Well, you know, we are in the life of that great man of God, Moses. And today we want to look at Exodus chapter 34 and at an event out of Moses' life that the Holy Spirit takes in the New Testament and uses it to make a powerful point about the power of the Gospel.
And I hope today that by the time we're done, God will have used his word in our lives today to inspire us and to motivate us to go out and be bold in sharing Christ everywhere we go. Now, before we dig into Exodus 34, how about just a little bit of background? You know, last week we saw how up on Mount Sinai, God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, and then God revealed his glory to Moses. Well, after that, the beginning of Exodus 34 tells us that God gave Moses two new tablets with the Ten Commandments on them.
Remember, he broke the first two, right, threw them down on the ground. God gave him two new ones and a host of other laws and commands for the Israelites. And so this is where we pick up the story with Moses coming back down the mountain, verse 29, chapter 34. Now, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two new tablets in his hands, he was not aware that the skin of his face was shining because he had spoken with the Lord. Now, the Hebrew word here that's translated to shine is a very interesting word. It actually comes from a noun that means horns, like the horns on a deer or the horns on an antelope, and therefore literally the word means to send out rays of light like little horns.
In fact, one early church father actually translated this verse as follows. He said, Moses' face was dispensing beams like many horns or cones around his head. You know, I'm sure all of you have seen those frescoes, those paintings of the saints where they've all got these little gold halos or called glories actually around their head.
You know what I'm talking about, right? And sometimes inside of these gold things, it looks like there's little horns or little rays. Did you ever wonder where the early Christian painters got this idea from to put these around people's heads? Well, friends, they got the idea right from this passage where the Bible says that Moses had a radiant golden halo of some kind around his head as he came down from Mount Sinai. And why was Moses' face shining? Well, the reason is because the glory of God that Moses had seen up on top of Mount Sinai, that that glory was so awesome. It was so powerful. It was filled with so much raw energy that it lit Moses up like a light bulb.
You understand? I don't know about your kids, but when my kids were growing up, they used to love to play with phosphorescent paint. And you know how phosphorescent paint works. You shine a light on it and the paint absorbs some of the energy from the light. And then when you take the light away for a while, the paint reflects that energy back. Well, in a sense, friends, what we're saying is that Moses' face was kind of like phosphorescent paint. The glory of God had shined on his face and the energy of that glory was so great that even after Moses left God's presence, the energy that God had bestowed upon him by showing him his glory, that energy continued to radiate from his face. And here's the most amazing part of all. The verse goes on to say, but Moses was not aware that his face was shining. You say, well, now, Lon, you know what? I really find that hard to believe. I mean, here this guy is.
I mean, he's literally glowing in the dark. And you mean to tell me he didn't even realize that this was happening to him? Well, that's what the Bible says. You say, well, I don't understand.
How can you explain that? Well, the only way I can explain it is by saying that as Moses came down, Mount Sinai, he was so caught up in the things of God. He was so caught up in the glory of God, in the person of God, in the beauty of God, that he was utterly oblivious to the things of self. And you know, folks, this is what true godliness is really all about. True godliness means having both eyes on God, not one eye on God and one eye on self.
A person with true godliness is a person who is so focused on the Lord Jesus Christ and his glory that the glory of self becomes a non-issue for that person. You know, there's a wonderful story told about Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist, late in his life. He was at a Bible conference speaking and one morning he got up early and was walking down the hall and several young students came up to him and they said to him, they said, Mr. Moody, they said, they said, we have spent all night in prayer. Look and see how our faces are shining. And Moody simply turned to them and said, young man, Moses knew not that his face was shining.
And then he walked on. What's the point? Well, the point is whenever we're aware that our faces are shining spiritually, whenever we're concerned, whether our faces are shining spiritually, whenever we're even conscious how we're looking to other people in our spiritual life, the point is our focus in those cases is not concentrated on God and God alone like it should be. And folks, this is what I want for you in this church. This is what I want you to aspire to. We want you here to aspire to get so lost in the wonder of God that self-focus and self-promotion and self-glory and having a reputation among the saints and being known by people and being noticed by people and being honored by people that all of that stuff simply gets eclipsed by the glory of God. That's what we want.
That's what I want for my life. Well, let's go on. Verse 30. And when Aaron and the Israelites saw that Moses' face was shining, they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them.
So Aaron and the leaders of Israel came closer to Moses and he gave them all the commands that the Lord had given him up on Mount Sinai. And now comes one of the most curious events in all the Old Testament. Watch verse 33. And when Moses finished speaking, he put a veil over his face. Now the Hebrew word here translated veil, it's clear, means an opaque veil. The purpose of that veil was to completely hide Moses' face from the sight of the Israelites.
Verse 34. And whenever Moses entered the Lord's presence to speak to God, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when Moses would come out of the tent of meeting and tell the Israelites what God had said, they would see that his face was shining. But then Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went back in to speak to the Lord again. Now you got what's going on here, right?
You understand? Moses would go in and talk to God, take the veil off. God would shine on him, the glory of God would light him up again. He'd go out and talk to the Israelites with his face shining and then he put the veil back over his face. And so this veil became like part of Moses' everyday routine. You know, he would wake up, brush his teeth, comb his hair, take his vitamins and put his veil on.
You understand? Now you say, well, why in the world would he wear a veil like that? Oh, the New Testament answers that for us, my friends. It says in 2 Corinthians 3.13 that the reason Moses did this, watch, was to keep the Israelites from seeing that the shining of his face was fading away. And this was the second way in which Moses' face was like phosphorescent paint. You understand that with phosphorescent paint, if you don't keep shining a light on it every once in a while, eventually the glow goes away.
Eventually the glow dies out unless you re-energize it. Well, Moses' face was the very same way. The shining on his face would fade away until he would go back into the presence of God and get relighted up again, get recharged up again. You say, well, Lon, so how long did Moses wear this veil?
Well, you know, the Bible never says, but I think it's entirely possible that Moses wore this veil for the rest of his earthly life. 39 more years. I think that's entirely possible. Now that's as far as we want to go in the chapter today, because we want to stop now and ask our most important question. And you know what that is. So are you ready? Are we ready? Oh yeah. Here we go. All right. Ready? Here we go. Nice and loud.
1, 2, 3. Oh yes. You say, Lon, so what? Say, all right, this is great. You know, Moses, his face lines up here. You know, this is wonderful. He can read in the dark without a lamp. Okay, good.
I'm really glad for him. But what difference does any of this make to me in the 21st century? Come on, Lon. Well, let's see if we can make that connection for you, because in the New Testament, my friends, the Apostle Paul takes these very events right out of Exodus 34, and he uses them to make an enormous point about the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But before we talk about that, maybe we should stop for a moment and define. Maybe we should stop for a moment and say, all right, so what exactly is the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, the definition is found in 1 Corinthians 15. In verse one, Paul says, now then, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preach to you. There's our word. By which gospel, there's our word again, you were saved.
Now watch what he says. He goes on to tell us what the gospel is. Namely, he says, verse three, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised again on the third day according to the scriptures. Folks, strictly speaking, this is the gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is the account of the death, the burial, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, by which God offers to forgive our sins and redeem our lives and give us eternal life and make us his adopted children in Christ. That is the gospel. Now that we know what it is, let's look and see what Paul says in light of the events of Exodus 34 about it in 2 Corinthians 3.
Stick with me here. Here we go. Verse seven, Paul says, now, if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved on stone, what's he talking about there? He's talking about the Old Testament law, right? Okay, that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, right?
If that came with so much glory that the Israelites couldn't even look at the face of Moses because of that glory. But notice here what the Apostle Paul says. He says the Old Testament law was a ministry that brought death. He goes on to say in verse nine that the Old Testament law is a ministry that condemns men.
Now, why would Paul say that? Well, for friends, it's because the Old Testament law, all it can ever do is point out people's sin. All it can ever do is delineate people's sin. All it can ever do is to make people understand they're falling short of God's perfect standard of righteousness. But the Old Testament law can't save people from their sins. It can't redeem their lives.
It can't give them eternal life and it can't take them to heaven. And nonetheless, nonetheless, Paul said the Old Testament law, even with all of its shortcomings, had so much glory that it lit Moses up like a light bulb and people couldn't even look at him. Watch, Paul goes on. If the ministry, verse nine, that condemns men, the Old Testament law, has this much glory, how much more does the ministry that brings men righteousness, what's that?
What's he talking about? The gospel, yeah? How much does that abound in glory? Paul's point is that because the gospel can save people from their sins, because the gospel can redeem people's lives, because the gospel can bring us eternal life and get us into heaven, therefore the gospel message far exceeds the Old Testament law in terms of its radiance and its glory. But Paul's gonna make an even more important point. Look, back to verse seven, Paul says the Old Testament law came with so much glory that the Israelites couldn't even look at Moses' face and then he adds a very interesting phrase, fading as it was. Remember we said in Exodus 34 that the shining of Moses' face would fade, remember? Well, God made it that way to symbolize to the Israelites and to the world that the Old Testament law was temporary. The Old Testament law was gonna fade away. The Old Testament law was imperfect and it was insufficient and it was inadequate. It was powerless to save, but that one day a message would come along that would supersede the Old Testament law. And you know the Apostle Paul talks about this in the book of Galatians.
Listen to what he says. He says, Galatians chapter three verse 24, so then the Old Testament law is our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith. Remember what we said a moment ago, the Old Testament law represents God's perfect standard of human righteousness.
The problem is none of us can live up to it. The problem is every time we take our behavior and we compare our behavior to this perfect standard, we come up short. All the Old Testament can do is keep reminding us that we are coming up short. And this was the purpose of the Old Testament, Paul said, to drive this point home to us that we cannot earn our way into heaven, our performance isn't good enough, that we can never earn our eternal life, our performance isn't good enough.
The Old Testament law was designed to make us realize that we need an alternate way to get to heaven, a way that is based on God's undeserved mercy and not our human performance. Now this is what the cross is all about. At the cross, the Lord Jesus provided that alternate way. And this is what the gospel message is all about, explaining that alternate way to us so that we can come to Christ, so that we can put our faith in him, so that we can be saved from the penalty of our sins. Now watch the next verse, Galatians 3.25.
But once we come to faith in Christ, we no longer have any need for a tutor. Folks, once we come to faith in Jesus Christ, Paul says the Old Testament law has done its job. And it fades away. Ah, but the gospel, here's his point, the gospel never fades away. The gospel is the old, old story that people will sing for all of eternity about in heaven that will resound off the walls of heaven for all of eternity. Now back to 2 Corinthians 3, watch. For if that which fades away, what is that? The Old Testament law. If that which fades away has glory, Paul says, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts forever?
What is that? The gospel. And so now here comes Paul's, so what? You go, well, it's about time.
All right. Well, here it comes. Therefore, Paul says, therefore what Paul? Therefore, since the gospel will never fade away, therefore, since the gospel is not insufficient, therefore because the gospel is not inadequate, therefore because the gospel is powerful to save, therefore, since we have such a hope that the gospel will never be superseded, it will never fail, it will never fade away, we are very bold in our preaching. And we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face, so that the Israelites might not see that the radiance was fading away.
What's the bottom line here? Paul's saying, we who preach the gospel today, we're not like Moses. Moses had to cover up the fact that he had an inadequate message. Moses had to cover up the fact that he had an insufficient message and a temporary message and a fading message.
But we're not like that, Paul says. We don't have an insufficient message. We don't have a fading message. And we don't have a powerless message.
We have a message that is powerful to save. And therefore, we don't need to put a veil over our face when we share Christ. We need to share Christ boldly, knowing that our message will never be superseded. Paul says, hey, we never have to apologize for the gospel message.
You know why? Because the gospel message is how people get eternal life. Paul says, hey, we never need to cover up any deficiencies with a veil for the gospel message, because the gospel message doesn't have any deficiencies. We never need, he says, to wonder whether the gospel has enough power to convict men and women of sin and lead them to Christ.
It does. Paul says, to the contrary, we can use great boldness when we give out the gospel to every man, every woman, every teenager, every child, regardless of their age or their education or their socioeconomic condition. It doesn't matter. We can be bold.
Why? Because the gospel is adequate. The gospel is sufficient. The gospel can handle every challenge of every life.
Amen? I love what Paul says, Romans 1 16. He says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Why not, Paul?
Because, he says, it is the power of God under salvation for everybody who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. You know, folks, before he came to Christ, you could not have found a religious fanatic who was more radically opposed to Christianity and Jesus Christ than Rabbi Paul. And yet the gospel handled him, didn't it?
And you know what? Before he came to Christ, you could not have found a more intellectual snob than C.S. Lewis. But the gospel handled him, didn't it? And before he came to Christ, you could have not found a tougher D.C. political operative than Chuck Colson. But the gospel handled him, didn't it? And before he came to Christ, you could have not found a more educated cynic than Oxford professor William Ramsey. But the gospel handled him.
And you couldn't have found a more uneducated cynic than Dwight L. Moody. But the gospel handled him. And before he came to Christ, you could not have found a more callous traitor in human flesh than slave traitor John Newton. And the gospel handled him. And before he came to Christ, you could not have found a more profane, immoral, sociopathic reprobate than Lon Solomon. And the gospel handled him.
And you know what? The gospel handled my spiritually apathetic father and the gospel handled my overzealous Jewish mother and they both came to Christ. And the gospel handled my completely disinterested brother and he came to Christ. And lots of you here could add other people's names to this list. Hardened relatives, cynical friends, skeptical co-workers that the gospel handled and they're walking with Christ today.
And honestly, friends, a lot of us here could put our name on this list of people who are hard and cynical and bitter and skeptical and opposed and you know what? The gospel handled you when you're sitting here today. Remember what Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel.
Why? It is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes and there is not a human life on this globe that the gospel can't handle. Friends, we don't need to dress the gospel up. We don't need to intellectualize the gospel up. We don't need to soften the gospel up.
We don't need to modernize the gospel up. All we need to do is tee the gospel up and launch it into the lives of men and women here in Washington and the gospel will do its work. I love what Martin Luther said in this regard. He said, and I quote, he said, the gospel is like a lion in a cage. All we've got to do is open the door and let it out. He said, way too many Christians stand in front of the cage and try to defend the lion.
But a lion needs no one to defend him. Just get out of the way, Luther says, and let him out to do his work and he shall not fail. End of quote and amen.
Amen. Now, you know, I get a lot of letters here at McLean Bible Church. I get some really nice letters and then I get some really not so nice letters. Well, I got a really nice letter not too long ago from a young lady who makes the very point Martin Luther makes, except in her life it was her, it was she who was the object of the gospel. Listen, young Jewish lady. She wrote, and by the way, I have her permission to share this. She wrote and said, and I quote, I was born into a Jewish family, Yiddish grandmother, matchmaking mother, and everything in between.
After a few troubling years in college and then on to the real world, I still felt like something was missing. So I met a follower of Christ who told me he would not be able to date someone who was not a Christian because his life was so devoted to him, that is to God, and that any partner in his life would need to be a part of that. I told him that due to my very reformed Jewish upbringing, I did not feel about trusting a higher power the same way he did. And he said, I want us to listen to something.
He logged on to your website and we listened to your story. I couldn't believe his pastor was born Jewish. And then I realized that you were the guy I've heard on the radio for years, whether you're not a sermon, just a thought saying. Well, in April 2007, I went to McLean Bible Church for the first time, scared to death. She says, I didn't know the song's words.
I didn't know the stories. I didn't even know how to pray, but I kept going every week. She says, we attended Christianity 101 class last fall. Again, once again, awkward for me, but I just had to learn. And as I gathered more knowledge, I could feel in my heart that this was my place.
Never did I feel this way at the synagogue or the times I tried to accept the Jewish faith. Anyway, she says, I wanted to write and tell you that I've made it. I feel it in my heart and I know that I'm a Christian. It makes me so happy to know that I have accepted Christ and that I will never be alone again. She says, I have begun a new life. My friends, my family, and my coworkers have all noticed a real change in me. Just ask my boyfriend, Mazel tov, Mazel tov.
He and I, we will be in Christianity 201 this quarter. End of quote. Cool letter or what? What do you think? Now, you know, what really makes this letter and this story even more compelling and more touching is for you to know, and I have permission to tell you this, that this young lady is a Navy nurse stationed at Bethesda Naval. And the young man is a Marine whom she met in the hospital because he lost both legs in a mine accident in Iraq and was there in the hospital trying to survive and she was assigned as his nurse. But how unbelievably cool is this, that that young Marine, instead of lying there on the bed and feeling sorry for himself, instead of doing that, he was interested in sharing Christ with people.
How amazing is that? And he did it with such a confidence in the power of the gospel that he picked out this young lady who, let's admit, was a pretty unlikely candidate to come to Christ, and he just gave it to her, just let the lion out of the cage, and look what happened, huh? Voila.
Voila. You know, friends, sadly, I meet way too many Christians who lack this kind of confidence in the power of the gospel. I meet way too many Christians who secretly doubt the gospel's power to shatter people's unbelief. They secretly doubt the gospel's power to open up people's blinded eyes.
They secretly doubt the gospel's power to conquer people's cynicism and bring them to their knees at the foot of the cross. But that is not how the Apostle Paul saw the gospel. And that is not how we see the gospel at this church. And that's not the way we want you who belong to this church to see the gospel. May we all, we want all of us to see the gospel the way Paul saw the gospel.
And how did he see it? I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first, as we just saw, and then for all y'all Gentiles. Amen. And you know, folks, let me conclude by saying this. If the Apostle Paul were here today and he were preaching, and by the way, if the Apostle Paul were here today, he would be preaching.
Let's just make sure we understand that. If the Apostle Paul were here today and he were preaching, do you know what he would say to us in closing, my friends? He would say, look right here, look right here.
He would say, what I want you to understand is that we are not like Moses. We do not have to put a veil over our face to conceal the fact that we have an insufficient message. We have an inadequate message. We have a temporary message. We have a powerless message.
We are not like Moses. We have a message that is sufficient. We have a message that is powerful to save. We have a message that is eternal, that will never pass away, that the angels and the saints will sing about for all of eternity. So get out there and share the gospel.
Don't you wear a veil over your face when you walk around Washington. You get out there and share Christ with every person that'll let you. Just open the cage and let the gospel out. Now Paul's not here. So I'll say that to you on his behalf. This is what Paul wanted us to understand when he wrote those words.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel. And friends, you know how the early church reached their world? Just like this. They didn't have fancy methods. They didn't have the internet.
They didn't have technology. You know what they had? They had an absolute and utter confidence in the power of the gospel. That's what they had. And they shared it with that confidence. And they died for it with that confidence.
And that's how they turned their world upside down. And if we're going to turn Washington upside down, believe me, it's not going to be because we got technology. It's not going to be because we have fancy methods. It's not going to be because any of that stuff. It's going to be because we are a community of people who believe in the power of the gospel.
And who go out every day unashamed into this city to share the gospel. And we don't try to modernize it. We don't try to intellectualize it. We don't try to help it. And God forbid, we certainly don't try to defend it. We just tee it up.
And we just launch it. And that's how you reach a city for Christ folks. Well, that's my prayer for each of us. That you might not have walked in here with utter confidence in the power of the gospel. But my prayer is you'll walk out of here with that and you'll go out tomorrow and every day and be a missionary right here in Washington, DC.
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for reminding us today that the message we have to offer people is a message of power. Spiritual power. The gospel has the power to redeem people's lives. It has the power to save them from the penalty of their sins. It has the power to impart eternal life in heaven. It has the power to make us children of God through Jesus Christ.
This message has power. And Lord, forgive us for the many times that we're ashamed of the gospel. For the many opportunities that we've had where we shrunk back like Moses and put a veil over our face.
Lord Jesus, may that never be going forward. May we have such a confidence in the power of the gospel that we're excited about giving it out to anybody who'll listen. Because we know there's not a life in this town that the gospel can't handle. Lord, inspire us to be missionaries every day to this town and use us to turn this town on its ear for the Lord Jesus Christ. Just like the early saints did in their world. Change our lives because we were here today, Father. And because we sat under the teaching of the eternal Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.
