Exodus 34 - The Shining Face of Moses

Okay, who can tell me who this is on the screen?

Who is that? Moses. Zeus and Moses. All right, well, it is, supposedly, it is

Moses. Now, do you notice anything, maybe a little strange?

Yeah. Yeah, Zeus, Moses has two horns.

Well, tonight we're gonna be in Exodus chapter 34, so go ahead and turn to Exodus chapter 34.

This is the account of Moses when his face shone, right?

The shining face of Moses. Well, there is some medieval artwork that pictures

Moses with horns. Why is that? Well, there's a translation issue.

The word shone can also be translated as horned. So there was a time period where they interpreted the

Bible to mean that Moses came down from the mountain with horns, if you can believe that.

We don't think that that's what happened. His face shone, but that's just a little interesting tidbit.

So we're gonna get rid of this disturbing image, okay? I thought you might find that interesting.

Okay, let's pray, and then we'll get into our study of Exodus chapter 34.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this time together, and we thank you for Moses and his ministry, which the

Apostle Paul said was glorious. But if the ministry of Moses was glorious, how much more the ministry of Jesus Christ?

Lord, teach us through your word, I pray. It's in Christ's name, amen. Exodus 34.

And the Lord said to Moses, cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.

So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain.

And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain.

Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones.

Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai as the

Lord had commanded him. And he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

Now the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the

Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed... The Lord.

The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long -suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped.

Then he said... If now I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my

Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff -necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.

Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people

I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation.

And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the

Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the

Haivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst, but you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images.

For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is

Jealous, is a jealous god. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you, and you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods, and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.

You shall make no molded gods for yourselves. The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib.

For in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep.

But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck.

All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear before me empty -handed.

Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.

And you shall observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the

Lord God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you, and enlarge your borders.

Neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the

Lord your God three times in the year. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the feast of the

Passover be left until morning. The first of the first fruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the

Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words

I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Now it was so when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.

Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the

Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out, and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded.

And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone, then

Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.

The last week we ended chapter 33 where Moses was put into the cleft of the rock.

Remember? And the Lord passed by. Moses couldn't see

God's face, but it says that he saw God's back. And as the result of seeing a glimpse of God's glory, seeing his back, it caused the face of Moses to shine.

And we'll cover that and what it means in just a few minutes. But look at verse one,

Exodus 34, verse one, it says, and the Lord said to Moses, cut two tablets of stone like the first ones.

And I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Now, what does it say? I will write on these tablets. So if you remember back in chapter 32, when

Moses came down from the mountain and saw the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, it says that Moses' anger became hot and he cast the tablets out of his hands and he broke them at the foot of the mountain.

That's Exodus 32, 19. And then in verse 16 of Exodus 32, it tells us that the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablet.

So I want you to notice with that, there seems to be a distinction. God wrote the words, that much is clear.

And it seems that God actually produced the first two tablets and then they got smashed.

The second set of tablets were the work of Moses. Again, Exodus 34, verse one, the

Lord tells Moses to cut out two tablets of stone.

And then the Lord says, I will write on these tablets. Now, I don't know about you, but I've heard it said my whole life that God wrote on the first set, but Moses had to chisel out the second set.

I don't know how many times I've heard that, but I've heard that quite a bit, but that's not true.

The finger of God wrote on both the first set of tablets and the second set of tablets.

Now, the point that I wanna make from that is that sometimes we hear things stated, maybe other

Christians are saying it, maybe a pastor, a Bible teacher is saying something and they may be well -meaning, but they're repeating something they heard from somebody and that just gets kind of perpetuated.

So at times we have these ideas. Oh yeah, the Bible says this, or yeah, the

Bible says Mary sat on a donkey as she rode to Bethlehem. Does that really matter?

No, not really, but no, actually it doesn't say that, but you understand that sometimes we have these ideas that the

Bible says something that it actually doesn't say. So there's a phrase that says, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes true.

That apparently was a statement made by the minister of propaganda for the third

Reich. Okay, Joseph Goebbels. And actually that quote is attributed to him.

So he might not have actually said that. So in an ironic way, that's sort of proving itself to be true.

And there's a lot of directions I could go with this and I'm tempted to go there with all the propaganda that surrounds us in 2021 and 2022.

But just to stay within the context of the Bible here, if you find yourself repeating something, oh yeah, the

Bible says this or, well, we know that this is true. Always evaluate those statements unless you have chapter and verse in your mind.

Oh yeah, that's John 14 verse, whatever. And even if you do have chapter and verse, it's good to go back and check sometimes because I think we all can do this.

We have it in our mind that the Bible says one thing, but it doesn't actually say that.

Just one quick example. Another thing I've heard my entire life. The Bible says

Jesus, or the Bible teaches Jesus is a friend of sinners.

There's a song, Jesus, friend of sinners. And people take that and they'll say, well, you know,

Jesus hung around with this crowd of people. So that's what I'm doing, you know, and I'm trying to reach people.

Well, does the Bible say that Jesus was a friend of sinners? Well, the

Bible says it, but that's the accusation of the scribes and Pharisees. They said John the Baptist has a demon.

Jesus was a glutton, a wine bibber, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Did John the Baptist have a demon? Was Jesus a glutton? No. Was Jesus a wino or a drunkard?

No. Was he a friend of tax collectors and sinners? No. Now he did meet and eat with Matthew and his friends to call them to repentance.

Jesus didn't hang out with sinners. So it's just another one of those things that gets repeated.

And point is, study the Bible, evaluate the things you're saying to others, make sure we're stating what is true.

Okay. I just like to read what Matthew Henry says about Exodus 34 verses one through four.

He said, when God made man in his own image, the moral law was written in his heart by the finger of God without outward means.

But since the covenant then made with man was broken, the Lord has used the ministry of men, both in writing the law in the scriptures and in writing it in the heart.

When God was reconciled to the Israelites, he ordered the tablets to be renewed and wrote his law in them.

Even under the gospel of peace by Christ, the moral law continues to bind believers, though Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet not the commands of it.

The first and the best evidence of the pardon of sin and peace with God is the writing of the law in the heart.

So God wrote his commandments on stone, but he's also written his commandments on our heart and not just on the hearts of believers.

God's law is actually written on the heart of, or in the hearts of all men. Let's go to Romans chapter one.

Romans chapter one. As you're turning there, let me remind you that what God is giving to Moses, the word we use,

God is giving to Moses special revelation, special revelation, and it's being written down.

And that's important because up until Moses, the word of God was passed on how?

Whatever men received from God, how is it passed? Orally, right?

So before Moses wrote Genesis and Exodus, the word of God, whatever existed was passed on by word of mouth, but now it's being written down and that's significant.

So in time past, you think when God spoke to Adam, when God spoke to Noah, when God spoke to Abraham, none of those men ever wrote a book.

None of those men ever wrote it down, but here things are starting to change.

God writes the 10 commandments on tablets of stone. He speaks to Moses, gives him his law.

Moses is now writing all of this down on, on paper or animal skins or papyrus, which is plant -based.

So now what we would say, the Bible is starting to be written when it wasn't before.

So this is what, what's the term, what kind of revelation, right?

Special revelation. So this book, this book is special revelation, right?

There are things that man could not know unless God tells him.

The other type of revelation that God gives is called general revelation.

This is what God reveals about himself through, through the creation. Look at Romans one verse 20.

The apostle Paul writes for since the creation of the world, God's, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made.

That's us. Even his eternal power and God had so that they are without excuse.

So even without the Bible, mankind can still know that there is a

God and that he is the all powerful creator. For example, a man living in the jungle and some remote part of the world.

He's not going to know about Jesus and the gospel and salvation, but he knows that there is a God. He knows something about, he just doesn't have special revelation, but he can know something about God.

And then there's another element, uh, that God informs people through what? So there's special revelation, uh, general revelation, and then what?

Conscience, right? Uh, skip over to Romans chapter two. So through conscience and the awareness of our own mortality, man can know that there is a

God. And man can also know that there is a, a problem between him and God.

Look at Romans two, 14 and 15 says for when

Gentiles who do not have the law by nature, do the things in the law.

These, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves who show the work of the law.

What written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and being themselves.

And excuse me, and between themselves, their thoughts, accusing or else excusing them.

So in Exodus 34, God is giving, uh, to Moses and the children of Israel, the 10 commandments, the law of God.

This is special revelation, but there is a sense in which the 10 commandments are written on the hearts of men.

So all people, everyone, all over the world, people have some knowledge that there is a

God. And they know something about righteousness and sin. They might not use those terms, but they know it's wrong to murder.

It's wrong to lie, cheat and steal. Everybody knows that. There is something that can be known simply by living, living life.

However, salvation requires special revelation. Everyone has the conscience.

Everyone can observe things about God through general revelation, but to be saved, you need special revelation.

Okay. Not, not everybody in Christian churches believes that these days, unfortunately, but that's what the scripture teaches.

So if we want that man in the jungle to be saved, how does the church go about seeing that that happens?

Right. Supporting missions. If somebody in the jungle can be saved just by being sincere and doing the best they can, missions is really pointless.

Matter of fact, it can be counterproductive because you're bringing the truth to them. And if they reject it, now they're guilty of rejecting it.

So sure. Okay.

Let's go back to Exodus 34. So just as God spoke to the people through Moses, the

Holy Spirit has given us special revelation. God speaks to a prophet or an apostle.

They write it down just like Moses wrote it down. And we, like the children of Israel are reading it or, or hearing it.

This is all special revelation. So this is really a turning point. That, that's, that's my point. This is a, this is a new thing that the word of God is now being written.

That wasn't the case before. And I think there's three words that every believer should know, and we should be able to kind of give a, an explanation to others about these three words.

God giving the 10 commandments in the, the law to Moses is revelation.

The next word is inspiration. And then third word is illumination.

So these three words, if you take notes, write it down or, or memorize it.

No, these three words, revelation, inspiration, and illumination.

So God giving his word, his truth to Moses, from God to man, this is revelation from man to paper is inspiration.

The scriptures are inspired. They're God breathed that's inspiration.

And then when we read the word of God and hear the word of God, that's illumination.

That's from the paper to the, the heart. So God kind of illumines his word.

We, we understand it. We, our mind is opened. Okay. Again, from the last, any questions or comments so far?

All right. Again, from the last chapter, the Lord put Moses into a place where the rock was split, right?

And say, well, what's a cleft. Moses was in the cleft of the rock. Cleft is a split in the rock. He kind of tucked

Moses in there. And it says that the Lord covered Moses with his hand.

And while the Lord passed by, he removed his hand and Moses got a glimpse of God's back.

Okay. Does God have a back? Does God have a hand?

This is what we would call anthropomorphic language. Okay. We are attributing, or Moses is attributing human attributes to God.

We know God, the father is what he's spirit. He doesn't have a body. God doesn't have a hand.

He doesn't have a back. Even when we talk about seeing God's face, does

God, the father have a face like a human being has a face or an animal has a face? No, I don't think so.

God doesn't have these things. So these are human attributes applied to God in order to communicate something.

So the question is then what is God trying to communicate? Okay. So something is being communicated about an infinite

God being communicated to finite creatures. How do finite creatures understand an infinite

God? Well, we really can, but we can understand certain things about God.

So, okay. So what's being communicated? Who wants to give a, based on what we've looked at, what do you think

God and Moses is trying to communicate to the people or what's God trying to communicate to Moses?

Okay, good. That God is holy. Yup. Um, so I, I would say that that's a good answer.

What else is being communicated? yeah, God's God's glory is his weightiness.

Uh, God is being magnified, uh, through all of this. So Moses, after seeing just a glimpse of God's back, his face shines, it shines so bright people can't even look at it.

Uh, this brings to mind for me anyways, Jesus on the Mount of transfiguration, right?

Matthew chapter 17, it says that Jesus was transfigured before was a

Peter, James and John, right? Moses shows up by the way. And so that's interesting.

And it says that the face of Jesus shown like the sun.

Have you ever tried to look directly into the sun? Right?

Like, you know, you're not supposed to do that. You're told as a kid, Hey, whatever you don't look directly in this way, you try it anyways.

We can't help it. We know it's really bad for our eyes, but we can't not try it.

So if you can just imagine that, what it's like to look directly into the sun, you really can't.

Uh, that's what Moses face must've been like, uh, to the children of Israel.

Uh, they just couldn't look directly at him. So all of this, it really magnifies the name of the

Lord and it can invoke terror. I chose this picture. I don't know.

There's something about this picture that I was just kind of, I don't know, kind of scary about it.

Right? And that's what's happening to the children of Israel. Can you imagine being there?

Uh, God descended upon Mount Sinai with fire. We talked about all that. Uh, remember the children of Israel told

Moses, you talk to God. We not, not us. We don't want to talk to God or else we're going to die.

Moses, you go talk to God. So the children of Israel were frightened.

They were frightened. I look at verses five through seven. Yet at the same time, this causes

Moses and hopefully the children of Israel to want to pursue God.

So they kind of frightened by it, but you, you, you want to pursue God at the same time.

Talked about Moses seeking God's presence, uh, verses five through seven. It says, now the

Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there and proclaim the name of the

Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the

Lord, the Lord, God merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin.

That that's wonderful. Right? Then what does it say? But by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

So that part is really a fearful thing. So at the same time,

God is kind of frightening and, and invokes or brings terror.

And at the same time, he's merciful and gracious. So to the, yes,

Jim, I just wanted to say that saying these things, demonstrating to Moses, his character or his attributes.

Yes. That's what this is saying. Good. Yes. So to the unrepentant center,

God is the consuming fire, but to the redeemed son, he's a gracious, long suffering, a heavenly father who abounds in goodness and truth.

Then you have a group of people that they reject the true God of scripture.

These are the idolaters and they fashion a God, whether physically or in their mind, they fashion a

God of their own vain imagination. Cause this God makes people uncomfortable.

So they want to make God more like they are a God that they are comfortable with.

That's, that's what idolatry is. So someone might hear some of this and, you know, if you're not, if you're not taught sound doctrine, people hear this kind of thing.

Well, my God's not like this. This isn't the God that I know that would invoke terror.

Well, look at verse 10 and he said, behold, I make a covenant before all your people.

I will do Marvel such as such have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation.

And all the people among whom you are. So see the work of the Lord for it is.

And what an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Does anyone have a different word other than awesome? Right?

So the, the King James translates this terrible for, it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

No, the word terrible. We think of it as bad. Well, no, it's, it will bring terror.

Right? So this is a pretty consistent thing. All throughout the

Bible. When men experience God, they're afraid. If you think of the

Canaanite people, when they heard about what the Lord did to Egypt, they were afraid.

Rahab talked about that. When the Lord descended on Mount Sinai, the first time, the people, like we said, the people were afraid.

The prophet Isaiah, Isaiah chapter six. He sees the Lord high and lifted up.

And what does he say? Woe is me for I am undone.

And then the apostle, he said, well, it's just the old Testament. Well, in revelation chapter one, that's new

Testament. I think is it revelation? Isn't that the end of the new test? That's new

Testament revelation. Chapter one. When John sees the vision of Jesus, he falls at his, falls on his face as though he were a dead man.

So again, all of this communicates something that God is to be feared, reverenced, worshiped, and obey.

Look at Exodus 34, verse 14, for you shall worship.

No other God for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous

God. So God is not just jealous for his name. His name is jealous.

Isn't that what it says? Whose name is jealous.

So we are to worship God and to worship God alone. On top of that, we are to worship

God the way he wants to be worship. Not just kind of come up with our own way of doing it.

So the shining face of Moses is bringing terror. One of the things that God is doing is bringing terror and it communicates something to the people.

Look at verse 30. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw

Moses, behold, the skin of his face shown, and they were what?

Afraid to come near him. And how does Moses resolve this?

He puts the veil over his face. Paul says something in Corinthians about Jesus.

What does he say about the veil concerning Christ? Right. The veil is removed with Christ.

You know, why go through all this and paint this picture that I'm not painting? This is what the Bible's painting.

This picture of this, this God who brings terror. You have to know that. You might even call that the bad news, right?

The scary part. You have to know that before you get to the good part.

Cause the good part, people take it for granted without, without this part. The new Testament, as I've said many times, doesn't really make a whole lot of sense without the old

Testament. Even the word itself, new Testament doesn't make sense unless there's a, what an old

Testament. And we all know that in many churches, this part of the story is not just left out as no, it's, it's avoided like the plague oftentimes.

Okay. So we read about, then it goes on. Moses spoke to the people and in order to speak to the children of Israel, he had to cover his face with the veil.

And if you want to know what the new Testament says about that, I did a sermon from second Corinthians chapter three.

It's on YouTube. If you wanted to listen to it, it's called the veil is taken away in Christ.

So Moses had to cover his face with a veil because otherwise the

Israelites would have been blinded. And because many of them didn't have faith.

I mean, what's this symbolic for? Well, one thing you can draw is that many of them did not have faith.

They were spiritually blind. Okay. They could be blinded physically, but many of them were spiritually blind.

And even to this day, the unbelieving Israelite, the unbelieving Jew today, when they open up the

Hebrew Bible, as they call it, they don't call it the old Testament because that implies there's the new

Testament. They don't want anything to do with it. Why? Because they don't want anything to do with Jesus. So because they don't want anything to do with Jesus, or it could be a non

Jew. If you don't want anything to do with Jesus, the old Testament scriptures don't make any sense.

You cannot understand the old Testament without Christ.

So to the unbelieving Jew, the old Testament scriptures are confusing. They don't understand them, but the veil covers their heart, but the veil is taken away in Christ.

So Christ is the key that unlocks the truth of scripture.

And there's some things in this chapter. Again, we don't have time for, but they clearly point to Christ, the redeeming, the lamb.

There's plenty of things that point to Christ. Any final comments?

Yes, Jim. In reading this earlier, it said in verse 10, that God said, behold,

I am going to make a covenant before all your people. I will perform miracles, which have not been produced in all the earth, nor among any of the nations.

And all the people among whom you live, will see the working of the

Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you.

And then he goes on, and he lists the terms and conditions.

And this is what the people had to accept. It wasn't something that they considered arbitrary.

It was his terms and his conditions, and that's what they had to live by. Period. Sure.

And that goes from verse 11 all the way up to verse 28. Good. Thank you.

Anything else? Larry. Well, Jesus said that we are the light of the world.

So I mean, our faces don't necessarily glow like Moses's did, but it should, in a way, when people look at us, they should see something different, even just from the smile on our face.

Right. Sure. I heard a sermon from Erwin Lutzer a few weeks ago.

He was talking about the thing that attracted people to the early church was the same thing that kind of repelled some people.

And that was the holiness. Like they, they knew this was, there was something different happening here.

And Ananias and Sapphira, you know, you had people that, that dropped dead in the assembly.

So the thing that was attracting some people was kind of pushing away others. And you can kind of see how this would do that.

This is going to, no, this isn't a God. I want anything. This is too scary. So the truth does divide.

I mean, Jesus talked about this. He came not to bring peace, but a sword. So the same thing that pushes some people away is the same thing that draws others.

So our job isn't to tamper with the message or to tamper with what

God has said. We, we proclaim the truth. We pray for people, look for those opportunities, but ultimately it's going to be a

God going back to that word, illumination. It's God, the Holy spirit. That's going to open people's eyes.

So Christ is the key that unlocks the truth of scripture because the old

Testament is all about him. And the new Testament is what it's the new Testament of our

Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Look at verse 33, and this is where we will close.

It says, and when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face, but whenever Moses went in before the

Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel, whatever he had been commanded.

And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face shown that Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.