As I'm recording this, this week, the Artemis II mission launched, which is rad. A bunch of my friends are all excited about it. They're into space stuff and everything. So I've learned about what's going on with it from them and also, you know, from the news and social media. I saw the launch, not in person, but a bunch of my friends were there in person. I saw some of their footage. It's just a very exciting thing in general. And on this mission, we're sending people as close to the moon as we've been since like the 1970s. And maybe even more exciting, we're sending people the furthest away from Earth into space that we've ever sent anybody. I think that's amazing. So I'm sitting here thinking about it on launch day or maybe the day before, whatever it was. I'm going, well, hey, wait a minute. They're going to come back and be like, these four astronauts are all tied for being the human who has been furthest from Earth ever. But then some nerd is going to look at the cockpit or whatever you call it footage, and they're going to be like, no, wait a minute. Reed Wiseman's elbow was sticking out on the turn, and that one point of his elbow was further into space as they made the pass around the moon than anybody else on the crew. And so he is officially the one who went the furthest into space. And I'm like, well, that's not the idea. You don't want it to be like that. So then I thought I should probably get a hold of the guy in charge of NASA and just be like, hey, I just on that, you know, whenever that turn, however that happens, you need to figure out what's the furthest point from Earth and have everybody maybe like hold their hand on the same thing so you can empirically verify that it was a tie and they can all share this honor. I what's that guy's phone number? I gotta get a hold of the NASA guy. Well, the phone number was not available, and I did not get a hold of him. But at some point in life, every single one of us has had that impulse to want to talk to the person in charge. And I don't just mean like in the grumpy let me talk to your manager kind of way, but maybe we had an idea or maybe we had a question that we thought was insightful or useful. And particularly the person in charge, who I think everybody has thought about wanting to talk to, is God, the first cause, the maker of all things, the sustainer of existence. And maybe you've wanted to talk to God about cancer or starvation or suffering, or maybe you have questions about the wonders of the cosmos, or maybe you have questions about time, or maybe you have suggestions or ideas. It doesn't matter if it's silly or not. I mean, I mean, of course, at some level it's silly because, in comparison to God, we're kind of silly. But sincerely, I think a lot of us have had at least a few moments in life where we're like, I want to talk to the guy in charge. And I think in one hour I could really get a lot of my questions answered. And further, I think for some of us who are in this conversation, there is a thing that we have, and by we I mean you, that is a gift of faith. It has just been unbelievably easy for you to see God and the things of God and the spiritual from a very early age. I don't know. You just attuned to it. You get it. I think that's a gift from God. I think that's a legitimate biblical gift. That's awesome. I think there's others of us in this conversation who've had more ups and downs, and our eyes are sometimes stubborn. It's harder to see those things. Okay. Well, that's all right too. I mean, we see people in the Bible who are demonstrative of both. Also, in fairness, the version of faith that is idealized in the Bible is that of a child, like massive trust, whether you can see it or not. Massive trust. And so, even if we go with that idealized image of faith that we get from Jesus, well, even there, I mean, what does a kid want to do? Talk to the person in charge. I want to talk to my father, I want to talk to dad. I want to climb up on mom or dad's lap. I want to go right to the source, I want to talk with them. So, this impulse to talk to not just the person in charge, but the God who's in charge of everything. This impulse to want to see God is uh one that I think eventually will occur to everybody. I mean, if we have the impulse to want to talk to the manager, surely we have the built-in impulse to want to talk to God. Why don't we? I mean, we can via prayer, but the kind of imagined like, let's sit down and chat sort of thing, uh, I don't think I would perform very well in that environment. I think the strength and the courage would go right out of me. I picture the way it works in the book of Job, right? Where most of the book of Job is him sitting around and speculating with his buddies about what the heck is going on. Calamity befalls Job. People gather around him and they start giving him feedback. They're trying to make sense of how someone who seems, at least on the surface, to be so righteous, could go through such a difficult thing. And these three friends in particular show up and they're all offering their theories, most of which comes down to something that looks like karma. You probably did bad things, maybe you didn't even know you did, maybe you're kind of, you know, deceiving yourself about what you did, but you know, you brought this on yourself. And there's some other theories floated around in there, but Job insists on his own innocence, and even his wife tells him to curse God and he won't do it. Job's not perfect in the book, but he comes off better than his friends. And as you're going through the whole book, you're kind of coming back to how I was feeling about, you know, I need to talk to the guy from NASA, or how you and I have maybe felt at times quietly. We're like, I need to talk to God. Except in this case, God actually shows up in the conversation. He's like, All right, well, here I am. I heard you had some questions about my character, my goodness, my rationale for things. Cool. Buckle up, homie. Gird your loins, brace yourself like a man, because I'm going to speak now. And it's one of the wildest scenes in the whole Bible because you're almost exhausted by just the speculation and guessing by people who seem wise and maybe a little smarter than their peers, but you get to the end of all of their many words and you're going, I don't, I don't think they've really solved it. They don't get it. These guys aren't even close with their guesses. Oh, I wish God would show up and solve it. And then he does, and you kind of feel like Job, whoa, maybe I didn't want God to show up and speak to this, because it's pretty intimidating. Then God takes Job on a lightning tour of the cosmos, all the stuff that he's made, the great expanse. And he's like, So where were you when I did all of this, Job? And Job, I mean, what's he gonna say, right? I mean, he's he's put in his place. It's not the little coffee chat that we like to imagine where we sit down with God and we're like, okay, you're a little better than me, but I'm not intimidated. We're kind of peers here. Let me bounce a few things off you. Also, I have a few complaints and notes that I'd like to throw out there. Maybe you could uh tweak a few things. Uh-uh. It ain't a coffee chat. It is Job on his face in humility and in awe, and God basically saying, you just don't know. You you do not have the capacity to know or get these things. And in the end, Job's conclusion is I have one play here, and it is trust God. You get a moment where someone gets their wish. I want to talk to the manager. All right, the manager's here. Would you like to see dinosaurs? Because I made those. Oh, crazy. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it looks like it looks like maybe God shows Job dinosaurs in that book toward the end there. But for the most part, people don't get this cathartic fantasy. And we see maybe the person who is best positioned ever to ask of God for a meeting like this. I I want you to just show up. I want to see you. I want to see your face. I realize that's a line for a worship song. And I want to talk like men. And the person who would be best positioned to ever ask for that, it's Moses, right? We've been talking about him for days around here. And he does make the request. And after having known God for a long time and talked with God, though God is in an corporeal form, Moses finally musters the courage to ask. And before I tell you how that conversation goes, let me tell you why we're talking about this. Because we're in the last line of the prologue of John 1, and this is how it goes. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. Well, that kind of spoils it, doesn't it? Because it says right there, no one has ever seen God. Now, as I'm turning back here to the story in question between Moses and God, this little exchange in Exodus 33. Let me just speak to you know the obvious question here. You might be listening to that and be like, well, like two weeks ago, Mr. Whitman, you took us through the whole Bible and you talked about all the presence of God stuff throughout the whole story arc of the Bible. Like got people saw God in the cloud, people saw God in a burning bush, there's fire, and now you know we've people have seen God, right? But have they seen God? Have they seen God's face? Have they sat down and had the coffee chat? No, they're seeing glimpses of indicators of the presence of God, but God is holy and glorious and powerful, and he's not the kind of being where you're just like, I need to speak to the manager, and then he sits right down. I have an idea for how to run your space. No, it doesn't work like that. And so Moses, he's known God for a long time in Exodus 33, and he's like, All right, uh, I want to see you in your fullness. In verse 17, the Lord says to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.
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SPEAKER_00That maybe should already be enough. That's pretty great. And then in verse 18, Moses musters his courage and makes his big play, and it's an over ask, but he does it anyway. Moses says, Now show me your glory. And the Lord said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But he said, You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. If there is anybody in the Bible who should have been able to demand a face-to-face, sit-down, chat, peer-like meeting, you would think it would be Moses. And, well, sure enough, he kinda did. But the answer is no. And the no answer would seem to be because you won't get it, you can't handle it, you will die, Moses. Even you. You can't look on my face and live. So then we come back to John chapter 1, verse 18. And I got, all right, no one has ever seen God. Well, yeah, I guess that's true based on what we went and looked at. Yeah, I mean, all these encounters, they're not the sit-down, they're not the face-to-face. Okay. But the one and only son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. Wait a minute, there's two things going on there. The one and only Son, who is himself God, so if you've seen Jesus, you actually have seen God. Maybe not the way Moses thought of it, but it seems like if we add up the sum of what we're getting in John 1 so far, this is actually better, because you could see God and not die when you look on Jesus. But also this passage is saying that the Son has made God known. Obviously, there's a lot more to unpack there, and we're gonna do it, but I'm kind of monitoring the progress on this whole Artemis II thing, and I really feel like I need to get a hold of that fella from NASA and make sure they get this thing right. So it's a tie. So I I really I better go. We'll just pick up where we left off tomorrow. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.