7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
Moses’ Intercession
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 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?”
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
REFLECTION
Read this passage, or read the whole chapter if time allows.
Many qualities made Moses a strong spiritual leader. He was courageous. He sought to please God rather than men. He was willing to take a stand. He rallied support. He prayed for sinners, and yet was willing to confront them. But the secret of Moses’ greatness is found in the “tent of meeting”, where Moses met the Lord face-to-face.
No one knew what went on within the tent, though the pillar of cloud came down to stand by the tent door when Moses was inside. Yet the very fact that Moses met with God there instilled awe, and the evidence of God’s presence caused the people to worship the Lord. Moses’ greatness was not his own, it was God’s.
We have constant opportunities to influence others. They include our children, our neighbors, and coworkers as well as members of our church. The only way we will truly influence others is to follow the path of Moses and meet God regularly face-to-face.
Others won’t know what happens in our private time with the Lord. But the aura of God’s presence will go with us. Being with God changes us – and the change God works in us is the key to our ability to influence others to worship and obey Him.
PRAYER
Use this hymn as a prayer for today.
Make Me a BlessingIra B. Wilson, 20th cent.George S. Schuler, 1924
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”14 And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
REFLECTION
Please read the whole chapter once, then re-read the above passage.
Moses had been gone a long time. Meanwhile, the people, impatient to get on with their new life of freedom, decided that they wanted to develop their own worship that they could “get something out of”. So they talked Aaron into providing them with worship that satisfied their desire – something that turned out to be pretty much a reflection of the Egyptian world in which they had so recently been oppressed.
Their golden calf worship nearly destroyed them. And it is the same with us. Refusing to wait for God to speak, we many times fill in His silence with activity. Fund raising, building project, we model worship after patterns that are familiar to us and seem to work for others, patterns that leave out ambiguity and mystery as well as waiting on God and listening for Him. No wonder we feel disillusioned, isolated, inauthentic, and burned out.
PRAYER
Please read Day 14 of “Purpose Driven Life” on When God Seems Distant ( purposedrivenlife2005.blogspot.ca/2005/03/day-14-when-god-seems-distant.html ). Then have a conversation with God: God is real, no matter how you feel, really? How can you stay focused on God’s presence, especially when He seems distant?
12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
REFLECTION
God chose workers to build the tabernacle. Once again, He reminded the Israelites to keep the Sabbath whether they are working for the sacred work or others.
“Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths” (v13). This command was strategically placed – at the very end of all the commands to build the tabernacle. Though God gave Israel a work to do in building the tabernacle He did not want them to do that work on the Sabbath. God’s rest still had to be respected.
Is the Sabbath for Christians? The passage states that the Sabbath is a sign of God’s covenant with Israel. On the other hand, Christians from the beginning have met on Sunday, not Sabbath – the seventh day of the week. While the Sabbath commemorates creation (v17), the first day of the week commemorates Jesus’ resurrection (Matt 28:1, Acts 20:7). What links the two is that each serves as a weekly reminder to believers of their personal relationship with God.
If we are going to live appropriately in the world, we must keep the Sabbath. We must stop running around long enough to see what God has done and is doing. We must shut up long enough to hear what He has said and is saying. Without silence and stillness, there is no spirituality.
Pastors and congregational leaders commonly cram the Lord’s Day with work: committee meetings, congregational meetings, projects, mission events, and social activities. But talking and doing displace Sabbath quietness and stillness. All of this activity is very well intentioned but nevertheless all very wrong. How might we re-organize our lives and priorities in order that we might actually practice Sabbath-living?
PRAYER
Recall last Sunday. How did you spend it? Did you enjoy the rest and time with God? Enjoy a few moments of silence with God knowing that God is enjoying it, too.
