And the LORD said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, 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. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” Exodus 33: 21-23, NKJV.
Heavenly Father, As we come into Your presence, we come expecting to see Your glory as it passes by. May this revelation change us forever. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Scripture for today is God’s answer to Moses, when Moses asked God to show him His “glory” (18). He had been given the task of leading the Israelites to the Promise Land. By the time we come to this incident in Scripture, Moses has an idea of what awaits him. He has heard their murmuring, and seen their rebellion. He is fully aware that He cannot accomplish this task in His own strength. He cannot get them to Canaan, alone. Only God can do that. So he asks God for a “vision.”
I would like to share with you the definition of the word vision that I believe fits Moses’ petition: “mode of seeing or conceiving.” “unusual discernment or foresight” (Merriam-Webster). Now I will tell you why I chose this definition. Moses had been on the mountaintop with God, and God had spoken to him (see Exodus 19). God had established a covenant between Himself and the people of Israel (Exodus 24: 48). The laws of this covenant were written by Moses in a “book” (Deuteronomy 31: 26). God had also given Moses His moral law, the “Testimony,” or Ten Commandments, written with “the finger of God” on two tablets of stone (Exodus 31: 18). So Moses had “seen” something of God.
Now it was time to go forward. Because of the “stiff-necked” nature of the people, God has decided, not to accompany them because it was quite possible that He would “destroy” them on the way (see Exodus 33: 1-6). But after you have “seen” YHWH the way Moses had, you begin to get a glimpse of His heart. You realize that even though our sins have grieved Him to the point that He is ready to destroy the sin in our lives (if we are holding on to the sins, we will be destroyed with them); He is really longing to save us. You see my friends, it is the sin God hates. He has an unconditional love for the sinner!
So Moses asks God to allow Him to see beyond the the grief and wrath that the sins of the people have produced – and to show him (“give me a vision”) the True and Living God! Would to God, that every pastor, every officer in the church of God, every person who carries the name of Christ, would make this petition of God, before “going forward.”
“Then Moses said to the LORD, ” ‘ “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people” ‘ ” (Exodus 33: 12, 13). Emphasis provided.
Lord, help us to pray this prayer – every day of our lives! “Show me Your way, that I may know You . . . And consider that this nation is Your people.” How much anxiety, fear, and frustration, we would spare ourselves, if we sought to know God better, and discovered what His plans for our lives were. How much pain, misunderstanding, and divisions, among us, could be avoided, if we were constantly aware that the people we are leading, or dealing with, from day to day, are God’s people, not our property.
So God placed His child in a safe place, the “cleft of the rock,” and revealed the “glory” of His character, which is to be found in His name: “Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” ‘ ” (34: 6, 7).
The cleft of the rock is our personal relationship of love, with the Lord. It is a safe place for God to constantly reveal more and more of Himself to us. There is so much to the greatness of His glory, that He must “cover” us, until the part of Him that we can bear, passes by. So stay in the cleft of the rock, until you get to know Him, whom to know is “life eternal” (John 17: 3)! This relationship not only leads to eternal life, it also improves our relationships with one another – right here on earth!