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.” 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.”
34:1 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. 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. 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,1 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.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
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.” 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.”
34:1 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. 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. 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,1 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.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
Invite you to open your Bibles to Exodus, chapter 33, our 3rd, 4th, 5th week on this section. If you don't have a bible, it's there in your worship guide. We'll begin reading in verse 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. Moses said, Please show me your glory.
Jeffrey Heine:
He said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, Yahweh. 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 my face and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. And while your glory, 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. The Lord said to Moses, cut for yourself 2 tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 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. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
So Moses cut 2 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 2 tablets of stone. 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 Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for 1,000, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the inequity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the 3rd and the 4th generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lord, I am so aware of my failing ability to communicate the truths that we have just read. Lord, how can anybody communicate your glory in a way that even remotely resembles who you are. So God, we are in desperate need of your spirit to come and breathe life into this text, for you to reveal yourself to us. Lord, I pray that in this moment, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen.
Jeffrey Heine:
There is no equal to this prayer in the Old Testament. If Moses had asked God to heal somebody, or even raise somebody from the dead, or to send fire down from heaven to consume a sacrifice or to kill a group of people, then I could point to other places in the old testament to show you its equal. Or even if Moses had asked God to stop the sun from moving or to even move it back a few degrees, I could show you it's equal, but there is nothing like this in scripture. It's what I would call the the Mount Everest of prayers in the Old Testament. Lord, show me your glory, and it's not a prayer that just sprung out of Moses from nowhere.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is a prayer that he has been building up to throughout his entire relationship with the Lord. If you look back to Exodus chapter 3, you see the beginnings of these steps, these first prayers with the Lord, and they began with, Lord, who are you? Then it was, Lord, who am I? And then it was, Lord, what do you want me to do? And then, Lord, but people won't listen.
Jeffrey Heine:
People people, they're not gonna understand me. And then it moved on to times where Moses felt free to express himself before the Lord, and there were times he became angry before the Lord saying, Lord, what are you doing? You're you're making things worse, not better. And then Moses moves to a stage of obedience to where through a huge chunk of Exodus, all you see is, and the Lord said, and Moses did. And the Lord said, and Moses did.
Jeffrey Heine:
And to which Moses's prayers were, Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, as he begins growing in a trust and a love of the Lord who has called him. He then begins pleading with God on behalf of the people, starting his role as a mediator, pleading for things like guidance and for food and for water. Then he begins pleading with God for forgiveness of his people as they sinned at the golden calf, and and when they sinned there at the golden calf, right after God made a covenant with them, that's the equivalent of having an affair on your wedding night. And God was justified in his anger, but then we see Moses stepping up as a role of mediator and standing in the gap and saying, no, God, over my dead body, do not kill these people.
Jeffrey Heine:
Don't judge them. And God listened to Moses, and he didn't judge the people. So then Moses asked for more. He says, well, not only will you not judge the people, will you still take us to the promised land? And God says, yes.
Jeffrey Heine:
So then Moses asked for more. He says, but I want you to be with us. Will you go with us? We don't want an angel. We want we want you.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now honestly, how many of you would have stopped at that point? You know, he's been making some great progression here, but how many of you would have stopped here? I mean, if you were praying, and an angel appeared in the room where you were at and you were praying, wouldn't you think you've kind of arrived? You know, this is kind of the pinnacle of all prayers. Moses says no.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, I want more. I want more. An angel is great, but we don't want an angel. We want your presence, God, and if you don't go with us, we're not gonna go, because we want you. Now most of us never get to that prayer because we're satisfied with God's gifts, so we never climb that summit.
Jeffrey Heine:
We pray for things like our health. We pray for job. We pray for security. We we we pray for homes. We pray for different things that God gives, but rarely do we really seek the giver of those gifts, that the giver of those gifts is our reward.
Jeffrey Heine:
Here Moses says, you could take away every gift as long as we get you. And the Lord listens, and He says, okay, Moses, okay. My presence will go with you. Then Moses asked for more. Perhaps it was the fasting for 40 days.
Jeffrey Heine:
Perhaps he's not thinking clearly for what he's asking at this point. Lord, show me your glory. It kind of reminds me when Peter is on the mount of transfiguration, and it says he doesn't even know what he's saying. He's just talking, just to talk, but he he asked the Lord to show me your glory. So do you see the progression?
Jeffrey Heine:
We go from, Lord, who are you, to who am I, to what shall I do, to, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, to, Lord, do not judge, to, Lord, give us your presence, And now it's, Lord, show us your glory. He keeps asking God for more and more till finally there is no more thing, greater thing he can ask. Lord, show me your glory. And I believe that this prayer request is the longing underneath every longing of the human heart. It's the longing of every longing that we have.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's to sit in God's presence and to behold his glory. About a year ago, I met with a doctor from UAB who wanted to meet with me, and so we got together, we met at my office, and we sat down and she said, you need to know 2 things about me before we talk. I said, okay. And she said, one, you need to know that I'm an atheist. As a scientist, I cannot believe in God.
Jeffrey Heine:
Okay. Thank you for being honest. That's number 2. She goes, and number 2, she goes, I will not be like other people who travel here to the US to get their education and then somehow get involved in a church and become a Christian. She goes, I am not weak minded like they are.
Jeffrey Heine:
I said, I appreciate your forthrightness. Can I be equally forthright with you? She said, please. I said, How do you cope with the meaninglessness of your existence? There was just a silence.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a good conversation starter. She goes, as a scientist I have to acknowledge that my life has no meaning. You're right. She said, I am. I don't remember how she explained it.
Jeffrey Heine:
Basically, a random collision of atoms and mutated genes with nothing behind it. So you're right. My life has no meaning. So I asked her, so how does that sit with you? And she just started crying uncontrollably.
Jeffrey Heine:
And she goes, I guess not well. And so, can I tell you what I believe you were created for? She goes, okay. I said, I think you were created to know God in all his glory. And I went to John 17, which is there in your worship guide.
Jeffrey Heine:
I went to Jesus's prayer to point this out to her. These are the last words that Jesus prays before he goes to the cross. I would say that this is the Mount Everest of prayers in the New Testament. John 17, he prays this, father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. So just before Jesus is going to the cross, he prays this final prayer with his disciples, and his prayer, he says, what I long, what I long before, more than anything else is that these disciples would see me in glory, that they could behold me in all of my glory.
Jeffrey Heine:
That is the longing of my heart. I want you to notice, you know, in just these few verses we read in John 17, how all of the themes we've been looking at in Exodus 33 and 34 pop up here. You you you have intercession. You see election, all that you have given me. You see glory, and you see the name of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
I have told them the name, your name. All of these themes are here. It's the Mount Everest of the New Testament. So what exactly is Jesus praying for, and what exactly is Moses asking for when he prays God, show me your glory? Glory is, kind of a hard word to define.
Jeffrey Heine:
Kind of know it when you see it. I keep thinking it's like the blue and black dress that caused the Internet to implode for a while. Everybody has their own different interpretation of it. It is a very, multilayered word. When we think of the word glory, we tend to think of awesome beauty or brilliant or shining, and those are all a part of glory, but they're not all of what glory is.
Jeffrey Heine:
The Hebrew word for glory is a word kabod. Kabod, and it simply means heavy. It's a great seventies term. Alright? Heavy.
Jeffrey Heine:
Have you ever heard somebody say that? You know, when somebody says something profound, like, woah, that was heavy. It was heavy, meaning that was real. Everything else we've been talking about was just kind of fluff and and light. But, man, you put that out there, and it was it was heavy.
Jeffrey Heine:
It was solid. Another good seventies word. It was solid. It had mass. It was real.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what glory means here. It makes everything else look so shallow and light and transparent in comparison. This is real, has mass, it's immovable, It's glorious, and you were made to behold this glory. You know, when if you were to go to the to the edge of the Grand Canyon or someplace like that and you were to stand on the edge and you were to look up at the endless expanse of the Grand Canyon, your reaction would be, your jaw would just drop. As you're looking at this, and you're trying to come up with words to describe this, but your words fail you, so you say something like, that's beautiful.
Jeffrey Heine:
But even as you say beautiful, you realize that's so shallow and hollow compared to what I am actually beholding. Compared to what I'm actually beholding, which is glorious. It's glorious, and you just stand there, and you just behold it. Since we're in Alabama, I'm going to use a football analogy. This is my 4th sports reference in 15 years.
Jeffrey Heine:
Okay? These, these don't come out much to savor this one, but, but you even get a sense of glory when you go to football games, When you're at a game and you see some amazing play happen before your eyes and and you erupt in a cheer and you're you're thinking, wow, You you saw something that just you couldn't explain. It was amazing. You're just completely enthralled with that moment, and when that happens, you're not thinking about the laundry, you're not thinking about the things you have to do at home. You're not thinking about your job.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're not thinking about how you're acting at that moment because you're not even thinking about you. The only thing that is real to you in that moment is what is happening. You're caught up in glory, and that is just a shadow. It's just faintest of shadows pointing to a much greater reality. We're tempted to turn that into the idol itself, but don't.
Jeffrey Heine:
That is not worth your worship, but it points you towards something that is. CS Lewis said that these things, he described them this way, he says, they are the scent of a flower that we have not found. They're the echo of a tune we have not heard. They are news from a country that we have not visited. They are not the thing itself, but they speak to the existence of such a thing.
Jeffrey Heine:
And when we see things, when we set the edge of the Grand Canyon or of a mountain or the edge shore of a beach, if we see a glorious play in a football field or something, we realize I was made to behold glory. But this is just the taste. It's the shadow. I was made for so much more. To ask to see the glory of God is simply to ask for God to be the all consuming reality before you to which he takes up all of your vision and fills up all of your senses to where all you could think is there is God.
Jeffrey Heine:
In other words, it's to understand his name that God simply is, and you can't avoid him. He is a real person in your presence. Many years ago, probably 1997, 98, a friend of mine, he called me up late night, early morning. I can't remember. He actually listens regularly to the podcast.
Jeffrey Heine:
I hope he enjoys this. He's now in the mission field, but we were college roommates at the University of Georgia and we went 2 separate ways. He really turned his back on the Lord. He would often get drunk. He would never touch his Bible, never go to church.
Jeffrey Heine:
Eventually he just gave up on his faith altogether. He became an atheist, renounced everything. Then we graduated. We moved on. He moved in with his girlfriend who was also an atheist, and that was the last I ever heard it from him.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then I get a call from him when I've moved here to Birmingham, and I pick up the phone and all I can hear on the other side of this line is somebody going, God is real. God is real. God is real. I'm like, who is this? This is Brian.
Jeffrey Heine:
God is real. I'm like, what happened? Without going into all the details, basically God just became glorious to him, completely unasked for, unexpected. He and his girlfriend, they come home and God's presence just overwhelmed them out of the blue to the point where he said he couldn't stand. It was heavy or thick in the room.
Jeffrey Heine:
Like, and then what happened? He goes, and I called you. And he kept saying, he goes, God's real. We don't just read about him in pages. We don't just read about him in the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's actually a real person. He really exists. That's glory, and God used this to call him to the mission field where he's been for over 10 years now. Glory of God making himself real to us, where he consumes all of our senses. Back to Exodus.
Jeffrey Heine:
How does God respond to Moses's request? He responds in verse 20 by saying, you cannot see my face, Moses, because if you see my face, you're going to die. Okay? Moses doesn't know what he's asking for. He's asking for death to see his face, but I want you to know that God equates his face with glory.
Jeffrey Heine:
Moses asked for God's glory, and God says, well, I can't show you my face. So God is equating his face with his glory. And that word for face there is the Hebrew word panim, and it means the presence of God. So because when you're face to face with somebody, you're in their presence. So God's face, God's presence is the same as God's glory.
Jeffrey Heine:
But it kind of raises question, well, isn't God present everywhere? So isn't he glorious everywhere? Of course, Moses knew God was omnipresent and he was everywhere. But God's not everywhere in the same way. When we talk about glory, we're talking about God letting the fullness of his presence be felt and experienced.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's his glory. Once again, this is when God ceases to become just a person you read about on pages. He ceases to become just a doctrinal belief, an intellectual understanding is when God becomes real. The problem with God showing us his glory is that we'll die if we experience it. We'll die if we see it.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is a problem for both sinners and for saints. It's a problem for both. We've seen how it's a problem for the sinners as we've gone through Exodus when you have the people of Israel after they committed idolatry, and although God doesn't judge them there, he then says, I'm not gonna go with you, but they're like, God, you have to be with us. God, we want your presence. And then God says, no, I gotta send my angel with you because if I am with you, I will kill you.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what he says. If my presence is will with you, I will kill you, because he is a holy God. So God's presence is a big problem for the Israelites, with them being so sinful. But it's also a problem for the saints. It's a problem for Moses.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a problem for Christians. Our problem is not spiritual. Our problem is physical though. Our physical bodies cannot stand in front of the glory of God and expect to live. I wanna look at this some maybe next week, but this is why we have to have resurrected spiritual bodies.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's the only way that we could behold the glory of God forever, because our current bodies cannot. So the presence of God is a is a problem. It's a problem for us. He can't be before sinners or the saints. So God listens to Moses's request and he says, I can't answer it fully, but how about I give you a partial yes, a partial yes.
Jeffrey Heine:
You can't see my face. You can't be fully in my presence, so how about this Moses, I'm gonna hide you in a little cleft in the rock, and I'm gonna put my hand over you, and I'm just gonna kind of pass by. And as I'm passing by, I'll let off my hand and you can see my back. You could get a glimpse of my back as I am passing by. I know you're later you're gonna ask me, what does this mean?
Jeffrey Heine:
And let me go and say, I don't know. Okay? I don't know what this means to see God's back. In Exodus 24, you you see that the elders of Israel, they got to see God's feet. They got a glimpse of his feet.
Jeffrey Heine:
Here we see that Moses is getting a glimpse of his back, and the only thing that I could kind of deduce from that is is you get to see different parts, or there's there's it's not an all or nothing thing when it comes to God's glory. But there could be a progression in what we see, and an ever filling cup, if you will, of God's glory to us. So God will partially grant Moses's request. And when he does show Moses his glory, he does so by proclaiming his name. God's name and God's glory are bound together.
Jeffrey Heine:
We saw that partially last week, but it's revealed more to us here. Read with me again, as God declares his name. Look at verses 5 chapter 34 verses 5, and then the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of Yahweh. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, Keeping steadfast love for 1,000, 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 3rd and the 4th generation. Now you can actually read the rest of the Bible in light of these words.
Jeffrey Heine:
I've read through a number of Jewish commentaries that the purpose of these commentaries is strictly to interpret the rest of the Old Testament in light of these words, what they call the 13 attributes of God that are given here. And you you really can see the rest of the old testament in this light for especially when you get to the minor prophets. For instance, when you get to Jonah, I love the story of Jonah, and he goes to the Ninevites, and he proclaims God's gonna judge you. God's gonna destroy you, and we know the Ninevites then repented, and then God relented and didn't destroy them, And then Jonah gets really angry at God. You remember that he's really angry at God, and the reason he is angry is because of these words.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, I knew it, God. I knew it. You I knew you'd forgive them. I knew you wouldn't judge them because you're a God that is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He quotes God's name.
Jeffrey Heine:
He said, I knew you would stay true to your name. I knew it. And he was actually angry at him for it. And you'll find this at many of the old testament prophets, they go back and back to these words. But I want you to notice that there is a mystery here and all the Jewish commentaries pick up on this.
Jeffrey Heine:
This name, the explanation of this, this name, there is a direct contradiction in God's name. He says 2 opposite things. God says he's merciful and gracious, and he says he is forgiving. But then he says, I will by no means clear the guilty. The guilty are gonna be judged.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're like, how can God be forgiving, yet he will not clear the guilty? They're going to be judging. There is a tension there, and perhaps some of you have felt that tension your entire life, the intention of, you know, I really want to know God. I really want to know him and his glory, but I also know he is holy and he should judge me. I want him to be a forgiving God, but if he were to forgive me, he would just have to overlook evil.
Jeffrey Heine:
And you feel that tension. How can he be both forgiving yet just? And you see that right here. This passage, when God reveals to us his name, cannot make sense apart from the cross of Christ. This leads us straight to the cross in which we see a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us, to give us forgiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:
But the same time we see a God who hates sin and pours out his wrath on his own son for our sin. So here we see the cross. Here in Exodus 34, the Lord tells Moses, you wanna see my glory? You want to know my name? We're gonna have to look to the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:
The cross is the blazing center of the glory of God, where he reveals himself as both merciful and just. So the cross answers the question, how can a sinner ever stand before a righteous God? How can a sinner actually see the glory of God? And I hope you get that. Let me ask you a question as we've been going through this.
Jeffrey Heine:
At what point when you pray, at what point do you stop? Do you stop at the, God, who are you? You stop at the, who am I? Do you stop at the, what am I supposed to do? Do you stop at the, God, guide me?
Jeffrey Heine:
Or stop at the, God, provide for me? Or did God, give me some gifts? Where do you stop? I want you to understand that every good thing we have was purchased to us, purchased for us at the cross, and the ability to sit before God and his glory was purchased for us there. Don't stop in your prayers.
Jeffrey Heine:
Ask God to show you his glory. You want everything that God has purchased for you on the cross. We're actually gonna take time to pray for that, and I want us, we do this often at Redeemer, but I want us to break up into groups, and one of the reasons I want us to break up into groups for our prayer time is because there are some people here who might be too weak to pray. You might be thinking that is not where I'm at. I am at the, who are you God?
Jeffrey Heine:
I'm at that stage, and I want others to be able to pray on your behalf, So if this is what y'all do, gather up in groups of 8, 10, wherever, I know you can't move the pews, but as best as you can, and y'all just take time to pray that God will reveal his presence to you, that he will show you his glory. And before you do that, let me pray for us right now. Our father, we thank you for your spirit that manifests your presence and glory to us, and we pray that right now he would be thick or solid or glorious here in this room. And spirit that you would lead our prayer time. All of us confess right now, all of us without exception, that we do not hunger for you near enough, that we take the gifts you give us and we melt them down and we make idols out of them and we bow down to them.
Jeffrey Heine:
So God, even in this moment, give us a spirit of repentance to where we say all we want is you. All we want is you. Show us your glory. We pray this in your name. Amen.