A mountain top experience of encountering God.
- Exodus 33:1-23 -
I mention a couple of year ago that we should keep our eyes open so we can see what the Lord God would show us. One Sunday morning I shared about driving home from work and just as I approached the dam I happened to see a beautiful sign from the Lord. I was so in awe of what I saw that I almost put the truck in the ditch.
About 6 months later Barb and I were visiting a couple and they said that they wanted to show us something. What they showed us was a picture of what I had seem 6 months earlier as I was driving home.
The Lord had allowed the clouds to form in such a way that when the sun shone through the opening in the clouds you saw a cross. When I saw the picture of that cross in the sky it brought a lot of emotions - just like it did the first time.
I am always in awe when I am able to encounter Jesus in such a way. The Lord was showing his glory through that picture of the cross in the sky. I find it interesting that if we happen to have a mountain top experience with the Lord that we don’t tell anyone about it. It is almost as if we are ashamed to let people know that we met with the Lord. There is one encounter in the Bible where some of the people involved in the mountain top experience actually fell asleep. Now I don’t know about you but I know that there is no way I would want to be asleep if I have the opportunity to have a mountain top experience the Living Lord.
I see where the Lord God wants to do the inconceivable, the uncommon, the unexpected, the incomprehensible, so that the only explanation for what is happening is the Lord. The question has been asked if the Lord removes every aspect of His presence from this world would we continue doing church in the same way. If God was to do that at what point would we realize that the Lord isn’t there. I read this week that getting people back to church is pointless unless the people who are going to church are going to church to meet with the Lord. If people are not going to meet with the Lord than church has just become the newest club on the block that happens to meet on Sunday’s.
1. As a Christian are you the same today as when you got saved?
Now I am not talking about the fact that we are forgiven. My questions has to do with whether we have allowed the Holy Spirit to change us mentally, spiritually and emotionally or am I still the exact same person today that I was when I got saved.
I am not suppose to have the same attitude now that I had when I accepted Christ? A Christian should be able to look at their life and actually see the changes that the Holy Spirit has made within their life.
Here is a test. Ask a close friend what changes have they seen in your life since you accepted Jesus Christ. What would their answer be. The Moses that we find in this chapter isn’t the same one who walked up the mountain to look at the burning bush in Exodus 3.
We all know the story that the Lord wanted Moses to go to Egypt and lead the children of Israel out to the land flowing with milk and honey. Moses really didn’t want to be the Lord messenger of deliverance.
I shared with you a couple of weeks ago some of those excuses that Moses gave with the intent of trying to get the Lord to find someone else to do the job. Finally Moses confessed his personal insecurities to the Lord and the Lord told Moses that He would do many miraculous signs to convince the people that Moses was sent by the Lord. When I think of the story about the burning bush I know how Moses felt. I remember when I first felt the Lord call. Everytime some one came up with a reason why I couldn’t be a pastor I was really happy. I was just like Moses who couldn’t get past the, I can’t.
There is a beautiful picture here where the Lord of creation is doing His best to convince Moses one of his creations to go and lead the people out of Egypt and Moses trying to come up with an excuse that he thinks the Lord should accept.
If that happened today, I think that the Christian community wouldn’t even think about coming up with an excuse because they would probably just ignore the Lord. Moses gave in when the Lord promised him that He would go with him to the Land of Egypt.
I can almost see Moses standing there before the burning bush listening to what the Lord has just said and thinking what kind of an excuse could he give that would be good enough for the Lord to accept. I mean what do you say to the Lord when He tells you that He will go with you as you do the task that he has asked you to do. We all know the story how Moses went to Egypt and how the Lord showed many signs to convince first the Israelites that the Lord is wanting to take then to a land flowing with milk and honey; but to also convince the Egyptians to let the Israelites go.
Now I know that I can’t prove what I just said by scripture but let me share with you why I said that. The Nation of Israel has been praying and crying out to the Lord for decades to help them and suddenly this man Moses shows up and says that the Lord God sent him.
Exodus 6: 6-9a. (New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
6 “So tell the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD. I will throw off the heavy load the Egyptians have put on your shoulders. I will set you free from being slaves to them. I will reach out my arm and save you with mighty acts when I judge Egypt.
7 “‘I will take you to be my own people. I will be your God. You will know that I am the LORD your God when I throw off the load the Egyptians have put on your shoulders.
8 “‘I will bring you to the land I promised with an oath to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I lifted up my hand and promised it to them. The land will belong to you. I am the LORD.’”
9 Moses reported those things to the Israelites. But they didn’t listen to him.
Moses not only had to deal with the fact that the Israelites didn’t listen to him but he also had to deal with the fact that the magicians of Egypt were able to duplicate just about every sign that Moses did. The reason for this is that they had a lot of help from Satan because Satan wanted to punish the children of the Lord. The thing that kept Moses going was the fact that the Living Lord God had kept His promises and was with Moses.
2. We are made to be in manifest presence of God.
Would you to think back for a moment to the garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were daily in the presence of the Lord. Their bodies were able to be with the Lord and still live. They enjoyed fellowship on a one to one bases with the Lord every day. It wasn’t until sin entered the picture that they were put out of the garden.
Now come ahead with me to the garden scene with Jesus where He is being tempted by Satan. Jesus won in that garden what Adam lost in the original Garden of Eden. The battle that Jesus fought wasn’t a battle between Satan and the son of the God, it was a battle between Satan and the human man Jesus and Jesus won.
When we accept the offer of Grace from Jesus Christ, one of the things that Jesus told his disciples was that He would always be with them and us. Though our bodies could not survive to be in the holiness of the Lord because of sin still we are now able to have daily fellowship with the Lord because the Holy Spirit now resides within our lives. The Lord doesn’t just give us a little strength sometimes, a little wisdom now and then, or a little bottle of comfort like a druggist filling your prescription.
Jesus promised that He would be with us, that his presence would be there with us. When Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt they saw the presence of the Lord in the cloud that lead them every day or the pillar of fire at night time. All they had to do was get up walk out of their tent and they could see that the Lord is still with us.
When the Presence of the Lord was being shown to the Israelite in the form of a cloud or the fire; the Lord was showing the people the evidence they needed to believe that the Glory of the lord was still with them, His chosen people. Today you and I don’t have a pillar of clouds or fire but we do have the Holy Spirit, who lives with every born again Christian. That is the evidence that the presence of the Living Lord is with us. It is also the evidence that lets us know that we are an adopted child of the Lord. I think one of the most terrifying things that happens is when people who say they are a Christians wander through life with out even thinking about the Lords purpose.
Many time Christianss don’t even ask the Lord what direction He wants them to go. I have always been amazed when Christians come up to me and say they wonder if the Lord is even in their lives. There have been times when Barb and I have been lost simply because I was too stubborn/prideful to ask people for direction. I see Christian who refuse to allow the Holy Spirit to guide then as being to prideful. Their pride is stopping them from becoming everything that the Holy Spirit would have then be. The result is that they are wasting their lives, and instead being a servant helping the purpose of the Lord they are actually helping the cause of Satan.
Moses went up on the mountain to meet with the Lord God. When he came down he found that the people had taken all their jewelry and gold and gave it to Aaron who made for them a golden calf. Then the people partied until Moses came down from being with the Lord. Moses was so mad that he took the golden calf and ground it into a powder, scattered it over the surface of the water and made the people drink the mixture.
Moses gave the people God’s message, which was to go ahead to the promised land but that God wasn’t going with this group of disobedience people. Now the Lord didn’t leave then completely because he said that he would send one of His angels with them. The Bible says that when the people realized what the result of their disobedience was they mourned. Now here is what is interesting about this. It is still very likely that the people were probably hung over from their party of sin, yet they were able to comprehend that if God didn’t go with them they wouldn’t survive.
We are made to have the presence of the Lord within us. If we don’t, then life doesn’t have any real purpose or secure foundation. As mad as Moses was and as bad as these people were, they were still able to realize that life without the Lord just wasn’t living.
The manifest presence of the Lord is what we call is when the Lord comes near. We don’t see the Lord but we do see the evidence that the Lord has been at work. The evidence we see is His Glory.
One of the very best pieces of scripture that show us the manifest presence of the Lord is Isaiah 6. Isaiah didn’t actually see the Living Lord but he did see the evidence of the Lord because he saw the glory of the Lord which filled the temple because the glory of the Lord emanates from the living God.
One writer wrote that anytime you see evidence for the Lord you will see His glory. Scripture said that the heavens (what the Lord created) declared the glory or the evidence of God. Glory is the supernatural signature that the Living God has been at work.
One day a preacher who had just finished a successful set of revival meeting was rejoicing and giving praise to the Lord for what the Lord had accomplished. The preachers heart was full of the joy of the Lord. On the train he saw a young lady who was having a very difficult time with her daughter. Everytime the conductor came through he would always make a comment to the young lady that would get her upset. Finally, on one of his trips the conductor stopped and gave the young lady quite a talking to. He even told her that she wasn’t a very good mother.
The preacher, who was on his way to the next community to hold rivals meetings, had been listening to the conductor. As the conductor walked past him, him the preacher got up and he proceeded to let the conductor know that he was a public servant hired by the railway to help people not to give them a hard time.
The conductor said that the preacher was right and he went on with his rounds. The preacher sat down in his seat and started to think about his next meeting. As he thought about what he would be preaching on, he realized that there was no joy of the Lord in his heart. As the preacher sat in his seat, the Holy Spirit began to deal with him. The preacher felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit and began to pray. He realize that the Holy Spirit wanted him to find that conductor and ask for forgiveness because the preachers attitude wasn’t one that would reflect what Jesus wants in his children. After he found the conductor and apologized as the Lord required of him, he rejoiced because the joy of the Lord was back in his heart.
I don’t know about you but I can tell real quick when I am out of sink with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I also know that if I want to be in the center of the Holy Spirit ministry it is up to me to correct my life so that it line up with what the Lord wants. The Israelites realize that they were out of sink with what the Lord God wanted for them.
3. How much of the Lord do we want?
In verse 2, the Lord said that he would send an angel with the people but that he wasn’t going. Now one would think that having an angel from the Living God to be with you and lead you would be enough but it wasn’t. You may not look at it this way but when you compare an angel to having the Lord; having the angel is being satisfied with second best.
Verse 4 -When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn.
How much of the Lord are we willing to settle for? How would we feel if the Lord said that he wasn’t going to be with us anymore but that he would send an angel to be by our side? When what the Lord said actually got through to Moses he got mad.
Have you seen the new commercial about the teenager who comes home from the first day of school and say to her parents - I need a new binder, new books and a new bag. I need everything new and I really hate Kevin. In the commercial it seems a boy by the name of Kevin, who is in love with this young lady, has gone and written his name on ever piece of school material she went to school with. As she runs up the stairs you can hear how mad she is.
When Moses was angry with the Lord he didn’t run away instead he went straight to the Lord with it.
Exodus 33:12-13
Moses Intercedes
12 Then Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me.Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’
13 Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.”
Now right at this point the Lord tells Moses that He the Living Lord will go with him. But the problem is that Moses is so worked up that he doesn’t hear what the Lord has said. Have you ever been so fired up that you are not listening any more. The reason Moses is worked up is that to Moses it would be a nightmare if the God’s chosen people had to take one step without the manifest presence of the Living Lord.
Look at Moses statement in verse 15. Moses said to the Lord that if you're not going, we might as well as call this whole thing off.
Exodus 33: 15-16
15 Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.
16 For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the [a]earth?”
Did you hear what Moses said? The reason why the Children of the Living Lord are different from everyone else in the world simply because the manifest presence of the Lord is within us in the form of the Holy Spirit. I find what Moses said to the Lord interesting. Moses is telling the Lord that the only way that all the people of the whole world will know that the nation of Israel is a special people is because of the presence of the living Lord being with the people.
How then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?
The birthright of the Israelites was and is that the manifold presence of the Living God would be with his chosen ones. I believe it is also the birthright for every born again Christian and for every church that is a Bible believing holiness church.
I believe that the Lord wants that birthright to be one of the evidence that we are his church and we are his people. Our birthright is that distinction of being different from everyone else in the world simply because of the manifest presence of the Living Lord among us and in us.
It is so easy for pastor and church leaders to lose sight of the only thing that makes a church worth shouting about and that is when the Lord shows up in all His power and glory and does in us what we can’t do for ourselves. A big part of God’s moving in our church must be His infusing life, power and renewal into everyones life.
One of the things that blesses the Lord, is when the truth is revealed through the glory of the Lord, by living the true Christian lifestyle.
I believe one of the greatest hindrances to the glory of the Lord being revealed in the church today, has to do with our attitude towards the Lord’s will and purpose for our lives. When we gather to worship with the Lord, what we think about affects the Lord presence within our church.
I remember reading a story about a church that was very successful in attracting people to their services. They were known as the right church to attend. They were quite proud of their pastor who preached the perfect sermons because he never seems to require the people to make any kind of a decision. Then one day something happen to the pastor. When he got up to preach on Sunday the people didn’t know what to do. They had never heard a sermon from their pastor like the one he was preaching. The pastor gave an invitation to the people to see if anyone wanted to have an encounter with Jesus and when he did that the manifest presence to the living Lord move in and totally changed the lives of the people and the church.
The Sunday services were never the same again and the result was that some of the people didn’t want to be in a church where the living Lord showed up every service. One member said it was one thing to go to God’s house and sing about the Lord but it was very unnerving to go to the house of the Lord and actually have an encounter with God.
We learned from Isaiah that an encounter with the manifest presence of the Lord will bring about changes within our lives.
A few years ago the story was going around that the Lord was moving about in China. The way the story went was - the Lord sent two men into a community and they would go first to the morgue where they would raise anyone who had died. Then they would go to the hospital and heal everyone who was sick. Then they would preach the gospel and everyone in the community would get saved. Then these two preacher would go to the next community and do the same thing again.
When I heard the story I was asked what I though about it. I said I believe it was possible because what was being reported as happening in China actually happen in the scripture. Then I said I find it interesting that there is nothing on the news today about dead people being brought back to life or about everyone in the community hospital being healed. I said that if what was being reported actually happened then you won’t be able to stop the people from invading China to have their loved one raised from the dead or healed of their diseased.
I find that today some people are so hungry for the manifest presence of the Living Lord that they will believe just about anything? Could that happen today? YES! I believe that the Lord is willing to do miracles through His Church IF the church is willing to return to the place where the Lord wants it to be.
4. Is Moses request our request?
Moses led the nation of Israel out of Egypt from bondage to the Red sea and had a front row seat as he watched the Lord make a dry path through the waters. Moses saw all the miracles as they crossed the land to the mountain where he now stood on that mountain with the living Lord.
Moses had a unique relationship with the Lord. My point here I guess is more of a question that we must individually consider because I believe that the mountain top encounter that Moses had with the Lord should be the norm for every born again child of the Lord.
When I talk about a mountain top experience I am not talking about how we feel when we have won the victory over temptation. I am talking about being in the place where the presence of the Lord is so real that our spiritual life is affected and when our spiritually life is affected then our very lives will also be affected, just like we saw the life of Isaiah was affected. I would like you to consider that the manifest presence of the Lord should be the only motivation for all we do as a church and as individual children of the Lord? Somewhere in our souls we must win the war with fear that stops you and I as a child of the Lord from rejoicing in our birthright.
I am not looking to pastor a church where we have a lot of unBiblical thing happen. I want our church to be a place where we come to meet with the Lord; where the reason for our going to our church is that we know that we will meet with the Lord. I would like for our church to be known as a church where the Lord show up every Sunday.
Let me get back to Moses. If you could ask the Lord for anything - what would you ask for?
Solomon was told that he could ask for anything he wanted and the Lord would grant it. Solomon asks for wisdom/understanding, so he would be able to guide the Lord’s People. I find it interesting that Solomon didn’t ask to see the Lord face to face.
Moses said to the Lord, "Let me know Your ways that I may know You." Moses evens tells us why he made this request so that he could find favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Do we ask that today? Do we want to live our lives in such a way that we will find favor in the eyes of the Lord. I would say that people today just don’t care if the Lord sees their lifestyle.
Exodus 33:13
Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight."
Exodus 33:17
The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.”
As I read the Lords answer to Moses I wonder what went through his mind when he realizes that the Lord had granted his request. I think though (I can’t prove this biblically) that when Moses heard the yes that it gave Moses the courage to share the desire of his heart.
Exodus 33:18
Then Moses said, I pray You, show me Your glory!
Though the Lord said yes, still the Lord had some conditions. The Lord told Moses that no one could see his face and live yet the Lord wanted to honor Moses request so the Lord told Moses that there was a place where Moses could stand and that the Lord would protect him until the Lord passed by. Did you know that the Lord has a place where you and I can stand. That place is in the center of the will of the Lord.
Throughout the Word of the Lord, people had encounters with God and I believe that when we can get to the place where we can let go of those things that we think are making us happy but are actually making us miserable, and embrace what God created us to long for, to recognize and relish His glory, that we will have begun to fulfill our purpose.
1. Just as the Lord put condition in place for Moses; for you and I to have an encounter with the Lord like Moses did, would mean that we would have to make sure that our relationship with the Lord Jesus and with mankind is right according to scripture.
2. The next condition would be that the encounter must be the desire of our heart.
3. The next condition is that the must not be satisfy with just having one.
4. The next condition would be that we would be willing to become an encouragement to others to seek an encounter with the Lord.
5. Another condition would be that we would want to have the encounter knowing that it will actually change everything about our life.
In today’s cartoon "For Better for Worse" the family pet is at the vet’s. The son asks his mother if he can say a prayer for the dog. Mom say that would be a nice idea. The son asks, "Can I go straight to God or do I have to go through someone in the pet department."
If you read the paper, usually you'll find in the back a number of ads saying that if you pray this prayer to this person 3 times or 9 times your prayer will be answered.
When we encounter the Lord, that encounter will encourage us to direct our family, friend and friends to the only true God.
