf, he took the 10 commandments written on the front and back by the finger of God and he threw them down, he broke the sacred tablets, which in a sense was representative of them having broken all the laws that were written on the 10 commandments before having even received them. And so God here tells Moses, "Bring up a couple more tablets to replace the ones ... I will write on the tablets, the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
God Reveals Himself
2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone.
"Be ready," verse two, "By the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain." So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand two tablets of stone. Now this is very similar to the first time that Moses went to the mountain top for 40 days and 40 nights. There are some similarities, but there are some differences as well. The first time Moses went up, there were restrictions about who could go up, but you might remember the people had to be at the base of the mountain. The priests could go a little bit further. Joshua went out a little bit further, halfway up the mountain, and then Moses went all the way to the top. But here the restriction is even more severe. The priests could not go, Aaron could not go as far as he'd gone previously. Here, he says in verse three, "No one shall co come up with you." In other words, no one's allowed to go up even in the slightest.
5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Now, in verse five, he says, "The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." Here, God proclaims who he is to Moses. He announces his name to his man. Now, this statement from God, you might be familiar with it, partly because this passage is so famous, but also because this passage is repeated throughout the rest of the Bible many times. It was an important revelation from God about who he is.
God begins by saying the Lord, the Lord. He repeats his name twice, perhaps in an attempt to emphasize that he is unchangeable. His name is what his name is. It remains. He calls himself merciful and gracious. This is God's unmerited favor given to those who have no claim on it whatsoever. God choosing to give mercy and grace. He's slow to anger. This is an explanation of his grace. Some of your versions say long suffering. That's who God is. He abounds and steadfast love and faithfulness. There's this covenantal love that God overflows with for his people. He is faithful to keep his covenant with his children. He keeps steadfast love for thousands or to 1000 generations, according to Deuteronomy 7:9. And he forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. So God reveals that he is a forgiving God. But in addition to this, he says, who will by no means clear the guilty. And he goes on to explain what that means and what that looks like.
And I know that sometimes you can read God describing who he is. And one of the things I want to say about that reading is that sometimes we can read who he is and it sounds so beautiful, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but he will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. It almost reads like, oh, everything good about God has been unwound in that last statement about who God is. But if we feel that way, that's more a measurement of the society, culture, and times that we live in, than a statement about who God is. There are many cultures that have a high for the justice and holiness and righteousness and purity of God.
And as believers who are thankful for the cross of Jesus, and that his cross makes a way for all of his attributes of mercy and grace, his long suffering nature, his steadfast love and faithfulness to a bound to many, it's the cross that releases this upon humanity. The forgiveness of God, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, this is made possible by the cross of Jesus Christ. And so for us, the cross is a place where great justice also unfolded. So for us, we should be a people who love the justice of God, love the decisions that God makes to do what is right in the universe, and to love that he is zealous for that justice, and that he will not turn a blind eye to guilt. This is beautiful about who God is. It drove him forward toward the cross. But again, all of this reading and hearing of the nature of God, it doesn't explicitly tell us Jesus is coming, the cross is going to happen. But it's all preparatory for that, isn't it? You read about God's mercy and grace and forgiving nature, and it's preparing again the ground for what God is going to do. There's going to be an ultimate event where this nature of God is able to break loose onto humanity.
God Restores His People
8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
Now, Moses, when he heard this revelation of who God is, verse eight, "Quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance"" Here, Moses responds by humbly and quickly worshiping the Lord. And he worships the Lord, and he pleads for mercy. God has already told him I will go with you, but he continues to pray in that way. Let the Lord go in the midst of us. Still asking God for his presence and entering into the promised land. He asks God, "And if that's who you are, then I pray that you would pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us into your inheritance." I love how Moses upon learning of God's nature and who God is, he appeals to God according to that nature and asks for that forgiveness. Listen, it's one thing to know who God is, it's one thing to discover from his word, who he reveals himself to be, just like he revealed himself to Moses there in the cleft of the rock, and it's another thing to pursue him and to live in accordance to his nature, who he's revealed himself to be.
The Covenant Announced
10 And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
God then said in verse 10, and this is where he announces that he's going to re-establish the covenant with Israel, he said, "Behold, I'm making a covenant. Before all your people, I will do marvels such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you." Now, there will be many moments that God restores the covenant amongst the people of Israel, where he renews them in the covenant. And so when we read him saying, "I am making a covenant with you," we probably should not understand this as a brand new covenant. This is not the first time he has instituted this covenant. He's refreshing or renewing them in what they were already in. And this statement here in verse 10 is like a preamble to God describing what he's going to do.
Remember when Moses was up on the mountain the first time for the 40 days and 40 nights, God had given to him the 10 commandments, he'd given to him, the civil law for Israel and the ceremonial law for Israel, the design of the tabernacle and the priesthood and all the elements surrounding it. Then Moses came down, they'd broken the law, they'd rebelled against God. And so the question is, do we still get to do those things? Is that still going to be part of God's plan for us? The feasts, the festivals, tabernacle, all that, do we get to do the thing that Moses received the first time up on the mountain top? And God is going to bring them into that, and that's what he's going to recap through the rest of this renewing of the covenant here in chapter 34. Like I've been telling you, chapter 32, the rebellion, chapter 33, Moses's mediation and here in chapter 34, God restoring the people of Israel.
No Partnerships With the World
11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. 17 “You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
Don't you love that line though at the end of verse 10, he says, "It is an awesome thing that I will do with you." Just a promise from God of grace. Then he goes in verse 11, he says, "Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. Take care lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, to which you go, lest to become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their asherim, for you shall worship no other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice and you take of their daughters for your sons and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal."
So again, this is God re-instituting or renewing the covenant with the people of Israel. He's restoring them at this point and he tells them, you need to observe my commandments in verse 11. And he tells them, I'm going to drive out these enemies that are in the land from before you, I'm going to miraculously work on your behalf. And for your part, I want you to make sure that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you will go. God had determined that the inhabitants of Canaan had become ripe for judgment. We have been seeing God hint at this all the way from back into our study, in the book of Genesis. For hundreds of years now, these people have had some revelation that has been ignored, they've grown hard-hearted and God now is ready to bring down his judgment upon them. And it would be dangerous for the nation who are meant to bring the Messiah to the world, to partner with those nations in particular. Not the nations of the world, they were to be a light to the nations of the world, but the nations there in the land of Canaan were meant for the judgment of God. God is the righteous judge. He will judge eternally. He decided to express some of that eternal judgment on this side of eternity, through the people of Israel, to the people or the citizens of Canaan.
And so God tells the Israelites here, take care lest you make a covenant with these inhabitants. Now, if you know the story of Israel, the unfortunate reality is that they often made covenants with the nations that were there in Canaan. They did not drive them out completely. And inevitably they would just, as God warned, be brought into idolatry. They would be tripped up by the false gods that were connected to the people groups that they connected with. Rather than cutting down their altars, like he said in verse 13, or cutting down their Asherah or poles, which were the asherim, which were cult objects made of wood which had some kind of sexual worship practice or rite or ceremony to a fertility goddess. Doing all of these things would corrupt the people of Israel. And so God says to them in verse 14, I'm a jealous God, I'm nervous that you're going to whore after these other gods and that you'll accept their invitations to do things that you never thought that you'd do. So watch out for these things.
Now, for our part today, I just want to say, and we'll talk about this more when we get to the book of Joshua, but the reality is that on this side of the cross, the battle that is often seen in Israel, where in the land of promise, they had to drive out the inhabitants of the land and make sure that they took the territory and drove out these citizens completely. That battle is a great picture for us of the battle between the flesh and the spirit that's within us. When you become a Christian, you become a new creature, you're a new creation in Christ, but your sinful nature has a remnant. It's our body of sin or our flesh. Our flesh knows what it's like to sin, to enjoy sin, to befall prey to temptation. And so the battle then is ongoing between the new part of us, the spirit, and then the flesh that remains.
And I like to think about it like that. Like there is this enemy force within me, my flesh, that my aim is to drive out completely. Now, when they finally went into the promised land, there were some victories that were easier than others. There were some areas geographically that were simpler to overcome than others. And I find that to be true in my own life. That there are pockets of my flesh that were easier to drive out, and then there are others where, man, I'm still battling and struggling and fighting and trying to defeat the enemy by the power of the spirit so that the flesh can be cut off and driven out of my life.
Unique Worship Patterns
18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed.
But God goes on in renewing the covenant to say, in verse 18, "You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. All that opened the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep, the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons, you shall redeem and none shall appeal appear before me empty handed. So here it's a recap of the feasts that they would celebrate before God. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is what's mentioned here, which would be attached to or celebrate the moment when they came out of Egypt and God provided for them, God fed them.
21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
And then he says in verse 21, "Six days, you shall work but on the seventh day, you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest, you shall rest." So before he mentions feast number two and feast number three, God reminds them here that they are meant to keep the sabbath. Every week there to have a time of rest. This would perpetually be observed by the people of Israel. And you can only imagine the faith that this would require when there was enemy forces that were nearby, to trust the Lord with a day of rest each week. And I believe this is a good pattern and model for us to live out today. That there's a day in our week, where we rest before God. We enjoy him, we enjoy his creation, we cease from our labor.
22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.
Then in verse 22, he says, "You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end. So the second and third feast is now mentioned here, and he tells him, I want you to engage in this. We've already talked a little bit about these feasts. When we were back in chapter 23.
23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
“Three times in the year, shall all your mails appear before the Lord, your God, the God of Israel, for I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders. No one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord, your God three times in the year.” These three feasts, the men in Israel were supposed to come to the house of God once it was established when they were in the promised land and they were to worship the Lord through these feasts. Now I should make a point of the reality that the men in God's family have always been not important in the sense of greater in value, but important in the sense that their role is crucial to the health of the community.
When the men of God cease to worship the Lord, pursue the Lord, when God's men neglect their sanctification, when God's men refuse to seek the Lord, then everyone else in society suffers. The female part of the population suffers, the children suffer. It is good and important for men to be godly. And oftentimes men are the most difficult people to reach in our world and even in the body of Christ, to convince, to take seriously their walk with the Lord, their sanctification in him. But when a man is lit up for Jesus, he just has such a great impact on so many lives. And so God set it up amongst his people that the men would three times each year come and worship him during these feast.
Now he gave them a fascinating promise during all of this, because you can imagine an objection. Okay, so we're going to go into the promised land, you're going to give us all this territory, I'm going to start farming my portion of land. and three times each year I have to leave it, and all of us men are going to go to the place where your temple or tabernacle is, and we're going to worship you there. Who's going to be home protecting the land defending it from invasion? Well, God said in verse 24, "No one will covet your land during those feasts when you go up." When you go to appear before the Lord, no one is going to covet your land. This is divine, supernatural protection.
So often we worry about, what will happen to my life if I commit to going to church every Sunday? What will happen to my life if I commit to going to that conference on that weekend to seek the Lord? What will happen to my life if I take a day each week to seek God? And we formulate in our mind all these scenarios of negative things that could unfold if we devoted time to God. But what you're not taking into account is God himself. What might God do that you just can't see when you prioritize him?
25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
Then God says in verse 25, "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened or let the sacrifice of the Feast of Passover remain until the morning. The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord, your God. You shall not boil a goat in its mother's milk."
And we've talked about this strange command at an earlier place when we were in chapter 23, about not boiling a young goat and it's mother's milk. And I already confessed to you, that scholars are super confused about that whole commission, thinking it might have come from a pagan rite or ritual, and God is trying to say, "Hey, don't let any of that paganism into your worship system," but it's hard to know with certainty. But here we're just seeing God reiterate there are sacrifices you should offer, offer them unto me.
The Record
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
And the Lord said to Moses, in verse 27, "Write these words for an accordance with these words, I've made a covenant with you and with Israel." So he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets, the word of the covenant, the 10 commandments. Now this is interesting because earlier God had said, bring some tablets and I will write. And now here Moses goes up to the mountain with the tablets and God in verse 27 says, "Write these words." So the question is, who did the writing? Was it God? Was it Moses?
This helps us understand the transmission of scripture, because ultimately God is the author, but he used Moses to write these things down for the people of Israel. Alternate ways of saying the same thing, who wrote the 10 commandments? Well, God's the author. Who wrote the 10 commandments on the tablets? Well, I guess, Moses. So the idea here is that God used his man, Moses to communicate his will. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and for training in righteousness." But God is the ultimate author, the institutor of his word. And so Moses was there for a supernatural length of time. This was a complete and total fast, no food, but also no water. And so for Moses to survive that long without any water would have meant that God was miraculously sustaining his life.
Moses Returns From God's Presence
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
"Now when Moses ..." verse 29, "... came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses and behold, the skin of his face shone and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him and Moses talked with them. Afterward, all the people of Israel came near and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
34 Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
“Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses's face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again and until he went in to speak with him."
In this humorous scene, Moses comes down the mountain, he's got the law, he's ready to tell everybody, "Hey, good news, God's going to go with us. This is who God is. He's gracious and merciful. He's long suffering. He's a forgive God. I asked him for forgiveness and he'll renew the covenant with us. He's going to bring us in, his presence is going to go with us. He's just given us this law. There's these feasts we need to keep, there's a relationship we need to have with our neighbors. And there's a certain code of conduct that we need to abide by. We need to keep his commandments, keep his word and offer these sacrifices to him, but we're back in."
But as he comes down to tell them all these things, his face is glowing and he doesn't know it. He's been struck with an afterglow of God's magnificence. It's shining off of his body. And everybody runs away from him at first, and then Moses has to cajole them into coming back. And he shares with them what God has said. And this continued after this day. Whenever Moses went to that tent of meeting on the outskirt of town, he would remove his veil, God would speak with him, and then when he came out, they would see his face that it was glowing again and he would put the veil over his face one more time until he went back in to speak with the Lord.
Now the interesting thing is that Paul, the apostle takes this story and he riffs on it, runs in a direction that you would not immediately realize from this passage. What Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 3, is that the reason that Moses put the veil over his face is because he did not want the people of Israel to be discouraged by the fading glory of God upon his face. And Paul's whole point when he wrote 2 Corinthians 3, is that as Christians under the new covenant, which is so much better than the old covenant, that Moses came down the mountain to announce, under the new covenant, there is the possibility of us being transformed in a Jesus's image from glory to glory, by the spirit of the Lord, 2 Corinthians 3:18. What that means is that we don't have to fake it. We don't have to put a veil over our face. We don't have to just get a little bit of growth and then crash, a little bit of growth and then crash, but we can continue to grow. In other words, the glory does not fade on us or it doesn't have to, as we just continue to abide in Christ and walk in the Lord, the fruit comes out of our lives and we are sanctified and transformed.
But Moses, knowing the people would be discouraged by seeing, oh, he's godly, oh, now it's faded, oh, he's godly, oh, now it's faded, rather than going through that repetition, he would come out, they'd see the for glow and he would cover his face. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3. So for us, what a beautiful thing, we can daily walk with the Lord and grow from glory to glory, to glory by the spirit of the Lord. The righteous are as the shining of the sun, the Proverbs tell us, shining ever more brightly until the fullness of the day. And so for us as Christians, we can grow every single day in Christ until the day that we go home to meet with him. So in our lives, there are moments where we rebel, like at the golden calf, where we then cry out to God or Jesus intercedes for us as our intercessor and that God faithfully restores us back into his plans for our lives. God bless you, church. Have a wonderful week.