MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 34:8-9
GOD’S PRESENCE WITH HIS PEOPLE
The revelation of the Divine name was almost too much for Moses, it was so unmerited. He was lost in wonder and adoration at the Divine condescension, Exodus 34:8. Recovering himself, however, and emboldened by this gracious proclamation, he, in the true spirit of believing and triumphant prayer, supplicated God’s actual presence among His people. This is not the only instance in which past favours have been the basis for future expectations (Genesis 18:23-33; Psalms 116:12). The text teaches us—
I. That God’s presence with His people is secured by mediation. His presence with Israel was secured by the intercession of Moses; His presence with His Church is secured by the intercession of Jesus Christ. The whole of John 17 is based upon this.
II. That God’s presence is importuned because of the obstinacy of His people. “A stiff-necked people.” One would have thought that would have been an argument for vengeance. But no, Old and New Testaments alike base upon man’s failings a reason why God should visit him (John 3:16; Matthew 9:13; Romans 5:8). The reason is obvious, God alone is equal to the task of subduing sinners and bringing them into obedience to Himself.
III. That God’s presence is supplicated to fulfil God’s promises.
1. God had promised to pardon. God’s presence was requisite for this, because the Divine pardon is not merely an erasure of sin from God’s book, but an erasure of sin from man’s heart. Forgiveness is not merely a fact in the moral universe of which man may or may not be conscious; but a fact in man’s spiritual nature which he enjoys, and of which he has irrefragable proofs. God Himself must come near and transform the sinner into the saint.
2. God had promised that Israel should be His inheritance. This could only be effected by God’s going amongst them and taking them. What boundless comfort does the double argument give! “God, in the person of His Son, has come amongst us, therefore we are His inheritance. Man is His inheritance, therefore He is with us always even unto the end of the world.”
In conclusion—i. God having blessed us is a reason for our expectation of future blessings. Compare the past, present, and future tenses of Psalms 23:2. God having blessed us in the past should be the basis of our expectation that He will manifest Himself to us. iii. This Divine presence should be the incentive to, and power of, personal purity and consecration.—J. W. Burn.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Law-Lights! Exodus 34:1-35. Pressense says, that whatever opinions men may hold as to the integrity of that primitive witness, all must own that it contains pages in which one beholds, as it were, the reflection of the lustre which caused Moses’s face to shine when he held converse with God. It has ever been the pious mind which has through the eyes beheld the chain of revelation and the long series of Divine manifestations gradually unwind themselves. Just as they that watch for the morning gaze out from the height of the tower, longing with inexpressible desire for the approach of dawn; so does religious consciousness cast glances of fire upon the horizon as she looks out for the Divine Sunrise. The whole of the Old Testament pants and throbs with this Divine yearning, and it also shows us the finger of God writing in the heart of man the great preparation for the Gospel. The angels ever
“Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may;
The Word’s unwithered countenance
Is bright as at Mount Sinai’s day.”
—Goëthe.
Grace-Memories! Exodus 34:8. Moses could never forget those moments spent in the clefts of the rock, while he beheld the grace of God’s glory, after the insufferable glories of the law on Sinai. What Christian, who has felt the terrors of the law producing deep conviction in his conscience, and who has found peace, ever forgets that blissful moment when, hiding in the cleft side of Jesus, he beheld the glory of God’s grace, and heard His voice, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” As the rebellious subject, who has stood before his offended monarch, marked the dread frown gathered on his royal brow, and listened to the solemn proclamation of the laws of the state, is filled with deep, unutterable joy as he sees the radiant smile of love glowing on that face, and as he hears the forgiving declaration, “Thy offence is blotted out by a merciful sovereign,” the pardoned and restored subject can never lose sight of that scene—of the radiant smile. The proclamation would be written on the tablets of his memory in ineffaceable characters.
“For the King Himself in His tender grace,
Hath shown me the brightness of His face;
And who shall pine for a glow-worm light,
When the sun goes forth in his giant might?”
—Havergal.