Man, Exodus chapter 33 is one of the most important chapters in the book of Exodus.
Of course, this just comes right on the end of chapter 32 where Moses has gotten all those
great instructions about building the tabernacle and about all the worship of the Lord that
is supposed to take place and the consecration of the high priest.
He came down from the mount and he sees that they're worshiping the golden calf, they're
eating and drinking, playing, partying, and of course, he has to bring judgment upon them
and many of them are killed.
The worst of them are killed and they have to drink the golden calf that's been ground
up into powder and put in the water and so forth.
So this is the follow-up chapter to that.
In chapter 33 verse 1, the Bible reads, and the Lord said unto Moses, depart and go up
hence, thou and the people which thou has brought up out of the land of Egypt unto the
land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob saying, unto thy seed will I
give it.
So he's saying, leave Mount Sinai and head for the promised land now.
Verse 2, and I will send an angel before thee and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite,
and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
I don't have time to develop this, but of course, if we studied the subject of the angel
that's sent before them, it's clearly the Lord Jesus Christ that is the angel of the
Lord that's sent before them.
Joshua comes into contact with him in Joshua chapter 5 and Joshua worships him and the
angel tells him, put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place where I will now stand
is this holy, just as Moses was instructed at the burning bush.
So this angel of the Lord is going to be, of course, the son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, but we'll learn that in other chapters going forward.
Verse 3, enter a land flowing with milk and honey, for I will not go up in the midst of
thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way.
And remember, this is one of the great themes in the book of Exodus that we've been seeing,
the inaccessibility of God or basically God just showing how hard it is for man to approach
unto him.
Just like we've been seeing with all of the teachings about the tabernacle and the different
levels of holiness where you've got the most holy place and the holy place and you've got
the courtyard and they have to go through different purifications and sanctifications
just to even be able to approach or draw near unto God.
And the reason that God paints himself in the book of Exodus as so unapproachable and
reveals the unapproachableness of his nature is so that we understand in the New Testament
what a privilege it is to be able to approach him through Jesus Christ.
If Jesus were just easy to approach from the beginning, then we would have no appreciation.
God were easy to approach, I should say, we would have no appreciation for what the Lord
Jesus Christ actually means when he's this mediator between God and man and how we can
boldly approach the throne of grace.
That's a great privilege.
So first, God has to show us that without Christ, approaching God is no mean feat.
So we see here that he's saying, look, I'm too holy.
I can't dwell amongst you.
When you go up into the Promised Land, I can't just travel with you.
I can't just be in the camp with you because I'm just going to burn you up because you're
so wicked.
You're stiff necked, you're sinful.
And the Bible says our God's a consuming fire.
So he's saying, look, I cannot go in the midst of you.
You're a stiff necked people.
And he's saying, and the end of verse three, lest I consume thee by the way, I mean, I'm
just going to just torch you all by the time we get there because you're such idiots.
He's basically saying, all right, he's mad.
And you understand why?
Because we just saw chapter 32, how they had totally debased themselves in his sight.
Look at verse number four.
When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned.
They don't like the fact that God is being so negative toward them and telling them,
look, I can't travel with you.
You're stiff necked.
I'm just going to burn you guys up.
It's for your own good.
I'm going to have to withdraw here so that you're not just consumed by me.
So they mourned.
No man did put on him his ornaments.
For the Lord had said unto Moses.
So why are they mourning?
Why are they not putting on their ornaments?
Because the Lord had previously said unto Moses, say unto the children of Israel, you
are a stiff necked people.
What's wrong with you?
Right?
You're stiff necked.
You're stubborn.
You don't listen.
You've already seen me part the Red Sea.
You've already seen me do these miracles with the plagues in Egypt.
You're stiff necked.
I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee.
And when we hear the word consume, this is often a word that's associated with fire.
Our gods are consuming fire.
Consumption is basically just something that just devours or just eats up, just burns up,
just completely torches everything.
Therefore now, put off thy ornaments from thee that I may know what to do unto thee.
Like what am I going to do?
I don't even know what I'm going to do with you, but you better be mourning.
You better be putting off your ornaments.
You better wipe that smile off your face, right?
You better take off these decorations that you're wearing, and let me figure out what
I'm even going to do with you because you're just that bad.
I can't travel with you.
So the children of Israel, verse 6, stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount
Horeb.
And remember, Horeb is used synonymously with Sinai.
These are just two different names for the same mountain.
And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, afar from the camp, and
called it the tabernacle of the congregation.
And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out under the tabernacle of
the congregation, which was without the camp.
Now, this is a really important verse because this is picturing the local church in the
New Testament.
The Bible, in fact, in Acts, chapter 7, refers back to the tabernacle of the congregation
as the church in the wilderness, the church in the wilderness.
This is the called-out assembly in the Old Testament because we see that it's put without
the camp.
It's afar off from the camp.
And anybody who seeks God, that's where they're going to have to go.
They're going to have to leave the main camp, and they're going to have to make a point
to go to that place where the Lord is.
And this picture is the local church.
It's called the church in the wilderness.
And the Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews, let us, therefore, go forth unto him without
the camp, outside the camp, bearing his reproach.
And so the tabernacle is pitched outside the camp.
The congregation, remember, is used interchangeably with the word church.
So in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 12, it says, in the midst of the church will I sing praise
unto thee.
Psalm 22 verse 22, in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee.
So a church is a congregation.
So this is the church in the wilderness.
And it says that it's pitched far off without the camp.
This is picturing the fact that the local church is to be separated from the general
population.
Church is not for everybody.
You know, it's not like, hey, let's just fill this place with as many bodies as we possibly
can and just preach the word of God to them.
That sounds great, but that's not church.
Hey, I'm all for filling a building with bodies and preaching to them, but that's not church.
You know, when we went down to Guyana or something, and we go to a school auditorium, and they
just kind of gather the whole student body, and they put them all in an auditorium, and
we preach the word of God to them, hey, that's great to preach the word of God to a crowd,
but that's not church because, see, church is a separated assembly, called out assembly.
It's without the camp, and it's for people who seek the Lord.
They have to make that trip.
They have to go.
Look what the Bible says.
It says, it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle
of the congregation, which was without the camp, and this is a picture of the fact that
today, even in the New Testament, if we want to have that fellowship with God in the house
of God, we have to go out to the tabernacle of the congregation.
We have to go out to that local church and not just say, oh, I'm just watching it from
home.
You know, I'm just doing an internet church, or I'm just doing a radio church or TV church.
That's not church.
You got to go out.
You got to go somewhere.
And this is showing that not only geographic separation, where you actually go to church,
but also, figuratively, the separation of being different than the world.
This isn't just a crowd of just people.
It's an assembly of born-again, baptized believers.
That's what the local church is, right?
And so, now, look, are visitors welcome?
Of course.
You know, the Bible talks about in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, that, you know, they're going
to come into your assembly, unbelievers.
And when they come in and they hear the preaching, they're convinced of all.
And they glorify God, saying that God is in you of a truth.
So the Bible does talk about unsaved people coming to church and having an experience
or learning something or seeing something that moves them.
But is church designed for unsaved people?
Is church just a crowd of unsaved people?
No.
Church is supposed to be the assembly of born-again, baptized believers that are coming to church
because they seek God, they're separate, they want to be different, they want to leave the
world for a moment and come to the oasis of God's house where, actually, sanity prevails.
You know, where actually the Word of God prevails, where they go and be with like-minded believers.
What would be the point of going to church if you got there and people aren't like-minded?
And like I said, obviously, you know, you're always going to have visitors, you're going
to have people at different stages of growth.
Obviously, we don't all agree on every little doctrine.
There are going to be doctrinal differences, there are going to be new believers, mature
believers.
You're going to have unsaved people that are welcome to come in and be convinced of all
and hear the preaching and hopefully get saved.
Nothing wrong with that.
But at the end of the day, though, what we want to prevail here in our church, we want
the prevailing Spirit to be one of people that are saved, that love the Lord, and that
are doctrinally sound.
And here's the thing, if the vast majority of the people here are doctrinally sound and
then someone comes in who's not doctrinally sound, you know what, that's okay, it's not
going to harm us.
But what happens when you go to a church where you're walking around and you talk to 10 different
people about salvation and you get 10 totally contradictory answers?
Or you go around and one guy's got the NIV, one guy's got the King James, one guy's got
the ESV, one guy's got a Catholic Bible and he's reading the Apocrypha, and, you know,
another person's doing the sign of the cross over here, and another person's over here,
you know, praying the rosary, and another person's over here doing the, you know, just
all different beliefs.
And folks, there are churches like, if you went to Joel Osteen's church, do you think
that that church is going to have any degree of unity when it comes to doctrine or any
kind of a homogenous where if you talk to this person and that person and that person,
everybody's on the same page?
Folks, the church is to be a place for real Christians who have real beliefs, who really
care about seeking God, and obviously we're not all going to be in lockstep on secondary
issues, but when it comes to issues like salvation, when it comes to believing in the Trinity,
when it comes to, you know, what Bible do we even believe in, are we part of the Bible
of the Month Club or are we using the traditional text?
Okay, these type of things should rally us, and those things should be a unifying factor.
The Bible says in Philippians chapter 3, let's all walk by the same rule.
Let us all mind the same thing.
God wants there to be unity among us.
And again, this is not a robotic cult-like agreeing on every little thing, but what it
is is agreeing on the essentials, you know, understanding that the Trinity is biblical,
understanding that salvation's by grace through faith, that we can't lose our salvation, okay,
understanding that we need to go with the preserved Bible, the King James Bible, the
received text, the King James Version, not just whatever version is coming out next month
that's totally different and it's based on new discoveries or findings or whatever.
We need to have something unifying us or else what's the point?
Or else what's the difference between this and a sporting event?
Or what's the difference between this and the Elks Lodge or something?
You know, we're not just trying to just get together with people because we just really
need friends and we just really need a place where we can just hang out with people.
No, the point is we're here on a mission, we're here for a purpose, we have beliefs
in common, and we're different than the world out there.
That's why when you walk in here, we're not patterning it after the world.
The Bible says, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of our mind.
You know, the church ought to be a trendsetter, not a trend follower that's just being carried
about with whatever the style.
Oh, skinny jeans are in?
Well, let me just go get a new wardrobe then, you know, or oh man, you know, if it's rap
that people want, then let's get up here and have rap music and we can have, you know,
purple lights and we can get a bar stool because that's what people want.
We don't want this to feel like a TEDx talk or something, right?
We're not trying to make a TED talk, we're not trying to make it seem like a comedy club,
we're not trying to make it seem like a rock concert or a nightclub, right?
This is not like anything else because if church is the ultimate institution on this
earth, which I believe it is, it's the house of God, right?
I mean, is there some better, more important institution than the church that Christ died
for?
So if the church is the ultimate institution, why would it pattern itself after a lesser
institution?
What's greater, church or the rock concert?
What's greater, church or the United States Congress?
What's greater, church or, you know, the Elks Lodge or the Masonic Lodge or whatever demonic
organization?
The point is, if the church is God's institution, it shouldn't be following some other lame
institution, you know?
It should be actually the trendsetter.
It should be actually just going straight to the Word of God and doing its own thing
and saying, you know what, nuts to you world.
If we wanted to be like the world, we'd just go be in the world.
But we're leaving the camp.
Why?
Why are we leaving the camp?
Because you know what's in the camp?
A bunch of stiff-necked people who want to worship the golden calf and they want to eat,
drink, party, and fornicate and worship idols.
And that's not us, right?
We're not like those people in Chapter 32.
We don't want to make us gods and bow down to the golden calf.
So you know what?
We're going to make a conscious decision to step away from that crowd and go worship the
Lord.
Then we go back into that crowd when we're done, right?
Because these people, they didn't just go to the tabernacle and just live there.
They go to the tabernacle, they seek the Lord, they worship the Lord, and then they go back
to the camp and there's salt and light in the camp.
They're an influence in the camp for righteousness.
Okay.
So this verse 7 is a powerful verse in regard to the local church in the New Testament.
And that's what we need to see.
Whenever we're studying the Old Testament, we need to be looking at it through the lens
of the New Testament.
Everything in the Old Testament is written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the
world are come.
These things are examples unto us, according to 1 Corinthians 10.
Look at verse 8.
It came to pass when Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose up and
stood every man at his tent door and looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle.
So the people that are in their tent door, these are like the internet listeners, you
know, they're kind of just like, they're kind of staying home, but they're kind of observing
church from home.
They're not going there.
They're just kind of in the tent door, right?
And they looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle.
And it came to pass as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended
and stood at the door of the tabernacle and the Lord talked with Moses.
So of course, this represents the presence of God.
The cloudy pillar is just a physical manifestation that God showed them to let them know that
his presence was there among them.
Verse 11, and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend
and he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man,
departed not out of the tabernacle.
And Moses said unto the Lord, see, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people and thou hast
not let me know whom thou wilt send with me.
You know, you say you're going to send an angel, you're going to send a messenger before
me.
We know that with our hindsight to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Moses doesn't know, well, who is this that you're going to send?
Who's going to lead us in?
Who is this?
Yet as thou said, I know thee by name and thou has found grace in my sight.
Now therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way that
I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is
thy people.
Look, this is why Moses was a great man, because his greatest desire was to know God.
Now think about one of the greatest men in the New Testament, the guy who is the most
important character in the New Testament after the Lord Jesus Christ would be the apostle
Paul.
Obviously he dominates the New Testament.
He wrote, you know, what, 13, 14 actually books of the New Testament.
And he, you know, the acts of the apostles pretty much becomes the acts of the apostle
starting in chapter 13.
And so he really is the key character.
And what does he say in Philippians 3 that his great pursuit in life is, that his great
desire, he said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship
of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
The apostle Paul said that I may know him, right?
He wanted to know God.
And Moses is saying, show me thy way.
I want to know thee, right, that I may know thee, it says in verse 13.
Is that what we care about?
Do we care about knowing God?
Because you know what, if we want to know God, right, then we need to read the Bible.
We need to go to church.
We need to pray.
And through the, how is, God has manifested his word through preaching, the Bible says.
How did God make his word manifest or exposed or apparent or obvious?
He manifests his word through preaching.
Also, when we read God's word, the Holy Spirit is going to guide us into all truth.
And so don't tell me you care about knowing God and then you haven't even read the Bible
cover to cover one time.
How are you going to know him?
I mean, here he is talking to you.
Listen, right?
Oh, I want to know God.
And then you barely ever darken the door of church.
You're in your own tent door half the time, just kind of looking them far off.
Hey, come to church.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Okay, God is speaking to us.
How do we know him?
We've got to listen.
We've got to have the word of Christ dwell in us richly with all wisdom, okay?
So Moses' great desire, I mean, here he is, sort of like we talked about on Sunday morning
where Solomon is given the opportunity to ask whatever he wants.
Well, here's Moses speaking to God as a man speaking to his friend.
What's his request?
Is it for wealth?
Is it for a long life?
Is it for the lives of his enemies?
No, it's that I may know him.
I want to know God.
What did Paul say?
I want to know him.
Now therefore I pray thee, if I found grace in thy sight, verse 13, show me thy way that
I may know thee that I might find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is
thy people.
And he said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
So he's giving him that assurance.
But then in verse 15, Moses replies, and he said unto him, if thy presence go not with
me, carry us not a pence.
Now, of course, God's going to make good on this because he's going to send the Lord Jesus
Christ before them.
He's going to send his presence with them.
And he said unto him, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not a pence.
For wherein shall it be known that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight?
Is it not that thou goest with us?
So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth.
There's a big difference between God's people and the people of this world.
What does it mean to have found grace in God's sight?
What does it mean to be God's chosen people?
What does that mean?
Because he said, I want to know, look at the end of verse 13, I want to consider that this
nation is thy people.
You see that?
And then he says in verse 16, wherein shall it be known that I and thy people have found
grace in thy sight?
Is it not that thou goest with us?
So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth.
What did it mean for the Old Testament nation of Israel to be God's people?
What did it mean that they were special?
Because we know they were special, right?
The Old Testament nation of Israel were God's chosen people.
He said you're a peculiar people, you're a special nation.
What made them special is that they found grace in God's sight and that God was with
them.
Aren't those the two things here that are defined as making them special?
Okay, so who are the chosen people right now?
People in Israel who God is not with them and they've not found grace in his sight.
See if you're not saved, you're nobody.
You're nothing.
Without Christ, you're nothing.
If you don't have Jesus Christ, you have nothing.
You're no one.
Depart from me, I never knew you.
That's what God's going to say to every Jew who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're going to be told, depart from me, I never knew you.
Folks, those parables and those stories and those illustrations that God gave about depart
from me, he's talking to Jews.
I mean, those are in the four gospels.
Who's Jesus praising?
He's preaching to the Jews and saying, look, I'm going to profess it.
And they're going to say, Lord, Lord, we've eaten a drink.
You've eaten and drunk in your presence.
You've taught in our streets.
Where did Jesus teach?
Wasn't all of Jesus' teaching in the streets of Palestine?
Did he travel the world?
Did he go to India?
Nope.
Where did Jesus preach?
He preached to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And those are the people that are going to say, Lord, you've taught in our streets.
We've eaten and drunk in thy presence.
And he's going to say to them, I never knew you.
I know you not whence you are.
Who are you?
Well, we're from Abraham.
Nope.
No, you're not.
If you were of Abraham, you'd do the works of Abraham, right?
If you were of Abraham, then you'd love me.
Abraham loved me.
You don't love me.
See, the thing is, the people over there in the nation of Israel today, if they had grace,
they'd have salvation.
They don't have grace.
And the Bible says there is a remnant according to the election of grace, not the election
of race.
God didn't choose race.
It's the election of grace.
Okay?
And if it's of grace, it's no more of works.
Otherwise grace is no more grace.
If it be of works, then it's no more grace.
Otherwise work is no more work.
It's either works or grace.
So what the Bible is saying here is that being God's chosen people means that you found grace
in his sight, and it means that God is with you, okay?
God's with us.
Hello, Christians.
I mean, is God among us or not?
What did Jesus say?
Wherever two or three of you are gathered in my name, there are mine in the midst.
So is God with us or not?
God is with us.
Is there any question about that?
And anybody who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says we have access by faith
into that grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
So how do we have the grace?
It's access by faith.
So how can you say, oh, yeah, over in the Middle East, they found grace.
Really?
Do they have the faith in Christ?
See, faith is the key that unlocks the grace.
If you don't have the faith, we're saved by grace through faith, right?
Faith is the means.
How can you say that those people are under God's grace when they don't believe in Jesus?
Folks, if you don't believe in Jesus, God's grace is not yours.
You don't have it.
Okay?
You're not saved.
It's by grace through faith in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not just in a supreme being or the God of Abraham.
It better be Jesus.
There's none other name under heaven given among men, but by me must be saved.
So therefore, we in the New Testament are God's chosen people.
What does that mean?
It means we've found grace in His sight and God's among us, right?
That's why Paul said, we're the circumcision, and he was talking to the Philippians.
He wasn't talking to the Jews.
He said, beware of the concision.
That's the Jews.
Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers.
Beware of the concision.
For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus
and have no confidence in the flesh.
Folks, people that are confident in their own flesh to get them to heaven, like, oh,
I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person.
They're not the circumcision.
They're not saved, right?
It's we that rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh, okay?
So that's what it means to be the special chosen people.
And guess what?
That's what we are as Christians in the New Testament.
So don't let somebody take that away from you and bestow that upon Christ rejecting
Israel when that's our promise.
Abraham is our father, okay?
Don't appropriate him, okay?
He's ours.
So in verse number 17, and the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou
has spoken, for thou has found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.
Again, calling to mind, I never knew you to others who haven't found grace in his sight.
Am I right?
And he said, verse 18, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.
And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.
Now I want to help you understand this because people get confused on this, and we need to
make sure that we understand how to reconcile verse 11 with verse 20, okay?
Verse 11 says, the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend.
This is not literal because he just tells him nine verses later, thou canst not see
my face.
So was Moses literally looking at the face of God because he flat out tells him nine
verses later, you will not see my face.
And he said, well, you know, maybe he's talking to Jesus.
No, that's not the context here because in the context here, the angel that's going to
lead them into the promised land is someone that's coming down the road and, well, who
is this and so forth.
That's a silly interpretation.
It's clear here that Moses is talking to God the Father, speaking out of the cloudy pillar.
So when it says that Moses spoke to him face to face, what you have to understand is that
Moses is here and God's here and they're talking to each other, but what you have to understand
is that even though they're speaking, quote, unquote, face to face in the sense that they're
both in the room talking to each other, actually, though, the cloudy pillar is obscuring God
from actually being seen.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
So Moses is not looking at the face of God when he talks to him face to face.
Face to face, you could think of it as this way, they're facing each other, okay?
Think of it as, you know, they're both present in the same place, facing each other, talking
to each other, but can Moses actually see the face of God?
No, the Bible's clear that he can't.
So what is he seeing?
He's seeing the cloudy pillar.
And Moses is speaking to God into the cloudy pillar and God is speaking to Moses out of
the cloudy pillar.
So God's face is obscured by the cloudy pillar.
Does everybody understand that?
And even when Stephen looks up, you know, when Stephen's being stoned in Acts chapter
7, he looks up.
What does he see?
He sees the glory of God and he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
So he's not like, oh, I saw the face of God the Father and then I saw Jesus standing next
to him.
No, what he sees is only the glory.
God dwells in the light that no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, okay?
So no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he had declared him.
Now by saying no man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son which is in the
bosom of the Father, he had declared him, makes it clear that no man has seen God the
Father.
The only Son that's in the bosom of the Father has declared him.
So have we seen the Son of God?
Not us personally, obviously, but have men seen the Son of God?
Jesus Christ was seen of, you know, literally probably millions of people, you know, throughout
the course of his ministry as far as just anybody just laying eyes on him his whole
life long.
You know, at least, you know, hundreds of thousands of people saw him.
After he rose from the dead in his glorified status, he was seen of over 500 brethren at
once.
So Jesus Christ was seen before and after his resurrection and then even in the Old
Testament, we have Old Testament appearances of Jesus Christ where the Lord speaks to Abraham
in the tent door.
He sees a man talking to him.
That's obviously not God the Father.
God the Father doesn't just take on a bodily form and speak to Abraham because no man has
seen God at any time, okay, referring to God the Father.
So that's an Old Testament appearance of Jesus.
But what we see here is Moses is speaking, quote, unquote, face to face.
Don't take that too literally like that it's a contradiction here.
It's not.
It's talking about the means of how they talk.
The Bible also used the term mouth to mouth.
They spoke mouth to mouth, meaning that basically my mouth's here, your mouth's there.
It's like we're talking to each other.
Even if there's a veil there, even if there is a cloudy pillar obscuring things, they're
still having a conversation basically in the flesh right then and there.
And so don't misunderstand that because verse 20 is conclusive.
Thou canst not see my face, there shall no man see me and live.
Look, if Moses saw the face of God, then it would be a lie in John 1 when it says no man
has seen God at any time.
How could that be true, right?
If Abraham saw the face of God, then how can he turn around and say, well, no man has seen
God at any time, right?
Now they can see Jesus, who obviously also is God.
He's divine.
He's deity.
He's the son of God.
But they didn't see God the Father.
Nobody has ever, to this minute, the only person who has ever seen God the Father is
Jesus.
That's the only man that's ever seen God the Father.
You know, because Jesus saw God the Father.
What about the saints that are up in heaven right now?
You know, they haven't even seen the face of God the Father, okay?
They've seen Jesus and they've seen the glory of God and they've seen Jesus at the right
hand of God and his glory, but they have not looked into the face of God.
No one can look into his face and live.
That's what the Bible says here.
Is everybody clear on that?
Verse 21, and the Lord said, behold, there's a place by me and thou shalt stand upon a
rock and it shall come to pass.
All my glory passeth by that I will put thee in a cliff of the rock and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by and I will take away my hand and thou shalt see my back parts
but my face shall not be seen.
And so he gives him this glimpse here where he puts him in a cliff of the rock, passes
by him, covering the rock with his hand, and then removing his hand at the last moment
just so that Moses can catch a glimpse of his back parts.
And when Moses catches that glimpse of God's back parts as he passes by, then the face
of Moses shone so that when he comes down from the mountain, his face is shining so
bright that people couldn't even look at him.
And they even had to put a veil over his face because his presence was blinding just because
he had just glimpsed just the back parts of God's glory, just that little glimpse.
So this is why if you were to actually be face to face with God, he would be so consumed
by God that he would just be completely just burned up by the glory of God.
So even just that tiny little shadow of God's glory, if you will, or just that, the cloudy
pillar is there for his protection so that he's not just wiped out.
So no man can see God's face and live.
And I've always loved that story about Moses coming down and his face shone when he came
down from the mountain.
They had to put the veil over his face.
So we see here that this is an important chapter as well, not only just to understand the nature
of the local church, but also to understand the nature of the Trinity, okay, to understand
the nature of the Trinity.
The stupidity of the oneness doctrine never ceases to amaze me.
It's like the flat earth of doctrines.
It's that stupid to sit there and say, Jesus is God the Father.
God the Father is Jesus, or no man has ever seen Jesus.
Folks, how do you say no one's ever seen Jesus?
That's ridiculous.
That's nonsensical.
You know, God has manifested himself through Jesus.
Jesus is God that we can see, God with us, right, Immanuel, okay.
But to say, oh, well, he's the same person as God the Father, just in a different mode.
That's ridiculous.
Okay.
Clearly, when we read John 3.16, you know what we read about in John 3.16?
One person sending another person.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
What do we see?
The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Okay.
This is not like, all right, let me go do this myself.
This is, I'm going to send the Son to be the Savior of the world.
And then we have Jesus Christ saying, you know, it's expedient for you that I go away.
When I go away, then the Father is going to send another comforter.
There's three persons there.
You got the Father sending another comforter because I'm going away.
It's not like it's expedient for you that I go away because then when I go away, I'm
going to send myself again, another me.
When I go away, I'll send, it's like, what?
It's crazy.
Okay.
Now, you say, well, I don't know if I fully understand the Trinity.
Here's what we need to understand about the Trinity.
We need to understand that Jesus Christ is God.
There's no question about that.
There's no question about his divinity.
There's no question about the fact that he is eternally preexistent.
He's not a created being.
He not have a beginning, as the NIV would try to twist the words, which, by the way,
the King James Bible is providing a literal translation of exactly what the Hebrew says
in Micah 5, 2, when it says, his goings forth, thou Bethlehem and the land of Judah are not
the least among the princes of Judah, out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule
my people Israel.
It says, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
The King James is providing a perfectly literal translation with goings forth.
That's exactly what that word means.
It's exactly right.
But then the NIV just decides to just spice it up a little, just change, just kind of
just interpret it a little bit.
And you know what the NIV says in Micah 5, 2?
Whose origins, folks, Christ doesn't have origins.
He is the origin.
He's the beginning.
He doesn't have a beginning.
He is the beginning.
Okay.
God, the Father, and Jesus shared glory before the world began, according to John 17.
Jesus said that the Father loved him before the world began.
So if the Father loved him before the world began, this isn't just self-love here, folks.
This is the Father loving the Son.
And what we see is that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't have an origin.
The Lord Jesus Christ is from everlasting.
That's what the King James says in Micah 5, 2.
Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
You know what that is?
Just like everlasting is going forward with no end, from everlasting would be going backward
with no beginning.
Jesus Christ is from everlasting.
Jesus Christ is Alpha and Omega.
He is the beginning and the ending.
He's the first and the last.
Okay.
He has neither beginning of days nor end of life.
Jesus Christ is eternally existing.
Okay.
So we need to understand the deity of Jesus Christ.
There's no question about his deity.
God was manifest in the flesh.
God was preached unto the Gentiles, received up into glory.
All those things apply to God.
Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, fully divine, and equal with God because the Bible says
in Philippians chapter 2 that he was in the form of God and he thought it not robbery
to be equal with God.
It was not robbery.
It was not something that he is taking that doesn't belong to him.
Isn't that what robbery is if I steal something from someone else?
Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
So that's not a robbery for him.
He is equal with God.
But he made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men.
So we have these facts.
We understand that Jesus Christ is God.
Jesus Christ is fully divine.
He is eternally co-existent with God.
He was in the form of God.
He was equal with God.
Does everybody understand that?
He was in the beginning with God and he was God, the Bible tells us, right?
So we understand the deity of Jesus Christ, right?
Number two, the Bible teaches there's only one God.
Nothing could be clearer, right?
The Bible says, thou believeth that there's one God, thou doest well.
The devils also believe in tremble.
So if you believe there's one God, you're doing good, all right?
And then the Bible also tells us there's one God and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus.
The Bible tells us in Isaiah chapter 43, before me there was no God formed, neither shall
there be after me, I'm he and there's none else and beside me there is no savior.
So we understand there's only one God.
Everybody understand that irrefutable fact from scripture?
We could show clear scripture upon clear scripture that Jesus is God.
We could pull out 20 of them easily that would prove that beyond any shadow of a doubt that
Jesus is the creator, he's eternal, he's God.
No question about the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is God.
And there's no question about the fact there's only one God.
The Bible does not teach multiple gods.
The Bible teaches that there's one God.
But then there's one third incontrovertible fact and that is the fact that there is a
difference between Jesus and God the Father, they're not the same person.
They are not the same person.
Because the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world.
And Jesus even said my Father is greater than I.
Now in one sense it says he's equal with God, but in another sense he said my Father's greater
than I.
How does that work?
Well here's the thing.
People ask me sometimes about my views about feminism.
And they want to get a soundbite from me on feminism or they want to understand the fundamental
Baptist perspective on feminism, which of course we're not feminist, newsflash.
But here's the thing.
I consider my wife equal to me.
In one sense I would say my wife and I are equal.
What do I mean by that?
We're equally of value.
I'm not better than her.
She's not better than me.
We're equal in value.
We're equal in our status as children of God.
We're equal in the sense we're both going to go to heaven.
We're both going to be rewarded.
We both have a walk with God that's independent of one another.
We are both human.
We both have the same value.
We're equal in that sense.
The Bible says in Christ there's neither male nor female.
So there's an equality there, right?
But when it comes to authority, I am greater than my wife.
For example, the Bible uses this term when it talks about Joseph.
Joseph said no man in this house is greater than I.
Now what did he mean?
Is he saying like I'm the coolest dude?
Is he saying I'm the most valuable person?
No.
Joseph didn't say he's the most valuable person.
He's not saying that he's the best person morally or that he's the nicest.
What is he saying when he says no man is greater in this house than I?
He's talking about authority.
He's saying, look, I'm the boss here.
There's Potiphar and then there's me.
And then later there's Pharaoh and then there's him, right?
He became the great.
So when Jesus says my Father is greater than I, that's talking about an authority structure.
God the Father is not more God than Jesus is God.
They're both equally God.
Jesus is every bit as much God as God the Father is God.
So they're both equal in that sense.
They're co-equal.
It's not that one is more valuable, more important, more God.
Because the Bible says in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godness or Godhood divinity bodily.
So the great, my Father is greater than I is the fact that he's obeying the Father.
Jesus said I do always those things which please him.
He said I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me.
He said I didn't send myself.
I didn't come to seek my own glory.
I didn't come to do my own will.
I'm doing his.
So in that sense, in an authority sense, what does the Bible say in 1 Corinthians 11?
It says the head of the woman is the man.
What's the head mean there?
The authority.
The head of the woman is the man.
The head of the man is Christ and the head of Christ is God.
So we see the authority structure between Christ and his head, God, meaning the Father.
Often the Bible just calls God the Father.
It just calls him God.
And that's why sometimes the Bible will have to say God, even the Father, to specify so
that you understand.
See, here's the thing.
If Jesus Christ were not God, you wouldn't have to specify, well, God, I'm talking about
the Father now.
Even the Father.
Because you just say God and it's just like, okay, well, God, no, no, even the Father.
To make sure we're not talking about who?
The Holy Spirit or Jesus who are also God.
Does everybody understand?
So we have these facts that can be easily proven from the Bible.
You can easily prove from the Bible that Jesus is God.
You can easily prove from the Bible.
I mean, you don't have to be an expert in the Bible to prove that there's only one God.
And you don't have to be an expert in the Bible to prove that Jesus and God the Father
are not the same person.
And that you have plural personal pronouns, let us make man in our image after our likeness,
and where you have one person sending another person to be the Savior of the world.
And you know, you have all these, not my will, but thine be done.
So you have these three just blatant facts that cannot be denied.
One God, Jesus is God, but Jesus is not God the Father.
The Holy Spirit's God, but he's not God the Father.
The Holy Spirit's not Jesus, but the Holy Spirit's God.
So if Jesus is God, and the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there's only
one God, you know what you end up with?
You just derive the trinity right there.
See, it's like when you're in math class and you're doing geometry, and they'll tell you
like derive this proof.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Put up your hand.
You have to prove things.
You have to derive the proof.
You know, it's like, hey, we all know that A squared plus B squared equals C squared.
We all know that, right?
But let's prove that.
Let's derive that.
Well, how do we derive the trinity?
Show me the trinity in the Bible.
How do we derive it?
We derive it from these three principles, just like if we were in math class.
You know, if I were handed a piece of paper and we were doing spiritual math, and it was
like derive the trinity, I would say, well, number one, Jesus is God.
Number two, there's only one God.
Number three, God the Father is not Jesus, and Jesus is not God the Father, and the Holy
Spirit is not, and you could prove that with so many verses like the ones I've been mentioning,
about the Father sending the Son.
I'm not, hey, Jesus said, and here's the real smoking gun.
Jesus said, if I bear record of myself, my record's not true.
Basically, he's saying if oneness is true, I'm a liar.
If modalism's true, I'm a liar.
Isn't that what he's saying?
If I bear record of myself, my record's not true.
If the oneness Pentecostals are right, my record's not true, because he said there's
another that beareth record of me, the Father.
If that's him again, I mean, what if I went into courtroom and I said in the courtroom,
I said, Your Honor, if I'm the only witness to this crime, then my testimony's not true.
There's another witness that saw this crime take place.
If I'm the only witness, then I'm a liar.
There is another witness that's like, okay, bring forth your witness.
Okay, all right, let me go get him.
All right, I'm the new witness.
That was Stephen Anderson, the Father.
This is Stephen Anderson, the Son.
First we had Stephen Anderson, the Father of Solomon.
Now we've got Stephen Anderson, the Son of Raymond Anderson.
Let me go grab Stephen Anderson, the husband.
Folks, that's not three witnesses.
Folks, there are three that bear record in heaven.
The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
There are three that bear witness in the earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood,
and these three agree in one.
You know what that means?
It means we've got three witnesses, and you know what?
They're all saying the same thing.
What if we have three witnesses and they don't agree?
We've got a problem.
Somebody's lying, right?
So look, if you want to put somebody to death in the Old Testament, it's got to be with
two or three witnesses.
In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
We've got to have three witnesses, right?
Two witnesses.
So the Bible's saying, hey, you want to know the certainty of the message of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the record that God gave His Son, that God has given to us eternal life and
this life is in His Son.
That's the record.
How do we know that that's true?
I mean, how do we know that God actually has given us eternal life and that that life is
in His Son?
You know, there are three witnesses to that.
There are three that bear record to that, and they are the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, right?
So here's the thing.
If that's one person, that's only one witness.
What kind of nonsense would it be?
Well, it's just one person acting in three different modes or roles or three different
masks that he's putting on like an actor playing three different parts.
Folks, is that going to work in a courtroom?
The earthly courtroom that, by the way, is modeled after the Word of God.
God's the one who invented justice.
God invented the whole concept of justice, courts, judges, righteousness.
These are all concepts that God invented.
And what we have today is a shadow of what He taught.
We didn't invent our justice system.
We took God's justice and we screwed it up a little bit.
But we, you know, we're still using basic principles that come from the Word of God.
Even in our corrupt courtrooms, there's a semblance, a shadow of what God has ordained.
Witnesses, right?
Witnesses agreeing in one.
See, these three are one.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they're all saying the same thing.
They're all testifying to the same truth.
Does everybody see that?
So that's what it means.
And you know, we quote this verse so much.
Three of the bear record in heaven.
And everybody focuses on, like, there's three in heaven and they're one.
But you know, it's like they miss that verb.
There are three that bear record in heaven.
That's the key.
If you leave out that verb, bear record, you're missing the verse.
You're missing the point.
See, when you actually focus on the verb, there are three that bear record in heaven,
oneness becomes the stupidest thing in the world.
Because the whole point of that verse is talking about witnesses testifying to the truth of
something.
You have one person, you have one witness.
You have three persons, you have three witnesses.
Is the spirit, the water?
Are the blood and the water the same thing?
The blood is the water, the water is the blood.
That's as stupid as saying, well, the Father is Jesus, Jesus is the Holy, no.
There's the Father, there's the Word, and there's the Holy Ghost.
Just like there's the water, there's the spirit, and there's the blood.
Three witnesses.
Three things that are testifying on this earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood.
Three persons, three witnesses testifying in heaven, the Father, the Word, the Holy
Ghost.
That's how Jesus could say, if I bear record of myself, my testimony's not true.
There's another.
Hey, it's written in your law.
It's written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.
Well, I'm one that bears record of myself and then the Father that's in me.
And there's the Holy Spirit just as a bonus witness.
There you go, buddy.
Three witnesses maxed out on it.
Two or three, let's go with three.
So don't let anybody tell you that the Trinity is not biblical or that, oh, it took hundreds
of years to develop the doctrine of the Trinity.
Really?
It only took me a few minutes right now to develop the doctrine of the Trinity.
And you know what?
I don't think that everybody for the first few hundred years of Christianity was so stupid
that they could be faced with this book and be like, duh, it's Jesus God, I don't know.
When there's so many verses that say that Jesus is God, I don't know, I mean, is Jesus
God or not?
I mean, let's hold a big council and maybe we can get together with a bunch of guys in
dresses and we can figure out if Jesus is God or not.
Folks, if you read this book and you're saved, you know that Jesus is God.
Let me ask you this.
Today in 2020, are there people walking around that are saved that read this book that don't
know that Jesus is God?
Is there anybody like that?
Do you think there's anybody walking around in America that reads this book that's saved
that says Jesus isn't God?
No, we would all look at that person and say, you're not saved.
Am I right?
Are there people walking around today that have this book that are saved that would say,
Jesus is not the son of God?
No.
Are there people walking around that are saved that would walk around with this book and
say, oh, there are lots of gods?
If you just have the Gospel of John alone, you're going to figure this out, right?
Just the Gospel of John alone combined with just some basics from the Old Testament, you
can easily derive that there's one God, that Jesus and God the Father are not the same
person.
I mean, actually, you only need really the first verse, you know, in the beginning was
the word, the word's with God, and he was God.
Well, how can you, how does that compute without the Trinity?
Well, it's like, well, I guess 300 years from now, we'll figure this verse out.
Don't you know the Catholics figure out the Trinity with the counsel of all, it's like,
no, no, no.
Because guess what?
It doesn't take a counsel of unsaved bozos to tell us what the Trinity is.
I don't believe that for one second.
I don't believe for one second.
Well, they didn't really know Jesus was God, they didn't really know about the Trinity.
Now, look, of course, they're going, of course, look, people still to this day are still
nailing down the details of the Trinity because the Trinity is so complex in the sense of
reconciling every scripture in the Bible and understanding every facet of who God is.
Hey, it's going to take us a lifetime to try to fully understand and know everything about
who God is and what every verse in the Bible means, okay?
I'm not saying that we all understand everything because we're human and we're always learning
and growing and we're in a pursuit of knowledge of God.
But to sit there and say that they didn't have a grasp of the Trinity, no, they might
not have called it the Trinity, but they said, well, I know Jesus is the Son of God.
I know he's divine.
I know he didn't just come into existence in Bethlehem's manger because he said the
Father said, he said, I'm the bread that came down from heaven.
So how can he have come into existence in Bethlehem's manger if he came down from heaven?
I'm the bread that came down from heaven.
His teachings are clear.
I came down from heaven.
And you know what?
Some of the earliest scriptures that were ever written in the New Testament are the
epistles of Paul.
And what does Paul teach in Philippians?
Jesus is in the form of God.
He thought in our robbery to be equal with God.
Folks, in order to be equal with God, basically, it can't be the same person as God the Father.
I can't say like I'm equal to my wife.
I could say I'm equal to my wife because we're two persons, right?
Hey, we're both about, but I can't say I'm equal to myself.
In order to have an equal sign, you've got to have something on either side of that equal
sign.
How can you have an equivalency unless you have two items?
A is equal to B. A isn't equal to A. A is A. Everybody see the difference?
In order to be equal with God, he has to be with God, but then he also is God.
Anyway, it's so important that we hammer this doctrine of the Trinity, and then we go into
a passage like Exodus 33, and it makes perfect sense under saying, you know why Moses can't
look at God?
Because we're talking God the Father.
And why is he going to be able to walk up to and worship the angel of the Lord in Joshua
5?
Because that's the Son of God.
Jesus.
Let's go ahead and bow and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
And I just pray that our church would have the same desire that Moses had and the same
desire that the apostle Paul had to know you.
And that we would want to know who you are, we would want to know what you have planned,
what your will is for our lives and what you want so that we can give you what you want,
so that we can do your will, Lord, and please you in all things.
Help us to obey you, love you, and learn about you, Lord.
And Lord, I pray that every person in our church would be nailed down on the basics
of the faith and not be deceived by all the cunning craftiness that the devil has to try
to get us to believe in stupid things that are contrary to your word, Lord, being carried
about with diverse winds of doctrine.
Help us to be steadfast and unmovable on these important articles of the faith, Lord,
that are so clearly laid out in your word that can be proven and derived not from a
history book but from your word.
And it's in Jesus Christ's name that we pray these things, amen.