God Is Merciful And Gracious Series

Introduction

I am beginning a new series of sermons that I am calling, “Glory: The Character of God.” In this five-week-long series, I plan to explore God’s self-revelation of himself to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7.

You recall that the people of God lived in Egypt for over four centuries. They eventually became slaves to the Egyptians. They cried out to God for deliverance. God sent them Moses, and through Moses God delivered the people from Egypt.

The Israelites saw God do spectacular miracles, such as the Ten Plagues and the parting of the Red Sea so that they could cross it on dry land. When the Egyptian army pursued them, the sea closed up and drowned Pharaoh’s entire army.

God provided water for the people in the desert. God provided bread from heaven in the wilderness.

God enabled the Israelites to defeat their enemies.

And then God called Moses to come up to Mount Sinai where he gave Moses the Ten Commandments along with many other instructions for the welfare of his people. Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days and nights (Exodus 24:18).

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be one of those people who saw God at work in incredibly powerful and amazingly demonstrable ways.

“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. 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’ ” (Exodus 32:1).

That is astonishing! The people quickly forgot all that they had seen God do and now they wanted other gods to go before them.

Sadly, Aaron complied. He got the people to bring him their gold ornaments and fashioned a golden calf for the people to worship.

Then God told Moses to go down to the people who had corrupted themselves. God’s anger was burning hot against the people. Moses begged God not to act in wrath against his people. And God relented.

When Moses went down Mount Sinai and saw what was going on in the camp, he smashed the tablets that contained the Ten Commandments and broke them.

Moses ordered that the sinners be disciplined.

Then he went back to the Lord and begged God to destroy him rather than the people of God. God said that he would only punish those who had sinned.

This brings us to the text I would like to read today. It is a long text but it will help us to understand the glory of God.

Scripture

Let us read Exodus 33:1-34:9:

1 The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5 For the LORD had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. 10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.