Praise The Lord To All.
 
From the beginning of time, God has wanted to be more to man than most mortals would allow. He wants us to enter into the joy He has prepared for us, but we are prone to choose more temporal pleasures. (1 John 2:15,16) He wants to be our cause for living, but we would rather live unto ourselves; He wants to be Lord, but we would rather be in command of our own lives. He wants us to trust Him, to rely on Him, and to know that He will do us good; but we are content to rely on the threadbare traditions of men rather than to obey His revelation of Himself.
 
It might be said: In the land of fools, a fool is crowned king. His reign is foolish, and the destiny of his people is to be fooled. Even so, among sinful men, people make themselves subjects of sin. Our best ways (the unregenerate man) are rebellious and selfish; our best thoughts are corrupt. Our destiny is death' and both our lives and our deaths are but an infection on the face of the earth, itself accursed because of our impurity (Psalms 51-5; Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:22). The Israelites at Sinai trembled with their awareness of that impurity. Awed by the rumblings and fire on the holy mountain, they insisted that Moses be a mediator between them and God (Exodus 20:19). There dread to face God without a mediator was altogether appropriate, for a holy God cannot tolerate sinful man.
 
On that day of commandment at Mount Sinai, Jehovah instructed Moses: "Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish" (Exodus 19:21). No mortal can look upon God. Moses was highly favored of God, but He spoke even to Moses in a thick cloud that hid His glory. When Moses pleaded to see Him, he was told: "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live" (Exodus 33:20). But the Lord in His mercy provided a way for Moses to behold Him and yet survive. He hid Moses in a cleft of rock in the holy mountain and allowed him to catch a fleeting view of His glory as He passed by.
 
The prophet Isaiah, accounted the chief of the writing prophets, must have been one of the most righteous men of his time. But in the presence of God, he cried out in despair: "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). His despair was not due to God's cruelty, but to the realization of how unrighteous his righteousness was. Later he wrote: "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness's are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6).
 
If the King of heaven were to allow us even a momentary view of Himself, we also would cringe in terror and despair. Our lives would become a tortured existence, and our deaths even worse, for we deserve eternal judgment, In His mercy, God does not reveal the infinite beauty of His holiness, lest we see the ugliness of our own sin and be destroyed by the consuming fire of His brightness. In love, God does not show Himself to us, for we could not stand in His overwhelming presence. In compassion, He has allowed the separation cause by our sin; yet His heart aches with desire for our love. God has provided a Mediator who spans the gap between our sinfulness and His holiness. Moses himself prophesied of this One who would come to Israel when he wrote in Deuteronomy 18:15-19:
 
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken, I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
 
This prophet to come would be like Moses in that He would be the Mediator between God and man. He would be the ultimate Prophet whom all must heed. Moses spanned the gap between God and Israel for a short time, but he also was mortal, with mortal flaws and the mortal destiny of death. Being mortal, he could not effect perfect, eternal mediation. In order for there to be perfect mediation, there needed to be some token or ground of (eternal value).
 
That Prophet to come was Jesus the Messiah, who alone was eligible to be the ground or token of mediation because He is eternal.  (The Bible records in John 1:14 that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.") By the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus the Messiah accomplished what neither Moses nor the sacrifices of bulls and goats could do. Not only was He the eternal Sacrifice; He was/is the eternal High Priest who offered that sacrifice. In this way, also Jesus came as a Mediator like Moses. Even as Moses took a higher position than anyone in the Aaronic priesthood to intercede between the people and God, so the Messiah took precedence in His priesthood above the temporal role of the high priest in the Temple.
 
Jesus the Messiah is a Mediator whom we can gaze upon. Through Him, we can see God, (1 Timothy 3:16) our heavenly Father, for He said: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9) and "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). When we gaze upon Jesus we see Love (1 John 4:16). Jesus is the cleft of the rock where we can hide from the consuming fire of God's holiness. From our vantage point in Him, we can see the glory of God as well as His love without being devastated. We need not fear the righteous judgment of a holy God, for Jesus took upon Himself the wrath and judgment that rightfully are ours. We avoid God's devastating holiness by appropriating to ourselves the white robe of (His righteousness) to cover the nakedness of our sin's (Luke 24:46-49; John 3:3-7; Acts 2:36-40; 4:12).
 
That robe of righteousness (1 Peter 1:16; 2:9,10,) is the only covering (kiporah) in which we may appear before God and not be consumed, and He yearns to give us that covering that cost Him so much. Jesus the Messiah paid a GREAT PRICE (John 3:16) that we might be restored back into fellowship with Our Father which is in Heaven (John 14:12), Man finds it incomprehensible that God, the Creator, would desire an intimate relationship with His creation. Nevertheless, He does seek such a relationship with each member of the human race; He declared I am the way, the truth, and the life: (no) man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6) The Bible warns that everyone must deal with God's invitation. To those who will recieve Him, according to His plan of salvation, which is left on record, Jesus is indeed the Lamb of God waiting to greet His beloved guests (John 14:1-3). But to those who spurn God's invitation of love, the Lamb will appear as the fierce Lion of the tribe of Judah. To those who ignore God's invitation, He will be a roaring Lion whose authority has been challenged (Mark 16:16).
 
Brother Anthony W Sanders
THE WAY BACK TO PENTECOST.  (God's hand) Deut. 33:3.
Acts 2:36-40; 4:12.