THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #137 | THE LIFE OF MOSES #118

Pastor Christopher Choo

Lesson 3822

THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #137

THE LIFE OF MOSES #118

MOSES AT MT. SINAI #17

THE TRANSFORMING GLORY OF GOD #1

Exodus chapter 34 is filled with spiritual insight and application. 

God’s glory was transforming Moses because he was near to God’s presence and that same glory is in the heart of the believer in Jesus Christ. 

In other words, God’s glory is transforming us.

Let us retrace the story of the second set of the Ten Commandments after the first set was destroyed at the Golden Calf incident.

Let us study Exodus 34:27-35.

When Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Law of God, he came down to find the people had fallen into terrible sin. Moses had been gone for a long time and they didn’t know what had become of him, so they asked Aaron to make a golden calf. It represented of one of the gods of Egypt; the god of fertility, virility, and strength.Then they “rose up to play” and it turned into a party.

Moses became so angry he threw down the tablets of stone and purged the camp.

God later told him to bring two more stone tablets up to the mountain and he would write the words of the Law upon them again. 

That is where we find Moses in Exodus chapter 34. 

He spent another 40 days and nights receiving the Law again.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he did not realize that his face was visibly shining with the brilliance of God’s glory. 

I believe this was the condition in which man was originally created. Scripture tells us that it was only after Adam and Eve sinned, they realized they were naked. They were in God’s presence and they were filled with the radiance of His glory.

When the people of Israel saw Moses’ face radiant with glory, they were afraid to come near.They were afraid of God’s glory, so Moses put a veil over his face.

This story is not only about the glory of God which shown on the face of Moses, it’s also about the veil.

Whenever he was in the presence of God, he would remove the veil. When he was with the people of Israel, he replaced the veil over his face.

Paul made a spiritual analogy in 2 Corinthians 3, saying that Moses wore the veil so the sons of Israel might not look at the glory – that was fading. In other words, they did not want to see God’s glory.They were afraid.

It was a picture of a veil that lies over their heart. But whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, so that we, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image of God from glory to glory.

This revelation of God's transforming glory did not come out of the blue.

It sprang from Moses' heartfelt desire to behold God's glory in Exodus 34.

"Please show me Your Glory" was Moses'  plea. He asked for the ability to perceive God on a greater level than even he had ever experienced before.

Moses primary goal was to gain more awareness of, and closeness to, God. This comes at a great risk - for no mere man can behold His glory and holiness and live.

We see a stark contrast to this in the attitude of the children of Israel who wanted an intermediary between them and God and not God Himself.

They were so focused on the means with which we should get close to God but they forget that they are just means and not an end in itself.

The golden calf may have been their means as a buffer between them and God but they ended up worshipping it instead of God. And they even came close to worshipping Moses himself as their intermediary not realising that he was but a type of shadow that pointed to Christ as the ultimate Mediator between God and Man.

So they never came close to beholding the glory of God except from afar...and later as a pillar of cloud by day and a beacon of fire at night which they took for granted as we do the sun and moon.

Let us learn from Moses' example to desire a closer walk with God rather than to worship Him from afar through our golden calves, teenage idols and faulty celebrities.

This is the sad indictment on the human race who do not want His glory - for  the road to Hell is littered with good intentions and fallen idols.

N.B. We shall continue our study of the transforming glory of God tomorrow. 

Do stay tuned as there is so much revelation we can learn from it.