Exodus - Lesson 28

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-28 
Presence of God
Lesson Transcript

Well, we have traveled a long way through the book of Exodus. We've come to chapter 33. And if you've been tracking with the entire course, then you've probably heard me talking about this book for about 12 hours by this point, maybe 13.

And maybe it's starting to feel a little weary or maybe you're getting more excited. I hope that this exploration of chapters 33 and 34 is truly inspiring for you, because I think we see here one of the most beautiful models of how God has transformed Moses by being in his presence at Sinai and how Moses entire priority system has shifted by this point in the story. We left off in the last session with the golden calf incident and God's judgment on the people, and we left it kind of hanging, it wasn't resolved yet.

So what we're going to do is pick it up in chapter 33, verse one. And what we're going to focus on here in this session is the presence of God, the divine presence. And pay attention to the need for the presence of God, what God says, how God says he's going to relate to his people going forward, given that they've sinned and how Moses responds to that.

Then Yahweh said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saying I will give it to your descendants. So this is maybe good news that God says, OK, you can still go to the promised land, but there's a bit of a something seems to be missing here. You and the people go on ahead, sounds a little bit like God's not going with them.

I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go with you because you are a stiff necked people and I might destroy you on the way. OK, this is not what we signed up for.

We did not sign up for a trip through the wilderness with Yahweh in which he's going to stick around at Sinai and wave bye bye. So Moses is going to respond to this negatively. And so are the people, which is which is good to see the value that they've begun to develop for the presence of God.

When the people heard these distressing words, and they are distressing, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments for Yahweh had said to Moses, tell the Israelites you're a stiff necked people. If I were to go with you, even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.

So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb. I mentioned back towards the beginning of the course that normally we call this Mountain Sinai, but here it's called Mount Horeb. And it's possible that the reason why it's called Mount Horeb here is because of a word play between Horeb and herev, which means sword.

They've just experienced the sword of the Levites in response to their sin with the and and so it could be that that that this word emphasizes that word play. Now, we've had the instructions for building the tabernacle, but they haven't built it yet. So far, the presence of God is up on the mountain and only Moses has access to it.

But we're told here something a bit unusual about a tent. Now, Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the tent of meeting. Anyone inquiring of Yahweh would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.

And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrance to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance while Yahweh spoke with Moses. So this is a little different from the picture we've seen so far, where Moses goes up the mountain to meet with Yahweh.

Here there's a place outside the camp where Moses can meet with Yahweh in a tent. It's some kind of a precursor to the tabernacle. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped each at the entrance to their tent.

Yahweh would speak with Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp. But his young aide, Joshua, son of Nun, did not leave the tent.

This is one of several mentions of Joshua in the book. Remember, Joshua was up on the mountain with him during the golden calf episode, at least partway up the mountain. Joshua was the one who led the battle against the Amalekites in chapter 17.

At the end of Moses' life, he's going to pass the baton to Joshua as a leader. And these scenes with Joshua peppered throughout Exodus are going to be really important for the support of Joshua as a leader. He did not participate in the worship of the golden calf.

He was not part of the problem in chapter 32. He was away with Moses when it happened. And here we see that Joshua hangs out in the tent where God's presence is, which is part of what qualifies him to lead the people.

So Moses arrives at the tent to meet with Yahweh. And here's what he says, starting in verse 12. Moses said to Yahweh, you've been telling me lead these people, but you've not let me know whom you will send with me.

You've said, I know you by name and you have found favor with me. And now Moses, on that basis, is going to lean into intercession. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.

Remember that this nation is your people. And Yahweh replied, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Now, we need to slow down here and see what exactly is happening.

So the purpose of the tabernacle, the instructions that God gave Moses on the mountain, was to build this special tent. And the idea was to restore the divine presence among the people. God would no longer be relegated to the top of the mountain or in this little tent outside the community.

The idea is that the tabernacle would be right in the middle of the community and it would be a restoration of the divine presence that was lost all the way back at the garden. In Exodus 25, verse 8, at the beginning of the tabernacle instructions, it says, then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them. So this is why it's so distressing when God says, I'm going to send an angel ahead of you, but I'm not going to go with you because it's too dangerous.

I might destroy you on the way. Israel's idolatry jeopardized the plan for God's presence to be right there in the middle of the community. And so what Moses is trying to work out with God is, can we get back to plan A, the plan of you dwelling in our midst? So God's response to Moses in verse 14 sounds good.

My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. The problem is that in English, we only have one way of saying you, unless you live in the South. And then there's a couple of different ways you can indicate singular by saying you and you can indicate plural by saying y'all.

Or if you're really Southern, y'all is singular and all y'all is plural. I lived in the South long enough to get used to that. I think it would actually be so helpful if we had, if we all adopted this way of talking because then we could tell the difference between singular and plural.

Because what God says here is not quite what Moses is hoping for. What he says in Hebrew, it says, my presence will go and I will give you singular rest. He's talking individually to Moses.

My presence will go and I will give you personally rest. And Moses recognizes that this is not quite enough. Moses said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.

How will anyone know that you're pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? Moses is saying this whole project of being your segala, your treasured possession, depends upon you being with us. If you're not with us, it's not going to work. And so he always said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.

So on the basis of Moses intercession, not because the people deserve to have God's presence with them, not because this is guaranteed to go well, but because of Moses loyalty to God and his commitment to the presence of God. God agrees to go with the people. The presence of God is the mark of his favor and the sign of Israel's distinctiveness.

They cannot be who they are without the presence of God being with them. A number of years ago, I had an opportunity to apply for a job and I had this distinct sense. On paper, it looked wonderful.

It would definitely be a step up from my current employment at that time. And I knew that everyone would understand if I said, oh, I'm leaving here and I'm going here. They would all be like, oh, that's great.

That's a real good move. But I was stuck in this chapter of Exodus and my prayer was, Lord, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. I had this distinct sense that it doesn't matter how prestigious something looks on paper.

If God isn't in it, then I don't want anything to do with it. And this is a good gut check for all of us as we think about different moves that we make in our life or different endeavors or ideas that we have about our future. Are we so committed to the presence of God and are we so dependent on the presence of God that we won't take those steps if we have the sense that God isn't with us in it? Do we have the commitment to stay where the pillar of cloud is? And so I began to pray, Lord, if this is from you, show me the pillar of cloud.

I want to see an unmistakable sense that you are in this and that you are leading us, not just that you're tolerating this, but that you want us to take this step. And so I went through the whole interview process for this job and things went smoothly enough, but I just did not feel a thing. I didn't feel the presence of God.

I didn't sense his leading. And the moment we got back home after the interview, my husband and I drove back onto our campus. We arrived back at our home and I felt this sense of, yes, this is where I'm supposed to be.

And so I didn't pursue that opportunity. So God has agreed to go with Moses and with the people. And Moses is not content to just stop here.

He requests again, now show me your glory. And Yahweh said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name Yahweh in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

But you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live. Now, this is an apparent contradiction with what we read just a little bit ago about Moses talking with the Lord face to face. So apparently what's happening is a face to face relationship with God is a figure of speech.

That means they're intimate. They're talking with one another. They have a close relationship.

And yet God isn't willing for Moses to actually see his face physically because he can't he can't stare into the fullness of God's glory and survive in as a human. And so God says to him, there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock. And when my glory passes by, I'll put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by.

And then I will remove my hand and you will see my back. But my face must not be seen. This is a baffling passage because it implies that God has a body, a front side and a backside and hand just like we do.

It's a very anthropomorphic text. And some people have suggested this isn't this isn't how God really is. This is just anthropomorphic language where it's it's accommodating itself to the way we think about personhood.

And that's possible or it's possible that God, although he is spirit, actually takes the form of a body as he appears to Moses here. So Chapter 34 begins with making new stone tablets, because as you'll recall, the last pair of tablets were smashed at the bottom of the mountain. And then Moses is supposed to present himself to God on top of the mountain.

Nobody else can come along. So Moses chisels out two stone tablets early in the morning and carries them in his hands. And Yahweh comes down in a cloud and stands there with him and proclaims his name Yahweh.

And what we find next is probably the most important passage in the entire Old Testament. Exodus 34, 6 and 7 is is the definitive declaration of who God is. What does it mean that God is Yahweh? And as you'll recall at the beginning of the book, Yahweh has this showdown with Pharaoh and the whole point of the showdown is Pharaoh saying, who's Yahweh? I don't know Yahweh and I'm not going to let you go.

And all of the signs and wonders are the self declaration of Yahweh. He's gradually unveiling who he is. The Israelites and the Egyptians alike are finding out what Yahweh is like.

And even though God had told the name Yahweh to Moses, there was a sense in which it was underdetermined. We don't know all of what it means yet for him to be Yahweh. Maybe you started this course and you're like Carmen Imes.

I don't know Carmen Imes. I don't know anything about her. But now that we've been hanging out for all these hours in Exodus, maybe you feel like you have a little bit more of a sense of who Carmen is because we've been hanging out and you can see what gets me excited and what what I'm passionate about.

And similarly, now that they're at Sinai and they've been through the apostasy of the golden calf and the restoration, now God's promised presence. Now Moses is ready to hear this declaration of who God is. And so he passes in front of Moses and he just puts it plainly.

Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he will surely not clear the guilty. He's a visitor of the iniquity of the father upon sons and upon the sons of sons, upon the third and the fourth.

And the NIV supplies here generation because it's implied the third and fourth generation. This is arguably the most important passage in the Old Testament. And we know that because not only is it a concentrated expression of the character of God, but it's also the most often quoted or alluded to in all of scripture.

So there are more than 20 times this passage in part or in full is alluded to elsewhere. And it brings together things about God that we might think of as opposites, God's compassion and his judgment. And yet Yahweh's character is holistic and non contradictory.

God's patience and his justice are here held in tension. We see that both of these things are always true about him. And if we just go through here and pick and choose the parts of God we like, I want a God who's going to just lay down the law and who's going to hold people accountable for their sin.

If that's the only part of this we like, then we have an imbalanced picture of God and we end up with a God we've made in our image who's carrying out our agenda. Similarly, if we only pick the attributes that seem positive, that we like, oh, I want a God who's compassionate and gracious and full of loyal love and faithfulness, that's my God. But if we neglect the fact that God is also someone who does not clear the guilty, but who takes sin seriously and he takes the consequences of sin seriously, if we neglect that, we're going to end up with a God in our image.

We're not going to see the fullness of who God is. So this passage is important because it invites us to consider all of who God is. Sometimes people think of the Old Testament as full of wrath or the God of the Old Testament is full of wrath and the God of the New Testament is full of love.

People who say that haven't read the whole Bible because there's lots of wrath in the New Testament and there's lots of love in the Old Testament. This passage tells me we have to hold these things together. God's wrath is in operation because of his love.

Why does he get angry about sin? Because sin harms people. It harms people he loves. And so he has to get angry about sin and hold it accountable as an expression of his love and his protection and his compassion.

So these two things have to go together. So Moses bows down to the ground at once and worships. Lord, he said, if I 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. And then the chapter dives into a recap of the commission to go into the land and drive out the peoples of the land. We read this in a previous session on Exodus 23.

This is the recap of the commands to drive out these nations, not make treaties with them. And then a recap of what feels like a hodgepodge of the commands and instructions from previous chapters. It's like bookends around all that's been happening at Sinai.

But we we see when God's done talking with him. This this encounter lasts again 40 days and 40 nights, we're told in verse 28. He doesn't eat bread or drink water that whole time.

It's miraculous that he spends this time with God and he's sustained by the presence of God. And he writes a new copy of the Ten Commandments. And then we're told when Moses came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with Yahweh.

When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them. So Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him and he spoke to them.

And afterward, all the Israelites came near him and he gave them all the commands Yahweh had given him on Mount Sinai. We've had two 40 day periods of time on the mountain with God in which God is expressing to Moses who he is and what the people are to become, how they can live out faithfully the covenant they've made with him. When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

But whenever he entered Yahweh's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with Yahweh.

It's apparently a bit too much for everybody to see this glowing face. Being in God's presence changed Moses. Not only was his face radiant, but his priorities and his values were transformed.

And this is actually how it works for all of us. When we spend time in the presence of God, it changes us. Second Corinthians 318 says, We all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the spirit.

Back when I started as a student at Multnomah Bible College, now Multnomah University, we would sing a song in chapel that still comes to mind sometimes and it's so true. And one of the lines, maybe you'll recognize it was, I am changed in the presence of a holy God. We can't come into the presence of a holy God and leave the same as when we came in.

Being in God's presence transforms us. If we are stubborn and and rebellious and we come into the presence of a holy God, we get zapped. If we come penitent and receptive to the spirit of God, then we become radiant and he transforms us.

So this is the invitation to all of us because of the work of Christ on the cross in his death and resurrection. The book of Hebrews tells us the veil in the temple has been torn and we have access to the presence of God. You and I are invited to come into God's presence, to bask in his glory, to get to know the fullness of who he is and to let that change us.

Any questions about this encounter that Moses has with God? When Moses had an encounter with God, he went to the tent of meeting or he went to the mountain. How do we come into God's presence? So the reason why the mountain is special or the tent of meeting is special is because that's the place where God is manifesting himself. He's revealing himself.

And so I think we have and we have somewhat of an advantage because we have the word of God, which is God's manifestation of himself. We're finding out who God is on the pages of scripture. So I think one way we come into the presence of God is by reading and meditating on scripture.

And we encounter God and we witness his work in the world. That's one way. Another way is when we gather with other believers to worship.

And not every Sunday feels amazing or feels like we have just encountered the presence of God. But there are times when we're gathered in worship and there's genuine heartfelt desire to see God and to know God where you can just sense a difference and there's something really special about it. We're filming this not long after there was a special outpouring at Asbury University in Kentucky, where for more than a week, students gathered 24-7 around the clock.

And the reports from Asbury were so beautiful because people, students reported there was nothing flashy going on. There was nothing manipulative, like trying to get people to feel something. There was just this gentle sense of the presence of God and students didn't want to leave.

It's like, if God's at work here, then I want to be here for it. I don't want to miss it. And so they kept showing up.

Even some students even took mattresses from their dorm room and dragged them into the chapel so that they could fall asleep there because they didn't want to leave. And I watched that from afar and began praying, Lord, would you do something like that on our campus at Biola University? And we did indeed have a smaller but genuine outpouring on our campus where students gathered 24-7 for a whole weekend. It came out of Missions Conference and then students were like, we want to keep meeting.

And so they decided to have nightly meetings every night and different people were leading music and praying and scripture. And it's just so wonderful to think, you know, these students could be off watching Netflix. They could be off partying somewhere.

They could be off making out with their boyfriend or girlfriend, but they want to be here. Like they they want to be in the place where God's presence is being felt. And so I think when we when we hear about God visiting a place in a special way, it's natural for us to say, I want to I want in on this.

And to position ourselves so that we can receive that kind of special touch of God's presence.