My Presence Will Go With You

“The Lord replied, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’” Exodus 33:14

My presence will go with you! To understand the weight of this promise, we must first understand the man who received it. Moses had already accomplished the unenviable task of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt. Now, he faced the next, daunting stage: leading them into the wilderness. Moses was a man who knew God in a deep, real, and personal way. In verse 11, we are told the Lord spoke to Moses “as a man speaks to his friend.” The phrase “face to face” is not literal, for as verse 20 makes clear, we cannot see the full glory of Almighty God. But it means Moses knew God intimately. He experienced the presence of God not merely in his mind, but in his whole soul and being.

This experience was not unique to Moses; Abraham and Jacob knew it, and believers throughout Scripture have known it. Jesus Himself promised, “I and my Father will come and make our home with you” John 14:23. He told his disciples, “I am with you always, even to the end of the world” Matthew 28:20, and assured us that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them” Matthew 18:20. Even Paul, alone and on trial before Nero, could later write to Timothy, “The Lord stood beside me” 2 Timothy 4:17. Though the exact nature of that experience is not described, it was a tangible and real sense of God’s presence.

“If Your Presence Does Not Go with Us…”

Moses, however, was insistent. He pleads with God, “If your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). He is, in effect, rooted to the spot, declaring, “I am going nowhere unless you come with me.”

Our English translations miss a subtle but crucial detail. When God first promises, “My presence will go with you,” the “you” is singular. It is a promise to Moses alone. But Moses turns around and says, “That is not good enough.” He expands it: “Unless you go with us” – the plural, the whole nation of Israel – “I am not going anywhere.”

The Hebrew word for “my presence” is pani, which literally means “my face.” Translators use “presence” because for the Hebrews, to see someone’s face, you had to be in their presence. The words are interchangeable. To have God’s face is to be in the presence of God, felt though unseen. This is a beautiful gospel truth, for it is the very thing forfeited by sin. Adam and Eve hid from the presence (the face) of God. Cain went “out from the presence of the Lord.” The whole world, in darkness, turns its back on God.

Salvation is the restoring of His presence in the life of a rebel sinner. Our ultimate hope is to be presented “faultless before the presence of His glory” Jude 1:24. The cost of this restoration was immense. Jesus, on the cross, was cut off from the presence of His Father, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46. There, for the first and last time in all eternity, He was separated from the Father’s presence, bearing our sin and guilt, to restore that presence in your life and mine.

The Distinguishing Mark

Why was Moses so urgent about this? The reason is found in verse 16: “For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”

Think about this. How would the unseen, unfelt presence of God demonstrate anything to the surrounding nations? Moses is asking for something more. Our name, our denomination, our labels will never convince the world of anything. But the felt presence of God changes everything.

Moses lived so close to God that it could be said the Lord spoke to him face-to-face, as a man speaks to his friend. Should this not be our privilege as well? David cried out in Psalm 27:8, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’” That is the cry of a sinner turning their face to God, longing for His real presence. This is, and should be, the distinguishing mark of the Christian and the Christian church.

Can you think of a better promise in all of Scripture than that God Almighty promises to be with His people? But Moses’ question challenges us: How will the pagan, unbelieving world around us know? We know because we believe God’s Word. They do not. So how can they know? When was the last time an unbeliever walked into our congregation and was moved to fall down and worship, exclaiming, “God is really among you!” (1 Corinthians 14:25)? This is the difference between knowing a truth in our minds and the world witnessing a reality.

The Felt Presence: A Hallmark of Revival

Throughout the history of the Christian church, there have been times when God has come by His Holy Spirit in a powerful way—times of spiritual revival. In any true revival, the first hallmark is always an awesome sense and awareness of the presence of God. It is tangible. People feel that God is there.

From this flows a second hallmark: a terrible conviction of sin. You cannot be in the presence of a holy God without His searchlight penetrating the dark corners of your life. This leads to a fervent longing for holiness, a passion to reach the lost, and a profound joy in worship and prayer. As Duncan Campbell, greatly used in the 1940s and 50s Scottish revival, said, “I have no hesitation in saying that this is the crying need of the church today: a sense of the presence of God.”

We have missed this for so long, and the tragedy is that we are no longer bothered by its absence. Our services can be either dull and formal, or so enthusiastically lively that it would make the angels envious. But both are missing the great ingredient: the felt presence of God.

I do not despise the sure promises of God or the faithful preaching of His Word. But I long for more—for the felt presence of God that would bow us in awe and wonder, and cause an unbelieving world to tremble.

History is filled with accounts of this very thing. At Herrnhut in 1727, a rag-tag group of Moravian refugees became dissatisfied with their spiritual state and gave themselves to prayer. At a communion service, Count Zinzendorf recorded, “Each felt himself… in view of the noble countenance of the Savior… a sense of the nearness of Christ was given to us all.” The result was a missionary movement that impacted the world.

In Cambuslang, Scotland (1742), during the revival, it was said that “the most remarkable was the spiritual glory of this solemnity… the gracious and sensible presence of God.” In the Welsh Revival of 1904, a miner simply commented, “The presence of God was everywhere.” In Korea (1907), “Each felt the room was full of God’s presence.” In Lowestoft (1921), the atmosphere was “charged with the presence of God.” In the Hebrides (1947), “the community became alive with an awareness of God.” This is what makes a revival.

Is this not also in the Bible? When Solomon dedicated the temple, the glory of God descended, and the priests could not stand to minister. In Acts 4:31, after the believers prayed, “the place where they were assembled was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

What does this mean in reality? It means an awareness that this is an awesome occasion. No idle chatter, no wandering minds, but each one face-to-face with God. It means a careful attention to the Word, a clear appreciation of what Christ accomplished becoming an overwhelming reality. The gospel becomes thrilling, and prayer becomes a joy, the most attended and longed-for occasion.

Why Not Today? A Holy Discontent

Why do we not experience this today? Two reasons come to mind.

First, we are too content as we are. We have long become accustomed to the absence of God. We continue with our programs and our church life on the assumption that more effort will yield more benefit. We must never be content with this. We must lay hold of God with a holy discontent. Like Moses, we must say, “I will not go up from here unless you go with us.” In chapter 33, verse 3, God warns that He will not go up with them because they are a stiff-necked people. He tells them to “take off your ornaments.” These ornaments, likely tainted with Egyptian religious emblems, symbolized the world’s influence. God was saying, “Get rid of the taint of the world, and then I will listen to you.” The question for us is: How am I known? For the house I live in, the car I drive, or for being in touch with God? We are to be a separate people, in the world but not of it.

Second, we do not have because we do not ask. The prayer meeting is the hallmark of a church. It tells God whether we need Him or whether we can manage on our own. What proportion of our membership is regular in prayer? If we are not, we are essentially saying to God, “We can manage, thank you, without you.”

Moses, in his longing, prayed a breathtaking prayer: “Show me Your glory” (v. 18). He wanted to know the character of God. God promised to reveal His goodness, a word too small to describe the indescribable, but one that speaks of His perfect character. Even in Jesus, the full glory was veiled in flesh. But we can pray for a manifestation of His presence that the world cannot ignore.

The Promise of Rest

And notice how the text ends with a promise: “and I will give you rest.” This is peace of mind in a world of war; quietness of spirit in a cacophony of useless babble; calmness of emotions in a turbulent society; confidence in a world that has lost hope; and joy in an unhappy culture.

My friends, pray for this experience of knowing the presence of God. Heed the words of Isaiah 62:6-7: “I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”

Pray for the presence of God in your life and in your church. And when you are holy and you long for it, you will see an answer. Then, and only then, will the world know that you are the people of God.

For he has promised: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Kay Alli