Friday 9th August 2019 Prayer Devotion
Scripture Reading:- Exodus 34:1-35
Topic:- God Manifesting Himself To Moses [5]
Text:- Exodus 34:29
It deserves special notice here that the answer given by God to Moses shows in what his glory really consists. The glory of the Lord, then, consists in his goodness. It is not as some seem to suppose some dazzling splendor, some effulgence of light ineffable and overpowering. No such thing as this seems to have been thought of; but Jehovah’s goodness, the intrinsic excellencies that compose his character.
And these glories of his character were brought before Moses when, passing along, he proclaimed those glorious and most expressive names. Every word in this description is full of most emphatic meaning. O how does it reiterate and amplify the precious thought that God is love.
None of the Hebrew people except Moses seem to have gone through this preparatory process. They had not been thoroughly impressed with the awful majesty, purity and strictness of the holy law of God. Hence they could not appreciate these manifestations of his goodness and not another one of the whole nation was allowed to be present with Moses in this glorious interview with God.
It is important in this connection to notice the precise moral attitude in which Moses stood before the Lord. He was now commanded to prepare himself two new tablets of stone. The circumstances in which the two formerly prepared were broken, you will all remember. Moses had been with the Lord on the burning mount; had tarried long; at last returns and finds that the people had made a calf and were engaged in the grossest idolatry. His indignation was kindled; he dashed the stones to the ground and broke them to pieces.
The Lord seems not to have rebuked Moses for this outburst of indignation; it appears to have been under the circumstances entirely proper and acceptable to God, as was also his subsequent conduct in calling on the Levites to take the sword and slay those of their brethren who were leading that horrible iniquity and would not desist. In all this, the Lord seems to have fully accepted Moses.
Let us now pursue the thread of our history. Moses prepares the two tables of stone, and goes up early in the morning as the Lord had commanded him and lo, the Lord descends and meets him there. What an interview was this for a mortal man to hold with the great God!
Think of the circumstances, the deep solitudes of that rugged, awful mount Sinai were the temples of Jehovah’s presence; the heavens above were the canopy of that temple. There was God!
When Moses went up he had already received the promise that the Lord would meet him there. But the promise was not fulfilled immediately. At least one night intervened. What a night of anticipation, still, deep, solemn, anticipation that must have been!
Probably Moses had borne about as much as he well could for one day, and the Lord kindly deferred the more glorious interview until Moses should rise refreshed on the next morning. So the Lord often does when his people get very near him. Christian, have not scenes like these occurred in your own experience? You have a precious interview with God as the day closes and the shades of evening gather round you. You retire for the night, and your very dreams seem full of heaven, and you feel assured that those hallowed interviews with God will be renewed in the morning. You lay down yourself to rest with the sweet sustaining conviction that the Lord will reveal himself speedily again.
Prayer Point:- I pray thee Lord God, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Happy Successful 2019 T.A.C.N. LAWNA International Convention! www.timogundelejesu.com
