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covenant. I'll begin reading 
in verse 1. Then the Lord said to Moses depart 
up depart and go up from here you and the people whom you have 
brought out of the land of Egypt to the land which I swore to 
Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying to your descendants I will give 
it and I will send my angel before you and I will drive out the 
Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite 
and the Hivite and the Jebusite and Go up to a land flowing with 
milk and honey, for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume 
you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. And when the people heard 
this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments, 
for the Lord had said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, 
You are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst 
in one moment and consume you. Now therefore take off your ornaments, 
that I may know what to do to you. So the children of Israel 
stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb. Moses 
took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the 
camp, and called it the Tabernacle of Meeting. And it came to pass 
that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the Tabernacle 
of Meeting, which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever 
Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and 
each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had 
gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses 
entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended 
and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked 
with Moses. All the people saw the pillar 
of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose 
and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke 
to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he 
would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of 
Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Then 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 
grace in my sight. Now therefore I pray, if I have 
found grace in your sight, show me now your way, that I may know 
you, and that I may find grace in your sight, and consider that 
this nation is your people. And he said, My presence will 
go with you, and I will give you rest. Then he said to him, 
If your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from 
here. For how then will it be known 
that your people and I have found grace in your sight, except you 
go with us? So we shall be separate, your 
people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the 
earth. So the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing that 
you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and 
I know you by name. And he said, please show me your 
glory. Then he said, I will make all 
my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name 
of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I 
will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will 
have compassion. But he said, you cannot see my 
face for no man shall see me and live. And the Lord said, 
here is a place by me and you shall stand on the rock. So it 
shall be while my glory passes by that I will put you in the 
cleft of the rock. and will cover you with my hand 
while I pass by. Then I will take away my hand, 
and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Amen." 
Well, as we look at this particular chapter, we should recognize 
that the golden calf incident in chapter 32 certainly resulted 
in the judgment of God. If you look back to chapter 32, 
specifically at verses 25 to 29, We see that Moses ordered 
the execution of those guilty parties involved in the calf 
incident. So at verse 27, he said to them, 
Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Let every man put his sword on 
his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout 
the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, 
and every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according 
to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men 
of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, Consecrate yourselves 
today to the Lord, that he may bestow on you a blessing this 
day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother. So the 
golden calf incident obviously resulted in judgment, but it 
did not result in the abrogation of the covenant. In other words, 
the children of Israel would carry on in their mission. Notice 
at verse 34. He's talking about the sort of 
one-off ad hoc punishments that would 
result as a result of things like the Golden Calf incident. 
He's not going to cut them off from that covenant. He is not 
going to disenfranchise them. He is going to see them through 
to the promised land according to his word to the patriarchs. 
So tonight we'll notice first the departure from Sinai. They 
don't leave now, but they are told that they will be leaving. 
It is a command, they will eventually leave. But we have this departure 
from Sinai in verses 1 to 7, secondly the tent of meeting 
in verses 8 to 11, and then finally the promise of God's presence 
in verses 12 to 23. So let's look at the departure 
from Sinai. Notice that command given in 
verses 1 to 3, and then the response of the people. So in verse 1, 
the time frame is pretty clear from what we find in the Pentateuch 
or the books of Moses. So they come to Sinai according 
to chapter 19, verse 1. and then they leave according 
to Numbers chapter 10 at verse 11. So they spend about 11 months 
there. One of those months takes place 
during the book of Leviticus. So they've been not all of 10 
months at this point, but the whole time frame that they're 
at Sinai from chapter 19 in Exodus to chapter 10 in Numbers is about 
11 months. And then notice that God reminds 
them of the covenant promise. So in verse 1, then the Lord 
said to Moses, Depart, and go up from here, you and the people 
whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt to the land 
of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying to your 
descendants, I will give it. So remember, that's what the 
mission is. They are moving to the promised 
land. They had been in Egypt. They had been in bondage. God 
miraculously and powerfully delivers them from that house of bondage, 
and in light of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
He is going to lead the people out of that land into the land 
of promise. So covenant looms large here, 
and it is that controlling factor with reference to God's dealings 
with His people. Now notice, secondly, in terms 
of the command to depart, this reference to the messenger in 
verses 2 and 3. This isn't the first time we 
have been told that God would send forth an angel to lead the 
people. He does so in Exodus chapter 
23, and he does so again toward the end of Exodus 34. Some see 
a distinction here between the angel of the Lord being the pre-incarnate 
Christ, or second person of the Trinity, and this particular 
angel being a created angel. I'm not sure about that particular 
distinction, but I think the emphasis here, specifically in 
verse 2, falls upon the fact that God himself will not join 
that. Now, this chapter is charged 
with what's called anthropomorphism. And anthropomorphism is when 
we say something about God using human description. So when God 
talks about his face, or when God talks about his back, or 
when God says, or when the narrative says that God spoke to Moses 
face to face, that's spoken in the manner of men. God doesn't 
have a face. John 4, Jesus says that God is 
spirit. So he doesn't have a face, he 
doesn't have a back, he doesn't have arms, he doesn't have those 
things that are physical in nature. So there's anthropomorphism. 
There's also anthropopathism. That means that the human expressions 
are oftentimes in scripture predicated of God. This does not mean he 
has human expressions, but it means that it's given to us in 
that way so that we can understand something about God. So I think 
the emphasis here, specifically in verses 2 and 3, is that God 
is saying He's not going to go with them. Now, again, God is 
omnipresent. He's immense. That means He fills 
all things. There's no place where God is 
not. The psalmist celebrates this 
in Psalm 139. Where can I go? How can I flee? If I go into the depths of hell, 
there you are. If I ascend into the heavens, 
there you are. We cannot escape God. But again, 
I think the emphasis is upon His special presence, His special 
nearness to His people in this particular endeavor. So notice, 
in verse 2, He says that the angel will be sent before them 
and the angel will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite, 
and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 
So the angel will provide leadership, and the angel will destroy the 
enemies. Remember, they're going to take the land of Canaan. These 
various ites aren't going to say, welcome, Israel. We're glad 
that you're here. We're going to gladly give up 
our houses. We're going to gladly give up our vineyards. We're 
going to gladly give up our gardens, our food. We're going to just 
happily give all of this stuff to you. No, there's going to 
be warfare. There's going to be conquest. 
There's going to be military exchange. And so God promises 
victory through this angel that goes before them. And then notice 
in verse 3, "...go up to a land flowing with milk and honey." 
In other words, resume the journey. This was always the purpose and 
plan. Chapter 32, as I said, introduces an interruption when 
the people of Israel are dancing before the golden calf. But at 
the end of chapter 32, God announces to Moses to stay the course, 
to continue to go forward, and he repeats that here. So verse 
three, go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. And then 
notice, for I will not go up in your midst. Again, not that 
God, the omnipresent God, or immense God isn't present with 
them. He's talking about his special 
presence, his nearness, his communion with them. So go up to a land 
flowing with milk and honey, For I will not go up in your 
midst, and then the reason is given, lest I consume you on 
the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." So the golden calf incident 
demonstrated the sinfulness of the people. The golden calf incident 
demonstrated the holiness of God. The Golden Calf incident 
demonstrated what God's holiness does in response to man's sinfulness. God threatened to disenfranchise 
them to Moses earlier in the narrative. God says, I will destroy 
them and I will make a great nation out of you. This is the 
divine response to sin. It must be punished. There must 
be sanction, there must be a penalty. So when God says this, it's an 
acknowledgment of their sinfulness, it is an acknowledgment of His 
holiness, but it's as well an acknowledgment of His mercy. 
Why does He promise that His special presence will not be 
with them? Lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked 
people. In other words, God, speaking 
in the manner of men, says, I'm going to sit this one out. I'm 
going to send my angel. My angel's going to do my bidding. 
Because if I am present with you in a special way, I am going 
to be observant of your sin. I am going to see your wickedness 
and your evil. I am going to witness all the 
stuff that you do in violation of the covenant, and based on 
the fact that I'm a holy God and you're a sinful man, I'm 
going to consume you. So the Lord knows the people, 
the Lord knows his own righteousness and holiness, and the Lord prescribes 
this in a manner that is basically preventative maintenance. If 
I go with you based on this calf incident, you're likely not going 
to make it out of this geographic location. Matthew Poole says, 
lest thy sins should be aggravated by my presence in favor, and 
thereby I should be provoked utterly to destroy you. So he 
shows that their perverseness makes this severity necessary 
for them, and that God, even in his judgment, remembers mercy 
to them. So the fact that he says, I will 
not go up in your midst, again, we would interpret that and say, 
well, that's not good, and Moses goes as far later on in the narrative, 
saying essentially, if you don't go, we don't want to go. It's 
not the gift that we're looking for, it's the giver that we truly 
want. So God says that He will not 
do this so that they will not be consumed. For you are a stiff-necked 
people. That's the same language that 
was expressed in the calf incident in chapter 32. They were a stiff-necked 
incorrigible people. They were not going to comply 
with the terms of the covenant. And then in verses 4-6 we see 
the people mourn. This is bad news according to 
verse 4. When the people heard this bad 
news, they mourned and no one put on his ornaments. And then 
in verse 5, the Lord had said to Moses, say to the children 
of Israel. So verses 1-3, that's for Moses 
alone. Now in verses 4 to 6, this is 
Moses mediating the Word of God or communicating the Word of 
God to the people. So when the people hear this, 
obviously they're sad. They take off their ornaments. 
Now brethren, they had already donated a lot of ornaments with 
reference to the building of the Golden Calf. They were loaded 
up with a lot of ornaments by the Egyptians when they left 
Egypt. Remember God said, God anticipated 
that the Egyptians are going to give you lots of things. Why 
would the Egyptians give them lots of things? Because the Egyptians 
wanted them to be gone. Because as long as they were 
present in the land of Egypt, bad, very bad things happened 
to them by the God of Israel. So when it came time to bury 
the firstborn that the Lord God had killed among them, they were 
all too willing to see the backside of these Israelites as they were 
leaving their land. So they basically throw gold 
and silver at them. So they're wearing this ornamentation. 
Verse 4, an expression of mourning, is to take off this ornamentation. 
God then communicates to them via Moses in verse 5, say to 
the children of Israel, you are stiff-necked people. I could 
come up into your midst in one moment and consume you. Now therefore 
take off your ornaments. Now they've already taken them 
off. Again, some say, or I suggest that we ought to understand it 
this way. God is communicating to them, no ornamentation for 
the duration of your journey to the promised land. So take 
off your ornaments, that I may know what to do to you, so the 
children of Israel strip themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb." 
So obviously they were sad, they were mourning, they take off 
their ornamentation, but God has communicated to them those 
two truths, that He's a holy God, and that they as sinful 
persons demand the punishment of God. Now notice secondly this 
tent of meeting. This is not the tabernacle. They 
have been commanded in great detail on how to build the tabernacle 
in chapters 25 to 31. Now this interruption comes and 
then they did not build the tabernacle. They will start to do that in 
chapter 35-36. But here, specifically, we have this tent pitched by 
Moses to function as a tent of meeting. So the tabernacle, as 
I said, was not built yet, 36-8, but nevertheless the people had 
access to God. Now again, this whole idea of 
God's presence with them. This was something they desired, 
this was something that was good, this was something that they 
wanted. The previous mention in terms of his presence among 
them as they make that long journey, he doesn't give that to them, 
but in this particular instance he does meet with Moses. So I 
think the idea is simple. Moses has this tent, he pitches 
it, and it's a place for Moses to go and seek and inquire of 
the Lord. So if persons have a particular 
issue, or a particular situation, or a particular problem, they 
can communicate that to Moses, and then Moses goes on their 
behalf before the divine presence and finds out God's verdict or 
judgment on that particular thing. So the people could seek the 
Lord, and the people likely did so through the mediation of Moses. When we move again through this 
passage, you'll notice that persons can't look upon God, or they 
will die. So Moses, as mediator, functions 
as the go-between from the people to God Most High. And then, with 
reference to this tent of meeting, it's built, it's constructed, 
and then notice what we have in verse 8. Whenever Moses went 
out to the tabernacle that all the people arose and each man 
stood at his tent and watched Moses until he had gone into 
the tabernacle. Which this is a good sign. not 
just because they were meeting with God, which in fact is a 
good sign, but it's a good sign that the confidence and trust 
has been restored in Moses. Remember, that was sort of the 
overarching theme as to why they built the golden calf. If you 
go back to chapter 32 and verse 1, now when the people saw that 
Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered 
together to Aaron and said to him, come, make us gods that 
shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man 
who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know 
what has become of him." So when we get back to chapter 33 verse 
8, we see that they're watching Moses, that they're interacting 
with Moses. That's a good thing. They've 
got a long journey ahead of them. They've got a long way to go. 
And they're going to face a lot of difficulties and a lot of 
hardships along the way. If they're not confident in the 
leadership of Moses, and if Moses suspects or believes that they 
want to kill him or destroy him or turn against him, this does 
not bode well for this massive troop movement from one place 
to another. So the fact that we're seeing 
that confidence expressed in Moses, that mediation enacted 
by Moses, is a good sign for this people at this particular 
time. So the tent is constructed, Moses goes in, and then notice 
the blessing of God according to verses 9 to 11. And it came 
to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of 
cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and 
the Lord talked with Moses." The pillar of cloud represented 
the presence of God. It wasn't the presence of God, 
but it represented the presence of God. If you look at verse 
9, the new King James supplies the Lord properly. Notice if 
that wasn't supplied. It says, verse 9b, that the pillar 
of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle 
and talked with Moses. It wasn't the pillar of cloud 
that talked with Moses. It likely appeared that it was 
the pillar of cloud that talked with Moses. pillar of fire, or a pillar of 
cloud, they're worshipping the God of heaven and earth. So verse 
10, all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle 
door, and all the people rose and worshipped each man in his 
tent door. So again, when the presence of 
God is there, you worship. That's the response. Remember our text in Matthew, 
I'm sorry, John chapter 9, in verse 37 from Sunday. He confessed that he believed 
in the Lord, and then what did he do? He worshiped the Lord. This is what you do in the presence 
of God Almighty. You worship Him. That's why when 
we come to church, God's house, we worship Him. That doesn't 
mean it's only in the church. You can worship Him in private, 
you can worship Him in family, but wherever God is, the natural 
response is to worship, and that is precisely what we find here. 
And then finally in this section, notice the Lord spoke to Moses 
face to face. Again, God doesn't have a face. 
It's not like, you know, he's got a nose and eyes and a mouth 
and all those sorts of appendages. He doesn't have a face. This 
is spoken anthropomorphically. It's the predication. human features 
to God to instruct us concerning something. I think the something 
is that there was intimacy, there was a familiarity. God had that 
relationship with Moses. In fact, it's not just stated 
here, but you can turn to the book of Numbers, Numbers chapter 
12. We see that Moses was in fact a man blessed of God with 
that familiarity with God. Excuse me, Numbers chapter 12, 
specifically at verse 4. and called Aaron and Miriam, 
and they both went forward." So they were basically saying, 
you know, is it just, has the Lord indeed spoken only through 
Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? So a bit of uprising 
there. Then he said, verse six, here 
now my words, if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself 
known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream. Not 
so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 
I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark 
sayings. And he sees the form of the Lord. 
Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" 
And a similar statement is at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, 
Deuteronomy chapter 34. You can turn there, excuse me, 
Deuteronomy chapter 34, specifically at verse 10. This is after the 
death of Moses, Joshua the son of Nun is his successor. Verse 
10, but since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet 
like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face. So it's the language 
of intimacy, it's the language of familiarity, it's the language 
of camaraderie. So that's what Moses had with 
God. Now, a curious note in verse 
11. It says, he would return to the camp, but his servant 
Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the 
tabernacle. He was likely not a young man 
at that point. Some speculate he was probably 
in his fifties, based on what we have in the book of Exodus. 
what we have in the book of Joshua. So why does it describe him as 
a young man? Jewish commentators suggest we 
should see it as an attendant. An attendant to Moses. Whatever 
the particular reference is, Joshua stood guard, or did not 
depart, from that tent of meeting. It was a special place. special 
places, sanctuary-type places, temple-type places get special 
protection. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was 
called and commanded to guard that temple sanctuary. When you 
get to the tabernacle, when you get to the temple, you'll see 
that there is guard, there is attendance, there is protection 
of that special sanctuary. So that's the function of Joshua. 
And then that brings us finally to this promise of God's presence. 
So God's not changing his mind in Exodus chapter 33. Again, 
it's anthropopathic. It expresses something to us 
in a way that we can understand. So God says, I'm not going to 
go chapter 33 verse 3, because if I go, I will see your sins 
and I'll have to cut you off. Well now Moses intervenes and 
Moses goes specifically to the Lord and makes this request. Notice in verse 12, he wants 
the identity of the angel. So then 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 grace in my sight. 
Now, something I think we should look at as we move through this 
section is that familiarity with God does not breed presumption 
or arrogance, but it certainly breeds boldness, right? We're 
told in the New Testament to come with boldness to the throne 
of grace. God's not against boldness. He's 
against presumption. He's against arrogance. He's 
against the sorts of demands that if you don't do this, I'm 
gonna do that. That's not what's happening here. You see gradation in Moses' arguments. You see escalation. You see an 
increasing boldness all the way to the point where Moses says, 
show me your glory. And as we move through this, 
don't just notice that there's this boldness on the part of 
Moses, but there's continual accommodation on the part of 
God. God doesn't say, oh, how dare you ask me? How dare you 
question me? How dare you want that identity? 
How dare you invoke the grace that I've shown you before and 
try to use that as an argument? God doesn't do that. I think 
I've illustrated this point with Samson in Judges 15. You can turn to Judges 15. It's 
his victory at Jawbone Height. And after killing a thousand 
Philistines and being obviously Tired from that endeavor, Samson 
prays for water. But if you look at 1514, it says, 
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came, shouting against him. Then 
the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that 
were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire. 
and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone 
of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed 
a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, with the jawbone 
of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey 
I have slain a thousand men. I mean, he's the sort of fellow 
that, you know, kills a thousand people and then engages in a 
rhyme. And then verse 17, and so it 
was when he had finished speaking that he threw the jawbone from 
his hand and called that place Ramath-Lehi. Then he became very 
thirsty. So he cried out to the Lord and 
said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your 
servant. And now shall I die of thirst 
and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? Almost sounds 
a bit presumptuous. Almost sounds a bit arrogant. 
You've given me this great victory. You're going to let me die of 
thirst now? But it wasn't that way. Notice 
what happened. So God split the hollow place 
that is in Lehi, and water came out. And he drank, and his spirit 
returned, and he revived. So this kind of praying that 
is bold, going through the front door of heaven, and making our 
supplications, our prayers, and intercessions, and giving of 
thanks made known to God, that's not condemned by God. presumption, 
arrogance, pride, bad. That sort of posture of prayer 
that we find in Luke 18 with that Pharisee, I thank you God 
that I'm not like other men. I thank you God that I'm so religiously 
accomplished. I thank you God that I'm so awesome. 
That kind of prayer is offensive, but not this kind. So Moses gradually 
increases the particular petitions that he presents before God, 
and God gradually increases his particular responses in terms 
of answers to those petitions. So he asks for the identity of 
the angel, and again, the rationale for his request. I know you by 
name, and you have also found grace in my sight. Now notice 
what he says, or what we find in verse 13. The Lord God, or 
He wants to know the revelation of God's way. So not only the 
angel, but notice in verse 13, Now therefore I pray, if I have 
found grace in your sight, show me now your way, that I may know 
you, and that I may find grace in your sight. And consider that 
this nation is your people. If you go back to chapter 32, 
I didn't make a big deal out of it, but suggested it could 
be something. Notice in Exodus 32 at verse 
7, after the people corrupt themselves with the golden calf, and the 
Lord said to Moses, go get down, for your people, whom you brought 
out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They're 
your people, the ones you brought out of the land of Egypt. Well 
now Moses reminds God at the end of verse 13, and consider 
that this nation is your people. So you've shown us grace, we 
are your elect, we are your chosen, we are in covenant with you, 
we want you to go with us, we want your presence. And God promises 
that here in verse 14. He said, my presence will go 
with you and I will give you rest. Where have you heard that 
language? I will give you rest. Matthew 
11, 28. Come to me, all you who are weary 
and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. God is in the business 
of giving rest to his people. There is that rest in his presence. When God is with us, we can truly 
be content. There is the rest afforded by 
his protection. when he's killing Hittites and 
Hivites and Jebusites and parasites on behalf of his people. And 
then the rest accomplished by his promise, life in the promised 
land. So my presence will go with you 
and I will give you rest. Now notice that Moses argues 
with God. And by argue, you know, when 
I say, you know, he had an argument. We often think of loud voices 
and anger and that sort of thing. Argument also has a basic meaning 
of providing reasons and justification and rationale for a particular 
course of action. Argument is not necessarily an 
upset, high-octane, shouting match between persons. So Moses 
argues now with God. And he does so in three ways 
with reference to verses 15 to 17. He first speaks of the need 
for God's presence. Look at verse 15. This is beautiful. If your presence does not go 
with us, do not bring us up from here. The principle. It isn't 
the gift, but the giver that is most important. We don't want 
the promised land without the God who promised it to us. I 
think that's beautiful. I think Moses knows the implications 
of 33.3. Moses agrees with the sinfulness 
of the... that the people are sinful. He 
knows and understands that God is in fact holy, but he also 
understands there's atonement to be had with God. He himself 
has offered that in chapter 32. So he knows that God is gracious, 
God is merciful. So he says, if your presence 
does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. And then the 
second argument is the graciousness of the presence of God. Notice 
in verse 16, for how then Will it be known that your people 
and I have found grace in your sight, except you go with us? What's the proof positive of 
God's grace in your life? Well, that God's presence is 
in your life. When we come to believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, we now have a relationship with God Almighty. That relationship is exhibit 
A of God's grace to us, because apart from God's grace, we don't 
have a relationship. Apart from God's grace, we don't 
have His nearness. We don't have His presence in 
our life. And that grace of God would be 
seen in Israel's distinction from the heathen. I think that 
the end of verse 16 is very important and very key to what you'll find 
later in the book of Leviticus. So when it says, so we shall 
be separate, your people and I, from all the people who are 
upon the face of the earth. That's what drives a lot of the 
laws in Leviticus that we think are a bit odd. You know, you 
can't eat bacon, you can't eat shrimp, no lobster, you can't 
mix fibers. There's all these things. Why? 
Because it's sin and wicked and evil to eat shrimp and lobster? 
No, it's because they needed to be distinct from and separate 
from the nations around them. That would always be the emphasis 
in terms of Israel in the promised land. They would be a holy nation, 
a royal priesthood, a kingdom of priests. That was the intention. 
And then notice finally the promise of the presence of God in verse 
17. So the Lord said to Moses, I 
will also do this thing that you have spoken for you have 
found grace in my sight and I know you by name. So you see, these 
arguments don't cause God to say, oh, I can't believe you're 
coming to me with that sort of a thing. No, you have found grace. I'm gonna make good. I'm gonna 
answer your prayers, and I'm gonna do it positively, and you're 
gonna know my presence as you move into the promised land. And then that brings us finally 
to the revelation of God's glory in verses 18 to 23. So, you know, 
you might think at verse 17 Moses got everything he wanted. God's 
promised that he's going to go with them. God's promised his 
special presence. And then Moses throws out in 
verse 18, and he said, please show me your glory. One more, 
one more, I'm gonna keep going here. And it's not brazen, it's 
not bad, it's not anything wicked. God answers the particular petition. It's as if the nearness of God 
just seems to draw the worshipper even nearer. The closer you get 
to God, the closer you want to be to God. The more you have 
of God, the more you want of God. And God does not, you know, 
say no to that. God's not saying, you know, go 
away Moses, we've had enough for today. I've answered your 
prayer. You just go back to your tent and, you know, have a nice 
night of rest. Because we got a tabernacle to 
build. Actually, you've got tablets to make. So you just go home 
and go to sleep. No, show me your glory. Now notice, that's the request. We have then the proclamation 
in verse 19. Verse 19, then he said, I will 
make all my goodness pass before you. Now, God's glory is seen 
in His justice. God's glory is seen in His righteousness. God's glory is seen in the damnation 
of sinners. God's glory is awesome in each 
of those expressions. But what is it here that God 
is going to sort of encapsulate His glory by? I will make all 
my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name 
of the Lord before you. So if God's glory is a demonstration 
of his goodness, in this particular case, it's even further narrowed 
down to his sovereign grace. Now, for those of us who are 
Calvinists or Reformed or people that believe in the absolute 
sovereignty of God, we have met people that don't like these 
teachings, they don't like these doctrines, they mock them, they 
say things like, well, that doesn't seem fair, that doesn't seem 
right. Look at what God says is the, 
you know, exemplifies His goodness according to verse 19. I will 
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion 
on whom I will have compassion. So Moses says, I want to see 
your glory. God says, I'm going to cause 
my goodness to pass before you. And that goodness specifically 
is in the reality of God's sovereign grace. Notice over at the top 
of page, well, I was going to say the top of page 34. It's 
actually page 77. It's actually chapter 34 happens 
to be on my top of the page. Look at 34.7. I'm sorry, 34.6, and the Lord 
passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God. Again, 
remember, this is an Old Testament context. Some people think the 
Old Testament is filled with a God of wrath and fury and vengeance, 
and certainly he sends his angel to destroy the Hivites and the 
Hittites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites, but look at the 
accent here. The Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping 
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and 
sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity 
of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to 
the third and fourth generation. So as God causes His goodness 
to pass before Moses, what is it, what perfections are being 
communicated by God to Moses? His grace, His compassion, His 
mercy, His kindness, His love. We see that in the very answer 
to the prayer that Moses just offered up. We don't want to 
go to the promised land if you're not going to go with us. What 
does God say? My presence will go with you. I will give you rest. I will 
be there amongst you. I will be your God. John Gill 
says, which goodness is His glory? The glory of the Lord lies in 
His goodness, and that appears in the works of His hands, in 
the methods of His providence, especially in the distribution 
of His sovereign grace and mercy. and particularly in his pardoning 
grace and mercy through the blood of Christ. So Moses wants to 
see the glory of God. God says you're gonna see the 
glory of God. It's going to be my goodness 
that passes before you. So that's the proclamation. That's 
the content. That's the perfection that will 
be communicated to Moses. But because he is God, there's 
a qualification attached. And that's in verses 20 to 23. 
Notice there's this restriction concerning God's face. Verse 
20, but he said, You cannot see my face, for no man shall see 
me and live. Now, again, this is anthropomorphic. God doesn't have a face. This 
is the predication of human features to our glorious God. I think 
by face, what is probably signified here is the essence of the divine 
being. the substance of the divine being. Our confession says in this infinite 
and divine being, there are three subsistences or three persons. 
So with reference to the oneness of God or the simplicity of God, 
there is this essence or this being or this substance. So God 
says you cannot see me, or you cannot see that. That highlights 
the invisibility of God. 1 Timothy 1.17 tells us God is 
invisible. 1 Timothy 6.16, and then of course 
John 1.18, no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten 
Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. 
Notice, intriguingly, the whole concept of that bosom and that 
intimacy there in 118 is somewhat reminiscent of what we have here 
in terms of God's revelation to Moses in this particular instance. So, I suggest that the invisibility 
of God and also the incomprehensibility of God. He said, you cannot see 
my face, for no man shall see me and live. Now, theologians 
talk about the incomprehensibility of God. And if we just take that 
word, we'll say, well, that means we can't know anything about 
God. That's not what they mean by incomprehensibility. We can 
comprehend the 31,000 plus propositions that we find in our Bible. So 
we've got about 31,000 verses from Genesis to Revelation. That's truth. That contains truth. That expresses truth about God. When theologians talk about incomprehensibility, 
they talk about the level of God's essence or being, whose 
essence is comprehended by none but himself. He's incomprehensible 
at the level that God is creator. He is infinite and eternal. We are creature, we are finite, 
and we are temporal. So we cannot exhaust who God 
is. We cannot comprehend God in terms 
of essence. We comprehend God through propositional 
revelation, through his accommodation, most chiefly through the person 
and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this qualification 
is absolutely crucial and the reason is given. So verse 20, 
he said, you cannot see my face for no man shall see me and live. God's holiness and man's sinfulness 
underscores the reality that getting too close to this God 
can result in death. This isn't the only place in 
scripture that underscores this. It also shows us the necessity 
of a mediator. Moses is functioning in that 
capacity as mediator. Of course, he's typological of 
Jesus, who functions as the mediator, such that we can enter into the 
presence of God through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gil 
says, for there shall no man see me and live. If there was 
to be such a revelation made of the grace and goodness and 
glory of God in Christ, as it really is in itself, it would 
be too much for mortals in the present state to bear. It would 
break their earthen vessels in pieces. The full discovery thereof 
is reserved to a future state. when these things will be seen 
as they are, and men will be in a condition to receive them. 
He says we can't do it now. It would break the earthen vessel. 
We don't have the capacity. And I would suggest that when 
we enter into Emmanuel's land, there's still a bit of chasm 
between the infinite and the finite. We'll never exhaust the 
fullness of God. We'll learn more, we'll be blessed, 
we'll grow in our knowledge and our understanding, but we will 
never, you know, fully explore the depths of the being of God 
Most High. And then he makes this accommodation 
concerning Moses' request in verses 21 to 23. The Lord said, 
here is a place by me. Again, you've got to see and 
appreciate the anthropomorphic nature. There's nothing that's 
near God, by God, kind of close to God. God is immense, He fills 
all things. God is omnipresent, He is everywhere. So it says in verse 21, here 
is a place by me and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall 
be while my... I just leave it, it's gonna go 
to voicemail. So it shall be while my glory 
passes by that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and 
will cover you with my hand while I pass by. Same thing with reference 
to the face, there's no physical hand. He is using this language 
to communicate to us that he is covering, he is hiding, he 
is providing shelter, he is providing protection from Moses against 
himself. because His glory is such that 
we cannot look upon it and live. And then in verse 23, "...then 
I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my 
face shall not be seen." Poole says, "...my back parts." In 
other words, imperfectly and in part. As when we see only 
a man's back parts and not his face, thou shalt see a shadow 
or obscure delineation of my glory as much as you can bear, 
though not as much as you do desire. We might want more, but we're 
not capable of more. Kyle and Dalich, couple of Lutheran 
commentators of a former generation. They say, as our bodily eye is 
dazzled and its power of vision destroyed by looking directly 
at the brightness of the sun, so would our whole nature be 
destroyed by an unveiled sight of the brilliancy of the glory 
of God. You know that. You don't walk 
out in the sun on a sunny day and gaze at the sun. You can't 
do it. There's limitations. And that's 
a creaturely limitation. When it comes to the infinite 
God, we cannot look upon Him and live. We need the mediator, 
the Lord Jesus Christ. We need access secured by His 
precious blood. So Moses prevails with God in 
prayer, and God reveals himself in terms of his glory as expressing 
goodness, and specifically, sovereign grace. He will have compassion 
on whom he has compassion. He will be gracious to whom he 
is gracious. Well, let us pray. Our Father 
in heaven, we thank you for this, your word. We thank you for the 
wonderful lessons communicated to us here. We thank you that 
in your holiness and in your righteousness and justice, you 
have provided a way by which we can be saved, by which we 
can enter into the presence of God. We thank you for our Lord 
Jesus Christ. We thank you for his life and 
death and resurrection. And we thank you that we have 
access to the Father through him. We ask now that you would 
go with us. I pray that you'd watch over 
all the brothers and sisters in our local church, be with 
all those who are traveling, and just bless your people with 
peace and with strength. And we pray through Christ the 
Lord. Amen. Well, any questions or comments? Just a comment. When we were 
reading the book of Job, I was just interested to see if his 
friends had a partial good understanding of who God is, that he's mighty 
and greater, and we're about worse. Yeah. But then they forget 
that he's also merciful and compassionate. That's right. Yeah. What chapter 
are you in? It's like 25, 26. Yeah, I just 
read through that too. It's good, good stuff. Yeah, 
sometimes they bang on. You're like, yeah, that's, that's 
great. And then other times. There's no love for the friend, 
right? No. There's no love. Yeah, they certainly don't express 
love. And then Elijah at the end, when he rises up, the young 
man. It's interesting stuff. Yeah. Jim, last week you commented 
that the nation of Israel under law, so the keeping of the law 
was the covenant to stay in the land. Is that correct? Did I 
do that right? Yeah, for the most part it operated at the 
physical level. So it was a covenant of words, 
do this and you will live. And so basically their relationship 
to God, to each other, was much involved with law keeping. And 
then the tabernacle apparatus. So the tabernacle, one of the 
things you'll see in the book of Leviticus, it's not only on 
the removal of sin, but there's cleanliness and there's other 
sort of demands placed upon them in terms of their approach to 
God. to make two distinctions. One 
is selfish, and one is occupation of the land. So my understanding 
today is that yes, they did this temporal, and it was conditioned 
upon their performance. But in saying that, I'm not saying 
no one was saved. But the people that were saved, 
were saved by virtue of the new covenant. They were not saved, 
I mean, the apostle tells us in Hebrews 10, the blood of bulls 
and goats could never take away sin. They were typological pointing 
forward to the Lord Jesus. So anybody from Genesis to Malachi 
who is saved, they're not saved because of the Old Covenant. 
They're saved in spite of the Old Covenant based on the promise 
of the Savior to come. So they're looking forward to 
Jesus coming, and based on the work that he would accomplish 
in terms of the new covenant. Okay, so, sorry, I was trying 
to get you up. Oh, that's okay. We go to Romans, 
and we look at Paul, and he's talking about salvation, okay, 
and he's going through the process, and then he goes back and examples, 
and he says, you know, we look back, we talk about salvation. 
He goes, well, how was Abraham saved? He goes, salvation has 
always been by faith. Right. Okay. And so then when 
I look, okay, well, how did Abraham know about that was in the future? So my assumption is, is that 
the reason why Abraham was saved is because he believed everything 
God had told him up to that point, and it was credited to him as 
righteousness. Am I correct in that? I would 
say everything that God told him about the Messiah, the principal 
acts of saving faith, have respect to Christ, accepting, receiving, 
and resting upon him alone for salvation. So not suggesting 
that he didn't need to believe God in land promise and seed 
promise and all that, but Abraham's faith in the seed of Abraham 
is what is salvific. So it's not the old covenant 
per se, it's not the law, it's not the offerings. Genesis 3.15 
is crucial. Genesis 3.15 is the first giving 
of the promise concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation 
by him. And then for Abraham specifically, 
Genesis 1 and 2 is huge when he's told to go take Isaac and 
go up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. So already we see in that 
stage of the game for Abraham, he knew that God was going to 
provide a substitutionary atonement. However much we may think he 
had, he had a lot of debt. Such that Jesus could say, Abraham, 
rejoice to see my day. And he saw it was glad. So the 
old covenant as a covenant was primarily to put the people of 
God under, or covenant people, under a covenant of works to 
show them their need for the Messiah. And to protect them 
so that they would bring forth the Messiah. So we talked about 
this recently in the Saturday morning class. If you can't attend 
that class, get that book. It's a very helpful book, The 
Mystery of Christ and His Covenant and Kingdom by Sam Ryan. He gets 
into this, I think, very clearly, very wonderfully as well. But 
with reference to that people group, after the Babylonian captivity, 
they're marrying pagans. And Ezra and Nehemiah don't say, 
well, that's woke, that's great, that's awesome, we're going to 
do you. No, they command them to put these pagan wives away. 
Well, it's not based on ethnicity. It's based on covenant. It's 
based on the compromise of the seed. If you go out, you know, 
humanly speak, God's going to provide. But that's how you provide. 
That's how you protect it. So with reference to the Old 
Covenant people of God, I think Paul describes it well in Galatians 
3. Paul stated the law. And in that 
context, he's using law to refer to the Old Covenant. It was a 
tutor to bring us to Christ. So how do you get a million people 
from point A to point B? You impose a covenant on them. 
You forbid what they can eat. You forbid what they can do. 
you know, scattering around the nations, you provide a land for 
them, you provide all form of protection for them, and you 
just keep them in place. And even then, they're gonna 
try to jeopardize it every step of the way. So the fact that 
they don't compromise it ultimately is owing to the grace and power 
of God. So the Old Covenant, as a covenant of words, does 
that job of keeping them under wraps, under protection, as a 
tutor, to bring them to Jesus. So Galatians 3, 24 to 26, that's 
where he talks about that. Usually we understand that as 
being a reference to the law, the 10 Commandments. The law 
was our tutor to bring us to Christ. So what does the Bible 
want to say? Once we've come to Christ, there's no longer 
a need for the tutor. So what do you think? Some people, 
wow, we don't need the 10 Commandments. That's not the point. We don't 
need the prohibitions against shellfish. We don't need the 
prohibitions against intermarrying. We don't need that. The Ten Commandments 
doesn't matter what covenant you're in. That's always the 
revelation of God's holy law. access to all that special revelation 
guaranteed justification by faith. But there's an advantage, better 
to hear God's word than to not hear God's word. So there's benefit 
to having that special revelation, but yet all are in sin. So hence 
why in that summary at the end of the ceremony class, I think 
last time, that's why I was trying to put forward that whole idea 
of the two tracks, where there's two separate things going on 
at the same time. And then in Romans 10, brethren, my heart's 
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. If I bear them witness that they 
have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for they 
being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their 
own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 
And then when he says, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 
to everyone who believes, again, I don't think he means you don't 
have to keep the commandments. He's Christ of the purpose, he's 
the telos, he's the focus, he's the reason or rationale for the 
law. And again, lightly, he's speaking 
about the old covenant. These Israelites, they're still 
steeped in this old covenant mindset, so that when Jesus comes, 
the very Messiah that's offered in that, or prophesied in that 
old covenant, they miss him by a long shot. They got to the 
point where No, we can just do these things. We can just fulfill 
this law and be obedient and find our favor with God. So that's how I understand the 
Old Testament, that it wasn't redemptive, but it wasn't contrary 
to the promise. That's another thing Paul says 
in Galatians, just before that bit in 3.26-29, a little before 
that, he says, is the law contrary, it's against the promises. No, 
it functioned. in the manner that God purposed 
for it to function. It's there as a hedge of protection 
to keep people together for the coming of the Savior. But yeah, 
I would definitely recommend that. Sam Ryan, if you just text 
me or email me, I'll give you the link for Amazon. It's really 
helpful.