So that we have come not just to be together, to be feeling hot in the daytime and frozen at night, but so that we really can take with us the Word of God back to Toronto, back to Montreal, back to Hong Kong, wherever it is that you have come from, and put that Word into practice and experience — and I want to say experience — the glory of God.
The camp theme: "Show me your glory." What does it mean? After three messages, I wonder whether you know what it means. First of all, do you really want to see the glory of God? I wonder after these three messages whether you really want to see the glory of God, and I'm going to make a statement, a bold one, first. I think if you know what you are asking for, if you really dare to say, "Show me your glory," and you know what you are asking for, you may not want to see His glory. That's my first point. I think some of you, if you know what that glory means, you don't want to see it. You may leave this camp with nothing. At least you know that there is glory, but a glory you don't want to see.
You say, "What do you base that statement on?" I will tell you in a moment, because I'm going to concentrate on the passage in Exodus which this theme has been taken from. The Israelites did not want to see the glory of God when the glory of God was manifested. You know why? It terrified them. It frightened — literally, it frightened the wits out of them. When the glory of God came down on Mount Sinai, the whole mountain was on fire. It was burning with fire. And you know what happened? Two million people, two million Israelites, were standing around the mountain of Sinai. And you know what was happening? They were all trembling. The Bible tells us they were shivering.
And they saw the whole mountain on fire. And they saw the darkness descend upon the mountain. And in the darkness, the fire and the voice of God spoke to them. And they heard God talking to them. And the whole people were trembling with fear. And the Bible says that if so much as one animal — not to say a human being — one cat, one dog, one sheep, one goat — came near the mountain, it would die. It would drop dead right there because of the glory of God that descended upon the mountain. And you know what the people said to Moses? "We don't want to see the glory of God. We can't stand it. It frightens the wits out of us. You talk to God, but don't let God talk to us. We cannot stand it."
You say you came to this camp, you want to see the glory of God. Do you know what you are asking for? My friends, do you know what you are asking for? You want to see the glory of God? I tell you that if you knew what that glory is, I fear that most of you, like those two million Israelites, will say, "No thanks. It's too much for us. I can't take it. It is terrifying." That is the word that we find in the Bible. They were terrified by the glory of God. So powerful and so frightening was that glory, that when Moses himself manifested the glory in his own face, they couldn't look at him. They had to hide their eyes from Moses. And you know what Moses had to do? He had to put a veil on his face. He had to cover his face because the people could not stand the glory.
And you say you want to see the glory of God? No, my friends, you don't. I'm sorry. If you know what that glory is, you don't want to see it. That's what the Bible tells us. I'm not inventing this story. Out of two million people, only one person dared even to come near, even to come near the glory of God — only Moses alone. And he came near at the risk of death. Death. This camp theme is too high for us. It is too powerful for us. It is beyond us, brothers and sisters. We talk about glory. We don't even know what we are talking about. If we knew it, it would frighten us.
But I have not lost heart. Because having said this — you say, "Well, since you now know that if we really saw the glory of God, we will all be running out of this hall, and leave me standing here talking to the chairs, then I might as well close the message here, and we continue singing some songs, and maybe I have to sing to myself, because nobody else is left here to sing." If the glory of God were manifested here, I promise you, you would all be shaking in your chairs. And if you had enough strength and energy left, you would be running for the door. You want to see the glory of God? What are we talking? The trouble with us Christians is we talk a lot of things that we don't even understand what we are talking about.
But I have not lost heart. I believe. I believe that God is going to be patient and compassionate with us today. Otherwise, I wouldn't have any message to preach. I think He will look upon you and me and see our pitifulness, and He is not going to frighten us all out of this hall in the next one hour. He is going to say, "Alright, you don't know what you are asking for, but I am going to tell you how. You will see a little bit of my glory. A little bit. Because if you could see the fullness of my glory, you wouldn't even survive. But I will show you a little bit." And hopefully that little bit will draw you on and on and on, to see more and more.
And it is in this confidence that I will preach today's message. It's a difficult message to preach, and I have struggled through the last few days, trying to figure out how to say something that is very deep and very complex in the simplest possible way. I said to Helen, my wife, several times, "I really don't know how to present this message. I don't know how to do it." I have preached for many, many years. And this is one subject that I have found exceedingly difficult to know how to preach, because I am taking something so profound, so deep, so complex. It's like somebody who is an advanced nuclear physicist trying to explain nuclear physics to the likes of us who don't know anything about nuclear physics. You see my problem?
And trying to put it as simply as possible. I know nothing much about nuclear physics, but God has granted me to understand some of the deep things of God, some of the mysteries of God. And my problem is that we are at the level of depth, when we talk about glory, that is so deep that I frankly don't quite know how to put it across to you. But I will try to do it, first of all, with a bit of humor. Maybe some of you don't know me, but I can be a very humorous person — not always very serious and very severe. And let me start with a bit of humor, if I can put it this way, and try to take you deeper, as deep as you can go. But in the short time that I have, we can't go very deep, but I hope there will be enough that will allow you to put this matter into practice, to experience something of the glory of God — not in such a way that it terrifies you and frightens you away, but that will draw you.
First of all, I would like to have a picture taken. Well, glory has something to do with something you can see, right? You want to look at a picture. And I'm going to have a picture taken. And so I asked the photographer to get ready with his very advanced, sophisticated camera. But I have to apologize to you first — the picture is not of you. The picture is of me. I'm going to have a picture taken of me. You say, "What's that for?" Well, because, I mean, clearly I have to let this glory of mine be captured on film, so that anybody who would like to order this picture of me afterwards — without my autograph, I'm sorry, I will not sign any autographs. I am not that vainglorious. But you start with a picture of me.
You see, some people came to this camp and heard somebody called Eric Chang. "No, Eric Chang," they heard this name before, and some heard bad things — "He's a bad guy, Eric Chang." And you're quite right, most of the time he's a bad guy, Eric Chang. Some people heard a few good things about this man too. But so that you have the chance to come to this camp, and what did you see? You heard the name, and then you looked, and what did you see? You saw a face. Ah, now you saw him face to face. Before, I only heard in my ear a name called Eric Chang — good or bad, whatever, mostly bad, as I said. But now you saw him face to face. That's not good enough, isn't it? We want more than that. You've got to have captured the glory on film — permanent record. But no autograph, sorry.
So perhaps I can invite our cameraman to come forward with his advanced equipment, so that he can take a picture of me right in front of you. Now you thought this guy is a serious preacher. Now you know why they say bad things about me, because he thought he was a serious man, and what did he turn out to be? He turns out to be a comedian. He turns out to be a joker. Alright. So forgive me for being a joker for a few minutes, and for being a comedian.
So you see, Peter has one of the most advanced cameras I have ever seen here. So maybe if I can — so if Peter can stay here and just take a picture of you. First, first, I have to pose. Now I have to make sure that my hair is in order. Is my collar alright? Do you think it's alright? Not too bad. Okay. Now you can take the picture. Are you ready? Picture. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Now you can see — you will have a very beautiful picture of me, because now you have the real thing. So what you can do afterwards is — well, don't rush to Peter, because you see, Peter is a busy man, and if you have a long queue wanting to have this picture of me, then he will be kept very busy, and there was a long line waiting up there, he might not have time to have his lunch. What did he do? Well, you don't need a picture of my face. You already saw my face, right? You heard the name, and you saw my face. You saw me face to face. Now, what is very important to have, and that's what the important service that Peter performed for us, is to take a picture of my back. Because to know me, the most important thing to know about me is my back. Oh yes, I'm not joking, I'm very serious.
He said, "What? This guy is serious? I thought this guy, you know, he's a comedian, this man." But what am I getting at? What are we talking about? The true glory — is it in the face, or in the back? I want to prove to you that the glory is in the back, not in the face. You say, "What? What point is this man getting at?" Our text is, "Show me your glory." So I hope you turn to your Bible, in Exodus chapter 33, and see what point we are making.
Now, you know that the text of this camp is taken from Exodus chapter 33, right? You know that. And do you know which verse it comes from? Somebody — you came to the camp, you don't know which verse the text comes from? It comes, of course, from verse 18 of Exodus chapter 33. And this is how this verse reads: "Then Moses said, 'I pray thee, show me thy glory.'" And you know what? God answered his prayer. Some people think that God didn't answer his prayer. I'll tell you, God answered his prayer. And you know what God did? He showed him His back. He showed him His back. You see, that's not answering his prayer? That is answering his prayer. And that is why, and I want to thank Peter again, for taking the trouble to take the beautiful picture of my back.
You see? When it's developed, you can see there — oh, the beautiful figure. Oh, slim. Ah, so beautiful. Never knew that. You see? Because now, you saw me face to face, and what did you see? You saw my glory. What glory? Well, you saw a full head of hair. Right? Look at the hair here. You looked at this handsome man standing there. You saw him face to face. So if anybody said to me, "Show me your glory," what do I do? I saw you — look at my face. No, no, no, no. Look at my back. Oh, that figure. That is it. That's the real thing. So Moses said, "Show me your glory." And the Lord said, "Yes, I'll show you my glory. Look at my back."
Who is the humorist? Me? Who is the joker? There is profound truth in the word of God. You said to me earlier, "You're going to say something very profound, and all you've been doing is joking with us." I'm not joking. I'll tell you what it means in a little moment. But I would like you to have this deeply imprinted on your mind: "Show me your glory."
Now, before we proceed, let us let the Lord show us His glory as we open our hearts to Him in prayer. Let us be quiet for a moment in prayer.
Father, we know that we are very slow of understanding, and that You are very kind and very patient with us. Forgive us, O Lord, that we read Your word and we don't even understand what it is You are saying to us. Look upon us, O Lord. Have pity upon us, we beg of You. For we have come to this camp, O Lord, seeking to behold Your glory. But Lord, we know that some of us will go away empty-handed because we didn't even know what we were asking for. And when we began to realize what we were asking for, we realize that maybe Your glory is too much for us — that we don't really want to see it after all. If there are such people here, we pray that You have mercy upon them, and that, Lord, You will help them to see the glory at the level that they can tolerate, rather than like the people of Israel who were simply terrified of the greatness of Your majesty and Your power. Father, we commit each one of us here to Your hands and pray in the short time that we have together that You will open our hearts and the eyes of our spiritual perception, that we can catch at least a glimpse of Your truth, and that that truth will be translated into an experience of Your glory. We ask in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. Amen.
I want to talk about — in those remaining moments that we have — frankly, this subject is a subject that one could preach on for ten messages and hardly do justice to this subject. But in the short time that we have together, I would like to focus your attention on the theme and put it like this, so that you know where we are going in the next half an hour or so of this message. To talk about glory is to talk about power. To talk about power is to talk about presence. Let me repeat that again this way: to talk about the glory of God is to talk about the power of God. That is the terrifying part that terrified the Israelites. To talk about the power of God is to talk about the presence of God. Where there is no presence, there is no power. Where there is no power, there is no glory.
Unless God is present, then what glory are we talking about? He has to be present before He can manifest His glory. But there is no glory without power. Look up there — you see lights. The other day suddenly everything went dark, right? There were no more lights. The word "glory" has to do with light, with brightness, and there is no light and no brightness without power. The moment the power is cut, we will all be sitting in darkness. The sun is a fireball of energy. It is power. That is why we have light, we have sunshine outside. The moment the power goes, there is no glory. When we talk about glory, we are talking about the power of God. And are you ready to face that power?
That is what I mean then by trying to summarize what I want to say in terms of spiritual dynamics. We are talking about spiritual dynamics. What does the word "dynamics" mean? It comes from the Greek word, of course, dynamis, which means power. Spiritual dynamics is spiritual power. That is the first thing you want to understand. "Show me thy glory." Glory has to do with presence and power. "Show." When you ask God to show you His glory, what are you asking for? Do you know what you are asking for?
Let me analyze this for you in two possibilities. And again, you know, many Christians are very muddled in their thinking, so in the end you don't know what they are talking about. And many times in a discussion with fellow Christians, I see how muddled the thinking is. You have to learn to analyze properly so that you can think clearly. When you ask that God show you His glory, what are you asking for? There are at least two fundamentally different things we can ask for. And I wonder which of these two things you are asking for. Otherwise you don't even know what you are praying for.
One way of seeing, or asking God to show us His glory, is asking that I can be a spectator. I sit back and I watch from the distance God's glory. "You show me Your glory over there. I stand here at a safe distance, I hope, and You stand over there, and You show me Your glory, and I will look there with folded hands, or maybe with hands at the back, and then when I finish looking at the glory, I clap. Good display. Nice. Nice display." Just like we appreciate the skit yesterday, and then we see interesting things and we all clap our hands. That is spectator. "Show me Your glory." Is that what you want? You want God to stand at a safe distance from you — not too near, don't come too close to me — You stand over there and give me a display of spiritual fireworks, and then I can applaud and say, "Yeah, I have now seen the glory of God, hallelujah, praise the Lord, it's wonderful." Yes, it is. I can go home satisfied with this camp now. I have seen the glory at a safe distance. It didn't even touch my hair. The fire didn't even burn one hair on my head. The heat didn't make me feel too hot. I saw it at a safe distance. And if the glory is too dangerous, please put some plexiglass in between so that Your glory doesn't affect me, but I have seen it all. It's like watching on a movie screen. I have seen Your glory on the movie screen. Is that what you want?
That is one meaning of "Show me Your glory." What's the other meaning? Maybe that's the part you don't want to ask for. If you came here for a display of spiritual fireworks, it's not difficult to provide that. Even I — tell you what I can do, shall we try it? I'm a very daring man. I do the craziest things. Some of the leaders, one of the governors said to Paul, "Paul, you are mad." Now, that was a compliment. Maybe I would wish more people would tell me that I'm mad, so that I can reach a little bit higher to the level of Paul. How about we ask the camp managers to phone the nearest funeral home here and ask them to bring in the latest person who has just died, and bring the whole funeral cortege here, right here, right in front here, and bring all these weeping people — maybe the son, or the grandfather, or whoever died — put him here in front of you all, and I shall stand here and I will say, "In the name of the Lord, stand up, you dead person! Stand up and live!"
You know what? You will all look amazed — the glory of the Lord! He has raised the dead in front of our eyes! And we have seen it with our own eyes! We will all drop on our knees and worship God! And I tell you something — you won't do it. The trouble with being a spectator is that it's very hard to be convinced by what you see. You will say to me, "Oh yeah, that's quite impressive, but maybe the guy wasn't really dead." We know of cases of people who are supposed to have died for three or four days and then suddenly you hear the knocking in the coffin — bang, bang, bang — and saying, "Please let me out of the coffin." But he was certified dead medically. But every doctor knows that people certified dead do occasionally come back to life, and that might be just a coincidence.
Lazarus died and the Lord Jesus raised him up four days later. And you know what all Israel did — they all believed in Jesus, right? No, they put Him on the cross. There is the problem with being a spectator to the glory of God. They saw Lazarus raised by Jesus' power. Not Lazarus alone — Jesus raised a number of people from the dead. And do you think all the Israelites believed in Jesus because they saw that? They didn't. In fact, as you read on in this amazing passage in John chapter 11, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead that the leaders of Israel decided to crucify Him. You know why? Because they said that He did this amazing thing by magical power, and a magician of this kind is very dangerous — the quicker you kill Him, the better.
Do you think that seeing the glory of God would make you a Christian, that you would be convinced by the power of the living God? I have experienced so many miracles in my life — so many miracles that, as some of you may know, I recorded three full tapes of my testimony. It took three tapes, and I haven't even told all the details yet in those three tapes. I know what I always see — a certain look of amazement, but also some degree of disbelief in the eyes and in the faces of those who listen to what I tell them when I tell them that I experienced food multiplying — a can of food, just like I shared with some of those dear friends from China yesterday, that could not be finished day after day after day, exactly as it happened in the Bible. They listen with interest but with skepticism. You know why? You always will be skeptical when you are simply a spectator, because you haven't experienced it. You only saw it happening, or you only heard it happening. It didn't happen to you. Maybe — just maybe — this guy Eric Chang is exaggerating. I mean, it's human nature to exaggerate. Can I produce witnesses? Oh, there were no witnesses. But even if I could produce witnesses, would you believe?
When Lazarus was raised from the dead, there were lots of people present. Did Israel believe? Not to talk about Israel — just let's talk about the locality. Did Jerusalem believe? Because the matter happened just near Jerusalem. It was in Jerusalem that Jesus was crucified soon afterwards. Do you think that because He raised the dead, that saved Him from death? No, that ended in His death.
When you came to this camp, you want to see the glory of God. Do you think the glory of God is a spectator sport that you can look at from the distance and then clap your hands and say, "God, You did a great performance, very nice. Oh, I like that. I mean, I have seen glory, but this kind of glory is really, really high above the ordinary. I mean, this supernatural glory." You think the Israelites were clapping when they saw God's glory descending on Mount Sinai and the whole mountain was on fire? Do you think they were clapping their hands? Maybe some of us would have been clapping our hands, but not the Israelites. It was too close for comfort, you see. They would have liked to see this like watching a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, where you can watch it through binoculars — boom, the whole thing goes up, and you say, "Oh, good, successful." But the trouble with this performance was it was too close. They could feel the heat. The whole ground was shaking. They said, "This one is very, very spectacular, but a little bit too close for comfort. We like spectator sport. Just keep it away at the distance, please. Don't come too close."
Now there is only one kind of person who is going to benefit from this camp. Keep it
# Show Us Thy Glory (Part 2 of 2, Message 1)
To come close enough to get burned. Are you one of those? You dare to come close enough to get burned? When the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, the fire wasn't burning somewhere else. You know where it was burning? On their head. You know what that means? I will try to explain to you in a moment what that means — a symbolism of what that means. When the fire is burning, not on the mountain over there, but burning on your head, you are not a spectator anymore. You know what it means? "Show me your glory" now means, "I am ready to participate in Your glory. I am willing to let Your glory burn me up." That is what we are talking about now.
Please, get the choice clear. Make your choice while you are listening to my words. If you came to this camp to behold the glory of God as a spectator, forget it. You came to the wrong place. And this camp theme has nothing to do with you. Do you think in Exodus chapter 33, verse 18, when Moses said, "Show me your glory," he was asking for a spectacle? The strange thing is most people thought that is what he was asking for. He wanted a spectacle so that he can clap his hands and say, "God, that was great. I liked it. How about a second round? How about now — we'll pull down the curtain, You rearrange the scenery, and we'll raise the curtain, and our second round. Oh, good one. And now the third one. And the fourth one." The spectator sport.
And most Christians love to be spectators. They like to go and watch football. You love to see these guys sweating it out on the field. You don't have to run. They have to run. You don't have to kick any ball into any goal. They have to kick the ball in the goal. And you don't mind paying a few dollars. And you come to camp, you have to pay too, right? I mean, you can't come to camp free. We'll pay a few bucks, and then we can watch the spectators. "Well, look at those Christians. Let's see if we can see any glory. This guy, no good. That one, a little bit. That one, oh, okay, okay. Pass, pass, this one pass." And so what did we come to camp for? We came for spectators. We came to look at all those so-called Christians. "Oh, this one, this one. Which one? Well, out of this 150 people, I mean, maybe three pass. My standard is high for glory, you know. We talk about glory. These guys don't have glory." And so you go away, having put your marks there, and said, "Glory, I didn't see very much. These guys are very average type." What about you? Maybe somebody is also assessing you. Did you ever think of that? And they were wondering, "Where is the glory in you? We didn't see much either." So nobody saw much glory in anybody. What did we come to this camp for? I mean, drive three and a half hours from Toronto, use up so much gas, and I'm worn out by the time I come here. And what did I see? Mediocre performance.
"Show me your glory." It has only got one meaning as far as the Bible is concerned. It means, let Your glory come into my life, in such a way that "show" means "experience Your glory." Let me not be a spectator, but let me experience it. Not experience it by looking at it there, but here in me. You do something to me in such a way that the glory will be right inside here. And from now on, wherever I go, I don't have to say, "Lord, Your last performance was a long time ago, You know. It was at that camp, but even at the camp, I had a hard time seeing Your glory. Where was it? I don't remember where. But it's a long time ago. How about another performance, please?" How many performances do you want to see? Would you like God every morning to give you a TV performance of His glory so that you can keep His glory in mind, because by tomorrow you might forget it again? Or dare you say, "Let Your glory be seen in me. Do what You have to do so that I become fire — Your fire."
What do you think that Paul said to the Romans? In Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, that you become a living sacrifice. And as I have said before, there is no sacrifice without fire. And the only kind of fire that is acceptable and a sacrifice on the altar of the temple is holy fire — God's fire. And fire, of course, is a symbol of glory.
Now, how can I then have God do something to me in which I will see His glory every day, not as a spectator, but in my own life? That's why I don't need to come to a camp to see the glory of God. I don't even have to go to church to see the glory of God. I don't have to go to a mountaintop to see the glory of God. I tell you something — I see the glory of God every day. Where? Here. I am the temple of the living God. I didn't say so. The Bible said so. The Bible says, "Do you not know?" Do you not know that if you are truly a Christian, you are the temple of the living God? And you know what is the center of the temple? The altar. And the holy place. And in fact, Paul uses — not the ordinary word for temple — he uses the word naos in Greek, which means the holy place. You are the holy place where God dwells and where God's glory lives. Now, if that's the case, why do you have to climb a mountain to see the glory? Why do you have to go to a church to see the glory? The glory is here — in me, in you — if you are a true Christian.
Now you see, this is the first thing I would like you to be very clear in your mind. Because whether this camp benefits you or not depends on your choice. When you ask God to "show," are you asking to be a spectator or a participant? Which of the two have you decided on? If you have decided that you came to be a spectator, I'm sorry — you have wasted your time coming to this camp as far as this camp theme is concerned. Maybe you made a few friends. But you have wasted your time as far as seeing the glory of God is concerned. The only kind of seeing that Paul and Moses are talking about is the glory of seeing in the sense of experiencing it in one's own life. That means you become the bearer of His glory, not just the observer of His glory, not just the spiritual journalist reporting on the glory. You become the bearer where other people look at you and say, "There is glory."
You know why I became a Christian? Do you think I became a Christian because some intelligent person came to me and he began to convince me that God exists and the universe is wonderfully made and so on? Do you think he did that to me? He could have done that. There is nothing wrong with that, and that is also useful. But I tell you why I became a Christian. I saw the glory. I looked at him and I saw the glory of the Lord shining out of his life and out of his face. Nobody could have talked me into the kingdom. Nobody could have used logic and argued me into the kingdom. Nobody. I promise you. As I shared with some of our friends from China yesterday, the elder of the church came to debate with me, to persuade me to become a Christian. I could out-talk him any time. It took me 20 minutes to talk him into the ground. Nobody can talk you into the kingdom. If he could, you wouldn't be a genuine Christian. But I saw the glory because he was a bearer of that glory. And I was so drawn that I wanted to participate in the glory. Do you?
Let's get back to Exodus chapter 33. And let me give you a little context, because now I need to move on to the second principle. The second principle now in spiritual dynamics: the first principle is participation in the glory so that you can see it in the sense of experiencing it and becoming a bearer of that glory. The church in the New Testament is — read in the Bible, I'm not going to give you a lot of scripture texts because we are not doing a Bible study — the church is the glory of the living God. Not an observer of the glory of God. The church in the New Testament is the glory of God — the bearer of that glory. That's why I said the fire at Pentecost was on their heads. They were bearing the glory. You know, if the fire is on your head, can you see it? Of course you can — you've got no eyes on top of your head, have you? It's other people who see, "Hey, there's fire on your head." They looked at one another and they said, "Hey, you've got fire on your head." "Yeah, you too." "Yeah, really?" They become bearers. That is the message of the New Testament — bearers of glory.
The second principle of spiritual dynamics: the face and the back. You said, "What was all this business about Peter coming up with his advanced technology camera, taking a picture?" Now we come to the second principle. What is the second principle? Let me first give you the context here. Very important to grasp the context. What is Exodus chapter 33 all about? What is the context of it? In expounding the Bible, for those of you who are Bible study leaders, not to mention those who are full-time workers, you must understand that no scripture is properly expounded unless it's expounded within its proper context.
Do you think that Moses in this context was asking for some spiritual experience? And that is what many commentators think. And they are entirely wrong. Why? Look at the context. The context is what? The context in chapter 32, the previous chapter, is that the Israelites sinned against God. And God was so angry with the Israelites after He had shown them His glory. You know that the Israelites saw the most amazing things that you and I have not even seen. I want to show you from Scripture, when you read Exodus, that seeing God's glory as a spectator will never make you a man or a woman of God.
The rabbis of Israel made this remarkable statement that not even the greatest prophets of the Old Testament were granted the privilege of seeing the glory of God in the way that the Israelites who came out of Egypt saw the glory of God. They said that even the lowliest handmaid, the lowliest person among the Israelites, saw more of the glory of God than even Isaiah or Jeremiah or anybody else. Is it true? Think about it. Before they came out of Egypt, they were spectators. What did they spectate? What did they see? Ten plagues against Egypt. Amazing things happening. God struck Egypt again and again and again with the most astonishing plagues.
Have you ever seen water turn to blood? What would you think if you walked out here to the lake this afternoon for the baptism, and in front of your eyes that clear crystal water turns red as blood in front of your eyes by the power of God? You would say, "What's going on? The water has turned to blood." That is what happened in Egypt when God said to Pharaoh through Moses, "Let my people go." And Pharaoh said no. Moses said, "Then I will tell you something about my God. God will strike you again and again and again until you know that I am the living God, and you will let my people go." Of course Pharaoh didn't want to let the Israelites go because the Israelites represented cheap labor, you know. They were slaves, cheap labor. It was very important for the economy of Egypt, as any king would know, to keep the Jews as slaves in Egypt. It was the foundation of their prosperity. It is the foundation of their economics. You can't let cheap labor go — the whole economy of Egypt is going to collapse with two million people going out. You have all this labor shortage going to develop, and who is going to produce all the goods that bring in all the riches into Egypt? You don't let the people go. No. Pharaoh says, "I'm not going to let them go." "Let my people go," says the Lord. Moses said to the king, "No? Alright, then you better know that you are dealing with the living God." Plague after plague. And not one of the Israelites failed to see the amazing things that God did. But they were spectators. Remember — spectators. They watched what God did to the Egyptians. He struck them again and again and again until the final blow was too much even for the king. He couldn't take it anymore. Moses said, "Alright, you still don't want to let God's people go? From now on, every firstborn child will die. Everyone, including your son, your heir to the throne — he too will die. Everyone will die, every firstborn child." And you know what the people of Israel saw — the glory, the power. There is no glory without power. The power of God in action — the glory of God.
After that, the king of Egypt had enough. He said, "Okay, okay, you go, go, before everybody dies. We got nobody left in Egypt. Never mind the economy collapses. We wouldn't even have an Egypt to talk about. Just get your people out of here and go." Do you think that was the end of the amazing glory of God that the Israelites could see? Oh, not yet. You know the rest of the story. They came to the sea — the sea was blocking their way. And Moses looked at the sea, looked at the people — the women and the children, they're not good swimmers, you know. You can't say, "Okay, you guys just strip off, get into your swimming trunks, and we're going to swim across the Red Sea. Let's go." So Moses, being a great swimmer himself, and two million people behind him, they all swim across on the other side. Wonderful athletes, they come fit on the other side. Of course they have to leave all their stuff behind, but never mind, at least they're out of Egypt. God had a better plan. God said to Moses, "Raise your staff." And looking behind them, you know, after all, Pharaoh changed his mind. He said, "Hey, these people are going to get away. This can't do. I better get them back before it's too late. After all, maybe they have finished with their bag of tricks, you know. Ten plagues and there are no more bag of tricks after this. I better get them back and back to the hard labor and rescue the economy of Egypt." No. God told Moses to raise his hand, and what happened? Can you imagine such a sight — a sea parted in front of their eyes! Have you ever seen a sea part? Suppose we go to the baptism this afternoon and suddenly the waters part across — wow, your eyes will really pop out. Talk about spectator sport! I mean, there's no football match to compare with this, and nothing compared about Tyson fighting whoever. I mean, this kind of a match is just nothing to look at. Here you've got a sea parting in front of you. Spectators. They looked at this amazing, wonderful — "Wow, our God is wonderful." Yeah.
And so the miracles go on and on. They got into the desert. There's no water to drink. No problem — we've got God. Who needs to worry about water? Moses, that man of God, again instructed what he should do, and there is water to drink in the middle of the desert. Have you been in the desert? Last year, those of the second team, the teammates, we went to Israel together. I asked them, "Look at the desert. Look at it, and try to imagine two million people in that desert without a drop of water, and you are the leaders of that people, and you are supposed to provide water for two million people plus their animals, their goats and their sheep. You know how much water two million people can drink in one day in the desert? How much water do you drink today and tomorrow? Imagine two million people drinking — how many cans of Seven-Up?" And God provided the water for them in the desert.
Okay, you say, "Water, that's fine, it's very important. What about food? I'm getting hungry by now." No problem. In the morning they wake up, and what do they see on the ground? Food on the ground. In the middle of the desert. This was all before they saw God descending on the mountain of Sinai and the whole mountain was on fire. Respect. That is why the Jewish rabbis, the teachers, said that not even the prophets were given the chance to see the glory of God in a way that the most ordinary person who came out of Egypt was granted the privilege to see — miracle after miracle after miracle. And by now you think all the Israelites are worshipping God, praising God: "We have seen Your glory! We love You, Lord! We will follow You all the days of our lives!" Nothing of the kind. You read the book of Exodus and you see what happens. They disobey God all the time. They kept disobeying. They kept grumbling. "Okay, You give us food, but we prefer the garlic. We prefer rice, you know. We don't eat bread, we eat — manna? I mean, manna, I've never seen before. Strange stuff. We are Chinese people, we want to eat rice. There's no rice in the desert. Give us rice. There's no garlic, no onions, no nothing. All the nice good stuff we got in Hong Kong — what do we got in the desert? We got manna."
That is why I said to you — let me repeat once more, because it's very important that you get this point — because I'm afraid that you came to this camp hoping for a display, maybe, of some sort of glory so that you can be a spectator, and then having watched the spectator sport you're going to be a great Christian. You're going to become converted. And you're not going to be converted, my friend. Conversion is not a spectator sport. Conversion is participation. And after seeing the glory of God all that time, the Jews didn't want to participate. They said, "We're happy as it is. We're fine, just nice. God, You just keep performing the miracles and we will watch it at a distance, but don't let it get to us." You know, out of two million people, only two people wanted to participate of that generation, of that age group. We're not talking about the younger ones who grew up later. We all know it was only Joshua and Caleb. And finally the fire came upon them — they became participants. Out of this camp, I don't know, out of 150 people or whatever, whether we will have maybe 140 spectators who hope that they will get a spectacle, and maybe 10 people will be willing to say, "Lord, I am going to be a participant. If You are the living God and Your glory is real, let me experience it deep within me so that the mountain doesn't catch fire — only I catch fire." That, my friends, brothers and sisters, is what Moses was asking for.
Moses said, "Show me Your glory." You say, "What a stupid question. Show me Your glory? You've been seeing His glory from Egypt until now, and you say, 'Show me Your glory'? What do you want to see anyway?" Not only — as we said — not only Moses was watching God's glory, the whole people were seeing His glory. Did you ever ask what Moses is asking for? What is the point of this question, "Show me Your glory"? He's been watching, seeing His glory every day for how many months already, and now he says, "Show me Your glory." What kind of a question is this? Moses was asking for something even deeper. He wanted to participate. He wanted God's fire to burn in his life in a way that it had not burned so far, because he could not handle the crisis in which he was in without that fire burning within. In other words, you cannot live the Christian life in this world as a spectator sport.
And the churches today, my friends, in Toronto, in Montreal — go to the churches and you have all those people who came to be spectators. And among those crowds of people who crowd into the church, you can be sure that there are very few who are ready to say, "Let me participate, please, in Your glory. I haven't come here to take a look as a spectacle, to watch a boxing match, a display of fireworks. I have come here, Lord, to let Your fire burn here." What is your prayer?
As I said, the context of Exodus chapter 33 is this: that the people sinned. The people sinned so seriously that not only God was angry — Moses was so angry, as you read in chapter 32. And it's amazing to find Moses angry. You know why? The Bible tells us that he was a very gentle, a very kind, a very meek man. And there is nothing so terrifying as to find a gentle and a meek person by nature getting angry, because he's not the kind of person who easily gets angry. And Moses was exceedingly angry, as we saw in chapter 32, because — why? He was up on the mountain communing with God. When he came down, what were the people doing? They were worshipping the golden calf. And you know Moses was so angry, he did something which for a gentle person like him is astonishing: he ordered the execution of the idolaters. Three thousand people died. Three thousand. You know why he did that? Because he was so angry he wanted to take revenge? No. He was trying to save the people from the anger of God, because God said, "I'm going to wipe this entire people out. I am sorry to have rescued these people. I will wipe them all out." Moses said, "Please, please, forgive them. Three thousand have already been dealt with. Please accept, O God, that this is enough." And God says, "Stand aside. I am so angry with these people." Why? Because "I have shown them My glory." I told you this — you don't want to see the glory of God, because if you see God's glory even as a spectator and you sin, I tell you, God is going to deal severely with you. If we raise the dead person up here in front of your eyes and you deny God after that, I tell you, God will deal hard with you. The more that is given to you to see of His glory, the more severely God will deal with you. Don't look at God's glory. Don't even want to see it, because if you see His glory and you reject that glory, you don't believe in His glory — what excuse are you going to give on that day for not having believed in Him? Even as a spectator, it is a great responsibility to see God's glory. Don't see it. Don't look at it, so that your judgment will not be so severe.
God was angry with the Israelites because — what did He do for them? He redeemed them out of slavery. He opened the sea for them. He fed them in the wilderness. He gave them drink where there was no water. He manifested His glory on the mountain. And He gave them His living word — the word of God, the Ten Commandments. And then they sinned even after that. God was saying, "I'll wipe this people out." And you know what Moses did? Moses begged God, "Please spare this people. But if not — God, You are King. If You decide to destroy this people, I make one request: destroy me too. Not just them. You wipe me out with them. I will die with them. Either You spare them, or You don't spare me." That is the kind of man that Moses was. You read that in Exodus chapter 32.
It is in this context — it is in this context that God said, "Alright, I will accept your intercession. I will not destroy this people. But I will tell you something: I will leave this people. I will not lead this people through the wilderness anymore. I will send an angel to lead this people, but I myself am tired of this people who only want to watch spectator sport, who only want to watch the glory from the distance, who don't want to be involved, who don't want to be committed. They only want to see and clap their hands — and even that they don't. I am not going to lead this people anymore. My presence will depart from this people. My glory will no longer be among this people. I will send my angel." Look at the passage for yourself. That is the context.
It is in this context that Moses said to the Lord, "Lord, please, if You are not going to be with us anymore, if Your presence is not going to be in our midst anymore, then don't send us forth." Moses is saying, "I don't want to go to the Promised Land. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to go to a land with milk and honey. I don't want even to go to paradise without You. If You are not going to come with us, if You are not going to be in our presence anymore, then we don't want to go to the Promised Land. We don't want to go to the United States. We don't want to go to the land of milk and honey. We will just perish in this wilderness together, I and the people that You have redeemed." Read this passage carefully. I'm afraid many people come to a camp and they haven't read the passage.
Moses is saying: sending an angel is not good enough. We don't want to be led by an angel, not even an angel of the Lord as He is called here. We want only Your presence and Your glory. And please — and that is the context of this request — "I cannot handle this people. This people is a stiff-necked and rebellious people." This is the word that is in Exodus chapter 33, used many times over and over again. "I haven't got the strength to handle this people. We have only come out of Egypt not very long, and I am exhausted and weary." It is in this context he says, "Please, not only do not leave us, but show me Your glory, that I may have the strength to go on." Now he is not, as I said, asking for a display. "Let Your glory rest upon me, that I may be able to go on with the task of leading this people on."
Now Moses says a number of very touching things, very, very touching things, as you read on in here. In verse 16, for example, he says, "What was Your original plan of bringing us out of Egypt? Was it not that we would become a people different from all the nations of this world? In what way? The unique distinction of this people is that Your presence, Your glory, will be among us. And if You take away Your glory from us and Your presence, we will be no longer different from any other people in this world. And if that's the case, why did You bring us out of Egypt at all?" Look at verse 16: "For how then can it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not by thy going with us? You must be with us, so that we, I and thy people, may be distinguished from all the people who are upon the face of the earth."
What makes a Christian different? Is it because he saw the glory of God? Do you think I am different from you because I have more experiences of God's glory? No, it wouldn't make me any different from you. It wouldn't make me any different from the Israelites who came out of Egypt. The difference is that God dwells in the midst of His people. And Moses said, "If You are not going to go with us, there's no point to go on. I don't even want to go to paradise anymore without You." It's in this context he says, "Let Your presence dwell first of all in me, so that I can pass on that glory." He needs the strength to lead the people and pass on the glory to the others. That glory is a spreading glory.
And then the next verse goes on, very touching. Verse 17: "And the Lord said to Moses, 'I will also do this thing of which you have spoken, for you have found favor in my sight, and I have known you by name.'" I don't understand those commentators and theologians who said that Moses' prayer was denied. It wasn't denied. It was granted. "I will do what you have asked." What did He do? What was the request? Remember, the request is: don't let Your glory depart from us. Don't take Your presence away from us. Don't let us just be led by some angel to the land of promise. We want You, not some angel of Yours. And the Lord said, "I will grant it. I will grant it. I will remain in your midst." It is when the Lord said that to him that the next verse comes: "If You find me acceptable in Your sight, then let Your glory dwell in me. Let me see — in this sense — let me experience Your glory." And then what does God do?
Let me come quickly to my final point, because our time is quickly gone. We must finish in a few minutes, although it's a very important point and I cannot develop it fully. God says this: "I will make all my goodness pass before you." Read it there, verse 19. "I myself will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." Do you understand what the Lord is saying when He says, "I will proclaim my name"? It means, "I will reveal my character to you."
Let me come back, as I close, to my illustration, with the kind cooperation of Peter, that I began at the beginning: my face and my back. You came to this camp and you saw my face. Does that mean you know me? You don't know me. You don't know me because you only saw my face. You see — nice glasses, these very beautiful glasses bought in Hong Kong. And you saw my face, my beautiful hairstyle, very nice, nice clothes. But most important, of course, is the face. Do you think that because you saw my face you know me? No, you don't. The important thing is not to see the face. The important thing is to see the back. "He's back to that again." "Back to back." It's amazing — we read the Bible and we don't understand what we're talking about. Why is the back more important?
I tell you this. You see, all those who are in full-time training, they don't need to order the picture of my back. You know why? Because they know my back already. You understand the message? What was Moses asking for? He was asking, as I told you already, "Don't lead us into the Promised Land by some angel of Yours. We didn't come to see the back of an angel." You know what happens when God is leading His people — what do you see? You see His face or His back? If you are following behind somebody else, what do you look at? He is walking in front and you are walking behind. What do you see? You see His back, right? Do you understand the symbolism? Do you understand? The only way to know God is not a question of what does He look like. What is the use of knowing what He looks like? What is the use of your knowing what I look like? What difference does it make that you know I have two eyes and a nose and so forth? Alright, so you look at my face. Does it mean that you know me? Of course you don't. It takes a lot more than seeing somebody's face to know him. It takes seeing his back to know him.
You say, "What?" Why did I say that? Those in full-time don't need a picture of my back because they know my back very well. They have been following me for quite a while already. It is in following the person that you know better and better what he really is like. You know whether he is good or not good, whether he is gracious or not gracious. And of course those who follow me know that I am a very hard man, especially those in the fifteen — away for two months. And some people thought, "Oh, they got two months' holiday." You ask them and see whether they got two months' holiday. They said, "This is a very hard man." They are preparing for their preaching assignments in October and November. They have to write another written assignment, and they have so many notes and things to study in those two months that I hope they are not too worn out by the time I get back. They know my back very well.