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.’
"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."
And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest."
Then he said to Him, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.
"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 earth?"
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."
Christians, we are by and large an awfully presumptuous lot, aren’t we? We have this penchant for going about our own way, living our day pretty much by the moment, making our own plans, unilaterally deciding on this or that; until we get hurt or sick or in trouble. Then we pray. And for the most part, we pray not, “Lord, what would you have me do?”, but “Lord, please bless the decision I’ve made”, or “Please take care of this problem”.
Consider Moses. Someone says the name, and we tend to picture this Charlton Heston-like figure, flowing white robes, long white hair and beard blowing in the wind, staff held high at the end of a powerful outstretched arm, looking heavenward and about to bring his staff down on the waters of the Red Sea.
The strong leader. Remember the old commercial? “When E.F. Hutton speaks, everyone listens”. Well, when Moses speaks, even E.F. Hutton listens.
But I want you to observe today, that from the time we’re introduced to the adult Moses in the Bible, we’re given pictures of his lack of self-assuredness. When he realizes his murder of the Egyptian was witnessed he runs in fear and takes up residence in the wilderness. When God calls to him from the burning bush and gives him his commission, he makes up excuses and whines until God becomes angry with him. When Pharaoh refuses to let the people go, Moses whines again.
The important thing not to miss through all of it however, is that as time goes by, and under his leadership the people are freed and fed and cared for, Moses’ confidence grows; but it is a confidence in God, not in himself.
Therefore, when he is confronted with a new set of circumstances that look bad for the people he loves, he doesn’t run to his tent and start laying out a blueprint for action. He doesn’t call together his elders and say, “ok, guys, here’s a big problem and we need to try to head it off at the pass”. No, he goes directly to God and basically says, “We’re helpless without You”.
There is a more important lesson for us to learn in the verses of our text today; and it is the humility and faithful subservience of Moses that brings it to the surface for us to see. It is the marvelous, wondrous, grace of God; “…compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth” (34:6)
THE STORY SO FAR
Let’s get caught up with the story so far. I won’t take you all the way back, but we know that God delivered His people from Pharaoh’s grasp using astonishing miracles, giving Pharaoh every opportunity to repent and listen to Moses, but in the end bringing down the death of the firstborn of Egypt, while keeping the children of Israel safe inside their homes, eating the first Passover meal.
Then He took them across the Red Sea on a dry bed while the waters congealed (Ex 15:8) and stood up on either side of them, using that same sea to destroy the pursuing Egyptian army when they tried to cross in their chariots.
Then he gave them manna to eat, and miraculously gave them water from a rock at Horeb, and gave them victory over Amalek at Rephidim.
So the people have seen many miracles. Everything Moses has told them has happened, and through his intercession for them God has met every need.
He has shown His compassion and mercy on them over and over. He has given them the Law as He met with Moses on the mountain.
He has given ordinances for tabernacle worship and the design for the tabernacle itself.
And let us not forget that His presence was with them constantly to lead them and to give them light, by the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night, to show them where they should go and to give them confidence and comfort.
So we come to chapter 32 of Exodus, and because Moses has been on the mountain with God for about a month, the people start feeling insecure and decide Moses isn’t coming back.
So they go to Aaron and ask him to make them a god to lead them. What folly!
Aaron tells them to rip the gold rings out of their ear lobes, ouch, and puts them all in the fire, melts them down and makes a golden calf for the people to worship.
And they party hearty. The implication is that they engaged in gluttony, drunkenness and orgy.
Moses comes down the mountain carrying the tablets of the law, that is, after begging God not to destroy them from the face of the earth, and when he sees what the people are doing he throws the tablets down and breaks them at the foot of the mountain.
Now this is the part that cracks me up. When he asks Aaron what the people did to make him lead them in such great sin, Aaron says, “well, they begged me to make them a god, so I took all their gold earrings from them and threw them in the fire and this calf jumped out!”
That’s not an exact quote, but it’s the gist.
We chuckle at that. But Christian, be warned by it also. Because when we fall off from pursuing our personal relationship with God, and let Bible study slide and our prayer life weakens through neglect, in a time of doubt or trial we are much more likely to turn to worldly help; material supports; man’s empty philosophy and traditions for guidance.
That is idolatry. And our excuses later, I’m sure, sound in God’s ears as lame as Aaron’s jumping calf.
The thing is, Aaron probably thought Moses would buy it. Hadn’t they seen many miracles over the past months? So how hard is it to believe in a golden calf jumping out of the fire, when you’ve seen the waters of the Red Sea stand up, and water coming out of a rock because it was struck with a wooden staff?
So if Moses would believe the golden calf jumped from the fire, then it would have to have been the same God doing it, right?
I wonder how many times we turn to worldly comfort or wisdom, unwilling to wait for God’s solution, and then try to justify ourselves later by saying, ‘well, it ultimately came out all right, so God must have been in it’.
Folly.
I WILL NOT GO UP IN YOUR MIDST
So we come to the theme of our study today. Let’s read verses 1-3 of chapter 33
“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ And I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Cannanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, lest I destroy you on the way.”
This is all in reference to the ‘magic’ golden calf I talked about a minute ago. Moses has gone back up the mountain at this point, and confessed the people’s sin to God. In a passage familiar to most of us, from a Christlike heart he has offered to give up his own place in God’s house if He will only spare the people.
In verse 32 of chapter 32, he says, “…if Thou wilt, forgive their sin - and if not, please blot me out from Thy book which Thou has written!”
Now this is rich. We could just rest here and glean from this one verse all day long. What meaningful discussion could be generated as we just sit and exchange thoughts about what has happened here. We cannot; but we will not pass on too quickly.
First, let’s observe that Moses is aware of a book of life. Unless I’ve missed something, I believe this is the earliest reference to it in scripture. So somewhere along the line, God has revealed to at least one of His confidants that in Heaven there is a book with the names of men written down.
This is confirmed to us later in several passages we will see. The part that interests me, is that Moses is aware that his name is in God’s book.
I want to list these several passages for you, where the Book of Life is mentioned, then discuss a point that I think is important for us to grasp.
Psalm 69:28 “May they be blotted out of the book of life, and may they not be recorded with the righteous” (referring of course, to the unrighteous)
Phil 4:3 “Indeed, true comrade, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life”
Rev 3:5 “He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
Rev 21:27 “…and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (“into it” meaning the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven)
Now having those passages fresh in our minds, I want to make a point that at first may seem trivial. But I believe it has great bearing on our perception of the revealed character of God.
It seems to be a generally accepted teaching in the church, that as we become Christians our names are recorded in Heaven, in this book of life.
There is even a song about it. I am happy to say that it is not in our hymnal. It was written in 1910 and out of the five hymnals from various sources that I have in my study I can only find it in one. The chorus goes like this:
“There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine, O yes, it’s mine!
And the white robed angels sing the story, ‘A sinner has come home’.
- C. Austin Miles
That’s not the entire chorus; only the part that pertains to our topic. But it’s enough. I also have to wonder if the angels really wear white robes, but that’s ok ~ we’ll pass that one by.
What I want to say to you today is that I believe this approach to be in error. If you look at the wording of our text from Exodus, and these other passages I’ve read for you today, as a whole they would seem to indicate that rather than names being included in the book of life as people are saved, all the names of mankind were in this book in God’s keeping from the foundation of the world, and only as the individual enters into eternity apart from Christ, or, in God’s infinite wisdom has had his last opportunity to repent and believe, is his name blotted out.
Let me support that, and tell you why I think it is important to us.
First, if we believe that when a person is regenerated, or ‘born again’, he is eternally secure in Christ, and we do, then the belief that our names are added to the book as we are saved would do violence to that doctrine of the eternal security of the believer.
These passages speak of blotting names out. If our names are only put there as we are born from above and adopted into God’s family, then there would be no talk of blotting them out for any reason at all.
Now I cannot take the time here to go into defending the doctrine of eternal security. But I do want to make one statement concerning it.
If we believe just one passage of scripture, II Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things passed away, behold, new things have come” and we believe that at salvation we were reckoned to have died with Christ and were raised to life in Him, then we would be silly ever to presume that we could have the ability to reverse that process. If we had no part in our regeneration, how could we presume to have the power to undo it?
I’ll leave you to your own thoughts about that.
The other thing I want to say in support of my stand on this, is that taking the view that the names of all mankind were originally written in the book of life is consistent with the Grace and love and mercy of God as He has revealed Himself throughout scripture and history itself.
It tells me that the God who reveals Himself as ‘not wishing for any to perish, but that all should come to repentance’, has given us the benefit of the doubt from the very beginning, and in effect said, ‘your names are all written in My book, I know all there is to know of each one, and I’m waiting for you to appropriate to yourself that which is yours for the taking. Only when there is no longer any opportunity for you to come, only when my declared day of salvation is over for you, will your name be erased.’
I simply believe this is consistent with a God who so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Now let’s understand here, I do not know if there is a literal book, or if the references to it are symbolic of God’s full awareness of all His creation. What I mean is, rather than creating us and then remaining virtually oblivious to us until we become a Christian, He is fully and significantly aware of every individual born into this world. It is only when the time ‘runs out’ for the individual that God gives up on him so to speak. Not that God is a quitter. Let me illustrate with a thought from C.S. Lewis, from chapter nine of “The Great Divorce”.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end; those who say to God, ’Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says, in the end, ’Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it.”
We must move on, but there is more to say here from Exodus 32:32
This is the Spirit of Christ speaking. By that I mean Moses was truly speaking from a heart that was Christ-like.
Willing to be blotted out of God’s book of life? Willing to go into eternity alone and separate from God, for the sake of these people? What great love!
Now I have to say here, that I could never pray that prayer. For one reason, because I know I don’t have to and God wouldn’t grant it anyway. A great relief to know that.
The other reason is that I want to spend eternity with God. And I am so happy to declare that I and anyone else who repents and turns to God through faith in Christ, will spend eternity with God because Jesus was willing to suffer the wrath of God for sin for all of us. Including Moses.
Moses wanted to make atonement for the people. That is commendable. But Moses could not atone for the people. Only the precious, sinless blood of God’s Lamb could do that, and in the fulness of time, He came and made atonement for us.
Getting back on track with our study; God tells Moses here, (Ex 32:34) “Behold, My angel shall go before you;”
And then He repeats Himself in verse 2 of the next chapter. “And I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, lest I destroy you on the way.”
IS AN ANGEL ENOUGH?
This wasn’t good enough for Moses, and he said as much in our text verses. “…Thou Thyself hast not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me”
Now this is interesting. God has just told Moses that He will send His angel to go with the people, but Moses says He hasn’t let him know who He will send.
Certainly he hasn’t ignored or misheard what God has said. What Moses is saying, is “I know You, Lord, but I don’t know this angel you’re referring to!’
He holds out, pleads with the One who has called him friend, and in the end he wins God’s heart.
“And 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’.”
Now I want to make application of all this to us today and then I’ll let you go.
GOD IN OUR MIDST
People of Christ, we are no more deserving of the presence of God with us than this generation of Israel that was led up out of Egypt. We read their account here in Exodus and through the book of Numbers and we see them failing and falling over and over again, and what we must not fail to notice and own up to, is that they can be used again and again as examples of the sin and folly of our own lives.
Yet there was One who was obedient, and because of His faithfulness and obedience to the Father’s will, we go now with God in our midst.
Could an angel have seen them safely to the land flowing with milk and honey? Is one angel of God powerful enough to drive out 6 nations and claim a land for the people? Of course!
But no angel or host of angels can take the place of the blessing of the presence of God Himself.
It is equally important to realize that God wants to be in the midst of His people.
Remember, it was He who instituted the Tabernacle and later the Temple. It was He who gave instruction and sent His Holy Spirit to those who would do the work, so that all things would be done according to His plan, so that He could come down and dwell there with them.
It was He who, in the fulness of time, sent forth His Son, in fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, to accomplish perfectly His plan of redemption; why? So that He might dwell in the midst of His people.
One more thing I want you to observe from our text today, is that even as He proclaimed to Moses that because of the people’s sin He would not go up with them but would send His angel instead, even then, He did not renege on His promise. He had promised them a land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they would have it.
In Romans 11:29 Paul said in direct reference to the nation of Israel, “…for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”
You know, there is a whole lot being said these days about the faults and failures of the church. I’ve been saying a lot of those things myself. Some of them certainly need to be said, and throughout the history of the church there have been things to warn against, and guard against; to admonish to, and exhort to…
Those who are called to preach God’s Word are heralds of His Word. We’re not called to tickle and cajole and comfort and appease and entertain. We’re called to the Throne room to hear His voice, and then sent out to proclaim what He has said. Nothing more or less than that.
But amidst all the warnings and reproofs and admonitions, there is blessing. And the clear and unchanging message I get, not only from our text today, but the way God has related and revealed Himself through all the scriptures and in my own heart, is that whatever is going on with His people, by His grace and goodness, He is in our midst, still.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, calm your hearts and minds today; put away, at least for the moment, thoughts of the growing animosity we see and feel from the world toward the people of God. Put away concern for abounding sin and godlessness in society. Put away all thoughts of apostasy in the church and the worldliness that creeps in.
This is the reality. Your name is in His book. If you have turned from sin and come by faith to Christ, your name is now sealed there forever. If you have not, then now is the time to come to Him in repentance and saving faith before it is blotted out.
Once you have done that and you know you are His, let your mind dwell on this and let it be cause for rejoicing from your innermost being.
God is in our midst. He is with us to lead us to the land He has promised. Whatever our circumstances, as individuals, as families, as congregations, He is in our midst, he has known us by name, and we will see His glory.
