17. The Man Who Stood Between

17. The Man Who Stood Between - for Notes

17. The Man Who Stood Between - PP

Moses preached Deuteronomy to the children of Israel forty years after the events of the Exodus.

None except Joshua and Caleb were older than sixty, that is, all who remembered the event had been children. All else over twenty at the time had died. Nonetheless children do remember as observers, and some may have understood the meaning of what they now heard for the first time.

And I fell down before the Lord… because of all your sin which you committed… But the Lord listened to me at that time also. And the Lord was very angry with Aaron… so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

Travailing with God. In this final lesson on Moses, we want to look at the heart of this man and at the Heart of his God.

Moses’ intercession was NOT an attempt to “get God to back off.” In complete contrast, Moses’ intercession was only an expression through human form of God’s intense travail for the sake of His people. Contending with God is not “arguing against” God. It is travailing with God, expressing redemption together.

Moses and Paul share this same characteristic, that they bore God’s people upon their hearts with great care. And we know that it is the same Jesus inside of us.

Moses Knew God. I do not know how Moses knew God in the way that he did, for it seems he knew God as we are only beginning to know. We have the entire Bible and the story of Jesus’ redemption; Moses had none of that, yet he knew a personal God of grace and closeness, who wanted to walk with His people.

Moses was taking two million people into the wilderness to meet with God. He knew God was with him to a mind-boggling extent. In the midst of awful circumstances and disabling contention against, he remained certain of God.

Moses knew that God would meet with him upon the mountaintop as God had never shown Himself before.

How Did Moses Know? And the most extraordinary element in Moses’ knowing of God was his certainty that God cared about these two million squabbling, unbelieving, and rebellious people.

In fact, the first several chapters of Deuteronomy, preached forty years later, are a testimony of an unwavering certainty that God was a God who carried His people inside Himself.

Again, this knowledge of a personal and close God could not have begun at the burning bush, but it did come without the Bible, without any prior word. We do know that it was the Spirit of Christ Jesus causing Moses to know God as He is.

Inside of Grace. You see, God said, “I’m going to burn these people up and make a new nation out from you.” How many, hearing the same thing, would then say, “Oh, okay, this is the kind of God You are”?

But Moses responded by saying, “That is not the kind of God You are.”

Of course, when Moses came back down the mountain, he became as angry with the people as God was. Nonetheless, the anger of both of them was carried entirely inside of grace. They were both frustrated with the people, but redemption was their only heart.

Walk Them Through. Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”

“Let me take their place.” – Yet God did not accept Moses’ offer, for that is not how God redeems. Rather, God enabled Moses to walk them all the way through until the old was gone and the new could enter the land.

Yet both God and Moses wanted the people to know the fear of the Lord. “I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you.”

Fear and Friendship. Those who do not fear God, in actuality, do not believe in Him at all. Those who know God, know that one does not play manipulative games with the Almighty. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

Let me repeat what I wrote in “Moses and Paul.” Moses feared God, that’s why he was NOT afraid of Him. Those who are “afraid” of God, as the children of Israel were afraid to approach Him, do not fear Him at all.

Finally, I want to just underline the littleness of what Moses did – The Lord listened to me. – I prayed for him.

God with Us. In the remainder of this lesson, I want to compare Moses’ knowledge of God with ours, first, and his people with the Church today, second. Finally, I want to look at the heart of God shown us by Moses in Deuteronomy.

A people for God, a people through whom God could fulfill Tabernacles, that is, dwelling among them and being known by all through them.

If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? – But My face shall not be seen.

Knowing God with Us. Jesus told a group of people sitting on the ground in front of Him that they were seeing what Moses wanted to see, but never did, that is, the true Face of God.

Yet because of the serpent’s gospel, we have not known God even to the extent that Moses knew Him, though, by Paul’s gospel, we should know God far more.

On the one hand, I am finding the possibility, that is, the pieces coming into place, that I could begin to know God as Moses knew Him. Yet on the other hand, I am seeing a knowledge of God-with-us far beyond anything Moses knew, or even beyond what Paul himself, knew, though he placed such knowledge at the center of his gospel.

Through All Spirit Words. God is doing many different things in many different people, but what God is doing with us is focused and vital.

God is causing us to know Him through WORD, through a continuous flow of Word that is Spirit and Life, yet Word that comes to us from the pages of the Bible and from our hearts, at the same time.

Moses knew God, the same God we know, yes, but his knowing of God, though definite and certain, was limited. Our knowledge of God through all the Words of the Bible becoming Christ Jesus inside of us is without limit. We are limited, but our knowledge of God is not.

God Becoming Known. I want to convey to you, somehow, what I find happening inside of me at the junction of two recent things I/we have done.

Those two things are placing the Lord Jesus upon every moment of my life as I have written my life story AND the little thing that we did together last Sunday, calling our God out from our hearts and into our world.

I know the demonstration of the power of God in the Bible, in Church history, and in my own life experience. I am not looking for any of that – except God becoming known through the Lord Jesus.

A Transfer of Authority. It was shortly after I wrote “Moses and Paul,” that I first saw the meaning of the ekenosis, Jesus calling an invisible God into being known through His human appearance.

Yet Jesus was the alone-Seed, whereas we are the many, the fullness of all that is Christ.

More than that, the authority over all given to mankind did not transfer from Adam to Jesus until His resurrection. It was after His resurrection that Jesus said that all authority is now given to Me. We know that same authority as we place that same Jesus upon every moment of our lives, past and present.

God Himself. What happened last Sunday has never happened in the history of this world. And we need to believe that because we NEED God coming through right now. As they say, “Need must drive us.”

We live in an hour in which the things of God, the angel of the Lord, the mighty demonstrations of power, just don’t cut it. We need God Himself entering our world.

But God does not have the authority to do that, for He gave all authority inside heaven and earth to mankind. Our words last Sunday, and continuing today, gave God the authority He has been waiting to receive for 6000 years.

A Life of Adventure. Yet we ourselves cannot know that authority to call God out from our hearts into our world, apart from placing the Lord Jesus Christ upon all that we are and have been.

Only a few months ago, I was writing about accepting my “boring” life. I can no longer see anything “boring.” God coming through my mundane difficulties is adventure beyond adventure. I did not know it, but I was holding all the moments of my life deep inside of pain as my own account of awfulness.

As I continue writing the next chapter, I am finding such incredible peace and quiet certainty. – All my life is good.

No Longer Alone. Here is what has happened inside of me.

If a grain of wheat having been planted into the ground should not die {in this case the appearance of death}, it abides alone. If it should die, however {in this case, become something entirely different – the plant}, it bears much fruit {many more seeds just like itself}. The one loving his soul [his psuche, his story of self], loses it, and the one who hates [that is, loves it less] his soul inside this world, he will keep and protect it into age-unfolding life. If anyone serves Me, let him accompany Me; and where I am [inside of Father], there also My servant will be.

The word “hates his soul” means, “who gives it to Me.”

Always out from Father. As I have called each moment of my life by Jesus, as I have called it good and blessed it – for the sake of the other person involved – so each moment has departed from me first, and with it all its pain.

And then each moment has returned to me as wealth and goodness, bearing the other person inside of it to me as my good friend forever.

I have given to Jesus what was awful to me and have found it returned brand new and good, bearing precious seed, that is, the people I have known. Now, I can look across my whole life and see that it and I have always been inside of my Father.

The God I Require. My definition now of what it is to be human, I have never known nor heard tell of before. But the God I REQUIRE coming through me is the same God that Moses required.

No matter how angry against rebellion He and I become, I require a God who is meek and lowly of heart, filled with tender compassion. And no matter how frustrated with Christians upon this earth He and I become, I require a God who carries each one of them, together with me, all the way through.

This “require” is sharing Hheart with God.

The Beast and the Prostitute. Please watch this James Corbett video. https://youtu.be/HeMsaN6xjAQ

The intention to wire every human to the Internet and to control the words of each ones’ mind is huge, it’s written in science journals and government declarations, it’s foreshadowed in movies and television, it’s fully developed, and its coming rapidly.

And the church of Jesus Christ, our brethren across the earth, are walking blindly into becoming embedded in the web and kingdom of the beast. They are blind because they are a prostitute, willingly receiving the gospel of the serpent against Christ their life.

Our Brethren. And they are a prostitute because they have exalted this world into being the “kingdom of God,” both in their infatuation with their own countries and causes and in placing the head of the beast that was wounded unto death, yet now lives as a pretend “Israel,” as the center of the revelation of God in the earth.

Yet it is these brethren who belong to Jesus and to us, whom we are calling out from that prostitute into the knowledge of God.

It is these people whom we would connect with God our Father and He with them inside the authority of our own hearts, regardless of all their woes.

God’s Urgent Heart. And God coming through us is entirely for their sakes.

Space is limited; I want to draw in now the urgency of God’s heart expressed by Moses in Deuteronomy.

And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. So He declared to you His covenant… Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure (Deuteronomy 4:12-13 & 15-16).

No Mental Images. We bring each one of these things into its New Testament equivalent and place ourselves there inside this God of fire, this God who requires no image to be made of Him.

The Lord speaks you inside His energeoing presence, you live by the words that are Jesus, though you see nothing by outward appearance. Yet you know the binding of the Covenant by which Jesus connects you with the Father.

Then we see the deep cry of God’s heart coming through us to His people now across the earth. Do NOT make a mental image of “God” or “Jesus” in your mind, for that image will be as the highest angel of heaven.

The Ekenosis. Here is God as He is coming through us into our world.

Rather, having already willingly taken hold of the form of a slave, Himself ekenosen, that is, He Himself called an invisible God into visibility, becoming the same as humans. And having been found in outward appearance as a human, He humbled Himself, that is, revealed God as one who sees others as better, actively becoming hearing-under for the sake of others (Philippians 2 – The Ekenosis).

This is the God we are calling into our world. Millions of Christians all across this earth loving one another with pure hearts fervently – God incarnate.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “We Are Well Able.” It is the story of Caleb and Joshua told in Numbers 13-14. This is the story upon which the writer of Hebrews placed the jeopardy of the gospel.

For next time, read Numbers 13 & 14 first, and then Hebrews 3 & 4.

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Let’s Pray Together. This time we are calling the Church into her place with the same condition as before; we have no idea what we’re doing.

Nonetheless, I am convinced that the confidence of our faith, that God IS moving through our little and inadequate prayer, is causing enormous things to take place. Since we called God into our world last Sunday, I have sensed the authority by which we now see God being made visible.

“Father, Your Church, believers in Jesus all across this earth, Your Jerusalem. She does not know You as You are, nor does she know her glorious Salvation. More than that, she is caught in the web of lies being spun by the dragon and the beast, and she does not understand.”

Your Church and Ours. “Father, this Church is Your Church and ours, Beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we carry her in our hearts before You, together with You.

“Father, it’s not in us to care for Your Church, but it is in Jesus who is our only life. For that reason we declare the same passion that fills the Heart of Jesus filling ours to be our care as well.

“Father, we are coming to know with all joy the meaning of calling You to come out from our hearts into our world. We also know that calling Your Church into her place is to bear each one in our hearts before You, that all her hardness and delusion would vanish as a vapor that never was.”

Joined with Father. “Father, we place Your people all across this earth, though they be in bed with the dragon and the beast, into our hearts to be joined there together with you in all compassion and lovingkindness. Father, we ask you to bring a hundred million or more of our fellow Christians into the fulfillment of Tabernacles, into the knowledge of Your glorious Salvation.

“And Father, we believe we have received all we have asked.”

Note: This is the key, that we believe we have already received all that we ask. Our asking must be hesitant and limited at first, for we have no idea what we’re doing. But we believe with all certainty that God is showing us the truth.