And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

Deuteronomy 34:10

This is a most remarkable statement , one that we cannot fully comprehend. The great lawgiver of Israel was characterised as being one intimately acquainted with God.

The description intimates that Moses dwelt IN THE PRESENCE OF JEHOVAH. He was a man of PRAYER who could touch God with his spirit. He was in a positive RELATIONSHIP with the Lord. Moses not only talked to God but he heard from Him and KNEW HIS WILL. Moses knew God and God knew Moses.

This study serves two purposes.
FIRSTLY, it demonstrates how Moses had this face to face experience with God. In so doing I will draw from examples in the prophet’s ministry.

SECONDLY, I would like to learn how we can become more acquainted with the Lord, that our relationship with deepen and our intimacy with Him with increase. It must be our prayer that we are like those people of whom the Psalmist wrote:

a people near unto him.

Psalm 148:14

Moses is one of the best examples of this principle in action:

And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.

Exodus 33:11

1: HOLY GROUND

And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

Exodus 3:5

Moses first encounter with God occurred when he was eighty years of age in the burning heat of the desert. He was intrigued not by a bush which spontaneously combusted, but by the fact that this bush kept burning. His intrigue was transformed to awe and wonder as the angel of the Lord addressed him from the heart of the flame. Moses had been taught about God by his mother in Pharoah’s palace but his experience of the living God began at this bush. Moses was converted and called into service at the same time. As God spoke to the prophet from this bush, however, he was taught that God is holy, the very ground around the burning wood was sacred. Moses’ living relationship with God commenced with a practical and terrifying lesson in holiness.

Is there one reading – one who is familiar with God and Scripture, with Gospel truth and yet you are without a living experience with God. Struggling on, trying to be good and religious and faithful but your heart has never been changed. 

It was God who came to Moses. This was the whole point of the exercise. It is not our coming to God which saves – it is God coming to us! Like Moses we are failures labouring in a barren wilderness. How need God to come that we might enter into a living relationship!

God came, however, to a broken man, one who had been separated from His people for forty years having suffered taking law int his own hands when he killed the Egyptian slave master. Often this is how it is so with us – God breaks us down, mars the vessel before He can remake and remould.

The fire is indicative of God’s purity and hatred of sin. Moses never forgot this lesson, nor did he allow Israel to neglect this truth. As the people were forced to drink the ground gold that he turned the calves into, as the earth opened up to swallow the rebels, as fiery serpents afflicted the people for their disobedience and as a generation perished in the wilderness – the purity of God was emphasised. Among his final words to the people was this speech which emphasises Moses meekness coupled with prophetic authority:

Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance: But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land. Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of anyithing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee. For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 4:21-24

Is it not so, that the single biggest hindrance to an intimate relationship with God is a failure to appropriate the divine being. When we do appropriate and grasp the being of God in all His superb attributes we must face His holiness. This holiness causes us to feel our undeserving and corrupt state. A fear of God is the beginning of true wisdom. Low views of God breed a contempt for Him and His ordinances. Lofty ideas of God create reverence as we pray, handle His Word and approach the gathering of His saints. A grasp of holiness keeps us from sin, causes us to repent and forces us to cling to Him for mercy.

2: MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS

And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Exodus 34:6

The transaction that took place on Mount Sinai over several weeks was one that drew Moses into a closer experience with God, than even he had at the burning bush. It was a solitary experience. He climbed the mount alone, entering into the glory of God’s presence. For Israel looking on at the trembling mount obscured by thick clouds there was terror; BUT for Moses he was alone with God.

On Sinai he received the law but on his descent he was confronted with the idolatry of the people. This prompted him to pray for the preservation and forgiveness of the people. As he prayed he made his greatest request of God;

Show me thy glory

Exodus 33:18

In response God immediately responded:

And 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 shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

Exodus 33:19

While God hid Moses in the cleft of a rock, only allowing His servant to view the hinder part of His glory – it was grace which Jehovah revealed:

And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, 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; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Exodus 34:6-7

That which Moses was incapable of seeing in fullness was the goodness of God. Even He could only partially see God’s grace. The glory of God is mercy, love and longsuffering. This is the Gospel.

If we are to see God face to face, we must comprehend by faith the grace of the Gospel. If it were not for the sins of the people Moses would not have been taught the unconditional nature of the love of God – how mysterious are the His ways! But is it not so with us? Through our sin, exposed by God’s holiness, we are taught the wonder of His love. As we learn the wonder of that matchless grace we discover how to love and forgive others.

We are at an advantage to Moses in that we live after the coming of our Saviour. The apostles too saw God’s glory in Christ. This was not a glory which terrified them, This glory was relatable. God condescended in the form of a man when He sent His Son. Therefore the angels said “Peace on earth” and the wise men brought their gifts so rare. John saw the significance of the incarnation with clarity:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Therefore Paul when writing to the Corinthians had this to say:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6

3: THE SHINING FACE

And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

Exodus 34:29

The impact of seeing the goodness of God had a most definite impression upon the camp of Israel. Moses face shone as he reflected something of the glory of Jehovah. This caused the people to fear, to the extent that a veil had to be worn by the prophet of God. Writing to the Corinthians Paul saw the spiritual significance of the shining face of Moses:

And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 3:13-18

He contrasts the blindness of the Jew, and the entire unbelieving world (who have a veil upon their heart), with the liberty of the children of God who are transformed the more they see the glory of God.

As Christians we must be constantly moulded and shaped. We are never as submissive and as holy as we could be. There must be an acceptance of change and the need for change. We must be constantly challenged.

We are not changed, however, through keeping rules and procedures for the sake of the rules. This is legalism. We cannot live our faith by the letter of the law. Such a performance of religion strangles spiritual life. It becomes critical, judgemental and pharisaical. Rather we must have the liberty of the Spirit

We can only be changed by seeing the glory of Christ, understanding a little more of His love and mercy. This is a heart transformation which creates a genuine life, one that shines for Jesus!

The history of the Christian Church is punctuated by remarkable examples; people who saw the face of God and whose lives still shine with the glory of Jesus even though they have entered in glory.

Seth Joshua and John Pugh were two Welsh evangelists who had a remarkable anointing by God in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pugh, when ministering in a run down church in Tredegar, took to preaching in the streets . The witness grew until there were 1,000 people in attendance. He later joined with Seth Joshua where they pioneered a Church Planting ministry, under the auspices of the Welsh Presbyterian Church, called the Forward Movement – in Cardiff. God blessed their efforts bringing thousands of people who rarely attended church to faith in Christ. Joshua erected a tent in a poor area of Cardiff and preached there, gathering a people. Joshua and Pugh saw the Foreword Movement congregations from Cardiff to Swansea increase to 7,000 members. A young preacher who came to pastor one of these congregations was Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones, who made an enormous impact for God in Britain and throughout the world (to read more about Seth Joshua and John Pugh https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2004/seth-joshua-and-bold-evangelism ).

It was Seth Joshua who said these words, articulating the secret of spiritual fruitfulness

 “All prayer is hidden. It is behind a closed door. The best spade diggers go down into deep ditches out of sight. There are numbers of surface workers, but few who in self-obliteration toil alone with God.”

https://www.revival-library.org/prayer_makes_history/hyde_john.shtml

One man, an American missionary of the same era who lived this truth out like no other was John Hyde of India. Dying in 1912, only 47 years of age, he left a legacy of devotion and prayer with whoever he came into contact with. 

These reflections from his life indicate that he was raised up with a gift for prayer, a sensitive soul who like Moses saw the glory of God. In this John Hyde was unique. Yet that gift was given to teach us the power and the virtue of prayer, the priority that it must have… that we need to be changed before can see others transformed.

Hyde and his fellow intercessors saw that there was one method to obtaining spiritual awakening – by prayer. “They set themselves deliberately, definitely and desperately to use this means till they secured the result. The Sialkot revival was not an accident nor an unsought breeze from Heaven. In any community, revival can be secured from Heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die – or if need be to win and die.”

The Sialcot revival won by prayer

“Praying Hyde, as he was called, with a group of friends, spent days and nights in prayer for an awakening throughout India. Their prayers were answered in a series of outpourings of the Spirit in the north-west of India, beginning in 1904 in Sialkot.” The victory of the Sialkot meetings was not won in the pulpit but in the closet. Often the glory rested on these meetings in a mighty way, while hidden, out of sight, John Hyde and a faithful few travailed in prayer.

During this revival John Hyde was almost constantly in the prayer room. “He lived there as on the Mount of Transfiguration.” He received Isaiah 62:6-7 as a command from God. “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and night they will never keep silent You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves, And give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” “How often in the prayer room he would break out into tears over the sins of the world and especially for God’s children.”

Observations of his prayer life

J. Pengwern Jones recalls the prayer life of John Hyde. “He was always on his knees when I went to bed, and on his knees long before I was up in the morning, though I was up with the dawn. He would also light the lamp several times in the night, and feast on some passages of the Word, and then have a little talk with the Master. He sometimes remained on his knees the whole day. The Spirit made him an object-lesson to us, that we might have a better idea of Christ’s prayer life.”

https://www.revival-library.org/prayer_makes_history/hyde_john.shtml

4: RECEIVING THE PROMISES

And the LORD shewed him all the land…
So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

Deuteronomy 34:1,

Throughout his forty years of ministry Moses learned that God was always true to His covenant. This was especially so as he ascended Pisgah to have his final encounter with God in this life.

We too, will have our final encounter with God this side of eternity as we meet with death. We don’t exactly know what it will be like for a Christian to die. But we can be sure of this – not only will we meet with death but we will meet with God in death – He will be the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

As Moses saw God face to face on that mountain peak he was given an overview of the land. This was the territory promised to Abraham. Now after centuries of being a wandering nomadic people the promised land was before him. God was in the business of keeping His Word.

Moses would not enter the land, but as he closed his eyes in death the Lord was His companion, he needed no other. He would say farewell to his earthly ministry to receive the promised land of heavenly bliss.

Likewise, as we ascend our spiritual Pisgah we can view the land of pure delight. We can see what God has promised using the telescope of faith. The pearly gates come into view, the golden streets, the angelic hosts, our loved ones who have gone on before, the general assembly and church of the first born BUT best of all – we will see Jesus face to face.

Moses would leave this world behind, however, knowing that the work was in good hands. Joshua would lead the nation across the Jordan and the land of promise would be occupied. Likewise we are also certain that when our work here is done the Gospel will continue, others will carry on the witness and days of heaven upon earth will come – because the promise never fails.