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Good morning dear friends,
we have come to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. (have I said that a before?) It’s Exodus 34.
What if God said to you “Be ready in the morning… and then come up on the mountain. Present yourself to Me there on the mountain. No one is to come with you, or be seen anywhere on the mountain.. .” What would you do? Do you think you’d sleep tonight? What would be your expectation of what tomorrow, and your hike up the mountain would bring, and how do you think your life might change?
That invitation is how Exodus 34 begins, and while it had not yet been written, Psalm 139:23,24 and Psalm 24:3-6 are likely the thoughts, which captivated Moses’ mind as he prepared to hike up into the cloud, one more time. “Search me O God and know my thoughts… who may stand on the hill of the LORD? He who has clean hands and a pure heart…”
We have arrived to what I believe is Moses’ final hike up Mount Sinai. This is #8 and perhaps the most powerful of all. Let’s take a sneak preview at what it was like when Moses came down from this final trip... look ahead to vs. 29 “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses…they were afraid to come near him…” WOW, now that sounds like something out of the movies doesn’t it. . .but it’s not a movie, it’s real. So let see what happened up that mountain to cause this. Ready?
“So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning…Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed His name [YHWH] “The LORD.” And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming ‘The LORD, the LORD”, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness…” (34:5,6)
We’ve come full circle with Moses. It was on this very mountain, in front of a burning bush, with his sandals off and head bowed, that Moses first heard That Voice of God utter that name “YHWH…I AM WHO I AM”. (Ex. 3:14) Several months have passed, perhaps nearly a year. In that time Moses had returned to Egypt, told the Hebrew leaders about this mountain and how God had met him, and that God was concerned about their suffering. Moses had confronted Pharaoh, multiple times. The Plagues. The Passover angel of death…, the Red Sea…, the water spewing rock at Rephidim…, and finally 2 million runaway slaves following a cloud here, to this mountain. 7 more trips up this mountain to meet with God…, a covenant established between God and His people…, a covenant broken by Aaron and the people…, a golden calf…, 40 days and nights of interceding for these rebellious, sinful people before a Holy God…and now this profound, holy encounter with ‘YHWH’. Can we understand Moses’ response?? What would any of us have said in that moment?
“Moses bowed to the ground and worshiped…O LORD, if I have found favor in Your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
Do you hear some of King David’s deeply repentant Psalm 51 prayer…, in these words of Moses?
“Have mercy on me O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin – create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”
Throughout history, this response has been experienced by many people, I wonder if that includes you? A profound encounter with the Almighty, Holy God, is overwhelming and awakens in us a deep sense of sin, and a longing to be cleansed and forgiven, so our relationship with God can be pure, unstained by anything. A deep longing for living the rest of our lives in sacred intimacy with God, rises up and consumes us. But we are overwhelmed with our sin…so we repent, in desperate hope God will forgive, cleanse and restore us into a new more powerful relationship with Him.
So, I have to ask. . .have you ever had that experience? It’s life changing my friends. You will never go back to who you were before such an encounter with the Holy Majesty.
May I point out two very significant things God said to Moses in this encounter?
First look at vs 7 as God describes Himself… “…maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished, He punishes the children and their children, for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Does that sound like the God you know…punishing children for the wrongs of their parents? Remember the Biblical principle, take all the Scripture on a particular topic when trying to understand God’s view of that topic.
Clearly Scripture shows us God’s justice holds every person being responsible for their own sin. God does not hold us accountable to pay the price for the sins of our parents or grandparents or even our adult children. (Jer. 31:30; Ez. 3:18; 33:8; Rom. 3:23; 6:23).
So what should we understand, in what God said to Moses? It’s this… we all live in the shadow of our parents, and even our grandparents. Their lifestyles, their life decisions, have profound impact on us. Just ask the son or daughter of an abusive alcoholic parent, or drug addict parent, or porn addict parent, or gambling addict parent, even a habitually deceitful parent.
While Moses didn’t know what would happen, within a few months of that Mount Sinai moment, God knew. Those very people, who had experienced all those miracles with God, would refuse to believe Joshua & Caleb’s report of the new land, and would reject the opportunity to trust God, going into the Promised land. God’s judgment would be 40 years of wandering in the desert, until that entire rebellious, faithless, generation would die in the desert. During those terrible 40 years, the children paid a high price, as they wandered the desert, with their rebellious, hard hearted parents. Do you see the impact of shadow living? So how is that seen in your family? What steps have you taken to break the dark shadows of your heritage?
Secondly, do you see God re-affirming His covenant with the people? “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do….” (34:9)And then friends, if you’ll carefully read the rest of this great chapter, you’ll see very clearly, God’s re-stated covenant with the Hebrew run-away slaves, His people. You’ll see what God promises to do for them, and what God expects them to do, in response.
For Moses in that moment, it must have been an overwhelming sense of a ‘fresh start’ for the ‘golden calf making’, rebellious, people and Holy, Merciful God. But from God’s perspective, looking forward, He could see a consistent generational problem. With few exceptions, each generations’ future, would turn away from Him, abandoning Him. The sad story of us and all our ancestors, repeatedly drifting morally, spiritually, hitting bottom and crying out for His help. And then, after God’s mercy and grace is poured out upon us, and He restores us…it doesn’t take long and we are drifting again, right?
So look at vs. 27 “The LORD said to Moses, ‘write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and Israel.’ Moses was there with the LORD 40 days and nights…and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant – the Ten Commandments.” For a third time Moses had spent nearly 6 weeks with God in the cloud. . .and then, at an appropriate moment, Moses picked up those tablets, and turned to go down the mountain, not knowing his face was glowing from this prolonged, holy encounter with God. Also, not knowing that this would be his final trip up that mountain to meet with God! Ahead for Moses was going to be a long, difficult journey of leading this rebellious, hard-hearted, skeptical, doubtful people.
I’m both fascinated and frustrated by how the people responded to Moses’ glowing face in the last few verses of chapter 34. Yet one more time, the people backpedal away from the evidence of God’s Presence. Why do we do that my friends? God invites us to life changing closeness with Him and we back away? What are we afraid of? How different might our lives be if we pursued God, moved further up the mountain with Him, lingered longer in the tent of meeting with Him, walked more closely with Jesus?
Oh God… what is Your desire for each of us this day?
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)
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