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The LORD Will Give You Rest
The LORD Will Give You Rest Exodus 33:1-23 Key Verse: 33:14 “The LORD replied, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’” In last week’s passage we saw how quickly sinful human beings can forget all the grace of God that they have received and fall back into their former sinful ways. It took the Israelites just over one month to forget their promise to do everything the LORD had told Moses when he went up the mountain to get the Ten Commandments and the various laws. They didn’t know what had happened to Moses so they didn’t know what to do. Instead of remember all of God’s grace that had experienced over the past few months and looking to his words that Moses had written down for them, they immediately returned to the old familiar ways that they learned in Egypt and convinced Aaron to make an idol for them. After building the idol they held a festival and engage in all types of unholy revelry that was even worse than you find in the surrounding pagan communities. Their sin cost them dearly; nearly three thousand people lost their lives that day and a plague ensued the following day probably claiming many more lives. Through that passage we learned how easy it is for sinful human beings to fall back into our familiar sinful ways. In short, we learned that people are not faithful. In today’s passage we are reminded that God is faithful. In spite of man’s unfaithfulness and backsliding, God will always keep His promises. We are also reminded of the terrible consequences of sin and how it completely cuts our relationship with God. In contrast to this, we can see in Moses the wonderful benefits of having a right relationship with God. When we have a right relationship with God, He will teach us His was, His Presence will go with us through our life journey and we will find deep rest for our trouble soul. May God bless our study of this passage and help each of us to find favor in His eyes so that we can learn His ways and have the blessed assurance and peace that His Presence is with us in life pilgrimage. First, the terrible consequences of sin (1-6). Look at verse 1 & 2. “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.” This chapter begins with God telling Moses to leave Mt. Sinai and take the people to the Promised Land because He had promised on oath to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that would give that land to their descendants. God also assures Moses that He would send an angel ahead of them so that the six tribes of people living there would be driven out. On one hand these words our very encouraging. It shows us that in spite of man’s sinfulness and unfaithfulness, God is faithful. God will always keep his promises no matter what we may do. This is encouraging, but if we think about it a little deeper we realize that this can lead to some very dire consequences for sinful men. When God sent Moses to Egypt to free the Israelites, God said that He would be there and that He would lead the Israelites into the Promised Land personally. It was God, Himself, who was going to lead them and drive out those six nations from the land, but now things have changed because of the people’s sin. Look at verse 3. “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.” God was still going to keep His promise that He had made over 400 years before, because He is absolutely faithful, but He is not going to keep that promise in the way that He intended because man is sinful. A simple definition of sin is to cut or to separate. In short, sin cuts us off from God; it separates us from God. This is the absolute worst thing that can happen to any human being. God is our source of life, happiness, joy and peace. Without God our lives are miserable. We are living in this tough and cruel world waiting to die and face judgment. The Israelites seemed to know this because when Moses told them what God had said, it distressed them greatly. The Bible says they mourned. This is a very strong word. To mourn is more than to just feel sorrowful. It is mostly used when we talk about someone who has lost someone they love to death. In a very real sense, the Israelites had every reason to mourn upon hearing the news that God was no longer going to go with them into the Promised Land. They might have the land, but they lost the source of life itself. This is the terrible consequence of sin. I think that many times we forget the seriousness of sin and we don’t mourn our sin as we should. Instead we just shrug it off as if it was no big deal. We somehow think that we are covered because we have Jesus, but this is wrong thinking. In fact, it is a very sinful way of thinking. We must remember that our sin cost Jesus His life. Sin is a matter of life and death. There is no getting around that. Sin is still sin today even if Jesus forgave us. Sin still cuts us off from God. It separates us from our source of life. We must understand this and treat sin with the seriousness it deserves. We must do everything we can to cut sin out of our life; i.e. we must repent sincerely every day. Second, Moses response to God’s words (12-23). Instead of going on to verse 7-11 I want to skip ahead to verses 12-23 because these verses are the continuation of the story that begins this chapter. The Israelites took off all their jewelry and they went into mourning, but what did Moses do? Look at verse 12. “Moses said to the LORD, ‘You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’” Moses went to God in prayer. His prayer topics are very specific and very frank. Moses was confused. God sent him to do an impossible mission; a mission that no man could accomplish on his own. The only things that God gave to Moses to carry out this mission was the staff Moses had in his hand, his brother Aaron to act as his mouthpiece and a promise. That promise was that God would be with Moses, would tell Moses what to say and do, and would enable Moses to do the impossible work that was ahead of him. However, now God was saying that He was no longer going to Moses or these people. Sure, God was sending an angel ahead of Moses and the people to ensure that His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be kept, but God would not be there. This confused Moses, he took directly to God in prayer. Moses prayer expresses his deep heart concern and his deep confusion. Moses reminded God of His own words – God had said that He knew Moses by name and that Moses had found favor with Him. That was why God had sent him with the promise to be with him and help him to complete the mission. But now God was telling Moses, “You and the people are on your own.” In essence, Moses said, “Wait a second, if you’re not going to be with God, who is? I can’t do this thing by myself.” It was an honest and heartfelt prayer Moses put before God. Moses continued on with his prayer. Look at verse 13. “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” Moses had reminded God of His own words – Moses had found favor with God. Moses asked God to teach him God’s ways if God was pleased with him. Perhaps then Moses could understand what was going on in God’s mind. In order for God to teach Moses His ways, God would have to be with Moses. Moses didn’t only want God to remain with him, He also wanted God to remember that all the people that Moses was leading were God’s chosen people so God needed to be with them as well. Once again Moses showed why he was such a great leader. Moses didn’t pray for himself alone, he was praying for the people he was leading. If you look down at verses 15 and 16 you will see that Moses once again prays that God will not only go with him, but prays that God will go with all the people so that they would be set apart and distinguished from the other people of the world. Moses has a very good point. How could the Israelites be called God’s chosen people if God were not among them? The same is true for us today. How can we be called God’s chosen people today if God doesn’t dwell among us? But how can God dwell among us if we remain stiff-necked and refuse to repent of our sins? By the very definition of sin that I gave above, God cannot dwell among people who refuse to repent and turn to God’s ways. Every day we need to pray like Moses. “LORD if you find my life pleasing, teach me your ways.” Of course, we must always that our sinful life makes it impossible to live up to God’s teaching, but this should never keep us from giving it our best effort. This effort may not be good enough, so we need Jesus every day. We need to get on our knees every day and ask for Jesus strength to carry us through. He has promised to be there for us when we call on Him, the problem is that we don’t do this all the time like we should. If you look closely at the great men and women of prayer in the Bible, you will see that God always comes too their assistance and helps them to win the victory even in impossible situations. We need to learn from these men and women and get down on our knees every day and pray to learn God’s way while repenting of our own sinful way. Look at verse 14. “The LORD replied, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’” God answered Moses prayer. Moses didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything if God were not going to go with him and the people. God had been Moses strength up to that point. It was only because of God that Moses and the people had made it that far. Moses bear the idea of going on without that strength going with him, so God assured him, “My presence will go with you.” However, God didn’t stop there. God told Moses what the consequence would be of God’s presence being with Moses. God continued on and said, “And I will give you rest.” These simple words might be very easy to overlook, but they were probably the words Moses most needed to hear at that moment. Just think of how exhausting it must have been for Moses to lead all those people and to do the work that God was requiring of him. Moses struggle in prayer alone would have been enough to exhaust even the strongest of men. Remember that God knew Moses – He knew Moses by name, this meant that He knew everything about him. God knew that Moses need deep physical and spiritual rest, so God promised to give this¬¬¬ to him. When I thought about this, I was struck by a very interesting thought. God promises that He will go with us if we decide to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Jesus. This means that we must take up the cross of mission. This mission is greater than anything we can even imagine. This is the single hardest thing in the world to do. In fact, for our human point of it is impossible. It is beyond our human strength and far beyond our human endurance. In short, it is exhausting work. Jesus knew this so He told us something very similar to what He told Moses here. In Matthew 11:29 Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” God told Moses that if Moses would do the impossible, God would give him rest. Jesus tells you and I, “If you take up my yoke, which is humanly impossible, you will find you rest for your souls.” That is the irony of doing God’s work, it is too hard to do, but if we decide to do God gives us the strength and rest we needed to win the victory. Moses had one final prayer topic for God. Look at verse 18. “Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’” This seemed like a rather strange prayer topic when I first read it. I wondered how many people have every really prayed with this prayer topic. I don’t recall ever praying it myself, but after praying about this passage I realized that we all need this prayer topic. Why do I say that? I believe that once God answers this prayer topic we will never turn back. Once again, I thought about some people in the Bible. A careful reading of the Bible shows that those who had the closest relationship with God, those who had seen the most of God’s glory were typically those who never compromised or gave into the overwhelming odds that they saw before them. Beginning with people like Enoch and Noah. Abraham knew of God’s glory and he was willing to sacrifice the son that God had promised him. Elijah knew of God’s glory and he could boldly stand up to a wicked king and queen and hundreds of satanic priests. Daniel knew of God’s glory and he and his three friends never gave into the pagan culture they were in. Many of the prophets saw God’s glory and they were able to overcome unbelievable hardships to carry out God’s work. But the one man that struck me the most was Paul. Paul hated Jesus and he hated Christians with a passion, but once he saw the glory of the risen Jesus, he was able to overcome everything. Once he saw that glory was going to stop him from doing God’s work – not even being stones to the point of death. We all need this same spirit if the gospel is going to be preach to the ends of the earth. The way that we can have this spirit is if we see the glory of the risen Jesus. This is in essence what Moses was praying for and God agreed to show Moses what he could see – the back of God. Third, the tent of meeting and Moses and Joshua’s actions (7-11). Verses 7-11 go on a little aside about a tent that Moses set up here he would go to talk with God. This tent was interesting for two reasons. The first reason is its name, “The tent of meeting.” This was the same name that was given to the tabernacle that Moses was instructed to make for the Israelites. The second reason it is interesting is because of where Moses set this tent up. Moses set his tent of meeting up outside of the camp, whereas, the tent of meeting God instructed Moses to set up was to be right in the middle of the camp. Verse 7-11 tell us what would happen when Moses went out to this tent. All the people would stand at the entrance to their tents and watch him. When they saw him go inside they would then see God descend on the tent in a pillar of cloud and all the people would worship God until Moses came out and the cloud went up from the tent. Look at verse 11. “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.” I find it amazing that Moses could talk to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend, but if you look carefully at Moses prayers you can see that this is true. It is also interesting to note that Moses always returned to camp while his young aide stayed at the tent. Moses needed to return to the camp because the people needed a leader. Joshua, however, needed to stay at the tent so that he could build up his relationship with God because he was going to be the next leader for these people. From Moses, Joshua had learned that he could not lead these people without a strong relationship with God. |
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