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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/larry-perkins/gods-ways-with-moses-and-the-israelites/
Now, as I mentioned last night, what's on my heart at this conference can be put this way, knowing God, knowing his ways, and knowing his presence. And last night we looked at God's ways with Bartimaeus and Legion and the two on the road to Emmaus, but today I'd like to look at God's ways with Moses and the Israelites, and we're going to read where I read last night in Exodus 33.
If you could turn there please, Exodus 33 and verse 12. Then Moses said to the Lord, and I'm reading from the New King James Version, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.
Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way, or your ways, that I may know you, and that I may find grace in your sight, and consider that this nation is your people.
And he said, the Lord said, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Now this was a very difficult time for Moses. After the Exodus, God bringing him through the Red Sea, after Moses being on Mount Sinai, getting the law, you know what happens in chapter 32, the people couldn't wait 40 days for Moses to come down.
We're hearing about patience from our brother, and they made this golden calf, and said, this is our God. God was not happy, but let's look a little bit at the context now, what comes before these verses that we read.
Look at verse 1 please, of chapter 33. Then, now this is after the golden calf business, then the Lord said to Moses, depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt.
Notice, the people whom you have brought out of 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 Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked, or stubborn people.
And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments, for the Lord had said to Moses, say to the children of Israel, you are a stiff-necked people, I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you.
Now therefore, take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do to you. So the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb, or Mount Sinai. So the Lord is telling them, through Moses, that he was going to keep his promise, and he was going to take them to the promised land, but because of their sin, his presence wouldn't go with them.
He wouldn't be in their midst. Now, if you and I were among the Israelites, would that have bothered us? I mean, God promised us we're going to the promised land. Is that good enough? You know, it's possible for us today to be looking forward to heaven, know we're going to go there, because it doesn't depend on us, it depends on what Christ did on the cross.
And we can want the blessings of the Lord, but not be too concerned about our relationship with him, not to think too much of his presence with us. Brother, sister, we've been brought into a relationship with the living God, and I don't know about you, but I can go through a day and maybe not think much about that.
Life can be busy. There's things to do. Sometimes it takes a trial until we see the need of his presence. Well, this news seemed to bother some of the Israelites, and there was evidence of repentance.
They took off their ornaments, because God said to do that. So this break in their relationship with the Lord bothered them. Does that ever bother us? Because we can go through the motions, we can go to meeting, we can even read our Bibles and pray a little bit, and miss out on the most important thing of all, our relationship with the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
Interesting, these ornaments that they took off, the ornaments were used to make the golden calf. And we get to chapter 35, the ornaments were used in the furnishing of the tabernacle. But let's read on here and see what happens.
Verse 7, Moses took a tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle, or tent of meeting. Now, the word is the same in Hebrew, I'm no Hebrew scholar, but just means tent.
And this temporary tent that Moses put out there was not the tabernacle, that hasn't been built yet. So this is some kind of temporary structure. Moses took a tent, pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tent of meeting.
And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Why was it outside the camp? The Lord said he wasn't going to be in their midst. This concerned Moses.
He wasn't satisfied just that God was going to take him to Canaan. He knew he needed, they needed, the Lord's presence with them. So he puts his tent again, again, it's called outside and far and outside.
It's at a distance. Verse 8, so it was whenever Moses went out to the tent that all the people rose and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. Were the people watching to see what's going to happen to Moses?
So they're watching from a distance. Verse 9, and it came to pass when Moses entered the tent that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tent, and the Lord talked with Moses. This pillar cloud, wouldn't that have been something to be there?
And the people were watching, and the pillar cloud, that was evidence of God's presence. But then we read these words at the end of verse 9, and the Lord talked with Moses. Does the Lord ever talk to us?
Do we want the Lord to talk to us? You know, there's many times I'm reading the Bible and things aren't jumping off the page. But I've learned, a few years I've been a Christian, don't let that bother me, because the Lord talks to us through his word.
The Lord's a real person, and I could forget about that as I'm reading, Lord you're talking to me through your word. The God of heaven, the God of this universe, wants to communicate with you and with me.
What a privilege. Verse 10, and all the people saw the pillar of a cloud standing at the tent door, and all the people rose and worshiped each man in his tent door. Verse 11, so the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, and he would return to the camp.
But his servant Joshua, the son of none, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. The Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Now, not that Moses necessarily saw it, I think it's figurative language.
But he says, the Lord spoke to Moses, as a man speaks to his friend. You know, the Lord is so gracious. I'm amazed that, is it three times in the scriptures, calls Abraham the friend of God. We can think of God as so distant, so foreign, and yet the Lord Jesus, in John 15, he says, I have called you friends.
Now, I don't think this means we should take it casually, but just the closeness. It seems to me that the Lord Jesus wants to be, and can be, a lot closer than maybe we give him credit for. He wants to be real to us, in every area of our lives, at meeting, with our families, in our personal lives, in our work at school.
And we see Joshua here, says, Joshua, the son of none, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Did Moses' example have an effect on him? You know, you don't have to be 80 years old to enjoy the presence of the Lord.
But verse 12, I know we've read it, I'm going to read it again. Then Moses said to the Lord, now there's communication two ways. We read the Lord spoke to Moses, but now Moses is speaking to the Lord.
Again, in a relationship, for a relationship to be good, there needs to be communication. And when we pray, it isn't just to the ceiling. You know this. But sometimes we can underestimate the value of prayer, the value of letting God speak to us through his word.
We hear it so often. Moses said to the Lord, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found grace in my sight.
Is Moses saying that this responsibility, two or three million people? Is he saying there's the implication here, this responsibility is too big for me. I can't do it myself. I don't know about you, but to me, the will of God always seems the bars higher than I can reach in myself.
And I think God wants us to realize, yes, we can't do it ourselves. We need his presence. We need his help. So in verse 13, Moses says, now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way.
Or literally, it's ways. Show me your ways. What is Moses saying here? What is he asking for? Is he just saying, Lord, do we go right, left, or the way to Canaan? I think it's more than that. He wants to know, Lord, how do you do things?
You know, Isaiah gives us a little insight into God's ways in chapter 55 when he says, and this has been quoted already this morning. God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Often we think God's going to do things the way we would do them. Sometimes he might, but often he doesn't.
And you know, it seems to me that often God's ways are so subtle that we would miss that what God is doing if we weren't sensitive, if we weren't looking for it. Are we interested in God showing us his ways?
Why would anybody want that? Well, if we want to know his will, if we want to live to please him, if we want to find grace in his sight, so how are we going to know God's ways? Well, we've got the 66 books of the Bible to see how God does things with different people, different places, and different ways.
We can get to know God through his word. And if we want to know how God does things, we can look at in the gospels at the Lord Jesus, who is God. We see how he functioned, how he treated people when he was here on earth.
Not too long ago, I was speaking to a young woman, a sister, a long way from here, and she was discouraged. Christians had disappointed her. She thought the assembly disappointed her, and then the church that she went to disappointed her.
She was disillusioned. She couldn't understand why would God allow these things to happen. We talked a little bit, and I mentioned to her, what do you think the disciples thought when Christ was on the cross?
I mean, their hopes were dashed. It looked like the worst had happened, and they could have said, you know, I don't understand God. I'm out of here, but the cross wasn't the end. Sometimes we need to wait on the Lord to see his ways.
Sometimes there are times of testing. We need to wait on the Lord. Somebody has said the Lord is never late, and he's seldom early, and I've often said in the major things in my life, I've had to wait on the Lord far longer than I ever expected to.
You think of Abraham. God promised him a son. He was 100 years old before that happened. Would you have waited that long? Joseph in the Old Testament. God gave him those dreams when he was a teenager, 30 years before he saw them come true.
13 years down in Egypt. Would you have waited on God that long? Still trusted him? Or Moses, 40 years out in the middle of nowhere. Would I have waited that long? Still trusting God? God's ways aren't our ways.
God's ways are higher than our ways. May the Lord give us a desire to want to know him and to know his ways. And that's what, in verse 13, after Moses says, show me now your ways that I may know you. Again, to me, Moses wanted more than just GPS directions.
He wanted to know the Lord personally. And in the New Testament, Paul, in prison there in Rome, a lot of stuff he couldn't do. Preach the gospel and see assemblies planted and taught. What's he say in chapter 3 there?
That I may know him. Just getting to know this one who loved us and gave himself for us. Is that a desire that we have? Or are we on to bigger and better things, we think? Is the Lord happy with our relationship with him?
Our response? Or is he looking for something more? You know, when a young couple are engaged, you don't have to twist their arm to talk on the phone, to spend time with one another. They just want to get to know one another.
It shouldn't end with marriage either, by the way. Do you enjoy being with the Lord? Do you enjoy time with him? This is the greatest blessing of all. The Lord blesses us in many ways, but just this relationship with the living God, the creator of the universe, the sustainer of it, and the one that one day every knee will bow and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
He wants to be our friend. He wants a close personal relationship, even with you and me, with all our failures, all our shortcomings. We see the way the Lord Jesus treated people. People that maybe we wouldn't have given the time of day, and yet he's no respect.
He doesn't play favorites. But then in verse 14, the Lord responds to Moses and says, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. This would have meant a lot to Moses with his responsibility.
And a sense of the Lord's presence can mean a lot to us. I don't know if you've had the experience of there's some challenge in your life, and you felt the will of God was to do whatever, and you didn't feel up to it.
You knew you couldn't do it yourself, but the Lord gave you grace to just maybe depend on his word. Maybe he gives you a verse that you just rest in, and you're just trusting the Lord to help you with that situation.
A sense of his presence makes all the difference. And I don't know, of course, what you're facing this weekend or what you will face if the Lord doesn't come this coming week. Life has its challenges.
Lord Jesus said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. He means exactly what he says. He wants to be real to us. He wants us to enjoy his presence. But as I was saying last night, those two on the road to Emmaus, when they got to Emmaus, the Lord was going to keep on going.
He made as though he would have gone further. The Lord doesn't force himself on us. But they said, abide with us. It's toward evening. The day is far spent. They had a desire for his presence, and so he went in to abide with them.
My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. The Lord wants us to have rest. Mention has been made already in Matthew chapter 11. The rest of salvation. Lord Jesus says, come to me, and I'll give you rest.
But then there's a rest in service that our brother Clyde just mentioned. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Meek and lowly in heart. The one who is above all others.
Meek and lowly heart, he says, and I'll give you rest. Rest in service. See, when there's challenges to do the will of the Lord, there's two possibilities. We can say, Lord, I'm out of here. I, you know, and there's times, whether it's having the responsibility to speak at a conference, I feel like running the other way, because I know in myself I can't do this.
So we have the option of bailing or trusting the Lord, even though we don't know how it's going to work out. But again and again in the scriptures, whether it's David against Goliath or, you know, it's trusting the Lord.
I was just talking to a brother, I think this past week, yeah, this past week, and I said, I've been saved for 52 years now. I said, why is it so difficult to trust the Lord? It seems like such a simple thing.
I'm not talking about trusting in salvation, but just trusting Him day by day. I don't find it easy, but you know, it's hard to trust somebody you don't know. And I think the more we get to know this Lord of ours, the easier it will be to trust Him.
My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. You know, one day it's going to be everlasting rest. Sage McIntosh says, the presence of God with us, all the desert through, and everlasting rest at the end.
May the Lord help us, brother, sister, to be able to say like Moses, to be able to say to the Lord, show me now your ways that I may know you and that I may find grace in your sight. Let's pray.