[The LORD] tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”1
A promise is compelling. But we have to realize that the promise hedges on a premise. Typically, God’s promise is partial, progressive, and conditional. The condition is what gives the promise weight. Just like valuable pearls are not thrown to the pigs.
Knowledge of God and hearing from God is foundational. There are 4 distinctions we can draw from Exodus 33 that marked God’s chosen people:
God’s Presence. The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out [its inhabitants]. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.2
Of hand, the offer to fulfill the promise seemed enticing. Yet, Moses found more importance and weight in God’s presence. Moses told God, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, . . . ? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”3
God’s Favor. From verses 5 to 23, the word favor is mentioned 5 times. And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, . . .”4
God’s Familiarity. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Moses said to the LORD, “See you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, . . .’5 And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”6
God’s Protection. And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.7
It is best to settle your identity in Christ and accept your distinction. Otherwise, you would be like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. Rather, be like Joshua who resolutely decided for himself and his family to serve the Lord.8
Notes:
1. Exodus 15:25b-26
2. Exodus 33:1-3
3. Exodus 33:15-16
4. Exodus 33:17
5. Exodus 33:11a,12
6. Exodus 33:17
7. Exodus 33:21-22
8. Joshua 24:14-15
