This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Knowing God Intimately.
You can’t know God without knowing His ways.
So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11a).
Exodus 33 deals with the necessity of knowing God personally—and the key is in verse 13. Moses says to God:
Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people (Exodus 33:13).
Have you been saved by grace? Don’t stop there. If you have found grace, then it’s, “Show me your way, that I may know You.” In order to know God intimately, you have to know God’s ways.
Simply knowing about God means knowing God’s works. But to know God intimately is to know God’s ways. Most people know what God does, but they don’t know who God is.
“He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7).
Moses knew God in a way the rest of the people did not. God does not have favorites, but he does have intimates.
And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14).
If you are only infatuated with God, if you only see God outwardly, you will never have rest.
The children of Israel were frenetic, worried, constantly murmuring. Why? Because all they saw were God’s miracles. They saw Him part the Red Sea, give manna in the wilderness, and bring water out of a rock. You would think that would satisfy them.
But God said of them,
Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest” (Hebrews 3:10-11).
Israel was fine as long as the works of God were pleasing. But God’s ways are not our ways. God’s way is often confusing to human wisdom.
Peter and James were both servants of the Lord, apostles of Christ, and were put in prison for preaching the Gospel. James’ head was cut off. Peter was miraculously delivered out of prison. (Read Acts 12.)
How will you explain that? Did God love Peter more than He loved James?
You will be hopelessly confused if you don’t have deeper insight into the ways of God.
The Israelites were so fickle.
When God opened the Red Sea, Israel sang the song of Moses. “What a mighty God we serve!” (Read Exodus 15:1-21.)
Three days later, they were out in the wilderness, with no water, and murmuring. They were criticizing Moses, saying, “Did you just bring us out in the wilderness to die?” (Read Exodus 15:22-24.)
If you do not know God intimately, you will blow both hot and cold—because you don’t know the heart and mind of God.
This happens to churches. A congregation will be sailing along, and attendance is up, etc. People join a church when the bloom is on it. But let trouble come—persecution, difficulty, adversity—and people leave. Why? They don’t know God. They have no stability.
Many followed Jesus when they saw His works. See if this doesn’t remind you of a lot of folks you know:
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man (John 2:23-25).
They believed in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t believe in them. He knew these were just miracle-mongers. They did not see the coming cross.
Let difficulty come, something that you can’t understand. Do you then say, “God, why did you do this? How did you allow this?” You want to hot-foot it back to Egypt, because you are fickle. You have no stability.
Let’s look at the context of this passage in Exodus 33.
Moses had gone up on Mount Sinai. God gave him the Ten Commandments and the plan for the tabernacle. When Moses came down from Sinai, he found that his brother Aaron had collected gold from all of the people and made a golden calf like people worshiped in Egypt. The people were dancing in a naked orgy around this idol.
God’s wrath burned against them.
Moses was frightened for his people. He knew that God had every right to eradicate them. Moses began to stand in the gap, to intercede. Only a person who knows the ways of God knows how to intercede. Moses prayed, “God, do not destroy this people. Oh God, have mercy!”
In answer to that prayer…
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt….Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people” (Exodus 33:1a,3, emphasis added).
When Moses heard that, a chill went over him.
Then he said to Him, “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? (Exodus 33:15-16a).
That is, “God, if you’re not going, I’m not going. I don’t want the blessing without the blesser.”
Learn this well: you can have provision, and protection, and still not have God’s presence. That ought to frighten you. “And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul” (Psalm 106:15).
The problem with many of us is that we are doing just fine. You live in a beautiful home. Your children are healthy, making good grades. You have a job putting money in the bank. You are satisfied. May God have mercy upon you!
The problem is not that money does not satisfy; the greater danger is when money does satisfy. If you can be satisfied with the victory of Canaan without the presence of God, that is a very dangerous thing. Do not take anything as a substitute for knowing God intimately.
How do you know God intimately? You know God by directly dealing with Him.
Why did God bring Israel to the Red Sea, or to a place where there was no water? So that they would have to deal with Him.
Good counseling brings people to God. You have problems because God is wanting you to come face-to-face with Him.
You cannot know God by hearing sermons about knowing God, or by reading books about knowing God. You cannot know anybody with whom you do not spend time. To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to obey Him. To obey Him is to be blessed.
Exodus 33:1,3,11-16; Psalm 103:7, 106:15; Hebrews 3:10-11; John 2:23-25
…If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him” (John 14:6-7).
