When this narrative begins, it is about as lacking in optimism and hope as the story my brother, B. J., tells about a farmer in southern Missouri who hired a man to split some post oak for his farm. Post oak is notoriously hard to work with, but it makes excellent fence posts and rail fences. It is so tough, that it's like trying to split rock. The farmer hired a man who was not too fast at thinking, and told him he'd pay him three dollars a dozen for the posts. After two or three days the farmer came to the hired hand and found him hard at work. He asked him how he was getting along. The man replied, "Well, pretty good! When I finish this one, and then one more, I'll have two done!"
The people of Israel just can't seem to get it all together either. The making of the golden calf caused a huge rift between God and Israel. God has promised Moses, because of his intercession on their behalf, that he will not destroy the people, but he will punish them. (Exodus 32:14, 34-35)
Moses is now in the Tent of Meeting, outside the camp. (I wonder, was the camp where the people lived so defiled with the idolatrous worship of the golden bull calf that the meeting place with God had to be outside the camp?)
The people look on from the distance and see the familiar cloudy pillar hovering at the door of the Tent of Meeting. Moses is in there - meeting God - talking with him about them! What will the verdict be?
Mourning spreads over the camp. Hoping to appease God's anger a bit they strip themselves of all their jewelry and wear it no more. They are just waiting to see what God will do with them. (Waiting for an unknown punishment for a known sin is not exactly a comfortable way to spend your time.)
When I was a child, when I had disobeyed my mother, she would often say, "Just you wait until I get you home, young lady! Then you are going to be punished!" Waiting for the axe to fall is a part of the terrible price I had to pay for disobedience. My imagination would work overtime as I'd think of all kinds of monstrous penalties; would she whip me with a limb off the mulberry tree, would she make me do dishes for a week, would she ground me and not let me be with my friends? I always knew, whatever happened, I'd pay dearly for a few moments of pleasure while I was misbehaving. Then I would try to avert disaster by shaping up as soon as I got home. I'd wash the dishes, do the dusting, carry out the garbage, say "Yes, ma'm," and "No, ma'm," walk softly and speak respectfully. Anything to make the retribution I deserved easier to bear!
"I Will Not Go With You" (Exodus 33:13)
The first word from God was a good news-bad news" Word - rather like the son who came to his father and said, "Dad, I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is you get a new car. The bad news is I totaled the old one!" God said to Moses and the people, "You will go to the promised land; I will drive out the enemy before you, but I will not go with you myself. You are so stubborn I might destroy you on the way. I'll send an angel to guide you."
So, God hands over his care and leadership to that of an angel. It could be worse, but it could be a lot better, too. I've nothing against angels; I thank God they are ever around us to help, aid, protect, and do all the nice things he has them do for us. But, if God himself is not with us, we suffer a terrible loss.
It is difficult for us, since we live in the light of the Cross, to put ourselves in the place of ancient Israel, and know what this word would mean to them. We comfort ourselves often with the words of Jesus who said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20) However fearful Israel might have been of God's august presence, they still knew they could not live without it!
Taylor Caldwell (in Answer As A Man, p. 131) said, "Better a terrible world with God in it than a painless world without Him."
Everything you or I can possibly name, however good it is, is a sad second-best to that Wonderful Presence. An angel (terrific as they are) is a poor substitute for the Presence of God.
My John is, next to Jesus, the best thing that ever happened to me. Our teaching/preaching ministry sometimes means we have to be in different locations for a week (and once-in-a-too-often-while), maybe two weeks. How I miss John's warm, beautiful, physical presence. I think about him when we are apart, and if I can catch some unsuspecting soul and get them to listen, I talk about him. Of course, I carry his picture, and stand it up in every motel room I inhabit. That's all fine, but it's not enough. Sometimes on a Monday or Tuesday of the week's mission I am in, the pastor will hand me a "love-card" John has sent to me, in care of the local church. That helps a lot, but it also lacks a lot. And then, there are the phone calls (we've bought A.T.&T. several times over!) which let me hear his voice. That's even better than the card. But when Thursday comes, the revival is ended, and I get on a plane or head my car toward wherever he is; at day's end, when I get to see him, be with him, touch him, and be in his real presence, then I know how paltry all other things are that simply made do until we are together again!
Angels which stand-in as an understudy for God himself are far from satisfactory. That's true of most replacements for the real thing.
You don't want margarine if you can get butter,
You don't want imitation powder if you can get cream,
You don't want instant if you can get brewed coffee,
You don't want Pepsi if you can get Coke (excuse me, if you think it should be the other way around),
- and you don't want angels when you've been used to having God!
Nothing else, absolutely nothing else can take his place!
"If You Don't Go, We Don't Go!" (Exodus 33:15)
God relents a bit, and tells Moses he will go with him, because he is pleased with him. But this man Moses, leader and intercessor for his people, identifies himself with them and says, "If you do not go with us, don't make us leave this place. How will anyone know you are pleased with your people and with me if you do not go with us?"
Doesn't that remind you of Jesus, our great High Priest, who so completely identified himself with us that he went so far as to even assume our humanity?
So Moses says to God, "I and thy people - if you do not go with us, don't make us leave this place." He as much as tells God, "What good is the promised land without you? So what if we are victorious over the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (and all the other "ites") if you are not with us? What if it is a land of milk and honey to which we go, what good is any of it if you are not there? We'd rather stay right here in the wilderness, we'd rather be nomads without a homeland, and you be with us, than to be in Canaan without you!"
Moses was right. Without God, no matter the wealth and largess of the place, we are poor, homeless, lonely, and lacking in wholeness.
There is a lot of real loneliness an our world. Many young peopie are abjectly lonely because they feel they have no one - parents, teachers, or peers - who understands them. The elderly are often lonely, sometimes because of the death of a spouse, or because of children who are inattentive to them as they have grown older. Often they are lonely because they feel their aches and pains set them apart from a healthy world of humans who are bursting with physical fitness.
Psychologist James J. Lynch, author of The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness, says, "Loneliness kills. We have a biological need to form human relationships. If we fail to fulfill that need, our health is in peril. We must love one another or die."
All loneliness is sad and traumatic, but no suffering is as severe or tragic as the loneliness which comes from being estranged from God and his presence, of feeling bereft of him.
"I'll Go, I Will Do as you Ask" (Exodus 33:17)
The prayer of Moses prevails, and God relents, saying, "I will do just as you have asked." In other words, "All right, I'll go with you!"
When our daughter, Jodi, was very little, about three years old, she would often ask, as we'd pass the Dairy Queen, "Daddy, could we stop, could we?" And her daddy would always say, "Yes." But there were times when he did not stop, and Jodi would cry and question, "But, daddy, you said we could stop!" "I know," her daddy would respond, "I said we could, but I didn't say we would!"
Moses knew all along God could go with them, but he was not so sure he would! Think what it meant, when God said, "I will do as you ask. I'll go. I will go with you!" The Promise of the Presence! Who can live without it?
Can you recall a time when you sinned, that is, you did something you knew good and well you ought not to have done? And do you remember how you felt? Did you think maybe God had left you completely and forever? (Could that be why the Scripture says to "Grieve not the Holy Spirit"?) There is no worse feeling in the whole wide world than to be lonely for God. It is, without doubt, the emptiest feeling a mortal can know. We get so accustomed to having that gracious, tender, gentle, comforting, guiding, powerful Presence with us. No wonder we border on frantic hysteria when we feel the absence of God!
Maybe that's the reason so many folks love the simple, old Gospel song which says,
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
The late E. Stanley Jones said, "There is more joy to the square inch in Christ than there is to the square mile without him."
Only the assurance of that Presence can make us happy. One day John Tauler, the fourteenth century German mystic, met a beggar on the highway, and, as was his custom, he addressed the beggar, saying, "God give you a good day, my friend!" The beggar answered, "I thank God I have never had a bad day." "Well then," said Tauler, "God give you a happy life." But the beggar responded again, "I've never been unhappy." "What do you mean?" asked Tauler. "Well," said the beggar, "when it is fine, I thank God; and when it rains, I thank God. When I have plenty, I thank God; and when I am hungry, I thank God. And since God's will is my will, and since whatever pleases him pleases me, why should I be unhappy?" "Who are you anyway?" asked Tauler. "I'm a child of the King," came the reply. "You, a child of the King?" laughed Tauler. "Where is this King?" "In my heart," whispered the man in rags. "In my heart."
He Lights Up My Life!
You might well ask the question, "How do we get and how do we keep the Divine Presence? We know, first of all, the Presence of God comes to us when we are born anew into the Kingdom of God, through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the abiding Presence who comes to live within us, and without it we are strangers to God. And we keep the Presence by obediance to him. All disobedience is sin, and sin separates us from God. God doesn't move from us, but when we willfully disobey, we move away from him. That causes estrangement, a breach, a wounding of the hallowed Presence. Unrepentant hearts seldom feel the Presence, but walk in the lonely darkness of their own making.
Goethe once said something worth thinking about. "There are four things I hate: first, tobacco smoke; second, lice; third, garlic; and fourth, the Cross." That's a strange combination, but he was speaking truly about a lot of people. We hate the cross because it calls for our sins to be nailed to that tree. When we reject the Cross, we reject Christ, and God, salvation, hope, peace, and the marvelous Presence.
A few years ago, a popular song, "You Light Up My Life" was made a hit by Debbie Boone. Some folks said it was just a simple love song. Others said that, like "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," it could apply to human love or to the love of Jesus Christ. Regardless of what the song writer, or Debbie Boone intended, it speaks to what I personally feel concerning the Divine Presence in my life. Life is utterly hopeless and dark without him, but life shines with Divine radiance when he is near. As no other, in heaven or earth can do, he lights up my life!