Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have a Bible, I invite you to open up with me to Exodus 33:12-23.

Many years ago, a magazine went to Los Angelas, California to write an article on Grace Community Church, and this publication went to write on the pastor of this church, a man many of you have likely heard of and if you have heard me preach at any time, you have heard of him, a man by the name of John MacArthur.

The magazine went to interview and write about MacArthur but what blew them away was not necessarily John MacArthur, it was the church itself.

So, the entire article changed from being about one man, one preacher, and the article was titled, “The Church with Nine Hundred Ministers” because this magazine saw that this church was on fire for the Lord, they were moving and grooving and every member had something that they contributed.

Now I believe that we are a church that wants to see revival ongoing and be a church where everyone plays a part in it.

I believe that if we want to be a church that is at the front of the pack in terms of how serious we are about the revival and the proclomation of the Gospel, we need to all boldly approach the throne of Grace and ask God to not just do remarkable things but to use us to do remarkable things.

By purely human methods, what we are about to embark on is impossible.

Revival purely by our own power and our own hands and our own methods is impossible.

God has to do it all beginning, middle, and end.

But not just revival on a large scale, the salvation of one sinner is an impossible thing for man on his own to accomplish.

What are we to ask then?

I believe we find that answer in Exodus 33:12-23

I want to break down these verses into 4 headings: Moses’ Task, Moses’ Request, God’s Answer and Reveal, and finally Our Task and as we go through these headings, you will hopefully be able to see how they relate to revival.

Moses’ Task

Let’s look at the task that lies before Moses.

To understand the gravity of the situation, we need to know what happens just prior to these verses.

In Exodus 32, we see one of the greatest blunders of the people of Israel, which is saying something because we see blunder after blunder, throughout the book of Exodus, really the whole Bible, but Exodus 32 is significant.

As Moses is up on Mount Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments, the people of Israel are falling into sin.

Aaron has been called on by the people of Israel to make gods for them that shall go before them because Moses has been up on the mountain a long time and they are starting to panic.

Aaron gathers gold and he makes a golden calf and he proclaims, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

And the people worship this golden calf and they basically take part in this sexual ritual as a type of worship and as this is happening, the Lord tells Moses to go back to the people because they have corrupted themselves and turned away from God. God threatens to pour out His wrath on all of the people and make Moses a great nation but Moses intercedes on their behalf but 3,000 men are killed that day.

God’s wrath has been poured out on the people but Moses still has a job to do.

Moses is to still lead these people to the Promised Land.

In light of what happens in Exodus 32, Moses is feeling the pressure.

How is Moses to lead this people?

This is what he wants to know in verse 12 as he says, “See, you say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.”

Moses is facing an impossible task.

The sheer number of the people, the sheer sinfulness of the people, it’s overwhelming and Moses recognizes that it is impossible to do alone.

What does he do then?

He makes a request.

Moses’ Request

Moses actually makes 3 requests but we will focuse mainly on the third.

The first one is found in verse 13 which reads, “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.

Consider that this nation is your people.”

Show me your ways

Moses’ first request is, “God, show me your ways.”

This is Moses’ way of saying, “God I don’t want to just know about you, I need to know you intimately.

I need you to teach me your ways.”

I think he is saying, “God I need you to help me make sense of this.”

Moses is likely finding it hard to understand how God is able to threaten the total destruction of the nation in one moment and then offer grace and mercy in the next.

Moses was trying to understand how the presence of God would continue to be a good thing when the people continued to fall into such grave sin.

Like so many of us, I think Moses just really wants to know what God’s plan is and what He is doing.

He wants to know that God is for him and not against him.

How then does God respond to that request?

Exodus 33:14 “And he said, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’”

God is telling Moses, “Moses, I myself am going with you and I myself will give you rest.”

God is reminding Moses that He Himself will see to it that He will fulfill His promise.

He is reminding Moses of what John Knox would later say, that one man and God always makes the majority.

God is reminding Moses of just how much the Lord loves Him by reminding him that his presence will never be removed from him.

But Moses wants more and that leads to his second request.

Do not depart from us

Moses says in Exodus 33:15-16 “And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.

For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people?

Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?””

Moses’ next request starts to look outwards.

Moses is leading a people and not just Himself so He says to the Lord, “God if your presence will not go with me, don’t bring us up from this spot.”

Now Moses doesn’t forget that God just said His presence would go with him.

Instead, Moses links himself directly with the Us of Israel.

He’s saying, “God if you are not for us and with us, there’s no point in us leaving this spot.”

He’s saying to God, “Lord, don’t leave us” and God answers by saying that the very thing that Moses has spoken, He will do.

Finally we get to the third request which is the boldest and I believe the most pressing of Moses’ three requests.

Show me your glory

Exodus 33:18 we read, “Moses said, ‘Please show me your glory.’”

This is a big request.

Notice that Moses isn’t making demands here.

He doesn’t command God to show him His glory, but he really puts forth a plea of desperation.

In a sense, Moses is going all in because he knows that if he can see the Lord in His glory and live, then he can truly have hope.

But hang on, Moses had already seen the glory of God!

He had seen the Lord’s glory in the burning bush, he had heard the voice of God declare that the place he was standing was holy ground, he had seen the signs done in Egypt, he had seen God lead the people through the Red Sea, he has continued to see God lead the people with a cloud by day and fire by night, he has seen bread from heaven and water from the rock, he has seen the glory of God as he had previously stood on Mount Sinai and received the Law, in many ways he has already seen the glory of God, so what is he asking?

Is he asking for more of the same?

No, he’s hungry for more!

He wants a greater revelation of God! Moses had tasted and seen that the Lord is good but he was still hungry for more, he was desperate for more!

Moses, the man of God, had seen great things of the Lord, but even of those things, he had barely even scratched the surface.

In order for Moses to do the task that he was called to do, he needed to know the Lord to an even greater degree.

How does this happen?

By seeing the glory of the Lord of Hosts!

What a request!

God’s glory is no small thing!

Later in verse 20 says that if man were to see His face and to see the full weight of the glory of God, man would drop dead on the spot.

If you were to fly to the sun and stand on the sun’s surface, the brightness and the heat would pale in comparison to the glory of God.

If Russia and the U.S. were to unload all 12,000+ of their nuclear warheads directly on top of you, that power would pale in comparison to the power and glory of the Lord God.

If the entire weight of the known universe could somehow be placed on top of you, that weight would be nothing in comparison to the fullness of the weight of the glory of God.

Isaiah had a vision of the Lord in His temple and the glory of God shown all around him and he cried out in desperation and fell flat on his face.

As Christ was being arrested, He says, “I AM He” and this very declaration causes the entire band of soldiers to fall flat on their behinds, John on the Island of Patmos had received the revelation and had seen the glorified Christ and John fell down like a dead man.

If the glorified Christ were to walk into this room at this very moment we’d all be on the ground.

Until we are in our own glorified state, we will not be able to behold the glory of God in full.

Moses is begging for something that he knows that he cannot have but that does not stop him from asking.

He knows that if the Lord desired, he could see the glory of God and live so he is bold enough to ask for more.

Are you?

In an argument from the greater to the lesser, if Moses asked to see more of the glory of God, what’s our excuse not to?

Should we not desire to know more about the Lord?

Should we not desire a greater intimacy with Him?

Should we be content with what we have?

A.W. Pink said that when God draws man to Himself and bestows on him mercy, there is a holy longing in that man to know more of the Lord.

The more we know of God, the more we desire to know God.

How then does God answer Moses’ last request?

Look again in verses 19-23.

God’s Answer and Reveal

How does the Lord answer?

He answers positively and graciously, He answers in goodness and in mercy!