Into the Word Wednesday
Our God is strong. The psalmist says “His strength, is in the clouds” Many time the Bible uses clouds or the sky to describe the strength of God. More interestingly, the clouds were used to hide the glory of God.
In the Old Testament, the clouds came down and sat on mount Sinai and hid the glory of God while he gave Moses the Law. When the cloud had descended upon the mountain, there was fire and smoke and lightening. Is it any wonder the people were afraid?
I think about Moses sometimes and wonder just what it would have been like. Spending days in that mountain in the presence of God. It is just unfathomable to even think about. That time with the Lord must have made Moses long for more, because in Exodus 33:18 Moses said, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” Can you imagine? We think we see Gods glory when we look to the sky, when we see a flower bloom, or a child born. Yet Moses has just spent all this time with God and is begging to see his glory.
God told Moses that he would hide him in a clift of the rock and pass before him. But Moses couldn’t see his face, for no man could see the face of God and live.
In chapter 34 verses 5-9 God passes before Moses. vs. 6-7: 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….”
So God showed Moses a portion of his glory. Moses’s reaction was to bow himself down and plead for mercy for himself and the people he had led out of Egypt.
Writing this was rather interesting for me. I had taken a picture of storm clouds and knew that I wanted to use it here, but hadn’t decided how yet. I started doing a little reading, that turned into a lot of reading, that then turned into this post. Prior to now, I don’t believe I had really ever thought about how it must have been, to spend that time in the mountain with God.
I am so grateful, that now, because of the blood of our Lord Jesus we can come straight to him with all our problems. And I stand in awe of the King of glory, when I think about what he proclaimed as he passed before Moses, that long ago day on a mountain. Because our God never changes, what was true then is still true now.
