Now, if you would, take your copy of God's Word, please. And we're turning this morning to the book of Exodus again. Exodus, and the chapter 33, now, we read and looked at the most of this chapter last Lord's Day morning, but there is some overlap here. So, Exodus 33, and the verse 12, and what we're dealing with this morning is beholding the glory of God. Moses met the Lord, and what an occasion this was. So, Exodus 33, verse 12. And Moses said on to the Lord, so this is Moses praying. It's a great prayer, one to take to heart. 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. The Lord had just said, I'm not going, I'll send an angel. And he's wondering, well, who is this angel? Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Verse 13. Now, therefore, I pray thee, "'If I have found grace in thy sight, "'show me now thy way, that I may know thee.'" And so he wants to know God's will. "'That I may find grace in thy sight, "'and consider that this nation is thy people.'" Verse 14. "'And he said,' and the Lord said, "'My presence shall go with thee.'" That's a good result. "'And I will give thee rest.'" What a blessed truth. Verse 15. "'And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. And so he's more concerned about the presence of God than he is about entering into the promised land. Verse 16. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not? in 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. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he," that's Moses, this is his third petition now, He wanted the Lord to be with him. He wanted the Lord to reveal his will. But now in verse 18, and he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, that's God 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 I 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. And the Lord said, Behold, there's a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, the cleft of the rock, you know, top that is him. Verse 22, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, and my face shall not be seen. And, verse 34, sorry, chapter 34, and the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone. So he hasn't seen the Lord yet. Okay? He's making preparation to see the Lord. Verse 34. Chapter 34, verse 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone. Like onto the first. And I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables. which thou breakest, and be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount, and no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before thee. that mount. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. So here's where he saw the Lord. Verse 6, And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped That he said, if now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. Amen. We'll end our reading there at the verse number nine. Now you understand the circumstances of our text. Moses is praying to the Lord. He has approached the Lord because the people of Israel have gruesomely, gruesomely sinned against God. And the Lord had announced to the people that he will not go with them to the promised land. Moses and the people are very much grieved by that. And the people mourned for that announcement. They knew what it was to be without the Lord. They did not desire that any more. So Moses prays, and he asks the Lord, Lord, give me your presence. Let me secure thy presence to go with us. But he didn't stop there. Moses kept on praying. He prayed for guidance, for discernment to know God's will. But it's the third thing that he prayed for, and that's where we are this morning. And it's verse 18, where Moses prayed this magnificent prayer, and he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory." Now, understand what he's asking for. Here is a man made of dust, a sinner, far from perfect, and yet he's praying and he's looking for an encounter with the Lord. Now, experiencing the Lord is a marvelous and life-changing event, and that's clear But it's not something men and women that we can't enjoy as well. I'm not saying that we'll climb some mountain, we'll have an exact replica of what Moses enjoyed here. I'm not saying you'll get that. But can I say this, men and women? What happened here on the mountain was not so much, and get this in your mind this morning, this was not so much about Moses seeing God's face, He doesn't say, Lord, I beseech thee, show me your body. Show me your shape. Show me your figure. That's not what he's asking for. And sometimes when we read this passage and we think about this passage, that's foremost in our mind, but that's not what's happening here. He wanted to see the glory of God. And what that means is he wanted to understand more of the character of God. What kind of God is this? What kind of being is this that spoke to me through the burning bush, who brought the 10 plagues and brought us out of Egypt and has landed me here on Mount Sinai and speaks with such authority? He says, Lord, I want to know more of you. And that's what he's looking for. In response to that, the Lord said, yes, but before he would see the Lord, there are certain things that he would have to do. If you would go to chapter 34 in the verse one. And here you have the list of conditions that God says, before you come to me, here's what you do. Verse one, and the Lord said unto Moses, hew thee out two tables of stone. We move on down to verse four. And he, Moses, hewed two tables of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning and went up onto Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him. And so the Lord gave very clear instructions as to how Moses would prepare to meet with the Lord. And men and women from the outset here, I want us to just meditate just for a second or two. We're going to meet the Lord. Do not think we meet on our terms. We meet on the Lord's terms. Remember who we're coming to. It is a privilege for us to know the name of God. It is a privilege for us to have the word of God. It is a privilege to draw into the presence of God. It's for our benefit. So we come on God's terms. Now, before we get into the actual event where the Lord revealed himself to Moses, look at these terms in verse 1. It's not a strange thing. It's not a strange thing the Lord's doing here. Why does he tell Moses to hew out two tables of stone like unto the first? Do you know the circumstances? Moses was up Mount Sinai for those 40 days. While he was there, the Lord shaped two tables of stone, and the Lord engraved on those stones the Ten Commandments. And of course, you remember, when Moses came down from the presence of God, he had those two tables of stone, and he took them. And when he saw the people of God breaking the law, he dropped them. Or rather, he threw them down, he broke them. What's he doing there? He symbolically broke The tables, in reflection of what the people were doing physically, they broke the Ten Commandments. And so, here's the Lord. And before Moses returns, he says to Moses, right, bring two more tables with you. It's interesting because some of us, we were speaking about the moral law. We were talking about it this week. And I think it's interesting here that this morning again, we come to the moral law. And I trust there's something for us all to learn here. Look at what happens, because the Lord, in a moment or two, would tell Moses to write down the Ten Commandments again. And remember what we looked at a few weeks ago. There was a civil law, the ceremonial law, and the moral law, all three of them. But look what happens here. The Lord says to Moses, We're going to get tables of stone, and we're going to write the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone. He didn't write the civil law, didn't write the ceremonial law, didn't write any of the other Ten Commandments on the stone, only the Ten Commandments. And as I looked at that literally just on Friday, that really struck me. Does that not emphasize to us the Ten Commandments are permanent? The other ones aren't. Remember what the civil law was, and we look at this on Wednesday nights. The civil law is for the government. That's how they govern the people. The ceremonial law was for the priests. That's how they conduct worship. The moral law is then for us, the people, that we would obey the Lord. And this has become the clear standard for God's description, a clear standard on how we ought to determine what's right and wrong. Remember Galatians 3 and the verse 24, that tells us what the Ten Commandments are. Here's what it says. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The Ten Commandments is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And isn't that true? When someone learns that they've broken God's commandments, taking the Lord's name in vain, stealing, or covetous, whatever. What's your first response? You recognize, right, I have sinned. I've broken God's law. And what's your first reaction when God puts you under conviction? You run to Christ. The Ten Commandments is our school teacher. It's our schoolmaster showing us that we're sinners, and that then, as Galatians puts it, brings us to Christ. It's our sin. It shows us we need the Lord. And so we run to Christ. Moses here knew full well that he, along with the people, had broken God's law. And what's Moses' response here? He goes up the mountain and he says to the Lord, show me thy presence. He wants to know more of God. He knows the sinner. And he confesses sin, as we'll see here in a moment or two. But look all at these conditions. Verse 4 of chapter 34. After Moses had prepared these two tables of stone, it says he rose up early in the morning as the Lord had told him to do so. The Lord's emphasizing to Moses, get up early in the morning. This has to be a priority. You're going to spend time in the word of God, and you're going to spend time with me, so get up early and do it. And what's, well, I would imagine here Moses would have barely slept that night and would straight up at daybreak. But what we're being told here is that, not that there's a specific time, but we're being shown here that meeting with the Lord ought to be a priority. It ought to be most important to us. I know there's different circumstances that prevent you and I meeting with the Lord at four o'clock in the morning. We need physical rest. We need to be able to function through that day. There may be many disruptions, but the emphasis is here. Make it a priority to meet with God, Moses said. Do it early. and make the best of your opportunity to meet with him. And also, the Lord said to Moses, come alone, verse three, and no man shall come up with thee. That's three of us individually. It's good to be, yes, at public times of prayer and fellowshipping, but there must be times when we meet alone with no man, just with the Lord. And those are good times. Anyway, before Moses would meet with the Lord. There are certain conditions that he had to set in order, certain terms that he had to meet, because meeting with God is our privilege when we come in God's terms. Now, as we think then about Moses beholding the glory of God, the first thing I want to think about with you here is the desire. I want you to think about the desire, primarily Moses' desire to meet with God. And think about this this morning. What about you? What about me? How often do we desire to genuinely meet with the Lord? As I said before, numerously, Moses was more interested in securing the presence of God than he was in travelling to the promised land. He would rather live in a barren wilderness with God than be in the promised land without the Lord. That's most important. His priority, Moses' priority, was to know God's and to understand them better. Now, like I said earlier, Moses is not just wanting to see the physical shape of God, the Lord is a spirit. He wants to know more about God. Now, unfortunately, and you'll agree with me here, and it's blending obvious, as a nation, as a nation, our nation's desire to see God is at an absolute minimum. How do I know that? Every Sunday, across our land, our churches are not exactly bursting full of people. Why is that? Because people don't really care whether or not they encounter a fresh experience with God. It's a lack of passion, a lack of desire. I want to ask you. What about your prayer life as an individual, as a believer? How often do we pray, Lord, let me know more about you. Lord, help me to see thee more clearly. Help me to know your character. Help me to see your goodness and your mercy and your grace. Help me to just get a firmer grasp and understanding of your glory and your goodness. How often do we really pray that? Or is that kind of praying kind of foreign? Maybe the most of our prayers are taken up with benefits, personal benefits that you need, benefits that your neighbor needs, benefits that your family need. How often is our prayer life taken up with benefits rather than the person and knowing more of the Lord? Let me illustrate that to you. Let's say you had a friend, a friend who isn't really worried about spending time with you. They just want your stuff. They'll phone you, maybe, I don't know, on a Saturday, and say, hey, you know, can you lend me something? 50 pound. Can you give me some of your tools for a day or two? Can you lend me your dress? Maybe a loan of your car? They're always looking for something off you, but they're never really worried as to whether or not they actually spend time with you. A friend like that, you would readily come to the conclusion that they're only using you They want your stuff, not you. And could it be, men and women, that you are using God? You're not really interested in spending time with Him. You're just interested in the benefits, the stuff. Lord, I want health. Lord, I want security. Lord, I want wealth, whatever. Could we conclude? That's only using the Lord. Sadly, today, interest in the Lord is absolutely minimal. And there's several reasons for that. As a believer, as a genuine, born-again, saved, redeemed, justified believer, your desire to meet with the Lord is at a minimum because you're backslidden. Backslidden today. Maybe that never even crossed your mind. You've been saved for 40 years. Saved for 60 years. But the reality is, you're not all that caring about whether or not you meet with God today or tomorrow or next week. Backsliding. Because when you were first converted and when you were under the burden of sin, your chief desire and your primary desire was to meet with God, to relieve you of the burden of sin, but that has diminished decade upon decade upon decade. That's not growing, that's diminishing. That's backsliding. Maybe today you've grown cold of heart and you've forgotten about the Lord, dear believer. Unbeliever, you don't really care because you're not even saved and whether or not the Lord draws near to you today is irrelevant. Which is strange, you know, because in reality, we should have a great desire to meet the Lord. We should be more desirous to meet the Lord than anything else. Why? Because God is much more interesting than TV. He's much more interesting than some fictional movie or some legitimate documentary. The Lord has accomplished more for you than any other person in human history. The Lord has made you. He's offered you salvation. He saved you if you're saved today. There is no one and nothing more beautiful and intriguing than God himself. And yet we spend an awful lot of time on a thousand other things and have no or little interest in the Lord. He's perfectly wise. His counsel is good. He gave his son to suffer and die. Why in the world would we not be interested in standing beside Moses and saying, Lord, I've essentially, show me more of your glory. Let me see more of you because what I have seen so far has been absolutely magnificent. We are designed to find our ultimate fulfillment in seeing Him and spending time with God. Don't make the Word of God, reading the Bible, just a chore. Don't make praying just a chore, something you have to do. Go at it with this ambition. I'm here to meet the Lord. I pick up this book. I want to see God's glory. I don't mean I'm going to see His hands and His feet. I want to know more about Him, see Him. In that sense, That will rejuvenate your prayer life and your study of God's Word. Verse 11 here of our text shows how close Moses already was to the Lord. So chapter 33 and the verse 11, and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. Isn't that interesting? That's not said of many people now. The Lord spoke with Moses as a friend to friend, face to face as it were, not literally with a face to face, or he would have been consumed. But the idea here is teaching the intimacy, the friendship, the grounds by which God met with Moses. That's not said of anyone else. And here's the thing. Moses, who was more close to God than anybody else, is the very one who says, Lord, show me more. Show me more. And the nearer you get to the Lord, and the more sanctified you are, the more you will want of the Lord. Isn't that right? Isn't there people you'll meet? There's people you'll meet. And the more you get to know them, the less you want to spend time with them. Because of their sin. Because they're not perfect. They're all the same. We'll encounter that with everybody. The more you know of people, the less you'll be interested in them. But the more you meet the Lord, the more you'll be interested in knowing more and more and more about him. That's just a fact and a reality. Like our Psalm, as the heart panteth after the water bricks, so panteth my soul after thee. The Psalmist said, I thirst for God. Why is it, think about this now, why is it people spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on holidays, on foreign destinations. Why do we do that? We all do it. Why do we do it? Because we think if we go somewhere else, it's going to be magnificent. We have an expectation that if we get there, it's going to be magnificent, the experience, the sights, whatever there's a desire. So if you don't want to meet with the Lord, it's because you do not expect him to be magnificent. You don't expect the Lord to be incredible. There's no expectation anymore. But with Moses, he had a strong desire because he knew that the Lord was glorious. He was convinced that God was altogether lovely, and he wanted to see more of the Lord. He was not disappointed. He was not disappointed. So we've seen Moses' desire. But let me secondly show you the experience itself. Verse 19 of chapter 33, Moses has said in the previous verse, show me thy glory. Verse 19, and the Lord says essentially, and he said, I will. I will make all my goodness pass before thee and so on and so forth. The Lord essentially says to him there, yes, I will. But look what the Lord's going to show him. The Lord's very clear on this. Verse 19, and he said, I will. I will make all my goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim the greatness or the name of the Lord God, the Lord before thee, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And what the Lord is saying to Moses, he has three things I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you my goodness. I'm going to show you my greatness. I'm going to show you my graciousness. That's what you're going to see, Moses. And that's exactly what Moses did see, that God is good, that God is great, and that God is gracious. You see, like I said, this experience was not about seeing the sheep of God. It was about seeing God's character, his goodness, his greatness, his grace. And men and women, that's what we do every time we come to church. You're here today to see God. I know that. Maybe you're not aware of that today. Maybe you're here today, and you're thinking I come to church because I come to church every day. But believer, you're here because God is moving you to see his glory. Unbeliever, in providence, God has brought you here to see his glory. Not to see a building. Not to see a people necessarily. But to see God. Every time you open up the Bible, that's what you're doing. To see God's goodness. To see God's graciousness. To see God's greatness. That's what we're doing! Every time you pray, that's part of what you're doing, to see Him. And you will notice that these are constantly under attack. The world, the flesh, and the devil will attack these three things. God's goodness, God's greatness, and God's graciousness. Isn't that right? The Lord, the devil doesn't want you to think that God is good. The devil doesn't want you to think God is great. The devil doesn't want you to think that God is gracious. The devil wants you to think that God is grumpy. It's a grumpy being in heaven. He just gives you commandments, do this, do that, do the other thing. That's the devil's constant lie to the people of this world. It's not a grumpy God that I read of in this Bible, but I can say with absolute conviction and 100% experience, he is good. He is great and he's gracious. The devil's a liar. has been from the beginning. So the Lord revealed himself to Moses. Let's go to that now, after all the conditions were met. The Lord drew near to Moses in verse number 6. This is a A passage, or these verses are most definitely worthy of being focused upon for memorization. Verse six, and the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed. Here's what God said. Now think about this. The Lord could have said anything to Moses, but here's what the Lord said. Verse six, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation." Full stop. That's what God said to Moses. that is worth committing to memory. And maybe you've read that a thousand times and not really thought about it. Well, let's do so now. When the Lord speaks of himself. And when the Lord in Scripture gives a specific name to himself, the Lord doesn't just pull a random name for himself out of the hat. When the Lord used the name to describe himself, it's for a specific purpose. And here, look how he describes himself in verse six. He says, the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, all in capitals. So that's the name Jehovah. And so God arrived before Moses and said, Jehovah. Jehovah Eli. That's what the Lord said. That's interesting because remember the last time the Lord met with Moses on Mount Sinai? Or sorry, at the burning bush. And at the burning bush, It's the origin. The Lord said to Moses, tell the people I am that I am sent you. What in the world does that mean? When the Lord says I am, you know what it means by now. I've explained it a thousand times. He doesn't say I was or I will be. He's the I am. What that means is he's never changing. He's the self-existent God. What that means is he is eternal and absolute. He's the self-existent one. And that's what Jehovah means. He doesn't, let me flesh that out for a little minute here. When the Bible speaks about Jehovah, the one who's self-existent, that means nobody had to create him. He didn't have to be made. How often has that question been asked? Where did God come from? God came from nowhere. He always has been. Everything that we experience except God, everything that we experience had a beginning. Everything. But not God. He's not a creation. He's not a creature. He's the creator. He's a Jehovah. He's a self-existent one. He doesn't need oxygen, doesn't need hydrogen, doesn't need support, doesn't need to be sustained. He's self-sufficient, self-existing. And that's the first thing he said to Moses. I am Jehovah. I am the eternal one. I'm different. The next thing that's the Lord said to Moses was the Lord God. Look at it here, verse six. Jehovah, the Lord, the Lord God. And the wee word God there is El. What does El in Hebrew mean? Now, not the letter El, but E-L, El. El means mighty one. It means powerful one. That's what God means. Mighty one, powerful one. And so very often in the Bible, you'll have names being given to idols and people call them gods because the people see them as mighty. The people see them as great and powerful. But they're small g gods because they're not gods at all. Here is capital G God, the one who is almighty and all powerful. And what that means is he has no restraints. He has absolutely no limitations whatsoever. Remember Wednesday night? What were we talking about last night? Limitations. Limited government. Government's limited. I am limited as a father. You are limited as an individual. We all have limitations. Everyone does. Everything does. But not God. He is God. All-powerful. Absolutely supreme. Tremendous in power. Limitless. And here's the thing. He is Jehovah God. He's the self-existing, all-powerful one. And what that means is, if he's all-powerful and if he's self-existing, that means nothing gives him his power. Therefore, his power cannot be diminished. And here's why that's encouraging. I've mentioned this to you in the past, before, when I was a child growing up. I mean, these are questions that, strangely, went through my mind. You know, what if I'm in heaven for a thousand years, saved and washed in the blood of the Lamb, but the devil begins to become stronger, and he gets all these people in hell with him, and he accumulates a great army. Maybe someday the devil can wage war again against God, and when? Impossible! Theologically impossible. Why? Because God is never changing. His power will never diminish. God will never be weaker than he is now. He will never be rivaled. Supremely powerful. And so we've no fear of God ever being rivaled. Praise God. Let's keep moving on here. We'll move as quickly as we can. The Lord said to Moses, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful. And let's do these quickly, okay? Merciful means to be compassionate. And that word actually, merciful, is only used of God. It's a special kind of mercy. And again, I can't miss this by, listen, the Lord is speaking to Moses here, and the Lord could have described himself in a thousand different ways. The Lord could have said a million things about himself, but after he tells Moses names, the first thing, the very first thing that God says is, I am merciful. We don't have this God in heaven who is fixated on whipping every child every time they step out of line. We do not have some kind of overbearing father figure who's constantly correcting, who's constantly whipping, who's constantly punishing. That's not the kind of God we have. The devil and the flesh and the world would promote that false view of God. But when the Lord presents himself, when the Lord speaks about himself, he says first and foremost, I am merciful. I am merciful." And mercy means refraining or not giving someone the punishment they deserve. That's what being merciful means. Now, this is important. Not giving someone what they deserve. Then look at the next description here. The Lord God merciful and gracious. What does gracious mean? Well, again, mercy means not giving someone what they deserve. Graciousness means giving someone what they don't deserve. If God is gracious to you, he gives you rewards and benefits and blessings that you have not earned or merited. He's merciful, not giving us what we do deserve, hell. Instead, he's gracious and gives us what we've never earned, but Christ has earned for us. I'm hoping to think about all these things. There's so much we could flesh out here, examples and biblical occasions and personal testimonies to this, but we'll go on here. The Lord says, furthermore, he's long-suffering. What's long-suffering mean? Well, it means patient. The Lord has every reason to be frustrated and exasperated by us with all our sin and our rebellion and our ungodliness, but he's not. He's not. He's long-suffering. And that's why, believer, that's why you're not dead. That's why the Lord hasn't committed capital punishment upon your head, because he's long-suffering with you. Unbeliever, that's why you're still alive today, because he's long-suffering. That's why Hitler lived for decades. That's why people that we know today who are cruel and wicked and are deserving of hell are still alive today. Why? Because God is long-suffering. He's giving them opportunity to repent, to seek salvation. He's long-suffering. I'm glad of that. The verse goes on. The Lord says, abundant in goodness and truth. So it's not just that God is good. He's abundant, overflowing, more goodness than you could possibly handle. That's how good he is. Maybe at school, you remember, some teachers were good and some were not so good. Some teachers were easy on you and pleasant. Some teachers just seemed to be fixated on making your day as horrible as possible. Well, God isn't only good, he's abundant. He has more goodness than you can possibly receive. Furthermore, he's abundant in truthfulness. What does that mean? He's trustworthy, he's faithful, he's dependent, he is truth. He's reliable, he won't let you down. And then come to verse seven. because the Lord now emphasizes something about his character. He's already said that the Lord God is merciful, but in verse seven, he emphasizes this. keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. Let me just walk through that as quickly as I possibly can. Verse seven, it says he keeps mercy for thousands. Now, in the Bible, the Bible doesn't use the word millions. or trillions. Well, there is once the Bible used the word million. It's swearing. In Genesis, someone said, you know, may your wife be the mother of millions, but the actual Hebrew word means tens of thousands. But anyway, the Bible doesn't use words like million, but it constantly used the word thousand or thousands. And the idea of thousands is a huge number, an innumerable number, all right? Tens of thousands means armies of tens of thousands, it says, and they were like grasshoppers over the land. It's a big number, that's the idea. And the Lord keeps mercy, not for every single human being, but for a great multitude, for thousands, for thousands. Now, Don't misunderstand God here. He says he keeps mercy, forgiving, number one, iniquities, number two, transgression, and number three, sin. He's forgiving every aspect of offense against him. That's the idea. He will forgive. He has reserved mercy for that. But do not think that God is a walkover. Do you not think the Lord is going to allow people to be cruel and wicked and vile and just continue on? That's not what the verse is saying. Yes, he is merciful, but Israel, learn, know this, that he keeps mercy for thousands, but will by no means clear the guilty. He's just. He will by no means clear the guilty, verse seven says. Now you understand that? That means that God, when someone stands before him on the judgment day, and here's a man, a woman, a child, guilty of sin, the Lord's not going to say, all right, let's brush it under the carpet, and we'll forget about it. Not going to happen. The Lord will be merciful. He will forgive those who ask. And here's the difference, you see, not everyone asks. So many will go down the broad road, never asking for forgiveness, never looking to the Lord to be washed of their sins, but they headlong head into hell without ever seeking it. The Lord says, forgiveness is available. You come, there's enough for you. But so many don't come. And so they face judgment. But the verse goes on to say, and sometimes this is of difficulty for believers, because it says he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. What does that mean? Does that mean their children are suffering for the sins of their father? Well, no and yes. No and yes. The Bible makes it clear that every man shall suffer because of their own sin. They will be punished because of their own sin. But the reality is, using the biblical illustration here. If a father lives in sin, let's say a father, you pick your sin. Let's go through that second table of the commandments. If he's a murderer, let's say a father is a thief, or he's an adulterer, or he's a liar, or he's a convict, or whatever. When a father lives like that, he need not think his children are completely isolated from his sins. Of course they're not. Remember Egan? Egan's a scary occasion in the Bible for a father. Because the Bible says that Egan stole the gold. Egan stole the robe. But his whole family were killed. And God said that's the way it should be. The whole family should be stolen. His wife. His boys. His girls. He's the one who broke the law and his family paid the price. Why? Because Egg and Boy, his example, was raising a generation of thieves, coveters, liars. And they would commit his sins again. And so Lord put an end to the whole family. That's what the verse means. We have a just God who will deal with sin. So let's just come to a conclusion here. You can see this accumulation of words to impress upon Moses and to impress upon us as the reader today, the greatness, the goodness, and the graciousness of this God. He's no pushover. He's no walkover. He's no weakling. He's good. He's great. And he's gracious. I don't have time to go to the New Testament this morning that tells us what happened to Moses. But you can read it yourself, 2 Corinthians 13, read that when you go home. But for our purposes here, look what happened. Here's the result, essentially. What happened? Well, Moses said in verse 8 of chapter 34, what else could Moses do? Verse 8, chapter 34, and Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth in worship. He fell down before God. What else could he do? He collapsed before the Lord, as it were. He puts his head down, worships God, he confesses his sin, he prays for more of God's presence. And that's what you do when you come near the Lord. But I don't want to leave just without emphasizing this. And again, go home and read the rest of the chapter yourself. But after the Lord had done with Moses, Moses came down from the mountain. After this great experience, what happened? Not one person could look at him. They couldn't look at him. Moses came down that mount the same way he did the last time. He wasn't thinking about what happened to him. But he came down the mount and such was the glory of God's presence upon him, everybody else could see it. He had to put a veil, we're told, in 2 Corinthians 13. He had to put a veil over his face to cover the shining and the glory. And here's the thing. If you meet with God, and when someone is genuinely godly, you don't have to try and pretend. You don't have to go out and put an act on. You don't have to go out and put your best foot forward, no. The presence of God will radiate from you. And that's how you know the difference between a believer who isn't actually going on with God all that well. They have to put a good show on. But a believer who is intimately walking with God, they won't even know it. They won't even be aware of it. It's just there. And they just follow the Lord and we can all see there's someone walking with God. I want to be like Moses. I want to meet with the Lord. I want to see His glory. And I trust that all of us here would so meet with the Lord that the world would say, there's a people that are different. They're not faking it. They're not acting it. They're different. because the presence of God is in them and with them and before them. We'll just close this morning, but we'll not sing our final hymn just because time is well pushed on. Thank you for your patience this morning. But what an occasion this was. We've seen Moses' desire, we have seen Moses' experience, and we have seen the result. Oh, for such an experience with the Lord. Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly Father, we bow before you this morning. And Lord, every one of us need fresh encounters with Thee. When we open the Bible in the morning and in the evening, when we come, Lord, to Thy house, let us see Your goodness. Let us see Your greatness. Let us see Your graciousness. And Lord, let us be changed thereby. Oh, to be a people sanctified, a people who are truly reflecting the glory of God. And so, Lord, help us to enjoy Thee. Lord, help us to make a priority of drawing nigh to God. So, Lord, transform us. May our lives be different as we meditate upon this truth in Jesus' name we ask. Amen and amen.