We may need to be reminded that the title of this message is “Moses’ Stay with God.” It was as a result of his long stay with God that Moses’ face was shining. If we would shine with the Lord’s glory, we also need to have a lengthy stay with God. Exodus 34:28 says, “And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water.” We cannot explain how Moses could have been with the Lord for forty days without eating or drinking. No doubt, it was God who made this possible.
As we have already mentioned, if we would stay with God, we need to forget everything else. When the Lord told Moses to come to the top of the mountain to meet with Him, He said to him, “No man shall come up with you, neither let any man be seen on all the mountain; neither let the flocks and the herds feed before that mountain” (v. 3). This indicates that when we meet with God, we should forget our possessions, our necessities, and even our family. Furthermore, we should not care for ourselves. We should simply stay in the presence of God.
We are not told what God and Moses did together those forty days. However, we do know that during that period of time Moses was fully infused with God and saturated with Him. It seems that Moses did not do anything for those forty days except receive God’s enlightening and His infusing. This was glorious. Something wonderful was taking place during those forty days: God was infusing Himself into Moses and saturating Moses with Himself. If we see the significance of this, we shall receive much help concerning our fellowship with the Lord and our Christian life.
If we read all of chapter thirty-four, we shall see that God’s infusing into Moses was by His speaking. If God had done nothing more than speak the Ten Commandments and the ordinances, I do not believe that Moses would have received much infusion. Do you know what kind of speaking infuses you? It is the Lord’s speaking about the enjoyment of Him, His speaking about feasting and resting and the conditions for enjoying Him. This kind of speaking infuses us with God and causes us to shine.
I can testify that I did not receive much infusion from sitting in Bible study meetings many years ago. But when I listened to Brother Nee speaking on the experience of the Lord, I received an infusion from the Lord. Many of us can testify of having had this kind of experience. There began to be a shining within us because of the Lord’s speaking with us.
The last part of verse 29 should be translated “in His speaking with him,” not “in his speaking with Him.” This indicates that the shining of Moses’ face resulted not from his speaking with God, but from God’s speaking with him. The more we talk, the more we may hinder the Lord’s infusing of us. But the more He speaks to us concerning the enjoyment of Himself, the more we shall be infused. Let us all be like Moses and let the Lord do the speaking. Let us allow Him to speak to us concerning the feasts, the Sabbath, and the conditions for enjoying Him. God’s word concerning the enjoyment of Himself is always a word of infusion.
We thank the Lord for opening Exodus 34 to us. Praise Him that in this chapter we see the feasting and the resting, the five conditions for enjoying the Lord, and the infusion of God into us by His speaking concerning the enjoyment of Himself.