“And he (Moses) said, I beseech Thee, ‘Show me Thy glory!” Ex. 33:18. Moses is seeking a new vision for a new task, have you ever done that? Sure you have, I know I have! The LORD, Jehovah tells him in v.19, He will let His “goodness pass before him;” He will proclaim the name of the LORD, the LORD God before him; He will be gracious to whom He will be gracious and merciful to whom He will be merciful and all this takes place in Ex. 34:5-9. But, v.20 says, “Thou can not see My face, for there shall no man see Me and live.” Why? Just step outside on a bright, sunny day and stare up at the sun for 30 seconds and you will go blind. So, imagine looking at God’s magnificent glory for just one second, and you would be blind forever! Men have seen Theophanies and Christophanies  and angelic forms but no man has ever seen God in His spiritual Being or Essence. The closest man ever came to seeing Him was Jesus Christ (John 1:18; II Cor. 4:6; Heb. 1:3) Who was the visible manifestation of the invisible glory of God’s imminent eminence!

The “Glory of God” was related to the “Face of God” because in response to Moses’ request to see God’s glory, the LORD responds in v.20, “Thou can not see My face,” using face as a synonym for glory. Moses desired to see the full nature of God, to see His glory, the burning presence of God, that’s what all of us truly seek in our prayer closets, God’s burning presence or a touch of the Master’s hand. To see someones face is to see their whole person, this was very common in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe meetings of men like Jacob and Esau in Gen. 32:20, “and afterwards I shall see his face.”

What we need today to revitalize our prayer lives is a fresh look into the face of Jesus. To see Him afresh, to touch those nail prints again, to feel the Spirits breathe brush across the back of our necks letting us know that, ‘this is the way, walk ye in it.’ To hear that still small voice again, to smell the lily of the valley, to feel the warmth of the ‘Son of God’ on our cheeks, to sense His presence in the room as we pray in His name, to feel our cheeks wet with tears after we have prayed not even knowing that we have cried, to watch with Him all night in prayer until the cock crows, but it seemed like only an hour or two. The LORD does reveal Himself to Moses, to Israel and to us in a variety of ways, His goodness that passes before us, the revelation of His name suggesting His inner most secrets, His grace: getting what we don’t deserve and His mercy: not getting what we do deserve. His “Divine Presence” in the person of “His Son” and the indwelling “Holy Spirit” who intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. He is everywhere, He knows everything, and He can do anything. That’s my God, the “YHVH” the ‘Great I AM’ (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh) the One who causes to be, to exist, to breathe, to live and He is your God too!

Moses wanted to behold Him face to face, to know Him absolutely, to exhaust His depth of being, to remove His last footprint or His mystery of being God. Be careful here, to try and embrace the full nature of God, is to forget that there is a concealed nature of God, which if we ignore it, we do so at our own risk. To often we try to fit God into our theological, eschatological, soteriological, ecclesiastical, “BOX!” Don’t do that, He doesn’t come in a 42-regular, or a 44-extra large! However, the LORD, Jehovah proposed a solution to Moses’ desire to know Him fully. Rather than discourage him, this omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, is a fountainhead of hope for all those willing to stand upon the “ROCK” and follow newer and fuller visions, content for now anyway, to behold only His back, never realizing the unfinished quest of seeing Him “face to face” at least for now can wait. Whatever, we may know or experience about God there is always more to be experienced, more to know, more to learn, always! For this reason the glory of the LORD remains a hidden glory and for the same reason man’s pursuit remains an unending quest!

However, for now as we enter into our prayer closets, our prayer gardens, our prayer chambers and the LORD covers us with His hand, may we enter into His presence as He passes by and communes with us as He did with Moses on the back side of that desert. May He take away His hand for a moment and may we too see the backside of His glory and be drawn into His presence in prayer as we get to (yada) know Him in a more intimate and personal way. You can’t leave this section without bringing to mind that old familiar hymn by Augustus Toplady, “Rock of Ages,” written in March of 1776, which had four stanzas and has been changed many times: “Rock of ages, cleft for me; Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood; From Thy riven side which flowed; Be of sin the double cure; Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”

It was the words from a sermon Toplady heard from Dr. Daniel Brevint that moved him after a storm to write this hymn: “Let not my heart burn with less zeal to follow and serve Thee now when this bread is broken at this table, than did the hearts of Thy disciples when Thou didst break it at Emmaus, O Rock of Israel, Rock of Salvation, Rock struck and cleft for me. Let those two streams of blood and water which once gushed out of Thy side…let not my soul less thirst after them at this distance, than if I stood upon Horeb whence sprang this water and never the very cleft of rock, and the very wounds of my Savior whence gushed out this sacred blood.” According to his own testimony Toplady was so stirred by these word pictures he could not shake them from his memory, can you? God put him in the cleft of a rock and covered him with His hand while He passed by, so he could see His back, ‘Glory be To God!’ Take that thought with you to your prayer closet and shut the door, Matt. 6:6, and bolt it so the enemy can’t slither in and invade your thoughts and prayer time with your heavenly Father who is waiting there for you.  “…Between The Lines…”

“Rock Of Ages” – ‘Exodus 33:18-33’  10/27/12