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Patriarchs and Prophets
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, “I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken:
for thou hast found grace in My sight, and I know thee by name.” Still
the prophet did not cease pleading. Every prayer had been answered,
but he thirsted for greater tokens of God’s favor. He now made a
request that no human being had ever made before: “I beseech Thee,
show me Thy glory.”
God did not rebuke his request as presumptuous; but the gracious
words were spoken, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee.”
The unveiled glory of God, no man in this mortal state can look upon
and live; but Moses was assured that he should behold as much of
the divine glory as he could endure. Again he was summoned to the
mountain summit; then the hand that made the world, that hand that
“removeth the mountains, and they know not” (
Job 9:5
), took this
creature of the dust, this mighty man of faith, and placed him in a cleft
of the rock, while the glory of God and all His goodness passed before
him.
This experience—above all else the promise that the divine Pres-
ence would attend him—was to Moses an assurance of success in the
work before him; and he counted it of infinitely greater worth than all
the learning of Egypt or all his attainments as a statesman or a military
leader. No earthly power or skill or learning can supply the place of
God’s abiding presence.
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To the transgressor it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God; but Moses stood alone in the presence of the Eternal One,
and he was not afraid; for his soul was in harmony with the will of
his Maker. Says the psalmist, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the
Lord will not hear me.”
Psalm 66:18
. But “the secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.”
Psalm
25:14
.
The Deity proclaimed Himself, “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.”
“Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and
worshiped.” Again he entreated that God would pardon the iniquity of
His people, and take them for His inheritance. His prayer was granted.