I'm God...and You're Not - Part A

People have always had a problem with an invisible God. That's what moves people toward idolatry. They want to see something, touch something, relate physically to something. People have problems with an invisible God.

I mean, think about it. How on earth can you have a personal relationship with a person you never see or hear or touch or read the facial expressions, the body language? Countless so-called experts offer advice on taking control of your life. When we're in control, we feel secure.

When we're not, we worry. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzen, Skip reminds you why you have a very good reason not to worry because someone else is ultimately in control. Then at the end of today's program, Skip and his wife Lanya talk about how you can gain a clear understanding of God based on His Word.

Thanks, Skip and Lanya. Be sure to stay tuned after today's message to hear the full conversation. Now we want to tell you about a special resource that will help you get a fuller picture of God's character and nature so you can draw closer to Him. Can you imagine reading a biography about your life only to find details about your life that were wrong?

Well, it would be frustrating, wouldn't it? And God's nature, character and motives have often been poorly portrayed and even intentionally misstated. And that's one of the reasons I decided to write the book The Biography of God to open your eyes and heart to a larger picture of God.

I hope you will go on this journey with me as we ask and answer the universal question, can we know God? Here's how to get your copy of my newest book, The Biography of God. Biography of God is our way to say thank you when you give $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach to more people. Request your copy when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in Exodus chapters 33 and 34 as Skip Heitzig starts today's study.

A lot of the illustrations that I get are sent to me by people who know I love to read them, love to get a good laugh. And so somebody emailed me this, it's deartechsupport at mailintellect.com. Last year, I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0. And I noticed that the new program began making unexpected changes to the accounting modules like limiting access to flower and jewelry purchase applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many valuable programs such as Romance 1.0 and replaced them with undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. Conversations 8.0 no longer runs and House Cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the program. I've tried running nagging 5.1 to fix these problems but to no avail.

Please advise sign desperate. Dear Desperate, keep in mind Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Try to enter the command C colon forward slash I thought you loved me and immediately install tiers 6.2. Husband 1.0 should automatically run guilty 3.0 and flower 7.0 which will take care of the problem. But remember, the overuse of this command will cause Husband 1.0 to activate Grumpy Silence 2.5 and Beer 6.1, an aggravating program that creates annoying snoring loudly wav files and incoherent babble viruses. Under no circumstances are you to install Mother-in-Law 1.0 or a new Boyfriend program. These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program but has limited memory and cannot learn applications quickly.

Sign team support. Getting to know somebody takes time. It's a lifelong process in many cases. It takes time, patience, and the willingness to disclose who that person is to the other. I remember when I first met my wife Lenya. It was at a potluck at my previous girlfriend's apartment.

I was there for a potluck and I noticed her across the room and she was radiant. We met, we talked. We talked about God, we talked about music. So a few days later I thought I want to get to know her better. So I asked her on a date. The first date was a concert at church.

Good move. The second date was at a seafood restaurant not knowing that at that time she hated seafood. But I didn't know yet. It takes time to know. And then the third date was to the beach where she was to watch me surf.

There were no waves that day at all. It was totally the Lord. Over time we started to get to know each other. Sometime later, on one particular evening where we had dinner together, we exchanged some of the deeper thoughts, our dreams, our hopes, what we wanted out of life. At that moment I thought I want more than just the relationship that we've had and that dating relationship moved into a love relationship and we got married. Now 27 years later we're still getting to know each other. And it takes time. And I'll say this, that wife 1.0 is a whole lot better than girlfriend 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.

I don't think I had more than four my whole life. But anyway, we got married and we're learning about each other. We're learning to listen to each other and ask the right questions as that disclosure takes place. In this section of Exodus, God and Moses are interacting. And as they interact, we come to chapter 34 where God gives to Moses his autobiography.

He gives Moses a list of things that he is and things that he does. It's a very unusual section, but I'm taking you back today to chapter 32 where the story begins. It begins with a revolt and there's four sections of this story. And the first is the revolt. A problem was happening in Israel. It's what I call the uh-oh chapter.

See, everything's so far so good. They're going through the wilderness. God is leading them. They're following. We come now to chapter 32 and it's uh-oh. It marks one of the lowest points in their whole history.

A blot on their record. Verse 1, When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Moses is up on the mount. Mount Sinai getting the law. He's taken a little too long.

People get very impatient. It's ironic that at the very moment God is giving his revelation to Moses, the people quickly turn to imagination and they cast an idol, a golden calf. Why a calf? Why a symbol in the form of a calf?

I believe it's simply conditioned response. They had been in Egypt and part of the Egyptian worship system, they would have seen it, was the golden calf. The symbol of Apis the bull, one of the gods of Egypt that represented strength. And the legend said that Apis was the renewer of life, that a lightning flash came from heaven and struck a cow. Apis was born and keep in mind they're at the foot of Mount Sinai and if you know the story, when they looked up where Moses was, they saw lightning flashes and heard thunder and felt the ground move and it reminded them of that legend. And so in making a golden calf, it was their way of saying our God is powerful, strong, mighty. But it violated the second commandment that God was giving to Moses. You shall have no graven images or carved images before me. So it begs this question now. Why did they do that? What's up with needing to make some physical visible image of God because Moses hasn't come back?

Why? Here's why I believe. People have always had a problem with an invisible God. That's what moves people toward idolatry. They want to see something, touch something, relate physically to something. People have problems with an invisible God.

I mean think about it. How on earth can you have a personal relationship with a person you never see or hear or touch or read the facial expressions, the body language of? So people are driven toward some kind of a physical visible image. Years ago a story came out that's been made into a movie several times called The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and the idea of an invisible man, that sounds really cool at first. And it was great to be invisible, this guy at first, but after a while it turned on him because he found out that nobody trusts somebody they can't see.

He might be in the room hearing or seeing things and their privacy is invaded and so instead of being cool it became a horrible thing. And so we relate to the little boy who said, Mommy, are you sure God's up there? Oh yes honey, God is up there. And he said, wouldn't it be great if he just poked his head out every now and then so we could see him?

We can relate to that. Fundamentally that's what we'd all like. We relate to Isaiah who in chapter 45 of his book said, truly you're a God who hides himself. And here we are as Christians, part of our looking forward to the future has to do with the promise that we're going to see him face to face one day.

Titus chapter 2, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So that's promised us, we want that, we at some level have a problem with a God who's invisible and we want him visible. Until we see him, we're called to live not by sight but by faith. We live by faith and not by sight.

That's the condition we're at now. Another question is often asked in sections of scripture like this, it's simply this, why is this so bad? Why does God get so mad at these people for making an image and moreover, what's so bad about it? I mean the whole second commandment, no graven images, how come?

Well, there's a couple reasons. Number one, because there is no image in all the world that can represent God. There's no image that can represent the totality of his character because God by his very nature is unlimited. And as soon as you cast an image, you have limited in some form the limitless God, so you're obscuring his glory. So yeah, here's Apis the Bull or this golden calf representing to them Yahweh, their God. God's strong, God's powerful. But that image does not speak of his moral attributes, his love, his patience, his kindness, his justice. It limits God. And so, no wonder the Lord in Isaiah chapter 40 asks probingly, to whom then will you liken God?

Or what likeness will you compare to him? The workman molds an image and the goldsmith overspreads it with gold and the silversmith casts silver chains. He's saying, can you see how ludicrous this is? Honey, I'm going to be home late tonight, I got to make God. Oh, but look at, here's my God, he's just not God, he's a 24 karat God with a silver chain, put it on the mantle. You've had to make your God and now you have to carry your God wherever you want to see him.

Here's the second reason. Not only is there no image in the world that can represent him, but as soon as you and I are projecting what we think God is and therefore we make an image of that, we're guilty of making God into our image. We're reversing the whole process, we're made in God's image. We have certain moral attributes and characteristics that reflect the personality of God. But when we cast an image, we're essentially saying that's the part of God that I want to focus on and nothing else. We're making God into our image.

So they did this. Moses comes down from the mountain, he's angry, he's got the Ten Commandments with him. He goes up to Aaron, you got to read this excuse, verse 21. Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them? Now listen to his, Aaron's response. So Aaron said, do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people that they are set on evil. For they said to me, make us gods that shall go before us.

For this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. Now watch this. And I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me and I cast it into the fire and this calf came out. Okay, if there's ever a list of the top ten lame excuses of all times, you got to put this in it. Moses, dude, I'm serious, like I threw the gold in it.

It just walked out. Yeah, okay. Lame excuses. By the way, it didn't stop here. I had a policeman friend tell me about all the lame excuses he's heard when he's pulled people over.

And then I found an actual recorded list of sort of like the best ones. A policeman pulled over a guy for running two red lights and he said to the police officer, look it's a V8, you try stopping it. The guy was speeding, policeman pulled him over and the guy's excuse was, well I had this speed to get in front of you. I'm hurrying to the service station because I'm running out of fuel. So a lame excuse.

It's one of the lowest points in their history. It's a revolt of these people. Now that revolt takes us to chapter 33 of Exodus. It brings us to a request now of Moses.

The revolt with the golden calf causes God to say, look, I'm going to remove my presence from you altogether, but I'm going to send in my place an angel to represent me. Look at verse 2 of chapter 33. And I will send my angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Termite. Oh, that's not in there.

I just do that to see if you're listening. And the Jebusite. Termite's in there?

No. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey for I will not go up in your midst lest I consume you on the way for you're a stiff-necked people. When the people heard these grave tidings that God wasn't coming, they mourned and no one put on his ornaments. Now, Moses is so disappointed at this point. He kind of goes into a tailspin. He thinks, I just got to get alone and talk to God. So he goes out to meet with God at a little tent outside the camp called the Tabernacle of Meeting. Just a place like a prayer room where Moses could talk to God. And he says, God, look, I really need you to come with us.

I need your presence. And I want to know your ways. And there's this beautiful interchange like two friends would just pour out their hearts to one another. And the culmination of the prayer is in verse 18 of chapter 33. And he said, please, show me your glory. And then he, God, said, I will make all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.

I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But he said, you cannot see my face, for no man shall see me and live. And the Lord said, here's a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. And so it will be that while my glory passes by that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with my hand while I pass by. And then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

Here's the bottom line. Moses wanted to experience God more than anything else in his life. He wanted to see God. God, show me your glory. What does that mean? Glory, the word in Hebrew, kavod, means to be heavy or to have weight to something. And the idea typically in the Bible refers to a person's weighty reputation or high honor, honor of position of great honor.

One translation puts it this way. Lord, show me your own self. In other words, I want to see a full disclosure of your glorious person.

I want to see you. Now, why does he ask for that? Well, probably because he's about to go through, he's already had a difficult time with these people. He knows he's going to have to lead them on through the wilderness. If he can just see God, it'll be enough for him. Now, this is not unique. In the New Testament, there was one of the disciples named Philip who said to Jesus, remember, show us the Father, and that'll be enough for us. That's all we need.

Of course it would be. If you could see God, he would not carry you through anything. Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. But if you go back to our verse, verse 20, God is saying, look, Moses, you can't see me or you'll die. A mortal man cannot handle the full effulgence of God's glory. If he did, it would be like a bug and a bug zapper. You know, when a bug comes to the light and goes to those little electrically charged zapper, what happens to the bug?

Gone. That would happen to Moses. No man can see me and live. However, God does accommodate Moses' request to some degree and gets to have some experience where he sees the radiance of God, not from the face, but as God says, from the back. Now, I have a question. Why did Moses ask for this? Why did Moses ask to see visibly the glory of God, show me your glory? And I'll tell you why I'm asking the question. Because think of what Moses has already seen and experienced. It would be enough for most of us.

We'd stop right there. I mean, Moses' experience with God so far has been greater than all of our experiences with God put together. He saw a burning bush and God talking to him from a burning bush.

Do you ever have one of those? I haven't. He saw plagues fall on Egypt. He saw the children of Israel protected.

He watched a body of water open up and they went through it on dry land and then cover up their enemies behind them. On and on and on he has seen and experienced so much and yet he says, I want more. I want your glory. Why?

I'll tell you why. Because no matter how spiritual you are or how theologically informed you may be or knowledgeable you are, at your very core and my very core, though we've experienced God's presence to some degree in our Christian walk, we really want to see him visibly. We want to see what Moses is asking for.

Show me your glory. That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series The Biography of God. Now let's go into the studio with Skip and Lenya as they talk about how you can gain a clear understanding of God based on his Word. Today we saw that the problem with making an image of God is that you're creating God in your own image. We need to stick to God's revelation of himself and his Word. Skip, what issues can a skewed view of God lead to, even for believers?

And what's the best way to realign the view with what God says about himself? Lenya, I remember when we dated and then we were first married, you had a saying, I think you heard it in Youth with a Mission, that God is never greater than our present view of him. I don't know if it was Dean Sherman or somebody that said that, but that really stuck out, you know, that God is never greater than our present view of him, that we can actually limit God. And you know, when I look at Scripture, like Psalm 78, it says they limited the Holy One of Israel.

What a statement. God who is unlimited can be limited by people's unbelief. Or when Jesus went to Nazareth, and it says he could do no mighty work there. And that's because people were limiting an unlimited God. So I would say to get out of that, to unleash power in your life, God's power, would be a meditative study on the attributes of God.

Yeah. Because then your worldview, how you see the world, is going to be informed by Scripture, not interpreting Scripture through a personal lens or prejudice. Yeah, I've heard that most counseling could be resolved with knowing the character or attributes of God. You know, because sometimes we don't realize he's merciful. We, you know, feel like God is angry, and we're angry, whatever it is.

So like, if you're snagged on something, that's really good advice. Thank you, Skip and Lenya. At Connect with Skip Heitzig, we want to help listeners like you live a life of dynamic faith in Jesus. But we're counting on your financial support to keep this strong Bible teaching on the air. Please give today to continue bringing this broadcast your way and connecting more people to the living Savior. Just call 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip talks about how you can have an encounter with God just like Moses and what your response should be. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.