Ex 34:6, Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth
This morning we come to a passage dealing with one of the most wondrous and awesome realities of the Lord God Almighty. In truth, every time we see an attribute of God detailed in His Word, it should cause us to exclaim, Oh Lord My God, How truly Great Thou Art! This is that type of defining revelation of Our Lord and Savior. It is a glimpse into that which God revealed of Himself to Moses on the mountain top. It is the aspect of God which has caused Him to give us eternal life in His Only Begotten Son. The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth... He is compassionate and gracious. He is slow to anger and He is abounding in lovingkindness and truth. These characteristics can never be diminished nor can they be overestimated. Who He is and what He does will always reflect the fact that what He showed Moses He shows to each one of us every moment of every day for all of eternity. 
On this basis, we will be spending a number of weeks in both the Old and the New Testament reveling in this glorious truth of Our God. This will not be exhaustive because all of eternity will never be sufficient to expand and to expound and to come into the full knowledge of Who God is and what He has done. However, we can lose ourselves in Him as a fellowship for the expressed purpose of bringing Him ever greater and more intense worship and praise. That is why a number of our passages will serve to offer praise and honor unto Him by those who have learned deeper facets and a greater accuracy of understanding regarding their limited vision of the incomprehensible Lord God Almighty. 
	This was the case with Moses as we read this morning in verse 9. He bowed in worship unto God and it caused Moses to ask of the Lord the following in all earnest consideration of God’s manifested excellence. Ex 34:9, And he said, "If now I have found favor in Thy sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate; and do Thou pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Thine own possession." 
The primary expression of the Lord God ...compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth... in the Old Testament was evidenced in His giving of the Ten Commandments to His Chosen People. He did so in order to guide and to protect His people from those things that would cause them to become just like the other nations surrounding them, lost in their vile practices and suffering from the plagues and consequences of their defilement. Through His Law, God sought to offer His people life and protection and His expressed love. 
Please turn in your Bibles to Deut 5:6-10, where the Law is being given and the Lord again gives expression to the characteristics which define the course of His relationship with His people. Deut 5:6-10, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 'You shall have no other gods before Me. 'You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 'You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 
Please note how the Lord was protecting His people from the folly of worshipping and serving false gods which are nothing more than the creations of man's imagination. He wanted His people to know Him, The Creator of Heaven and Earth, in a living relationship and not to delude themselves in the wasted efforts of idol worship. God was giving them the fulfillment of that which He has instilled into every human heart. It is the need for mankind to have and to experience an intimate fellowship with Himself. This is the reason that mankind, in every tribe and nation, has an innate need to worship something else. Sadly, that is often directed away from the One True Living God and centered on those elements of this world which fail to appease that need. It only shows the intense futility of worshipping anything other than the Lord God Almighty. 
Again, in Deut 7:9, the nation was encouraged to know God in all His gracious love and faithfulness. Deut 7:9, Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; They are to know God as faithful and keeping His Word and promises with them. He will do everything that He says He will do. There is no shadow of doubt or dubious intention with God. When He makes a promise it will happen as surely as the sun rises and the ocean waves break upon the shore. If the people would give themselves wholly to this seeking after God in obedience to His commandments, they would know Him in this wondrous relationship of His Divine love to them. 
Inherent in this passage is the fact that we can know God, even with the limited faculties of our human mind and soul and spirit. We can know Him because He wants us to know Him. Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God... It is as we seek to know Him that He will make Himself very real to us in the every matter that lies before us. We do not just absorb the information concerning Him and think that we know Him. It is as He proves Himself faithful that we know Him as truly and forever faithful. It is as He lavishes us with His compassion that we delve into the graciousness of His comforting presence. It is as we seek Him that we will find Him ever willing to be found of us. 
	He does not make Himself obscure or inscrutable in the sense that no one will ever be able to know Him. He will open Himself to us in the manner in which we open ourselves unto Him. As He showed Himself to Abraham and to Isaac and to Moses and to King David and to generation after generation who sought to know Him, so He has opened His heart unto us in Jesus Christ. In Him, we get those glimpses unto the faithfulness and the graciousness and the mercy and the love of God for you and for me. 
Our Lord, Himself, told us this as recorded in Matt 11:25-27. Matt 11:25-27, At that time Jesus answered and said, "I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. "Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 
	Notice that it is not that God would never reveal the truth of Himself. It is the fact that He chooses to make Himself known to those whom He chooses to so bless. Not everyone will come into this relationship. He knows those who will be the recipients of His glorious revelation and reality. It is hidden in Christ to know the fullness of God. 
Unless one knows Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father,  that person cannot know God. He may know about God. He may have the theological basis and the doctrinal expertise. But to know, to truly know God is only for those to whom God makes Himself known in Jesus Christ. Even in the Old Testament days, that knowledge was centered in the promise of the Messiah, the One to come, The Lord Jesus Christ. All their hopes and their dreams and their eternity rested in the promise of the Christ to come. 
This, then, allows us to know Him in the measure as relayed to us in Deut 32:3+4. Deut 32:3+4, "For I proclaim the name of the Lord; Ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. We are given an even deeper glance into the divine nature of Our God in this recognition. His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. 
    	So many people will rail against God claiming that He would be unjust and unfair to sentence anyone to hell just because they did not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. In the face of those brash and faulty accusations, there is a complete loss of what it cost God to send His Only Begotten and Perfect Son to take upon Himself our sins and our transgressions. Those were nailed to the cross in the physical being of His Son, who suffered such abuse and torment and torture and death for any who will but call on His name. In the light of that truth, it is highly evident why eternal salvation can only be in the redemption that is available to all in Jesus. This is not only right and proper, but it is every bit just and faithful and righteous and upright in the manifestation of the so great love of God to us. His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.
	The Israelites were the direct recipients of the salvation of God from their slavery to Egypt and their bondage to the gods of the nations. Yet, as blessed as they were in the knowledge of God in such demonstrations of His sovereignty and His majesty, they still turned and rebelled and refused to honor Him as their Lord and God. Their descendents were reminded of this in 2 Chron 30:7-9. 2 Chron 30:7-9, And do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord God of their fathers, so that He made them a horror, as you see. Now do not stiffen your neck like your fathers, but yield to the Lord and enter His sanctuary which He has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God, that His burning anger may turn away from you. For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your sons will find compassion before those who led them captive, and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate, and will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him." 
	Again note the compassion and the graciousness of God so detailed for them if they would not harden their hearts and minds unto the Lord. For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate, and will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him. If they would but return to the Lord and seek Him and honor Him and obey Him Who was their Creator and Savior, they would come into the full realization of His grace and compassion and favor all the days of their lives. 
	Again, another generation had to be reminded of the graciousness and the lovingkindness of the Lord by the Prophet Nehemiah, in Neh 9:14-21, if you would please follow along. Neh 9:14-21, "So Thou didst make known to them Thy holy sabbath, And didst lay down for them commandments, statutes, and law, Through Thy servant Moses. "Thou didst provide bread from heaven for them for their hunger, Thou didst bring forth water from a rock for them for their thirst, And Thou didst tell them to enter in order to possess The land which Thou didst swear to give them. "But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly; They became stubborn and would not listen to Thy commandments. "And they refused to listen, And did not remember Thy wondrous deeds which Thou hadst performed among them; So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But Thou art a God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness; And Thou didst not forsake them. "Even when they made for themselves a calf of molten metal And said, 'This is your god who brought you up from Egypt,' And committed great blasphemies, Thou, in Thy great compassion, Didst not forsake them in the wilderness; The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day, To guide them on their way, Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go. "And Thou didst give Thy good Spirit to instruct them, Thy manna Thou didst not withhold from their mouth, And Thou didst give them water for their thirst. "Indeed, forty years Thou didst provide for them in the wilderness and they were not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell. 
	What a wondrous characteristic of God is revealed in this accounting of the faithlessness of the people and yet the glorious faithfulness of God for all those years of wandering in the desert regions. But Thou art a God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness; And Thou didst not forsake them. 
God remained true and compassionate and provided all that they needed in order to demonstrate the fact that He is not like the supposed gods of this realm. He made them to know that He would care for their needs and supply everything required to get them through the harshest and foulest environments of this age, their own hardened hearts and blasphemous attitudes and behaviors. He never did anything other than to show them the integrity of His heart in their provision and care and guidance, always trying to win their hearts unto Himself. So be it!
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Ps 145:3+4. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another, And shall declare Thy mighty acts. Amen.