(Revival) Part 5 - Glory of God — Martyn-Lloyd Jones

Moses Asks to See God's Glory

The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in the Book of Exodus, in chapter 33, reading from verse 18 to the end of the chapter, Book of Exodus, chapter 33, verses 18 to 23.

And he said, that's to say, Mercer said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cliff to the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by.

And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. We thus continue our study and examination of this great 33rd chapter of the Book of Exodus, in which, as most of you will recall, we have an account of this extraordinary experience, indeed series of experiences, that were given to Moses, the servant of God.

Let me hurriedly remind you of the background and the context. The children of Israel had been guilty of that grievous sin, of making and worshipping a golden calf, while Moses was up on the mount with God.

And God had shown his displeasure at that, and had punished the children of Israel very severely. But you remember that Moses had interceded on their behalf. And then God had commended Moses to continue with the march and to take the children of Israel up to Canaan, telling him that he himself would not accompany them.

He would send his angel, but his own presence would not be with them. And that, you remember, led to the action on behalf of Moses and others. Moses took the tent of meeting, which hitherto had been in the midst of the camp.

He took it and set it up outside the camp. And there he went and interceded with God on behalf of the children of Israel, and various others joined with him in doing so. And Moses' prayer was, you remember, that God should return, should have pity and compassion.

And God hearkened, and his presence came back again. The people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door. And the result of that was that they rose up and worshipped every man in his own tent.

God spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend. And Moses went back and reported all this to the children of Israel, leaving Joshua in the tent of meeting. And then, having reported to the people, he went back again.

And he went on praying, and you remember we found that he asked God for something further. He asked God for a definite personal assurance. If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. And then he asked God for some unusual manifestation of himself, in order that the nations, that the people round and about them might know that he and the children of Israel have found grace in the sight of God.

He says, How shall they know that, except that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. And we have considered how Moses offered that prayer.

We've noticed his method of reasoning and of arguing with God, pleading the promises. And have realized that that is the model for all our prayers. The more we know the scriptures, the more we know the promises of God, the better able shall we be to pray.

And God delights to hear his children using these arguments, reasoning with him, pointing out to him what he said himself. Well, Moses, you remember, prayed in that way. And God turned to him and said, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken.

For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And we were considering last Sunday morning, in terms of the message of Pentecost, how it was that God answers that particular prayer. Very well, now that brings us to this section that we are looking at this morning.

Revival as a Special Visitation of the Holy Spirit

This third and final section of this great chapter. One of the most extraordinary things, surely, that is to be found anywhere in the whole compass of Holy Writ. It is one of those paragraphs which one can only approach with considerable hesitancy and uncertainty.

We are treading on very holy ground. And we should face a statement such as this with awe. I feel that the word comes to us that came to Moses himself on that occasion at the burning bush. Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground.

A most extraordinary and amazing episode, I say. And yet we must follow it, because I think we shall see as we do so, that this takes us yet a further step and a further stage in our understanding of what happens when God graciously visits his church and people with revival and reawakening.

That is still our fundamental theme. All these considerations of different portions of scripture are designed to that end, that we may have a deeper and a clearer conception as to what exactly does happen when God gives and sends a special visitation of his Holy Spirit in what we normally call revival.

Now let me make this quite plain and clear. We are dealing with the subject in general, particularly. But though we are dealing with it in general and as it affects a number of people at the same time, we must never forget that all this is possible to the individual.

There are people who don't seem to be quite clear about this, and that is why I am giving this word of explanation in passing. It is possible for an individual, on his or her own, to have any one of these experiences that we are describing, that we are illustrating from the scripture.

A revival is just that state and condition in which that happens to a number of people at the same time. That is what is meant by revival. But we must never forget that it is always possible to the individual.

So as we consider these principles, let us hold on to their effect. There is no need, in other words, for us of necessity to wait until a revival comes to experience some of these things. We can seek them individually.

But God, from time to time, is pleased to grant such experiences to large numbers altogether, to a whole church, to a district, to a whole country perhaps, or to many countries in the world as he did a hundred years ago in 1858.

But the blessing is not confined to revival. It is always possible, I say, to the individual in isolation. Well now then, bearing that in mind, let us proceed to consider what we are told here. We can divide our matter like this.

Moses' Daring Request for More of God

The first thing, obviously, is Moses' request. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Now this is the thing, I say, that really almost staggers one. Moses is still not satisfied. And you remember what that means.

He is not satisfied in spite of all that God had promised him, and in spite of all that he had just been receiving. Consider this man Moses, who had been up on the mount with God forty days and forty nights, there in communion with him.

He had already experienced that. He has already had the experiences that are recorded in this chapter, where God, we are told, spake unto him face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend a most unusual thing.

And then that further request, God says, I will even grant you that, and gives him some immediate assurance and satisfaction. And yet Moses goes further. He is not satisfied. He does not stop. He goes on and says, show me thy glory.

This is what we may very well describe as the daring quality that always comes into great faith. You will find other illustrations of this in places, in other places in the scripture. But here is perhaps one of the most remarkable of all.

The daring of Moses. He ventures to go on, to ask for something still further. He seems to rise from step to step. As God says, yes, I will grant you even this, give me more, says Moses. And here he makes what is in many ways the final and the ultimate request.

This request, namely, that he may see and know the glory of God. Now here is the thing which must concern us particularly this morning. Let me put it to you like this before we go any further. Do we know anything about these advancing steps and stages?

As we look back across our Christian experience, do we know what it is to rise like this from step to step and from platform to platform? Do we know this increasing boldness in the presence of God? This increasing assurance, this desire for yet more and more.

While we thank God for all that we have received as Moses did, this longing for yet something above and beyond. This striving, this rising, this scaling the heights as it were. Now this is a principle which is taught in the Bible, to him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance.

I'm simply asking whether we know anything about this. And I ask it because I have a most uncomfortable feeling that it's true to say of so many of us, yes, even those of us who are evangelical people, that our main characteristic is self-satisfaction.

And the feeling that we've arrived because we are converted and we may have had some other experience or believed something further, well there we are. All we've got to do is to maintain the position and we are looking down upon those who haven't arrived where we are.

How much evidence is there of striving, seeking, rising on the wings of faith, following in the footsteps of Moses and saying, oh I thank you for what you've promised but show me now thy glory. Let me put it then directly by putting it like this.

Longing for God Himself, Not Merely His Gifts

To what extent are we aware of a desire for God himself and for a knowledge of the glory of God. I imagine that this is the highest reaches of faith. Moses you see is no longer asking God for particular blessings, he's done that.

But he doesn't stop at that. He's gone beyond blessings. He's gone beyond the gifts. He is now seeking God for himself, for his own sake. He's now filled with a passion for a personal knowledge, confrontation, meeting with God himself.

He doesn't despise the gifts. It is rather that because of the gifts and because of the glimpses he has received of the glory of God in the matter of the gifts that now forgetting himself and all gifts and blessings he just has this longing for God himself and for the glory of God.

Well that is the question I think that should come to all of us. Do we know anything of such a longing? How long have you been a Christian? It may be many years. Have you ever had this longing at all?

Have you ever really longed for some personal direct knowledge and experience of God? Oh I know, we pray for causes, we pray for the church, we pray for missionaries, we pray for our own efforts that we organize.

Yes, that's not what I'm talking about. We ask for personal blessings. I'm just asking how much do we know of this desire for God himself? That's what Moses said, show me thy glory, take me yet a step nearer.

Well it's the same thing of course as the psalmist had in Psalm 42. As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my heart after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for thee, for the living God. That's the thing.

He wants the living God himself. My soul thirsteth. This panting, this thirsting for God himself. Now I say this is the thing, you get it again in Psalm 17 verse 15. As for me, says the psalmist looking forward to what is coming, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness.

I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Now I'm holding this before you for this reason. Here you see where the desires of men under the Old Testament dispensation. Moses and the psalmist, these were men who simply looked at the promises of the gospel afar off.

They hadn't seen them, but they saw them afar off. They had their eye upon them, they believed that they were coming. Ah yes, but they hadn't yet come, they hadn't yet happened. As Abram saw my day, says Christ, he saw it, he believed it, he saw it afar off.

So did all these men, says the author of the Hebrews in chapter 11. They hadn't yet received the promises. They believed them. They saw them afar off and you see here are these men in that position. Longing to see and to know the glory of God.

Now you and I are living in the new dispensation. We are not looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, we are not looking forward to Calvary. We are looking back. We've got these records in the New Testament.

Explicit statements, the whole thing unfolded. The Holy Spirit has been given. And yet I wonder how we compare this morning with the psalmist and with Moses. What's the matter with us my friends? We who like to boast about our superiority over the Old Testament saints.

Some of us even to the extent of being so foolish as not to believe that they were saints at all. How do we compare with them in actual experience? Of course these people were the children of God. But I say they were living in the dim light of the old dispensation.

Whereas you and I are in the new. And yet here they are. Show me thy glory. Notice the intimate knowledge which the psalmist also has of God. Well now then, let me put it like this. This is the ultimate, the end of the true seeking for revival.

The prayer for revival is ultimately a prayer based upon a concern for the manifestation of the glory of God. Remember what I've said, that this can happen individually as well as collectively. But here it is, Moses you see, knew of the glory of God.

He hadn't seen it but he knew. He believed God, he'd accepted the revelation. He'd had odd manifestations here and there. And on the strength of this he says, now let me see it, let it be manifested. And that should be our position.

Here we are in this difficult world. We see the church as she is languishing. We see the sin and evil that are rampant round and about us. Now we know that God is there in all his glory. And I say that what is necessary is that we should be moved as Moses was to desire the manifestation of this glory.

It's almost inconceivable, isn't it, that there should be anybody who doesn't offer this prayer of Moses. Isn't it difficult to understand how anybody can be satisfied with things as they are now? But there are many such people.

They say, what's all this talk about revival and praying for revival? Aren't things going well? Isn't the church, evangelical church, doing well? What's all this? Oh, my dear friend, if you speak like that you're just displaying this, that you really know very little about God himself.

You're interested in things happening, in results, in activities, in blessings. Don't you know anything for a longing to see the manifestation of the glory of God? Don't you know anything about some thirst for God himself?

Is it, I wonder, that some of us are so busy that we don't have time even to think about God? God's not a force. God is personal. God in three persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Personal. Have we forgotten this personal element, I wonder?

And are we tending loosely and in our great hurry and busyness to think of God only as some agency that blesses? Oh, there's no doubt about this. As we advance in faith and in knowledge and in experience, we shall more and more desire God himself.

And not only and not merely the things that are given to us by God. You see, the Apostle Paul puts this so perfectly in his own case. Here was a man who had received so much and had had so unusual blessings, yet this is what he says in Philippians 3 .10, you remember, that I might know him.

Well, you'd have said, if ever a man did know Christ, it was the Apostle Paul. But you know, he wasn't satisfied. That I might know him. And the power of his resurrection. And the fellowship of his sufferings.

Me being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already apprehended. Says this man who has apprehended so much. This man who has had such unusual experiences.

Not as though I had already apprehended. No, you see, the point is he's had such tastes of it. He wants more. He wants to know him himself. So he forgets the things that are behind. And he presses forward toward the mark.

Well, I'm simply emphasizing this. It's no use our talking about these things if we don't desire them, if we don't know something about them. I ask once more, to what extent, my dear friends, do you know of a longing for God himself?

God's Partial Answer to Moses

For the living God. Show me thy glory. Well, then that brings us to God's answer. And this is a matter, of course, that we of necessity must divide up under various headings. The first thing that we see quite clearly is this.

That God answers Moses by telling him, yes, I am going to answer your prayer, your petition, but I'm going to do so in my own way. And we must consider this. And the first thing that strikes us at once is this.

That it was a partial answer. We shall also go on to consider, God willing, the means or the method or the way in which God gives the partial answer. And we shall consider, thirdly, the nature of the answer.

Because it's all here. But let us start with the first thing, the partial character or nature of God's answer. And here it is in verse 20. God said to Moses, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.

And again in verse 23. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. Here we are face to face with the final mystery, you see. The answer is going to be given, yes, but in this partial manner.

Now, this must be the case. There surely should be no difficulty about this. No man shall see me and live. No man, in other words, is capable of standing the full vision of God's glory. He couldn't stand it, it would kill him.

Why? Well, because of the inconceivable nature of the glory. My dear friends, there is no doubt at all about it. 99 .9 of our troubles as Christians is that we are ignorant of God. Just sheer ignorance of God.

We spend so much time in feeling our own pulse, taking our own spiritual temperature, considering our moods and states and feelings. Oh, if we but had some conception of Him, the inconceivable glory of God, immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.

No man shall see me and live. Moses didn't quite realize what he was asking. So God corrects him and He teaches him. He does it gently, with tenderness. Shows him exactly what is possible and what isn't possible.

This is not peculiar to Moses. You remember Isaiah, when he had a glimpse of him? Read it in chapter 6 of his prophecy. When he was just given a glimpse of that ineffable glory, he cried out saying, Woe is unto me, for I am undone.

I am a man of unclean lips. He heard the voices, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And the house was filled with smoke and the pillars of the door moved. Just a glimpse of it. Woe is unto me, says Isaiah.

I am unfit for this, I am unworthy. He staggered. John, the apostle, tells us that when he likewise was given just some vague indication of it, I fell down as one dead. These were men, let me remind you, living in this world in the flesh as you and I live in this world in the flesh.

And they've had such experiences of God. Why haven't we had them? Why do we know so little about these things? These are the things that are to be a part of the life of the Christian. Christianity is to know God.

This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Not know about God only, but to know God. Well, there they are. And you remember the apostle Paul himself.

As Saul of Tarsus. There he is on the road to Damascus. And suddenly he sees that light above the brightest shining of the sun. And you remember what happened to him. He fell down on the road and he was blinded by it.

Why? Well, it's the glory that did that to him. The sight of the glory was such. We ought to be able to have some increasing understanding of all this today. You read about the explosion of these atomic bombs, don't you?

And how people have to be very careful to shade their eyes, the brightness of this flesh. You've got to multiply that by infinity to know something about the glory of God. You remember that the apostles, the disciples of our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration, even when they saw this transfiguration, a kind of deep sleep came over them.

Why? Well, it was to protect them. The glory is so transcendent. It's blinding. It's inconceivable. And then you remember the apostle again tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, that he had an experience some 14 years before he was writing.

And this is how he says, whether in the body or out of the body, I know not. It was so marvelous, he says, I don't quite know. He was in a state and in a condition which he really cannot describe with accuracy.

Oh, but says someone, that's only happened to men in the scriptures. No, no. This is something that has gone on happening to God's people who have realized the possibilities and who have sought God himself throughout the running centuries.

Have you ever read of Jonathan Edwards describing his experience of it when he was there kneeling in a forest once for about an hour? I'll give you a short account of it later on. Have you read of David Brainerd, the great apostle to those American Indians?

There experiencing the glory of God and literally sweating, though it was cold and though it was freezing round and about him. What was causing the sweating? Oh, it was the glory, the character and the transcendence of the glory.

And to give you a man who was much nearer to ourselves, D .L. Moody. A very strong man physically, a very sturdy man. And yet you remember that when God gave him this glimpse of his glory, he had to ask God to desist and to hold back his hand.

He felt it was killing him. He's not the only one who's felt that. I could quote you others who've said exactly the same thing. The man felt that his literal physical frame was cracking and was breaking under the glory and has to ask God to hold back his hand.

Thou shalt not see my face. For no man shall see me and live. I'll give you just some indication of it. I'll give you a fleeting glimpse of it. But you can't see me as I am. No, no, my back parts only.

Revival as the Passing By of God's Glory

Well now, as you come again to the question of revival, you will find a great deal of this. You will find that when God manifests himself, and by an outpouring of the Spirit, whose special work and commission it is to manifest the Lord Jesus and his glory through him, God himself, you will find that you will often read things like this, that men and women in the presence of this glory and of this presence have literally fallen to the ground, have fainted.

Ah, say somebody, these phenomena. My dear friend, don't be interested in or frightened in phenomena. I'm just reporting to you that God himself has said that the glory is so glorious that men's physical frame is inadequate.

So don't be surprised if you read, when you read these reports of people fainting or going off into a kind of dead swoon. It's the glory of God. It's beyond us. And it's not surprising, therefore, that it should sometimes lead to such consequences.

The partial nature. Well, but let me go on and say this, that though the answer is partial, it is nevertheless very definite. You shall not see my face, says God to Moses, but you are going to see something.

And what is he going to see? Well, he is going to see God passing by. The Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cliff to the rock, and will cover thee with my hand, while I pass by.

And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back pass. He is passing by. Do you know what a revival is? Now, that's a perfect description of it. It's the glory of God passing by. That's precisely what it is.

Just this glimpse of God as he passes by. The God who is there in the glory, as it were, comes down, pays a visit, pours out his Spirit, descends again, and he just passes by us, and we look on and feel and know that the glory of God is in the midst and is passing by.

Oh, it's but a touching of the hem, as it were. It's but a vision of the back. You know, let me give you a comparison which may help. What is thunder and lightning? Well, according to the psalmist and according to the Bible everywhere, thunder and lightning are but a kind of indication of God's power.

The God who said at the beginning, let there be light, and there was light. Well, now, he just gives you an indication of what his power is in the flash of the lightning, the roar of the thunder. These are but glimpses of God's might, God's power, God's eternal ability.

Very well. A revival, I say, is just a kind of touch of his glory, a fleeting glimpse of something of what he is in and of himself. And I'm emphasizing this, my dear friends, because you and I must come to realize that these things are possible and these things are meant for us.

We were never meant to be content with a little. Let me therefore give you some scriptural indications of the possibility of this. I've already reminded you of what happened to Saul of Tarsus there on the road to Damascus.

Suddenly there shined round about him light from heaven. That happened to a man, remember. And then I must read you again this description which he gives in 2 Corinthians 12. It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory.

I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such an one caught up into the third heaven.

And I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

That was an experience received by the Apostle Paul himself. A man of like passions with ourselves. A man still in the body, still in this world, still in the flesh. He has had this experience of the glory itself in this veil and in this partial manner.

But he had other experiences there. And he was in Corinth and he found everybody against him. And he went to bed one night very troubled. But this is what I read. Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, visions and experiences of the glory of God.

And the result of this is that he is able to say, he knows the Lord Jesus Christ so well that he says to me to live is Christ and to die is gain, that I might be with Christ which is far better. Can you say that?

Can you say to me to live is Christ if we can't say it? And why can't we say it? Why shouldn't we say it? It's meant for all. The Apostle nowhere teaches that this was only meant for himself or merely for the Apostle.

He is telling these Philippians this, that they may have the same experience. John says, these things write we unto you that ye may have fellowship with us and our fellowship truly is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

We are all meant to be enjoying these experiences. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. But then you see the Apostle puts it like this. This is the counterpart to what we've got in Exodus 33.

For now, says the Apostle, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. The hand is upon us now. We are only seeing through a glass darkly. Yes, but we do see through a glass darkly. That's the thing I'm emphasizing.

Even here in this world, we see through a glass darkly. An enigma in a riddle, if you like. Yes, but we do see. And the question I'm asking is, are we seeing it? Then I know it will be face to face. But the question is, what now?

Or take that last verse in the third chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians which I read to you at the beginning this morning. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass. It's still only partial, you see.

It is beholding as in a kind of reflection from a mirror. Yes, but it is that. Beholding as in a glass. What? The glory of the Lord. Are you with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord?

Can you say honestly with the Apostle Paul, God who commended the light to shine out of darkness has shone into our hearts to reveal the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Can we appropriate the words of Peter in his first epistle in the first chapter in verse 8 and say, Whom having not seen, we love. In whom though now we see him not yet believing, we rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Can you say that? Ah, you say, but I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've rejoiced in my salvation. I'm not asking you that. What Peter says is this, that the Christian is a man who so knows him and loves him that he rejoices in him with a joy that is unspeakable, baffles description, and full of glory.

Foretastes of Heaven and the Glory to Come

In revival, men and women in large numbers are able to say that. The glory of God has come near, has passed by, they've seen his back parts, and they've been able to use those words with absolute honesty.

You see, all this is a kind of foretaste of heaven, but we are to enjoy foretastes of heaven here in this world. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Our Lord's prayer for his own is this, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.

Then, says John, we shall see him as he is, and we shall be like him. Then, as our hymn has just put it, his glory full disclosed shall open to our sight. Yes, but my dear friends, before we come to that, we should have these partial views here in this world.

Not the full disclosure, that's to come, but the partial disclosure. And the question I'm asking is this, do we know anything of these things? Well, now let me encourage you by just reading a few extracts to you.

Jonathan Edwards on Experiencing Christ's Glory

Take Jonathan Edwards first. Sometimes, he says, only mentioning a single word caused my heart to burn within me, or only seeing the name of Christ or the name of some attribute of God. And God has appeared glorious to me on account of the Trinity.

It has made me have exalting thoughts of God that he subsists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel.