In Exodus 32—34 we read of a serious difficulty that Moses encountered. God gave him two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them. While Moses was still on the mountain, trouble broke out among the Israelites at the foot of the mount. The people made a golden calf and worshipped it. This provoked God to great displeasure and He said to Moses: "Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation" (32:7-10). God was furious, so Moses pleaded with God on the one hand and went down the mountain to deal with matters on the other. Thereafter, he ascended the mountain again and in obedience to God's command hewed two more tablets of stone. With these in his hand, he went to the top of Mount Sinai. There God made a solemn proclamation. First He said, "The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (34:6-7). If at this point Moses had fallen down and worshipped God, it would not have been surprising; but what is amazing is that he made haste to do so after the second part of the proclamation. The second part was totally different from the first. The first part spoke of God's compassion, grace, mercy, and forgiveness, but in the second part He said, "And that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." When God had proclaimed the awe of His majesty, "Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped" (v. 8). Please bear in mind that knowing God is not merely a matter of grace. If it were just a matter of grace, it would be all over and there would be no problem, but we need to know God's holiness.
I love verses 8 and 9 in chapter thirty-four. In the latter verse Moses prays, but in the former he worships. He worships and then prays. He acknowledges the rightness of God's ways and then seeks God's grace. He did not say, "You are slow to anger, full of compassion, and ready to forgive, so please have mercy on us and do not do as You plan." We would pray in this way. We always love to pray, "Do not do what You are going to do. Even though this is Your way, do not do it." Moses was very different from us. He took his proper place before God and confessed that God's ways were right. Brothers and sisters, have we ever acknowledged that God's ways are right? Have we ever asked God to do anything that we knew was contrary to His ways of working? Have we ever besought Him to forgive a certain brother and cease to discipline him even when we know that His dealings with that brother were right? If we pray like this, we are not worshipping God. We are, in effect, saying, "O God, please change Your ways. Do not give him a burden, do not let him be sick, do not let him have domestic difficulties." Praying in this way is seeking grace and ignoring the ways of God. In our prayer, we are making ourselves too big; we are not identifying ourselves with God's way. Moses first acknowledged God's authority and His ways. God declared that He would by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. Moses instantly submitted, saying, "O God, You are right, Your ways are right, and I worship You. Since You have decided to do this and because this is Your way, I can only worship You." Thereafter, he prayed that if he had found grace in God's sight, God would still go up in the midst of His people. He prayed for grace, but only after he had worshipped God.
Sometimes we may visit a brother's home and discover that his child is sick. As we kneel with the husband and wife to pray, we immediately sense that God is not worshipped in this house. We know that God never receives worship in this place. As soon as they kneel in prayer, they say, "O God, heal my child." The first words from their mouths are, "O God, my child must not die; You must heal him." They are telling God what to do. They are deciding God's ways for Him. When they open their mouths, we know that God is not worshipped. I am not saying that we do not know God as our Father. Let me repeat that we need to know God not only as our Father, but as God. It is one thing to be the Father, and it is an entirely different thing to be God. We may visit another brother's home, and again there may be a sick child. When we kneel in prayer with the parents, they pray, "God, we praise You that You are always right. We praise You for allowing our child to become sick. You are never wrong, so we worship You. Everything You do is good. If it pleases You to take the child, we will accept Your will, but if it pleases You to show mercy to us, we ask You to heal him." It is proper to pray, and our worship should not replace our prayer. But we must worship first and then pray. Prayer is saying what I want; worship is acknowledging what God wants. Prayer expresses our desire; worship expresses God's desire. Prayer expresses our will, while worship expresses God's will.
How we need to learn from Moses' actions in Exodus 34:8-9! He saw that God was severe, and he could do nothing but kneel and bow down to the ground. Moses did not reason with God. Moses did not ask Him what would happen if He carried out such a punishment. He did not say, "If You do not forgive their sin, what will the Israelites do? If You visit their iniquity to the third or fourth generation, what will I do? I have led the people in vain. Forty years have passed already; I cannot wait for three or four generations. I am finished. I have worked in vain." Moses did not exhort God to change. Instead, Moses worshipped. I do not know what to say. The greatest need among Christians today is to learn the lesson of knowing God's ways and embracing them. It does not matter how it affects me or what I want. (Moses had a desire. It was a consuming desire of his to enter the land of Canaan.) However, Moses first said, "You are right in whatever You want; I worship You." Brothers and sisters, we must not only learn to do God's will and accept His work; we also need to love God's ways and His decisions. We must like what God likes.