Getting a Glimpse of God, Part 2

Exodus chapter 33 is where we are today. Exodus chapter 33. And we're going to be here a while. At least a couple of more weeks because we want you to understand how you can get a glimpse of God. We want you to be able to see God as Moses saw God. You say, well, wait a minute. Can we really truly see the living God? In fact, if you read on through Exodus 33, God says to Moses, No man can see me and live.

So, what does it actually mean for us to get a glimpse of God, to actually see God? That's why we're spending time studying Exodus chapter 33 and 34, because when it's all said and done, you're going to know what it means to see God. And you're going to be able to determine what it is in your life that hinders your perception of God. Because you see, God wants to make Himself known to you. The question is: do you know Him? Why is that so important? What did Philip say to Jesus in John 14, verse number 8?

Lord, show us the Father. Do you know the next phrase? Show us the Father, and it will be enough. And what did Jesus say? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Why is it so important to see God? Because it's enough. That's why. It's enough. It satisfies. It's all you need. See, we are so preoccupied with everything else. We want to see everything else. We want to go on vacation and see the sights. Why? Because we think they're going to excite us and stimulate something in us. But they don't.

Only God does that. Show us the Father, it is enough. And Jesus says, If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

So, how is it we get to see God? How is it we get a glimpse of God? That's our study in Exodus chapter 33, that we might get a glimpse of God and understand the trueness of his glory. We began last week by looking at the first six verses of Exodus 33.

Today we're going to look at verses 7 to 11. In the first six verses, we talked about the good news and the bad news.

And the good news centered around the tenderness of God and the truthfulness of God: that God was going to let them now leave Sina and move toward the land of Canaan. That was the tenderness of God. And they would inherit that land flowing with milk and honey. The truthfulness of God is that he was. He was keeping his word, the covenant he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The bad news is that God wasn't going with them. So they had lost God and they had lost the gladness that comes with that. Why?

Because if you've seen the Father, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, that is truly enough. But you see, Israel was beginning to realize that if God doesn't go with them, it's not going to be enough. It's not going to satisfy. And they lost their joy. The Bible says they began to mourn.

Why? Because God's presence. Wasn't going with them. And that leads us to verses 7 to 11. And we're going to look at this location outside the camp.

where Moses would move the tent, the tent of worship, the tent of their assembly that was one time inside the camp is now being moved outside the camp, which by the way is very symbolic because God's presence Was no longer in the camp. Why? Because the camp had committed idolatry. And the camp truly had yet to repent of their sin. And so God had moved his presence from the camp. And so let me read to you these few verses, verses 7 to 11, and then we'll make four points about the location of this tent and this place of worship and what it means to us.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp and a good distance from the camp and he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about that everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp. And it came about whenever Moses went out to the tent that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent. And it came about whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent.

And the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the presence of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from The tent. These verses are loaded with practical application to your life and mind as to what it means to meet with God and worship Him.

Four words I want you to see about this location. First of all, it was a separate location. Second of all, it was a sought location.

Third, it was a significant location. And fourth, it was a special location. First of all, it was a separate location.

Moses moved the tent of meeting outside to symbolically help the people understand that there was a separateness between them and their God. The Lord said these words. That the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die. Death is the consequences of sin, and death is defined by one word, and that one word is separation. You have physical death, spiritual death, eternal death. The Bible speaks of all three. Physical death is separation of body from soul. Spiritual death is separation of soul from God.

Eternal death is separation of body and soul from God for all eternity. Death is just defined as separation. There was a separation of God from his people. Why? Because of their sin. He was now outside the camp. Israel, corporately as a nation, had committed idolatry. They had yet to repent of their idolatry as a nation. God is of pure eyes than to behold evil. So, the fact that Moses would move the tent of meeting outside the camp was a constant reminder, listen, a constant reminder of the people's sin.

Think about that. They were always reminded of their sin. People say, well, that's not a very nice thing. Why would God always want his people to remember their sin? Because a reminder of sin act as a restrainer of more sin. See, God wasn't cruel in moving the tent outside the camp, moving the place of meeting outside the camp. Really, it was the goodness of God. Because in his separating from them, they were reminded of the fact that they were far from him and they couldn't just easily access him.

And they were constantly reminded of their sin. And you know what? We must remember the consequences of sin. See, we forget that there are consequences for our sin. And there is no forgiveness unless there is repentance. Forgiveness is not uncond. Forgiveness is conditional. It is conditioned on man repenting of his sin, of man confessing his sin. Unforgiveness, I mean, forgiveness is not uncond. Why? Because if it wasn't, everybody would go to heaven, right? There would be no condition to go to heaven.

God just offers forgiveness to everyone. Everyone's forgiven with no conditions attached. But that's not true. Only those who repent of their sins are forgiven of their sins. And so there was this separation. And the separateness of this tent of meeting on the outside would symbolically represent to the people that God was now separate from them. But because God is so good and so gracious, they still had access to him. They still could get to him. And that is a second point.

And that is, it was a sought location. That is, you could seek after God. For the Bible says these words, and it came about that everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting.

Did you get that phrase? Everyone who sought the Lord would go where? Out to the tent of meeting. Now, you need to remember that, because in a few moments, we're going to see when everyone would arise and they would worship God, but where were they? In the doorway of their tent. That's a big difference. Everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting. You see, the Bible says, if you seek me, Jeremiah 29, you will find me if you seek for me with all of your he.

You see, God is testing them. How bad do you want a relationship with me? And in this whole seeking aspect, we notice four things that are really prevalent here.

First of all, if you're going to seek after God, you've got to take a public stand, right? You got to take a public stand. I mean, they weren't going to be able to sneak out of the camp and get to the tent of meeting. Because the pillar of cloud would come down, which represented the presence of the Lord, and when that came down, the people would go out and seek the Lord. So everyone would see you going to the place of meeting. To seek God, you're going to have to take a public stand. You're going to have to openly go.

You see, we can't afford to live in secrecy. Can't afford to be ashamed of God. So when you seek after God, you take, in effect, a public stand. Remember what Moses said in Exodus 32? Who is on the Lord's side? Come stand with me. Make a public stand. Make a public decoration. Let everybody see that you are standing with me because you are going to stand with the Lord. And of course, it was. The tribe of Levi that would stand with Moses. Seek after God, it takes a public stand. Number two, to seek after God, it's going to take a personal separation.

From sin, right? A personal separation from sin. Because you see, the camp represented idolatry at this point. The camp was about idol worship. The camp was about being away from God. Well, now there needs to be a personal separation from those who are away from God to go and seek after God. That takes a strong spirit, doesn't it? And these people would have to personally separate themselves from the corrupted camp that was inflamed with idolatry and the remnants thereof. And they had to make that individually on their own.

You know, sometimes it's not easy for people to make a personal separation from the unholiness of life. They tend to hang on to it for a while. Some people are involved in churches that are unholy. And they can't separate themselves from those churches because of friendships or relationships. Why? Because, number three, of the public scoring.

The public scorn. You see, whenever you separate yourself from those people that are nominal in their walk with the Lord, or not too fired up about their walk with the Lord, or don't walk with the Lord at all. You have to face the public scorn, right? The writer of Hebrews would refer to in Hebrews chapter 13, verse number 13, when he says, Let us go forth unto him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. The writer of Hebrews was saying, Look, when Christ was crucified, he was crucified outside the camp.

He bore your reproach. He bore my reproach. So if we're going to associate with him, if we're going to seek after him, we have to go outside the camp. What's the camp? The right of Hebrews is referring to. It's the Levitical system, it's the Judaistic religiosity of the day. They would have to leave their Jewish roots and pursue their God, go outside the camp of the system, go outside the camp of religion, and Follow after their God, and to do that as a Jew is to face public scorn and ridicule. And most people don't want to seek after God that bad to do that.

And to be disowned by their family. And yet, it all happens, and number four, because of a passionate spirit. We're going talk more about this at the end of our time this morning. A passionate spirit. Why is it someone can take a public stand? Can personally separate themselves from sin and from sinners, and can end the public scorn because they have a passionate spirit. About God. And now, and now.

What causes a man to take that stand? To separate himself from others? To endure the ridicule and the scorn, it's because inside his life there is a passionate spirit to worship, to adore, and to honor his God. The Bible says that God is seeking true worship, those who worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And what's going to cause a man to get up, to walk through the crowd, to separate himself from that crowd, to endure the scorn, is that spirit that says, I want God because God is. Enough. It's enough. He's enough. And that's what I want. And you know what? There's something about going outside the camp to the tent of meeting. That was sort of inconvenient, wasn't it? It wasn't that convenient. I mean, to endure the public scorn and ridicule to openly make a Stand to separate yourself from the camp of idolatry is to go out there and to worship God.

It's not that convenient. But you know what? I've come to realize that the worship of God is not meant to be convenient. If it is, you probably haven't worshipped God. We expect everything to come to us. You know, we live in the 21st century, and everything is just so easy for us. I can recall growing up. In Delaware, that there was a church, and I couldn't believe this when it started, but this is back when I was in high school. That there was a church that you could actually go to and drive up to church in your pajamas.

And they would have those little drive-in theater things there that you could put on your car and listen to a 20-minute sermon. Can you imagine that? That was way back in the 70s. And this guy thought he was innovative and thinking that the sign would say, come to church in your pajamas. You know, we don't want to make it too inconvenient for people to get to church, we want to make it as convenient as possible. See? Because you see, if it's too hard to worship God, we won't go. I remember when this church started 11 years ago, when we started in a park, in order to have church, people had to bring chairs or they had to sit on the floor.

In order for things to happen, people had to actually do work to make it happen. And a lot of people didn't stay with the church because we didn't have the programs that other churches had. And so we would ask him: you'll stay with us for a while, help us develop the program. But you know what? Because it was too hard, they left and went where there was an existing program because there they wouldn't have to work. See? It was too hard for them. It was too inconvenient. People had to bring the sound equipment because it wasn't attached to the ceiling, because it wasn our ceiling.

So we had to bring in the sound equipment. We had to bring in the tape machines. And Don Davis would come and bring it in and get there an hour and a half early just to set up everything so it was ready to go. And then he had to tear it down with a group of men to make sure that they could clear out the school so people could come to school the next day. It just wasn't convenient. So it's true, only those who were committed stayed. Those who weren't committed didn't stay because it was too hard. But there had to be a passion in the soul.

A passionate spirit that would cause a man or a woman to say, I really want to seek after God, and I will do whatever it takes to make it happen. And that's his place outside the tent that was sought after. And all those who truly sought the Lord, they went outside the camp. To that tent of meeting. The third thing I want you to see is the significance of this location, and that centers around the fact that the Lord would come down in the pillar of a cloud.

Remember earlier, He would lead them by day. With a pillar of cloud, and lead them by night with a pillar of fire. And God would light the way for them. But God was always lead them. And so it would actually be the presence of God coming down and Moses communicating with God as a man would communicate with another man face to face. And how significant was that? That there was a place where you could actually go and commun with the living God of the universe. And God had favored Moses. And Moses had a special place in the heart of God.

And Moses had a special relationship with his God, and it was able to communicate with him as a man would communicate to his friend. But there's something else about this, the significance of this place, and that it would motivate the people to some degree. For the Bible says, when all the people saw the pillar, verse 10, Of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship.

That sounds really good, doesn't it? They're all going to get up and they're all going to worship the Lord. But then it says, each at the entrance. Of his death. You see, it's almost as if they just couldn't make the effort. It's almost as if they just couldn't really give it their all. To go to where Moses was, to go to where Joshua was at the entrance of the place of meeting to worship their God. But there is a gratefulness here. There is a sense of gladness here that Israel is beginning to turn, that Israel is beginning to see the significance of God's presence.

And maybe there was a fear in their lives that would keep them from leaving the camp. But the Bible makes it very clear that all those who sought the Lord would leave the camp and go to the entrance of the tent of meeting. Because that's where God was. That's where God was. But these people would stay behind. Which leads me to the fourth aspect, it was a special place. It was a special place. Let's know what it says. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.

When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from them. The tent. Now, think about that. We have had the opportunity to look at the life of Joshua just briefly in our study of Moses.

We saw him in Exodus chapter 17 in his ministration as a military man, as a serviceman, to lead against the battle of Amalek. We saw him in Exodus 24 as a man of great contrition. We saw him in Exodus 32 as a man of separation. He was separate from the idolatrous people. And here we see him as a man of devotion, a man of devotion. He wouldn't leave the entrance. Of the tent. Joshua was the kind of man that every pastor wants to see. That there's just something about being at the house of God. That you just don't want to leave.

You know, Joshua, you know, he just stayed. Moses left, but Joshua was still there because Joshua was so enamored by the presence of God. Joshua was so in touch with who God was. You see, if you want to be a great, and by the way, who was it? The one leader who followed Moses? It was Joshua, right? It was Joshua. But who was the one who took the public stand first?

It was Caleb, right? But Caleb didn't have a book named after him in the Bible. Why? Because there was a passion in the life of Joshua. A passion in the life of Joshua, unlike any other two million Jews. He just could not leave. Listen, if you want to lead in the church of Jesus Christ, you've got to have a passion for God. A passion for God. And Joshua had that. He had it. He couldn't spend enough time with God. For most of us, it's like, oh man, just a. Just an hour and 15, 20 minutes on Sunday morning.

Boy, that's about all we can take. And then we go to lunch. Or then we go home and watch the game. Or then we go out and visit our family. There's always something. That preoccupies our attention. That some there's always another place we got to go after church. Right? There's always something else we got to do. We're preoccupied with the peripherals. We're not preoccupied with the presence of God. Joshua was preoccupied with the presence of God. He had a passion about Him. Now, let me just spend the last few minutes talking to you about why it is we don't have that kind of passion.

It doesn't mean necessarily being in the building. It's a fact of spending time in the Word of the Lord and beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, so that I'm changed from one level of glory to the next level of glory. That I just can't stay in the Word. Why is it? When I get up in the morning, I spend time with God, but I got to get out of the Word because I got to get to work. I got to go here. I got to go there. It's just never, it's just, there's always something else I got to do. Now, I know you've got to go other places.

I know you've got to go to work. I understand that. But it becomes such a preoccupation with us that we just give God a little bit of time, hoping that He'll be satisfied with the little bit of time that we give Him. And that he'll bless our marriage and bless our life and bless our family and will live forever. Five principles in five minutes. That'll work. Here we go. I know my passion for God begins to diminish when I desire everything that is nice instead of the one thing that is Is need. When I desire everything that is nice instead of the one thing that is needful, folks, there are a lot of things that we do that are very nice, but there's only one thing that's needful.

And Jesus told Martha, Mary has chosen the greater thing. Number two: When I believe, I ought to be satisfied rather than God be glorified.

It's all about me. And that has infiltrated the church. And when that's out of whack, I'm not passionate about my God. There's a third one that flows right on the heels of that one, and that is when I go to prayer.

And I approached the throne of God, filled, listen, with petition instead of praise. It's like your kids always come to you. Can I have the car keys, Dad? Can I have some. A 20-spot dad. Can I have some more time out tonight, Dad? Can I go be with these friends, Dad? Can I do this? Can I do that? Can I go here? Can I be here? Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, but never one time ever recognizing The fact that you are their father and you need to be honored. We go to God and we ask Him for this and we ask Him for that, and we're just consumed with what our needs are.

Because we do believe we need to be satisfied. So we ask God. And God wants us to come to Him and petition to Him and to approach the throne of grace that we might have the help we need during our times of great, great turmoil. And yet, Yet, our approaching the throne of grace should be out of praise and honor for who He is. And number four, when my final authority is no longer governed by Scripture but guided by society, my passion for God has de. Dwindled when my final authority is no longer governed by Scripture but guided by society.

It's what society says, it's what society thinks that governs my decision-making process instead of the almighty word of God. And lastly, I know my passion for God is dwindling when I choose, listen, when I choose to give God second-rate contribution instead of first-rate adoration.

Not the last fruit. But because he's not enough for most of us, he gets second-rate contributions. Exodus 33 and 34 teach us about how he is enough, so we give him first-rate adoration.

First rate praise, first rate celebration, and honor Him with all that we have because He truly is enough.

Let's pray.