Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord

February 25, 2001 Exodus 34: 29-35

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai.

33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the LORD’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, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the LORD

I. In different ways and different places

II. It is a humbling and inspiring sight

The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe goes as follows . . .

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

It’s a beautiful song, isn’t it? I never had even read through the whole thing until I found it on the internet. In the song Julia mentions seeing the glory of the Lord - where? In His judgment! She wrote this as she was walking through a Union encampment during the Civil War, and she felt that she could see the glory of the Lord in the camps of armies who were trying to set men free!

Today is Transfiguration Sunday - a day that we celebrate and see how God reveals His glory - to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration - and in today’s text - to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Have you ever seen the glory of the Lord? You may not think you have - but you have. As we look at today’s text we too will be able to say -

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the LORD

I. In different ways and different places

As we talk about God revealing His Glory - it’s interesting to note all of the different ways in the Scriptures in which God reveals Himself. Today’s text talks about how Moses was able to go up and speak to God face to face!

Some of the most interesting Bible passages are when God reveals Himself in a special manifestation called the “cavode Adonai” - the Glory of the Lord. There are a couple examples of God showing the Glory of the Lord. Take for instance in Genesis 15. God had Abram take a heifer, a goat, and a ram and cut them in half. Then he put laid the carcass halves opposite each other - and waited to see what the Lord would do. Then the text says, When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. God appeared to Abram as a “smoking firepot”.

This is similar then, to the way that God made His appearance known to the Israelites when they were traveling running from Pharaoh through the desert. Exodus 13 says, By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. What an awesome sight that must have been - to have a PILLAR of CLOUD leading you from place to place and a pillar of FIRE guiding you by night! What an awesome sight that must have been!