Sunday 11th August 2019 Prayer Devotion
Scripture Reading:- Exodus 34:1-35
Topic:- God Manifesting Himself To Moses [7]
Text:- Exodus 34:29
Now this revelation of law exceedingly well fitted Moses to receive the next revelation made at this interview. The
giving of the law was first in order, as indeed it always must be, or the gospel of grace and mercy cannot be appreciated. This done, the revelation of mercy and grace may follow.
This same God before whom all the people and even Moses trembled on Mt. Sinai, now revealed his name. Mercy is a disposition to pardon. Grace is used in a wider sense, a disposition to bestow favor.
The next thing is “long-suffering,” he can suffer and bear long with abuses and provocations. He is most forbearing towards those who offend him. “Abundant also in goodness, yes infinite in goodness and loving-kindness. Abundant moreover in truth, faithful ever to his promises of love and mercy. O how precious are these revelations made to Moses.
To Moses we must presume these were not mere announcements. Moses felt the impression of every one of these things. I might announce these very words in your ears, and though they might fall distinctly on your ears, yet the impression of their meaning might utterly fail to reach your heart. Now this revelation of law exceedingly well fitted Moses to receive the next revelation made at this interview.
But not so when Jehovah himself speaks. His words then reach the very heart. You have sometimes felt the thrilling impression of these truths, when every idea in them seemed to sink into your very soul. Just think how Moses must have felt, after all he had just seen of Jehovah’s awful majesty on Sinai.
O how these words must have gone down into his inmost mind! And not the words merely, but the ideas they represented, the very attributes of God must have stood right out and flashed their glorious truth before the very mind’s eye of Moses. O what a scene of solemn impressions!
Perhaps I should say right here that we have no reason to suppose that all these things transpired in a moment, as some might at first thought imagine. Moses was full forty days and nights with God in this interview. A few other things were said during the whole scene, but this revelation of the name of God seems to have been the chief thing which transpired during this eventful period.
It is therefore most rational to conclude that time enough was occupied to allow each thought to be fully expanded before the mind of Moses so as to make its deepest possible impression. Each feature of the divine character was doubtless developed distinctly his mercy, his grace, his long-suffering, his abundant goodness and truth, and the blending of each of these feature with his glorious justice.
Every thing was so revealed to the mind of Moses that it pervaded his entire mental being and set his very soul on fire. O how did he ponder, and muse on each point, and study the illustrations presented to his mind!
We can imagine the solemn, awful, thrilling impression as he sat in silence for many days together, no human being present to divert his attention for one moment alone with God forty days–neither taking nor needing food or drink during all this time, but absorbed in beholding face to face the glory of God, and thus being changed into the same image from glory to glory.
At length he comes down from that mount of glorious manifestation. No wonder his face shone with a lustre of which he was unconscious but which was too glorious for mortal eyes to behold.
No wonder the vivid impressions that filled and fired his soul should throw their reflection forth in his countenance. It was as if an angel from Jehovah’s upper temple had alighted in the camp of Israel. A vail must be drawn over his face, for what mortal eye could bear the sight.
Prayer Point:- Now therefore, I pray thee, 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.
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