Dear Christian friends:

One of the chief hopes of a Christian is to see God face to face in His full Glory. One hymn writer asks in one of his hymns, On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand:

"When shall I reach that happy place,
And be forever blest?
When shall I see my Father's face,
And in His kingdom rest?"

Even the unbelievers say that they want to see God, although they really don't want to. They mock and say, "If God loves men why does He stay far away from me. Let Him, Himself come and appear to me and preach to me, then I will believe. I don't want preachers and the Bible. I want to see God Himself and hear God's voice preach to me, then I will believe.

Sometimes you and I may feel a little like that, too, but we make a big mistake if we argue like that. Our text this morning shows us why. It shows:


In our text we see Moses talking with God in the tent church of Israel when Israel was camping before Mount Sinai. Moses had already gone up the mountain to receive God's laws and the Ten Commandments. Because Moses stayed up there forty days, the Israelites became tired of waiting and asked Aaron to make the Golden Calf. This Aaron did and all the people worshipped the Golden Calf and praised it instead of God.

When God saw this He was very angry and intended to destroy all of Israel. He told Moses that He would destroy them and make a new nation from Moses. But Moses pleaded with God for Israel and reminded Him of His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So God decided not to destroy the nation. Then Moses went down the mount and destroyed the Golden Calf and killed all who did not repent.

Then Moses went again to God and prayed for the people. God promised to go with them to Canaan and keep them for His people and keep the covenant that He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Then Moses asked for extra proof from God He said, "Show me Your glory." Moses did not ask this because he was curious or nosey. He felt weak and fearful of the long trip ahead to the promised land. He knew how stubborn and sinful Israel was, and how quickly they forgot God and fell again into temptation. So he begs for added proof of God's mercy and forgiveness.

This should also be our reason for wanting to see God's glory not nosiness or curiosity but that we feel our weakness and sinfulness and know that only by His grace and mercy can we continue in our journey through this sinful world.

Now God answers Moses' prayer in a wonderful way. We read in Exodus 33:19, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you."

Usually God Himself did not preach to man directly. He gave His word to the prophets and they preached to the people. Sometimes He sent angels to preach as on Christmas and Easter and then He sent the twelve Apostles to preach and now today all Christians have that duty. But here God Himself preaches of His goodness and glory to Moses: "I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy."

God's chief glory is that He is kind and merciful to sinners, and forgives their sins, even though they are unworthy and deserve His wrath and damnation. Just as Israel deserved His hot anger when they worshipped the Golden Calf, yet God kept back His anger and forgave them for Jesus' sake, because of His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

When Moses reminded God of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he meant God's promise of the Savior Jesus born from Abraham's seed. It is in Jesus and in Jesus alone that God is merciful and forgives. God was terribly angry when Israel worshipped the Golden Calf, wishing to burn them up.

But Moses said, "Remember your promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!" (Exodus 32:13) And quickly God changed. So here when God says, "I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy." (Exodus 33:19) It is Jesus, His Son, our Savior who died and rose again for us.

Now we must notice here that God shows His glory chiefly to Moses by His Word. He does not let Moses see His face or full glory, "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." (Exodus 32:20) But God does allow Moses to see a reflection of His naked glory. This happened the next day when Moses again went up the mountain to receive the new stone tablets with the Ten Commandments.

But God had to protect Moses so that when His full glory passed by it did not destroy him. Why? Even Moses was a sinner man. And no sinner can see God's glory and live. This is why God shows His glory to us hidden in His Word.

So also Jesus, the Son of God when He came to earth hid His glory in the human body. Once in a while He showed His glory to the disciples, but He didn't always and fully use His glory. In John 14:7 Jesus said to His disciples: "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him."

And Philip said in John 14:8-9, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father"

In Jesus we see God's glory and chiefly His grace and mercy for sinners. Today we see Jesus in our Bibles, God's Holy Word. We see Him by faith in the Word and not with our eyes. Jesus said to Thomas, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29) And Paul says, "For we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Now through His Word we look through dark glasses at the sunshine of His glory. But when we die and on the Judgement Day our bodies rise up new and be glorified as Jesus' body, then we will be able to take off our dark glasses and see the sunshine of His glory with our own eyes face to face. That will be a wonderful day!

But while we now believe and hope, let us not despise our dark glasses. Now we can't stand to see God's full glory, because we are sinners and have a sinful body. So let us put on our dark glasses and see His glory as good as we can. This means to humble yourself before His holy Word in the Bible and respect and attend to it. Treasure His Word as your dearest thing.

When God spoke His Word to Moses in Mt. Sinai we read that Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. (Exodus 34:8)

We ought to have more respect and humility before God's Word when it gets read or preached here in our Church. Too often we are careless and indifferent and talk and gossip in Church. God said, "These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word." (Isaiah 66:2)

Amen.