What does my prayer life say about me?

Thank you, Caleb. We just look to the Lord for help and speak to him in prayer. Our Father, we do bow before thee with reverence and godly fear.

We come into thy presence in the worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are so thankful for the opportunity of turning to thy word this Lord's Day. And we do pray, Father, that help might be given as we consider the scriptures together, as we seek to know thy will for our life, as we seek to glorify thee. We have got so much to thank thee for.

We owe thee so much. We often sing, what a debt of love we owe thee, love that we could ne'er express, since we through the Spirit know thee, Christ our Lord and righteousness. We do want to thank thee for salvation tonight.

We do thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray that as a result of looking into thy word this evening, that Christ might be magnified and that thy word will have a resting place, a lodging place in our hearts. So we do thank thee for the opportunity to study the scriptures, and we pray for divine help and divine illumination as we ask this for the glory of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Well, good evening, everyone. I'm saying good evening. It's evening here in Bonny, Scotland, and the sun is still out, so it does seem to be evening drawing to a close, but I do know that I'm speaking to folks, and it might be the morning, and it might be afternoon, but it is good to be together, and it's a real privilege to be asked to share in the ministry of God's word this Sunday evening in the Refuge series.

Now, I would like to turn, please, to the book of Exodus tonight, and chapter 33, the book of Exodus. The title for the ministry tonight is, What Does My Prayer Life Say About Me? And I would like to consider the prayer life of Moses, the man of God, and look to chapter 33 of the book of Exodus. It is quite a challenge to consider, even before we turn to the scriptures, what does our prayer life look like? Do we have one? Are we in contact regularly with God? Do we know a joy of getting to the sanctuary and getting near to God? Well, I trust we'll be challenged and yet comforted as we look into the life of Moses, the man of God, from Exodus chapter 33.

So we're beginning to read at verse 12, the book of Exodus chapter 33, and verse number 12. And Moses said unto the Lord, See thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou has not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people.

And he said, God said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Moses said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence, for wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in my 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 said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. He 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 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 is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in the 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, but my face shall not be seen. Now just before we leave the passage, I do want to underline two particular verses in our reading.

Two prayers from Moses, the man of God. Look at verse number 13. First of all, Moses gets into God's presence, and he cries from the very depth of his heart, Show me now thy way.

And I suppose if you like, that could be prayer number one. The first prayer request that comes from Moses heart is, Show me now thy way. But come down to verse number 18, and there's a second prayer from Moses, and this really shows the aspiration of the man.

This really goes into the heart of what Moses was all about. He says to the Lord, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And I do believe, beloved, that as we think of these two prayers, they weave to us a story, the life story of Moses, the man of God.

With regards to his life, with regards to his walk with God, his prayer was this, show me now thy way, that I might know thee. And with regards to his ambition, with regards to his aspiration, his prayer was this, show me thy glory. And I wonder before God this evening, if our prayer life is anything like that.

Sometimes I have to bemoan my own prayer life and think of how shallow it is, just sometimes a wish list, just really things to do that I want God to do. Moses goes far further than that. Moses gets into God's presence and he really does business with God.

That's why he is the man of God. I'm sure you have noticed before in Scripture there are eight characters designated the man of God. Certainly that we know their names.

There are many others that we don't know their names, but there are eight characters given this great title, the man of God. You may ask the question, what is a man of God? A man of God is someone who God communicates to. A man of God is someone who God operates through.

And a man of God is someone who God blesses others by. I trust we all want to be men and women of God. I know life has been strange in the past few months.

I know circumstances have changed for us all, but we still should have this aspiration to be men and women of God in our day and generation. I trust we want God to operate through us. We want God to communicate to us.

We want God to bless others through us. And Moses, he fits the bill as all the other men of God in the Bible do. And this man seems to be synonymous with the term.

He seems to be, whenever you think of the title, the man of God, he seems to be number one on the list. Moses is the man of God. I know there's David and there's Samuel and there's Elijah and Elisha and there's Timothy and then there's the lesser known ones like Shemaiah and Egdalion.

But Moses was a man of God, no doubt about it. I love the title of Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. And you know, if he did write Psalm 91 as well as Psalm 90, it's a fitting start to the psalm that Moses wrote as well.

He that dwells in the secret place of the most high God shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Moses was a man of God. I submit to you because of what he was in secret with God.

His prayer life comes to the fore as you read through this chapter and other chapters. He was a man who was familiar with God's presence. He was a man who was not a stranger to the sanctuary and his prayer life speaks volumes of the type of man he was.

Yes, he was a great shepherd. Yes, he was a great leader. Yes, he was a great statesman.

Yes, he was a great servant of God. But in the quiet place with God, in the secret place of the most high God, that is where this overwhelming, overriding characteristic is seen. He was a man of prayer.

I know it's very important for us to read the scriptures. Reading and praying go hand in hand. And the older I get, and I turned 50 at the end of last year, but the older I get, I realise this, that the simple elementary things of Christianity are the big things.

And it's good to have a plan to read through the Bible on a daily basis, to get through the Bible in a year. That is very important, but equally important is time spent with the Master. And if my little message does nothing more than giving us an increased appetite for the secret place, for the place of prayer, I think this evening's meeting or today's meeting will have been well worthwhile.

Moses was a man of God because he was a man of prayer. And this prayer life speaks to us of aspiration, of spiritual desire, of real dedication to the will and the way of God. And again, I turn the spotlight on my own heart, and I trust you'll do the same this evening.

Is that what your prayer life looks like? Or maybe you can say, sing, we're not doing much singing just now, but maybe you can say with a hymn writer, where is the blessedness that once I knew, when first I saw the Lord, where is the soul, refreshing view of Jesus in his word? Do you know what impresses me greatly about Moses in this context, in this chapter that we come to in the book of Exodus? It was perhaps in the darkest day of his life that his character shines brightest. The darkest day. Winston Churchill spoke about that, didn't he? Our darkest day can be our best day, our most glorious day.

And certainly Moses, he wasn't, heaven above wasn't soft or blue, and earth beneath wasn't sweet or green. He was going through difficult circumstances, real difficult circumstances. And just for a moment or two, I want to paint the background.

I want to set the scene, as we think of the context of why did he pray what he prayed? Why did he say what he said? You see, in chapter 24 of the book of Exodus, Moses was given a tremendous invitation by God. God calls him to Mount Sinai. And if you are studying the life of Moses, you want to look at the mountains in the life of Moses.

You want to look at the prayers in the life of Moses, the man of God. You want to look at the landmarks in his life. And he was a man of the mountain.

And there are different mountains associated with his life. But Mount Sinai figures large in his life. And he's told by God to come up to Mount Sinai.

And for 40 days and for 40 nights, he is going to be alone with God. There's no one else there. Joshua, his attendant, his minister, leaves him halfway up the mountain.

Or Moses leaves Joshua. And Moses goes alone to be with God for 40 days and for 40 nights again. That is a reoccurring theme, 40 days and 40 nights.

In that period of time, God speaks to him face to face as a man speaks unto his friend. God communicates to him. God says there's going to be a glorious future for Israel, the nation.

There's going to be law, a law given. There's going to be offerings. There's going to be a tabernacle.

There's going to be a covenant. And I'm going to write my covenant on two tables of stone. It's going to be my work.

It's going to be with my finger. It's going to be my law. And for 40 days and for 40 nights, Moses is alone with God, listening to the voice of God.

And his heart must have been full of joy and expectation. But the end of that 40-day period, there's a rather abrupt ending because God says, Moses, you better get down from here because thy people, which thou brought up out of the land of Egypt, they have corrupted themselves. They've turned aside.

They've gone astray. They've built a golden calf. They've worshipped it.

They've said to the calf, this is the God that has brought us up out of the land of Egypt. Moses, you better get down. Now, I don't want this evening or today to spend a whole load of time about the apostasy, but we can't overlook it.

We can't airbrush it. While Moses was on the mountain, radiant in God's presence, resplendent in the reflected glory of God, the nation had totally gone astray. They had wondered, perhaps, and I don't know if this is mitigation, but maybe they had wondered as the sign of God's presence, the fire and the smoke that was billowing from Mount Sinai, perhaps they thought, well, Moses, this Moses has been gone for six weeks.

We don't know what's become of him. And they maybe thought he was dead and life had to go on. But they turn to Aaron and they say to Aaron, up, make us gods which shall go before us.

Because as for this Moses, we don't know what's happened to him. And there's a whole sordid section in chapter 32 given to the awful apostasy and the aftermath. Aaron built a golden calf, tells a whopper of a lie to try and cover up what he did.

Moses really calls him out on that, which we'll see in a moment. But Moses comes down the mountain. He's got the tables of the covenant in his hand.

He meets Joshua halfway. Now, I really, I really appreciate what Joshua said to Moses, because he did not think the worst of the nation. He did not have a suspicious bone in his body.

He says to Moses, we better get down, Moses. There's a noise of war in the camp. He thought that the Israelites, his brethren, were being attacked because that's his character.

He was a soldier. That's what we read about him. First of all, in chapter 17, a soldier in conflict against Amalek.

And he wanted to fly to the aid of his brothers and sisters. But Moses said, I'm sorry, it's not the noise of war. It's the noise of revelry.

It's the noise of dancing and singing. And it was more than that. And as the two men, Moses and Joshua, come down with the tables of covenant in Moses' hand, they come down to the bottom of the mountain and the whole nation is in disarray.

They're dancing naked around the golden calf. They are absolutely idolatrous in their behavior. And Moses breaks the tables of the covenant.

Moses says to Aaron, what have you done? What have you done? Or what did the people do to you that you brought such a sin upon the nation? Aaron was responsible. And in case I forget, if you ever had the notion that this was not a big deal, what Aaron did. You read Deuteronomy chapter 9 and you will discover, had it not been for the intercessory prayer of Moses, the man of God, God would have killed Aaron.

Deuteronomy 9. What's Moses going to do? He says to Aaron, what did they do to you? And Aaron says, well, I took off all the jewelry and the gold and I put it into this fire and out walked this calf. And Aaron's got problems. Aaron's got big problems and so has Moses.

Well, that is the point I want us to come to. That is exactly where Moses finds himself. The nation in disarray, every promise that God has given, every revelation that God has given to Moses in the mountain.

Moses is wondering, is it just broken like the tables of the covenant at the bottom of the mount? He does take the golden calf and he burns it and he straws the dust upon water and he makes the Israelites drink the bitter drink. And after he's spoken to Aaron and called him out on his sin, he says, who is on the Lord's side? And the sons of Levi come to the aid of Moses and 3000 people lose their life. It was a disaster.

It was one of the darkest days, if not the darkest day in the life of Moses, the man of God. Now, how do we react in days like that? How do we react? At the end of that day, it might not have been that actual 24 hour day, but poetic license. At the end of that day, I love what Moses does.

He does not stick his head in the sand because leaders and shepherds cannot afford to do that. He does not even cry like David, oh that I had the wings of the dove that I might bail out of this situation. He doesn't do that.

He gets into the presence of God and he just spreads it out before God, as I'm sure he did every other day. But this was a difficult day. This was a dark day.

He's standing at a crossroads. When I was a younger believer, I used to think when I heard ministry like this, when older believers would speak about the trials of life and the difficulties and the north wind blowing, I used to think, well, that's for the older ones. You don't have to live very long and be on the pathway of the Christian life too long to understand that there will be days like that sooner rather than later.

And Moses, what does he do? What's his first thought? Sometimes taking it to the Lord in prayer is a last resort, isn't it? Some of us are controlling and we like to organise our circumstances and sort things out and then eventually, as a last resort, take it to the Lord in prayer. We do sing about it when we used to be able to sing, oh the peace we often forfeit, oh the needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. No, this is what Moses does.

He takes his tent at the close of that day, his tabernacle. Tent and tabernacle, you would know, are the same word. When you read about tabernacle in this chapter, it's not the tabernacle with a capital T because that was not reared until chapter 40, the tabernacle with its vessels and its furniture and the beautiful types of Christ, and that was not reared to chapter 40.

So when you read about the tabernacle here, it's Moses' own tent. It's a special tent and Moses takes that tent and he takes it outside the camp. There's clear distance between where the sin had been, where the calf had been, where the idolatry had been, where the decisive action had been taken.

He gets outside the camp and he separates himself and he gets alone with God and I see the man of God getting into the tent and I see him dropping to his knees. Mind you, you don't need to get on your knees to pray, but I just feel that's the scene. And he gets on his knees and he cries before the Lord in verse number 13, show me now thy way that I may know thee.

Think about the weight of these words. Think about the pressure that he's bearing. Think about the unknown tomorrow as far as Moses is concerned.

You know, the nation has spoken about wanting to go back to Egypt already. He's wondering if that is what is going to happen. He's wondering which way forward.

We're going to see as we go down the verses, we're going to see that Moses is so sensitive to the way, not only the geography, but God's way. And Moses brings it all before the Lord. He says, show me now thy way that I might know thee, that I might find grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is thy people.

What a prayer, what a prayer, not self-seeking, not in any way self-serving. He is praying for the good of the nation. He realizes that God is all seeing, that God knows everything, he's omniscient, and he just lays it out before God.

I trust that's what our prayer life is like. I know that corporate prayer in the assembly sometimes is a wee bit different to our own private prayer, I think. We would all be honest that it's far more personal and it's far obviously more private by nature.

I trust we can be open and honest in God's presence and spread our concerns, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for us. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee. And so Moses says, show me now thy way.

It's not simply geography. He wants to know God's way. He wants to know God.

Show me now thy way that I might know thee. He wants to know God. You know, there's a New Testament echo of that, isn't there, in the life of Paul the apostle, who says, oh that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.

Show me now thy way. You know, we learn in the Psalms, don't we, is it Psalm 77, that God's way is in the sea. I take that to be the Red Sea.

God is a God of salvation. God's way is in the sea. But in the same Psalm, it says God's way is in the sanctuary, and isn't it wonderful that Moses is in the sanctuary.

Moses is in the secret place of the Most High God. Moses has already started to tap into God's great resources, and God will reveal his way. God will speak to Moses.

He'll not remain aloof and away from Moses. In wondrous grace, God responds. I thought it was very interesting when it was pointed out to me one day, that in Psalm 103, we read these words, that God made his acts, plural, A-C-T-S, God made his acts known unto Israel, but God made his way, singular, singular word, known unto Moses.

Moses was a special man. Moses was a man of prayer, a man of spiritual desire, and you know, I love his first prayer. I love the answer as well.

God immediately speaks. In verse 14, God says, lay hold of this tonight. My presence shall go with thee, and I will give you rest.

I thought that must have been sweet music to Moses' ear. Moses is wondering, will God have anything to do with us again because of the calf and the idolatry and the immorality? Will there be a future for us? The tables of the covenant, I've broken them. Going forward to Canaan, is that null and void? Will there be a tabernacle? Will there be law? Will there be offerings? He's standing at a crossroads, and maybe that's where you find yourself in our world tonight, standing at a crossroads.

Unemployment has affected you in these times of difficulty, maybe family problems, maybe wondering about how we'll start up again gathering if you've not already started gathering. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Show me now thy way that I might know thee, that I might find grace in thy sight.

God says, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give you rest. What a promise. I hope we take hold of the promises of God.

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. You know, this is exactly what Moses wanted to know, and I can almost hear excitement in Moses' voice in verse 15 as a dialogue begins, and Moses says to God very quickly, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. And maybe in simpler language, Moses is basically saying, if you don't go forward with us, if you don't go before us, there's no point taking a step forward.

You know that? I trust we're sensitive about that. Again, I turn to the Psalms, one of the songs of ascent. We read that every encouragement sowers have, it is so.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy, and him that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. But then the very next verse of the next chapter says, except the Lord build the house, we labour in vain that build it. And it is absolutely vital to understand that Christ is indispensable.

We can't manage without the Lord. We cannot go solo. We may try and free wheel, we may try and manipulate and organise and micromanage, but except the Lord build the house, we labour in vain that build it.

We can't manage without, and Moses is verbalising this. Moses is saying, if thy presence, if this is not a reality, if this is not absolutely true, there's no point in us going a step forward in the desert sand. And so to the first prayer, we have looked into the window of his prayer life through the tent, and we see a man of spiritual desire.

We see a man of deep spiritual longing. Show me now thy way that I might know thee, that I might find grace in thy sight. You know, Paul said my outward man is perishing, but my inward man is renewed every day.

I wonder if we can mark our progress. I wonder if we're spiritually maturer than we were last year. I wonder coming out of this time of restriction and lockdown.

I know there's so many different countries represented this evening, but I think globally we're coming out of strange days. I wonder if we're any nearer God. I wonder if we're any more like Christ.

Moses says, I need thee. Like the hymn writer, I need thee. Every hour, I need thee.

Can't manage without him. Come to the next verse that I underline, verse 18. I believe Moses is encouraged, more than encouraged.

I believe he is emboldened now, and in his prayer life, you know, the spiritual altitude, as we think of the mountain, the spiritual altitude here. He's a man of the mountain, and he rises high in his spiritual aspiration, and he says in verse 18, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. What a prayer.

You say, wait a minute, Moses, you're in the middle of a crisis here. The whole nation is in disarray. Your own brother, is that relationship ever going to be the same? Are you ever going to repair that relationship? Is there ever going to be a future for Israel? You know, you're asking about the glory.

That's far too mystical, Moses. You're asking about glory. No, this tells us a lot about Moses.

What does our prayer life tell us about ourselves? Tells me that Moses wanted, more than anything else, to know the glory of the Lord. Show me thy glory. I understand, well, it's quite simple to deduce that this word glory is interchangeable with the word face.

It's quite obvious because ultimately, God says to Moses, you'll not see my face. Moses asked to show me thy glory, so it's basically, show me thy face. And God says, my face shall not be seen.

No man shall see me and live, Moses. So that is most interesting. Glory is a very difficult word to define, but in this context, it is the face of God.

It's the glory of God Moses wanted to see. And what a prayer. What a prayer.

You know, David, another man of God, he said, as for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. And it seems that the great spiritual giants of our Bible, men like David, a man after God's own heart, Moses, the man of God, Abraham, the friend of God, these great characters had aspirations to get nearer to God and to see God and to enjoy God.

I thought it must have been quite devastating for Moses to get this answer from God. My face shall not be seen. You may say, but wait a minute, Blair, back up.

You quoted that, well, it's actually in verse 11, just before we began to read, the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks unto his friend. How does that square? Well, the idea here is mouth to mouth. God spoke mouth to mouth.

God communicated plainly. There was no intermediary. He spoke plainly.

And you know, you can hear someone's voice without seeing their face. You can communicate to people without actually seeing them face to face. God, I believe Moses wanted to get nearer than ever he had.

Obviously, when he was on the mountain, he never saw God's face. He heard God's voice. He was aware of God's presence, but he never saw God's face.

That's why he prays here in this time of crisis, in this moment of spiritual awakening, if you like, as Moses is perhaps developing another chapter in his spiritual experience. Moses says, show me thy glory. Oh, I long for an aspiration like that.

You know, we are destined for glory and we'll end on that. I trust we'll end on a high note. I trust, you know, someone said it was a farmer from Northern Ireland that said to me one time, what do you do with a tired horse? You give it something to eat and you point it on the way home.

That's what you do with a tired horse. Sorry about the picture and the application, but if you are weary and sad and feeling down, there's nothing better than a glimpse of what our destiny is. We're destined for glory.

And Moses says, show me now thy way. And then he says, show me thy glory. I remember some years ago being at the Perth Bible Study Week in Scotland.

Perth is the assembly that my wife is from originally. And at the Perth Bible Study Week, someone introduced this lovely hymn, show me thy face. One transient gleam of loveliness divine.

And I shall never ask or dream of other loves save thine. All lesser lights will darken quaint. All other glories wane.

The beautiful of earth shall scarce seem beautiful again. Moses wanted to see God's face, but God says to him, Moses, no man shall see me and live. But what I'm going to do, there's a place by me and I'll put you in the cliff of a rock and I'll cover you with my hand.

And while I pass by, you'll see my back parts, the scholars speak about afterglow. And, you know, if anybody can enlighten me about that in the little chat we have afterwards or comments, I'd be all ears. I'm not really sure, but that means obviously that the sign of God's presence, the appreciation of God's presence was going to be a special favour of God to Moses.

But my face shall not be seen. You'll see my afterglow. You'll see my back parts.

You'll see the signs of my presence. But you see, scripture would teach us that God is invisible. God is spirit.

You think of the language of Paul. The Lord Jesus Christ, as he writes to the Colossians, is the image of the invisible God. John tells us, no man had seen God at any time.

The only begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father, he had declared to him. The Lord Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. And I do believe, beloved, that for all eternity, deity will be revealed visually in the face of our beloved saviour, the Lamb of God.

Throughout scripture, throughout the book of Revelation, the last book of the scriptures, you've got this reoccurring phrase, the throne of God and of the Lamb. The throne of God and of the Lamb. And when we're into the eternal state, and the Lord Jesus is the centre and the circumference of eternity, and we'll never stop gazing upon that lovely face.

No, God says my face shall not be seen. You can't live. You can't look on my face and live.

The burning radiance of my holiness, you can't possibly look at me and live, Moses. And I suppose what we have to learn is some of our prayers are not answered in the way that we would want them to be. Do you know what I love about Moses? And I'm going to introduce a Scottish word here.

He didn't go in the huff. He didn't go in the huff. Just like David.

David, the great sovereign, the psalmist, he said to God, when God said to him, you'll not build me a house. Solomon will, but you'll not. You're a man of war.

You know, David doesn't go in the huff. David just says, who am I? He sits in God's presence and he says, who am I? And he thanks God for his grace. And he labours feverishly in preparation for materials for the house of God that his son Solomon will build.

You know, sometimes we can take umbrage and, you know, go in the huff when things are not going our way. Not so Moses, not so the man of God. Even when Moses was given that terrible, terrible news from God that he would not go into the promised land and he would have to hand over the baton to Joshua, the son of Nun.

His prayer was this. I'm just worried about the nation. I don't want them to be sheep not having a shepherd.

You know, again, Moses rises high in my estimation when I think about that. But is this the end of Moses? Is this the end of Moses? Is this denial going to be final? Certainly not. We're not going to leave Moses in Exodus chapter three, but we're going to travel into the New Testament for a moment.

And we're going to go to another mountain, not Mount Sinai. Possibly it was Mount Hermon, better known as the Mount of Transfiguration. And Moses is there.

The Lord Jesus takes three earthly witnesses up that mountain, Peter, James and John. But he's joined by two heavenly witnesses, Elijah and Moses. And Moses, the man of God, and Elijah, the man of God, are there on the mountain and they're speaking, Luke tells us, with the Lord Jesus about his impending exodus, his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

But the point I want to make is this. Who is Moses looking at? He's looking at the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Oh, centuries have passed and Moses has been in the grave and there's been arguments and there's been debates and Satan has been very, very interested in the burying place of Moses. But Moses is now on the mountain and he's looking into the face of the Lord Jesus. He had this aspiration, he had this desire back in chapter 33 of Exodus.

It is now fulfilled. In Luke chapter 9, Mark chapter 9, Matthew 17, he's beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And do you know, beloved, that is our, as I draw this to a close, that is our eternal destiny.

We are going to see the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Bible closes like this. His servants shall serve him and they shall see his face.

The desire of Moses is our destiny. There's no doubt about it. On that bright and golden morning, when the Son of Man shall come and the radiance of his glory we shall see, when from every climbing nation he shall call his people home, what a gathering of the ransomed that will be.

Loved ones that have gone to be with the Lord have already had the first ravishing smile of the Lord Jesus beaming upon them. They're with the Lord and you can't possibly be at home with the Lord without seeing his face. But those of us who are alive and remain, we're looking for the rapture, we're looking for the Lord Jesus, the one who's going to catch us away and then we will get our first glimpse of his face.

We'll behold him as he is. We shall be like him, John tells us, and we'll be satisfied as David was when he awoke with his likeness. Thank you so much for listening.

Trust the Lord will bless you. Trust our prayer life might be reviewed as a result of the ministry this evening and I trust that we'll keep looking up like those Thessalonian believers who turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. Moses prayed, show me now thy way that I might know thee.

Moses also prayed, show me thy glory. This is the story of our lives as it was Moses. Let's pray together.

Gracious Father, we do thank thee for the things that have been written aforetime, written for our learning. These things are in samples for us as Paul taught the Church of God at Corinth and we just seek to weave them into the fabric of our daily living. We long our God to be men and women of the sanctuary.

We long to be men and women of aspiration. We long to live in the light of eternity and we pray, Father, that we might be drawn closer to the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. We do pray thy blessing upon thy people.

We think of dear saints in real serious circumstances and danger tonight. We think of many areas of our world where this awful virus is rampant. We pray that thy people might be sheltered.

We pray that thy people might be preserved. We do remember our God, our leaders tonight and we just acknowledge that those exhorted us to pray for those who are in authority that we might live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. We do thank thee for for Caleb and Daniel who have worked so hard to facilitate this tonight and we pray thy blessing on the assembly there at Glen Ewan and all the assemblies represented that we might grow in grace and go forward in thy will acknowledging thy way.

We thank thee then for the Lord Jesus in his precious name. Amen.