Face to Face

Face to Face

We have learned the power of uplifted hands to God in the conflict with Amalek and have faithfully worked with God as He has led us from grace to grace; but how we have longed to know that “face-to-face” fellowship with Him on the mountain and hungered for His call;

“Come with Me and look from the top.”

There comes a time with us, as with Moses, when He is revealed to us in the awful majesty of Sinai. Not that we may tremble, as Israel trembled then, but that we may know Him in His righteousness, and have some conception of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the holiness of the God who alone has redeeming power.

The commandments of the LORD God were not made known to Israel when in Egypt. They were brought out without any knowledge of the One who was redeeming them. They came out of Egypt with all their Egyptian habits, and without any ideas of right and wrong.

Not until they were out of bondage, and separated from the old life in Egypt, did God begin to reveal to them something of Himself and the righteousness of life demanded from those who bore His name.

“But you have come . . . to Jesus, the Mediator.”

Heb. 12:22-24. Heb. 10:19-23. Col. 3:3.

The people trembled and stood afar off, but “Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was..”

It is written that we have not come to Mount Sinai, to “blackness and darkness and tempest,” but to Mount Zion, and to Jesus the Mediator, and the blood of sprinkling. Hebrews 12:18-24.

At every stage of our spiritual life, we have boldness to enter the Holiest by His blood, and may draw near in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

But before we learn in actual experience to know God “face to face” we may find Him drawing near to us in thick darkness. Not a darkness such as fell upon the Egyptians, but a darkness out of which He speaks and judges our lives, as the Righteous One, until their every detail has been adjusted and brought into accord with His mind.

Moses returns to Israel with the ordinances of God, and after the covenant is entered into and the people have been sprinkled with the blood.

Aaron with his two sons, and seventy representatives of Israel, are allowed to go up with Moses to some part of the mountain to see the God of Israel. There was under His feet as it was a work of bright sapphire like the very heaven in clearness.

“And they saw God, and did eat and drink.” Exodus 24:10-11. The “clearness” is in sharp contrast to the darkness out of which He had given His law to Moses the day before.

God must judge His people, and in His dealings may lead them through much darkness—but through the blood of Jesus, applied by the Holy Spirit, the darkness passes away, and they emerge into the clear light and they saw God, and did eat and drink.

We are told that the elders of Israel saw God “afar off.” This vision of God is not the “face-to-face” fellowship that Moses is to know.

To “walk in the light as God is in the light,” is blessed indeed, but we may be drawn nearer still, even into Him who is the Light itself.

Moses was from this group, thus privileged to see God, Moses is called forth to personal knowledge of the Holy One.

“Come up to Me into the mount and be there,” said the LORD God. Moses at once obeys the call. Alone he enters the cloud upon the summit.

Not thick darkness now, but glory, for “the glory of the LORD abode upon Mount Sinai.”

To the onlookers it was “devouring fire,” and Moses was either near or in this devouring fire for forty days and forty nights.

“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire.”

Isa. 33:14. Heb. 12:14. Rev. 10:1.

Six days he waited in silence for God to speak. Then God revealed to him the pattern of the tabernacle in which He would dwell in the midst of His people.

How wondrously true to experience the story is! It is in the darkness with God that we learn His judgments; it is in the glory “within the veil” that we are shown His pattern for our lives. It is after the darkness, and the judgments, and the sprinkled blood that we go even part of the way up the mountain and have that vision of God where His light streams into our lives and we eat and drink as in His presence, having fellowship one with another, with the blood of Jesus cleansing from all sin.

But alone we are called to enter the cloud and dwell in the devouring fire—alone, and only alone, we enter into the very place of the Divine Godhead and into the secret place and see the Him “face to face.”

Six days of silence!

Then on the seventh day God spoke to His waiting servant.

This reminds us of the six days of creation, when God said, “Let there be,” and it was so, and on the seventh day He rested from His work.

Even so the cloud covered the mountain and Moses for the six days, and God waited until His servant was brought into accord with that “sound of gentle stillness” in which God reveals Himself and His will. Here, in the silence, all memory of the camp and its busy life would pass away; all the activity of the creature in mind and thought would be at rest; all burdens concerning the need of Israel and the claims of friends would be forgotten.

On the seventh day, God was satisfied; His channel of revelation and liberation to the people was ready.

The pattern shown to Moses in the mountain would be given them as he received it, for his mind had been cleared and stilled and emptied of all other things. So it proved: he did nothing but receive; then he was sent back to the camp to give out to others the pattern which he was “caused to see on the mountain.”

Even so does God need channels today. Souls who will seek to know Him as Moses did, and be willing to be emptied of all their own thoughts and to be drawn aside with Him, drawn even from the very duties committed to them by Him, that they may come forth with the pattern for the building of His spiritual temple and say with God-given assurance, “Thus says the LORD.”

“The face of the LORD is against them who do evil.”

1 Peter 3:12. Rev. 6:16. John 19:37.

While Moses was up on the mountain, there occurred in the camp the events that drew forth from him the most supreme embitterment.

After this great crisis we read that “the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” When the people saw that Moses, the man upon whom they had relied for communication with God, did not return, they gathered around Aaron and cried, “make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.” Exodus 32:1.

Their Egyptian life was still strong upon them. The Egyptians had exterior symbols of the gods they worshiped; so must they.

Aaron, frightened and weak, yields to the cry of the people, gives them the visible substitute for God they asked for . . . and under the name of worshiping the LORD God, back to Egypt in heart and deed the erring people went.

On the mountain, God tells Moses what is taking place in the camp, and says, “Let Me alone, . . . that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Exodus 32:10.

But Moses knew his God; he had seen what faith could do; and his confidence was in the great compassionate heart of Him who had wrought such mighty deeds for them.

In the boldness of faith, he holds God to His word, saying, “Remember . . . You swore.” V. 13.

He had power with God and prevailed.

The LORD God had said, “I will make of you a great nation;” but Moses did not want glory at the cost of Israel.

His aim was to bring the people into the Promised Land. He had pleaded and suffered for them so much that his whole heart was filled with intense desire that they should obtain their inheritance.

It is impossible to pray for others and not be consumed with a deep longing to be poured out on their behalf.

Moses could not admit for one moment a thought of glory for himself, and let these souls, so difficultly won and so sorely kept, suffer loss. Therefore Moses sought the LORD face to face.