322
Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
God spoke to Moses to bid the congregation leave the tents of the
men whom they had chosen in the place of Moses. The very men
whose destruction they premeditated were the instruments in the hands
of God of saving their lives upon that occasion. Said Moses: “Get you
up from about the tabernacle of Korah.” They also were in alarming
danger of being destroyed in their sins by the wrath of God, for they
were sharers in the crimes of the men to whom they had given their
sympathy and with whom they had associated.
If while Moses was trying the test before the congregation of
Israel, those who had started the rebellion had repented and sought
the forgiveness of God and of His injured servant, the vengeance of
God would even then have been stayed. But there in their tents boldly
stood Korah, the instigator of the rebellion, and his sympathizers,
as if in defiance of God’s wrath, as though God had never wrought
through His servant Moses. And much less did these rebellious ones
act as though they had been so recently honored of God by being
brought with Moses almost directly into His presence, and beholding
His unsurpassed glory. These men saw Moses come down from the
mount after he had received the second tables of stone and while his
face was so resplendent with the glory of God that the people would
not approach him, but fled from him. He called to them, but they
seemed terrified. He presented the tables of stone and said: I pleaded
in your behalf and have turned the wrath of God from you. I urged that,
if God must forsake and destroy His congregation, my name might
also be blotted from His book. Lo, He has answered me, and these
tables of stone that I hold in my hand are the pledge given me of His
reconciliation with His people.
The people perceive that it is the voice of Moses; that, although
[355]
he is transformed and glorified, he is Moses yet. They tell him that
they cannot look into his face, for the radiant light in his countenance
is exceedingly painful to them. His face is like the sun; they cannot
look upon it. When Moses finds out the difficulty, he covers his face
with a veil. He does not plead that the light and glory upon his face
is the reflection of God’s glory that He placed upon him, and that the
people must bear it; but he covers his glory. The sinfulness of the
people make it painful to behold his glorified face. So will it be when
the saints of God are glorified just previous to the second appearing
of our Lord. The wicked will retire and shrink away from the sight,