Ron Dunn Podcast - Transforming Vision Part One

Episode Date: June 5, 2019

From the sermon series on Exodus

Exodus chapter 33 and 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. And so if you will open your Bibles to these two portions of Scripture, we'll read them. Exodus chapter 33 and some verses out of the 34th chapter and then one verse in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. In the 33rd chapter of Exodus we will begin reading with the first verse and read several verses. Then we'll skip a few and read several more. And then we'll read several verses in the 34th chapter also. The background of these two chapters is this. The people are camped at the foot of Mount Sinai.

While they're there, Moses goes up on the mount six times to meet God. He has been up to receive the law, and he came down with the two tablets of stone. And when he came down, he found the people had backslidden into idolatry. They had taken their ornaments and had melted them down. And as Aaron said, out came this golden calf.

Sounds about like some of our confessions of failure, doesn't it? And so Moses threw down the tablets of stone. They were broken, symbolizing the broken commandments of the Lord in the lives of the people. And God said, I'm going to destroy them. And Moses went back to the mount to intercede for his people. And God said, alright, I won't destroy them. And in chapter 33, God is giving a message to Moses.

Now God has already said He will not destroy them because of their sin. He is going to withhold His wrath in that measure. And beginning in the first verse of chapter 33, And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, and the Amorite,

and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned. And no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee.

Therefore now put off thine ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Oreb. And Moses took the tabernacle, or the tent of meeting, and pitched it without the camp afar from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation,

which was without the camp. And it came to pass when Moses went out unto the tabernacle that all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door and looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. Now look in the twelfth verse. And Moses said unto the Lord, See thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast 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, the Lord, said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he 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 thy 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. Now verse 18, And he said, Moses speaking to the Lord, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And God says, I can't show you my face. You can't receive

the full vision of my glory and live, but I will cause all my goodness to pass before thee. And so in chapter 34, he tells Moses to get ready, to make, hew out for himself two new tablets and to come up on the mount in the morning. And verse 3, he says, and no man shall come up with thee. And then in verse 8, And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. And there on the mount meeting God, God again gave the law to Moses. Now I want us to pick it up in verse 28 of this chapter, 34. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights.

He did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. 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. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him, and Moses talked with him. And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh, and he gave them in commandment

all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out. And he came out and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. And Moses put the veil upon his face again until he went in to speak with the Lord. Now, 2 Corinthians chapter chapter 3 verse 18. But we all with unveiled 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."

I wrote in the margin of my Bible these two accounts, the transforming nature of a vision of God. When a man meets God, when a man sees God, the effect is one of transformation. No person can ever meet God and remain the same. It is an impossibility. It is an impossibility. And I have spoken to you much lately on this matter of meeting God. Many times we think we meet God when we have not met God.

But one sure way of knowing that a person has met God is that there is a change in his life. There is a transformation. And if you will study carefully the record of every man in the Word of God, and woman too, who met God, who saw God, who had a face-to-face confrontation of God, and woman too, who met God, who saw God, who had a face-to-face confrontation with God, the result was a change, a transformation, one that was obvious to all of those around about him.

And this story of Moses is one that has fascinated people for years and years, the fact that when Moses came down from speaking with the Lord and the Lord speaking with him, his face shone. His face was shining. And when the people saw the face of Moses shining, they knew that he had been with God. Now what is the significance of the shining face of Moses? What does that mean?

What was it that happened? What was it that caused the face of Moses to shine? And Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, he picks up this experience and he applies it to every Christian. And he says, But we all, with unveiled faces, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, bit by bit, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Now he says Moses was the only one that beheld the Lord's goodness and the Lord's glory,

and he was the only one whose face was changed but in the New Testament economy in this day of grace he says but we all we all with unveiled face just as Moses took the veil from his face and went into the very presence of God and met God and he came out with a transformation with his face shining he says that is an experience that you and I, every one of us, are to have. We all, with unveiled faces, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image. What happened in Moses' case? Well, it was really very simple. As Moses met with God, and God met with him, and as he had this confrontation with God,

his spirit was baptized in God's glory and light, and the material fell under the mastery of the spiritual. And that which was inward burst forth and made itself visible. It was the spiritual life of Moses overwhelming the physical and the material life of Moses. And what God wants for every believer is for that inner glory

that every believer has, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, for that inner life, which is the life of Jesus, to have the mastery over the material and over the physical, and for that life, which is invisible, for it to make itself visible in the life of every believer. For there to be this transformation. This is the same thing that happened when Jesus had his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus was transfigured before them. Jesus had a metamorphosis. That is what happens to a caterpillar when it turns into a butterfly. That inward nature burst forth and the inward nature of glory is seen visibly and outwardly. The same word that

is used of the transfiguration of Jesus is remarkably used of your experience and mine in Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 where he says that you and I are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are to be transformed. That inner life, which is the life of Jesus, is to show itself forth in the everyday life of the believer. Have you ever seen a Christian shine? I have. When Stephen was being stoned in the book of Acts, he saw the Lord, and the Bible says his face shone like an angel. Have you ever seen a Christian and you've seen his face shine? And you have seen in the outward expression of his life the reality of the inner life of Jesus, which was his?

Well, that's the way it ought to be. Now, the shining face of Moses really meant three things, and this is still introduction. It meant, first of all, that Moses had had a personal revival, that he had met God, and there had been a fresh cleansing of his heart and he had had a worship experience and his own life had been refreshed and renewed and revived. The second thing it meant was that when his face shone, he had a message for the people from God. Every time they saw Moses remove that veil

and that face sh shown with the glory of God, they knew that God was getting ready to speak to them. And every time a person has a personal revival and renewal and refreshing with the Lord, I want you to know he has something to share from God with the people. And that's about the only place you're ever going to find anything worth sharing with anybody as a result of your direct confrontation with the Lord Jesus Christ. It gave him a message from God to the people. But a third thing it did, this shining face was the divine vindication that this message was from God. Only two times did Moses ever remove the veil.

He removed it when he talked with God, and he removed it when he talked with the people. And it scared them to death. Why did Moses remove the veil when he talked with the people? So they could see the shining face. And that shining face authenticated his message. And they knew that what Moses was speaking now wasn't something he conjured up. It wasn't his own little personal opinion, but it was a direct message from God. The shining face, and listen carefully, the shining face authenticated what he said.

And I tell you, believer, it is the shining face of your life that authenticates before the world what you say you believe. And the world is never going to believe all that you say you believe and all that you say you are unless they can see in your life divine vindication. And it is as that which is inward, the life of Jesus, as it expresses itself in a visible outward way so people can see it unmistakably, that is how your life, your message, your testimony is authenticated. And a testimony that does not have with it the shining face of an

experience with Jesus has no authority behind it, and people have a right to question its sincerity. Now, I've spoken on the life of seeking and on the life of secrecy, and I'm speaking to you this morning on the life that shines, the shining life. And it is the result of seeking and finding the Lord. It is the result of living a life in secret in communion with God. And as that person seeks the Lord and finds Him in secret, then comes out, then his life is shining, and there is visible, visible vindication that he has been with God. And people know that what he says

and what he testifies verily is the truth because they can see the evidence of it in their lives. Now, the message this morning and tonight is how do we have the shining face? What are the steps?

What has to happen? And we're simply going to use the personal experience of Moses and see what it involves. See what is necessary. I've been speaking about seeking the Lord, about living in secret,

and now I want to bring to you this morning the details of how this is to be accomplished. What is involved in a man seeking and finding the Lord and meeting God in a transforming experience? What is involved? There are several things I'm going to mention and share one with you this morning

and the others tonight. I am growing wiser in my old age. I was speaking at this retreat and I didn't know how long I was to speak. And the first two times as I was speaking, I would stop in the middle and turn to the moderator and say, how long do I have or how long am I supposed to go? He said, just go on until you're through. The third time I preached, I did.

I went on until I was through and spoke for an hour and a half. And so the next session, he told me when to be finished. And so rather than try to cram all of this in one little message, we're just going to cut it up because I don't want to leave anything out. And the first thing I want to talk with you about this morning is the vital and the most important. You say, preacher, I know I need personal revival, personal renewal. I know I need a message from God to share with other people. But more than that, I know I need that divine cooperation that what I say really is true. And you know, one of the things that Paul tells us about the veil of Moses and the face of Moses is that Moses continued to wear the veil

even after the glory was fading. And he would not remove the veil when he would walk among the people because if he removed the veil, the people would know that the glory was no longer there. I wonder how many of us this morning in this congregation are wearing veils. And we're afraid to remove the veil because if we do, the people will see that the glory is no longer there. You see, that which was once spontaneous, you know, when you first many times have that new experience with the Lord,

the spontaneous reaction is to say, Praise the Lord. Well, you hear somebody praising the Lord, you know they've got it. I mean, you know, that's one of the symbols. That's one of the signs. That's one of the flags. That's one of the spiritual status symbols of today. And if you're sitting in a restaurant or somewhere and you hear somebody say,

Praise the Lord, hallelujah, you know that they've got it. You know they're Spirit-filled. You know they've got the glory. And I really believe that when a man meets God and the Holy Spirit fills his life and he is bathed in the glory of God, that that is a spontaneous reaction.

You just want to praise the Lord. But I tell you something, a lot of us are still praising the Lord long after the glory has faded, and we keep on praising the Lord. It's mechanical because if we don't praise the Lord, we're afraid people will think that we've lost it. I wonder what veil it is you're wearing this morning to hide the truth from the people. Wouldn't it be interesting and painful if all of us this morning were willing to just remove the veil and we'd see who still had the glory and who did not. But this shining face of Moses was renewed over and over again when he met God in this confrontation.

All right, what is involved? Number one, if a man is to meet God and have the transforming vision of God, the first thing there must be involved. Number one, if a man is to meet God and have the transforming vision of God, the first thing there must be, there must be a desire for the presence of God that will not be denied. That will not be denied. Now, I want to share with you something very interesting about this conversation. God has said to Moses, I will not destroy the people. Now, in chapter 33, the first three verses,

he says something even better than that. He says to Moses, Now, Moses, I want you to get up, and you lead the people, and you go on, and you take them into the land of Canaan, the land that I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,

saying, unto thy seed will I give it. He says, I will send an angel before thee to drive out every enemy. I will bring you unto the land. Still, I am still going to keep my word and keep my promise. I am going to bring them into the land. I am going to give them promise. I am going to bring them into the land. I am going to give them victory. I am going to give them success. I am

going to meet their every need, a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not be in your midst." And when the people heard this evil tiding, they mourned. Now what was the evil tiding? Man, what could be evil about that? God said, I'm going to keep my word. I'm going to keep my promise. I'm going to give you an inheritance. I'm going to give you the land that you've been longing for. I'm going to give you victory.

I'm going to drive out every enemy. I'm going to meet your every need. A land flowing with milk and honey. What is evil about a message like that? Most of us would say that's a good deal. God says, I will send my angel before you and he will guide you and he will drive out the enemy. And we say, that sounds pretty good.

I'll settle for that. The evil tiding was this. God said, but I, I will not go with you. And they said, that's evil. They said, we don't want the land without the Lord. We don't want victory without the victor. We don't want blessings without the blesser. And gifts are no good without the giver.

Now, I'll tell you something that really gripped me as I studied this, and I had never realized it before, and I tell you today, God can give a man victory, and God can give a man blessings, because he will be faithful to his word, and he will be faithful to his promise, but God can do all of that without being in the midst of that man's life. He said, I'll send an angel,

and Moses said, I won't settle for an angel. He was like the Shunammite woman who wouldn't settle for Gehazi. She wanted Elisha. And Moses said, you can send all the angels as you want, but he said, I won't settle for an angel. I don't want an angel. And Lord, I don't want to go up without you.

You know, there were two things about Moses that are a blessing to me. And this thing here really doesn't have too much to do with what I'm talking about right now, but there were two times when Moses said he did not want to go into the Promised Land. Two things Moses refused to go without. He said, I refuse to go without God's people. That's what he said in Exodus 32. God said, don't bother me about this people. He said, I'll destroy them and I'll start all said, I'll destroy them,

and I'll start all over, and I'll make of thee a great nation. And Moses said, Lord, if you cannot forgive their sin, then block me out. Oh, do you understand what Moses is saying? Moses is saying, Lord, you can take me into the promised land, but it won't mean much if this people doesn't go with me. And he said, Lord, I refuse, I refuse to go without the people. You know, that's the kind of pastors we need. That's the kind of pastor I ought to be. A man totally identified with his people and saw many pastors and preachers,

and I believe this is one thing that's wrong with Southern Baptist churches and a lot of others in the land. It's this, they're not identified with their people. If they have a stiff-necked people, you know what they pray? They pray, Lord, move me on to a new situation. I've just given up on them, Lord, and Lord, I'm going on.

And if this bunch doesn't want to go, that's their hard luck. Lord, I'm moving on. And they're a stiff-necked people, but God said this is a stiff-necked people. Leave me alone, I'll destroy them, and I'll put you in a better situation. Moses said, I'm not going without them. I'm not going without them, and I'll tell you when the climate of churches will start changing across this land, and that's when pastors who will begin to say like Moses, Lord, I don't want a new church. I don't want a new situation. I refuse to go without this people. They're my people, and they're your people, and I'm identifying myself with them.

And Lord, if you can't take them into the land, I don't want to go either. He refused to go without God's people, and he refused to go without God's presence. Because the land would be empty without the Lord. You see, it's the Lord's presence, the Lord's presence that adds meaning to everything. God said, I'll send you an angel. That's not good enough. God says, I'm going to give you victory. That's not good enough.

Now listen, you can have victory, and you can have blessings, and you can have success, because God will keep His promise and honor His Word. You can have all of that, but you won't have God in your midst. And I tell you, we have settled for that. We have settled for that. I have been in churches. This church can well become the same way. I have been in churches that are tremendous successes.

I mean, they're growing by leaps and bounds. They're just growing, bursting out the walls, building new walls. They're baptizing people every week. But I tell you, you walk into those services, and God is not in their midst, and you can feel it, and you know it. Why? Because God honors His Word word and God keeps his promise you can have the lousiest backslider that ever was ordained

standing in a pulpit preaching the word of God and God's going to honor his word well you can have an organization that is blessed of God doing great things and moving on in victory but you can have it without God being in the midst blessed of God, doing great things and moving on in victory,

but you can have it without God being in the midst. And I'm afraid I've known some preachers who've been highly, highly successful. You know, sometimes it's disappointing to meet some great people, people that you've heard about all your life, read after, and, man, you get a chance to meet them, and, boy, you think, you know, after this, you can pray like Simeon, Lord, I've seen thy glory, you can take me on now. I'll tell you, some of the most disappointing experiences of life are meeting people that you've always looked up to,

but you find out that God is not in their midst. I'll tell you, a man can be a success as a preacher. He can pastor the larger churches in the world, and God can bless his ministry, and he can be a success, and he can be on this program and elevated to this position and put on this committee, but you don't have to be around him very long

to discover that God is not in his midst. And I really believe this is why we have some preachers through the years, even in recent years, that have just folded up, packed it all away, and have turned in their diploma, thrown in the towel, and left the ministry. And some of them were tops and the greatest success. But I tell you something, they had all of it.

They were in the land. They had the milk and the honey, and they had the victory, but they didn't have God in their midst. And Moses was a man who refused to be denied the presence of the Lord. He said, I'm not going without you. I'm not going without you. I'm not going without you. You see, it is the presence of God that makes us distinctive. Now, I want you to see something here. What did Moses do? Moses took the tent of meeting, the tent of the congregation. It's a mistranslation. It ought not to be translated tabernacle. It was not the tabernacle. The tabernacle had not been built yet. This was the tent of meeting, the tent of assembly, the tent of congregation.

Now, it had been in the midst of the people. And Moses took that tent of meeting and took it outside of the midst of the people and took it outside the camp, far outside the camp. And do you know what that meant? That meant that the presence of God was no longer in the midst of the people, but it meant something more. And this was what grieved and broke their hearts. It meant now they were like every other nation. Because you see, every nation had its religion, every nation had its God, every religion had its tabernacle,

every religion had its temple, every religion had its tent of meeting, but you know where they always put the tent of meeting? Israel was the only one that had its tent of meeting right smack dab in the midst of the people. All of the other nations of the world had their tents of meeting, their temples, their places of worship. They had them outside the people. And when Moses did that, God was saying, you're just

like everybody else now. There's no difference. And this is what Moses is pleading for in verse 16. He says, For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy 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." The uniqueness, the distinctiveness of Israel was that God was in their midst. Now they're just like anybody else. I want to tell you something a lot of people wanting revival today and praying for revival

and pleading for revival and what we used to think of when we think of revival is man we want great crowds and people responding to our preaching and people being baptized what we're really wanting is for people to buy our product

and I'll tell you something when you have success and you have victory and you have needs met, but you don't have the presence of God in your midst, you're no different than the Coca-Cola company. Because all Coca-Cola wants in the world is for people to buy their product. And you can baptize a thousand people a year and build a big budget and build a big building, but I tell you something, if God is not in the midst of the people, you're no different than General Motors or IBM. Just another organization, just like everybody else,

just like everybody else. The only thing that makes the church and your life and my life distinctive and unique is not the success of our lives, not what we do, but the fact that God is in our midst and people know it. And if you don't have that, then you're not different. You're no different from anybody else. It's the presence of God that gives us our distinctiveness. You know, I tell you, when we're going to meet God is when we come and say, Lord,

thy gifts alone cannot suffice unless thyself be given, for thy presence makes my paradise, and where thou art is heaven. And Lord, I really don't care too much about the Lord, I really don't care too much about the land. I really don't care too much about the milk and honey. And I don't care too much about the victory. Lord, I want you. And Lord, if you don't go up with us, I just soon die right here.

And Lord, if I don't have your presence in my life, then nothing else matters and nothing else counts. Everything else grows stale and stagnant. That's why your life grows stale and stagnant. That's why your life is drained from all of its real meaning and real joy. It's because you still have all the blessings of the Lord, but the blesser has departed from your midst. Not only does the presence of God give us our distinctiveness, but

it's the presence of God that gives us our rest. He says in verse 14 of Exodus 33, and he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Now that's amazing. I want to show you something. You know what the word rest symbolizes in the Old Testament? The word rest was a synonym for the promised land.

If you read it in Hebrews, you'll find it. The word rest was just another name for the promised land. But I want you to notice now, in those first three verses, he said he'd just given the land. He didn't say a thing about rest. He said, I'll take you into the land that I swore unto thy fathers. I just give them the land. He didn't say a thing about rest. He said, I'll take you into the land that I swore unto thy father. I'll give you that land.

He didn't say a thing about rest. Listen, you can have the land without the rest. But now he says, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. That means you can be in the land and enjoy it. That means you can have victory and enjoy it. And that means you can be in the land and enjoy it that means you can have victory and enjoy it

and that means that the frustration and the anxiety and the gnawing emptiness of your life is no longer there, why? because God is in your midst and he gives you rest rest does not mean idleness rest means the enjoyment of all things that God has given you. You can possess something without really possessing it. A man that owns something but cannot enjoy it,

he doesn't own it, it owns him. You can possess some things without really possessing them. But rest is when you possess your possessions, you have them and you enjoy them and you get all that God intended you to get out of them. Say, are you getting all that God intended you to get out of your Christian life? If you don't, you don't have rest. Now let me close by saying that there were three things that the people had to do to get the presence of God to come back. Number one, they had to recognize that the presence was lost.

That's right. And some of us may not recognize that this morning in our own lives. They set the tent outside the camp. That was their recognition. We recognize now that we're no different from anybody else. God's presence has departed from us. We've grieved him. The second thing they had to do was they had to renounce the things

that caused that presence to depart in the first place. He said, put off all your ornaments. Now, why did he say ornaments? Because if you check back, you'll find it was the ornaments that they melted down and made into the golden calf. The ornaments were the occasion of their sin. And stripping themselves of it was the ornaments that they melted down and made into the golden calf. The ornaments were the occasion of their sin. And stripping themselves of all of the ornaments was the outward symbol of the inward repentance.

They had to renounce the things that caused God's presence to depart. Listen, what is it that's caused God's presence to depart in your life? I mean, I'm talking now about that obvious manifested presence in your life, the shining face. What is it that has caused that presence to presence in your life, the shining face. What is it that has caused that presence to depart in your life? It may be positive, it may be negative, it may be some things you've done, it may be some things you failed to do. I heard a man say to me, well he wasn't saying to me, he was speaking to the group. I really appreciated it. He was the executive secretary of the Indiana State Convention.

I tell you, I really praise the Lord. They've got some spirit-filled men in the head offices up there. It just thrilled me. And this man was sharing a message with the rest of us, and he said, you know, he said, God convicted me of spending too much time reading the newspaper. Now, you know, I sat there and I thought to myself, a lot of people just think that's plum ridiculous,

spending too much time reading a newspaper. That's just ridiculous. Nothing wrong with reading a newspaper. But he said, you know, he said, I was aware that I was spending far more time in that newspaper than I was in the Word of God. God convicted me of it. He said, I thought about canceling a subscription. But he said, I thought maybe I just ought to exercise willpower.

But he said, in the process, we moved to a new house. In the process process somehow or another our subscription got canceled. I guess the Lord knew what he needed. And he said, you know, we haven't taken it up again. He said, I don't know if we ever will or not. But he said, I'll tell you something. He said, God has been working in my life I've just been spending so much time in the word and God has met me and I've met him you see when I talk about renouncing those things that have caused God's presence to depart from us I'm not talking about and what you use a think about well this you know you got drunk or you committed an act of immorality

you just may be spending too much time doing some good things so you don't have time to spend with God. The third thing they did, though, was they returned. They returned to the very thing

that brought God in their presence. They bowed down and worshipped him. And they sent Moses back up on the mount to receive what? The law of God. Moses broke the first tablets because they broke them. Now as a symbol of their repentance, of their renunciation, of their reconciliation, they're receiving again the law to be obedient.

To be obedient. I think those are the things that God requires of every person here this morning. A recognition, if we have lost the presence of God in our lives, and you understand now, I know that if you are a Christian you always have Jesus dwelling in you, but there is a lot of difference in having Jesus dwelling in you and having the Holy Spirit filling you. There's a lot of difference in having the indwelling of the Spirit and the infilling of the Spirit. There's a lot of difference in having a person in the room

and a person manifesting himself, obviously, in that room. The recognition that we've lost his presence, the renunciation of those things that caused us to lose His presence. And a return to those things that guarantee His presence. Humiliation. Submission. Worship. Obedience.

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