THE GLORY OF GOD

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise His hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction."

Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. He said to the elders, "Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them."

When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Exodus 24:9-18

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After sealing the covenant between God and the people of Israel with the sprinkling of blood from the sacrifices, Moses leaves the Israelites who were ordered by God to "not come up with him" (Exodus 24:2b) and begins to climb Mount Sinai with "Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel". As they went up the mountain, the scriptures tell us that they "saw the God of Israel" who had "something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself" under His feet. It’s believed the pavement wasn’t sapphire but lapus lazuli, a precious blue stone laced with golden pyrite. This stone was used to adorn royal chambers and thrones so it was fitting that the Sovereign King of Kings would be standing on pavement made of it.

Now, it’s important to note that later in this book, we learn that seeing God wasn’t a good thing. He says so Himself in the thirty-third chapter:

And the Lord said, "I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim My name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But, He said, you cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live." Vv.19-20

Here, we find God inviting Moses and the other leaders of Israel to enter His presence and actually see Him. We need to keep in mind that it was God who summoned these men to Him and once there, He “did not raise his hand” against them. Instead, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel were allowed to share a covenant meal in the presence of the Lord Almighty.

What an awesome experience that must have been!

Well, after the meal we read where God calls on Moses to "come up to” Him “on the mountain” where he was to stay. There, the Lord promised He would give Moses “tablets of stone, with the law and commands” He had “written for their instruction." We see where Moses complies, setting out “with Joshua his aide”, but not before he gives the following guidance to the elders who were with him:

"Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them."

We sense that Moses knew he could be gone for a while and indeed this was true for in our passage, we read where he entered the cloud representing the glory of the Lord and remained there for “forty days and forty nights”, more than a month! Given this, we see where Moses appoints Aaron and Hur to serve as mediators should any disputes break out amongst the people while he was away. They were also to make sure the people of Israel stayed obedient to the promises they made with God, a task that we will see they failed miserably in carrying out.

Back to the scriptures where Moses “went up on the mountain of God" and as he ascended, a “cloud covered it” as “the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai." The cloud would remain there, covering “the mountain" for “six days”. Then, "on the seventh day”, we read where “the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud",  a summoning that led Israel’s leader to enter and stay on the mountain for the aforementioned “forty days and forty nights".

And so we know that Moses, his fellow Israelite leaders, and all the people of Israel saw the "glory of the Lord".

What did it look like?

Well, Moses may have seen a cloud but from the vantage point of the Israelites, the glory of the Lord “looked like a consuming fire".

All this led me to wonder about these questions:

How does the glory of God look to believers like us today?

Do we open our eyes with intent to catch a glimpse of His evident glory each and every day?

The truth of the matter is that the Lord is always putting His glory on display through His creation. It’s inescapable for every created thing.

Consider these words from the nineteenth Psalm:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night, they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Vv.1-4

Indeed, God’s glory is in play each and every day. Whether it’s a cloudless, moonlit, star-filled sky or a blazing sunset or a miraculous work of healing or a newborn baby, all are clear reminders of God’s remarkable, wondrous glory. It was the same glory that shone around the shepherds who were tending their fields by night as a Savior named Jesus was born unto them in a tiny town called Bethlehem (Luke 2:8-20), the same glory that saw this Savior rise from the tomb, resurrected after dying from crucifixion just three days earlier (Luke 24:1-8).

Friends, today we are blessed to have God’s glory all around us for all that we know, all that we have, and all that we are is because of Him. We are immersed in Him and He in us and indeed, we are a part of His glorious handiwork (Ephesians 2:10).

So how are we to respond to a Lord who is ever revealing Himself to us?

We are to give Him all the glory He deserves. In other words, any glory that might try to come to us needs to be deflected and placed on the One who is glory. Our every though, word, and deed needs to be devoted to the Lord who has devoted all of Himself to those He loves and cherishes, the One who didn’t wish for us to perish in our sins but rather be saved and given eternal life through His Son Jesus (John 3:16).

Brothers and sisters, let us glory in our great and almighty God, today and every day, making sure we don’t allow a moment to pass when we have the opportunity to testify about Him and His glory to others, like I get to do in this message today.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.