Exodus 34:8 – 10 “Moses immediately bowed down to the ground and worshiped. “O Lord,” he said, “if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, my Lord, please go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our iniquity and sin, and take us as Your inheritance.” And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.”
Poor Moses! While Moses was up on Mount Sinai the first time, the Israelites made an idol and then held an orgy. The Israelites had dug themselves into a nearly bottomless spiritual hole! Carrying the stone tablets that God had fashioned and on which God had written the Ten Commandments, Moses returned to the camp to find the orgy in full swing with demons laughing at him from every tent. In a fit of righteous indignation, Moses threw the tablets to the ground and ordered the ring leaders of the orgy slaughtered as the only means of gaining control of the situation. Bottom line: Moses did nothing wrong. The Israelites had put themselves in danger of hell fire.
Now God has ordered Moses to return to Mount Sinai and is meeting with Moses. God has just informed Moses of His (God’s) true character. At one point, God has even offered to wipe out the Israelites and to use Moses to create a new nation. But Moses is realistic enough and humble enough to realize that his progeny potentially have just as much chance of going astray as have the Israelites. Now it’s damage control time as Moses begs God on behalf of the Israelites.
1. God has already indicated that He will no longer accompany the Israelites. Moses is begging God to go with them, even though they don’t deserve it in the slightest.
2. Moses begs God to forgive the sins of the Israelites and to take them as His inheritance, despite their idolatrous heart attitudes. Moses hopes that God will be tolerant of the hardheartedness of the Israelites, even though He (God) doesn’t agree with it. Moses also hopes that if God walks among the Israelites, they will have a change of heart due to the presence of God.
God’s presence DOES change things! There are stories told of men and women of God who only had to enter someplace where people were gathered for those seated there to come under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Why hasn’t the Holy Spirit anointing that is already upon Moses been enough for this conviction to occur? The answer lies in the stubbornness of the Israelites. Any bunch of people who can ignore a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to go off on an orgy certainly qualify as unusually stubborn. And what about all the fire and smoke encircling Mount Sinai while the earth shakes? These people have a really serious problem! Moses is hoping that if God continues to be present with the Israelites, they will not be able to continue to ignore Him.
v. 10 “ And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.”
God is amazing! Both God and Moses know the nature of the Israelites and how likely it is that they will stage another orgy, given the opportunity. And yet God is willing to make a covenant with them and to do wonders. Dennis Prager points out here that “the Hebrew word used here, imach (“for you”), is in the singular, which suggests God will perform wonders for Moses’s sake rather than for the sake of the nation. Though still angry at the people, God is willing to establish a covenant with them because of the merit of their leader, who has interceded on their behalf.”
APPLICATION: THE FIRST RULE OF HOLES IS THAT WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN ONE, STOP DIGGING! Moses must have had excellent cardiovascular conditioning because if he hadn’t, he would have just had a heart attack and dropped dead as soon as he saw the evil that the Israelites had done. By the time Moses returned from Mount Sinai the first time, the Israelites were within a hairs’ breadth of being annihilated. Only Moses’s intercessions and quick actions preserved the majority of the Israelites.
Notice what Moses did NOT do:
1. Moses did not make any excuses for the Israelites. Sin is sin.
2. Moses acknowledged the terrible heart attitude of the Israelites.
3. Moses begged God to remain with the Israelites on the basis of God’s character, so that God would not bring dishonor to His own Name. By this point, word had gotten out to all the nations and tribes around Egypt as to what God had done when he delivered the Israelites. This deliverance signaled the first major act of the One True Living God on behalf of an entire people and was a visible demonstration of God’s character.
What did God do? God responded positively to Moses’s intercessions. God promised to do wonders, the likes of which nobody had ever seen before.
Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure—who can understand it?” Really, folks, most of the time we don’t even know the state of our own hearts. We carry around an idealized image of what we are like, but that might bear little resemblance to reality.
Want to hear from God? Get someplace quiet and then ask God to show you the state of your own heart and soul. Be prepared to record the results but also be prepared to be shocked. And if/when you find yourself in the bottom of a spiritual hole, do what Moses did. Refuse to make excuses for yourself. Acknowledge that you have a terrible heart attitude that needs to be changed. Give God permission to change you. And then ask God to remain with you.
PRAYER: Father God, we confess that all of us are sinners and that each one of us has done things that grieve or displease you. Show us our sins so that we will stop repeating them. Help us to change into the people you want us to be. And please, please, please, remain with us and guide us. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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