“And he said, ‘Please show me Your glory.’ Then He said, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before you. And I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ But He said, ‘You cannot see my face. For no man shall see Me and live.’ But I will put you in the cleft of the rock. And will cover you with My hand when I pass by. Then I will take away My hand. And you shall see My back. But My face shall not be seen.’” Exodus 33:22-23
In essence what He said to Moses is “I’m going to hide Myself from you.” There are two things I want you to get out of this passage. Number one, when did Moses see His glory? After “I pass by.” When you’re in that dark and difficult and painful place in your life, you are hidden, as it were, from seeing God’s glory or from seeing God’s face. But hang tough, because you’ll see it after He passes by. He’s passing by. It seems as if I’m in the dark. I just I don’t see the light. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. Guess what? There’s going to come a point where He has passed by. You’re going to see His glory. Are you going to go, “Wow, that was God. That was a God thing. God just did that. And here I was expecting the worst, and it turned into something marvelous and wonderful.”
Second point I want you to get is this. Why can’t you see His face? What’s hiding His face? It’s His hand hiding His face! Almost reminds you of a passage, doesn’t it? “God wages war against the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the …” Why does Peter say what he says? Because he learned the lesson from this passage. Humble yourself under that hand. There’s a reason you can’t see His face. There’s a reason it’s dark. There’s a reason it’s difficult. He’s not as far away from you as you think. You’re right under His hand. “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God,” and He will do what? He’ll “lift you up” in due time.
When it’s dark and painful. When God seems hidden from you, never forget, the only thing hiding His face is His hand. And you are under protection of that hand. So I want you to think of something. You and I see something, Moses, Abraham, Joseph, David, none of them could see. Hebrews 2:9, “but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man.”
2nd Corinthians 4:6. I love this one. “For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” All sorrows in your life, all sufferings in your life, all difficulties, all pain is designed to get you and I to do one thing, and that is look on His face. Do you want to look on His face? Here it is. The Bible is where He wants to meet us. The Bible is the meeting room of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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