Part 2: Now show me your glory

‘Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”’  Exodus 33:18 (NIV)

A man can know about God by looking at creation, but it takes divine revelation to know God. Unless God reveals himself to us there is no way we can know him. Yet God is eager to reveal himself to the man who seeks him. As we said last week, Moses’ hunger for God led him to ask for and to receive a revelation of God. Here is how the Bible records God’s response to Moses’ request:

“And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord! the Lord! a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth,

“Keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation” – Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV)

Divine revelation is another thing often misunderstood among us. We are often awed by the Bible teacher with a fresh insight into God’s Word, and we say he has revelation. Yet divine revelation is much more than acquiring insight, information or knowledge. For example the fact that I can understand and explain what God revealed to Moses in this passage does not guarantee that I have a revelation of God.

Divine revelation is what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ASV);

‘But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit’

Paul is saying that as we behold (look at) God’s glory we are changed. As a man receives a revelation of God’s glory a transformation happens in him. He is being changed into the very glory he is beholding (or seeing). A revelation of God does something to a man. It is not just enlightenment that he gets, he gets a deposit of the very thing that is revealed to him. So when God revealed his glory to Moses, Moses did not just receive knowledge, he received a deposit of God. That was why his face was glowing when he came down from the mountain. Revelation rubs something off on us. So the test of a man’s depth of revelation is not how much he can explain truth, but how much of that truth has rubbed off on him. May the Lord help us understand this, so that we may not be content with pursuing anything less than a true revelation of God.

Simply put, true revelation works a transformation in the life of the recipient. And in the light of this truth, before we go on to examine the meaning of what God revealed to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7 next week, I want to encourage you to go through the text prayerfully.  Find a place you can be alone, acknowledge your desperate need to taste God and ask God for a revelation of the truth he revealed to Moses. You may need to do this several times this week and it is worth it.

I believe this was what David did. You cannot read Psalm 103 without coming to that conclusion. David must have gone aside with God and received a personal revelation of God through Exodus 34:6-7. You see him expanding on it in this Psalm, but beyond his exposition, you see the manifestation of that glory in his life. David knew more than most men about the loving kindness of God. So I encourage you to go through Exodus 34:6-7 prayerfully yourself until something of God rubs off on you.

“And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord! the Lord! a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth,

“Keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation” – Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV)

Now show me your glory

‘Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”’  Exodus 33:18 (NIV)

If you want to know the heart of a man, listen to what he requests in prayer. And I am not talking about his public prayers for it is difficult for a man to be naked in public. But if we could eavesdrop on what a man prays for when he is alone with God, then we can have a peep into his heart’s pursuit. That is the privilege we have in this passage in seeing Moses’ heart from his prayer.

One cannot help but wonder at this request:

‘Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”’

Think of the audacity of this request! Why did a man dare to ask for such a thing? Where did he learn that from? Indeed such things are only learnt in the school of God for those with hungry hearts. That’s why one cannot but marvel at the heart behind this prayer. Notice that this request comes immediately after God had said, in the preceding verse, that Moses’ earlier request that his Presence should go with them, was granted. That should have been enough to satisfy any ordinary man – God was guaranteeing that he would go with Moses and his people and was going to distinguish them from all other nations. But that was not enough for this ‘man after God’s heart’ – he longed for much more than anything God could give him – he longed for God himself hence the cry:

“Now show me your glory”

In these days when the most spiritual among us are waiting for what will drop from God’s hands, may the Lord grant us hearts that cry, “Now show me your glory!” It is not a matter of saying these specific words to the Lord, for there are many who use these words, but the Lord knows that they are not asking for the same thing that Moses was . They do not understand what the glory of God is. ‘God’s glory’ is one of those terms that is used much by Christians, but so often not fully understood.

What did God understand Moses to be requesting when he said, ‘Show me your glory’? We can tell from his response:

‘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”’ vs 19 & 20 (NIV)

Let me rephrase God’s response to Moses: ‘You cannot see all of me. You can only see a part of me since no mortal can see me in my totality and continue to live here on earth.’ So God understood that Moses was asking to see God in his fullness. Just like the glory of a man is the man in his fullness, void of any impediment, so too the glory of God is God in his fullness – God as he is without anything to veil him from us. The glory of God is, God in his essence – it is God himself. So what Moses was asking for here was not what God can give, but God himself!

Of course, as the Lord goes on to say here, this is beyond what any finite mind can see, yet notice that God does not deny him his request, but rather grants Moses as much of himself as Moses could bear. God is pleased for a man to seek his glory, and those who seek like Moses did, are never disappointed by God, for God wants to reveal his glory to those who long for it.

So this was the prayer of Moses – the cry of his heart – ‘O Lord, reveal yourself to me as you are. Show me who you are. I want to know you. Intimacy with you is what I long for.’

I pray that the Lord will grant me, and you, a heart-cry like that.

The Place of Arbitration in Peace-making

“But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” Matthew 18:16-17

A brother who is a businessman told me how he had felt defrauded by another brother to whom his firm had contracted jobs, but who did not deliver what had been promised. But the other brother did not agree that he had defrauded him. They did not reach an agreement.

Last week we saw how the first step to resolving differences with our brother is to “go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.”  But there are times when you have done everything to sort things out ‘just between the two of you’ and still there is no agreement. That is why the Lord says, we need to bring others in at this stage.

It is important that we understand how the Lord measures reconciliation. Notice that the Lord says ‘If he listens to you, you have won your brother over’. Reconciliation is not conditioned on the fact that the offender has changed, but rather on the fact that ‘he listens to you’ – that means that both of you have come to view the offence in the same way; he accepts his fault and you accept yours. This doesn’t mean he may not hurt you again. This is why the Lord goes on to teach in the next passage on the importance of forgiving our brother ‘seventy times seven’.

But there are occasions when the two parties are unable to come to an agreement about their differences between the two of them. Sometimes married couples find themselves in this situation. They have tried all they can to resolve their differences between themselves, without an agreement. The Lord says they need to get one or two others to help them. Since the goal is reconciliation it is advisable to bring in only those whom the other party would feel comfortable with, as having their best interest at heart, or else it would look as if you are gathering your supporters against him. And  rather choose spiritually minded believers, not worldly people, even if they are your relatives. Too many times believers make the mistake of seeking the help of those who do not fear or love the Lord, to help them sort out their conflicts, because they are ‘experts’. One dear couple told of how when their marriage was falling apart they had sought the help of a highly recommended psychologist, and after several sessions, his advice to them was to divorce.  So let it rather be spiritually mature people, who can seek the Lord’s mind and glory in the matter. Also it is crucial that by the time you involve others, you have already told your brother all of his fault ‘just between the two of you’ and that you do not bring up new issues at this point when the matter is before others. If properly done and with the right attitude, many times even the toughest issues will be sorted out by this time.

But if they are not, the Lord does not instruct us to discard that relationship, but rather to take it to our spiritual leaders in the body – the church. A believer is not supposed to take his brother to court (1 Cor. 6:1-6), instead we are to request the church leaders to serve as arbitrators between us and our brother even in big disputes where both of us have not found agreement after going through the earlier two stages. In cases where you come from two different assemblies this may involve bringing  in leaders from the two groups. But when a so-called brother will not accept what these leaders decide, then the Lord says ‘treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector’.  This does not mean we stop loving him (for we are called to love even the pagan!), but it means that we will pray for him as if he is an unbeliever, asking the Lord to cause him to yield to him. Also in such a case, if our conscience permits us, we could take him to court, if it is really necessary. Of course, if it is our spouse, it doesn’t mean we can divorce, because the Bible does not teach believers married to unbelievers to divorce.(1 Cor. 7:12 – 17)

Notice then, that it is only after the dispute has been unsuccessfully dealt with by the Church, that we are permitted to cut off fellowship with the other party. So it is wrong in any other circumstance for a believer to cut off fellowship with another.

In conclusion, George Verwer is so correct when he said, ‘Where two or three of the Lord’s people are gathered together, sooner or later there will be a mess.’  Yes things get messy in relationships, but God calls us to be peacemakers who are willing to pay the price to restore and nurture fellowship. God wants to teach us how to work out miracles through the messes of troublesome relationships.

Rules for Reconciliation

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you” Matthew 18:15

In the last article we introduced our Lord’s simple instructions for the restoration of fellowship and saw that the prerequisite for carrying it out was to have an attitude that seeks to win back our estranged brother and not one that seeks to win.

Look again at what the Lord said in the first part of Matthew 18:15(NIV) quoted above. Note that he is asking you, the offended party to make the first move towards reconciliation, and not the offender. We normally feel that if we have been sinned against it must be the other person who must come to make peace. The Lord says, ‘No’. God’s kingdom is different from the world because God’s children are called to be peacemakers. Our commitment to peace makes us refuse to nurse our wounds, but rather to nurture fellowship.

Now let me bring a balance here by pointing out what the Lord says in another passage;

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift”  – Matthew 5:23-24

Here the offender is asked to make the first move to seek reconciliation with those who feel offended by him or her. So, whether we are offended against, or whether others feel offended by us, God’s children are called to be peacemakers by always taking the initiative to see fellowship restored whenever it is broken.

Matthew 5:9 says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”. This is why something is seriously wrong when a person who calls himself a child of God is comfortable with conflict and trouble-making.

Then the Lord says that you must go and show him his fault ‘just between the two of you’. By keeping this first meeting for reconciliation just between the two of us, I am communicating to my brother that I am not seeking to expose his fault to others or to judge him, but rather seeking to get rid of something that is coming between the two of us. It shows that I value him and his fellowship. When this first step of working out the trouble ‘just between the two of you’ is neglected and others are brought in at the start, trust is lost and true reconciliation may become impossible. Many marriages have been seriously damaged because one of them has gone first to talk to a pastor or a parent about their differences, instead of seriously working at sorting things out first with their spouse.

Another reason why it is important that we begin with ‘just between the two of you’, is because it is possible that we may have misjudged the situation.  (Once again remember what I shared some weeks ago on Balaam and his ass!). There was once a brother whose reaction to what I had asked a group I was leading, to do, seemed to me like a deliberate attempt to insult me. But when I shared this with him, his explanation of what he had said and meant by it, made me realise that I had put the wrong interpretation on his action. How damaging things would have been in that instance, if I had not spoken to him first, but had discussed this with others instead.

In my experience, when this first step of reconciliation is properly applied with the right attitude, most relationship conflicts are sorted out.  As we approach our brother with a humble heart seeking forgiveness and being willing to give it, healing results. But there are complex situations when we will need to go beyond this ‘just between the two of you’ approach. That is what the Lord goes on to deal with in our text and we will look at this next week.