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Seeking Hard After God - Life of Moses Part 47

So What? / Lon Solomon
The Truth Network Radio
October 11, 2024 7:00 am

Seeking Hard After God - Life of Moses Part 47

So What? / Lon Solomon

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October 11, 2024 7:00 am

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Well, you know, today we are going to continue in our study of the life of that great man of God, Moses.

And today, actually, we want to look at what I think is one of the most fascinating passages anywhere in the Bible. Exodus chapter 33 says, Then Moses said, Lord, please now show me your glory. So the Lord said to Moses, there is a place near me where you may stand. And when my glory passes by, I will place you in a cleft in the rock. And I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back parts, but you must not see my face. Now this passage has inspired some of the greatest hymns in the history of the Christian church. Ira Sankey, the great song leader for Dwight L. Moody, arranged the song, the Lord's our rock.

In him we hide a shelter in the time of storm. William Cushing wrote, hiding in thee, hiding in thee, thou blessed rock of ages, I'm hiding in thee. And of course, Fanny Crosby wrote the wonderful song, he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock and covers me there with his hand. Finally, the most well-known hymn of all by Augustus Toplady, and really the only hymn that Hollywood thinks the church knows, and that is rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Now all these hymns are wonderful. They're great, but you know, God gave us Exodus chapter 33. He recorded in the Bible for more than just for us to sing about. He actually put it in the Bible for the events of this chapter to serve as a great spiritual challenge to our lives, a spiritual challenge for us to do exactly what Moses did in this chapter, for us to rise up and ask God for a greater portion of himself, for us to hunger and thirst for a deeper intimacy after God, and then to go hard after it in our lives.

And that is what we want to talk about today. Now before we pick up in the chapter, just a little bit of background. Remember the Israelites have been camped at the foot of Mount Sinai for some six to nine months. And God says, now it's time for you guys to start making preparations to pick up stakes and head off to the promised land.

So that's where we pick up the story. Verse one, Exodus chapter 33. Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place and go to the land I promised by an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Behold, I will send an angel before you to drive out the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites and the termites.

Now the termites aren't in there, but you understand. And God says, but I will not go with you because you are a stiff necked people and I might destroy you along the way. God says, you know, Moses, because of my holiness, if I actually go with these people, I'm going to be constantly on the verge of annihilating them. So I think it's a better idea, Moses, if I send an angel with you and he'll take care of business. And well, you know, Moses didn't like this.

He thought this was a terrible idea. So he goes out to talk to God about it. Verse seven, now Moses had pitched a tent outside the camp called the tent of meeting. This was not the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was not made yet. This was a special tent where Moses would go and talk to God. Verse nine, and when Moses would go into this tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance while the Lord spoke to Moses. Verse 11, and there in this tent, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, like a man speaks with his friend. I mean, how amazing is this? In fact, in Numbers chapter 12, verse eight, the Bible tells us that in this tent, Moses would actually see that to Munah did the form the likeness, the semblance of the Lord, and that Moses would talk to God face to face as casually and as naturally as you and I would stand at the water cooler at work and talk to our friends.

Amazing. Deuteronomy 34, verse 10 says, since that time, no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Well, God and Moses talk, and by the end of the conversation, they solve the issue that brought Moses out there to talk to God. God relents and he agrees to go with the Israelites to the Promised Land. Verse 18, the Bible says, so Moses turned and went back to the camp, saying, Hallelujah, I got everything I wanted. No, that's not what the verse says.

To the contrary, the verse says, then Moses said, Lord, I beg you, please show me your glory. Show me your resplendent fullness. Show me your naked essence. Lord, please let me experience your full undiluted being.

Now, if you and I had been standing in that tent with Moses, we might have been tempted to say, hey, Moses, come on now, man. I mean, you already see God. You already talked to God face to face.

You've already got more intimacy with God than any human being on the face of the earth. I mean, enough is enough. All right, enough. But, you know, Moses would have turned to us and he would have said, I'm sorry, you're wrong.

Enough is not enough. Because, you see, friends, this is the way it always is with God. God is so beautiful. God is so captivating. God is so awesome. God is so unfathomable that the more we get to know God, the more we want to know Him more.

You followed that, right? The more we get to know God, the more we want to get to know Him more. This is the wonderful process of the Christian experience. It's all about getting to know God more and more and more.

I love what A.W. Tozer says in this regard and I quote, he said, the heavenly birth is not an end, but a beginning for now begins the glorious pursuit, the happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead and where we stop, Tozer says, no one has yet discovered for there is in the mysterious depths of God neither limit nor end. He concludes by saying to have found God and to still pursue Him is scorned by smug, self-satisfied religionists.

But it is the happy experience of every true child of God and how right he is. Well, you know, Moses had this kind of holy passion for God. Moses had this kind of insatiable longing to go deeper and deeper and get more and more of God. And so how did God respond to Moses's request? Well, verse 19 says, and the Lord said to Moses, I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my essence in your presence. But you cannot see my face, for no human being can see my face and live. Then the Lord said to Moses, there is a place near me where you may stand and when my glory passes by, I will place you in a cleft in the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I've passed by and then I will remove my hand and you will see my back parts, but you must not see my face.

You say, okay, Lon. So tell us what exactly did Moses see up there on the mountain that day with God? Well, how in the world am I supposed to know what he saw up there on the mountain? I don't know what he saw. Friends, what Moses saw up there on the mountain that day, you and I will never know this side of heaven.

But listen here. The important thing about this chapter is not what Moses saw. The important thing about this chapter is the response of God to Moses's request. Moses said, I want more of you, God and God. We find out in this chapter was excited to answer Moses's prayer. God was excited to grant Moses a deeper and a fuller and a more intimate knowledge of himself. And you know, the result of this is that Moses got to know God on a level that very few people have ever known God. Psalm 103 verse seven says that God made known his ways to Moses. He allowed Moses to understand why he acted the way he acts and he allowed Moses to understand his heart and his value system and what makes God tick. But you know why Moses got to see all of that. You know why Moses got to experience all of that.

Don't miss this friends. It's because Moses wanted it so badly and because Moses sought after it so hard. And that's why God allowed him to see it. And that's the whole bottom line of this chapter.

That's the point of what God is trying to get across to you and me. Now that's as far as we want to go in the chapter today because we want to stop and ask our most important question and we all know what this is. So we're ready. Yes, we're ready. Yes. All right. Nice and loud. Here we go.

One, two, three. Oh, you say lawn so what? You say I'm so happy for Moses. God bless him up there on the mountain. Got to see all that.

God bless him. But what difference does any of this make to me? Well, let's talk about that. You know, folks, it's important for us to understand that we have the very same God today Moses had and that the way that God felt about Moses's desire to know him more is exactly how God feels about our desire today to get to know him more. My friends, if God was excited to reveal his ways and his heart and his essence to Moses, if God was excited to grant Moses a close and intimate relationship with him to a 3500 years ago, folks, God is just as anxious and excited about doing that very same thing for you and me today. To put it another way, as a follower of Jesus Christ, deep intimacy with God is yours for the taking.

And it's mine for the taking. You say all right, Lon. So if that's true, then please explain to me why there are so few Christians in the world today who seem to have this kind of close walk with God, this intimacy with God and Lon, please explain to me why I don't have a closer walk. Why I don't have a more intimate walk with Christ than I have? Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? And there's a three part answer to that question.

And I'm going to give you the three answers and then we're done for today. Friends, listen, if you and I want to have the kind of deep and intimate relationship with God that Moses had, three things have to happen. Number one, number one, we have to realize, first of all, that such a relationship with God is even possible. I mean, there are many followers of Christ in our world today who don't even realize that the kind of relationship Moses and God had, that that can even be possessed by you and me today. You say, Oh, come on, Lon. You got to be kidding.

No, I'm not. Folks, there are enormous segments of Christianity today where this truth that God is a person and as such that you and I can cultivate a relationship with him that is deep and intimate, just like we can with any person. There are many places in Christianity today where this truth is not taught, where this truth is not encouraged, and where this truth isn't even believed. I mean, our world is full of churches where the emphasis week after week is on salvation messages and walking the aisle, where the emphasis week after week is on ritual and liturgy and saying rote prayers, where the emphasis week after week is on money and tithing or or social issues or political issues, while all the time the living presence of the living God is never even mentioned in those churches. Now, if a person grows up in a church like that, if a person comes to Christ in a church like that, if a person is taught how to live the Christian experience in a church like that, folks, it's hard as you may find it to believe that person often never even realizes the kind of intimacy Moses had with God that that even exists. And you know, sadly, some of the worst offenders in this regard are the Bible teaching churches, because these are churches so often where where the Bible knowledge is emphasized as an end in itself. But you know, folks in Philippians chapter three, the Apostle Paul did not say that his goal in the Christian life was that I may know the Bible that in what he said, he said, it's that I may know him, that is Jesus Christ. Again, A.W. Tozer in this regard, and I quote, he says, sound Bible teaching is an imperative in the church.

And friends, I totally agree with that. But Tozer says, it can be carried on wrongly. Well, Tozer, how do you carry on Bible teaching wrongly?

Listen, he'll explain it. The Bible is not an end in itself, he says, but rather it is a means to an end. And that end is to bring us into an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, so that we might taste and know the inner sweetness of God himself at the center and the core of our being until he says, and unless we find God in this kind of personal experience, we are not any the better for simply having heard the Bible.

And he's right. And so number one today as a follower of Christ, I want you to leave here today realizing that above all else, God wants you to know him above all else. God wants you to experience him above all else.

God wants you to understand his heart. And God wants you to walk every day in deep personal intimacy with him as a person. This is the apex of the Christian life. This is the ultimate goal of the Christian life.

And everything else we do is simply a means to get us to that end. Number two, if you and I want to have a walk of intimacy with God like Moses had, number two, then we must have a hunger and a thirst for this kind of relationship with God. I love what God says Jeremiah 29 13.

He said, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And we've already seen that Moses had this kind of hunger for God. So did David Psalm 42. David says as the deer pants for the water Brooks, so my soul pants for you Oh God, folks, this is the language of passion.

This is the language of intensity. He goes on to say my soul longs for you, my soul thirsts for God for the living God. And what did the Apostle Paul say Philippians chapter three verse eight, he said, I have counted all things to be lost. And I consider them rubbish, if I might be able to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering.

Paul said, I'll suffer the loss of everything, if it just means I can know Christ in intimate personal relationship. And you see, this is what set apart Moses and David, and the Apostle Paul and every other great man and woman of God of history from the rest of the human race. They weren't made of different protoplasm than the rest of the human race. What set them apart is that they had a burning, a consuming and obsessive passion to go deeper and deeper into God. They were hungry for it.

They were thirsty for it. You know, there's a book called The Last Crusade that details the struggles of a British military unit in the Sinai desert during World War One being led by a British man named Major Gilbert. And I'd like to quote from this book.

It says this. It says our heads ached, our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare, our tongues began to swell, our lips turned purplish black and burst open. Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again. But we desperately battled on towards Sharia. There were wells at Sharia. We fought on as men fight for their lives.

We entered Sharia on the heels of the retreating Turks. And the first object that met our view were the great stone cisterns of cold, clear water. We clamored, we crawled, we scratched our way to those cisterns. Men fell down and drank on their hands and knees on their bellies.

It took four hours before the last man was filled. And then Major Gilbert says this. He says, I learned my first real Bible lesson on that march. If such were our thirst for God, for His presence in our lives, how rich the fruit of the Spirit would be.

End of quote. You know, Jesus said, Matthew chapter five, blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. And in using this language, hunger and thirst, Jesus was trying to communicate to you and me something about the intensity with which we need to seek God, if we expect God to respond and reveal Himself to us. J. N. Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren said this. He said to be hungry is not enough. We must be really starving for God. When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed on the husks with the pigs.

But when he was starving, he went home to his father. End of quote. And friends, let me just say, God does not reveal Himself to casual seekers.

No, no. If we want God to reveal Himself to us, then we need to go after Him like Moses went after Him. We have to seek hard after Him like David did and like Paul did. We have to take time out of our insane schedule here in Washington, D.C. Time to read and meditate on the Word of God and seek hard after God in the Word. Time to pursue Him in prayer and seek hard after God in prayer.

Time to commune with Him in silence and seek hard after God in silence to pursue Him, friends, with them and with vigor and with intensity. If we want God to reveal Himself to us, Moses said it Deuteronomy 4. He said, But if you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him.

Moses said, Take it from me. I know when you seek Him with all of your heart and all of your soul. And so, my friend, I ask you, how hungry are you really for God? How hungry are you really to have this kind of intimate personal walk with God that Moses and David and these other folks had? What I can tell you is that to whatever level of hunger you have for God, to that level and that level only will God fill you. The more hungry you are, the more God will fill you. Third and finally, if you and I want to have this kind of deep and intimate relationship with God like Moses had, then number three, we must be willing third of all to pay the price in suffering for such a relationship with God. You know, it's fascinating to me what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians chapter three. We read it a moment ago. He said, I have counted all things to be lost, and I consider them to be rubbish that I might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.

Now that's interesting. Why in the world would the Apostle Paul link these two things? Why would he link knowing Christ and suffering? Huh?

Well, I'll tell you why. It's because that the Apostle Paul understood that one of the things that binds people together in deep intimate relationship for life is when people have suffered together. I mean two soldiers who shared a foxhole in combat, people who have shivered together and sweated together and survived together. They have a relationship of closeness, such as you will not find in people who've never suffered like that together. Two parents who've cared for a disabled child and who've wept together and who've prayed together and who've gone through the hard times together or married couple who's cared for an aging parent and done that. Those two people are closer than normal married couples.

Why? Because they've suffered together. Two co-workers who've seen a company through difficult times.

Two co-workers who together went without paychecks and together spent the night at the office night after night and together lived on the edge of the taking this company through and causing it to survive. Boy, you've got a closeness there your normal co-workers don't have. Now we don't like to hear this friends as followers of Christ, but you know what? The same is true in our relationship with Almighty God. When we have suffered along with Almighty God together, there is a closeness that comes into our relationship that can't come any other way.

And you know Moses, he suffered 40 years of isolation and rejection on the backside of the desert. David said, Psalm 119 verse 71, it was good that I was afflicted. It was good that I suffered.

Why? So that I might learn your ways God. And Job, the crown prince of suffering, what did he say? He said, before I suffered, I had heard about you with my ears. Oh, but now that I've suffered Lord, now I see you with my eyes away with this nonsense that a suffering Christian is outside of the will of God. Friends, actually the very opposite is true.

The opposite is true. When we suffer so often, we are right smack dab in the middle of the will of God. Robert Murray McShane, the great Scottish preacher, a young man who suffered much of his life, he died at age 29, wrote this and I quote, he said, you cannot love trouble for its own sake.

Bitter is always bitter and pain is always pain. Yet he says, for the blessing it brings God often sends it. Suffering, McShane says, leads us to cling to Jesus, to hide deeper in the rock, to be still and know that he is God and above all else, it produces an experiential acquaintance with Jesus, a fuller taste of his sweetness.

Isn't that what we want? Don't we want an experiential acquaintance with Jesus? McShane says suffering is what gets you there. He concludes by saying there is a great want about Christians who have not suffered, end of quote.

This is why in Philippians chapter three, the apostle Paul connected knowing Christ with the fellowship of his suffering because Paul understood their vital connection. You know, my wife and I, Brenda, have been married 33 and a half years. That is a testament, let me say not to me, but to the amazing patience and graciousness of my wife.

I say that honestly. But you know, the last 15 years of our marriage have been years of suffering caused, as many of you know, by a little girl named Jill with severe disabilities whom God sent into our life 15 years ago, a precious little thing. Well, you know, before Jill came into my life, friends, I didn't realize it was possible to hurt as badly as we've hurt some over those years. But I want to stand here before you and testify today that that suffering that God has sent into our lives has been a blessing. I want to testify to you that that suffering has been a good thing.

I mean, because of the fact we've suffered together, Brenda and I have a closer marriage than we've ever had a closer relationship than we ever had a closer family than we've ever had. And just speaking personally because of that suffering, I am a better man today. Because of that suffering, I'm a better pastor today because of that suffering.

I am a better leader today. And most important of all, because of that suffering. I know Jesus Christ deeper and better today than I knew him 15 years ago. And friends, I know him better today than I ever could have known him had it not been for that suffering.

And you know why? Because that suffering made me go deep. You see, when everything is going well, our relationship with God can be like the little stones that you skip across the water, you know, we just bounce off the surface of God and everything's going great.

And away we go. Ah, but friends, when you're suffering, you can't survive like that. You got to go deep when you're suffering. And God drove me deep to find the resources I need to survive the hope, the resiliency, the strength, the encouragement just to survive. And so I say to you now, as painful as it's been, that's suffering has been a good thing in my life, a good thing.

And you know, years ago, when I first came to this church, there was a dear man of God who's with the Lord now, who took me out for breakfast one day. And as part of the conversation, he said to me, you know, Lon, he said, suffering burns out shallowness. He said, Do you understand that?

And I sat there as a 30 year old young man, and I shook my head and I went, Uh huh. Uh huh. I do. Friends, I didn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue. I mean, I understood it a little bit intellectually, but I didn't have a clue.

Well, I tell you what, at 59, I understand what he was trying to say to me. He was trying to say to me that suffering makes you go deep into God and it burns out the shell, the rock across the surface of the water way of living. Now am I suggesting that as followers of Christ, we go out and look for suffering? No. Am I suggesting we go and volunteer for affliction?

No. What I'm saying, my friends, is that understanding the connection that the apostle Paul made for us between suffering and knowing God, God wants to get us to the place where we're willing to pray, Lord, I want to know you more, Lord, I want to know you deeply. And if to answer that prayer, you have to send suffering into my life, then send it.

I'm willing to take it, Lord, because I want to go deep. Now let me kind of conclude today and say that I know many of us here have gone through times of deep suffering in our lives because I know many of you and many of us here today are going through times of suffering right now, even as I'm standing here and talking to you. And I want to say to you who have suffered, and I want to say to you who are suffering now, people who have cried out to God like I did and said, Lord, why are you doing this to me? Why are you sending this into my life? I want to say to you, don't you dare, don't you dare accept the cheap and superficial explanation for your suffering that our modern insipid brand of Christianity gives you.

Don't you do that. The explanation that says, well, it's the devil doing it, God doesn't have anything to do with it. Don't you accept that? The explanation that says, well, you're just not trusting God enough. Don't you accept that?

The explanation that says, well, there absolutely must be unconfessed sin in your life if you're suffering like this, even though you've looked for it and you can't find any. Don't you accept that explanation? Folks, you accept the explanation of the Word of God.

Away with this other nonsense. This is theological baloney that you hear on television or on the radio. Don't you accept that? You accept the explanation the apostle Paul gave you. You accept the explanation that Moses and Job and all the other great men and women of God down through history have lived through and given us. And that explanation is that God is trying to drive you deep, my friend, not deep into despair, but deep into himself. And if you'll go there, there will be a day you will turn around and you will bless God for the suffering he sent into your life. Not because, as McShane said, the pain wasn't pain, it'll be pain. And not because the bitter isn't bitter, it'll be bitter, but because of what it did in your relationship to Christ.

And because the apostle Paul knew this, this is why he said, 2 Corinthians 12, 10, I rejoice in my sufferings. You say that doesn't even make good sense. Oh, it may not make good human sense, but folks, it makes great biblical sense. And that's how we're to live. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not to live based on human logic.

We are meant to live based on biblical truth. Well, this is deep talking to deep today, folks. Not giving you pablum here. We're not talking baby food here. We're giving you the stuff here today that true men and women of God are made of. This is the stuff that turned ordinary people into giants for God.

Just what we're talking about today. And you know what? Every one of you here can be a giant for God. Oh, you may not open the Red Sea and you may not call fire down from heaven, although on the beltway, you're tempted, I know. But you may not make ax heads float or raise somebody from the dead, but you can be a giant for God, my friend.

And the way to be a giant for God is to know Christ in a deep and personal way like these men and women did. And you know what? You can have that, but there's a price. There's a price my friends. There's a price in your everyday life in terms of your schedule. And there's a price in suffering.

And you know what? The only people who are going to be willing to pay this price are the people who want intimacy with God bad enough. And that's why there aren't 10 million men of God in the world. And that's why there aren't 10 million women of God in the world. And that's why in the Bible, there aren't millions and millions of people God tells us about because you got to want it bad. And not everybody does.

Not even every follower of Christ does. My heart for you is that you'll be one of the people who wants it bad. And if you want it bad, you can have it as long as you're willing to pay the price.

What is it, number one? Well, God wants us to know, first of all, that he's anxious to reveal himself to us. He wants us to leave here knowing that. But he wants us to understand that we've got to hunger and thirst for this kind of relationship with God. We got to seek hard after God if we want it.

And that means changes in our everyday lifestyle. Finally, if we want this relationship with God, we've got to understand that for him to get us there, we're going to have to suffer. And we're going to have to be people who are willing to do that because we want God more than we want comfort.

I hope you'll be one of those people. Let's pray together. Dear Lord Jesus, we have talked today about some very challenging things.

And we've gone directly against the prosperity gospel that we see so much on television and we hear on radio and we read in books where everything is supposed to be healthy and wealthy and successful and blah, blah, blah. Lord Jesus, that is not the picture of the scripture. The great saints of history and the great saints of the Bible, they suffered, God.

And they were willing to suffer because they wanted you more than anything else. So Lord Jesus, challenge our hearts today. Help us to walk in the footsteps of the apostle Paul and Moses and David and Esther and Ruth who went deep with God. And Lord Jesus, help us here at McLean Bible Church to make men and women of God, not casual Christians, men and women of God so that we might be able to be used by you to really impact this city for Christ. Use us, Lord, in this town. But first, Lord, take us deep and give us a heart to want to go deep, whatever the cost. Change our lives because we were here today, Father, and we heard and studied the eternal Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And that's what God's people said. Amen. Amen.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-11 08:13:44 / 2024-10-11 08:26:39 / 13

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