Face to Face

Face to Face

“Your eyes will see the King.” Isaiah 33:17. In God’s dealings with Moses, the time came when His purposes matured—that the instrument and the people were ready. The king of Egypt had died—the king who had known Moses in his youth—and the people of Israel were groaning under their bondage.

“God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham..” Not that God had ever forgotten, but the conditions necessary for His working had to be fulfilled.

The mystery of the manifestation of divine power depending upon our human co-operation has ever been strange to finite creatures. It lies mainly in the freedom of will that belongs to us. God cannot deliver us from bondage unless we desire Him to; therefore, He must permit pressure to come upon us in one way or another, so as to bring us to the point of asking Him to do for us what He has been ready and able to do all the time.

Israel needed to come to the point of groaning for deliverance before God could set them free; and the LORD brought them to this position by permitting their bondage and suffering to increase until they sighed and cried to the God who was only waiting to save.

The instrument was ready. The deliverer was being prepared. How little Israel knew it! In their anguish and sorrow, they seemed forsaken by God and man.

Is it not just so today? Our God is the same God. As we see Him slowly and silently maturing His plan for the deliverance of Israel, and marvel at the beauty of His working which this has unveiled to us, even so He is now perfecting His plans for the transformation of His called-out ones, the Church of the first-born of God and the Lamb. Let us stand upon the walls and look out to and discern the signs of the times!

“I will see you again . . . .” John 16:22.

With Israel ready, Moses can be told that God’s purposes are ripe for fulfilment. He meets Moses as, in the ordinary path of duty, he takes the sheep to their pasture on the mountain.

If we are longing to be used by God, we may be sure to “do the next thing” set before us in the daily round of things. Being faithful in our daily work is the best training for service. This will show we are capable of being stewards of true treasures. We shall then be ready for God’s call when He is ready to use us.

He arrested the attention of Moses by a flame of fire burning in a common little bush, and the strange thing about it was that the bush continued to burn and yet was not consumed.

A bush on fire with no human hand to set it alight, no fuel to keep it burning.

It was a picture that spoke to Moses of what God could do with him, and a picture that the people of God for all time can learn from. It speaks of the grace of Him who is willing to dwell in lowly human beings as the little thorn bush that continues to burn and yet was not consumed.

God spoke to Moses out of that bush, as He has spoken to many of us. He called him by his name; for God’s messages are ever personal and direct, so that we don’t need anyone else to say, “You are the man.” When God speaks, we forget our neighbours, and we know who He means.

But Moses needs to know how solemn a thing it is to meet God, even though it was not yet “face to face!” Moses, “the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Holy ground! —though a moment before it was but common land. Holy ground because of the holy presence of the God of glory. “If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.” “

Oh, how deeply we need to remember this! Our inquiry then would not be, “Is there any harm in this or that?” but “Is it befitting the temple of God?” If God dwells in us as He dwelt in the thorn bush, then surely His sacred presence should make it clear that we are God’s Holy Temple! We who were common have now become Holy!

“I have seen God face to face.” Genesis 32:30. “Moreover, He said, I am . . . God.” (Exodus 3:6). The same God that Abraham knew, when he fell upon his face while He talked with him. The God that Isaac and Jacob also knew.

“I am . . . God.” “And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid.” It was not yet the time for “face-to-face” friendship with God!

Then “the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people, . . . and have heard their cry . . . I know their sorrows; and I have come down to deliver.” Exodus 3:7-8.

“I am God . . . and I have come to deliver.”

Jehovah, the great “I am”—for God is an eternal now. His heart towards souls in affliction and sorrow is the same now as when He revealed Himself to Moses. He is immutable, without a shadow of turning. James 1:17.

Oh, how we need to meet with God so that He can open His secret councils to us, and we can enter in to a deeper union with Him; so He can open His heart to us and show us His love and compassion for this poor lost generation, the love that gave His only begotten Son! !

Who shall ever fathom the love of the Eternal Spirit who yearns over the redeemed ones now with jealous envy?

“Come now, therefore, and I will send you . . . that you may bring My people . . . out of Egypt.” Does God want Moses in partnership? “I have come down to deliver; . . . come now, therefore, and I will send you.”

Jehovah God had revealed to him first Himself, I am . . . God; then His heart, I have seen, I have come down; and now He reveals to him His plans for accomplishing the deliverance.

God by the hand of Moses! Not Moses with the help of God!

Only by such a meeting with God can an effectual service for Him begin. We must receive our commission direct from Him, lest we run before we are sent and merit the words spoken by The LORD to the prophets of Israel in later years, “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. —

Behold, I am against the prophets . . . that use their tongues and say, He says.” Jeremiah 23:21-31.