This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Alunson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 28 in a series on the Book of Exodus. This message is taken from Exodus chapters 33 and 34 and is titled Seeing God. Now here's Pete with today's message. This week I was in preparing for this sermon thinking about a book I hadn't read yet, but many of you have written by a Baptist assistant pastor named Don Piper. It's called 90 Minutes and Heaven, a true story of death and life. And I got thinking about this book as I was thinking about our knowledge of God and our understanding of God and what you perceive God to be and what I perceive God to be. What if we could see God? This man did. Here's how his book begins. I died on January 18, 1989. Paramedics reached the scene of the accident within minutes. They found no pulse and declared me dead. They covered me with a tarp so that onlookers wouldn't stare at me while they attended to the injuries of the others. I was completely unaware of the paramedics or anyone else around me. Immediately after I died, I went straight to heaven. While I was in heaven, a Baptist preacher came on the accident scene. And though he knew I was dead, he rushed to my lifeless body and prayed for me despite the scoffing of the EMT and emergency medical technicians. He refused to stop praying. At least 90 minutes after the EMT's pronounced to be dead, God answered that man's prayers, I returned to earth. This is my story. Now you want to know the rest of the story? You have to read the book. That's so cool. Do you believe it? I believe it. I believe it. I haven't finished the book yet. I know a lot of you have read it and what you've told to me makes me believe what he says. I'm a Presbyterian. It ticks me off a little bit. It was a Baptist preacher that stopped and prayed for him. If it was a Presbyterian, we probably would have driven by and said, well, it's God's will. What would it be like? What would it be? No, we wouldn't. I wouldn't. I'd have stopped too. What would it be like if we could see God? What would it be like if you could see God today without maybe having to go through a horrific accident to get there? What would it be? I have a second about that this way. What would it be like if I could see God? You know, with my non-Christian friends, my friends who don't know Christ yet, probably wouldn't make much of a deal. They said, you died. You went to heaven. You saw God. You came back. You were as obnoxious as ever. Not over the cliff, you know, and okay, okay, with you now, I might get some traction with it. Hey, I went to heaven. I've seen God. Have you? Have you seen God? And why not? Why did he reveal himself to me and not to you? I could use that so good. I mean, I could make you feel guilty. I would preach servants. We would, you would feel guilty and you would leave here saying he's so spiritual. And you would say, I'm going to go to that church and I'm going to tithe simply because he saw God. We might even have some miracles happen around here outside there's some shadows or something. We could do that too. I mean, it could happen. Now, but what if you really saw God? The more I thought about, the more, you know, I wouldn't do all that kind of stuff, I think probably what would happen is that I would be so radically transformed that I probably would be a lot nicer guy. If I really saw God, I probably wouldn't quite as be as fearful as I am sometimes. I probably would talk about God a lot more to people that I knew, even though they might not believe that I went to heaven and saw him, I probably would talk to people about God. I probably would be so transformed, I don't even know how to explain that I'd be different. Well, today I want to talk to you about a guy who did see God and the difference it may. As we continue our study in the book of Exodus and we only have one more week after this to look in the book of Exodus, we want to see one of those passages that has a couple of elements here that are just need to be explained because they pervade the rest of the Scriptures really, Moses seeing God and the sense of God's justice and his nature is revealed and as we look at this as we continue our study in the book of Exodus today, I really want you to think, what is God like? Really, really, is he a shepherd? Is he somebody that you can commit yourself to all of your life that you can walk with forever? Because that's really, really important. Our text is Exodus 33 verses 17 through 34, 9. This is God's word to us. And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you've asked because I'm pleased with you and I know you by name. Moses after the Israelites had just sinned in a big way by going after the golden calf, he'd asked God to not abandon and to stay with them forever and to walk with Israel and to Canaan and so God said he would do that. Then Moses said, after God said, I'll do the very thing you've asked because I'm pleased with you and I know you by name, then Moses said, now show me your glory. 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. Then the Lord said, there is a place near me where you may stand on a rock when my glory passes by. I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen. Then the Lord said to Moses, chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones. What happened to the first tablets of stone? Do you remember? Yeah, Moses broke them because he'd been up in the presence of God getting the Ten Commandments. He came down from the mountain and the people of Israel were in a wild party, a kind of a party you never want any of your teenage kids to go to. The Israelites were having. And in his righteous indignation, Moses was ticked, he threw them down and broke them. I love this. I will write on the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. God's a little reminder, you broke them. Be ready in the morning and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain, not even the flocks and herds may gaze and graze in front of the mountain. So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up to Mount Sinai. Early in the morning as the Lord had commanded him and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord, capital L-O-R-D-Yawai. I am who I am. And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, bounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. Oh, Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, he said, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff neck, people forgive our wickedness and our sin and take us as your inheritance. This is God's word and this is not really a complex text. There's two points. Moses preoccupation and seeing God because Moses, first of all, had this, you know, I don't know if this is like two weeks ago water.
I hardly use it anymore because we only have two services, not three. I'm going to take by faith. If I die up here, maybe I'll go to heaven and come back. I don't know. Moses had a preoccupation and that preoccupation was to see God. He wanted that more than anything else. So you said, well, wait a minute. Moses had experienced God in a big way and he really had, hadn't he? I mean, up to this point and doing a quick survey of the book of Exodus, how do you quickly survey a book with 40 chapters? But real quick, what happened was that Moses was mining his own business as an octogenarian and God said, I want you to get my people out of Israel and he started talking to Moses through a burning bush. Remember that? That was a lot of weeks ago. God first expressed himself to Moses through a burning bush. The bush was on fire yet not consumed and so Moses saw a miracle there and then it just went on and on. I want you to get my people out of Egyptian bondage. Really, are you kidding me, Lord? Anything else you want me to do? Go and get a nation out of captivity from the most powerful man on the face of the earth, Pharaoh? Okay, Lord, anything else. And yet when he went there, the Israelite leaders not only accepted what he had said, yeah, okay, we'll go with you. Really? You can't believe the number of times. I've come to the elders. I say, guys, I think we ought to do this and they say, let's pray about it. And we talk about it again. They go, we're going to do it. You're kidding? Really? They're men of faith. And well, the Israelite elders weren't as spiritual as our elders, but they said, let's go. That was an act of God's sheer power to turn those Israelite elders to Moses and they did it and they went along with it. And they left. And Pharaoh let them go. You mirror all those, how many how many plagues were there? Do you remember? I forgot. I should know, 12, 13, 10, 10. I should know that. I went to seminary. You forgot. It's okay. 10 plagues. And he got them out. And those plagues were in crap. And then there was the miraculous deal of getting through the Red Sea and then being taken care of in the wilderness, all of that food. Guys, let me ask you this. Had Moses experienced God? Yes, he had experienced God. That's the answer. And yet, after God forgives Israel in a powerful way, what does he say to him? God, I want to see your glory. God, I must see more. So many truths in this passage, but one of them is this, that the more you see the real God, the more you want to know, the real God, the real God, not the false God. We have this idea, caricature of God. That didn't fly. That's not attractive. It's the real, once you know the real God, you want to know more. You can't. You're not satisfied. You've got to have more. And so Moses keeps talking to God, which leads to another point when God is talking to you, keep talking and keep telling him what you really want. And tell him, tell him what you want, even though it's kind of outrageous because if God is willing to talk to you, you know you got the ear of God. You might as well give him the moon. Right? Why not? Missions week next week. Ilya is going to be here. I can't even tell you his last name. And the reason I can't tell you the last name is because he's doing a ministry that is so outrageous. It borders on the ludicrous. We've been helping as a church support Ilya. He started a church up in Philadelphia. So God calls me to start a church. So I say, where am I going to go? I'm going to go to a growing, a growing suburb in Orlando, a great place. I never regretted that I came here. You guys are dynamite. I love being here. Ilya says God's called me to plan a church. I think I'll go to Philadelphia, up in the northeast where people don't really love God much. And then I'm going to start a church wait. I'm going to start a church to Jews and Muslims. Okay? So, you know, and talk and bring them to the same building. It's not like 9 o'clock for Jews and 10, 30 for Muslims. No, at the same time. And we're going to see the power of God as they accept Jesus Christ and as they move together. Yeah, right. But I say why not? You see, it's not a normative thing. It's not a principle that is taught here. Ask God, God may I see you. But, but if you're talking to God, why not ask him for something outrageous? Like Lord, how can I glorify you by starting a church in a place with a group of people that would be absolutely ridiculous? It could never happen unless you're in it. Lord, you could never put my marriage back together. Lord, you're never going to be able to see me through this economic slowdown. Lord, you're never going to be able to heal me of this. You can never, and Lord, even if you don't heal me, I don't know if I could face this disease day in and day out. Lord, I don't know. You could never convert my husband. You could never convert my wife. I say, if God's talking to you, why not ask? Moses. Moses is asking for something big because his God is big.
You don't need a small God. I don't need a small God. I want a God that is so big. That I'm frankly at times terrified in his presence. That's who the God of the Bible is and he reveals himself to Moses in a powerful way. You cannot, verse 20, you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live. I got to explain that to you. Why is that the case? I think because even though Moses had experienced the power of God and some of you guys have experienced the power of God in amazing ways in your life, you know him, you know his word. I've seen some of you go through the loss of a spouse and you're still, you're still trucking. You're still following Jesus all of your life. I think some of you lose businesses. I've seen you, why? Why? You've experienced the power of God, but God says to Moses, you cannot see my face and live because even though we can experience the power of God, catch now, track with me to see him in his essential being in the purity of who he is would undo us completely. Why? Because God is more powerful, more majestic, more unbelievably,
it's dependous than we know or can conceive. God is not only so big that we would be destroyed if we were in his presence. In order for us to actually see him, he would have to take the steps to transform our bodies to be able to receive such a monumental expression of who he is and all of his fullness. I was trying to think of an illustration of this probably for us to ask God, can we see you in your essential being and then like Moses did and forgot to do, it would be like for us to stand next to an atom bomb as soon as it goes off, right? When it goes off, oh maybe 10 feet away. 10 feet away from an atom bomb when it goes off and for a fraction of a second, we would see the blinding light, it would be so quick though that we wouldn't be able to even feel the power as we were obliterated into untraceable atoms. I believe that's what it would be like to have the vision of God except that that illustration breaks down, all illustrations of God break down because you see even an atom bomb made by the hands of human beings is limited in its scope and atom bomb goes off, even the biggest atom bomb, pick the biggest one, set it off, the brightness eventually will diminish, the power will eventually dissipate, but the power of the living God never dissipates because he is continually fueled by his unlimited self-sufficient ongoing power. It would never dissipate and Moses couldn't stand it and neither could you or neither could I. That's why Moses didn't know what he was asking about. Sometimes you say, I wish I could just see God, oh I'm not so sure. It would solve everything, yeah, your life. Unless God did something to enable you to endure him. As a matter of fact he has John 5, 25 through 29. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, the time is coming and now it's come. When the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live, for as the Father has life in himself, so he is granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given, as God has life in himself, that means God does not get life from any other place. He has it. That's what I'm talking about, that ongoing self-fueling of the power of God, self-fueling, words are inadequate to speak of God. He has given him Jesus authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this. A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to life and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. What is his teaching? This is teaching the resurrection from the dead. And Jesus is basically saying that one day those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ will be raised with a body that has the capacity to withstand the true vision of God. In other words, how are you going to last an eternity? Only if God makes your body able to withstand his glory. That's what a resurrection body is. Now, the other side is very scary because it talks about those who refuse the living God, who the book of Hebrews calls a consuming fire. God is a consuming fire.
Those who reject the Savior, Jesus Christ, and this is a tragedy. Those who reject the one whom God sent to connect us with the living God will receive the judgment of God but they too will receive a resurrection body. Everybody will receive a resurrection body. Once you are created, you are eternal. That resurrection body for the unbelievers will be a body that will enable them to endure the judgment and justice of God for eternity. I do not like that doctrine. I hate it. If you like that doctrine, something is wrong with you. We Christians really don't like the doctrine of judgment. Charles had in Spurgeon the Great Baptist preacher said that if we really understood judgment, we would crawl over broken glass to tell people about Jesus because God is not to be trifled with. He's a consuming fire. But the great news is that in Jesus Christ, this atomic God who is the only God is satisfied. God is satisfied with what Jesus did on the cross so that those who receive him aren't, he's not angry at us. Isn't that amazing? And we can actually call him daddy. Can you imagine? Calling an atomic bomb daddy? Moses' preoccupation was seeing God. He wasn't into religion. I like what Ben Franklin said. He grew up in Boston under the Puritans. He said too much religion is worse than none at all. And I agree, I don't like religion. I don't like religion. But I am drawn to God. I'm like the trappings of all the stuff that some people say you got to do this so God will accept you. You got to do nothing. Jesus Christ is all there is. How could religion modify a consuming fire? But Jesus has because he is God coming to flesh. And the more you see the real God, the more you want to know the real God. That's why Moses just keeps asking. And finally he sees what little of God, God lets him see. By the way, first John 3, 2 is a verse you all ought to have memorized. This is my hope. First John 3, 2, when we see him, we will be like him for we will see him as he is. I love that verse. When it's time, when Jesus comes back, when it's time, and he's ready to give you that resurrection body, you will see him as he is in his essence, in his purity, the bomb will go off and you will stand absolutely amazed at his Shaqina, at his glory, at his glory. Don Piper said the first person he saw in heaven was his grandfather. I don't know who the first person you'll see, but you'll see a lot. You'll see glory. Now look at, look at seeing God in verses 5 through 9. This is so powerful. The Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses saying, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger. Listen to what I'm reading now. Abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. We don't know what Moses actually saw. No doubt he saw some brightness, right? No doubt he saw glory. He saw the backside of God, which is an aspect of the glory of God. He saw some of the glory of God. But notice, do you notice in this account what it is? He said he experienced. It doesn't say, and I saw a light, you know, most people, you know, those near death experiences, they say it was a long tunnel. I went down a long tunnel. Don Piper said, no, I didn't see any of that. I was just in heaven. Didn't do the long tunnel thing. He said it was glorious, but notice, Moses doesn't say, I saw all this light. And then there were many nuclear explosions going on all around me. He said, did you catch it? I experienced that God was compassionate,
that God was gracious. Let's talk about. He experienced God in his attributes. He said God is compassionate. In all of this, even though we couldn't see all of God, he saw the characteristic of God's compassion and waves of that compassion swept over him so that he understood more than you and I understood it, Stan, that God is compassionate. You say he doesn't see. He doesn't know what I'm going through. Oh, he does. Because in his essential being, he's compassionate. Jesus walking in Jerusalem, walking around looking at all the people, the text of Scripture says in the gospel, that he looked at all the people running around, frustrated, angry, lonely, hurting. He says he had compassion on that. Like a sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion. Why? Because he's God coming to flesh and God is filled with compassion. The Bible says that God has emotions just like us, not just like us. He's got emotions like us, but his emotions are not just like ours. You get mad when somebody does something to you and you want him to get it. That's compassionate of you. When we see it against God, God feels compassion for us. And some of you are so compassionate. It just blows me away your compassion. You are so sensitive and you should have been in the first service. We did another baptism. It was just so good. This baby, the gores baby, smiled at me too. I live for those moments. And some of the people in the audience go, that's the way you are when you see somebody that's hurting. You feel it. Now some of the rest of us don't understand that. Because we don't have the gift of compassion like you have. The gift of mercy. Somebody comes in, they tell us a sob story. We say, okay, this is what you need to do. We give them three points on a palm. We send them out the door. Do it. Suck it up. Growing Christ. Get over it. We don't feel much.
But God does. He knows what you're going through. And he feels it because he's compassionate. And he's gracious, which means that he continues to extend to us as stiff neck people just like the Israelites. He gives us stuff even when we don't deserve it for sure. He's slow to anger. This is my favorite guys. Guys, men, men, this is a rough one for us. Because we've been trained to be quick to anger, but God is slow to anger. I see some people smiling out there. Yeah, I know. Abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love, forgiving wickedness, God continues to do all of these things. What Moses experienced was God in his attributes. That's why I said to you, what you believe about God is the most important thing about him. Oh, also, there's one other attribute, his justice. And that verse that is a verse that needs to be explained where it says, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. These are the list of attributes here of God that you and I need to lean on all the day, all the time. We want an experience of God, but he says, focus upon my character because it is my character in my essential being that will transform you. That's what you need is my character. That's what swept over Moses was the character. God, what about this aspect of justice and this whole idea of God not leaving unpunished the sins of the fathers to the second and third generation? How does that apply? Well, see, the reality is is that if you come to faith in Christ, if you come to the living God and you ask forgiveness, does he forgive? Of course, what did God do even with those
darn Israelites when he redeems them out of Egypt and then their worshiping a golden calf? What does he do? When Moses says, Lord, you got to forgive us. What does he do? He forgives them. And on top of that, then he sends his son, Jesus Christ, into this world, to die on a cross for your sin and my sin. And what does he do? He forgives them. And if we turn to him in faith and Christ, that whole past is wiped away. You say, you don't know what I've done. God can't forgive it. He can. What do you think your sin is more powerful than the grace of God? But you say, okay, but God can't change me. Oh, absolutely. He can. He can change the whole course of your life. I've seen families outside our church who don't know Christ. And you look at the mess of their lives. It's incredible. I can write a book. Pagans I've known. And some pagans don't mind being called pagans. They know they're pagans. And they don't mind being called pagans. Some people don't like being called a pagan. But the reality is there's so many people that look at their life and they say, I don't need God. I don't need God. Let's talk about your family. We go back generations. Amen. You guys you guys have had either sex addiction or alcohol addiction or you've had divorce rampant for generations in your family. Tell me, you don't need God. You need God more than you know you need God. Because what happens is that when sin is not repetitive, it gets it gets in the family line. You wonder why your family line is that way and why you've had a hard time growing through stuff.
That's because it got into your family line. And nobody repented of it. You might be the first generation to come to faith in Jesus Christ and you are so radically different now and you look at your family. So I don't know how I got this well. I know because the power of God went off in your life and it can be you can change courses. You can break the cycle. If you don't, you receive the justice of God, the justice of God. And this is so important. God does bring justice into the world. When God acts as a just judge, listen to this, he brings the appropriate consequences to the appropriate people at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. That's the justice of God. When he brings the appropriate consequences for somebody's action into their life at the right time. Why does the Bible say do not exact revenge on your neighbor? Why does the Bible say do not be filled with revenge? Because you don't know how to do it right. I go over a few minutes after my sermon, which I am right now. Some of you are saying I'm not going to get in line for lunch. I'm a little ticked. I'll be out of here pretty quick. By the way, we're almost done. But somebody ticks you off and you say I'm going to get that sucker in Jesus name. And you want revenge. Why? It's natural. Why shouldn't you do it? Because you don't know how to bring revenge to the right person and the right measure at the right time. But God does. God does. So he says, don't worry about that. Let go. Forgive. You don't need that. You're not big enough to handle this. But I am big enough to bring justice into the world. We have two families in our church who are going through difficult times. One family and pray for them. Their son, who doesn't live in town, has been brought up on charges that he did something wrong in banking. And as far as I can tell, and as far as everybody knows in his family, he has not done anything wrong. He's been brought up on false charges. But he may well, in order to please his way out of this, have to give up his career. He may have to do some jail time. And it's trumped up charges. As far as I can tell. They're praying. They're praying for justice. And indeed, I hope you pray for them. I'm going to tell you their name. But pray for that family in our church who needs justice for their son. And I believe because God is a just God, that justice will come. Maybe it'll come in this lifetime, in this world. It might come. Now it might come tomorrow. Might not. Every one of us, I know people who have experienced the injustices in this world. And those injustices are not rectified until the life to come. But you can be assured as there is a Bible that there will be justice done in this world. And eventually in the world to come. Another family struggling with, well, he came up to me and he said, you know, he'd lost his job months ago. And his boss was just this really, really difficult guy went into it. I said, whoa, man, I haven't met a boss like that. And he'd fired him and he'd been looking for work for a long time. Then he came up a couple of weeks later and he said, hey, you know, I read in the paper that my boss himself had been fired. I looked at him, I go, that's pretty sweet, didn't it? And he's sweet. He looked at me like, can I have permission to feel good about that? And I said, well, you know, you know, Proverbs does say don't gloat over somebody else because then maybe he'll bring, turn his gaze away from them and turn it to you. But justice is sweet. Guys, I want you to know that if you're just looking for justice in this world, you've got a limited view of life because it may not come. Those guys that owe you money. It may not come. And you know what? We're not looking for everything to get rectified in this life because this life is not all there is.
Moses' preoccupation was seeing God. How do I apply this real quick? I think that's a good preoccupation for you and me. Not asking for a miraculous thing. Hey, talk to God. Maybe he'll let you hear his voice in a unique way. If you're a brand new Christian, ask him for something really big. He tends to listen to you guys. Right? We come to faith in Christ. He just does stuff, you know. And then you walk with him a few years and he goes, okay, Pete, I'm not going to answer you right away. I'm going to test you a little bit, okay? It makes you walk by faith and not by sight. Make it your preoccupation to pursue God. Pursue him in his word because in his word is where we see his character. And as you see his character, you're transformed. Second Corinthians, powerful, powerful verse that many, many of you know says, but we, with unveiled face, be holding as an amir of the glory of the Lord. This is totally shades of Moses that Paul is talking about here. We all, with unveiled face, be holding as an amir of the glory of the Lord, are being transformed, are being transformed from spirit to spirit as we see the Lord. That's how we're changed by association. If you don't know Christ, I encourage you to embrace him. To simply come to that point where you realize, you know what? My life hadn't been working. I need God. I don't need religion. I need God. And Jesus is the only way. I love that story. It was a small church up in the south and the pastor was just about ready to come up and preach, acquire, just left and all of a sudden in that little congregation, Satan appeared. Flash. Boom. Satan appeared. And everybody scattered. They saw who he was right away. They saw what he was right away. And they took off. They ran out the door. He set one real nice little lady. He was sitting in the front row. And she just sat there and looked up at him. He said, don't you know who I am? She said, absolutely. I know who you are. Aren't you afraid? She said, absolutely nice. Why aren't you afraid? So I've been married to your brother for 48 years. Our God is a consuming fire. Yet because of Jesus Christ, we will not be consumed. Run to Him. He is gracious. Compassionate. He feels what you feel. He knows where you are. He will bring justice for you. In this life of the life to come. Take it to heart. Please stand and receive the benediction. If you don't know Jesus Christ and want to receive him, I invite you to come forward and let's talk. That's the most important thing you could do today. Now may the amazing grace of our Master Jesus Christ, the outrageous love of God the Father. And the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit go with you this week as you remember, I never forget his deep love and concern for you.
82-11.