“And the LORD said to Moses, “‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
~ Exodus 33:17
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever seen God’s face? What do you think that God’s face looks like? Would you like to see God’s face? Moses came as close to seeing God’s face as anyone. Moses in Exodus 33 recounts the time when he asked God if he could see His glory. Even though Moses was meeting with God in the ‘tent of meeting’, Moses could not actually see God. Moses could only hear God’s voice as they talked with each other in the ‘tent of meeting’. The day when Moses asked God if he could see His glory was soon after the Israelite people group guys and gals had made using molten gold jewelry and ornaments a gold calf for them to worship. God’s specially chosen guys and gals had become disillusioned about what their future held for them. God’s specially chosen guys and gals had come to think that Moses was not going to return after they watched Moses climb Mount Sinai to meet with God. When Moses finally came down from the top of Mount Sinai, Moses found his big bro – Aaron, and the Israelite people guys and gals worshipping a gold calf that had been made from jewelry and ornaments that God’s specially chosen guys and gals had taken with them when they left Goshen, Egypt. God’s specially chosen guys and gals were having trouble putting behind them worshipping the idols that they had worshipped while living in the land where they had been living and from where they had left three months earlier when the cloud pillar that was leading them stopped at the base of Mount Sinai. God’s specially chosen guys and gals really had no excuse for melting gold and molding the smelted gold into a calf to be their god versus faithfully having God be their God. God’s specially chosen guys and gals right after this would for six days a week find food – called manna, lying on the ground for them to eat. God through a series of God-ordered plagues which God’s specially chosen guys and gals saw cause super consternation among their host Egyptian guys and gals – who had been taking advantage of the Israelite people group guys to do their work, convinced the Egyptian Pharaoh to let the two to three million Israelite people group guys, gals and kids leave his country for the land where the Israelite people group patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had once lived. As God and Moses talked on the day when Moses asked God if he could see His presence/glory, God was not okay with what His specially chosen guys and gals – who God referred to as being stiff-necks, had done. God though at this time was still willing to let an angel lead His specially chosen guys and gals to . . . ; God just had had enough of leading them Himself. God continued to communicate through Moses to His specially chosen guys and gals that He was getting real close to simply ‘wiping them off the map’ because . . .
As Moses and God were talking with each other in the ‘tent of meeting’, Moses was able to convince God that He needed to lead His specially chosen guys and gals – that an angel would not do. Verse 17 is God’s response to Moses, “And the LORD said to Moses, “‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”’ God then told Moses that he – Moses, let alone any guy would never be able to look at His face because the glory that radiates from His face will not just blind, it will kill. God was willing though to let Moses experience what it was like to have His presence/glory pass close by him. God’s specially chosen guys and gals were still encamped or bivouacked in the Sinai Peninsula region near Mount Horeb. God told Moses that there was a cleft in a rock near where He was where He would have Moses go into and then as His presence/glory was passing by the cleft in the rock where Moses would be, God said that He would put His hand over Moses’ face so that Moses would not be able to see His face as His presence/glory passed by him. God also told Moses that after He passed by the cleft in the rock where He would have Moses go into, that He would take away His hand from Moses’ face so that Moses could see His back. Would you like to be able to pull a Moses – and be able to see God’s back?
Your grandpaa believes that he can – and that you can, too, always see God’s back. Your grandpaa believes that he can – and that you can, too, see God’s back by how orderly how everything is unfolding on planet Earth and in the cosmos. Your grandpaa believes that he can – and that you can, too, see God’s back in the unparalleled beauty of His creation. Your grandpaa believes that he can – and that you can, too, see God’s back as life awakens each day. Your grandpaa believes that he can – and that you can, too, see God’s back through miraculous occurrences. When your grandpaa takes the time to stop and look, your grandpaa has no trouble seeing God’s back. Just as God’s specially chosen guys and gals could see God in action whenever He covered the entrance to the ‘tent of meeting’ with a cloud pillar while He talked with Moses, you watch God in action whenever He uses earthquakes to topple, floods to drown and winds to flatten corners of planet Earth. God arbitrarily has mercy on who He has mercy and compassion on who He has compassion. Kerry Field should not be alive today. Kerry recently had a five organ transplant. Kerry had already spent a year without intestines after her first intestine transplant did not take. Kerry’s dad and ma are missionaries with the same mission agency that your grandmaa and grandpaa are missionaries. Kerry ‘sees’ God’s back passing her every morning when she wakes up because of the life that God is having her live to reflect His glory back to Him. It is now over sixteen years later since your grandpaa first sent this missive to your dad for him to read to you. Your grandpaa is now 80 years old. Your grandmaa and grandpaa are very grateful for the ways that God is continuing to show His back to them to let them to know that His presence/glory is with them.
Exodus 33 (688)