FRIDAY 10 December 2021 “8th Encounter” Exodus 34:1-11

Click To Download and Print Document or PDF

Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,

When was the last time you were so anxious for something on your schedule, you couldn’t sleep the night before? All night your mind was active thinking, imagining, wondering what awaited you the next day and how the experience would impact your life? I think that’s how it was for Moses the night before he hiked up Mount Sinai for the last time, that he recorded for us in Exodus.

I left you yesterday watching Moses, as with hammer and chisel he did as God had instructed him. He chiseled out two stone tablets from the mountain side, took them home to his tent, and prepared himself for another encounter with God! Earlier that day God had said to Moses: “Be ready in the morning and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to Me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you…” (Ex. 34:2,3) I wonder if Moses slept at all that night, in anticipation of the life changing experience he was going to have? God had promised Moses “I will cause all of My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim My NAME, ‘the LORD’, in your presence… There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My GLORY passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.” (Ex. 33:19-23) I have no doubt, all night long Moses wondered exactly what that was going to be like.

Moses recorded the experience of the next morning in this way: “So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and he went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him. He carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed His name, ‘the LORD’. And He passed in front of Moses proclaiming, ‘The LORD, The LORD’, the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness…”(Ex. 34:4-6)

I wonder if in this moment Moses was reflecting back to his first experience on this mountain? We have the record in Exodus chapter 3. A burning bush, a voice he’d never heard before but a voice which identified itself as the voice of God, speaking to Moses and calling him by name. A voice telling Moses that God was concerned about His people in slavery. And then when Moses asked this voice what His name was, the voice responded, and Moses heard for the first time, YHWH, which is translated in the Bible as “The LORD“.

What was this eight time up Mount Sinai like… exactly? What did Moses see and hear and experience in this moment? Moses does not give us those details, perhaps it was so overwhelming, certainly it was deeply personal. As you know friends there are many stories in the Bible of human beings like you and me experiencing encounters with angels. But this was different… very different! This was God Himself, here on earth, passing in front of Moses and proclaiming His great and awesome name. God was also reminding Moses of some of His most important attributes, God’s very nature… “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness…” May I ask you my friends, have you experienced these great attributes of God? How has the compassion of God, the kindness of God, the love and faithfulness of God impacted your life? And when you’ve stumbled, how grateful are you that God is ‘slow to anger’?

I wonder if God paused, allowing Moses to ponder these deep truths about God? Then Moses tells us God continued with this profound statement: “…maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellions and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished…” (Ex. 34:7) Do you see the opposite extremes of God’s dealing with us humans my friends? Yes, God maintains His love for us, and in response to our repentance when we feel conviction of our wickedness, rebellion and sin, God forgives!! But for those who remain hard-hearted in their rebellion, their wickedness and their sin, because God is a holy God there is Holy Justice, and that means “God does not leave the guilty unpunished.” Years later, I wonder if King David was reflecting on these words, God spoke to Moses, when David wrote in Psalm 62: “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that You, O God, are strong, and that you, O LORD are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to what they have done.” (Ps. 62:11,12)

Moses was overwhelmed. He recorded his response in this way: “Moses bowed to the ground and worshipped. ‘O LORD, if I have found favor in Your eyes, then go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.” (Ex. 34:8,9) Moses knew this mountain Sinai was not their final destination. God had promised He would bring these delivered slaves to the land He had promised in Covenant to Abraham about 500 years before. Neither Moses nor any of these 1 million people had ever been there, nor did they know the route from here to there. Moses was desperate to know God’s Presence would accompany them, as He had since that Passover night they fled from Egypt.

But Moses was a realist. He knew that while these people had promised to obey God and follow Him, they were a non-compliant people, a rebellious people, a hard hearted people. Already once they had rejected God and made a golden calf idol, calling it their god. Moses imagined there would yet be many more times between here and the Promised Land that these people would complain, argue, and maybe even rebel against God. May I ask my friends, do you live among a people, maybe even your own extended family, who before the end of your life, will likely rebel against God or reject God’s truth or God’s ways? How often do you pray to God about that, asking for His mercy?

The LORD next made a very powerful promise to Moses, and we’ll only look at the first phrase today: “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Obey what I command you…” (Ex. 34:10) I wonder if God paused right there, and began inscribing again the 10 Commandments, this time on the two tablets Moses had brought up the mountain with him. Deuteronomy 10:1-5 makes it clear God Himself engraved these tablets, just as He had the first two tablets. I‘ve often wondered what that looked like to Moses as letters were cut by an invisible hand in the solid rock of those tablets?

I’d like us to pause right here with Moses, and be overwhelmed by Holy, Almighty God and His willingness to live in a loving, compassionate, merciful, relationship with people like you and me who seek to know Him and honor Him with our lives. Once again I urge you to re-read Exodus 34:1-11 and then reflect with this powerful song. What is God wanting to engrave on your heart and mine today my friends? Two weeks from today will be Christmas Eve…God’s greatest expression of love to our human race, to you and to me…was Jesus!

Today’s Scripture is Exodus 34:1-11.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).

Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.